Subject:Grand Prix Birmingham Report Date: Thursday 21 October 1998 From: Aras Senyuz-Turkey To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Grand Prix Birmingham Report By Aras Senyuz Hi everyone. I want to start my report from how we come to Birmingham and how we tested and selected our deck. But you must know that this was my first Grand Prix and I was very excited before the tourney. So it was very hard for me to compete in such an enviroment. We arrived in Birmingham Friday night at 7.00pm , we had some passport problems in the airport but we finally arrived to Birmingham, after a few hours of eating and testing we slept. My teammates from Turkey were : Yusuf Kemal Vefa ( Our Hero, I love him as a brother) Finished 81st Boluc Pabuccuoglu ( My great guy , I love you too) Finished 123st Bora Davran (He is a genius) Finished 224th Me :) Next day we were awake at 7.00 am and I was a little bit sleepless, we had our breakfeast and there we met with Guy Bowles from England ( He beat Yusuf in the 5th round*damn it* ). When we arrived to NEC we checked in and started to register our decks, I really was curious about what I'll do in the tournament, but at least I wanted to be in top 64. This was because no one from Turkey succeed this before and I wanted to be first one. Before the tourney I tested many decks like Humility-Prayers, Sligh,Living Death, WW and others, but finally I decided that my Hatred deck was perfectly suitable for that Grand Prix full of control decks such as mono blue, awakening. By the way I always liked black's high speed so I decided to play Hatred for the tourney. I always believed that better players side better so I decided to put something different to my sidedeck. This is my deck : 4 Carnophage 4 Blood Pet *Key to the Victory* 4 Dauthi Slayer *I think horrors are better for this deck* BB sometimes makes trouble 4 Dauthi Horror 2 Crovax The Cursed 4 Dauthi Marauder * Someone told me that warlord is better, but who cares him I love my marauders* 4 Diabolic Edict 4 Sarcomancy 4 Dark Ritual 1 Slaughter 4 Hatred *Victory does not exists without them* 4 City of Traitor * I love'em* 17 Swamp Sideboard: 3 Coercion 2 Portcullis * Never had a chance to use 'em.* 4 Bottle Gnomes 1 Jinxed Idol * Key to the victory* 4 Dread of Night 1 Reckless Spite * Baroooken* I knew that I was taking risks by playing a mono black hatred deck , but this is me, I love to take risks!!! So my opponents were : 1st Round vs Andre Towers (England) 2-0 He was playing a WW with full of Soltaris but I've finished him in game 1 at 3rd turn, and he made a terrible mistake by untapping his Maraudered Helm, so I beat him again. I really liked him because he played well and clear, Thx to you Andre. 1-0 My other teammates were 1-0 also. 2nd Round vs Raphael Sintes (France) 2-0 He was playing a blue-white deck with Slivers and counters so he did not able to draw enough mana in game 1 to counter my hatred, In the second game a coercioned him in turn two takşng his only counter to cast Hatred freely next turn. 2-0 Yusuf was 2-0 but Bora lost due to tardiness (What tardiness Judge did u ate your guts?) 3rd Round vs James Fryer-Kelsey (England) 2-1 WW nightmare again, his deck was the one that I fear most, but he did a terrible mistake in Game 2 by attacking with both his Soltari Champion and En-Kor leaving his only Paladin in defense. In my turn I attacked witm my 2 Sarcomancy token and Hatred the unblocked one, Game 3 was easy he was killed in turn 3 .Always expect the unexpected my friend. 3-0 I was very happy because Yusuf was 3-0 also. 4th Round vs Micha Schulte-Middlelich (Germany) 0-2 Nothing to say, I drew terribly and he ate me as breakfeast with his Living deaths in both games.In game1 I did my only mistake in whole tourney, I sacrificed my carnophage to Crovax instead of Dauthi Horror knowing that his only chance to win was living death, so he untapped cast Living and my only Carno come into play when he was tapped out and his life total was 2. If I had sacrificed Horror I would be able to kill him by dealing 2 damage with my Horror. Damn me! 3-1 Yusuf was still unbeaten, I was very proud of him. But I was very unhappy :( 5th Round versus Micha Ollila (Finland?)2-0 I really don't remember how I beat him, but he was a nice guy, and we traveled together with him wth team Finland at the train via London. 4-1 Yusuf lost :( We still had to win next round) 6th Round vs John Ormerod ( England) I still can not believe that he beat me in Game one without sideboarding with his Mono blue, whatever in Game 2 I ritualed 3 Carnophages first turn, a turn 2 marauder, a turn 3 Crovax. In Game 3 I was really excited but look what I drew : Swamp,City,Carnophage,Ritual,Hatred and 2 more creatures. So you can guess what was happened in turn 2 :) 5-1 Yusuf lost again, but no matter he already did his best like Bora and Boluc . That was it , I was in top 64. The only Suicide in Whole 64 was me , and I was from Turkey. I finally had a chance to show world what a Turkish can do ! Top 64 duels : 1st Round vs Kristian Hallman (Germany) 2-0 I really have to say that I drew so good that he never had a chance to win against me , I played sooo well against him. 6-1 2nd Round vs Jean Louis D'Hondt (Belgium- a real gentleman) 2-0 This game was my best game I ever played. I really enjoyed the game and Jean was really good, Thanks for the game Jean see you in Rome. 7-1 3rd Round vs Philippe Mongauze 2-0 Before the game judges checked our decks and Philippe tough me a dice game and we played that dice game during the checking period, he was really nice and kind but his wall of bloosoms were not enough to deal with my Shadows...Game 2 was terrible for him because he mulliganed down to 4 and still have no land. 8-1 4th Round vs Arho Toikka 0-2 Playing Rude-Awakening he beat me in Game one by starting the game ,turn two legacy turn three another one, turn 4 awakening.Ups combo !!!Game 2 was terrible , his life decreased to 6 and I was coercioned him and saw that he had no counter or capsize. Next turn I cast marauder and he countered , in the turn after I cast Crovax he countered again, and the last turn guessing that he can not draw another counter spell I Hatred my only unblocked creature and guess what happened ? He SHOWED ANOTHER ONE!!! 8-2 I had to win last one to make top 8 5th Round vs Jon Finkel Before the game I was very proud of myself being the only Turkish to play in top 64 and playing against all of the world's biggest Magic players. I want to thank most of them for being polite. But I have to say that I've never seen such professional player before, I mean Finkel played like player and I learned many things from his style. Game 1 : I win the dice,and started. Turn one ı ritualed to cast 2 or 3 creatures, turn two slayer ,turn three marauder, and he tried to topdeck one more black mana to cast Living deck which he failed to. Game 2 :I sideboarded 2 Portcullis, He started.I cast turn one blood pet, turn 2 two more blood pets, turn 3rd swamp. I attacked he blocked one of the pets with Blossoms I sacrificed my two pets plus tapped 3 swamps to Hatred for 18. So finally the Grand prix days were over and I finished the 10th. I won an invitation to the Pro Tour Rome and will be there in November ( Perche parlo italiano !) See you next time ladies and gentlemen thanks for everything you did for me . Slops : My family, I really love you so much , you were my best friends. Without you I really can lose my faith after the loss to Arho Toikka and can't beat Finkel. Asli, for loving me and trusting me . I love you soooo much you can never imagine how our telephone call helped me. Yusuf, for being my advisor and brother, Thank You for all your helps. Bora, In this short time we became best friends, I really want you always beside me . Boluc, Thank you for all your help , you tough me many things during this travel. Yusuf, Boluc, Bora being the best teammates I know, I really could not make this without you. Anyway we are 3 toplar ve 1 çubuk hehehehehehehehehe.Sizi coook seviyorum beyler optum kehkeh. Jean Louis D'Hondt for being so polite and nice to me and to everyone. Philippe Mongauze for teaching me that dice game , you were so unlucky :) Bruno for being so nice with everyone and organizing such a tourney. Ugur,Eray,Onur,İlker,Emre Thanks for lending me your cards . Slops Non-Qualitative Bad Guys from Istanbul, we shoved you that we can make it. Thx for nothing bad guys. ( ''abi wizards'in sayfasinda türkiye siralamasinda birinci olarak gözüküyorum toplam ranking'de. yehhuuuu!!!!'' ) >:( Kristian Hallman, you better accept next time that you've been defeated lass . Judge Brian, why did you give that stupid one game loss warning to my teammate Bora?He did not deserved that one! Birmingham , nice city. Name: aras.txt Part 1.2 Type: Plain Text (text/plain) Encoding: base64