Archmage Tournament Report

Beyond Dominia: The Type One Magic Mill: Tournament Archive -- ALL TOURNAMENT REPORT THREADS GO HERE: Archmage Tournament Report

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By K-Run, the Pegasus Hero (K_Run) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:04 pm:

Once again, the biannual Archmage T1 tournament (in Rimouski, Quebec, Canada) proved to be quite a success, with 77 players competing for the honor of having his (sorry no female player) name carved on the event trophy (and 200$ of course). A Time Walk was also given away as a presence prize.

MrZazel and I leave our hometown St-Clement at 7:30 to reach an hour later the Rimouski College.

I'm playing my Parfait for the first time in Rimouski. I don't know what to expect from my deck in this new environment, but I've heard there's a lot of mono-u control and black discard decks, so I can dream.

MrZazel plays a Zoo, Mig-Hell's plays BBS, Ti-Bonhomme plays BlastoBurn and Luc Use The Force (LucUTF) plays a B/W Bridge/Pit deck.

Our friends Po and his brother, Rioux are already there with some regulars from CTM. Po decided to switch to Enchantress and Rioux plays his trademark PowerBlast deck.

The tourney starts at 10:30.

Round 1 - Guillaume Bibeau, playing a R/B discard/aggro deck.

Game 1 I die very fast, unable to stop Blazing Specters, Hypnotic Specter and Skizzik. Game 2 and 3 are similar. He's able to cast Anarchy, but I recover with Replenish and Finds. He Hymns but forgets I have Mask into play. He's forced to discard his hand, containing an Anarchy. :-)

1-0, 2-1

Round 2 - Martin Vallée, playing a B/W/U control deck.

This guy had a bye first round. His deck is very strange, containing many suboptimal cards, like Arcane Denial, Serra Angel and Dromar. I win easily, and he was mana short during game 2.

2-0, 4-1

Round 3 - Michel D'Amours, playing Popalescence.

Michel is one of LucUTF's friends. I fear this match a lot, as an early Aura and Grove can be game. Unfortunately for Michel, I win the Aura race in both games, and he's not able to draw a lot of cards as I Wrath every Enchantress that sees play.

3-0, 6-1

Round 4 - Guillaume Soucy, playing mono-u.

Guillaume is a CTM regular and an excellent player who performs well in every tournament. First game was tense as I was able to cast Sacred Mesa on turn two. The game seemed to last forever, since he had 2 Morphlings and many Ophidians in play, forcing me to create Pegasi to block every turn. I often let Ophidian go through, just to be able to attack with Pegasi on the next turn. The game ends with me winning with only 3 lives left. The second game is much faster, as Soucy concedes when I play another quick Mesa.

4-0, 8-1

At this point I need only another victory to make Top 16.

Round 5 - Yannick Roussel, playing mono-u.

Yannick is arguably the best player at the tournament, and he won the Archmage twice IIRC. This match is much harder than the preceding, as Yannick plays many Masticores and Ophidians, plus Nevinirral's Disk. He outdraws me first game with 2 Ophids. I manage to kill them all, but he drops Masticore. On my last turn before death and with Balance in hand, I draw Orim's Chant. I cast Chant, he misdirects. It was his last "counter". Grr... Second game, I play a 1st turn Aura, 2nd turn Aura. I think I have the edge but he plays 2 Mishra's Factories and starts the beatdown. I don't want to use the Auras to destroy them, as they keep Masti and Disk off the board. I already used 2 Swords on Ophidians and he drop Morphling. I'm unable to draw anything significant and I lose.

4-1, 8-3

Round 6 - Tommy Goupil, playing Sligh

I take total control of game 1 and I wonder why Tommy doesn't concede faster. Game 2 I play a first turn Story Circle and he Anarchies it away. He destroys all my artifacts with a Shaman so I keep my Zuran Orb in hand. I Find the Circle back in play and now with many lands in play and another Find in hand, I feel safe... But then he drops the bomb : FLASHFIRES!!!!! WHAT?!? Despite topdecking a Balance, I still lose. I'm stunned to see how Flashfires is an annoying card. Third game I see all my stuff Shatterstormed and Anarchied. I do 2 horrible mistakes : first forgetting that I have a Moat in my graveyard and second I forgot that I still had a colorless mana in my pool from Sol Ring when I play Story Circle, tapping all my lands (I could've kept an untapped Plains). He drops Ball Lightning and I die.

4-2, 9-5

Round 7 - Yannick Veilleux, playing a rogue mono-u.

This is the final round and I need to win to make top 16. Yannick is playing a strange mono-u deck with many oddities. I'm able to win first game thanks to Sacred Mesa and Story Circle. Second game the nightmare begins. A lot of my stuff resolve (like Ivory Mask, which is good as I know he runs Palinchron/Academy), but I discover why a bit later. He plays 4 Wash Outs. He drains one of my spells and Denying Winds me ! I concede. Third game is similar to game 2. Wash Out totally wrecks me. Eventually 2 Palinchrons kill me.

4-3, 9-7

Seems that some sideboard cards really hurt me. I'll have to work on this. Anyway this was a good tourney for Parfait (I'm an optimistic person).

Of course, for your pleasure, I've noted the pairings of the Top 16 !

Top 16 :

Dominic Sirois (Arena Mono-B) over Guillaume Soucy (Mono-U)

Sébastien Nolin (TurboLand) over Carol Massé (R/U control)

Tommy Goupil (Sligh) over Israël Thériault AKA MrZazel (Zoo)

Frederic Gaudreault (R/G Survival) over Tommy Chamberland (Arena Mono-B)

Yannick Roussel (mono-u) over Jules Boulanger (mono-g LD)

Sébastien Dubé (Academy) over Louis Villeneuve (mono-u)

Luc Tremblay AKA LucUTF (B/W Bridge/Pit) over Jonathan Mailloux (Pox)

Sébastien Rioux AKA Rioux (PowerBlast) over Yannick Veilleux (rogue mono-U)

Top 8 :

LucUTF (Bridge/Pit) over Nolin (Turboland)

Sirois (Arena) over Rioux (PowerBlast)

Roussel (mono-u) over Dubé (Academy)

Gaudreault (Survival) over Goupil (Sligh)

Semis :

Gaudreault (Survival) over Sirois (Arena)

Roussel (mono-u) over LucUTF (Bridge/Pit)

Finals :

It's 23:30 so both friends decide to split the money. Actually, Roussel concedes so Gaudreault gets his name on the trophy.

CONCLUSION

This was a great tourney. Despite the losses, I somehow managed to trade and buy many foils for my deck. But most importantly, the tourney organizers allowed me to take the 77 DECKLISTS!

I'll post the top 8 decklists later.

I'm currently compiling all the cards used in each and every deck. I'll post the results this week. This should be very interesting.

Next weekend we'll be at CTM for another Type 1 tournament.

Thank you for reading!


By Hyper Emotion Monster (Sylvester) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:09 pm:

next week end...

as in this week?

as in.. RIGHT AFTER MY EXAM WEEK?!?!

BOOYA! 8)


By Gzeiger (Gzeiger) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:11 pm:

quote{He Hymns but forgets I have Mask into play. He's forced to discard his hand, containing an Anarchy. :-)}

It seems to me that in this situation, when he says something like "I Hymn you" and then realizes he's declared an illegal target because of Ivory Mask, the card should be put back in his hand as an illegal play rather than having to target himself with it. Am I wrong?


By Hyper Emotion Monster (Sylvester) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:12 pm:

dunno...

He could ahve taken 2 mana burn, i guess...


By K-Run, the Pegasus Hero (K_Run) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:13 pm:

Sylvester : There's a Type 1 tournament at CTM on Saturday (November 3rd). I'll be there, with MrZazel, Mig-Hell's and Ti-Bonhomme.


By Redman, Relentless Leader of Scrubs (Redman) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:23 pm:

Out of sheer curiosity, how'd Ti-Bonhomme do?

I've also seen weird SBing against me in tourneys. First ther's my brother, who plays with 3 Glooms in his SB, then some other kid played Stench of Freaking Evil...and the one kid with 4 Wash Out in SB was no fun at all. :(

Sorry to hear you didn't make Top 16, especially since you were one win away. Nice report though.


By FeverDog (Feverdog) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:48 pm:

Damn K-Run, if i wasnt completely broke right now, i might make the trip up from Laval. If your ever in the montreal area for a tourney or something, post it here. I always want to make the trip up but its kinda far and none of my friends are into T1, so its kinda boring driving up alone.


By Hyper Emotion Monster (Sylvester) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 10:59 pm:

k-run:just hope my dad won't give me something else to do on that day..I found my boas!! ^_^

I guess i'll play a slightly metagamed stompy... Except that i have no rod...


By Acolytec (Acolytec) on Monday, October 29, 2001 - 11:05 pm:

Flashfires and Stench of evil were the very first cards that came to mind in fighting parfait. Blue doesn't have anything like that, so it has to settle for weird things like capsize, disk, washout, and grindstone. If parfait is a problem, you really would only have to sideboard a single copy.


By CF (Cf) on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 06:18 am:

Gzeiger:
If he taps for two black mana, then plays Hymn at an illegal target, he most "rewind" to having to black mana in play. If he announces Hymn, selects target and then pays the mana cost, like one should do, one should rewind to right before he announced the Hymn (with no mana in pool).

Another thing: When you need to force something through against a deck with Misdirection and you think the chances of him having many counterspells in hand are small:
Play the spell you want to force through, you get priority back, play Orim's Chant. Then yield priority. He can choose to let Chant resolve, thus being unable to counter your first spell. If he misdirects the Chant, your first spell is on the stack already, so it doesn't make any difference.

Cool to see Sebastien Dubé still playing, I thought he had quit magic. I have traded alot with him... he probably used the used-to-be-mine foil Stroke in his Academy :o)

--
Chris


By kudzu on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 07:27 am:

CF: But he can counter the spell before the chant resolves.


By CF (Cf) on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 11:27 am:

Err... of course he can! =) I don't know what I was thinking... had just woken up :o)

--
Chris


By Andrew, the Sphinx Slayer (Andrew) on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 04:46 pm:

The Hymn thing: It depends on the judge. After all, it was quite legal to announce Hymn at that point, just not at your opponent.


By CF (Cf) on Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 05:04 pm:

Andrew: You can say the Hymn thing depends on the judge, yes. A good judge will rewind, a _very bad_ judge who do not know the rules will let it resolve with a new target. When you play a spell, you announce it's targets as a part of playing it. Relevant rules:

409.1. Playing a spell or activated ability follows the steps listed below, in order. If at the end of playing a spell or ability a player was unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the game returns to the moment before that spell or ability was played (see rule 422, "Handling Illegal Actions"). There's more to 409.1 than this. Check http://shadow.wizards.com/dci/oracle/MagicCompRules_092401.txt

422.1. If a player realizes that he or she can't legally take an action after starting to do so, the entire action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled. No abilities trigger as a result of an undone action. If the action was playing a spell, the spell card returns to the zone it came from. The player may also reverse any legal mana abilities played while making the illegal play, unless mana from them or from any triggered mana abilities they triggered was spent on another mana ability that wasn't reversed. Players may not reverse actions that moved cards to or from a library or that involved a random choice or random zone change.

If you declare an illegal target, you return all the way, not just to where you declare targets.

--
Chris


By TheMarb on Monday, November 05, 2001 - 07:50 am:

K-Run Can you please post the top-eight decklists?
I'm really curious about the Survival and Bridge/Pit decklists... thanx

TheMarb


By Arex (Arex) on Monday, November 05, 2001 - 04:36 pm:

nice, at least T1 is not dead in all areas. :) Thanks for the repost K-Run.


By Luc, Use The Force on Monday, November 05, 2001 - 06:28 pm:

Here is the "Bridge/Pit" decklist I played.

Note that I was very surprised to get to the semi-finals. I don't think that deck is pretty good... I was a bit lucky in the pairings... but I'm a little proud to have been the only guy to beat the turboland player during the whole day (I did it twice!!)

Whippet

6 swamps
4 scrublands
4 caves of koilos
4 wasteland
1 strip
1 tolarian
1 lotus petal
1 sol ring
4 dark ritual

1 abyss
1 edict
2 vindicate
1 seal of cleansing

1 enl tut
1 dem tut
1 vamp tut

3 null brooch
3 bottomless pit
3 ensnaring bridge

4 the rack
3 cursed scroll

4 duress
1 balance
4 hymn
1 mind twist

1 yawgmoth's will

SB
4 negators
1 vindicate
2 crypt(yes 2!)
1 ensnaring bridge
2 cop red
1 cop blue
2 edict
1 powder keg
1 presence of the master(I knew a lot of son of parfait players)

Comments?


Luc


By Luc, Use The Force on Monday, November 05, 2001 - 06:31 pm:

Arex: The coolest thing is that type 1 is the only thing we play here in the eastern side of Québec :-)


By Le_Lepreux, the Plaguelord (Le_Lepreux) on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 06:49 pm:

WTF!!! GRRRR!!! I just noticed that I missed the Archmage... :o(

Le_Lepreux


By K-Run, the Pegasus Hero (K_Run) on Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - 11:35 pm:

Le_Lepreux : You're still alive?


By François Laroche on Wednesday, November 07, 2001 - 08:49 am:

Lepreux: Is there a draft tonight?


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