Origens Report- Magic Revitalised !? Part 1 (long)
Daniel Brickwell
Hi all
and too everyone I met in person an especially friendly hallo.
I will first get my own (tiny) part out of the way and then get to the meat
of the matter, the new tournament cards, new deck concepts and my new
insights, which may be only new to me, but then this is my report, so sue me.
The report will also miss an important part, the finish to be exact as my
flight left on sunday 2 pm just before the third game of the PT 3 final and
before the playoffs of the last 4 of the nationals.
Mario said he would do the rest if I do the main report, Mario?
I will structure the report into three segements:
1) My part
2) PT 3 and Alliances Tourney Cards
3) The Nationals - New Deck Types, Necro crushed?, Magic Revitalized!?
My part
--------
In the three weeks I had for testing the new IA/AL Arena one card emerged as
exceptionally strong: Thawing Glaciers. I especially began to love the
combination of thawing glaciers and soldevi digger (thawing reschuffles!) As
my testing group surmised that most people would be playing red/green (Horde,
LD or Weenie) U/W/r seemed to be the answer, with pyroclasm, cops and binding
grasps we supposed that the loss of wrath of god could be circumvented enough
to make U/W/r a main contender especially with the continued card quality
advantage of thawing and digger.
In the final stages I realised that Keldjoran Outposts was also a better card
than I had originally thought, especially against other U/W decks and R/G
weenies or big creature decks.
Realizing thus that many good players would be playing with thawing glaciers
and outposts standard, I decided at the last moment to also include land
destruction directly in the deck.
My deck thus looked as follows:
4 Counter spell
4 Arcane Denial (superior to Powersink IMO)
3 Binding Grasp
4 Stone Rain
2 Pyroclasm
1 Lavaburst
3 Swords
3 Disenchant
2 Keldjoran Outposts
3 Thawing Glaciers
1 Soldevi Digger
3 Jesters Caps
2 Soldevi Simulacrum
9 Islands
8 Mountains
4 Ardarkar Wastes
6 Plains
62 Cards
Sideboard
2 Lodestone Bauble
2 Cop White (Blinking's and Ivory Gargoyles)
2 Cop Green
3 Cop Red
2 Pyroclasm
1 Swords
2 Icy Manipulators
1 Disenchant
I was unable to test this deck extensively mostly because of time restraints.
Last thoughts were to include blinkings and to use pillages instead of stone
rains. I decided against both (to my great regret). The blinkings I did not
add because I could not find the room (in hindsight moving three blinkings
into the deck and three binding grasps into the sideboard would have been
wise) and i was reluctant to go two two colored casting cost spells in red
(Here I underestimated the power of thawing glaciers).
In perfect hindsight I would say that if I had dropped two caps, changed
stone rains into pillages and binding grasps into blinkings I would have done
much better, perhaps even great.
With the listed deck I went 1:5 in Matches and 7:11 in games. Infact, I lost
the first 5 rounds all 1:2. These close losses and the fact that I did see
many similar decks the next day at the top tables (with blinkings and
pillages though) tells me that my design was closer to the real thing than my
record implies. But as the saying goes, close counts only in horseshoes.
PT 3 and Alliances Tourney Cards
----------------------------------
Atleast I was not the only one to bite the dust on the first day, I was
joined by almost the whole team of PCL (except Frank Gilson and Mario I
think), Bertrand Lestree (only three places ahead) and the other two
qualified german competitors (Kai Lange and David Liersch). Most of the
famous names did do well, except one, John Immodino consistently stayed in
the top 3-8 slots with his Black-White Necro deck with Orders,Blinkings and
Icequakes for Thawing Glaciers. There were also some other Necrodecks which
also performed astoundingly well without hymn, disk or stripmine, but in the
end no necro deck made the top 4.
Now to the winners:
The swiss rounds were won on both (!) days by Alvaro Marquez (correct
spelling?). Of the top 10 of the first day I think 5 replaced in the the top
10 on the next day, Alvaro was the only one who held his position.
Alvaro was playing a Red/White Jokulhaups Direct Damage/Weenie, with Wild
Aesthir (a rather good creature In IA/AL, because it can block blinkings and
gargoyles and can’t be exiled), Blinkings, no Ivory Gargoyles, Ithink only 1
Outpost (He told me that he would have put more in, in hindsight.), 3 Thawing
Glaciers (In his words: One is not enough, two are good,but three are
probably better and with four you are crazy.“), Icies and Pillages. He also
had Pyroblasts as well as Burnouts in his sideboard.
The amazing thing about this deck is the absolute horror of Jokulhaups and
Thawing glaciers. Jokulhaupsing after Glaciering out land is bad enough as
you probably have been saving up other lands you drew in your hand. If you
continue to glacier though you also get a very destilled landless library
full of burn and creatures, while rebuilding a mana base which can be
utilised to do huge finishing burns even after 1-2 Haups! The Aesthir and the
Blinkings keep the enemy on his toes and move him into „toast“ range.
Blinkings, Icies and Pillages keep the blue mana too occupied to stop the
final burn which is further protected by pyroblasts and burnouts after
sideboarding. Cop Red can be dealt with disenchants backed up again by
pyroblasts, Pillages and Icies.
Alvaro placed third together with someone I did not write down (anyone???).
In the finals Sean Fleischmann from New York played against Olle (?), a
rather young looking scandinavian.
Olle was playing the epitome of the red/green speed deck in IA/AL carrying
multiple Baubles (Urzas as well as Lodestone) Llanos, Orcish Canoneers,
Deadly Insects, Whooly Spiders, Gorilla Shamans, Giant Growths, Incinerates,
Pillages.
He was by far the most successful R/G deck there and as I left the finals he
was leading 2:0 against Fleischmann with two very swift wins.
Basically the Baubles concentrate his deck, Gorilla Shamans and Llanos do
incredible amounts of damage as the opponent is unwilling to waste Pyroclasms
fearing deadly insects. Giant Growths serve as deadly answers to enemy
incinerates. Canoneers and Spiders are pyroclasm immune and can kill even the
hordes if giant growthed.
Sean Fleischann was playing the refined version of the U/W/R Control deck
adding Black for Lim-Duls Vault and Mindwarp. The deck while slow had amazing
staying power through blue, white and red defence, coupled with 1 Jokulhaups
as global reset. The Four-colored nature of the deck was possible through
allied Painlands and extensive use of thawing glaciers. Offensive threats are
mostly white with Blinkings, Ivory Gargoyles and Keldjoran Outposts. Sean
beat Alvaro 3:2 in the semi-finals mostly due to the mindwarp and by drawing
the thawing glacier when he needed it in the fifth game while Alvaro also
needed to draw it, but didn’t.
PT 3- Alliances Tournament Viable Cards
--------------------------------------------------------
The top 7 of the IA/AL environment (strangely enough the Type II contest of
the Nationals revealed some which were not as extensively used in the solely
IA/AL environment)
1) Thawing Glaciers (Michael Long says, it is the Library of Alexandria in
Alliances. I have to agree.)
2) Keldjoran Outpost (Not really for the obvious white weenie, but basically
against any type of Control Deck, Weenie Deck this card can give you the card
advantage you need.)
3) Ivory Gargoyle (Swording it is the answer, but what if the opponent is
playing counterspells. I think of it as Stormbind made a creature.)
4) Force of Will/Arcane Denial (The new Ice Age Counterspells have made a big
splash and not only in the IA/AL enviroment)
5) Deadly Insect (You can block it, but blockers can be and will be removed.
An Anarchy with a Deadly Insect out won Olle game two of the finals.
(„Keldjoran Outpost tokens are white?“ (anonymous viewer of the finals))
6) Pillage (Ask some people why they think disenchant is so powerful. Mostly
it is the variability (Disenchant additionally costs only one colored mana
and is an instant though. This makes this card so good that some rate it
alongside Library Of A and Timetwister as one of the most powerful cards in
magic.) That Pillage is still strong is just further proof.
7) Helm of Obedience (After the hype and the letdown on the net, the fact
remains that it is a damn good sideboard card against creatureless or mostly
creatureless decks).
and from the nationals
1) Dystopia (Necro has the Abyss, be afraid, be very afraid W/G Mages)
2) Contagion (Again Necro loves this card)
3) Lim-Duls Vault (Center of the surprising Anti-Necro Deck)
4) Browse (Think of it as several Mini consultations, while only the first
costs you a card.)
My tip: Soldevi Digger (together with Thawing Glaciers this card reintroduces
endless recursion into Type II. They should have called it Time Digger.)
I will put the nationals report in a second post. Right now I am gowing to
bed.
Friendly Greetings,
Daniel
Ceterum censeo Orbem Zurensem esse interdicendum.
(And otherwise I think that the Zuran Orb should be banned.)
Eric Taylor
Daniel Brickwell (Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de) wrote:
: With the listed deck I went 1:5 in Matches and 7:11 in games. Infact, I lost
: the first 5 rounds all 1:2. These close losses and the fact that I did see
: many similar decks the next day at the top tables (with blinkings and
: pillages though) tells me that my design was closer to the real thing than my
: record implies. But as the saying goes, close counts only in horseshoes.
Daniel, I think you were right on the money with your deck. The
outpost (aka "Dude Ranch"), the glaciers, pillage, blinky, the ivory
gargoyle, at least you had all the elements figured out. With some
small changes, I think that is the deck for the pt3 environment. I
didn't get it figured out at all, and played a really lame red/green,
winning 2 out of 6 rounds in the pt3. I played Olle in the 3rd or so
round of swiss. I was not at all impressed with his deck at the time.
When I played him, I made the mistake I think many people made of
choosing to go second. Against his deck, you have to go first so you
can incinerate/lava burst his lumberjack so he can't insect you before
you've got a defense up. It just seemed too unreliable compared to the
multi-colored ranch/blinky/glaciers decks. I am still amazed that he
was able to win. Anarchy, and attack with the insect. I just can't
see how he was able to do it. He certainly deserves contratulations
for his victory.
He seems so gentle, and easy to beat. Such a nice guy. It's hard to
believe a guy like this wins when so many of the pros are such
heartless, stuck-up, neurotic bastards.
Oh, yeah, one deck that was the ultimate in funky was the browse, dig,
cap deck. Hammer was playing it. I played against one of these decks
and it seemed very quite vulnerable. But it was cool! You get your
browse out. Browse down to the end of your library, on the way
building up your defense so you can handle anything your opponent has.
Then at the end of the library, lay out the digger. At this point, you
should have your cap in your graveyard. With the digger, dig up as
many cards as you like. Then browse to throw away the junk, dig again
and then draw a card. When you finally have all the cards you want in
play and in the library begin the cycle. Your turn: dig, draw, cap.
Opponent: counter anything he does, dig browse to get the counter back
in your hand. Your turn: repeat. Dig Dig browse cap. Just a very
cool lock. Unfortunately without strip mines in type pt3, blue/white
gets run over by the Dude Ranch.
Both tourneys were really interesting, both pt3 and the nationals.
Nobody had anything figured out, what would win, how the new card mix
would do. It was all quite exciting. I did ok in the nationals,
winning 4 rounds out of 6 and sweeping a few matchs. For some reason,
the nationals seemed a lot easier to me than the pro tour.
A word about the nationals: Freak Out!
Turbo stasis beats the crap out of solid black necro. Titania's song
is a power deck. Necro with 8 pain lands and no disk is the only necro
that even has a chance. The decks that did best in the nationals were
amazing. Three turbo-stasis decks (i.e. 3 out of the 4 entered) make
it to the semi finals. Rock on turbo stasis. I talked with Derrick
about how he and his friends built this deck and asked him why it was
so much more powerful now than before. He said it's because Blue must
quit being reactive. Blue counterspells decks must become pro-active.
You play the first turn despotic scepter. Second turn howling mine.
Then at any time you like cast out your stasis. Game over solid-black
necro man. You will be decked. Force of will means you can be more
aggressive as blue. Lim-Dull's Vault means combo decks work now. The
stasis decks were all playing with arcane denial. Figure it out.
Stasis wants you to draw a card. In fact draw as many cards as you
like, I will deck you and there is nothing you can do about it because
I am turbo-stasis man.
What I can't figure out is how that Titaniana's song deck did so well.
That particular deck didn't use any of the new concepts. It just
locked people down the winter orb/icy (and black vise if you draw it),
solid white with a pinch of green, cast argageddon again and again and
finally, when Titania's song comes out, whack, attack with all the
artifacts for 30 points or more.
All well, back to the qualifiers for me. I sure hope I can manage to
re-qualify for pt4. It's all sealed deck for the new qualifiers so I'm
going to have to practise singing the hymn to tourach. I've gots to
get lucky.
--- Eric "The Iron Mage" Taylor
p.s. In case anyone wondered, Baduvian Hordes stunk in the pt3. The
card advantage isn't worth a 5/5 creature for 4 mana. Maybe if he was
6/6 for 4 mana, but not 5/5.
Daniel Brickwell
Hi,
I am back after 12 hours of sleep for the second part of my report.
Bear with me as I still have a cold from the air conditioning at Origens. (It
was freezing cold in the damn tournament area!)
The Nationals
--------------
First I will give you the final 16, 8 and 4. Then my analysis of the new
decks, some insights and some great and worst plays I watched.
The final 16 after Swiss:
1) Zila Jason 6:0 W/G Ernhamgeddon with 1(?) Deadly Insect, 4(?) Icies.
2) George Baxter 5:0:1 (should have been 6:0) W/G/u Titanias Song Deck
3) Mark Justice 5:0:1 (should have been 5:1) B Necro (4 Dystopia sideboard)
4) Bruce Swiney 5:1 Necro
5) Matt Place 5:1 Turbostasis or The Vault Deck U/w/b Stasis
6) David Adams 5:1 U/R Browse Deck
7) Peter Leiher 5:1 Necro
8) Dennis Bentley 5:1 B/R Necro
9) Derik Mortimer 5:1 Necro
10) Travis Thomas 5:1 W/G Helm Titanias Song Deck
11) Adam Green 5:1 W/R
12) Rick Latham 5:1 R/G
13) Chris Gross 5:1 R/W Savanah Burn
14) Michael Long 4:1:1 U/w/b Turbostasis - The Vault Deck
15) Michael Dove 4:1:1 U/w/b Turbostasis - The Vault Deck
16) Brendon Herzog 4:2 Necro
18) Mark Chalice B Necro
30) Adanm Maysonet
32) Frank Gilson
Surprising Facts: Of the 4 Turbostasis Decks attending the nationals 3 made
it to the final 16, 2 to the final 4. (The 4th Turbostasis deck was played by
Derek Rank who ended up 4:2 losing 1 Game to a Red/Green Deck with 4 Yotians
standard.) Of the 30-40 Necro Decks attending only 6 made it to the final 16
that is underproportional. At this point I renewed my prediction that no
Necro Deck would make it to the top 4 and backed it up with a 10 Dollar bet
with Henry Stern.
The Final 8:
1) Zila Jason, who beat Brendon Herzog's Necro 2:1 just as easily as I saw
him beat Bruce Swiney'S Necro in the last round of Swiss. Zila reminds me a
lot of Olle. He looks harmless, but ....)
2) George Baxter, who had no problem with Micheal Dove's Turbostasis (4
Winter Orbs in the Deck and 3 Serras in the sideboard go a long way against
Turbostasis.)
3) Micheal Long, who beat Mark Justice 2:0 with his version of the
Turbostasis Deck. (Mono-Black Necro has huge almost unsolvable Problems with
TurboStasis (yotians in the sideboard?)
4) Chris Gross, who beat Bruce Swiney's Necro deck with a R/W Burn Deck with
Savanah Lions, Bolts, Incinerates etc.
5) Matt Place in my opinion the best Turbostasis player there, beat Rick
Lathams R/G Deck (Turbostasis does quite well against other decks too,
unless they have Winter Orb.)
6) Travis Thomas won against David Adams U/R Browse Deck with his version of
a Titanias Song Deck.
7) I heard Peter Leiher with necro advanced over Adam Green, because Adam had
written down only a 59 card deck forgetting one plains. (I know it's the
Nationals, but letting someone throw a final 16 match because of one missing
plains sounds draconian to me. There is the letter of the law and then there
is the will of the law. There is a difference. The will of the law is to stop
cheating, forgetting to write down one plains is not cheating.)
8) Dennis Bentley won with his Black/Red Bolt Necro with Black Knights
against Derik Mortimers Necro.
So there were only 2 Necros in the final 8, one advancing because of
disqualificcation the other a non-standard necro adavancing against a necro
deck.
The Final 4:
1) George Baxter, who beat Peter Leihers Necrodeck.
Baxters Deck contained 4 Aelopile, 4 Serrated Arrows, 4 Icy Manipulators,
4 Winter Orb, 4 Felwar Stones, Wrath of God, Multiple Armageddon, 1 Deadly
Insect, 2 Titanias Song, Disenchants, Divine Offerings. It was a beauty to
behold. It killed Necros with Aelopiles and Serrateds for knights,
Aelopiles and Swords for Hippies, Wrath of God and Titanias Song plus
Armageddon for total situational turnaround. Titanias Song also stops the
disk ofcourse. (Even an untapped one, as it can only destroy everything
_before_ the Titanias Song hits the table.) It also had Cities of Brass and
Ardarkar Wastes to Support Hydroblasts and Slights in the sideboard.
Baxter could have won his final swiss match against Mark Justice btw, if he
had balanced to zero cards in hand one pumpknight against 1 Titanias Songed
Serrated Arrow in one situation. He decided to wait and balanced much less
fortitiously later on. The game was finally called on time. Ending the match
in a draw. Ofcourse he was helped by the fact that Mark had forgotten to
sideboard in his 4 Dystopias.
Quote: "Every Deck of mine has to contain 22 creatures. It can not win if it
does not contain 22 creatures." Explaining the Titanias song to Mark Justice.
2) Matt Place, who beat Chris Gross W/R Burn Deck.
Turbostasis: The Center of Turbostasis is Lim-Duls Vault and Howling Mines.
The combination of these cards allows you to draw combinations on hand in one
round. The lock is Stasis Kismet, ofcourse. Despotic Sceptre and a huge Land
Ratios helps to upkeep the early Stasis. Surprising is the voluntary
disregard for defence to make room for the high land ratio and the lock. I
think the deck contains only two disenchants and no swords. Walls of Air in
the Sideboard.
It basically goes like this:
Round 2: Howling mine or Vault for Howling Mine:
Round 3 Despotic sceptre if lucky.
Round 4 Stasis:
Rounds 5-15 Upkeep Stasis (The Howling Mine assures that you draw about one
land per round plus you have land left from the beginning hand.) Force of
Will as protection.
Round 16 destroy stasis with despotic sceptre before your turn or boomerang
it. Vault before draw phase. Draw rest of the lock on hand. Throw down Stasis
Kismet, 2nd Howling Mine.
Round 16-20 Upkeep Stasis
Round 21 Destroy Stasis untap 20 Blue Lands. Vault for 3rd Stasis, or Recall
one of the first two stasis. Put down Stasis. Show oppenent 2 Arcane Denial
and three Force of will. Ask: "Do you want to concede?" Zuran Orb and Ivory
Tower protect Life Total.
The Howling Mines and 1 Feldon's Cane insure that the opponent will run out
of cards first.
Sorry Lunch Time. I guess there will be a part three.
Friendly Greetings,
Daniel
Ceterum Censeo Orbem Zurensem esse interdicendum.
(And Otherwise I think that the Zuran Orb should be banned.)
Daniel Brickwell
Hi,
back to the, hopefully, last leg of my report.
Nationals
------------
The rest of trhe final 4:
3) Dennis Bentley Necro B/R, beat Zila Jason in a 2:1 Heartbreaker, by a
stripmine, vise, stripmine, stripmine, Black Knight, Black Knight winin the
deciding 3rd game. (Like I said, a spoiler remains a spoiler even if it
seemingly runs contrary to strategy. He also made me lose 10 bucks to Henry
because one Necro did make it to the final 4, but it was the only
non-standard necro of the bunch. Thereby proving my arguement that the
opponent knowing your deck is too big a disadvantage to overcome.)
4) Michael Long playing Turbostasis won in the probably closest match against
Travis Thomas'es W/G Titanias Song Deck. It's 1:1. Micheal has the Lock down,
but Travis has still some lands untapped, and Micheal is low on life (2 or
so) and cannot use any of the non-island lands for the stasis. Travis has an
Titanias Song out which stopped the Zuran Orb before it was cast and i Think
the Ivory Tower was used to block a Felwar before the lock came down. Travis
Armageddons successfully. Next Round is the last round before he runs out
of cards. He can attack with his Sol Grail though. Michael draws an Island
and i think a force of Will and plays his Feldon's Cane! Travis tries to
sword the cane, but the swords is Force of willed. The cane blocks the sol
grail and Travis runs out of cards. Michael is at one life (Force of Will).
btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
might add.)
Magic Revitalised !? - My insights
-----------------------------------
1) Necro- Dead??
Even though Necro made a very poor showing for the quality and the quantity
of the players playing it, it is far from dead, with Dystopia, Contagion and
perhaps Phantasmal Fiend it has gained very strong cards. Then why were the
Nationals no Necrofest?
In my opinion the disadvantage of the oponent knowing your deck as well as
you can translate into a loss of win percentage. Say Necro has a win
percentage of 60 percent against all decks except Necro, while the next best
deck has a win percentage of 55 percent, except against itself and runs 50
percent against necro. Then every good player will play Necro because of the
5 percent. As soon as every good player starts playing necro though, you lose
lets say 8 percent because everyone knows your deck, plus you only run 50
percent against the other necros, which can make up 50 percent of the field.
Your new winpercentage is then about 51 percent. The other deck with the then
52.5 win (55% against all decks 50% against necro) percentage is now
surperior.
Does this little math game mean that necro is weaker? No, Necro is still as
strong as it ever was (even stronger with Dystopia, shudder). It is just
losing the metagame.
How Necro lost proved to me, sadly, that the problem is far from over.
2) The Organization- direction of the Pro-Tour
I liked the format, know that's not strong enough I loved the idea of playing
in the IA/AL format, I only wished you could have adapted decks after the
first day.
I _hated_ the air conditioning and I must say that you should look into how
you process players deck lists, so that disqualifications or forfits do not
happen again.
When will Europe get it's Pro Tour? How about Berlin??? :)
Seriously you should atleast hold more qualifiers in Europe and pay airfare
for anyone who qualifies if you want to call it DC_I_. I heard the second
place in Antwerpen qualified, but did not get airfare and so could not
attend.
3) The poor showing of PCL.
Sorry guys, but you have to admit you did almost as bad as I did, and that's
saying something. In my opinion you had the same problem necro did, you were
playing the same deck, that alone may have cost you some win percentage
because other people had heard what you were playing. I guess that a another
reason may have been that yopu tested mostly gainst each other reinforcing
group beliefs. From what I heard both Baxter's Titanias Song deck and the
Turbostasis Deck ideas came from cooperation between different playing groups
even nationalities. (This is ofcourse a not so subtle plot to get you guys to
post more on the net. ;)
Well that's all for now. Comments are as always welcome.
Friendly Greetings,
Daniel
Ceterum censeo Orbem Zurensem esse interdicendum.
(And otherwise I think that the Zuran Orb should be banned.)
PS: A little story about the Orb from Mark Chalice. PT 3 Mark has Stormbind
out and about 12 life. The opponent has Necro out, 7 life. Mark stormbinds
him for six and empties his hand. Necro Player can draw no more cards.
Consults for the Zuran Orb. Plays it draws two cards. Next round Mark binds
him. The necro player puts down a land and a creature. Draws two cards. Mark
binds him again. The necro player attacks lays a land and a creature etc.
Mark loses.
John Glazier
>
> btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
> Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
> others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
> might add.)
>
of the Type 2 tournament on Sat. He stomped me with a Stasis deck which I assume
is this Tubostasis deck you mention. After the first round Vise, subsequent
2 Howling Mines, and obvious playing skill, I asked him how in the world he was
sitting across from me with a 4-5 record like mine. He had hit 2 Necrodecks in the
first couple of rounds and they handed him the losses. The discard really ate into
his deck. So I guess this deck is still vulnerable to Necro....
Jake
Charles T. Schwope
e...@ren.us.itd.umich.edu (Eric Taylor) wrote:
<< PT3 stuff snipped >>
>Both tourneys were really interesting, both pt3 and the nationals.
>A word about the nationals: Freak Out!
Actually, as an outsider looking in its great to see that the decision
to allow Alliances worked out so well (espcially after all the
bitching that happened when it was announced).
>Turbo stasis beats the crap out of solid black necro. Titania's song
>is a power deck. Necro with 8 pain lands and no disk is the only necro
>that even has a chance. The decks that did best in the nationals were
>amazing. Three turbo-stasis decks (i.e. 3 out of the 4 entered) make
>it to the semi finals. Rock on turbo stasis. I talked with Derrick
>about how he and his friends built this deck and asked him why it was
>so much more powerful now than before. He said it's because Blue must
>quit being reactive. Blue counterspells decks must become pro-active.
>You play the first turn despotic scepter. Second turn howling mine.
>Then at any time you like cast out your stasis. Game over solid-black
>necro man. You will be decked. Force of will means you can be more
>aggressive as blue. Lim-Dull's Vault means combo decks work now. The
>stasis decks were all playing with arcane denial. Figure it out.
>Stasis wants you to draw a card. In fact draw as many cards as you
>like, I will deck you and there is nothing you can do about it because
>I am turbo-stasis man.
Many kudos to whoever came up with the concept 1st. So many cards in
that deck go against the standard card advantage principles. Arcane
denial, Force of will, howling mine, despotic scepter, boomerang...
all are totally losing card advantage. It took a lot of guts to see
that it would work superbly well. Plus being coherent after 5 days of
playing magic... to play a counterspell deck... sheesh.
>What I can't figure out is how that Titaniana's song deck did so well.
>That particular deck didn't use any of the new concepts. It just
>locked people down the winter orb/icy (and black vise if you draw it),
>solid white with a pinch of green, cast argageddon again and again and
>finally, when Titania's song comes out, whack, attack with all the
>artifacts for 30 points or more.
Personal extremly biased opinion why George did so well... play skill.
Plus, how many people played the song deck? Its extremely good,
though (IMHO) it has a weakness to standard counterspell decks
(although there are a lot of "must counter" spells... icy, song,
'geddon, so maybe not). George has exibilted the ability to play any
type of deck... aggresive (see PT1), passive (nationals), booster
draft (PT2 didn't make it to round of 16 b/c he forgot to write down a
sideboard card). He was dog tired (as were the others) at both semi
and the finals, especially after playing the most gueling and best
match he's ever been in in the semis against Long. And the song deck
needs some mental ability, though probably less then the stasis decks.
(Not that I'm sleighting Bentley, but having played both necro and the
song deck, the song deck is much more taxing mentally.) George
related a couple of relatively fatal mistakes he made in the finals
due to lack of sleep... incorrect sideboarding (5 anti art in main
deck, but none taken out b/c of assuming disk), forgot about land
tax/library for 6 straight turns, and balancing at a bad time once.
Bentley made mistakes to, but if the one George related to me was his
worst he didn't make any that were terrible (obviously since he
swept).
He had bad draws (at least partially) from the sounds of it, and
Bentley had good ones. When two excellent players play, that will
decide it. And Bently is obviously an excellent player (how he's done
at the PTs, and playing a rather unique necropotence deck).
Charles
--
Charles T. Schwope | Every man is a spark in the darkness. By the
aka CT | time he is noticed, he is gone forever, a
sch...@infrared.csc.ti.com | retinal afterimage that fades, and is obscured
c-sc...@ti.com | by newer, brighter lights.
Charles T. Schwope
I'm going to contain my statements (mostly) to George's Deck.. since
there's some misinformation here... and George doesn't generally mind
but doesn't often comment on himself.
Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de (Daniel Brickwell) wrote:
>Surprising Facts: Of the 4 Turbostasis Decks attending the nationals 3 made
>it to the final 16, 2 to the final 4. (The 4th Turbostasis deck was played by
>Derek Rank who ended up 4:2 losing 1 Game to a Red/Green Deck with 4 Yotians
>standard.) Of the 30-40 Necro Decks attending only 6 made it to the final 16
>that is underproportional. At this point I renewed my prediction that no
>Necro Deck would make it to the top 4 and backed it up with a 10 Dollar bet
>with Henry Stern.
4 Yotians standard... :) Funny. Think about it though, if he hadn't
facted that deck he would have most likely gone 5-1 and been in the
top 16 as well.
>The Final 8:
>2) George Baxter, who had no problem with Micheal Dove's Turbostasis (4
>Winter Orbs in the Deck and 3 Serras in the sideboard go a long way against
>Turbostasis.)
4 Orbs in the deck is false, just so you know (more later when the
deck is supposedly listed).
>3) Micheal Long, who beat Mark Justice 2:0 with his version of the
>Turbostasis Deck. (Mono-Black Necro has huge almost unsolvable Problems with
>TurboStasis (yotians in the sideboard?)
Yotians may be the answer... but I know my necro deck's sideboard have
very little spare room.
>7) I heard Peter Leiher with necro advanced over Adam Green, because Adam had
>written down only a 59 card deck forgetting one plains. (I know it's the
>Nationals, but letting someone throw a final 16 match because of one missing
>plains sounds draconian to me. There is the letter of the law and then there
>is the will of the law. There is a difference. The will of the law is to stop
>cheating, forgetting to write down one plains is not cheating.)
This should have been caught way before hand. IMHO they should have
brought someone in to replace him if they were going to disqualify
him.
>The Final 4:
>1) George Baxter, who beat Peter Leihers Necrodeck.
>Baxters Deck contained 4 Aelopile, 4 Serrated Arrows, 4 Icy Manipulators,
>4 Winter Orb, 4 Felwar Stones, Wrath of God, Multiple Armageddon, 1 Deadly
>Insect, 2 Titanias Song, Disenchants, Divine Offerings.
Not 4 Aelopile, not 4 winter orbs, only 2 'geddons, 5 total artifact
killers. I think he made minor changes the night before (like he did
at PT1), which included pulling a Song for the insect. But I asked
him, anbd the 4 orb/phile is definately wrong.
>It was a beauty to
>behold. It killed Necros with Aelopiles and Serrateds for knights,
>Aelopiles and Swords for Hippies, Wrath of God and Titanias Song plus
>Armageddon for total situational turnaround. Titanias Song also stops the
>disk ofcourse. (Even an untapped one, as it can only destroy everything
>_before_ the Titanias Song hits the table.) It also had Cities of Brass and
>Ardarkar Wastes to Support Hydroblasts and Slights in the sideboard.
I'm stuill surprised he lost to any weenie style deck (which is what
the deck he faced in the finals sounds like). Between the 4 icy, 4
arrows, the philes, and the WoGs, decks based on small critters are in
trouble (would be worse if the critters aren't pro white). But, the
Sideboard mistake killed him (IMHO). I can guess what he brought in
and took out, and if he had been able to bring in 5 more cards... it
would have been a _lot_ stronger in game 2 and 3.
>2) Matt Place, who beat Chris Gross W/R Burn Deck.
>Turbostasis: The Center of Turbostasis is Lim-Duls Vault and Howling Mines.
>The combination of these cards allows you to draw combinations on hand in one
>round. The lock is Stasis Kismet, ofcourse. Despotic Sceptre and a huge Land
>Ratios helps to upkeep the early Stasis. Surprising is the voluntary
>disregard for defence to make room for the high land ratio and the lock. I
>think the deck contains only two disenchants and no swords. Walls of Air in
>the Sideboard.
I still think this deck is hilarious... but probably hugely fun.
Looking at the one thats been posted (and constructed the night
before), I'm still amazed that it did so well and that anyone would
even think of such a deck... just about every card is non-card
efficient... but I guess that something WotC was trying for with
Alliances.
Laury or Marcel Parent
John Glazier wrote:
>
> >
> > btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
> > Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
> > others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
> > might add.)
> >
> of the Type 2 tournament on Sat. He stomped me with a Stasis deck which I assume
> is this Tubostasis deck you mention. After the first round Vise, subsequent
> 2 Howling Mines, and obvious playing skill, I asked him how in the world he was
> sitting across from me with a 4-5 record like mine. He had hit 2 Necrodecks in the
> first couple of rounds and they handed him the losses. The discard really ate into
> his deck. So I guess this deck is still vulnerable to Necro....
>
> Jake
If there was 30-40? necros at the tournament and he went that far, he
must not be having problems with necro anymore.
Daniel M Gray
Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de (Daniel Brickwell) writes:
>Hi,
>back to the, hopefully, last leg of my report.
>Nationals
>------------
>The rest of trhe final 4:
>3) Dennis Bentley Necro B/R, beat Zila Jason in a 2:1 Heartbreaker, by a
>stripmine, vise, stripmine, stripmine, Black Knight, Black Knight winin the
>deciding 3rd game. (Like I said, a spoiler remains a spoiler even if it
>seemingly runs contrary to strategy. He also made me lose 10 bucks to Henry
>because one Necro did make it to the final 4, but it was the only
>non-standard necro of the bunch. Thereby proving my arguement that the
>opponent knowing your deck is too big a disadvantage to overcome.)
Jason, who stormed through the Swiss rounds(he was the only 6-0
player) got cheesed by the Strip Mine in that last game, pure and simple. I
didn't get to watch it, as I was judging the Baxter/Leiher match at the next
table, but I hear it wasn't pleasant.
>4) Michael Long playing Turbostasis won in the probably closest match against
>Travis Thomas'es W/G Titanias Song Deck. It's 1:1. Micheal has the Lock down,
>but Travis has still some lands untapped, and Micheal is low on life (2 or
>so) and cannot use any of the non-island lands for the stasis. Travis has an
>Titanias Song out which stopped the Zuran Orb before it was cast and i Think
>the Ivory Tower was used to block a Felwar before the lock came down. Travis
>Armageddons successfully. Next Round is the last round before he runs out
>of cards. He can attack with his Sol Grail though. Michael draws an Island
>and i think a force of Will and plays his Feldon's Cane! Travis tries to
>sword the cane, but the swords is Force of willed. The cane blocks the sol
>grail and Travis runs out of cards. Michael is at one life (Force of Will).
This was not a nice match. It went on forever, there was a huge
argument in the middle, resulting in warnings for both Thomas(for
unsportsmanlike conduct for calling Long names) and Long(for "talking too
fast," and not slowing down enough to let his opponent do something). An
interesting ending, but by the time it ended(3:55am) I was so tired and so
sick of Long(who had been a significant pain in the butt to the judging staff
all day long), I no longer really cared to see the end.
>
>btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
>Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
>others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
>might add.)
I heard it was developed by several European players as well. I got
the impression they were Scandanavian, but don't recall hearing any names.
Derek Rank would be the guy to ask.
>Magic Revitalised !? - My insights
>-----------------------------------
>1) Necro- Dead??
>Even though Necro made a very poor showing for the quality and the quantity
>of the players playing it, it is far from dead, with Dystopia, Contagion and
>perhaps Phantasmal Fiend it has gained very strong cards. Then why were the
>Nationals no Necrofest?
Nationals really was sort of a Necrofest. Bethmo and Jeff Lin counted
44 black decks(40 of which were Necro or Necro variants) out of the 122
players. 5 of the top 16 decks were Necro(although two, Bentley's & Justice's,
were variants). Most of the standard Necrodecks just didn't do well, mostly
because everyone was expecting them(there were at least 25 decks I would
classify as "anti-Necro," that didn't do very well against anything else. Rick
Latham's R/G fast creature/burn deck, which made the top 16, was probably the
most successful of these). Conversely, NOBODY(virtually nobody) excepted the
TurboStasis or Baxter's deck, which explains why they did so well(and, of
course, the fact they were played by some truly great players-- Baxter, Place,
Dove, and Long[despite a somewhat annoying personality] are truly among the
best).
>In my opinion the disadvantage of the oponent knowing your deck as well as
>you can translate into a loss of win percentage. Say Necro has a win
>percentage of 60 percent against all decks except Necro, while the next best
>deck has a win percentage of 55 percent, except against itself and runs 50
>percent against necro. Then every good player will play Necro because of the
>5 percent. As soon as every good player starts playing necro though, you lose
>lets say 8 percent because everyone knows your deck, plus you only run 50
>percent against the other necros, which can make up 50 percent of the field.
>Your new winpercentage is then about 51 percent. The other deck with the then
>52.5 win (55% against all decks 50% against necro) percentage is now
>surperior.
>Does this little math game mean that necro is weaker? No, Necro is still as
>strong as it ever was (even stronger with Dystopia, shudder). It is just
>losing the metagame.
>How Necro lost proved to me, sadly, that the problem is far from over.
This sounds like a plausible theory to me.
>2) The Organization- direction of the Pro-Tour
>I liked the format, know that's not strong enough I loved the idea of playing
>in the IA/AL format, I only wished you could have adapted decks after the
>first day.
I think they were trying to avoid good metagame guesses like those
Justice and Henry Stern pulled off at '95 Nationals in both the PT and
Nationals.
>I _hated_ the air conditioning and I must say that you should look into how
>you process players deck lists, so that disqualifications or forfits do not
>happen again.
All of us who were stuck in that gigantic room for most of the weekend
hated the damn air conditioning. Most of the judges, including myself, spent
about 55 hours in there between Wednesday night and when Nationals finally
ended at 4 am Sunday morning. The players who played in both spent a long time
in there as well.
I must say the player's should pay more attention to what they're
doing when they write down their lists. The rules specifically state that it
is the player's responsibility to ensure that he or she has not only a legal
deck, but records it on the sheet properly. Random deck and sideboard checks,
as well as the complete mandatory deck checks done on the top 16 Nationals
decks, are the judges' BEST defense against serious cheating. The guy who got
DQ'd going into the round of 16 not only had only 59 cards in his deck, but he
only RECORDED 59 cards in his deck. That's totally unacceptable. Two other top
16 players(Rick Latham & Pete Leiher) were forced to forfeit a game as they
had recorded their decks incorrectly(Latham changed the number of Forests on
his sheet from 9 to 8, but then failed to remove the 9th FOrest from the deck.
Leiher wrote down "4 Hymn to Tourach" twice instead of "4 Hymn to Tourach" and
"4 Hypnotic Specter" on his sheet). All professional sports, from chess to NFL
football, has rules that are specific and inviolable. You break the rules,
even unintentionally, you pay the price.
>When will Europe get it's Pro Tour? How about Berlin??? :)
There will be a '96-'97 PT stop in Europe, specifically Paris in
April, 1997. Dates and location TBA.
>Seriously you should atleast hold more qualifiers in Europe and pay airfare
>for anyone who qualifies if you want to call it DC_I_. I heard the second
>place in Antwerpen qualified, but did not get airfare and so could not
>attend.
I agree. Probably the only European players most Americans have ever
heard of are Bertrand Lestree, and now, Olle Rade. I met and talked to several
European players, many of whom were quite good, and several others who
admitted to me they learned a lot at Origins and hoped it would improve their
games. One fellow, Gary Campbell of Scotland, even managed to pull two Moxes
in his deck for the Beta Bonus Challenge.
>3) The poor showing of PCL.
>Sorry guys, but you have to admit you did almost as bad as I did, and that's
>saying something. In my opinion you had the same problem necro did, you were
>playing the same deck, that alone may have cost you some win percentage
>because other people had heard what you were playing. I guess that a another
>reason may have been that yopu tested mostly gainst each other reinforcing
>group beliefs. From what I heard both Baxter's Titanias Song deck and the
>Turbostasis Deck ideas came from cooperation between different playing groups
>even nationalities. (This is ofcourse a not so subtle plot to get you guys to
>post more on the net. ;)
The PCL PT3 deck(aka "BugBind") was a good solid deck, I think; they
just didn't do very well(although Mario & Frank both made it to the second
day). BugBind probably wasn't THE best PT3 deck, but I liked it. In Nationals,
they did fairly well. Justice made top 16, Chalice started off virtually
unbeatable going like 8-1 games and 4-0 matches in the first four rounds, but
then ran into Jason Zila in the fifth round and also lost in the sixth(Chalice
finished 18th overall). Mario just had bad luck, and, as is typical for him,
had to play his teamates(If I remember correctly, he had to play Frank in PT3
and Preston in Nationals). Frank did alright. Preston wasn't playing Necro,
and while his creature-heavy green deck has kicked butt in tourney before,
Nationals just wasn't his day.
Many of the good decks came from cooperation(TurboStasis was borrowed
and modified from some Europeans by Derek Rank, and he introduced it to Long,
PLace, and Dove, and they all built a solid version of it that worked). I
don't know about cooperation on Baxter's deck(George'll have to answer that
one), but I didn't see another deck like it in the tourney.
Dan Gray
Lawrence Bregoli
Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de (Daniel Brickwell) wrote:
>3) Dennis Bentley Necro B/R, beat Zila Jason in a 2:1 Heartbreaker, by a
>stripmine, vise, stripmine, stripmine, Black Knight, Black Knight winin the
>deciding 3rd game. (Like I said, a spoiler remains a spoiler even if it
Cheesy... =(
Michael Long playing Turbostasis won in the probably closest match against
>Travis Thomas'es W/G Titanias Song Deck. It's 1:1. Micheal has the Lock down,
>but Travis has still some lands untapped, and Micheal is low on life (2 or
>so) and cannot use any of the non-island lands for the stasis. Travis has an
>Titanias Song out which stopped the Zuran Orb before it was cast and i Think
>the Ivory Tower was used to block a Felwar before the lock came down. Travis
>Armageddons successfully. Next Round is the last round before he runs out
>of cards. He can attack with his Sol Grail though. Michael draws an Island
>and i think a force of Will and plays his Feldon's Cane! Travis tries to
>sword the cane, but the swords is Force of willed. The cane blocks the sol
>grail and Travis runs out of cards. Michael is at one life (Force of Will).
This is pretty close to correct, except that this was just the second
game of the series (Long won the first).. Thomas never won a game over
Long. Long had Travis in Stasis lock but Travis disenchanted stasis
during Long's draw phase (only 1 blue untapped) and escaped the lock.
After getting out from under stasis Travis cast T Song disabling Long's
howling mine, and he attacked w/ his sol grail and fellwar stone. Long
blocks stone w/ mine and grail w/ ivory tower. Long is at two life. Long
gets another stasis and casts it next turn keeping sol grail tapped. long
has kismet out at this time as well. it is a few turns later when travis
casts armegeddon which Long COULD force of will but saves it. long cant
pay for stasis but w/ 3 cards left in his library he draws the 1 card he
needs to save him from an attacking sol grail, his feldon's cane...
lucky... but that was only game two, he could've won the third if it came
to that IMO...
Mike Bregoli
Nick.Aziz.Kris.Alex
: 7) I heard Peter Leiher with necro advanced over Adam Green, because Adam had
: Nationals, but letting someone throw a final 16 match because of one missing
: plains sounds draconian to me. There is the letter of the law and then there
: is the will of the law. There is a difference. The will of the law is to stop
: cheating, forgetting to write down one plains is not cheating.)
This is not completely correct. Adam wrote down a 57 card deck,
forgetting 3 fireballs. As you said, this is not a huge offense, and
perhaps they should have gone easier on him. However, that wasn't his
only error. His deck was MISSING a plains, making it a 59 card deck. He
probably lost it or something, which sucks for him, but both those things
are probably enough reason to force a forfeit.
Aziz
Team 5 Guys With a Peter
T.J. Nijweide
Daniel Brickwell (Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de) wrote:
: When will Europe get it's Pro Tour? How about Berlin??? :)
: Seriously you should atleast hold more qualifiers in Europe and pay airfare
: for anyone who qualifies if you want to call it DC_I_. I heard the second
: place in Antwerpen qualified, but did not get airfare and so could not
: attend.
It was Amstelveen, there was no qualifier in Antwerpen this time, but yes,
I got second place, did qualify, but noone wanted to pay my ticket. Boohoo.
Next round of qualifiers is sealed deck, and constructing decks is what
I'm good at. I finished 10 out of 400 in the last sealed deck tourney
I attended though, so there might be a chance. I'm very afraid of massive
cheating though, because they didn't have it in hand at that previous
sealed deck tournament. 400 is a bit much of course. :)
Greets,
Tobias
J.H.
Eric Taylor wrote:
>
> Daniel Brickwell (Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de) wrote:
>
> : With the listed deck I went 1:5 in Matches and 7:11 in games. Infact, I lost
> : the first 5 rounds all 1:2. These close losses and the fact that I did see
> : many similar decks the next day at the top tables (with blinkings and
> : pillages though) tells me that my design was closer to the real thing than my
> : record implies. But as the saying goes, close counts only in horseshoes.
It's interesting that decks can be a few cards off and not be
tourney worthy. Goes to show that preperation is very important.
I wonder why it's so popular to make your deck the night before the
tournament...
>
> Daniel, I think you were right on the money with your deck. The
> outpost (aka "Dude Ranch"), the glaciers, pillage, blinky, the ivory
> gargoyle, at least you had all the elements figured out. With
The first day Alliances comes out and everyone tries to trade for
Helms and Hordes. A few weeks later, and cards that people thought
were fluff are the tourney cards... I love to see it.
some
> small changes, I think that is the deck for the pt3 environment. I
> didn't get it figured out at all, and played a really lame red/green,
> winning 2 out of 6 rounds in the pt3. I played Olle in the 3rd or so
> round of swiss. I was not at all impressed with his deck at the time.
> When I played him, I made the mistake I think many people made of
What's your reasoning for wanting to go second? Before the Tax was
restricted I would go second with my Tax decks but now? Why?
> choosing to go second. Against his deck, you have to go first so you
> can incinerate/lava burst his lumberjack so he can't insect you before
> you've got a defense up. It just seemed too unreliable compared to the
> multi-colored ranch/blinky/glaciers decks. I am still amazed that he
> was able to win. Anarchy, and attack with the insect. I just can't
> see how he was able to do it. He certainly deserves contratulations
> for his victory.
>
> He seems so gentle, and easy to beat. Such a nice guy. It's hard to
> believe a guy like this wins when so many of the pros are such
> heartless, stuck-up, neurotic bastards.
It's not just the pro players... That's the sad part. Even
talentless scrubs with hopes of making it big in Magic act like
God's gift to goofdom. Whatever, there's still some good folks
into this game. Take the good with the bad.
>
> Oh, yeah, one deck that was the ultimate in funky was the browse, dig,
> cap deck. Hammer was playing it. I played against one of these decks
> and it seemed very quite vulnerable. But it was cool! You get your
> browse out. Browse down to the end of your library, on the way
> building up your defense so you can handle anything your opponent has.
> Then at the end of the library, lay out the digger. At this point, you
> should have your cap in your graveyard. With the digger, dig up as
> many cards as you like. Then browse to throw away the junk, dig again
> and then draw a card. When you finally have all the cards you want in
> play and in the library begin the cycle. Your turn: dig, draw, cap.
> Opponent: counter anything he does, dig browse to get the counter back
> in your hand. Your turn: repeat. Dig Dig browse cap. Just a very
> cool lock. Unfortunately without strip mines in type pt3, blue/white
> gets run over by the Dude Ranch.
>
>
> What I can't figure out is how that Titaniana's song deck did so well.
> That particular deck didn't use any of the new concepts. It just
> locked people down the winter orb/icy (and black vise if you draw it),
> solid white with a pinch of green, cast argageddon again and again and
> finally, when Titania's song comes out, whack, attack with all the
> artifacts for 30 points or more.
That's the beauty of this deck. You don't think it will do so
well... Right there is where you lose. You must not look past
your opponent. Just ask Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras.
Ever lost to a deck with Mana Batteries? It may take you a few
games but you'll start to disenchant those mana batteries after he
kills you with them every game. The element of surprise is very
important in this game.
> --- Eric "The Iron Mage" Taylor
>
> p.s. In case anyone wondered, Baduvian Hordes stunk in the pt3. The
> card advantage isn't worth a 5/5 creature for 4 mana. Maybe if he was
> 6/6 for 4 mana, but not 5/5.
Of course they stink, they're a Balduvian Horde! ;) Seriously,
R/B/u re-animator and he might work... might.
Take it easy,
Vince
George W. Bayles
J.H. (jam...@best.com) wrote:
[snip]
: > What I can't figure out is how that Titaniana's song deck did so well.
: > That particular deck didn't use any of the new concepts. It just
: > locked people down the winter orb/icy (and black vise if you draw it),
: > solid white with a pinch of green, cast argageddon again and again and
: > finally, when Titania's song comes out, whack, attack with all the
: > artifacts for 30 points or more.
: That's the beauty of this deck. You don't think it will do so
: well... Right there is where you lose. You must not look past
: your opponent. Just ask Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras.
: Ever lost to a deck with Mana Batteries? It may take you a few
: games but you'll start to disenchant those mana batteries after he
: kills you with them every game. The element of surprise is very
: important in this game.
I've been playing an Icy/Winter Orb/Song deck for months - it used two
Mana Batteries and has won more consistently than any other T2 deck I've
seen. The batteries mana storage ability has often been useful as well
as becoming a 4/4 when the Song starts. The deck started out white and
green but adding blue for Power Sinks and a couple Recalls really boosted
it's power. It gets a lot of comments from opponents like "how to you
expect to kill me" followed by "I concede". It's wonderful to Power Sink
his Disenchant/whatever to tap him out - then lay the WInter Orb - game
over. There are a lot of ways to break the lock - but virtually no one
puts them in their decks. Perhaps they will now after the sucess and
publicity of Baxter's deck and the turbo stasis decks.
: > --- Eric "The Iron Mage" Taylor
John Glazier
Laury or Marcel Parent <lpa...@softnc.com> wrote:
>
> John Glazier wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
> > > Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
> > > others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
> > > might add.)
> > >
> > of the Type 2 tournament on Sat. He stomped me with a Stasis deck which I assume
> > is this Tubostasis deck you mention. After the first round Vise, subsequent
> > 2 Howling Mines, and obvious playing skill, I asked him how in the world he was
> > sitting across from me with a 4-5 record like mine. He had hit 2 Necrodecks in the
> > first couple of rounds and they handed him the losses. The discard really ate into
> > his deck. So I guess this deck is still vulnerable to Necro....
> >
> > Jake
>
> If there was 30-40? necros at the tournament and he went that far, he
> must not be having problems with necro anymore.
The Type II that I played him was totally separate from the Pro tourneys an got scewed up
at the beginning, half the players thought they could use Alliances and designed decks around
them (like me) and the other half didn't. After much bitching and moaning, the judges decided
to split the tournament into Alliance decks and non-Alliance decks which was a pretty good compramise.
I assume most of the necrodecks went to the non-Alliances part since the 2 Tapani ran into were the
only one I heard about. He also said he came in 70th in the Pro rankings out of whatever the field
was. I read later that like 3 of the top 8 were Turbostasis so maybe they've solved the necro problem.
Jake
Henri Schildt
: btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
: others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
: might add.)
Yes, the Despotic Stasis is really from Finland. It was not invented by
Tommi Hovi, but his friend (cannot remember the name). It has been developed
a lot since and after Alliances became available, it changed a lot. Itself,
stasis is not a new deck idea, not at all. What is new, though, is use of
multiple recalls and the really weird card, Despotic Scepter.
While I myself was considering whatever I should use 1 or 2 sceptres, the
Americans used 3 of them in their decks. That really shows how much it rocks
in the stasis decks, if top players put 3 non-cumulative cards in their
deck. Lim-Duls vault of course boosts the deck to new limits. Tommi Hovi won
Finnish Nationals with his stasis deck, which was rather a suprise. It does
really well against Necropotence, but it is killed by disenchants and
armageddon. The most vital card there is the howling mine. Without howling
mine, stasis cannot get enough islands and it cannot win.
Terry Lau
Daniel Brickwell wrote:
>
>
> Now to the winners:
>
> The swiss rounds were won on both (!) days by Alvaro Marquez (correct
> spelling?). Of the top 10 of the first day I think 5 replaced in the the top
> 10 on the next day, Alvaro was the only one who held his position.
>
Pete lost to Olle in the semi's after going 2-0 against him in matches during the swiss rounds.
On another note, we have a local player who is a Weismann disciple, so Pete decided to play some Type I games against
Weismann between rounds. In the first two games Pete got a couple of GOD draws and locked him in the first two turns in both
games. Pete must be a heretic. :-)
David Williamson
In article <4rtc68$e...@fu-berlin.de>, Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de
(Daniel Brickwell) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am back after 12 hours of sleep for the second part of my report.
>
> Bear with me as I still have a cold from the air conditioning at Origens. (It
> was freezing cold in the damn tournament area!)
>
> The Nationals
> --------------
>
> First I will give you the final 16, 8 and 4. Then my analysis of the new
> decks, some insights and some great and worst plays I watched.
>
> The final 16 after Swiss:
>
> 1) Zila Jason 6:0 W/G Ernhamgeddon with 1(?) Deadly Insect, 4(?) Icies.
>
>
etc etc
Thank you very much for taking the time to post this; I found it
very interesting.
I'm going to run upstairs to build a turbostasis deck.
David Williamson
dvdw...@slip.net
Dave Clemmer Jr.
Br...@ccmailer.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de (Daniel Brickwell) writes:
>Daniel
>Ceterum censeo Orbem Zurensem esse interdicendum.
>(And otherwise I think that the Zuran Orb should be banned.)
>PS: A little story about the Orb from Mark Chalice. PT 3 Mark has Stormbind
>out and about 12 life. The opponent has Necro out, 7 life. Mark stormbinds
>him for six and empties his hand. Necro Player can draw no more cards.
>Consults for the Zuran Orb. Plays it draws two cards. Next round Mark binds
>him. The necro player puts down a land and a creature. Draws two cards. Mark
>binds him again. The necro player attacks lays a land and a creature etc.
>Mark loses.
err... not quite... this is mushing games one and two down to one.
first game: he (Chalice) has stormbind down, and is keeping creatures
pretty few and far between. He gets down an ants, attacks twice with
them. gets opponent down to 1 when unable to pay upkeep on ants again,
and no cards in hand. also had been attacking with trap-door spider.
opponent consults for zuran orb, then casts spectre on own turn (has
bookworms out already). opponent casts another spectre next turn, ignores
spider's attack. one spectre gets stormbound, but not enough to keep from
being killed next turn.
second game: opponent necro'ing creatures out, attacking with a couple of
small creatures (bookworms, maybe an aesthir glider?). gets orb out, able
to keep necro'ing until soul burn drawn (had one or two rituals in hand).
attacks with tiny critters, and has just enough to soul burn down.
third game: Chalice still lost a close one.
later,
Dave
cle...@rpi.edu
"Geeks of All Nations, Compile!"
"We are Null Pointer of Borg: Dereference is futile!"
J.H.
George W. Bayles wrote:
>
> J.H. (jam...@best.com) wrote:
> [snip]
> : > What I can't figure out is how that Titaniana's song deck did so well.
> : > That particular deck didn't use any of the new concepts. It just
> : > locked people down the winter orb/icy (and black vise if you draw it),
> : > solid white with a pinch of green, cast argageddon again and again and
> : > finally, when Titania's song comes out, whack, attack with all the
> : > artifacts for 30 points or more.
>
> : That's the beauty of this deck. You don't think it will do so
> : well... Right there is where you lose. You must not look past
> : your opponent. Just ask Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras.
>
> : Ever lost to a deck with Mana Batteries? It may take you a few
> : games but you'll start to disenchant those mana batteries after he
> : kills you with them every game. The element of surprise is very
> : important in this game.
>
> Mana Batteries and has won more consistently than any other T2 deck I've
> seen. The batteries mana storage ability has often been useful as well
> as becoming a 4/4 when the Song starts. The deck started out white and
> green but adding blue for Power Sinks and a couple Recalls really boosted
> it's power. It gets a lot of comments from opponents like "how to you
> expect to kill me" followed by "I concede". It's wonderful to Power Sink
> his Disenchant/whatever to tap him out - then lay the WInter Orb - game
> over. There are a lot of ways to break the lock - but virtually no one
> puts them in their decks. Perhaps they will now after the
Exactly. People know to put certain cards in the sideboard, but
when was the last time someone played an all blue deck? TStasis
is becoming a known entity and will be adjusted for. People
still don't understand The Mana Battery Deck... The surprise
factor is *huge*.
sucess and
> publicity of Baxter's deck and the turbo stasis decks.
>
Indeed. A friend has an annoying deck that basically locks you
without you knowing you are locked. Pure genius... The lowly
Mana Battery is what makes it work, but players don't respect
the non-tournament quality Mana Battery. It most definitely is
tourney caliber and just might be one of the next fad decks if
it gets out. It's really consistent if a little slow...
Take it easy,
Vince
Vincent Saldell
h...@clinet.fi (Henri Schildt) writes:
>: btw Turbostasis I heard the deck was developed by the a Finnish named Tommi
>: Hovi and further refined by Tapani Utrianen. Derek Rank introduced it to the
>: others and 4 decided to play i at the nationals (with quite some success I
>: might add.)
>Yes, the Despotic Stasis is really from Finland. It was not invented by
>Tommi Hovi, but his friend (cannot remember the name). It has been developed
>a lot since and after Alliances became available, it changed a lot. Itself,
>stasis is not a new deck idea, not at all. What is new, though, is use of
>multiple recalls and the really weird card, Despotic Scepter.
>While I myself was considering whatever I should use 1 or 2 sceptres, the
>Americans used 3 of them in their decks. That really shows how much it rocks
>in the stasis decks, if top players put 3 non-cumulative cards in their
>deck. Lim-Duls vault of course boosts the deck to new limits. Tommi Hovi won
>Finnish Nationals with his stasis deck, which was rather a suprise. It does
>really well against Necropotence, but it is killed by disenchants and
>armageddon. The most vital card there is the howling mine. Without howling
>mine, stasis cannot get enough islands and it cannot win.
All this is IMHO correct, I played vs Tapani Utriainen in Swedish nationals
with my Willowgeddon derivation, after dropping 1st round by running into
the stasislock head first - I sideboarded in 3 divine offerings (to comple-
ment my 4 disenchants) and went for howling mines and land taxes as primary
targets.
That worked well, together with 3 armageddons and 4 strip mines in the deck,
so I dropped no more rounds vs turbostasis.
However, I made my own turbostasis after that and tested it vs other kind
of decks and found out that it works very well vs necro (disks comes into
play tapped you know =), and most creaturedecks.
My classification of turbostasis in the rock-paper-scissors is that it beats
BOTH necro and mono-weenie - which is very good here in Sweden, but gets
beaten by classic blue/white, willowgeddon, and Id also guess that it will
loose vs the new LD decks and new permission as well as orbdecks.
However - any deck will loose against turbostasis if it manages to get
in the lock.
-Vincent