For the Sarpadian Cup, I more or less knew that I would be on White Weenie, but it was a question of “Which version?” I knew I didn’t want to play to win, and I tried thinking of something special to do. So I thought back to something I said in my first blog post here, where I discussed white weenie being my first “real” deck that was more than just a pile of some cards that I owned. The major constituents of the Icatians are their soldiers, and they even have the soldier lord, Icatian Lieutenant, so I put the following together, unsleeved, and walked around with it in a 4th edition starter box that FreezyBear on the Discord hooked me up with:

I wanted to play a deck with only cards actually in print in November of 1994, but I did have a few outliers, like Yoshi, the Strip Mines, and the Army of Allahs. I think for once I don’t think I need to say “Don’t play this deck, it’s not serious,” because it’s probable incredibly obvious that it isn’t. We can, however, talk about some of the deficiencies, because on the surface it probably doesn’t seem too far from reasonable.

First, the main issue with this deck was that nearly every creature attacks for 1 naturally, whereas a typical white weenie deck is more likely to have 12 creatures that attack for 2 (or more) naturally. It’s possible to tweak it only slightly and make it much better, simply by running the full four orders, white knights, and Savannah Lions. The only real changes that happen are that the Lieutenants and Scouts all leave. The Icatian Infantry are actually fine (dare I say, solid), and Benalish Hero is also awesome. I would also play one more Plains since the curve went up to bring it up to 21 land. The difference between a creature attacking for 2 and a creature attacking for 1 is massive, and I won more games in testing the night before simply because I had the Savannah Lions in still (I took them out because they weren’t thematic). Of course, if we make these changes, we’re basically playing standard White Weenie, only a few cards different from the version I posted a few months ago.

I also wanted a third Disenchant all day long, and I never cast Army of Allah, though that was mostly because I was being too greedy with it; there were a few times where I could have cast it with only 1 or 2 attackers on the board but instead took the turn to make another creature in the hopes of forcing through an extra two damage the next turn. Instead my opponents usually were able to stabilize because, well, I’m playing a bunch of 1/1 dorks.

Let’s get onto the matches.

Round 1: Jack from Rockville, playing Leprechauns

If you aren’t familiar with this deck, it plays maindeck COP: Green and then uses Aesling Leprechaun, Lifelace, and Sylvan Paradise to turn your stuff green and nullify all everything you do. The finisher is Force of Nature.

He wins a fairly close game 1 with an incredibly timely Balance — topdecked on 0 cards with a Force of Nature on the table that he couldn’t afford to attack with otherwise. Three attacks later I was mincemeat.

I brought in the Wrath, Witch Hunter, Zealot, and Holy Light. Of these, Holy Light was the only card I saw both games, but it absolutely wrecked him, since he plays so many mana creatures.

Round 2: Michael from Hunt Valley on 4-color Goblins.

Michael went on to win the whole thing, without (spoiler) losing a single game. I hesitate to call his deck Goblins; it was burn with enough Goblins to support Grenades. He played well though and the deck was incredibly brutal. Our first game was reasonably interesting as I got him to single digits but an Ydwin Efreet ate two of my creatures and then I died a couple turns later when he cast Wheel of Fortune into the bolts I was trying to save myself from when I blocked the Efreet. The second game I died on his third turn after passing at 18 life — at the end of my turn he cast a bolt, then attacked for the third time with a Balloon Brigade, followed by a Goblin Grenade, and his last cards in hand were Black Lotus and Time Twister. He found Ancestral into a trio of Bolts and killed me straight out.

I mean, it was cool to die that fast, I guess.

Round 3: Andrew from Richmond playing Illusions

I make multiple GOB references (“They’re Illusions, Michael”) throughout a long and interactive matchup.

Game 1 was a banding mess. He gets down Illusionary Mask and casts something face down. I have to band my creatures to be able to get through his 3/3s (a Factory and a Phantom Monster, plus the face-down creature that I suspect is another Monster based on how he paid for it), and Andrew navigates it in a slightly buzzed state to figure out that he can block with the his facedown creature and Maze of Ith his own creature to block the whole band and not have to reveal the creature.

Though the only way he’s able to do this is neither of us actually remember that Maze of Ith is only attacking creatures! Oh well. The game was still fun.

Meanwhile I have a Javalineer and an Aeolipile on the table that I’m reluctant to use on anything because I’m trying to force through damage and leaving them up means that he doesn’t block with a 3/3. I’m eventually forced to kill the Phantom Monster because I can’t attack and he’s just going to kill me with it. Unfortunately, the facedown creature turned out to be Illusionary Forces and he takes home the game. Finding a Strip Mine or Armageddon at any point would have made a gigantic difference, as Maze pretty much destroyed me this game, saving him from dealing with probably 8 or 9 attacks.

After sideboarding, I bring in a few toys, like the Preacher and the Witch Hunter. (Preacher since he’s only got about 13 creatures). I think I also bring in the Holy Light, as I’ve been calling it the Farrel Contingent all day to bring in the religion-themed cards. This one went similarly but with even less interaction on my part. I did cast a ‘Geddon for 7 of his lands, but he played four lands in a row afterward to recover. C’est la vie.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention: He also played Martyr’s Cry and COP: White. He cast them both against me.

Andrew ended up in third place — he’d been paired down this round.

Round 4: Clayton with Mono red artifact control:

Clayton’s a regular at DCG, and he plays a prison-style artifact control deck that finishes with Shivan Dragon and Fireball. He cast Earthquake for a few creatures in game 1, but he honestly didn’t much need to, as he has Maze, multiple Manipulators, a zillion bolts, and … oh, right, he’s drawing 3 cards a turn off Howling Mines with Relic Barriers.

He got miffed at me at one point for tossing something in the grave when he activates his Chaos Orb. He wants to flip, whereas I’m on record with thinking that Chaos Orb uses a really stupid mechanic for what’s actually a reasonably fair effect for a restricted card, and is much less broken than most of the other stuff that goes on in this format.

I tell him in the middle of sideboarding that I’m thinking about giving him the matchup as I can’t imagine any game state from which I can beat his deck.

However, the second game ended up being quite hilarious as, despite drawing multiple cards a turn (he got a second Howling Mine after I cast Dust to Dust on his first and a Manipulator), I never see more than 3 creatures until the last two turns of a fairly long game — but I do see all 4 Crusades, 3 Swords to Plowshares (two of which I use on my own creatures at one point to gain life after a giant Earthquake because I forget he has Dragons), both Armageddon, an Army of Allah, and the Divine Offering. In other words, nearly every non-creature spell in my deck. The four Crusade was rather hilarious.

I died to a second Dragon, for which I no longer had removal, for those keeping score.

Round 5: Stephen from Vienna with Thrulls.

Game 1 takes a bit and we’re in a situation where I’ve eaten many of his blockers but he’s got a Breeding Pit down with a few extra tokens while he finds a way to gum up the ground. He casts a Lord of the Pit after I’ve used up a Swords to Plowshares, but I’ve got him at a very low life total and have a good play: I Javalineer one of the last Thrull Tokens, Aeolipile the last, and untap to cast Armageddon. He can’t pay for the Breeding Pit upkeep and the Lord eats him.

Game 2 he casts a first turn gloom and gets two Strip Mines. Despite playing a deck full of 1-cc creatures, I never see more than 4 mana. I eventually start casting little guys as he doesn’t have anything faster than an Armor Thrull to peck away, and then he casts Hellfire.

Go look that one up, too.

He Strip Mines me a third time and I don’t draw another land for the seven more turns it takes for his Thrulls to kill me.

Game 3 was nearly identical, except that he had to Tutor for the Hellfire and he didn’t have the Gloom on the first turn. I played my third or fourth turn very badly, as I put out an order as my 4th creature (despite not really needing it) even though I knew I could be walking into a Hellfire in the nest few turns. I manage to disenchant one (sacrificing a Ruins to get the extra mana) and put down an Exorcist in the interim, but he ended up just casting back-to-back Drain Lifes for upwards of 8.

This game reminded me of why I had originally planned to put a Disk in the sideboard, but, again, not thematic — so we got a Draconian Silex instead (it has an Icatian proverb in the flavor text).

Thus the story concludes as it should: The Icatians fall and are lost to history. The world is full of monsters.

Despite the terrible win record, I snagged 5th place Tribal (as voted on by panel), which was good enough for a second Unlimited White Knight with calligraphy to match the one I got at the first Sarpadian Series event, and I drafted a community-signed Elves of Deep Shadow — which I had put into the pool with the expressed purpose of getting it signed so it could go back in the Thallid deck with a bit more style.

All in all it was super fun. All my opponents were really kind and everyone there got a kick out of me playing a deck with mostly commons from Fallen Empires without any sleeves.

Most Creative Deck went to Merle Zimmermann for his “Fall pf Kher Keep” deck, which had a storyline eerily similar to Khazad-dûm. Merle won best tribal last time on Orcs, and he had the brilliant idea to make a story booklet to hand out to his opponents after his matches. He played Kobolds with Taskmaster and Goblin Digging Teams, Howling Mines, and some other typical red cards, and his sideboard turned it into a different deck — Gauntlets of Chaos to donate a Primordial Ooze (something the Goblins released) to his opponent, with a few other support cards, and, as the balrog, a Lord of the Pit (supplied by yours truly) that he couldn’t even cast. I won’t say it was no contest (there were some really cool decks in the room) but it would have been hard to persuade us that another build being played that day was more creative than this.

First Place Tribal went to Bird tribal: It used Rukh Egg and Blazing Effigies with Metamorphosis to power out big threats more quickly for value. Bird Maidens and a couple other cards rounded it out. I don’t think he won many games with it, but it was a bit more out of the box thinking than the others.

Props:

Jimmy Cooney for running an excellent tournament series. The prize support was awesome, and the deck building challenges of Tribal and Most Creative really made for a positive tournament experience for people like me that are less strictly interested in winning games and more interested in building cool decks.

Everyone who really made an effort to participate in the tribal theme throughout. The first tournament I felt like an outlier; by this event far more people were on tribal than not, and even though many people felt very strongly that tribes should have been enforced, but the community sort of policed itself on that for the most part.

Slops:

Me, for not committing 100% to the Icatian theme or to the idea of actually playing a deck entirely in print in November 1994. I skipped a few soldiers and though they wouldn’t have helped me win, they would have been more on-theme.

Hellfire and Martyrdom. But hey, at lest no one cast Flashfires against me!

Funny store about Flashfires: I showed it to a legacy player who I slung a few games with, letting him borrow my Faeries deck. I didn’t think it was an obscure card, but his reaction was priceless: “How is this real?” Hosers in the early game, man.

Cheers.