TUESDAY NIGHT AT NEUTRAL GROUND - A TOURNAMENT REPORT (6-3-97) For those of you that don't know and did not read the last report: 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. Rankings are from the posted list of 5/26/97 * indicates regulars at the NG sealed tournaments. *Steven O'Mahoney-Schwartz 1880 *Eric Kesselman 1858 *Dan O'Mahoney-Schwartz 1858 *Hogan Long 1805 *Adam Katz 1790 Stephan Valkyser 1787 *Ben Bleiweiss 1778 *Mathew Wang 1776 Martin Valkyeser 1766 David Liersch 1757 *Adam Steidley 1692 Michael Suwald 1696 *Adam Wersan 1670 Not found in ranking list: Tim Gloechner ? Uni Budde ? Craig Thomas ? Rudy Boyen ? C. Reedman ? Dogg Jacoby ? With an average ranking of 1721 (if you count unranked at 1600). The average for the ranked players was 1777!. (That is the highest average ranking for the ranked players I've seen so far. There were a lot of good players at the tournament as you can see from the player list many of them are Pro-Tour players. The format was a 5th starter and two visions boosters. I am not to fond of this format. (It just does not seem right to mix these two - the basic set seems more "pure" and visions feels "corrupt" when they are mixed. Also, the white and black borders just clash - ya' know, it's esthetically unpleasant.). Here was the deck I got: LANDS 5 Forests (+1) 4 Islands (+1) 4 Mountains 5 Plains (+1) 4 Swamps Dwarven Ruins ARTIFACT Dragon Mask Flying Carpet Clay Statue Lead-Belly Chimera Sisay's Ring Wall of Spears GOLD (a gold card in a 5th ed. sealed, boggle!) Simoon BLACK Animate Dead Carrion Ants Coercion Dark Privilge Fear Funeral Charm Kaervek's Spite Sengir Autocrat Torture Touch of Death Raise Dead Wake of Vultures BLUE Breezekeeper Man-o'-War Portent Prodigal Sorcerer Ray of Command Reef Pirates Seasinger Shrieking Drake Undo Updraft Wall of Air GREEN Bull Elephant Giant Spider King Cheetah Lifeforce Regeneration River Boa Quirion Ranger Scryb Sprites Shrink Venom RED Detonate Dwarven Soldier Dwarven Vigilantes Hurloon Minotaur Imposing Visage Keeper Of Koookus Rock Slide Sabertooth Tiger Stone Giant Talruum Champion The Brute WHITE COP: Blue Daraja Griffin Disenchant Divine Offering Gossamer Chains Greater Realm of Preservation Hope Charm Freewind Falcon Icatian Town Infantry Veteran Miraculous Recovery Pearled Unicorn Remedy Retribution of the Meek Tundra Wolves I have put my deck at the end of this post (with comments), so you can compare what you would build against it and post all the mistakes I made. REPORT: A P means play first by choice, a D means draw first by choice. Also note: the numbers are not always every turn, sometimes I damage or get damaged twice a turn in different phases, etc., and made changes to the life totals twice. ROUND 1 - Adam Wersen Game 1: PA:20,19,18,15,12,8,5 H:20,19,17,14,10,9 ded He was mana screwed at the start, but then I made a big mistake - I rayed the wrong creature and he had a spider climb to save one of his creatures. I should have rayed his tim and had the tim tim itself (heh). I lost the initiative and lost the game. Game 2: A:20,14,8,2 ded PH:20 He was mana screwed and I did not screw up. Game 3: PA:20,18,16,12,11,10,6,1 ded H:20,18,16,14,13,11,6 He could have weenied me to death if he had just attacked a little more aggressively (At least this is what Matt Wang said after the game) but he was scared. I finally won. My blue sideboard rocked in this game. ROUND 2 - Ben Bleiweiss Ben is great. He is a little wacky, and he cultivates it as much as possible, at the last pro-tour he competed in elephant slippers and some sorta wacky floppy hat. His game chatter can be a little condescending but he is a good guy. It was Ben that I most credit with teaching me to play limited with any skill at all. His deck rocked - I did not have a chance. Game 1: B:20,19,18,19,18,14,10 PH:20,18,16,14,10,5 ded I actually had a chance in this game but I made a big boo-boo. I had a Miraculous Recovery and a Remedy in my hand and we both had Breezekeepers on the board (he also had two Cloud Elementals. I attacked with my Breezekeeper knowing he would block with his. He did block but then I made my mistake - I cast Remedy on mine. I did not look at my MR and thought that I could recover his creatures. I should have let mine die too, and then recovered it to kill a Cloud E. on the next turn - and I still would have had the Remedy in my hand. Later I got the Dragon Mask and Man o War combo, but it was to late to convert it into anything. Game 2: B:20,14,12,6 PH:20,17,12,8 ded Yuck - I die quick to Fallen Angle and Pestilence. Ben's deck: Pest, Drain, 2xInfernal H, 2xMindsucker, Fallen A., 2xCloud E, Glacial W., N. Disk, Krovikan S., Breezekeeper, Q. Ranger, Cat Warrior, River Boa, War M., Warthog, and Winter Blast. ROUND 3 - Adam Steidley I forgot to write notes because I dropped out after this round but as I remember it the most interesting thing about this match was that my greater realm totally hosed him in the final game - he was playing both black and red. He had two fireblasts but it did not matter. Game 1: PA:20,19,18,17,12,11,8 ded H:20 Game 2: PA:20,19,17,14,10 H:20,17,14,10,5,3 ded Game 3: A:20,19,16,13,10,7,4 ded PH:20,18,16,11,9,7 FINAL STANDINGS 3-0 Mathew Wang 1776 3-0 Eric Kesselman 1858 2-0 Steven O'Mahoney-Schwartz 1880 2-1 Adam Katz 1790 2-1 Ben Bleiweiss 1778 2-1 Dan O'Mahoney-Schwartz 1858 2-1 Hogan Long 1805 2-1 Michael Suwald 1696 2-1 Rudy Boyen ? 1-1 Dogg Jacoby ? 1-2 Adam Steidley 1692 1-2 David Liersch 1757 1-2 Martin Valkyeser 1766 1-2 Stephan Valkyser 1787 1-2 Uni Budde ? 0-2 Adam Wersan 1670 0-1 C. Reedman ? 0-1 Tim Gloechner ? 0-3 Craig Thomas ? Eric droped after 3 so Matt won - couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. MY DECK I have added some comments about the cards are they annoying, funny or wrong? Let me know if I should include them in future reports. LANDS (17) 5 Forests (+1) 4 Islands (+1) 5 Plains (+1) CREATURES (18) FLY (4) Breezekeeper - woo woo! Wall of Air - Good defense. Daraja Griffin - Flying 2/2 shrug. Freewind Falcon - Scrubby. Scryb Sprites - Even has Scrubby in its' name. BIG (2) +Wall of Air Bull Elephant - Turn 4 beatdown! Giant Spider - Block 'em flyers. WALLS (1) +Wall of Air Wall of Spears - First strike - got'ta love it. REGENERATORS (2) Clay Statue - Big regenerators rock. River Boa - Island walking regenerators rock more. UTILITY CREATURES (4) Man-o'-War - Get rid of their annoy stuff for a bit. Prodigal Sorcerer - PING! Quirion Ranger - Love this card - sleazy factor +10 Infantry Veteran - Love this card - sleaze factor +5 OTHERS (5) King Cheetah - OK, I cast it at the end of your turn. Icatian Town - Lotsa little scrubs. Pearled Unicorn - Its' a 2/2 and ummm... its' a 2/2. Tundra Wolves - Pile of junk, always the first card sided out. UTILITY (1) Dragon Mask - I love this card - to bad it only came out once and then I was already dead. REMOVAL (2) Ray of Command - STRONGEST! Retribution of the Meek - NEVER got to use this - it is not as strong in the 5th environment. HEALING (2) Miraculous Recovery - STRONG! Remedy - STRONG! STRONG SIDEBOARD Seasinger - Multi Ray of Command against blue (sided in 4 times!) COP: Blue - vs. Blue (sided in once) Lifeforce - Black is useless (sided in 3 times) Disenchant - vs. Artifacts/Enchantments, some would say I should have started this and they would probably be right Divine Offering - vs. Artifacts (never used) Greater Realm of Preservation - vs. Black/Red (sided in 2 times.) Play well and don't get mana screwed, H. PS - I have put my reports on the net for those who care at http://www.akula.com/~hogan