Subject: top eight MD rome ptq Date: Tue, 13 Oct 98 10:08:45 EDT From: David Roderer To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com brief tournament report (top eight MD Rome PTQ) 14 mountain, 2 wasteland. 4: jackal pup, mogg conscript, mogg fanatic, mogg raider, canyon wildcat, fireslinger, mogg flunkie, shock, maniacal rage, sonic burst. 2 raging goblins, 2 goblin bombardment. Sideboard: apocalypse, 2 ancient tombs, 2 bottle gnomes, 2 havoc, 2 jinxed idol, 2 portcullis, 2 rathi dragon, 2 wasteland. The main thing I have to say about this deck is that if anyone tells you living death beats red, tell them they don't know what they're talking about. I played against living death in rounds 1, 3, and 4 of this tournament, and I don't believe I lost a game. Blue B'tings is another story. Round 1. Living death. Opponent played a pine barrens in game one. Me: mountain, jackal pup; Mountain, flunkie; etc. He played his second land and a wall of blossoms the turn before he died. Game two. He mulligans twice and played a pine barrens. Me mountain, jackal pup, flunkie, etc. I don't think he played a second land this game. 1-0. Round 2. Mawcor blue. I thought maybe I had him game one. Had him at five life with a fanatic in play. Had six or seven draws. No direct damage. He wins. Game two. Quick chill. Curiousity on a mawcor. Second chill, third chill. Very ugly. This opponent was sadly disqualified during deck-checks the next round for improper deck listing. It was the deck of the day, and he could have gone far. 1-1. Round 3. Living death. The pup/ flunkie start again consistently overpowers a slower deck. Game two I actually get to play the portcullis with like three creatures in play to his zero. He casts death, I firesling my slinger in response. My fireslinger and fanatic go on to beat him down. He plays a first turn mox diamond both games, which seems to leave him insufficient cards in hand to mount much of a threat. 2-1. Round 4. More death. I don't even remember. My draws were good, he was dead. 3-1. Round 5. White weenie (should lose this one, right?). Game one I sling a monk, he has a good `clysm (he keeps a paladin and a diamond), I keep a wildcat or something. Direct damage (and perhaps some imprudent attempts to race on his part) still get me through. Game two. He plays first and second turn priest, third turn paladin. 3 sonic bursts in hand still win me the game and match. 4-1. Round 6. Grindstone/ scalding tongs. We each play one land in game one. He plays a grindstone. I play: conscript, conscript, pup, fanatic, raider. Game two is remarkably similar (he plays two lands, but I waste the second.) 5-1 Round 7. Intentional draw. This was good, because it turns out he was playing mawcor blue, and would have crushed me. This is bad, because I could be the one 5-1-1 who doesn't make the final eight (that round two loss to a player who was then disqualified causes me much anguish.) 5-1-1. I sneak in as the eighth seed. (Apologies to Pat Johnson, the nine seed, who may have deserved the spot more than I did.) Quarterfinals. Mawcor blue. Pete Leiher. To mulligan my rare no-mountain draws helps me not at all. I make mistakes. I am dramatically outplayed (at least one certain mistake I made was bursting the double curiousitied manakin when I could have played goblin bombardment and sacrificed my only creature, but the game was quite lost by that point.) Hammerhead sharks hold me off and drain my cards, mawcors and stalking stones go in for the win. In conclusion, if people tell you that living death beats red, tell them they don't know what they're talking about. Decks with 26 plus land and piles of three toughness creatures (mawcow, tradewind, stalking stone, thalakos drifter, hammerhead)- they beat red. Death does not beat red. Dave