After years of playing Magic, Commander is my go-to format. I play a couple of games per month, so a more casual-friendly format still gives me the chance to play without getting rolled over. Or, at least, when I do get rolled over, it's on turn 10 and it's epic.
But! Once every couple of years, I get the chance to play some big time Magic. This weekend, I was at GP Seattle-Tacoma with Ben and Drew.
Road trip!
As I type this, they are finishing up round 15 on day 2, looking to see who will make it to the top 8. As you may have guessed, I'm not in that group. I spent day 2 getting some cards signed for my Commander deck. Thanks Christopher Rush and Brian Snoddy!
I had a couple of months to plan for this GP, but played maybe 15 games of Legacy, total. The deck I should have played was Delver, but since I had limited time to practice, I went with Reanimator. At it's heart, it is a combo deck that sometimes just wins. Plus, it gave me a chance to play Griselbrand, which is something that I can't do in Commander anymore.
<cries>
Oh, and the promo card for the GP was alternate art, foil Griselbrand. If he ever comes back to Commander, I'm ready.
We drove up on Friday. It was a couple of hours from where I live, so we got started early and made it in time to play in the mini-master tournament. Three free packs later, I had opened a Bring to Light and not much else.
But hey, free cards, amiright?
After that, we ate at a vegan place up the hill that Drew had been to before. Then, we went back to the hotel to get some rest.
Our room was next to the elevators, so we got to keep tabs on the comings and goings - all night.
Saturday rolled around and we walked over to the convention hall for the players meeting and to listen carefully to the judges. We joined 2000 other Legacy players, hoping to play our way to victory, as we opened a cool double-sided Delver of Secrets playmat to get started.
My rounds went like this:
Round 1
Opponent: Aaron
Deck: Maverick(?)
Aaron beat me 2 games in a row. Game 1, I kept a hand with 2 Brainstorms, 1 Ponder, and 1 Exhume. He played Chalice of the Void on 1 off a land and a Mox Diamond. This is terrible for me as a large portion of my deck has a converted mana cost of 1.
Take note here, people. If your deck can support an Chailce for 1, it's tough for a lot of decks in the format to play against.
Anyway, I couldn't do much of anything with the Chalice shutting down a big chunk of my deck, so I discarded Inkwell Leviathan to hand size and eventually cast Exhume to get it out.
Things were looking okay until he turned his Knight of the Reliquary into a huge beater and took over the game. He was able to block the Inkwell one turn, attack into it the next turn, and then kill me the turn after.
In game 2, I kept a no land hand with a Lotus Petal, Duress, Force of Will, and a blue card to pitch. I ended up Forcing an early Chalice on 1 again, but didn't draw land to capitalize on the opening.
Not a good start.
Round 2
Opponent: Carter
Deck: Infect
I lost two games against this guy, too. In game 1, he cast Glistener Elf on turn 1, double Invigorate on turn 2 to put me at 9 poison counters, then finished me off on turn 3. In game 2, he Forced my Exhume for Blazing Archon and poisoned me to death with a couple of Inkwell Nexus, Vines of the Vastwood, and Berserk.
At least it was quick.
Round 3
Opponent: Sean
Deck: Enchantress
I won two games against this deck, but it was total luck. He had main deck Karakas and Rest in Peace! I had a lucky Force for a turn 2 Rest in Peace in game 1. Inkwell Leviathan did it's thing.
In game 2, I kept an Inkwell on the draw to discard to handsize, then landed a turn 2 Exhume off a land and a Lotus Petal. This was risky because I was totally exposed to a turn 2 Rest in Peace on his turn, but he didn't have it.
Better lucky than good.
Round 4
Opponent: Conner
Deck: Grixis Tezzerator
I lost two games against this guy, but they were long back and forth fights. This was the best Magic I played all day. In game 1, he landed a turn 1 Chalice for 1 off a land and a Mox Diamond (sound familiar?), then had a Force for my turn 2 Exhume, and a Force for my turn 3 Animate Dead. I was out of cards and ended up drawing into and hard-casting a Grave Titan into his Ensnaring Bridge. He played his hand out as much as possible, but I got a few turns of attacking with zombie tokens in before he killed the zombies and locked me out of the game.
In game 2, he landed another early Chalice for 1 and an Ensnaring Bridge. I drew a Force the turn after he cast the Bridge.
Round 5
Opponent: Ed
Deck: RUG Delver
He flipped 2x Delvers early and had enough countermagic to stop me from reanimating Elesh Norn. This happened two games in a row, with him catching an Exhume for Elesh Norn with a Spell Snare of all things.
Round 6
Opponent: Michael
Deck: Aluren Combo w/ Imperial Recruiter
In won both of these games. This was the only match all day where my deck did what it was supposed to do. I had all the pieces I needed for a quick Griselbrand in both games and was able to overwhelm my opponent with the flying, card-drawing, demon.
At this point, I was hungry so I dropped.
Pizza time.
Traditionally, this is the part of the report where I offer up some "props and slops." Here we go.
Props
*Drew and Ben for rounding out the totally-appropriately-named "Team Tiger."
*Hotel Murano for having a William Morris original on the 25th floor.
*My opponent Sean for driving down from Canada with an Enchantress deck that he clearly loved playing.
Slops
*Hotel Murano for building a hotel with rooms next to the elevators.
*My Round 6 opponent, Michael, for being salty. Sometimes, you gotta just let people have their own bad day, I guess.
What I Learned
*Bring ear plugs
*Bring good food, like vegetables, as snacks
*Look at the list of artists that are going to be there, so that you don't miss out on the chance to get nearly half of your Commander deck signed all at once!
*Practice
If you get a chance to go to a GP or any other large Magic event, do it!
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