Subject: Regionals Report (TOP 8!!!) Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 14:06:07 -0700 From: Orion To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Well, I guess I finally did it. I am not going to go into the "long story" that Brian is talking aboot, but suffice it to say that I BARELY made top 8. Alan argued for me and I got in instead of him. I was 5-1-1 going into the 8th and Alan was 6-1. Alan lost (6-2) and I won the last round to get me to 6-1-1. I almost had a 5-1-2 record, though. Alan is a true MTG professional. Obviously, the word has gotten out that I am Alan's R&D section. I played Turbo Xerox the day that Visions and 5th were legal last year. Yes, I was the first. Alan thought of the deck (and a few others that didn't really appeal to me) and I played it in a tournament at Costa Mesa. I made some changes. The final version got Alan to Nationals last year and me mana screwed at Regionals. Oh well. It happens. I went from a 1600 player to an 1800 player last year with it and actually showed up on the top 200 at one point. Not bad for a scrub like me. OK, here is "The Story" aboot Godzilla. (Alan never let me tell "THE STORY" until after someone had seen the deck in action... usually after either he or I beat someone with it) It started two weeks ago on Sunday night. Alan calls me and says, "Hey, I have another deck idea." "What? I thought you were happy with your Donais variant?" "Nah, I have been thinking about somehting else." "You know that that always scares me." (BTW, Alan and I have been good friends since aboot 1986, so I can talk to him pretty much however I want to....) "Yeah well." "I don't know if... OK, fine, feed it to me." (Adam's comments aboot brains and balls is pretty accurate. For some reason, I have a knack for picking Alan's winning decks from the losing ones and then tuning them for him. Kind of Ironic that I used to do quality assurance for the Navy and Alan is a senior engineer at Qualcomm = Alan designs the decks (the engineering) and I play test them and make recommendations/changes (the QA).) "OK, 4 Dark Ritual. 4 Firestorm. 4 Hidden Horror. 4 Animate Dead." "I can see where this is going, and you KNOW that I like playing animation decks. Let me get something to write this all down." I put most of the deck together that night, but I am missing some cards, so Monday after work I go to a card shop and get some that I am missing, then get the last card I need at the tournament site, Game Empire in San Diego, and put the deck in sleeves. It is mostly rares, so I figure I should play with sleeves. ("Unprotected MTG just feels so much better...") I haven't played the deck. I barely have it shuffled when they pair me for the first round. I beat everyone easily until the finals, when I play against Mike "Ringer" Smith who's white weenie beat-down was packing Auras/Disenchants enough to beat me. I also had a crappy draw, but at least we knew that WW would be a problem. The fact that I got second place with a "cold" deck and played it badly (Brian Hacker to Alan Comer last year re: Turbo Xerox "If Larry can get top 8 at Costa Mesa two weeks in a row with that deck playing it as badly as he is, then we should ALL be playing the deck." Alan said the same thing to me that night...) meant that we now had our Regionals deck and all we had to do was tune it. We play test in secret. The only people that know aboot the deck are Keith Ouellette (sp? sorry Keith, you are the only professional player in LV amongst a bunch of punk kids.), Keith's friend in Chicago (not sure how he did or if he played it?), my friend Dan Brothers in Ohio (Co-Captain and swankiest member of Team JookY and an all-around sexy guy... he went 2-2 and dropped due to bad draws if memory serves), and the four of us that are playing it. Oh, and the people that saw us at Game Empire. We are thinking aboot a name for the deck. Dan comes up with some names that have sexual overtones and we discard them. Frankenstein is thought of for a while (It's big, it's bad, and it comes from the grave.) Then, someone (forgot who? Keith? sorry not giving credit where it is due...) came up with Godzilla. (He's big. He's bad. and NOTHING gets in his way. SIZE DOES MATTER!!!) Actually, the corollary to this was my naming the cards. Verdant Force is Godzilla. Shivan Dragon is Rodan. Sliver Queen is Mothra. Etc. Actually, we were going to have the four of us be a different monster (Alan would be Godzilla, of course) but since I wanted to be Robert Smith and I think Adam wanted to be MechaStreisand, that idea didn't last long. The naming of the cards in play "I animate Godzilla" was frowned upon by Alan the morning of Regionals because he didn't want everyone talking aboot the deck until AFTER we got into the top 8. Of course, everyone WAS talking aboot the deck anyway. I beat Gabe Higa (last year's Southwest Regional Co-Champ) the same round that Alan beat Victor Nolasko (the SoCal Regional champ from last year) and then they started telling everyone. Gabe to Shane Cargillo and 2-3 other pro players: "...so he goes first turn ritual Hidden Horror, pitching VERDANT FORCE?!? Then second turn animates Verdant Force and starts getting tokens. What the f--- was I supposed to do? He did the same thing in game two!!!" OK, I admit that I got my optimal draw against you, Gabe. Actually, the optimal is turn one: land, ritual, ritual, Hidden Horror (pitch Godzilla), Animate Dead Godzilla... he suddenly is looking at a 4/4, a 6/7, and a 1/1 before he draws his first card. (because I ALWAYS went second) The most amazing card of the day was Firestorm. Too many times, Lock decks "have me locked" and then I hit them with a 6-7 point Firestorm for the win (or the draw in one game... against this really good B/R Sligh-style deck I drew out game two because he had me dead next turn.) They usually don't see it coming. All they see is "he has no land and i have Tradewinds and Prop on the board... he can't touch me." I just wait for my hand to fill... Same thing against the green bridge deck. Here is what I played (and Alan... he and I were card-for-card after many MANY hours of discussion and it differed slightly from Adam's and Brian's final versions) (Please note that Alan and I had 10/20 lands pain lands, and neither of us lost a game to sligh/burn decks, except for the B/R one that I drew against.) 4 Animate Dead 4 Dark Ritual 4 Hidden Horror 2 Living Death (remember that this ISN'T a LivDeth deck, it is an animator deck) 4 Necromancy 2 Necrosavant (turn 2 off of 2 rituals is often a game-winner) 4 Mana Leak 4 Merfolk Traders 1 Sliver Queen (Soooo good, but more than one was risky with LivDeth/2 legend combo) 4 Verdant Force (GODZILLA!! I wish we could have had more... he r00lz) 4 Firestorm 4 Shivan Dragon (4th turn off of Dark Ritual was nice, as was the masochist pumping) 4 City Of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 1 Island (2 basic lands to go get from first Natural Balance of ProsBloom to be Mana Leak ready) 2 Reflecting Pool 3 Sulfurous Springs 1 Swamp 3 Underground River 2 Undiscovered Paradise Side Bored 4 Dread Of Night 1 Extinction (I would have traded for Disenchant if I did it again, because I never used it) 3 Hydroblast 3 Tranquil Domain 4 Pyroblast Kudos: Alan (insert multiple pastings of his name here as someone else did), and for all of you who had faith in me to do it. Especially Adam and Brian. The four of us r00l, and they all know it. Also Kudos to all of you who knew of the deck and kept your mouth shut. We really appreciate it and surprise WAS the reason we won. Slops: The LV punks that were obnoxious to Alan and me when we visited their store... Alan beat all of you scrubs, didn't he? I at least made top 8... (thanks to the store owners for the apology, as it meant a lot to Alan and me) Too bad I didn't see any of YOUR tourney reports in the top 8. ARCANE DENIAL F---ING SUX. The old Mulligan rule (Alan won last week at GE, and I lost in round-of-8 because I couldn't take a Paris Mulligan 2 games in a row). Alan getting 9th place. Once again, the term is "He got Comered" because of 65th at Chicago, continuous 9th place at tournaments, etc. All you scrubs playing the U.S. Open better watch out, because he is going to take the tournament and join me in playing Nationals. Larry Janiec Team Captain for the Original Team Crius (I am Orion because I am the hunter....)