Subject: sHc 5cB [TOURNAMENT] 13th in NZ Nationals type 2 Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 11:29:23 +1200 From: "Simon Connell" To: "Frank Kusumoto" hi Frank! here's my tourney report at last! report for New Zealand Nationals, Simon Connell. the tourney was on Queen's Birthday weekend, Christchurch, NZ this report is for the type 2 part. I am playing 'sHc 5cB', my five-colour black deck, which I still think was great for the metagame, which was everything. There were just under 80 people, all of whom had to qualify in one of the reigonals. We had people from all over the country. Just about every deck was represeted, from combo decks like trap/bloom/zvi, 5 colour decks of all colours (including a 5cu that was aggressive - not donais), and of course burn, and even an old-fashioned mono-ww. My deck is: 4 Black Knight tried and true 3 Dauthi Slayer 2 Dauthi Horror I thought shadow would be unexpected, and for decks relying on walls for much of their defence, they kickss. The horror/slayer choice is a tricky one. The former is better against ww, and needs only 1B, but the latter is better against everything else, pingers included. 2 Nekrataal the high cc means any more is too many, but they are great creaturekill, and combo with the hold 2 Shadow Guildmage 1 Granger Guildmage I got surprisingly little use out of these. I think they were useful about once. The granger was anti-ww. 2 Frenetic Efreet These are also anti-wall, but aren't so good versus tradewind. I had to coin flip once the entire tourney (I lost). having 2 means when I get them I always have the mana needed. They also combo with the hold, as the draw you basically skip doesn't matter as the opponent 'wastes' their cards on it 2 Tradewind Rider never really used these much, but they are good insurance against scary permenants. 1 Necratog good, 1 is the right number 3 Man 'o' War I never like to use 4 3 Uktabi Monkey 3 Incinerate 2 Edict better than terror in this deck as I have plenty of ways to deal with creatures. 3 Leak 2 Lapse I don't like playing a deck without counters. 3 Winter Orb 2 Mox Diamond the mox is a good card. good with worb, and undiscovered 3 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Reflecting Pool 4 is too many (bad with each other/mox) 3 Gemstone Mine 2 City of Brass 1 Underground River 1 Sulfurous Springs 1 Volrath's Stronghold 6 Swamp the mana is one thing I tested a lot with this deck, and it works really well. The deck can (and has) win games on three land, even 2 gemstones and an undiscovered SIDEBOARD 3 Pyroblast 2 Hydroblast chose over passages against firestorm/ruination kind of thing 1 Disenchant 2 Tranquil Domain 2 Perish 2 Ebony Charm this was a good metagame call -- lots of living death 3 Propaganda this was a good choice with all the creature-decks, even though I never had to use it! THE TOURNEY I had been testing this deck for weeks so I was happy with it. I was staying with my friend Matthew's brother, with Sam (see round 1). We thought the sealed was on the Saturday and the t2 on the Sunday, so it was a bit of a shock. We did a bit of playtesting, ie 3 games against Sam which I lost. Round 1 of all the 76 people, I have to play Sam in the first round...hah! Sam is playing Sylvan Pursuit. We could recite the entire contents of each other's decks, which means there will be no surprises. game 1: Sam gets mana-screwed and sylvan-screwed with 2 paradises and 2 other lands. I lapse his 4th turn wisdom, then drop a worb and that is game game 2: again sam fails to draw a library but he does get CoP: Black! This slows me down as he has a paradise for my worb. but still I beat him down with a frenetic. matches 1-0-0 games 2-0-0 Round 2 this is versus brody, who is playing u/r, with manos(man 'o' war), lancers, some other stuff. game 1: very close. He gets a lancer/mano rush and I get a shadow rush but he gets MAZE OF SHADOWS and stops about 20 damage with it. I lose this one. luckily I have 5 great sideboard cards against him! game 2: I make my mistake of the day. I like to play without mistakes, and I made 1 the weekend. I made some other risks that didn't pay off, but only 1 mistake. Mistake was: use my shadow guildmage on his dwarven miner! O what a plan. Not. Anwyay, He gets dwarven miners all over the place but they all die and I win game 3: He parises once. and again. and again. and again. Yep, he parises 4 times and that leaves him 3 cards in hand. that's game matches 2-0-0 games 4-1-0 Round 3 versus James who is playing r/b with bone dancers, disks, scrolls, rats, disard. game 1: this is a textbook of my deck. beatdown all over the place. I end on 20 life. Necratog was the kill here, I see later he sideboards in furnaces, I smile as I boarded tog out! game 2: I have to paris and things are still not good. He coercions me, taking my city of brass over my monkey, so I topdeck gem mine and trash his scroll. I still lose though, a very close game. He got 3 crypt rats in a row, or something! game 3: I get 2 land....for a loong time. He dances my tradewind and friends I had to discard, and I concede. I still could have won this match, though, if luck had been different. matches 2-1-0 games 5-3-0 Round 4 this is versus Ben Ward, who I was talking to on irc a few days before the tourney. I am expecting speed black. That is NOT what I get. today ben is godzilla! game 1: I paris, but still win. He has merfolk traders all over the place but I get shadow beatdown. He gets heaps of necromancy/animated guys but I manowar them all. game 2: long, drawn out game. I am about to win but Living Death. d'oh game 3: he gets nothing I can't stop, and I beatdown. note: ben made some suspect moves like tapping a gem mine the dice on which read 1, and changed it to 2! he also failed to take a city damage one time and I hope these were mistakes. matches 3-1-0 games 7-4-0 Round 5 versus Adam Watson who is big blue. game 1: I drop a swamp. he drops an island. I drop a pool, think for a while, go 2nd turn worb! I picked right (I would not 2nd turn worb against many other decks) and win because of it game 2: I get 2 reflecting pools, an undiscovered, a dauthi horror and high cc stuff. He gets 4 man 'o' war and I lose because of it game 3: While I paris and get a bit mana-screwed, he gets 2 legacy's allure. He gets disks all over the place, fearing scragnoth, and I wish I hadn't boarded out my monkeys. I lose matches 3-2-0 games 8-5-0 Round 6 versus Anthony, who is 5cKastle or some close approximation. I am VERY prepared for living death. You just need to know how it works, and you can beat it. game 1: worb slows him down, I incinerate his birds of paradise which helps. Intuition for 3 tradewinds and then 3 fallen angels gives his deck away. then comes the KEY PLAY which I will be telling people about for years to come... he he in graveyard some birds, a blossomwall, some tradewinds and fallen angels. He's on 4. In play he has a city of brass and four other lands. In hand he has living death and some inconsequential stuff. In play I have an untapped shadow guildmage, a dauthi slayer and a nekrataal. I have enough land to do whatever. In hand I have an edict. He taps the land (he's on 3) and goes living death. I think for a while. In response, I zap him with the shadow guildmage (he's on 2) and in response to that I edict myself. my dauthi slayer dies. living death goes off. when my turn comes I have 1 dauthi slayer in play. He has 1 wall of blossoms, 3 tradewind, 1 birds of paradise and 2 fallen angel. But I have 2 unblockable shadow damage! that's game! game 2: I board in ebony charms and pyros (for the intuition). His bird gets fried, and he's a bit slow to get to 5 lands. when he does, I have a mana leak for his living death, and kill him next turn so overall I'm 4-2-0, 10-5-0 this puts me in 13th place in the t2, so I am happy. sadly, I go 3-3 in the sealed due to some woeful luck, and get 19th overall. anyway, I was very happy with the deck. The games I lost were either very close, or I got screwed in some way or other. other interesting decks I saw/heard of trap with ancient ruins the 5cu aggro with derelor, wall of essence, phid, mano, monkey, firewalkers, counters, earthquakes and stuff the team wellington g/b living death with wildebeests and crypt rats the ww with only white! crusade, heaps of shadow/en-kor guys. Scrolls, disks, and no geddon I think! Mark Ellis's 5cr with weird stuff like lotus petals and ensnaring bridge. weird things: I faced 2 living death but no ww or burn!