ICON PTQ NEW ORLEANS REPORT 
Conor Harding
August 2003
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Hello all. I tried to make this short and sweet so the people who read it in work won't get fired. Anyway, this is my first report (hopefully not the last), so forgive me if it isn't Sideboard quality ;) 

We had been playing a lot of block tournaments in the Gingerbread house thanks to Lee Murphy, so I had a lot of testing done. I was running R/W Control, tooled out to have a good matchup vs Goblins and other white control decks. I wasn't sure thought about how things would go in a bigger tournament, but I was sure there wasn't going to be a new rogue deck, as it was block format. 

Round 1: Stewart Shinkins - MWC 

Bad one. Not the guy I wanted to see round one by a long shot! More famous for his limited skillz he's just as lethal with a 60-card deck. The more important point being I've never beaten the guy either. Game 1 started with his Silver Knight summoned up on turn 2 and a face up Exalted Angel on turn 4 beating down. That pretty much sums it up as my pitiful resistance failed to stop the white onslaught. I was a bit surprised at the amount of beats he was dealing out. I was thinking "it's mono white CONTROL, when's the guy gonna say, land, go?" 

We traded knights in game two, but he got his Eternals out before I did, and I hear they are awesome when enchanted with Dragon Scales. Stew had three in the main. Good tech indeed. I realised my Rifts didn't do too much for me game 2, so I kept that in mind for future control matchups. 

Games 0-2 Matches 0-1 Points 0 

Round 2: Peter Bunyan - Zombie Bidding 

The Bunyanator himself. Another pairing which had me cursing that damn pairing program...Pete knew my deck fairly well, and had been my mortal (but friendly) enemy in the practice block tournys down in Cork. 

He came out of the blocks with Carrion Feeders and Festering Goblins and so on, and then Soulless One joined his team. My deck just wouldn't give me answers or enough mana. Beat beat beat etc. Scoop. Game 2 was a more even affair, but he was able to resolve head games turn 5 which is a wrecking ball. 

Peter loves his head games. He loves casting it against me even more. I had the land base fairly smooth by then, and whaddya know, I had a lot more in my hand after that 3BB sorcery. Not panicking, I did the maths and skillfully ripped one of the two boarded Form of the Dragons Off The Top two turns later (note clever reference to the no.1 two player standard team in the country...;). Peter remarked after I shot the first five to the dome: "I forgot it could do that!". Yes, like a seven mana enchantment Moat that took all your life would see that much play......anyway, it saved my sorry ass. 

Now for my Big Mistake. It wouldn't be me in a big tourny without making one. I had Vengeanced and Starstormed my way into a good board position and also used jedi mind tricks to ensure he didn't get another Bidding. On the table was a 5/5 ish soulless one and another random zombie. I was at 16, and went in with my eternal dragon to put him to 3. Pass the turn? No, this genius had to lay down his Form, cos of the effort he spent in finding the third red source. What a st00pid play. Peter thought long and hard before cycling the boarded Polluter after end of turn effects, and using the Grotto to put it back on top. He had enough mana in his upkeep/draw step to do it twice more. It turned out after the game he didn't have the Bidding, and I don't think he would have had enough to kill me. 

Interestingly, this was the only match of the day which went to three games. It was good to know that I could potentially able to beat my weakest matchup in the future. 

Games 1-4 Matches 0-2 Points 0 

Round 3: Ryan Tombacco - Goblins 

Things weren't looking good. I needed to 4-0 my last four rounds to have any chance. Balls. At least I got a good matchup to start the comeback theory. 

I had met Ryan in a few tournaments down in Cork so I knew what to expect. Game 1 he had Clickslithered and Siege-Ganged my ass (that sounds bad, I know) down to one life point. Frantic cycling ensued, which let me find the Renewed Faith. I beat him down with Silver Knights letting him think all he needed was the shock OTT. Lmao....hehehe sorry Ryan! 

Game 2 he had two Sulphuric Vortexes down by turn four. You suck Tombacco! Fortunately he ran out of steam a small bit and I killed off the rest of his gobbos. Knights and Lightning Rift ate away at his life, I had to race cos I didn't have the Wipe Clean. Finally he died to his own Vortexes which was sweet....yeahyeahyeah… 

Games 3-4 Matches 1-2 Points 3 

Round 4: Paddy Shortis (Seans little bro) - Goblins 

Paddy was fairly new to the game and in both games he was unsure of what to do about Wing Shards. It destroyed him game 1, i.e. he played spells before combat and he tried to play around it too defensively in game 2. With practice he'll get better, just as long he stays away from L5R or whatever other crappy card game he must play! 

Games 5-4 Matches 2-2 Points 6 

Round 5:Robert Walsh - Goblins 

Seeing a pattern yet? Rob was up at the top tables so I presumed he was going well. Game 1 was the usual good start I needed, Knight, Knight, sit on my ass, burn whatever else, Shards if necessary. Start beating when board is clear. 

Game 2 in came the usual Shock x 4 Wipe Clean x 3. I think a Knight came out early, and a Rift or two. The Shocks helped me out big time, but Rob didn't get his sideboard cards which he showed me afterwards, namely Stablilizer and Vortex. 

Games 7-4 Matches 3-2 Points 9 

Round 6: Sean Shortis - R/W Slide 

This was a tougher matchup, a mirror of sorts. Win this, or pack up and go home. No pressure. I had only drawn with Sean at my last top 8 attempt at the GP Trial after another brain fart (Cormac Smyth: "a good player would have seen it" !!!!), and I proceeded to mulligan to five. I was going first so I laid a plains. He played a Mountain. Back to me: Plains, Knight. Him: Mountain, go. Attack, Forgotten Cave, another Knight. Him: Mountain. Sweet, he's fresh out of white mana!. I kept up the beats and when he got the second plains he told me he couldn't find the Vengeance. He scooped. Of course Sean knew that this was a perfectly fair outcome as that time in Cork he went down to four and won. 

Game 2 he got out his Slide. Finally Sean could get motoring a bit. Turn 3 morph, turn 4 face up angel, attack. "Time Walk" I declared, before realising it was in fact a Wing Shards. Well, at least it got a bit of reaction out of Desmond to my left, who coincidentally found his lost Power Nine card in question. Pity he can't use it to try and qualify up in Bangor ;) My Dragon Scalesd Eternal Dragon was kept up in the air by his Slide for a long time, and it felt good to fianally Wipe the enchantment Clean.

This was looking to go into the long game, where the player who was a game down would get slow rolled to a 1-0 loss. Not that I did all day of course. When I untapped I was delighted to see Decree of Annihilation, for the first freakin time in six rounds. A quick scan of the board revealed my Eternal, and nothing much else of note. Float nine, he does some cycling, it resolves, lands die, I drop a Knight. Three turns later he can't get the land and Shards, and extends the hand. I shake it; glad to be in my first PTQ top 8. 

Games 9-4 Matches 4-2 Points 12 

Quarter-Final: David Coughlan - Goblins 

Sean Fitz had said earlier that Dave wasn't looking forward to this match, as my deck usually slaughters Goblins. Not that that made me feel much better, as Dave was National Champ in 2001, and he's one of those evil, but really good, Dublin players. 

Dave started off with some random slagging of my Team5FU membership, but when the game was started we stopped talking, and his stony game face was on. 

Game 1 I won the dice roll, which is good to take the early pressure off. I didn't want to see three Piledrivers attacking on turn 3 and not have enough mana to Wing Shards. 

My Sliver Knights must have been offended by his talk of the Cork players, as they joined the fight on turns two and threeJ, and I finished the game with three Knights and three Lightning Rifts on the table. 'Nuff said about that game. 

Game 2 I think I resolved an early Rift, but he put on the pressure (my piece of paper says he dropped my to 11 fairly quickly), and kept it up with an early Sulphuric Vortex. Somehow I managed to keep his monsters at bay, and I Shards away a Rorix. The previously inactive Rift came into play in the last few turns, as I cycled into more cyclers. I'm fairly sure the match ended by a Stablizer dropped too late, to which I responded to with Rifting, and then Dave passed the turn. I attacked with my single Knight and said "go". He died to his Vortex. 

I really enjoyed that match, but Dave was unlucky to face my deck in the quarters. Goblins were too good to have only one person representing them in a top 8. 

Games 11-4 Matches 5-2 

Semi-Final: John Cowan - R/W Control 

Woohoo! The long boring mirror, at last! I only played JC once before, at a sealed PTQ, but I knew this guy could play. He was wearing his Pro Tour t-shirt for maximum intimidation, and Ralph Martin was sitting beside us in his black and white judging shirt, just to make sure we did nothing illegal. I had never played in this situation before, so I figured random displays of scrubbiness were not in order. 

Game 1 John had a Rift down early, but I waited until he played another permanent (it was an Eternal Dragon or Akroma. The game involved a lot of draw, go cycle at the end of yours, so exact details are hard to remember). Then Akroma's Vengeance came down, Lightning Rift of my own, and I dropped the Angel of Badness herself the turn later. I passed without attacking, but JC decided not to Vengeance, maybe he had the Wing Shards I was afraid of. When the turn came back to me, I saw Decree of Annihilation staring me in the face, which I cycled straight away. JC was surprised to see it, but it did the trick, and we were sideboarding for game 2 shortly after. 

I boarded in a few Wipe Clean and Decree of Justice. Took out the Faiths and a Starstorm or two. During sideboarding some big hairy kid, whatshisname, Ger Norton, kept saying "Choke! Choke!" to put me off, which was quite funny. It was probably his first time at a big event, but at least he got into the spirit of things by cheering on his fellow Dubs. 

Game 2 JC was a bit land light in the hand, so he cycled away 3 Wipe Cleans to help him solve the land flow. He dropped a Rift later on, and a few turns later made a lot of soldier tokens. I had the Slice and Dice which kept me alive, but I was able to Wipe Clean and drop my own Rift the next turn. Then it was time to sit back and play defensively, as I knew it was hard now for John to get rid of that nasty 2-drop. The early cycling of the Wipes came back to haunt him, as I did him a load of damage to the dome.

Eventually at the end of his turn when I was burning him down to near zero, he Oblationed my enchantment away. My library was small at that stage, so the odds of another one were good. That's exactly what happened, I untapped, played it again and did the last few lethal points. Looking at my record of lifescores now that I just found, I see that my rift did 20 points to JC in game 2. 

Games 13-4 Matches 6-2 

Final: Stewart Shinkins - MWC 

Awww man, not again. I suggested to Stewart in the pub about some sort of prize split, but he thought it wasn't really worth it since the trip for the winner would cost a lot anyway. We had a while to wait before the match, most of it I spent trying to make up an attractive offer just so I could win some cash out of the whole thing. 

Ralph kept the life totals and match details again. When we started Stewart was in his usual good mood. He was right too, how many PTQ finals do you play a guy you've already crushed? 

Game 1 I think I went first, and I made a Silver Knight, which I traded when Stew played his. We traded another pair a couple of turns later. Land dropping went on for a while, until he found a Dawn Elemental. I hat those guys. He attacked, but I didn't use my Shards, hoping he'd play something else. It was cool when he dropped another one, my master plan had worked, mwu ha ha ha! In my turn I Vengeanced the pair away. He followed up with Eternal Dragon, but with no Dragon Scales like in our first match. I summoned Akroma the next turn, and I think he took the beats.

When it went back to him he didn't do much except maybe lay a land. Back to me and the red Decree came off the top. After cycling Stewart says: "that's a good card!" Yeah, I thought so too. He floats three mana for some reason, and plays Wing Shards, which isn't really good in my main phase. Akroma attacks, and he throws the Dragon in the way, but she kills him soon after. 

I sideboard much like I did against JC, but this time the Rifts come out, which gives me a lot of space for Decree of Justice. 

I remember making two soldier tokens early to serve as Wing Shards fodder, but looking at the life points, it seems the only damage both of us did early game was attack with an Akroma, which got killed the following turn. I don't know if I used the Slice in this game already, but Stewart knew I had it anyway. He musn't have had a great hand because he hard cast his Decree of Justice to make four 4/4 flying angels. I didn't expect that, but I had the Starstorm. Sweet! 

All I had was a Knight on the table, and he was on 9 life. When I untapped I realized I had enough mana to play Akroma and upgrade her with Dragon Scales, and swing with both. Stewart was tapped out and couldn't do anything about it. He saw the funny side of it though, as that was the only possible thing I could have done to prevent him Vengeancing the next turn. I shook his hand and it was all over. Now how the hell was I going to get out of Waterford?! 

Games 15-4 Matches 7-2 

Phew, that's it. Thanks for reading so far. I might have wanted a split before the final, but after the way it turned out, I am definitely going over to the States. 

Props:
Ralph Martin. Well done on another good ICon. Ralph let about five of us stay in his place that night, which needless to say got me out of a lot of trouble. Not to mention the posh restaurant he treated us to afterwards. Why can't all head judges be like that? 

Two Cork players in the semi-finals. No doubt Mr. Desmond will want to go one better up North. As he would say, aww yeah. 

No Dublin player in the final. Ok, that was harsh, but I can't seem to find the delete button right now ;) 

All the Cork lads I tested with, mostly Sean Fitz, Ian Desmond, Lee Murphy, Corm, John McC, The Bunyanator, and of course the legendary DQ, who is playing too many melees for my liking, but still found time to help us out with our decks. 

Slops:
None really, it was all a good laugh, and all the players behaved themselves. It's a pity Ian didn't make the final though, I'm sure he'd be a lot easier to manipulate ;) 
Until next time………………………