Subject: Alberta (AB) Regionals Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 00:56:40 -0600 From: Jim Roy To: Frank Kusumoto Tourney Report for Alberta Provincials Well, we had I think 66 show up at Beyond Fantasy in Edmonton for this one. I think that's about half of last year. Competition was a little better though as there weren't as many kids and newbies. After testing the night before with Dustin Jensen and Mike Handfield I came up with an old pre-tempest deck of mine (after a few modifications): Counterhell: Counters (20): 4 Counterspell 4 Power Sink 4 Memory Lapse 2 Dissipate (decided to cut two) 1 Desertion 1 Force Spike (kicked ass) 4 Dismiss (how could I forget?) Card Drawing (8): 4 Impulse 4 Whispers of the Muse Other (7): 3 Nevinyrral's Disk 2 Legacy's Allure 1 Capsize 1 Rainbow Efreet Land (26): 19 Island 4 Quicksand 2 Stalking Stones 1 Ice Floe Sideboard: 4 Chill (thought Calgarians would bring Flames, the ingenious mono-red with Ball Lightnings, never used though) 3 Hydroblast 2 Dream Tides 2 Interdict (rockin!) 1 Evacuation (never had balls to use this, my deck never permitted more than one or two creatures anyways) 1 Ice Floe 1 Disrupting Scepter 1 Steal Artifact (kicked ass in playtesting) First Round Craig Pilom playing Mono-Blue Capsize Craig is a Beyond Fantasy regular and I'd seen him play this deck before. It was originally designed by Mike Handfield (who is watching me type this now so I'd better give him credit) but Craig made a few good alterations. I was kind of dissapointed having to play him first round, I was hoping for a couple easy wins to start me off. I turns out that there weren't a lot of easy first round wins for anybody. My deck had an edge over his because I was creatureless (Manowars and Propagandas useless) plus I had 2 Stalking Stones which he couldn't stop. My stones beat him up both games. Second Round Darlene Mono-Black Darlene was the only female in the tournament that I saw. She is a fairly new player but her deck was really good. I think she ended up somewhere in the top 15 which is a good start for a newbie. It was a necro with Gnomes, Corpse Dance, Grave Pacts and quick weenies (if you count Hidden Horror a weenie). The first game she got a Volrath's Stronghold out for continual weenies but as in testing the Stronghold crumbled under the power of Whispers of the Muse. I drew more counters and weenie removal faster and finally got a Legacy's Allure and that was game. Here's how the second game goes: I look at my opening draw, no islands. Just a Quicksand and an Ice Floe so I'm a little nervous. Her draw: Ritual Hidden horror go. I'm like, Ice Floe and managed to flow the monster. I didn't draw an Island for a few turns and I was getting more upset. Fortunately she didn't have much after that and I drew an Island, then impulsed for another and it was game. Whew. Nice to survive mana screw. Third Round Bill Powel playing 5 Color White Bill had tried this deck before and I knew what was in it. It is similar to a deck on the dojo. I got lucky and got to go first (which makes a big difference vs white weenie) and his low land count cost him. He drew a plains and a gemstone mine and I double lapsed a knight and countered it while the gemstone died. By the time he drew another land I was dismissing and whispering. The second game he went first and I drew a force spike. You should see the look on people's faces when they get force spike because they're like "land-knight-go" and I'm like "actually I'll Force Spike that". Heh heh. Anyways the game was close but I managed to pull through. Fourth Round Misha Silken playing Green-White Casper For some reason the deck of Misha's seems to do well (another term for constantly lucky). He plays 17 land and nothing in the deck costs under 2. Sure he has diamonds and mulches and he always got two land in his draw. Regardless it was a good deck. My deck type just destroys his however as Misha plays Wisdoms and Wraths and a lot of non-threatening cards. Only a few things needed to be countered as I rolled him the first game. The second game I figured I would slaughter him again. But unluckily for me his sideboard consisted of 2 Hall of Gemstone, 2 City of Solitude, and 3 Choke! I got a little mana screwed and stalled at 3 mana while he got a mox diamond and had six mana sources. He started to smile and I knew exactly what he was going to do as he he cast city of solitude and grinned. I was almost grinning as I had a counter and a force spike but managed to keep a strait face as I proceeded to counter his city and force spike his choke. Then he has the nerve to call ME lucky! Anyways I never really recovered from the mana stall but it was a long game. He managed to get another choke and a geddon through. While we were both recovering from the geddon he got out a Pursuit of Knowledge and I had the interdict. He waited 3 turns while I sat there recovering and laying lands and right when he grins and removes the counters to get his seven cards I interdict the Pursuit. And I get to draw a card, heh. Of course he calls the judge over because he doesn't believe me, nobody ever does it seems. Anyways the choke was still around and he got out a 2/2 Maro but I had 2 quicksands. At the moment I finally draw the capsize I have 5 mana so I can't buy it back after capsizing the choke and I lose because of it. Oh well. The third game goes a few turns before we get timed out. He thinks he would have won it, I think otherwise. Fifth Round John Keif playing a weird ass Red-Black Living death deck with a touch of white. This was one of the closest matches I had. I beat him down somehow in the first game by countering a few creatures (he had a single mogg flunkie out) and then disking everything away. He got out another anoying Mogg Fanatic and then I Desertioned an Acidic Sliver and beat him down with it. The second game was interesting. A lot of players wait against counterspell decks and then cast everything in one turn. He didn't do that and it cost me because I had a whispers in my hand and six mana so I had to keep countering threats. When I finally run out of counterspells he gets the tombstone and casts it freely. So I go Whispers buyback, Whispers, Impulse, Impulse, but no capsize so I get smoked by 5 tokens. The third game was also good and somehow he gets a geddon through by sacking his Blood Pet. It surprised me because it was the first non-red-black card I had seen. I managed to recover first and sneak a win through. Incidently I got mana screwed in the first game by drawing a stalking stones and a quicksand. Didn't draw an Island until around the 4th or 5th turn, the players around me figured I was dead but I managed to win another mana screw game. Oh yeah... Sixth Round Mike Bower with one of the now famous Spike-Corpse-Dance-Living-Death decks. We drew as we were a shoe in for final eight. Woo hoo! Made it to top 8 again. With only 2 game losses in the swiss I was placed sixth seed. Glad it wasn't top seed, top seed always loses by tradition. The top eight had 4 Calgarians and 4 Edmontonions. There were 3 spike decks! Here's how the top eight looked (not in order): >From Edmonton: Me (counterhell) Misha (GW casper) Ryan Keif (BW shadow) Jason Yorgason (Sliver Madness) >From Calgary: Cory Bradshaw (inventor of spike-living death) Mike Bower (spike) Marinko Pavic (spike) Jason Kipp (counterhell, actually from Cranbrook but used to be in Calgary I think) So the top six get a spot at Canadian Nationals while the bottom two get a few packs. The losers of the first round play off to see who really gets eliminated. Finals First Round: Cory Bradshaw with Spike-Living Death I was a little nervous playing Cory as he smoked me down in another pre-release tourney but I knew my deck should beat his. And it did. The first game he got out a Volrath's Stronghold but Whispers beat it again. The second game I got the Disk-Capsize combo going for the first time in the tournament and that was game. So I'm in! Second Round: Jason Yorgason playing quick sliver (backed with incinerates and mana leaks) He gets a little mana shy and I double lapse his first creature and that was basically game as I started Dismissing and Whispering. Second game he gets color screwed and doesn't get white. I managed to disk away everything he has and again it's game. I glance over to Cory Bradshaw and Mike Bower having a spike dual and it's still the first game! But Cory has some anti-spike metagame in his deck as he plays one wasteland to kill the other guy's stronghold. Both had over 10 creatures out with Corpse Dancing spikes and each had big fat Fallen Angels staring at each other. Cory wins by decking the guy after a tremendously long game and Mike just gives it to Cory as they are friends anyways. Ryan Keif gets eliminated by Marinko Pavic. Last Round: Jason Kipp with another Counterhell We agreed to split the booty and play for the honors and changed the format from best of 5 to best of 3 due to our deck types. We both new each other's decks before. He played 3 Whispers and 2 Meditate instead of my 4 Whispers and played Mana Leak instead of my Memory Lapse. I had a Desertion and two Legacy's Allures and he had an extra Stalking Stones while I had an Ice Floe. That was about it for differences and I figured his extra stalking stones would kill me. They were awsome games. Late in the first game he cast Meditate on my discard and we had a huge counterwar which I won (via Force Spike I believe). He was tapped out and I got out my only Rainbow and beat him down. The second game was also very good. I had a huge land clump and he managed to get out a disrupting scepter. I had a disk out but I had already activated my stones and he had one that was still a land. But I had been beating him up with my stalking stones so he had to activate his to save his ass and I immediately disked. More counterwars ensued and he snuck a meditate through. I had no counters in had and he had 4 or 5 cards so I figured it was game. But he threw down his Sea Sprites (sideboarded in as they hurt me). But I drew double whispers while I had over 18 land and went nuts with the whispers. I also got my scepter down and was trashing his hand. I was at 4 life when I finally impulsed for the capsize and got the deadly Capsize-Scepter lock. Capsize the sprite, Scepter it. I was at 1 when I killed the last sprite and it was my game. So I won the Alberta Regionals, that's cool. Props: - Beyond Fantasy for putting on another kick-ass tourney. - Mike Handfield cheezing out a spike deck with tithe-double-armor. - Force Spike and Interdict. Slops: - Picture this: you have an Armored Avenging Angel and opponent casts disk. You vampiric tutor, scrolling by your disenchant and finding the geddon. Next turn after the geddon opponent draws land and disks everything away. THEN you put the angel on top of your library. THEN you still win! Slops for that. - Evacuation and quadruple Chill for sucking in sideboard Gotta run. Jim Roy ---------------------------------------------- Jim Roy jproy@ee.ualberta.ca http://www.ualberta.ca/~jproy "Trying is the first step towards failure." Homer Simpson ----------------------------------------------