Subject: Regionals Report UTAH Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 03:11:52 -0600 From: jbeckmon To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Tournament Report for Utah (Mountain Regionals) Being From Idaho We had to leave about 5:00 AM so we got about 2 Hours of sleep before leaving. It was a very long day so I don't remember everything but I'll do my best. I was playing Sligh which seemed to do very well overall at the tournament and my deck was no exception to that story. My Deck Sideboard 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Havoc 3 Goblin Digging Team 2 Ruination (For 5CU) 3 Goblin Vandal 2 Nevinyrall's Disk 2 Nevinyrall's Disk 4 Pyroblast 4 Shock 2 Shatter 4 Incinerate 1 Boil 4 Ironclaw Orcs 4 Fireblast 4 Kindle 3 Fireslinger 1 Wildfire Emissary 3 Earthquake 4 Wasteland 17 Mountain Round 1 Vs Jon From Utah He's playing some kind of Snake Basket, Goblin Bombardment Combo. He's a very nice guy and we talk about about his family and how long he's been playing magic. It was his first major tournament and he's pretty much a beginner. Interesting Deck Ideah but is was far too slow to Beat Sligh. Matches 1-0 Duels 2-0 Round 2 Vs Hong Another very nice guy although we don't talk much. He was playing fast black weenie with Sacrcomancy and shadow tech. First Duel: He gets out 2 Early Sarcomancy's and a shadow and applies quick beatdown. I Earthquake for 2. His Sarcomancy damage reduces him to Burn Range. He dies. 2nd Duel: He gets 2 early bad moons with sarcomancy's and a bottle Gnome. Life Gain kills sligh. He ends at 26 life, I lose. 3rd Duel: He mulligans twice with optional mulligan in play so he goes down to 5 cards. No chance for him. Matches 2-0 Duels 4-1 Round 3 Vs Jeff Doesn't say much other than Whatever a lot during the match. He's Playing 5CG and I believe my deck is well tuned to beat 5CG. Everyone around me is playing 5CG and says Sligh can't beat it. I wonder what planet they are on for a second. First Duel: He plays Forest and Birds of Paradise. I play Mountain , Mogg Fanatic and kill Birds. He plays Undiscovered Paradise and Wall of Roots. I play Wasteland, kill Undiscovered Paradise and play a Goblin. Eventually I burn his wall out of the way with incinerate when he blocks Ironclaw orcs. I keep him with only Green Mana which is the trick to beating 5 Color Decks. Hose their mana supply and they hold tons of spells they can't cast. He eventually gets out Maro. Next turn he Armageddons (I'm Holding land at this stage). I respond by Sac'ing 2 Mountains and Fireblast the maro along with hitting it with a Mogg Fanatic. Maro Dies, We start from scratch. I'm playing Sligh- He loses. Second Duel: See first duel except for I kill his wall with Digging Team and Pyroblast Tradewind Rider. Matches 3-0 Duels 6-1 Round 4 Vs Can't remember his name He's a really nice guy and is also from Idaho if I remember right. He plays something, I'm not sure what with black shadow, winter orbs, etc. Winter Orb barely slows me down. Gets crushed and says orbs don't help much against all my 1 casting cost creatures and low cost burn. 2nd Duel: I get off Ruination. He's left with one land but eventually gets up to 3. I shock, Incin, Incin, Incin, Fireblast, Fireblast. He Hydroblast 1 but I pyroblast it. He had no chance I counted my mana very carefully and knew he had only 1 blue available. Matches 4-0 Duels 8-1 Round 5 Vs Can't remember his name He's playing some kind of blue-black deck with Man-O-Wars and Nekrataals. I burn all of his creatures out of way and walk on him. I end each duel with 20 life. He seemed like a nice guy though. Took losing fairly well considering how bad it was. Matches 5-0 Duels 10-1 Round 6 Vs Sammy (The number 1 Ranked Player at the time) Another really nice guy. We talk a bit. Only 4 Undefeated players remain. I win this one and I'm in. He's playing Sligh (UGH!). Duel 1: He gets Cursed Scroll out- I Die. Duel 2: I Earthquake for 5 when his Jackal Pup is out. He takes 10. I fireblast him. He Dies. Duel 3: I draw too much land but it's a tough one. He gets out 2 Cursed Scrolls, I get out Nevinyrall's Disk, He shatters the Disk. He draws Fireblast and kills me with Incin, Fireblast. Next turn my pumped Wildfire along with Fireblast would have killed him. I lose by 1 turn. Bummer but I take it well. Sammy intentional draws his next 2 matches and goes into the top 8 as the no 2 seed. Congrats Sammy. Matches 5-1 Duels 11-3 Round 7 Vs Brian Plumb From Elko, Nev Another really nice guy who already has a regional report posted here. We talk a bit and later after match is over we exchange email addresses and I give him my web site address. He's playing Sligh (UGH!). It's do or die time. I win I make it. I lose I'm out. Duel 1: I get bad draw, but duke it out. He outburns me. Duel 2: I get only 2 mana the whole game but manage somehow to fend him off. He draws 3 Incin in a row. He burns me Incin,Incin, Incin, Fireblast. I die a horrible Death. I'm out of competition for top 8 now. Matches 5-2 Duels 11-5 Round 8 Vs I can't remember his name but he seemed like a jerk at the end of the match. He's playing 5CG and the guy I played earlier who was playing 5CG is his buddy. He seems pissed or something. Duel 1: He mulligans and still only draws 1 land. 1 Land VS Sligh= Death. He loses. Duel 2: Didn't see his deck other than 1 land and 1 creature so don't sideboard as I don't know his deck at this stage. He gets Tradewind Rider on me and I lose but it was very close. Duel 3: I sideboard in the 4 Pyroblasts. Standard drill against 5CG. Kill their mana sources with Wastelands and burn. Keep them with green mana only. He manages to keep my creatures off the board. I pyroblast Tradewind Rider and Propaganda. He has a granger guildmage on the table. I keep playing land (Cause I'm holding 3 Fireblasts), me must think I'm an idiot for laying so much land. I get to 6 Land and he has 3. Granger on table and beating me down but he's at 13 life and I'm holding shock and 3 Fireblasts. He has untapped blue mana available. I end turn. Sure enough he does exactly what I want him to and lays land and casts Armageddon. He taps out. In response to Geddon I shock him then sac all moutains and Triple Fireblast him. He loses, starts cussing and won't shake my hand. Talk about sore losers although he sarcastically says You're the Best when I nail him. (Hey it's not my fault he wasn't ready for sligh- he's one of the guys earlier who said sligh couldn't beat 5CG). Matches 6-2 Duels 13-6 I place 11th out of about 148 and miss nationals by 3 Places. I only lose to Sligh Decks (Bummer), I guess My deck isn't as strong against Sligh because no Ball Lightnings or Cursed Scrolls for the extra Pound. Overall I thought my deck did well as I've only been to 3 Major Tournaments and as B Cole says above there aren't hardly any sanctioned tournaments in Idaho (Although I'm running one next week). The Dojo helped me decide what to play with so many decks using lots of Non-Basic Land- Thanks. Out of all the decks I saw Joe Ellis seemed to have the most original and seemed to be the best. He went 6-0-2 (He intentionally drew with both of the guys I lost to). He let me look at it and it blew me away with its coolness and originallity. It could probably blow away 5CG or Sligh. They call it Peaches and stuff. He was a cool guy too. Props: Bill G - The tournament organizer for using his time to put on the tournaments in SLC. Also because he seems like a really nice guy. Brian Plumb, Sammy- For being the only 2 to beat me and they were both playing sligh just like me. Both Cool Guys. Joe Ellis- For having the coolest deck there and being really nice and letting me look through it when I asked him. Most of the Judging Staff- Escpecially Brian 'cause hey He's from Idaho after all. Karl and Sam and the others were cool too except for 1 moment from the guy listed later. Also to all the cool people who were there, Jared, Jon, Brian (who was playing a sarcomancy deck and I played against him for fun- and lost too), and many, many others. Lots of cool and nice people. Slops: The Judge from Vegas- Who was very rude at 1 point and it was very close to unsportsmanlike conduct. Somtimes players fly off the handle but a judge has to be a lot more careful. I guess I've flown off the handle as a judge once too but the guy was arguing excessively with me whereas this was just because some guys had misplaced their sheets. He didn't fly off the handle but was extremely rude about it. The guy I played in Round 8- For being the sorest loser I have ever seen. Hey everybody else didn't start cussing and not shaking my hand when they lost and 1 guy lost much worse. B. Cole- I didn't know your name till you posted to the Dojo. I'm not sure exactly what all happened but I was in the room when you flew off the handle about someone stalling you out. >From reading your tournament report you may not have been totally at fault but you definetly shouldn't have flow off the handle. Anyways anyone who plays 5CU should expect that kind of tactic. 5CU is the king of stalling if you ask me. I know I've played it and saw how it stalls the opponent. It's a legal move to look through opponents graveyard and make them count their library and you have at least 5 minutes to do your turn before it's stalling. My friend Sam Corona played against you and said you were a jerk but I guess from what you said he might have been dissing the deck too. I know he hates playing against it. I do agree with you that 5CU is a very strong deck (Hence my Ruinations in Sideboard for when they tap out to Wisdom or Wrath) and I also agree with other players that it is one of the most aggravating decks to play against. Sam knew when to concede because we playtested against the deck although his deck wasn't as tuned to beat it as mine. Although I wouldn't stall you if I played you because I want to beat a deck on my own merits rather than stalling for the tie; but I do know that quite a few people may try to slow the duel down against 5CU. Since the deck takes so long to play you can expect you may end up with a 1 duel draw if you stall it for awhile and they see they're in trouble and start stalling back. Trying to run them out of cards when you have Rolling Thunders or Fireballs that are reusuable with Gaea's Blessing (as long as they don't have COP REd out) is just asking them to stall as that's what you are essentially doing to win the match in 1 duel. Sam did say you were a good player however as running people out of cards is frequently what 5CU tries to do to win the match in 1 duel. Well that's about it. Anyone can reach me at jbeckmon@micron.net if they have any comments.