Subject: PTQ Report - Houston Date: Thu, 31 Jul 97 13:53:09 PDT From: "Scott Gerhardt" Hola everyone, Scott Gerhardt here with my first Dojo report (since I just found the page). I know this one comes a wee bit later than the PTQ, but I felt like it was a pretty good report and should be written. This story starts a few days before the Houston PTQ. I live in Abilene, TX, quite a few hours away from Houston. Just about everyone here decides that Houston is just too far to go for a PTQ that was going to be huge. Well, I decided to say screw it, hop on a Greyhound bus after work on Friday night, and play in it. My friend picks me up from the bus station about 8am after I got no sleep the night before (if you've ever tried to sleep on a bus and suceeded, you're a luckier man than I). We head to a Jack-in-the-Box and proceed to scarf down some breakfast. Afterwards we head to the Holliday Inn for the tournament. Thank goodness I was one of the first people there. Now due to my lack of insight, I did not have a deck built yet. A friend of mine from Abilene by the name of Lonnie Meador had built this completely wicked "Psychic Stairwell" or "River Styx" deck and had been jackhammering everyone in town with it. Well, I decided since it was better than anything I had, I would run it. So at the site I'm frantically searching throught my collection (which I brought with me since I wasn't sure what I was going to play yet). Finally I get my deck together. For everyone following along at home, it goes a little something like this: 4 Tombstone Stairwell 4 Psychic Vortex 4 Crypt Rats 4 Skulking Ghosts 4 Azimaet Drakes 4 Man-O-War 4 Nekretaal 3 Abyssal Gatekeeper 4 Necratog 4 Flood Plain 4 Bad River 2 Plains 6 Islands 9 Swamps Sideboard: 2 Disenchant 4 Honorable Passage 3 Ebony Charms 3 Knights of the Mist 2 Enfeeblement 1 Bubble Matrix With that said, I play my fairly untested (at least, by me) deck against my friend, running burn. Well, he ends up winning about 2/3, which will later turn out to be a very bad omen. Round 1 vs Jason Hernandez Jason is running a predominatly blue deck with white touches. Floodgate, Waterspout...yeah, you know the routine. Game 1 he succeeds in killing lots of my creatures with the 'ole Floodgate trick. No problem. I put down a Tombstone and utterly jackhammered him. It was also here I realized he didn't keep up with rulings very well. The guy shuffled his library after an Impulse. After a judge and an official warning, I think he was kinda shaken up. Game 2 was all him. Waterspout beatdown. This deck had not seen many Waterspouts and I didn't realize that, if left undealt with, they can be BAD news. I lost bad. Game 3 I got the gimmick down and rolling. Put down the Vortex one turn, Stairwell the next. The graveyard advantage got to be sooooo great that I completely crushed him. Match record (1-0) Game record (2-1) Round 2 vs Lanier Hurdle Lanier is running R/G critters. Game 1 didn't last too long. He was fairly well mana hosed and I kept using Man-O-Wars and Nekrataals to kill or remove his Walls of Roots. Weenie beatdown was the story there. Game 2 showed an incredible amount of ignorance on my part. If he runs red, I bet he has AEther Flash. Well, I don't bring in my Matrix or Disnechants. He drops a 4th turn AEther Flash. By turn 6, I realize that I can't win, and concede, especially since he has yet to see the Vortex and I don't want to give it away. Game 3 was a good game. He got mana stalled late - like at around 6 or 7. I was able to control his creatures well. I dropped a late Stairwell and proceeded with the 4-6 per round beatdown. It was at this point that heat started flying. I got hit with 2 torches knocking me REAL low. I would have taken the 3rd he used to kill a Necratog if he could have killed me with it except he had lost 2 Gemstone Mines in the last torch and didn't have them for this round. I squeeked one out. His AEther Flash game 3 luckily got Disenchanted and the Roots of Life was a pain, but he made a mistake choosing Islands. If he had chosen swamps he might have won. Match Record (2-0) Game Record (4-2) Game 3 vs Chris Strong Chris was running a similar deck to my own. This one was all about who got the critters down quickest, since we had a comparable number of creatures, making the Stairwells useless. Game 1 it was all about just overwhelming him early and clearing a mid-game path for my soon-to-be-huge Necratog. Game 2 was quite the opposite as his Man-O-Wars and Nekrataals went to town just eating me alive. REAL quick game. Game 3 was a bruiser and involved a lot of Crypt Rats. After a lot of beating, I was at 1, and him at 2. He had a "well" Shadow Guildmage and the red to run it. By everything good in this world, I should have died, but like in games 1 and 2, he forgot to make Crypt Rat damage from our life totals, so he beleived I was higher than 1. I eventually got a couple critter advantage late and got him to 0 in one of the closest games I've played in a long time. He later admitted to not knowing the life totals, as he recognized the Guildmage's ability. Match Record (3-0) Game Record (6-3) Round 4 vs Andrew Brasseux Well, if I had hit goofs in the earlier rounds, that was all over now. Brasseux, a PT Veteran and qualified for Nationals, would be quite the test for my deck. Game 1 he starts the game with a double dark ritualed Morifen. HOLY SMOKES! I was staring at dying before I ever saw my 5th turn. Luckily, I was able to get two Skulers down to kill the Morifen. Well, his 1 land was all he had, and all he would see for a while. From there it was simply beating him down. I cheesy win, but I'm not gonna throw anything back at this level. Game 2 I just couldn't stop the Morifens. It would always take 2 of my critters to stop 1 Morifen, and then he would put down another. They were coming from everywhere. It got ugly, and I died. Game 3 was awesome. He gets down the 3rd turn Morifen. I have a few weenies, but nothing to kill a Morifen. I realize that for that Morifen to kill me, he's gonna have to take 10 life in Upkeep to do it. So instead of stopping the Morifen, I beat back with a Crypt Rat and a Nekrataal. Thank goodness for me I had an Ebony Charm in hand. With me at 5 and him at 8, it will take 4 life to keep Morifen around. I have 2 black untapped and cards in hand. You can tell he's debating whether I have a dark ritual in hand to kill him after he pays the upkeep. After he declares it being paid, he looks over nervously, and to his delight he sees I am not responding. He goes to attack, still wary. I play my Ebony Charm and he, plus the rest of the crowd watching the game lets out a collective gasp. I am now at 1, and him at 3. He puts down a Skulking Ghost. On my turn I decide to attack with the Nekrataal only. If he blocks, I have a definite advantage in creatures since the Morifen must die this time. If not, he risks a second Ebony Charm. He decided not to and goes to 1. At 1-1, he attacks with the Ghost on his turn, and I use the Rats to mutually kill us both. A long game for one point. Match Record (3-0-1) Game Record (7-4-1) Round 5 vs James Stroud Game 1 was looooooong. I mean looooooooong. It was like 50 or so minutes. He was running a deck very similar to the one Jason Hernandez was running, and had a flawless game record with it. After a lot of staring at floodgates and him being unable to do anything with his often Nekrataaled Waterspout Djinns, and a long heated judge-involving arguement involving Necratog, Abeyance, and Psychic Vortex, I was able to poke and rat hime to death. At this point he looks at me and kinda says that he's doomed since his deck can not kill quick. Game 2 went kinda quicker, but not fast enough. With about 2 minutes in time limit, and me at 8, he gets down 2 Waterspouts. Now I simply do not want this game to end because I don't like how it's going. Thanks to an Azimaet Drake and a Man-O-War, I was able to hold off the assault long enough to get the game tie, and the match win. Match Record (4-0-1) Game Record (8-4-2) Round 6 vs Senta Miller For more on Senta's deck, read Paul Gallagher's report, as he played him in the quarterfinals. This was R/U beatdown. Game 1 belonged to the Stairwell. It was only poke damage, but the 2 here, 4 there was enough. Game 2 was odd. I kept Nekrataaling and Man-O-Waring Waterspouts. I took 8 or so life from a Viashino Sandstaker before I got a Nekrataal down to stop that business. After a lot of hits going both way, we were both at 3, and I had my rats on the board. This time, I wasted no time going for the mutual kill since I already had game 1 and game 3 was running low on time. Game 3 was a blur. All I remember was being at 4, then down to 2 from the Cloud Elemental. I had a Necratog on the board and him at 5 life. Having only a Frenetic on defense (I had a Skulker down, so he couldn't have attacked with both creatures safely) I knew there were a very few number of cards that I could draw to save me - I found 1. The Man-O-War came down sending the Frenetic flying. I then took a quote out of the Courtney Cunningham book of "quotes when you draw what you need to win" and quietly said "Snap into a Slim Jim" (see the OKC reports to understand that one). Pulled it out my butt, but it worked. Match Record (5-0-1) Game Record (10-4-3) Round 7 vs Paul Gallagher Y'all at the Dojo get this both ways. No way in hell I was going to play Paul as he was a heat deck and those seemed to give me fits, plus we didn't need to play. I probably picked up a few DCI points there since I had been in a MAJOR standard slump prior to Houston and my Web rating of 1800 at the time was surely not a good reflection of my real rating. Match Record (5-0-2) Semifinals vs Ted Dickerson Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I can kinda describe Ted by part of his last name. Not a nice guy at all and a very arrogant sucker. A good player, mind you, but a real ass. Anyway, he was the 3 seed with a 6-1 record and I was the 6 seed. Before the match even begins, I finally got deck checked - something I figure would have happened earlier in the day, but no, it finally happens now. Once he's done I tell Ted to get confortable because I'm going to spend at least the next 5 minutes shuffling and I probably shuffled for closer to 10. Game 1 finally got underway. Ted is running HEAT. Lots and lots of the red cheese. Game starts without either person having too much mana problems. He puts down about 3 critters and I Nekrataal all 3. I keep putting down creatures and Ted keeps having to kill them off, but the onslaught is too great. Eventually I get him down low enough that I can Crypt Rat to finish him. Game 2 is kinda funny. My mana draw initially wasn't all that great, but it would do. I got down a few creatures, and Ted would kill them using his creatures and heat. Eventually I was at 13 life and Ted was at 8. I did the math and decided I could go for the kill with a Tombstone Stairwell. I put it down and you can see Ted is visibly worried once he sees how many tokens are coming out on each side. He draws, does nothing, and says it's my turn. I draw and immediatly attack with all my tokens plus my 2 other creatures (Man-O-War and Nekrataal). He casts Lava Storm. I could not even beleive I had just had a Lava Storm cast on me. I was totally rattled and in disbelief. It got worse as he proceeded to Thunderbolt me at the end of my turn, then fire 4 more instants (the last of which I Honorable Passaged) then finish me with a torch for 1 before I got a chance to attack a second time. He then admitted his final 2 draws were the Lava Storm (the only one in the deck) and then the Thunderbolt to kill me. I know I've won due to some luck before, but gee whiz. Game 3 was no fun. He put down 3 freakin' AEther Flashes and quick. I was able to Disenchant 2 and Honorable Passage a 3rd when my Necratog came down (which I had 13 or 14 creatures in the grave, by the way), but that was too much heat at this point and he roasted me to death since I had to use the passage to get out the Necratog (remember I only had 2 disenchants in the deck and knew I wouldn't see any more). So I ended up losing in the semifinals. Bad part was if I had won I would have had to play Senta Miller again to get into the finals. That would have been an interesting matchup since I got him round 6. If I had been able to win again there I would have played Bob Coonce - the other Necratog deck. That would have been funny, but ah, there will be more Qualifiers. I found some changes to this deck that were good and they will be appearing at a qualifier near you soon. Until next time, hope you enjoyed the report and keep on playing. Sincerely, Scott Gerhardt Abilene, TX