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Sam makes top 8 at Nebraska Regionals
Qualifies for U.S. Nationals!!!



Sam Heckman and his usual smug look


Report by Sam Heckman
Playtesting:

I know we've touched on our playtesting a bit before, but couldn't really go into specifics because we didn't really want to share a whole lot of information. We all started to playtest about a month and a half before Regionals. At first it was mostly strange designs that we wanted to see if they would work. Ron had a r/g deck called Serio Green with a lot of direct damage for elimination and fat creatures like Lurgoyf and Stampeeding Wildabeests to finish things off. I started with Slivers and a Propaganda Prison with Howling Mines. Max stuck with Sligh right from the start using a deck we call "Scrub Sligh" that has a lot of the quick creatures with attacking requirements (Mogg Conscripts and Mogg Flunkies) and very little direct damage. As our decks started to Finkelize, or inbreed, we realised it was time to bring in some decks that other people might play. We tested against Donais U5c, TurboZvi, WW/x, u/g Tradewind, Black Beatdown, Draw Go, Bloom, b/r, Stompy, Counterburn, Steel Necro, 5C Black, and Tradewind Prison. Unfortunately Francis Keys had other obligations and couldn't attend Regionals, so we didn't do any testing with him, but he did help out with a ton of online advice. All in all we felt we had a lot of playing in against a lot of decks that we expected people would try. One of the funniest moments during our playtesting preiod happened a week before Regionals when Brandon Rutter of ACD said "Nobody is ready for regionals." At that point we had pretty much decided on playing Sligh. Not only had it done so well last year, but the whole environment seemed to favor multi-colored decks that used a ton of non-basic lands. "(Nateman) You can't not make Top 8 at a shit regional with Sligh." The advent of Wasteland complimented the Dwarven Miners that served us so well in the past, and all the decks were having a hard time keeping land on the table against the Sligh deck. Here is my version of the deck that he used at Regionals:

HammerSligh
4 Jackal Pup
4 Ironclaw Orcs
4 Dwarven Miner
4 Fireslinger
4 Mogg Fanatic
 4 Viashino Sandstalker
4 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Incinerate
3 Fireblast
4 Cursed Scroll
 1 Quicksand
4 Wasteland
16 Mountains
Sideboard:
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
3 Serrated Biskelion
1 Firestorm 		Sideboard (cont):
4 Pyroblast
3 Shatter


- The Crew

The Trip:

Once we knew what deck we wanted to play the decision to not play in Chicago was easy. Check this shit out here... about 2 weeks or so we all get a nice little flyer from Great Lakes Games advertising Midwest Regionals. In it there it mentions a special prize of a $1,000!!! savings bond for anyone that wins the tournament with mono-white. There is also a $100 savings bond to anyone that makes top 8 with mono-white. We have no idea why but Todd Hansen decided to give a bonus to people using white, something which was a very viable deck that happened to crush our design. We had been considering going to Nebraska even before we recieved that horrid news from Great Lakes, but it sealed our fate. No way could we risk taking Mono-Red into a likely field of mono-white. Despite the fact we where sure to take flack for not playing in the midwest again the decision stood. We had to go to Nebraska.

The whole plan was at noon or so on Friday Ron would take his truck and pick up Max and me. The thought of riding the whole 8 1/2 hour drive with 3 people in the front of a pickup didn't sound so good. I brilliantly decided that one person could sleep in the bed of the truck which is covered by a lid that creates a coffin effect. Ron and Max weren't so keen and there was a last minute decision to leave earlier and drive Ron's parent's '97 Impala. The car was pretty optimal and the spedometer went up to 160 so I brought the radar detector just in case we needed to test if the car could actually go that fast. We made a quick stop at Burger King in Elgin for an amazing meal. This just in....Fiesta sauce is amazing!!! After that we started the long trip Max and I talked most of the way while Ron slept. Apparently there had been a Tornado in the area earlier because there was a graveyard effect of overturned trucks on the side of the road. I know we were nervous about a truck falling over onto us, imagine how the truckers felt about it. Despite the creepy truck carnage on the shoulder and the major construction the trip was smooth with the exception of Max getting freaked out by a windmill. Ron wakes up eventually and finished the drive. We stop in Omaha and the nicest dude ever greets us at this gas station. I mean seriously, this guy should be in Congress, not working at some 24 hour gas and grub.

We get a little lost in Lincoln trying to find the hotel and tournament site (we wanted to see where it was the night before just in case) and Max and Ron get a bit upset that I didn't get good directions or even find out when the tournament starts. Once we find every thing we hit the hotel. Last minute deck preparations are being done and Ron discovered he didn't own 18 of the cards that he needed for the deck. He decides unless a miracle happens in the morning that he will have to play Bloom. I won the flip for beds and is out cold after taking some abuse over an instance with the air conditioning. Just because one guy makes one hotel room 52 degress Farenheit once he has some rep for the rest of his life as being Dr. Freeze I guess.

The Tournament:

Everyone gets up at about 8am and I try to call Hobbytown USA to see when the tournament starts. After calling somebodys room by mistake I figure out the complexities of the phone and finds the tournament registration ends at 9:30am. Ron wants to get his go on and buy/trade/beg for cards to finish the deck. After being scalded by the shower we all headed to the tournament. Right away we start to recognize people and are greated by loving words like "What the Hell are you doing here?, and This isn't Chicago!?! I guess a lot of the locals had a hard time with the fact that we wanted to play in thier region. Sorry if you didn't want people from all over the country to have interest in your tournament, but I'm sure that the organisers were quite pleased. Last time I checked having high turnout of players is a "good thing." The organisers however were not happy with Cory "The Competitor" Ferguson. He recieved a warning from the judging staff for excessive swearing. I guess you aren't allowed to say "shit" three times in a side game for fun. Here are some photos of the people who were glad we came and let us get them on camera:

Our favorite Magic Celebrity...Eddie Woods!!!
 Chris Stelzer. Otherwise known as "Yap's Brother"
 Ron Serio Vs. Cory "The Competitor" Ferguson in a fun game between rounds.
 "Ringking" Mike Reinking and Spike pose in thier sexy Team T-Shirts
 People have nothing but Love for Erik Fink
 The Competitor poses after Drawing and going to McDonalds for a McFlurry insted of winning and making Top 8
 Melissa Lang trading for the goods, the sauce, and Dopplegangers
 Dustin being overly photogenic
 The Competitor (left) and Max between rounds
 Sam shares a special moment with the Princess.
Ron was able to get all the cards that he needed from friends and bought a couple of them. Max went 5-3, Ron 6-2, and Sam finished 7-1 in the Swiss going onto Top 8. My pairing against WW was unfortunate as he dropped 2 games to key Honorable Passage while trying to race Soltari Priests.


Sam vs. Travis Jones (right) in the Quarterfinals

I got a box of Tempest and the invitation to Nationals for his efforts. I also wrote a tournament report that you can find here. After the tournament was over The Crew joined Melissa and Brett DeJesus (I think that was his name, hard to remember these things after a few Jack and Cokes..let me tell you) for dinner at T.G.I. Fridays. The food was excellent (always is when you're drunk) and we wished them goodbye and went back to the hotel. After Splitting up the rares we got into the usual argument over beds and eventually went to sleep.

The Way Home

We all got up the next morning around noon or so and found the Hotel to be quite persistant that we leave. After getting our stuff together we left around 12:45 or so and started the long trip back. On the way up we saw a H00ters sign and decided that would be where we would stop to celebrate on the way back. We also wanted to kill sometime at the mall and chill out a bit. We found exactly what we were looking for in Deez Moines, Iowa. Former home of Yap. Max used his supurb detection skills to find a mall in what appeared to be an ordinary hill. We just walked around and checked out the scenery (women) and I got a Chris Rock CD for the low price of nineteen bucks at Sam Goody. After that we went to H00ters and watched the end of the Bulls playoff game. Our waitress was bored and pulled up a chair at our table, talking to us for about an hour or so about the strangest things. We had no idea that the life of a H00ters waitress was so complex. Ron and Max didn't ever want to leave, but Sam had a woman waiting back home and finally talked them into it. The rest of the trip home went pretty smooth and quickly. We stopped at McDonalds on the way back for some dinner and got to pose with the man himself:

Ron Serio with Ronald Mc Donald.
 Max Szlagor is the poster child for McDonalds.
 Ron sits on Mr. McDonald's magic lap.
I had a shitty Double Cheeseburger and I pissed on Ronald but that's a whole new story we don't need to get into In the end it was good to get home and relax. There was a lot of excitement reading other tournament reports and finding out who qualified. It's sad that people think of this as a random year where a lot of people made it in on pure luck. I only hope everyone else had as much fun at Regionals this year as we did.

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