Subject: UK Tourney Report
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 15:43:28 +0100
From: S.J.Dewey@admin.hull.ac.uk (Simon Dewey)
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org

Well I’ve been threatening to send in a tourney report for some time, and since I’ve had my first win(after numerous quarter, semis, finals etc), now seems a good a time as any :)

Btw, this report contains no whinging or bitching etc... if people out there don’t like playing Magic anymore (check out the numerous Dojo posts ie Magic is dead! blah blah)... its simple. Stop playing. The rest of us aren’t interested and don’t give a toss...if we did we wouldn’t still be playing..! Onto the report....

The tourney was T2, held on the 25th October at Scarboroughs Grand Hotel in England, UK, with 30+ people attending, (excellently ran by Ben ‘mr bunny’ Martin and Nigel ‘hairdresser’ Jeffersson plug plug.)

Being regulars the Hull posse(Team D’Hull consisting of Matt Lazenby, Jason Turner, Myself playing CMU blue(ish) Gary playing WW, Ritchie with Suicide and Dave Conllon unique recursion deck) know the local meta game is always blue but recently had been dominated by recursion decks, therefore we needed to tweak our chosen decks, to take advantage of this..

After playing PTQ Rome a few weeks before and seeing how devastating Lobotomy was against SOTF decks...I knew it had to go in the SB...aswell as Perish vs Scragnoth and (matts tec)dreads vs white, the rest of the SB was fairly standard. The deck looked like this:

CMU blue with D’Hull tech

4 forcespike
4 counterspells
3 manaleak
4 dissipates (put in extra 2 because of recursion ie hammers and sotf)
3 forbids (dropped 1, in playtesting, hardly ever used forbid with buyback)
3 Dismiss (dropped 1, dismiss usually a luxury, too slow vs speed, to expensive vs symmetrical matchup and other blue)

4 impulse
4 whispers (key card)
4 nevs
1 rainbow

4 stalking stone
4 quicksand
4 Underground river
14 Island
1 Wasteland (jason’s tec :) , good vs blue, and other CMU blue, plus less manascrew , also against SOTF ;)

SB:
2 lobotomy
2 dread
2 perish
3 hyrdo
3 sea sprite
3 wasteland

Anyway we all made it to Scarborough, 30+ people not as many as usual, scouted around, sorry had a chat/traded with some friends while scouting :) decided that red was virtually non-existent and we binned 1 pyro and a sprite..

Anyway first round: Phil Lowther playing his Red/B Shivan deck! (I kid you not)

Phils deck might sound pants, but if you blink your staring down at a pissed off shivan...slap you die! The good thing about phils deck for me was it doesn’t really start dropping threats till turn 3 and by that time I could counter comfortably... that was basically 1st game to me.

2nd Game...
In go 3 hyrdo’s and sprites(glad we kept some in :) and I dropped a turn 2 and 3 sprite. Phil laughed right the way up until he died by sprite beatdown, 1 sprite held off a turn 3 wildfire emissary all game...

2-0

Second Round: Dave Conlen (team d’hull) playing home-grown Nightmare deck..

1st Game: Daves came second with this deck a few weeks ago..it developed from Arena Preconstructed Exodus deck!!! and beats SOTF among others...BUT I figured my counters and nevs are would give him headaches....

Dave gets down an early blue/shadow guy(the one that allows you to draw/discard), he’s a little mana screwed and uses the shadows ability lots(I counted 10 damage he could have done to me instead of activating it :) Eventually he puts down most of his hand, I go down to 2 but regain control with nevs/counters and stalking beatdown. I actually countered all 4 of daves Nightmares this game...he he, Nightmare for him.

I S/B in 2 lobotomys as does Dave.

2nd Game: Dave gets down usual shadow dudes and a vampire hound.. I risk 1 round of damage to lobotomise him..he has nothing but a vampiric tutor and a Staunch Defender.(arse!)..I take the staunch defender figuring ill just counter his tutor....I take some more damage...Drop nevs... and rainbow...Go down to about 6... Next turn blow disk and rainbow goes all the way.

4-0-0

Third Round: Guy playing green fatty beatdown w/ elves and Scrags main deck!

1st Game: Fairly comfortable win...he gets me down to 4, virtually empties his hand, I blow disk and stones beatdown..I counter everything else he does, whispering lots.

2nd Game: He SB in like 10 cards....scrags, chokes, Hall of gemstones blah I put in Lobotomys and perish and prepare for a rough ride...Im not disappointed...elves put the boot in early, followed by scragnoth and friends... Hmmm I have perish in hand and no black mana. I die very quickly.

3rd Game: I get a good draw, spike, leak and counter his early mana producers and manage to lobotomise his Scragnoths ..JOY JOY... after that I follow up with the usual disk, rainbow, stones beatdown. I win having just 2 life left.

Fourth Round: Rick O’ Donnell, playing Mogg Bomber/Autocrat L/D combo.

Me and Rick are both undefeated at this stage..and I don’t have a clue what he’s playing, though I know Rick has an unnatural perversion for Living Death...I can relate to that :)

1st Game: I don’t have a clue what he’s upto, but counter all his early stuff, ie autocrats, bombers, tutors, etc. wasteland his COB etc. He has 1 card in hand.and 3 mana.. I have 4 counters and 1 disk ... Feeling confident (BAD MOVE!) I tap out to lay a disk... next turn he lays Ancient Tomb and casts living death.. that’s ok I think...Ill nevs it all away next turn.. WRONG! take 46 damage.... I scoop my cards in disgust at my crap play!

2nd Game: Rick sides in shit loads, like 9 cards bearing in mind he runs 4 pyro main deck I fear the worst. I side in 2 lobotomy and 4 wasteland. Rick gets a mediocre draw but decides to go for it.. rituals, lotus petals out 1st turn bomber ..Great! Im impulsing/whispering like mad for a disk... Meanwhile Ricks just drawing more threats.. I get a disk, blow it, Rick forces through a boil, taking out 2 Islands, but least I have a wasteland, stones and quicksand. Its not looking good. But I topdeck land and manage to lobotomy Rick...he concedes..guess he had some good :) Phew.

3rd Game: Its all about lobotomy! I lobotomy him on turn 4...His hands like death, boil, lobotomy, pyro, autocrat... I wince, check my hand and take his boil... Next turn he returns the favour and takes my dissipates...I topdeck another lobotomy :) and take his pyros..advantage me! I whisper back upto 7 cards, activate stones and scoop...It was all down to topdecking..I got lucky..I won.

Fifth round: I ID with my team mate Matt, both qualifying for the quarters.

Sixth round: For a laugh I play this kid...(sorry mate forgot your name) this guy is the ‘trash talking GOD’, I mean its like a never ending machine gun..Hes playing Suicide black

Games 1 & 2: Erm..1st turn ritual, creature, unholy strength....slap slap slap slap “you dead yet...? No..” slap... I lose both. Great I hope I don’t mean Suicide Trash boy in the quarters or barring a small miracle(like winning a die roll) Im not going to beat him!

4 of Team D’Hull get through... Matt, Jason & me playing CMU D’Hull beta v2.1 (McNish stylee!) and Gary playing his janky ww deck(I think gary must have taken Viagra after his first 2 rounds which he lost 2-0, coz after that he was up for anything...and we had to stop taking the piss out of him...well sort of ;)

Quarters: Vs Team mate Matt Lazenby playing virtually identical deck..this should be interesting...zzzz.

Game1: We both lay land and say go for about 30 turns.. really interesting!..We occasionally impulse/whisper/ lay nevs etc.. Matt gets off to a flyer always having 2 islands more than me. Nige comes over and informs us that because I played and lost to ‘Suicide Trash boy’ I have less points than matt (who I.Ded) therefore if the game goes to time Matt would win. I’m pretty much gutted as Matt can just stall the game with counters for the win. I look at my hand, 4 counterspells(strong), 1 dissipate, 1 forbid, 1 rainbow effreet....hmm good hand I might as well go for it. After a massive counter war my rainbow hits the table...and I’ve got 4 islands untapped and 2 counters in hand. Matt untaps tries to lay his Rainbow effreet but my 2 counters are enough to deny his rainbow... “I dont ****ing believe it, you spawny b***ard..” I agreed with him ;0)

Semis: Vs Kevin Gething playing his ‘de-facto’ big blue...:)

Kevs like the best blue player I know...mind you not surprising he doesn’t play anything else:) and we always have a good laugh when we play and this one was no exception... Before we started Kev had told me how shit force spikes were...well we’ll see!

I win... crucial play, I lay a rainbow(have disk in play) kev taps out to cast his Air Elemental(tm) he looks at my 1 untapped island and says quizingly ‘force spike?’. I smile and produce the shitty force spike...

2nd game:
Virtually same scenario... My Rainbow is giving Kev some ‘loving’ and I’m countering all his threats, I have to tap out in my turn leaving me 2 untapped islands...Kev taps out to cast an air elemental....He looks at me says you better NOT have a force spike....”No I say....just the 2 :)” , kevs face was a picture...he was talking about putting some force spikes in his deck afterwards...he he.

Final: Vs Team mate Jason Turner playing same deck .... We couldn’t bear the tension and it was getting late, Jason offered me 1st, (I was more than willing to play him after seeing some of Jasons previous plays...Jason, top tip: never tap out for a rainbow when your opponent has a Tim out :0) he he..), so we split the prize money but I get the 1st...well its only been 12 months coming after numerous quarters etc.

Cool stuff:
force spikes, team d’hull, kev and phil, Scarborough Coastal Duels (nice n’ friendly) nige and ben, ALEXMACK & Dylan (told you I’d give you a mention!!) my cats, jesus christ..my manager, my mum and sister, not my dad hes a drunk...god..ginger spice (before she sold out!) blah blah blah...LATER!

Simon Dewey
Team D’Hull