10/14: FNM
No school today due to PLPs, so I finally got to sleep in. I got up around noon, got on the computer for a little bit before I left and then left for PLPs. On the way back, I was going to get a haircut, but the place I go to was closed and I don’t like the barber because he always gives me a crew cut. My brother wanted a haircut, too, but was fine with the barber, so I got a doughnut and a large white hot chocolate (liking those lately) at Dunkin Donuts, while I waited for my brother. Got home, ate dinner (breaded pork, yum ^ ^) and headed to Larry’s again for FNM.
I arrived a few minutes before the tournament began and the organizer said that shipment of Innistrad hadn’t come in yet, so we were going to use one pack of Scars, one of Besieged, and one of New Phyrexia. I had been assuming that it would be M12, so I liked this a bit better. With Innistrad, I’m starting to see why people don’t like drafting Core Sets. Unfortunately, I had only done one draft with Scars and it was at Joe’s house, and didn’t know much about Besieged or New Phyrexia, so I was scared, yet excited.
I ended up drafting a red/black deck, with a Spellskyte and a Hex Parasite. My first opponent was the girl who I mentioned from last FNM. Her name is Arianna (although I’m not sure I spelled that right) and she was playing an artifact heavy black deck. She used a one-drop artifact that gave the equipped creature +2/+2, but made it so it couldn’t block. Game 1, we went back and forth playing creatures, until I used Life’s Finale and made use of the hand advantage I had thanks to my Phyrexian Rage I had in order to win. Game two didn’t go so well, and I ended up mulliganing and keeping a hand full of lands. I got creatures, so it wasn’t too bad, but I had underestimated her equips and ended up getting destroyed. Game three went more like the first game. She would play creatures and I would use spells like Grasp of Darkness or Shatter to kill them. Eventually, I played Scourge Servant and was able to get a few hits with it (which she got a -1/-1 counter on). She let herself get 6 poison counters, so she could do damage to me, but at that point, when she played a creature to block with, I killed it with Gut Shot and pumped the Scourge Servant with Mutagenic Growth for the win.
Game two, I was against someone whose name I can’t remember, he was tall and was a pretty cool guy. He was playing a red/black deck with those artifact Gideon’s Avengers. He got me down pretty far game one, but I was able to Exsanguinate for 13, and managed to kill his creatures. Despite this major blow to his life, I ended up killing him with my Ichor Rats. He was able to hold me off for a while, but it was ultimately not enough. Game two was a lot closer, he got out two artifact Gideon’s Avengers and was able to hold me off for a while. He also had a card that gave him one life for each creature and then one for each artifact. Despite the fact that I had been hitting him, he managed to gain fifteen and go back up to twenty-five, which was annoying as I was holding Exsanguinate, so I used my creatures to beat him back down a bit. I realized that my life was getting low as well, but also realized that he had more than one life gain card. Regardless, I had to use it, which took him down to one. I was holding gut shot, although I realized that it would likely only hurt me, so I saved it. Sure enough, he had the life card, and brought himself back up to seven. I couldn’t get my attacks by him, as he had too many creatures, so I had to Life’s Finale, but unfortunately we were running low on cards and I had less than him. To make matters worse he played Red Sun’s Zenith and took me down to one. I figured I had no chance as he now had four cards in his deck and we both had no creatures (apparently none in our hands either). I drew Mortis Dogs and played it, passing the turn. He drew and played a mountain. 3 cards left. Again, I felt nervousness for every draw. I attacked, taking him to three and passed the turn. He drew. Mountain. Game.
My final opponent was Adam, again, who was my final opponent last time as well. He was running green/black/blue infect and it was really fast. Games one and two were basically the same, he’d play creatures and I’d be unable to trade with them. I’d have a plan and then he’d play made me discard two cards, while he drew two (that card is really annoying). Finally, once I had a sufficient number of poison counters, he’d play a card that gave me three more. I lost 0-2. I came in third, as one of his other opponents had better tie breakers than me. I believe I have a rival of sorts. I actually did pretty well for not having played two of the three sets before, and, according to one of the people there, States should have side events. I plan to go tomorrow. Speaking of which, it is tomorrow. I’m finishing writing this at 1:57 AM. Well, off to bed.
10/15: States side draft
My main reason I wanted to was to see if Rob Dougherty had any advice for my senior project. Since my mom was going down there anyways, I spent more than enough time at States. I don’t actually have a standard deck, so I couldn’t enter the tournament, but I did sign up for a side draft that took about four rounds to start. I saw quite a few familiar faces there and when I was talking to a regular from Pandemonium named (I don’t think by his parents though) Flez (or maybe two zs), another guy walked up (I want to say his name is Sam, but I don’t know why, so I may be entirely wrong) and asked us “why did the hipster burn his tongue?” This joke made me laugh for some reason, “because he ate his dinner before it was cool.” I sent myself a text with this joke, and wondered who texted me a minute later >_<. Pandemonium had a booth there as well and a lot of people were playing their dice. I saw Rob there but didn’t ask at first as I didn’t know what specifically I would ask.
The side draft started and I really wasn’t on my game today as I decided to try and get as many werewolves as I could. I won the get the most werewolves game, but I think I must have tired myself out from all of the drafting that I’ve been doing, but I made a deck of twenty creatures and four combat tricks. My first opponent, on the other hand, had werewolves, wolves, burn, and equipment. With all creatures on my side, an equipment that gives first strike and power kind of hurt me. He went down to five, mulliganing first game, and he still beat me. I had too many creatures, but he got out first strikers. To make matters worse, his creatures were mostly wolves or werewolves, so my Moonmist didn’t help much. Game two, he went down to five again, but this time he was on the play. I was able to overwhelm him and hoped that he would be unlucky again. He was on the play again but he wasn’t. On the other hand, I only got one land and mulliganed to six. This was like the first game, but I got destroyed more. My creatures didn’t do too much against his equipped creatures. Oh well. I didn’t enter a second draft and hung around a while longer. I talked to Rob, who mentioned that other people had written papers before on the economics of Magic before, but he seemed surprised that mine was actually about winning and getting better at the game. Then again it’s not really going to paper either. It’s a research project in which I plan to learn what it takes to win and then win. I just wish it was as easy as I make it sound. On a side note, frozen custard milkshakes are freaking awesome :D
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