From: "Tim Vervliet" To: Subject: Tournament report Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 13:28:38 +0200 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Status: RO Hi, this is my tournament report of the Belgian Nationals on the 2nd of may in Brussels. Friday night a went early to bed to be as concentrated as a could be. All the Belgian top players, including the "fearsome" team outpost. The registration was very smooth and a hour later we could finally begin. I brought my counter-hammer deck, which I will now explain. 6 Mountains 12 Islands 2 Undiscovred Paradise (Worb decks) 2 Reflecting Pool 3 Quicksands 2 Eartquake (primary against stompy and sligh, but also a finisher) 2 Fireball (mainly finisher, but sometimes weenie killer) 4 Incinerate 2 Hammer Of Bogarden (Worked pretty well) 4 Counterspell (Duh) 3 Mana Leak (Only three, because in the late game it is considered a useless card) 3 Dissipate (Hammer? Bottle Gnomes recursing? Gaia's Blessing? I don't think so.) 3 Dismiss (Is expensive, but hey, card advantage is good) 2 Whispers Of The Muse (Card advantage is good) 4 Impulse (Best blue non-counterspell type II card) 3 Steel Golem (Beatdown) 3 Nevinyrral's Disk (Panic button) Sideboard: 2 Suq'Ata Firewalker (Non red damage source, great weenie killer) 3 Hydroblast (Duh) 3 Pyroblast (Often switched with mana leaks) 2 Mangara's Blessing (Bottomless Pit, Funeral Charm, Disrupting Scepter,...) 3 Shatter (Cursed Scroll, and Winter Orb decks) 2 Phyrexian Furnace (Buried Alive decks, Donais 5CU decks, Lhurgoyf, Hammer) I think this was my deck choice because nobody played it for a while in type two, and the decks I played against weren't prepared to face it, at least I hoped so :-) . On to the tournament then. Round One: Bart Van Uffelen, playing 5CG We saw eachother at the outpost qualifier and he finished after me, so maybe that is a good thing. Wessel Carlier announces that this is a class B event, just like the pro-tour, but more on that later. First match, I have total control and slowly hammer him to death, while he draws granger guildmage (incinerate) and a couple of birds. He is mana flooded, so I win. Second match, there are two centaurs on the table, which beat me down to ten. I play the disk, he plays the Sex Monkey. Game for Bart. A judge said three times to tap my mana all the way, but i didn't get a warning. Third Match, I sideboarded the Suq'ata, against his birds and pingers, and since incinerates are his only remove source, he gets down till eight. I'm at then. I draw an earthquake, play a land. I have ten mana, and a counterspell. I start tapping mana, but then I realise that if he countered it I would be toast. So I only had 1 land untapped an said that I earthquaked for 8. He incinerates me. Draw. For the next hour I could kill myself. Bart thanks me for the draw. WLD 1 point Round Two: Raf Geusens, playing 5CB Great, another 5CU deck. Wessel announces that everybody must tap his mana all the way. Oops. Game one: he gets mana screwed. I play a third turn steel golem, backed up with about 6 counterspells. Game for me Game two: I am serious mana screwed, only three land with a couple of disks and dismiss. He plays a scragnot (ouch). 5 Turns later I'm dead. Game three: I draw 15(yes 15). Land in a row. He plays scragnot, I earthquake, he counters. He beats me down to five when i draw my second quicksand finally. There was already a winter orb, so that shut my deck completely down. I quicksand his scragnot. He plays a second. Game for him. WLL 1 point Great, now I am at the scrubs tables... Round 3: Michiel Horemans, playing B/R buried alive We chat for a while, until I start. I get control over the plaing field with a steel golem, but recursing bottle gnomes with the stronghold keeps him alive. When I have 15 mana, I Fireball him :-). In round two, i sideboard pherixian furnaces for 2 disks and Mangaras Blessindgs.I take a mulligan, and then draw the furnace with 2 land, a steel golem and an incinerate. I play the furnace, but he plays null rod (eek). I ask the judge if tapping is an activation cost, but wessel sais it is. Bad luck. I give him a steel beatdown, and start hammering. I finish him again with a fireball. Yes, finally a win. WW 4 points Round 4: Some kid, playing R/W In round one he plays for land, but then stalls. I play the steel golem. Backed up with a bunch of counterspells, I kick his ass. Game two, he only draws red land. He shocks me twice and incinerates me twice. I kick his butt with the steel golem (it realy rules). He finally plays a heavy balista (huh?). I think he played some sort of humility deck. Anyway, the hammer reappears. "If I had a hammer, I could hammer all night." Bye Bye. WW 7 points I talk with Mike from team brassman, and he sais that 10 points is the breakthrough for the next day. So I only need to win once out of three. Piece of cake (I thought). Mike has 12 points, so he is with Gilles Grandjean and Pierre cools at the top. Round 5: Niek Van Lissum, playing B/U control. The name Van Lissum give me chills. He tells me he is ex number one from Belgium. Great. Game one: He plays a voldian illusionist, I incinerate. I see that he plays B/U, so I play the steel golem. I kick his ass. Finish withh a recursing hammer. IN game two, he gets only three mana, with one quicksand. I cast a disk with a steel golem on the table, which has brought him to 6, he double quicksand the golem. He plays his sixt land and he casts lobotomy, he takes 2 damage from the city of brass, so he is at 4,I mana leak, he pays mana, he takes another damage (3). He gets both my incinerates, I couldn't cast him due lack of red mana :-( . I draw a hammer the next turn. Game. WW 10 points Yes. Round 6: Vincent Gieling, playing a modified donais 5CU Gieling, gieling,where do I now that name from. Oh yeah he played a pro tour(see his report). Shit. This is going to be tough.. Game one. I play a steel golem , he has only three land. He draws his fourth, and plays humility. The little golem gets him to three, when he disenchants him. I play the hammer. Bye Bye Sideboard Pyroblast for mana leak and Furnace against the blessings. Game two and three. He outdraws me with all the cantrips. He gerrards for 14. Then creates about ten snake basket tokens. Shit. WLL 10 points. I go home, because I wanted to go to a party that evening. I couldn't finish with the top eight, I think, to low point total. The party sucked btw, so I hate myslef for now (sunday) typing this report, in stead of playing booster draft... Anyway, I also want to complain about Intrafin's way of dealing with this event. All the players thought this was a one day event, type 2. The information was recieved only wednesday. Many player which I talked with were very upset that this sort of thing can happen. Furthermore, nobody knew were zaal forum was. When we found it, there was no computer for registering the results, so that I got paired twice with Bart Van Uffelen. Also the top 30 of the luik qualifier were, there, among them some scrubs that didn't deserve to play in a national competition. I had a tough playing field in the outpost, and now some scrubs are there because it was very easy to qualify in Liege. It was also announced as a one day event, until some top players (I am not going to name them) decided to go to intrafin and ask for a booster draft the second day. I am very upset, I already had my plans for this weekend, I am not alone, and wednesday suddenly this changed. I think intrafin is keeping the top players club as much protected as they can, so that no one can get in. I think wotc should handle te tournament scene again. I hope I don't offend nobody with this comment, but I think that there need to come some major changes. But who am I to judge, I'm just a 16 year old kid who tries to make the best of magic. Feedback and comments about my deck/article/complaint are welcome as usual at vervliet@tornado.be See U soon at another tournament and sorry for the typos. Tim