'The Defiant Zone'
By Matthew Hudson
11/02/01
 Gravesend, Kent, UK

Okay, long time since I wrote a report, but here goes nothing. Oh, I
apologise in advance if I ramble on for too long in any particular place..

The tournament I attend is usually a small gathering of between 18 to 25
players in the back room at the Three Daws pub (or bar if you are in the
USA) in the town of Gravesend, Kent, UK on the second Sunday of every month.

The deck I played is listed below, after which I try to give some reasoning
for the cards invloved.

'The Defiant Zone'

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Hunted Wumpuss
4 Blastoderm
4 Defiant Vanguard
4 Ancient Hydra
2 Rith, The Awakener

4 Wax/Wane
4 Armageddon
1 Ghitu Fire
2 Earthquake

4 Karplusan Forest
1 Brushland
4 Mountains
4 Plains
10 Forest

Sideboard

4 Armadillo Cloak
2 Simoon
3 Light of Day
3 Kavu Chameleon
1 Rebel Informer
1 Lin Sivvi
1 Hurricane

Okay, if you have read this far you probably want to know what I am playing
at. The deck (if you haven't guessed already) is based around Brian Kiblers
'The Red Zone'. The changes I have made are due to the decks that have been
played at the last couple of monthly torneys.

The Hunted Wumpuss is a pure metagame choice. It basically blocks and kills
anything in Fires decks. The only way that firs can deal with it is shock
after combat or Wax a targetable creature.

Defiant vanguard (who the deck is partially named after) also serves this
purpose in that it is a deterent to stop that turn 3 blastdom from attacking

The 'quakes and the Ghitu Fire serve as late game finishers and removal for
opponents birds, trees and elves. Note that I would run 3 fires instead of
the quakes, but at the time this is all I had available to me.

The sideboard is configured for the environment I thought that I would be
facing. Light of Day stops Nether-go, Kavu cammies and hurricane for U/W
control (with or without Blinding Angel). Lin Sivvi is for heavy creature
based Fires decks (so that I can recycle the Vanguards and the Informer is
obviously for rebel decks (I figured that I could search him out with the
Vanguard or hard cast with a Bird of Paradise).

Oh, and the Cloaks. Well who doesn't want to be Brian Kibler for a few
seconds. and the fact that one of playtester friends was experimenting with
a 'new' Red Deck Wins, I figured that it would be a good idea to have some
form of life gain just in case.

The turnout was a grand total of 18 people (about average). We played 5
rounds of swiss, with a cut to the top 4.

Round 1 - Ian with R/G beatdown.

First game was all about Ian's inability to deal with Hunted Wumpus. Out
with the wumpus on turn three (who doesn't love elves?), I blocked his Jade
Leach. Turn four was Hydra and that was game in about five minutes.

I didn't sideboard as I didn't really know at the time what he was playing
so it was on to game two.

This is how it went. I kept a one land hand (Karpulsan Forest) as I was
holding two birds, and one elf, a quake and Rith.

First turn- Draw a plain. Play Karp. Forest and Bird
Second turn - Draw  Wax/Wane. Play bird and elf.
Third turn - Draw Mountain. Play Rith..

Ian looked at his hand looked at Rith, did the math (I would gain 7
saprolings next turn due to my green creatures and his green creatures) and
conceded on the spot.

Games 2-0  Matches 1-0

Round two- Timur with U/w Skies.

Timur is a local star, who always chats during the games (not trash but
about magic in general) and it was great fun to play against him.

Game one I won due to sucessive Blasties on turns 3 and 4 with a turn 5
armageddon to make sure of the win.

Game two was less close. Although I sideboarded in the Kavus, I got trashed
by Washouts (on turn 4 and 5) and submerges (on turns 2 and 3) and the
millstones he had bought in out of the sideboard.

Game three was tighter. I played first with forest , Bird. Followed up on
the second turn with a Plain and an elf. Then Timur popped a millstone out.
I expect that you can guess the rest. My elf swung in for about ten points
before it got Routed after I spent the following turns just drawing land and
trying to run Timur out of counters as I tried to get creature after
creature into play.  I lost and I blame myself for not putting any Seals of
Cleansing or overloads in the sideboard. Oh well, live and learn.

Games 3-2 Matches 1-1

Round three- Lee (?) with R/G/w beats.

Quick apology to my opponent, I lost my notes for this game and I can't
rmember your name, so apologies if you are reading this. What follows is my
recollection of the games.

The first game was called 'Attack of the Hunted Wumpuses'. I cast these on
turns 3, 4, and five (just to make sure) as all my opponent was holding was
land and a lonely elf..

The second game I Waned a couple of Fires and Waxed an Elf for the kill as
he blocked a Wumpus and two Blasties with two jade leachs and another
Blastie thinking that one point from the elf would only drop him to two
life.

Games 5-2 Matches 2-1


Round four - Mark with U/W Counter Stone deck.

Game one I won easily with a wumpus and a Blasty, whilst all Mark could draw
was land.

Game two was, more or less, an excat copy of game two in round 2. The only
exception that all I could do was watch as Mark let me cast all of my green
creatures. He sat behind a Stoney circle green with five or six white
available every turn to stop me whilst my library got smaller as a pair of
active millstones went to work on it. The two times I tried to cast a non
green creature or the one time I tried a Wane the circle they got Absorbed.

Game three was the same as above, but the stoney circles multiplied to
included red and white and the armageddons I tried to cast got counter,
memory lasped or absorbed away.

Games 6-4 Matches 2-2

Round five - ??? with U/W millstone/rebel?? (sorry can't remember your name)

Game one was all about a turn four Rith who attacked once on his own and
twicw with a swarm of saprolings to make things interesting.

Game two got a little hairy as my opponent played out some rebels and seemed
to be going counter rebel. Unfortunately he played a crusade the turn before
I cast Rith. A turn later I had plenty of saprolings to soak up his ground
forces whilst Rith walked over.

Games 8-4 Matches 3-2

At this point I figured that I would be out of the top 4 as my first
opponent Ian had played well since I beat him in round one. Therefore I was
surprised that the judge told me I was in the top four and Ian wasn't.
Something to do with the fact that I had beaten him in round one.

Top 4

Round Six - Mark (again) with U/W Counter stone.

I wouldn't go into details, but if you read the description of round four
above you will know what happened.

Games 9-6 Matched 3-3

In the end I was supposed to play the other loser of round six, but we
decided to split the prizes and draw for the one remaining booster (take a
random card from you tournament deck, the higher cc wins. I lost as I drew
an elf to his absorb).

So the performance of the deck? Well I'm happy with it. It worked well
against the decks I had been expecting to face. However, my blind spot for
artifacts led to my downfall completely. I never sided in the Light of Days
all day so I think that I will change these to Seals of Cleansing or
overloads. Lin Sivvi will be removed from the sideboard in place of another
simoon. I might, also, up the Kauv Chameleons to four as there are very
useful, espically if the local metagame carries on as it is at the moment.

If I can think what to drop I would like to include an Obliterate and a
couple of Decrees in the sideboard.

If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Props.

All my opponents - great fun was had all day long
Brian Kibler - for the inspiration
Whoever designed Rith - thanks for letting me play a turn three dragon.

Slops

Not today thank you!!!!


Enjoy

Matthew Hudson
matth116@hotmail.com