Local Type 2 Tourney

It was May 3rd, 1998 and Time Tunnel hosted a local non-sanctioned Type 2 tourney in Castle Shannon, PA (a suburb of Pittsburgh). Attendance was around 35 for 4 rounds of Swiss with single-elimination Final 16. Kinda goofy format, play all 3 games each round, total points (3 for win, 1 for draw), not match record, determine who advances from the Swiss.

Mandatory Background

I had been to one other Time Tunnel tourney before a couple months ago. The crowd last time was a mix of serious players, casual players, and kids. This time around, most of my team showed up and so did Team CMU and Eric Taylor from Michigan. Quite a crew.

I'd been playing CounterHammer in T2 for a while, but it kept losing to Sligh and White Weenie, so I dumped it the night before and tried this janky ArmorGeddon thing. Listing later.

Swiss Rounds

I'm not good with names, but I remembered one or two this time around.

Round 1

Kid playing mono-Black with Edicts, Dark Banishing, Nekrataal, and lotsa shadow (Horrors and Slayers).

Game 1: I get an Armored Shadow Dude, and it gets Dark Banished. He just keeps dropping shadows, though, and kills me pretty easily as I never really got going.

Game 2: More of the same--everything gets Banished, Nekrataal'd, or Edicted. White Knights fail to appear for me.

Game 3: I redeem a little dignity and manage to burn his shadow dudes and beat down with my own.

Games 1-2, 3 points.

Round 2

I think his name was Nick--the deck I definitely remember, though, it was a TurboZvi variant with one Vision Charm to help speed up the win. Still a stupid combo deck.

Game 1: I get a slow start and he gets a Dream Halls down. I pitch a Geddon to Disenchant it. He gets another one, and I get Armor and start to apply. Unfortunately, the combo goes off. I'd never seen it in action so I decide to watch how it works for a while. I get it down, and then start to consider my sideboard. I eventually concede out of sheer boredom.

Game 2: I side in the Boils (more Red to pitch), the Blasts, and the other two Disenchants. This means I have six things (4 Disenchant, 2 Pyroblast) that can be pitched to kill a Dream Halls, plus two Auras. This can't be a good matchup for him, and it isn't. I get out dudes and start beating him down. He drops a Dream Halls and pitches to Meditate. In response, I pitch something to Blast it. Not only is the combo hosed for the moment, but I get an extra turn to beat on him.

Game 3: I get a moderate weenie start. He gets a Dream Halls and I pitch to Disenchant it. I have another Disenchant in my hand, so I hold back one Knight of Dawn to use as a pitch card. He Inspirations for Dream Halls, so now I know he only has one left. He casts it, Meditates, and I pitch to Disenchant in response. The combo is dead, so he conceeds.

Games 3-3, 9 points.

Round 3

Len, playing textbook MesaCraft.

Game 1: I drop a couple weenies, Disenchant a Sylvan (thought he was playing Pursuit), Disenchant an Earthcraft, and he still wrecks me with the combo. I die to a thousand Pegasus tokens.

Game 2: OK, so now I have 4 Disenchants and 2 Auras. I can't really kill the combo because he can Blessing back the pieces, but that's slow. It's really slow when I Geddon off his land, too. I win with a weenie beatdown.

Game 3: A whole lot like Game 2. I hate infinite combo decks.

Games 5-4, 15 points.

Round 4

Yet another infinite combo deck. I never really saw it, but the combo is based on Aluren, Contemplation, and Man-o-War for infinite life. Whatever.

Game 1: I thought he might be playing some kind of G/W Prison deck. I got an Aura down, which got Disenchanted. But, I got dudes going and many Geddons (I think all three--Diamonds rule) and handily took this one.

Game 2: This is when I realized what he was playing, because I finally saw the Contemplation. He got out a couple Wall of Roots, but those don't mean much to Priests and Knight of Dawn.

Game 3: With 21 points, I was certainly in and he had a shot with 18 points, so for the record books I gave him this one. Shoulda played it just to see, but three goofy combo decks in a row was enough for me.

Games 7-4, 21 points.

Elimination Rounds

21 points just made the cut, so I was in. So were all of my teammates and guess what? All of Team CMU and Eric Taylor, too. Hmm.

Round of 16

Bill, I think, playing White Weenie. Cool, an actual stand-up fight.

Game 1: WW vs. WW, who wins? The one with Armor if it gets through. He Disenchanted a Marble Diamond which stuck me at 2 mana for a while, but I finally got a third and Armored up a Priest. He had a Priest and a Freewind out and Quaked so we were both close to death. He was going to chump my Armored Priest, but I Man-o-War'd his Priest and smacked with mine for the game.

Game 2: A race, pure and simple. What carried me was the non-White stuff in my deck. Burn and Man-o-Wars gave me enough time advantage to stay ahead in the damage race.

Games 9-4.

Quarterfinals

Randy Buehler--yes, that Randy Buehler--playing G/B Living Death with Nekrataals, Volrath's Strongholds, Wall of Blossoms, Spike Feeders, and Goyfs. Not a good matchup for me, both deck-wise and skill-wise.

Game 1: I get a Warrior en-Kor on turn 2 and Armor on turn 3, so I might have a chance. I get in one smack and then he kills it with a Nekrataal. Just couldn't have been a White Knight, could it? Anyway, I have mostly land and Randy starts dropping dudes on me. I Wrath and start to recover and manage to burn some of his critters. No avail, though, as he drops the Living Death. Next turn I draw the Geddon which would have stopped the Living Death. Thanks. He beats me down.

Game 2: I get no land on the draw, and mulligan. Did I mention that we were playing with the old mulligan, not the Paris mulligan? Ugh. Anyway, my next draw has one land. I go on one land for like five turns and get crushed by a bunch of dudes. Sheesh, a scrub with a bad deck would have beaten me. Oh well. I take some solace in the fact that Randy is #2 in the world in Pro Tour points and made the finals (vs. Eric Taylor) at this event as well.

Games 9-6.

The Deck

Land (20)
---------
2  City of Brass
4  Gemstone Mine
10 Plains
2  Adarkar Wastes
2  Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (20)
--------------
4 Soltari Priest
3 White Knight
4 Warrior en-Kor
3 Man o War
2 Freewind Falcon
2 Knight of Dawn
2 Longbow Archer

Spells (20)
-----------
3 Empyrial Armor
3 Armageddon
2 Tithe
2 Marble Diamond
2 Disenchant
2 Aura of Silence
4 Incinerate
2 Wrath of God

 Total 60

Sideboard
---------
2 Null Rod
2 Sleight of Mind
3 Honorable Passage
2 Pyroblast
2 Boil
2 Disenchant
2 Perish

Other Comments

I consider any day over .500 a good day, so this was a good one. Nice also that I could go over .500 with a deck that I hadn't playtested at all. The preponderance of stupid combo decks is kinda funny. Last time around, it was dominated by Burn. But straight Burn loses to dumb combos, so now dumb combos are the thing at this tourney. Now, given that there were so many dumb combo decks this time, a good guess for next month might be all permission...

Props

* The team: Aaron and me, for making the quarters; Jake and Scott for making the semis.
* Team CMU, for slumming it.
* Elite Bakery, my in-law's cookie bakery. Everybody liked the cookies.

Slops

* Team CMU, for slumming it. (Just kidding.)

Mike Byrne, http://byrneweb.com/sunburn/
Posted 98.05.04