Subject: New Brunswisk PTQ Report (long) Date: 2 Feb 1998 18:50:51 GMT From: altran@blue.seas.upenn.edu (Al Tran) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Near the beginning of December, I had promised Mike "Beatdown Specialist" Flores that I'd qualify with him for LA. It should be a piece of cake with five PTQs, we thought...Harrisburg, New York, Philly, D.C., & New Brunswick, ten slots all in the span of a month. Beatdown. I went to Harrisburg with a discard Necrodeck with Young "Gangsta" Lee. We both scrubbed out, although I managed to win a signed Mogg Fanatic from John Shuler, with a made-up Holy Pikula story (see rest of tourney report for a real one!). No problem, I thought, four more chances. New York came along, and I had to work. Philly came along, and I had to work. D.C. came along, and I had to work. Through all this, Team Discovery Channel managed a paltry single top 8 finish, with Mike losing to mana-screw (that's the only way people lose these days anyway, right?) in the first single-elim round of Philly. So I got home Saturday night from some crappy engagement party and gave Michael J. Flores a call at like 3:30AM. He had topped off his scrubbing out at D.C. with a friend's birthday party that made him re-evaluate his life and what place Magic had in it. But he can tell you about that. He was resting for the party, and I woke him and asked for a deck. Since he insisted on sticking with his red/blue deck, I was to play the black weenie deck (which went 4-2 in D.C. with Charles "Tuna" Hwa at the helm). In December, Team Discovery Channel (consisting of Mike "Beatdown Specialist" Flores, Charles "Tuna" Hwa, Young "Gangsta" Lee, Dan "The Man" Holzer, Jeff "BabyBlue" Wu, and myself, Al Tran) agreed on solidarity - that is, playing a single, team deck. We tried that, but we're each set in our own ways and couldn't do it. So I played black weenie and Mike played blue/red, of the Flores school, and Flores/Shuler school of Magic, respectively.... My deck Mike's deck (not an exact decklist) ============== ==================== 4 Black Knight Suq'ata Firewalkers 4 Knight of Stromgald Wildfire Emissaries 4 Order of the Ebon Hand Mad Counters 2 Barrow Ghoul Bolts 2 Nekratall Earthquakes 1 Bone Dancer Pyrokineses 1 Kaervek's Spite Control Magics 3 Demonic Consultation 3 Contagion Volcanic Islands 3 Choking Sands Islands 1 Stench of Evil Mountains 4 Cursed Scroll NO CALDERA LAKES, Fertik 4 Hymn to Tourach 4 Bad Moon Sideboard ============ 4 Wasteland Flashfires 16 Swamp Sideboard =========== 4 Stupor 3 Forsaken Wastes 2 Nevy's Disks 2 Dystopia 1 Contagion 3 Stench of Evil So much for solidarity. We set out for New Brunswick, NJ with me having one hour of sleep since Saturday and Mike with four for the whole weekend. Is that awesome stragtegy or what? We do it every time...it's Charlie's routine, for example, to stay up the whole night, watch a "life affirming movie" (kinda like "A Few Good Men" or "Glory" or something), and get sick on WaWa Orange juice the morning of the tourney. But Charlie didn't go to New Brunswick...he wanted to play L5R instead! Anyways, on to the tournament. About 80 people, with 7 rounds of Swiss. I most likely am gonna get some names and details wrong, since I doing this mostly from memory and a little from crude notes on my life totals paper... Round 1, 0 pts, Eric Zieger Eric's playing a mono-blue deck, with Waterspouts applying the main beatdown. Hymns and Choking Sands make his day unpleasant, as I see no Disrupts and go crazy with the disruption. He was mana screwed the second game, and I won the match in like 10 minutes. He's a nice guy though, and I had the pleasure of not meeting one asshole all day. Al Tran: 1-0 Mike Flores: 1-0 Round 2, 3 pts, William Walter William's playing an unusual white weenie deck, meta-gamed against red removal with a main creature base of Freewind Chickens and Soltari Priests. No Knights or Monks, and I Contagion and truck my way in with double Bad Mooned Knights the first game. I Stench of Evil him when he hits four mana, leaving him only with a Scabland. He later tells me that he was about to cast Helm of Possession. That card probably would have kicked my ass. In the second game, I'm confident that with no pro-black guys, I could cruise to an easy victory. William schools me by slapping down a Light of Day. I sit there, trying to get my hand size down to start scrolling him, but he whoops me without too much effort. Third game I side in my Disks & Dystopias. I keep him down to like 2 lands with Choking Sands, Stenches, and good ol' mana screw. I just roll. I spend the rest of the day always siding in those two cards out of paranoia of Light of Day. Al Tran: 2-0 Mike Flores: takes a loss! 1-1 Round 3, 6 pts, Dave Inddenne (I know I got this name wrong, Dave. Sorry!) Dave's a nice guy, and I beat him in such an inhumane way that I felt bad about it the rest of the day. I wasn't sure what he was playing, since in both games he got draws like Mishra's Factory, Wasteland, white dual land, white dual land. I got draws like Wasteland, Wasteland, Choking Sands, Stench of Evil, knight knight bad moon bad moon. The match lasted like five minutes. Al Tran: 3-0 Mike Flores: takes another loss! 1-2 Round 4, 9 pts, Pete Yang (with 7 pts) This was a really cool matchup. Pete was playing PropaOrb, a deck that I have no business beating in the first game. He gets mad Propagandas and Howling Mines, but no Orb, and I beat him down to 5 before he asks Gerry for some advise. Gerry tells him, "Dave, you'd be in a much better position if you were at 19 life." I say friggin' A! and time out to ask Lim-Dul, Kaevek, and Volrath for some help. Lim-Dul tells me, "I don't know much about Pete Yang, buddy, but I think you should nuke his land." So I Stench of Evil. Pete agrees with Lim-Dul, "Hmm. Good card." He never gets enough mana to Wisdom again, and he never draws his Orb. Beatings. Second game, I nuke his first 3 land, leaving him only with an Undiscovered Paradise that keeps bouncing back to his hand. He's pyroclasming and countering the whole time, and I manage to get him down to 9 before he locks me down. He manages to do this this with like three lands (one of which was an Undiscovered)...two Propagands, 1 Static Orb, and an Aura of Silence. I had a Knight on the table, and a cursed scroll. In my hand I'm holding Dystopia, a Forsaken Wastes, a Stench of Evil, and another Cursed Scroll, and I see my chance. I Stench, knocking away one land and him down to 8. I play a five-cc Dystopia ("Five mana, that's a lot for Dystopia," he jokes. How dare he mock Lim-Dul??), and before his Aura is destroyed, he nukes my Cursed Scoll. He taps out to do something, and I bust out the Forsaken Wastes. The Wastes bring him down to 2 before he drops another Aura of Silence. I'm holding five cards - two somethings, a Cursed Scroll, and two Contagions that I left in in case he wanted to do something sneaky after sideboarding (I spent the whole day sideboarding against sideboard cards). I dropped the Cursed Scroll, and scrolled him. I figured I had to kill him now or else he could Aura and drop another Propaganda, totally locking me down. So I say "Contagion," and bang. He picked it. I killed him with Contagion! Pete's a cool guy, and I had a lot of fun this round. Al Tran: 4-0 Mike Flores: keeping the dream alive at 2-2 Mike is 2-2 and determined to qualify. "I'm 2-2 but I'm gonna win the next 3 and make top 8. If you say anything otherwise I'm gonna kick you in the balls! I declare that all my opponents will be manascrewed! Bert (he calls me Bert), if I meet you, you're gonna be manascrewed too!" Through the whole day I have Dan Bridy and Kobi edging me on. Pretty funny...they kept saying, "Altran! He's going to LA!!" I just needed to win the next match and I could draw the final two rounds into the top 8. Round 5, 12 pts, James Lee Mike Flores is sitting in the corner of the room waiting for his no-show opponent. "Keeping the dream alive, baby!" Obviously his opponent-to-be heard his tirade and skipped outta town. My opponent, James is playing some version of PTJank, Spdf or whatever Mike calls it. I dunno. These games were really fast and bloody races. First game we give each other the knight beatdown, but the guys on my side are BAD! Bad Moon is so house. Second game I get the God draw of one land - Wasteland, which eventually gets Wasted away. He beats the crap out of me, and I wanna run home to my mom. Mike is watching from across the room, and yells to me, "Mana Screw is house, isn't it?" "Beatdown!" I reply. Pretty cool sittin' pretty with no permanents in play! Third game, James refuses to be return the favor and be manascrewed, so I do it for him. He gets me with early damage while I Hymn away White Knights, Choking Sands Plains, and Contagion Lions and Priests. He tithes at one land and plays them in the next two turns. I'm thinking to myself, Tithe is so cool - it gets dual lands for me to STENCH! So I stench away three lands, and it's a race between a Savannah Lion and a Frenetic Efreet and two Black Knights. I eventually draw a Contagion, and truck over and kill him when I'm at like 4 life. Beatings. James makes a good showing, finishing 5-2 but missing the top 8. Al Tran: 5-0 Mike Flores: keeping the dream alive at 3-2 Round 6, 15 pts, Bryan Manolakas A hard fought but quick battle ends up in a draw. The whole match lasted a grueling two seconds... Al Tran: 5-0-1 Mike Flores: keeping the dream alive at 4-2 Round 7, 16 pts, Andrew Rivchin I offer a draw, but he came to play! And so we play. Andrew is playing white weenie with blue rather than red. He has Man-o-Wars and Forces of Will rather than the usual assortment of lightning bolts. We trade damage until I Stench. He looks at the card, looks at his friend the KesselGimp playing next to us, and says, "Stench of Evil main deck. Not good for me." I did not lose a single game all day when I Stenched. Stench and Flashfires are so house. Second game is stupid. He gets the one Wasteland draw, and get the one Swamp draw. We both discard for like 5 turns, until I pull a second swamp and commence the beatdown. Attack for 2, attack for 4, attack for 6, attack for 9, game over. I throwing Choking Sands and Wastelands around in there too. I guess I came to play as well... Al Tran: 6-0-1 Mike Flores: Lucarello stabs the dream multiple times! 4-3 So I'm definitely in the top 8. No question....no painful waiting, blah blah blah... I'm first seed out of the swiss, and I play Scott Seville. Scott's playing an awesome deck, with Land Tax, Stormbind, Centaurs, Mana Birds, Priests, and Armageddon. I keep his land count low with the broken draw of Wasteland Wasteland Wasteland Hymn Hymn. Bad Mooned Knights finish the job. Game two, I get manascrewed and Scott gets the God draw. I pretend to be working against his Land Tax, by not dropping more than one land and discarding for 3 turns. Truth of the matter was that I only had one swamp. Bang Bang I lose. The third game was one to remember...I knock him down to 15 when he establishes total control. This is what he has on the table...two Serrated Arrows, a Stormbind, two Land Taxes, a Mana Bird, a Priest, and an Aura of Silence. I have...Swamps. I'm hoping to bleed some Arrow tokens, so I play a Barrow Ghoul, hoping to be able to later cast the 25 knights i had in my hand. I had only one creature in the graveyard, so theoretically, the Ghoul can only get one hit in. So I sac that one creature, and send in the Ghoul. Scott makes the smart play of not doing anything to the Ghoul, and takes 4 on the chin, bringing him down to 11. My Barrow Ghoul will die the next turn, so I cast a Knight of Stromgald, hoping Scott will kill it. Duh, he doesn't. He Armageddons or something, and I Contagion his Mana Bird and my Knight. Beatings. He takes a final hit from the Ghoul leaving him at 7. Okay. What the hell am I gonna do with two Arrows, a Stormbind, two Land Taxes, and Aura of Silence, and a Centaur (which he eventually puts down) on the table? I was telling the story outside in the hallway after the match and some random guys says, "So you lost, right?" He said this seriously. No joke. I said, "No, I won." Mike and I turned to each other, and yelled out "HOLY PIKULA!!!" Beatings. After Scott 'Geddons, he lays a Savannah in preparation to stormbind or Geddon later or something. I lay my swamp, and I'm looking for a way out. Meanwhile Big Tony kicks the crowd out of the room. People are saying to Mike outside, "Sorry about your friend, Mike. He had a great day, did really well, but he's gonna lose." Mike replies calmy, "No. He will win. He's gonna Choking Sands that land and Consult for Kaervek's Spite." "How many Spites in the deck??" "Just one." "Yeah right. Whatever." Someone even offered Mike a wager on it. This all happens outside in the hallway, without me knowing until after the match. Guess what I did. I laid land, let him tax, Choking Sands his Savannah bringing him down to 5, next turn, drop a fourth land, Consult for Spite. "COME TO ME, MY BURLY PROTECTOR!" Spite. I had sided out Spite in like half my matches today, but this time, for some reason, I left it in. Holy Pikula. Scott had a Swords to Plowshares in hand, but only a Centaur and Mana Bird in play. Beatdown. BEATdown. BEATDOWN. I lost in the round of four to Brian Manolakas, with whom I drew in round 6. He was playing a strange sligh, with Death Sparks, Goblin Elite Infantry, and Mogg Conscripts. First game I took control late in the game at 7 life, beating down with Knights with a Cursed Scroll as aereol backup. I was two turns away from killing him when I got double Fireblasted. Goddamn. Second game I Scroll Hymn Choking Sands Hymn and beatdown with Knights. Third game, I'm manascrewed. Friggin' A. I establish control at 3 life, knocking him down to 8. Again, two turns away from victory and I get incinerated. Oh well. I had fun, Mike had fun, and we headed back to Philly. I think we're gonna take a break from tourneys for a while. We managed a paltry single top 4 finish (me) and a top 8 finish (Mike in Philly) in the PTQs for LA. Team Discovery Channel has a ways to go, but I see success in the PTQs for NY. Sealed Deck is so house....