From: Stephen Edney Subject: Paris I'll give a quick run down of PT Paris. Part 1. I SUCK at sideboarding. I won't go into too many details but my trip to Paris coincided with a 6 week holiday to europe and Ireland. I'd already arrived in Ireland a few days earlier and had even done some play testing in a Pub down by the Liffey in Dublin with some Irish guys on the Moday night. My deck seems to run pretty well there. [I now note that one of these guys is on the Irish Worlds team] I fly out on Thursday from dublin to Paris and get my way the Holiday Inn with my less than 20 words of French and register. I meet Glen Shandley and Matt Goodall the 2 other aussies both from Melbourne, and we decided after the player meeting to playtest our decks. We went back to Matts hotel and order some beers and got down to playtesting. I was quite happy, my Black Weenie with R for DD was easily beating Matt deck, and beating Glens about 5-2. Both of them were playing some combination of B/R Matt had a splash of U. After some harrassment by an old american guy who wanted to talk about 19th century german philosophers both Glen and Matt decided to make their decks a bit more like mine. I went away quite confident and after getting lost getting back to my hotel and wandering through Paris for about 1 1/2 hours I made my final sideboard. First round I played against Prosperous Bloom. I won the first in about 6 turns. 2nd game got him down to 1 in about 6 turns and then lost. 3rd game got him down to 2 and then lost. I realise I've underestimated Prosp Bloom, especially Natural Balance/Squandered Resources combo. I'd need 4 Stupors and 4 corecions to have a consistance chance off winning against it. I just had 4 Coercions in the Sideboard. The day went downhill from there. :-( I won't bore you with the rest of the defeats. Just suffice to say that I beat EVERY opponent before Sideboard, but only won one game after sideboard. ie I went 1-5. Woo - woo I finished .... top 200. (Yes there were more than 200 competitors) I played against a mixture of decks. a U/R with Man o' Wars weenie and direct damage other Black Weenies (including Glen), a WW Crusader deck (this was my match win) R/W/G deck that the Canadians were playing, and the straight red DD deck. A disapointing day, but the next day was much better. I'd missed the cut off for the top 64 by an absolute obviously mile. I decided to enter the NY PTQ at the urging of Matt, despite not being a fan of sealed deck, because it was free. I was pretty sure I couldn't afford the money, let alone the time, to go to NY but thought I might as well see how I went. I wasn't too worried about this though because I usually get weak - mediocre sealed decks, do ok, but lose out in the end to the guy with the torches, hammers etc. Any way here's the PT deck. My Deck. 4 Skulking Ghosts 3 Sewer Rates 4 Shadow Guildmages 4 Fallen Askari 4 Cadaverous Knights 4 Neckrataal 4 Suqa'tar Lancers 4 Incinerates 4 Kaervek Torches 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Bone Harvest 4 Rocky Tar Pit 2 Undiscovered Paridise 6 Mountains 11 Swamp I won't include the sideboard because I can't and don't want to rememeber it. The deck itself worked quite well the sideboard sucked. Why I have no quicksands is mostly because I left them at home - I probably should have traded for some on Thursday when I first arrived. Stay tuned for Part 2 entitled - "Sealed deck IS all luck" or "Hammering with the Hammer." ____________________________________________________________________________ and so it continues as I delay further starting any work. Part 2. Sealed deck IS luck. or Hammering with the Hammer. After a drubbing the previous day, I'm prepared to drop out as soon as I lose 2 rounds and go sight seeing. We are told to be there for the tournament at 8. If things continue in the previous days vein I could be down at the Arc de Triumph by 2pm. We register decks. I register a mediocre one, and then I get the real one. I must be dreaming.... Is this a Hammer I see before me?...... but it doesn't end there. Several nice 3/4 cost medium Red creatures inlcuding Wildfire Emissary and Viashino Sandstalkers (who tends to function more like creature destruction in sealed), Shadow guildmage and 5 Flyers. These are 2 Wake of Vultures, Skulking Ghost, Frenetic Efreet, and Firestorm Helkite. Unsuprisingly I play R/b/u. A couple of nice U cards including Thirst and undo and a few suprise cards (lightning reflexes) round off the deck also a Dragon Mask which I decide to include. At the last moment I also decide to play with the memory lapse which somewhat to my suprise ends up winning me a couple of games. The Dragon Mask was also interesting as it's presense on the table won me a couple of games but I never had to actually use it. We eventually start playing at about 1pm. Yes 5 hours after we've been told to turn up. I'll have to take back everything I said about people in Oz running slow tournaments. Can't remember the all of opponents, but suffice to say that the only round I lost (2nd rnd) was because of 1 game a mana screw, and another 3 totally idiotic mistakes. Anyway I finish up 6-1 Glen Shandley also goes 6-1 but his loss is in the last round we're pretty confident he will make it to top 8. I'm pretty confident I won't since there is 13 6-1 for 7 slots, but somehow I do. This is about 10pm and we get kicked out of the tournament venue we head down to the 24 hr play area for the rochester draft. A couple of opponents got the judges to deck check me because they think I've put extra cards in they don't believe I could have that many good cards. The judges look through my deck and the listings and inform me that I have a very good deck. They have trouble finding us space to play at the Hotel so its 12:30am when we start drafting. I, because I'm a GOOD player (those DD spells just turned up when the draft started in front on me), draft R/G and get 1 Torch, 1 Volcanic Geyser, 1 Fireblast, 1 Rockslide, Jungle Wurm, Rock Basilisk, several 4 cost 3/3 s, 3 Mtenda Lions, a Wall of Roots and Stampeding Wilderbeast, and a green Guildmage. Despite this I lose the first game to a 2nd turn Wand of Denial which because of a slow start on my part due to a mana screw locks me down and causes me to be decked. I win the next 2 games easily. Top 4 qualify, but we decide to keep playing for prizes which is all cards. I win against a nice B/R by inflicting fast damage with my lions and some other creatures and then finishing him off with my copius DD. Final is against Igor Fraymann who tells me he finished top 16 in LA, can rochester draft in his sleep (useful since it is 3 am) and that he is going to win. My immediate thought is "wanker". I tell him that this is my first pro-tour and I failed miserably, I've never rochester drafted before and I'm very tired. I destroy him in 2 games and he comments that I have "the Rochester deck from Hell". Despite my initial reaction he was actually quite a nice guy. The tournament finishes about 20hrs after we were told to turn up. So I qualify for another PT. Glen lost to Igor in the semi but still qualifies. I win bucket loads of cards I give most of the commons and some uncommons to Matt Goodall, as I don't want to be carrying them all over the UK for the next 5 weeks. I keep all the French Alliances. I eventually get back to my hotel at 4am. The guy on the door interrogates me suspiciously and asks for ID. Fortunately he doesn't speak good English. He ask me why I am out so late. I begin to try to explain when he says -"lost" I go for this and tell him that I was lost (it was easier than trying to explain a magic tournament) he says I should be careful and tells me to go to bed. Get up late do a whirlwind tour of the Tourist places in Paris, and make it back to watch the final. An interesting experience. I would like to go again but getting time of to go to NY is out of the question unfortunately. Steve Edney