Subject: SCA TR: Regionals Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 11:53:45 -0700 From: Alan Comer To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com This tournament report is about Godzilla, or Size does matter. Beware, this is a long post! The inspiration: Dreaming about how much fun it used to be to animate something somebody had just hymned out of your hand. Necro-Gnome & Necro-Golem were still popular, and were busy funeral charming me, reminding me that I got to pick the card to discard. It took a month of these thought being dormant in my head, wanting to build a reanimator, but never really putting all the pieces together. Then, 2 weeks ago, somebody played Hidden Horror against me. I had forgotten that card. The game was on, how well could it do? The deck: 4 x Verdant Force (I always did like token creatures!) 4 x Shivan Dragon 2 x Necrosavant 1 x Sliver Queen 4 x Hidden Horror 4 x Merfolk Trader 4 x Firestorm 4 x Dark Ritual 4 x Animate Dead 4 x Necromancy 2 x Living Death 4 x Mana Leak 4 x City of Brass 3 x Underground River 3 x Sulphurous Springs 2 x Reflecting Pool 2 x Undiscovered Paradise 4 x Gemstone Mine 1 x Swamp 1 x Island Sideboard 4 x Dread of Night 4 x Pyroblast 3 x Hydroblast 3 x Tranquil Domain 1 x Extinction Notes: The extinction should come out, and probably a hydroblast. The best replacement I can think of for these cards are 2 Uktabi Orangutans. Remember that you can kill them, and then animate them again If you run into a heavy artifact deck. This deck runs 10 Pain Lands. I consider it the ultimate insult to sligh decks. :) I just don't care how much damage I take from my lands with this deck. The original variation had 12 pain, but a bloom player went of when I had a Mana Leak in hand, 3 land on the board, and NO basic land to go get. If Bloom doesn't exist in your area, feel free to go back to 12 pain lands. :) This deck is 61 cards. Some of its players decided to dump a land and bring it down to 60, only 19 lands. Some players prefer 2 Sliver Queens and only 3 Shivan Dragons. With the exception of Verdant force, you can reasonably expect to cast your creatures in a long game. Shivan Dragon: Everybody tells me that the Volcanic dragon would be better since it has Celerity. I disagree. 1) Shivan usually hits for about 7 2) animated Volcanic is ONLY a 3 power, and this just isn't big enough for use. 3) People are running thunderbolt to kill Tradewind. Other cards we considered: Pox - who cares if we lose a token creature? helps us discard if need be Anvil of Bogardan - Unfortunately, helps them find answers. Funeral Charm - You can target yourself. Cursed Scroll - This was before the main deck mana leaks. They have NO use in this deck, and when playing with them,, this was immediately obvious. Take 1 from City of Brass, remove a counter from my gemstone mine, tap another land, oh look, you guessed right, darn. Intuition - We found it too slow. Reanimate - The thought here is that it gets under Aura of Silence. Only good against non weenie white. Too narrow. Gloom - Every tried casting Gloom against Aura, just too slow! There are others that I can't remember right now. I give you the list, so you can experiment with these card if you like. Regionals: Round 1 vs R/U, then R/U/W My opponent played his first tournament 2 weeks ago. I know, his first win was against me. Yes, he is a beginner, and I was his first victim. I was testing out my 5CU variant, he did the following: land, diamond, flunkie. So far, I think I am ok. turn 2: land, Heart Sliver! Oops. The next week, he comes to Game Empire, and he gets see my regionals deck. Game 1: fast creatures, countering everything in sight. perfect mana for him. (He only owns a few gemstones as his dual lands.) In desperation, I try Living Death, expecting him to counter, and he starts burying. I get back Verdant Force, Verdant Force, Sliver Queen. Gee, I guess I win. Game 2: He sideboards in 15 cards. See, he knows I have a good deck, and he wants to be able to beat it. To do this, he creates a 15 card sideboard to handle me. Sometimes it is a handicap to be famous. He is now playing R/U/W. Fortunately, some of those 15 cards were plains. I have an okay draw, and errouneously think that his 2 plains draw is good for me. I don't get to keep a thing. Everything is disenchanted or aura'd away. Game 3: Fortunately his inexperience showed. He counters a couple things he didn't need to, and then the Living Death was forced through with a pyroblast. 1-0, 2-1 Round 2 vs surprise Game 1: His first cards are Forest, Island, Wall of Blossoms, Island, Wall of Blossoms, Forest, Wall of Blossoms. I am taking my time, Firestorm in hand, waiting to kill the First Tradewind that shows up. Next cards Gemstone Mine, Squandered Resources! Argh! Mad scramble to put some kind of pressure on him, because he did have a bad draw. (Or I would be dead!) I make a nasty mistake. He is going of, and I have 1 opportunity to do a last action. I Firestorm him for 9! to get him down to -4, even though I think it is hopeless. I later realize that If I firestorm him for 10, and me for 10, and tap my City of Brass, I wouldn't of had enough life for him to get back to positive. He wins Game 2: I tranquil domain, he losses. Game 3: He prosperities for 27 cards, I don't see a Traquil Domain. I lose. 1-1, 3-3 Round 3. Can't remember I went 2-0 2-1, 5-3 Round 4. Sligh Game 1: See 3rd turn Verdant Force Game 2: Forth Turn Kill! 2nd turn merfolk traders, 3rd turn Verdant Force, 4th turn, he has out an army, including 2 Jackal Pups. Firestorm for 5, to clear his side, and do 15 to him, attack. 3-1 7-3 Round 5. U/W. Game 1: I get him down to 7 after he double Gerrards. He puts down the third propaganda. Then he Armageddons. He is slowly recovering, I am making saprolings. He gets out winter orb. He finally decides to tap out and kill may army as I am a Dark Ritual away from killing him. I Have 7 cards, I Firestorm him for 5 in response using the Undiscovered. My turn I pick up the Undiscovered, and with that and my drawn card, firestorm us both. He is dead, I drop to 2. I did 18 points of damage to myself that game! Game 2: He sees 1 island. Oops. 4-1 9-3 Round 6. Victor Nolasco, revenge match. Sligh. I thought Victor would be using 5cg, since he won regionals with it last year and just loves the deck. He is using slight. Not much to say. He is running sligh. He did, however manage to take game 2 with the sligh deck's fabled "Oops, I won draw" Larry Janiec eliminated his friend playing the same deck (exact same matchup) in this round. The comment by his friend was: "How did you win one?". You gotta love a deck that manhandles sligh. :) 5-1 11-4 Round 7. Jeff Briodo. U/W Game 1: Jeff is playing a deck that is very bad for me. Man-O-Wars are bad, Pro Red Shadow may be worse. However, Jeff forgets to attack 1 turn, and it costs him the game. Game 2: Jeff game looks horrible, he got me down to 5, but I Living Deathed away his pro red creatures. I firestorm his other 2 creatures and him. He has an Island and an Adarkar Wastes. He thinks about this. He asks me what life I am at. Finally, he lets it go. What was he thinking about? Could he have Honorable Passage? Why would anybody put in Honorable Passage against this deck? I say: "If you can the passage, I am impressed." I attack with Shivan. He Passages. He says: "I forgot to sideboard it out." :( Game 3: I squeek it out. 6-1 13-5 At this point, Brian Seldon is in, Larry Janiec and I are in if we win. Adam Vieyra is in if he wins and bizaar things happens with his tiebreakers. We don't think it can happen, but it probably wasn't mathematically impossible. Of the 4 people playing the deck, All 4 can still make it! That the deck is doing this well impresses me greatly. Round 8: Black Speed. Game 1: Usually, Black Speed is a great matchup. If you draw Firestorm, they lose. Again, I blow a game: My opponent is at 14, with a Sarcomancy on the table and no Zombie. He will kill me in 2 turns. I have just drawn my 1st non Undiscovered Paradise. It is a City of Brass. I Play it I have a Shivan and a Merfolk Trader. The trader needs to stay back and block to give me the extra turn. I attack with the Shivan. I have to decide whether to pump the shivan of not. I chicken out and dont put to do the extra damage to each of us. he drops to 9. Sarcomancy: 8, top decks: Wastelands! Now I can't kill him next turn. Game 2: Again, no Firestorm. I am depressed, but I watch Larry's game. It is going the distance. He won the first when his opponent playing 5cg put him in the tradewind lock. Armageddoned, and the kept casting stuff. When his opponent gets down the 6th creature, and taps out, Larry puts down a land a firestorems for 7, killing the 5cg player. It is nice to what the deck destroy that lock. Larry, however loses a long 2nd game, and it goes to a 3rd. Again, this game is taking a lot of time. I think it is a lost cause and walk away. Time gets called. With his opponent at 6, Larry rituals to attack with the Shivan. His opponent, thinking he is dead scoops the cards. The Judge, also thinking he was dead reports the win. Larry starts to celebrate. He comes over and tells me he won. He is going to nationals. It is nice to see he qualifed. The Judge comes over and explains that since you can not resign after time is called, and his opponent was not dead, the match was a draw. This happened at nations last year, so I am familiar with the rule/precident. Larry collapses. It takes me a couple minutes, but I go back to the judges, and ask about the precedent set with Scott Johns/Justin Schnieder whereby Scott had been given more time, but the round was called and Justin managed to scoop his cards before they were told to go on. The ruling here was once the cards have been scooped, the result can not be changed. Larry is back in. Somebody else won't make it, but Larry deserved to get in. They read of the finishings: 2nd: Brian Seldon, 7th Larry Janiec. They will play each other and only one Godzilla deck will be left. 9th: the guy who does get to play due to the ruling: Alan Comer. I have just talked my way out of nationals. In a way, I am glad it was me because I still think it was the right thing to do, and nobody can complain that I screwed somebody out of the slot. 22nd: Adam Vieyra. Together, our worst record was 6-2. Everybody beware, there is a new decktype. GODZILLA! Reanimation isn't just for type 1.5 anymore! Alan Comer The Arena Member :) For state of the art game rooms & supplies: shop, visit and play at Game Empire, the land of a 1000 games in San Diego. http:\\www.gameempire.com