Subject: IN State Report Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 22:44:53 -0500 From: "Tom Wethington" To: Hello Frank. This a report from the IN State Championships. I believe about 123 people showed up for the event. It was well run event and I believe everyone had a good time. The field was a lot of WW as was expected in IN, along with mono red, academy, and speed black. Interestingly enough, there were a good amount of green decks as well. I had been planning on taking counter-phoenix, but I didn’t want to play sligh all day with it. So, I took WW/r/u and was prepared to red, academy, and black. Here is the deck listing: 4x Priest 4x Monks 4x White Knights 4x Warrior En-Kor 4x Paladins 4x Disenchant 3x Incinerate 1x Earthquake 2x Mana Leaks 3x Armageddon 4x Mox Diamonds 4x COB 3x Wastelands 16x Plains SB: 4x Pyroblast 3x Meltdowns 1x Earthquake 3x Sleight of Mind 4x Pariah Please forgive me if I have forgotten your name, I did not take notes on the event. Round 1: newbie playing Pre-constructed W/B En-Kor redirection deck Game 1: This one was tough. He played more critters than I did, all with redirection or shadow. We reach a stalemate, and he plays the Spirit (the 2/2 flier redirector), and it goes all the way. Oh my God, I lost to a pre-con! Game 2: I draw better creatures than he does and its a fast kill. Game 3: See game 2 Matches 1-0 Games 2-1 Round 2: Mike Bernat, mono-red Mike is a good friend and playtester of mine. It was disappointing we had to play so early, especially because he knew I was playing WW with Pariah. Game 1: I get tons of Warriors and Priest, and Paladins, five I think. Its over in a hurry! Game 2: I get a Priest with an early Pariah. I beat him down for 3 or 4 turns until he manages to scroll it away. I disenchant the scroll and play a few Warriors and Paladins to hold off his attack. I finally get a Priest and start to attack. I am whittling him down 2 damage a turn, and all he needs to do is topdeck a burn spell and he wins. About six turns later, he dies to the Priest. Matches: 2-0 Games: 4-1 Round 3: ??????????, Playing CP Game1: I get a Priest out and beat him down with it. He plays disk, I disenchant. He makes a fatal mistake during my attack phase and taps out to capsize with buyback the Priest. I lay a Mox Diamond and a land, play Armageddon with four lands, and tap two Mox to replay the Priest, game over. Game2: I get the pro-red critters once again and commence the beatdown. I pyroblast and disenchant the right things at the right moments and cruise to victory. Matches: 3-0 Games: 6-1 Round 4: ?????????, Academy played by a good player and nice guy Game 1: I apply pressure with a couple critters while he trying to build up the combo. I don’t see any early artifacts and thought he was playing Draw-go. He is forced to go off or is dead next turn, so he timespirals and I guess just didn’t get anything because he stalled out. Game 2: I keep a one land draw just needing to draw a land to get going. I kept it because I had Meltdown and a Pyroblast, and Disenchant in hand. I don’t draw another land and he goes off easily and Fireballs me to death on turn 3. Game 3: A close game where he needs to go off soon or he’s dead. He Spirals and plays Moma and says go. In my upkeep, he taps my COB and I pyroblast the Moma with it. I attack and play Armageddon, that’s game. I threw several disenchants and pyroblast, along with one meltdown to disrupt him during the game. I passed the academy test, as well as being his only defeat in swiss. Matches: 4-0 Games: 10-2 Round 5 Theron Martin playing WW jank with TW’s Game 1: We both play first turn Monks but his gets burned. He plays Tradewind Rider with a Warrior in play and says go. I attack with the Monk and a Paladin, he blocks the Paladin and redirects the damage to the Tradewind, exactly as I wanted him to because I had another incinerate. I think the Monk goes all the way! Game 2: He double mulligans and there is no coming back from that. Matches 5-0 Games: 12-2 Intentional Draw round 6 and I am ranked first going into round 7 Intentional Draw round 7 and I am seeded 5 in the finals Top 8: 3x WW/r/u 1x Academy 1x Mono Green 1x Speed Black with Worbs 1x Wurm/geddon 1x Necro Quarterfinals: Robert Smith, Argothian Wurm, Geddon, Propaganda madness Game 1: I get out a couple of quick shadow guys to deal damage. He plays the big Wurm and I have to let it stay because I am land low. I think I get out 3 first strikers to hold off the Wurm, and the shadows go all the way. Game 2: Once again I get some quick shadows out, and he drops the early Propaganda. I pyroblast it my next turn and continue the beatdown. Next turn TradeWind with a BOP and Wall on the table spells trouble for me. I topdeck pyroblast and blast the tradewind. Next, he plays the Wurm and I sac lands a couple times to keep it off the table. A couple timely wastelands also kept him land low. Another propaganda on his part just means I have to pay four mana to attack with my shadows. He needs to draw ‘geddon in a hury but can’t do it. Bob had a solid deck that I feel lucky to beat it, especially since I saw him demolish a mono WW in round 7. Matches: 6-0-2 Semi-finals: Aaron Hunstman (sp?) playing WW/r/u jank Game 1: I mulligan and keep a 1 COB draw while he double mulligans and keeps a one mountain draw. For like 7 turns we discard, and in-between he waste my city. He finally recovers before I do and wins the race. Game 2: This game he mana-screwed but I am not. Three 2/2’s apply the beatdown while he watches. Game 3: We both have pretty good starts with some early critters. The timely play was when I played Earthquake killing all his critters and keeping two of mine (pro red). He plays more critters but so do I, and I win the race. Finals: Granger, (can’t remember last name), playing mono-green! Game1: He plays some quick elves and Mirri, while I play like four first strikers but no shadows. He gets the Scroll out but I don’t have disenchant. He destroys my critters and delivers beatdown with Mirri and Scragnoth I think. Game2: He plays first turn Vineyard while I disenchant on my second turn. I play a couple quick creatures but he has the Scroll again. I can’t draw another disenchant, and once again he beats me down with elves and Scragnoths and Armodons. Congratulations to Granger for winning the States with a mono-green deck! I am happy I placed second, and got $50 plus a box of cards. The only changes I think I would make to the deck would be remove the mana leaks from the main. I had them because they were useful to Spiral into while playing Academy. With 4 disenchant, 4 pyroblast, and 2 mana leaks, that gave me 10 cards to use right away after a Spiral. But I realized that I really did not need them to beat Academy. I would replace the leaks with Earthquake probably. Other than that, I would not change anything. Well, maybe 4 Perish in the side! J, just kidding. As far as Academy goes, I am starting to think they do not need to ban anything. I know, I know, "Blue should not be able to kill you on turn 2!". But of all the Academy decks present, one made it to the finals, and I beat that deck in swiss. I saw so many Academy players facing an opponent who would have 1 or 2 Arcane Labs in play, totally hoses the deck. Although, I did see one Academy win under the Lab by Stroking for a bunch at the end of his opponents turn, then Stroking his opponent for 50 again during his turn. The deck can be dealt with if your packing disruption, but maybe that is the problem, you HAVE to have disruption. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess. Well, I hope you enjoyed this report. Once again, sorry about the names, I will take notes next time. Tom Wethington (Corporate Tom) Team Purdue! SgtRevolver@msn.com