Oh, the first month of a new Standard is always so exciting. So many new decks flying around, so many attempts at making the next hot thing (or at least, something you can warm yourself by). Of course, with every success comes failures. And that's one success to multiple failures. Thus is the curse of invention—it is a process largely determined by trial and error.
Alright, let me begin by apologizing for the title. If you haven't figured it out, it's a terrible play on that ominous three note diddy that gets played when some dark revelation happens in campy movies or cartoons. But I hope it made it clear as to what I'll be talking about today.
One of my favorite column types are Bill Simmons' running diaries. Typically, he'll watch an event (anything from an actual game to an awards show), and basically timestamp his thoughts and reactions. Let's apply that to a Cube draft.
Last time, I asked you, the readership, what you would prefer to see today, and the majority called for more Merfolk. So, here's a smörgåsbord of different fish for you to enjoy.
Last weekend was the M10 Release draft at our store, an event that I was craving ever since I judged at the Prerelease and got to watch all those happy faces playing with the new cards. I wanted to play Magic, too. So I tore up my Launch Party with Golgari shenanigans. Read on!
While GP: Seattle was a while ago, the lessons learned there still apply today. And while I may not be a true master yet, when you play Faeries it doesn't really matter.
Oh yeah...The PTQ was...well, it was Standard. And though people keep talking about the death of Faeries, and though it sometimes briefly disappears from the tournament scene, the fact remains that the metagame always seems to circle back to the blue menace. This tournament was no exception. There were a lot of Faeries players there, and I was one of them.
A week ago, my friend Jon pitched the idea of maybe getting a car together to go to the PTQ in Kitchener, Ontario. Considering that I could not attend Grand Prix: Seattle due to budget restrictions, I gave the idea some thought...
After playing in event after event, it becomes clearer and clearer each time that no matter how much you test and prepare, sometimes it's just not your day.
Some of you may notice that this article is a week early (I usually write a bi-weekly article), but there are just too many events that I need to report on to do it once every other week. Last weekend, myself and two friends made the six hour sojourn to San Diego for one of the early PTQs of the season.
his past weekend, I made the trip up to Phoenix for my last chance to qualify for Honolulu. I didn't Q. A little heartbreaking, a little frustrating, but it was still a fun day of Magic. The deck I ran? Zoo. But, that ended up being something I only decided on a few days before the event. Prior to that, I had been helping some friends test another deck (mostly, by running the field against it, not by piloting it myself). The deck? TEDS. Nope, that's not a typo. The Extended Dragon Storm.
Kyoto feels like both a success and a failure to me at this point. On one hand, I top 16'ed my first Pro Tour. Read on for details of my Pro Tour experience.
Indianapolis is a ways from Michigan. When I first heard that there would be a Star City Games 5K within driving distance of Michigan, I must admit I was at least mildly excited. Here's my report on the 5K tournament.
That said, the PTQ was still exciting and loads of fun. There were three of us in my car, and four more players from Tucson came separately a few hours later (two of whom were guys I traveled to Albequerque with last time I went). We didn't do as well as last time, when four out of four Tucson players made top eight, but two of us still made it to the single-elimination rounds.
The format was Extended. My deck: Naya Zoo, aka Naya Burn.
Pro Tour: Kyoto. What a trip. I mean, first there's the whole traveling to Japan sort of thing. The country is really neat, but I've never been anywhere where people don't understand English. Sure, most Japanese people have a rudimentary understanding of the language, but they can't speak it, and though they may be able to sound out words written in the Roman script, they don't understand the written word either. Which made finding our hotel on our first night a little tricky.
But, you're probably not here for a trip report; you want a tournament report. Very well. Let us begin my first Pro Tour experience.