by chimp Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:54 pm
TKOTN Report
by: Rogelio Flores Jr.
Team La Union recently participated at the King of the North tournament last March 7, 2010, the last day of the Panagbenga festival in the City of Pines, Baguio City. Of the 52 who participated in this major event 10 came from Team La Union that also included participants from Baguio, Laguna and Manila, most notably the defending Champion last year, Richard Badlon who
was able to defend his crown as he again took the P20,000.00 prize with his Red-White Boros Bushwacker Deck. After
six grueling rounds, the Top 8 roster had 4 from Baguio and 4 from Manila. Sadly, no one from Team La Union got to the Top 8.
The best rank the team got was 10th place thru Jobert Tan who
had a perfect record after the third round but lost the next two crucial matches. He was able to rebound in the
last match but wasn’t able to get to the Top 8 as the cut-off slate was 4-1-1 Win-Loss-Draw record. In fact, the 9th place had a
similar 4-1-1 record. Two other members of Team La Union had a
similar 4-2-0 record as they
took the 11th and 14th spot. Another member could’ve gotten a similar 4-2-0 record but was matched with another Team La Union
member and lost to the eventual 11th placer. Two of its members dropped out of the tournament
after the first round, an unexpected surprise to the team as the team only knew
of their decision through the event organizer.
A poignant event really as the team had sighed a sigh of relief as they
too were the last to arrive.
The Red-Black-Green Jund Deck was the dominant deck in the tournament though surprisingly, there were a lot of Blue-White Control decks, an influence of the recently concluded Pro Tour in San Diego. Other decks include the Red-Green-White Naya, Blue-White-Green Bant, Mono Black Vampire, Mono White Weenies, Mono Red and a host of other decks. Team La Union itself had a great variety of decks that only 2 of its members had a same concept deck, the Mono White Weenie Deck. A great effort really as a result of a week-long deck testing and a last day indecision jitters as to what deck to use and what sideboard to insert.
Over-all, the team was quite satisfied with its showing as the strategy was to go anti-Jund as it expected a pre-dominantly Jund Deck participation which, more or less, was a correct assessment of the tournament, however, the team still had a poor showing with the said deck which only shows why this deck is still one of the top type 2 deck and very much still the most popular deck amongst
players. Notably too was that only 5 matches pitted co-members against each other.
One of the members had a bad match-up throughout the tournament as his first 5 matches were mirror matches and his last match was against a team member. The team could’ve had 12 members but 2 backed out a day before the tournament with incomplete decks as these were our legacy players.
The team is now in preparation for the Regionals to be held in Baguio by May and is contemplating in participating in the
Grand Prix in Manila by June while it eagerly awaits The Rise of the Eldrazi!
Here are the Win-Loss-Draw records and Deck used by Team La Union:
Jobert Tan - 4-2-0 - Jund
Indy Criste - 4-2-0 - Naya
Nico Criste - 4-2-0 - Mono Red
Rey Criste - 3-3-0 - Mono Green Eldrazi
Chelo Lim - 3-3-0 - Mono White Control
Ryan Tan - 2-4-0 - Bant
Mico Tan - 1-3-2 - Blue-White Control
Jun Flores - 1-4-1 - Mono White Weenie
Mark Sato - 0-1-0 (dropped after first round) - Jund
Julie Ann Juan - 0-1-0 (dropped after first round) - Mono White Weenie
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