Article -- Back to Basics: Counting Tempo, Part I

[Rakso]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5611

Quote "The Deck," Sylvian Lauriol, Champion, Worlds 2003 Type I side event, August 2003

Blue (19)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Future Sight
1 Stroke of Genius
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Morphling

Black (6)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 The Abyss

White (4)
1 Balance
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Renewed Faith

Red (1)
1 Gorilla Shaman

Mana (29)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Library of Alexandria
1 City of Brass
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Island

Sideboard (15)
1 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Duress
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ebony Charm
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Misdirection
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Stifle

24 years old, 105 columns.\n\n

[Smmenen]

Happy Birthday.

Steve

[Azhrei]

That's totally Matt's Stompy list.  

[Rakso]

Man, that was fast.  By the way, remember the predicament a couple of weeks back? It appears I made law review yesterday, Oxford boy.

[MoreFling]

Congrats on your birthday Rakso.

Afraid to touch on my 7th place finish in Berlin with Dragon, after your totally wrong bashing of the deck in a previous column?

[Toad]

Happy birthday !

For your article, the winner's name is Sylvain and not Sylvian. It's mostly a T1X and T2 player who was the french national champion a few years ago. He decided to go to the T1 side event after the Worlds but had no deck, so he borrowed a standard pre-GAT Keeper. The Tundras were proxy ones, and he couldn't find some real ones before the tourney, so he randomly threw in some Islands and a Tropical.

Excerpt from his report :

Quote J'ai tutorisé 2 fois mox pearl, meilleure carte du jeu !

Which means "I tutored twice for my Mox Pearl, best card in the deck."  

Nice article.