Here's a quick pair of tournament reports. I didn't take notes so details will be few, especially from Friday.
Tournament 1: Gametech weekly Type-1 - Friday October 18th
Tournament 2: Dreamer's monthly Type-1 - Sunday October 20th
I played TnT, which has been my normal choice lately.
// Creatures - 23
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
1 Triskelion
1 Masticore
4 Goblin Welder
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Anger
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Genesis
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Druid Lyrist
1 Birds of Paradise
// Utility - 8
4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Emerald Charm
1 Grafted Skullcap
1 Memory Jar
// Mana - 29
7 SoLoMox
1 Grim Monolith
4 Land Grant
4 Tiaga
4 Mishra's Workshop
5 Forest
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
// Sideboard
2 Bottle Gnomes
1 Triskelion
3 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Artifact Mutation
3 Hull Breach
4 Red Elemental Blast
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Tournament 1: ~20+ people
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Round 1 (0-0-0): Steve - R/G fast aggro (unpowered)
I win 2-0. Triskelion in the first game, and the extra Trisk + Bottle Gnomes were too much to handle.
Round 2 (1-0-0): ? - sui (unpowered)
One thing that I remember from this match was an error that he made, which set up an insane turn for me. I think that he thought he had the game under control, because I wasn't showing much on the table. He played a Negator, which is the best removal card available to TnT.
I dropped a Triskelion and welded a Su-Chi for a Masticore to stack 6 damage onto the Negator. His board was wiped out completely.
Round 3 (2-0-0): ? - Stompy (What power? It's Stompy.)
I know that he's running a solid build. It's almost indentical to what The Dude uses. Unfortunately, his deck takes a huge dump on him and he gets rolled. I don't think that he really wanted to see 7 Forests in one game.
Having three aggro matchups in a row was pretty good for me, and I went into the top-8 tied for first seed.
Top 8 (3-0-0): Sam - sui (unpowered)
Sam's been away from Magic for a few months, hasn't seen TnT yet, and gets beaten pretty badly. It was good to chat with him again. He just didn't know the real threats until it was too late.
Top 4 (4-0-0): Ben - 4-color control (fully powered)
We have three long games, where we spend most of our time attacking each other's manabase. Neither of us got any explosive draws, so our decks chipped away at each other. Genesis proved to be the money man in my 2 game wins.
Finals (5-0-0): Nate - 4-color control (fully powered, except Lotus?)
This match is foggy. I remember his deck kind of dying on him. I did get an insanely broken draw in game 2.
I play Tiaga, Lotus, Mox, Su-Chi. He counters Su-Chi with Force of Will. Tap Tiaga, Red Elemental Blast. Can't ask for much better than a fatty, plus two ripped cards from the control player on turn 1.
Results: 1st place (6-0-0)
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Tournament 2: ~26+ people
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This is Dreamer's Type 1. This time for a Beta Mox Jet. These tournaments tend to have a higher level of play than Gametech, but the Gametech crowd is growing up and made a very good showing today. The number of powered decks today was higher than I've ever seen it.
Round 1 (0-0-0): ? - Illusions/Donate (unpowered)
In all the years I've been playing, I've never faced this deck before. In game one, I got a rancid draw which turned into a 5-card mulligan hand that I kept simply because it had land in it. I got an Illusions for my very own. How very giving of my opponent.
Games 2-3 I applied more pressure, and REB helped fend him off when it counted.
Round 2 (1-0-0): Brian (Browser on manadrain) - BBS (fully powered)
God damn, I hate Back to Basics. Even with the 5 main-deck forests, Birds, and Ranger, this card is just stupid. We had a marathon. He rolled me in game 2, but I threw out more threats than he could handle in game 1 and 3. I haven't seen Brian several weeks, so we spent a lot of time chatting. The match itself is mostly a blur to me.
Round 3 (2-0-0): Chris - R/W/u fast aggro with Winter Orb (fully powered, except Lotus)
Chris and I had been playtesting all week, so we were very familiar with this matchup. His deck is fast, and it's good. The problem is that TnT is just as fast, and the creatures are a little bigger and much harder to kill. We had a really good match, but I came out on top. Anger+Fat is just too much for most aggro decks to handle consistantly.
Round 4 (3-0-0): Adam - Gro (fully powered)
Intentional Draw
Top 8 (3-0-1): Craig (Milton on manadrain) - Blood Moon Keeper (fully powered)
I took him in two straight, but any chance he had died to a bad mistake he made to end game one. We were duking it out big time. He had blown damn near his entire deck trying to stop me, and I just kept pumping out threats to try and finish him off. He was at 7, I had a Triskelion with 3 counters. He played a Masticore, but didn't have the mana to regen it. He opted to not block the Trisk the next turn. I'm pretty sure he was thinking that since he'd live through the attack, he'd have me held off when he could untap. When I shot him for the final three points, his jaw just dropped. His brain had malfunctioned and he forgot that Trisk could target players. Craig is an excellent player, so I was quite amazed as well when he said, "No blockers." Ah well though, we've all done these things. (After he died, he flipped over his top card. Yawgmoth's Will. I dodged a bullet big time here.)
Game 2 I got a broken draw, played first turn fat and rode him to victory.
Top 4 (4-0-1): Adam - Gro (fully powered)
Game 1 he started faster than I did, but one turn in particular turned the tide. I was able to Strip Mine and Wasteland his remaining untapped Islands, followed by a Shaman to eat both of his moxes and later the Sol Ring. He tried to Gush into a Force, didn't find it, and was left with a 4/4 Dryad as his only permanent.
Game 2 I had 18 mana avaible to me before I was able to get a creature on the board. Once I was finally able to get Squee + Survival going, I summoned the army and rolled over him.
Finals (5-0-1): John - mono red / artifact (fully powered)
He was playing Workshop, Juggernaut, Su-Chi, Welder, Winter Orb, Cursed Scroll, Lightning Bolt, Incinerate. I didn't see a Triskelion, but I did see a Karn. He won in 3 games. Game 2 featured my first turn Su-Chi that swung twice without being challenged. He dropped a Juggernaught to block on his third turn, which I hit with Artifact Mutation. That was too sweet. He conceded that one. Games 1 and 3 his bolts were the game winners. He had Welders and I didn't, even though I was able to get the Triskelion out for some crowd control. He got more use out of his Welders so he took the match.
In game three, I was fending off his creatues with a Squee, just praying to draw into something useful. Artifact Mutation would have turned the game around in a hurry. I _forgot_ to bring Squee back on my upkeep, and just conceeded. I can't explain why, but I just reached over and drew my card, completely forgetting that I had thrown Squee in the graveyard about 5 seconds ago. He would have beaten me anyway, but I just killed all my chances through one dumb play.
Results: 2nd place (5-1-1)
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So over the course of the weekend, I went 11-1-1. I'm calling that a success. Looking around the room today, I saw a lot of good players with good decks. Minneapolis is definitely coming into its own lately. Even more importantly, every single one of my opponents showed great sportsmanship and was a pleasure to play against.
Another bit of good news is that there were a few people there new to Type-1, or recently returning. We're starting to see an influx of people, which has been showing with the turnout lately.
-- Jim
