The French Riviera sometimes feels like a sprawling retirement home, so it made me smile when I saw guys my age walking aimlessly around Saint Raphaël at 9am on a Sunday morning. I instantly knew they were here for the same reason but they must have been a little confused by the random laughing dude. My third round was against the most European-looking of that bunch. As long as I have been in Europe I have still not been tempted to get a really gay haircut and wear tight shirts with glitter. I suppose I'm too old to change my American slob habits, and could care less anyway.
Round Three
This guy, Gaetan, was actually pretty chill and didn't get too upset about these two one-sided games. In game one he was so mana-screwed (admittedly great Magic slang for getting unlucky and drawing a terrible mix of cards) that he was only able to play Tatterkite before succumbing to the awesome tempo of my deck. In game two the same thing happened but even worse, which is too bad because I think I would have won anyway. I felt bad so I bummed a cigarette from him afterwards for his troubles. I'm sure that made him feel better since I had not touched one in several weeks. Smokers love to see others smoke.
Going into Round Four my record is 1-2 but what the hell I'm in it for the long haul I might as well buck up. My next opponent had a most annoying strategy given my difficulties with timing in this tournament. He only seemed to have one creature that got me down to 12 life before I killed it, and then the entirety of his cards seemed to simply be removal, no matter what the color requirements. Every turn he would simply kill one of my creatures, and I could tell it was only because my draw was sub-par that I couldn't simply play more creatures than he would be able to deal with. His side of the board was completely empty, as he successively cast Torture, Prison Term, Gloomlance, Curse of Chains, and Torpor Dust. Finally, he played his ONLY creature, the huge Knollspine Dragon, and killed me in two swings.
OK, I see what I'm dealing with, all I need is some small, cheap "weenies" and I can just win before he has a chance to get practically his only spell out. So I change my deck before the second game, 'siding out' lands to go to 16 and taking out Gravelgill Axeshark which I deem to expensive and slow. All goes as planned when go first and only a Scar from him slows me down. I take his only creature with Biting Tether and win.
Now all I have to do is repeat game 2 and I win two out of three for the match. Even though I only have tiny utility creatures with 1 power, it's OK because he never even attacks with a single creature. I swing turn after turn with my all-star Silkbind Faerie, and it's just a matter of time. Well, there isn't enough time because he's on 10 life when the round ends, and the five extra turns are not enough for my crappy all-star to get me the win. I add a draw to my record and am still only at 1 win. Pathetic.
Round Five
I am now determined not to lose to time issues anymore and decide to play as fast as humanly possible. Kai Budde hates slow players! So I'm happy to see my next opponent throw down with a first-turn Tattermunge Maniac. [ASIDE: Wow, what a name, I know. I was also pretty incredulous, but I guess not everyone knows as much from urbandictionary.com as we do, and why should they really?] The, um, Maniac, looks good but doesn't do much in this context. I trade one of my creatures for it and then after he does some cute tricks with Spawnwrithe but my Tower Above helps to finish him off in no time. In game two he kills one of my only craatures and then plays Woodfall Primus. Good card.
In spite of the last game I'm still convinced it's better to draw a card than play first. Now I'm not so sure but I think it probably just depends on the situation. In this situation I don't know what could have saved me a it just feels like my deck is unable to compete with Guillaume and he hands me my third loss of the day.
I ain't no quitter, bring it! Round Six
So now i'm really playing against the dregs of the tournament. No offense to my opponent here Samuel, but the sensible thing for most people with such poor records was to go home at this point. I was ready to fight for whatever slim prize difference was at stake, though, and presumably so was Samuel.
We trade small creatures a few times in game one, and nothing game-breaking happens on other side. Sam is yet another player enamored with the artifact Scarecrow creatures and they do as good a job as any other creatures blocking my 1/1s. Finally I get the mana for Briselame Suires and he has no answers to it.
Game two is awesome, because it proves the power of tempo in this game. I lay down a 1, 2 and 3 toughness creature during the first few turns, and Sam does absolutely nothing but remove a fourth one. As I proceed to swing with everyone every turn, he plays one of the most powerful spells in the set on turn five, Incremental Blight. Wow, all three of my guys are dead, basically he resets the game with the advantage of having spent two fewer cards. Well, it doesn't matter because I have more guys to play, and deal the final points of damage pretty quickly after that.
Woo! Now my notes pretty much stop because the last round just isn't fair, I think the kid i played against was maybe 15 or 16 and killed his own creatures with Firespout instead of using it to his advantage and winnign what should have been an easy game against my terribly constructed deck. At this point I am only here to help him learn how to play and in the second game I'm glad to say he figured out how to plpay it right. Fortunately for my fragile ego it did't matter as I drew my pet combo for the first time all day: Silkbind Faerie and Power of Fire. I have to guiltily admit it was fun to destroy him with those to cards in spite of his overall better card pool. Then again, he'll have to learn sooner or later that using Giantbaiting to make one guy on turn 3 is not going to win any games.
So after a mentally trying full day of playing cards I determined that I can beat younger kids that don't fully understand the rules, and no one else. I guess I'm not as French as these guys. For those interested in the skill required for the kind of thing I just wrote about, check out that article I just linked to it explains the circumstances really well.
For my efforts I received 4 booster packs which I have yet to do anything with and a large dose of Humility Time is money, as my finance teacher said over and over, and clearly unemployment leads to large-scale temporal depression.
