Hi.

good to see you again. I had a lovely time in eastern Canada, but yes, I am glad to be home. Strange though it may sound after returning from a magic-oriented trip, I’m fiending to get some games in. I only played 12 matches the whole weekend. that’s like the number of matches I normally get in before I’ve finished making coffee in any given week. Actually wait, that’s not true. I did get in two matches of Mirrodin block draft, going 1-1 (sorry team).

That’s probably enough preamble.

I left from Vancouver after visiting with some mainland friends and family on wednesday night. Noah sold me on a red-eye flight, which turned out ok. I didn’t sleep on the plane (though it was totally smooth), but then my room was ready as soon as I got there at 9am, so I slept half the day. I essesntially got to pay half for my room for the first two nights, so that was cool. Thursday I shopped a bit, found some new shoes, drafted at face a face, and visited the Dieu du Ciel pub, drinking a “deesse nocturne” or “goddess of the night”, which is a delicious stout that’s not too sweet.

Frodo arrived at the hotel just before I got home, which was lucky because although I left his name as an occupant the hotel was refusing him service until I got there. I guess we stack up discrimination against hobbits as a potential dis on french canadians.

In the morning Frodo and I got tourist trap breakfast and when we came back to the hotel Brandon Fettback was there. Our merry band complete, we ventured the 30 meters to the site.

While I was happy to just find out when I could register for the main event the brandons wanted to test all day and potentially cube or get into side events and such. I shopped more, discovering eventually that I’m too fat to shop in St. Denis :’( and then settling for a shirt from the bay and some new socks. I bought two bottles of wine and dropped on of them on the tile floor of the mall ten yards outside the liquor store, causing a scene. The manager was kind enough to replace the wine, but my new socks remain pink.

That evening brought me dinner with a family that I know in montreal. They fed me ReBar enchilladas and I got to hang out with their baby. That evening was a highlight of the trip. I return to the hotel at a reasonable hour and get in a good nights sleep before the

Main Event!

We get dressed and have some breakfast in plenty of time for the player meeting, but the fact that I wasn’t in a hurry just makes the next few sentences all the more embarrassing. We’re seated for the meeting and the HJ starts off by telling us we have 60 seconds to finish our decklists and have them ready. Ack! I hadn’t started my list yet, because I don’t like doing them in two sittings and there was a sideboard slot I was still mulling over. Get it together salahub. My defense is partly to blame MacPhee, since at all of his events he gives a 5minute warning for our lists. He also usually gives a 30minute and 15minute warning, whereas at nats it was just expected that you knew the start of the player meeting meant decklists ready. So obviously I scribble wildly from memory for a minute and hand Will Lockyear a list that includes every card in my deck except for my arid mesa.

In retrospect I should have played this one a lot cooler. I started to panic, and then when I told the closest floor judge my situation he responded with “you have no time”, which obviously allieved all of my panic and made me realize that the right play was just to calmly finish my list and do it right. Unless you were taking more than five minutes in that situation the judge would just wait on you. So I leave for pairings with this potential game loss hanging over my head, but I remain confident.

Round1: Andrew Boyce, Red Deck Wins

Game1 is kinda the usual. he kills my mana guys and I don’t land a baneslayer angel, so I lose. Game2 was neat. The one sideboard slot I was considering was what to play against the red leyline, which he started with. I ended up deciding on 1 oblivion ring and 1 qasali pridemage, both of which I drew. So then I rather ironically win this game where he has the tech against me, and then I lose game3 to him dealing like 40 damage my way off of ball lightnings and their ilk. I had a turn where I had to weigh the value of chumping with a 4/4 knight and no more gas in the tank. I do, and it ends up being correct, but he finds lethal before I find an angel. At least it was the top card of my library.

So I remain confident during even after being approached about what I’m sure is going to be a decklist related game loss at the beginning of

Round2: Andrew Routledge, Monoblack Control

Sure enough, there’s a one-of I’ve missed. I was actually somewhat relieved to get a game loss, just because this was my first event at 40K and I feared getting disqualification and whatnot.

Anyways I take “game2″ after jacing about 5 times and never getting sludged. in game3 he lands creatured every turn and I get eaten by insect shades. Props to gatekeeper of malakir for winning this game.

I’m managing not to tilt out too hard after getting a game loss and losing to the best player in the Yukon. And then there’s this strange phenomenon where I don’t tilt out, then feel really proud of myself for not tilting, and then feel even better. I had a kind of feedback loop of good vibes going while in the 0-2 bracket. It may be the most fun I’ve had losing yet.

Round3 Drew Ganske- Fauna Banaya

This is a pretty tight match which played less like a mirror than you would expect, just because I’m not fauna shamaning and he never drew/searched up sovereigns. I did expect he would have the powerful exalted creature after game1, but playign around it didn’t help me not getting vengevine/elspeth’d out. 0-3. sniff sniff.

Well I guess the true test of my good attitude was at hand. I overhear some other players saying that x-3 still makes top8, and this sounds about right with 111 players and 12 rounds, so I tighten my belt and steel myself for a long, uphill climb.

Draft

Air Servant put me in blue immediately, and although there was an early giant spider available, I manage to avoid green (the dubz had warned me that I needed to be able to draft other decks) in favour of plentiful burn spells and pyromancers, sleeving up a deck I felt good about.

cloud elemental

merfolk sovereign

2 maritime guard

aether adept

canyon minotaur

2 prodigal pyromancer

stone golem

scroll thief

air servant

fiery hellhound

hoarding dragon

ice cage

mana leak

unsummon

cancel

jace’s ingenuity

shiv’s embrace

preordain

chandr’s outragee

warlord’s axe

lightning bolt

9 island

8 mountain

board hits: merfolk spy (oh yeah!), armored cancrix, manic vandal (yeah i should’ve probably manned up and maindecked this), demolish, redirect, volcanic strength, chandra’s spitfire, goblin balloon brigade.

Round4: Jeff Major

This guy had a “mana deprived” tee shirt on, so we talked about that site a bit. It turns out he posts quite a bit. He was playing three color bombs with little fixing and solid playables such as mind rot and lilliana’s specter. I managed to hold the upper hand in game1 but in game 2 he cast baneslayer angel, leaving me only two turns to draw an out, and failing. In game3 I figured out that he shouldn’t have been playing black, as his mana worries cost him the match.

I won a match!

Round 5: Dave Clarke

He’s green white with overrun, but failing to draw overrun or otherwise put a ton of pressure on me basically turns this into an unfair matchup in my favour, since I can afford to get beat up a little and then deal with his important guys. In both games I stabilise and fly over.

Still in it! I start to feel like this run could actually happen.

Round6: Joseph Bunyan

He is black/green rock with rise from the grave, an assortment of great creatures, assassinate, doom blade, cultivate, and basically every good card in those colors. Game1 is over in the blink of an eye and I do my best to stay focused and rally. no boarding.

In game2 I manage to gain control early and fly in. he shows me a crystal ball or a whispersilk cloak and I board in the vandal for the axe.

Game3 I’m getting beaten down by some cheap black dudes and then a whispersilk cloak. I plant my back foot and he lays down a spined wurm with me at ten. On his next turn he suits up and brings me to five, then plays reassembling skeleton. my board is a golem, a thief, and a fresh pyromancer. he is at thirteen. I have an embrace in hand but my only out is the vandal. I don’t draw it on my draw step.

he has doom blade mana but i have cancel. After tanking a minute I decide that my only out is the manic vandal on top of my deck. I ping the skeleton and ship with the thief and the golem. I draw… Vandal! although most of us would cry “what luck!” I feel a little more deserving of this miracle topdeck, if only because I was clever enough to discern that it keeps me in the game and that no other line of play does. I’ve scooped a lot of games where there was a situation like this, so even if for many of you it was just an insane topdeck, for me it was something of a breakthrough in piloting skill. He doomblades the vandal and I cancel, there’s no second removal ftw and I am able to fly in with a suited up guy, pump, and ping to the dome for my last needed point. I win my draft.

Draft 2

This was super weird. I opened the 7mana dragon AND fire elemental AND another decent red card, so I just took a cloud elemental and hoped to keep out of red. I took a second blue card and then got a little tricked with the next two picks as I attempted to assemble a second colour while blue dried out. 3rd was the 7mana white flier and 4th was a garruk’s packleader. So then the rest of my pack1 is dirt but I at least cut all the blue so that pays off down the road. Pack2 I get the blue I wanted… and also a second pick bolt from an otehrwise loose pack and a really late pyromancer. So now I’m dubiously back into blue/red and nervous that I’ve had some success with an archetype and I’m forcing myself into it in the middle of pack2. Perhaps I’ve stumbled upon a nuts color combo or more likely I just get super lucky in the remainder of this draft, opening a fireball, getting passed an air servant, and peiceing together enough pseudo-playables to form a deck.

Unfortunately the list and following match result, along with my journey through day2 will have to wait until a bit later tonight (or tomorrow if I’m super lazy), because I have to go pick up my mom from the airport.

Thanks for reading!

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http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/VicMagic/index.php?showtopic=1887