Posted on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 01:04 PM EST by Trent |
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Cubists writes: So there you have it, the Grinders have come and gone and we now have our 8 for the Pro Tour. The format for the PT has also been decided. Events for the $80 (8 antes of $10 each) Pro Tour will begin with an 8 Man Rochester Draft, 3 rounds, followed by three rounds of booster draft.
The PT Participants by Christian Antonescu
Top 4 is going to be 2 on 2 team draft with the top player and the 4th ranked player being one team and the 2nd and 3rd being the other. We decided on this because the formats most often played in cube are 2 on 2 and 3 on 3 teams. The winning team will win the $80, be crowned Pro Tour Champions and lest we all forget, will get to create a card to be added to the cube for the next season.
Here are the participants:
Mark Zajdner - Top 32 at PT Chicago ’99, Q'ed for 6 Pro Tours, 5 time Canadian Nationals Competitor, Qualified for Worlds on rating in 1999, 2000. Currently Q'ed for Boston.
Steve Cassell - Top 8 GP Milwaukee, 9 PTQ top 8’s, Team PTQ Winner, currently Q'ed for both PT Boston and PT Houston for the upcoming season and currently sitting atop the Hall of Champions in MTG Online. (The hardest thug out there).
Josh Rider - Josh has 3 PTQ Top 8 finishes, one of which he won. He opted to not attend Pro Tour New Orleans last year.
Kyle Reid - “Mr. Ontario”, Top 16 GP Montreal, 2001 Ontario Provincial Champion, 2001 Regional Champion, PTQ Winner, Team PTQ Winner, attended PT San Diego, currently Q'ed for PT Boston.
Christian Antonescu - Top 16 GP Montreal, multiple Prerelease wins, Team PTQ Winner, just coming off a top 4 performance at the PTQ in London on Aug. 18th, currently Q'ed for PT Boston.
Colin McCann - Former Canadian National Star Wars CCG Champion, one time #1 rated Star Wars player globally, a veteran of the MTG game.
Justin Butler - Former Canadian National Star Wars CCG Runner Up, Apocalypse Prerelease Champion, and all around nice guy. (I would take a bullet for him - JoshR).
Lee Kestenberg - Lee scooped to National Team member Jon Stern in the final round of a Prerelease flight once, and Jon was nice enough to give Lee his trophy which Lee still sleeps with every night. Best Finish: Split in the finals of a 10-man Type 2 tournament at 401 once, 6-2 at Regionals last year. No he did not make top 8, but Lee still has the deck together on his mantle.
The Rochester Draft: by Richard Hoaen
Seating:
1. Colin
2. Josh
3. Justin
4. Christian
5. Steve
6. Lee
7. Kyle
8. Mark
Colin opens the draft with an interesting pack. No power but a few powerful cards. Colin starts with a powerful black card in Yawgmoth’s Will. Josh, going with his preferences, takes Impulse second. Followed with Justin going blue, Christian going black. Steve with green, Lee blue, Kyle blue, and Mark UBG. Black is heavily drafted in the first pack. The highlight being Justin’s opened Mind Twist.
“All packs have gas in them.” - Mark
“Some more than others.” - Josh
Halfway through the first pack, Josh in seat one has a rainbow of cards mostly blue. Justin behind him has a few strong blue and black cards along with his opened Mind Twist. Lee had success with Black Lotus earlier in the day which helped him gain his slot into the PT, so he was very happy opening it with his first pack. The pack also contained Morphling and a Flametongue Kavu so Kyle Reid and Mark Zajdner also got very powerful cards out of the pack. Josh picked up a Crosis a pack later which gave him a second Dragon Legend to go with his earlier Dromar which seemed to solidify his colours, but he changed his mind not liking the fact that there are so few white cards in the cube.
There was a lot of colour switching going on in the second pack. In the first seat Colin had played black with his first pick Yawgmoth’s Will and his Dark Ritual to combo with it. He picked a second colour in red during the second pack. He got back to back power at the beginning of the third pack with a Mox Ruby and Ancestral Recall. He may have troubles with his mana but if he draws his colours and his power cards his artifact based deck could take the first pod. He was very unhappy when Kyle Reid took Mishra’s Workshop.
Behind Colin, Josh stayed with his general colour preferences and played Blue Black. He decided to play his Dromar rather than his Crosis after getting Painlands to help out his mana and game swinging cards like Balance. He is almost pure control with lots of counters and controlling cards. A side note on Josh is that he described his performance in this tournament to be the “Feel Good Story of the Year.” When the Cube PT was first thought of it was decided that there would be invitations based upon everyone’s performance throughout the year in cube drafts as well as other categories finishing with today’s grinder. Josh had a quick lead in the ratings but then stopped recording his wins because he felt it was getting too competitive. He missed out on a ratings invitation to the Pro Tour by one point and instead had to attend the grinders earlier and did so with a Green Red land destruction deck. I myself hope he wins the PT because the story it would make would surely send shockwaves through the entire Magic community.
Behind him Justin quickly settled himself into Blue Black Green with his dual lands and Mind Twist. He has a few Man-Lands so he should have an edge against pure control decks. He has good mana and gigantic monsters in Spiritmonger and Phantom Centaur.
During the draft everyone was envious of Christian’s Black/White Necro deck with powerful card advantage spells like Hymn to Tourach, Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena and life-swing spells such as Drain Life and Death Grasp. Midway through the draft he picked second out of a pack that contained both Hymn and Gerrard’s Verdict. He took Hymn second and the Hymn almost got back to him before being hated only 1 seat ahead of him by Justin.
Steve started by trying to draft an aggressive Red Green deck, known here as “Cheesy Red/Green Beats”, but switched into a more controlling four colour green deck that hopes to win by getting to the late game and getting infinite card advantage with Sylvan Library and Abundance. For those of you who don’t know when Sylvan Abundance is in play their controller during his draw step draws three cards. Whether they be land or spells is his choice. Steve turned into a control deck after his aggressive cards like Rancor were being hated from him. Steve ended up with a base Green deck, which splashes other colours for very powerful cards like Time Walk and Mirari’s Wake.
Lee followed Steve in seat 6. Lee seemed to have a little trouble finding his place in the draft taking a mix of blue and red cards. Early he picked up some good creatures led by Serendib Efreet. He seemed to find his place in blue red. The same colour combination as Kyle Reid behind him.
Kyle is playing blue red with a lot of X spells to go with good blue cards like Control Magic and Morphling. He tried to turn his deck into an artifact-based mana making engine to fuel his expensive spells, but we’ll have to see how that goes. The Covetous Dragon fit quite nicely into his deck.
In the 8 seat was the ever-entertaining Mark Zajdner. He seemed very upset with the way the draft went from the beginning. Complaining about his seating in the draft, and the underpowered cards he received. Mark did try to make the best out of a bad situation taking Survival of the Fittest and cards to combo with it like Squee. He has mana creatures, Flametongue Kavu, Braids, and other situational cards that interact well with Survival. He also has a board clearer in Pernicious Deed, but it seems that his complaints were justified, because judging from his deck he does appear to have been out-opened by others at the table.
Round One Feature Match: Mark Z vs. Josh R by Mike Fernyhough
Marks wins the roll and chooses to play first. He looks at the opening grip and throws it back. He keeps the 6-card hand and starts the game off with a Barbed Sextant. Each player lays a land until turn 3 when Mark sacs the Sextant and casts Call of the Herd, which Josh Mana Leaks. Mark passes the turn.
Josh untaps and plays Psycatog. On turn 4 Mark plays Masticore and passes the turn. On Mark’s next upkeep he discards Squee, Goblin Nabob to the Masticore and is ready to start the race. He attacks with his 'core putting Josh to 16. Josh attacks back with the 'tog putting Mark at 19. Turn 5 Mark casts Call, Josh Dismisses it, Mark then attacks with the Masticore putting Josh at 12. Josh casts EOT Impulse into his Swords to Plowshares. Josh Swords the 'core and Mark is at 23.
After several attacks with the 'tog Mark is down to 18, and that’s when the Iridescent Angel hits the table. The games not looking good for Mark at this point. Josh has a 'tog and an Angel and Mark has a Squee. The next turn Josh casts Coercion and Mark scoops it up.
Josh 1-0
Game 2
Mark chooses to play first and yet again he throws it back. With his lack of gas against Josh’s card advantage deck things are not looking on the ups for Marky.
Josh starts it off with a Seal of Cleansing. After 6 turns with both players playing lands, Mark plays a Quirion Ranger and passes the turn. Josh untaps and plays Dromar the Banisher and Mark throws his hand on the table in disgust with zero answers and packs it up.
Mark is 0-1 at his own Pro Tour. Josh wins the match 2-0
Other winners in the first round are Christian over Steve, Justin over Kyle and Colin over Lee.
Quick Interview #1:
What card will you make if you win this tournament?
Steve:
0
Artifact Creature
Sacrifice: Add 3 colorless mana to your mana pool.
0/3
Mark:
U
Instant
Reveal the top 5 cards of your library. Your opponent makes 3 piles. Put one of those piles into your hand and put the others into the graveyard.
Kyle:
2
Artifact
All colorless mana in the casting cost of all creature spells is reduced to 0.
Justin:
B
Instant
Add BB to your mana pool.
Flashback B
Josh:
0
Artifact
2, Sacrifice: Target person in the room goes and gets you target drink.
Christian:
2R
Sorcery
Put a 2/2 red monkey into play.
When the monkey comes into play destroy target artifact.
Flashback 3R
Mike:
UUBB
Sorcery
Draw three cards. Destroy target non-black creature.
Lee:
1UR
Counter target spell. Put a 1/1 flying creature into play.
Standings After Round 1:
Christian 1-0
Justin 1-0
Colin 1-0
Josh 1-0
Kyle 0-1
Lee 0-1
Steve 0-1
Mark 0-1
Check back tomorrow for round two coverage.
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