From: Sean McKeown To: Frank Kusumoto Date: 9-27-98 Subject: NYC Urza's Saga Prerelease RANT/report... Tournament Report, Day the First: So I've preregged for the Saga prerelease, I've bagged the full spoiler and even had a decent breakfast; to cut my usual long story short life's good and I'm roaring to go for some good old fashioned Sealed Deck in my favorite [fun] format, "new-set" Sealed. So I get to the Ground, fool around with my home-town minions plus Toby 'I'm A Sealed Deck Scrub!' Wachter, who asks to borrow my Sealed Deck skills for the day. I open my deck and am amused to learn that there are six Lands of each color in the box, plus some of the Common slots include Lands with Cycling, and you're allowed to get three additional Lands.. everyone will have two-color decks, neh?? Not that that's an official complaint, mind you, but it's an interesting way to idiot-proof Sealed... and it helps take away the Dojo whinge of "manascrew" when you only have two colors you need to look for ;) I open a Time Spiral, Lightning Dragon, and Opal Gargoyle, and we don't do any deck-trading silliness (whatever.. mise well trade with my friends who sat next to me, neh?) so I am already working off the theory 'kick serious ass, go home happy.' And no, I didn't use the Time Spiral, I traded it to Toby because he's a scrubby deckbuilder who wants it to play some silly super-secret tech he's designed. Tobes, just copy your decks, man....! So here's what I played, "Service With A Smile!" Drifting Meadows 6x Plains 9x Mountains Endoskeleton Pacifism Heat Ray 2x Arc Lightning (The diabolic secret to my sucess, mwahahaha!) Shower of Sparks 2x Empyrial Armor *ahem* Bravado. 2x Angelic Page Pegasus Charger Opal Archangel Monk Realist Monk Idealist Shimmering Barrier Disciple of Grace Gobbo War Buggy (SO CUTE!!) Gobbo Matron (a definite MVP, like Mary said!) Gobbo Spelunker (Matron says: Tutor for a Mountainwalker to kill target opponent!) Fire Ants (Never used its ability, never attacked with it. Eh.) Viashino Weaponsmith Viashino Outrider Lightning Dragon! Vug Lizard (MVP of the day, without doubt.. Mountainwalk was better than Flying!) My sideboard included Scrap, Disenchant, RoP: Green, Black, Red. And *some* crud. Round One, fight! (G/R/W) Alex Driggs Game one, I beat him horribly, probably with a Bravado'd critter or the Flying/Mountainwalking army of DOOM! Game two, I cannot draw white mana to Pacify his beatdown, so I Cycle the Rune: Green (mise well, I added it as a 41st card working off that theory as-is..); the fact that the only creatures I was able to play had Echo was enough of a deal for him to just swarm me. As I knew Echo would do if it was all you drew ;) Game three, I serve up terrible beatings with the Vug Lizard and my small Flying turds, I Gobbo Tutor for a 2/2 Mountainwalker. Service With A Smile. Games: 2-1 Matches: 1-0 Round Two, fight! (G/B/W) Lloyd Saulpaugh Game one, I beat on him mercilessly till he sweeps the board with a Pestilence; I play the my creatures wisely to tempt him into Pestilencing at them (landwalkers, et al.. stuff his Unworthy Dead couldn't block, basically) till I double- Arc Lightning him to a crispy critter. I sideboard out the Fire Ants, because they are useless against him, putting in the Scrap as my 41st card (Cycling, again.. if my one SB card is Cycling, I just add it right in!) and replace the Ants with a Disenchant. I saw a nifty Artifact I didn't like, Metrognomes of Blockage, and Pestilence, plus a Pacifism and such. I Paris because my hand has no Lands, then serve with my War Buggy, Vug Lizard, and such; the Echo slowed me down, but I still served... I Tutored for the Buggy :). I Disenchant his Pacifism on my Lizard or something, and draw my own Pacifism and play it on the Drudge Skeleton *ahem* Unworthy Dead for the kill. Games: 4-1 Matches: 2-0 Round Three, fight! (G/R/w?) Flushing Scrub (I think his name was Bye..) Game one, I clear the board a bit, return his Wall of Junk to his hand and cast the big fattie Archangel to serve if he casts the Wall again, or I'll just serve with some fattie goodness if he doesn't. I'm not a big fan of the Sleeper enchants, but an Archangel has to be worth it, right? My Arc of Lightning set up the positional advantage to make him need to play creatures; 5/5 loving ensues. I SB nothing, I need nothing :)... he does some silly enchantment crap, like Gaea's Embrace, so I Heat Ray the 4-toughness creature out from under it *tee hee* Oh Terrence, you're such an asshole! I'm Walking my way to victory with a nice l'il Vug Lizard, and I have Arc Lightning for the definite kill, so he Gambles for a Claws of Gix with one other card in hand. Being the savvy player I am, before he shuffles under the table I note that one card is creased in one direction, and the card he is rooting for is creased in another direction. Ha, ha, discard the Claws, keep the land. *grins*. Games: 6-1 Matches: 3-0 Round Four, fight! (U/R with Dragonquake) Eric Johnson Ah, this match. See rant... Game one, I Paris and don't get a good hand (kept it because of good Land dist.) and just don't draw any power. I SB nothing, since it was over that fast ;) Second game seems like a lost cause at first, since he's dominating pretty well and got a good start to my slow start, but he forgets to pay the Echo on the Dragonquake he just used to kill aaaaaall my creatures. I capitalize it and win at six life; deserved to lose but it seems like I'm a better player; I payed the echo on my Lightning Dragon 8) Third game is where I got cheated... unintentionally, but nonetheless, he had to do the exact string of events that the misrepresentation-of-reality allowed him to pull off. I'm at like 17 when the Dragonquake hits play; on my turn I play a Spelunker and an Idealist. Go to 11 during his turn, he casts nothing. On my turn, he Power Sinks my first creature. I say WTF, and while I'm thinking about how the HELL he could do that, I notice he didn't pay the Echo cost on the Dragon Bomb. I assumed he did; I'd pay the upkeep, wouldn't you?? Still jarred, rather than toss the Dragon Bomb in the graveyard, gain six life, and tap all my lands with a smile, I call for the judge and he gives the opponent a warning. No "tap the lands so you can't Power Sink", no "bury your Dragon Bomb", just a warning. So it's obvious to me at least I can't swarm, as his Time Walk means I can't get him fast enough. Hit him to 4 with the Spelunker. His turn, he casts Somnophore, and hits me to 5. I think of a list of cards that will allow me to win, as I have the Spelunkie, Idealist, and another small stupid creature like the Disciple.. one power non-flier is all that matters. The list comes to mind as I stare at my GY: 2x Bravado (on the Buggy), Arc Lightning, Shower of Sparks, Pacifism (on the Somno), Gobbo War Buggy (one more creature to block!), and Gobbo Matron, to find said War Buggy. With twenty or so cards left, I draw a Mountain and die. This list didn't include the cards I could have drawn to stall for a turn and go to three, which would be the Charger and one remaining Angel Page to chump the magic dragon. The next card was, of course, a Bravado. Goes without saying, neh? What a shitty way to lose. Eh. Games: 7-3 Matches: 3-1 Round Five, fight! (B/R/W) Dan Operman I don't even remember this match, but my notes say that in my anger and frustration I beat him senseless mercilessly two straight. Oh, goodie... yay, me! Games: 9-3 Matches: 4-1 Round Six, fight! (U/G/R) Erik Rodriguez (NG regular, so I worry a bit...) Game one, I beat him with Mountainwalkers like it's nothing, using the Arc Lighting to bust through the Goblin War Buggy that just mystically Tutored itself out of my library. As I said, Goblin Matron was an MVP in my deck :) I most likely sided in Rune: Green as my 41st card, but I never needed it too much; I swarmed with a bunch of Weenies, played Bravado on the Pegasus Charger when he conveniently tapped out of Red mana, and served three times with a 7/6 Flying First Striking monstrosity. The turn before he died he chumpblocked with the 5/5 Flying Dragon with Tim ability.. what an embarrasing moment, neh? Games: 11-3 Matches: 5-1 Round Seven, fight! (G/R with Phyrexian Matrix O' Brokenness) Vance {??} I get seriously schooled by the Matrix first game, and Acridian is really a good creature when you're using the rest of your mana to Time Walk.......... I take out something useless-ish, most likely the Cloudchaser Monk, and add Disenchant plus Scrap as #41. I play a turn-four Dragon for service with a smile, serve up the beats for a good long while, but he kills it while at 4 and begins to paddle me with the Matrix again. So I'm getting locked up, and like a bad player I don't Cycle the Meadows when I have a chance to look for the Chant again. I have 4 points of Burn in hand, but one is a Sorcery, so I need to toss off the Matrix and live one more turn before I can kill him. So I block well, with what little I have plus the Endoskeleton to stave off the worstest beatings of my life, and find the Scrap. Next upkeep I use the Scrap. Die during his turn to a Buggie in addition to the rest, putting me conveniently at zero the turn before I can burn him out. He showed me the Lightning he could have used to kill me instead, so I am sure I would have lost even if he didn't TD the Gobbo, but like I said... I forgot to cycle the Meadows, like a *BAD PLAYER*. That is one NASTY artifact... Games: 11-5 Matches: 5-2, no prize for you! So I go in for a Booster Draft. First-day drafts are soooo fun, as it's loaded with bad players and they draft even more badly than normally. Brooke "Mr. Beatdown" North is at the table, but nobody else I think I have to worry about too much... seems like a table of Raredrafters, to be honest, and the only Rare besides Serra's Sanctuary that I even SAW PASSED, much less drafted, was my third booster's Rare. So I have a bad Rare, and a worse one that I took because it was like twelfth pick or something and there was nothing left. Mise well win, up the Rare count for my $10, neh? I drafted a beast, but it was a beast with a really humped mana curve. If it was a bit more balanced between 2's and 3's, with perhaps a few of the 1cc Echo gobbos, I would have been muuuuuch happier... but being creature-gimped wasn't so bad. Pit Trap Despondency (I learned the power of this card through using it... pow-ER!) 2x Heat Ray 3x Expunge Is Some Good I Hear! 2x Bog Raiders 2x Skittering Skirge (Had three, but really...!) 3x Dromosaur (aaaww, it's soooooo cute!) Ravenous Skringe Phyrexian Ghoul Viashino Sandswimmer (my Raredraft, I thought the ability was fairly nifty...) Looming Shade Viashino Weaponsmith Goblin War Buggy Skirge Familiar (what a bad card for five mana, but it's still officially a beating!) Viashino Runner Sanguine Guard (would have loved to get 2 or 3 of these guys, actually...) Polluted Mire (anyone else notice the sexual connotations on these lands? C'mon, Slippery Karst, Smoldering Crater, Polluted Mire...!) 9x Swamp 6x Mountain I swept my first two opponents handily, then lost in the third match to a Phyrexian Registry, aka the Juzam Djinn Machine. If he didn't play with *bad cards* like Rescind, I'd have won, because he was taking Skrin beatings to race (try racing the Juzam Djinn Machine, I say...!) and he killed me while at 2 Life. Skrin would- have- gone- all- the- way! We drew the second game over a Pestilence, but he won the first and Juzammed the third, so it didn't matter. I go home to crash at a little after eleven, vegify in front of the TV while my room-mate, Mary's clone, and some random guy who happens to know some of Seth's M:tG friends from Cali. I veg out in front of SNL (doesn't everyone, nowadays?) and all I have to say is that Billy Corgen really, reaaaaally needs to shave. It's like he's trying to look cuddly or something, but it doesn't work any better than it would for, oh, say, Sengir Vampire (they DO look alike, neh??). I randomly decide to play in day two of the prerelease, seeing as I have a streak to protect! I have gotten prize at all prereleases since (and including) Tempest, so back I go to collect my Urza's Saga packs. Despite the fact that 9 out of 10 US Rares blow. Tournament Report, Day the Second: I wake up. This is good, I wasn't so sure of that. I get to the Ground bright and early, and get to be the first to sign up even though I'm not preregged. Being the only one at the first wave up the elevators who knows how to fill out those silly little white registration forms is a definite bonus. So I get to sit down with my bagel and OJ, which is of course all I ate besides a frozen Milky Way bar after something like the third round. I gab with Kevin and that cool guy with the Avengers derby whose name I can never remember, and who owes me one black hair band since he left without giving it back 8)... we talk some of the Saga cards, I get a few ideas and tell them about the nasty initial test version of the Lifeline deck we built. So it's not Fruity Pebbles, but it's still pretty rude... I added the elements that allows the Forbid lock to go ooooh so easily, so long as your opponent is unable to counter your Forbids (since we only run eight Counterspells total..). I advise Brian to do SOME sort of deck redistribution, otherwise I will use my deck from yesterday with a few added cards from today's starter. He takes the idea under advisement :) I get a deck that looks like nothing, Rares are pretty bad including the oh-so-ASS Artifact Purging Scythe. Give it to a scrubbily and collect a new deck, unfortunately my good colors are kind of short on cards so I can't play two colors. I'm a bad player... Mary, you can smack me up when next we meet, since even you played a two-color deck (as opposed to a 64-cd. deck like at the EX. PR) :o* So, while it may not be Service With A Smile, it is... "Service Indeed!" 2x Polluted Mire 3x Swamps 6x Plains 6x Mountains 1cc: Goblin Patrol Shower of Sparks Heat Ray (XR actually, but whatever.) 2cc: Opal Gargoyle Disciple of Grace (MUCH better today than yesterday...!!!) Pacifism Despondency Pit Trap 3cc: Sanctum Guardian (the only double-CC card in the deck, since I {wisely} didn't use Pestilence!) Sanctum Custodian Guma Viashino Outrider Bog Raiders Phyrexian Ghoul Ravenous Skirge (The Biggest Beating Ever!! Sadly, that was said without sarcasm ;) Steam Blast (the closest I have to a broken card... *tee hee*) 4cc: 2x Voice of Law (the KILLER card in the deck, against almost every opponent...) Viashino Weaponsmith Viashino Runner Path of Peace 5cc: Hollow Dogs (love the name, the card can be a beating too...) Skirge Familiar (Also the Biggest Beating Ever!! *cries to himself*) Can anyone say mana curve?? The deck just kept on serving! Round One, fight! (R/B/W) Hogan Long I have angered the Pairings Gods. Hogan is obviously the best player in the tourney. Game one put up some fight early on, with the protected creatures stopping his Red Goblin and his black Zombie as I try to serve with a Skirge, but service didn't come and I didn't have the Familiar, just Ravenous one, so I couldn't toss my hand for mana to power a spell to put up a fight (weakly, I might add..) under the Helix Of Doom. Suffer beats from a 5/5 Dragon that decided to *PING* me for the last two points rather than come hither. Hogan can be a jerk that way, since he played it that turn rather than just goldfish me rather easily, and he tells me that's not even the best card in his _hand_. I fear Hogan normally, but Hogan-with-a-great-deck is even worse :) I look into my sideboard to see how exactly I plan to deal with the Phyrexian Helix; the options seem to include Barrin (bounce it at EoT) and Confiscate, plus Power Sink and Rewind, but I have no Disenchant, no Scrap. My plan is to *IGNORE* Phyrexian Helix. *STRONG*. Game two develops well; I use my Voice of Law to stall and such again, since he got the earlier beats and I have to shift parity somehow so I can attack. I wait a while, taking only a point or two per turn, something like that. When it seems Hogan has sufficiently overextended himself with small creatures (plus that nasty 3/3 that deals me 3 whenever I target it...) that I Steam Blast them all, and Heat Ray the Hill Giant, taking the three and loving it. I have a removal spell or two afterwards to let me serve up with Judge Dredd. Game three doesn't count, since Hogan got stalled at two lands and only needed one more to cast spells as I serve with stupid 2/2's cast on turn 3, 4, and 5. But a win is a win, and I didn't think I'd get him the third game.. though I did get a "fast" Judge Dredd, which he seems not to be able to deal with. I feel really bad for Hogan, but I don't tell him that since it'll just piss him off even worse, so whatever. All my opponents for the rest of the tourney are Not-Hogan-Long, so I think I should be able to pull through with my non-broken little pile of stuff. Games: 2-1 Matches: 1-0 Round Two, fight! (R/B/W) Not Hogan Long! I beat on him with Fliers like it's nothing, though it's quite besides the point that he had a chance of killing me the turn after I cast the Steam Blast. I waited to cast it till he tapped his Plains, so there wouldn't be any surprise lifegain to ruin it for me :) I SB in one Sicken as my 41st card, as his deck seems like it will be weak against it.. and if not, cycle it, neh? I suffer some early beatdown from his stuff, but I trade with some almost-as-early critterkill. I Sicken a Charging Pegasus, so I was happy with that one; killed with Judge Dredd, who is just _so good_ when everyone is playing heavy Red. Games: 4-1 Matches: 2-0 Round Three, fight! (R/B/??) Not Hogan Long! My hand is a Mulligan. I have a Mountain, five random 2 => 4 cc spells including some removalish crud like the oh-so-good Despondency, and I take my big balls and keep the hand because of the Goblin Patrol to serve early on. Hit him for 6 with it before he casts a creature, and I've cast a Pit Trap as soon as I drew my second Land so I wouldn't have to discard :). I draw another Land, then a Mire (I'm amazing!) so I cast all the service and removal that's been sitting in my hand. I have a Pacifism and the Guardian in my hand when he plays the Discard Nekretaal, so I toss the Guardian since Pacifism is so much better (and only 1W CC, so I would cast if first :P ). Topdeck a Plains to bust through for the ser-VICE! Balls bigger than brains is good with a weenie deck. Oh, yes! Game two looks like I'm going to lose it, since I have a nice Skringe attacking but he got the early beats on me before I gained the beatdown advantage (in numbers only, he was still mucho higher on life..) I have a Steam Blast I can use to kill SOME of his creatures, but like ALL of mine except the pro-Red. And he has creatures with toughness greater than two, so it's not going to work. I'm being Mountainwalked to death by a Goblin (hey, that's MY trick dammit!) and am at three life when (I am SO amazing!) I say to myself, "What cards can I use to kill my opponent before he kills me??". The Steam Blast is 2 points of DD, since I *am* at three (remember, balls bigger than brains??) when I topdeck Shower of Sparks. Opponent is at eight; I attack with Judge Dredd and Skringe for five. We are both at three. I cast Steam Blast and a teensy weensy little Shower of Sparks to shower my opponent to death. Cheeeeeese! :o) Games: 6-1 Matches: 3-0 Round Four, fight! (U/G/W) Not Hogan Long! I serve with Fliers after a slow start; my plethora of removal spells time themselves so I can use them wisely to enforce the downward spiral. Also known as I summoned stupid creatures and blasted almost everything he played out of existence. I consider SB'ing in as 41 the Rune: Green, but whatever, it's not going to be _that_ good against him.. that's my DECK's job :) I get a mess of Lands in my opening hand, but it's the full assortment and one is a Mire so I keep it (duh!).. I start with Judge Dredd Beatings after catching up with him spell-wise, cycling away both Mires that I got, and serve massively with both Skringes when his best answer to stop them seems to be Barrin, Master Wizard. I have parity on the ground, nothing spectacular but he can't bust through and I can't bust through. When he runs out of Lands to sacrifice to Barrin, I come a-knockin' and serve gladly. Seems his deck had been dominating everyone else's today.. Service Indeed! Games: 8-1 Matches: 4-0 Round Five, fight! (U/R/B???) Not Hogan Long! Game one I get seriously screwed for Lands early, and am barely keeping the beatdown at parity thanks to some small stupid creatures, a Swampwalking Zombie, Judge Dredd, and the oh so cool Despondency allowing him to serve for... one. He does a nice little Windfall to toss away my parity-breaker Steam Blast and Judge Dredd #2, plus his drawing an additional five cards was nice, but they were all Lands while I was smacking down with a Hollow Dog and Swampwalker while keeping his side of the board clear with Heat Ray and such jank. I look at my sideboard and mystically decide to add nothing at all, and just serve, serve, serve game two.... like it's nothing!! Well OK, so I had to remove just about every other creature he played and I Shower of Sparks'd his Pacified Ravenous Skringe when he put the Tim-enchantment on it, wasting perfectly good removal, but I couldn't let him have a Tim. I race him with serious beatdown advantage and just serve, serve, serve. Turns out he had the Juzam Djinn Machine in there as well... same tactic as I used against Hogan's oh-so-broken Artifact, make pretend it's not there and you don't have to worry about it.. ignorance is bliss when your deck is a weenie machine. Games: 10-1 Matches: 5-0 I think I'm amazing, I've lost one game all day. Yep. I'm amazing. *grins* Round Six, fight! (Who cares?) Erik Rodriguez As the only undefeated players, we extend the hand of friendship, collect our prize, and leave the tournament when it's still daylight (ok, so THAT! is amazing!). I was in no mood to play again, and after I so stomped on him yesterday I think he was very, very glad that I offered the hand :o). Working off the theory that anyone yet undefeated had a gruesomely broken deck to play with... (heh heh heh, I have no broken cards, I didn't even use any of my Rares!) Go home happy. I open the box and I have the following Rares: Serra's Sanctum Shivan Gorge Tolarian Academy Phyrexian Tower Metrognome Citanul Flute (wow!) Chimeric Staff 2x Eastern Paladin Lurking Evil Tainted AEther Abyssal Horror Opression Persecute Zephid Gilded Drake (Cute.. think Tradewind Riders) Somnophore Barrin, Master Wizard (Again, think Tradewind.. you can landlock easily w/ Tradewind + Barrin!) Time Spiral (the set's obvious Chase Rare. Predicted value $12-$15, despite playability) Energy Field (wow, in some cases. Eeew, in others.) Back to Basics =) Brand Bulwark Gamble! Viashino Sandswimmer 2x PRE-RELEASE Lightning Dragon, 1x Reg. Lightning Dragon Hidden Stag 2x Hidden Herd Argothian Wurm Argothian Enchantress (Verduran Enchantress, but a lot better... hmnn...!) Pariah (think en-Kors.. heh heh heh) Worship (I think I have to send this one to Mary, am I right or am I right!?!?) Catastrophe Opal Archangel Elite Archers Soul Sculptor I need to get me some Lifelines, Persecutes, Noetic Scales, Thran Quarries, and Bedlams.. mise well go to Flushing to rip off the scrubblies, neh?? Until the next time, oh my brothers... --Sean McKeown --Gandalf@BDominia.com "Who am I to need you now, To ask you why, to tell you no To deserve your love, and sympathy... You were never meant to belong to me..." --Smashing Pumpkins, "Crestfallen"