Black Lotus Tourney at GP New Orleans

[Amosw99]

I didn't make day two at GP New Orleans so I of course entered the type 1 tournement as the prizes were Beta Black Lotus for first and UNL Mox Emerald for second. The entry fee was only $20 but for some reason people just weren't signing up for it. Ten people signed up really quickly and even though they tried to hold out for 2 hours for more entrants no one else entered. It was a ten person tourney for a Beta Lotus! There were 4 rounds of swiss cut to a top 4.

The decks were (I don't remember all the names):
Enchantress, played by me
Super Gro UGw, Nathan Zamora
Miracle Gro UG
TnT, played by Pete Jahn
Dragon Combo, Andy Stokinger
ICT, Roy Spires
Multi-Colored control w/4 shadowmages
B/W sui with vindicates and verdicts
Zoo thingy
one other that dropped after two losses, didn't see it

Everone but the sui deck had at least some power with a number of the decks fully powered.

First round vs. Nathan Zamora playing Super Gro (ancestral, walk, library, no moxen/lotus)
Game 1:
He mulls and has a slow start with little pressure, I get a quick agothian+sylvan, and even though he has library and lots of counters he can't keep up. I eventually get holistic wisdom on the table and recur pariah and wasteland (he has no non basics) and he scoops.
Game 2: He does much better this game with quick pressure with werebear and a dryad, but I sided in 7 cards and drew many of them. After swordsing a werebear and laying choke he is very mana light so he can't really take advantage of my early pressure. He gets me down to one before I am able to get my Enchantress/Worship going. There were a couple of turns where he could have drawn balance to beat me but didn't.
He was a bit of a rules lawyer and really not much fun to play against.

Round 2, Pete Jahn with TnT (missing walk and one mox i think)
Game 1:
I mull and he is able to bash through my defense quickly, I do tutor for an aura to keep his su chi and juggy and bay, but he gets welder and is able to recur them better than me. After much jockeying for position he swings for the win.
Game 2:
I get an early wasteland and strip mine to keep him mana light, then my moat and seal shut him down for awhile. I am able to get enchantress worship +2 groves fairly quickly for the win.
Game 3:
I double mulligan and he plays a first turn juggy which goes all the way in 4 turns as i mana stumble.

Round 3 vs. Roy Spires with ICT, fully powered
We drove down on the way so it kinda sucks having to play him. Also, his deck is a particularly bad matchup for me, especially after sideboard.

Game 1:
I keep an action light hand and he mana leaks my demonic tutor. He gets an early ancestral, walk, and troll and I am quickly on the defensive. I desparation tutor for pariah which he drains. Then he demonics for will and has enough to kill me without letting me take another turn.

Game 2:
He mulls and keeps an action light hand this time around and I am able to quickly set up the white house of Aura Fracture, Karmic Justice, Aura of Silence, Moat. When I drop sanctum and the little pegasus maker that could he scoops em up.

Game 3:
He gets volcanic+saph and drains my first turn argothian. He then procedes to topdeck sol ring (he told me afterward) and drop cap and cap me. I really had no way to win after that except for the pursuit of knowledge in my hand to try to deck him. I attempted to keep playing and put up a fight, but he caught me with a blood moon when I had no seal out and then it was just a matter of time before his troll did me in.

Round 4 Bye  

So I miss top 4.

top 4 was

Andystok vs. Pete Jahn
Roy vs. Multi colored control guy.

Roy beat multi colored control after losing the first game with some nifty things like turn one blood moon turn two masticore. Andy beat Pete in long drawn out positional games with lots of animating of anger and triskelion on andy's part.

Roy beat Andy in the swiss, but despite turn one planar void in game 2 and a disk on the board in game 3 the matchup was really in Andy's favor and he walked away with the lotus. Overall a really enjoyable tournement, I really wish I had done better myself.
Amos

[Grand Inquisitor]

random miser and mr. team academy in the finals?  sounds like a hoot...

i can't believe so few showed up for the beta lotus.  it did seem like a decent field albeit a small one.  how are you finding enchantress?  was it a metagame choice, a deck you had cards for, or just something you enjoy playing?

[cooberp]

WHAT???  "ICT" is a "really bad matchup" for Enchantress?  You've got to be joking.  Can you post your decklist?  There must be something very, very wrong.  You seemed to have to Paris a hell of a lot.  That looks like a pretty weak field that Enchantress should have done extremely well in as long as you dodged the Dragon Guy (and even then, a timely StP could have won it for you).

[Tron]

Roy finished second in a 10 man tourney? I bet he will be crowing about that for the next five years. It makes me feel bad in my tummy. Too bad Amos. Sometimes evil triumphs.

[TunaBoo]

I would cry if ICT beat me.

[Rakso]

Quote (cooberp @ Jan. 06 2003,17:58)WHAT???  "ICT" is a "really bad matchup" for Enchantress?  You've got to be joking.  Can you post your decklist?  There must be something very, very wrong.  You seemed to have to Paris a hell of a lot.  That looks like a pretty weak field that Enchantress should have done extremely well in as long as you dodged the Dragon Guy (and even then, a timely StP could have won it for you).

Did that read ICT was a good matchup, except Blood Moon might not be?  

I got to admit that hurt, Coob!

[Amosw99]

Hey, Rakso is right, it's roy's sideboard that screws me, not the main deck. He sides in vs. me 3 blood moon and 3 jester's caps and is able to play them REALLY quickly as he somehow drew very broken vs. me all three games. I'm not implying he is cheating or anything, i shuffled his deck and cut and watched him closely but he did draw well.

As for what I played

4 Argothian Enchantress
1 Enchantress's Presence
3 Sylvan Library
4 Replenish
3 Sterling Grove
3 Duress
2 Sacred Mesa
1 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 The Abyss
1 Moat
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Worship
1 Pariah
1 Pursuit of Knowledge
1 Words of Waste
1 City of Solitude
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance
1 Library of Alexandria
7 SoLoMox
4 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Serra's Sanctum
2 Windswept Heath
4 City of Brass

SB:
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Duress
1 Pariah
2 Choke
1 Aura Fracture
1 Celestial Dawn
1 Compost
1 Worship
2 Circle of Protection Red
1 Karmic Justice
1 Aura of Silence

I think that overall I was well prepared for the field. If I had to change anything about the deck I would go down to 3 cities and add another windswept heath. Also, I would change the worship in the sideboard to the 4th swords as they were the mvp's of the sideboard.

When I began the first round and looked around a little, I realized that the decks to beat were TnT, Dragon, and ICT. I know that ICT is a terrible deck, but Roy has been playing it since the beginning of time and he is actually very good with it and knowing his sideboard I was afraid. Basically, my sideboarding plan vs. Roy is to side in as much enchantment and artifact hate as possible and just try my best to not lose to blood moon. I do

+1 Aura Fracture
+1 Celestial Dawn
+2 Choke
+1 Aura of Silence
+1 Karmic Justice

-1 The Abyss
-1 Overgrown Estate
-1 Sterling Grove
-1 Words of Waste (bringing better stuff in)
-1 Enchantress's presence
-1 Duress

I know it's kind of wierd but i think it works quite well. As to coober, yeah i did mull alot but it was not really questionable, I can't exactly keep scrubland Ruby hands where the only two drop is sylvan. Or hands with 5 mana sources Pursuit of Knowledge and Aura of Silence. I just drew poorly.
I also felt I got a little unlucky with the pairings. There was a point in the tourney where I could have been paired against the straight U/G gro or the 4 color blue control deck which are both better matchups than TnT or ICT for me and i ended up against those two decks  

By the way, I don't know much about the 4 color blue deck but It kind of looked like keeper without permanent creature control (i.e. no abyss or moat) and 4 shadowmages and 2 serendib efreets. It had drains, Fow's, saclands, balance, regrowth, fire/ice, cunning wish, and some other keeper ish spells. It was also really cool looking (all BB power and stuff)

Also, the gro decks looked kind of suboptimal, the straight u/g one was running like 3 merchant scrolls, and the ugw one was running no nonbasics even though it ran around 6 saclands. Had he had a basic forest to sacland for he would have been much better off vs. me under choke after sideboard.

Alot of the testing that was done on the deck by myself and others really paid off over the weekend. I LOVED holistic wisdom. It won me game one vs. super gro, it kept me in a game that was otherwise unwinnable vs. Tnt, and it helped vs. roy even though it was too little too late. I also was very happy with the third sylvan, I didn't really miss my tutor's that I used to be so attached to. I even liked enchantress's presence in the one game i drew it.

One thing I have seen other enchantress decks do in testing that i disagree with is to cut a mox (ruby i guess) to go up on actual land. I absolutely LOVE drawing my off color moxen in my opening hand, and later on they are still nice to fuel sacred mesa and holistic wisdom etc. I think they are $120 cards for a reason and that the explosiveness that one gains from having the 5th mox is nescessary in a fully powered environment.

Amos

[dan_hellspawn]

Only 10 players and they still gave the Beta Lotus?

Great deal.

Was this run by WOTC? Or an outside group.

[Zherbus]

Star 'We-sell-Workshops-for-$80' citygames.com sponsered it.

[riverboa11]

I wonder if R-M used Backwash at the tournament?  

[Pegasus Token]

Quote (Amosw99 @ Jan. 09 2003,04:22)By the way, I don't know much about the 4 color blue deck but It kind of looked like keeper without permanent creature control (i.e. no abyss or moat) and 4 shadowmages and 2 serendib efreets. It had drains, Fow's, saclands, balance, regrowth, fire/ice, cunning wish, and some other keeper ish spells. It was also really cool looking (all BB power and stuff)

Sounds like Jeff Stones (a local)... can't imagine anyone else playing a deck like that...