# South Bay Proving Ground Finals - Report

by Bryant Durrell
May 22, 1997

Eight decks. Four players. One winner.
The first South Bay Proving Ground season came to an exciting conclusion last night. The four finalists were Joe Ganis, Bernie Hsiung, Earl Miles, and Brad Solberg -- four top players, all of whom had proven over the course of the last three months that they could consistently play tough against the best of the Bay.

Brad had accumulated 41 points to become the top player during the regular season; he was followed by Earl, then Joe (who set a record of sorts with five consecutive third place finishes), and finally Bernie, who'd come on strong in the last few tournaments to earn his slot. We began with the two player games; each player would play two games against each other, scoring one point for each victory. Brad was playing the Hand tune of his deadly Blood and Destruction Bloody Horde deck -- the deck which had won him two out of three of the two player tournaments during the season. Earl was playing an Architect discard deck designed by Bill Ricardi; it had shown strength in informal games, but was untested in tournament play. Bernie was playing his known to be dangerous Monarch/Displaced resource denial deck, which had been strong in earlier tournament play; and, finally, Joe Ganis brought Pitbull Bitch (Architect Ambush), a new design for him. We had, thus, four decks representing a wide range of deck design possibilities, from the traditional to the downright strange.

The first pairings were Brad and Bernie, and Earl and Joe. Brad came out to a good start, overwhelming Bernie in classic Blood and Destruction style, but fell into trouble in the second game when Bernie's resource denial proved fatally effective against Brad's dual factions. Meanwhile, Joe's speedy Architect deck demonstrated that when you have enough copies of each cards, and you can win before you deck, discards don't hurt that much. Afterwards, Joe commented that he hated playing such a boring deck, but since it was the finals, he'd decided to stop playing around. Ominous words.
Second, Bernie went up against Joe and Earl took on Brad. Brad had mentioned earlier that his tests against a standard discard deck showed that he wouldn't have much trouble against one. This proved not to be the case, as Earl decked Brad twice running. On the other end of the table, Joe decked Bernie in the first game. His Nerve Gasses and Imprisons allowed him to kill off Bernie's Displaced when they attacked without letting his own characters fall into the dangerous smoked pile, while his Ambush meant he had nothing to fear on the offense. The second game was a decisive victory for Joe, for the same reasons. In the final matchups, Brad faced Joe and Bernie faced Earl. In Bernie and Earl's first game, Bernie got a notably poor draw, and Earl managed a straight win for the first time in the two player games -- his previous two wins had been by decking his opponent. In the second game, Bernie's hand flowed much more smoothly, and he sent in a swarm of weenies to take his last site for the win.
In the other match, Brad knew he was facing the same deck type that had given him so much trouble when played by Dan Oden. Still, he hoped the Hand tune would do better. In the first game, Joe came out strong with the deadly Midnight Whisperer/Buro Godhammer combination, and burned a site for Power on turn 3. Brad never caught up. In the second game, Brad led with a Proving Ground, hoping to drop a Claw of Fury and a Walking Corpse on turn 2. Instead, he discovered that Joe had led with a Whirlpool, and sat in the Whirlpool lock for several turns, never quite recovering from that setback.
Joe had gotten serious with a vengeance, with six wins and an amazing no losses against the strongest two player competition in the Bay Area. Earl was second at this point, with three wins and three losses. Bernie had managed to pull out two wins, leaving him with four losses, and Brad had an embarrasing one win and five losses with the deck that had taken all comers up until this point.

Since the four player game was worth three points, only Joe and Earl had a chance to win now, but with honor and prizes at stake, there was no chance anyone would be uninterested in the result. Brad had his Mallrats Jammer/Dragon deck; Joe was playing Macho Women With Guns, a Monarch/Dragon gun deck; Bernie had his patented Monarch/Hand thug deck; and Earl -- well, Earl realized three turns into the game that he'd chosen his Ascended speed two player deck instead of his standard Architect/Ascended four player deck. (I suspect this was a blessing in disguise, as Joe was stocking Victory for the Underdog.)
The game wore on for some time, with Joe, Earl, and Bernie slugging it out hard. Brad, unfortunately, failed to draw a Dragon resource throughout the entire game, which kept him pretty much out of things. As the game entered the end stages, Joe, Earl, and Bernie were all in a position to win, forcing everyone to play very carefully; now and then, Brad (who was at least generating a fair bit of power, with two Trade Centers) would sneak in and take a site from someone.
The final series of plays began when Joe missed a chance to win; with plenty of power in his pool, he could have dropped a City Square and revealed it to remove Earl's main source of denial. Instead, he attacked knowing the attack would fail, and then followed up by dropping the City Square. Bernie, following, considered going for the win... but decided denial was too likely, and just took a Night Market from Earl, burning for victory.
Earl then attacked Joe's City Square, which Joe revealed and allowed to toast, blowing Earl's attack. Brad made one of his occasional forays onto the field, taking Bernie's weak Pinball Hall with Bernie's full approval -- Bernie placed the damage onto Earl's rather large Might of the Elephant.
Tension built, as it was very clear that it was almost anyone's game. Joe and Bernie, in turn, both decided that they could hold on another turn rather than going for the win; Joe burned Earl's City Square for victory, and Bernie just played a site. At the end of Bernie's turn, much to everyone's surprise, Earl revealed a Sacred Heart Hospital and healed his Might of the Elephant. He then took Joe's front row site with the healed Might, using a Forty-Story Inferno to keep interceptors low. As a followup, he dropped Adrienne Hart, at which point the cries of doom began. They were well justified, as he sent in a swarm led by Adrienne to take Bernie's front site and win.
This left Joe and Earl in a tie, with six points each. It didn't look good for Earl at this point; Joe had dominated him in their earlier two-player games. Joe had been playing to win the four player game, rather than playing spoiler and just making sure Earl didn't win, which would have been more optimal from a point-based standpoint. With this in mind, and keeping to my previous tournament practice, I declared a best two out of three tiebreaker.
Earl took the first game in an upset. Joe was playing a little sloppy, and Earl played an excellent game -- Joe conceded when he was down to about ten cards left in his deck. Taking a deep breath, facing defeat in the eye, Joe focused in and pulled out the second game after a long tense match. It all came down to the last game: the entire season, the entire tournament, the best of the Bay was to be decided in the next half an hour.

And Joe played a brilliant game. It was clear that after the first unfamiliarity of the discard deck had worn off, he'd figured out how to play against it, and his deck was simply strong enough to win. Burning for Power when necessary, playing the right sites when he needed them, he turned back Earl's CHARs and took home a well earned victory.

Thus, at the end of the evening, Joe Ganis was crowned as The Man of the Bay Area. He's proven that he's among the elite players. Earl Miles took a well-deserved second place. Bernie Hsiung, working miracles with his relatively small stock of cards, took third; and, finally, Brad Solberg, after a completely dominating regular season, was forced to settle for fourth.

This is getting rather long; I'll post Joe's decks in a followup. The other finalist decks should be coming as soon as I can get them from the players involved.

Last modified: January 23, 1998.
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