(It was neat to do alternate titles for a while for some reason.  I think it
was just a good way to express your feelings and views on the event you're
writing about without having to settle on one title.)
 
This is a report I am writing a little late.  It covers the events that
occurred on the Day of the Texas State Champioship '98.  Have you ever had
one of those weeks where you get the feeling that some one has their hand so
far up your @$$ that they are pulling on your stomach and you can....
well......nevermind.  On to business.
 
(I'm not even sure what the paragraph was about.  I obviously had some pent
up anger about something.)
 
Me and my road dog as of late, Nathan Segrest, decide to hop in
'tourney-mobile' (his little green mustang) and head for H-town.  Being the
Pimp that I am, I couldn't be in a hurry, so we left town late.  Actually we
were filling up the tank and buying snacks, but being a pimp sounds so much
cooler.  We head down to Houston and have to fight the darkness. the rain,
and a chunk of road near College Station that was almost nothing but
continuous rumble strips.  for those of you that do not know what those are,
they are the thing son the side of the road that make that grinding noise
that are suppose to wake you up if you fall asleep at the wheel.  < end
Sesame Street lesson of the day >  Anywho, we get that a reasonable hour,
about 8:30 or so, PM of course, and check in.  They give a room with pretty
good hookups and everything is fine.  Since we were pretty close, we decide
to head on down to the Book Browser, the place for gaming in Houston.
 
We get to Da Browser and I am greeted by the locals; Fletcher, Mason, Carl
James, Bob Coonce, and my main man Leland Simmons.  Well, he's not my main
man, but he is some kinda cool sometimes.  I think the guys at Da Browser
are afraid of me cause they like always seem to start the tournament JUST
before I walk in.  This time was no different.  Ah well.  My fault for being
late, again.  But hey, come on, we all know "Pimpin' ain't Eaz-E"  :)
 
(These were some feeble attempts at humor.  They were also a small bit
immature. I can say though, that it was fun for flavor.)
 
The events go on during the night pretty smoothly, so I decide to watch some
people play T2.  I watched Carl James deliver beatings on a phoenix deck
with this Great Whale contraption.  Carl plays like 10 games and goes like
7-3 or something.  I was impressed.  Not a deck I enjoyed, but impressive
nonetheless Colin Powell and I sat and watched the majority of the games and
cheered on the whale. I guess you could say we were having "a whale of a
time" <I know, bad joke, but it was Colin's not mine :)  >
 
( I still remember that joke.  And it really was Colin's joke an not
mine...seriously...not mine...)
 
I get board and play my blue deck that beats anything else that has blue in
it, but loses to everything else against Fletcher and he plays my green
deck.  So guess what I lose.  I decide no blue deck for me in states
tomorrow.  At least not this one.  I listen to Fletcher go on about how
every green deck should have four Symbiosis and four Giant Growth.  He had
decent logic, but I still believe that it depends on the deck.  You should
ask him about it sometime.  At this point, we are nearing the midnight mark
and I still don't know what I am gonna play the next day.  Nothing new for
me though.  I start trading for all kinds of cards, so no matter what I
decide to play, I will have the cards for the deck come morning.  I even
went back to my main man to get some Elvish Archers. Speaking of which,
Leland, if you are reading this, I still owe you an Archer.  So, I figure I
am all set and we take the cruise back to Da Hotel, or El hotel, for our
spanish speaking friends out there.  Nate's boss let him bring the laptop,
so I hook it up and dial in and get on IRC to see if maybe something new has
occurred or if anyone has any words of advise for me.  I end up just
gossiping.  Go figure.  Nate goes to sleep around three and I kick in my
tourney mode.  I have this thing, the last four tournaments that I have
slept for less than two hours, I have made top 8.  So I decide to keep in
tradition and stay up.  I am thinking about what to play and I decide to
play mono-green, but I decide to go without winter orb.  I figured there
were basically gonna be three major kinds of decks there....
 
Decks that were fast and didn't care about winter orb.
Decks that could work around it or counter it
Decks that had creatures like Perigrine Drake and Great Whale, so they would
get to untap anyway.
 
Besides Overrun allows me to deliver Da Beats (c).
 
(You have to include some strategy stuff to make tournament reports worth
reading.  It can be hard to keep them truthful, informative, and
entertaining all at the same time.)
 
I suddenly start feeling like Superman when Lex Luther breaks out his bag
full of Kryptonite and I look at the clock.  It's like five minutes to six.
I figure I mise well sleep now.  I call the lady and tell her to give me a
wake up call at ten minutes to eight.  I tell her if they do not wake me up,
I am gonna raise hell like Kunta Kinte.  Nah, just kidding, I just tell her
it is mandatory.  Can't break tradition.  And for all of you who don't feel
like doing the math, that left me with one hour and 55 minutes of sleep.
Still under the two hour mark  :)
 
(This is a funny paragraph to me.  For some reason is seems a bit insulting
to the reader.  I'm not even sure how this paragraph didn't get edited at
some point.)
 
I wake up to get showered, go excercise a bit and have all that done before
I even wake Nathan up.  We get our stuff together check out and get ready to
play.  All da Playas from H-town are here and most of the Austin crew.  I
knew the Guildmages weren't gonna be here as most of them decided to go play
some sealed deck thing in Oklahoma. But, that's OK by me. Get it. O-K,
Oklahoma <yeah, another bad joke> Tim and his Event horizons crew get things
underway at a decent hour and we get started.
 
(Regardless of what this says, you need to get a good night's sleep.  It
helps you play better.  I was quite dumb and immature.  Granted, I played
well, but that's beside the point. )
 
First Round - Robert from Dallas playing South Dallas Pox as they call it
 
Round One
 
Game one
I get terrible draws with no land, all the way down to 4 cards.  I still
draw no land on my first two turns.  Magic is ssooooo hard to play when you
forget to draw land.  Oh well, I make a mental note to remember next time.
He wins quite easily.
 
Game Two
I get another bad start, but I keep the hand.  For those of you at home
wondering, I was playing 21 land.  I know, that's almost too much for a
green deck, but at this point I wasn't thinking that :(  You wouldn't know
it from the few that I drew.  Anyway Robert hands me my @$$ on a platter and
also hands me the fork with which he chewed it :(
 
I then come to the realization that this is the first time that I have ever
gotten to play a black guy first round in major tournament.  Hell, it's the
only other brutha other than David Williams, who is my running mate for the
presidency in 2000 by the way.  Remember to vote Watson/Williams as
write-ins for president, THIS IS NOT A JOKE.  Ask me and I will explain
later.  I am now 0-1 in first round matchups against black guys.
 
Matches 0-1   Games 0-2
 
(I'm not sure what the hell me running for president was about.  I think
it's a good idea still, just not sure what I have to base it on.  But hey,
if you want to vote for me via write-in this year, go for it.  I'm probably
more honest that each of the candidates this year anyway.)
 
In between rounds I get ridiculed for not playing Winter Orb or Cursed
Scroll.  Many players come over to me and vocalize their opinions about
this.  The popular belief is that mono-green should be playing one or the
other. I obviously had other ideas and concepts in mind.  I could be wrong
though...
 

Round Two - some guy (sorry :(  )   playing white weenie
 
I am beginning to second guess myself at this point, maybe this was the
first time the sleep thing was gonna backfire on me and I was gonna crap
out.  Either that or maybe it was because I chose the green deck, who knows.
 
Game One
We both get decent draws and he goes first turn Soltari foot soldier.  I
knew it was ww and I knew I had the game.  In testing, the green deck never
lost to ww, even the ones with congregate main deck.  So I deliver Da Beats
with Da Beating Card, Overrun.  I think it was overrun damage for 26 or
something.
 
Game Two
Things go according to plan, but I get a slow draw.  Everything was cool and
I was in winning position, but then he drops a turn six Worship.  Now how
janky is that.  I do have to admit, its not that big of a problem with my
deck since I have main deck Elvish Lyrist, but I sided them out seeing no
enchantments that I thought would harm me :(  I scoop on my next turn.  This
leaves plenty of time for the first game is needed.
 
Game Three
We both get decent draws and I draw one of the lyrists that I put back in.
I overrun for something obscene like 42 or something.  We don't even count
it cause it was obviously game.  I think the main problem with his deck was
that the only non-shadow critters were his soul wardens and that's never
good.
 
Matches 1-1   Games 2-3
 

I take a little while to see how everyone is doing and things are pretty
cool.  A bunch of the 'name' playas are 1-1 this round. Some of us will not
be making the trip to the top 8.  At this point, I am hoping to play against
Bil Macey, cause I have an undefeated streak against him in Major
tournaments :)  But there is no such luck.
 

Round Three - Ted Stanfield  playing monoblue/academy/stuff
 
Game One
I get a decent draw againt a blue deck with double G. That's Giant Growth
for you unhip to the ebonix scene and some symbiosis.  He gets a decent
draw, but draws 4 Legacy's Allure late game and it is over rather quickly.
 
Game Two
I get the upper hand early, but then he sends my team into hibernation.  I
don't like that card, the only green creatures that hibernate are like bears
and dragons, and I had none in my deck.  Ah well, all my creatures decided
to take a quick winter's nap and they all come out again next turn thanx to
my gaea's cradle.  Gaea is one cool dude, or um, chick, or whatever. By the
way, I hear Gaea has the hots for Father Time, but Mother nature is a little
pissed about that, since they are sister's and all.  I'm sure they will be
on Springer sometime soon, so keep your eyes open.
 
Matches 2-1    Games 4-3
 
(For those of you that never got toplay through this time period, I want to
point out that Tolarian Academy decks were everywhere.  This was later
followed by a hoard of combo decks.)
 
This is starting to look a little better.  Carl James wins quote of the day
at this point after going 0-3. he says:
 
"Bad players draw bad cards"  That's ol' Carl for ya.
 
I also start talking to Leland about starting a club and becoming the first
official member of team simmons.  He thinks a good idea, but right now he is
1-2.
 

Round Four  Justin Lenhardt  academy blue stuff
 
Game One
I really hate these academy decks.  Lucky for me he gets a bad draw. He has
to Paris.  He gets a mediocre hand and I get a fast hand.  I mean like
insanely fast and a couple of scavenger folk for support, which academy
hates.  I mean this was really fast, like negro kid runnin' from his momma
to avoid a beatin' fast.
 
Game Two
He goes first and I get another good draw.  He needs one more card to go off
and I get overrun and win.
Not much excitement here, I just win wit Da Beats.
 
Matches 3-1    Games 6-3
 

I find out this round that Brian Herderman is still being a point fairy as
we call it and has hired Adrian Sayers to go at his side.  Point Faries are
people that go around losing with high rankings.  Thus they are effectively
increasing all of their opponent's DCI ratings significantly.  My main man
has forsaken me at this point as well.  I then scrap plans of Team Simmons
and start thinking about Starting a team named after me somehow.  But it was
just a thought....
 

Round Five - Bob Coonce  Soul Train Stasis
 
Game One
Man, oh man, is this deck some fun to watch.  It is not a total beating
deck. Hell it has no beats at all.  He just slowly tries to lock it up, but
my lyrists and Scavenger Folk take care of business.
 
Game Two
I think it's pretty funny when you draw Mirri against a stasis deck.  My
deck just had too many answers for his.  Sad as it is, I have to thank Mr.
Coonce for making like a DCI point ATM.
 
Matches 4-1  Games 8-3
 
(The terms "Point Fairy" and "Point ATM" are pretty savage and wrong.
However, I have even been a shining example of each of them at some point.)
 
Ya know what? I think I got this list of matches out of order.  We didn't
keep match reports sheets, we did the sign in strip thing at this one, so I
don't remember the order apparently.  I played another dude form down south
somehwere in the middle of those.  He had a monoblue deck with academy and
lots of artifacts, but he had a lockdown method with the helix and a
beatdown option with drakes if need be.
 
Anyway, we will take the patented Quan Portal of screw up to round 7
 
A guy named David playing whale recur
 
(OK, I should remember this guy's name.  This is just a shining example of
laziness on my part, because eI could just review my DCI history to find out
his name.)
 
Game one. 
I win with Da beats, plain and simple.
 
(Don't ever do this either.  It's completely lazy. It's uninformative.
Readers hate.  I was reviewing my own tournament report and I hated it.)
 
Game Two
He gets the cycle, gets the cards, gets the stroke, and strokes me to death.
 
Now, before I write about game three I want everyone to know something.  Not
all players are as forgiving and lenient as I am.  I let this guy tap and
untap mana so many times during this match.  Let him redo his calls on how
many times he was going to complete the cycle. I let him get different cards
than he originally pulled with the Survival of the Fittest.  I basically let
him play turbo sloppy.
 
Game Three
This being the deciding game, I decide to be strict.  I understand people
making dumb mistakes and stuff, but this guy was playing really sloppy
magic.
 
He gets to a position where he could have won easily, but he keeps doing and
re-doing sutff.  He just start drawing card sand laying stuff into play not
saying where anything is coming from.   So I wait for this to go by and call
all of his mistakes at once.  I call a judge over as he says "FOR MY DISCARD
PHASE" while he still has mana in his pool.  And he had already starting
laying cards down.  In case you are wondering, he screwed up to begin with
by trying to stroke me without any blue mana in play.  That's why he has to
do this.  He spends some of the mana by  Recurring the Spike Feeder a whole
bunch to get back up to TWENTY LIFE. I specifically asked him twice to make
sure.  All this left like 46 mana in his pool.  The judge I call says
nothing and I even point out the guy has not enough black mana to even
complete the cycle one time.  The judge leaves not saying anything.  WhAt
ThE hElL?!?  Andrew Johnson comes over shortly thereafter and notes the same
thing.  Fletcher Peatross, who is also a  judge later comes over and takes
the case to Tim and Mason (who is also a judge).  We take it to the judge
and Tim points out that we have gone beyond the original point.  I'm trying
to figure out which one. There were amillion screwups.  But then he decides
for us to replay the last game.  Even though my opponent admits to screwing
up and not having everything in play he makes up replay it.  That is unheard
of, but I do have to admit that Tim was in a very pressing position, but
this ruling was completely unacceptable.
 
Too bad for my opponent, I believe in Karma.  So, even as the crowd and
friends are grumbling about the situation, I say nothing and start
shuffling.  I get what the crowd believes to be a good hand.  I Paris
mulligan.  I get a better hand with a couple of lyrists and couple of
beatdown critters a land or two and a folk. I believe that I have this game
anyway as he gets funky lands out on turn one and two that I know will slow
him down, then this big bad boy named KARMA comes to visit the scene.
 
The guys had sleeves stuck together and he draws TWO CARDS!!
 
That warning compiled with earlier ones and the one they gave him earlier
for misrepresentation of a card gets him a loss under Level 4 rules.
 
Matches 6-1  Games  12-5
 
(Let this be a lesson to you.  Don't play decks you aren't familiar with.
Make sure to play clearly and deliberately, especially with combo decks, and
be careful when drawing your cards. Also, don't try to screw me in a game.
Each time I've had an opponent do that, something negative happened toward
them.)
 
So after all that, everyone is buzzing and I go into the top 8 fifth seed.
I will say that I do not, I repeat, DO NOT believe that David blatantly
cheated against me.  I believe that he was prolly a bit nervous and was
screwing up.  I do believe that I should have halted everything and called a
judge in one of our first two games.  Yes I'm at fault.  I just want to tell
David to calm down and take your time dude and I hope you learned form this
mishap as much as I did.  Andrew Johnson and G. Terry Stanley get second
place for the best quote after seeing my reaction to this event.
 
Andrew said. " Quan, you like never get pissed off or anything, I would have
blown up!"
Terry says in response "This is about as upset as he gets, you're looking at
it"
I just smiled and went to check my decklist.
 
(That's probably my greatest virtue.  I can hold onto my temper forever.  It
makes like much easier to live and makes me a lot more friendly.)
 
OK, so I wasn't wrong about my deck build.  I just had a rough start.  But I
didn't lose against after round one.  That might have been my only way to
make top 8.  But I guess that sometimes it just happens.
 
Round 8 Quarterfinals  Cy McCormick   Suicide Black
 
Black = bad matchup :(  OK, maybe not black, but more importantly, Perish.
 
Game One
He gets to go first.  N\No Dark ritual, that's good for me.  But he does get
creatures every turn.
I have to draw Albino Trolls to keep his creatures off me. He edicts and I
lose some of my small stuff. A double G, yep giant growth, glad you guys
remembered, saves the day.
 
Game Two
He goes first again.  Again no dark ritual.  He gets mad beatdown going and
gets a flyer that I can't outrace.  He edicts away some stuff and gets a
Cursed Scroll out and kills me.
 
Game Three
I get to go first, YAY!  He draws some solid creatures, as do I.  Bad part
of all this is that I only get two land, one of them being a Gaea's cradle.
With him at 7 and myself at four on like turn 5, I draw another cradle with
two creatures in play.  I play the second cradle, and tap for two. I bury
it, due to the legend rule. I tap the other for two.  Tap my forest for one.
Overrun for the win.  And the crowd gives me a round of applause.  I think I
must have been the most entertaining person to watch all day or something
cause I had a crowd at almost every one of my matches.
 
I don't know where Cy came from.  I have never met him before, but he is a
good player and he had a pretty good deck.  All three games ended with both
players at 7 or less life.  He was fun to joke with during the match too.  I
hope he does well in the future.
 
Matches 7-1  Games  14-6
 
(I'm really hoping Suicide Black makes a comeback with some of the Fifth
Dawn cards, because this deck was so much fun to play and watch.)
 
Round 9 Semifinals  Andrew Johnson Academy
 
If you have read any other reports you will already know that Andrew went on
to be champ so I lost.  I almost beat him, I just needed one more turn.  He
was in a bad spot, I forced him to go for it and then he top decks the
intuition to get the time spiral that he needed and goes on to win.  Good
Job dude.
 
Matches 7-2 games 15-8
 
Overall I enjoyed the whole ordeal.   I think this deck is viable.  I got
perished twice and hibernationed three times during the day and still did
well.  I also got paired against shadow decks and decks with flyers and I
held my own pretty well.  It was also entertaining for people to watch.  It
is always good when you can help other have fun.  Besides, how can I
complain.  I lost the first round and didn't lose again until the
semifinals. 
 
I don't like calling it props and slop...I think for the pimpz and playas,
it should be  HIGH FIVES and BACKHANDS....
 
HIGH FIVES  to ..
 
Nathan Segrest: you are getting a lot better dude, for just a few months of
practice you are getting there.
 
Tim Wiessman: for making a ruling in a really bad position and trying to be
as fair as possible and for giving us a k-value 40 event for states
 
Da Book Browser: for giving us people a place to play and to Deana for
getting better at drafts and being cool
 
Computer Access: for giving us a laptop to use at the event
 
Event horizons: for having quality events
 
Everyone who read this far: at least i know some one saw this
 
Me: for playing mono-green and doing so damn well
 
Bod Coonce: for being a point ATM for me
 
Colin Powell, for being  a cool dude to hang out with
 
Andrew Johnson: I still think it should have been me as champ , a black
champ would have been so much cooler :)
 
Most of all to the crowd of people watching most of my matches.  I think
that was more fun for me than the crowd. :)
 

BACKHANDS go out to...
 
All the playas that didn't even get to play into the 6th round, you know who
your are.
 
Sid Rao and Jeff Clarke: for not doing well in Rome
 
Da hotel: for not letting Tim sell snacks.
 
Ryan Harvey: for quittin' the magical cards :( we'll miss you dude
 
Everyone playing the academy deck.
Bad weather and bad roads near college station, oh yeah, and those rumble
strips.
 

I guess that's all for now.  Hope to see youg uys around at the Los Angeles
Pro tour qualifiers.  Heck, I hope I qualify and see you in LA.  Good luck
all of you in the future.
 
DeQuan Watson
DuQeR@aol.com
PowrDragn,DragnPowr, or Quan-Tum on IRC
 
Team Captain Waco Flatliners, which needs to be organized :(
 
____________________________________________________________________________
 
 
Well, that's it for that.
 
I don't have much to say this week beyond the article.  It speaks volumes on
its own really.  I need some more plays of the week.  By the time of this
writing, I didn't have anything worthy to send out to you guys.
 
Keep the e-mails coming.
 
I think I want to do someting special involving Fifth Dawn soon...but I
won't say what until I have the details worked out.
 
Until next time,
 
DeQuan Watson

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