Spell-Weavers Assembly of Dietersheim: CIC Tour


Champion Impersonation Challenge Tour

The idea here is to learn how to master the art of playing highly tuned power decks against other highly tuned power decks. We do this by playing ``best of three'' matches using the ``World Championships Decks''. You are strongly encouraged to play only one single deck for a good long while (minimum 8 games) such that you can get to really understand the deck you play. The ``Champion Impersonation'' concept is that you should really get to think like the one who build the deck in the first place.

Ratings/rankings are calculated for each player/deck combination. A minimum of 12 matches is required to obtain a rough rating for a given combination. Therefore, when you have picked up a deck, then please try and play minimum 12 challenges with it.

Since you should ``impersonate'' the original player of the deck, it is a good idea to pick a deck which matches your own play-style. Do you prefer a simple ``straight ahead and attack'' deck, or would you rather slowly build up your game around an elegant combo? To help you decide which deck to play, here I reproduce all the official release notes which were used to describe the decks we currently play with.

1997, Jakub Slemr
1st place


Slemr's deck features a horde of fast, black creatures. Strengthening the speed kill are a variety of spells from all five colors. Master the deck that ruled the Worlds.

1997, Janosch Kuehn
2nd place


1997, Svend Geertsen
3-4th place


Geertsen's extremely fast monocolored deck is loaded with an army of green creatures. Giant Growth, Bounty of the Hunt, and Winter Orb provide the only noncreature power. Control the creature deck that overwhelmed the competition.

1997, Paul McCabe
3-4th place


McCabe's fast red-blue deck puts the opponent on the defensive. A large number of inexpensive efficient creatures creatures overwhelm the opposition. See the inner workings of a relentless attack deck that stood strong at the Worlds.

1998, Brian Selden
1st place


Selden's deck conquered the field by using Survival of the Fittest to put creatures into the graveyard and Recurring Nightmare to bring them back into play. The deck employs more than twenty creatures and dips into blue for Lobotomy.

1998, Ben Rubin
2nd place


Ben Rubin's archetypal red weenie deck took him all the way to the World Championship Finals. This aggressive Sligh deck consists of roughly equal parts direct damage, aggressive creatures, and land.

1998, Brian Hacker
5-8th place


Brian Hacker's white weenie deck rolled over competitors with more than twenty aggressive creatures. This horde relies on creatures with shadow and the en-Kor to overwhelm the unprepared, with the threat of Cataclysm looming large.

1998, Randy Buehler
12th place


Randy Buehler's Draw, Go deck is pure control, with over twenty counterspells and eight card-drawing engines to dig them out. The decks offense is limited to Stalking Stones and a Rainbow Efreet, but the best offense is often a killer defense.

1999, Matt Linde
3-4th place


Matt Linde's speedy mono-green deck contained 26 low-cost creatures. Supplementing this nasty creature assault were four Rancors and four Giant Growths. If his opponent wasn't smothered by turn five, Linde's Cursed Scrolls would pick up the slack.

2000, Jon Finkel
1st place


Jon Finkel's explosive, monoblue deck used artifacts such as Grim Monolith, Metalworker, and Voltaic Key to generate huge amounts of mana. The mana, in turn, put large creatures into play to finish off stunned opponents.

2000, Janosch Kuehn
5/8th place


Janosch Kuehn's red-green deck used Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves to build up mana early in the game. Kuehn then delivered the finishing punch with mana-denial cards such as Stone Rain and Plow Under.

2000, Tom van de Logt
5/8th place


Tom van de Logt's ``Replenish'' deck used cards like Attunement and Frantic Search to put powerful enchantments into the graveyard. Then he used Replenish to put all of the enchantments back into play at once and pound his opponents.

2000, Nicolas Labarre
5/8th place


Nicolas Labarre's combo deck, called ``Chimera'', used searching cards to fetch Fecundity, Saproling Cluster, and Ashnod's Altar so he could generate unlimited mana. With this mana Labarre used Blaze or Whetstone to plow right over his opponents.

2001, Tom van de Logt
1st place


Tom van de Logt's aggressive, black-red ``Machine Head'' deck used the good ol' ``blow stuff up'' method. While creatures like Plague Spitter wiped out his opponents' smaller creatures, more ferocious beasts like Flametongue Kavu aggressively cleared the board of larger threats.

2001, Alex Borteh
2nd place


Alex Borteh's monoblue combo deck contained twelve 1-toughness creatures. These helped hold the board until his Static Orb-Opposition combo could lock down his opponents' permanents - clearing the way for a horde of Merfolk to pour through for the victory.

2001, Antoine Ruel
3/4th place


Antoine Ruel's blue-black-red control deck survived the pressure in the early game with its almost overwhelming card-drawing capability. And in the end, Nether Spirit kept rising from his graveyard to take down his opponents.

2001, Jan Tomcani
5-8th place


Jan Tomcani's green-red-black ``Fires'' deck used mana-producing creatures to play a quick Fires of Yavimaya. Shortly thereafter, Tomcani's hasted big creatures pounded opponents' life totals to dust.



Palle Møller - pmoller[at]eso.org
Last updated: 14 Oct 2002