Los Angeles, CA - Sep 1, 2002

The following is a tournament report by Johnny Lai, reprinted here from the peasant magic email list.

ALL-STAR BASEBALL PEASANT TOURNEY

Yesterday, the Peasant tournament at All Star Baseball in Los Angeles was held. Here are notes on the tournament and decklists for Top 4

• 12 players playing.
• 2 pods of 6. 1st five Rounds round robin within your pod.
• Top finisher in each pod play against each other for 1st and 2nd place. Second place finisher in each pod compete for 3rd and 4th place.
• I arrive early at the site and learn that there will be no sideboards. We will play as many games as possible in 30 minutes. If you don�t finish a game, that game is a tie, so tied matches are possible and did happen at least once during the tournament.
• All-Star is talking about running Peasant Tournaments once a month!
• Metagame: Lots of red burn decks and green-red decks.

This is the second Peasant tournament held at All-Star. Last time, Tom took first with his black deck; second place was Browbeat Sligh. There was also a White-Blue Bird deck.

First place Tom Griffith 4 Sinkhole 4 Demonic Tutor (UNC) 4/td> Hymn to Tourach 2 Phyrexian War Beast 1 Phyrexian Rager 1 Bottle Gnomes (UNC) 4 Faceless Butcher 4 Gravedigger 2 Highway Robbers 2 Serrated Arrows 2 Spinning Darkness 16 Swamps 4 Desert 4 Mishra�s Factory 4 Strip Mine Tom�s notes: He may add another Phyrexian Rager and remove a Spinning Darkness.

Second place Ken 1 Spinning Darkness 3 Blood Pet 2 Dark Ritual 2 Demonic Tutor (UNC) 4 Dauthi Slayer 4 Dauthi Horror 4 Diabolic Edict 4 Crypt Rats 4 Faceless Butcher 4 Gravedigger 4 Drain Life 4 Desert 20 Swamps Notes: Ken only started playing 1 year ago when his son began playing magic. He borrowed this deck from me because he likes playing decks that other people build and learning about cards he never knew about. I explained to him some of the combinations built into the deck during a quick test game before the tournament and he caught on quickly that the deck is not a speed deck, but instead is really more of a control deck with some agro elements.

Third place Johnny Lai 3 Fountain of Youth 1 Millstone (UNC) 2 Brainstorm 2 Whispers of the Muse (UNC) 1 Unsummon 1 Repulse 1 Capsize 1 Double Take 2 Impulse 2 Counterspell 4 Prohibit 4 Spell Blast 1 Accumulated Knowledge 4 Serrated Arrows 4 Maze of Ith 4 Mishra�s Factory 4 Desert 2 Strip Mine 14 Islands My Notes: I lost in the first round to Tom�s winning deck. I could not keep any mana-producing lands on the table due to his 2 Sinkhole, 2 Strip Mine opening hand. The rest of the tournament, I played against almost all red decks or Green-Red decks. This deck is not the ideal deck to play given the time limit. If you lose the first game, it�s really hard to find the time to win two more games because this deck can take control and then still take forever to actually win the game. The smart opponent will concede the game once it�s clear you�ve taken control. The really smart opponent will also concede the game in response to a Double Take if I�ve got control because it will prevent me from drawing two extra cards next game (aka: two free mulligans!). That said, for the control players out there this is a powerful deck for the format. As is true of classic blue control decks, you get beat down early, but then take control and come back to win. For example, there were two games during the tournament where I was literally down to 1 life, but then came back and won the game (Fountain of Youth is really good against straight Burn decks).

Fourth place Stephen Allison 4 Kird Ape 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Wild Mongrel 4 Flametongue Kavu (UNC) 2 Blastoderm 4 Rancor 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Chain Lightning 3 Firebolt 4 Incinerate 1 Regrowth (UNC) 12 Mountain 10 Forest Notes: This was Stephen�s first time playing Peasant format, so he did not know the intricacies of the rarity restrictions. Next time, he would remove 2 forest and 2 mountains for 4 Mishra�s Factory. He would also remove 2 Blastoderm and 1 Wild Mongrol to add 3 River Boa and take out 1 FTK for another Regrowth.