I played in three Grand Prix Trials for Charlotte. I scrubbed hard and finished 9th at The Card Shop. I lost in the top 4 at The Toy Factory and Game Theory. I had made conscious decision not to play in SCG States, instead acting in a stage production of Bye Bye Birdie. I also missed a PPTQ due to my vehicle being in the shop for an engine replacement.
So, I entered the last weekend before Charlotte needing points to get 2 byes in Charlotte. I felt good about getting enough points there to ensure 2 byes in the 2016-17 GP season, but I wanted more than 1 bye in my backyard GP. I entered a PPTQ at Atomic Empire and subsequently performed poorly, winning 2 matches and even one of those was a gift from an opponent who beat me but had to leave before the next round.
Thoroughly disappointed, I borrowed some cards to get ready for The Card Shop's Legacy GPT for Columbus. We drew a solid 20 players and I would like to think the players from Atomic Empire for coming up to play. They provided half of the field. I was on Colorless Eldrazi for this tournament. I went 3-2 in Swiss losing to a Temur Delver deck and Infect. I beat Goblins in Round 5 to get the 8th spot in the top 8 cut.
In the top 8, I beat my buddy Collins who was on Chaos Elves. I managed to win games 2 & 3 after he combo'd off on turn 3 game 1. I got a rematch against Temur Delver in the top 4. My opponent stumbled with mulligans and the Eldrazi punished him for it. I would like to say I played wonderfully amazing games, but honestly the deck piloted itself. In the finals, I got matched against David Courson who is an aficionado of the Legacy format. I knew I would have 2 byes for Columbus so I was prepared to scoop the finals to David. David, however, is moving to the Norfolk area the weekend after the GP and will be unable to attend. That's disappointing for the Legacy scene in the Durham area, but of course I wish him well. Anyway, we agreed to split the store credit prizes and played the match out. My deck continued to run hot. I made a couple of errors which David pointed out to me including one that could have potentially cost me the match. David is a stand up guy and it wasn't the first time he had counseled me on how to play my cards or deck better.
Anyway, I ended up knocking out 60 PW points for that tournament. All of a sudden, I was only a few points short of 2 byes in Charlotte but I needed them by Wednesday. Thanks to my friends, we were able to play some Magic prior to the cut off time and get there.
We set out for GP Charlotte Friday morning. I spent most of Friday picking up cards and getting autographs from the artists at the even including my favorite Magic artist of all, Richard Kane Ferguson. It was a great day even though I played no actual Magic. I was focused on the main event. It had been 6 months since my last Constructed GP, Indianapolis. I was hoping to at least match my 11-4 record from that event. To be honest, I would be happy making day 2.
I waited for Round 3 where I got paired up against, Dave Crowley. Or, Papa Crowley as I like to call him. Yeah, I got play someone I knew in Round 3 of a 2400 person event. It sucked, especially since we both knew we were on Affinity. We went to game 3 and I won off of the singleton Hurkyl's Recall in my sideboard. It felt like dirty pool, but I was 3-0.
Things started to get weird as WotC's event software got a bit buggy at our event (reportedly no issues at CFB's west coast GP). We ended up being randomly paired the next round instead of Swiss paired. Fortunately, my opponent was also X-0, so I wasn't unduly affected. Then, the computer malfunctioned again. We sat around and basically waited around 2 hours for the event staff to get things fixed and also to process all of the players dropping from the event due to the issue. At 4-0, I couldn't reasonably drop though I also wasn't thrilled at the thought of potentially playing Magic until midnight either. After taking round 5, the computer fouled up again and randomly paired round 6. This time I got paired down which was bad for my tiebreakers but my opponent was 4-1 which wasn't as bad as potentially playing against an 0-5. I lost the Affinity mirror which was going to become a theme for me in this tournament.
I righted the ship in round 7 & 8 to get to 7-1 on the day. I was sitting at this same point when I lost to the R/G Landfall mirror in Indy. Deja vu. My opponent was on Affinity and I lost to finish out the day with a respectable 7-2 record though I had no margin for error if I wanted to top 8 and/or qualify for a PT invite.
Day 2 came and, while I don't blame Star City for issues with WotC's software, I do have one qualm with something they did. We were told on Saturday that tiebreakers would not carry over to Sunday because of the issues. However, when we had the day 2 player meeting, we were informed that the tiebreakers would carry over. While this didn't affect me greatly, there were some people whose tiebreakers were damaged due to the random pairings that occurred on day 1. I think my one point to SCG would be to follow through on what you say you are going to do. Announcing something one day and then reversing it the next isn't a good luck.
Anyway, day 2 began and I checked out the pairings and saw I was paired against Josh Cho who is one of the Star City grinders and a pretty good player. He was on a version of the traditional Naya Zoo deck but using Reckless Bushwhackers. Needless to say, he bushwhacked me game 1 and I lost. I played around the card better in games 2 & 3 and managed to win the match to improve to 8-2.
Round 11 the pairings threw another curveball at me by pitting me against Craig Wescoe. I lost to Craig in Round 15 at Indy at least partially due to being intimidated by him as a player. I was determined to put up a better showing this time. Things didn't start out so hot. I ended up on 2 lands most of game 1 and watch Craig go wide with his Mardu Humans deck. On the play game 2, we had another anticlimactic game as Craig mulled to 6 and then never drew his 2nd land. Game 3 was a battle of sideboard cards and my Blood Moon ended up being better against him than his Stony Silence was against me. Craig never saw a basic land and with only red mana available, he ended up discarding to hand size a number of black and white cards. So, I got to even up my career record against Craig to 1-1. Don't kid yourself, he's probably one more PT top 8 or several GP top 8's away from being a Hall of Fame lock.
I'm flying high going into Round 12 when I get the Affinity mirror. I'm hoping to even up the record to 2-2 against my own deck, but it wasn't meant to be. My opponent ends up drawing both copies of Ancient Grudge and blowing me out in game 2. This killed me for top 8 and for the Pro Tour. I was disappointed, but honestly I had lost 3 times in the mirror and just had gotten outdrawn all 3 times much the way I outdrew Papa Crowley back in Round 3. Oh well. I took a walk around the venue to try and clear my head and get myself motivated to finish the tournament.
Round 13, my opponent was on Ad Nauseum (this also happened to be the deck archetype that took down the tournament). I managed to get there in 3 games though my opponent took some questionable lines of play which allowed me to get the win.
Round 14, I was paired against Ruben Perez from Barcelona, Spain. Ruben has been chasing Silver pro status and had flown to Charlotte needing to get to 11 wins to get it. He asked me to consider conceding to him so he could hit Silver and I told him I'd think about it while we were playing. I won game 1 which was a relief since he was playing Jund, my worst match up. After boards, I managed to slam Blood Moon and watched him draw only a basic swamp and apparently no Kolaghan's Command the entire game. He was dying to his own Dark Confidants, at one point having 3 in play. He was down to 2 life points and again asked if I would concede. I wanted to see what Confidant would reveal, but he was correct that if he flipped over a card that cost 2 or more he would lose. We were playing at Professional level and I wouldn't be able to concede the match at that point. Part of me wanted to win. Okay, a big part of me. I hate losing. I also knew I probably would cash if I won this match and the next. But, in the end, I valued my experiences from Day 2 at this tournament and the chance to help a fellow Magic player over a cash finish. So, I wrote down the match as 2-1 in Ruben's favor and shook his hand. His compatriots celebrated with him and that was nice to see. I was asked later why I conceded the match and I just pointed out that I had sat down and played with some really good players and proved to myself that I belonged in matches against them and that was worth more than the money.
Anyway, Round 15 I get paired against Jarvis Yu. Jarvis won GP Seattle last year. So, another really good opponent. I ended up winning against him 2-0. Now, I don't want to be judgmental. Maybe Jarvis was having a bad day or maybe he doesn't have a lot of "personality". However, I didn't particularly enjoy playing him even though I was winning. He was nothing like Josh Cho who was talkative and interactive. He was nothing like Craig Wescoe who, though serious during the games, is always pleasant. Yu was none of these things and it was disappointing right down to the comment about how winning the match didn't really "do anything" for him and that he hoped I got something out of it. I just sat there and put my stuff away and walked the winning match slip up to the desk. I wanted to comment about how I felt insulted by what he said, but you know what? I beat him. And if he is indeed a colossal douche then good. If he's normally a nicer guy, then I hope to one day have a better interaction with him.
So, I officially ended the tournament at 11-4 (but really only lost 3 matches though who knows what a final round 11-3 match up might have been for me). This was good enough for 77th place and outside the money. Okay, another complaint. Wizards of the Coast needs to do better on paying out prizes. Out of 2399 players, I finished in the top 3.2% and got nothing. That should be unacceptable. Paying out to the top 120 would have only represented prizes to the top 5%. In all the brouhaha concerning appearance fees and such, I would love to see some of the top pros and Hall of Famers start speaking out on how abjectly poor Wizards is about rewarding people who come to their major events and perform well. Paying out only to the top 64 unless an event reaches 3000 players is very poor. Step up the game WotC.
Thanks to all of my friends who supported me during the tournament. Thanks to the vast majority of my opponents who were personable and a lot of fun to play against. Magic is a game. Yes, it can be a very competitive, cut throat game, but it is still a game. At the end of the weekend, despite one negative player experience, despite computer issues, despite going 1-3 in the mirror, despite not cashing, I had so much fun. I felt like I went even further in validating myself as a Magic player. Maybe some day I will get to live the dream and play on a Pro Tour. Maybe.
--Kenny