TUESDAY NIGHT AT NEUTRAL GROUND - A TOURNAMENT REPORT (5-6-97) I decided to write a report on a Tuesday night Neutral Ground tournament after reading this strategy newsgroup. Tuesday tournaments start at 700pm (read 730) and go till 10 or 11. For those of you that don't know NG is the main (read only) gaming club in New York City. Some back rooms of game stores exist, but NG is the main spot for Magic and other gaming in NYC, see www.nground.com for more info. My thinking is this, NG has sealed deck tournaments on Tuesdays and Fridays, I wanted to show other players on this newsgroup what it is like to play at NG where the competition is fierce. This is the kind of environment that gave players the DCI points to get 3 byes in DC and it is not easy. Here were the players on this average Tuesday night. Players with * are there almost every Tuesday night: *Cary Newburger 1876 *Glen Friedman 1845 *Eric Kesselman 1826 *Scott Seville 1779 *Hashim Bello 1764 *Adam Katz 1760 *Mathew Wang 1754 *Hogan Long 1711 John Barnas 1696 *Adam Steidley 1639 *Sayan Bhattachapyya 1624 Jason Robinette 1585 Sean Sweeney 1561 Chris B no ranking found Marcello L. no ranking found (4th in Duelist Sideboard in home country forget where - somewhere in South America) Doni F no ranking found Brian K no ranking found As you can see I am by far not the best of this lot, or even in the top five. I went there with the intention of writing this report and I expected to go 2-2 or 3-1 if things went well. This would be a normal Tuesday for me. However, things looked up when I got my deck: LANDS Adakar Wastes 4 Forest 4 Island 4 Mountain 5 Plains 5 Swamp Urza's Power Plant ARTIFACT Crystal Rod Joven's Tools Millstone Glasses of Urza Barbed Sextant Grapeshot Catapult Wall of Spears Skull Catapult BLACK 2 Bog Imp Drudge Skeletons Frozen Shade Funeral March Initiates of the Ebon hand Kjeldoran Dead Knight of Stromgald Mind Warp Murk Dwellers BLUE 2 Brainstorm Flood homarid Warrior 2 Memory Lapse Merfold of the Pearl Trident Remove Soul Vodalian Soldiers GREEN Fog Foxfire Giant Growth Grizzly Bears hungry Mist Ironroot Treefolk Killer Bees Lifeforce Nature's Lore Rabid Wombat RED Bird Maiden Dwarven Warriors Goblin King Imposing Visage Ironclaw Orcs Orcish Farmer Orcish Artillery 2 Panic Stone Rain The Brute Fire Drake Shivan Dragon Incinerate Pyrotechnics Wall of Stone WHITE Arenson's Aura Brainwash COP: Red COP: Blue Greater Realm of Preservation healing Salve hipparion holy Strength Mesa Falcon Order of the Sacred Torch Pikemen Prismatic Ward Shield Wall I have put my deck at the end of this post (with comments), so you can compare what you would build against it and not see it on the same page. REPORT: ROUND 1 - Chris B. (706434) Very nice guy but not an experienced sealed deck player, only had 8 or 9 creatures in his deck because he got excited by all the removal he had: 2xPestilence, 2xDrain Life, Incinerate, Pyrotechnice, Fireball, Inferno, and Earthquake. Game 1: C:20,18,16,14,13,12,14,11,9,7,2 dead H:20,19,18,17,16,15,14,13,10 I won with weenies and skull catapult, he got out very few creatures. Something funny happened in this game. Situation: He has about 5-6 lands and pestilence out, I have about 5-6 lands and Wall of Stone, his turn. He plays Joven's Tools. Me: "Can only be blocked by walls... good thing I've got a wall." My turn, I play a Skull Cataput and sac my wall to do 2 damage to him putting him at 14 and me at 14. He looks very confused. (anyone know why I did it?) Game 2: C:20,17,8 dead H:20,19,17 I got out Shivan with 3 mountains and other flying weenies... not a very exciting game. ROUND 2 - Marcello L. (139776) Also a nice guy, visiting the city for a few days and is ranked #4 in his own country. He had just beat Cary the first round - I was worried, Cary was (IMHO) the best player at the tournament. Game 1: M:20,18,16,13,10,8,6,3 dead H:20,19,18,16 I came out very fast with Drake and Bird Maiden, he could not stop them and then I got the Skull Catapult. He put out the pestilence but it was to late. Game 2: M:20,19,16,14,13 H:20,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,5 dead He only has green for the first 4 lands. I am holding the lifelace but op not to put it out seeing him mana hosed in black. Put out lots of weenies for the quick beat down instead. Turn 5 he plays the Initiates of the Ebon hand, and uses it to play pestilence. Next turn all my creatures die. He had a wall of spears and an Amulet of Kroog + skull catapult. Spends the next 7! turns pestilencing for one and preventing the damage to himself. I don't draw any removal to get rid of the wall (and the pestilence.) He gets his scalled worm out and beats me down. Game 3: M:20,17,15,10,8,6,4 dead H:20,19,18,17 He has a good weenie start, I draw pyrotechnics and wipe them all. Then I start to beat him down with weenies. He uses Howl to kill one (mistake?). Taps out to put out a scalled worm - I weenie rush and incinerate for the kill. ROUND 3 - Adam Katz Adam and I have been playing sealed deck since Ice Age was released. Adam likes to trash talk, sometimes I don't mind, sometimes I do. However, his trash talk is a "tell." when he thinks he is doing badly he shuts up - almost makes it more satisfying to beat him down. Adam is a very good player, he and I tend to go about 50%, even when I have what I think is a better deck than his. A:20,19,18,10 H:20,19,18,17,14,12,10 dead Game 1: Get the Shivan out with some flying beat down, he DRAWS a binding grasp and beats me down with my own Shivan (pout). He was playing red. Game 2: A:20,19,16,17,6 dead H:20,19,18,17 Lots of fast 2 cost creatures. Only got 4 lands but it did not matter. Game 3: A:20,18,16,14,12,10,8,7,5,3,2 dead H:20,17,15,12 Got shivan and flyers out, he has sorceress queen to stop the Shivan. (I forgot to pump the Shivan after the sorceress queen effect.) He fireballs the shivan in desperation. I creature rush and kill him. ROUND 4 - Eric Kesselman Eric is a very good player, he got a bye in round 1 so I am hoping his deck does not reflect his 3-0 record. Game 1: E:20,19,16,13,10 dead H:20,17 Eric got no green land, even tho he cantriped about 3 or 4 times. I got out my Shivan and beat him down. Game 2: E:20,18,16,12,2 H:20,19,18,15,13,12,9 He force spiked by Shivan dragon on turn 6! Even so I beat him down with with lots of weenies. He was about to gain control of the game at 2 life and I drop the skull catapult for the win. FINAL STANDINGS: 4-0 Hogan Long 2-0 Hashim Bello 3-1 Mathew Wang 3-1 Eric Kesselman 3-1 Scott Seville 2-1 Cary Newburger 2-2 Brian K 2-2 Glen Friedman 2-2 Adam Katz 1-1 John Barnas 1-1 Adam Steidley 1-1 Marcello L. 1-2 Sayan Bhattachapyya 1-2 Jason Robinette 0-2 Doni F 0-3 Chris B 0-4 Sean Sweeney FINAL TOURNAMENT NOTES: Hashim claims that his deck would have beat me down. Said he had 2 binding grasps and two big flyers. However when he said this, at the end of the tournament, he had already taken his deck apart. Matt who had looked at both decks thought I would have won because of speed, direct damage, and skull catapult. [shrug] Who knows, Hashim is to scared of getting a loss to play, so we will never know. MY DECK (40 cards) LANDS (18) 7 Mountains (+3) 6 Forests (+2) 5 Swamps UTILITY (1) Barbed Sextant CREATURES (17) -2 Walls, 6 Fliers, 4 "Big", 10 "Fast" Wall of Spears Drudge Skeletons Wall of Stone Knight of Stromgald Murk Dwellers 2 Bog Imp Grizzly Bears Killer Bees Ironroot Treefolk Fire Drake hungry Mist Shivan Dragon Orcish Artillery Bird Maiden Ironclaw Orcs Grapeshot Catapult REMOVAL (4) - plus Orcish Artillery and Grapeshot. Skull Catapult Incinerate Giant Growth Pyrotechnics SIDEBOARD vs Black - Lifeforce DECK NOTES: At least three good players (Cary included) felt I should have had the millstone in the deck. Some felt the Mind Warp would have been good. I agree that these are both strong cards, however the deck was just so fast as it was I don't think they would have been any help. FINAL NOTE: Please post or write your comments, was this report at all interesting? Was it worth my time (i.e. did anyone like reading it). Let me know, if anyone is interested I might post more reports of the weekly tournaments at NG. - Anyone interested in hearing about this Friday's tournament? Be good, H The only NG player who looks perplexed when someone asks him if he wants to play type 2.