Sean McKeown NYC Pro Tour NY Qualifier, 3-7-98 Well. This weekend was one of the most discouraging in my M:tG career so far, going 2-3 before dropping out of the tourney with _the_ _deck_ _from_ _ass_. As usual, I get a decent amount of sleep the night before, and eat some breakfast cereal as my one meal for the day :o). I show up at Neutral around 9:30, and just piddle around trading with little kids and watching a few games of Othello without enough pieces to finish the game ;)... I finish my Beefcake! Sligh deck just before I decide I hate it, and graciously offer my bag of glass counters so the duo can finish their games, seeing as I had nothing better to do than watch while waiting for the deck registration. Finally, at around 11:00 I think, we start deck-reg... I get a nice enough deck, although I didn't think much of it at the time. Solid cards, removal, Fury, Thunder, Anoint, and a decent supply of creatures... a little weak on the Shadow and Flying, but I feel I could have made a nice R/W/G deck from the pieces. I don't particularly want it back, but I feel I can definitely do worse than to get it back... I do. My, do I ever! Here's what I ended up playing, by no fault of my own... this deck was the Sealed Deck From Ass + 1x Cursed Scroll, further proof that the Scroll will not win you PTQ's single-handedly. I didn't make a list, this is from memory as best as I can: 2x Metallic Sliver 1x Clot Sliver 2x Pit Imp 1x Bellowing Fiends 1x Marsh Lurker 1x Dauthi Horror 2x Mogg Fanatic 1x Fireslinger 1x Wall of Diffusion 1x Giant Crab 1x Wind Drake 2x Rootwater Hunter 1x Counterspell 1x Propaganda 1x Endless Scream 1x Cursed Scroll 1x Dusturbed Burial 1x Dark Banishing 9x Swamps 5x Islands 4x Mountains I'm forgetting some lame-assed Black creature, but I don't remember what they were. I had an Evincar's Justice in the card pool as well, but didn't use it for obvious reasons. And if you're doubting my sealed-deck skills, gentle reader, rest assured that YES THE DECK WAS *THAT* BAD. The main problem was that there was only one really decent color, the Black. Blue had a bit of control, such as Gaseous Forms, Tims, the Counter... Red had what I used and some janky spells or creatures, nothing usable except for the 4 I splashed. White had as little, the best cards were the ones I sideboarded in in 4 of my 5 matches: Angelic Protector, Elite Javelineers, and some CoP's, especially Red/Green/Shadow. The creatures sucked ass, I mean my White shadowers were a pair of Foot Soldiers, and my White beef was those two...the rest were Pegasi or something, plus Field of Souls and a Pearl Medallion. The Green had usable stuff, even a bit of beef in Charging Rhinos and Trained Armodon...but a sum total of 4 usable spells, the rest were Tranquilities, Frog Tongues, Respites, and dorky pointless 1/1 critters. Sorry for not knowing any names of my opponents, but for obvious reasons I didn't plan on writing a tourney report (and I still don't know why I'm bothering :o)... First match I get paired up against, ironically, the guy who registered the deck. After our three games, I tell him as much, and he felt reaaaaaally sorry for me :P Game one is soooo damned close, board control and beatdown passes from one player to the other. Unfortunately, he apparently has every card that I decided would rape the deck the worst...at least once! He's got 1 Justice, 1 Torture Chamber, !2! Rolling Thunders. Lucky bastid, after passing me this piece of turd... He wins a very close race on two life, killing me before I can get a chance to squeak the last few points in with a Drake or Imp or something. It was all about the Wrath of Thunder killing every damned critter I played (had 5 or so), TWICE, and him swinging the life totals from like 18-5 to 3-2 within ~2 turns. Needless to say, it was all decided by his Enfeebling my Dauthi a couple turns after I played Endless Scream! to make it 4/1 unblockable:White. As if that would be a bitch to kill... but that's the way the deck does beat-down. I sideboard White in for Red...CoP's, Protector, Javelineer. I consider between Talon Sliver and Coercion, and put the Coercion in instead (had another) because he can assram me so effectively (a common trend for the day). I get in an early manascrew (strong!) but so does he, and I proceed to lay both CoP's and some Blue spells off my Islands and Plainses. Eventually I get some swamps, and begin the mighty Pit Imp Beatdown. Sadly enough, for him, the game ends with me able to recursively kill his Flying creatures by Burialing back the Protector, and serving up with the Protector to put him at 3. Every turn, carefully managing my mana to prevent losing terribly to his herd of nasty nonflying Red and Green creatures, the best of which at the time was his ?7/8? Dirtcowl Wurm. I luckily Coerce the Justice from his hand (he was waiting to buy it back...) and manage to squeak in a win when he has a Patchwork Gnomes as his lone attacker that matters, and I have a Bellowing Fiend to block it with :o) I lose terribly game 3, as he plays a Torture Chamber against me on turn 3. I play tricks to try and keep the board clear, and had him down to 10 from his own Chamber, when he was finally able to keep stuff on the board and continue killing me, and using the Chamber painlessly. Matches: 0-1-0 Games: 1-2 Well, at least it was down to the wire...I know then that every game is going to be a struggle, no matter HOW many Tims I have. Second match is against yet another opponent playing R/G/x, I think it was Black this time too. I win two moderately quickly against him, starting the first game with the almighty combination of _METALLIC SLIVER BEATDOWN_ and _PIT IMP BEATDOWN_ early and often, quickly drawing a few less sucky-assed creatures and getting Disturbed Burial working. The game was all about serving with the _PIT IMP BEATDOWN_ while holding off his attackers with the trio of Slivers. Second game, I work the early beatdown a bit, Banish something not-nice, and play a Javelineers (I did the switch, R to W, again). Board control = his Lowland Giant sits there because of my Giant Crab, serve the beats with a Pit Imp and Wind Drake. God, that must have been embarrasing for him. His deck was obviously better than mine :o) Hell, every deck here is probably better than mine, it's 40 janky cards and a Cursed Scroll. And I don't even remember why I went up to 18 Lands, since all my deck is cheap, weak-assed creatures. Matches: 1-1-0 Games: 3-2 Third match is against another inconspicuous opponent, a nice enough guy, again playing R/G/x although I think it was Blue this time...I'm only mentioning because every time I saw R/G/x I sided White in for Red, pulling those specific 2 CoP's. He serves up a bit of a beating game one, as I am mildly colorscrewed. I play early Propaganda, early Wall of Diffusion to slow it down, and eventually draw some Black mana around turn 5 or so. I play Pit Imps to start the _Pit Imp Beatdown_. I lose this game horribly because my creatures just suck sooooo badly...and my only removal is a Banishing. I had something vaguely along the lines of board control, and I'm pretty sure I played both Tim!'s this time, and he does something like Lightning Blasting them... but I just can't hit him hard enough, fast enough. I Burial one back, but like Ash says, "All you've got is Jack and Shit, and Jack left town". Game two, I draw all White and Blue spells and lands, but eventually end up with a hand of cards I can't play to help stop the bleeding. Lose horribly to a good old fashioned ass-ramming. But I'm not bitter :o) Matches: 1-2-0 Games: 3-4 Fourth match is against a soft-spoken black gentleman, and I am so far down in scrubsville that I don't expect to have the vaguest of notions as to who I am playing. He wasn't playing Green, so I didn't do the transformational SB trick, because it's just not worth it for one damn CoP. First game is silly, I mean _PIT IMP BEATDOWN_ plus _ROOTWATER TIM BEATDOWN_ for like 14 points finished the game as we both drew nothing but Lands, with a deadlocked ground crew thanx to Clot Sliver and some Metallic buddies preventing sucessful attacks, and Propaganda discouraging him for some reason :o) Game two is likewise silly, I start of with an early manascrew (strong!!) but even that doesn't really matter, as I am playing such sucky low-CC creatures anyway. Two Metallics in two turns, forcing him to use his early Fanatic to block one, ping one before I had a chance to pull the same nasty regenerating-fruity-assed-creatures trick to deadlock him. I'm laughin' as I play a Rootwater Tim! next turn, and somehow deadlock the game again...I think it was a lucky Banishing this time. I get da Scroll, and have two cards in hand as I am waiting to finally hit five mana: Bellowing Fiends and Giant Crabs, the FATTEST creatures in the deck (how pitiful, I know, I was there.). The Scroll just don' wan' t'work, as I try three times with the same damn two cards, and he wins each time on a 50/50 chance. He Shatters the thing (WTF?) and soon enough I serve up Da Beats with not Pit Imps but the Fiend and Wind Drake. My opponents must hate me with a passion for winning with such a piece of turd. Note: Have not dealt any damage at all with Cursed Scroll so far in the tournament. Matches: 2-2-0 Games: 5-4 I meet up with Geoff Allen again, sayin' "Keep the hope alive!" a la 'Iron Mike'...he's amazed that I'm not 0-4 with this piece of shit. He's playing Necro in the JSS (wasn't everyone?), and of all the silly things you'll see at a sanctioned tourney, they are playing 3 rounds, break to a Top 8, for SEEDINGS ONLY...there are exactly 8 players playing in his division. I just give a quick ?WTF?, and go back to my corner, knowing it won't be long now before I lose another match and can go home already ;) I didn't come to *play*, I came to *win*...but there wasn't a chance in hell as soon as I saw what I could make from this deck. I tell myself, at least I am working out the BAD MOJO here at the one-slotter, rather than training down to Cherry Hill in two weeks to get the deck from ass at a 4-slotter... because if I can't qualify *there*, I probably won't qualify at all, and I know I should be able to break top 8 with a decent sealed deck. This was not even close to a decent sealed deck. Match five, versus the 14-year-old scrub who was only 2-2 because he got one Bye and played an even younger scrub, the only remaining 0-3 player, the round before. Damn, was this humiliating. If you enjoy my suffering, fair reader, read on... Game one I come out of the gates early on with some decent creatures and the Slivers. Start good old fashioned _PIT IMP BEATDOWN_, before he gets something to kill it..Fanatic, I think. I banish his Rootwalla so I can get some attacking in, as that damn thing kills every creature I own, even in my sideboard :P He plays Apes of Wrath! and doesn't take terribly long to kill me, what with the best I can do being _PIT IMP BLOCKAGE_ thanx to the Burial, and I don't even have the mana for that (can't pay the buyback costs). Red becomes White for the CoP's, and once again I die to the Apes of Wrath as I draw Jack and Shit, and once again Jack decided to leave town. Lose the MOST humiliating game of my life, with the CoP Green being 3 cards away in my library (I chose to draw, too..). A wise man once said, "You know your deck sucks sour ass when you lose to a 14-year-old who can barely play Magic: the Gathering... or perhaps it's not your deck's fault..." Gentle reader, I dare you to tell me you could have done any better with the deck I was given. And Zvi, I don't even want to hear about it ;) Only one props: Barak (sp?), the coooool Turkish guy who built his deck to me... you're a great guy, terribly amusing... hope you did well, even though when last I checked you were 4-0-0. Only one slops: THE DECK (but you knew that, didn't you.) Damn, you sucked. Geddoudaheah. Hope to see y'all at the Cherry Hill, NJ PTQ on the 21st, it's a 4-slotter... I'll be there, DOING my best (there is no try :o) with whatever I get...and it can't be worse than this. Keep The Dream Alive! --Sean McKeown --Gandalf@BDominia.com "Are all men from the future such loud-mouthed braggarts?" "Nope, just me baby... Just me."--====================987654321_0==_ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"