Wooster makes the Quarters:

I arrived up at Gaelcon which is Ireland's second biggest convention - behind Warpcon - at about 10:30 am. This was after a 4 and a half hour bus journey with some of the most hygenically challenged kids I have ever smelled in my life. I wandered into Clontarf Castle to go down to the Magic playing area for an urgently needed breath of fresh air, but alas, there were L5R players there aswell.:)

It was Oddessy sealed with 49 players and 6 rounds. Normally, by necessity it would have been 5 rounds but with Eoin Brosnan not playing as he was already qualified it was felt that it was safe timewise to have 6 rounds.

At this point, I should to introduce you to Jeeves. Jeeves, who doubles as my butler and magic guru is the secret of what little success I have had in sealed...he always checks the sealed decks and makes sure I get one of the better ones. Also, while Jeeves hasn't played in alot of official sanctioned tournaments himself, as he's a figment of my imagination, he always gives solid advice about deck building...in fact he just tells me what to play most of the time...

*Would Sir like a mad 4/4 pumpable black flyer for 6?

-Why Yes! Thank you, could I have 2 broken card drawers that also boost my threshold and some counterspells too?

*Certainly sir, how about 2 cephalid looters and 2 syncopates ?

-Sounds good, I'd also like more fliers and some kind of broken recursion combo aswell.

*I'll have them delivered to your Sealed Deck immediately sir.

*Oh, And Sir? [He Winks]

*Good luck!

I opened up my Sealed deck and was really disappointed with my green but my black and blue were amazing so I went with Jeeves' advice and added some white...

Deck:

Malevolent Awakening

Morbid Hunger

Syncopate x2

Peek

Gallantry

Divert

Scrivener

Cephalid Looter x2

Aven Fisher

Gravedigger

Vampiric Bloodsucker

Crypt Creeper

Dirty Wererat

Dusk Imp

Whispering Shade

Painbringer

Angelic Wall        

Aven Cloudchaser

Luminous Guardian

Mystic Visionary

7 swamps

6 islands

4 plains

1 bog wreckage

R1: Mark Wootton [B/G/w]

I had never met Mark before but it was pleasure as he's a real gent from Scotland.

In Game 1 Mark did not get white till about turn 10 when I had pretty much complete control of the board at that stage anyway. Game two he was very unlucky not to get a vampiric dragon out as he discarded 2 zombifies from his deck to get threshold instead of using his zoologist's ability to grab the top card in the deck and play it if it's a creature...guess what was on the top of his deck...he he.

[1-0, 2-0]

R2: Martin Deery [W/G]

Game 1 Martin put me under a fair bit of early pressure but I survived it to lay the smack down with flyers eventually. Game 2 Martin was pinging me down to 14 when I hungered away his flyer and used painbringer to clear the board twice to attack for 10 and rinsed and repeated the following turn.

[2-0, 4-0]

R3: Mark McGovern [R/G]

Mark had me on the ropes early on but an angelic wall with a whispering shade with 3 sources of black was key here to stabilising the board as i looted into more swamps to force a standoff until I started my malevolent awakening, scrivener, gravedigger and syncopate abuse! Game 2 he never really got off to a decent start and i had pinged him down to 4 with flyers at the end of 5 extra turns.

[3-0, 5-0]

R4: John Larkin [B/R/U]

This was a really enjoyable match and after a long battle for supremacy my awakening had given me the board control i needed and i was a turn away from killing him when he played 'demoralise' with  threshold. Wanker. He romped thru for the final 9 points of damage while I stared at him in disbelief and tried to distract him by kicking him in the shins while he turned his creatures sideways...oh the shame! Killed by hounds!*

I should have known that SlyDogg would have a few tricks up his sleeve.

The second game was much the same with me in control again [as he had sided out his hounds] but worried as John was taking a while with his turns towards the end of the round...i was concerned about this so I called Oli over but in fairness what I couldn't see was that every card he drew and took his time over was either some form of direct damage or a spell that affected the board in some way so he was entitled to think about it and was understandably a bit miffed to lose in the final extra turn for a 1-1 draw. Me, I was just glad I hadn't had a heart attack!

[3-0-1, 6-1]

R5: Sean Shortiss [G/W/R]

This was another really good match that was slightly hurt by the fact that the early mana screw we both got alternativelty in the 1st two games was enough to allow the other player eventually capitalise on the others slow start before the round ended with the score 1-1 and me scrabbling for the 3 points afters Seans excellent defence compounded the myriad of mistakes I made against him...This leaves myself and Sean still honours even at 1-1-1 vs each other.

[3-0-2, 7-2]

R6: Michael Bui Viet [G/W/R]

The winner here would make top 8 and the other was going out so Michael and myself were both delighted when he got badly mana screwed both games and the more deserving player went through!:) We played a friendly afterwards and while I still won it was much closer when he actually drew his lands! An intersting thing that was remarked upon at this stage at the top tables was that there was going to be only 2 or 3 decks going into the top 8 with green in them. Was this an aberration as per the card selection [which certainly looked like it was repeated in the draft] or has the green been overrated? Probably the former.

[4-0-2, 9-2]

Cool. Through to the top 8. Of course Irelands premier Magic team 'Team5fu' always has at least one player in the top 8! It was Rochester draft with me as No. 1 seed too. I sat down and nominated position 1 which left me in seat 4 and my Q-f opponent in 8 and oddly enough the person I was most worried about, John Larkin in position 1. John has qualified for New Orleans next week and is back on a roll magic-wise after a bit of a hiatus so I felt any disadvantage however slight that went his way would increase my chances...as you will read later on maybe I should have been concentrating on more pressing issues...like getting into the finals before I worried about him!

The draft itself was very strange as the green was diabolical early on and not exactly spectacular later on but I set my stall out early on with a hallowed healer, kirtars desire and some ok green stuff banking on collecting on my investment later on. It never really happened but I got some chunk and 4 or 5 fliers and a solid defence bolstered by a squirrel nest and a 4th pick Kirtars Wrath - friendly drafting pays off! - so I was relatively happy. John and Robbie also looked good and my Q-F opponent Roger Danes had drafted a very defensive u/w deck with 2 liuetenant kirtars and some other flyers so i was prepared to work for my invite to Mexico- I mean San Diego.

Q-F: Roger is a sound bloke from Northern Ireland who wandered over to worlds in Toronto this year for a break so I know him reasonably well and was delighted he had made top 8. We had a nice friendly match where games one and two were decided by who recovered better from my Wrath. In game one the board was fairly stable so I was able to hoard creatures in advance and play the Wrath with threshold thanks to my land eating atog once the wrath was on the stack and followed it up by some beatsticks.

Game 2 was a different story where I was in trouble and under pressure almost from the start [10 lands 4 spells] and so pretty much had to Wrath earlier than I would have liked...Roger drew a mystic Visionary though and followed that up by bouncing my creatures away until i was dead. At this point time was up and we went into sudden death..1st life change in 5 extra turns.This was pretty exciting in a morbid 'Deer Hunter' kind of way and while Roger and I were pretty nervous the others watching correctly assumed it was a time for fun and japes and capering from one players draw to another which I suppose is exactly how I would have treated it too if I wasn't the schmuck sitting down deciding to keep a kirtars desire, skyshroud shooter, an auromancer and some land. hmmm.

I went 1st amd laid a land. Roger played a Thought Nibbler.

I debated between playing a skyshroud shooter and the kirtars desire for a while and then chose the non-ballsy option...the desire, as i was nervous of his three aether bursts. The bloodthirsty psychos in the cheap seats at the Coliesium booed and jeered but I knew Russell Crowe would approve. 'Are you not entertained?' I roared at them, blood dripping from my twin scimitars. Roger just played a land and said go and I got the feeling he was just holding land. I dropped my skyshroud shooter and the pressure was on. Roger drew and played a 'dedicated martyr' and sac'd it for 3 life...that was it.

I was out.

I congratulated Roger on his win and wished him well in the semis but felt pretty low. I have never had to play the 1st life change rules before and while it certainly was exciting [and more importantly it hadn't slowed down the tournament] i didn't feel it was the best way to sort the issue out [mainly because I might have won a coin toss!] ...however, seen as I'm not coming up with an alternative way to decide the match [besides a coin toss!] I'll shut up. John went on to beat Robbie 'bound to win in Belfast' McKeown in the final and a good piss-up was had by all in 'Bacchus' afterwards.

Sometimes you win either way!

See ye all at Warpcon.

Cormac Smyth.

*2/2 hounds that attack or block and bounce themselves...whatever they're called..