Subject: PTQ report
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1997 12:24:35 -0500
From: J.c.f.smeulders@kub.nl
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org
Tournament 20 December, Veldhoven in the Netherlands
First of all this is my first tourny report. I enjoyed reading the tournament
reports on the Dojo so much, that I decided to do something back. So here it is!
The story starts about two weeks ago, when I heard there would be a PTQ near
me (a 40KM drive). It would be on a Saturday, a day I normally have to work,
but since I already decided to quit the job, I just applied for the tournament
and told my boss I wouldn't be there on that particular Saturday.
Next step was to create a deck which I think would do well. I checked the Dojo
and talked to a lot to my friends at my playing place "the Labyrinth" in Tilburg.
Now I've played several old type 1.5 tournaments and always did very well with
my goblin-sligh deck, which incorporated about 12 goblins (including goblin
mutant), 3 goblin grenades, pyrokineses, bloodlusts and several other creatures
you normally see in such a deck. It looked like a good idea to me to play this
deck, only with the new goblin fantastic, fireslingers and cursed scroll instead
of the keeper of kookus, chain lightning (which isn't allowed anymore) and
hammers. However the more I checked the Dojo, the more anti-red cards I saw in
people's sideboards. Especially the inclusion of conversion worried me because
this card really destroyed my deck and my anarchy would be useless against it.
There is of course always the option to include plateaus and some disenchants
but I never liked to put defensive cards in a pure offensive deck.
Although the deck did pretty well against all kinds of decks, especially with
the forks, which could double the damage of a grenade. (one game I bolted someone
at the end of his turn 2; in my turn attacked with a goblin balloon brigade,
grenaded it afterwards, forked it and then fireblasted, I had done 18 damage on
turn 2 and 3 together) I decided to try something else.
After reading the top 8 decks from both SF and ?. I noted that every deck had
bolts and wastelands and most of them had mishras.
I was puzzled about why everybody used wastelands; even red burn decks. I
understand the fact that they're great to destroy someone's second or third
colour, but what if you were playing against a mono-colour deck or you drew
your only two wastelands in your first hand?
It really looked like a sideboard card to me.
Some decks drew my attention:
-Fruity pebbles. I had heard of the deck before, but I thought that like so
many other combo related decks, it would fall easy prey to fast burn or people
playing counter-burn or something like that. Then I saw a deck list which
included the 12 or so counters to protect the combo and I started worrying:
this deck could really be mean.
-Tongo nation: Although I don't like playing blue, I liked this deck, but
found it a bit slow.
-U/G Vineyard deck: This was the most original deck I have seen in some time.
Only problem was that this deck was so weird that I thought it would take me
at least a week to learn it properly.
-WW/r This was the deck I liked most. Although it had several aspects in it I didn't like, e.g. 4 land taxes/ 4 scrolls, it had in my opinion everything a deck needed to survive both heavy enchantment dependant combo decks as the mono red burn decks, which I thought would be pretty dominant in the tournament. I decided to play this kind of deck. After several play sessions I changed the deck until it looked like this:
White
3 savannah lions
2 icatian javelineers
4 white knights
3 soltari priests
2 land tax
3 emphyrial armor
1 enlightened tutor
1 disenchant
1 aura of silence
4 Swords to plowshares
2 tithe
1 wrath of god
red
4 bolts
1 earthquake
1 firestorm
2 wildfire
artifact
3 phyrexian warbeasts
2 scroll racks
land
9 plains
4 plateaus
2 undiscovered paradise
2 gemstone mines
4 mishras
SB:
2 disenchant
2 aura of silence
1 suleiman's legacy
2 armageddon
1 bloodmoon
1 honourable passage
1 conversion
1 warmth
1 boil
1 CoP green
1 earthquake
1 light of day
I was pretty fond of the sideboard which I thought would do great against most decks, I was right. Looking back I would have removed the conversion for another warmth and the CoP green for another boil. I just saw one 5cg deck and it didn't do very well.
People asked me why I included the icatian javelineer, and not e.g. the mogg fanatic. Although I think the fanatic is far better, the javelineer doesn't have to be sacrificed and is able to shoot those annoying soltari priests and other one toughness creatures etc. Firestorm was a last minute alteration, which proved to be a very good surprise factor. (O.K. at the end of your turn I blow away your three creatures, in my turn I tax, armor my creature and smack you for a lot)
With this deck I went to Veldhoven. Together with we went Bas, playing U/R/W deck which used lots of time control like time ebb and man-o-wars combined with ophidians, bolts and other nasty stuff, Thomas, who played a goblin deck with cursed scroll and grenades (quite similar as the one I wanted to play) and last, but most fun was Jeroen Loog, which a few guys talked into participating with his mighty fungus deck ;-) They would pay his entree fee + an additional amount of money for each match he won. His deck had 4 vineyards + lots of fungus creatures, fungal blooms and elvish farmers. Although it was a pure fun deck, it had devastating effect on several other decks. In the first match he played against some kind of turbo stasis deck :-P, and needless to say the guy has severe problems with all those fungus counters :-P. I'm sure that if someone would actually put some time in it, it can become a great deck.
On to the tournament: 56 players were participating, including some of the top players in the Netherlands. 3 points for a victory, 1 for a draw, zero for a loss
7 rounds Swiss, top 8 players play single elimination.
Round 1: Bernd Bolzenius (german guy) playing some variant of Tongo nation
Game1
He sees I'm playing white weenie and is afraid of armageddon so keeps 2 blue mana free instead of summoning some creatures. I armor my knight, which he still doesn't counter, but taps out to summon a wildfire his turn. I earth quake for 4, and the game is mine.
In go the armageddon and the legacy
Game2: he's manascrewed with 2 glaciers, but gets the mana after a turn or 3. In the mean time I have knight which I can armour which does about 8 damage in total. He plows it in my next turn. I summon a lion. Having learned form last game he taps out and summons a frenetic. I was hoping for that since I have the legacy in my hand. Hoping he doesn't have a FoW, I put it down. He looks at it; looks at me, sighs and says all right. YES! He looses the toss and I can run him over.
1-0-0, 3 points
Round 2: Wouter, playing fruity pebbles.
Game1
I start put a lion down. He casts shield sphere. Fruity pebbles.... Well, he probably has another shield sphere in his hand, but I StP the sphere anyway to do damage. For a turn or three I do lots of damage, but he has 4 mana now and has been busy collecting his combo.
He has 5 mana and casts an argivian find for a ..... shield sphere?????????? But there is none in his graveyard (I StP'ed) it ... After that I run him over.
Normally I loose the first game against fruity pebbles, so I was pretty confident that with my sideboard I could win. However he had some tricks left.
2nd game: I start with turns with plateau …lion, mishra … disenchant his bombardment which is actually quite stupid, but I'm feeling confident since I have several creatures in my hand and with 8-cards sideboarded I should atleast get another one of the hosers. His turn: another goblin bombardment, ouch, he had two in his hand My turn: attack summon javelineer. Hoping that hasn't got his combo yet... His turn: outpost.......Damn!!!!! Quite cool in this deck. He now can block + shoots the tokens away at either me or a creature. Still I don't despair and pull a firestorm???? Wait a minute, that card should be in my sideboard. I quickly check my sb and discover that I put my old cards back in my deck instead of the ones from the sideboard; talk about being a major scrub!
He gets his combo and wins.
Ok let's try this again with a proper sb.
3th game: I start with a bloodmoon, an aura of silence and have a mishra and plain in hands. I never pull another land in 7 turns, which is all he needs to get his combo. This was the only time in the tournament I was so mana-screwed. Afterwards I was happy it was against Wouter, since he was the number 1 after 7 rounds
1-1-0, 3 points
3th round: Jeroen Loog. The fungus deck
Somehow I have the weird feeling that I'm not going to like this match although his deck is a fun one. It probably has to do with several friends watching the game and grinning each time he plays another stupid card.
1st game: He plays a turn 1 vineyard. Sigh.... I'm hoping for a mishra or beast, but ofcourse, all I get is a hand full of knights and a tutor.
I can summon some creatures, but have to take manaburn in the meanwhile. Luckily I now have 3 creatures and he's has none (StP'ed and bolted). These get him to 10, but I'm at 4 when in his turn he casts another vineyard. Damn, but no prob, I cast the tutor for a armour, armour a priest, get 3 mana burn, but kill him with 5 cards in my hand. That was close
2nd game: In my opening hand I have 2 beasts and a rack. Suddenly I'm hoping for a vineyard. And yes turn 1: vineyard J. You can imagine what this means as I pull another warbeast. I don't think the game lasted 4 rounds
2-1-0, 6 points
4 th round; Thomas Decker, another friend playing the goblin deck with plateaus for disenchants and badlands for forsaken waste.
1st game: He beats me down with goblins while blasting away my creatures. He has 2 cards in hand left which I guess are fireblasts, but he has only three mountains. I summon a wildfire, hoping he might sack his mountains to blast instead he double bolts it! Leaving him with no cards in his hand I topdeck an earthquake (how about that for luck)which destroys his creatures and I finally dare to attack with my mishra. He has gets a few goblins but it's to late since I've taken over control and I can get him to zero with several creatures and a bolt.
I sideboard all my anti red
2nd game: real quick one: Turn 1: gemstone, land tax, Turn 2: plains, priest, turn 3: plains, armor with 4 cards in hand. 2 lands left meaning I can land tax = game over in 2 more turns.
3-1-0 9 points,
match 5: Sven ? (forgot to write down baqcknames from here) playing mono-red + white for sideboard:
game 1: I really thought I could handle red any day; I was wrong. Although I have less burn (ofcourse) I have the cheap prot. red creatures and the armor to make my creatures hard to kill.
His deck isn't lightning fast but uses the scrolls and burn to get rid of all my creatures. 2 Ball lightnings mean death, while have to tap out to keep some creatures on the board
In goes all the anti-red again:
2nd game: He pulls three anarchies in maybe 6 turns + the mana to cast them. No chance at all as you might understand.
3-2-0 9 points.
I now have to win the remaining 2 matches to have a 40% chance to go to the final 8
6th match: Ernst playing red/white (probably sideboard) landdestruction, burn, balduvian hordes, wildfires and icies.
1st game: He pulls a ton of land, but blasts away all my creatures, except for ofcourse my priest, for which he has to use his icy. I can get enough creatures down to do some beatdown, but he earthquakes them all except for the priest. He gets his hammer recursion going, and I can't get a creature down. In the meanwhile I'm going down in life as I can't pull a creature every turn and he uses his hammer on me. Then I pull priest and next turn again priest, which is enough to win.
2nd game: I get the following hand: plateau, undisc paradise, priest, armor, 2 land tax, lion.
Turn 1: paradise, land tax. Turn2: plateau, land tax turn 3: priest. turn 4: armor, while having about 11 cards in hand. I attack for 11. In his turn he plays anarchy. That hurts! Next turn he plays flashfires....Which is to much for me to handle as he gets his horde down the turn afterwards and I don't draw a StP
3th game: I get a real superstart while he draws zip. I completly run him over.
4-2-0 12 points
7th deciding match: Brano playing b/u buried alive.
Game1: he puts some creatures and a bad moon into play which damage me hard. I think I have to solution with a white knight, but diabolic edict means the end.
In go the armageddons and light of day.
2nd game: turn 2 knight, turn 3 beast, turn 4 armor the knight. He tries to terror in response to a diabolic edict, but he doesn't realize that it's pretty hard to terror an artifact creature.
(nekrataals and terror suck against this deck)
3th game went even faster: turn1 land tax, turn 2 knight, turn 3 scroll rack + take 3 new cards, turn 4 knight, turn 5 armageddon and he conceeds
5-2-0 15 points.
As I look to the 5 tables in front of me I see Wouter, Sven and Thomas sitting there, so I guess I have a pretty good chance of getting in.... I'm placed 6th.
These are the final 8 in no particular order
. Wouter: fruity pebbles
. Sven; mono-red white sb
. Tobias, B/U/r counter-black
4. Han: playing w/u/r with ophidians and frenetics
5. ???
6. Me
7. Wessel: same deck as Sven
8. Thomas: mono red white/black sideboard
quarter finals: Tobias, I have seen Tobias' deck since he sat next to me in round 2 I believe. It's weird deck with scroll racks, 4 thrawing glaciers, nekrataal and a lot of counters.
He must be pretty good since he beat Bram Snepvangers, which I consider one of the best players in Holland.
Game 1: He starts by playing thrawing glaciers, I start by playing a plateau, in his turn he puts down a underground sea, in response I tithe, which he FoW.................Now I really start to wonder what kind of deck he has. Does he have that much counter-ability in his hands?
Well, I don't really care and start pumping down creatures, some of which he counters or nekrataals, but a beast comes through and gets him to zero life.
I haven't really seen much of his deck, so I sideboard my armageddons, light of day and boil in.
2nd game: During he gets 3 thrawing glaciers in play and he's starting to get lots of land. At this point he's already down to 8 life but I feel he's in control since he already has a firewalker on the table which pings my small creatures, while countering my plows and armageddon. I summon a creature, he nekrataals. Next turn I try a white knight, he doesn't counter! Instead he looks for a mountain with his glaciers. In his turn he burns the knight with what he told me later was his only torch in the deck. I feel something is wrong with his deck since otherwise he wouldn't have done it this way and cast the light of day I had in my hand from the start. Suddenly his nekrataal can't do anything and the mishra which was useless until now can attack; even better it actually kills him in 4 turns.
Half-finales
8th game against..................again Thomas.
I feel quite sorry for the guy (btw he's only 14 years and this is his first real tournament , but I'm sure he will become a great player if he keeps playing). I know his deck inside out and know that only when he gets a super-hand he can win. Also I know that he can do ab-so-lu-te-ly nothing against the priest.
Game1: Although he has a great hand, he has severe problems with my 4-toughness creatures, which he has to block & bolt. This deck plays with only 18 land, which means you normally use fireblast as a game-ender and not earlier, since the chance that you pull another land is quite low. The problem with the deck is that the block & bolt strategy gets you a kind of card-disadvantage which causes you to loose, since the purpose of the deck is to use the goblins for the attack and when that's not possible grenade them at the opponent. When you start using them as blockers, you don't do any damage anymore and you start loosing.
Game2: I start with a honourable passage in my hand, and can't stop thinking I'm in control. I have a priest down which does just as much damage as he does me. He's on 7, I'm on 8 when I attack with the priest to get him to 5. I have a mishra + 3 other lands. He has a goblin conscript and a vandal and one card in his hand. He pulls a card and plays a fanatic. And attacks with the two goblins. I activate the mishra, which he incinerates. Since he now has zero cards in hand I see no reason not to passage it. At that point he concedes.
So I'm in the finals!!!!
Finals: against again Sven L, whom I played in the fourth round.
1st game. We both make terrible mistakes in the first game, probably due to both being very tense. Want examples??: He has a vandal and a dwarven miner in play, I have no creatures only land tax in play. The miner sucks because 2 of my 3 lands are non basic. So I decide to bolt the miner and put down a scrollrack............Even more stupid he forgets to activate the vandals ability when he attacks.......I guess we both were very nervous in the first game, atleast I know I was. We make several more mistakes and I hear somebody that even with his minotaur deck he would have beaten us. Enough to say that in the end I loose due to the cursed-scroll
I sideboard all of my anti red + 1 disenchant (out goes the aura of silence, wrath of god, a lion and a knight)
2nd game: I have two disenchants and a warmth in my begin hand and pull a third disenchant Sigh......Atleast until he plays a mishra and a havoc, suddenly I pretty glad I have those 3 disenchants. He gets me down to about 12, but I now have warmth in play and a priest down. He can't deal with it: 1-1
deciding match:
He opens his hand and I see him frown. He puts down a wasteland.
In the meanwhile I look at my hand and see 3 creatures (priest, knight, beast),a firestorm and three land. I pull a disenchant. I lay down a plains and say go. He takes a card real slow and puts it down immediately: damn, a mountain. Still he doesn't do anything. Guessing he really
is manascrewed, I lay down a plateau and summon the priest. His turn. Lays down a wasteland, does nothing. My turn, summon beast, attack. His turn draw, nothing. My turn, attack, summon knight, he now is on 13. His turn, draw, does nothing. I'm really starting to feel confident now.
I attack bringing him down to 6 and say go. I see in his eyes he needs to have another mountain, he draws.......and plays the mountain, taps all of his land and plays anarchy. I realise I have a problem since two of creatures are gone and since he has a hand full of cards there must be atleast 1 fireblast in there to get rid of my beast. Still I decide to cast a firestorm in response to the anarchy. I target myself, him and my knight for 3 damage, meaning he goes down to 3. This means he will have to fireblast my beast (if he can) and loose all his mountains or loose the game. It all doesn't matter since in my next turn I draw:..........a bolt:
I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He shows me his hand; 3 fireblast, several other cards which were useless. I guess I was lucky today (but pulling 3 anarchies in the earlier match was pretty lucky too). Would he have had 3 mountains instead of 2 wastelands and a mountain all would have been different.....
So I guess I will see some of you in LA.
As seems to be usual in a tournament report: the pros and negs
Pro:
The tournament place. At last a place with some cheap food and drinks
Thomas Decker, for playing me twice and loosing twice J. Sorry, but you'll get there eventually, 'cause getting 3th at you first tournament and beating the Dutch champ is pretty awesome.
The Labyrinth, for allowing me to playtest there and to bore them to death with my talks about playtactics and why gerrards wisdom isn't a good card in most decks
Peter, Take and Bas for lending me the cards I needed to make this deck.
Icatian javelineer, which amazed a lot of people (especially those who were playing with ball lightning and shadow creatures)
Scroll rack - land tax combo, which is just to awesome for words.
Jeroen Loog, for playing his fun fungus deck at a PTQ and actually being able to win some games.
Negs
City of Veldhoven for having such a car-unfriendly city
Cursed scroll, most likely the most broken card of tempest.
See ya,
Jeroen Smeulders
J.c.f.smeulders@kub.nl