The Making of a Worlds Deck: Kurt Burgner’s “Night Before” & “the Deck that Resulted” By Christa Stenger Dave Price placed first at the 1998 PT Los Angeles with his surprise monored Sligh deck with the secret Giant Strength tech. Everyone was laughing about Giant Strength the first day, but the beauty of it was soon clear. Dave said that he and his teammates, Chris Pikula and Worth Wollpert, had tested the monored deck for weeks until it was a well-honed machine of destruction. That’s the right way to do it, apparently. At this year’s World Championships, however, there were very few stories of well-tested decks (CMU’s Rath Cycle deck was the only clear example) and many stories of decks thrown together at the last minute in response to the metagame rumor mill abounded. Early on, there was very little deck testing in Southern California for Rath decks, although there was a lot of Type II testing featuring Recurring Nightmare. Kurt Burgner knew he would be invited to Worlds based on Pro Tour Player points months before the event, but did absolutely no Type II or Rath decktesting prior to the event although he played in Rath Cycle drafts every weekend. In fact, the only Type II event that Kurt played in before Worlds was the weekly sanctioned Type II tournament at the Costa Mesa Women’s Club where he played his monoblack Regionals deck. He went 3-3 in the tournament. Kurt didn’t know what he was going to play in Type II and he didn’t even have a vague idea of what Rath Cycle deck he would play. After Kurt ended Day 1’s Rath Cycle draft with a 4-2-1 record, he modified his Suicide Black deck for Type II. He finished up Day 2 of Worlds with a 3-4 record. The Worlds players were milling around at the end of Day 2 discussing decks and trading ideas. The rush to build decks started soon afterwards. . . Thursday, August 13, 1998 9:00 p.m. Kurt meets up with Brian Selden, Scott Johns, Sigurd Eskeland, Alan Comer, and Sturla Bingen. Gary Wise was going to join them, but instead he went to “purchase” another deck from Team CMU (Gary went on to play CMU’s well-tested deck on Day 3 in exchange for a percentage of his Worlds winnings). They headed to their dorm room to order pizza and make decks. They took out some decks that they had brought and made other decks out of proxies. A white weenie and a monoblack Hatred deck resulted (Black Rage). They had the Team Legion black/green Living Death deck, Sigurd Eskeland had a monored deck, and Sturla Bingen had a blue/green Awakening/Capsize deck. They go to the lounge and Sturla keeps winning all the games with his Awakening deck. The other decks were 50/50 and the white weenie deck has the poorest showing. Alan and Kurt focus on the Awakening deck and start testing all the other decks against it. The Awakening deck emerges victorious. 10:45 p.m. Alan Comer decides he really likes the Awakening deck. They feel it is a solid counterspell deck with good defense. Alan goes searching for cards to make it. 11:00 p.m. Kurt builds a red deck. 11:30 p.m. Brian Selden likes the Awakening deck too. Kurt plays the red deck against it and has 50/50 success, mainly because his deck can produce a first-turn Jackal Pup and second-turn Maniacal Rage to kill the Wall of Blossoms that the Awakening deck usually produces. Scott Johns builds the Team Legion deck and Kurt plays the red deck against it, beating it 4-2. The four standard Stone Rains were key to the wins and the whole group decides that the Team Legion deck is a “pile of crap.” 11:45 p.m. Gary Wise shows up with the CMU tech and won’t tell the others what it was. Scott asks Gary for all the cards to build the Awakening deck and Gary gives them to him. Kurt solicits input on what to put in his sideboard. Gary Wise recommends Jinxed Idol/Bombardment, Spellshock, and more Rathi Dragons. Everyone else was so busy coming up with their own perfect decks that they didn’t say anything. Sometime well after 1:00 a.m. After much decktesting, Kurt decides to go with monored Sligh and heads to bed. 7:30 a.m. Kurt wakes up in the morning and realizes during his shower that he had forgotten to put Boil in the sideboard.. So here’s the deck that gave Kurt a 5-2 finishing record for Day 3: 4 Jackal Pup 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Raging Goblin 4 Mogg Flunkies 4 Fireslinger 2 Rathi Dragon 2 Giant Strength 4 Maniacal Rage 4 Shock 4 Sonic Burst 4 Stone Rain 16 Mountain 4 Wasteland Sideboard: 2 Goblin Bombardment 4 Kindle 3 Flowstone Flood 2 Spellshock 1 Rathi Dragon 3 Boils This deck was good enough to allow Kurt Burgner to finish 39th at the 1998 Magic: The Gathering World Championships and proves that last minute changes or inspirations may not be so bad. Christa Stenger Hello to Matt ?