Subject: Dojo Invitational & Nationals Date: Mon, 06 Jul 1998 15:20:45 -0700 From: Orion To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com I will say only a little aboot Nat's, because I finished 83rd and you would probably rather see reports aboot the top 8... I was 3-3 after the draft, one loss was in round 2 when they said to begin and I was 5 feet from my seat (walking in the room after using the restroom) and got a game loss and then was mana-screwed in game 2 (Mulligan down to 5 and keep the first land I've seen and draw no more...) and the other 2 were to Andrew Wolf and his Shadow-Rifted Vampire hounds with a fist full of creatures and a Death's Duet to drop major bombs on my sorry ass... and another to the "attack with two 3/3's. You let one by? Blood Frenzy it and then after damage is dealt fling it at you for 14 total points this turn" he beat me in game 5 or 6 two straight. And to think all of the LA pros told me to draft B/U because R was weak.... Actually, my second draft deck was mono-black with a Cursed Scroll, Hatred (good at first, but I always side-boreded it out) and 2 Vampire Hounds and bunches of shadows. People that looked at my deck were amazed that I lost GAMES, let alone matches. Oh well. When I was 3-1 with the deck, I was getting a little cocky and asked Richard Garfield what he would do if he were 5-1 going into day 2 of Nationals. Would he play the "throw it on the line" combo deck (PandeDred) or something a little more stable like Sligh? He thought aboot it a while and said that if he had positioning like that he would probably go with something more stable like Sligh. I, however, got my 3rd loss and HAD to "throw it on the line." You can see my deck list if you like in Chris Wong's post aboot the Open. However, I didn't use Impulse, I used Intuition instead. I only had one turn-4 kill (Wastelands kept me one short against a particular opponent...) and rumor has it that Marky Rosewater will make mention of it. The judge that watched me Intuition at the end of my opponent's turn (he's playing R/W/B Corpse Dance Bottle Gnome and R/W/B control) for 3 Dark Rituals walked away, and when he came back 60 seconds later the game was done. I tap COB of W, Sulf. Springs for B, Dark Ritual, Abeyance you? "Ritual Abeyance?!? Wtf? sure, I'm Abeyanced." Lotus Petal. Sac for R, Use B for Mana Vault. tap for 3. Pandemonium. Use other B for Dreadnought. Tap 3rd land for second Dreadnought. Wow. The judge was more stoked on seeing it than I was. I was just amazed that I finally did it after losing and/or drawing with people due to mutual kills. Enough of this. The Dojo Invitational. Well, I was originally invited on Team Titanic because Frank figured that Gary Wise was Canadian and wouldn't show up for the U.S. Nationals. So he posted the invited team as me, Scott Johns, and Alan Comer. However, Alan told me that Gary might show up. Sure enough, Gary was there to watch the U.S. Open. I was now kicked off the team. :( However, one of the Team Legion guys didn't show up, so Alex Shvartsman and Marc Paschover needed a 3rd person and Alan recommended me to them. At first I was a little bummed that Gary showed up, but then I decided to play with Legion. I had to borrow Alan's Legion shirt to play. I don't think that Alan owns any clothes that aren't related to MTG in at least some way... Well, we got together on the day of finals at Nationals. Alex is in the WotC press team (or something like that) so he had a copy of the deck lists. Actually, the lists were supposedly already on the net when we got the list. I don't like PandeDred any more (playtesting the deck loved me and Chris wrote my list into his report because I beat him like 9 straight one afternoon at SCGA and I was having huge success with it at the time) so I look at the top 8 lists. I used to play a ProsBloom deck that was almost card-for-card what Long and Leiher were playing, so I scrounged for cards to put it together. I know how to play the deck, and I didn't feel like a) playing stupid burn, b) having the patience for Forbidian, c) don't own any Vineyard's for the MG deck d) playing "the winning deck" because it would jinx me... ProsBloom it is. Alex and Marc agree that it is strong so long as I can play it. At first they were unsure aboot it because it requires thinking and a good deal of math. Alex is playing Mono-blue in MiViLt-TeStEx "Miveelight-testex" but it is more aggressive than Mr. Finkel's deck. Marc is playing Lake-Drain-Necro in extended. You can read their reports for their lists. Hell, you can read U.S. Nationals top 8 lists for MY list, because I told you I took it card-for-card. :) Round 1: Bye. I heard some dumb joke aboot getting byes. Round 2: "2 Guys and a sex slave" or something like that. Andy Pacifico was the sex slave. His girly-friend was sitting on his lap for almost the entire duration of our match. He was t2, Jamie (?) was extended and Joshua (?) was "the wacky format" as Alex called it. Andy said (non-verbally) "Hey Larry, here is your ass and I am handing it to you." repeat 2 more times, as they made us play 3 games. He is playing Forbidian and knows I am playing ProsBloom and he just doesn't even blink at my feeble attempt to win... Lucky for me Alex and Marc both win so we are still undefeated... Round 3: Don't remember team names for them or the next ones. Kevin Mclaughllin is in "type C", Brian Kewal in extended, and Adrian Sullivan is facing me in t2. Adrian is playing kind of a weird deck with bottle gnomes, permission, and some other stuff. He knew I was playing bloom so he pretty much waited for me to go off and reacted when he could. He wins game 1. Game 2, Scott Johns is standing behind me, and since I lost game one, he says, "You are NOT Mike Long." The spectators laugh. I laugh. This is all for fun. I think at this point the deck hates me and Alex and Marc are going to carry the team. Oh well. I take my cards. Keep land, Squandered, Abeyance draw. (I think... Might have been counter back-up instead of Abeyance.) I get Squandered off. Like turn 4 I Abey (?) and then draw. OK. Nat. Balance. Huge mana. Only 1 card draw-er (Contract) in hand. Hmmm. Kind of risky. Drop Bloom and decide that it is now-or-never. Contract. I draw 3 land and a contract. Scott Johns: "You's Mike Long." I contract again. 3 throw-away cards and another contract. Scott: "You's Mike Long." Contract again. The drain and the LAST Contract. Scott laughing hysterically by now: "You's DEFINITELY Mike Long." I get the pieces and win. On to game 3. I shuffle. I count out my 7 and hand then to Scott. "Am I Mike Long?" He looks at them. "Do you want to be Mike Long in the 5th game at Nationals or before that?" Me: "Oh f---." Hands me the cards. They are actually pretty decent and I win the 3rd. Marc lost in extended (to a PandeDred deck?!? wtf?!?) but Alex won so we are still undefeated. Round 4: **Feature Match** Well, actually, we didn't want to move from our table, and our opponents didn't want to move from THEIR table, so we all went and whined to Frank and he put us at a neutral table in the middle. That's when someone said, "Oh yeah, Feature Match, we HAVE to play in the middle!" Al Tran is playing extended, Mike Flores in the middle, and Patrick Johnson against me. Marc gets started right away, and the rest of us are kind of shuffling slower to watch a match that was pretty nuts. One of the first few turns Marc Hymns Al and in response he says, "Consult for a Guerrila Tactics." I swear he burned over like 40 cards before he got it. Marc, of course, picked it out with the Hymn, though. Marc loses in 3rd. Alex won his match. Even though he got a game loss for having an illegal deck. He had Svyelunite Temples in his deck. Marc and I yell at him. He won the other 2, though, (Frank let him replace them for Islands) so it was all good. However, I am still in game 1 when they are both done. No pressure on me, but if you lose we get 2nd place and if we win, then we win it all... Patrick was the original guy that I scrounged ProsBloom parts from, but then Chris Wong came around and since he had pieces of it I borrowed his since I see Chris every weekend at CMWC. Sooooo, since Patrick didn't give his ProsBloom pieces to me, HE played it, too. Hmmm. Bloom vs. Bloom. interesting match-up. When he starts to go off, he pitches his entire hand except 2 (Drain and another Prosperity?) to Prosp for 17 or something. I Memory Lapse it. He is amazed. I go off the next turn or maybe the one after that and win game one. Game 2 he has a sub-standard draw, and I have 2 Memory Lapses, Pyroblast, and Abeyance to protect myself. (Btw, I had Matthew Linde sign my Abeyances... if you saw the finals of Nat's, then you know aboot the $10,000 Abeyances he had...) When I finally went off, I took a LONG time (no pun intended) to go off, because I had to do the math exactly right. I had just enough mana from everything to drain him for 16 (he had COB and Vamp. Tutor) and leave UU2 open for 2 Memory Lapses in case he tried to stop me. I win game 2. Set. Match. We are undefeated and win the tournament. I am truly amazed we won. Randy Buehler, Erik Lauer, Brian Weissman, Andy Pacifico, and a bunch of other name players were there and we managed to win. The cool thing is that each of the 3 of us went 2-1, but since our losses were all at different times we still won each round. THAT is team work. :) I had a lot of fun, and you can see my goofy picture (I was buzzed...) on the day one page and again when Frank puts up the picture of us after we won. The 2 boxes of 5E we got (with a box each of Stronghold and Exodus and a Mox Emerald) we split and with my 24 packs of 5E "The kids" and Alan and Scott Johns (who actually didn't even play the Invitational...) we separated the rares and uncommons for me, and the commons for "Mental Magic." Mental Magic was actually a lot more fun than most of the rest of the playing I did over the weekend. Scott and I went to the airport late that night since I didn't want to miss my 7:00 a.m. flight and we played MM from aboot 3:00 until I got on the plane. Playing MM with T1 rules is funny when you get a Hypnotic Specter with a Curiosity on it... Also, Scott put a Curiosity on my Juzaam so he could draw a card during each of my upkeeps. :( Props: Dan Brothers of Team JookY. You are the best. Your brother is, too. Put all six of us up for the week after GP (for them) and for the weekend of Origins aboot 2 miles from the Columbus Convention Center. Ultra cool. Thanks again. The cat at Dan's brother's house. I hate cats as a generality, but this one was the single exception I have made in my life. This cat thought it was a dog. Yeah yeah, you say, well, this cat played FETCH with us. We were flinging the bottle cap from my 40 and the cat brought it back to us. Amazing!! Adrian Sullivan's binary method of life counting. I thought I was original in times past with my Aussie coins, but his binary #'s were pretty cool. Frank for inviting us, of course. Alan for having faith in my deck enough to play it in the Open, even though my deck kind of sucks in the "real" environment. Getting drunk the first day of Origins. Dan's 2 liter of Pepsi was a fifth of Jack Daniels and a the little remaining space Pepsi. And YES, the bag that I was carrying around with me had a 40 of MGD in it. All the security guards kept asking me aboot it "You got Jim Beam in there?" "No." (kept walking) "You going to share that? he he" "No." (kept walking) and none of them thought to ask me to show them what was in the bag and/or pour it out. I had a Gooood time during the open. I was sober for my picture with Legion, but by then I was pretty sick, so I still look pretty bad. All of my opponents during Nationals were all friendly and (for the most part) fair. I had a very positive experience at my first major tournament, so I am looking forward to going to more. Brian Hacker for spending the weekend making more money than Matt Linde... Do I want to play in your DCI Green games? HELL NO!! I'm not THAT dumb. Slops: Losing a game when I was 5 feet from my chair when time started. Then mana screwed in the second. Yes, btw, I WAS vengeful when I called the judge over to give my opponent a warning for misrep. It is one thing to be sitting and waiting for your opponent for a few minutes, and quite another to have him running to his seat and not cutting him any slack. He was nice to me after that, so I hold no grudges after the match was done, but I still didn't like losing a game... Alan not winning in the Silent Death Nationals. We were all rooting for you. Getting Laryngitis and having to whisper most of yesterday and all of today (so far). People who know me take pleasure in the fact that I am very outspoken (never would have guessed, would you...?) and now I can't talk. The airline for not having my vegetarian meal. "Well, why don't you just pick the meat off of the turkey sandwiches we have?" I ended up doing that, but the fact that they screwed up still sucks. CHEATERS. I'm not making accusations against anyone, but my friend Brian Seldon got 9th place and that kind of sucks. I really like the team format. Thanks for reading. Larry Janiec Orion, still the captain of Team Crius Associate member? of The Legion