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Editor: Rebecca Mitchell. Saturday 25 May 2002
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Nationals – Tellin’ It Like It Is (Part 2)
Did you miss the first part of this series? Read it here - Nationals - Tellin' It Like It Is: Part I
I hate the grinders. That is probably why I have never played in them. They are interesting to watch though, especially the constructed ones as you get to see a lot of rogue decks and some last minute tech that could work in your deck. You also get to witness some great emotional outbursts, some interesting (but creative) plays and a lot of rampant topdecking. For Kim and myself we usually give our type 2 deck to an unsuspecting, unqualified victim to see if it can run the gauntlet of the grinders. Scott Smith was the lucky recipient and managed to qualify on his second attempt with the opposition deck. He also used Gamorrean guards as call tokens something that we never would have thought of. Unfortunately he knocked Egidio out of contention in the finals but such is magic. After a hard day of grinding we headed down to our favourite vegetarian café in Canberra for dinner where Egidio managed to turn off the alarm on Kim's watch that he had bought from Mexico and I figured out how to set the alarm on my mobile phone - pretty wild stuff. Ten hours later and it was time to put all those hours of draft practice to the test. I was in a pod where the only other players I recognized were Andrew Lai and Simon Leung... not too bad I thought. And then we opened the packs... I can remember opening a Painbringer and then drafting a few red cards like Chainflinger and Ember beast and thought I was on my way to drafting a solid R/B deck. The black dried up a bit but I was holding out for Torment as the draft order would be reversed. My second Odyssey booster was stellar with a first pick Last Rites cementing itself as the twenty-third card in my deck. Torment was the usual black craziness with the first four picks going something like this; Sengir Vampire, Cabal Torturer, Chainer, Devastating Dreams - little did I know that the players on either side of me were also playing black. I ended up going 1-1-1 in this pod losing badly to Ben Fleming and his Repentant Vampire that single-handedly decimated every black creature I played. At this stage I was quite disheartened as I felt my deck was not bad, but my next deck was worse... a lot worse. Sitting down at the table there was Scott Smith, Minga Wong and a couple of other players I recognized - just like a Thursday night draft in Sydney, I thought. I was lucky to draft some quality black early including Afflict, Last Rites (yep I got it again!) and a Coffin Purge. Things got better with green - Druid Lyrist, Cartographer and the devastating Nantuko Calmer. A Moment's Peace rounded out the deck nicely as it gave me a fall back strategy. With such a powerful deck I think it went to my head as I lost my first match against a quick R/G deck (chatter, rites, blah, blah, blah), just before I could drop my Nantuko Calmer - I was pretty upset about that one. Fortunately I had some time to "cool off" over the Nantuko incident and my next opponent must have seen my deck as he dropped from the tournament. I was extremely lucky in the third against Scott Smith's U/W deck as I drew my Nantuko Calmer and Grotesque Hybrid in both games and he had no answers. I felt sorry for Scott, as I had put the Hybrid in over a Fledging Imp as a last minute "hey, wouldn't this guy be fun" sort of thing. So at the end of the first day I was 3-1-2 and needed a miracle to make top 8. Kim was in a good position at 5-1 and most of the other NSW players were 4-2. At previous Nationals NSW have always managed to put at least three players in the top 8 but it was not the case this year. After a generally poor showing in the type 2 we only had one player (Sam Kissajukian) make it, with only three other players in the top 16 - Victoria had three players in the top 8 alone. This can mean one of two things - we were very unlucky or NSW sucks at magic. I am starting to think it could be the latter. I think the main reason is that we play a bit too casually. Even in playtesting we tend to let our opponents take plays back and don't announce phase steps, end of turn etc. The Victorians did so well because they played very tightly (which can intimidate some people) and they also had team t-shirts. By playing at a high level all the time it forces other newer players to toughen up or get out and can often remove a lot of fun out of the game. As my teammate Kim would say: "Do you REALLY want to win that way?". So I guess it comes down to moderation - play tight at high-level events and give your opponent a break occasionally at a weekly draft or prerelease. As for me, I went 4-1-1 on day 2 losing to Andrew Varga's quick R/G beatdown that smashed me in a matter of seconds. I did have an enjoyable game against Ben Seck, which in the middle of, he proceeded to stomp on his pink bowler hat when he was manascrewed. Before I finish up I just wanted to congratulate Justin West for becoming our new National champion and team YankOzzieFrog for winning the sealed PTQ. Until next time Dan Turner
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