Subject: t2 tourney report Date: Sat, 03 Jan 1998 05:21:45 -0800 From: Adam Vieyra To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com before the tournament, i was deciding between playing a mono red sligh, or a mono blue propa-orb(neither of these decks had a sideboard). nobody i knew had ball lightnings to lend me so wound up with the blue. the only thing the deck was missing was a sideboard. no problem making a last minute sideboard with borrowed goodz right?? wrong, my sideboard was eight cards: 4 boil 4 hydroblast the rest of the deck was like this 4 counterspell 4 dissipate 3 powersink 3 dismiss 4 suq ata firewalker 3 air elemental 3 legacy's allure 4 propaganda 4 winter orb 3 impulse 3 sky diamond 3 saphire medallion 4 quicksand 15 islands i wasn't sure about the legacy's allure, but its better than abduction. so the tournament was a five round sanctioned swiss thing starting at about 8:00pm. then cutting to a single elim final 4. round 1 vs whiteweenie/burn winter orb first game i draw just one land then discard three times. but all he did was play two mesa pegasus and incinerate me. just as i put the gun to my head for losing to someone playing mesa pegasus, i pull land and come back to win this game at 1 life. second game, i sideboard 3 pyros 3 chill. i draw just one land again, but this time i discard 4 times. once again i come back to take on the swarm of pikemen, mesa pegasus, and benalish heroes. apperantly this guy doesn't like creatures with power greater than one. 1-0, games 2-0 round two i play my fried dan. i came here with him and know he is playing a sligh deck that my deck does pretty well against. but danny always cuts me to bad land draws in tourneys. game one i stay at like 2 or 3 land until he kills me insanely fast. game two i draw just 3 quicksands and NO islands until the turn i die. 1-1 games 2-2 at this point i have played 3 games, and haven't got a good mana draw once. i am gonna need to fix this or play people with mesa pegasus's all night if i want to win. round 3 vs white/green/red thing this deck was pretty cool. he had that enchantment that makes all his non-token creatures 1/1 fliers when they die, and he played it with goblin bombardment. he played less than 20 creatures, but had snake basket and stuff, so i guess he just wanted to be able to make all his creatures do 2 damage guaranteed. i beat him in two games, countering all his un-timable creatures. 2-1, games 4-2 round 4 vs red/blue propa orb first game i draw four quicksands no islands and lose to a waterspout second game i pull land and win third game he draws just one undiscoverd paradise as his only land and discards like ten times while i impulse my arss off looking for an air elemental. i find one and he loses 3-1 games 6-3 round 4 i play gary rush, he along with my friend brian were the only people who i didn't want to play. gary was playing his usual white/blue/green humility-orim's prayer deck with scroll racks and gaes blessings. game one i pull alot of land and counters, eventually winning with a very protected air elemental. game two i draw three lands and have seven counters in my hand from turn six. i never get past three lands so he just abeyance/city of solitudes me. i could stall out this game but he would eventually just win with a sacred mesa, we would draw and neither of us would make the top 4. so i conceed the moment the city hits game three gary gets off to a slow start, discarding once, but recovers quickly with some diamonds. i get stuck at 3 islands and a diamond and sit there doing nothing. i cant really do much because i am sure unless i can cast two counters, he will get a city of solitude on the table. at one point(after drawing 3 quicksands but no blue mana!) i get restless decide to play a firewalker. the crowd thinks i lose because i accidentally tap an island instead of a diamond. gary disenchants my diamond at the end of my turn. during his turn he abeyances me, which i power sink for two(he has 4 mana untapped). he says go, since he already played a land that turn and cant cast anything with just two untapped lands. the tim goes all the way and i make the final 4. 4-1 games 8-4 the final 4 is: me(propa orb) danny(sligh) brian(5cg with tradewinds, he went 5-0 in the swiss and hasn't lost a tourney with this deck for like three weeks.) some guy(merfolk, tradewind rider beatdown) yay! three artifex kids(artifex is the local store where we play most tourneys)in the top for. me, brian, and danny agree to split the 100 cash prize(assuming one of us wins) 50, 25, 25. but we are still fighting for rating points. i am the lucky one who gets to battle the merfolk. game one i play a couple propagandas and win pretty easily. game two goes like game one until he steal enchantments my only propaganda and attacks with like 10 merfolk, killing me. i hold back the tears and go on to game three game three is a repeat of game two. steal enchantment was my downfall. brian beats danny and goes on to win us our cash. he is now pretty much guaranteed to qualify for ptla via dci, while i am like 40 points behind. going 4-2 for the day sure don't help. if all else fails, i will just copy brian's 5cg and win the junior super series. anyway, hope this wasn't too boring. -adam vieyra cannonjoe@geocities.com