Subject: Schneider PoX
Date: 02 Apr 98 03:45:45 EST
From: John.P.Wiggins@Dartmouth.EDU (John P. Wiggins)
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

Frank,

This is the tournament report on the last tourney I entered.  I've gone back
and forth on the decision of whether or not to post Tournament Reports, and the
decision came down to try it and see what kind of feedback it receives.

The tournament occurred at Game HQ in Moore, Oklahoma on March 28.  The format
was sanctioned Type 2, with special prize of double the normal DCI points won.
There were approximately 40 People playing, which I assume is a good turn-out
for the area.  The tournament was  4 Rounds of Swiss and a Top 8-single
elimination.  There weren't any particularly interesting things going on before
the tourney, so here's the report.


Round 1-  Versus Scott with a G/W Vineyard weenie deck.

Game 1 happens and by turn 3 he's got a few Vineyards on the table.  Trouble
you say?  Opening hand looks like this: 3 Stupor, Swamp, 2 Stalking Stones, 1
Golem.  I rocked his world.  After he drops the vineyard that's turn 1 stupor
and 2 stupors on second turn.  Nasty.  He can't recover with just little white
shadow creatures and elves, so the stones go all the way with the nicotine
golem guarding the homefront.

Game 2  Side in Perish for Coercions. Virtual repeat of Game 1, only without
the steroids.  He only drops 1 Vineyard early, and once again between stones
and cursed scroll, I make much more efficient use of it than he does.

2-0 Games, 1-0 Matches

Round 2-  Versus Shelley with G/R Vineyard big beatdown.

Game 1- Between multiple discard and poxes she never casts the huge creatures
she's holding and never gets above 3 mana anyway.  She's visibly upset by this
turn of events and moreso because I don't manage to kill her till like turn 50.

Game 2- Side in Perish for Coercions.  This is when I see her first Vineyard. 
Then her second.  I'm holding edicts and stupors with a scroll on the board. 
Her 5/5 creatures either have time to think on the way down or keep looking at
the wrong scroll.  Mana-screw isn't the way I would like to remember beating a
person, so she definitely has my sympathies.

4-0 Games, 2-0 Matches

Round 3 Versus Chance with SRB packing disks and FURNACE OF RATH.

Game 1- He's stuck at one mountain until Golem beatdown ends his cries for
mercy.  Melodramatic I know, but it's to make up for the ass-whuppin that
follows.

Game 2 is touch and go.  I sided in 4 Bottle Gnomes for Poxes.  I don't see the
corpse dance combo, so that's a no-go.  We trade blows and I spinning darkness
my way back to 21.  Then I make the mistake.  You know the one, where you know
your deck inside out and how to make it whistle dixie against anything, till
you hit the card you never EVER ptested against. I've had a nevinyrral's disk
out for a while,  and he drops Furnace of Rath and attempts to Ball Lightning
again (like number 5 or 6, I swear).  I have the funeral charm and this leaves
him at 1 untapped mana.  I take my turn and draw a card and see nothing I can
do on the board really.  I say go.  Okay, my 3 year old niece could tell me
what just went wrong.  I let him untap 8 mana with a furnace out and I'm not
exactly playing a counterspell deck. He takes his turn and I realize my
mistake.  So I blow the furnace during his draw phase(so as to stop any
sorceries).  He smiles and Goes Incinerate for 6, double Fireblast for 16. 
That leaves me at -1.  Scrub mistake.  Oh well, life goes on.

Game 3  It's not even close.  I get the all wasteland draw and am burned into
submission by a well-built burn deck.  Ouch.

Round 4  Versus a really nice guy (Sorry, I don't remember) with 5cU.  If I win
this one, I'm into the top 8, if I lose, I'm out.  Simple.

Game 1  I'm hitting him with discard and draw all 3 wastelands for his special
lands.  He drops bottle gnome after gnome after gnome.  During the next 4 turns
I spinning darkness them all away.  Soon my opponent drops a Derelor that I
can't handle who comes over and whispers beatdown in my ear two times for the
win.

Game 2  I don't have anything to SB here, so I just stick it out again.  I
start out with early stupors and a coercion and wreck his mana supply by way of
pox and wasteland.  I get out the Golem who goes all the way.  It gets so as I
draw consecutive funeral charms and I end up charming him during his draw phase
so he doesn't get the card.  

Game 3  This game is rather one sided as wastes and Pox keep him from the mana
he needs.  Golem/Scroll beatdown serves.  Too bad, it just seems that my
opponents have the curse of the mana screw today.

So I'm ranked number 5 going into the Top 8.  

Top 8 versus Stompy 

Now anyone who knows me, knows I mock Stompy.  Without Spectral Bears or the
Heart, Stompy just isn't as strong against burn.  Propaganda is a joke, and
mass removal was always harsh to creature swarm.  Then Wizards prints perish to
add insult to injury.  Yeesh, what's it all coming to?  My gruesome death
that's what.

Game 1 or as I like to call it "Stompy's Revenge"

Game 1 is all about Sex Monkies, Dervish, and Jolrael's Centaur.  The monkies
are timely and screw my golems and scrolls, while the dervishes (dervii?) and
centaurs come out one at a time to play so as to coax out my mass destruction
and edicts.  Yeesh.  I do my best, but in the end lose.

Game 2 I board in the 3 perishes and 4 Bottle gnomes, and hope for the best. 
Well repeat of game 1, only this time I get to throw stalking stones, golems
and gnomes in front of the dervish hoping for salvation.  Well I top-deck a
perish and take out a muscle sliver, a quirion ranger and a 7/7 Dervish.  I say
done, I'm at 2 he's a 7.  He says Orangutan, kill your diamond.  I go, draw,
and play a scroll, killing the monkey.  He Plays a centaur, I play an edict.  I
draw, nothing useful.  He plays a centaur, I am holding an evincar's justice. 
I'm at 2 and so have no answer for screaming-horseman-beatdown.  Oh well, made
top 8 at my first type 2 tourney, and first sanctioned anything isn't bad.  I
never saw winter orb (luckily for me, there were an abundance of them), I never
saw anything requiring dreads and with the popularity of Green (5cG and Stompy)
I'm making the 1 perish addition.  

I get a pack of SH for my troubles.  All in all, it was a great experience.  I
was quite fortunate to see 2 Vineyard decks during this tournament, as
Schneider Pox makes very efficient use of the mana.  I made in my estimation 2
preventable mistakes today (both against the Burn deck) and learned some new
things.  I searched and searched for the 1 point of life I could have saved in
Game 2 against Stompy, but it just didn't exist.  Oh well, do better next time.

JP
Member of Gang Green
Comments are welcome