Subject: tournament report From: Tim Alderete Date: Fri May 30 17:40:12 1997 My name is Eleanor Laws. I attended a local tournament this last weekend, and I always enjoy the tournament reports, so I thought that I would post my own. It was not sanctioned, but a Type II with Fifth Edition with about 40 people, six rounds of prelims and breaking to Quarterfinals. First prize was a box of Visions. A two part tournament report. This first part is about the Deck. First of all - I borrowed it from a friend - I am also borrowing his Email account right now, because I am not on Strategy-L for a few months. Mono black Pox/Weenie deck. I had seen him play it a number of times, so I was pretty familiar with it. I wanted to make a few changes, which Tim and I argued about, but didn't have any of my own cards with me, and ended up just playing it straight. A Deck Listing: 4 Black Knights 4 Knights of Stromgald 3 Crypt Rats 3 Nekrataals 2 Broods of Cockroaches 2 Necromancies 4 Poxes 1 Drain Life 1 Death Watch 2 Inernal Harvests 2 Contagions 1 Terror 1 Kaveak's Spite 1 Desolation 2 Coercions 2 Stupors 4 Dark Rituals 1 Sheltered Valley 1 Lake of the Dead 4 Ebon Strongholds 16 Swamps Side board: (I don't remember for sure) 2 Kaveak's Hex (the 1 Damage to all non-black/2 to Green creatures card) 3 Nev's Disk 3 Dystopia 4 Mindstab thrulls (against ProsBloom) 3 Unholy Strengths (against Black Weenies) My first reaction was that this would fare poorly against White Weenies, which I thought would be prevalent at the tournament. In fact, any weenie deck that got off to a quick start seemed to be a problem - and it looked like total death against a Sligh deck with direct damage. I wish that I had my own cards with me, but oh well. The point of the deck is to survive in a Pox environment and do Twenty quick points of damage. Strong black weenies, a bit of recursion, some Hand Destruction to accentuate the Pox, and Direct damage as a finisher. The Spite and Drain Life are obvious for DD, but mostly the Rats did this for me - expecially when people would forget that they can do this tapped. After talking to my friend, he convinced me that we were fine with White, as there are enough protection from White Creatures and the Pox/Spite are non-COPable. I wanted to splash in either green or white for Disenchant/Charm/Tranquil Domains, but Tim was using the COBs and UPs in his deck (Blue Flyers with Armageddon - I was confused by it - Counters and Armageddon?? He is a confused lad.) The tournament was fun but long, and started too early for it to be that long - but I guess that is like complaining about the weather - get used to it. They did, however, not have enough chairs which was pretty annoying - they gave me a bucket to sit on at one point - I stood instead, and my opponent thought that I was trying to see his cards - some people need to chill out. First Round: Paul, playing a mono-Big Blue Flyers/Counters Just too slow for my deck. The first game ended in six turns on Knights and Orders that came out too fast to counter, and on a Desolation that prevented him from countering things, as he did not want to lose one of his only three Islands. The second game was closer, after he sided in Nev's Disks to Phase/Disk with Vaporous/Rainbows that were in the main deck. I Poxed right after he laid it, figuring that he was tapped and that my creatures were going away anyway - it would have been good for me if he had Force of Willed it though, as that got used on the Spite I cast After the Disk, again figuring that most of my stuff was gone anyway, and he was at Five. He got out a Rainbow after that, and I drew a Contagion that I did not have the mana to cast nor a Black spell to pitch for three more turns (Lands, including a Lake). But eventually I managed to get out Rats after he uses his counter on a Black Knight, and dies to the Ratbomb. I should have won earlier, as I should have put in the Unholies to do earlier damage - I am a poor sideboarder. Third game (win points count - you play all three) was a kill - Pox and Hand Destruction. Win with Knights. Again by turn seven. 3-0 games 1-0 matches Second Round: Maria - W/G/r Maro/Haups/Geddon/Goyles She tried to do too much and ended up color screwed in the first two games. Incinerates slowed down the Orders for awhile, but I was able to control the mass destruction with Poxes being faster than Haups/Geddon. She made a mistake when I Poxed second game when she had a Q.Ranger and a Maro, three lands and Five cards - she Rangered a land into hand, lost a land down to one, still lost two cards from hand - one of which she chose to be the forest, and the Ranger. Maro was Nekrataaled soon. She thought that Pox rounded down, not up. Third game was closer, as I was down to Five from a W.Dervish - fortunately it was Dystopiad, and I recovered quick enough to win, (Poxing down to three life when your opponent plays Incinerates was a mistake pointed out to me; fortunately she did not get one. My friend told me to Pox early and often - perhaps this was not one of those instances.) 6-0 Games 2-0 matches Third Round: Julie - White Weenie with Crusades, but no Armageddon There were only three women in the tournament - I am one of them - and I manage to hit both of them. Julie commented that that was funny too - we had a laugh or two over "male" opponents ("boys" is closer to accurate). Tim was right - this deck tore apart this White Weenie - None of the games were close. The real winners here were the Crypt Rats and the Sheltered Valley. I asked my friend why he didn't have two or three in there, and he said that one was all he had - he wanted to put in another. I made the mistake of putting in the Hexes, as She sided in more Prot. Black Knights/Orders (or maybe they were in in the first place and just didn't show up in game one or two). Game one went really fast when she could not stop an order or a knight. Game two she got out a couple of Flyers - Wild Aesthir and Freewind Falcon - and I had to wait three turns for a Crypt Rats, and she did not have any Prot Black Creatures out. Both Cockroaches were out and came back, and then a Pox/Spite ended it. Game three, she managed to get out three Prot Black creatures in turns 3 - 6, only I managed to Dystopia twice and Pox for the last one - lucky but so what. More Order damage and ends with Rats. This is a great finisher - card. 9-0 Games 3-0 Matches Fourth Round: Jeffery - Insect/Maro Geddon First of all, this is the game that they gave me the bucket to sit on. Second of all, Jeffery was a jerk - he complained that I was trying to see his cards; he would try to pay upkeep costs after drawing and would say that I was being uptight for pointing it out; he complained that my deck "should" have all sorts of other cards that he sideboarded against "I would have won if your deck was better." This was definately one of the "boys" that Julie was talking about. Good deck though - he also made good use of the Q.Rangers. Game one he won on a Dervish that I could not stop until I was at 3, then I could not get any defense cards against a River Boa - I drew a Pox when I was at one life. Not good. Second game was really close - Pox and Hand Destruction kept an Early Maro small enough for a Hex to kill it, along with an untargettable Centaur. A later Insect was killed by another Hex (Tim later said that that is why they were in there.) A Nettletooth that was Contagioned down to an 0/2 did about 6 damage to him, but that meant that I could only attack with Rats and Roaches, or the Djinn would die. I ended up having to blow up a Rat to kill another Centaur and a River Boa, and that left him at 4 and me at Six. Pox put him at two and killed his Order, but left me at four. Fortunately, Roaches come back, so I got him in two turns before he could draw any elimination. Third game - quick kill - Dystopia, Pox, Hand Destruction and Knight/Order damage. I was very glad to beat him - he was a jerk. He thought, and made clear that I should have larger creatures to reanimate after Pox (I only rarely saw Necromancy - once or twice) and less Prot White, so that he could use his Pacifisms and Exiles. 4-0 Matches 11-1 Games Round Five: Antonie - a friend - Blue Weenies-Falcons/Stasis/Counters Interesting deck. Thought that it might have been a color screwed Squandered Stasis in game one, since I saw a Stasis, a City of Brass and a UP with some early counters - turns out that he was splashing red for pyroblasts in the sideboard against other Stasis decks - metagame mistake, as there were virtually no Stasis decks to be seen. Game one was a stomp, with early hand destruction eliminating a counter and a Man-o-war (why would he Choose to discard That??!!). Black Knights and Orders, with a Drain life for three to finish. Didn't take a point of damage. I'm feeling pretty good right now - one more game, and I have a pretty good lock on reaching the Quarterfinals. Game two was going to be a draw, as I had killed his creatures and I was under stasis lock with 1/4 of my deck left and 10 minutes - he plays REALLY slowly. I would get annoyed, but he is my friend. So I conceeded to get to game three, Which I won going away - I thought that the Pox would hurt, as it was land and hand destruction, but it was the Desolation that did it - discarding a land in order to pay the Stasis REALLY messed up his deck. I think that another Desolation would be a good thing. He did get out a Sleighted Dream Tides after the Stasis was gone, but Rats Work While Tapped. I felt bad b/c this eliminated him effectively. 5-0 Matches 14-2 Games Round Six: Stephen - R/W Control - Prot Red/Black creatures This is one that I was afraid of - Stephen is a very good player and I am very vulnerable to DD. He wanted to draw, as that would guarantee a spot for both, but I was already pretty much guaranteed a spot, and my friend was a few tables away with four matches but not a lot of games, so I thought that I wanted to help him off the bubble by not helping other people. Stephen didn't like it, but understood. Didn't change anything - my friend lost and didn't clear. Game one, his weenies are much faster, and after I Pox, he Incinerates/Fireblasts me down to Three, and he still has two creatures in play. I don't draw any creature removal. So he wins. Game two is even faster - he has subbed in even more prot Black Creatures, and they come through unmolested. I only did five damage, and don't think that I stopped a single point of damage that he threw at me. Didn't even need his COP Black. The third game I win, which I hoped would make a difference in points for my friend, but didn't. I don't remember much about it and stopped taking notes. This was the only game that I got a good creature (Emissary) with the Necromancy. Being 5-1 matches and 15-4 games was good enough to reach the Quarterfinals - that meant a refund and a couple of packs at least. I was feeling MUCH better about the deck. So many people were playing White Blue and Green, and I was just much faster. The Final Eight had two Black Weenies (only mine had Pox though) A U/G Creatures & Counters deck that was being played by a VERY good player (he was borrowing as well - he eventually won - play skill IS more important than Deck Building) two decks that included U/G/W that I did not see the contents of, a Squandered Stasis, Stephen, and one Mono Red Sligh. Seven guesses which one I played. Fears were confirmed. I was slaughtered - DD to Creatures, Fireblasts/Incinerates in response to Poxes, Fast small creatures - for the third game I desperation sided out the Poxes for Thrulls to up the creature count - yeah right - one of *those* was going to get through without being incinerated or Tacticsed. My friends's response was "Yeah - that deck really does lose pretty badly to Red DD." Oh well - it was really cooking up until then. Thanks to the organizers, although get more chairs, and to my friend for a good deck. Some thoughts - Pox is Fun to play in addition to being effective. Rats are also very good cards. Spite is scary but works if timed well. And learning to time a Pox deck takes more than just watching. And buckets are a pain in the ass. Eleanor ------------------------------