To: Frank Kusumoto From: Sean McKeown Re: Tournament Report, Small T2 Tourney on 5/30/98 I just figured I'd write a nifty little report on the latest super-powered deck I've been working on, which for the first time in too long now is an entirely original creation. I'm *thoroughly* convinced that with a proper sideboard, if I played this over my WW/x deck for Regionals I would have been waving at y'all at Nationals... but seeing as I totally didn't see the metagame coming (college finals kinda impaired my playtesting ability... and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition) and I didn't think of the deck till a couple days after, I guess I'm not allowed to bugger about that. My current sideboard is a little weak, but that's life... I built it to deal with what I see in the enviroment. I built this deck with a lot of things in mind, especially Sligh, Ritual Madness, 5cDonais, and basically creature decks and recursion decks, because that's what we're seeing a lot of. I've playtested extensively against Ritual Madness, and I toast the crap out of it, I think I've lost two games out of 12-15 against that deck, once to triple-turn-one Sarcomancy and another to a timely Wastelands messing up my plans royally. Anyway... The journey began last week at Neutral Ground; while I didn't have the time to play in a sanctioned tourney (which is the sole reason my T2 rating is still in the high 1600's, mind you... I'm around 1800 in Sealed Deck so I'm not *just* some Random Mexican ;), but I did get in some solid playtesting against 5cU and Ritual Madness. The first guy that challenged me as we were waiting for the first ever NGround Team Sealed Deck to begin was packing Ritual Madness for the sheer beatdown the deck can apply, and we just play a few games here and there. I win three straight with my beatdown, usually having my critters go hari kiri and finishing up with the Toaster (my new petname for the Tombstone Stairwell :o). He gets bored of me applying against his essentially defenseless deck, even after he gets a good strong Ritual going... ritual, Erg Raider, Unholy. I play Fanatic, go. He attacks, I suck up the four like a man, and he casts a Horror. I play a Land, attack with the Fantastic, and on his turn he tries to play a Bad Moon for the beatdown... I Incinerate and Fantastic the Raider, take three from the Horror, which prepares to die as I play another Fantastic and an Acidic Sliver next turn. I go to ten, then assume board control with critters on the board, a Furnace churning away his deaders, and me just waiting for another Land before I cast the Stairwell. He dies, as I have to draw Land eventually and I *do* have more Creatures than him even before the Furnace... Another game was essentially the same thing, but I went first and was able to Incinerate the Erg in response to his Unholy (I played first, he didn't start with the Ritual..) and use the incredible synergy of Shadow Guildmage, some Acidic Slivers and Incinerates and Fantastics, and the Bone Dancer from Hell. So he gets bored, and I move on to play the 5cU player. I have three maindeck Furnaces, as silly as the concept is :o)... but it's part of my combo, and he never is able to get Gaea's control going as I always pegged the first Gaea's... First game he Wraths, I play some more creatures including a Bone Dancer (to steal his Walls... he can't Gaea's them in, and I get a one-use Ophie ;). He Wraths again, followed by a Gaea's for the two Wraths and a Dismiss, and I take the convenient lack of two untapped mana to play the Toaster and the janky combo card that goes with it, Gobbo Bombardment. He lasts two turns with the machine gun pointed in his direction, even after he Wisdoms and Impulses madly for a much-needed Chant. Another game is started by early beatdown of Knights, Fantastics, Slivers and such with the ever-nettlesome Furnace on my side to piss him off. He's at ~10 when he Wraths, and loses some more life to my exploding army, and I Topdeck Like A Pro! my one and only Volrath's Stronghold. I conveniently drive-by with the Lancer, since he's out of Walls for the moment, and prepare to do something goofy with the Acidic Sliver... he has to run out of Counters eventually. Fubarb his Gaea's ability, and he dies to Acidic Sliver beatdown. I repeat the process a couple more times, then pass the deck to a team-mate to continue wrecking him while I break for lunch. I tell him, "This deck is unusually simple to play," with my trademarked grin and raised eyebrow, and after just one game he is happily agreeing while beating down on my hapless, nameless opponent. Eventually, the tournament started and we stopped with the playtesting. Our team eventually gets screwed out of the finals when I can't pull a match win against Dan OMS, so we go scrubbily to 2-2. If anyone cares, I played my first-ever sanctioned Te/Te/Sh draft (I don't even have NetDraft, so it was something like my second or third draft with the mix, period) and I keep to an old theory of mine from the NY PTQ's, where I vowed to Rochester B/G fat creatures/buybacks/removal... a deckstyle I nicknamed "Fatty Justice" as my optimal plan was to get an Evincar's Justice w/ Buyback rolling with a few large-and-in-charge Green beasties. Denying the early Black and playable Greens (and NOT drafting Red, even passing Giants, Kindles, Fantastics to the next guys) rewarded me with a fair bit of removal, and in the second pack I got as my 8th, 9th, 10th picks Elvish Fury, Elvish Fury, Broken Fall. Stronghold rewards me with strong Spikes, solid Licids, and a Basilisk... I end up 3-0-1, only ID'ing because I needed to get home by two in the morning ;) Yesterday I played a small tournament with my deck at Hurricane's in Flushing, NY and despite the unusually low finish (I should be the t2k to these guys... only one nonscrub besides me plays there!) my deck showed its promise fully, as this guy topdecked the one card that would capitalize my *slight* play error. First round I have to face a Suicide Black, and despite early misgivings my deck performs above expectations. I almost expect to lose the first game to Ritual Black, barring him having slow draws, and require some sideboarded fun to pull me out of hot water. He pulls a fast attack, and I use my disposable assasins to prevent some damage from Sarcomancies while killing the Shadows. Eventually he goes to town with a Barrow Ghoul (he used Paralyze vs. Living Death, quite effectively I might add... it *almost* stopped me..), but I use a janky, scrubby Furnace to kill the thing ;). He gets me to four before I have total board control, and the Bone Dancer eats him for breakfast as I reanimate three creatures and attack with a bad-assed army of angry creatures. I got a bit lucky, I will admit... I sideboard in the Walls of Souls (so house against Weenies...better than Blossoms, when you're also playing aggro) and the Super Secret Sideboard Tech, Urborg Justice. I don't need them, as I pull the same trick... rather than try and race him, I stall his early offense and take some damage, pulling through afterward as I have far superior finishers... he gets the one-land draw, and gets a Sarcomancy. I timidly play a Fantastic and take two. He Unholies; I don't care and take four. I have an Incinerate for his second Unholy, and after that I storm him, although I was kinda low somehow when he starts to make a comeback. He dies to a pair of angry Sarcomancy enchantments and my Goblin Bombardment after I sac my Paralyzed critters. Dodged a bit of a bullet, it shouldn't be *quite* so easy... although I will admit I died holding a Justice that would have prevented him from doing much of anything after his 'comeback' started. Second round I get faced against a lame, Flushing-typical R/G deck. These janky things don't even have fast mana... I lose the first game as he burns me out a little too fast, and SB in 3 Perishes and 2 Justices (beatdown!). I win the second by clearing the board, althogh I curse my Furnace after topdecking a now-useless Bone Dancer. Dammit, coulda had some Wildfies! I don't reach sideboard cards, but kill him with the Stairwell as he goes 'WTF??' Game three is a race, as I'm mildly mana-shy and he takes out my early stuff with janky Kindles, Incinerates, and an Earthquake that killed two critters. I get Nekretaal and the lone Stronghold for some recursive nonsense, but I only have five mana, one of which is a Paradi, so I can't Nekretaal every turn to kill all the Wildfies and stuff. He manages to kill me with a GG'd Boa the turn before I Perished his stuff away (It wasn't worth the one Boa, and I didn't expect yet another GG...) and killed him, and only now do I notice that I could have recursed a dead Guildmage and used *it's* ability to recurse the Nekretaal, as it's two mana cheaper and I had the Paradise. I *can* infinite 'Taal with five mana... Dammit. Gotta play my deck a bit more before I notice this stuff, but I don't really expect the one Stronghold to actually show up and win me games. So I'm a bit more of a scrub than I like to admit... but that's my first serious play error in quite a while, so I'll chalk it up to experience. For all you drooling Dojoites, here is my ultra-wacky R/B deck, Dance de la Morte... "The dead have risen and they're voting Republican!" 4x Mogg Fantastic 4x Shadow Guildmage 4x Black Knight 4x Acidic Sliver SOOO Good! 2x Goblin Tinkerer (Janky, but he kills Scrolls and commits suicide, fits a theme ;) 4x Suq'Ata Lancer 3x Bone Dancer Underrated.. VERY strong. 2x Nekretaal See Previous. 4x Incinerate 3x Toaster! 3x Phyrexian Furnace Surprise value, fits a theme, it's a cantrip... 2x Goblin Bombardment 1x Volrath's Stronghold 4x Sulfurous Springs 3x Undiscovered Paradise 7x Swamps 6x Mountains I'd like to find room for a second Stronghold, it's that good for me... the Paradise are a mana problem-solver, and with a low mana count (21, borderline dangerous) its downside is rarely a problem thanks to the low mana consumption of most of the deck. The worst card in the deck is the Bombardment, as it's blatantly combo-oriented, but it does provide Living Death protection and using it as a Zombie Machine Gun is just too cool for words... in fact, it's quite sadistic, fitting my theme of being "Casually Evil" as my love Mary likes to say I am. After "scrubbing out" of the tourney, which had a pretty solid cash pot for a small tourney, we arrange a friendly 4-man Rochester of Te/Te/Sh because I am the best Rochesterer I know who hasn't actually played in a Pro Tour (yes, I still whine about that!!!) and because my friends/minions (whatever) still need serious pointers. The two newer players, Kevin's minions and as such my Bitches, don't even understand the concept of counterdrafting. I DO NOT TAKE THE AUROTOG PACKS. Tony Parodi, give me twenty lashes at high noon, but they never work for me. The order is Kevin, Me, Scrub #1, Scrub #2 for the first pack, and Kevin takes a Counterspell since he *always* drafts Blue in Te/Te/Sh. Since he has over 40 drafts under his belt, at least through NetDraft, I see his logic and suck up a Kindle despite my vows to not try and force Red at a draft when there are multiple solid Red cards in the early packs. The Fanatic gets passed to me again, as Scrub #1 is going for Fatty Justice and Scrub #2 is trying for G/W... as the only White player, it works pretty well for him. I open a Rathi Dragon. Oh, Terrence, you're SUCH an ASSHOLE!!! After that I just draft some more fat, go for a few smaller creatures as well, and do a bit of counterdrafting of Kevin's key Black and Blue cards early on. I want to add a second color for some more creatures, and I eventually choose Green as I have a Seeker of Skybreak, Horned Sliver, and Flailing Drake already to my name. I deny Kevin a Power Sink, some small Blue Fliers, a Gravedigger, and one or two other Black spells. He ended up U/r/b, so I was just housing him as I was almost mono-red at this point. Stronghold comes up, and Kevin gets first pack again. I counterdraft a Carnassid as my first pick, and clench the use of Green as my secondary color, as this thing is a beatDOWN! I hope to pull a Constant Mists for the total rudeness value it would give my deck, but my pack yields the even bigger Buyback Beatdown... I open Fanning the Flames. OH, TERRENCE, YOU'RE SUCH AN *ASSHOLE*!!! I end up 3-0 after round robin, having never lost a game. I built my first-ever Wakefieldian sealed deck, and every game four mana spelt doom for my opponent from many different big and angry creatures. It's been a joy, all.... I'll see all you New Yorkers and the Jerseyfolk at next week's Exodus Prerelease in NYC. Sorry if I disappointed any faithful readers by leaving out my usual spiritual experiences of Magic: the Gathering, but nothing life-changing has happened for, oh, two days at least. --Sean McKeown --Gandalf@BDominia.com "i know that you've been damaged, your soul has suffered such abuse, but i am not your savior, i am just as fucked as you... i cannot save you, i can't even save myself..." --Stabbing Westward, "Save Yourself"