I’m prepping for Grand Prix Worcester by playing the same Infinity list I’ve been playing for months.
Infinity
| Creatures (27) 2 Master of Etherium 3 Memnite 4 Ornithopter 4 Signal Pest 4 Steel Overseer 4 Vault Skirge 4 Arcbound Ravager 2 Etched Champion Spells (17) 4 Cranial Plating 2 Galvanic Blast 4 Mox Opal 4 Springleaf Drum 2 Thoughtcast 1 Welding Jar | Lands (16) 4 Blinkmoth Nexus 4 Darksteel Citadel 3 Glimmervoid 4 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Island Sideboard (15) 1 Etched Champion 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Blood Moon 1 Choke 1 Grafdiggers Cage 1 Illness in the Ranks 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Spell Pierce 2 Spellskite 3 Thoughtseize 1 Torpor Orb |
By the time you read this post GP Worcester is over. My decision to go with the two/two split of Master of Etherium/Etched Champion and Galvanic Blast/Thoughtcast was probably right. My sideboard maybe didn’t look anything like the one represented here. Blood Moon remains a mystery to me.
Anyway, seeing as it’s Monday, my newly acquired day off from my day job as a Studio Manager for an artist in the Lower East side, I’m back from Worcester and in my studio painting slices of space time and making drawings I call “enchantments”. The “enchantments” drawings are a way for me to make art of images that may or may not directly relate to the rest of my practice. They’re freedom. Last Modern season I took photos of PTQ opponents and drew them. Those drawings are what the current “enchantments” come from.
I thought, being the lover of community that I am, it would be a great idea to ask members of various communities I’m a part of if I could photograph them in their natural habitat (playing Magic, playing basketball, at an art opening, playing Pathfinder, making art, etc.). I’d run the photo through the computer and come up with a cool extremely contrasted image. I’ve started with Jamie, Papa Longo, and DanOMS cuz they’re the first people I photographed for the project (and Jamie may or may not have been really excited to see what he looked like in ebony pencil).
Jamie P took a couple of shoots. He’s a perfectionist. Twenty Sided Store’s cat token makes an abstracted guest appearance at the bottom middle of the drawing.
Papa Longo is one serious dude. Seriously talented, that is! Look at his board state! (Look at that pack of German Unlimited below the drawing!)
Dan OMS has recently gotten a haircut. This drawing commemorates his luscious locks as they blend into the darkness of the space painting behind him. Look! It’s an aura loaded Battlewise Hoplite! Lucky Dan-O!
Unfortunately none of these bros will be attending the GP so I didn’t get to see them all weekend. Something about a ProTour or being over the format or not enjoying the competitive Magic scene.
Team Draft League had to post pone its first week due to technical difficulties. There was an all day draftathon that me and some other folks missed out on that week. Kadar and I scheduled drafts at 8pm and 1030pm to facilitate us all getting our draft fix. We team drafted. After the dust cleared I was 2-7 on the evening and had one of the best Magic: The Gathering experiences of my life. We were all delirious by the end when I coerced everyone into a group photo.
I’m grateful to all of these incredible people for sticking with M15 late into the night. I love them all.
Then, finally, we played some TEAM DRAFT LEAGUE WEEK ONE!!! The Brendaxian Mobliterators (my team with Carrie and Monique!) vs. … I can’t remember what Dave, Dom, and Hunter’s team name is. It’s long and punny.
I can barely remember what the hell I drafted. It was definitely blue because I had bounce and that 3/2 make dudes unblockable dude. Maybe the rest was green? Red? I can’t remember.
Building decks with Monique and Carrie was a rewarding experience. The two of them are very thorough and clear deck builders. Our conversation about which cards should, could, and would go into our decks was insightful. Monique played an Ornithopter in her incredibly good Angel based Chord of Calling deck. Earlier in the day at Jon’s I had suggested Boatshoes play a single Ornithopter so he could play something early and stop an attack. It helped any convoke requirements, too. “I’d always rather play a land,” Jon said. Yesterday (a week ago for you, dear reader), I asked Mo what she thought of the Ornithopter in her deck and she said she wouldn’t play it again and would rather it was any other card, even a land, cuz it didn’t do anything.
Round one I played Dave.
He’s a good buddy. His clothes, hat, and playmat all matched his beautiful blue eyes (and each other). I squashed him like a bug.
Then the pizza arrived.
And a bag of Diet Cokes. Dave, Dom, and Hunter decided to start wearing bandanas at some point. Well, Dave didn’t. Dave’s hat was too dreamily in sync with the rest of his outfit to bother with an off color bandana. Team spirit is a really weird, powerful, unexplainable thing.
Round two I played Dom.
Dom’s a fun guy. I suggested we take this funny picture of Dom drinking a beer. He is a happy guy and the photo displays this correctly. Dom’s gonna hate this rub in but I mind gamed him into blocking and letting a dude die when he could’ve activated deathtouch with the black paragon. For whatever reason I knew he wasn’t aware of it and knew I’d get a free removal spell out of the deal if I attacked. Sorry, Dom, no take backs.
I went on to win the match.
Then I played Hunter in two uneventful games. I have no memory of game one. Game two involved me being stuck on two lands and him Cone of Flame‘ing my three dudes once I got to enough mana to play them. I scooped ’em up after the Cone. He apologized for Cone’ing me and I said there was no need as he’d clearly chosen the card for his deck to do to my creatures exactly what it did.
Monique defeated Dave and the ScryDu… The Brendaxian Mobliterators took week one.
It felt good to win. It felt sweet to play with a new team and learn new things from different points of view. Beating Dave is always super fun, too.
In the days that followed our all night team draft party and our TDL week one match-up I kept thinking about what a great group of friends I’ve got. They’re awesome.
Here’s hoping GP Worcester was a lot of fun and that I got to hang with people half as cool as these guys and gals at least.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
Matt Jones (born 1980, Rochester, New York) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Matt works between a variety of inter-related genres that explore mythology, archaeology, ancient history, theoretical physics, comedy, and the paranormal—all developed and inspired by research and personal experience. Together his bodies of work form a way for Matt to evaluate, negotiate, and play with the world around him. You can check out his art at www.mattjonesrules.com.
Matt’s played Magic since early 1995, took a break for a decade or so, and came back to the game the weekend after the Scars of Mirrodin release. With Hugh Kramer he formed New York’s Team Draft League and is one of the original writers for Hipsters of the Coast. Matt’s been sober for seven years.