Subject: All Good things are three... 3 PTQ Reports Date: Mon, 19 Jan 98 19:38:21 +0100 From: "Daniel Brickwell" To: Hi, are you ready for a small trip through Germany? We are going to visit three Qualifiers, so you are going to get 3 decks (well variations of one deck really) and three Top 8 and all of that in one report. Not a bad deal, eh? First Stop: PTQ Dietzenbach 20.12. It is probably fitting in a three qualifier report to start with the third qualifier I attended. The first two took place in Mainz during the Pro Tour. There I finished in the Top 8 with Tongo on the first day, only to lose to a Virginian who was playing an anti-Tongo Weenie, not very surprising considering that Charlottesville, the Home of Tongo Nation is in Virginia. I lost the quarterfinals because I drew no White mana in the second game for like 14 Turns, which led my opponent to believe that I was playing U/R... I lose with 2 Tithe a Gerrads Wisdom and a Sword on my hand... (you can look up R. Ralstens Report (12/6) on the Dojo). His semi-final opponent ends up so mana-screwed that he also thinks that he is playing U/R even though his opponent Kai Lange is playing U/B/R/W (Sedge Trolls, Hymns, Tithe, Burn...). On the next day I played the Anti-Tongo Weenie, but without the powers of manascrew on my side I go 1:2 and drop.... So Dietzenbach is my third try. I still belive in the Tongo deck, but Dietzenbach is near Frankfurt and I always play Necro in Frankfurt. Infact I qualified for two Pro Tours with Necro in Frankfurt (PT Columbus and PT Paris). In preperation I look at the control necro played by Ryan Fuller in GPSF and the Bottle Gnome Necro in the Decks to Beat... I decide to play mono-black Necro (as always) but with Bottle Gnomes. In a Weenie Burn enviroment they are just perfect for Necro... I am lucky that my sister is performing in Mannheim on the 21st of Dezember as I can fly with my parents to Frankfurt on the 20th, rent a car and play in the qualifier and still not miss the concert on the next day. I am unlucky because my plane is 25 minutes late. Ofcourse, I then take a wrong turn on the Autobahn and lose another 20-30 minutes... I arrive 20 minutes after the first round has started and receive an automatic first round loss. Ouch! Another car with several very good Cologne players is also late and they share my fate... This is the deck list I turn in: 4 Bottle Gnomes 4 Black Knights 2 Bone Dancer (Hi Jamie!) 1 Ishan Shade 3 Disks 4 Hymn 2 Demonic Consultation 3 Necro 4 Drain 2 Spinning Darkness 2 Contagion 2 Lakes 4 Dark Ritual 4 Mishras 3 Wastelands 17 Swamps ---- 61 cards Sideboard: 1 Dread of (K)Night 1 Perish 3 Dystopia 3 Gloom 2 Soul Burn 1 Disk 1 Nekrataal 1 Wasteland 2 Choking Sands I win the second round against Propaganda Orb Deck mainly through Drain Life and by being ruthless. For instance, in the second game my opponent puts out a tapped Keldjoran Outpost (he thought he was playing a Glacier of course...) I let him bury the Outpots because he has no plains in play... Then he wants to play an Island... I have to tell him that he already played a land this turn... I hate being this way, but I do want to go to L.A... I win in three because of his mistakes and because the Glooms let my Disks live long enough... Third round I am paired with Kai Budde of the infamous Cologne Conjurors Club, one of the best players in Germany. He has a loss because he arrived late like me.... He is playing a White Cursed Scroll Weenie with Land Tax... Because we are friends and correspond via e-mail we play 7 games. I win 4:3... too bad I lost the first three 1:2! :( I could drop now, but I have nothing else to do and play the next rounds... Fourth round I play against a strange Weenie Burn Deck with 1 Wildfire, 1 Juggernaut, 1 Ball Lightning and 4 Savannah Lions... I lose 1:2 basically because he top decks me to death... No I am in the Jungle part of the tournament with an official record of 1:3 I play against a Furnace of Ratzh Burn Deck, 2:0, a Goblin Granade Fork Deck, which doesn't double Fork my Hymn back to myself to find out that you can't Fork a Goblin Granade which is in the Graveyard..., 2:0 and a Protection from Black White Weenie which dies to Gloom in Game 3.... So I end up 4:2 (or 4:3 if you count the automatic game loss...) Oh Yeah, I promised you the Top 8: They were one Tongo Deck played by Gregor Wollney, probably the best german Type II player right now, two Black scroll Weenie played by Kai Lange and Thorsten Felrentz (it was Thorsten third top 8 in extended in three qualifiers...), one white scroll weenie played by Dirk Roth, an atomic Bombardment Deck played by Marcel Baran and a strange U/R/W Janosh--Tongo Beatdown Deck played by a friend of Marcel Barans, a Vineyard Deck and one other deck. You can look up the deck listings in the report by M. Wagner (12/21) on the dojo. Things I found out: Sorry Jamie, but Bone Dancers are not good enough, but they are great fun cards... Spinning Darkness is good .... really really good, infact its great! especially in mono-black Necro. Two are just right though, as you can't target black creatures or Protection from White... but against Mishras or Ball Lightnings... much better than contagion and I can almost always cast them for 0! Bottle Gnomes are great against Sligh, but against some decks they just don't provide enough beatdown... I need 3 Consultations in the deck even though I hate the random factor of the card... Three Wastelands is the right number standard as you can't use more than one against a lot of the weenie decks with a lot of basic lands... With this in mind I headed to Bremen.... Second Stop PTQ Bremen: This is the Necro I used in Bremen. Basically I threw out the Black Knights for Steel Golems to have better beatdown and added 4 Choking Sands maindeck for better Disruption... I also put in a second Ishan and a Sengir. 17 Swamps 3 Wasteland 4 Mishra 3 Dark Ritual 3 Lake of the Dead --- 30 3 Disk 3 Necro 3 Consult 4 Drain 3 Steel Golems 2 Ishans 1 Sengir 2 Contagion 2 Spinning Darkness 4 Hymn 4 Choking Sands --- 61 cards Sideboard: 3 Dystopia 3 Gloom 3 Bottle Gnome 1 Nekrataal 2 Soul Burn 1 Disk 2 Perish Well I win round 1 against the strangest W/R deck I met in a while. He stopped my Ishan Shade with a Wall of Heat and he neutralized by Gloom with Basalt Monolith... ;) He was also playing lots of Eye for an Eye, Reverse Damage, Honerable Passage and Scars of the Veteran plus Burn... Round 2 I meet Thorsten Menke from Dortmund with a Forsaken Sligh Deck. I lose the first game with one swamp in play... but it was quite a battle. I ritual out a Steel Golem, he puts out 1 Mishra and an Ironclaw Orc. I attack, because I know he is just going to bolt the Steel Golem. He counter attacks and plays more Mishras... Ouch. After he bolts me twice my Steel Golem starts to block Mishras. He always attacks with two and strengthens the one I don't block.. by now he has put down his fourth Mishra! My Steel Golem kills 2 Mishras. Next round I Spinning Darkness the third one because I have finally discarded enough black cards to pay for it and kill the Ironclaw Orc via Steel Golem. Then I draw a Wasteland to kill the fourth Mishra... Now he has only two mountains in play and a Goblin. I have the heroic Steel Golem, which has killed 2 Mishras and a Iron Claw Orc after dealing 6 damage, and still 1 Swamp and more importantly only three life.. He draws an Incinerate... In the second game I consult away 40 cards while looking for a Contagion. I had no choice though as you want to stop a Ball Lightning and a Goblin Vandal at 13 Life... I have 8 cards remaining in the Libary among them 3 Swamps 1 Ishan, 1 Sengir and a Steel Golem and the second contagion ofcourse I have a Lake out and two Drains in hand... I draw the Steel Golem.... stupidly, stupidly I decide to wait a round to see if I draw Sengir or Ishan instead of playing it, then I wait another two rounds, then it is too late. Sengir and Ishan are ofcourse the last two cards, with 6-9 damage via Steel Golem and two Drains via Lake I could have won... I lose because I didn't play the Steel Golem, how ironic! Round 3 I play against Ulrike Haustein, the only german female Pro Tour Player sofar, though I have high hopes for my team mate Claudia Loroff... She is playing a strange Deck with 4 White Knights, 4 Black Knights, 4 Hymn!, 4 Sedge Trolls, 4 Soltari Priests, 4 Cursed Scrols, 6 Bolts, 1 Fireball 17 colored land 4 Tithe and 4 Mishras... I lose the first game to White Knights. The second I win via Lake Drain... In the third game she top decks in a row mind you! Hymn, Hymn, Cursed Scroll, Fireball. She needed all 4 cards to win... :( I am 1:2 again! I decide to keep playing again. Rounds 3, 4 and 5 I win easily... Round 5 I get paired against Gunnar Refsdahl who is playing Norwegian Wood a mono-green deck developed by his Brother for Pro Tour Chicago. Thomas made top 32 with the deck and Gunnar used it to qualify for L.A. in Mainz on the first day.. now he wants to win the flight... He is standing 3:1:1 I am standing 3:2. I almost concede to him but then I see that both Ulrike and Thomas my two losses are playing at Table 1. It seems that I have great resistence working for me and there is a chance that a 5:2 could make it in... so I play. Well I have Hymns, I have Perish, I have Contagion, Spinning Darkness, Dystopia, Nekrataal... I win 3:0... Round 6: I get paired against another Necro but with Red and Infernal Tribute and more Weenies... I crush him 2:0 wvwn though he goes into Necro twice in the second game... 6 Drains is soo much better than 4 in Necro against Necro... The Infernal Tribute worked astoundingly well in the deck something to consider... Round 7: I get paired down and crush an oldfashioned U/R/W Deck the old style, aou die with zero permanents in play or hand.... except 1-2 land.... I end up 5:2 and 12th. It appears that 3 Friends cruised through the swiss and all made Top 8 intentional drawing against each other in the last 2 rounds thus eliminating my slim chance at a Top 8... I know one of them. It is Gero Meier from the Argentinian National Team. Gero is really German but lives in Argentinia. We met at Worlds. He was just vacationing in Germany near Frankfurt. The night before he and two friends had just returned from a Magic Tournament. When one of them suggested attending the PTQ in Bremen a lousy 350 miles away. The others told him that he was crazy because it was already 11 p.m. but they went anyway. Two of them played Fruity Pebbles, one a Black red Scroll Weenie with a dash of green... The Top 8 are: Quarterfinalists: Ulrike Haustein (deck as described above...) loses to Norwegian Wood played by a friend of Gunnars Marco Blume. Gero Maier (Fruity Pebbles as played by Marcel Baran in the PTQ Dietzenbach) loses to an American with a Armerican Nationals T-shirt playing Black/Red Scroll Weenie with Green for Uktabi Orangutans. A 14 yaer old kid who won the swiss with Texaco Sligh loses to the other Fruity Pebbles (also a copy of Barans Deck). A strange mixture of 5CG and Tongo wins against a R/G Deck. Semifinals: Marco Blume Norwegian Wood loses against the B/r/g Deck. 5CG-Tongo- wins against Fruity Pebbles. Things I learned that time: I definitely need a third Contagion in the deck. You can still Lake Drain if you are careful with your Mishras and only let them be Wasted but not Bolted... Perish is good against Green but Nekrataal is almost as good and works against other decks too (unless you meet Jolraels and Whirlings) You can play with more creatures and Steel Golems than I thought... Third Stop: PTQ Braunschweig: The day before Braunschweig I caved in and built a Fruity Pebbles deck. I mean how come only a few players play it and it always lands in the Top 8? I traded for the last cards on Friday and played it in a sanctioned tournament the same day... I went 6:0, 12:1 and I always finished my rounds early. I never had such a relaxing tournament win.... So I go to Braunschweig and turn in a Fruity Pebbles Deck List... Then I sit there and brood. I want to play Necro. Necro beats Fruity Pebbles, Necro beats Green... Then I remember that I forgot to put my name on my Fruity Pebbles Deck List. It must have been my subconscious working for me. I write down a Necro Deck list. Ask for my deck list back as it has no name and give them my Necro deck list... Whew. A few seconds later I am brooding again... I am crazy, how can I play Necro and not the deck I went 6:0, 12: 1 with just yesterday... My team mates tell me to chill and construct a small sign with my I am crazy Slogan to hang around my neck... This is the deck I turned in finally: 3 Necro 3 Consult (I hate this card, but I admit it's strength.) 4 Drain 3 Disk 4 Hymn 3 Steel Golems (should be 4!) 2 Bottle Gnomes (I hate stupid Burn decks...) 2 Ishan Shade 1 Sengir Vampire 3 Contagion (I went up 1) 2 Spinning Darkness 2 Lake 4 Dark Ritual (I don't like these either but Extended is fast!) 4 Mishra 3 Wastelands 17 Swamps I took out the 4 Choking Sands for 2 Bottle Gnomes and a Contagion and went down to 60 cards. I also put out a Lake for a Dark Ritual for early speed. Sideboard: 2 Perish 2 Nekrataal 3 Dystopia 3 Gloom (Sooo Good!) 2 Soul Burn 3 Choking Sands I am pretty happy with this sideboard. It should probably contain a 4th Disk against Pebbles and a Wasteland but otherwise it is tried and true. Round 1: U/R/W Game 1 I win, Game 2 I lose because he has 2 Forces and a Counterspell early which gets him into Hammerrecursion... Game 3 comes down to the wire, but I kill him with a consulted Choking Sand 10 seconds before time out with only 9 cards in my Libary (Choking Sands was my last card, I had Necro out, but not one more turn to kill him with my Steel Golem and Sengir...) 1:0 matches 2:1 games Round 2: Martin Valkyser G/W/R/U Good Thingy He draws no Geddons in both games. Thats game... 2:0 matches 4:1 games Round 3: Boris Buschardt (Team High Way To Hell, i.e. my Team Mono-white Prison, with after sideboarding 4 Auras 2 Artgivian Find, 4 Disenchant, 2 Enlightened Tutor...) I lose 0:2 running into an anti-Pebbles sideboard with Artefact Necro is no fun... I had a first round Gloom, second round Hymn third round Necro against Mono-white Prison and I lost.... Stupid Winter Orbs... 2:1 matches 4:3 games Round 4: Mical Srba (from the Czech Republic, I think he was on the national team, but I am not sure, Jakub Slemr was also there btw.) modified Finkel Prison with Lobotomy in the Sideboard and Scroll racks instead of Sylvans... Game 1: Scroll Rack is soo much stronger than Sylvan... I have no chance... Game 2: I Gloom, he puts out Diamonds to get out of Gloom, I waste one land or two, then I put out a Disk... When he finally gets rid of the Disk, I blow up the world, reduce him to two lands, put out a Shade and Choke a land... Game... Game 3: See game 2. Gloom Disk is such a good combo against Prison!!! 3:1 matches 6:4 games Round 5: Sorry I dont remember this match. It was a 2:0 win though... 4:1 matches 8:4 games Round 6: Christian Luehrs from Hamburg, a friend of Gunnars, B/R/u Earthquakes, Sedge Trolls, Bolts, Hymns, Disks, Phanatasmal Fiends, Stupors, Dance of The Dead Game 1: He starts with a Bad River, then he discards, I put out a Steel Golem, and then a Wastelands, he has still not dran land and concedes... Game 2: He stupors me twice. I go into Necro... He aggravates me with Sedge Trolls but, I sacrifice block with Mishras while my Sengir flies to victory, Close game though, Spinning Darkness made the difference together with a Bottle Gnome. 5:1 matches 10:4 games Round 7: I intentional draw with Andreas Schroudt playing U/R/w Counter Hammer 5:1:1 matches I am 4th seed!!! The Top 8 are: 1st and second Dirk Baberowski and Kai Budde with a Trippy Fruity Pebbles (a much stronger version of the deck I wanted to play...) 3. Andreas Schroudt U/R/w Counter Hammer 4. me with mono-black Necro 5. Christian Lührs, 3CB Good Stuff 6. ??? , I think R/W Land Tax Burn... 7. Martin Valkyser (my second round opponent, W/G/R/U Good Thingy Geddon) 8. Michael Nessler Mono-white Weenie with Crusades! I am really really scared of Dirks and Kais Decks, their Fruity Pebbles deck with Cantrips is a reason to ban Enduring renewal in Extended and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. In a really strong extended field they cruised through, intentional drawing only against each other... I thought the old version was so broken that I intended to play it even after I swore off combo decks after PT Paris. The new version is just ridiculous... Quarterfinals: Dirk and Kai both win 2:0 ofcourse... I win against Christian Luehrs again, 2:0 again, he is manascrewed in one game again (well I helped a little...). Andreas Schroudt wins against Land Tax Burn. Semi-finals: I have to play against Kai. Kai and I correspond via E-mail so he knows that my Necro relies on Gloom to crusch Pebbles after Sideboarding, so he put Slights in his Sideboard... He also has Disrupts there and I no longer have a 4th Disk in the Side... Game 1: Disk gets Denialed, Necro gets Countered, 2nd Disk goes through, 2nd Necro goes through, He dies to a Bottle Gnome and a Steel Golem having Drawn only land, basically.... Game 2: I announce a consult, he announces a rules question... Ofcourse it is if he can decide to Counter the spell before I announce the target or not... I Consult for Hymn, he doesn't counter. I draw a Mishra. I have to decide, should I put out my Mishra and Hymn him 3rd turn instead of second turn, because he has a Disrupt or was the whole thing a bluff. I think its a bluff, because Kai probably knows he can wait until the target of the consultation is announced before countering... I put down a swamp and Hymn and say: "Draw target Disrupt!". He disrupts! Innerly I cry "Fuck!", but I remain calm and put out a Gloom next turn, before it his turn he has slighted it to black! Again I remain calm and tell him that a black Gloom is not that bad against an artfact deck and put out a Disk. He Intuitions for 2 Auras of Silence and an Argivian Find and kills the disk... I put out my second disk, a second Mishra, a third mishra and commence the Artefact beatdown.... I never have to blow the disk as he only draws Cantrips.... I win! Better Lucky than Good!!! Andreas Schroudt qualifies against Dirk, because Dirk gets a warning and a game loss after the first game for not desideboarding completely... Thus both Fruity Pebbles are knocked out. Going To L.A Baby... My third Pro Tour for which I qualified with Mono-black Necro! Friendly Greetings and Good Luck to everyone who still needs to qualify! Daniel