The Magic pre-release of Dissension has come and gone. For Steve, Steve, and myself, I can say the day went much better than predicted. My draw of cards was what I had hoped; a pretty good mixture of black and red, with a fair deal of fliers, and a pretty sweet angel a few of my opponents asked if they could trade for. Deck assembly went pretty well, though my neighbor to the right was one of those guys that wanted everyone to know his displeasure or excitement of his pull. The guy just couldn’t keep quiet.
Patrick, my first opponent, came to the event from a double shift at an envelope factory. He said he had been up the past 24 hours, and he looked like it. He just seemed slightly out of it during our matches. He was a very nice guy, and I was glad he too was at the event for a good time and to see the new cards. He beat me pretty handily the first match. Match two ground to a halt, with me slowly pinging away his life. The match took forever, but eventually I was able to come in for the win. Round three had to be played quickly, and I just didn’t have a very good mana draw. Patrick rolled over me to become the victor.
I believe my second opponent was Matt. He creamed me the first to matches, had enough time to check on his friends, come back and beat me again before the next round was to take place. He was very serious the first match, then after having a victory under his belt, opened up. He was my favorite opponent for the day. A fun time was had, and he too was only at the event to check out the new cards, and have some fun. It seemed to be a common thread running though the people I played, and it seemed to be very different than some of the guys I played at the other pre-releases.
Some of the guys you could tell took it very seriously. They’d flick their cards, hold their hand in a stack, flipping through it one card at a time, and would not, ever, smile. No laughing, no having a good time, no fun could be had. They were there to beat you, and that was it. Maybe it was because we were in the second flight of the day we had the real competitors playing already.
Anyway, round three was against a mom, Alex her name, who said she had only been playing a few weeks. It showed the first match. She’d have one of her creatures fly during her turn, not attack with it, and be done. My turn, I would attack with my flier because she was tapped out. I took down one of her fliers later on by giving it +2/-1, and a passer by said I was being mean. We asked about what she had done wrong that game, what she could do differently, how she could improve. I told her, honestly, and she beat me the second game. I hardly put up a defense. Third game was all mine as I flew over her with Hellbent for the victory.
The fourth game I conceded to my opponent before we started to call my insurance agent who wasn’t there. I told him I’d play him as soon as I made my phone call; he said he had to smoke, so that would be fine. We each went our own way, and met up on the orange flight table. He won game one as I was mana screwed, I creamed him game two, and he had to take off to be in the Two Headed Dragon tourney before we could finish game three, I think I would have beaten him had we played again.
All-in-all, I think I could’ve been .500 for the day, and I’m looking forward to Dissension’s release date, and the next pre-release event coming in the next couple months. Hopefully Sully will be able to avoid the man’s hold down and join in a morning of geekiness at its best.
a fine piece of journalism.
did Steve do decent after our departure?
From what I’ve heard through Laura, he lost his next match and I think wound up tying our record for the day.From what Steve says below, he beat our record. A great accomplishment for his first tournament.perhaps next time will involve
2-2-0s
and 2-1-1s
and 2-0-2s
the march of progress
I would bet on 2-2-0, being it’s the “long lost” Ice Age expansion, and we’ll have had some practice in the sealed deck scene. I keep forgetting when Africa happens, will you be able to go to Coldsnap (July 8-9)?
As long as the South Africa thing happens as planned I will be very far away.
8778 miles by the look of things.
I think the trip is June 17 to July 21.
The South Africa thing is pretty crazy.
I wonder if I’ll lose upswing.
I have a CD for you.
It contains a surprise (or two)
Compact disk or Cow Defender? I could see either containing suprises.
Sorry to butt into your conversation, I thought I would just say hello. I ended up going 2-2.
I lost the first match 0-2 to “the number 2 guy in KC.” He ran one of the vendor tables and asked that we play near it so he could keep his shop open. Shortly after we started playing “the number 14 guy in KC” showed up and rambled on a bit about how cool #2 was. The only item of note for our match was that since we were sitting to the side on our own and it was the most important playing ever playing people would stop by and watch.
My second match was against some kid that wrapped his arm in a lanyard and called it his good luck charm. I was up 20-4 in the first match when he pulled some card out that tapped my guy before I had the chance to use him. I never managed to get out of it or get anything else and he eventually won. To my surprise I won the next two games. It really boiled down to me getting more comfortable with my deck and him never getting an answer.
The third guy I played also worked at a vendor station, but only as a lackey. He was a nervous goth guy whose hand shook every time he had to touch my cards. We basically had a mirror match (black/red) and I beat him 2-1. A friend of his came over and tried really hard to be funny and annoying at the same time, even going into his experiences with the opposite sex. I ignored the dude, but I think he distracted his buddy enough for me to win.
At this point I was feeling pretty confident that I may actually go 3-1 and win some cards. My opponent for the final match was some white guy that thought he was a thug. Unfortunately he was also a pretty good Magic player and playing some unorthodox four color deck that I couldn’t do anything against. I quickly lost both games and got to spend the next forty minutes watching Rod beat his opponent.
Rod went 3-1; with his only loss coming down to one misplay on his part (he had a counter that he screwed himself out of by using his mana incorrectly). Matt went 2-1-1 during the first flight. I’m not sure how Rod did during that flight.
Here is a list of my rare and uncommon’s if you guys are interested in any trades or anything:
http://kehotek.googlepages.com/steve%27snewestmagiccards