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physcosick

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 12:47 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 229 Location:

--- description ---
Physcosick goes to MTG States, follows a Gifts Control deck around, and reports his observations.
--- end description ---

October 22nd, 2005, will go down in history in the minds of every competitive Magic player as the top 8 at States competed for the coveted title of Champ. The somewhat prestigious tournament required much planning for most individuals involved. Players spent their money building their decks and play tested online against other hopeful duelists with the same goal as them. However, some were disappointed, while others shined in glory. For the purpose of privacy for myself and other individual duelists, I will not release the name of the state at hand. The point of this article is not the state in which this particular tournament was held; this is about the tournament and Type 2 in general; about good magic players playing awesome decks and the way each performed. Also, the players names will not be mentioned either. Instead, they will be referred to the deck in which they are playing with. Now to the decks:

Top 8:
WR Aggro vs. MBC
UB Reanimator vs. GW Control
UW Control vs. Gifts Control
Zoo Sunforger vs. Rock

My feature deck will be Gifts Control, the deck I followed around for the majority of the tournament. Here is the deck:
Lands: 22
2 Watery Grave
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Llanowar Waste
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Minamo, School at water’s Edge
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
3 Swamp
5 Forest
3 Island

Creatures: 12
4 Sakura-tribe Elder
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Kagemaro, first to suffer
1 Hana Kami
1 Grave-shell Scarab
1 Verdant Force

Other: 25
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Putrefy
4 Kodama’s Reach
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Soulless Revival
1 Wear Away
3 Hideous Laughter
1 Vigor Mortis
1 Death Denied
1 Zombify
1 Recollect
1 Cranial Extraction

SB: 15
2 Ghost-lit Stalker
2 Cranial Extraction
1 Nourishing Shoal
2 Exile into Darkness
3 Genju of the Cedars
1 Rending Veins
3 Last Gasp
1 Nightmare Void

Round 1:

Game 1: vs. UW
-Gifts won the roll and decided to go first. Gifts keeps but UW quickly mulled down to six (6) and keeps. Things for Gifts started off good with a first turn Sensei’s Divining Top and a second turn sakura-tribe elder. After several turns of Elder beat down, Gifts decided to make their move. He sacrificed Elder and searched for a land. UW control was at 12 life. With 5 lands available, Gifts played Grave-Shell Scarab, which received the old fashioned counter. But thanks to a new ability called dredge, UW was now on the defensive, trying to maintain card advantage while keeping all threats off the board. UW’s draws were pretty dead and he managed to counter the majority of the Scarabs, if not, he played Wrath of God to destroy the dreaded Scarab. UW Controls hand became empty after several turns, which resulted in a top deck of Yosei, the Morning Star but UW was starring at a Grave-shell Scarab. With no other option he played the Dragon and passed the turn. A couple of turns passed and all UW could find was a land and a Genju of the Fields. Gifts then tapped 8 mana and took a card and slammed it on the table. What could it be?! Why it’s Verdant Force! After a few turns UW could do nothing but scoop to the power that is the Force. With no luck on the draws, i.e. no Wrath of Gods, UW was helpless.
Gifts- 1 UW- 0

Game 2:
-This was an overall better match for both participants. Things seemed to be going UW’s way with his first turn Genju of the Fields. The genju helped the stall Gifts and all of that life gain made it harder for Gifts to pull out a victory. Things looked okay for Gifts when he cast Gifts Ungiven. But it was Hindered to the bottom. Recurring Nightmare Voids literally became a nightmare for UW; he lost major threats such as Meloku and Yosei. UW attempted to get some card advantage going by playing Jushi Apprentice, but that met it’s demise through a Hideous Laughter. UW then played a Meloku the Clouded Mirror with an empty hand due to the Nightmare Voids. With all of the discard Gifts was able to resolve a Gifts Ungiven and search for Meloku the Clouded Mirror, Recollect, Rending Veins, Recollect, and Putrefy. With UW in control of a Meloku and Genju, UW decided to give Gifts Putrefy and Rending Veins. Gifts then cast putrefy targeting meloku which was responded by generating 5 1/1 Blue illusion tokens with flying. After an attack with everything UW owned, he slowly passed the turn with one card in hand. Gifts luckily top decked hideous laughter, and with creatures in his hand, he won’t have a problem in the near future. He cast Hideous Laughter which was quickly Hindered.
Gifts- 1 UW- 1

Game 3:
-Now I know you guys might be tired with all of these matches so I’ll try to speed this one up. Gifts managed to play a Ghost-lit stalker on turn one. Under normal circumstances it might have been game, but UW waited a couple of turns until he had the mana and played Wrath of God. Along with Stalker came Nightmare Void. Gifts Rending Veined a Genju and UW had no cards left in their hand. Gifts achieved the combo of Soulless Revival+ Hana Kami+Cranial Extraction. First, naming Yosei, the Morning Star. Second, naming Meloku the Clouded Mirror. UW with no way to win in the future scooped to Gifts.
Gifts- 2 UW- 1

Round 2: Gifts vs. Zoo Sunforger and MBC vs. UB Reanimator
Round two was supposed to be against Zoo Sunforger. But Gifts was somewhat of a veteran to the State Championships and wanted Zoo to win the tournament because it was “his time”. So Gifts dropped. This was a bad move in my opinion. But once I watched the final match of States I knew it was the right decision.
Finishing up on round 2 with the other match: The first game was crazy, no other words to describe it. Both players were at low life and had less then ten cards in their library. Both decks went back and forth destroying and countering; it was an epic battle. With 9 cards left in MBC’s library, he cast Moonlight Bargain, at the end of UB’s turn, searching through the top 5 cards of his library. With that card, MBC’s library now had 4 cards left. With 2 Phyrexian Arenas and a draw step he had one card remaining. That one card that was left in his library was the only card that could have won, Consume Spirit, MBC had exactly enough mana to cast it and kill UB. Following that tough, long match, UB perfomred wonderful against MBC; UB managed to get into the finals against Zoo Sunforger.

It was the battle between the veteran and the amateur. Was Gifts correct, was it truly Zoo’s year to win? Could Zoo’s deck live up to the hype against the deck that dominated the whole tournament? Enough talking about it, lets get on with the tournament.

Round 3: UB Reanimator vs. Zoo Sunforger

Game 1:
- Game 1 brought sadness to the faces of the people supporting Zoo. Zoo had a marginal hand that required him to keep. But his draws were meaningless and whenever Zoo managed to play a threat, it was countered. With UB building up his graveyard, Zoo couldn’t do much but to sit back and watch and hope for a top deck. But that top deck never came and a Kagemaro was reanimated and blew everything up. The next turn, a Vigor Mortis was played targeting Kagemaro. UB was on the offensive and Zoo couldn’t top deck anything to help him out.
UB-1 Zoo-0
Game 2:
-Zoo started off good with a first turn Kird Ape and second turn Sakura-tribe Elder. Things only looked up as Zoo kept dropping threats. UB couldn’t counter everything and Zoo managed to sneak in a Sunforger. UB couldn’t do a whole lot with what he had so UB scooped.
UB- 1 Zoo- 1

Game 3:
- Both decks showed up with their A+ game in this final game of States. Zoo was dropping threats after threats just as it did in Game 2. UB, however, had the hand to handle with his threats. UB also managed to build up his graveyard with Nullstone Gargoyles and Blazing Archons but with no animators in his hand, he couldn’t do a thing. The beat downs continued until UB was at 3 life, 1 turn away from defeat. UB untapped, put his hand on his deck and slowly drew what should be his last card. As he moved the card to position it in his hand and stare at it’s face, he couldn’t help but crack a small smile as he slowly saw a Zombify. Finally seeing some light at the end of an eight-hour long tunnel, UB said “I won’t lie to you, I got extremely lucky” he tapped out and played Zombify and brought back Blazing Archon and passed the turn. Realizing the situation, Zoo looked grim and stared at the face of UB and said “I won’t lie to you,” he picked up the one card in his hand and revealed it to be Otherwordly Journey “It doesn’t matter”. UB shook his head and reached his hand out to shake the hand of the new Champ. With UB’s sign of obvious defeat, Zoo and his supporters erupted in cheers and screams. He quickly received his prizes and left with his friends to celebrate his new title as the Champ.

The title “Champ” is a bragging right. You were the best in your state at that point of time, and you are one of the best in your state. Zoo is the Champ, but he won’t stay that way. In less then a year, he will have to give up his title. Perhaps he will win again, and retrieve his title. Perhaps he will lose and a new Champ will be declared. Who will be the next Champ? Will it be you?

-physco(666)sick(ness)

Last edited by physcosick on Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

inresponse

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 3:10 pm

Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 162 Location:

It'a awesome to see tournament reports on this site, thansk for bringing a new type of article to this contest.

Cobra

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:25 am

Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA

Congratulations to Physcosick, runner-up in the October 2005 Magic: The Gathering Article Contest. Cool

A $10 store credit has been recorded for you.