Subject: [TOURNAMENT] long long long prerelease report. Date: 8 Jun 98 11:52:47 GMT From: "Juel Iwaasa" Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Warning: this is very long. Some of it strategy musings. Some tourney report and a little bit is just rant. Juest thought you should know ahead of time.... Salt Lake City, Utah pre release: The cards I got.... The cards (more or less): artifacts: Skyshaper Manakin green: Rootbreaker Wurm Skyshroud Ranger Natural Spring Rootwalla Rootwater Alligator Elvish Fury Predatory Hunger x2 Avenging Druid Reclaim red: Wild Wurm Mog Conscripts Heart Sliver Lowland Giant Searing Touch Blood Frenzy Maniacal Rage x2 Ogre Shaman Sabertooth Wyvern Furnace Brood Raging Goblin Shattering Pulse Anarchist Mage il-Vec Raging Ogre white: Soltari Crusader Soltari Lancer Hero's Resolve Quickening Licid COP White Armored Pegasus Shackles Shield Mate Angelic Blessing x2 Kor Chant Charging Paladin blue: Duplicity (whee!) Capsize Wind Dancer Manta Riders Sea Moster Shadow Rift Winged Sliver Merfolk Looter School of Piranha Horned Turtle Thalakos Scout Killer Whale Escaped Shapeshifter Wayward Soul Aether Tide Robe of Mirrors Forbid black: Spinal Graft Blood Pet Dark Ritual Rain of Tears Pit Spawn (big!) Dauthi Mindripper Slaughter Fugue Vampire Hounds Thrull Surgeon Dark Banishing Recurring Nightmare (strong!!!!) Carnophage Clot Sliver Dauthi Marauder Cursed Fleshx2 Nausea Death Pits of Rath land: Wasteland The deck building rules for Juel: 1) 3 colors in sealed unless you just have great packs in 2 colors. - I'm convinced of this. All the top 8 decks except for maybe one were 3 color. You end up putting in too much mediocre stuff to make the deck and it will make you violate rule three unless you put in an unused land type for filler.. (props to Joe Ellis for this advice) 2) only 40 cards (well 41, maybe) 3) 17 land -I only died once late game by topdecking a land instead of something else I needed. Saw lots of people die regularly to mana hose or just plain poor mana development.. (again props to Joe for this. Joe is (imo) one of the best limited players in the Utah area and I have scavenged a lot of experience from playing in small tourneys with him the last few months.) 4) playtest your deck as much as possible before your matches. The things to juggle: Removal is good. Creature abilities are good (shadow, flying, regenerate, first strike etc) is good. Quick is good. Phat is very good. The original deck: raging goblin carnophage school of piranha thrull surgeon clot sliver duathi marauder vampire hounds thalakos scout mage il-vec lowland giant dauthi mindripper wayward soul ogre shaman escaped shapshifter killer whate sabertooth wyvern dark banishing slaughter maniacal rage x2 searing touch capsize recurring nightmare forbid mountains x6 swamps x5 islands x6 = 41. comments: Didn't play the pit spawn because I was 3 colors. Chose lowland gaint over others (reckless ogre, furnace spawn because he was bigger, and over wild wurm because the wurm scares me. I playetested with the worm, and it was like losing a turn (or more) everytime I drew him. Wanted the green phat, but didn't want to give up on black removal/critters, red's buyback maniacal rages, and utility creatures (shaman, mage) or all blue's phat/flyers, capsize and forbid. Deck playtested very well against friends. We bounced ideas around but it seemed solid. Round one (against Chris, very mellow guy, W/B/G) Game one: he only sees 3 land for a while (15 land in his deck) but plays small white and black stuff (thrull surgeon, charging paladin, Standing troops, Soltary visionary.) I'm not pulling anything but blue phat and no blue land. I get out the clot sliver and the carnophage, and I get into searing touch buyback mana, but almost all his creatures are 2+toughness. I get beaten down by his Visionary (man what strong a creature at the prerelease!) which destroys the maniacal rage I have on the carnophage. I draw the marauder and he cursed fleshes it. I hang on forever with the clot sliver and recurring (nightmare) the marauder or whatever else I can find to deal with his creatures. He gets out a mogg cannon, and hits me with his now flying and dying visionary. I get out the sabertooth wyvern and think I can hold a bit but I never see 2 islands and I die with the killer whale, shapeshifter, wayward soul and forbid in my hand. Oh well. In goes the shattering pulse... Game two: I think I paris, get 3 swamps a carnophage, thrull surgeon and the searing touch.. Draw 2 more swamps, but have to wait a while for a mountain. Again I see no blue the whole game and am holding him off with the recurring nightmare and ocassional black of red creature. This game look like a great beatdown at the beginning but I stalled on mountains and of course islands were on a holiday. I have him stood off with 8 life and my wyvern out. I pinging his smaller creatures with the touch and am thinking I'll get back board control. I ping his Welkins hawk only to find he actually has 2 in the deck. He has the cannon out but the wyvern is covering the air. He doesn't cast the hawk, cursed fleshes his vampire hounds, hornet cannons them and throws 3 creatures to kill me. At this point I'm feeling pretty scrubby, and beginning to doubt rule number one (3 color deck). Both games I started strong but lost because I color stalled. I actually had the capsize in my hand but no islands on board when I got toasted in the second game. they call lunch and I am left with a lot of time to doubt myself and the deck. 0/1 round 2 vs Jeremyf? (looked like Elvis costello-even the glasses, R/W) First game Jeremy put out a fireslinger on turn 2 which was a problem for the scout and marauder I had in hand. He cast a maniacal rage on it and attacked. I capsized (no buyback) and then layed down my mage il-vec. He played some (can't remember) 3/3 creature and I top decked the shapeshifter. He couldn't lay the fireslinger because of the il vec so I proceeded to beat Jeff down with a double manaical raged marauder. Game 2 the deck slighed out with goblin/piranha/carnophage (creature cast every turn) beatdown but then stalled for the 2nd island for a long time. Jeff has come back, but I get the 2nd island and cast a wayward spirit. Jeff managed to get rid of my wayward spirit (I was tapped out) with a dizzying gaze, but then the mighty willy (killer whale), shapeshifter rise to the surface of my deck and were too phat for the gaze. Manically enraged willy flies over for dinner.. Okay, that was better, but the 2nd game was still nervous. I sat holding the forbid and wayward spirit waiting around for the 2nd island for a number of turns thinking, "I'm going to scrub out to no islands and have to drop in the first 2 rounds.". The deck feels janky in the mid early rounds never getting what it needs until later. 1/1 Round 3: against Bryce, W/G, probably 12-13 years old. I beat him in the first. turn one: mountain goblin. turn two: island, piranhas, t3: swamp, carnophage. t4, mountain, maniacal rage the piranhas. He plays a song of serenity and starts playing enchantments on my creatures. then he gets a sky shroud troll out, then a plated rootwalla. It looked like I was going to crash and burn to his phatness but I topdeck the shaman and stormbind him to death while sacrifice blocking guys to his rootwalla and holding his troll off with a clot sliver. 2nd game he gets out a quick armored pegas and throws a predatory hunger on them. My deck is too slow. The only creatures I see are the goblin and the ogre shaman. And by the time I get enough mana to cast the ogre shaman (he's the only thing I had in hand that could kill the pegasus) I had to block the skyshroud troll with the shaman or die to beatdown. Next turn I die. 3rd game I won. Only remember the thalakos scout with a manaical rage gets thru and beats Bryce down on a regular basis. This match took only about 15 minutes so I go out and find somebody to playtest more against. I find a couple of the guys who are 3-0, and since we are not going to be meeting because of the swiss format we play a couple games. I learn a lot from these games and retool the deck: (this was legal. they said since the cards were new, you could restructure anytime, thus avoiding first game death because you didn't "get" some of the new cards but had to side them back in every duel. They were very good to discourage scouting too. Once you were done your duel, you had to leave the room) 2/1 Biggest problem with the deck is that it is to slow and prone to beatdown by the 2-3 cc mini phat out there. I also have been having color problems. I put/pulled the following: -Furnace brood for the lowland giant. It requires one less red, is 3/3 and can stop all that regenerating nonesense (skyshroud and pygmy trolls, rootwater alligators). It turned out to be very strong in this environment. -horn turtle for the mindripper. It was faster, and could block lots of stuff. I sided the mindripper back if the opponent was playing lots of buybacks. This also stopped weenie onslaughts cold, as well as bigger creatures like trolls, alligators and furnace broods. -Merfolk looter went in and Forbid went out. One of the 3-0 guys I played for fun used this. It was incredible how good it made your hand. It also was good early beatdown. The forbid, though a counter spell and in theory seemed good really was problematic for my deck. I had lots of blue/red phat or buybacks that I wanted to cast. The times I did have the mana, I invariably needed to cast phat/fliers and killed the guy instead of waiting to counter. It also was another double U cc spell I was able to ditch. and the merfolk made a great combo with the recurring nightmare in round 5. -manta riders went in and slaughter went out. More turn one beatdown, and less double color casting cost spells. Though it might have been nice to keep another removal spell, it was a mid/late game card and by then I could never afford the buyback of 4 life. Same problem as forid in that I wanted to be casting creatures instead of holding onto mana so I could use the slaughter. - last change (happened after round 4) was swapping a maniacal rage for the blood frenzy. Manaical rage was good but it denied blocking ability. 2 rages out made it very difficult to keep defences up, while the blood frenzy helped me deal with plated rootwalla that EVERYBODY seemed to have 2 or more of in their deck. Getting rid of some of the double color cc spells, along with exchanging the midgame spells for early beatdown/blocking creatures made the deck much smoother to play. round 4 vs Geoff, B/W/R Now this was my first big tourney and I wanted to maked sure with all the things that could wrong, cheating was not one of them. So I kept track of both life totals on paper. Kept track of beginning cards drawn, phases, costs etc.. I also kept track of how my opponents' deck were maintained and shuffled. Now between the rounds we all look thru our decks. We get done with time and go thru them, unclumping land contemplating the cards etc. , at least I do. But then I table shuffle before the match. Geoff comes over and sits down. We exchange player# info and are waiting for them to say go. I finish a shuffle and put my deck out. I notice that Geoff hasn't shuffled his deck since getting to the table. He cuts mine and when I take his deck to cut, I say I'd like to shuffle it. I "3 pile" it, make sure that all the cards are facing the same way, hand it back and ask him to cut. i could see a slightly perturbed/unsure look on his face. He grabs the deck and starts to shuffle it. I say, "hey, you can't reshuffle. If I shuffle it for you you get to cut it. That's DCI rules." (at least that's what I've read on other tourney reports.) He says that he's allowed to shuffle. The head judge is walking by our table as Geoff says this, so I call the judge over and say," I tabled shuffled his deck into 3 piles, put it together and now he's reshuffling. Isn't he supposed to only be able to cut?" Geoff argues that I have done an "irregular cut" (don't know what that means) and he should be able to reshuffle (which he is doing while he talks). The judge says, if he cut your deck, you can reshuffle and have him recut, but if your opponent shuffled, you can only cut. Sounds like your opponent shuffled- not cut. You shouldn't be shuffling your deck. DON'T DO IT AGAIN. I have a friend name Joe who was also a judge that I asked about this and he said the opposite of the head judge. I still don't know what the right answer is, but I bet that Geoff's deck was at least mana stacked before I shuffled it. Okay, now to be fair, we played something incorrectly in my favor during our match too, but didn't catch it until later. I stomped on him the first game. He had a decent deck and he seemed to be a very competent player. But my deck and I were really starting to zone together and my topdecking karma was beginning to peak. In the second game (which was a bit closer)- I was at 16 and he was at 10 but we were about the same for threats on the talbe. I played a Marauder, merfolk and thrull surgeon. .He evincared to stay alive from my beatdown. It left my furnace brood and my horned turtle alive and killed all his creatures. Next turn he enfeebles my brood. On my turn I attack for with both of them again and he sonic bursts my turtle, I sac it to the recurring nightmare and go get the marauder back. Beat him down in 2 turns. He had some comeback creatures but couldn't deal with the shadow. I had phat in my hand too. We report in and he drops for the next side tourney. About twenty minutes later he comes over and asks to read the recurring nightmare. It says to play the ability as a sorcery. He was kind of sore about that and thought the game would have been different then. Might have. But I would have sac'd the enfeebled brood to get the marauder back and he still would have died in 2 turns. Asked my friend Joe what happens in that situation. he said I would get a warning. So I got a warning. . 3/1 Round 5, vs Jeff a younger kid U/B/R?( can't remember.) Bryce had an ugly rare in his deck. Equilibriam. When ever he cast a creature he could bounce another creature back to its owner's hand for 1 more. I got very lucky with a coulple of his random discard effects ( sonic blast etc.) taking his disturbed burial in both games we played. I can't remember too much about the games except that his equilibrium was a real pain the first game, ( I capsized it a few times but he had enough mana to recast it and something else if he had it.) and that I got to use the great sea monster against him in the second game. I sided out the shapeshifter and put in the seamonster. Started out with the manta riders and looter on turn 2. Use the looter before turn 3, drew the seamonster and discarded it. Turn 3 I top deck the recurring nightmare. Sac the mant riders and bring the sea monster in for a short game. The looter worked out with the recurring nightmare in so many games, as well as getting me thru tonnes of uneeded cards. It was so strong. 5/1 Round 6, against troy, 15-16 year old? (R/G) He had a great deck, but he made a few errors in blocking that saved my life. He had great creatures, and lots of them. He even played some suprise cards like "resucitate". i should have lost both games to him. he rolling thundered over half my creatures mid game and came on strong. I rallied back with more creatures. He kept drwaing plate covered rootwallas. I held one off with the clot sliver. Then he drew another. I dropped the shapeshifter (3/4). He dropped a mage il vec. He attacked with both root wallas and I double blocked the 2nd rootwalla with the shifter and the furnace brood. He seemed totally shocked at the double block, tried to use the mage il-vec to do one more point to the blockers to kill both, but I reminded him the mage had summoning sickness. I could see that he was starting to get unsure after that. I started doing recurring nightmare to bring the shapeshifter back. He attacked with most of his stuff again. I was tapped out so I couldn't regenerate the sliver if he blocked. Thought about it for a bit and decided to go for it. I could just feel all the gods of magic telling me to trust my deck I set up the blocks for maximum death on his side, even at the expense of my creatures. we both lost 3 or 4 creatures and were left with a stand off of my horned turtle versus his pigmy troll. It was a topdecking contest at that point (we were both at 4 life) but he was nervous and still trying to figure out why I would block the way I did. He was scared, and I swear I was a jedi knight! I draw. Creature. He draws a kindle and kills it. I draw my searing touch. He draws a land for the next 3 turns as I sear him every turn until I double sear him without buying back the 2nd time to kill him. His next draw? Sonic burst. Game 2 he gets out his canyon wyvern early (?- it's the one where he can discard a card to pump it +2/+0) and then he puts a maniacal rage on it and starts to pound me. I think if he had emptied his hand of cards he would have killed me before I was able to find my shapeshifter (via the looter, discard it and then recurring nightmare it into play to block. I kept drawing little creatures and recurring the shape shifter. I could see the recurring nightmare thing was making him nervous (hard to keap track of). He doesn't attack one turn with his pumpable flier. I top decked the sabertooth wyvern, so I attacked with the shapeshifter. He tried to block it with his maniacle raged flier. I point out it can't block because of the enchantment. Then I played the sabertooth. It dies next turn to his attack.. I get out the maruader and start dinging him bit by bit. He has a watch dog out and it's making my attacks weak. I block his flyer with the shapeshifter. I attack him with my marauder but have run out of other creatures to recur the shape shifter with. He is at 7 and I am at 12, but he has cards in hand to pump his wyvern so I lose the Marauder to get the shifter. He makes a mistake and plays a land instead of saving it for pumping the wyvern. He attacks. He can only do 9 points with pumping and he's at 5. He 's expecting me to block, but I say, "no block". Suspiciously he empties his hand only to 7 damage and casts a salamander. Originally, I was going to attack with the shifter. Bring him to 5, recurring nightmare my sabretooth wyvern into play to block the next air attack. And hope to have drawn my capsize or dark banishing. I draw the blood frenzy. With the watchdog out I can only do 6 points of damage. I attack with the shapeshifter, bring Troy to 5 , sac the shifter and recurr the sabertooth. I figure this way I will block and kill his wyvern with mine and the blood frenzy, take his 2 point beats from his salamander. Live another 2 draws and hope to top deck strong I say done. He draws, looks at the life totals and doesn't attack. ????? Plays a reckless ogre and says done. I can't believe how lucky I am. On my turn I attack for 2 and blood frenzy for 4 more. We shake hands and I notice that my hands are shaking from nervousness. It's almost 10 pm. When they pair us up for round seven. I get an oriental guy name Phoung (sp?) who I know is really good, but the say there is a screw up in the seating we all get reassigned. My wife and kids drop in to see how long til I'm done. I apologize for hanging on and say 2 hours. I get all 3 of my kids to "lucky touch" my cards. (It works.) Round 7 vs Lenny (r/g phat) game 1 Lenny goes first but I get out the manta riders, then the looter (which he gets rid of right away-don't remember what spell he used.) I get the piranha and then the carnophage and then vampire hounds. He gets one plated rootwalla our, but I maniacal rage the merfolk who fly over and continue to beat down. game 2 Starts to look like game one (carnophage, manta riders, piranhas. Then Lenny topdecks his only sideboard card- choke. He starts to beat me up with a plate covered rootwalla and an alligator. Can't draw enough land to counter offense with bigger ceatures. At 4 life I have out the furnace brood and clot sliver, but he has out 2 plate wallas and an alligator. I tap out and drop the sabertooth wyvern. His turn he drops an erratic portal and sends the wyvern back to my hand. He gets the gator thru. and I lose all my creatures in the blocks. His game after I don't find an answer next draw. Since we were both 6-1 we figure that whoever wins could probably draw into the top 8 and win a box of exodus. and that the loser of our match will probably draw into the 9-16 barcket (9 packs). We agree that if we can draw in, no matter which way the next game goes we'll split the box and the 9 packs. Game 3 is a good game. I get another quick merfolk start and he gets out the phat quickly too. I'm hitting him with a flying maniacal manta riders and have the life advantage. He has an alligator, and 2 platewallas out. He gets out the erratic portal and starts to make casting difficult for me. Meanwhile I'm still dinging him with the merfolk. . He draws the choke and then I draw the now useles capsize. He looks at the life total, thinks and then decides to attack with both platewalls and the alligator. I have a clot sliver, furnace brood and mage il-vec that can block. I can trade the brood fir the alligators and prevent them from regenerating. Stop one platewalla with the regenerating sliver and get my mage smucked underneath the 2 platewalla . He's at 11 and I am at 10. He has only one card in his hand I am tempted to let the one thru because because I can ping him for 1 with the mage this turn, and the next turn I could hit for 9. Plus by this time the decks are pretty thin and I have a searing touch and a ogre shaman still to surface. But when I think about it, I keep feeling that he hoping I'll save my own creatures so I choose to the opposite of what I think my opponent wants me to do and block all of them, causing the aligators to not regenerate. Lenny decides to send the alligator back to his hand with the portal rather than lose it. I top deck the marauder. Attakc with the manta riders and then drop the marauder.. Lenny sonic bursts the maruader. If he could gotten one of the platewallas thru for 6 he could have returned the alligator to his hand and toasted me for the last 4. I top deck the recurring nightmare, play it, and lose the manta riders to bring the marauder back. He can find a way to stop it and I chump block his creature attacks while I beat him down, 6-1 Turns out I lose the tiebreakers to the other 6-1 guys and I can't draw in to the top 8. So Lenny's and my deal doesn't go. We have to earn our packs He goes on to win his next a match, but I don't whether his tiebreaker info got him into the top 8, or just 16. I face off against Laurie who is ranked 4th. She could draw into the 8, but I need to play, I again offer to split the box and the 9 packs we would get. She just confidently says that she wants a box, so she wants to play. Laurie is W/G. I saw her play a few islands, but I think it's just get her land up. Game 1 I get the righteous early beatdown followed by my blue phat. She plays wood elves, pygmy trolls and that mean Soltari Visionary. I banish the visionaries andthrull surgeon her mounted archers out of her hand. Get the Wyvern and beat her down. Game 2 she gets out the pygmy troll, elf beserkers. I put down a clot sliver. She bleeds me for 1 for a a while. I drop the wyvern, and she drops the master decoy, keeps tapping the wyvern and gets thru for 1 or 2. I decide to slow the bleeding down to 1 per turn and searing touch the beserkers, but can't buy it back. Then I stall out. I just start drawing land. I get the thrull out and decide to use it instead of block. Get lucky and pull her Soltairi Visionary. But I draw 4 or 5 land in a row.She has me on the ropes. I have nicked her down to 11 but she's got me down to 6. Then she natural springs back up to 21. I draw- more land.. I'm at 4 life cursing that master decoy no end. Then my kids "luck touch" come up. I top the capsize. Only 2 islands on the table but I've got about 11 or 12 land in total so I start to capsize her every turn. She can't attack with out the decoy to tap the wyvern She draws some land. I draw recurring nightmare..Play it and sac my tapped (couldn't afford to pay for it) carnophage to get the marauder back.I draw a maniaical rage and put it on the marauder and attack while the decoy is summoning sick.. I bounce whatever she tries to play for a couple turns and she is down to 6. She has more land now plays the decoy and an exalted dragon. Capsize the dragon, look dismayed at the decoy. We play capsize the dragon and tap the angry marauder for a while. Then one turn she doesn't tap the marauder.I attack and she plays reality anchor and blocks with the dragon, decoy and 2 other weenie guys. I bounce the dragon and kill all the weenies. Marauder dies too, but there is no more master decoy. I think this was a mistake on her part, because it freed up capsize to just keep the skyway clean for the wyvern. Eventually the wyvern beats her down. So I finished 2nd and got a box. Last comments: By the end of the day, I was way beat, but wired too. Thanks much to great people that ran the tourney. Thanks the tourney organizer (can't remember his name) who gave decent prizes from 1thru16 place. Well it's morning. I'll better get an hour or 2 or sleep before kids wake up. Juel.