Dark Ascension!
Jan. 30th, 2012 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoThe short version: I retained my humanity, walked away with some prizes, and found out I'd made two new Terry Pratchett fans on my last visit to the store back when Innistrad came out.
On Friday I went to TJ's Collectibles for the Midnight Madness Dark Ascension Prerelease. I went early so I could get in some practice games at Friday Night Magic. TJ's has this handy option where you can play for free and not be in the running for prizes, or you can pay a $5 entry fee, some of which goes towards a prize pool awarded to the top players who bought in for the night.
I didn't buy into the prize pool, because I figured it would probably be throwing money away. I play casually for the most part, I don't play as often as many other players, and of course I didn't spend as much on my deck as many other people might have. Not everyone who goes to FNM spends hundreds of dollars on their deck, of course, but people who already spent hundreds of dollars on their tournament decks may as well bring them to FNM. Many of these are clones of decks that were used to win major tournaments, and they really do run for hundreds of dollars. (at the time of this writing, purchasing the cards for the linked-to deck for the minimum prices available from the affiliated vendors would cost $282.02. I believe my deck could be constructed for about $15, half of which is for the one Solemn Simulacrum I happen to own.)
In round 1, I faced off against an opponent with several foreign language and/or foil versions of tournament-level cards, which I took as a sign that he'd pretty much thrown as much money as he wanted at his deck. So it was with considerable surprise (and, I admit, no small amount of satisfaction) that I actually beat him without too much trouble. I found it amusing that he had to explain what some of the foreign language cards did because I didn't know them that well, but he also had to read a lot of what my cards did, because he wasn't used to seeing them. The power of surprise is not negligible.
In round 2, I encountered another expensive-looking deck, which I also beat. I found out afterward that he was only borrowing $84 worth of Snapcaster Mages, and our budgets were much more similar than they at first appeared.
At this point, I started to feel conflicted. On the one hand, wouldn't it be awesome to win? On the other hand...I'll feel stupid having them hand out my prize to the next person in line because I wasn't in the prize pool. But so far I hadn't lost a game, let alone a match (which would be best 2 out of 3 if a third game were needed).
Well, round 3 put those concerns to rest, as I got mauled by swarms of tokens. I was not well-suited to fight mobs of little guys that appeared quite so fast.
Round 4 I managed to win both games again, though they were both very close. My 3-1 record for the night would have gotten me 3 packs (a bargain for $5). Oh, well. At least I had fun, and the practice was good.
Then it was time for snacks and such while I waited an hour for Midnight Madness. I chatted with various people, including the two kids I'd met the night of the Innistrad prerelease back in September. It turns out that they had taken my recommendation of Going Postal - one of them was still reading it, the other had already moved on to Making Money. Whee!
Then, Midnight Madness!
We got our packs, assembled our decks, and then it was time to randomly assign who would be monsters. This was an added bit of fun with nothing to do with the actual game, but was another way to capitalize on the horror themes in the set. Two people were chosen to be vampires, two werewolves, two zombies, and two geists. Everyone else would remain human. If you lost to a monster, you became that type of monster. At the end of the night, all surviving humans and all members of the largest monster group got a free deck box. I'm pleased to report that I retained my humanity. The geists managed to swell their ranks to 7 by the end of the night, and were the largest monster variety.
My round 1 opponent had deeply alarming cards. I won game 1 due to fortunate solutions to his stuff, lost game 2, and obliterated him game 3. Not a bad start.
Round 2, on the other hand, I lost. They were both close games, but I couldn't finish him off before bad stuff happened to me. He was human, at least, so I wasn't turned into a monster.
Round 3, my opponent apparently went home without officially dropping, so I got the default win. After getting stomped the previous round, it was hard to be disappointed by this. I played a few games with someone else who was done early, which might actually have been a mistake. I was getting kind of tired by then, and while I enjoy Magic, I think I was reaching my limit, and didn't really need those two more games.
Round 4 I needed to win in order to qualify for a prize. It would be especially frustrating to have not gotten packs earlier in the night when I did manage 3 wins, and then blow it in the tournament where prizes were actually at stake. Game 1 I got demolished, without even hitting them once. Now the pressure was REALLY on. Game 2 was long and tricky and I came awfully close to dying before I managed to restabilize. Eventually, I was able to pull of the win. Now it was all down to game 3...which was sort of a disappointing anticlimax, as he drew poorly, and I eventually managed to steal his only creature and add it to my growing army of doom. But I was grateful for the win, even if it wasn't the sort of win you hope for.
So I got 5 packs for my 3-1 record and a deck box for managing to remain human.
On Friday I went to TJ's Collectibles for the Midnight Madness Dark Ascension Prerelease. I went early so I could get in some practice games at Friday Night Magic. TJ's has this handy option where you can play for free and not be in the running for prizes, or you can pay a $5 entry fee, some of which goes towards a prize pool awarded to the top players who bought in for the night.
I didn't buy into the prize pool, because I figured it would probably be throwing money away. I play casually for the most part, I don't play as often as many other players, and of course I didn't spend as much on my deck as many other people might have. Not everyone who goes to FNM spends hundreds of dollars on their deck, of course, but people who already spent hundreds of dollars on their tournament decks may as well bring them to FNM. Many of these are clones of decks that were used to win major tournaments, and they really do run for hundreds of dollars. (at the time of this writing, purchasing the cards for the linked-to deck for the minimum prices available from the affiliated vendors would cost $282.02. I believe my deck could be constructed for about $15, half of which is for the one Solemn Simulacrum I happen to own.)
In round 1, I faced off against an opponent with several foreign language and/or foil versions of tournament-level cards, which I took as a sign that he'd pretty much thrown as much money as he wanted at his deck. So it was with considerable surprise (and, I admit, no small amount of satisfaction) that I actually beat him without too much trouble. I found it amusing that he had to explain what some of the foreign language cards did because I didn't know them that well, but he also had to read a lot of what my cards did, because he wasn't used to seeing them. The power of surprise is not negligible.
In round 2, I encountered another expensive-looking deck, which I also beat. I found out afterward that he was only borrowing $84 worth of Snapcaster Mages, and our budgets were much more similar than they at first appeared.
At this point, I started to feel conflicted. On the one hand, wouldn't it be awesome to win? On the other hand...I'll feel stupid having them hand out my prize to the next person in line because I wasn't in the prize pool. But so far I hadn't lost a game, let alone a match (which would be best 2 out of 3 if a third game were needed).
Well, round 3 put those concerns to rest, as I got mauled by swarms of tokens. I was not well-suited to fight mobs of little guys that appeared quite so fast.
Round 4 I managed to win both games again, though they were both very close. My 3-1 record for the night would have gotten me 3 packs (a bargain for $5). Oh, well. At least I had fun, and the practice was good.
Then it was time for snacks and such while I waited an hour for Midnight Madness. I chatted with various people, including the two kids I'd met the night of the Innistrad prerelease back in September. It turns out that they had taken my recommendation of Going Postal - one of them was still reading it, the other had already moved on to Making Money. Whee!
Then, Midnight Madness!
We got our packs, assembled our decks, and then it was time to randomly assign who would be monsters. This was an added bit of fun with nothing to do with the actual game, but was another way to capitalize on the horror themes in the set. Two people were chosen to be vampires, two werewolves, two zombies, and two geists. Everyone else would remain human. If you lost to a monster, you became that type of monster. At the end of the night, all surviving humans and all members of the largest monster group got a free deck box. I'm pleased to report that I retained my humanity. The geists managed to swell their ranks to 7 by the end of the night, and were the largest monster variety.
My round 1 opponent had deeply alarming cards. I won game 1 due to fortunate solutions to his stuff, lost game 2, and obliterated him game 3. Not a bad start.
Round 2, on the other hand, I lost. They were both close games, but I couldn't finish him off before bad stuff happened to me. He was human, at least, so I wasn't turned into a monster.
Round 3, my opponent apparently went home without officially dropping, so I got the default win. After getting stomped the previous round, it was hard to be disappointed by this. I played a few games with someone else who was done early, which might actually have been a mistake. I was getting kind of tired by then, and while I enjoy Magic, I think I was reaching my limit, and didn't really need those two more games.
Round 4 I needed to win in order to qualify for a prize. It would be especially frustrating to have not gotten packs earlier in the night when I did manage 3 wins, and then blow it in the tournament where prizes were actually at stake. Game 1 I got demolished, without even hitting them once. Now the pressure was REALLY on. Game 2 was long and tricky and I came awfully close to dying before I managed to restabilize. Eventually, I was able to pull of the win. Now it was all down to game 3...which was sort of a disappointing anticlimax, as he drew poorly, and I eventually managed to steal his only creature and add it to my growing army of doom. But I was grateful for the win, even if it wasn't the sort of win you hope for.
So I got 5 packs for my 3-1 record and a deck box for managing to remain human.
