Green affinity

John Bonnell

Boise, Idaho

October 22, 2005 

 

     Welcome back loyal readers and magic players. This is a report from Idaho about the Idaho state championships. You probably don’t want to hear it but some of this info might be good and some one out there might build a deck and make it famous or not. Not very many people will take the time or bother with it because they are shy about doing something or going beyond their bubble and façade of being a…..gasp magic player or gamer. Well this weekend was a climatic, titanic, and epic battle of small proportions it was Eastside versus Westside, North versus South and ground zero for Boise, Id. Many people traveled and converged upon this fair city to battle it out and butt heads over a game called Magic the gathering  that is still not widely known amongst the general populous compared to d&d (you utter those words and people swoon and faint at the mention of it or cross their hearts to protect themselves).

 

    So, you are wondering how many showed up to the Idaho State Championship. Well we were one card shy of playing solitaire with a full deck or nine cards shy of the minimum requirements of a magic deck. Yes, we had fifty-one total players show up. Cue the music “watching captain kangaroo and playing solitaire with a deck of fifty-one” Oak Ridge Boys is the quote from. We had all age ranges and many walks of life. The great thing about this game and these tourneys is the amount of different people we meet and talk to and play against. I used the same deck I had from Salt Lake Grand Prix with a little bit of ninth edition and Ravnica thrown in to make it type two.

 

Here is the deck as follows:

 

12 Forests, 7 Islands, 1 Tendo Ice Bridge, 2 Kodama’s Reach, 2 Patron of the Orochi, 2 Body of Jukai, 1 Llanowar Elves, 2 Time of Need, 1 Blazing Archon, 2 Serra Angels, 1 Humble Budaka, 3 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro, 4 Orochi Leaf caller, 2 Elvish Piper, 3 Reclaim, 1 Keiga, Tide Star, 2 Sakura Tribe Elder, 3 Orochi Sustainer, 1 Transluminant, 1 Honden of Life’s Web, 1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa, 1 Konda’s Banner, 1 Mnemonic Nexus, 3 Dampen Thought, 2 Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang, 2 Honden of Seeing Winds, 1 Viridian Shaman, 1 Myogin of  Life’s Web, and Sakura-tribe Scout.

 

    We played six rounds total and started play at ten am sharp. There was only one judge total. There was a need for at least one more. I was worried about being late and such to the tourney I even had planned on using map quest to give me directions, but opted not to so used my aunt and uncle and my general knowledge of Boise of where certain things were such as my aunts church and some of the main roads and local maps. So, I left there around eight am and followed directions and where to turn off and such. I remember riding by it so knew what it looked like and arrived on time and was actually a half hour early, I waited for people to show up and chatted with a fellow player from if where I was from and then some more of the gang showed up and talked to them and joined them at their table. I got my deck list and started registering my deck and acquired some paper and a pen so, I could pen my notes on for this article. This is how my rounds went:

 

 Round one: Tim Seibert he was playing a blue/black deck with Umezawa’s Jitte. He also showed me the power of Circu Lobotomist and removed several of my cards and I believe he attacked me with it. He defeated me two to nothing. I told him I was writing an article and if it was ok to use his name he said yes.

 

 Round two: I went up against Brandy Walker. I apologized to him for mistaking his name and thinking of indeterminate gender, because that name can go either way. I have to thank Darren Pillsbury over at http://www.imaginaryfriends.us for helping me with this he had the same thing also and it doesn’t help to get your names mixed up also located in his soap box. This was a very interesting two games because for one it went the full time constraint and we were only able to finish just two games. He was playing white weenie. Game one went with him winning it I was able to use Dampen Thoughts when he used his top to set up his draw. Now game two was the real clincher. I side boarded in my wear away and naturalize and quash and rewind and mana leak to deal with many things. Towards the end he put out Worship. I kept up the pressure and kept attacking knowing full well that it was a futile tactic and tried to force him to make a mistake but he didn’t go for it and also to come up with an answer to that. I now realize as I was writing this that Reweave would have been a good answer because it would have made him search for another enchantment and that would be answer to jitte. I used a Dampen Thoughts on myself to mill away four cards so I could come up with an answer to that Worship never came up with the answer and he later told me that he had another one in hand that game went to a draw technically or I lost it all together. I also had used wear away his Loxodon Warhammer and used a Reclaim to reuse it to keep it away.

 

 Round three was against Jerod Nickel. Now this deck I had faced earlier. It was last weekend before states at my local shop a street games a tourney was held type two. I wasn’t aware that it included everything that was soon to be old type two and new type two. I wanted to play so was up for anything. He called his deck (acid mill) at states. He had built this deck around Glimpse of Unthinkable, which will wreck combo decks or anyone who needs something to do something and many more milling cards. I asked him if he was going to states that weekend and he said no at first and he was really tempted and told him his deck was really good and he would think about it and also brought up some suggestions about bringing the wife and kids, but he brought his brother-in-law and a friend and drove up that day. I stayed at my aunt’s house and drove up the day before. He ended up glimpsing me within 5 turns and then just finishing me off. 2^nd game I countered one and was hoping to pull my mnemonic nexus, but didn’t so he won game two. (Comment his friend was wondering why I held back and didn’t cast other cards because I was waiting to counter that one time. I could have made several plays but didn’t want that one to go thru. I also at this time put two and two together and came up with a name for his deck. I called it Nickelpede, it is a mythical creature created by Piers Anthony who wrote a series of books based on a land called Xanth. If you get one on you they can be an annoyance but if you get many more in a group they can be the end of you.)

 

 Round four was against Greg Knutson. He played a black/white deck with rats and such. I failed to do anything and managed to lose terribly to him both games.

 

 Round five was against Devin Palmer. He played a deck with ninja’s and it was blue. I should have mulliganed the first game and lost to him. Second game I had made a fatal error. I put out Blazing Archon via Elvish Piper. He had Keiga, Tide Star out so was hesitant to attack. I Time of Needed for Keiga, Tide Star and played it to get rid of his and left it at that. Then Keiga’s ability kicked in and he took my blazing archon and took his cloud shaper and subsequently lost that game also. I believe I could have taken it back once he had chosen it.

 

 Round six was against Chris Owens. I sat down and the seat opposite me was empty. I called a judge over to notify him about my opponent and the time limit he had to show up. I waited he never showed up, I got my match slip entered in the correct criteria and turned it in and won.

 

    That was Idaho State Championship and how it went per my perspective. I still don’t know who got top eight or who even won. Thank you for reading and hope it helped in some way. Also forgot to mention my previous article was edited by Christian Holmquist, a good friend and an up and coming author and this one by Terry Lane.

 

 

 

John Bonnell

D_lilith1@hotmail.com