Chicago Pro-Tour Qualifier (Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight Constructed) Boston, July 5, 1997 Since the net was saying that the two strongest deck types were black weenie and red burn, I decided to play something that would hose them both. That led me to the Freewind and Duskrider Falcons with prot red and black, enhanced by Empyrial Armor. Turns out this wasn't such an original idea - lots of people came up with the same thing, although there were variations. I played with white and blue, so I could add some Mind Bends, and some Hakim, Loreweavers, to get the Armors back from the graveyard. Longbow Archers and Heavy Ballista for defense against creatures. Honorable Passage for more defense against red. Pacifism and Afterlife for creature removal, and Suq'Ata Firewalker for its protection from red and ability to kill Peacekeepers (which I never saw all day). Flux for card drawing and a Disenchant on principle. 1 Abeyance, which was all I had, for protection against counterspells. (In retrospect, I should have put in something like Ward of Lights for additional protection against things like Man O'War and Afterlife.) The deck: 4 Freewind Falcon 4 Duskrider Falcon 4 Longbow Archer 4 Heavy Ballista 2 Suq'Ata Firewalker 2 Hakim, Loreweaver 4 Empyrial Armor 2 Afterlife 2 Pacifism 1 Abeyance 2 Mind Bend 2 Flux 3 Honorable Passage 1 Disenchant 3 Flood Plain 2 Undiscovered Paradise 8 Island 10 Plains Sideboard: 1 Hazerider Drake 1 Hakim, Loreweaver 1 Serrated Biskelion 1 Pacifism 2 Afterlife 3 Disenchant 1 Honorable Passage 1 Mind Bend 2 Mangara's Equity 2 Prismatic Boon First Match: John Finkel, who is playing white and blue. (I found out later that John is one of the top playersÑhe's on the voting list for the Duelist Invitational Tournament, for example. He played very fast and I tried hard not to let him intimidate me.) The first game is very strange. He has a ton of blue card-drawing stuff, like Impulse, Ancestral Memories, and Ophidian. I get out a fairly early Armored Falcon. In the meantime, he is furiously playing card-drawing spells, but doesn't find what he's looking for. The Falcon kills him in three turns. I'm feeling that it was all too easy. In the next two games I find out what John was looking for :-) In the second game, I don't get a good draw. The Armor is nowhere to be seen. John gets out a bunch of creatures, then uses the combination of Man O'War, Abeyance, and Memory Lapse to effectively keep me from getting anything out. He wins by attacking with a mass of creatures (3 Man O'Wars, a Rainbow Effreet, and 2 Ophidians) after clearing out all of my blockers. Third game, I get a perfect draw, and am all set to get out an Armored Falcon on the third turn. But John plays Abeyance during the upkeep of my third and fourth turns, preventing me from playing the Armor. By the fifth turn, when I can play the Armor, he's set up to Man O'War the Falcon back to my hand. Then he sets up the same ManO'War/Memory Lapse/Abeyance lock as he did in the second game. Abeyance was definitely the card of the day. One of the dealers had a sign "We have Abeyance in stock" and was charging $8 for it. Not only is it a powerful Time Walk sort of card, it is a cantrip in addition! Matches: 0-1 Games: 1-2 Second match was with a guy named Scott who was playing a pretty straight-forward green/red deck with River Boas, Wildfire Emissaries, Viashivan Dragons, burn, lotsa red and green diamonds, and Rowan (which didn't seem to be very helpful, since with all those diamonds, he didn't draw land very often). I felt that Scott wasn't a terrifically strong player, although he didn't make any glaring mistakes. In the first game, I took some early Boa damage, but I got the combo out early and beat him down in three attacks. In the second game, I never drew the Armor. He got out a Boa and a Wilfie, and a Dragon. I had sideboarded in the Serrated Biskelion for the Boa, used Mind Bend on the Wilfie (to give it protection from green), and Pacified the Dragon. I've gotten out a Longbow Archer and a Ballista for defense, along with a Freewind Falcon, which has been blocking the Wilfie (prot green, remember?). Finally, I draw some of my Honorable Passages, so I start to attack with the Falcon and the Archer. He comes back with the Wilfie, and pumps it to 6, and I Honorable Passage it. He comes in again, this time not pumping, and I hold back my Honorable Passage. He is down to 1 and I am at 9. He casts Final Fortune, but can only attack for 8 (and I have yet another Honorable Passage). So I win. Matches: 1-1 Games: 3-2 Third match is with Joe Brown, who is a tough opponent who I've played a few times at Your Move Games. I'm sure I will lose until I see he is playing straight red - then I think I may have a chance. The first game was easy. I got out the combo fast, before he could do anything about it, and I win in 3 attacks. The second game wasn't so easy. I wasn't sure about sideboarding, because the first game was so short that all I'd seen was burn and Aether Flash, and no creatures. Was he playing entirely creatureless, or just with big creatures that wouldn't be hurt by the Aether Flash? I decided to leave in my creature control, and sideboarded out some of my smaller creatures that didn't have prot. red, putting in the Hazerider Drake, the 4th Honorable Passage, and the Disenchants. I was a bit mana-screwed in the second game, and since I'd sideboarded out my small guys, I couldn't cast much, and sat with 2 Loreweavers in my hand most of the game. Since I had to discard, I discarded the Armors, figuring the Loreweavers could pull them back. I also didn't get any Honorable Passages. When I finally got enough mana to cast a Loreweaver, Joe had reached the point where he could cast the first of his two Torches that would kill me. Oh, for an Honorable Passage! But no luck, and he killed me. By this time I figured out he wasn't playing with any creatures, and sideboarded out all of my creature control. The third game was long and tense. He had sideboarded in a splash of white and Afterlifes to kill my prot red Falcons. I got in a little damage with an Armored Firewalker, but he killed it with Tithe (Each player choose and discard creature of highest casting cost, or pay that amount of mana), which I hadn't been expecting at all, so was tapped out. He also pretty much stopped my development by getting out _two_ Aether Flashes. I used Flux to get rid of creatures I couldn't cast, and drew an Honorable Passage. At this point, I was at 14 (he'd gotten me with a couple of Incinerates) and I'd gotten him down to 6. I figured Honorable Passage was my only chance at this point, and prayed for a Torch. For a while it looked like he was going to whittle me down with small burn spells that weren't worth my using the Passage on. But when he got me down to 6, he went ahead with a 6 point Torch. I couldn't believe my good luck! He saw me tap to cast Honorable Passage, and groaned. The game and match were mine! Matches: 2-1 Games: 5-3 Fourth match was with a very nice guy, Jim Allen, who was playing a 5-color green deck that seemed to have everything he needed all at the right time. He had Bull Elephants, Maros, Scalebane Elite, and Fallow Wurm for big creatures, Man O'Wars, Dark Banishing, Incinerate, Torches, and Afterlife for creature removal, Disenchant to counter my Pacifism and Armor, and Quicksand to dispose of my weenies. He also had, but never used, Abeyance and Serenity against counterspells and enchantments. He never had any mana problems with Gemstone Mine, Undiscovered Paradise, Wall of Roots, and Rampant Growth. I never had a chance. I got him down to 14 once, but he won both games in short order. Matches: 2-2 Games 5-5 At this point I figured that I'd had enough of a learning experience and dropped out. There was a huge variety of decks being played. In addition to the four I played against, I saw or heard mentioned the following: Stephania was playing an all-white version of the Armored Falcon deck, Ken Coleman was playing a fast red/blue deck like Darwin Kastle's Paris deck, Randy was playing a blue/black with recycled Nekrataals and Man O'Wars, Michelle had an all-black deck, and Ken said he played against a Tombstone Stairwell deck that worked pretty well. I didn't stay long enough to find out who had won. On the whole, I was pretty happy with how things went. (Actually, I would have been happy with any result that wasn't a total shutout.) My deck beat the decks it was designed to beat and lost only to the decks I would have expected it to have trouble with. And, as usual, I think I learned a lot.