Subject: TOURNAMENT: SE Regionals, etc. Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 15:10:19 -0400 From: Computer Lab User To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Southeast Regionals Report, by Sol Malka This report begins at roughly 8 in the morning, when I got up to head for the SE Regionals in Atlanta. It ends at approximately the same time THE NEXT DAY. To top it off I have finals this week and hence I have not nearly recovered from the lack of sleep. I apologize in advance for forgetting the names of many of my opponents, as I am writing this report from memory, 48 hours after the fact. Also I may start to nod offfffffasdre qs;lkj...sorry about that... Anyway I went to the hotel the night before, scrubbed out 2nd round in a $10 single elim mox type 2 to my own stupidity when I should have won, then I got in a booster draft and played sligh...5 1cc creatures, 5 2cc, 3 3cc, 4 4cc, 2 aftershock, l-blast, s. touch, fl. blade, blood frenzy, g. strength, 16 mtns plus a manakin in the 2 slot...beat up everyone in 10 minutes or less, won some stuff, and went home at 2:30 in the morning. The regionals on saturday featured most of the top players from Florida and Georgia. Ironically, the last 2 SE regional champions (Josh Bradford and Kyle Bigos) were not playing. Kyle was there but already Q'd from last year and josh is more or less out of magic. Atlanta's 2 qualifiers from last year, Doug Leonhardt and Jay Luo, weren't playing regionals this year either. I played my B/u/g deck (I guess I'll call it a Living Death deck): 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Dauthi Slayer 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Man-o-War 3 monkeys 4 nekrataal 3 tradewind 4 intuition 3 gaea's 3 living death 4 swamp 4 underground river 4 city of brass 3 reflecting pool 2 gemstone 2 pine barrens 2 bad river 1 island 1 undiscovered 1 volrath's stronghold SB: 3 each of: bottle gnomes furnace terror (mostly for red celerity) mana leak (was lobotomy, then settlers, then pyro; last minute change. Great for wrath, drain life, combo decks, but especially WHISPERS.) serenity (should have been domains) Basically I put in 4 of everything I'd really like to see in my opening hand and 3 of everything else. The deck can come out like 5cb, just pounding with shadows while bouncing/nekrataaling your creatures and blocking with walls. Walls, also, are the reason I have 8 shadow attackers rather than stuff like knights. Note that every card in the deck is useful on its own; no buried alive, or huge creatures, etc. All the 187 creatures are great with Intuition, too: Need to kill a Tradewind? Intuition for 3 Taals. Disk, or scroll? Go get 3 Monkeys. Looks like you're up against WW? Get some Tradewinds. Sligh? Grab some Walls. Then later in the game I death, draw off the Walls, kill or bounce your incoming creatures with the 187's, etc. Living death has more swing value than any card in type 2, but the deck can do very well if I do not draw it, and boarding furnaces against me does little more than annoy me (it does NOT shut the deck down). As the game progresses, i can also gaea's the intuitions and deaths back in, or intuition for 2 gaea's and something else for a free reshuffle if the graveyard is fat with intuitions and deaths but low on creatures. The mana is built around a turn 2 Wall with minimal interference with my mana development; i.e. max out on Cities and only 1 Undiscovered. Occasionally you will find it advantageous to intuition for 3 reflecting pools, particularly if you want to run the Tradewind/Blossoms combo without taking a point every turn, or if a 1-counter-left Gemstone is your only source of green. Just a thought: If there's lots of Bloom in your area, go ahead and swap out one of the pine barrens for a basic Forest. That way in game 2 you can get it off his natural balance and be ready to cast Tranquil Domain. Round 1 I played a W/R Maniac/En Kor/Quake deck. In the first game he quaked for 3 with 2 moggs out, doing 9; I recovered and started to establish control with a tradewind but he quaked me out first. Game 2 I think I nekrataaled a bunch of stuff and deathed after a firestorm, winning fairly easily after tossing my shadows out of the deck in favor of defensive stuff. Game 3 I intuition for gnomes, lay one turn 4 and block, then death/sac to get all 3 in play. Opp quakes for 3 ind i go up 6 net. However he gets 2 Soltari Monks and firestorms my attackers and me while I topdeck land after land. At 5 I draw Wall of Blossoms, cast, draw Death and just win. Whew! 1-0, 2-1. Round 2 I play a U/W Wrath/Disk/Tef.Honor Guard/Phaser deck. I serve with the shadows, monkey some disks, deplete his counters, get a death off and win without too much trouble. 2-0, 4-1. Ruond 3 I play Donais U5C (Beau something). Game 1 I get him down to 1 card late in the game after many wraths and counters, try a death (his 1 card isn't a counter I guess), get 15-20 creatures back, he draws --not a wrath...concedes. Game 2 is going OK for me but he gets a rainbow and keeps me from getting a tradewind out. Game 3 took a while but I think I eventually just wore him down with shadows. 3-0, 6-2. Round 4 I get a feature match vs. Andrew Starnes' suicide black. Andrew is the kid who played sligh in his first ever tournament-an extended qualifer--and qualified for LA. Game 1 I stabilize with a death after taking about 10 or so, and his sarcomancies hit him for 2 a round while I drop a tradewind and some walls. I'm at 7, and the turn before he dies he draws a scroll, casts, d-rit, activates it (know he's got the spite), has 4 in hand, names unholy, I get a bad moon and win. Found out later he had 2 unholies, and the spite. Game 2 I stabilize with death again and beat him down while he draws land and rituals. 4-0, 8-2. Round 5 I get another feature match, this time with my personal nemesis in constructed, Jay Schneider. (I'm sure he's a lot of people's nemesis though.) He's running Sligh invasion with 7 5c lands and multicolor board. Game 1 he wastelands my gemstone and i have to use 2 cities too many times to have a real chance; different land situation and this becomes a very close game. Game 2 I intuition for gnomes, death, and drop 1 or 2 tradewinds and he concedes. Game 3 I draw a city, 3 comes-in-tapped lands, 2 terrors, and a tradewind. I TD a wall turn 2 but my lands really slow me down. He however is stuck at 2 after pup and flunkies, attacks, block flunkies, incinerate wall. I get another wall in hand but opt to save my mana to terror his pup when he declares attackers and stall him for a round. he TD's a wasteland and casts a sandstalker, I have to terror that and take 5. Next round he TD's a mountain for the ball lightning and it's his match. Very good, close fight, with no one really screwed or flooded. My deck vs. this deck of Jay's seems to come down to who draws better. 4-1, 9-4. Round 6 I play Michael Betz(?), at 52 the 2nd oldest player in the event after jerry winklestein. He's running counter sliver. The first two games, he draws ass and then I do. So it's a 1 game match. I make him use a counter or two, tapping his gemstones down to 1 each. He also has a swamp and an island. He lays muscle, muscle, nuking his gemstones, since he has no counter in hand, and applies with the crystalline and winged slivers to knock me from 16 to 9. I jump on the opportunity to death and win. 5-1, 11-5. Round 7 I play another counter sliver (John Johnson or something like that). The first game I get a wall, but he gets a winged to go with his 2 muscles and I can't get the 4th land to nekrataal before turn 6. He plays another winged and I lose. Game 2 I draw one land, paris, get 3 land, a monkey, and 2 deaths. I take lots of damage, finally manage to death at about 3 life, but he goes winged, crystalline and I lose. Two horrible draws and I'm out of the running. Whatever. 5-2, 11-7. Round 8 I play John S. from the military, playing Bloom. Game 1 I have no early shadow to pressure him and he leisurely sets up the combo. Game 2 I have tons of cards to take out, and again manage no early pressure. I do intuition for a tradewind, though, and when I mana leak his meditate on the end of my turn I am able to win. Game 3...Whatever. One land. Paris. One land. Paris to 5. One land, and a furnace. I bust it when he tutors and get the secnod land for a turn 3 slayer but he counters. My first creature is a tradewind. I get a gnome next turn so I need one more creature for the semi-lock, but he goes off that turn. That's the final nail in my coffin and I drop. 5-3, 12-9. I sign up for a $5 4-round swiss type 2 but it's nowhere near starting so I get back in regionals for the last round. I play Nathan Germany who's running an old-style big blue medallion deck with spouts, tradewinds, firewalkers, jellyfish and ophies. Game 1 I take a few hits from a spout before killing it and swinging the match with a death; in come his 2 spouts, and my incoming nekrataals kill them both. Game 2 was fun. I drew 2 terrors, 2 nekrataals, and enough land and just bully him. OK, so Magic is cool again. Final record: 6-3, 14-9, with two of my losses coming to abysmal luck and the other a hard-fought 3 game set with one of the best in the world. Top 8 include: Jay Schneider -- Sligh Invasion w/ multi SB Pat Callahan -- Sligh/Burn Maniacs standard Paul Weber -- 5cb, his staple Chris Donahoe -- Green based living death w/ feeders Koby Kennison -- red sligh??? Andrew Pacifico -- some sort of control Really young kid -- 5cWW Someone else -- sorry Finals were Pat vs. Jay, and from what i hear Jay got screwed then flooded. Meanwhile I played my same deck in the swiss type 2 with domains instead of serenities. Round 1 I played Alex McConnell using Andy Wolf's Gypsy Pox. Game 1 I gaea's his booty gnomes and gatekeepers back in then death. Game 2 he parises twice and doesn't get black mana for a while. 1-0, 2-0. Round I play a 15 year military man, Ed Traywick. I remember the name beacuse I know a really cute girl by that name. Traywick, I mean, not Ed. Her name's Bridgett. My brother had a parakeet named Bridget in the late 80's. We found out it was a boy and renamed it Buzz. After 3 and a half years it had convulsions one morning and died. Tell me again why you failed to capture Gerrard, you worthless pile of spine. The average budgerigar parakeet, or budgie, lives for 10 years. We never did better than eight...Zzzzzzz...huh? Oops, sorry about that. Anyway my opponent is running a 5cbish thing. His shadow guildmages shut down my dauthi horrors but in the end I can keep a tradewind in play and he can't, plus I have deaths and he doesn't. 2-0, 4-0. Round 3 we have to move outside to finish the tourney. it's really humid out there. I play Gabe Alonso, running 5cWW with diamonds, scrolls, and firestorm. In the second game he managed to geddon with a crusaded priest and gets me to 3 before I get the second land for a dauthi horror; he draws only a city, but it's enough to get out 2 nomads and swarm me. Other than that i did what i usually do vs. WW; beat on them with horrors while defending with walls, control with tradewinds (he pyro'd one though), and eventually annihilate with living death. 3-0, 6-1. Round 4 I play a WW with armor and U for sleight (SB I think). This deck will beat me if it gets 4 land, a knight or shadow, an armor, and a geddon while i have no Man-o-War. Otherwise it cannot win. i think my opponent knew this before we started, and he took it pretty well in stride, all things considered (sorry I forgot the name). I win without too much trouble. 4-0, 8-1. After the swiss we cut to top 4. In the semis I play something that looks sort of 5cg, but game 1 he parises twice, lays lots of land, and I get out tradewind, wall, monkey and 2 shadows and he concedes. Game 2 he isn't much faster out of the gates, and after a geddon slows us both down I get some mana and death for the win. 5-0, 10-1. In the finals I meet the WW/u again. This time he gets a scroll game 1 that goes unchecked for several turns. During this time he kills about 5 of my creatures by scrolling with 3 cards, naming wrath. At about 9 I draw intuition, get a monkey, and kill it. Later he gets another scroll and I death, killing that scroll too. Eventually he has to wrath twice and he has the opportunity to scroll something once--naming disenchant with it as the only card in hand. So he hit on about 6 or 7 consecutive 2 out of 3's earlier. But it takes a LOT of luck for his type of deck to beat mine, and evidently that wasn't enough. game 2 I just bully him with the Tradewind/Nekrataal combo and repeated Living Deaths before giving him the shadow beatdown with a dozen or so creatures in play and a full hand. Oh, and we got to see the sun come up. 6-0, 12-1. Ahhh. That was much more like it. i get $85 in credit for the type 2. I think I'm going to go get some sleep now. Sol Malka gs11slm@panther.gsu.edu -- Student in Computer Lab, Georgia State University