Subject: Scrubless Sligh tourney report Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2098 16:00:13 +0800 From: "Jean Pierre Franger" To: G'day everyone, Well, the last week of the month again, and so arrived the regular Tactics Type 2 tournament down under in sunny (and pretty close to unbearably sunny these days) Perth, Australia. The last type 2 tourney was a bit of a fiasco for me, with fellow Team Scrubless member Calvin Chan needing a deck at the last minute.. so I donated him my "Scrubless Sligh" deck, and I played my non-playtested pox deck (aka: The Shitbox) cause that's pretty much what I drew all day. Needless to say, I did poorly, but I was heartened to see that my finely tuned sligh deck did well. In fact, it didn't drop a match all through the six round swiss event to come up on top and take the tournament. Considering the fact that Calvin hadn't played magic in quite a while due to other commitments, I thought this a good indication of the deck's strength. So all considered, I decided to go with good old sligh, with a couple of small modifications from my last version. "Scrubless Sligh" 4 x Jackal Pups 4 x Mogg Fanatics 4 x Fireslingers 4 x Ironclaw Orks 3 x Orkish Artillery 4 x Ball Lightning 4 x Kindle 4 x Incinerate 4 x Fireblast 4 x Cursed Scroll 1 x Earthquake 2 x City of Brass 15 x Mountain 3 x Wasteland Sideboard: 3 x Warmth 3 x Disenchant 1 x Forsaken Wastes 3 x Nev's disk 3 x Pyroblast 2 x City of Brass I made several deck decisions based on the current metagame. Last tournament, there was a lot of blue and proppaorb as well as a decent amount of green and 5cb. This in consideration, I added pups to rape blue, and orkish artillery as decent blockers and what I needed to take care of those green fatties while being able to knock out knights. I added wastelands to kill quicksands, which is one of the few ways that a blue deck can keep this deck at bay, plus I just love when I strip land and keep the opponent back a turn while I keep my hounds nibbling at his life total. The multicolored sideboard was what I thought that people wouldn't be expecting in a sligh deck, and I was right. Warmth took care of other red decks, and nev's and pyro's and disenchant took care of the usual complement of Blue, Proppaorb, and Trap variants. The forsaken wastes I put in to control the nasty Bottle Gnome/Corpse Dance combo that saves necro decks from sligh every time, not to mention suppressing drain life as a possible comeback card. I used warmth instead of honorable passage, because there is a nasty trend here for everyone to play 4 wastelands, and so I needed a card that wouldn't require the use of the city after being cast so that I didn't have to worry about the city being stripped. Well, as the only Team Scrubless member in this tourney, I had to do my team proud, after all, Sam is in NY winning the N-Ground qualifier, so I might as well win this local tourney (especially as I am a much better player than Sam :) ) heh. Round 1: A girl named Krystal (Propaganda, Staunch Defenders, shadow guys) Well, certainly a favorable start, since she is fairly new to magic and makes quite a few mistakes in the course of the tournament. The first game is a give away with only a solitary plains on her side of the table as my chittering horde of goblins and orks bash her silly. Second game sees her with a third turn propaganda, fourth turn chill, followed by two staunch defenders on turns five and six. Hmmm... I've got two ironclaws on the table and an artillery in my hand, along with an incinerate, disenchant, and a city of brass. So I cast my artillery, and attack with my orks the following turns, killing one defender, then the other. She starts to draw land, and I start to draw balls... I show her my balls... she concedes :) no pun intended Round 2: Eldo (aka: Rip off Artist) (Scrubless Sligh, uh I mean Eldo Sligh, yeah!) Well, it always happens... there is always someone who mercilessly ripps off my deck, and this time it was Eldo.. I don't mean he was playing sligh, I mean that he used EXACTLY the same cards as me. Ah well..... First game, I draw shit, and he draws three balls. Second game I draw shit, and no warmths, and he draws three balls... needless to say that fireblasting balls is no good, and I die. Hmm losing to my deck because he got a better draw is not how I like to go down. We take a 45 minute lunch break and I head over to Red Rooster for those tasty chicken strips that they serve... but with no sour cream in their fridge, it just isn't worth it, so I ponder over Hungry Jacks, and remembering how the lettuce tried to lick me last time, I get Macca's. I spend the next half hour bitching over Eldo, but I decide that four rounds to play, and if I win em all, I can still take the tourney. Round 3: Micheal Trihn (red/black creatures, and loads of burn) Trihn gets a lighting fast start first game, and makes my jackal pups look like incinerate fodder. His ergs and askari and orggs pound me to dust. Second game I side in disks and manage to pull the game from the brink, just killing him off. Third game is pretty one sided, as I bring out ork after ork followed by a ball, incinerate, and two fireblast. Ahh.. It is at this point that I take a wandering around and notice that just about everyone is playing some sort of burn, and I start to wonder about the wisdom of putting jackal pups in the main deck. Round 4: James (white weenie) Well, in my honest opinion, unless a white weenie gets an amazing draw, it just won't beat sligh, and i prove it to James by bolting every knight that he drops, all the while hitting him with pups and orks. Second game he god draws me, dropping a second turn priest, third turn armour, and fourth turn armour. I have no disenchant or disk in sight and die in 5 turns. Last game I get my scroll going together with my artillery to blow away every creature he drops, and a lowly mogg almost single handedly takes him out. Of course, a ball lightning had to come and join the fun :) Round 5: Daniel (tradewind rider/stasis) First game is a joke, as I cast a creature every turn, and blow away two manowars, and two tradewinds card for card.. I sideboard in pyros and chant's and disks and take out some artillery's and kindles. he drops: second turn chill, third turn chill, fourth turn chill.. doh.. he then tapps out to cast a tradewind... I have three land and a nev's in hand... and I draw.... BALL LIGHTNING!! woohoo... two ophidians later, I concede the game.. Third game I drop a protected disk and clear away two chills and a propaganda, and he never recovers as I strip away two quicksands and pound him with a plethora of orks and gobbos. Round 6: Rhys Philbrick (type 2 version of PT Jank, red/white knights, incinerate, tithe, wildfire) Both games are all about the artillery's, which take out just about every single creature in his deck, backed with scrolls and my balls, he just cries for mercy, and both matches are over in 2 minutes. He said that he sided in Cops and warmth, but I saw neither, and I had disenchants and disks to boot anyways.. So we both end up on 15 points along with another guy, Gareth, but his countback is way too low, and it ends up in a sticky situation. The winner is decided by whoever wins the last round match between Krystal and some other girl playing in the tourney. If Krystal wins, my resistance is higher, if the other girl wins, Rhys takes first. So we mosey on down to the female duo, and I start cheering on Krystal as Rhys is begging the other girl to win... of course, due to my luck, Krystal lost, and Rhys took first, but I was perplexed why Krystal was holding on to her fifth land and two staunch defenders all game while the other chick was beating her down with a suquata and a mogg. Hmmm, maybe she just didn't want me to win? :) oh well. So I get 40 bucks and more points... and decide to head home before I drop asleep. Thoughts on the deck: All in all, it did extremely well, although I didn't expect so much burn, which made my pups kinda useless. In the future, I might just stick to goblin vandals instead, but then again, pups are too close to my heart.. The sideboard is great, and I'm glad that I've got disenchants in there for those annoying scrolls/armours/and chills. Well, that's all from down under... Don't let Sam get too cocky, until next time, Milan Franger Now OFFICIALLY the best player in WA Does not eat Vegemite. Does not Bop Roos either.. or any of that other stupid Australian stereotype crap.