Take Two: Part III --- The Tournament

The day had finally come.  No more would my MTG experience be limited to a coffee table in the living room.  I was going to a tournament to pit my skills (such as they were) against other players with whom I had no familiarity.  As a novice, I was pleased that the format would be sealed deck as not having to worry about what other people were doing allowed my brain to concentrate exclusively upon my own game. 

Dawn came early for me (I was on night shift at the time) so I may or may not have slept at the wheel as I began the long drive north to The American.  It may have been the dreariness of the weather, or it may have been the fact that I wasn’t accustomed to buildings that smelled of urine, but the venue seemed to be real shithole.  I’d been in outhouses in Mexican border towns that smelled better.  Seriously.  I had to keep checking the bottoms of my shoes to make certain I didn’t step in any raw sewage. 

Anyway, shortly after my arrival, either the coffee or the human piss odor jarred me from my pseudo-slumber and I began to survey the scenery as it were.  As many of you know, Magic players have labored under a pretty specific stereotype for years so by the time that I waded through piles of cigarette butts and through the front doors, I already had a preconception of how the community at large would look and act.  I can say with absolute honesty that things were exactly as I anticipated.

If someone had told me that the tournament was being held at a different hotel and that I was, in fact, waiting in line for a Napoleon Dynamite Impersonators conference I would have had to double check my Google map before calling them a liar.  Also as I expected, the players were friendly, helpful, and seemed genuinely excited to get their hands on a few packs and start going to town.  I was among my peeps again for the first time in years and my nervousness at playing in my first tournament was soon replaced with a feeling of pleasant anticipation. 

With a gleam in my eye, I cracked open some cards and began detailing the contents of the deck.  My exhilaration soon gave way to disgust.  These cards were crap.  Actually, the garbage I had the dishonor of listing in the inventory sullied the good name of crap.  I wondered if it would be frowned upon if I would, at some point during the tournament, throw down my hand, push all my cards along with some loose change into the center of the table and shout “I fold you cheating bastards!”

Well I certainly felt like an ass when they told me that the cards we would use to build our decks would not be the same ones we cracked and chronicled.  I tried to act cool about it but instead jumped up and down clicking my heels together in mid-air like a drunken leprechaun.  To the poor SOB who got the cards I opened I say this: “Dude, you got $#@&ed.”

Due to the presence of a few Terminates, 2 Flametongue Kavus, and some Lava Zombies, I opted for some Red/Black.  In hindsight, I should have paid a little more attention to my mana curve but compared to the filth that I brown-bagged for some other poor shmo this deck was stout.

My first foe was a young lad of about 18 or so years.  While he was not as green as me, he was new enough to the game that we ended up in a friendly debate regarding proper chronology after I cast a Thunderscape Battlemage with kicker.  We had a few laughs, summoned a judge (I was incorrect) and proceeded to battle to a tie.  I made some nervous errors and should have cleaned his house but he was a cool dude and I was a newbie so I didn’t get too upset with the draw.

I lost my next match to some lucky mullet who dropped a Verdeloth the Ancient on me with some kicker in 2 of the 3 games.  I never drew my Terminates and he laughed at my Flametongues.  0-1-1.   This tournament crap was coming dangerously close to sucking.  I had a mind to call the Djinn and tell him to take his deck building advice and shove it right up his arse.  And then, it all came together.  I rattled of 4 of my next 5 (along with another tie) and sat at a robust 4-2-2.  I was the freaking MAN!  Undoubtedly such a formidable record would land me some serious product!

Excitedly, I tracked down my told my old mentor and told him of my prowess but, strangely, he seemed less than euphoric.  Deciding that this cat was a total butthole, I sauntered over to check the standings and was mortified to find that there were like 50 people ahead of me.  Well, top 3^rd-ing was pretty friggin cool anyway so I hopped in my ride, and drove home with nothing but good feelings.

In retrospect, my first tournament experience was my favorite.  The bulk of the other players (while unlikely to become public speakers, football heroes, or man-whores in the supermodel community) were patient with my newbieness, helpful regarding rules, and reasonably engaging personally.  Despite the odor of the venue, I performed beyond my expectations and once I convinced my wife that I was indeed at a tournament and not playing in a cat box for 12 hours, she was only a little pissed that I spent the entire day away from the house playing a card game for 25 bucks.  Yep, I was going to seriously get into this magic thing….

Next Week, The Fryguy tries his hand at some constructed and discovers some unpleasant realities about MTG

Take Two: Part II --- The Draft

I stared at the mish-mash of cards in my hand.  How the #@%$ was I supposed to make this mess into a serviceable deck?   This was my 4^th go-around and I still couldn’t seem to get it right.  Over and again I kept getting trounced by my opponent/mentor and I was starting to get pissed off. 

I didn’t just fall off the back of a turnip truck so I generally know when I’m outclassed or if an activity or skill is beyond my full comprehension.  Examples of this include set-theoretic topology or how anyone could find Courtney Love attractive.  MTG was not beyond my ability to be adequate.  It wasn’t damn it, and I was going to plug away until I stopped sucking.

In my latest travesty of a draft, I selected what I thought were complimentary colors and tried my damndest to find synergies between cards as I was taught.   It seemed, however, that my knowledge of the rules and interactions just did not suffice to make anything but a big pile of ass out of the cards in my pile.  Before I dropped my first land, I knew I was in trouble yet again.  Resignedly, and with slumped shoulders, I began re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic until I sunk.

A few days later I was sitting in my cube farm at the office valiantly moving things from column ‘A’ to column ‘B’ when it was brought to my attention that my buddy Nick a few rows down (known by some as the Immortal Djinn and to others as that big half-asser who spends his time listening to loud music and pontificating about crap that has nothing to do with work) had been known to drop a hand or two of MTG.

I figured, “what the hell?” and walked over to the Djinn to ask him some advice. It was his belief, contrary to the practices and advice of my existing tutor, that (for a novice player) trying to consistently piece together nifty combinations and eloquent schemes out of random and inconsistent packs of cards was folly.

He introduced to me what all new players should know when first starting out; the concept of B.R.E.A.D.  At my next opportunity, I applied these simple principles in a practice draft with my old teacher and nemesis.  In lieu of looking for cute little tricks, I drafted beef.  I didn’t look for combos, I snapped up Terminates.  While my opponent was drafting his 3^rd 1-2 Merfolk in hopes of establishing something nifty, I grabbed Flametongue Kavus.  I was pissed off and so was my deck.

In MTG, as it is with sports, binge drinking, hippy lettuce, hitting on chicks, and arguing with your spouse, it is vital to know your limitations.  My deck building for limited unquestionably lacked the eloquence expected of a more seasoned player, but by keeping it simple and grabbing value where I saw it instead of creating Rube Goldberg machines over and over again my builds were unquestionably better. 

Within a few games with my old mentor, I felt like Darth Vader facing off with Obi-wan on the Death Star and had to consciously fight off the urge to snarl “your powers are weak old man.”  Certainly I still had far to go to be considered even an average player as evidenced by my tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with foolish choices but the groundwork had been laid for a paved road to competency.  I was ready for my first tournament.

So with renewed confidence in my mediocrity and with a barbaric yawp, I packed up my 2 dice, grabbed 25 bucks, and made my way to the beautiful American Motel to play in the Planeshift pre-release.

Come back soon as The Fryguy battles through his intial tournament and describes his first exposure to the Magic community