In retrospect, it seems somehow appropriate that I did not quite appreciate the import of Grand Prix Denver as I prepared my deck. Everyone I knew in the Magic community was running about this way and that giggling like a pre-teen girl opening up a life-sized Jonas Brothers poster on Christmas morning.
Trying to muster up the appropriate energy for such a life-changing event, I dove into my deck design with as much fervor as can reasonably be expected of a part-time magic player with a good looking spouse.
In actuality, I was already becoming a little disturbed by the cost in time and money associated with MTG. I knew that my deck would only consist of whatever cards were left over when the 2 full-time players with whom I associated completed their builds, augmented by my own meager collection.
In an uncharacteristic display of optimism, I figured that my 4-2 finish sans a complete deck a few weeks back was indicative of my innate skill as a player and deck builder. This can be forgiven as I had not, up to that point, played enough Magic to know how freaking lucky I was with my draws that whole tournament.
Still, I was ready to build. Therefore, I sat like an annoying dog under the dinner table waiting for the scraps to fall. When the plates were cleared, I was able to piece together an aggressive Red-White deck with a few cheap rares and 4 Urza’s rage (sadly, I could only obtain 2 and wasn’t gonna dump 50 bucks on 2 more).
Now I know that many of you would wonder why, in the name of all that is good and pure, would I drive all the way across town to a Grand Prix with a dog shit deck? Well, my friends, the answer is simple.
I played magic because it was fun. I enjoyed the interactions with my friends. I liked the challenge of cracking a pack, making a story out of it, and watching it unfold in conjunction with the imaginings of an opponent. Each deck build was a journey I enjoyed, and I had no reason to believe that this next tournament would be any different.
You know what isn’t fun? Hemorrhaging so much time and coin into cards of various rarities that I might have, in its stead, earned a fooking pilot’s license. So, with my deck in hand, I said “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” and headed off to the North to sling some cards.
The term “Grand Prix” evoked (in my mind at least) visions of busty models leaning over fast cars and quaffing champagne from golden trophies. I half expected a checkered flag to wave in my face when the hotel came into view.
While none of the aforementioned visions came to fruition (although I do suppose some of the dudes playing could be described as “busty”), the hotel itself was a palace compared to venues of tournaments past. The entire process was run so efficiently that I found myself looking for an angry German guy in a lab coat issuing sharp orders to subordinates. There was energy in the air. A competence and ambition that I never sensed in my previous events. Players sorted and reviewed their decks with an urgency that foretold a great battle more than a few friendly games of cards. I sat down across from some agitated dude who looked like Guile from Street Fighter and the game was on.
From the get go, this dude was a prick. Even before the match started, he was unwilling to look me in the eye and gave me one of those “Queen of England” handshakes where the person seems disgusted by your appendage as though it were dripping with raw sewage.
Any inquiry I made (Did you travel far to get here? Have you been playing long? Would you like to use my extra pen instead of dumping the contents of your backpack on the table) was met with terse, one word answers without elaboration. In fact, I failed to detect common courtesy of any sort. I’m no glutton, so I shut my yap once the game started.
Upon determining after about 3 turns that this arsehole was incapable of multi-syllable speech (he only seemed able to spit out the word “Go”), I really wanted to kick this guy’s ass. The draw went pretty well for me and I decided to Urza’s Rage of his dudes to clear the way for the coup de grace. The guy quickly tapped 2 blue and a black to cast Undermine. Unfortunately for my opponent, Urza’s Rage cannot be countered. With as neutral a tone as I could muster, I reminded him of this fact. He swore, untapped his lands, and removed his creature from the board.
Game two was going better for my opponent and my battlefield was not holding up well so I decided to burn out one of his dudes at the end of his turn. I tapped a mountain and then, to my chagrin, remembered that strafe was not an instant but a sorcery.
I said “crap, I can’t cast that right now huh”? and motioned to untap the mountain. Before my hand got within a half-meter of the land, Guile’s arm shot into the air with the speed of a cracking whip and he shrieked “judge” (Also, you may note, a one syllable word).
An unusually fit looking dude a few tables down jogged on over at which time my opponent explained that I tapped a land and then tried to untap it without casting anything. The judge explained that I needed to take my mana burn damage and moved on to the next table where Newman from Seinfeld was having some issue with someone’s shuffling methods.
Listen, I know that, once tapped, the deed is done. But my experience up to that point in both casual and tournament play was that the spirit of the law is adhered to more than the letter. I let this friggin guy do the exact same thing not 10 minutes before. I told him heatedly how uncool it was for him to pull that bullshit move and he just shrugged and said “you shouldn’t have let me do it”. Unfortunately for both me and my blood pressure, I didn’t realize that by knowingly breaking the rules earlier he might have suffered some judgment of his own had I mentioned what occurred.
Frazzled, I went on to lose the match. Without a word, the dude packed his bag, grabbed his mat, and left.
Still seething a little bit, I moved on to my second match whereupon I faced a blue/white control deck. After about 30 minutes of bogging me down and dropping Wrath of God on me, he laid down some big-assed dragon and the gig was up. With 12 land on the board, I never drew the Urza’s Rage that would have one me the game (with kicker). My fault for not splurging for the other 2 I guess eh?
Between matches, this dude shuffled. A lot. He looked like he was taking a Sunday stroll through the park or punting on the Thames . Once completed, he took the opportunity to shuffle my deck. A lot. While collating my cards, he noticed a small piece of mung on the back of 2 of my cards. He raised his hand and yelled “Judge!”
He could have saved some time by asking me to put new sleeves on the offending cards but that wouldn’t have taken all friggin day like waiting for the judge. When the judge arrived, he examined the cards, didn’t believe there was any cheating going on, and simply wiped off the shmutz with his shirt. Grinning, my opponent shuffled my deck yet again. Needless to say, we did not finish and I lost 1-0. I didn’t know stalling was against the rules or that it even was used as a tool by control-deck types until after the tournament…..
The rest of the day went as follows:
I defeated my next opponent only to be bombarded with a torrent of profanity that would have made a longshoreman blanche. Without lowering his volume, this dude went on to tell me how crappy of a player I was, that my deck was stupid, and that I only beat him because he was mana-screwed. All that was missing from this tirade was an offensive comment about my mother followed with pointed questions about my ancestry.
I evened my record up by defeating a friendly and humble lad of 16 who drove all the way from New Mexico
In my final match before I dropped, some blowhard from God knows where chirped throughout the entire match like he was Muhammed Ali or something. The 3 game match was filled with such classy insights as “ooooo. I wouldn’t have done that” and “That was dumb” and “How does that feel huh?” and the always graceful “Bet you didn’t see that coming did you? Wham!”
When he burned me out to win the match, my erstwhile foe danced around like he just found out that Leonard Nimoy was coming over to his house for a pillow fight and makeover.
As this last Shmendrick pranced off to go be a jack-wagon to some other dude (hopefully he’d play that ass-face from the first round) I sat in my chair stunned. What the #@$& just happened? These dudes at WOTC expect people to pay top dollar to suffer this level of dickery? Feeling as though I just discovered that a hot roommate looks like Ralph Macchio when seen without makeup, I walked back to my old truck, hoped the clutch would survive the trip, and began the long drive back to suburbia.
In the days after the event, I tried to talk to some people about my experience and the responses I got did not provide encouragement. In a nutshell, the consensus seemed to be that many Magic players are extremely competitive and that a Grand Prix brings out a certain “assholery” in them.
#@%$ that. I organized sports throughout my youth, competed for jobs, struggled for the best grades in school, was a world-class quarters player in college, and pursued and wooed the magnificent Mrs. Fryguy. In these travels I engaged many fierce competitors where the rewards of victory and the price of defeat far outweighed whatever a single Grand Prix event has to offer.
On the field, sitting in offices, in the classroom, or even across from some grinning frat boy who doesn’t know that I can bounce a coin into a champagne glass from 3 feet away, I had not seen so many poor winners and losers localized in a single place.
With a heart made considerably less heavy by the knowledge that I would have to spend a crapload of coin to remain even slightly competitive, I boxed up the 40 bucks worth of cards that I spent a few hundred dollars to obtain, stashed it in the garage, and focused on Laetrik the shaman in Dark Age of Camelot.
Next Installment: The Immortal Djinn needed to play test. I’m back in but where is the game going?
