Subject: Oregon States WW-- Joel Allen *3rd* Date: Tue, 01 Dec 1998 00:08:15 -0800 From: Joel Allen To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Oregon States WW-- Joel Allen *3rd* Oregon State Championships was saturday the 14th in Eugene at the Ramada Inn. Hosted by Black Lotus Productions. The deck I used was a typical Protection/Kor setup, with 3 quakes and 3 Sphere of Resistance stock. The spheres were sometimes a dead card, but it was also nice having them, as you'll read later. I was figuring to see more Anti-Academy than actual academy, but wanted to be a ready for them, anyway. Here's how things went. Round 1 Vs Mono Black Discard I anticipated this being a brawl when the first swamp hit the table, but I was wrong. He hit me with an ineffective Duress off the bat, then didn't do a whole lot in his next few turns. Knights and Kor were down early, and hit him often. Cackling Fiends showed up late and couldn't defend him anyway. Game 2 was much like the first. Turns out he had Cat Burglars in there, too-- way too overcosted, as were the fiends (good lord, it's no Nekrataal, and even that wasn't used much...) I ran him down with a Paladin or two. My hand was in danger, but my opponent was worse off. 1-0 2-0. Round 2 VS Argothian Wurm/Cataclysm Geddon. A nice deck that would have been good if not for Academy and Anti-Academy in the environment. Game 1: Shadow Beatdown. He's mana screwed. I feel guilty. I drop spheres anyway. Game 2: Wurm. Cataclysm. ' Geddon. Yep, pretty sure I lost that one. Game 3: Tight. Popping his mox diamond was key, I think, as he was getting a ton of mileage out of a small red component, and my non-pro folks were the only ones out. Shadow Beatdown after a time. 2-0 4-1 Round 3 VS Tradewind/Orb This was absolutely the best tradewind deck I have ever seen. Seemed to be every color but white, but with just small pieces of Red and Black-- he was using thrull surgeons to great effect, both to power riders and to go after redblasts that I boarded in for game 2. I scared him a bit with shadow, but his lock was fast and secure. He had the big green beatdown (Trolls, Cradle Guards) in there as well. It made things quicker once he bounced my only offense-- it was nice not to have to wait around like I would have in the usual tradewind lockout. Gaea's Cradle was very effective for him game one, when I had a sphere out and him the Orb. he caught me, (never should have played the sphere, but I was up when I did) passed me, and locked me out. Sheesh. Game 2 I take out the spheres and he takes out the Orbs. A more dynamic game, but not much trouble for him 2-1 5-3 Round 4 Vs Mono Red Goblin/Scroll At this point I was looking for that metagame to kick in, as I needed to run the table to make finals. I got my wish with this guy, but he was still dangerous, and proved it. Game 1: I'm slow. I'm dead. Game 2: Shadow. Kor. No scroll? Game. Game 3: Like game 2. Paladins, too. His scroll gets Dis'ed, and I'm off to the races. 3-1 7-4 Round 5 Vs Red/Black Land destruction. This was a nice guy who looked a lot like Byers, my favorite character from the X-Files. He's in trouble from the get-go with this matchup, but he's a good player and takes game 2 *somehow*. I don't think I played poorly--his stuff just ran really well. Game 1: Black and Red? Meet the Paladin. Edict? well, here's another one... Game 2: I lose. good lord, what is happening? He even rips off 3 plains with ORCISH SETTLERS. wow. You've *got* to respect that. Game 3: Back to normalcy. I had more folk than he had removal, which was a lot. 4-1 9-5 Round 6 Vs THE ACADEMY This was a guy I had seen before-- a solid player who is a bit too attached to Fad decks. He was a prospbloom and pebbles player a few months back, if I remember correctly. Game 1: My first match against Academy begins exactly as I had hoped. Even though he goes first, my mox diamond allows me to get the first-turn sphere out. This slows him down enough to allow me to apply pressure and try for more disruption. A second sphere shows up turn 5 or so. He can't manage his mana and recursion under that kind of pressure. It's a long one, but he's done. Game 2: Now the boards have come in. In addition to my 3 spheres, I've got 4 meltdown, 3 pyros, 3 Presence of the master, and one wasteland. The sphere comes out first turn again, and on turn 4, Presence of the Master. 3-4 turns and 40 minutes later, his attempt to capsize turns into a blast/counter war that makes his hand too small to run the Mind over Matter effectively. He works really hard trying to pull it out, but can't. Final turn, He doesn't try to tap my 2 troops and hope to topdeck-- he just caves. I tell him he should have hoped for the Spiral and played it out. I hope I don't come off as rude, but he should have. Spiral is *that* good. 5-1 11-5 Whew. I'm starting to feel like I'm doing *something* right. I made the top eight, seeded third because the top table has been drawing intentionally for 2 rounds. Thrilling. QuarterFinals Vs Goblins You've got to respect this guy. It was a hellish matchup for him, but he was really good and took game 1 easily with 2 burn after I quaked away his folk. What the heck am I doing without my Geddons, anyway? Games 2-3 were Priest/Kor affairs, and his scrolls were fragile. He had me scared, though, and my 3- city of brass in first ten cards didn't help matters in games 1 and 3. Through to Semis. And what have we here--?: Semis VS THE ACADEMY This guy had just taken care of that tradewind player who handed me my lunch in round 3. Both he and my round 6 opponent mention that their decks are identical, so I'm thinking I might have another shot at winning. I was wrong. He mentions that he really respects me getting so far with WW, but I think what he really respects is my abiltiy to track his mana pool. I knew those multiplication tables would come in handy someday. Game 1: I mulligan for a bit, looking for Spheres and hoping to make Windfall less of an engine for him. It backfires as I get little land, and he starts a pseudo-lock with capsize (no kidding) and artifacts. He guns me on turn 5 or so (had some trouble setting it up, I guess) and I use the 90 card-draw to examine my deck distribution. Whew-- I need to shuffle bigtime. Game 2: The board is there, but a no show. A sphere comes down late but is immediately capsized. Draw some cards, please, joel. None left--? -- What a surprise. Well, that was good for a 3rd place tie. I went over and watched the other semi a bit-- an Academy versus another well-tuned Goblin deck. The Academy won in 3. Cy was running it, and he's usually tough enough without that kind of machine to run. Cy won the All-Academy finals. I don't know the details-- I was at a movie by then. Got 27 packs. One of the Japanese ones did contain a Mox Diamond-- that pretty neat, and enabled me to trade my English one for my first cursed scroll and a Shaman en-Kor. I was happy-- I guess it doesn't take much :) Props and Slops: *Props* to Black Lotus Productions for another well-run tourney. It's a pleasure, even if I look grumpy at the end. *Slops* to WOTC for Printing Time Spiral, Stroke of Genius, and Tolarian Academy IN THE SAME SET. This is obviously some ruse to get us to appreciate quick set rotations. :) Yeah, it can be beaten, but not very often. Necro was never that good. G/W geddon had them 50/50. *Props* (+1) to Lorna for playtesting to show me that my first deck (Green/Sphere) was trash versus black. Also for 4 cities of brass, and a Sleight for my Sideboard. Lorna kicked butt as usual, running into some serious color-hosing in the last round. (2 WWs almost made the finals! I thought that deck was weak now?!) *Props* to Cy for loaning me the 2 more sleights for the my sideboard. *Slops* to Cy for playing Academy. Looks like he breaks even. :) and *props* to Sphere of Resistance, even if it was eventually futile... well, I guess that's about it. Thanks for reading. Joel