Everyday I'm Shufflin': The end of the Seaon

So, the last PTQ of the season for me is now over, although I didn’t even stick around for the whole thing, so this will be a quick report. Round one, I was up against a player using red/black. Game one, they got out Olivia and started pinging my creatures. I held off on playing Stromkirk and Voiceless Spirit, but next turn, when I drew Rally the Peasants, I realized that I would have won had I played them. Game two, I forgot Nightbird’s Clutches had flashback and played a creature instead of saving mana for my Victim of Night. My next opponent was red/black/white (same as me) and thanks to his rolling tremor, we ended up with no creatures on the board. When he was at one and I was seven, I played Doomed Traveler, and since he couldn’t stop it, I won. Game two, Olivia (yes, he had one two). He was smarter than to attack, so I couldn’t rebuke it, and he soon won. He had been going on the draw, so game three, I decided to take the draw. He got mana-screwed, so I hit him five times with Doomed Traveler, at the end of his turn played Midnight Hauntings, and Rallied the Peasants twice, swinging for game.

My third opponent was using blue/white with a lot of humans, and fliers. He eventually killed my fliers and beat me with Murder of Crows. Game two, I stupidly sided out Slayer of the Wicked, and ended up against Skaab Goliath. I killed it with three creatures and Rally, but eventually, he overwhelmed me. By this point, I was pretty much done and game four was kind of a joke. I even wanted to lose, so I could leave without worry about if I could get prizes. Game one, Stromkirk and Voiceless destroyed him, but two and three, he was able to stop Stromkirk and won completely, as I had stopped caring and misplayed a lot. The head (I think) judge’s son, Josh had the same record and dropped, so we played for awhile. This is the guy I faced at the last Charlestown PTQ, and our game was rather fun, even though I lost. Game five, I just gave the guy the win before the match started and dropped. Kind of a lame last PTQ.

Playing against Josh was more fun, and we kept making jokes back and forth. This line stuck with me. “Two can play at that game, and one of them is me.” I said this when I made the same move as him and we found it hilarious for some reason. We won back and forth for a while (neither won two in a row) while waiting for our rides. His ride came and my dad arrived soon after. I rarely buy cards, but I have a thing for Merfolk and decided to get Lord of Atlantis, since they were four a piece. While that’s not really much cheaper than usual (five), it was enough to make me finally cave. I also agonized the whole tournament over whether to buy a Force of Will, which was fairly cheap (for a Force of Will). I knew I had to do it, and now that it was finally time to go, I went to get them. I ended up getting three. They shall come in handy later. I didn’t have enough on me to get a fourth, although I’m hoping to see the Vender again and that he doesn’t raise the price.

So basically, my target is Grand Prix Baltimore, which is Standard, the next PTQ season is Modern, and I’ve made some headway on my Legacy deck. Oh well, I guess I can work on my decks, since I no longer am going to weekly tournaments, except for FMN, which I am running. The store didn’t add it to their calendar, so there was a pretty lame turn out. I’m hoping more people will start going. Harrison’s Comics, in Nashua, NH, if anyone’s interested. The four people who showed up were pretty cool, but I’m hoping more will start coming. It just seems unsatisfying not being able to sanction it. It’s in a prime location, so I’m sure that more people would go, if more people knew about it. Anyways, I’ve got decks to make and an essay to write…

Everyday I'm Shufflin': Final Draft

Well, this may be it for drafts for a while. I have to work on Friday and I’m kind of busy the Monday after, plus my weekly improv class may start to be on Mondays. The biggest factor however is that I will be running FNM at a store nearby. I am a little bit nervous, as I have never run a tournament before, but I feel that this will be a great experience. I was planning to enter the PTQ in Connecticut this weekend, but I agreed to go in so the person who runs tournaments on Saturdays at the store could show me how everything works. Unlike the tournament’s that I’ve been going to however, this is going to be Standard, so I may need to learn a little bit about popular cards and how they interact so that I can be a more effective judge. That said, I do feel rather confident in my rulings knowledge due to all the time I spent drafting and witnessing judge calls, as well as learning from my own mistakes. I am definitely looking forward to this. I plan to attend the PTQ in Charlestown and then shift focus to Modern to prepare for the next PTQ format. I will still draft from time to time, but with the sealed PTQ going away and my availability changing to not give me time for my weekly tournaments, I will have a lot less tournament reports than I’ve been. I will try post more based on what I learn in the time being. It also seems that I will have to stop procrastinating on choosing a deck.

I also feel the need to mention that a certain game I’ve been following for a while is coming out in English. Check out http://www.cf-vanguard.com/en for Cardfight!! Vanguard. It’s very different from most TCGs, but it’s still incredibly fun. It’s by the creator of Duel Masters and a Japanese TCG company called Bushiroad. It’s also got an anime is (in my opinion) the only CGA that is actually good. Anyways, it won’t be able to satisfy my need for tournament’s and the competition that Magic offers, but it is a great game, nonetheless, and has a pretty good metagame as well. It’s become very popular in Japan and the trial decks and the first booster will come out in English in a couple of days.

11/28: Discount Draft

Anyways, on to the draft. They ran out of Innistrad, so it was back to M12. Odd ending to my weekly drafts and no, I didn’t win. I got third. I got an Oblivion Ring and decided to go white, and naturally I ended up falling into Blue. I ended up with two Oblivion Rings and three Mana Leaks. Of course, the star of the deck was none other than Jace, Memory Adept, which finally found his way to me…for the tournament anyways. Of course, this made a lot of games fairly uneventful.

My first opponent was someone who was apparently new to store as well as the person who passed me Jace (second pack), and he was also named Nick. He was running a Red/Green deck with Birds of Paradise and those boars that I can’t remember the name of. You can sacrifice them to gain four life. He also had a Goblin Fireslinger. Game one, he damaged me with a Lanowar Elves and I played timely reinforcements. From there, we both started playing out creatures. He got out a Goblin Fireslinger and started dealing damage to me. This guy wasn’t the most experienced player as he was doing it on his turn. Eventually I Oblivion Ringed it and he decided to attack. This pretty much wiped out all of our creatures, except for his Birds of Paradise and maybe a couple of others. I accumulated a larger hand size however, since I had been able to use my Timely Reinforcements to gain an advantage through combat and had been taking damage and holding more cards in hand. Eventually, I got out Belltower Sphinx, and since we were low on cards, he couldn’t really attack without losing (I had Frost Breath just in case he did get strong enough). He used Rampant Growth which made him run out first in the long run, although I did have Jace in my hand. Anyways, my mill deck won without milling him via effect.

Game two, he got early damage on me with a Firebreathing Birds of Paradise. I mind controlled it, but he just naturalized my Mind Control, and I eventually was able to hold it off with a flyer of my own, putting us right back in a stalemate. Unfortunately, we had taken so long on our first game that time was called at this point. As things were now, I would win 1-0. Since we were running so late, there was a crowd gathered around the table. He said that he didn’t think we had time to finish, but I felt like showing off a little and got kind of cocky. I smiled and told him that we did and played out Jace, milling him for ten. He tried to kill Jace, but I had Frost Breath ready, and 2-0’d him. Of course, this alerted everyone to the fact that I had Jace, which probably wasn’t worth it. Of course my next opponent would have figured this out soon enough.

On a totally random side note, I’m surprised by how many My Little Pony fans there are. See, there was a Black Friday sale at Hot Topic, and I ended up getting two t-shirts. They were the same and I was wearing one of them today. They are black and say “This shirt just got twenty percent cooler” and have a silhouette of Rainbow Dash created by her mane, which is in color. Anyways, this got a few people to call me Rainbow Dash (particularly one guy with a beard). On to the match, I was up against Matt again. I got out Jace fairly quickly and milled him. Then he used an artifact to gain five life and shuffle his graveyard into his library. I milled him again and won. I thought it was funny how in my third draft , he beat me in the final round with Jace, and that he would now be losing to mine. But he didn’t. Game two, I got out Jace, and he used a burn spell on it. Then he beat me. Game three, I almost got Jace out, but he had a Red/Black beatdown deck, and my lack of creatures caused me to lose.

My final opponent was the bearded guy who kept calling me Rainbow Dash. Naturally, I didn’t mind, since Rainbow Dash is awesome, and that is pretty much the greatest thing that someone could be called. He was running Blue/White as well and played out two Merfolk Mesmerist and started milling me. I played out my Merfolk Mesmerist and we had a mill off of sorts, until I mind controlled his and played out Jace. Game two, he was attacking and got out a Rusted Sentinel (3/4 that comes in tapped, if that’s its name). I Master Thiefed it. No one runs that in their main deck, and he was surprised as I didn’t sideboard. I proceeded to play out Jace and mill him again. Of course, this win was full of sadness, as I knew that I would be losing Jace.

I ended up getting third place. Matt won and his last opponent got second. The three people he beat were 2-1s. I got a Phantasmal Image, which is pretty good. And this concludes my tournament spamming. Winning would have been a better finish though… >_<