WORLDS NEWS AND UPDATES--WINDFALL WINS!

[Windfall]

I just got home after a long ride through countless traffic backups and I wanted to thank everyone for their props and support!

...All I can say is that it's a damn good feeling...

I played my way through many great players; it was not easy in the slightest.  Thanks to everyone for an amazing time!

The reports will please you, I promise.  They were the best games of Magic I have ever played; no contest there.

     ~Mark B.

[everythingitouchdies]

Congrats Mark!  I really enjoyed playing with you all summer and am glad to see that all your effort and hard work was so justly rewarded with such a sweet, sweet victory.

LONG LIVE PANDEMONIUM T1!  I'm going to miss it while I'm away at school.

-The "anti-member" of Team Gone-fishin', the one you packed all that hate for and stomped into the ground on all but one occasion   ), Justin

Well you broke the first law of Team Gone Fishin' when you played Fish. And while you may have taken a round from THE T1 WORLD CHAMPION once, you werent so lucky with his counterpart. DIE FISH DIE!!!

Nothing better than to see all that hard work and excellent play skill pay off. Prepare to meet the WHOLE Gone Fishin' Team at Star City Chicago.

[Dante]

The reports will please you, I promise.  They were the best games of Magic I have ever played; no contest there.

     ~Mark B.

I was watching your games 1 and 2 vs Kevin and Carl (Winter) sitting next to me said, "those were the best games of Magic I've seen in a long time", which was exactly what I was thinking.  I hope the Pastimes guys/TMD guys who were taking notes each turn can put out some sort of a coherent report/log of games 1 and 2.

Those games were loooooong too - in the other side of the bracket, Dave Allen had won both his first and second round MATCHes (into the FINALS)  while you guys were still finishing game 2 of the first round top 8 match.

Bill

[Razer51]

I agree, it was such a pleasure watching those games, some of the best games I have seen in a while.  Way to Mana Burn down to 1 in the last game BTW.  Every good game needs some tension.  Ill have to make it down to Pandemonium next Monday to shake your hand.

Chris

[DameonHv]

I've only posted here a couple times, so not many of you know me.  I was the one taking notes on Mark's side of the table for his games against Kevin.  I played Fish and scrubbed out to 4CC x 2 after stealing a draw from Bushman in the first round.  I'll write up what I have later today.  Pip was watching Kevin, I'm sure he'll have something to report as well.

[Kowal]

Congrats Mark.  Those finals were tight, I wanted to cheer for both of you.

A note about the poor judge call:  I was talking to the HJ after the match, and the basic idea is, we had all been brain fried after 14 hours of magic.  Somebody in the crowd whispered the question of why it was in Dave's graveyard to me, and I asked the judge about it.  Apparently Pete Hoefling asked him the same question, and he was exhausted enough to miss the interaction.

I'm receiving all the photos WOTC took during the event via email this week, and I've got more notes and coverage than God.  I'll be sending my stuff to Starcity before Friday.

[Green Knight]

Congrats Windfall on a Job well done!

[ELD]

Congrats to Windfall.  Glad to see control slaver won it all.

[Cpkrug]

congrats windfall!!!
way to bring one home for Michigan!
i hope to catch you guys one more time before school starts in Detroit.
charlie

[Smmenen]

Congrats mark, your games against Kevin were insane and are legendary.  

I am very pleased that the players in the top 8 played so well so that we didn't have the problems that Gencon had last Year (although I wasn't there).  I was very impressed by your plays with Control Slaver and I think everyone else there was as well.  Your use of Brainstorm was just one example.  

My only regret is that I didn't get to play you in the top 8 .  Our match would have been savage.

Steve

[Shock Wave]

Mark was very focused and played his deck rather flawlessly. I still want a rematch though, I was quite unlucky.

[DameonHv]

Grrr.  Stupid timing out.  This is my second time writing this monstrosity up.

Game 1 Mark keeps a bad hand with no action.  He has FoWx2, Drain, Island, Citadel, Duress, Pentavus.

Kev has a turn 1 trinisphere off shop that Mark Forces pitching his drain.  Mark sees nothing for a few turns while Kev goes crazy with stacks, wires, a welder, and CoW.  Mark scoops.

Game 2 was one of the best games of magic I have ever seen.

Mark boards Plats, Sunder Tits, and FoF out for Mogg Salvage x 2 and Duress.

His opening hand is: FoW, Drain, Tinker, Welder, Sapph, Slaver, and...Pearl  

He says he learned his lesson from game 1 and tosses the hand back.  His second one is FoW, Thirst, Island, Volc, Volc, Sea.  He plays Island, go.  Kev plays wasteland, petal, emerald, Crucible of Worlds.  Mark has a bunch of non-basics in his hand and with that wasteland the CoW would be devastating so Mark goes balls to the wall by Forcing the CoW with his only business spell.  Luckily, Kev has no other lands in his hand.  It is especially lucky because Mark draws over the next few turns another Island, Sapph, and Ruby.  He would have been fine under the Crucible.  Phew.  Kev's draw, go finally ends after 4 turns.  He sees a shop and drops a CoW.

On his next turn Mark sees Slaver and hard casts it.  Kevin plays Wire, wastes Mark's Volc, and plays tormod's crypt.  Mark bides his time on the slaver.  He taps down for the tangle wire and draws Yawgmoth's Will.  Note the Yawg Will, it sits there for a good 12 turns.  Kev goes smokestack, go.  Mark taps down.  Kev ends his next turn with tangle wire with 2 counters, smokestack with 1 counter, and 6 cards in hand.  

Mark activates the slaver on his next upkeep.  Kevin wastes his own waste and crypt's Mark's graveyard.  Kevin's hand was mana crypt, meditate, Fire/Ice, CoW, Wheel of Fortune, Trisk.  Mark sacks CoW and Workshop to the stack.  Draws another Tangle Wire and ends the turn.

Mark draws FoW.  Kevin sacks to stack, which now has 3 counters on it.  He plays crypt and City of Brass for a Tangle Wire.  Mark goes down to one tapped island for permanents.  He then draws Ancestral Recall.  One island left and he draws Ancestral Recall.  That's some good right there.  Kev plays meditate on his upkeep, which resolves.  He sacks all but his smokestack and takes 3 from the crypt.  Time to start this game over!!  Kevin discards Triskelion and Tangle Wire.  Mark casts Ancestral on his upkeep and loses his island.  On his meditate turn he plays Underground Sea and Duress.  He takes a CoW.  His hand is brainstorm x2, welder, thirst.

Kevin loses his smokestack.  Land, go.  Mark draws another FoW and casts brainstorm.  He snags an island and puts two welders on top of his library.  Kevin plays a CoB and taps it for a Monolith taking him to 14.  Mark draws one of his welders and brainstorms into a fetch and his fourth FoW.  He shuffles away a welder and a mogg salvage and casts his welder.  Kevin attempts to play Tangle Wire which Mark forces pitching force.  Kev wasts his Volc and plays Tolarian Academy.  Mark draws yet another brainstorm and uses it.

Here's where Mark gets broken.  Remember that Yawg Will he's had in hand?  His Brainstorm sees DT.  Mark DTs for Lotus.  Lotus casts Yawg Win.  Yawg Win returns to play sapph, ruby, emerald, lotus.  Mark goes crazy with Ancestral, thirst, brainstorm, brainstorm, welder, pearl, crypt, sol ring.  Storm count: 15.  His hand is FoW number 4, Thirst, and brainstorm.

Kev plays ruby, shop, stack, go.  Mark does land, go.  Kev untaps monolith EoT taking some burn.  He's at 11 now.  His smokestack has a counter on it.  He taps everything to play Sundering Titan from his hand with mana to spare.  Mark hardcasts his final FoW.  Kevin plays Wheel of Fortune.  Mark Thirsts in response seeing junk.  He has 2 blue open and decides to brainstorm instead of keeping double blue up for one of the four mana drains he has yet to draw.  Brainstorm sees...Mana Drain!  Oh well, he's sittin pretty with a full grip and some welders.  His hand is now drain, salvage, time walk, jet, duress, thirst, and welder number 4.  Kevin finishes up with Fire for the 2 welders on the board.  13 mana in one turn seems pretty good.  In response, Mark welds Kevin's Ruby into a crypt and smokestack for a new one.

Mark draws another Drain.  He plays Jet and casts duress.  Duress sees DT, Welder, CoW, stripmine, and a Blue Elemental Blast.  He grabs the BEB and plays out his last Welder.  He casts Time Walk and draws another Duress to grab the DT.  So brutal.  Mark Thirsts and sees a slaver to drop in the yard and a mystical tutor.  I don't think it gets much better.  He takes Kevin's turn.  He sees tinker on the draw and mysticals eot for his own tinker.  On his turn he tinkers for Pentavus with 3 cards left in his library.  He uses the slaver again and plays Kevin's Welder.  Kevin has less than 10 life from CoB and Crypt damage.  Mark swings for 5 and takes Kevin's turn using Kev's welder to put the Slaver out again.  Kevin concedes.

Game 3 is savage.  It can be summed up by the following:  Kevin mulligans to 5 and Mark has a god draw.  Mark took out the 2 Mogg Salvages for BEB.  His opening hand is 2x delta, duress, FoW, Thirst, Jet, Drain.  I don't think stax has a 5 card hand that can deal with that.  Kevin certainly doesn't draw one.  Wasteland, go is probably not going to cut it.  Mark draws mystical tutor (!) and plays , fetch, jet, duress.  Kevin's hand is pretty good.  He has Wheel, Tinker, Crypt, and Pearl.  Mark takes the wheel.  Kev plays crypt, pearl, tinker which eats Force of Will pitching Thirst.  EoT Mark mysticals for tinker.  On his turn he tinkers for Pentavus.  Mark still has a drain in his hand for the Welder 2 turns later and just swings for the win.

[Smmenen]

So they played one functional game of magic.

[DameonHv]

Pretty much.  It was an amazing one, though.  And even in that one they had 4 turns of absolutely nothing happening in the beginning.

[thorme]

Congrats to Windfall.  It was fun playing in the finals, and you played well.

Congrats Mark.  Those finals were tight, I wanted to cheer for both of you.

A note about the poor judge call:  I was talking to the HJ after the match, and the basic idea is, we had all been brain fried after 14 hours of magic.  Somebody in the crowd whispered the question of why it was in Dave's graveyard to me, and I asked the judge about it.  Apparently Pete Hoefling asked him the same question, and he was exhausted enough to miss the interaction.

Just so everyone is clear here.  I played the Dup knowing it would immediately die, but needed to remove the Pentavus before Windfall got to untap...I wasn't thrilled about having to "waste" a Tinker this way, but it was the best I could do at the time.

Anyway, I play the Dup and place it in the grave.  At the end of my turn, the Head Judge of the event let me know that I should leave the Duplicant in play, since "the Pentavus had still had 3 counters on it".  (as I remember it, Windfall agreed with him).  I simply said "My Mistake" and placed it back into play.  The Head Judge had spoken....and the Head Judge IS the DCI and the rule-maker in these events.  (as it turns out, the free Hill Giant simply delayed my demise by a turn)

So I agree with everyone that the Judging left a bit to be desired.  A REL4 event should have a Level 3 Judge, and Duplicant is a card also played in Block and Type 2, so that was disappointing to see.



I too will be writing a tournament report, so look forward to that.  Also, as an FYI, I go by David (rather than Dave), and it's Thorme, not Throme.

Lastly, a reminder that despite all odds...the wheels on the Short Bus keep going 'round and 'round.  

[Akuma]

Congratulations Mark on the win.

The gods of magic were with you that day, you played very well and are a SAVAGE top decking machine. I wish I had been a little sharper during our semifinals matchup, but the 300 hour wait for your match with Kevin Cron wiped me out.

@JACO - Thanks for clearing up the deck issue and for being a bitch and not including me as part of the West Coast team!

Gen Con was awesome, I can honestly say that the field was very strong. I did not play a single weak player the whole day (well, except for Dave, you know Throme   ).

I enjoyed meeting / seeing everyone again from TMD.
- Team Short Bus, as Tracerbullet would likely say, is HOT
- Rich (Shockwave), you are an awesome player/competitor. Only bad luck kept you out of the top 8.

I hope to see all of you next year, when we all make a return appearance in the Top 8  

[JACO]

@JACO - Thanks for clearing up the deck issue and for being a bitch and not including me as part of the West Coast team!

Here's a small update as to the Top 8 decks:
Gio (Akuma on TMD) from LA (one of two players from Team BHWC in attendance) wasn't playing The Man Show, he was playing a straight Black/Red (no blue, white, or green) deck that was basically the TnT skeleton, minus the green for Survivals, but with main deck Chains of Mephistopheles and Blood Moon instead. He piloted this to Top 4

Nick Trudeau (nickvos on TMD) from San Diego, and the other attending member of Team BHWC (Bitches&HoesWesCoast), piloted the red/green TnT deck I designed for him (TTTnC - Trinispheres, Tools, Tubbies, 'n' Crucibles) to Top 8. The deck and sideboard were teched out for the meta, and he went undefeated in the swiss (6-0-2), beating at least one Mean Deck member (Joe Bushman) that I know of.

Gio, I apologize for my grievous omission and uncharacteristic oversight of how Team Bitches&HoesWesCoast owned the 2004 World Championshiop event. Out of 2 members attending, 2 placed in the Top 8 (100%, for you non-math majors out there), pretty much ending this TSB vs. Meandeck debate as to who's the best team in Type 1 ; )-

But seriously, congratulations to everybody in the Top 8, and special props/dap to thorme (David Allen of TSB), who has placed in both the 2003 and 2004 World Championship Top 8's, as well as to Shockwave (Rich Mattiuzzo of the Royal Canadian Mounties), who pretty much dominated the Type 1 events at GenCon 2003, and was close to Top 8ing this year's World Championship as well.

[Dante]

But seriously, congratulations to everybody in the Top 8, and special props/dap to thorme (David Allen of TSB), who has placed in both the 2003 and 2004 World Championship Top 8's, as well as to Shockwave (Rich Mattiuzzo of the Royal Canadian Mounties), who pretty much dominated the Type 1 events at GenCon 2003, and was close to Top 8ing this year's World Championship as well.

So did Kevin Cron (Top 8 both years)

Bill

[thorme]

But seriously, congratulations to everybody in the Top 8, and special props/dap to thorme (David Allen of TSB), who has placed in both the 2003 and 2004 World Championship Top 8's

I appreciate it.  As mentioned, Kevin Cron joined me in the Top 8 for the reunion.  There were so many fantastic players that really impressed me this weekend.  Shockwave, DicemanX, the Dutch, Meandeck, the list goes on and on.

I had an amazing several days of Magic...some of the best I've ever played.  I had to stay at peak performance the entire time, and for this reason, I would have collapsed if I tried to play more than 3 events, so I am amazed at those who played in just about all of them.  

I completed my Gencon with a 17-3-2 record in sanctioned Type 1 matches, winning the early Friday event at 6-0-1, before going to the finals in the Saturday main event.  Lady Luck was certainly with me for those days, as well as having the advantage of playtesting with the other members of Team Short Bus...I doubt a stronger group of folks to play against exists.

[Smmenen]

Yeah.  I was thinking about it - and I only played in two events - Friday afternoon at the Main event and there is only one person the whole weekend I lost to: David in both events

Meandeck also performed very, very well for having so few people show.  We thought Zherbus, Doug Linn and possibly Saucemaster might come.  It was only Carl, Me, Joe and Kevin with Matt Smith being a close associate.  

That's 4 people, and we put 2 in the top 8 - that's 50% of our group.  Only Joe and I played on Friday, and once again, one of us made top 8.  We might have been slim on numbers, but we performed just as well as anyone else.

[Triple_S]

In the head to head matchups over the weekend I believe the ShortBus vs Meandeck games went like this:

Smmenen (Death Long) def Triple_S (Vengeur Masque)
Triple_S (Masque) def Joe Bushman (Hulk)
Thorme (5/3) def Smmenen (Death Long)
Thorme (5/3) ID Smmenen (Smmenen U)
Thorme (5/3) def Smmenen (Smmenen U)

3-1-1 in favor of Shortbus in the heads up matches but both teams put up good efforts for the weekend.

If not for the poor Judging Shockwave would have made another top 8 as well.  In my opinion, he is the best all around player in Vintage today as he is an amazing player, deckbuilder, and person in general.

[Windfall]

Though I do admit to having an unfair advantage against Shockwave, starting the match at 1-0, I refuse to simply state that he would have beaten me and made top 8.  After all, I did win the one real game we played and that was after he dropped a first turn Chalice for 1 when my hand had Ancestral, Welder, and 2 Brainstorms in it!

It would have been a good game 2/3, and I will happily play him again next time I see him whether it be for fun or for serious matters.  I had hoped to lull the team rivalry a bit by defeating members of Shortbus and Meandeck, but it appears that won't happen any time soon  

   ~Mark B .

[Triple_S]

Mark--

I didn't mean to imply that it was a given that Shockwave would have defeated you if not for a game loss...you are both highly skilled players with highly tuned decks.  I was more pointing again at the inconsistent judging at the event.  You earned your title.

But you are right, I doubt that there will be a lull in the war of words b/t meandeck and TSB  

[Shock Wave]

Though I do admit to having an unfair advantage against Shockwave, starting the match at 1-0, I refuse to simply state that he would have beaten me and made top 8.  After all, I did win the one real game we played and that was after he dropped a first turn Chalice for 1 when my hand had Ancestral, Welder, and 2 Brainstorms in it!

It would have been a good game 2/3, and I will happily play him again next time I see him whether it be for fun or for serious matters.  I had hoped to lull the team rivalry a bit by defeating members of Shortbus and Meandeck, but it appears that won't happen any time soon  

   ~Mark B .

Mark, you earned it dude, no doubt about that. It just really sucked to start a game down, I'm sure it would've been more satisfying for you to win in 3 hard fought games. That's the way it goes though, I don't think anyone is trying to discredit your achievements.

[rvs]

To be really honest, Mark's control slaver deck would be a pretty tough matchup for Rich's deck to beat regardless.

To win events, you need to be
a)Strong
b)A little lucky, in both pairings and matches.