The End of an Era - Brian Kibler's quite late PTLA report
Majesk
"The End of an Era"
or
"How Tie Dye and Courdaroy Fell from Grace"
This is a bit more than a late tourney report from LA - this is a general
compilation of my thoughts about magic and life in general right about now, so
unless you're willing to subject yourself to my streams of (possibly) inane and
(probably) obnoxious drivel, I'd suggest you take the fastest route out of
here.
In any case, for those of you who are still questioning my identity after my
title and intro, this is none other than Brian Kibler, the questionably
illustrious Grand Prix Toronto (aka Pro Tour Canada) champion, former #1 rated
T2 player and all that jazz. It is my opinion that I should be able to add at
the very least 'Pro Tour X Quarterfinalist' to that list, but alas, it was not
to be. Maybe I should start getting to some kind of substance in this report.
Maybe not…hrm…well, I guess I have little choice, cause I'm really getting
tired of rambling about this garden variety nothingness.
My trek to LA began back last year in August - at Grand Prix Toronto. Going
9-1-2 against such folks as Steve OMS, Worth Wollport, Terry Borer, Tony Tsai
(my one loss!), Matt Place (twice!), and the whole of team CMU, just about
(Erik Lauer, Mike Turian, and Dan Silberman), secured my unreasonably high
rating in Type 2 that I sat on until LA. In chicago I felt I got really
screwed - Jon Finkel and I played the exact same deck down to the volcanic
island I told him to swap for his tropical, and I went 3-3 while he was the #1
seed going into the finals. Basically the entire story of the tournament for
me could be summed up in 2 examples; in my feature match against Dave Bachmann
in round 3, he hymned me, and I tithed in response. My hand was 5 land, an
icy, and a wrath, and ended his turn staring at 2 tundras, a plateau, savannah,
and mishra. Against Pete Guevin in the last round I lost 7 consecutive
frenetic flips to knock me out of the top 64 contention. Basically, I felt
like I'd taken a beating in the luck department and that things should turn
around for me soon enough. I missed Germany because of school, and didn't even
bother playing in any qualifiers. Since I had wrestling practice, meets, or
tournaments throughout the winter, I really didn't play magic at all between
chicago and LA, which was fine with me because that meant that I'd just be
auto-qualifed because of my 2042 T2 rating. As LA approached, however, I found
myself devoting more of my time to playtesting than I had for any other
previous pro tour, and any other tournament at all with the exception of the
regionals last year for which Nate Clarke and I tested 5CG for countless hours
while watching Braveheart repeatedly, and nationals which I spent an excessive
amount of time tuning and retuning different versions of the Burned Alive deck
I ended up making top 16 with - missing top 8 by one game against Jeff Butz in
which I drew 15 land and 4 spells.
My playtesting was erratic at best, however. Going to a private boarding
school with a competitive Magic population of one makes things fairly
complicated, so I tried to get into Boston to playtest with Tom Guevin, Darwin,
and Dave Humphries as much as my sceduale would allow. Last minute crises,
like finding out Friday afternoon that my religion and philosophy final paper
due Monday needed sources that I could only get at the Harvard Theological
Library, kept me away from getting there as much as I would like, and when I
did show up my lack of cards prevented me from playing, which made the Boston
crew think I was just trying to spy on their ideas. The one deck I made that
was played (by Pete Guevin) in the tournament was a really rough version of the
red deck Brian Schneider and I had been working on - and Pete ended up taking
it to the finals. In my corrospondence with Tom and Dave, both of them told me
that they thought I wasn't being fair by only sharing my red tech with them,
because neither of them really thought red was viable in the format because of
bottle gnomes doing the waltz and staunchness being everywhere. At the time, I
agreed; I felt that bottle gnome/dance and defenders - as well as the horned
turtles and the like that were everywhere in Boston - were too much for red to
deal with. I was floundering between playing red, because it could get draws
that just win almost no matter what your opponent does, and blue/black/white,
because I felt that tradewind/staunch/gnomes control could beat red decks and
most everything else with a decent draw. What I didn't like about the control
decks was that they had the exact opposite symptom as the red - they could just
LOSE with a bad draw. I didn't want to take that chance after what happened in
chicago, so as I got on the plane to LA I hoped Brian Schneider would have some
good insight into beatdown tech. The plane ride was alright - I finished an 8
page paper during the first part of the flight, but afterwards realized I
FORGOT MY NOTEBOOK ON THE PLANE. Whatever. L I got to the hotel and found a
bunch of folks hanging out, but Brian and Lan were nowhere to be seen. I
laughed at Wurm and William- from IRC as they scrounged for cards, decks, and a
place to sleep, and mocked Alatar1fromtheIRC's manikins in the living death
deck he and Ben Rubin intended to play. I searched for anyone who would loan
me cards, and ended up convincing Wurm to give me everything I needed for a
decklist. I give him a decent control deck - U/W/B tradewind/staunch/gnomes,
but with winds of wrath instead of the torture chambers because I don't want to
give away Finkel's tech. In the midst of all this, I find Brian and Lan and
head to the room, meanwhile being accosted by Melissa Lang and Caroline Liu for
metagame predictions. We say our piece without revealing too much and get down
to work; Brian shows me that he does have a beatdown deck that he's been
working on, and it's got the super-high tech that he and I had been talking
about a month or so ago, but never really gave much playtesting time to;
Ancient Tomb. This amazing card turned stone rains into sinkholes, barbed
slivers into turn 2 monsters, and lightning elementals into a beating on turn
3. Anyhow, this is getting long and obnoxious, so I'll give you the lowdown on
the deck I played:
ANCIENT RED
4 Pups
4 Fanatic
4 Fireslinger
4 Barbed Sliver
4 Lightning Elemental
2 Lowland Giant
1 Rathi Dragon
1 Giant Strength
4 Kindle
4 Stone Rain
4 Scroll
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient tomb
16 Mountains
SB
4 Boil
4 Stalking Stones
2 Goblin Bombardment
2 Searing Touch
2 Scorched Earth
1 Rathi Dragon
I honestly feel that this deck was easily one of the best in the field, along
with Deadguy Red, Iron City Beatdown, and Darwin's Living Death deck. Against
control decks you get auto-win draws like turn 1 pup, turn 2 stone rain, turn 3
lowland, and after sideboarding chill doesn't hurt much at all even if played
on turn 2 because of the power of ancient tomb. After turn 2 it's an entirely
dead card against Ancient Red - and I have 14 LD spells against you, so chances
are you're going to have more trouble casting spells than I will. People
question the scorched earth's; I think they're pretty amazing against control
decks. While Dave Price was able to storm the field and win the tournament
through dodging disco-gnomes, I was coming from the boston area where every
other deck had the little buggers doing the waltz. After sideboarding against
these decks, scorched earth goes really well with the 12 other LD spells and 28
lands I run, and I can basically stop them from EVER getting to 5 mana while
beating on them with barbed slivers and the like.
In any case, TE only is over and my deck breakdown isn't all that key I'd
guess. I went into the tournament feeling really confident about my deck's
ability vs almost everything. Against other red decks the speed boost ancient
tomb gives me more than makes up for the damage; they're playing moggs while
I'm playing giants. The only deck I really feared that I'd heard about was
giant strength red - which, I figured, would quite likely give me the beating
of a lifetime if I didn't draw well early against it. My matchups went as
follows:
Rnd 1: Dirk Roth from Germany- U/W/B control
This match goes to 2 games, with me stomping all over him in game 1 after he
plays turn 3 medallion, turn 4 tradewind, turn 5 tradewind. Barbed slivers are
amazing like that. Game 2, I get nervous when he plays turn 2 chill, but I'm
able to bust out of the deep freeze with double-ancient tomb. In this match I
ended up at 4 and 6 life in each game, I believe. Tomb is strong.
Rnd 2: Andrew Nishioka - U/W control/beatdown
Game 1 I draw like crap. I think the first creature I play is a mogg fanatic
around turn 3, but I have lots of LD so I keep the hand. He has more land,
however, and gets 3 staunch in play before I can do anything.
Game 2 I get the pressure on and give him the beatdown. I should never lose to
U/W
Game 3 I give him a fast beating, but he comes back by drawing a lowlands to
keep up capsize action right after I've boiled him. he has a gnomes and orim,
god healer that are holding off my lowlands along with the capsize; I'm hoping
to beat him by mana attrition because he's tapping depletion lands to capsize,
and soon I get him down to 1 life but proceed to draw 7 straight lands while he
slaps down a defenders, Defender/Orim is pretty much game.
Rnd 3: ??? playing U/W/B orim's prayer
Game 1 I stone rain and wasteland a bunch of land and win
Game 2 He plays turn 1 scroll (!?!), turn 2 allure, turn 3 prayer and I'm about
to cry. He gets another scroll and allure and I just can't win this game….
Game 3 I stomp him into the ground.
Rnd 4 and 5 I don't quite remember; one round I played against a really nice
guy from England playing monogreen overrun who almost ended my pro tour dreams,
but I managed to kill his creatures in response to overrun to win game 3 at one
life.
Rnd 6 and 7 were red decks that I beat with lowlands, barbed slivers, and
rathis. In round 7 it's kinda funny because I play someone (Leonard Richardson
- Hey Leonard!) who I've discussed extended strategy (Kiblerprison.dec,
formerly on the Dojo's 'decks to beat' page even though I never played it in a
single tournament. J) with on IRC; he asks if I want to draw, but we're both
in anyhow and I really want the 6-1 record, so I give him a beating with my
phatness. Scalding Tongs really just can't race a barbed sliver.
So I'm 6-1 going into day 2, at 18th. I find out that my opp winning
percentage is the lowest of the 6-1's, because my 3rd and 7th round opponents
had lower records than me, apparently, so I'm kinda upset that I might lose out
on tiebreakers tommorrow, but I'm overall feeling great. That night I go out
to eat with Lan D Ho (who ended 5-2), Cary Darwin, and Wurm (Jeremy Fuller for
the IRC impaired) at some pasta joint. We try to get our cab driver to bring
us to some nice steakhouse or something, but the guy won't even tell us where
any are, let alone suggest one! Along the way he almost gets us killed by
trying to turn left in front of incoming traffic, and yet we still tip him for
some reason. Bah. Side note - I found out after my first round that my jacket
was stolen! I looked around at my seat where I was playing but it's nowhere to
be seen. So I'm out one notebook plus 8 page paper and a coat. This is Long
Beach, people! I'm from new hampshire! Who do you think needs the coat
more?!?
DAY 2:
I eat breakfast with Lan and Finkel, and over the buffet (of granola and
cereal!) Fink and I discuss our decks and sideboard strategies vs certain deck
types and each other. Each of us thinks we'd beat the other if we play, him
because he has COP Red instead of chill in the SB and me because I have 14 LD
spells and stalking stones to beat that crap.
Rnd 1: JON FINKEL, playing U/W/B Tradewind control
What luck! Both of us discuss how bullshit the pairing is as we sit down to
shuffle. I'm confident going into this match as I know Finkel's decklist card
for card, and I really don't think he can win 2/3 games.
Game 1: my opening hand is really bad, but I'm playing first so I don't feel
that I can afford to mulligan. I have no LD spells, a bunch of lands, a
fanatic, and a rathi. Hmm - well, Finkel is only playing allures and torture
chamber for real creature kill, and he only plays 2 capsizes…Rathi Dragon comes
to play on turn 3, aided in his quest by ancient tomb. Finkel plays a torture
chamber to hold off my weenies, and chump blocks mr dragon with a few
tradewinds before he succumbs to the power of a 5/5 flyer.
Game 2: Finkel gets an early torture chamber and starts wrecking my creatures.
I can't punch through and die to a staunch onslaught.
SIDE NOTE: Between games 1 and 2, while shuffling my deck, Finkel flipped over
a card and it was Boil. He looks at me pleadingly, and since I know it was
unintentional and he knew I had the card anyway I let it slide. Between games
2 and 3 it happens AGAIN, but seeing as I'm not scott johns I don't call him on
it.
Game 3: he gets early COP red, but I have early LD and a cursed scroll. I
give him a bit of a beating when I drop bombardment (he has 2 allures in play),
but he tries to punk me and capsizes the bombardment. he ganks my lowland and
barbed sliver, but I kindle him at the end of his turn, kindle the lowland
during my upkeep and scroll the sliver. I keep hitting all of his blue
producers with LD, and then he plays a 2nd island and plays bottle gnomes, I
boil and he's left with 2 reflecting pools for land. as reflecting pool
doesn't produce mana without other land in play (contrary to what mark justice
tried to pull against Lan) he gets a beating from my forces of evil.
RND 2: Adam Katz playing Darwin's Living Death Deck
Basically, both games go pretty similarly. I draw a ton of land and lose. In
game 1 I'm stone raining him like crazy but he intuitions for land and then
draws another land to living death the turn before he'd die. Game 2 I'm
blowing up swamps but he still gets enough and gets gravedigger action going.
If I'd drawn a boil this game I would have wrecked him, because he had only 2
swamps and 8 islands at the end of the game, but I guess I should have
sideboarded in more than 4…
RND 3: Austin Vaughn playing Verdant Jank
When he plays a few swamps in game 1 on turns 1 and 2, my hand looks good; he's
playing black, so 2 fireslingers and a fanatic should wreck him, right? well,
on turn 3 he intuition for 3 verdant force…uh oh…good thing I have wasteland
and stone rain to keep him from casting living…err…lotus petal ritual ritual
living death? scoop! game 2 he discards a verdant turn 1, reanimates turn 2.
I'm left chump blocking and wondering if I can draw all 4 kindles to kill him.
it doesn't happen, and I drop to 7-3.
RND 4: Svend Sparre Geertson playing R/g
This is a feature match, which bothers me because I have ZERO feature match
wins in the pro tour - my only feature match win at all was in nationals
against Finkel when I dropped an armageddon bomb from the Burned Alive deck to
end his dreams. After game 1, I'm a lot more confident. he's played a bunch
of red cards, and I'm 3-0 vs red so far, and I wreck him with lowland and
rathi. Game 2 is looking great up until the end. I get lowland out, and
rathi, but he's had 2 scrolls and bombardment and did a lot of early damage to
me with a raider because he drew 2 stone rains and 2 wastelands. I pound him
with the fat to one, but during his upkeep he's exactly able to kill me with a
kindle, scroll, and bombardment damage. Game 3 is mucho anticlimactic. I draw
a bunch of nonbasics and 1 mountain, while I stone rain his first mountain and
he draws 3 more. I draw 1 out of 16 and he gets 4 out of 12? Whatever…so my
top 8 dream is dead, but 16 and 32 are still alive.
RND 5: Olle Rade, playing U/W/B Finkeldeck
I know Olle's playing Finkel's deck, and I find I have an even better matchup
against him because he has chills instead of COP red. Basically I beat him
down game 1, and between game 1 and 2 he decides to have my deck checked for
marked cards (ala Hovi incident). The judge says they aren't marked, but
apparently shuffles really poorly cause I draw 15 lands and no play until too
late and lose. Game 3 is the Biggest Beating Ever. Turn 1 pup. Turn 2 stone
rain. Turn 3 Lowland Giant. Turn 4 Lowland Giant, and Olle packs. How often
do you see a turn 4 concession? I apologize to Olle for the luck, but explain
that's why I played the deck. It can just win.
basically, I lose my next 2 rounds to Darwin and Chris Bishop, playing Living
Death and Black Weenie, respectively. I lose to Darwin basically the same way
I lost to adam katz, and to bishop because I draw like ASS, he drops scrolls
turn 1 both games, and FEVERED CONVULSIONS houses me in game 1 because I draw
no fast beatings or LD. I end at 8-6 having been 7-1 at the beginning of the
day, and really, really bitter. Looking back at it, I'm still really bitter,
but I realized that at least I lost to some decent players; only one of my
opponents on day 2 hasn't seen the top 8 of a pro tour firsthand, and he played
3 verdant forces in 5 turns against me. :-/ Basically, shit luck kept me down
again. With better draws and better pairings, I really should have made top 8.
I go on to play Mike Long in ante for gummy rats ala Donnie Gallitz, and I win
3 straight matches and 7 rats. I give one to Mike, another I split between a
bunch of us playing ante, and the others I save for later. I still have 2 of
them, including the freaky white one I forced Mike to get me even though he
didn't want to which I plan on using as a good luck charm against tongo in the
future. J
Anyhow, the story doesn't end there. I was off for spring break the past few
weeks (and still am, till april) and I decided to go to NJ this past weekend to
qualify for NY because I'm a few PT points short, and my 60th place finish in
LA doesn't cut it. I drive down to cherry hill (7 hours) with a few of my
friends from my old D&D days, who used to play magic but are just going to the
gaming convention. We get there around 1, go to sleep around 2, and I get up
around 8 for the tournament. Jeff Donais signs my spellground prior to the
tournament by request, and his quote is the only one in red ink on the whole
mat: "You have a warning for pleasuring my mom!". Goes well with "Cheating
Rules! - David Bachmann" and "You are so very Kibler-icious - Worth Wollport".
Anyone who hasn't signed my mat really should, cause it's quite the collection
of the 'who's who' of magic. J Anyhow, I register a terrible deck and get
back an ungodly death machine. 3 Dauthi Horror. 3 Flowstone Giant. 2 Dark
Banishing. Lightning Blast. Mogg Fanatic. Puppet Strings. It's the sort of
deck that you pray to get when you're unqualified, and, well, I'm just that.
And still am, unfortunately. My protour-esque luck shines through again, as I
draw 1 of the colored mana I need in just about every game I play when I have
flowstone or heartwood treefolk in hand (this is with a rampant growth and a
skyshroud elf), and 16 land in every other game. I go an amazing 0-2, losing
to someone playing 15 land in a 44 card deck because he plays turn 2 trooper,
turn 3 marauder, turn 4 horror, pacify my horror, turn 4 lancer and that's all
she wrote.
Basically, I've come to this conclusion; either I did something really
terrible in a past life, or one of my superstitions is catching up to me. If
anyone's ever seen me at a pro tour, I'm always wearing a tie dye shirt,
courdaroy pants, tevas and my trusty Yankanuck hat that gets me mistaken for a
canadian. Well, I looked back on the way things have gone for me lately, and
decided that the toronto win must have sucked all the luck out of the tie dye
or something, because between my horrendous finish in chicago and day 2 of LA
and this past qualifier, I have a combined recored of around 7-12 or so.
That's bad. Really bad. So I've decided on a few things. No longer will I
wear tie dye in a sanctioned magic event; those days are over, lost except to
memory and the one picture of me losing to svend sparre geertson in our feature
match on the WotC webpage (which my girlfriend laughed at. L) I've also
decided that I'm not going to try to qualify for new york anymore. There's a
qualifier in boston this weekend on Saturday, and one in new jersey on Sunday,
but I think I've had just about enough of tempest sealed deck for my tastes.
The format is unreasonably broken and far too draw dependent - not to mention
the fact that I'm just about completely broke. :-/ You'd think winning a
grand prix would go a ways for a high school student without a car, but huge
teddy bears and loads of valentines candy and flowers are SOME expensive. In
any case, I'll hopefull be able to go to new york to hang with everyone (cause
that's the best part of the whole thing, isnt' it?) and play some side
tournaments to get my rating back up, cause I won't be able to make regionals
and want to qualify for nationals/worlds via ranking if I can. Anyhow, I think
this is long enough, don't you? Maybe even too long . . . but whatever. Hope
you enjoyed my rant, and I think I'll just have to end with props and slops….
PROPS:
Wizards of the Coast, for making an amazing game that lets me meet amazing
people who I'd otherwise never come in contact with, and paying me to play it.
Dave Price, for winning the pro tour with - yet again - the ultimate in monored
metagaming
Chris Pikula, for such timeless quotes as 'Right now Rubin is hoping Price will
play that canyon wildcat without tapping his mana first'
Lan D Ho, for being an all around great guy, playtesting with me for countless
hours and getting 21st at his first pro tour entirely by accident
Jeff Donais, just cause he's a great judge, comedian, and human being.
Brian Schneider, for being one of the coolest guys on the pro tour and finally
being truly on the pro tour
Erik Lauer, for qualifying for NY even though you lost in the quarterfinals
Darwin Kastle, for building what was possibly the best metagame deck in the
tournament
My girlfriend Ella, for being generally amazing and for letting me go playtest
and even coming along once to keep me company
SLOPS:
Wurm, for going 0-2 in the super series and having a 2001 sealed deck rating
from nothing but game center tournaments
Kyle Rose, for refusing to draw with Will Hilts in the final round, and then
winning because Will took 2 points of Tongs damage when Kyle had 4 cards in
hand.
The Norns, Fates, Lady Luck, and whoever else it is who's keeping me down.
What did I ever do to you?
"Who are the Dead and why are they following me?" is no more.
Brian Kibler
Grand Prix Toronto Champion
All Around Swell Guy
scott johns
> Rnd 1: JON FINKEL, playing U/W/B Tradewind control
> What luck! Both of us discuss how bullshit the pairing is as we sit down to
> shuffle. I'm confident going into this match as I know Finkel's decklist card
> for card, and I really don't think he can win 2/3 games.
> SIDE NOTE: Between games 1 and 2, while shuffling my deck, Finkel flipped over
> a card and it was Boil. He looks at me pleadingly, and since I know it was
> unintentional and he knew I had the card anyway I let it slide. Between games
> 2 and 3 it happens AGAIN, but seeing as I'm not scott johns I don't call him on
> it.
Ah, moer cheap shots. Well Brian, I agree completely with you.
This incident was exactly the same as mine. The fact that you and Finkel
knew each other's deck's and boards card for card doesn't make any
difference at all as far as I can tell. I mean, heck, since he already
knew your board cards, that is exactly the same as my opponent who flipped
over a card he had no idea I was playing, right? Come on Brian, that must
be the same, because if it weren't that would just make you look like a
big jerk by taking cheap shots at me that were unwarrented, right?
Since you're such a clever guy, let's review your reasonable and
well thought out point here:
Kibbler' Match Johns' Match
==========================================================================
Op. flips a card. Op. flips a card of mine.
result: op already knew Op. now knows what Im playing
his deck. before game 1, gaining unfair
advantage.
So far, that's the same right buddy? How about the second time
then?
Op flips board card. Op flips board card.
result:op already knew cards result:Op had no idea I had Giant
being boarded. Strengths in board, and has
consistently
played incorrectly because of
this. Knowledge of GS boarding
gains massive advantage and
nullifies my sideboard strategies
of game 2 and 3. (game 2 I took
them out to surprise him game 3
since their better going first.)
That's the same also, right pal? Especialy since my opponent had
already been warned for this, right? Next time you want to take a cheap
shot at someone, I suggest you back it up with at least brain-stem level
intelligence.
a very bitter and weary Scott Johns
Majesk
you're right scott - in a sense. about me having vegetable level intellegence
i suppose... the situations were a great deal different when you look at them
from a player's standpoint, but from a judge's perspective they'd be ruled
exactly identically because there is no way for the judge to know that Finkel
wasn't gaining some sort of advantage. never did i say the situations were
identical, by the way - i suggest you use your critical reading skills and
determine the context in which the statement i actually DO make is said. My
entire point isn't that you were technically in the wrong - because you
weren't. i feel you were justified in having a complaint against Casey, but my
problem is with your attitude in the situation. I heard you. I saw you. You
whined and you bitched and you moaned and basically made a whole scene about
how unfair your fate as a magic player was. well scott - how much money has
WotC payed you to play their game? I'd imagine quite a bit...and i doubt they
gave you those bills so you can be a source of contention on the pro tour. I
was sitting 2 tables down from you in chicago playing alan comer when you had
your fit playing justin schneider, and it was the same way. i like the pro
tour because of the people i get to meet, and the places i get to see, and the
great time i tend to have at the stops - and that sort of thing mars it for me.
It's a game, Scott. It's a great game and while it might mean alot of money
sometimes, I was only joking when i threatened to call in an airstrike over
Denmark after i lost to Svend Sparre Geertson. Try to burn a few less bridges
next time and maybe you wouldn't get so many 'cheap shots' like mine.
An apparently vacuous and spiteful Brian Kibler