2000 Magic Invitational,Part 1
The first format at the Invitational was Duplicate Limited. Mark Rosewater was even more evil than usual this time, giving us a pool of very bad cards with a ton of really interesting interactions between them. The card pool was really interesting, and building the deck was next to impossible in an hour. First I wanted to build the deck around Opalescence, but then I decided the cards involved were too weak even for this format and that others would play them as well. I knew black was pretty much unplayable, but I didn't know which of the other colors to play. The green creatures were big but way overpriced and had severe liabilities. The color ratios for every deck were horrible.
The one card I knew I had to use was Drapoclasm. I knew I wanted to go heavy blue for Duplicity and Never Trust A Blue Mage. That second card is a 2UU enchantment that gives a creature flying, prevents it from attacking, and can be returned to your hand for UU. I wanted to get those cards as much as possible, and I wanted to abuse Too Many Words. (makes a creature's text box blank, killing Drapoclasm and making many of the creatures in the format like Illusionary Wall or Bunch of Elephants, which anyone can sacrifice a permanent to fog, a lot better). Having such good blue enchantments let me use Very Strict Tutor, which lets you go get a green or blue enchantment. I wanted to get Too Many Words with it, so I included Balduvian Shaman to change green to white on the card. I also wanted the Shaman to sacrifice to Abjure. In general, I included all of the non-green enchantment removal, since enchantments seemed really strong, and splashed green for Fugitive Druid and Femeref Enchantress. As you can tell, there was way too much to think about, and I basically ran out of time trying to figure everything out. I ended up registering a deck that had a few clear mistakes in it, like Share My Pain, which was double red and almost impossible for me to use well even if I drew the mana and was really messing up my mana base. I forgot some excellent cards like Carrier Pigeons. Before I even sat down, I knew I'd built my deck badly. Here's the card pool we had to select from:
(Cards with a * are new, and are listed below)
WHITE (17)
Creatures (9)
Amrou Kithkin
Auratog
Carrier Pigeons
Cloudchaser Monk (*)
Ignoble Soldier
Pearled Unicorn
Sacred Guide
Trade Caravan
Tragic Poet
Spells (8)
Circle of Protection: White
Illumination
Null Chamber
Opalescence
Rolling Stones
Security Detail
Too... Many... Words (*)
Very Strict Tutor (*)
BLUE (17)
Creatures (9)
Academy Researchers
Balduvian Shaman
Brine Seer
Coral Fighters
Fledgling Osprey
Illusionary Wall
Saprazzan Raider
Shrieking Drake
Stern Proctor
Spells (8)
Abjure
Donate
Duplicity
I Don't Think So (*)
Intuition
Never Trust a Blue Mage (*)
Steal Enchantment
Undercover Disguise (*)
BLACK (17)
Creatures (10)
Blood Pet
Bog Witch
Carrion Beetles
Mutated Cockroach (*)
Quagmire Lamprey
Rag Man
Reclusive Wright
Strongarm Thug
Swamp Mosquito
Wall of Tombstones
Spells (7)
Being an Evil Minion Sucks (*)
Conspiracy
Fatal Blow
Forbidden Crypt
Sadistic Glee
That Stings(*)
Treacherous Link
RED (17)
Creatures (9)
Armorer Guildmage
Blood Hound
Cinder Wall
Goblin Apprentice (*)
Goblin Gardner
Goblin Recruiter
Goblin Soothsayer
Okk
Shocker
Spells (8)
Aether Fart (*)
About Face
Consuming Ferocity
Dizzying Gaze
Mark of Fury
Share My Pain (*)
Tooth and Claw
Tunnel
GREEN (17)
Creatures (11)
Avalanche of Squirrels (*)
Bunch of Elephants (*)
Caller of the Hunt
Endangered Armadon
Fugitive Druid
Fyndhorn Brownie
Harvest Wurm
Llanowar Druid
Sacred Prey
Treefolk Seedlings
Wall of Schizophrenia (*)
Spells (6)
Bequethal
Eladamri's Vineyard
Harmonic Convergence
Magnify
Song of Serenity
Tranquil Domain
MULTI-COLOR (10)
Creatures (5)
Dracoplasm
Femeref Enchantress
Finicky Mob (*)
Mundungu
Wood Sage
Spells (5)
Circle of Despair
Grim Feast
Leave My Stuff Alone (*)
Suleiman's Legacy
Surge of Strength
TEXT FOR NEW CARDS
Cloudchaser Monk
3W
Creature - Cleric
When Cloudchaser Monk comes into play,
destroy target enchantment. Monks have a
love/hate relationship when it comes to
enchantments.
Too.. Many.. Words
2WW
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature's text box is blank.
If enchanted creature's power or
toughness is undefined, treat it as 0.
"Not... enough... flavor... text..."
Very Strict Tutor
4W
Enchantment
1W, Sacrifice Very Strict Tutor:
Search your library for a blue or
green enchantment. Reveal that card,
put it into your hand, then shuffle
your library.
I Don't Think So
1UU
Instant
Reveal your hand. If no creature cards
are in it, counter target spell.
"As if..."
Never Trust a Blue Mage
2UU
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature has flying and can't
attack.
UU: Return Never Trust a Blue Mage to
its owner's hand.
How can you tell when a blue mage is lying?
He opens his mouth.
Undercover Disguise
4U
Enchant Creature
You may play Undercover Disguise any time
you could play an instant. As Undercover
Disguise comes into play, choose a creature
type. Enchanted creature is that type.
Mutated Cockroach
4BBB
Creature - Mercenary Insect
5/4
At the beginning of your upkeep, target
opponent chooses a color other than black.
You sacrifice all creatures of the chosen color.
"It was the size of a house. No really."
Being an Evil Minion Sucks
3BB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Being an Evil
Minion Sucks, sacrifice a creature.
Destroy target creature other than a Wizard.
If Volrath ever summons you by name, run!
- Stronghold graffitti
That Stings
1B
Enchant Creature
Sacrifice two lands: Regenerate enchanted
creature.
" If they don't scream, you really weren't
putting their heart into it."
- Phyrexian credo
Aether Fart
4RR
Sorcery
Volcanic Puff deals X damage divided as you
choose among any number of target creatures
other than Goblins, where X is the number of
enchant creatures in play.
Goblin Apprentice
2R
Creature - Goblin
1/1
2R, T: Goblin Apprentice deals 3 damage to
target Wizard. There is much discussion as
to what skills best suit a goblin. Handling
explosive magical devices
is not one.
Share My Pain
3RR
Enchantment
Whenever you draw a card, Share My Pain deals
1 damage to you.
2R, Discard an enchantment card from your hand:
Share My Pain deals 2 damage to target
creature or player.
Avalanche of Squirrels
4GG
Creature - Squirrels
3/3
Echo (At the beginning of your next upkeep after
this permanent comes under your control,
sacrifice it unless you pay its mana cost.)
Avalanche of Squirrels can't attack if a Goblin
or Insect is in play.
Bunch of Elephants
7GG
Creature - Elephants
8/8
Trample
Sacrifice a permanent: Prevent all damage Bunch
of Elephants would deal this turn.
Any player may play this ability.
"Sure I've heard of elephants..."
Wall of Schizophrenia
3GG
Creature - Wall
5/3
Trample
Wall of Schizophrenia may block any number of
Goblins and/or Wizards each combat.
Wall of Schizophrenia can't block Carnivores,
Elephants, or Walls.
Finicky Mob
2BR
Creature - Minions
2/2
BR: Finicky Mob can't be blocked by Merfolk, Walls,
or Wizards this turn.
A mob is simply a force of nature like a tornado
or typhoon.
Leave My Stuff Alone
2WU
Enchantment
1WU: Return a black or green creature you control
to its owner's hand.
Rule #1 when working with wizards - don't touch
their stuff.
- Apprentice Handbook
First round I played against Jon Finkel. He'd built his deck very well. Almost every time he played a card, I'd kick myself for not playing it in my deck. In particular, I was impressed when he cast Undercover Disguise, changing his Wall into a Finkel (he selected Gimp game two) so he could attack with it. Still, all that deck construction didn't actually matter. All that did matter was that I didn't draw enough Islands either game, allowing his deck to roll over me. Game one I just collapsed, and Finkel won on something like turn seven. I changed my deck to look a lot more like Finkel's, but I refrained from taking another hour and totally rebuilding it from scratch. Finkel asked before the round that players be locked into their main decks, since we would just sideboard into the best configuration regardless of how badly we built. I agreed with him on principle. In rounds two and three, I changed a ton of cards after sideboarding. Game two, Finkel got a lot of enchantment action going, and had Femeref Enchantress the entire time. However, there aren't too many ways to get through in this format. Finkel drew card after card from his deck, and soon I realized that if I was going to win the game it would be through decking. Finkel had done lots of tricks, including using Never Trust A Blue Mage on his Fugitive Druid a few times. Now I started putting my Never Trust A Blue Mage on his Druid. Finally, with only a few cards left, Finkel attacked and traded away the creatures (I probably shouldn't have killed as many off as I did but I would still have lost), and dropped the Bunch of Elephants with Too Many Words on it. I could have decked him with the Blue Mage but didn't have four islands, so I couldn't pick it up and put it back down. Finkel killed me one turn early by assigning Trample damage when its text box was blank, but the game was lost regardless. After that, we went to lunch.
Next round I faced Dirk Baberowski. He was playing another of the four color decks, almost all of which were missing black. His was different from Finkel's by a few cards. The match came down to the 'power' cards. I won one game because he played Wood Sage and milled 16 cards to find Drapoclasm, losing many of his good cards in the process. I stopped the Drapoclasm with Never Trust A Blue Mage and then Too Many Words a few turns later, and held on to deck him. Meanwhile, Dirk had showed me the power of Song of Serenity, so I sideboarded it in. I got some pressure and a lot of enchant creatures, so I played the Song and used Too Many Words and Never Trust A Blue Mage to shut down his creatures so I could attack. He got Drapoclasm to kill my enchantments, but I got the Too Many Words back when I found the Tragic Poet off the Duplicity and killed Drapoclasm, and went on to win. Dirk built his deck better than I did, but I drew better.
Round three I played against Mike Long. Playing against Long was the one thing at the Invitational I wasn't looking foreword to, and I was happy to play him early so I didn't have to worry about it later on. Game one, he played Duplicity, I used Abjure to counter it, sacrificing Balduvian Shaman ( Abjure always got sideboarded out, it was terrible), and he used Tragic Poet to get it back. I used Steal Enchantment to take it, which sent the five cards under it to the graveyard. I then used Auratog to sacrifice Steal Enchantment so he would have to discard a card every turn for the rest of the game. I knew there was a chance he had Opalescence, but I didn't think he had it. He did, cast it, and attacked for five. I used MY Tragic Poet to get back my Steal Enchantment and took Duplicity again. I had double red somehow as well, and cast Share My Pain, which is a 3RR enchantment, so it was a 5/5. However, it does 1 damage to you when you draw (its effect didn't help that game), and I was really low on life. Long discarded the Illumination to Duplicity when he shouldn't have one turn, and that let me get the Pain down. The Share got me down to 1 the turn I attacked for the game.
We both changed our decks completely after sideboarding. I changed into a more standard four-color special, including all the green creatures and enchantment removal (since he was playing Opalescence). He took out the enchantment strategy for black. That left me with about two cards that didn't do much. Again I got a good draw. I cast Intuition for three lands (which was what it was there for), and found all my color and nine lands. I put down the Bunch of Elephants, and put Too Many Words on it to get a vanilla 8/8. Meanwhile, Long had me down to 11 with a 3/3 Avalanche of Squirrels that costs 4GG to cast. The casting cost was important because Surge of Strength makes it 9/3 trample. I had I Don't Think So (a 2UU Counterspell you can't cast with a creature in your hand), so I chump blocked the Avalanche until I could get all my creatures out of my hand to play around the Surge. Meanwhile, he chumped the Elephants. I was making sure to play correctly, and Long was telling me to hurry up. I pointed out that there was no time limit, and he said that was true but there was a boredom limit to this format, which wasn't that interesting. He did have a point. Finally, the turn before he was going to be dead, he cast Being An Evil Minion Sucks, which is 3BB and sacrifice a creature to kill a creature. He said "Cast Being An Evil Minion Sucks, sacrificing Avalanche of Squirrels, targeting Bunch of Elephants." I reminded him that the sacrifice was part of the casting cost, since he hadn't buried the Squirrels yet. He agreed he was sacrificing the Squirrels (his only creature). So I cast I Don't Think So on it for the win. Long then called a judge to check the ruling, and said (direct quote): "I tapped five mana into my mana pool and pointed [Minion] at the Elephants, and he tapped four mana and cast I Don't Think So." Here it comes, I thought. The real Mike Long. He was trying not only to not sacrifice the creature. He was trying to get me to burn for four! Mark Rosewater just told him he did have to sacrifice the creature and Mike just buried it, pointed out that he did have the Surge and conceded.
So in summary, I played well and sideboarded into a good deck after building my deck horribly. All three matches basically came down to who got the better draw, and I escaped with a 2-1 record in Duplicate Limited. I never got to play the players with the Donate decks; except for the second game against Long, everyone was basically using the same cards. The next format was Block Party, and I liked my chances there a lot. I'll cover Block Party in Part 2.