“I like the positive spin this article has.” —Andrew Longo, GP Providence Champion
It is no secret that I’m breaking up with Magic: The Gathering. I totally forgot that I had to write something for Hipsters today. It’s pretty lousy of me but, hey, I got the IRS on my ass and a solo exhibition a week away, can you blame me?
None of my photos loaded in order and WordPress is a total pain in the butt to reorganize photos sometimes, especially when you’ve played basketball for maybe eight total hours this weekend and your girlfriend’s been away and all you wanna do is eat a nice dinner, watch some TV, and hopefully make out.
I’m gonna Tarantino the past couple of weeks through pictures, in the order they loaded and not the order they happened.
Andrew and Mike are part of the same NYU Facebook group for Magic that I am. I never went to NYU and I’m not sure how I joined the group but I freaking love everyone on it. It’s a really nice forum to chat about this shitty card game.
Kadar and I played them to within five life when they play whatever the fuck that card is that gains them two life per creature on the battlefield. That took them to 25. Awesome. Kadar and I drew lands eight of our last ten draws (four lands each over five turns). There was one turn where Kadar could’ve Time Ebb’d that 7/7 son-of-a-bitch and they would’ve taken nine damage (instead of whiffing because they blocked—we thought we’d get to kill it but they had Show of Valor). Anyway, how the hell are we supposed to know that? They beat us quickly after the life gain.
At one point in the match, when it seemed like Kadar and I would win, I asked Andrew what sound he thought Deathgaze Cockatrice made. “SCRRRWAAAAAAAAAAAAAWKKKKCH!!!” Came out of the man’s mouth. It was, of course, the perfect sound for the bird.
“That was the perfect sound for the bird,” I told him.
“No shit,” he replied.
We dropped after this match because why keep playing if you can’t win anything, are totally miserable, and up to your neck in mana flood waters?
Here are my Grand Prix Providence Teammates, Christian and Rolex just before deck construction. This is the time of night when Magic players still have hopes and dreams.
The Christian Rolex 0-2 dropped. They lost to a former intern of mine round one. Josh and his teammate crushed them apparently. Josh has graduated from intern to respected artist and friend.
Kadar and I built pretty good decks and were pumped going into round one of Twenty Sided Store’s M14 Prerelease Weekend Two-Headed Giant tournament.
Cale and Andrew played some cards. I kept a really shitty first mulligan because all I had to do was draw one of the 50 forests in my deck to play infinite Verdant Havens and I would be MOTHER FUCKING GOLDEN. Turns out it took forever. My Ogre Battledriver died quickly when he finally came down on turn four (my first play of the game). Kadar’s blue-black controlly fly-y deck didn’t do much better. We have so much removal in our 82 cards that it’s in insane we only saw maybe two. We then flooded again. They beat us.
I had a pretty sweet green red deck splashing for the black sliver that gives lifelink. I had two Verdant Havens and the mana elf. Kadar had this controlly fly’er build. We thought we would do all right. We felt pretty good and mostly blamed the loss on flood, removal not showing up, and me keeping a bad hand. We’d get the guys in round two of this Two-Headed Giant tournament.
Here’s a sample of what I’m working on in the studio leading up to the opening of my exhibition Planetary at the Bleecker Street Arts Club (opens July 23).
Marcos kicked my ass round two in Standard. His Naya monsters just rolled me. My first 0-2 drop of the weekend. Marcos looks pretty bad ass in this photo.
I played this many plus one spells and had this many lands in play game one. It was awesome (I mulled to six and kept three lands and three spells).
I don’t remember why or how I lost this game (or maybe I won it?).
Chase has been working out. He beat me 2-1 round one though the last two games were pretty close, it still felt like a pounding. I was playing more-or-less Brad Nelson’s Junk Aristocrats deck. I’m not gonna put a decklist here. you guys know what it looks like. Seriously look at this photo. How fucking cute is Chase? I could just eat him up.
Bryan’s sense of humor is EXACTLY THE SAME as it was in high school. The 15 years between then and now has barely had any effect on him. He’s awesome, except that he plays Esper and that sucks. I smashed the shit out of his Esper deck with Junk Aristocrats and then launched a full blown assault on…you know, I’m not sure what his other deck was.
Chris, another Team Tool member (my end of high school Magic: The Gathering team, sponsored by The Dugout in Fairport, now out of business), has also changed only slightly. Everyone’s sense of humor remains intact. The four of us got together two weekends ago to catch up and play Return to Ravnica block sealed. My deck was awful but I managed to go 1-1 before we quit to play Standard.
This is Mike’s dog. I forget his/her name but s/he is awesome. I love dogs.
This is Mike, our host for the nostalgia get together weekend. A bunch of us attended Origins in 1997 or 1998 together as a Magic team (we played after school—once you quit all sports and get into a free art school you have lots of time to play Magic after class). I’m pretty sure we ate all of our meals at White Castle due to lack of funds.
Anyway, it was Mike’s idea to get us all together. Absent from the event is Zach as he was away with his wife and kids in Virginia (Beach, I think) having fun in the sun time. Hopefully he can join us at the next gathering. OH! Also missing is a guy that I don’t think anyone talks to anymore and many people may in fact be mad at. I’m not sure. I didn’t write his name because no one likes reading “people are mad at Joe” if their name is Joe and you know that you’re the Joe the writer is talking about.