Subject: U.S. Nationals Results & Analysis Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 00:23:59 -0400 From: "Theron L. Martin" To: The Dojo This is strictly an observer's report, regrettably; although I did get to the final round of the next-to-last U.S. Open qualifier, I scrubbed out once there and thus missed Nationals by one match. :-( The first six rounds of the U.S. Nationals, on Friday July 3rd, were booster draft. At the end of the day, the top standings were: 1. David Price, 18 points and winner of Top Limited Player award 2. Mike Long, 18 3. Peter Leiher, 18 4. Joseph Crosby, 15 5. Jeremy Brower, 15 6. Ben Rubin, 15 7. Jason Moungey, 15 8. Donald Gallitz, 15 Rounds 7-12 of the Nationals, held on Satuday July 4th, were Standard Constructed. At the end of the day, the top standings (and those who advanced to the quarterfinals) were: 1. Mike Long, 33 points, playing ProsBloom 2. David Price, 30 points, Sligh 3. Peter Leiher, 30, ProsBloom 4. Bryce Currence, 28, Green Spike Tech 5. Jon Finkel, 27, monoblue control 6. Matt Linde, 27, WW (Kyle Rose was credited with the design) 7. Andrew Pacifico, 27, Sligh 8. Ryan Kelley, 27, Green Spike Tech Randy Beuhler once again reinforced his position as one of the world's top constructed players by winning the Top Constructed Player award with a 5-1 record. Unfortunately, a mediocre (3-2-1) booster draft performance left him one victory short of making the Top 8. CHEATING INCIDENT: I must at this point mention an incident concerning Mike Long, probably the most talked-about player of the convention for a number of reasons. He rolled through Nationals, undefeated in matches until the final round. There, as I understand it, he was caught sitting on a copy of a key card from his deck (a Cadaverous Bloom). Mike claimed it got there by accident when he was shuffling his deck - not a totally unreasonable explanation, given the amount of shuffling ProsBloom decks usually go through. It looked enough like cheating, though, that he was penalized by automatic forfeiture of that match. A *lot* of people I talked to or overheard (including many judges) felt that Mike Long got off way too easily in the incident, since a loss in that round was irrelevant to his chances to make the Top 8. (A lot of those same people felt that the reason Mike got off so easily was because he's a marquis PT player.) The only thing I can think of is that the incident appeared so indistinguishable from an honest mistake that the officials decided to take the less severe option. Despite my personal opinion of Mike Long, I can't say that I wouldn't rule it the same way were I the official, given what I know about the situation. The Top 8 were put through a new, modified version of double elimination to determine the U.S. National team. The U.S. Champion would be the sole player to go 3-0, the runner-up would be the player who lost to the Champion in the final round. 3rd place and 4th place went to the top two performers in the loser's bracket, with second-round losers paired against the winners of match-ups of first-round losers. I think most people will agree that this is the best and fairest system yet. SUNDAY RESULTS: In the first round, Long beats Kelley 3-1, Price beats Pacifico 3-0, Linde beat Leiher 3-1, and Finkel beats Currence 3-0. In the second round, Long beats Finkel 3-1, Linde beats Price 3-0, Currence beats Kelley 3-0 (eliminating Kelley), and Pacifico beats Leiher 3-0 (eliminating Leiher). Notes: Price triple-mulliganed in his third duel and still pulled a draw that would've beaten many opponents, but Linde was a very bad match-up for him anyways - it's nearly impossible for Sligh to beat a second-turn Priest, third-turn Spirit Link on Priest, fourth-turn Empyrial Armor on Priest! Long and Finkel, at the end of their first duel, got into a who-can-be-a- bigger-ass contest over asking game-related questions and looking through each other's graveyard - the top official was called at least three times while Long was waiting for his big Drain Life to resolve. Though he lost the match, I think Finkel was the better man in the argument, because he mostly kept his cool in the face of Long's diatribe; I doubt I could have kept so calm. In the third and final round, Linde beats Long 3-2 for the title, Finkel beats Pacifico 3-0 (eliminating Pacifico), and Currence beats Price 3-0 (eliminating Price). Thus, the U.S. National team is: Matt Linde (U.S. Champion) Mike Long Jon Finkel Bryce Currence Congratulations to all, especially Matt Linde, who had to beat *both* Bloom decks to take the title. On the whole, this looks like a strong national team which should be a top contender for the team title at Worlds next month. ANALYSIS Five different deck types composed the Top 8, four of them mono-colored. Since no one made the Top 8 with worse than a 4-2 record in the Standard Constructed portion (and most were 5-1), I think it's safe to say that those five decks were pretty representative of the cream of the crop for the constructed portion. An even more telling point about the state of Standard Constructed tech is the fact that, despite there only being five different decks in the Top 8, there were four totally different decks on the U.S. National team. Also, all except one of the decks were standard, proven archtypes or versions thereof. All of these are totally different results than last year, when newer multicolor black designs dominated the U.S. National team. (In fact, black was the color nearly MIA this year, not green.) What does this mean? A couple of things: 1) the short period of testing time available for integrating Exodus encouraged most top players to use Exodus-upgraded (or not) versions of standard, proven decks, so we really haven't yet seen the full range of possibilities that Exodus offers; 2) contrary to popular opinion, green is NOT dead as a Standard tournament color; 3) the Standard field is the most balanced and competitive it's ever been, and Exodus will only help assure that. A corollary to the last point might be that every current major deck is very vulnerable to something, so fortunate match-ups have as much to do with success at major tournaments as ever. Linde's deck, for example, was murder on Sligh, but probably would have had a problem with the Spike Tech. The Spike Tech, although also very strong against Sligh, proved very vulnerable to Bloom and Finkel's blue control, while Finkel's blue control proved surprisingly weak against Bloom - and Bloom, for some reason, proved most vulnerable to WW, something I wouldn't have predicted! NEW DECKS The Bloom decks, Finkel's control, and the Sligh decks seemed to have been little influenced by Exodus, while Linde's deck did pack the Exodus Paladins. The Spike Tech decks were the only new deck type in the Top 8. I call them this (they will probably be named something else) because the deck used both Feeders and the new Spike Weavers - the latter being a critical component to regular success for the deck. It is basically a monogreen Vineyard deck which centers around two powerful combos: using Stampeding Wildebeasts to bounce Wall of Blossoms for card advantage or Weavers for recurring access to Fog effects. The Wildebeasts also combine with Vineyard burn and Cursed Scrolls to serve as one of the principle methods of killing the opponent. The deck also uses one or two Survival of the Fittests to ensure that necessary creatures show up, Creeping Molds, and two or three standard Desert Twisters - yes, you heard me right! This is not a deck that can be easily pigeonholed, because it actually leans more towards control than beatdown, a very unusual situation for monogreen indeed! Although it is a strong and interesting design, its success can probably be attributed as much to the fact the people weren't expecting a strong green design, and thus weren't prepared for it. Other new Exodus-influenced deck designs saw their field testing in the U.S. Open, the first major sanctioned Standard tournament with Exodus legal. The biggest one was the U/G Oath of Druids deck, which had been talked about heavily at GP-Indy the week before and in online circles but hadn't yet popped up on The Dojo. I saw several different versions, but all used Oath of Druids, Sylvan Library, Gaea's Blessing, Propaganda, countering spells to some degree (8+, always including Forbids), creatures that could be sacked to gain life, and one Big Fat Flier (Spirit of the Night or Archangel). It was very successful in the earlier qualifiers (two of the top four in the midnight qualifier used it), at least in part because most people weren't ready for it. The deck's success rate dropped as the day wore on, though, likely because people got wise to the deck and started preparing for it. I also saw a streamlined R/B Pandemonium/Dreadnaught deck that was nasty if it caught you by surprise but again was less threatening if you were prepared for it. The third totally new deck type, used most rarely, was a five-color Recurring Nightmare/Survival of the Fittest/Living Death deck that I call T2 (after the movie "Terminator 2", since many of its cards fit the theme). It uses Wall of Blossoms, Birds, Spike Feeders, a couple of Godzilla-type big fatties (Spirit of the Night, Verdant Force, and/or Sliver Queen), a selection of 187 creatures, and sometimes a smattering of shadow creatures, with Goblin Bombardment and Firestorms as complements. A few people talked about a deck like this and/or used some elements of it, but I believe that I and my 5th round opponent in the next-to-last qualifier were the only ones who actually put it all together and used it. I must say, it got a lot of attention and comments, and probably would have carried me into Nationals had I not gotten mana-screwed and made a horrible mistake with it in my deciding U.S. Open match. I didn't hear about anyone using it at Nationals, which probably means that most people either didn't know about it, didn't have time to develop it, or didn't want to take a chance on a new and largely untested design. It carried two of us to the 5th and 6th rounds of an elimination tournament, though, so there has to be *some* merit to it. Curiously absent from the U.S. Open (and I didn't hear about any in Nationals) were Godzilla-type decks - for that matter, Living Death decks in general weren't very popular. Mostly it was the expected hordes of WW variations, Suicide Black, Sligh, and Tradewind-centered decks, with a larger-than-expected number of Big Blue-type decks. A significant number of people did try Null Brooch/Ensnaring Bridge-centered decks, though they either weren't successful or weren't well-designed. Bloom, of course, was around, as was Fish, but not 5CU or Sliver decks - and the latter I had expected, given their recent strong showing in the French Nationals. This report is starting to get long, so I will end with a question to someone more personally familiar with the PT circuit than me: does Mike Long *always* act like he did during the elimination rounds of the U.S. Nationals? If so, then I can see why he is so respected for his playing skills and so despised for his game personality. If that's the kind of mind games he likes to play, then I'm glad I've never had a chance to play him. - The "Big T" DISCLAIMER (short version): Remember, these are only *my* opinions, observations, and interpretations, except for the factual breakdowns. If you disagree with anything, write your own report and explain it YOUR way! Prove me wrong if I am! Otherwise, don't bother me with complaints.