So Much Magic ....

Hi everybody!

Yeah, so it's been a pretty busy last few days for me, Magic-wise. I played Standard at FNM on Friday, Judged at a PTQ on Sunday, played Sealed at a friend's house Monday, and I'm playing Standard again tonight. I was worried that I was going to start getting burned out, but I think having a diversity of sub-interests within the whole Magic "experience" is helping stave that off.

So! FNM. I played Junk Rites again, having tweaked it again somewhat. I splurged and bought a 3rd Voice of Resurgence for the sideboard, and I continue to be impressed with the card. It's looking like the overall metagame is shifting back toward aggro, so I'm thinking about putting them in the maindeck and relegating the Elephants to the sideboard (or maybe putting something else there altogether, like Paraselene).

I won't bother with a match-by-match report, since, well besides the fact that I don't really remember a lot of details, I don't think there's much to report. The deck performed very well, and I won every match. I beat a Selesnya Tokens deck in 3 games, a [budget-ish] black/white humans deck in 2, a mono-black Pack Rat deck (?) in 2, and a Boros Aggro deck in 2.

Hallelujah! Well, good for him anyway ...

The tokens match had a pretty cool sequence of craziness in the second game. I had beat him down somewhat, but was having a hard time positioning myself for the kill. I think he had RIP out against me, and I was in topdeck mode. He had developed a board with a few creatures, with an active Gavony Township. I was about ready to scoop it up, when I topdecked an Angel of Serenity and wrath'd his board. His next draw: Entreat the Angels. IT'S A MIRACLE. And crap, I guess we're going to game three. Then he drew badly and I crushed him.

Sure, I'll sac my Voice of Resurgence.

The mono-black deck was pretty interesting. It was a Pack Rat deck, but he never actually drew or played any Rats. He did play 4 Liliana of the Veils, though. That was awkward. I fought through it, though. I got him within striking distance with a couple of critters out, but he had a couple of Desecration Demons out. I forced him into a situation where he pretty much had to attack. I was holding Resto, and if he attacked with one or both Demons, I would win. If he attacks with one, I take the six, go to five, then flash in Resto and crack back. If he attacked with both (which he did), I chump one of them with Resto and crack back with the other two. If he'd held them both back, maybe a stalemate results. I'm not sure. But .. yeah, I got the win. Yayyyy ...

Oh! And I got one of these puppies for my efforts:

My L2 tried to get it off of me, but I think I'll hold onto it, thanks. :) If I get another one this week, I'll THINK about trading him another one. :)

Sunday I got to judge in the PTQ at Misty Mountain Games. That was quite the experience. For one thing, I was there for a LONG TIME. It basically took the entire day, from 8am to 9pm. But 13 hours of being around Magic and watching people play and helping out and answering questions and mingling with the players ... AND getting stipend for meals and getting booster packs for compensation ... Not a bad gig whatsoever.

Again, it was really cool being on "the other side" of the event. I've played in several Competitive-REL events before (PTQs, Opens, States), but it was interesting to be on the "admin" side of things. It was pretty funny, though, I started losing track of time after the 5th or 6th round. So, I'm aware of the moment-to-moment logistics of helping the tournament run, but I wasn't terribly aware of the big picture. I guess that's why there's a Head Judge at these things. :)

It was also cool working with the other judges and the Tournament Organizer as colleagues, rather than as a "customer." I've been around a lot of these folks before, but it was nice to "work" with them. The other, more experienced judges were really helpful in getting me up to speed in tournament operations ... numbering tables, doing deck checks, wrangling players, etc. Good stuff.

And honestly, it was pretty cool being in a position of prestige. I got to sit in and judge the matches in the top 8, including the Finals. It was interesting how, even though there was so much on the line, the actual match was pretty uneventful. Just two guys playing a match. One of them (Bant Auras) got color-screwed in game three and got run over by the Gruul rush. And just like that ... Pro Tour! I also made a note to myself that that was likely the closest I'll ever get to a PT invite. :)

The other interesting thing I noticed was the ebb and flow of the energy of the room during the day. It started with just the store employees and judge staff in a relatively dark and empty store, getting set up for the event. And then tons of people (150+, players and staff and onlookers) for hours, and then after the cut to top 8, a quick exit by most of the crowd. And during the finals, it was back to a big, quiet, empty, dark store. You'd think there'd be more excitement and energy for the finals of a competitive event, but it was surprisingly (to me) very low-key.

So how was my Judgment? I think I did pretty good. I didn't get a whole lot of calls--we were staffed more than what we needed, and most of the time, others beat me to the calls. But I got most of the ones right that I did get. Of course, I mostly remember the ones I got wrong though. :(

At/when/whenever ...

One game, a player had two Staffs of Nin out, and the players in the match at the next table saw him only draw two cards (should have been three). I ruled it a Game Rule Violation and had him draw his card for the turn. I was talking to the player and a L2 afterwards, and the L2 reminded me about the Missed Trigger thing, and I realized that I should have asked more follow-up to determine what was missed (Staff trigger or draw-for-turn). Also, a GRV is usually accompanied by a Failure to Maintain Game State for the opponent, so I should have done that, too. Not a huge thing.

Farrrrrrrrrr....

The other call that I botched (unfortunately, it was the same player), he asked about whether Appetite for Brains could get Far // Away. I applied what I knew about Duskmantle Seer to the situation (you add the two CMCs and deduct that from life total), but I was completely wrong. It's doing a comparison, so you need to check each side separately, and then the comparison is positive if either side is a positive comparison on its own. So .. no brains on that one. Thankfully for the players, an L2 was right behind me backing me up, so the correct answer was given. But I still felt pretty dumb.

I think I did pretty good overall. I'm gonna debrief with the L2 that I've been working with tonight, and he'll give me a more comprehensive review. Either way, I hope I did well, and I hope to do this again. I had a lot of fun. :)

Last night (Monday), I got to play Dragon's Maze Sealed at a friend's house. While we were building our decks (there were around 8-10 of us), we realized that there was a common archetype emerging: Five-Color F***-It. It's when you look at your pool, see all these cool cards, but no combination of 2 or 3 colors is jumping out. But look at all those Guildgates and Cluestones. F*** it, five colors!

So yeah .. I looked at some of my bombs:

Progenitor Mimic
Hellkite Tyrant
Trostani's Summoner
Clan Defiance

And I had a some decent black-based removal and a bunch of guildgates and cluestones. F*** it, five colors!

I went into it with basically one goal: I was going to Progenitor Mimic the Trostani's Summoner. If I could pull that off *once*, the night will be a complete success. And I got it off twice. :) So I won that moral victory (okay, Timmy victory!).

But yeah, the Sealed format seemed pretty fun. It was nice and slow and easy going, with lots of room for top-end plays. We'll see how Draft plays out. I hope to do that this weekend (I know I said that last week, but this week I mean it!).

Okay, well I guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading!