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Sunday was the TCGPlayer.com Massachusetts Limited States Championships for Magic: the Gathering. I like limited formats, and thought it might be fun to attend, but I was concerned about playing in a more competitive tournament than I usually play in. I called to see if the venue could give me an idea of how many people usually go to these things and how cutthroat it is, and it sounded like it wouldn't be too bad, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
The first part of the event was a sealed tournament. Most of those that I go to are the Prereleases, where you get your cards, open your cards, build your deck, and play. You're not allowed to use any cards from outside the ones you open, but there isn't a lot of security in place to prevent that sort of cheating. They are more casual events, and I guess we're on the honor system. Well, this event was a bit more formal, so everyone was issued a pool of cards to open and then catalog on checklists, with the understanding that you are NOT keeping the cards you just opened, so don't get attached to them.
Naturally, this meant I opened some amazing cards. Oh, well. Once we were done cataloging, we were instructed to pass our cards to the player on our left, and then to check our new pool of cards against the checklist to make sure it was accurate. I wasn't sure I'd be keeping those either, so I tried not to pay too much attention. They were certainly worse than the ones I had opened, though. To my delight, we were then told to pass things to the left one more time, and the pool we got this time would be our actual pool. I was not sorry to see that second one go. Third pool seemed not as good as the first, but certainly better than the second.
This probably all sounds super tedious, but it's not actually that bad, and I really like that it discourages cheating.
Once we'd built our decks we were going to play 5 rounds of Swiss, then cut to the top 8 players. I won round 1, lost round 2, won round 3, and then won round 4. My opponent for round 5 asked if I wanted to just draw for our match, since if we did we'd both make the top 8 (as opposed to playing it out and the loser possibly not making it). That sounded like the sort of thing that happens all the time, but I wasn't clear why that wouldn't count as Collusion, which is Totally Not Allowed, so I checked with a judge. Apparently, you're allowed to draw with your opponent at any time, but you can't bribe your opponent into agreeing to it. So, awesome, I'm in the top 8. Then we played out our games anyway because, duh, I'm there to actually play the game, and I beat him.
Top 8! At this point, we set aside our trusty decks that got us this far and drafted new ones. Bye, Fleecemane Lion - you were awesome and I'll miss you. In Draft, everyone opens a pack of cards, takes one, and passes the rest to the left. Repeat until all cards are taken. Then we do the same with a second pack going the other way around the table, then a third going left again. Then build your deck from those cards. Many times when I've drafted someone picks their cards much faster than their neighbor, and the stacks of cards pile up, and they get drafted out of sequence or there's some other problem. Sometimes we get to the end and there seems to be a missing card, which people often wave off as no big deal...except, it is, because what if it's from someone taking a second really good card early on in a pack?
So I was pleased that this was going to be carefully managed to avoid such nonsense. You open the pack, you count the cards, you pick a card, you put the rest of the cards fanned out so the player about the get them can count them. Then we all pick up the new cards simultaneously, and repeat. This doesn't take that much longer than an unregulated draft...in fact, probably the same amount of time, or less because we don't have to have things grind to a halt to sort out problems.
I loved my draft deck. The first card I took was Keranos, God of Storms, and then I was actually able to take cards in the correct colors to be able to play it...and even a bunch of cards that would improve my chances of eventually drawing it.
I won my first match, though it was a tough fight, so now we're the top 4. The judge came over to ask if we all wanted to rearrange the prizes at all...normally the prize packs would be 18/12/9/9, but we could agree that everyone would just get 12, which seemed nice. There were also going to be these weird tournament points, the distribution of which we tweaked so that everyone would get enough to buy their way into some other tournament somewhere. There were a few other things that had to go to whoever actually won...or if we didn't want to play it out, we'd have to choose who "won," and that person would get those.
I could understand why people might want to cut things short and go home. We had all been at the event for about 7 hours by this point. Everyone had already played between 12 and 18 games of Magic. And I gotta say, usually after 5 rounds I'm burning out too. But swapping to a new deck and the fact that the new deck was full of crazy awesomeness certainly helped reinvigorate things for me. I was getting pretty hungry, though.
In the end we decided on how to divide things up, and then played it out. I beat my next opponent with no trouble at all, and then it was time for the finals...and my opponent was that guy from Round 5. We meet again! I mangled him the first game, and the second one was close but I pulled it off. Victory!
So, in hindsight, oops on splitting up the prizes. I shorted myself out of 6 packs and 20 Maxpoints. But honestly I think those last rounds were more fun with most of the pressure taken off, so I have no real regrets. I'm glad I didn't talk myself out of going. Also, it was actually kind of nice to have a more competitive tournament, because it meant no one ever made a mistake and then said "oh, man - can I take that back?" and I'd feel like a jerk when I said "sorry, no, we're playing for prizes." Instead, people realize that this is for real, and when they screw up they just go "oops," and we move on. I'm sure that higher-stakes tournaments would feature a more cutthroat atmosphere, but this was a nice midpoint where it was not so casual that cheating was easy and people would try to guilt you into undoing their mistakes, and not so competitive that people would count your deck to see if they could get you an automatic game loss because you accidentally left behind one of your cards at the last match and now have an illegal deck, or some such nonsense.
I got the playmat that says I'm Spring State Champion for Massachusetts, as opposed to the other 7 people in the top 8 whose playmats just say they made top 8. I also get free entry into the Grand Prix tournament in Worcester later next month, including fancy VIP status...which will doubtless include many things I don't care about, but whatever. So, I guess I'll be going to that tournament. Of course, that will be Modern format, for which I don't have a deck, so I'd better come up with something by then. And I will probably lose spectacularly, because constructed formats favor people who can spend a lot of money on their decks*, and I plan to do no such thing. But there will be side events to play in, and I hope to at least enjoy the confused looks my opponents give me as I play some crazy nonsense deck that bears no resemblance to the current top performers in the format.
*To put this in the proper perspective, an article about the current top 6 decks in Modern says of the deck in the #5 spot that it is "something cheap and easy to play that will still give you a legitimate chance to win the tournament." The average costs of the cards that make up this deck total to $690. Granted, $468 of that is in 8 of your lands, which you could replace with far cheaper lands that will make your deck less consistent but not change what it actually does. But hey, either way it's a bargain compared to the "top-performing deck," which averages $1,230. The lands in that one account for a significant portion of its cost, too. It's a supply and demand thing...people want the fancy lands no matter what other cards they're playing, and there are only so many to go around. The card the top deck is named for accounts for only 4% of its price tag.
The first part of the event was a sealed tournament. Most of those that I go to are the Prereleases, where you get your cards, open your cards, build your deck, and play. You're not allowed to use any cards from outside the ones you open, but there isn't a lot of security in place to prevent that sort of cheating. They are more casual events, and I guess we're on the honor system. Well, this event was a bit more formal, so everyone was issued a pool of cards to open and then catalog on checklists, with the understanding that you are NOT keeping the cards you just opened, so don't get attached to them.
Naturally, this meant I opened some amazing cards. Oh, well. Once we were done cataloging, we were instructed to pass our cards to the player on our left, and then to check our new pool of cards against the checklist to make sure it was accurate. I wasn't sure I'd be keeping those either, so I tried not to pay too much attention. They were certainly worse than the ones I had opened, though. To my delight, we were then told to pass things to the left one more time, and the pool we got this time would be our actual pool. I was not sorry to see that second one go. Third pool seemed not as good as the first, but certainly better than the second.
This probably all sounds super tedious, but it's not actually that bad, and I really like that it discourages cheating.
Once we'd built our decks we were going to play 5 rounds of Swiss, then cut to the top 8 players. I won round 1, lost round 2, won round 3, and then won round 4. My opponent for round 5 asked if I wanted to just draw for our match, since if we did we'd both make the top 8 (as opposed to playing it out and the loser possibly not making it). That sounded like the sort of thing that happens all the time, but I wasn't clear why that wouldn't count as Collusion, which is Totally Not Allowed, so I checked with a judge. Apparently, you're allowed to draw with your opponent at any time, but you can't bribe your opponent into agreeing to it. So, awesome, I'm in the top 8. Then we played out our games anyway because, duh, I'm there to actually play the game, and I beat him.
Top 8! At this point, we set aside our trusty decks that got us this far and drafted new ones. Bye, Fleecemane Lion - you were awesome and I'll miss you. In Draft, everyone opens a pack of cards, takes one, and passes the rest to the left. Repeat until all cards are taken. Then we do the same with a second pack going the other way around the table, then a third going left again. Then build your deck from those cards. Many times when I've drafted someone picks their cards much faster than their neighbor, and the stacks of cards pile up, and they get drafted out of sequence or there's some other problem. Sometimes we get to the end and there seems to be a missing card, which people often wave off as no big deal...except, it is, because what if it's from someone taking a second really good card early on in a pack?
So I was pleased that this was going to be carefully managed to avoid such nonsense. You open the pack, you count the cards, you pick a card, you put the rest of the cards fanned out so the player about the get them can count them. Then we all pick up the new cards simultaneously, and repeat. This doesn't take that much longer than an unregulated draft...in fact, probably the same amount of time, or less because we don't have to have things grind to a halt to sort out problems.
I loved my draft deck. The first card I took was Keranos, God of Storms, and then I was actually able to take cards in the correct colors to be able to play it...and even a bunch of cards that would improve my chances of eventually drawing it.
I won my first match, though it was a tough fight, so now we're the top 4. The judge came over to ask if we all wanted to rearrange the prizes at all...normally the prize packs would be 18/12/9/9, but we could agree that everyone would just get 12, which seemed nice. There were also going to be these weird tournament points, the distribution of which we tweaked so that everyone would get enough to buy their way into some other tournament somewhere. There were a few other things that had to go to whoever actually won...or if we didn't want to play it out, we'd have to choose who "won," and that person would get those.
I could understand why people might want to cut things short and go home. We had all been at the event for about 7 hours by this point. Everyone had already played between 12 and 18 games of Magic. And I gotta say, usually after 5 rounds I'm burning out too. But swapping to a new deck and the fact that the new deck was full of crazy awesomeness certainly helped reinvigorate things for me. I was getting pretty hungry, though.
In the end we decided on how to divide things up, and then played it out. I beat my next opponent with no trouble at all, and then it was time for the finals...and my opponent was that guy from Round 5. We meet again! I mangled him the first game, and the second one was close but I pulled it off. Victory!
So, in hindsight, oops on splitting up the prizes. I shorted myself out of 6 packs and 20 Maxpoints. But honestly I think those last rounds were more fun with most of the pressure taken off, so I have no real regrets. I'm glad I didn't talk myself out of going. Also, it was actually kind of nice to have a more competitive tournament, because it meant no one ever made a mistake and then said "oh, man - can I take that back?" and I'd feel like a jerk when I said "sorry, no, we're playing for prizes." Instead, people realize that this is for real, and when they screw up they just go "oops," and we move on. I'm sure that higher-stakes tournaments would feature a more cutthroat atmosphere, but this was a nice midpoint where it was not so casual that cheating was easy and people would try to guilt you into undoing their mistakes, and not so competitive that people would count your deck to see if they could get you an automatic game loss because you accidentally left behind one of your cards at the last match and now have an illegal deck, or some such nonsense.
I got the playmat that says I'm Spring State Champion for Massachusetts, as opposed to the other 7 people in the top 8 whose playmats just say they made top 8. I also get free entry into the Grand Prix tournament in Worcester later next month, including fancy VIP status...which will doubtless include many things I don't care about, but whatever. So, I guess I'll be going to that tournament. Of course, that will be Modern format, for which I don't have a deck, so I'd better come up with something by then. And I will probably lose spectacularly, because constructed formats favor people who can spend a lot of money on their decks*, and I plan to do no such thing. But there will be side events to play in, and I hope to at least enjoy the confused looks my opponents give me as I play some crazy nonsense deck that bears no resemblance to the current top performers in the format.
*To put this in the proper perspective, an article about the current top 6 decks in Modern says of the deck in the #5 spot that it is "something cheap and easy to play that will still give you a legitimate chance to win the tournament." The average costs of the cards that make up this deck total to $690. Granted, $468 of that is in 8 of your lands, which you could replace with far cheaper lands that will make your deck less consistent but not change what it actually does. But hey, either way it's a bargain compared to the "top-performing deck," which averages $1,230. The lands in that one account for a significant portion of its cost, too. It's a supply and demand thing...people want the fancy lands no matter what other cards they're playing, and there are only so many to go around. The card the top deck is named for accounts for only 4% of its price tag.
