While I’ve attended prelaunch parties before for The Rise of the Eldrazi and the 2011 Core Set, I’d yet to go to a Friday Night Magic event. Typically these happen on Friday nights (obviously) at game stores all across the country. Because I’ve yet to find one in Dublin, I’ve been heading to Magic events over at Comic Town on Morse Road. While I was a little freaked out to try my hand at a draft tournament, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It was a lot better considering I had Jon, Eric, Erin, and Nicole along for the ride. So how did I fare? Read on…
Naturally there’s a lot of strategy involved in choosing the best cards in a draft, but I’ll ramble on about that in a future post. For now I’ll just say that much like the last tournament I was in, I ended up going for a black/green deck. My reasoning was that I pulled a few Llanowar Elves, a Cudgel Troll, and some Doom Blades and I thought the combination of protection, mana acceleration, and a good blocker with regenerate would serve me well. Of course it didn’t hurt that in my first pack I was able to snag a most excellent Fauna Shaman which also helped solidify my color choice.
Unfortunately this wasn’t my smartest idea as save for a Triskelion and a Duskdale Wurm I really didn’t have any good fatties to go searching for. While I would modify it later, I was content with 40 card deck that was fairly well balanced. Unfortunately, my first round didn’t go so hot.
My first opponent was obviously a veteran and while I held my own for a while in the first game by playing a couple of Duress to break up his combos, eventually I succumbed to the might of his Magma Phoenix in game 2. However, game 3 would have eventually seen him victorious in all likelihood, but time was on my side as he was unable to finish me off within five turns when time was called
The second round went even better. Hilariously though, my opponent was Jon who I not only sat next to in the draft, sneakily passing him reds and blacks I knew he would put to good use, but was also my ride to the tournament. So I had a decision to make. Throw the game and have safe passage back to home or treat him as another planeswalker to be destroyed by my relentless Bog Raiders and their Warlord’s Axe. All jokes aside, Jon played incredibly well and in a dick move lightning bolted me at the beginning of the game…twice. I suppose I had it coming through for playing on his affinity for black and throwing in a swampwalk creature.
Eric's unrelenting skill actually paralyzed the left side of this gentleman's face.
Round 3 was brutal. My opponent also played black/green and he positively wiped the floor with me two games in a row. I got mana screwed on the first game and the second I was simply outclassed. However, as is often the case, the loss made me better as he looked at my deck with me to identify weaknesses and that’s where the removal of the Fauna Shaman came in. I congratulated him on a job well done and went on to the next epic round of the tournament.
My next adversary went white/blue/black and it was an incredibly even race. In game one we raced for board advantage, matching each others creatures with pinpoint precision, pinging each other down to almost zero in an efficient amount of turns. However, the turning point came when he opted not to block with his 1/1 flier in addition to two other creatures to stop my Duskdale Wurm. 1 damage trampled through putting him to 2 life. What happened next? In second main phase I played Sign in Blood for a really, really douchey victory.
Our second game played out much in the same way, with me barely squeaking by after I moved my Warlord’s Axe from my Cudgel Troll to the Bog Raiders and marched right through his defenses to victory. He was a really nice guy and we talked for a few minutes and exchanged Xbox Live tags and I went on to the final battle in round 5.
So there we were, staring each other down like a couple of gunslingers. Oh, wait. No we didn’t, because my last opponent didn’t show up, so instead I ate Wendy’s with Nicole while I waited for Eric, Jon, and Erin to finish their rounds while I munched on the sweet, sweet flavor of victory…and a spicy chicken sandwich. 
So, let’s assume this part of the story is way more interesting and that I must’ve played like a demon and left a trail of death and destruction in my vicious wake.
So overall I ended up with 3 wins, a loss, and a draw. However, because of the point system that was enough for me to place in the top 7 (I think) and still walk away with a prize of one 2011 booster pack. Not too shabby considering there were 30 or so in the tournament!
How was your first FNM event?
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