Today, Jon, Eric, Erin, and myself walked into Comic Town as mere mortals, but emerged as DCI sanctioned tournament players. The game? Magic: The Gathering. Specifically, we were there to attend the Rise of the Eldrazi Prerelease party. Normally I’d head to The Guardtower to get my fix, but unfortunately they didn’t participate in the prerelease. Regardless, I’ll now chronicle the experience so that those of you who are also new to tournament play can know what to expect and those of you that are far more experienced can have a hearty, nostalgic laugh at my noobishness.
Before I get into the actual tournament talk, first a little background on the format and how the whole thing works. With the tournament starting at 3, we thought it best to show up a little early so we arrived at Comic Town just after 2. After we got there, we paid the $30 entry fee and were given DCI paperwork to establish our DCI number, which is kind of like a social security number for Magic: The Gathering tournament players. It tracks your performance and how many events you attend. As an added bonus, for every 5 events you attend, you receive a textless spell card in the mail that only goes to tournament players and after 20 events you get a premium foil card- sweet!
At this point they explained that we’d each be given 6 booster packs from Rise of the Eldrazi and that we must make our deck with only cards from those packs, and the deck had to be a minimum of 40 cards. I was curious about land, but the guy quickly explained that land could be borrowed from the store or you could use your own land if you’d like. I nodded and wandered around the store for a bit, checking out comics and picked up a few singles for my discard deck. The tournament was 6 rounds, best 2 out of 3 for each. It was a Swiss-system tournament, meaning all players played every round and you simply got paired up with those who had a comparable win/loss record. You’re awarded 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss.
Right around 3, they announced that the tournament was about to begin. Everyone had been registered and it was time for our cards to be distributed for the first round. Jon, Eric, Erin and I quickly rushed into line and were each handed a rubber-banded stack of 6 boosters. It’s not that none of us were interested in tournament play or making our new past-time such an official ordeal, but what REALLY drew us into the prerelease (other than the opportunity to get Eldrazi cards a week ahead of schedule) was the fact that this mofo was sandwhiched between the top and bottom half of our booster stack-
He also makes a delicious sorbet!
We got this bad boy just for showing up. Not a bad incentive at all! Sadly, I only had a few seconds to appreciate this ridiculously powerful (non-tournament legal) monstrosity though, as it was then announced that deck construction would begin. The four of us shuffled into one of the back rooms to quickly tear open our packs. This was the most stressful part for me as we were only given 50 minutes to put together our deck and get ready for round 1 pairings. I ripped open my packs with reckless abandon, quickly sorting them by color and type to get an idea of what I had. Initially, I thought I’d go red/green/black with the deck and quickly (and terribly inefficiently) began cobbling together a deck that was less than stellar. Anyone who’s played multiple colors knows that properly calculating mana cost is key so you don’t get mana screwed. Unfortunately, the combination of feeling pressured to hurry up and the fact that my arithmetic skills function somewhere around a 3rd grade level, I ended up with a bastardized 45 card deck with nearly 50% land because I counted wrong. Ouch.
Finally, pairings were announced and I scrambled to gather up my playmat, dice, and life counter to table 3 for my first round. I played a big dude named Clayton. Despite looking not much smaller than Emrakul up there, he was a really nice guy. He totally mopped the floor with me both rounds as I kept getting mana but no creatures, but he did so with class. We shook hands before and after the slaughter and he even helped me re-work my deck at the conclusion, helping me rebalance for my next encounter. I probably should have said earlier that you’re completely allowed to modify your deck between rounds, which made me feel quite silly for getting so worked up during deck construction.
After talking strategy and showing Clayton the entirety of my deck, I switched up to red/green/white and then I won the tournament, popped bottles of champagne and we all hung out in the VIP section of a swanky nightclub, laughing about my victory while having money-fights.
The End.
…ok, so it didn’t quite go that well. I actually got my ass kicked for two more rounds by two more equally skilled, humble, and helpful players who were all at least very receptive to my playing my first tournament. I even screwed up once or twice and was offered to be allowed to undo my last play, but I insisted I’d rather play it straight up. Experience is a cruel teacher, but ultimately an adept one and I appreciated the experience, even if I wasn’t doing so hot.
However, my luck did end up turning around and at the end of the night and I finished the tournament with 3 losses, 2 draws, and 1 win. I was happy enough just to get a draw being so woefully inexperienced, and all. At the very least I got some really awesome cards like this one-
Finally, after 6 grueling rounds the tournament came to its end. None of us walked away with prizes as we weren’t in the top 25% of the scoring, but Jon did pretty well with 2 wins, 2 draws, and only 2 losses. A small bit of advice for you newcomers; be prepared to spend a while at one of these tournaments. What I thought would only take a couple of hours at most quickly turned into an 8 hour ordeal, so bring snacks! In the end, it was an awesome experience and it feels pretty cool to be a tournament player now. I’m never going to go pro or anything like that, but the experience is a blast. I met a lot of really great players, got some sweet cards a week before the Rise of the Eldrazi comes out, and got to learn a thing or two about how to better my game.
What kind of tournament experiences have you had?
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