First, I played my first EDH game with my new (and fairly raw) deck. And won.

Then I took part in a sealed tournament. The deck I build was a somewhat random collection of decent cards… which garnered appreciative comments from friends.

I’m not sure how many players started, but when the standings were posted after round 4 (5 rounds total), there were 42 names on the list.

Round 1 went pretty quickly to me 2-0. Round 2 started with a loss, followed by 2 decisive victories to end at 2-1. I lost the next round 0-2… I hate being on the wrong end of a realmrazor. But the loss was to the fellow who went on to the top-8 finals.. and may have won.. I left before that match ended. The next round was again a fairly sound defeat at 0-2.

So I was 2-2 after round 4. I was surprised when the standings went up that I was in 8th place.. leading the pack of folks with 6 points due to my tie breakers… if you have to loose, loose to someone good.

Round 5 was intense, as it was likely that only one of us would make top-8 and be in line for prizes. Game 1 went to me quickly in what looks like 6 turns (based on my life totals record) with me still at 20. Game two was hard fought but again only 6 or 7 turns, with me loosing while my opponent was still at 5. Now things got intense… game 3. Once again, in what looks like 8 turns, I’d pulled off another win with the help of Broodmate Dragon who was my MVP all day.

So I was into the Top-8. My first Top-8!

The draft went well… giving me with a strong esper/gryxis hybrid.. with 2 Master of Etherium and a Prince of Thralls and a pile of other fun artifact cards. I’ve started picking colour fixers (tri-lands, panorams, and obilisks) earlier, and the decks are proving easier to build and play.

Alas… in the quarterfinals I found myself seated across the table from Mr. Realmrazor that I lost to in round 3 of the swiss. And guess what.. he’d drafted a realmrazor. Sigh. Anyway… I made top-8, had a full day of fun magic, came out a few $ ahead (so… really… I can claim that I’ve made money playing magic), and left with a few nice rares for trade use.

Sunday was a regular draft followed by a double draft: 2 drafts in a row with a cumulative record. I drafted good decks but again fell victim to bad draws (Eric watched a few of my games and commented afterward that I’d made all the right plays given what I was drawing). I did manage to win one match 2-0 in the morning draft.

Frustrating, but I did get some nice rares.

I drafted a sick deck… totally sick… and proceeded to go 3-1 with it.

Here it is:

It took a while to get everyone registered. Here’s the line when we joined it.

And they had to send some away… Only so many will physically fit in the building. In the end I heard there were 279 players.

Here’s a couple pics to give an idea. One toward the back of the room and one toward the front:

There were the usual regulars, yours truely included, plenty of folks from around the state, and the occasional celebraty… namely Luis Scott-Vargas, recent winner protour champion.

I ran Patrick Chapin’s latest take on 5 Color Control. I went 1-2-2 before dropping. Both draws were 1-1 with third game going to time without a winner.

After a burrito I drafted and started league play.

It was an awesome day! Played a bunch of Magic and got to meet one of the top players in the world.

Tomorrow I’ll be back for more league play and maybe some draft and/or team sealed.

Since I’ve started tracking it (on Oct. 12), I’ve played 165 hours of Magic… that’s 23.6 hrs/week on average.

This week the guys came over to do some T2 playtesting for the upcoming States. I was running a mostly mono red deck.

I took the deck to the Cruise Qualifier on Saturday and went 1-3 before dropping. Ugh. Started redesigning the deck when I got home, into a blue/red control/burn deal… “Controlled Burn”.

Sunday was all about limited: 2 drafts & a sealed flight. That was better… not great, but both drafts went 2-1 and the sealed was 0-2-1. I totally prefer draft to sealed. If you get a suck pool you pretty much just do badly.

Ben from Michigan prompted the discussion with a phone in question. The ensuing discussion covered two points I want to comment on:

1. Changes to core sets to include more advanced concepts/mechanics. Legends were added in Tenth Edition, why not add other things? Tom figured gold (multicolored) cards were fair game as did Gavin. Gavin really wants to see cycling in core sets.

   I disagree. I think the core sets should fill two roles: a gentle introduction for new players, and a general toolbox of basic staples for advanced players. To that end I like the fact that the cards are straightforward, have basic mechanics, and single color. I also don’t really agree with adding legends to the core, but I do see how they make for more interesting/fun starter packs.

   Speaking of starter packs… I really like the new style that was introduced with Shards of Alara: a partial precon and a booster. There’s enough in place that you can open it and start playing (with the 41 card deck), but also get a taste of the collectable aspect of the game due to the included booster.

2. Getting rid of the core set. The general comment was that they shouldn’t get rid of them, but that they should be smaller (Gavin suggested 120 cards.. 1/3 of the current size). The core provides an easy way for new players to get basic cards.

   I agree that the core sets should not be stopped. They could be smaller but I don’t think they should be downsized so drastically… if at all? As I said it’s a general toolbox… it should provide a wide variety of utility cards.

   When I started playing (as Planar Chaos came out) I felt myself at a distinct disadvantage in not having that toolbox to dig into when designing decks. When 10th came out, we treated it like any other set.. and bought a bunch. It wasn’t very exciting, but it filled in a great many holes in my collection. I won’t do the same with subsequent core sets.. mostly because I probably already have the cards that will be added to it from my collection of subsequent blocks.

My first match was with Lokman… one of the better players in the area… certainly well placed among the Superstars regulars. I actually won that round! Yay for me. OK.. that was the high point of the day.

After loosing the next 3 rounds, I dropped and signed up for the next draft queue. the rest of the day consisted of a second draft, some casual type 2 play, and watching some of the PTQ top-8.

Here’s the deck:

I could have used more removal, but when the stingers, iguanars, and token generators got online the result was pretty sweet. Make that 2 iguanars and 2 or 3 stingers, thrown in the necrogenesis to recycle dead things. The game is built around casting guys, turning them sideways, having them kill and/or be killed, doing direct damage via the iguanars in either case. Recycle them into saprolings that can be pinged by the stingers to do direct damage or devoured by the Viashino (again doing damage).

When it worked (which was 1 match out if 3)… it was really cool.