South Florida Tourney Report
 
Several weeks ago through the message boards I found that there were other
HP players nearby. I contacted some of them and Andrew Hoo came by our
league and we discussed running a DCI sanctioned tourney. Everyone liked the
idea of winning packs and being ranked so we decided to hold a tourney. This
past weekend at our league we tried it. Thanks to Andrew for coming by and
registering everybody with a DCI number. Everyone chipped in a buck and we
got the store to sell us some Adventures at Hogwarts packs using their
employee discount to be used as prizes. We decided to play four rounds and
we had 11 participants. A few of the parents (myself included) decided to
play.
 
I gave my son Joshua first choice as to which of our decks he wanted to play
and he Picked "Minerva's Pets". A red/brown creature/denial deck with some
green healing mixed in. I chose "Draco and His Nasty Little Friends" a fast
creature deck using mostly low cost non discarding creatures with some
Transfig, mainly for Steelclaw.
 
Round 1
 I drew Professor Debbie in the first round. She was trying out a new
Hermione Charms Creature deck and was not sure how it would perform. I put
down Through the Arch on my 1st turn to get a head start and it worked. She
solved it in 2 turns and had no items in the discard pile for the reward. I
was able to get a few creatures out and I used Draco to discard her low
power spells. She had a problem getting out the cards she wanted. I used
Steelclaw and Swarm for 4 or 5 extra damage per turn. I had a big enough
lead to trade damage until she ran out of cards. 
 
I checked on my son and he had played Michael, the only player younger than
him. He won and we found ourselves both 1-0.
 
Round 2
 The match I dreaded was next. Joshua and I faced each other. We both
knew each others decks by heart. He knew I wasn't going to go easy on him
because we both play to win at home. I knew my adventures wouldn't work but
since I had Draco I would have to prevent him getting down creatures so I
could get mine down first. I got lessons quickly in this game but waited
while I trimmed his hand. I knew he didn't have Pep Talk and I wouldn't get
to 9 lesson power against his deck so I discarded Fluffy and Wooden Flute to
use Draco. He played PON and I let him discard my 1st creature. I replaced
it with 2 owls the next turn and used them to get my Put-outer from the
discard pile. Soon we each had Put Outers in play but he had no good
opportunity to use it. I got the Eyelops down and Steelclawed him to get an
advantage. He played his unicorn and I PutOutered it back into his hand
before he could get an Action advantage. He never drew any of his 4 healing
cards and I ended up 2-0.
 
Round 3
 I faced off against Robert (another parent) in a battle of the 2
undefeated players. He was also playing a Draco but in a 4 color deck. Until
halfway through the game I thought it was a 3 color deck. He and I both had
a slow start with lessons and both discarded some of each others hand. He
spent a lot of time drawing and was determined to get the combo he wanted. I
thought it was a quidditch combo and kept doing PutOuter and Lost Notes to
his quidditch lesson. When I finally used Draco to look at his hand and saw
the Dragons I knew what he was looking for. A creature lesson. I was doing
5-10 damage a turn by this time and he was doing nearly as much drawing 3
cards a turn. He finally got the lesson to play his Welsh Green and I was
only too glad to take the damage and PutOut the dragon back into his hand. A
turn later I was the only 3-0 player.
 
Joshua found himself in a pickle of a game against Jessica. I forgot who her
starter was but she had HNH down and 3 month long match. She was doing small
damage but it was adding up and Josh realized too late that he could have
used Minerva to get rid of the adventure so he could use 2 actions to PutOut
the match back to her hand. Having never played in a tournament before he
gave up hope and finished the game quickly. I explained to him afterwards
that he was only 30 seconds away from a time limit draw when he played his
last turn.
 
Round 4
I am undefeated and there are 3 others at 2-1. Neither Joshua nor I got a
bye the entire day. I drew Nick (2-1) whose dad I had played in the last
round. He had a Draco Creatures Charms deck. I put down Through the Arch on
the 1st turn to get a head start but he didn't solve it immediately. I drew
poorly for lessons and could not get creatures in play. My critical error
was trying to draw lessons when I should have looked at his hand on turn 2.
He layed down 2 Boas and I was taking 4 damage per turn. My Put Outer was in
the discard pile and my owls couldn't get in play to get it for me. I
finally got 2 black bats in play but the damage was already done. I used
Steelclaw & Swarm to try and catch up and was able to remove one of the Boas
with a Doxie. He used Draco and got rid of my Into the Forbidden Forest
which would have helped me a lot. When he laid down the River Troll I only
lasted 2 more turns.
 
Joshua played Phyllis who had a Hermione deck that had tons of lessons in
play . He spent the whole game removing Norbert only to see it come back. He
took too much damage in the process from her other actions and could not
recover. He ended up 1-3 which he is not used to. To his credit he was
excited that one of us won a prize. We discussed his and my games on the way
home.
 
We ended up with a 4 way tie. The computer determined based on strength of
schedule that Nick was first. Another player, Daniel, and myself tied for
second and Jessica placed third. We hope to repeat this format every few
weeks and hope to have COS cards for prizes by that time. We invite everyone
in the South Florida area to join us at 4pm on Saturdays at the Sawgrass
Mills Mall Books-a-Million store to participate. Our Professor, Debbie, has
setup email for our league at HPTCGL@HOTMAIL.COM 
 
FlaWizard
JAndron@trauma.med.miami.edu