PRO TOURNEY THIS WEEK: What happened??
Chritian Pantages
Professional Tournament over the weekend, and less importantly, what they
were playing? No need for a legnthy, rosewater-esque description ("Zak
played the angel, and Bertrand psionic blasted it before it hit the
table.), but any information would be appreciated. Take care, Chris
Andrei Goga
This is admittedly second hand, but a friend of mine just
returned from New York where he played in the Pro-tournament. I
don't know the names and such of the all the final 16 players,
but apparently a blue/white bit of green millstone deck won. The
winner was some guy from New York who beat Bertrand in the
finals. Bertrand was apparently playing a white/green
Dervish/Autumn Willow deck. Both finalists decided to split the
prize money when the games were tied at 1:1.
I am amazed that millstone won, but it goes to show you that
without the vice blue is back...
Andrei
Ken Gryfalia Roth
: This is admittedly second hand, but a friend of mine just
: don't know the names and such of the all the final 16 players,
: but apparently a blue/white bit of green millstone deck won. The
: winner was some guy from New York who beat Bertrand in the
: finals. Bertrand was apparently playing a white/green
: Dervish/Autumn Willow deck. Both finalists decided to split the
: prize money when the games were tied at 1:1.
: I am amazed that millstone won, but it goes to show you that
: without the vice blue is back...
Why does this amaze you? Except for some horrible draws my Millstone
deck has been horrible to play against since long before the vise was
restricted. (horrible draw - one plain, 2 fellwar stones and 3 jester's
caps...wow, that's useful...).
Millstone is the antithesis of EVERY deck type. I get to neutralize
two of your cards for every one you get. As long as I disenchant your
sylvan librarys, I have a huge advantage...
My biggest disappointment is that now people are going to think I copied
this guys deck (cept I tried green and took it out, so just blue/white.)
Ken 'I memory lapse that and millstone you for two' Roth
'In a land where all decks are the same deck, that deck will rule...DUH!'
-Me
--
3.1415
>: Does anyone know who won (and placed) in the Black Lotus
>: Professional Tournament over the weekend, and less importantly, what they
>: were playing? No need for a legnthy, rosewater-esque description ("Zak
>: played the angel, and Bertrand psionic blasted it before it hit the
>: table.), but any information would be appreciated. Take care, Chris
>Actually I would love a long descriptive Rosewater-esque description.
>But I would take anything.
>Kevin
I second that, as Rosewater as it can get if possible
Frank
Kevin P. Gilbert
Jamie Wakefield
90%of the decks I saw had land tax/zorb in it.
90%.
Expect a restriction soon.
Thank God.
Played the discard big creature deck just so i could
break this kind of a lock.
Wanted to go with my straight green willow deck, but knew
that I would have no chance against this kind of deck.
Very, very, very unoriginal decks.
Land tax was everywhere.
A lot of light or no creature decks.
A lot of wrath of god,
A lot of stormbind
a lot of armageddon/balence/zorb decks etc
Met Robert Hahn. Did not have time to speak much as we
were starting a sealed deck tourney.
Seemed very nice, but tired.
Will look forward to is report as it will be much better
writen than this one.
Of the ten invited to the pro tourney, I think bertrand
lestree and Blumke made it to the final 16.
later
jamie c. wakefield
Jamie Wakefield
Did not stay to watch the finals.
First game of the finals took an hour and 25 minutes.
Second game was fifteen minutes in when my friends and I
decided to take off. They were boring final games, only in the
sense that the blue white player was creatureless, and was just
looking to run bertrand out of cards. We wanted to head back to
a friends apartement and practice what we had learned. I was
amazed. My friends and I have achieved a new level of play
from watching this tournament.
Can I brag a little?
Just a little?
It's been a hellish weekend for me and I'm exhausted but I am
also stunned and amazed. I'm still trying to digest all I
learned and saw this weekend.
Here comes the bragging.
I took 18th.
I missed the cutoff by a half game (two players in the finals
had 5-1-1 and I was five and 2, but as far as we (my friends
and I) could figure, if they went by matches won, I would have
been in serious contention for the players that were five and
two. According to the sheet that was posted, I was tied for
18th with 4 other players. But I smoked 3 of my opponents 3-0
in 3 of my wins, and one of those wins was against mark
hernandez.
Pretty proud of that cause I'm just a nobody from VT.
Also, I was never smoked. Every loss I had was 2-1 so I had a
nice
high score for the people that were 5-2.
A couple of observations
I was a little suprised by Zak Dolan.
Have always enjoyed his articles, but did not enjoy him in
person.
Andre Redi (one of the invited top ten) was the nicest guy
I met all weekend. Barely spoke english, but very, very cool.
Very nice guy.
I was playing a black discard/big creature (no racks, 3 serrated
arrows which were very key.) Andre redi was playing a green
white
land tax, spectral bears, armageddon, plowshares, dervish,
lurgurph, johtull deck. the dervishes hit the table and died
against arrows, except once.
He killed me one game with a dervish that grew to eight/eight.
In that game I had sideboarded in 4 gloom.
Saw one on the 35th turn, after he had gotten his circle-black
on the opening hand. (happened in both of the last two games
that he won.)
When we were done, I showed him the 4 gloom and
held up 4 fingers and said 4.
He looked amazed.
Four? he said.
Laughed, went through his deck, pulled out his
circle black and laughed, held up one finger and
said "One!"
More in the next post, I wanna send this before I lose it.
Dan O'Leary
>Professional Tournament over the weekend, and less importantly, what they
>were playing? No need for a legnthy, rosewater-esque description ("Zak
>played the angel, and Bertrand psionic blasted it before it hit the
>table.), but any information would be appreciated. Take care, Chris
You know, when I started playing Magic (just AFTER Legends disappeared
from the shelves, of course) WotC reps were everywhere on the net.
Well, Tom Wyle was everywhere I should say. I guess that after all
the abuse that Sparky! took he just left... It is really sad that no
official tourney reports have been posted by wizards - and they wonder
why people are loosing faith in them. Thanks to those that have
posted informative summaries of the games.
- Dan / n-Space, Inc.
Nikoli
: : winner was some guy from New York who beat Bertrand in the
: : finals. Bertrand was apparently playing a white/green
: : Dervish/Autumn Willow deck. Both finalists decided to split the
: : prize money when the games were tied at 1:1.
: : I am amazed that millstone won, but it goes to show you that
: : without the vice blue is back...
: Why does this amaze you? Except for some horrible draws my Millstone
: deck has been horrible to play against since long before the vise was
: restricted. (horrible draw - one plain, 2 fellwar stones and 3 jester's
: caps...wow, that's useful...).
: Millstone is the antithesis of EVERY deck type. I get to neutralize
: two of your cards for every one you get. As long as I disenchant your
: sylvan librarys, I have a huge advantage...
This is a mathematically flawed strategy. If the cards in his deck are
distibuted randomly, it doesn't matter that you are forcing him to take
the top two cards off the top of his library. Obviously, if you know
what his next card is, i.e. Field of Dreams, then you have a solid lock
on the game. But the reason a blue Millstone deck wins is not the
Millstone, it's the counterspells and the "control-of-the-game" aspect.
The Millstone could easily be any card that will eventually kill the
opponent. It could be a Vexing Arcanix, a Serra or two, or whatever.
The reason that type of deck wins is NOT the Millstone.
Aziz
Frederick Scott
>Now on to other people
>90%of the decks I saw had land tax/zorb in it.
>90%.
>Expect a restriction soon.
>Thank God.
Zuran Orb _is_ restricted. Could you mean Land Tax? I hope not. Land
Tax is a fun and interesting card. I rather see Zuran Orb banned to stop
this combination if it's so bad even restricting the Orb isn't enough.
Fred
Mario Robaina
Well, I'm back from the pro tourny and I thought I'd fill people in on
this weekend's occurences. This might be a tad long so sit down and relax...
I got there on Friday morning before the snow started hitting the ground
which was a good thing considering many people had flights
delayed/cancelled/rerouted. I had stayed up almost all night on the
plane fooling around with the deck that five of us from LA and a friend
from Oregon would be playing. The crew included Marc Chalice, Frank
Gilson, Scott Burke, Henry Stern, and myself. Unfortunately, none of us
made it to the final 16, but we all made the top 64 insuring our presence
at the next pro tourny in May in LA.
On Friday, it seemed that everyone was playing for ante with Type I
and II, and Sealed decks. Sealed deck ante was the method of choice by
the end of the weekend. One of the WotC guys came to the tourny with the
intention of promoting sealed deck, by playing for $100 to $300 a match.
By Sunday night many of the top players were walking around with bags of
Starters and Boosters playing sealed deck ante. And damn was it fun.
Because of the storm, the WotC people decided to delay the start of the
tourny till noon, which meant that we would all be there quite late. But
it was the right move considering the weather and its affect on people's
travel into New York. All things considered the seven rounds of swiss
were run extremely smoothly. I would like to commend WotC for their
efforts at this tourny. It was all run in an extremely professional
manner. I was impressed. It was without a doubt the best run large
tourny I have been to.
The field was dominated by White with White/Green, White/Blue and
White/Red decks being everywhere. The key card in almost everyone of
those decks was Land Tax. The buzz around the tourny was that the card
was clearly too powerful. If every deck that plays with white has 3 or 4
Taxes then there may be a problem with the card. I know for a fact that
the Land Tax has been under observation for some time by the DC for
restriction, and this tournament may push them over the edge.
The tourny was won by a U/W Millstone deck played by Mike Laconte (I
think) and the runner up was Bertrand Lestre (the runner up to Zak at the
1994 worlds) playing a W/G deck that crushed him on Friday in practice
play. Mike was a New York local who had a ton of friends in attendance.
The cinderella for the tournament was probably Preston Polter from Los
Angeles who beat 3 top 25 players from last year and Mark Justice to take
third place. Preston lost to Mike in the semis in a 5 game match.
All in all I had a great time and I am looking forward to the next pro
event here in my back yard. It looks like the next event will be some
kind of sealed format. Probably a Booster draft or a Rochester draft
format. I did win the booster draft tourny held on sunday and received
some awfully nice prizes (8 packs of Legends, Antiquities, Ice Age,
Chronicles, and 4th Edition and a T-shirt).
Well, I gotta run.
Later,
Mario.
Bill Bohn
: This is a mathematically flawed strategy. If the cards in his deck are
: the top two cards off the top of his library. Obviously, if you know
: what his next card is, i.e. Field of Dreams, then you have a solid lock
: on the game. But the reason a blue Millstone deck wins is not the
: Millstone, it's the counterspells and the "control-of-the-game" aspect.
: The Millstone could easily be any card that will eventually kill the
: opponent. It could be a Vexing Arcanix, a Serra or two, or whatever.
: The reason that type of deck wins is NOT the Millstone.
: Aziz
But.. The millstone does reduce his library to a 1/3 of what it was
as soon as it hits the table. If it is out on turn three (when you get
your 10th card, that means the 50 left in your library has been shrunk to 17
as long as he uses it each turn.. and then when a howling mine or another
millstone hit the table you need something to deal with the millstones.
And if all you have is StPs in hope of killing a serra, then you are
screwed..
That's why fellwar stones and armageddon go in the deck.. so it doesn't
get burned to the ground..and then a CoP:red goes in there too..
I am not a fan of this deck, mind you, but I can play one effectively
as anyone else...
The land tax zuran orb is getting big on the circuit though..
Bill
--
z |\ _,,,---,,_
z /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_
|,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
Ken Gryfalia Roth
(quoted from someone else):
: : This is a mathematically flawed strategy. If the cards in his deck are
: : the top two cards off the top of his library. Obviously, if you know
: : what his next card is, i.e. Field of Dreams, then you have a solid lock
: : on the game. But the reason a blue Millstone deck wins is not the
: : Millstone, it's the counterspells and the "control-of-the-game" aspect.
: : The Millstone could easily be any card that will eventually kill the
: : opponent. It could be a Vexing Arcanix, a Serra or two, or whatever.
: : The reason that type of deck wins is NOT the Millstone.
: : Aziz
: But.. The millstone does reduce his library to a 1/3 of what it was
: as soon as it hits the table. If it is out on turn three (when you get
: your 10th card, that means the 50 left in your library has been shrunk to 17
: as long as he uses it each turn.. and then when a howling mine or another
: millstone hit the table you need something to deal with the millstones.
Thank you for getting the point. i don't care if he manages to get the
one of three cards he needs every turn, his deck is disappearing at
warp speed and he needs to kill me quickly. The counterspells merely keep
one alive, but I have seen efficient red/white millstone decks.
And it is AMAZING how quickly 2 stones finishes the game...
: The land tax zuran orb is getting big on the circuit though..
I personally don't see this as a real problem. It is a nice, dual
purpose combo, one to get the land I need, second purpose to get
land OUT of my deck. But armageddon and other similar cards punish
this (hurts to have removed all the land from your deck then
losing all the land you have in play....)
- Bill
Ken Roth
'In a land where all deck are the same deck, that deck will rule...DUH!'
-Me
:
:
: --
: z |\ _,,,---,,_
: z /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_
: |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-'
: '---''(_/--' `-'\_)
--
David J Low
>I missed the cutoff by a half game (two players in the finals
>had 5-1-1 and I was five and 2,
How did they run it - by game or by "match"?
That is, was the cutoff decided simply by total number of games won, or
was there a component of match-wins in it?
Wondering,
David.
--
| David J. Low dl...@physics.adelaide.edu.au Oooo. |
| ( ) |
| WWW: http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~dlow ) / |
| "I'd rather be lost in the Darkness than blinded by the Light" (_/ |
Sam1818
;deck has been horrible to play against since long before the vise was
;restricted. (horrible draw - one plain, 2 fellwar stones and 3 jester's
;caps...wow, that's useful...).
;Millstone is the antithesis of EVERY deck type. I get to neutralize
;two of your cards for every one you get. As long as I disenchant your
;sylvan librarys, I have a huge advantage...
;My biggest disappointment is that now people are going to think I copied
;this guys deck (cept I tried green and took it out, so just blue/white.)
;Ken 'I memory lapse that and millstone you for two' Roth
;'In a land where all decks are the same deck, that deck will rule...DUH!'
;-Me
Ken, you and your millstones. The fact of the matter was that White
totally dominated the Pro tourney. I didn't play a against a deck any of
the 7 round that didn't have at least 2 land tax, 4 STP 3 disenchants, and
2 wrath of god. At one point not to long ago White was the least played
color in type I and II, now it has an almost dominating factor. The most
interesting thing was to see how people used FE and Homlands cards to
thier advantage. The FE sac lands were quite commonly in decks as were
Serrated Arrows. 2 cards I didn't even consider when building my deck.
Sam Heckman
Sam...@aol.com
I'd make up a cool signature, but it's a waste of time.
No matter how cool his sig is an AOL user
just isn't going to get any respect.
Vaughn Sandor
The first two games of the finals were VERY long and not much happened.
Had Bertrand played with a Feldon's cane I think he would have taken
all
three games.
But the excitement came during the final game when Mike Laconto (Champ)
let a Whirling Dervish go unchecked. (he could have recalled a swords
or
played a factory before it got out of hand, but instead he recalled a
counter-
spell and played the factory when the Dervish was 3/3).
By sheer luck he pulled the swords from his library when he was at 4
life
and the dervish was at 4/4! One more attack phase and Bertrand would
have
taken the title! Mike was able to get out a Fountain and take control
over the
game until Bertrand ran out of cards (as he did in the 2nd game).
Congrats MIKE! See ya at Long Beach.
Robert Blackman
Just to set the record straight, 3rd place was taken by Preston Poulter
(not Polter), a graduate student in chemistry at the University of
California, Irvine (not LA as reported). Go Anteaters! I hope that
whenever Preston used STP, he yelled "Zot!"
Bob Blackman
eah...@ea.oac.uci.edu
Dennis F. Hefferman
|Zuran Orb _is_ restricted. Could you mean Land Tax? I hope not. Land
|Tax is a fun and interesting card. I rather see Zuran Orb banned to stop
Land Tax is problematic -- it lets you draw cards for free, even if
they're only lands. This is Not Good.
It's even worse now that there are lots of things to do with the extra
cards, e.g. Zuran Orb, Land's Edge, Stormbind. I almost put it into my
"Smokin!" deck (which is nominally G/R but can get at other colors with fair
reliability), but seeing as how it's a landkiller I doubt I'd get much use out
of it unless I was hosed on the draw, and in that case I doubt I'd also get the
Land Tax.
--
Dennis Francis Heffernan IRC: Macavity heff...@pegasus.montclair.edu
Montclair State University #include <disclaim.h> Computer Science/Philosophy
"I guess my work around here has all been done."
-- The Devil, in "The Garden of Allah", Don Henley
Dennis F. Hefferman
| But.. The millstone does reduce his library to a 1/3 of what it was
|as soon as it hits the table. If it is out on turn three (when you get
|your 10th card, that means the 50 left in your library has been shrunk to 17
|as long as he uses it each turn.. and then when a howling mine or another
|millstone hit the table you need something to deal with the millstones.
Right, it only makes a difference when the SECOND one comes out. The
first one is as likely to hurt me as help me. Yes, the first one means my
library is 1/3rd its former size, but since I was only going to draw 1/3rd of
its cards on a good day, why should I care? As for the Howling Mines, I always
say "thank you" when they're played; I've lost a whole two games in the last
fifteen-sixteen months to Howling Mines.
This doesn't mean that you can't lose to Millstones if they're the
centerpiece of one of these currently-popular Blue-White monstrosities, but in
that case, as others have pointed out, it ain't the Millstone what's killing
you.
Craig Sivils
>The tourny was won by a U/W Millstone deck played by Mike Laconte (I
>think) and the runner up was Bertrand Lestre (the runner up to Zak at the
>1994 worlds) playing a W/G deck that crushed him on Friday in practice
>play. Mike was a New York local who had a ton of friends in attendance.
>The cinderella for the tournament was probably Preston Polter from Los
>Angeles who beat 3 top 25 players from last year and Mark Justice to take
>third place. Preston lost to Mike in the semis in a 5 game match.
Although he hates SoM talk and came off a bit pushy when I first read
his posts. I must be honest, over email he was polite, and defended
his points very well. And it seems he also stood the test of fire as
well. Wanted to say Gratz to Preston, and to warn him that if he does
it again, we'll have to write his view on magic up and submit it to
Robert to be included in SoM :)
Craig
p.s. I've been screaming land tax!! for how long :)
LittleZero
"Gryfalia" Roth) wrote:
> : The land tax zuran orb is getting big on the circuit though..
>
> I personally don't see this as a real problem. It is a nice, dual
> purpose combo, one to get the land I need, second purpose to get
> land OUT of my deck. But armageddon and other similar cards punish
> this (hurts to have removed all the land from your deck then
> losing all the land you have in play....)
>
You can quote me on this: Land Tax will be restricted by the end of March.
It was decided at the tourney that Land Tax would be restricted, though I
have no idea when the decision will come into effect.
In Type II magic, land is EVERYTHING. Get your land and you can act, don't
get your land and you can't. With no effective artifact mana sources in
the game, Land Tax becomes a critical card.
Second, Land Tax battles were one of the keys to success at the tourney.
In the finals both Bertrand and Loconto would sacrifice lands, discard
powerful cards and pop the FE sac lands, in an attempt to get a Land Tax
advantage. These battles are slow and frustrating and bring the game to a
standstill.
Finally, you have to ask why people even bother having Land Tax wars. The
answer is simple: the advantage in Type II play from a single Land Tax use
is HUGE. You have a three card advantage on your opponent. You are
guaranteed up to a three land advantage on your opponent. You've removed
three lands from your deck, making your deck exceptionally more efficient.
Now Land Tax is really the first situation where a card that basically
unbalances Type II, has little or no effect in Type I. With the basic lack
of Basic lands used in Type I and the much more effecient card drawing
abilities of Type I (LofA, Anc. Recall, Braingeyser, etc.), Land Tax is
rarely, if ever, seen.
It is for this reason that I believe we will witness a first for WotC. A
card restricted SPECIFICALLY in type II.
And hey - you heard it here first...
Karl.
-------------------------------------------------------
Karl j Borst & Sandra Bornn
lil...@inforamp.net
"Life is a state of mind."
LittleZero
d...@tornado.maths.monash.edu.au (David J Low) wrote:
> Jamie Wakefield <the...@sover.net> writes:
> >I missed the cutoff by a half game (two players in the finals
> >had 5-1-1 and I was five and 2,
>
> How did they run it - by game or by "match"?
>
> That is, was the cutoff decided simply by total number of games won, or
> was there a component of match-wins in it?
>
> Wondering,
>
> David.
We played seven matches (six on Saturday, one on Sunday at 8 am). The
cutoff was first decided by matches, which should have meant that if there
was the full 256 players there, that only the 2 7-0 players and the 14 6-1
players would have advanced to the finals. As there were less, two
5-2/5-1-1 players made it to the finals. These players were chosen out of
the numerous 5-2 players, based on points (3 for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for
a loss). I played one of them in the 7th round and I must admit that I got
totally smoked 3-0. I did a total of 5 points of damage in the three
games, with a first turn Vice. The guy (from France) ended up with 51
points, a higher score than either of the 7-0 players...
Patrick Timmons
: This is a mathematically flawed strategy. If the cards in his deck are
: distibuted randomly, it doesn't matter that you are forcing him to take
: the top two cards off the top of his library. Obviously, if you know
: what his next card is, i.e. Field of Dreams, then you have a solid lock
: on the game. But the reason a blue Millstone deck wins is not the
: Millstone, it's the counterspells and the "control-of-the-game" aspect.
: The Millstone could easily be any card that will eventually kill the
: opponent. It could be a Vexing Arcanix, a Serra or two, or whatever.
: The reason that type of deck wins is NOT the Millstone.
There's a flaw to your logic too. You claim a blue Millstone deck wins
not because of the Millstone, but because of the counterspells. As we all
know, you can only play with a limited number of counterspells. Hence,
reducing their effective deck size by 2/3 means you only need to have
counters for 1/3 of their deck. Your counters don't run out as they would
without Millstone.
Pat
Robert Blackman
=09When I spoke with Preston, he didn't say anything about a tie: he=20
presented himself as taking 3rd, and had the paper to prove it. I'll ask=20
him about Leon. How is the Type-zero developing? I haven't seen any sign=20
of it around UCI.
Bob Blackman
eah...@ea.oac.uci.edu
On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Dan H=F6rning wrote:
[snip]
> Wasn't the third place shared or did Leon Lindback and Preston play
> it out?=20
>=20
> I designed the deck together with Leon but haven't spoken to him yet (he
> aint home yet) so I am not really sure.
>=20
> Dan Horning
> Swedish National Champ (beat Leon in the final)
Duane Flier
: The field was dominated by White with White/Green, White/Blue and
: those decks was Land Tax. The buzz around the tourny was that the card
: was clearly too powerful. If every deck that plays with white has 3 or 4
: Taxes then there may be a problem with the card. I know for a fact that
: the Land Tax has been under observation for some time by the DC for
: restriction, and this tournament may push them over the edge.
I don't get it, if 90% of the decks there were running White Defense,
why didn't the guys with the 1st round GLOOMs and Anarchy's backed by
REB clean up? Back a Gloom with 4 Strip Mines and 4 XXX land-d card and
you should be able to keep them below the disenchant point long enough
to a) Win b)play another Gloom c) Make Armageddon a bad idea, while
overloading the capabilities of 1 or 2 Disenchant and 1 or 2 StP.
A note on c) Wrath and Balance would, of course, still hurt.
: The tourny was won by a U/W Millstone deck played by Mike Laconte (I
: think) and the runner up was Bertrand Lestre (the runner up to Zak at the
: 1994 worlds) playing a W/G deck that crushed him on Friday in practice
: play. Mike was a New York local who had a ton of friends in attendance.
: The cinderella for the tournament was probably Preston Polter from Los
: Angeles who beat 3 top 25 players from last year and Mark Justice to take
: third place. Preston lost to Mike in the semis in a 5 game match.
Two or three people have mentioned Preston, but no one has even
mentioned what he was playing! Arrgh!
: All in all I had a great time and I am looking forward to the next pro
: event here in my back yard. It looks like the next event will be some
: kind of sealed format. Probably a Booster draft or a Rochester draft
: format. I did win the booster draft tourny held on sunday and received
: some awfully nice prizes (8 packs of Legends, Antiquities, Ice Age,
: Chronicles, and 4th Edition and a T-shirt).
Congrats, and thanks for the report.
: Mario.
Duane Flier
<wkn...@camelot.bradley.edu>
Canticle
> You know, when I started playing Magic (just AFTER Legends disappeared
> from the shelves, of course) WotC reps were everywhere on the net.
> Well, Tom Wyle was everywhere I should say. I guess that after all
> the abuse that Sparky! took he just left... It is really sad that no
> official tourney reports have been posted by wizards - and they wonder
> why people are loosing faith in them. Thanks to those that have
> posted informative summaries of the games.
I think a little bit of patience is necessary here...most of the WotC
'net folk are no doubt playing a very active role in the Pro Tourney,
which doesn't leave a lot of time for posting. In addition, while WotC
has always had a net presence, Sparky! is (as I understand it) involved
heavily in the Netrunner CCG, which has to suck up a lot of time. And as
I recall, Mark Rosewater has already posted a detailed summary of the
events at the Pro Tourney, and he probably counts as a WotC employee :).
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Nikoli
debate. The logic I have presented is mathematically sound. However, I
have NOT ever put forth that the Millstone is an inneffective card. It
is a great way to kill someone, however, it does not hurt your opponents
chances of drawing any particular card.
Aziz
Preston Poulter
On 22 Feb 1996, Duane Flier wrote:
> Mario Robaina (sprm...@netcom.com) wrote:
> : The field was dominated by White with White/Green, White/Blue and
> : White/Red decks being everywhere. The key card in almost everyone of
> : those decks was Land Tax. The buzz around the tourny was that the card
> : was clearly too powerful. If every deck that plays with white has 3 or 4
> : Taxes then there may be a problem with the card. I know for a fact that
> : the Land Tax has been under observation for some time by the DC for
> : restriction, and this tournament may push them over the edge.
>
> I don't get it, if 90% of the decks there were running White Defense,
> why didn't the guys with the 1st round GLOOMs and Anarchy's backed by
> REB clean up? Back a Gloom with 4 Strip Mines and 4 XXX land-d card and
> you should be able to keep them below the disenchant point long enough
> to a) Win b)play another Gloom c) Make Armageddon a bad idea, while
> overloading the capabilities of 1 or 2 Disenchant and 1 or 2 StP.
>
> A note on c) Wrath and Balance would, of course, still hurt.
>
> Two or three people have mentioned Preston, but no one has even
> mentioned what he was playing! Arrgh!
White/Green, and I from what I found playing the other LA players is that
a first turn Gloom really doesn't hurt my deck all that much. I just
start throwing out green critters and then essence filter to get rid of
any annoying non-white enchantments.
Cheers,
Preston
a
a
a
a
aa
Craig Sivils
I does when you mill the 4th into the graveyard. But as long as they
are in the deck, you are correct.
BTW, my wife came up with a new magic term. We were playing a fun
game, and she said "milligan", showed me her hand which had plenty of
land in it and proceeded to reshuffel her millstone deck. I said you
have land! She said, yeah, but didn't get one of my millstones :P
Craig
Craig Sivils
Where were the rainbow vales? Lower your chance of colored mana
screw, AND the trump card for land limbo wars? From Fallen Empires to
boot :) Not to mention, it's combo with your felwar stones.
I know that nobody respects Rainbow vale, but I remember when nobody
respected land tax, and I was there yelling bout land tax +
brainstorm, land tax in general, land tax + winds of change, land tax
+ lands edge, land tax in general :)
My 3 favorite fad cards currently are rainbow vale, forgotten lore,
and lands edge. Now Lands Edge is by no means ignored, I think the
other two are, but I see a lot of potential there. (although
forgotten lore and the vale do belong in different decks).
Craig
Stil
: My 3 favorite fad cards currently are rainbow vale, forgotten lore,
: and lands edge. Now Lands Edge is by no means ignored, I think the
: other two are, but I see a lot of potential there. (although
: forgotten lore and the vale do belong in different decks).
I love the vale and forgotten lore, I'm not that crazy about Land's
Edge. The lore is just wicked in a land destruction deck, where you can
just immediately yank back all those strip mines/thermokarsts/bolts...
I also like Stormbind. That is one *underpriced* card. Manawise, not $$.
john
-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-/|\-
The contraction "You're" does not indicate possessive. It indicates a
state of being, or, more commonly, a description of the person being
addressed.
The word "Your" does indicate possesive. It does NOT indicate a state of
being, or a description.
-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-
Dan O'Leary
>'net folk are no doubt playing a very active role in the Pro Tourney,
I've been patient. A post at this point would be old (but still
appreciated) news.
>which doesn't leave a lot of time for posting. In addition, while WotC
>has always had a net presence, Sparky! is (as I understand it) involved
>heavily in the Netrunner CCG, which has to suck up a lot of time. And as
I feel that usenet/internet is an important enough part of the magic
community that it deserves more than a part-time Sparky!
>I recall, Mark Rosewater has already posted a detailed summary of the
>events at the Pro Tourney, and he probably counts as a WotC employee :).
Mark is more like a demi-god. Could you come up with those damn
puzzles? Arrgh. <G>
Dennis F. Hefferman
|There's a flaw to your logic too. You claim a blue Millstone deck wins
|not because of the Millstone, but because of the counterspells. As we all
|know, you can only play with a limited number of counterspells. Hence,
|reducing their effective deck size by 2/3 means you only need to have
|counters for 1/3 of their deck. Your counters don't run out as they would
|without Millstone.
Eris save us from innumeracy!
I'm only going to see about a third of my deck anyway. The cards
you're milling away are cards I wouldn't have cast in the first place, so the
load on your countermagic is just as bad as it was before.
Derek
>BTW, my wife came up with a new magic term. We were playing a fun
>game, and she said "milligan", showed me her hand which had plenty of
>land in it and proceeded to reshuffel her millstone deck. I said you
>have land! She said, yeah, but didn't get one of my millstones :P
It's common practice when I play to allow looser mulligan rules than
normal, which is to say if your hand looks bad for any reason, so long
as you're not fishing for a single card (i.e. a millstone) you can
reshuffle and redraw.
1 land or 1 spell mulligans are a common thing around here, as are
wrong-land mulligans (a hand full of swamps and UU+ or UUU+ spells in
a blue/black deck, for example).
Derek.
Joshua E Randall
[ stuff about Land Tax's possible restriction deleted ]
> In Type II magic, land is EVERYTHING. Get your land and you can act, don't
> get your land and you can't. With no effective artifact mana sources in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> the game, Land Tax becomes a critical card.
I must take issue with this. Type II has available to it a superb
artifact mana source: Fellwar Stone. They improve your mana build up
(4 mana by turn 3, 1 more than if just dropping land), they avoid
things that hose land (Armageddon, Winter Orb), and they make tempting
targets for opponent's anti-artifact spells.
[ remainder deleted ]
--
--
Joshua E Randall "Do not mistake composure for ease." - Tuvok, ST: VOY
<ran...@minerva.cis.yale.edu> <http:/www.yale.edu/~randall/>
Peter C Grauer
>
> A couple of observations
> I was a little suprised by Zak Dolan.
> Have always enjoyed his articles, but did not enjoy him in
> person.
Really? That sucks. I've never met the man, but He was one of my
biggest Magic influences.
> When we were done, I showed him the 4 gloom and
> held up 4 fingers and said 4.
> He looked amazed.
> Four? he said.
> Laughed, went through his deck, pulled out his
> circle black and laughed, held up one finger and
> said "One!"
Thanks for the story! Now that is funny...
Peter C Grauer
> This is a mathematically flawed strategy. If the cards in his deck are
> distibuted randomly, it doesn't matter that you are forcing him to take
> the top two cards off the top of his library. Obviously, if you know
> what his next card is, i.e. Field of Dreams, then you have a solid lock
> on the game. But the reason a blue Millstone deck wins is not the
> Millstone, it's the counterspells and the "control-of-the-game" aspect.
> The Millstone could easily be any card that will eventually kill the
> opponent. It could be a Vexing Arcanix, a Serra or two, or whatever.
> The reason that type of deck wins is NOT the Millstone.
>
Hmmm. Well obviously, the other cards secure the lock and the millstone itself
wins the game. However, the chances of an opponent drawing the card that he
needs to escape the lock (ie: disenchant), is very much diminished.
Consider if player A plays a millstone 1/4 the way through the match.
Assuming player B has 4 disenchants, he will most likely have one at this point.
If the millstone is not removed, then player B has only 1/4 of his deck left
with which to draw a millstone. Now assuming that he does indeed draw
a disenchant and it happens to be countered (not unlikely), then the chances of
him drawing another disenchant are low.
Pete Grauer
Vancouver, BC
Canticle
> >I think a little bit of patience is necessary here...most of the WotC
> >'net folk are no doubt playing a very active role in the Pro Tourney,
> I've been patient. A post at this point would be old (but still
> appreciated) news.
The problem being newsfeeds work at different rates. I saw posts from
WotC personnel the day after the Pro Tournament had ended (Mark Rosewater
being one), and a few days after Sparky! posted some material, I see you
saying you haven't seen anything yet. People seem to assume that because
this is the 'net, transfer of information isn't subject to system
SNAFU's. That isn't always the case :).
> >which doesn't leave a lot of time for posting. In addition, while WotC
> >has always had a net presence, Sparky! is (as I understand it) involved
> >heavily in the Netrunner CCG, which has to suck up a lot of time. And as
> I feel that usenet/internet is an important enough part of the magic
> community that it deserves more than a part-time Sparky!
Personally, I don't think he's been a 'part time' Sparky!. He's doing his
job, and if that involves working on Netrunner for several hours as
opposed to working on the 'net, so be it. I'd rather have a Sparky who
posts every day at least once than, say, a TSR rep that only shows up to
diffuse controversy.
> >I recall, Mark Rosewater has already posted a detailed summary of the
> >events at the Pro Tourney, and he probably counts as a WotC employee :).
> Mark is more like a demi-god. Could you come up with those damn
> puzzles? Arrgh. <G>
I don't know if my intellect is twisted enough to come up with puzzles
like that :). Sometimes I think he's the demi-god of Frustration.
Derek
>Craig Sivils (csi...@blkbox.com) wrote:
>: My 3 favorite fad cards currently are rainbow vale, forgotten lore,
>: and lands edge. Now Lands Edge is by no means ignored, I think the
>: other two are, but I see a lot of potential there. (although
>: forgotten lore and the vale do belong in different decks).
I want to see a Rainbow Vale that bounces regardless of whether its
been used.
Or a hot potato land - Tap to gain one mana of any color and to lose
control of potato, potato does 1 damage to its controler during
upkeep.
The vale, on the other hand usually bounces to the opponent's side and
sits there.
Derek.
Derek
> Right, it only makes a difference when the SECOND one comes out. The
>first one is as likely to hurt me as help me. Yes, the first one means my
>library is 1/3rd its former size, but since I was only going to draw 1/3rd of
>its cards on a good day, why should I care? As for the Howling Mines, I always
>say "thank you" when they're played; I've lost a whole two games in the last
>fifteen-sixteen months to Howling Mines.
One of my most well-worn decks (I don't use protectors) is my howling
mine deck, initially a challenge to use Mines creatively without
following them up with Black Vices (I feel too guilty when I lay one
down, so I've taken them out of my decks). The result was a monster
that operates best drawing three to four cards a turn. I used fastbond
to drop lands out of my hands quickly and then effects that like lots
of land (i.e. Nightmare or Gaea's Liege). It's not the most formidible
of my decks, but it certainly is beautiful when it comes out, and it
certainly throws a loop in my opponent's tactics when he's drawing
four cards and discarding half of them).
And yes, they smile when the first Mine appears, look bewildered at
the second, and frightened at the third...
Derek.
Michael Jason Lewis
Dennis F. Hefferman <heff...@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:
}In <pt-220296...@ppp19.wizvax.net> p...@wizvax.net (Patrick Timmons) writes:
}
}|There's a flaw to your logic too. You claim a blue Millstone deck wins
}|not because of the Millstone, but because of the counterspells. As we all
}|know, you can only play with a limited number of counterspells. Hence,
}|reducing their effective deck size by 2/3 means you only need to have
}|counters for 1/3 of their deck. Your counters don't run out as they would
}|without Millstone.
}
} Eris save us from innumeracy!
}
} I'm only going to see about a third of my deck anyway. The cards
}you're milling away are cards I wouldn't have cast in the first place, so the
}load on your countermagic is just as bad as it was before.
A couple of points that I disagree with this on:
It is true that a Millstone prevents the game from going more than 20-25
turns or so. What this does is allows the Millstoner to be a bit more
paranoid with his countermagic/Wrath/StP/etc., since he knows he won't have
to save his cards for very long before the game is over.
The assumption that you'll only see a third of your deck anyway does ignore
the possibility that your opponent will get more than one Millstone.
The assumption that you'll only see a third of your deck also indicates that
your games tend to be over within 12-15 turns. Is this generally accurate
where you are? I find that frequently to be untrue where I play.
- Mike
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Craig Sivils
>jsh...@mason2.gmu.edu (Stil) wrote:
I haven't run into that problem much, between it meaning that I'll get
to tax, and my felwars producing rainbow mana, my opponents are
usually quick to send it back. Recently I had a really fun pickup
game (that I lost) where the score was 5-2 (my lead) and my opponent
used one rainbow vale to attack with his mishra to prevent me from
taxxing to edge him on my next turn, I tapped my vale and took mana
burn so that I could tax, and he responed by killing me with a
mountain! RV isn't for every deck, but I do think it deserves a 2nd
look if your trying to put some power into your tax :)
Craig
David Bedno
->I want to see a Rainbow Vale that bounces regardless of whether its
->been used.
->Or a hot potato land - Tap to gain one mana of any color and to lose
->control of potato, potato does 1 damage to its controler during
->upkeep.
->The vale, on the other hand usually bounces to the opponent's side and
->sits there.
Put a Power Surge into your deck. Tap the Vale, or take a damage
from it. Or have a COP:Red. But in general, that'll get the thing
moving.
--
David Bedno, Minister of Truth, DNRC | Visualize world peace.
drs...@crl.com | - Neville Chamberlin
<URL: http://klinzhai.evolve.com/~drseuss/> |