Okay, here begins the long version. I guess it's standard these days to say something about the time leading up to the tournament, but I don't have that much to say, so I'll skip it. I got to bed at around 1 the night before, got up early and went, without having any problems on the way.
Your Move Games, my local gaming store, ran the tournament. They are a very professional crew given what they're dealing with, which is to say, they're not a big operation. Rob Dougherty, the owner, decided that in order to make the event run more smoothly, he'd separate the tournament into two sections, one for people who preregistered, and one for people who registered on-site. I preregistered. There were about two hundred people in my section, and about two hundred fifty in the other. Anyway, the section I was in ran extremely well. Registration merely involved saying who you were, getting your match recording card, and getting your Revenant. That's it. The tournament actually got started at about quarter after ten, which is amazing, compared to the start time of approximately 11:30 (I think) in the Tempest Prerelease.
Before the tournament started, I met up with my team, and I want to mention them all by name so they can get some recognition: Aaron Landry, Chris Manning, Kyle Niedzwiecki, Chase Tingley, Alex Smith, and Devin Low were the members of Team Loker in attendance. We're generally the team of Harvard Students, though there are several Harvardites we haven't inducted yet, like Wilbert Yeung, Chris Matarese, and others. Anyway, Aaron brought me a spoiler list before the tournament started, but I didn't read through it. I was busy playing my silly all-tempest deck against one of Darwin Kastle's decks; mine was a Propa-Static Orb-Maddening Imp deck with simply silly cohesion. But they told me the metagame they'd figured out - artifact and enchantment removal in Stronghold / Tempest should be very scarce, so your Artifacts and Enchantments should be pretty secure. COPs would be strong. Watch out. Favor whatever color has enchantment removal.
So, when we opened our packs, I noticed that mine was wonderful in one aspect at least - it had a Shatter, a Tranquility, and a Mind Peel, which meant it had a way to deal with Buyback, Enchantments, and Artifacts. That's very important for the sake of confidence. It had some pretty good other stuff, but I wasn't paying that much attention to it. It had 2 Bullwhips, which struck me as practically broken in Limited, but since it wasn't going to be my deck I figured I'd just write it down and be done with it.
But, luck was on my side. For the sake of convenience, they had us use the deck we opened; they didn't tell us this until we'd handed in our registration sheets. I had had a hint that it was going to work that way, since (1) they did the same thing in the Tempest prerelease, and (2) with a starter of Tempest and *3* boosters of Stronghold, the cards wouldn't fit in the starter box, which would make redistribution hell. But they still kept me guessing. Anyway, here's the full contents of my deck.
4 Plains, 5 Island, 4 Mountains, 5 Swamps, 4 Forest, 1 Thalakos Lowland 2 Bullwhip 1 Bottle Gnomes 1 Patchwork Gnomes 1 Squee's Toy, 1 Coiled Tinviper 1 Portcullis. 1 Crystalline Sliver 1 Vhati Il-Dal 1 Dauthi Trapper 1 Dauthi Mercenary 1 Dauthi Horror 1 Rats of Rath, 2 Cannibalize 1 Lab Rats 1 Disturbed Burial 1 Mind Peel 2 Foul Imp 1 Screeching Harpy 1 Death Stroke 1 Wall of Souls 1 Steal Enchantment 1 Thalakos Seer 1 Gliding Licid 1 Tidal Surge 1 Wall of Tears 1 Wind Drake 1 Spell Blast 1 Counterspell 1 Giant Crab 1 Rootwater Hunter 1 Gaseous Form 3 Contempt 1 Propoganda 1 Spindrift Drake 1 Trumpeting Armodon 1 Tranquility 2 Lowland Basilisk 2 Skyshroud Archer 1 Skyshroud Troopers 1 Overgrowth 1 Carnassid 1 Eladamri's Vineyard 1 Respite 1 Skyshroud Elf 2 Flowstone Blade 1 Mob Justice 2 Mogg Flunkies 1 Kindle 2 Shock 1 Shatter 1 Mogg Fanatic 1 Seething Anger 1 Tooth and Claw 1 Wall of Razors 1 Canyon Wildcat 1 Advance Scout 1 Shaman en-Kor 1 Venerable Monk 2 Skyshroud Falcon 1 Mounted Archers 1 Clergy en-Vec 1 COP: Shadow 1 COP: Green 1 Conviction 1 Nomads en-Kor 1 Samite Blessing 1 Talon Sliver 1 Warmth 1 Bandage 1 Metallic Sliver 1 Dungeon ShadeSo I decided to play Black / Red with a splash of green (I went a little heavy on the green mana with 4 forests, but it was okay) Throughout the day I used 7 swamps, 6 mountains, and 4 forests, 2 Bullwhip, 1 Bottle Gnomes, Vhati Il-Dal, Disturbed Burial, 2 Foul Imp, Death Stroke, Screeching Harpy, Wall of Souls, Trumpeting Armodon, 2 Mogg Flunkies, Kindle, 2 Shock, Mogg Fanatic, Lab Rats, and Dauthi Horror. However, since we didn't have to register the deck we were actually using, we were allowed (as in the Tempest Prerelease) to change our decks throughout the day. To begin with, I used the Shatter, the Seething Anger, the Mind Peel, and Rats of Rath (not sure on this last one). I did several trial draws, and loved the way the deck performed. It was loaded down with fast creatures, efficient and versatile suppression, and late-game stability cards. The deck was strong. Very very strong. I felt so confident, I told Aaron before the competition even began, that I was going to win.
Now, thorughout the day I improved my deck little by litte, and after the 5th round when Aaron watched me crush my opponent with the Vhati / Bullwhip combo, he said "I hope you aren't going to claim that you won today because you're good." I have to admit, this deck was just gross. But nonetheless, I had a good deck *and* I managed to win with it, so this report will be full of my thoughts on how to take a good deck all the way.
See, people always say there's this element of luck in Sealed Deck tournaments. But if it's all luck, why do good players manage to consistantly win? Well, the mark of a good player is that they can do pretty well with any deck, and if they ever get a really good deck, they'll win.
First round begins around 11:15 or so. I apologize for not getting all my opponents' names; I feel kinda dumb about this, I even wrote down their names but lost the piece of paper. This guy is clearly here to have fun. Total scrub. I can't even remember if his deck is good or not because it loses so fast. But in addition to that, he made lots of mistakes. For instance, he didn't prevent damage with Squee's Toy when it was my turn and it would've saved one of his creatures. Within about 20 minutes I win 2-0. 3 Match points, 2-0 games.
At this point, I feel the real power of my deck. I feel that the only way I can lose with this deck is to get a particularly bad draw. I tell several people so; most of my team, and a couple of the organizers. However, I am humbled when I play Chris Matarese for fun after the first round (he was in my tournament, but he was only there to play one round; just to get some cards without spending the whole day). He beats me two out of three, and points out that Seething Anger is a sorcery, not an instant. Whoops. After this it goes in and out of my deck. However, admittedly, I did get mana screwed one of the games he won, so who knows. After this point, I put the Dungeon Shade in my deck. Whoops, that was a bit of an oversight. :)
Round 2, I'm seated at table 8, and play another scrub from Massachusetts I've never met before. He gets hurt considerably by my Bullwhips, and when Vhati comes down it's game over. I win the first rapidly, and second game, drawing first, I take no Paris with a 6-land + Disturbed Burial opening hand. I draw land for the first 3 turns, then a Mogg Flunkies. Great. But he's off to a pretty slow start, too, so I'm not so worried. Next turn I get a Bottle Gnomes, and the grossness begins. With them and the Flunkies, I'm able to hold off his ground attackers while I finally draw some cards... including Bullwhip and Vhati. I eventually start hitting him (slowly, because I have hardly any attackers) when he puts down a Flowstone Hellion (4R, 3/3, 0:+1/-1 until end of turn, no summoning sickness). I have a Wall of Souls and Bullwhip out. Moota. Now, of course, the proper thing for him to do when I bullwhip it is to pump it up until it dies. But instead, he attacks, I block with my Wall and he pumps it to 4, so he takes 4 damage and "kills" my wall, only for me to play it again the next turn. It happens again. Then I just kill him with my creatures. 6 Match points, 4-0 games.
I finally get a chance to get some lunch. I like Burger King, but I don't like their new fries.
Round 3, I'm paired at table 1, always a thrill, against Lou Stefanovic. Lou was a good player (finally) and his deck was decent. First game, my deck behaves typically and I win. Second game, I get a decent draw, but I'm a bit mana shy. I control the creature game but he gets Brush with Death with buyback ... and I can't quite kill him in time. Though, if I had 1 more mana I would've, since on the last turn, I cast the disturbed burial without buyback, cast the Bottle Gnomes, which he Mana Leaked! It was at 1; it would've saved my life for the one more turn I needed to kill him. Wow - first game I've lost all day. :) Third game is a real struggle, where he has decent strong creatures out and I've got Vhati and Bullwhip and I'm taking them down slowly, but I can't hit him until I kill them all... and I have to kill that damn Spirit en-Kor last because it can save itself. My Screeching Harpy saves the day, though, and I eventually start to hit him, but he's only down at 8 when time is called (I'm at 10). Unfortunately, the game is a draw. We both agreed that I'd probably have killed him in 3 more turns or less. I had a kindle in my hand. Oh well. 7 Match points, 5-1-1 games.
I'm annoyed about time limits, but not for long because of course the next round starts pretty soon. I get paired against Stephen Elfenbein, a large guy with a good sense of humor and a cool White / Blue / Green deck with Avenging Angel, Staunch Defenders, and Hornet Cannon. First game I lose as I don't draw a Bullwhip until too late, and he has Shaman en-Kor out (what a broken card in Sealed) and he beats me dead with Fliers. Second game, I side in my Cannibalizes so that I'll have a way to kill his Angel, and they work like a charm. I realize I can Bullwhip / Kindle / Shock in response to kill the creature that would get the tokens... moota! It helps me win the game, eventually... takes quite a long time though. Third game, we have 20 minutes left but we were running out of time. I had the Vhati Bullwhip combo out, which was really hurting him, and I'd managed to make his Mind Games fizzle, (or did he cast it without Buyback one turn, I forget), so it was just a matter of time. But we realize we won't finish the match in time, and we grumble about how it would suck to have another draw, which would effectively knock both of us out of contention for prizes (note: Wizards, you suck - see the end of this report for a rant about them). Stephen was a really cool guy for agreeing to flip a coin for the match, which I luckily won. We finished the game in about five minutes, and I won. Lab Rats eventually did him in. It was just a matter of time. 10 Match points, 7-2-1 games.
At this point I realize Cannibalize needs to be main deck. My deck now consists of the stuff I always played with plus a Cannibalize, the Dungeon Shade, the Seething Anger, and the Shatter. Fifth round I'm paired against a guy whose name I forget, (sorry) playing a deck with very fast white shadow. He wins the first game on speed while I dont' draw enough land.. (I can't call 4 mana "mana screwed" but my deck really needs more). Second game I side in the Cannibalize, and take out the Anger. They work so well it's amazing. I Cannibalize two things out of game adding tokens to his Clergy en-Vec. It eventually becomes 7/9 thanks to a Temper and a Conviction cast by him, but I hold it off with my Harpy and get Bullwhip and Vhati down to kill it. Mercilessly, I get the same combo off in the next game, and he's extremely discouraged. Mike Fuell, the head judge for our section of the tournament, starts watching my games at around this point. He jokes with me that if I get that Vhati Bullwhip combo again he'll have to give me a warning for being abusive. I smile. Mike's a good guy as long as he's not playing... when he's playing and you're judging he's quite a hassle... but then again, he seems to judge more than play these days. 13 Match points, 9-3-1 games.
This was the match where my teammates were standing behind me joking about how "good" a magic player I am, and how no one else would've been able to go anywhere with my deck. At this point, Aaron and Kyle are both 4-0 in the other section. Chase and Chris have dropped out to play in side tournaments (Chase made it to the semis in his, and Chris won the Stronghold / Tempest booster draft. Alex has lost and gone home. And Devin, who went 0-2-1 in the first round, had his deck rebuilt by Aaron and Chris to include his sick green, and he's on the upswing at 1-2-1. He would continue to win the next 4 straight. But of course he was already out of prize contention. I just want to say at this point that the day had been a blast - I really approve of the ability to change your deck as you learn more about it especially during a prerelease. I loved the way my teammates and I were learning fast about the environment, anticipating mistakes we might make and compensating for them. What a great event.
Before the next round I look at the previous round's pairings to check out how many people had what record. There were 10 people at 4-0 going into round 5, and (I think) 8 at 3-0-1. A quick calculation tells me that if one of the perfect record people who's paired down gets defeated, then only 1 person will make it to the last round (round 8) with a 7-0 record. Thus, if I can be 6-0-1, I could be paired against the 7-0, and beat them to win the tournament. When the pairings go up I'm happy that I'm paired against someone at 5-0. Round 6, I'm paired against Julian Haigh, a good player with a good deck and a scottish accent. He was quiet, but he was definitely a cool guy. First game I get my Bullwhip / Vhati combo too fast, and kill all his creatures, then beat him down. Have you noticed how often this happened? I think I won every single game I got this combo. Second game I also get my Bullwhip / Vhati combo early, but... he had a CoP: Red, a CoP: Black, and a Field of Souls in play, and what's worse, I sideboarded out my Trumpeting Armodon for a Tranquility. I mean, thank god I had the tranq, but I wish I'd still had more than *just* my Bottle Gnomes. I was beating him down very slowly, and his field of souls really slowed me down (even with 2 Bull Whips). I had two ways to get around his CoP's - one was the Tranquility, and the other was the Lab Rats. I made a very bad decision early on - I played the Lab Rats as much as I could and after a couple of rounds it got Mana Leaked. At that point, I should have cast the Tranquility the next turn when he was least likely to have countermagic. As it was, I played it cautious, trying to get my Bottle Gnomes to commence beatdown. Eventually, though, I *was* hitting him but he asked to count my library and I realized I had to act fast. So I cast the Tranquility, and won. He never had a piece of countermagic. However, the next turn he would've drawn his Rolling thunder, which would've crippled my offence, or at least slowed it down a lot. It was a match very well played, and exciting (Mike Fuell watched most of the game), and Julian was a gracious loser. They were his first two game losses all day. 16 Match points, 11-3-1 games.
At this point, Aaron loses his first match to complete mana screw against a scrub. He's so upset. "I scrubbed out against a scrub with a scrub deck." Kyle, Aaron, Chase, and I go grab some pizza; it's just about 9, and Burger King is closed. They give me the biggest slice of pizza I've ever seen, it must have been almost a quarter of a 16" pizza all by itself. I can't eat it all. Kyle is still undefeated.
Next round I'm at table 2, paired against the only other 5-0-1. Once again, I forget his name. Argh. I think he must have been nervous because he really played pretty badly though he didn't seem like a bad player. First game, I get a first turn Fanatic, second turn Foul imp, fourth turn Bullwhip, and after this he plays a hesitation. Great idea!! :) So he has to call over a judge to make sure he can anoint one of my creatures that isn't taking damge just to cast something so his hesitation would go away. In a bit of a dubious ruling, it's allowed. I guess it was correct, though, since Anoint says "up to 3 damage," and up to includes zero... Second round, he plays hesitation again, this time before either of us have anything out. Then it becomes a contest of who can draw more land. I do. When he has either five or 6 land, he stops playing land, and decides to cast a spell instead of discard. On my turn I cast the Harpy and the Armodon (I have both the Burial and the Lab Rats in play). I have more good spells that I can cast, and he starts getting a little thin; he has to mind games without buyback to stop my Armodon from killing his spirit. I get out my Bullwhips, but he has a Tradewind Rider and a capsize lock starting to go. Fortunately, I have a Cannibalism, which I use to remove the Rider (it was summoning sick) and the Sky Spirit (when I double bullwhip in response). He needs to get a ruling to make sure the Cannibalism doesn't fizzle, which of course it doesn't, thanks to the 5th edition rules on fizzling. That's pretty much game - I beat him down with a Foul Imp and eventually recurse my Mogg Fanatic to kill him.19 points, 13-3-1.
Aaron loses again, this time to a ridiculous show of top-decking. Aaron figured the guy needed to have a Cloudchaser eagle *and* a Dregs of Sorrow or a Living Death to save himself, and the guy had both. Kyle loses his first game. Both are a bit upset, but at least Kyle still has a shot at the prize. Chase loses in the semifinals of his side tournament. Devin is 4-2-1, feeling much better. I finally get a chance to play Darwin in Tempest only, and win 1 of 2, my static orb lockdown working well once I knew which card in his deck to counterspell... :)
Finally it comes to the last round. I'm matched against Kieth Richards, a good player I remember doing well in the Tempest prerelease. He says to me as I sit down, "So you're the one with the bullwhips, huh?" And he tells me he's been worried about having to play me every round. Now I know I have a good deck and I've been winning, but this guy had lost the game before we even started playing. He had no confidence, and he played with no confidence (though I can't be sure he could've played differently, I admit... I didn't see his hand). Mike Fuell came over especially to ask us whether we were taking an intentional draw. This is where I begin my rant against Wizards. Apparently, Wizards mandated the prize structure at the event, so that only people with 4 points less than perfect records would get prizes at all. This meant that if we played and I lost, I would get nothing. With a draw, I'd be guaranteed a prize (though admittedly, the smallest possible prize), and Kieth would be guaranteed first place. It was true, this was not a bad idea, but I said I'd rather play. Especially after what Kieth said, I knew I was going to win. First game I got the combo. That's all she wrote. It was simply too strong to be denied; I even had the burial to back it up, not that he was able to kill Vhati anyway. One turn I bullwhipped his Staunch Defenders into attacking so I could block with my Wall of Souls. So he loses the first game, and expresses extreme doubt that he can win. "How can you beat that combo?" he says. Second game was lousy - he was mana screwed, having to discard, and I beat him up. We played 2 more for fun, and in one he got mana screwed again, and the 3rd one he won in a good battle; he cast Endless Scream on a spirit en-Kor which I would've killed with the Vhati / Bullwhip combo in a couple turns but hadn't managed to yet.
Mike Fuell watched our game and said that he was glad I won, if for no other reason than the fact that if I lost, I'd get nothing at all. It took them quite a while to announce the prizes; Aaron and Kyle played their next match in the meantime, and both ended up 6-2. They cut short the other tournament since so many people had dropped, so that one ended. I was awarded 90 packs (2 1/2 boxes) of Stronghold for sole possession of first place. I was stunned. Only 6 other people got prizes, from 22-30 packs, something like that.
Now for the rest of my rant. Listen up, WotC, DCI, whoever was responsible for the decision to force the prerelease organizers to give prizes the way they did. At the Tempest prerelease, the folks at Your Move Games (YMG) decided to distribute the prizes deep into the field, awarding everyone who went 7-2-0 or better. I had the highest record of anyone (though someone else beat me on tiebreakers, that's why I was 2nd) and my prize was half a box. Really, this was not a bad prize at all. Most of us, especially the best players, order lots of cards ahead of time anyway, so I didn't need that many. The same thing was true this time - I have 2 and a half boxes of Stronghold on preorder this time as well, and to get 2 and a half more is overwhelming. I just don't need that much, especially when I know I'll be playing sealed and booster draft tournaments with Stronghold and when those tournaments will have even more Stronghold as a prize. I felt like they gave me more than I could deal with, and I was upset at how many people were 6-2 and couldn't go home with anything. So, when Mike Fuell offhandly suggested that he couldn't stop me from giving packs to the people who'd gone 6-2 I thought it was a great idea. So I gave them all 2 packs each; not a lot, but it made everyone feel a lot better. Really, everyone who dropped from the tournament because of the prize structure felt upset about it, everyone who just missed the cut was pissed off, and I feel I have to do my part to speak up - these huge prizes are not important even to the people who win. Now, even aside from that, even if these huge prizes were a good idea, which they're not, but even if they were, WotC has in my opinion no business forcing the prize structure of these events. Everyone was happy with Rob (Dougherty)'s decision to give out lots of prizes in the Tempest prerelease, and the entire YMG staff was upset about being forced to comply with their rule on this point. To put it more simply, no one liked this decision. I hope that Wizards can understand what I'm trying to say here. You don't always know what people want to do, so you should stop forcing us so much. We all love the game too, you know.
Anyway, so I gave away a bunch of packs; I gave some to my teammates as well, and I gave one to Stephen Elfenbein in thanks (no, we didn't agree on this beforehand) for the coin flip. I traded some, and still came home with over a box and a half.
Card of the day: Bullwhip. Clearly, this card is completely broken in sealed. It kills lots of things outright, and with your own creatures it kills a lot more things. The Vhati combo was Moota, completely over the top. My favorite thing to say when using it, (credit to Chris Manning on this) is "get OVER here!" (a la Scorpion in Mortal Kombat); and just behind that was to call it "bullshit," because that's what it is.
Looking back on my deck, I think I should've ditched the Mogg Flunkies (or at least one of them) for some of my other creatures like the Rats of Rath or the Canyon Wildcats, or even some of the green stuff, because I was really pretty low on creatures to be playing the flunkies. I should never have overlooked Portcullis - only at the end of the day did I realize how broken it would be in my deck - it would secure my already devastating combo, and in addition, I'd have the shatter just in case it got out of hand. I also probably should've played my Mercenary since I was low on shadow defense.
I'd like to take a moment to thank YMG for running such a good event. This was their best large tournament I've ever been to, and I've been to quite a few. I only wish I could've played the winner of the other tournament for the "Prerelease champion" glory points.. and to see what he had... :) I'd also like to suggest in general that the first few rounds of a prerelease have longer time limits to make up for everyone playing slower because all the cards are new to them.
I'd also like to complement Wizards on a wonderfully done set. This set, unlike Tempest, is full of cards with very interesting combo potential. I've actually been very frustrated building Tempest-only decks because there's so little combo-fuel. For instance, I don't think I could build a viable Nature's Revolt / Humility deck just because there isn't any mana you can use after that except lotus petal. None at all; how about that? But now, with Megrim, there's a way to do it... Also, the art is amazing, the story is done just right, and the cards are all playable.
Props & Slops: I think I've said it all already. But just for a couple cool points... Props to Aaron and Chris and Devin; Aaron and Chris rebuilt his deck and caused it to go 5-0 after starting 0-2-1. Also Props to Devin for confusing his opponent so badly with his Tempting Licid that he gained 6 card advantage off of it. Props to Chris for his jedi mind tricks. Slops to the ass next to me in the 2nd round who made his opponent take mana burn for trying to cast Seething anger during his attack phase (it's a sorcery)... this isn't one of those tournaments; come on, man.. Props to shuffling - I swear, my ability to shuffle thoroughly is so key to my doing well - everyone should learn to shuffle well!! Slops to Burger King for closing at 9.. what the heck?
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the novel. Time for my drink of water.
-Moses Liskov
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Moses Liskov mango_juice@yahoo.com