Urza's Saga Pre-Release Boston MA, 26 Sept. 1998 Leslie Turek (11th) I had a great time at the Urza's Saga Pre-Release. I continued my pre-release winning streak, finishing in the lower end of the prizes for the second time and proving that my Exodus win wasn't just a fluke. (Of course it helped that most of the top players were off at the Chicago Pro Tour.) I was particularly pleased that I managed to win without having a killer deck like I had last time, and that I made only two playing mistakes (that I was aware of) in the entire 7 rounds. And I was also happy that 3 women finished in the prizes in the pre-registered half of the tournament: Sarah Beardslee won the tournament with a total sweep - winning every single game she played, I finished 11th, and Michelle Bush finished 12th. It was a good day for women in Magic. The tournament was well-run by Your Move Games, although it was held at the Rolling Green Conference Center tennis courts (like the recent Grand Prix), a location which is particularly uncomfortable, due to lousy chairs, little climate control, and a long distance to the bathrooms. Rob acknowledged its faults and assured me that he would try to avoid using it in the future. Rob followed his previous practice of splitting the event into two separate tournaments: one for pre-registered participants and one for at-the-door registrations. The pre-registered tournament, which I was in, got kicked off first, and then the rounds were staggered throughout the day. Both appeared to be over 200 people and went 7 rounds, with everyone scoring over 16 match points getting some sort of prize. I was worried about the land situation with Urza's Saga, since I knew that the starter decks had 30 lands instead of 22, so I was afraid that we would get no extra lands for sealed deck play. But my fears were unfounded, we still got extra lands, although we were limited to 3, rather than 5. This was fine. I put together a deck that was aiming for fast beat-down, with some quick echo creatures in red, some fat in green, and a splash of blue for flying. I also threw in a little land destruction, thinking I might be able to prevent someone from paying an echo cost. (One of them, Lay Waste, also had cycling, so wouldn't hurt much if I got it late game.) But this really don't work out - only helping me win one game when I got someone's only plains when he had a handful of white creatures. Here is what I played with: 14 Creatures: 2 Goblin Patrol (R) 2/1, echo Pouncing Jaguar (G) 2/2, echo Veiled Sentry (B) sleeping enchantment: When one of your opponents successfully casts a spell, if Veiled Sentry is an enchantment, Veiled Sentry becomes a creature with power and toughness each equal to the total casting cost of the spell. (This is a tough one to evaluate. Usually it turned into a 1/1 or 2/2 creatures, but I can't be sure how many times it made the opponent hold back on playing something better for a couple of turns.) Goblin War Buggy (1R) 2/2, echo, unaffected by summoning sickness Acridian (1G) 2/4, echo Goblin Spelunkers (2R), 2/2, mountainwalk. (This one was pretty useful, given all the people who play red. Cute flavor text, too: "It only short jump. You go first." "AIIIEEEE!" "Hmm...we go different way now." Dromosaur (2R) 2/3, gets +2/-2 when blocking or is blocked. (Useful to get rid of big nasty creatures.) Cradle Guard (1GG) 4/4, trample, echo. (This was a great creature!) Titania's Chosen (2G) 1/1, gets +1/+1 whenever a green spell is cast (This was particularly good against people playing green.) Viashino Runner (3R) 3/2, can't be blocked by only one creatures (Strong for beat-down) Citanul Hierophants (2G) 3/2, makes each of your creatures able to tap for green mana Citanul Centaurs (3G) 6/3, echo, can't be targeted Pendrell Drake (3U) Flying, cycling 9 Spells: 2 Heat Ray (XR) X direct damage to a creature (Extremely useful) Shower of Sparks (R) 1 damage to creature and one to opponent Steam Blast (2R) 2 damage to all creatures and players (Won me a game) Lay Waste (3R) destroy target land, cycle Raze (R) sac a land to destroy a land Falter (1R) creatures without flying cannot block this turn (Great in standoffs - won me a game) War Dance (G) growing enchantment; sac to give target creature +X/+X until end of turn Launch (1U) perpetual enchantment, enchanted creature gains flying (This was great! Once it got out, there was no way to get rid of it except for Pacifism. If you kill my creature, it just comes back on a bigger creature. My only annoyance was that I couldn't play it on Citanul Centaurs...) 18 Land: 7 Mountains 6 Forests 5 Islands (1 cycling) Sideboard: Hush (3G) destroy all enchantments, cycling (Maybe should have main-decked it instead of the land destruction...) Symbiosis (1G) two target creatures each get +2/+2 (I also sided this in a lot and maybe should have main-decked it instead of the War Dance. The surprise factor helps a lot, but it can be annoying when you have only one creature out. I once used it to save a lone blocker by targeting as the second creature an opponent's non-attacking creature.) Hidden Spider (G) sleeping enchantment that turns into a 3/5 creature that can block flyers whenever opponent plays a flyer. Great against heavy flyer decks. 2 Rejuvenate (3G) Gain 6 life, cycle (I put these and the next in against a very specific strategy (see report below), and it helped me win the match - the only match that player lost all day.) Lull (1G) Creatures deal no combat damage this turn. Let's see what I can still remember about the matchups. Match 1, Mark True I made my first mistake in the first game, when I forgot to pay an echo cost and lost a creature. After that, I tucked the mana under the creature to help me remember. The mistake didn't lose me the game, though, since it was a weenie creature, and I eventually lost the game to a bunch of big, scary flyers. In the second game, I sided in Hidden Spider, which helped a lot with the flyers. One of the more interesting plays in the second game is when I had out my two sleeping enchantments (Hidden Spider and Veiled Sentry) and Mark cast a 5/5 red pumpable flyer costing 7 mana, activating the Hidden Spider to a 3/5 and the Veiled Sentry to a 7/7. Then he cast a 3/3 blue flyer that required him trade it for one of my creatures when it came into play - he chose the Veiled Sentry. He did all this on one turn with the aid of a Dark Ritual. Luckily I was able to eliminate his 5/5 flyer with a Heat Ray, and then was able to beat him down with my 3/3 flyer. I think I killed the 7/7 Sentry just by mass blocking. In the last game, I got some early beatdown, then we stalemated. In the late game it was a race between his flyer and my mountainwalker, but since I started ahead, I was able to just win as he got me to 5. Record: 1-0, 3 match points Match 2, Jeremy White My recollection is foggy here. Jeremy won the first game handily - I seem to recall a Ravenous Skirge (1/1 flyer, goes to 3/1 when attacking) beating me down when I just couldn't draw a Shower of Sparks. The second game was closer, but I just managed to win. Both games took a long time, so we'd barely started the third game when time was called. So we ended with a draw. Record: 1-0-1, 4 match points Match 3, Job Morgan This was the match I mentioned earlier, where I had to deal with an interesting strategy. Fairly early in the first game, Job put out a red enchantment called Bedlam, which says that no creatures may block. This reduced the game to its most simplistic beatdown - you put out creatures as fast as you can and attack with all of them. Luckily, I had a deck pretty well suited to this, and managed to kill him on the turn just before he would have killed me. In the second game, I sided out my Falter (totally useless with Bedlam) and land destruction, and maybe the War Dance, and put in the two Rejuvenates, the Lull, and the Symbiosis. I was a little nervous about siding exclusively to fight Bedlam (since I had won the first game, I thought Job might have sided it out), so left in the Launch (which was totally useless when Bedlam was in play, but helpful otherwise). Second game, he gets out an early Bedlam, when I have creatures, a Lull, and a Rejuvenate in my hand (plus the useless Launch). It was great! I cast my creatures and traded blows, then when we were both pretty low, I rejuvenated and lulled, meanwhile attacking like crazy, and got the edge on him. It was great to win two fast games, because I hadn't had a break since the start of the tournament. Also, it was great to see later that Job finished with a 6-1 record, so I knew I was the only person who managed to beat him. Record: 2-0-1, 7 match points Match 4, Thomas Ryan My memory fails me again here. I remember that Tom was playing with a lot of cycle lands (I think he said he had 5), and the games were close and slow. I won the first, he won the second, and I won the third. I was pretty nervous the third game, because I had the edge, but time was running out, and I was deathly afraid that time would be called before we could finish. So tried to play fast without making any mistakes, and Tom played deliberately, but not stalling. After I had won the last game, Tom noticed that the time had run over the alloted hour, although no official had actually called time. So he tried to convince the judge that he should have gotten a draw. Luckily for me, Tony wasn't convinced. He apologized for neglecting to call the time at the right minute, but said that since he hadn't, my win would stand. Whew! I think that's the only fair outcome, because who knows what I might have been able to do if time had been called? Besides, I've never seen a tournament where the officials timed things exactly to the hour. I think the proper thing to do, if you want to try to get away with a draw, is to call over a judge when the hour is reached and ask him to call time. But failing to do that, I think you're stuck with the result. I should mention that even though I disagreed with him, Tom carried out his appeal with utmost civility and politeness, and I am in no way criticizing his behavior. Record: 3-0-1, 10 match points Match 5, Chris Matarese I remember this match in a bit more detail, probably because I lost it. Chris was playing G/W/U, with a couple of flyers, a Power SInk, all of the new cycling Circles of Protection (called Runes of Protection) and a _lot_ of huge green creatures. I felt better about losing when I saw later that Chris finished with a 6-1 record. I felt that I played well against him and he just had the better deck. In the first game he got out an early Disciple of Law (prot red) that slowed my initial attack, and a later RoP Red. I slowed his green development (he told me later) by casting an early Titania's Chosen (gets +1/+1 for each green spell cast), and got out my Launch, but he was able to neutralize the Launch with Pacifism (just about the only spell that can shut it down), and he eventually was able to get out two flyers that I had no answer for. Second game I sided in my flyer defense, then found out later that he only had the two flyers in his deck. In the second game it was fat green creature beatdown, topped off by a 7/7 trampler. Chris showed me his deck after the match, and I noticed that he had a Launch in his sideboard that he wasn't using, even though he was playing blue, so I commented that Launch on his fatties would be a totally awesome combo. He agreed, and said he'd try it out. (I found out later that Chris has an over-1900 rating, so I blush that I presumed to give him advice!) I also realized afterward that this could by considered illegal collusion, since Chris was still in contention - I just wasn't thinking that way, since pre-release tournaments tend to be so much lower-key than PTQs. At this point things didn't look too good for me, but I was still in contention for prizes if I could win the next two matches. So I stayed in. Record: 3-1-1, 10 match points Match 6, Peter Babineau I had two pretty easy wins over Peter. In the first game he got massively mana screwed, and in the second he made one fatal mistake. He was at 16 and I was at 8, and I had my Veiled Sentry and some other major threat (maybe the blue flyer), and he cast the new drain life variant to kill the major threat. Unfortunately, the drain life had a casting cost of 6, so he had turned my Veiled Sentry into an even bigger threat. (He remembered too late that he had meant to wait and cast something smaller first.) He was able to chump-block the Sentry a few times, but then it started getting through for the win. Record: 4-1-1, 13 match points Match 7, Aaron Landry I had to win the last match for a prize, and I knew Aaron was a high-rated player, so I was a little nervous, but still quite focused. I did make one mistake, when I forgot that he had a creature that could prevent 2 damage (Sanctum Custodian), and I blocked and lost a creature when I shouldn't have. The first game was at 11 to 11 when I won with a bit of a trick. I had several stalemated creatures out, then I cast a Goblin Buggy with no summoning sickness, then cast Falter so he couldn't block and attacked with everything to do just exactly 11 points of damage. The second game was an exercise in frustration. Aaron had a lot of sleeping enchantments and a Pacifism, so I had sided in my Lull. I had my Lull in my opening hand, but no forests, and I watched in frustration as Aaron put out _two_ sleeping enchantments and I couldn't get rid of them. I kept holding off on playing creatures that would awaken the enchantments, hoping I would draw a forest and could play the Lull, but no luck. I gave up and started casting creatures, but it was too late - he just overwhelmed me, assisted by a Crusade-type enchantment that gave all his creatures +1/+1. In the third game I did some early damage, but he started getting out a bevy of weenies along with the Sanctum Custodian, and started beating me down with creatures I couldn't block safely. I was holding a Pendrell Drake which I was just dying to play, but I had no island. I also had a Steam Blast, which could kill every one of his creatures except whatever he chose to prevent damage from. But he had a sleeping enchantment that would turn into a 2/2 flyer, and I really wanted to turn it into a creature before I used the Steam Blast so I would get it too. Aaron had been playing with cycling spells fast and furious, dumping something into his graveyard roughly every other turn, so I started to wonder if I should be more aggressive with cycling and give up on the Drake. Finally I drew an island, but of course it was a cycling island that comes into play tapped. Next turn, the island untaps and I draw another. At this point he's got me down to 10, but he's at 9, and I think I have the winning play. I play the Drake, turning his enchantment into a creature. Then I play the Steam Blast. He loses everything except the Custodian, which he taps to prevent damage. He is at 7 and I am at 8, and we each have 1 creature out. He can still use the Custodian to prevent the damage from the Drake every turn. Then I miraculously topdeck one of my 2 Heat Rays and kill the Custodian. It's home free for the Drake, and I kill him in 3 turns with the aid of a Goblin Patrol, backed up by a Symbiosis. Record: 5-1-1, 16 match points, which just qualifies me for a prize (all of 10 packs) While we're waiting for the prizes, Sarah shows me her deck, which is just a killer deck! She has about 6 flyers, including 2 (!!!) 5/5 blue flyers, tons of black creature removal, including Befoul, Pestilence, and 2 (!!!) Vile Requiems (the broken verse counter creature-killer), some discard (Cackling Fiend and something else), and some healing (a Healing Salve and 2 (!!!) Sanctum Custodians). It was amazing. I could have built a decent sealed deck out of the cards she _wasn't_ using. It was good to see a nice person get all the luck for a change. Still going 7 rounds without a single game loss, to mana screw or anything else, is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations, Sarah!