Subject: NevTech Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 21:05:08 -0600 From: nev To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hello Frank, This is my original report for what has been dubbed Nev-tech. It was sent out to my mailing list, but now that the deck is public (BTW thanx Mike : ) ) I figured I would post the original version of the deck. Mike suggested in his report that the deck is made to beat control. Wrong, it is made to beat suicide black and 5cD, it beats these decks because of the Wakefieldian school of magic... 26 lands (plus 4 dark rituals, settlers backed by rituals, second turn Nekretalls, ect... the rituals are essential). The deck is really strong against everything, and can sneak out from under a worb courtesy of dark rituals and disks (see third round) all in all it is a very strong deck, especially when nobody know what you are playing. Essentially the deck has the ideal draw of second turn settler, third turn ritual destroy two lands, stronghold, repeat. After a quake or disk goes off, my opponent has no permenants on the table. This is ideal. Most often it burns and nekretalls critters and burns the opponent out with a fireball. To classify the deck, I would call it R/B control, because in all essence it is a control deck. I think the most interesting thing about the deck is 30 mana sources, the deck needs 'em. Ever since I built the deck, in all of the playtesting, I have only had to mulligan once (conveniently in the playoffs at regionals, but I won that one anyway) all the deck needs is land. It is at it's best when it can do multiple things in one turn, but the average casting cost is 4, so a player needs alot of mana to be effective. I build the deck the weekend that 5cD was revealed as I knew somebody would play it and I would wreck 'em (original version had 4 dwarven miners...), the funny thing was that I was wrecking alot of other people too. So I tuned and tested for about a month and Settledown (or Nev-tech, whatever you prefer) was tuned and ready. I knew it had a problem with geddon, but could often sneak out from under the orb. It wrecks suicide black (in over 30 test games it's still batting 1000) and 5cD and the Nekretalls and lightning blasts are huge against tradewind decks. I kenw it was strong but it just needed a bit more. Western Canada Regionals 05 16 98 Regionals were coming up and i was undecided. Settledown was very strong, but was hurt by Worb and Geddon and would occasionally draw only one color of the two it needed, and 5cG looked like it would be very popular, at least with Team Mishra's. I had built a Black weenie beat down with wall evasion. One of my best friends was out in BC from Saskatchewan and we were talking about regionals. He said "Nev you just won't be happy unless you are playing a deck that you invented." He was right, so Settledown it was, but I needed just a little more to make it "THE BOMB" at regionals. I swapped a mountain for a reflecting pool (all I could find was one, in hindsight two would have been better), added 4 sulphurous springs, dropped an Abbysal spectre to bring the count down from 61 to 60, replaced one incinerate with a hammer and that was it, I thought I was ready. I was always looking for a replacement for the Derelor, bu couldn't find one... until. Morning of the regionals. All big tourneys are held at the same hotel, there's a cash machine on the drive there. This is where I always get my cash for the day, but not today. Today I decided to take a nice morning walk to the corner store to get cash. On the way there and back I thought about my deck one card at a time. The Derelors still bothered me, the deck was such a control deck and the Derelor was not a control card, sure it was fat and cheap, but I wanted control. Then while I was sitting in my car, after starting it, listening to the radio, DEVINE INTERVENTION: PLAY SHARD PHEONIX INSTEAD OF DERELOR. Up until this point I have never really been very religious, but some unearthly power spoke to me yesterday morning. (or else it was just everyone on Cabal Rogue saying what a great card shard pheonix is) I shut off my car, went back into the apartment, swapped one Derelor and headed for the tourney in hopes of snagging another one from a buddy. Julian Fane (Junior Super Series guy and testing buddy) hooked me up. A field of 104 or 105 and seven rounds of swiss awaited us. This was one of the biggest constructed tourney in BC for years. And everyone who was anyone in BC was there (Except Ryan Fuller, who had to work and Uri who has dissappeared). Field was looking to be pretty varied, all of the major decks made an appearance. Luckily for me Humility decks were not popular. Round 1 Raj playing Vineyard Fattie. Game 1-Vineyard helps me, so after I disked a couple of times and destroyed all his land, I hit him with a settler and a bottlegnome until he was low enough for me to fireball him. I did take some beats from fatties, but did not manaburn once. Game 2-I slowed him down with a perish or two and then disked away the vineyard after settling his lands, I had no stronghold, but he stayed at two lands while I beat him down with a Nekretall and a Shard Pheonix. Round 2 Rick Playing living death, shallow grave. While I was shuffling his deck, I noticed that Rick had accidentally placed a spirit of the night upside-down. I showed him this, he corrected it, and then proceded to shuffle my deck and intentionally flip over one of my cards revealing a fireball and then he said, "Now we're even" This 45 year old scrub was going to pay. I decided I was going to play extremely tight against this guy. Game 1-Turn 2 lobotomy (what the hell?) takes away all my disks, oh oh... I beat down with miner and Nekretall for a while. He Buries alive getting Collossus of Sardia (WOW), Spirit of the night and Aku Djinn. Two turns later he cast shallow grave and digs out the Collosus which was below the spirit and aku, of course Shallow Grave must target the top creature... "JUDGE!!!" Judge comes over explains that he was wrong and gives a notice. After that he hits me with the Spirit and then I beat him down with a shard pheonix, Nekretall and miner. After game one, the head judge comes up and decides to check the guys sideboard, just to be safe. Apparently Rick wrote down two Rats of Rath in his sideboard and had three, hence his recorded sideboard was one card short and wrong. Match to me and Rick can't use his sideboard for the rest of the day. Good, I never saw a living death, but I wouldn't have liked it. Round 3 Josh playing WW/u proporb. Game 1 Things were going pretty good, I had black answers for his pro-red critters and red answers for his problack critters, but then the propaganda came down... uh oh. Next turn priest and orb (I was tapped out from fireballing a white knight and a monk.) I had a disk in hand, but was it enough? Next turn draw "Dark Ritual" play a land ritual out the disk. No disenchant sees the disk set things straight again. Two turns later the exact same thing (even the ritualed disk with no disenchant answer) happens again. Then I start to "settledown" (kill all his lands) my opponent and beat him down with an abbysall. Game 2-Early settler stronghold lock spells doom for the white player with no removal. I went all the way down to 18 life in this game. At this point Julian Fane has dropped from the tourney and has decided to be my number one fan. He is by my side for the rest of my sanctioned games. He tells me to that I will win today and that the settlers are unbeatable, he also likes watching peoples faces when they are playing against me. Round 4 Matt Garcia black Beatdown Matt's a friend who I know is a good player, but I also know he is playing black beatdown which settledown always beats. I offer him a chance to concede and save face, he laughs at he and tells me I soon will join the dark side. Game 1-Disks and burn clear the board time and time again. Then the Shard Pheonix hits. He looks at it... "Wow, I guess I should have played more Bad moons" (3 instead of 4) The phoenix wraps it up for me with a lightning blast sealing it up. Game 2-Early settlers backed by rituals and a disk see Matt with no permenants on turn 5, he loses. Round 5 Eli 3cB, with no mana control. Game 1-hardest game of the day two disks are uktabied and one is countered. Ussually early disks spell doom for black, but Eli is a good player and came prepared. We each take a lot of time on our turns, people suggest we are stalling, but we are just playing clean, we have plenty of time. Eli gets me down to 1.. There are three cards left in my library that can save my ass... 1 fireball and 2 shard pheonix. I draw... SHARD PHEONIX thank you gods, praise Chthulu. After holding him off with the shard for a few rounds and getting a bottle gnome into play, with volraths stronghold back up I SLOWLY get control back, one mistake and I was toast. I fireballed him for the kill, backed by a ritual for his mana leak (which he cast), it was close. Game 2-Eli is mana screwed with a gemstone and an undiscovered, I have a dwarven miner and a settler and the stronghold. I burn his shadow dude after it hits me once, settlers lock it up and I quake us all for the win. At this point I am 5-0 and have lost no games at all. I draw my next two round to get in the top eight. Elimination round, Mike Gurney I get matched up against a testing buddy of mine. He's playing a deck that has everything that slows my deck down, geddon, tradewind, birds, lots of counters, legacies alure, man-o-war ect. Not only this, he knows my deck before we play, this is pretty big. Game 1-I burn myself with two sulferours springs as my only colored mana as I try to control the board with recuring nekretalls, I burn myself for a whole bunch, man-o-war hits me for the rest. My first game lost today, but I am confident. Notably missing from my side during this game is Julian Fane. I summon my number one fan (watching another playoff match) and he watches me play the next two games. I have a feeling that Julian is my good luck charm. Game 2- I mulligan down to six and go first. First few rounds see pyro's and hydros flying everywhere as he try's to get tradewind action. As he taps out for his second tradewind attempt, I ritual quake away all his tradewind support critters and play a dwarven miner. The miner does his thing as I lightning blast his tradewind after destroying all his blue producing land. Settlers come out a few turns later to eat up the rest of the land and a disk clears his bird and walls of blossoms. Beat down ensues. Game 3- He gets a non-basic land draw, I get wastelands backed by dwarven miners, but I see no settlers, recuring nekretalls help me hold off his onslaught and keep his tradewinds from becoming active. Settlers eventually show up backed by a shard pheonix and I lock him down. That's it, I get in the top 4 (there is no first second ect, besides we have been playing magic for 14 hours now), get an invitation to Nationals and did it all with a Rogue deck of my own. Here's the latest settledown. Settledown v.4 4 Orcish Settlers - so strong!!!! 2 Abyssal Spectre -a must kill critter that really hurts control 3 Nekretall - Wow, saved my ass time and time again 1 Dwarven miner- good enough to qualify one in the main deck, wrecks alot of decks. 2 Shard Pheonix- The gods have spoken, this card Rules. 2 Bottlegnomes-nice littleguys, really nice against beatdown, especially with the stronghold. 3 Quake- better than fireball overall, especially against 5cG 2 Fireball- incredible against tradewind decks and beatdown, 3-1 card advantage sometimes. 3 Incinerate- good removal 1 Hammer -saw it twice, liked it each time, but wouldn't want more 3 Lightning Blast-All star card, big blue critters and derelors hate this card, also good for the finish. 4 Nev's disk - Reset baby, reset. 4 Dark Rituals (laugh not, these are incredible) 4 Sulpherous springs (added alot of consistency) 1 reflecting pool (would add another, replacing a swamp) 4 Rocky Tar Pit (Also very key) 4 Wasteland (need I say more?) 3 Volraths stronghold (this is the key) 5 Mountain 5 Swamp I would like to thank everyone at Cabal Rogue for help with the deck, everyone at Mishra's for helping me test the Monday night Testing Crew (three Mikes and a Shane) for their help, the EAC testing crew, Shaniber for convincing me to play settledown and super duper thanx to whichever devine entity told me to play Shard Pheonix, it makes this deck great. Props and slops... nah. just wondering why Rusaw didn't try to get ahold of me for the original decklist, we prairie boys gots to stick together. Cee-ya NEV Team Guilford Team Berserker Cabal Rogue Is not wearing any pants