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Editor: Audrey Chin-Quan. Wednesday 12th October 2005.
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The Tournament I Never Went To Why write an article about a tournament you never went to? I can't report how my deck behaved or where I finished. I didn't see a single match up so I can't comment on a single game. All I have to go on is a final standings list, who played and won each final and a pile of decklists. One thing I did do was play testing for this tournament. This influenced the decks my fellow play testers took in more ways than mere practice - they were able to borrow cards off me I normally wouldn't have lent out! The tournament is the first Grand Prix Trial in Adelaide for GP Melbourne (This year the format is Extended). Normally I would attend an event like this as I love Extended but due to health problems with my baby daughter I couldn't go. I'm hopeful that this won't keep me away from more events in the future but I digress. This article is going to contain one thing in great quantities - decklists! Some are original creations, others net decks, others based on net decks. I think there's a good mix of what can be expected at an extended tournament give or take a deck or two. But first we have the play testers... Joe Tobin (AKA aytakk2) - member of Team Fist, drinker of Bundaberg Rum, owner of the house we play tested in. Lee Wilkins (AKA EXALTEDDRAGON) - member of Team Fist, drinker of Southern Comfort, owner of the car that ferries us about to/from tournaments and Joe's house, after building extended decks he decided in the end to go with a tweaked type 2 deck. Rob Crawley (AKA abys2002) - member of Team Fist, drinker of Johnny Walker Red, decided to resurrect an old type 2 archetype and see how it goes. Ben Simmons (AKA opalchampian) - drinker of whatever we give him, borrowers of many cards (I think he owned less than 10 cards in the deck he ran), borrowed the guts of the deck from Rob and the tech to get it going from Joe, winner of the second GP Trial at Sports Card World the week after this one (He played a Tooth and Nail/Rock hybrid I like to call 'Accelerated Rock' - I don't have the deck list unfortunately). The decks played by Lee, Rob and Ben will be revealed later. Since I didn't go I shall list what I play tested first - Deck 1 - Tog I've always liked a good blue control deck and it doesn't get much better than Tog. Counterspells, instant speed draw, a splash of black and Cunning Wish to get whatever I need -
Tog was by far the best performer from all the deck I play tested. It had a good first game against Goblins (although it usually lost) and Engineered Plague made all the difference post sideboard. I changed my Wish targets a few times to maximise my versatility but the main deck is pretty much the same as the first build. I tried Gifts Ungiven in here as a cheap Intuition replacement but I found it never worked out how I wanted and was a little too random for my liking. I tried Murmurs from Beyond as a mini Fact or Fiction but it didn't work out either. In the end I settled for 3 main deck Smothers as it was early weenies that were getting the better of me in most games I lost. Deck 2 - Suicide Black One of my favourite deck archetypes running one of my favourite cards - Infernal Contract. The deck is acceleration, card draw and evasive or chunky beats with Living Death as a reset or saviour from disaster.
To say this deck was fun to play is an understatement! An earlier build ran Lightning Greaves but in the end I dropped them for more discard. I probably should have stayed with the Lightning Greaves version (as it was much more fun to play) but it lacked disruption that the deck sorely needed. I decided to not bother with creature kill as my evasion could get around most things and Flesh Reaver as a 4/4 for B1 tended to roll over anything standing in its way (with a little pain to me). It performed well against slow control decks but fast creature decks tended to abuse the life losses a little too much. Deck 3 - Fling Raffinity I've always liked the concepts behind Fling Affinity - all the speed of regular Ravager Affinity plus the 'I Win Now!' factor of Fling.
This deck could kill on turn three with the right draw and managed to do it a couple of times! The rest of the time the deck was hated to oblivion and back if it was forced to play a longer game. I can see Affinity being a top contender even without Disciple of the Vault after the extended rotation. With all the hate out there right now I feel the best build would be Aether Vial/Meddling Mage/Erayo, Soratami Ascendant to hose the hate while you lay the smack down. Deck 4 - Raging Fires I put together a hybrid build based on both builds I ran last year (The version that won practice tourney and the version I played at Extended PTQ)
Like last year, this deck performed badly in play testing. However, unlike last year, it didn't do well enough to give me that glimmer of hope in its potential. Raging Fires is now officially dead and buried in the wake of more playable decks and owning a better carpool to build such decks. The Tournament You know already that you won't see my name amongst the standings. I did manage to pull a nice coup on the day though. Whilst Lee Wilkins was nearing the finals I gave him a call to see how things were going. I asked Lee if he could get deck lists from as many players as possible, plus permission to print them. Out of the field of 18 players in total I managed to get permission to print 12 of the deck lists. to my surprise when the guys arrived at my house the Tournament Organizer (Barbara - Lee Copus' better half) had given Lee ALL the deck lists plus final standings from the tournament! This is where things get a little boring. I'll list the final finishing stats then each deck list I'm allowed to print. I hope it isn't too tedious to wade through... Final Standings -
1 - Lee Copus (Red Deck Wins)
2 - Yu Bal ('Topdecking for Dummies' - Vial Affinity)
3 - Hao Min (Rock)
4 - Steven Aplin (Tooth and Nail)
5 - Yi Fei Ruan (Ravager Affinity)
6 - David Mariner (Rock)
7 - Alex Loft (White Weenie Armageddon)
8 - Andrew Deanovic (Scepter Jank)
9 - Gareth Dawson-Jones (Tog)
10 - Rob Crawley (G/W Slide)
11 - Eyad Hassan (Vial Wish Goblins)
12 - Ben Simmons (Wish Goblins)
13 - Scott Jacob (White Weenie Equipment)
14 - Brad Hansford (Red Burning Beats)
15 - Lee Wilkins (B/W Control)
Dropped -
Tom Gartner (Goblins)
Jeremy Ninnes (B/G Beats)
Chris Ninnes (U/G Madness)
FINALS -
Round One
Round Two
Final Round - And now for the decklists (starting from the bottom...) Lee Wilkins (finished 15th)
Brad Hansford (Finished 14th)
Ben Simmons (finished 12th)
Eyad Hassan (finished 11th)
Robert Crawley (finished 10th)
Andrew Deanovic (finished Round 1 of finals)
Yi Fei Ruan (Finished Round 1 of finals)
Hao Min (Finished round 1 of finals)
David Mariner (finished round 2 of finals)
Steven Aplin (finished round 2 of finals)
Yu Bal (Runner Up)
Lee Copus (Winner of tournament)
I love Lee Copus' build of Red Deck Wins - a prime example of 'The Perfect Deck' theory! Until next time, may you all play test well and prosper. Joe Tobin (Aytakk2)
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