NO ROADS LEAD TO ROME

Subject: (Tournament, GP Birmingham)
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:47:53 +0100
From: "Andersson" anna.jonas@swipnet.se
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org

A NON-SUCCESS STORY

BITTERBITTERBITTERNESS BIG TIME

By Thomas Power-T” Andersson

About a month ago Shawn “Hammer” Regnier posted an article about his struggle to get back on the pro-tour after falling of the “gravy train”. It was an awesome post, probably the best I’ve ever read, a real nailbiter, and it inspired me to write my own just as soon as I qualified for Rome. Well, as you might have figured out by the headline of this article, I didn’t succeed. However, I think I did a great effort though and hopefully you will think it’s worth reading about. So let’s start from the beginning:

THE PREPARATIONS
I guess it was late August or maybe early September when we started playtesting rath-cycle. Lennart Borg and possibly Dan Orrestig were somewhat involved in this but Peter Lund, Tomas Arnlund, Calle Thille and yours sincerely made most of the work. We started by just ripping the decks from “decks to beat” on The Dojo and throw them at each other. After a little playtesting we realized that two of the decks was too weak to compete. One of those was Horsecraft, which got crushed by Awakening and didn’t do that great against some of the other decks. The other “sucky” deck was Humility, which got crushed by all decks with spikes since at the time the spikes got bigger, not smaller, when humility was in play.

What we had left was Sligh, Hatred, White Weenie, Awakening and Living Death. So we decided to play all these decks against each other, 8 duels without sideboard and 12 with. This is the result:

Sligh Hatred WW Awake LD
Sligh X 16-4(7-1) 13-7(5-3) 9-11(5-3) 13-7(4-4)
Hatred 4-16(1-7) X * 10-10(6-2) 11-9(5-3)
WW 7-13(3-5) * X 10-10(4-4) 9-11(4-4)
Awake 11-9(3-5) 10-10(2-6) 10-10(4-4) X 11-9(5-3)
LD 7-13(4-4) 9-11(3-5) 11-9(4-4) 9-11(3-5) X

Summary: Sligh: 51-29 (21-11)(Before sideboard)
Awakening: 42-38 (14-18)
Living D.: 36-44 (14-18)
WW: 26-34* (11-13)
Hatred: 25-35* (12-12)

* Due to the fact that we didn’t really consider playing these decks in a tournament we didn’t take the time to playtest them against each other. WW probably would have won though.

Sligh dominated big time as you can see and even beat WW to everyone’s surprise. This convinced Peter, Tomas and Calle that this was the deck to play. I myself wasn’t going to be satisfied with that as I don’t like weenie decks and only play them as a last resort. So I tried LD some more. That’s the deck I usually play in standard and I wanted to give it another shot. I tested it some more but got to the same conclusion as before: the infrastructure sucked. All the “big” cards was there, like Living death, recurring, survival, spikes, walls and so on but I really missed the 5c lands and the Birds of Paradise. Firestorm was also needed against weeniedecks, especially Hatred. The moxes that was used instead was surely awesome some times but other times they just plainly sucked.

So I dropped LD and picked up Awakening instead. This was because I had realized that there was a card in the sideboard that I wanted to use maindeck: Oath of druids (4 of them). That card was simply awesome against all weeniedecks and pretty good against LD too. (If you look at the statistics you see that Awakening was loosing against the weenies before sideboarding (9-15) but winning (22-14) afterwards.) Now the deck started to rock and even beat sligh before sideboard. This was about September 10 and btw right when Peter was taking a weeks vacation to go to Portugal and lie in the sun together with his girlfriend. By some strange coincidence (hrm…) this was right when GP Lisbon took place but Peter hadn’t time to take part of this new discovery so he just played Sligh(he said something about being tired anyway and not wanting to play a complicated deck) and basically just died.

Meanwhile there was a rath-cycle tournament at our local store TV-spelsbörsen in Stockholm (that’s in Sweden if you didn’t know) and of course I played Oath-Awakening. I beat one Humility and four weenie.decks before somehow loosing 1-2 to Calles Sligh in the semifinal. He then proceeded to beat Andreas Cermaks Awakening (with the oaths in the sideboard). Better lucky than good I guess!

After GP Lisbon there was a new deck to check out on the net: Counterphoenix. Randy Buehler had played it to great success there so we tested it a little but wasn’t really impressed so we kept playing Sligh/Awakening.

The next weekend I drove down to Gothenburg together with Jonas “Jonks” Ekenvall for a one-slotter. I managed to loose to LD and a Natures Revolt-Reign of Powers-Altar of dementia deck before getting a humiliating third round bye. Third round byes are only good in GP:s! I realized my chances of getting in top 8 were just about zero since there was 39 people and only 6 rounds. After beating Counterphoenix, WW and Burning Bridge though I was suddenly 9^th and one person at 4-2 actually got in top 8 so I almost got a little bitter about that. I then watched Jonks loosing his semi to Mattias “always one game away from the PT” Jorstedt in a mono-blue vs mono-blue matchup. Jonks was basically playing big blue with 15 counters, medallions, silver wyverns, killer whales and no Tradewinds. Mattias was playing a little more weenie-style with just 8 counters, hammerheads and helms of possession. Mattias then lost in the final to Kenneth Mossberg playing Humility.

I was manascrewed the times I lost in the tournament so I was tempted to swap to a mono-deck in order to fix that problem. There was also a lot of control in Gothenburg and I felt that monoblue was much better than awakening in that environment. So I took out some of the counters in Jonks deck for hammerheads and tested the deck the following week. It felt good so I played it in the one-slotter in Linköping the next weekend. That was Sunday September 27 and I drove there together with Tomas, Calle and Peter. Once we got there we found Jocke Falk, Jonks and 29 other random people which made it a 6 round 35 people tournament. I went 4-1-1 (one ID) only to loose to Jonks 1-2 in the quarter. Calle (playing sligh) lost in the semi and Jonks won the whole thing. My (Jonks) deck didn’t feel that strong against the weeniedecks I met in the tournament but I shrugged it of, I won against them, right?

The next weekend me and Tomas went on a four day tour to Norway for their attractive two-slotters first in Bergen and then in Oslo on the weekend of October 3-4. In Bergen only 20 people showed up so I felt I had a really great chance of qualifying. I went 2-3 though, loosing to Hate, WW and GR landdestruction and only winning against another Hate and a RW en-kor deck. I realized that the deck wasn’t good enough to consistently win against weenies, I needed walls, spikes and oaths! So was I going to return to awakening? After all, it wasn’t good enough against control, right? Well, maybe if I fooled around with the sideboard? I added some wastelands (to kill stalking stones), powersinks (better than mana leaks vs spikes, licids and silver wyverns) and scragnoths to the sideboard and played this deck in Oslo the following day:

Swedish Oath-Awakening:
9 island
7 forest
4 skyshroud forest
4 pool

4 c-spell
4 forbid
4 capsize
4 whispers
4 tradewind

4 awakening
4 oath of druids
4 wall of blossoms
3 weaver
2 feeder

Sideboard:
2 wasteland
2 powersink
4 chill
4 legacy´s allure
3 scragnoth

This was the sideboardplan:

Sligh: Out: 3 c-spell, 1 forbid In: 4 chill
Counterphoenix: Out: 4 awakening, 4 oath, 1 capsize, 2 walls In: 2 wasteland, 2 powersink, 4 chill, 3 scragnoth
Monoblue control: Out: 4 awakening, 4 oath, 2 walls, 1 weaver In: 2 waste, 2 sink, 4 allure, 3 scraggy
WW: Nothing
Hate: Nothing
Awakening: Out: 4 awake, 4 oath, 1 wall, 1 feeder, 1 weaver In: 2 waste, 2 sink, 4 allure, 3 scragnoth
Living death: Out: 1 wall, 1 oath In: 2 waste

The deck was very anti-weenie so I filled the sideboard with cards mostly against control. I had nothing vs WW and Hate in the side since I figured I would beat them anyway and besides there wasn’t any really good sideboard cards against them that I felt I could use.

In retrospect I would have skipped the allures for 1 scragnoth, 1 sink and 2 tranquilities. I then would have sided a little different vs especially awakening: Out: 4 tradewinds, 4 awakening, 1 capsize In: 4 scraggy, 2 waste, 3 powersink (and maybe a tranq for a wall). That would also have given me some good sideboardcards vs humility but I figured I wouldn’t face that since it wasn’t very common so… what the hell!

And so the tournament started. I won the first die roll and went land-done. My opponent went land-carnophage and I then tapped out for an oath. During his turn he thinks for a while and then attacks. “For 2?” I ask him and he thinks some more and then goes ritual-ritual-hatred for 18. I have no clue what he was hesitating about but I of course applause, congratulate him on his turn 2 kill and proceed to smack him around in the next two games. I then beat a WW and a Sligh before loosing to Thomas Refsdals Hate. So I beat another Sligh and ID with a LD for a spot in top 8. I am then paired vs Morgan Karlsson playing the very same deck Kenneth Mossberg won with in Gothenburg (yes, he borrowed the actual cards). Of course I had to be paired vs a deck I had chosen to neglect while building the sideboard! I still consider my chances being at least 50-50 and after taking the lead with 2-0 Morgan turns it around and wins 3-2. THE BITTERNESS!

Tomas don’t qualify either (and he went 2-3 in Bergen too) so we aren’t that happy when we go home to Stockholm. However I feel pretty good about my deck and decide to win the PTQ in our hometown the following weekend.

I think some 38 people showed up the next Saturday in Kalhäll outside Stockholm and my deck was hot! I went 4-0 (8-1 in duels) before starting to ID. In the 5 and penultimate round I am paired vs the Power-T of Skåne (southern Sweden) Martin Jönsson who actually isn’t too thrilled about ID:ing. He is concerned about loosing rating if he draws and kind of want to play. So I tell him that he shouldn’t be so cocky and that I have some good sideboard vs him. He then agrees to ID if we instead play for ante. I agree and we start to play. As expected he takes control in the first game. I manage to get him down to 12 but then I start to draw crap like Awakenings, which are no good vs him. After almost decking myself with my oaths I only have 5 cards left in my library and have to do something radical so I play 2 awakenings with a capsize and a counter in my hand. He also has a capsize and I think one counter in his hand. In response to the first awakening he draws 10 mana in his pool. Then we both untap and he draws another 2 mana while I draw as much as I can, 10 mana. We then untap again. So he’s got 12 mana and I got 10 in my pool. Both players want the other to play his capsize first in order to response with his own so he asks me if I want to do anything. “Sure”, I say, “I want to take 10 points of burn”(putting me down to 7). He then wants to play some fast effects but I inform him that it’s to late for that. “Take your burn like a man” I tell him. He refuses so I call over the judge. Martin then starts to explain that he didn’t mean that he was done with his upkeep, he only said that but meant something else, exactly what I don’t know.

However, “Do you want to do something” does actually mean that one is done with the current phase unless the opponent wants to do something so the judge rules in my favor. Martin then shows that he is a bad sportsman by saying: “This is ridiculous. In a tournament I would just have lied and proclaimed that I never asked if you wanted to do something. That would have resulted in a disagreement and a warning for both of us but I wouldn’t have had to take the manaburn.” So I guess the word of Martin Jönsson isn’t worth very much and I would like everybody to stop referring to him as the Power-T of Skåne as I don’t feel I have that much in common with him.

Anyway, I then ID:ed against “Elof”, also from Skåne and watched some of the other matches before it was time for the quarterfinals. I got paired against Jimmy Öhman, formerly from Gothenburg but know living and studying in Skåne. Since I had played Niklas Aronsson in the 4^th round it meant I was up against Skåne-player number 4 in a row. Whatever. Jimmy played Sligh, told me he wouldn’t win even before we started, and who am I to prove him wrong?(J) In the Semi I was up vs Andreas Cermak and his GR mix of creatures and random burn. Easy matchup? Probably. Did I win? Eh, well, there is this thing about mana you know& you need some in order to win and quite frankly I didn’t get any two times in a row and that was my undoing. Anyway, Andreas then moved on to win the final and I congratulate him even though I think his deck kind of sucked.

THE GRAND PRIX BIRMINGHAM

So now I decided to go 13-0 in Birmingham instead. With a K-value of 48 I figured that would render me about 350 DCI-points and put me right up there with Finkel and the others. Surely this would be my weekend? This is how it went:

Round 1: I only get one bye because I suck.

1-0

Round 2: Random guy from outside London playing Sligh. He concedes two times&

2-0 (2-0)

Round 3: Random Ivan Twan from Hanover, Germany playing Death. He plays some creatures, I play an oath and get a wall and a spike that way. I then play a tradewind with awakening out. That means he gets to use the oath once (he got wall and feeder out) before I can bounce it but apparently he doesn’t know that the oath swings both ways& whatever. I bounce his lands instead and let the oath hang around to see if he will catch on. He doesn’t and knowing that helps me a little in my sideboarding& Second game I win again.

3-0 (4-0)

Round 4: Random Londoner playing WW. I tend to win vs WW&

4-0 (6-0)

At this point everything feels great and I stroll around the tournament area feeling cozy.

Round 5: Random Micha from Germany playing Death. He is a good friend of Ivan and voves to avenge him. Anyway, we split the first two games and then have quite a long third game. At one point he calls over a judge so we can possibly have 3 extra rounds. That backfires on him though when he accidentally flips over the top card of his library. He had already seen the card using his scroll rack but the judge still had to give him a warning. Man, level 5 rules enforcement is harsh! Anyway, when the game ends on time I have some 7 lands and an awakening out. He’s got a druid, an oath of ghouls, a scroll rack, a mox and some 7-8 lands. I’m whispering and forbidding twice per turn and he’s got a hand full of threats. I’m slowly decreasing the size of my hand but all I need is another awakening to get on top of things. Since neither one of us is going to win within the next three turns though, and we aren’t playing that slow either, we don’t get any extra rounds.

4-0-1 (7-1)

This is very annoying since it means that I have to ID the last round before the cut to top 64 in order to be sure to get in, and draws don’t give that many points! So I am a little bitter when I go back to the hotel that night. The fact that there was a screwup so we had to play the last round the next morning didn’t help things either.

Round 6: Random Michael Debard from France playing Sligh. Great! There I was, preparing to convince my opponent that it’s all about getting into top 64, and then I get paired up! He’s 5-0 and came to play! I offer him a draw of course but he declines. Well, at least Jack Murphy is on my side know since he turned down my offer I think to myself and start shuffling.(You know, if someone offers you a draw you should always accept because otherwise the gods of mana will be angered and strike down on you! That´s just the way it is!) Then he plays a first turn raider and I KNOW I’m gonna win. He actually manages to kill me once but that’s all he can muster against Jack and me and I win 2-1.

5-0-1 (9-2)

All right! I’m in top 64! And I came to play on the second day so all right then! Thanks to not drawing I actually got a good position too. Most of the other Swedes lost this round (exept Andreas Jönsson who seems unstoppable with his 7-0) and I start to feel all cozy again.

Round 7: Some Random Australian bloke (Kim B) who built his GRB sackable fatty-oath of druids-oath of ghouls deck on the plane on his round the world trip. It’s not that bad actually and he got lots of surgeons and boils after sideboard (and a constant mists who manages to fizzle my capsize once or twice) but I manage to establish control eventually.

6-0-1 (11-2)

Round 8: Random Darvin Kastle playing Kastle. First game he goes turn one land, mox, hermit druid. He then plays two more early druids and a cartograph but I topdeck like crazy and manage to get rid of everything else and play an awakening. So he plays a surgeon and to his surprise (or?) he gets to look at my hand: 2 forbid, 2 capsize and one random card. So he goes for a forbid. I capsize a little and then he uses his stronghold to get back his surgeon and plays it. I let it go and he takes the other forbid. History then repeats itself a third time and now he takes one of my capsizes. By now he doesn’t have much land out though and I manage to lock him with the other capsize. His weenies have been pounding me for a couple of turns now but my two walls help me survive long enough to bounce them too and so I win the first game.

Darvin sideboards some 12 cards or something (disenchant, lobotomy, oath of ghouls, scragnoth) and I only side my normal 2 cards, confident that I’ll win anyway. Anyway, second game sees him lobotomize me taking oath of druids that I hadn’t been able to play since he had his assassin-cloudchaser-stronghold combo out. I then die do assassin beatdown. After two long games we only have 17 minutes to play the last game and I figure it will probably be a draw unless someone gets manascrewed. However, a bit into the game when he starts getting control I draw nothing but land for a long time. So he starts pumping out scragnoths using suvival and I still draw nothing but land so with only seconds remaining of the match I say done”. He then tries to use his carrionette two times on my lonely wall and of course I quickly pay the mana and say done” again. Darvin starts to untap and so the judge says TIME”. That means I was about half a second away from drawing! He’s got enough creatures left to kill me and of course gets to finish his turn so that’s that. Maybe I should have stalled but I got a problem with that&

6-1-1 (12-3)

Maybe I should have had some more against Death in my sideboard, but what? Portcullis? I’m not sure if that would have helped me though. Anyway I’m still in the competition. I need 3-0 for top 8 and 2-0-1 or maybe 2-1 to go to Rome.

Round 9: Messa Bouchaib (probably misspelled) from Sweden playing GR Cermak deck. Messa is a regular at the same shop as me and before the game he asks me not to powergame too much. Me? Powergame? Of course not! (J) Actually I don’t and when he tries to cast boil in the second or third game when I’m tapped out drawing mana in response to awakening I don’t call a judge but merely tell his that he has to wait until awakening has resolved. First game he wastes two blue mana, uses his helm on my tradewind and beats me with an inflated phoenix before I can get control(If you never heard of something that was inflated by spikes before, now you have J) The next two games I show him what my deck can do though and win without any trouble.

7-1-1 (14-4)

I’m almost feeling cozy again&

Round 10: Some random irish lad playing WW. I am pleasantly surprised by his first turn soul warden and win game one without to much trouble. I refrain from sideboarding since I don’t have any sideboard vs him, which gives me more time to congratulate myself on getting a 10^th round bye (some good I hear!). There is no way I’m loosing to WW! Way& Second game he wastes me a little and alays awakening I think and helms my tradewind. Later he plays cataclysm and and starts pounding with a monk. When I only got two lifes left I start topdecking capsizes, three in a row actually, but since I only got 3-4 mana left they are no real solution. I got a forbid in my hand but with only 2 life left there isn’t enough time so I die. I’m not to bothered though since I figure I’ll win the last game. I’m forced to mulligan though and the six cards I get instead suck too. I get no green mana and he just keeps playing weenies until I die!

I’m completely devastated afterwards. I was so sure of winning! I hide my face in my hands and don’t know if I’m gonna cry or laugh like a madman.

7-2-1 (15-6)

Round 11: random UK player with awakening. Wow, the first blue player all tournament for me! Incredible that I didn’t have to play one before, as there was LOTS of blue in top 64. OK, so we split the first two games and get timed on the third after having a scraggy stalemate. He had 2, I had three and I didn’t draw any spikes (sided out some so I guess I have myself to blame).

7-2-2 (16-7)

So I finish 29 and get lousy $ 250 which is nowhere near what I spent to get to Birmingham. Whatever.

I guess that’s it for rath constructed. Next time it will be urza’s constructed and by the looks of it that won’t be nearly as exciteing as rath or even MiViWe. Urza’s saga sucks!

MANDATORY PROPS AND SLOPS

Props to:

1. Some random dude winning the GP with a sligh deck. Guess he realized that the event took place in BURNINGHAM.
2. Calle and Peter for remembering to buy earplugs and not complaining too much about my snoring.
3. Hammer for telling it like it is.
4. Calle, Tomas and Peter for really committing and playtesting a lot.
5. English breakfast.
6. Darvin Kastle for being competitive even though he doesn’t got a computer. 4 top 8ths in 4 GP:s is strong!

Slops to:

1. Gudrun Schyman (Swedish politician) for being a hypocrite and a screw-up.
2. The idiot who killed our cat Ludde in a hit and run last Saturday. I don’t have that much to say about the actual hitting but the running I have a hard time forgiving
3. Peter for not setting the alarm clock on English time&
4. Whoever is responsible for the venue closing so early. That sucked big time!
5. My topdeckingskilz for not letting me qualify despite participation in 5 PTQ:s and one GP.