![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Day of Betrayers
Jan. 22nd, 2005 11:34 pmToday, Curtis and I trekked down to the Richmond Convention Center for Starcity Game's Betrayers of Kamigawa prerelease tournament, the newest set for Magic: the Gathering.
Since Richmond is roughly an hour south of here, and the tournament began at 8:00, and we wanted to be there a little early, we planned on leaving at 5:00am. This meant getting up at 4:30am, which wouldn't have been much of an issue if it weren't for the fact that I had trouble falling asleep. I did manage to get up and prepare myself well enough, but Curtis took more time than expected (which is to be expected), and we left closer to 5:30am.
We did get there early, and I get set for the first Flight (Curtis waited for the second, that we might not be paired against each other). I got some decent cards, and made a deck including such power cards as Fumiko the Lowblood, Shining Shoal, and Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker. Unfortunately, Fate was cruel, and two bad draws later saw me out with an 0-2 record.
I hoped into another flight, and got mostly mediocre stuff. I managed to throw together a deck that was more-or-less just a handful of Combat Tricks and a few meh creatures... I managed to go 3-1 with that deck, in great part to playing an imbecile in my last match (I'm not sure how he managed to advance so far), and that earned me 7 packs of prize. Fate, it seems, doesn't care much about the quality of your deck.
I then entered a Booster Draft, which I think I enjoy much more than sealed. Maybe not, but... Aside from the guys drafting with me being misanthropic idiots, I managed to pull a nice blue-black deck based in Ninjas and Oni. It wasn't quite as high on the Ninja evasion as I would have hoped, but it seemed a pretty solid deck with some nice power to it... And it was stopped dead in the first elimination by a Black/White/Green Control deck which routinely denied my the kill at the very last moment, and then just ground me out. It was quite frustrating.
This whole time, Ron Spears, one of the artists for Magic, was there. He had a little table in the back where he was selling prints and signing cards and stuff. I went several times to admire his art, and chat with him some (he's a really cool guy). I even bought a print of Phage (a character of personal preference to me) which he signed, and later had him sign a copy of Phage's card for me. He's got a website (www.ronspears.com if I recall) where he sells prints as well, and I think I may get a few off of there, too. I love art. I think I decided that, when I run the world, I'm going to sink some of my disposable income into The Arts; concerts and theatre and art, but real art, not that Modern sheit they peddle. I love arts.
During the day, freezing rain and sleet, I'm told, hit the east coast. It's funny how little one notices when holed up in a convention room for twelve hours. The roads didn't seem that bad on our way back, though. I *really* wanted to stop at Wendy's for dinner, but the only one we could find was closed, presumably because of weather. So we went to Arby's instead, where we were greeted by a very pretty brunette server, who seemed unnaturally happy about her job. curtis thinks it was 'magic coffee', but I think she was just being gleefully insincere, to amuse herself and her co-workers. but man was she pretty.
Got home, and now I'm doing maintenance, which means taking out the trash, doing laundry, and catching up on some email -- I may even do some dishes, if only so I have a mug with which to drink hot chocolate before going to bed in several hours.
All in all, a good day.
Since Richmond is roughly an hour south of here, and the tournament began at 8:00, and we wanted to be there a little early, we planned on leaving at 5:00am. This meant getting up at 4:30am, which wouldn't have been much of an issue if it weren't for the fact that I had trouble falling asleep. I did manage to get up and prepare myself well enough, but Curtis took more time than expected (which is to be expected), and we left closer to 5:30am.
We did get there early, and I get set for the first Flight (Curtis waited for the second, that we might not be paired against each other). I got some decent cards, and made a deck including such power cards as Fumiko the Lowblood, Shining Shoal, and Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker. Unfortunately, Fate was cruel, and two bad draws later saw me out with an 0-2 record.
I hoped into another flight, and got mostly mediocre stuff. I managed to throw together a deck that was more-or-less just a handful of Combat Tricks and a few meh creatures... I managed to go 3-1 with that deck, in great part to playing an imbecile in my last match (I'm not sure how he managed to advance so far), and that earned me 7 packs of prize. Fate, it seems, doesn't care much about the quality of your deck.
I then entered a Booster Draft, which I think I enjoy much more than sealed. Maybe not, but... Aside from the guys drafting with me being misanthropic idiots, I managed to pull a nice blue-black deck based in Ninjas and Oni. It wasn't quite as high on the Ninja evasion as I would have hoped, but it seemed a pretty solid deck with some nice power to it... And it was stopped dead in the first elimination by a Black/White/Green Control deck which routinely denied my the kill at the very last moment, and then just ground me out. It was quite frustrating.
This whole time, Ron Spears, one of the artists for Magic, was there. He had a little table in the back where he was selling prints and signing cards and stuff. I went several times to admire his art, and chat with him some (he's a really cool guy). I even bought a print of Phage (a character of personal preference to me) which he signed, and later had him sign a copy of Phage's card for me. He's got a website (www.ronspears.com if I recall) where he sells prints as well, and I think I may get a few off of there, too. I love art. I think I decided that, when I run the world, I'm going to sink some of my disposable income into The Arts; concerts and theatre and art, but real art, not that Modern sheit they peddle. I love arts.
During the day, freezing rain and sleet, I'm told, hit the east coast. It's funny how little one notices when holed up in a convention room for twelve hours. The roads didn't seem that bad on our way back, though. I *really* wanted to stop at Wendy's for dinner, but the only one we could find was closed, presumably because of weather. So we went to Arby's instead, where we were greeted by a very pretty brunette server, who seemed unnaturally happy about her job. curtis thinks it was 'magic coffee', but I think she was just being gleefully insincere, to amuse herself and her co-workers. but man was she pretty.
Got home, and now I'm doing maintenance, which means taking out the trash, doing laundry, and catching up on some email -- I may even do some dishes, if only so I have a mug with which to drink hot chocolate before going to bed in several hours.
All in all, a good day.
