Subject: Tourney Report - Central Ontario Regionals - CounterSliver Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:08:19 -0400 From: Duncan.McGregor@midwal.ca (Duncan McGregor) To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com This past weekend, I attended the Central Ontario Regionals, with top 8 all receiving invitaitons to the Canadian Nationals and identical prizes. The tournament was seven rounds of Swiss with no top 8 playoff, as it would be rather pointless. I went with a Counter-Sliver I'd been working on that is significantly different than the McNish-style that's been publicized on the Dojo: 4 Crystalline Slivers 4 Muscle 4 Hibernation 4 Flying 3 Acidic 4 Man-o'-war 4 Counterspell 3 Mana Leak 3 Portent 2 Wall of Blossoms 2 Terror 1 Cursed Scroll 2 Mox Diamond 2 City of Brass 2 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 1 Rootwater Depths 1 Bad River 2 Swamp 9 Island SB: 2 Pyroblast 2 Disenchant 2 Honourable Passage 1 Disrupt 2 Earthquake 2 Knight of the Mists 2 Phyrexian Furnace 2 Hydroblast The tournament started almost on time, thanks to the judges' computer, which apparently decided not to be cranky. I'll apologize for not remembering names. Round 1: modified Donais U5C Game 1: I start out fast, counter the Wrath, and let him Gerrard's Wisdom twice while holding back for another Wrath. I win. Game 2: A slow start for me coupled with an early Propaganda and Mana Web by him nearly shut me down. My Cursed Scroll keeps his Rainbow Efreet from killing me, but then the Mana Web keeps me from doing anything else except use my Phyrexian Furnace. I manage to remove about 15-20 cards from his graveyard before he finally cycles through to a Fireball. Game 3: I get a fair start, he manages to hold me off but keeps top-decking land. I get out another Furnace and remove a card from his graveyard, at which point he concedes. I am somewhat confused until he shows me the 15-20 cards removed from his graveyard last game, still sitting in the out-of-game area... G: 2-1 M: 1-0 Round 2: Counter-sliver, with Victuals and Lotus Petals Game 1: I have two Man-o-wars in hand and he drops a Crystalline Sliver. Lucky for me, he is willing to trade his Crystalline for my Hibernation, and I bounce his Winged to get my Man-o-war into play. He drops two more Crystallines, trading them for a Muscle and an Acidic, and two more Man-o-wars hit play, bouncing the same Winged each time. I win. Game 2: He gets one land and a Petal, and chooses to keep it and drop a Muscle into play. I use a Mox Diamond to drop a second-turn Man-o-war, and proceed to win. This would be my only round of the day not to go to three games. G: 2-0 M: 2-0 Round 3: Merfolk Game 1: Whee! A chance to use my Terrors! Fish just don't do well without their Lords. Game 2: A game I could have won, but I neglected to drop a land before casting a Hibernation Sliver, and it gets Mana Leaked. I lose. Game 3: Full-on Sliver beats. A very quick game, as the Sliver Beatdown Trio of Crystalline, Winged, Muscle come to play. G: 2-1 M: 3-0 Round 4: Umm... sorry. Round 4 has disappeared from my memory. I know I won 2-1, but only because every round after round 2 went to 3 games. Apologies to whomever I faced. G: 2-1 M: 4-0 Round 5: ProsBloom Game 1: I have a handful of Slivers and nothing else. I am unable to counterspell, but I drop sufficient Slivers to force him to go off fourth turn. Unfortunately, he can. Game 2: I don't see a counter this game either, but I have a Disenchant for his Squandered, which is good enough. Game 3: I counter the Abeyance, but don't have enough mana left to counter the Drain. If I'd tapped my Gemstone Mine one additional time early instead of my City, it would have gone away and I could have pulled two Islands when he Natural Balanced, and countered the Drain. Oh, well. Lessons for next time. G: 1-2 M: 4-1 Round 6: CounterSliver again, this time a U/W/G variant with Talons and fetchlands. Game 1: I start off fast and counter a Sliver of his, giving me advantage. Game 2: He beats me down as I get a Cursed Scroll out but stop at two mana. Now something bad happens. The match beside me ends their first game at about the same time my second game finishes, and the Sligh player next to me sweeps my Cursed Scroll into his deck. I don't notice and proceed to game 3, while the player next to me pile-shuffles and comes up with 61 cards. It takes him a few minutes to find an extra Scroll in his deck, at which point we stop playing and call a judge. The judge gives him a game loss for taking my card; I get a caution for not keeping track of my cards well enough, but my game proceeds unaffected with my Scroll off in the Elkin Zone until the end of the game. I am quite happy with this, as I am winning, and proceed to finish my opponent off. G: 2-1 M: 5-1 The judges, thanks to their computer, had been printing out standings after each round, with tie-breakers listed. After looking at that sheet, I determine that my tie-breakers are nowhere near good enough to I.D. into top eight. I have the worst tie-breakers of all of the 5-1s, so I sit down to play. The pair beside me does I.D., and one of their names I later see in ninth. Round 7: Mono-Blue w/ Silver Wyvern, 'Phid, Legacy's Allure, Time Warp(!) Game 1: Getting hit with a Silver Wyvern three times between one turn and the next isn't good. Game 2: Early Slivers, keep the Wyvern from hitting the table, and he has very little board control. Game 3: He drops an Island, I drop a Winged Sliver via Mox Diamond. He taps out to drop a Legacy's Allure, and I drop a Crystalline. Game. G: 2-1 M: 6-1 After everything is worked out, I land in second overall, not that that means anything more than top eight; as I said earlier, top eight was all equivalent. Other residents of top eight were a B/R aggro, a sligh, a G/w Vineyard/Bridge, two identical 3CWW decks played by teammates, and two seperate ProsBloom decks, the one that beat me Round 5 and another. My teammate Jeremy also qualified with the B/R aggro, placing seventh after an I.D. in round 7. Brief Analysis: I like this variant better than any other counter-sliver I've seen, either on the Dojo or in play. Most others lean towards white to help cast the Crystalline; the lean towards black to help cast the Acidic means that I don't play any main-deck artifact or enchantment removal, but that wasn't a factor in any of my games. I prefer having the Acidics for creature removal and for a finisher than having the Victuals I saw other sliver decks running. The Walls of Blossoms were an anti-weenie choice, but the only decks I faced that would qualify were Fish and other slivers; the Merfolk were Islandwalking if they were a threat, and against other slivers one of us usually had a Winged out. The Mox Diamonds are perfect in this deck. The tempo advantage and help to solidify the five-colour mana base are well worth the card disadvantage, and very few decks can beat this one when faced with a first-turn Crystalline Sliver. Finally, the sideboard should include a couple Disks; this came to me when I looked at the RTJ Vineyard/Bridge deck, and realized that I would have no chance against it. Probably ditch the Knights and the Disrupt for two Disks and another Pyroblast, but that's a result of what I saw in terms of decks. There was no clear metagame. In round 5, the WW player next to me was complaining about having to play his third straight Sligh, while his Sligh opponent complained about having to face his fourth WW of the day. I saw neither, but played two mono-blue, two counter-sliver, one U5C and a ProsBloom that is at least technically part blue. A friend of mine, playing a slow rogue deck, fought a U5C to a draw round 1, with the result that he was matched up against U5Cs rounds 2 and 3 as well. -- Duncan McGregor