Homepage:sparetime:mtg:ptqparis

Subject:      [Report] PTQ Hamburg - Better Lucky than Good, Part II
From:         schach@chemie.fu-berlin.de (Frank Schacherer)
Date:         1997/03/17
Message-Id:   <5gk07m$snh@fu-berlin.de>

Hi everybody, this is another PTQ Report, this time from Hamburg,
Germany. The tournament had about 100 competitors for 4 slots at
PT Paris.

My friends and teammates Daniel Brickwell and Stefan Funke
as well as Martin Luedecke of Team Istari (Gilde Berlin) made the
trip from Berlin to Hamburg in Daniels old car, together with
Andreas Pischner, another Berlin player, who wanted to become level 2
judge, just like Daniel (Daniel already qualifed, his report is posted
up here on the group, too). Since there are only two level 3 judges in
Germany right now, you have to go to the tournaments they run if you want
to become official judge.

I had prepared an anti-artifact Sligh to cope with the Howlingbind/
IcyWorb lock decks some of the top Hamburg players would be playing
(they did at PTQ Frankfurt, where Daniel qualified). This Deck is
basically the same deck Justice played at PT1, a Vise age outgrowth.
I also had a Hackerpotence and couldn't really decide what to play.
Then Daniel suggested I should play the McCabe Necro he had used in
Frankfurt ("Dusk to Dawn Necro" with Coumbaji Witches in the main
Deck), as it was also one of the strongest Decks in the field.
I remebered how Necro got crushed by Howlingbind if the Disk didn't
go off, how Howlingbind got crushed by Necro if it did, and how much
more often the second seemed to be the case back in the Black days of
'96 and agreed.

The deck consisted of 4 Hypnos, 2 Shades, 2 Vampires,
1 Triskelion (!), Disks, Drain Lifes, Necros, Lakes, DRs, Swamps and
the Witches, Arrows and Contagion. Add one Ivory Tower, the Hymn and
two Mind Warps and youre all set. The sideboard looked like this:
2 Terror (vs. red or blue big critters. These were weak choices
   and were useless all day)
1 Infernal Darkness
1 Pestilence
1 Triskelion
1 Drain Life (this should have been in the main deck of course, and maybe
   a Soulburn in the SB)
3 Dystopia
3 Stupor
1 Contagion
1 Serrated Arrows
1 Zuran Orb (not too useful with all the Lakeing going on)

We joked that the deck was nothing but a bunch of six-casting-cost
critters and creature elimination and the sideboard was more of the same.
Actually Sideboarding this day would be pretty straigtforward: against the
various kinds of critterdecks you`d switch around your elim a bit and
against creatureless Worblock Decks you`d drop all the critter control
for Stupors and more critters. Triskelion is really cool as it cannot
be controlled, can kill white knights and dervishes or smack the opponent
around for 4 a turn, CoP:B nonwithstanding.

On to the report:
7 rounds of swiss, 5.5-1.5 will probably make the cut to top 8. Top 4
qualify for Paris.

Round 1: White Weeny

This kid was playing at a tournament for the first time. A PTQ is a
tough place to play at, when your deck sports Mesa Pegasi, Benalish
Heroes, Tundra Wolves, Eye for an Eye, Reverse Damage, Castle, etc.,
but neither StP, nor Disenchant or even Crusade. He also didn't have
enough land.
2:0 Games 1:0 Matches

Round 2: Thomas, Monoblack Necro

He is one of the highest ranked german players (sorry I forgot the last
name), and his deck is classic Knight Necro with Icequakes.
Game one I draw like 3 Disks, 3 Lakes, some Swamps and not much more,
while he stomps all over me with Mishras and single Orders.
Game two, he tells me of his secret surprise superweapon from the side-
board vs. Necro. I tell him I got a secret weapon, too (go Trike!).
Unfortunaltely for him, I get a good start and his life total is going
down. At a crucial point
in the game he has a Mishras, Lake, some Swamps, Zuran Orb and a Disk,
while I have Ishans and two Mishras. He is at 7, im at 16 or something.
He goes on to count his mana and calculate, then taps the Mishras to blow
the Disk, taps a Swamp for mana and sacs it to the Zorb in response, then
taps the Lake, when he realizes that he somehow
miscalculated the mana: he can get only 8 points. Curses. I say "Spirit
of the Night." He uses the two mana in his pool to double animate the
Mishras. Because has saced the one swamp to the orb, he can't even cast
the Spirit next turn. I cast another Ishans and attack for 4.
He never gets up to Spirit mana again and dies.  (At this point the Spirit
would have been too late anyways).
Third game (I take my fourth Disk back in), I get the Necro power start
and Necro does it's dirty work. Btw. he took out the LD against me.
Games 4:1 Matches 2:0

Round three: Weenygeddon

The player is Stephan Murillo Reets a.k.a. Mighty, one of the good
players from Hamburg. His deck features Archers, Dervishes, Lanos,
Spectral Bears, Erhnams - 25 creatures total, plus StP, Giant Growth,
Geddon. Much like Olle Rades Deck at Worlds. I win the first game by
a narrow life margin and proceed to sideboard out all the Necros and
Mindwarps and the Tower - I won't have time to sit on my cards and quite
probably not enough life to really Necro. Second game, second turn:
I hymn two Erhnam Djinns out of his hand. Ouch. The deck also delivers
a Dystopia and later a Triskelion to deal with his white Knights and
Dervishes. Serrated Arrows kill another Dervish. But I only draw three
Hypnotic Specters, who get Sworded. Meanwhile I drain life Mighty for about
21 points with the Lake. He has Divined two sets of arrows and lives.
Since I took out some Contagion for arrows (he has too many pro black stuff)
he keeps hitting me with two Mishras. Finally I get out a Sengir and another
Hypno, while he draws a Zuran Orb and two more Dervishes. I am at two life
and facing a 4/4 and a 3/3 dervish, when he finally dies.
Games 6:1 Matches 3:0

Round four: Turbobalance/Worblock/'Post

My opponent is Jim, another guy from Hamburg, whom I met in some tournaments
in Berlin before, since he studies at Berlin University. In the first game,
I go first and the deck delivers a first turn hypno, followed by second turn
Strip Mine. Jim is manascrewed, I go Necro and just see enough of his deck
to know it's Blue-White (through discards from the Specter) before he dies
gruesomely to some drain life. Second game, Jim comes back from a losing
battle at 7 life when he Balance-Zorbs and proceeds to beat me up with a
lonely Factory. Third game I go under Necro again and it is too much for him
to handle. The inevitable Balance (tutored for this time) has to be cast
without Zorb. I still have my manabase, refill for a quick 7 damage and
thats game. There really was no fault in Jims playing, he just couldnt do
anything.
Games 8:2 Matches 4:0

Round five: Howlingbind

By now we sit at table one. Gunnar Refsdal is probably the most infamous of
all the Hamburg players (exept for maybe Peer Kroeger, German National
Champion), and he's been playing this deck for more than one and a half
years. Gunnar offers a draw, but I think I can beat him, and three draws
from now on wouldnt insure I was in. So I decline. Mistake. First game, I
draw my first all land Mulligan ever. Six Swamps and a Lake. But I think
well, there have to be a lot of business cards coming up, and with the lake
and all those swamps I can put a lot of pressure on Gunnar pumping out
shades and stuff. Mistake. I never get to see a single disk before I get
locked down, after Gunnar has been drawing 4 times as many cards as I with
Land Tax and Icy/Howling mine. Second game, I put out Infernal darkness to
cover my Hypno, he puts out the only Fire Diamond in his deck. Hypno. Bolt.
Icy. Drop Darkness to be able to cast Disk. Cast Disk. Disenchant. He then
proceeded to put out two howling mines and another Icy, drawing three times
as many cards as I. Plus taxing. I was sitting there like "Hey, _I'm_ supposed
to do that!". We had fun. Finally, I consult for another Disk. About 30 cards
go out of game, including all 3 Necros. I put out the disk and lo and behold-
he has no disenchant. He doesnt draw a Disenchant. I disk, leaving me with
about 8 cards in my library, him at 36 life. The card advantage of about 14:1
was tremendous, but still I couldn't really say I was exactly happy with the
situation. The game ends when he Caps the last three cards from my library.
Games 8:4 Matches 4:1

Round 6: The Return of Howlingbind

Gunnar shouts "Youre playing HIM? Enjoy it, we have the same deck!".
Marvelous. But luck is on my side and this time I don't even
need the disks. His Ivory Tower opening was greeted by a lucky Hymn. My
first Specter was bolted, then I went under Necro and from there on both
games blur into one  big mess with my poor opponent sitting there,
obviously with suboptimal draws (one game he even was manascrewed),
while I beat him up with Necrolake powered Sengir, Triskelion and Drain
Life.
Games 10:4 Matches 5:1

Round seven: Untouchables and Burn

To cite another poster to these newsgroups: "Like the hard-boiled pro
players we are, we decide to intentionally draw." Since we both only
lost to Gunnar, who is top-seeded, and had pretty strong opponents,
we are in at 5.5-1.5. We play two games for fun, which he loses.

Quaterfinals: Non-necro B/R

My opponent is Guido, and this is only his second tournament so far.
His deck sports Bolts, Incinerates, Hammer, Terror, DR, Pump-
knights, Ishans, Sengir, Disk, Mishras, Black Knights, Drain Life
and the card that makes it all possible: Thawing Glaciers. No Necro
and (thank God) no Forsaken Wastes. It also had a Vise, as I was soon to
discover.
Guido takes it all very easy and opens Land, Vise. I'm manashort (two Lakes,
Mishra), and take a lot of Vise damage, while I have to sac my one Swamp to
the Lake to get out a Hypno and under the Vise. Bolt. Guido proceeds to put
on enough pressure to finally kill me with a drain life after a long,
complicated series of Ivory-Tower/Necro/but I'm at 3 Life and have only 5
Cards and he can attack with this and that series of turns, which were the
best from an art-of-play point of view all day for me, albeit painful. I
mean we were both just waiting for the bolt ;).
Second game I go first, which gives me enough time to do away with all his
weeny Knights with Serrated/Witch power, gaining on him. He also makes
some playing mistakes, like putting out an order before he attacks with his
Hypnotic Specter - thank you, contagion.
Third game I get the "Better Lucky than Good" Necro power draw straight
from hell. Second Turn Hymn takes out two Orders. Third Turn Necro. Have a
Lake out. Draw 4 (!) Drain Life. And some swamps. It was just unreal. So
I drained Guido to asynchronous Orbit and back again - exactly the way
Daniel made it to PT Paris. And it was the same deck, too.

So it's PT Time once again. Im going to Paris, baby! Unfortunately Stephan
played a Counterpost deck, which was just to slow. He had to play one
blue-white deck after the other, and they never made it to the end of the
match in 45 minutes, so he ended up at 5:2 with three wins and four draws,
being one of the only three undefeated players in the tournament. Even worse,
Martin made it to the quaterfinals, too, only to lose via Manascrew to a White
Weeny with his Sligh deck.

Also qualified are Gunnar Refsdal, the WW player that beat Martin,
Adrian from Berlin, who beat a WW with his Sligh/LD deck. This white
weeny was played by Bjoern Falenski, who wasn't allowed to use his SB
from Round 3 on, as he had somehow messed up writing it down. Amazing.

I hope you enjoyed the report, if you made it this far,
--
Frank                     schach@chemie.fu-berlin.de
"Amnesia - it's a no-brainer."

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