Pro Tour-Chicago 1999
Round 4 Feature Match

Christian Lührs - Svend Geertsen

Lührs won the die roll and chose to go first. He played an Underground Sea and said go, prompting Geertsen to wonder what decks ran Underground Seas. He found out after trying to play a first turn Skyshroud Elite as Lührs cast Demonic Consultation in response, calling for a Force of Will. Two Force of Wills were in the first six cards, and Lührs' entire library was removed from the game except for 13 cards, revealing his deck to be counter-sliver. On Lührs' turn, he played a Crystalline Sliver, but Geertsen played a Spectral Bears, which were flown over the following turn as Lührs played a Winged Sliver. Geertsen then Rancored his bears and played out Quirion Rangers and an Elvish Lyrist. Lührs played an Acidic Sliver the next turn, but Geertsen followed up with another Lyrist as well as a Ghazban Ogre. On his following turn, a Giant Growth on the Rancored bears sealed the game.

1-0 Geertsen

Lührs played first, playing a Flood Plains as Geertsen made a face but kept his hand, dropping a turn 1 Hidden Gibbons, followed by a River Boa, Spectral Bears, and a Quirion Rangers over the next two turns as Lührs played out Crystalline, Hibernation, and Winged Slivers, attacking for a couple points a turn. A Bounty of the Hunt on the River Boa got Lührs down to 4, but at the end of his turn, he used the Demonic Consultation he'd drawn to start the game, calling Perish, and then cast it the next turn to take out 6 green creatures. Being left with nothing but a Vine Dryad in hand that was countered, Geertsen couldn't stop a pair of 2/2 slivers from finishing him off.

1-1

Geertsen got no land on two consecutive hands, but then kept a five-card hand with a Land Grant, which was Force of Willed on turn 1. However, he managed to play a Vine Dryad at the end of Lührs' first turn, drawing into a land and Rancoring it. Unfortunately for Geertsen, Lührs just had too smooth of a draw to race with on so few cards, as Geertsen played out a Crystalline, Muscle, a second Muscle, and finally a Winged Sliver to whittle him down. Even a Bounty of the Hunt wasn't enough to push the damage through as Lührs managed to keep blockers back and still punch through for the last 8 damage on turn 6.

2-1 Lührs

-Chris Warren