Not really a tournament report as much as a personal reflection and diary of the day. To late for a full on report, things have changed a lot since then!
I was really excited for the WMCQ in Washington, DC. Not because I had really expected to do well or I was attempting to prove any kind of point, but because it was a nearby event that I could go to and be comfortable at within my surroundings.
I had been to this convention center before since it is also where the SCG DC Open was and had been in the area a lot either going to visit places or for work type stuff. It was a pretty relaxing thing for me. Kinda felt like I was part of the home team. I really enjoy going to play at places where I have already been or know something of. Philly is another comfortable location, as will Richmond be in a few months. Can’t beat playing in the building that you graduated college from, right?
But anyway, the day started out much earlier than Trevor or I planned. A friend from our play group messaged us at 6:30 am asking if we could lend him cash to get in since he didn’t have an ATM card. Fine, but since I’m up this early I’m making tea first. Which was perhaps the best decision in the world.
We go pick up our friend and rather than Metro in we decided to drive. Metro is normally an awesome option unless it is 4-20, Earth Day, and they are single tracking or closing tracks all over the place and making it difficult to get around. Plus there is $15 parking a few blocks away from the venue that isn’t all that bad. And on the way back I could hit my favorite restaurant!
So we get to the convention center and it is kind of a mess thanks to AwesomeCon also going on in the same building. So you have this mass of nerds kind of just all over the place with some really poor directions. We figured out which room the WMCQ was in and made sure our Pre-registers went though and sat down at what was a pretty empty table. Trevor had printed out our deck lists before hand, but of course, mine go left behind so I had to fill one out real quick. Oh well, I guess at least it wasn’t both that I had to do.
The room filled up quickly and we started off the day with nearly 400 players. It was yet another day of an SCG event being split into two rooms causing confusion for many players. In fact, I think it is a good thing that they had so many other events happening at the same time because there were enough drops after round 1 to get at least all the WMCQ players in one room.
The most important thing I learned about today is the fact that I am not a bad player. I know what calls to make when when I know the decks I’m playing against. The issue is that my playgroup likes to play a lot of the same archetypes. So for the weeks leading up to the WMCQ I was testing over and over against the various Aggro decks. Against those decks, I just kicked face. However, going up against something like G/W tokens or Planeswalker Superfriends, I just wasn’t sure of the reactions I needed to have.
Many people are telling me the solution to this is to get on MTGO, which I might start doing as soon as I have the income for both paper and online Magic. But until then I don’t really have a desire to try and balance both and feel as though I losing something to gain one other thing. Not to mention time to play both online and in person and do school work and actually work is limited. Some people would say I’m not dedicated, but I would say balancing just three out of those four things and doing pretty well at all of them shows more dedication to life overall than just one item.
Anyway, my Golgari deck is getting put back together, maybe made into a light Jund deck and I will keep you updated on that. Hoping to have that ready for GameDay. I am going to continue keeping the Bant Control/Prime Speaker deck in order and updating it as I go. I have cards I need to pick up over the next week or so, but I have been working on trading for more of them as opposed just buying them.
I think that is all I have for now. I’ll get a decklist for you guys as things become more solidified and tested.
Gaming is Life 