Our TDL match was postponed this week because Dylan was out being famous or doing a commercial or something. Instead of a traditional team draft tale, I will tell you about a weekend spent in beautiful Atlantic City and the limited Grand Prix held within its borders.
My companions for this journey were to be Richard Tan and Abe the Boy Wonder. We first had to take the train across the Hudson and into New Jersey to pick up my car, which would take us south to Atlantic City. I thought that the train was going to be the easiest part of our trip, but I soon to be proven very wrong. Abe and Richard, being NJ Transit rookies, barely managed to find the right station in time, and at the last possible moment we boarded our train. The train was pretty full so we stood the entire time, but it went quickly enough as we discussed the cards were better in sealed then in draft.
The car ride took a little longer than expected since we were stuck behind some jerkface (a technical term) who was driving about 10 miles under the speed limit on a two lane highway. I would normally just pass this kind of joker if I was by myself, but I didn’t want to endanger young Abraham, the hope of Williamsburg, so I just went with the flow. This meant we had some more time to chat about sealed vs draft and what we wanted to open in our pools. Upon arriving at the hotel, we were informed that Prince Kramer had deemed his bed too small and would be sleeping in a private room. So be it, he missed out on some of my sweet snoring that I’m sure only had positive effects on the others.
After a night of me sleeping like a baby and my roommates sleeping like there was a crying baby in the room, I got four scrambled eggs, and headed to the site. I was surprised that I had two byes when I showed up considering that not only did I check the Planeswalker Point’s site, but Richard did too and told me that I only had one. Thanks Wizards for such an intuitive bye system and functional website!
The sealed deck that I received was decent, but I wasn’t too excited about it. There was some rumbling from the peanut gallery that I should have paired my white cards with red, but most agreed with my decision to go with the green/white build. I really like spells that kill flying creatures in this sealed format since those are usually the biggest threats most opponents will have. I did however take The Duke’s advice about about switching to red if I didn’t see any flyers from opponent, which happened a couple of times. Overall it worked out for me and I met my goal to Day 2 with a record of 7-2. I was pretty happy about this and was looking forward to draft the next morning.
Once again I began my morning with four scrambled eggs for breakfast. Derek had some sort of potion that he shared with Hugh that would make him “see things no one else can see and do things no one else can do.” Or something along those lines. It looked like green sludge to me, so I declined the offer and just brought along my six demon bag.
My first draft was a huge disappointment and I finished the pod at 1-2. It was all my fault since I really messed up my first match and was tilted during the remainder of day. I felt that I had a pretty good deck and I read the signals and all that, but little mistakes will crush your dreams.
The second draft also went very poorly for me. I drafted a terrible deck. I don’t know what was going on in that pod, and it’s not like it was full of beginners since it had Shahar Shenhar (sporting a sick tie) and Adrian Sullivan (who doesn’t draft upside down as one would assume). I wound up with a janky blue black deck that somehow managed to go 2-1. (Okay, one of those wins was a bye, but I won in two games.)
Abe the Babe was on fire for his draft of the day, but suffered his third in the 14th round, ending the day with an excellent record of 12-3. Hugh was also doing well but fell to 12-3 when he lost his win-and-in to Jacob Wilson in Round 15. Even though they didn’t make Top 8, it is an amazing accomplishment to have such great records at a GP.
On the train ride home we watched the Top 8, but it was interrupted by two girls having an argument as we approach New York. I am not sure what the argument was about, but I think they were sisters (sorority or blood I can’t say) and one of them was talking mad smack about the other. It was kind of entertaining to watch considering there was some random person sitting next to them the entire time.
When the train got into the city the yapping finally stopped. I wanted to get home quickly so I could catch the final round of the GP, but was too late. My boy Calcano took the whole dang thing down when I was on the subway. The kid is on fire.
Next week Dylan should be back so we can resume our normal TDL schedule and I can continue to quote lyrics instead of giving you any actual content! Onwards!
Andrew Longo has been playing Magic: The Gathering at a mediocre level since 1994. He managed to get lucky on the backs of his teammates to win Grand Prix Providence. When not playing Magic he runs a D&D campaign, plays video games, and reads comics (a real triple threat for the ladies).