2001)

A Brief Tournament Report for PTQ: New York @ Columbus, OH (6.30.01)Andrews

Saturday, June 30th was Team Card-Shark’s second team-limited Pro-Tour Qualifier of the season. Despite some scheduling difficulty hooking up with Kiet Ngo’s team to share rides and rooms, Travis, Troy, and I were in high spirits as we headed to Columbus, Ohio on Friday night for the PTQ the next morning.

Here is the card pool we received to build decks from:

Blue:
Stormscape Apprentice / 2: Tidal Visionary / Ceta Disciple / Vodalian Mystic / 2:Vodalian Hypnotic / Arctic Merfolk / Dream Thrush / Metathran Zombie / Living Airship / Vodalian Serpent / Empress Galina / Faerie Squadron / Sisay’s Ingenuity / Shimmering Wings / Index / Confound / Shimmering Mirage / Worldly Counsel / Jilt / Phantasmal Terrain / Ceta Sanctuary / Rushing River / Repulse / Wash Out

White:
Prison Barricade / Obsidian Acolyte / Crimson Acolyte / Angelfire Crusader / Aurora Griffin / Glimmering Angel / Razorfoot Griffin / Rampant Elephant / Guard Dogs / Orim’s Chant / Shield of Duty and Reason / Holy Day / Pledge of Loyalty / Aura Blast / Orim’s Thunder / Reviving Dose / Rewards of Diversity / Protective Sphere / Dismantling Blow / Strength of Unity

Green:
Thornscape Apprentice / Nomadic Elf / Kavu Titan / Alpha Kavu / Penumbra Bobcat / Stone Kavu / Serpentine Kavu / Kavu Chameleon / Kavu Climber / Explosive Growth / Gaea’s Might / Aggressive Urge / Canopy Surge / Urborg Elf / Quirion Trailblazer / 2:Fertile Ground / Wandering Stream / Vigorous Charge / Falling Timber / Amphibious Kavu / Llanowar Elite / Ana Disciple / Strength of Night

Red:
Mogg Sentry / Thunderscape Familiar / Kavu Scout / Kavu Glider / Slimy Kavu / Thunderscape Battlemage / 2:Overload / Scorching Lava / Breath of Darigaaz / Savage Offensive / Tribal Flames / Shivan Harvest / Smash / Insolence / Wild Research / Zap / Dwarven Landslide / Magma Burst / Obliterate

Black:
Phyrexian Battleflies / Nightscape Apprentice / Urborg Skeleton / 2:Nightscape Familiar / Quagmire Druid / Urborg Emissary / Urborg Phantom / Grave Defiler / Firescreamer / Volcano Imp / Zombie Boa / Duskwalker / Cursed Flesh / Sinister Strength / Mourning / Shriek of Dread / Hypnotic Cloud / Defiling Tears / Mind Extraction / Soul Burn / Agonizing Demise / Exotic Disease / Dead Ringers / Yawgmoth’s Agenda / Annihilate

Gold:
Razorfin Hunter / Yavimaya Barbarian / Putrid Warrior / Riptide Crab / Raging Kavu / Horned Cheetah / Spiritmonger / Hull Breach / Wings of Hope / 2:Sleeper’s Robe / Meteor Storm / Malicious Advice / Soul Link / Daring Leap / Darigaaz’s Charm / Seer’s Vision / Frenzied Tilling / 2:Plague Spores

Split, Artifact, and Lands:
Fire/Ice / Stand/Deliver / Dodecapod / Crosis’s Attendant / Elfhame Palace / Crosis’s Catacombs / Ancient Spring / Sulfur Vent / 2:Geothermal Crevice

This card pool was pretty interesting, as it had some quirks to it. First of all, there was no white removal such as Shackles, Manacles of Decay, or Hobble at all. There was a lot of red removal, and a good share of black removal as well. Green had a good number of beefy creatures, as well as Gaea’s Might, Explosive Growth, and Aggressive Urge for instant critter-pumping. The card pool was certainly strong enough to support three solid decks, but unfortunately, we did not do so well in the deck construction portion of the event. Here’s what happened to our decks.

A lot of the time in Invasion team sealed, Troy ends up playing Black/Blue/Red or Black/Blue/White, while Travis frequently plays an aggressive deck based in Red and Green, often with some assistance from Black or White. When we received our decks, we each took a stack of cards to double-check against the registration sheet for errors. As we each looked through our own stack, we all saw similar things – good burn, good green critters, and so on, and before we had even gotten the cards completely sorted out we had already decided there was probably a good Black/Red/Green aggressive deck for Travis, and a Blue/Black/Red deck for Troy. We were making decisions without having gotten the cards spread out on the table and reviewing our entire card pool before beginning to build. By the time I had the white and gold cards sorted out for review, Travis had already stacked up a good amount of the red and green in the beginnings of what would become his deck. By biasing our initial decisions early instead of reviewing the complete card pool, we made a serious mistake that cost us dearly in the tournament.

As we threw a few black cards Travis’s way and Troy began to rough out his Black/Blue/Red deck, I looked down at what was left, and it wasn’t much. Two strong decks and one weak one is not a good approach to team sealed, and we soon decided something wasn’t right. We tinkered around with the color combinations a bit, moving cards around, and eventually decided that Travis’s deck should be just Red-Green, and that the Spiritmonger should find it’s way into Troy’s deck, which would then be Blue-Black-Green. Some of the red removal would find its way into my Blue-White-Red deck, which would also feature some neat tricks like Jilt and Orim’s Thunder. While we were tinkering with the color combinations, the clock kept ticking down. When we finally get our decks roughed out, we could certainly sense something was wrong, as there were solid cards like Plague Spores and Darigaaz’s Charm we weren’t able to utilize in the color combinations we’d chosen. We talked about some possible changes, but finally after a look at the clock and seeing little time remaining, an executive decision was made to tune and register what we had, before time ran out on us. Sadly, when time did run out, the judges asked for a show of hands from teams that had not yet completed deck registration, and approximately 1/4 of the teams in the room weren’t ready yet. The head judge gave an extra ten minutes for deck registration, an amount of time that could have been helpful for us to work out our deck construction problems had we known it was available, but such is life. We headed into the first round, knowing something was not quite right about our decks.

Travis:

Thornscape Apprentice
Nomadic Elf
Kavu Titan
Alpha Kavu
Penumbra Bobcat
Stone Kavu
Serpentine Kavu
Kavu Chameleon
Kavu Climber
Thunderscape Familiar
Thunderscape Battlemage
Slimy Kavu
Yavimaya Barbarian
Raging Kavu
Breath of Darigaaz
Scorching Lava
Magma Burst
Obliterate
Meteor Storm
Explosive Growth
Gaea’s Might
Aggressive Urge
Canopy Surge
8:Mountain
9:Forest

Troy:

Urborg Elf
Dream Thrush
Living Airship
Faerie Squadron
Nightscape Apprentice
Phyrexian Battleflies
Nightscape Familiar
Urborg Phantom
Urborg Emissary
Volcano Imp
Duskwalker
Spiritmonger
Confound
Repulse
Rushing River
Cursed Flesh
Hypnotic Cloud
Soul Burn
Agonizing Demise
Dead Ringers
Annihilate
Yawgmoth’s Agenda
Sleeper’s Robe
7:Swamp
6:Island
4:Forest

Dave (Me):

2:Tidal Visionary
Stormscape Apprentice
Vodalian Serpent
Crimson Acolyte
Obsidian Acolyte
Prison Barricade
Angelfire Crusader
Aurora Griffin
Glimmering Angel
Razorfoot Griffin
Kavu Glider
Kavu Scout
Razorfin Hunter
Riptide Crab
Jilt
Wash Out
Orim’s Thunder
Tribal Flames
Zap
Wings of Hope
Stand/Deliver
Fire/Ice
6:Island
6:Plains
5:Mountain

The individual matches simply weren’t very interesting. Our opponents were all good people, with no bizarre or wacky events occurring along the way to make for an interesting tale. The games were pretty dull, at least for me, as I simply won in most matchups versus decks playing colors that made my Acolytes strong, and lost otherwise. I can think of no really interesting plays or turns of events that couldn’t just be described as one deck rolling over another. The sub optimal builds for our decks really hurt us, and we finished a disappointing 4-3-1, which is far from what we were shooting for.

So, what should we have done different in deck construction? When I got home and laid out the cards to try to figure out the answer to that very question, it didn’t take long to discover a much better set of builds for our card pool. Our first choices for color combinations (the colors we abandoned to build the sub-optimal decks we ended up playing) were quite close to what we should have made our final decision. Unfortunately, by not having the green spread out, we had not realized the depth of green fat that could be spread to multiple decks, nor did we realize that a simply green-red deck would be very top-heavy in the mana curve. Because we didn’t see the green that was available for my deck to work with, and because the blue bounce that belonged in my card pool was sitting in Troy’s, due to the black that belonged in his deck being assigned to Travis’s, giving Travis far too many playable cards for one deck, my deck looked very weak, when just a few adjustments could have made it much stronger. The decks that became obvious after a more thorough review of the card pool are as follows:

Nightscape Apprentice
Phyrexian Battleflies
Tidal Visionary
2:Nightscape Familiar
Vodalian Hypnotist
Razorfin Hunter
Kavu Glider
Volcano Imp
Zombie Boa
Urborg Emissary
Duskwalker
Breath of Darigaaz
Fire/Ice
Jilt
2:Sleeper’s Robe
Soul Burn
Agonizing Demise
Dead Ringers
Annihilate
Yawgmoth’s Agenda
Hypnotic Cloud
Plague Spores
Sulfur Vent
Crosis’s Catacombs
6:Swamp
5:Mountain
4:Island

This deck is very solid – decent creatures, good removal in both black and red (not to mention Jilt, the blue removal) to even get around Acolytes, and card advantage from Yawgmoth’s Agenda, Sleeper’s Robe, and Hypnotic Cloud. This deck could have been a real monster for us.

Nomadic Elf
Quirion Explorer
Thunderscape Familiar
Yavimaya Barbarian
Kavu Scout
Alpha Kavu
Raging Kavu
Quirion Trailblazer
Thunderscape Battlemage
Serpentine Kavu
Kavu Chameleon
Kavu Climber
Spiritmonger
Explosive Growth
Gaea’s Might
Canopy Surge
Tribal Flames
Scorching Lava
Meteor Storm
Zap
Darigaaz’s Charm
Magma Burst
Plague Spores
2:Geothermal Crevice
7:Swamp
4:Mountain
4:Swamp

Look at the big beasts in this deck, backed up by solid removal. This deck could have left some serious footprints across our opponents’ faces.

Tidal Visionary
Stormscape Apprentice
Thornscape Apprentice
Prison Barricade
Crimson Acolyte
Obsidian Acolyte
Kavu Titan
Amphibious Kavu
Penumbra Bobcat
Riptide Crab
Razorfoot Griffin
Aurora Griffin
Living Airship
Glimmering Angel
Stone Kavu
Faerie Squadron
Vodalian Serpent
Worldly Counsel
Confound
Stand/Deliver
Repulse
Rushing River
Wash Out
Elfhame Palace
7:Island
5:Plains
4:Forest

The weakest of the three decks, this deck still has a clear path to victory and good cards to support that plan. This deck has a good share of flyers to fly over for the win, while stalling the ground with tappers, fatties, and bounce. Even as the weakest deck in the group, this deck should have been capable of a winning record, earning plenty of wins to support the better two decks in a top-2 bid at this tournament.

Not every player likes to run out and write a report about how his team managed to screw up a PTQ, but I hope that some readers will find this report useful. Just a simple, procedural error, shortcutting into deck construction before a thorough review of the card pool was completed, cost us huge at this tournament. Every little thing counts when tournament-time comes – make sure you do things right, so that you don’t get stuck in Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda Land like we did for this PTQ.

Good Luck!

Rate Article

5 (best) 4 3 2 1

Discuss Article

Click here to discuss this article in forum or leave comments for the author.

RSS Feed

This article is provided to you by CardShark.com - A Better Way to Buy and Sell Collectable Games Online. Please check out the rest of our site - you won't be disappointed.

View More Articles