Seriously, guys, enter at your own risk. I have no idea what the names are on half the cards in the set, so I refer to a bunch of them by what they do. Sorry if that is confusing. Also, I shamelessly barn and namedrop just about every well-known Iowa magic player on the list. It is painful, but I muster all the strength I can, and move on.

 

...

 

So, anyways, Shadowmoor Sealed Deck. The format that moves at speeds nearly as fast as the average snail. I only wish I would have realized this before the PR, so that I could have mentally prepared myself for excruciatingly long games, most of which went to time. All I knew about the format going in was that I knew I wanted to draw first, as Sealed seemed kinda slow. I had. Absolutely. No. Idea.

 

Oh well.

 

Last Friday, I experienced what can only be classified as 'the worst day I've had in recent memory':

• It rained hard for six hours straight Thursday night, so when I go downstairs to take a shower, I discover the west side of my basement is filled with a quarter inch of water. Awesome.

• My boss calls me at 10am to tell me I have to work Saturday. I tell him I'm not gonna be in town, and that I distinctly requested it off. He tells me I'm fired*. Sweet.

• During my bag-packing, I discover that my shampoo bottle has broken open, and is leaking all over my clothes and is everywhere in my bag. Double sweet.

• I learn that I've bombed my latest philosophy exam, and can't pass the class with higher than a C-. Even better.

So as I take off, I'm clearly not in a very cheery mood. However, an hour-and-a-half drive to Ames from Vinton is a great way to just Chill out. By the time I got to the ISU college town, I was in high spirits. I stopped at the local store, 9th Zone, which is co-owned and operated by Level 2 Judge Brian Woerth. There, I hung out with the resident dredge master, Nick Crumpton, who was playing WoW on his laptop. Crump qualified for Pro Tour Hollywood at the very beginning of this past season, playing in the first midwest PTQ in St. Louis. The standing jokes of him regarding that event are that he lost 0 game ones on the day, and that after he beat GP Charlotte winner Mike Krumb, he informed him on how to correctly play Dredge.

So, back to our story, I waited around for about a half hour, and Matt Hansen showes up. Matt and I have been friends for awhile, and I think we're a lot alike. Our differences start with magic, however, as he is quite good, while I am probably only slightly above average. Matt recently brought the extended deck Spirit Stompy into the limelight, after he won a PTQ in Kansas City and then top eighted GP Philly with it the very next weekend. I highly doubt that that is where his accomplishments in the game will end.

We go get Culvers, and then back to the store to test Shadowmoor Standard. A GW deck and a Monoblack deck are built, and after a bunch of test games, he and I take off and go to Matt's place for a bit. He surfs the internet, and then we play some heads up hold'em, which was pretty interesting, in retrospect. I wound up with most of his money, but really highly doubt that I'm that much better than he is.

The rest of the night involves getting food at a pizza place, more poker, me being so tired that I'm dealing cards face up, and finally, sleep.

Saturday rolls around, and I wanted to make it to the 1pm flight. Now, compared with the stories and reports I've heard about other prereleases, it sounds a lot like most other areas get hosed. Barratt Moy is not my favorite person on the planet, but he gives out a gazillion packs at his prereleases. The 1pm flight was more than 32 people, so the swiss round count was 6, and the payout was something ridiculous, I think 6-0 got 54 packs. I obviously wanted to do well with that much product on the line (18 draft sets!!).

We take I-35 down to Des Moines, but get there twenty minutes late; it ends up being fine, as people haven't even started registering pools yet. I open a pretty good pool featuring two Murdurous Redcaps and two Incremental Blights. The pool I'm shipped is, according to the person who registered it, nearly unplayable. It's got a ton of great red and black, but the curve is really top heavy, and every color is Dreadfully sHallow. I end up playing a pretty mediocre list to start off, with lots of garbage ones and twos that were pretty much useless.

Round 1 - Rob Meyers

The backstory on this guy is that he dreamcrushed Sam Black in the last round of the Des Moines PTQ for Hollywood. Sam is in a win-and-in position, while Mr. Meyers is unable to make top eight. He wants to play anyway, and stomps Sam, takes 9th, and basically, no one is ever going to do a favor for him again.

Game one progresses slowly, but I have him on the backfoot early. Unfortunately, he has the UW Hill Giant and the UW Leige, which basically bash my face in. I notice that he is spending an awful lot of time on his own turns, and count down the minutes on my phone. I end up not calling a judge, which, in retrospect, was definitely the wrong thing to do.

Game two is a very long and drawn out affair. I gain a huge advantage by having both Midnight Banshee and Grim Poppet on the board, which is kind of a combo. Still, despite such an Overwhelming position, my opponent still spent minute after minute in the tank at any time in which he had priority, and prolonged his death until there were only about five minutes left on the clock

Game three is a stall, and I get stuck on three lands. Time is called, and he tells me that he can't do fifteen points of damage. He is irate when I block with a creature he thought was an enchantment. He goes to call a judge, and I tell him it's a waste of more time, since he actually picked up and read the card when I played it.

 

He gets really pissy at this point, and I tell him that if he'd played at a reasonable pace, he probably would have beaten me, as his deck was much better than mine. I sign the match slip and walk away. In retrospect, I should have called the judge over to watch for slowplay; my thought was that going that route might be a little hardcore for a prerelease. However, since we are playing for a substantial amount of product, I should have done everything in my power to keep the game going at a reasonable pace, even if it means offending my opponent and calling over a judge. Lesson learned.

So, 0-0-1 is not the most desirable way to start out a Pre-release. That immediately slashes my hopes and dreams of getting the 54 boosters, but if I win out, I can still nab a box. Oh well. I show my deck and sideboard to a few people I respect to get opinions, but the round is up before I can get any feedback.

 

Round 2 - Kevin Shields

 

Kevin is an older gentleman that I don't recognize, but is very pleasant all the same. We talk a bit as we prepare for the match to begin, and I feel much less bitter about my last round, to the point of forgetting it completely.

 

Game one is about getting creatures down. He has a turn three Wilt Leaf Cavaliers, which is pretty good. His GW deck continues to put relevant threats on the board, but I end up with Midnight Banshee, which he didn't have a real answer for.

 

Game two is pretty back and forth, but am pretty much Overwhelmed by his perfect curve of two, three, four. I can't deal with that, and don't help by trying to swing two flying creatures into his Raging Canopy. Awkward.

 

Game three I stabalize at under five life, and make some great trades with his guys which involve a three for one via Murderous Redcap. I keep adding men to the table, and seal the deal with Torrent of Souls for some 18 total power. He scoops.

 

1-0-1

 

I was pretty unhappy with my game two play, and decided that I would really need to tighten up if I wanted to walk away with product. At this point, I find the person who I want to help me with my deck: Steve Locke. Steve is this incredibly arrogant guy who is, despite that, a pretty awesome guy, and is also very, very good at magic. He took 30th place at Kuala Lumper, which was his first PT, and somehow conveys how he values cards in limited in ways that I understand, which is quite a feat. Unluckily, round three is starting and he said he'd help me afterwards.

 

Round 3 - Shane James

 

Shane was quiet when I arrived at the table, and continued this trend throughout the match. I figure that if people want to be serious, they probably would prefer if their opponent was the same, so we just get to business.

 

In game one, I have a bunch of the crappy twos that really do nothing for me, and they get in for a few points. Tattermunge Duo makes his scheduled appearance on turn three, and is pumped for three consecutive turns as I draw more gas and chip away at my opponent's lifetotal. He playes a few questionable inclusions in his deck, but they have to chump block.

 

Game two is much of the same. I have Duo on turn three again, and he does quite a bit. On turn four, I make a key play using one of my terrible cards, Wild Swing. Now, I am on the draw, which first of all should not have happened since you basically always want to be on the draw in this sealed format. Second, Shane had not made his fourth land drop. I decided to just use my Swing as an LD spell, and target all three of his lands. It worked out well, as he didn't cast another spell the rest of the game.

 

2-0-1

 

Awesome, this match only lasted like fifteen minutes! I go find Steve, and he goes through my pool. Immediately he wants to cut my one-drops and two-drops, and replace them with fatty green cards on a splash. I agree with this, and it ends up mattering. He's gotta go get into the trios with Matt and another Iowa master, Brandon Scheel. I talk with Raine Lourie, who is a local player looking to get into the competitive scene. We discuss this format, and soon, the pairings are posted.

 

Round 4 - Aaron Speer

 

I saw him playing earlier, and noted that his deck was very good. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

 

Game one was a massive creature stall. He had something like seven or eight guys, and I'm pecking away at his lifetotal with fliers. He plays a guy that makes all my creatures with -1/-1 counters unable to block, and strikes me for 19 in power. The only way I could survive the assault is if I have removal in hand, which is unlikely in this format.

 

Unfortunately for him, he should have been at least slighty suspicious, as I had left up RRR, and used Flame Javelin on a 4/4, blocking his two biggest creatures, and going to a meager one life, only to swing back for the win.

 

Game two, I keep a mediocre hand and he Overwhelms me with the three drop with trample that gets +3/+3 when he attacks.

 

Game three was such a beating, and is probably the second worst beat I have taken in sealed deck**. He plays the new Wood Elves on turn three, Deus of Calamity on turn four, and pantses it up on turn five with Runes of the Deus, and I scoop with brain matter all over the playing field and on the people to my right and left.

 

2-1-1

 

Well, that's depressing. I now have to win out to get nine packs. I go and watch the trios go down. Matt has probably the best deck in the tournament, a GW aggro-san which featured three copies of Wilt Leaf Cavaliers, multiple tricks, and a very aggressive curve. I watched him 2-0 the child with the triple Flame Javelin deck and was laughing the whole way.

 

Round 5 - Kit Kodiker

 

This is where my memory gets really fuzzy.I'm starting to wear out, and I can't remember what happened in game one, but he gets super flooded in game two and packs it in when I aim Corrupt at his dome.

 

3-1-1

 

I go back to watching the trios. A guy named Alex Black was absolutely destroying people with untappers in combination with Power of Fire, which he was using to machine gun the board. I watched in awe as it happened, and only hoped that I would open something insane like that at the Launch Party.

 

Round 6 - Tom Watson

 

So, I'm waiting by the pairings sheet for our flight, ready to play my last round. It happens that my flight was playing right next to the trios, but they moved them away for the last round, and I didn't get the memo. I show up to my match fifteen minutes late.

 

...

 

It doesn't stop there. I go to find out if I'm screwed, only to learn that my last round opponent got into a skins payout sealed event and forgot to drop from his 1pm flight. So, he tells me from across the room that he concedes the match, have a nice day.

 

!!!

 

MISE

 

So I get a last round bye and three draft sets. Man, what a day.

 

After the trios portion are over, the crew, which consists of JB, Matt, Jesse, Steve, Scheel, myself, Bill Stark, and Iowa City all star Aaron Mechtansimer (sic?) go out for supper. Bill makes the call and says we're going for mongolian, which to me seems like the nutlow. Luckily, the spirit of the omnipresent GerryT smiled upon us, and the mongolian place was closed. We went to TGIFridays instead. We swapped hilarious stories, regaled each other with bad beats, and had an incredible time.

 

It was at this point that Bill told us that he was leaving Iowa, and that he couldn't tell us where he was going, or what for until he'd cleared it with the people in Charge. This was kind of hard for me to take. Bill pushed me to get into the competitive community, and linked me to many of the friends that I have made through magic. Not only that, he's a very positive influence on our state's community, and represents the enthusiastic gamers who think outside the box. I won't say that all of his deck designes are correct _cough_diabolictutorinextendedwtf_cough_, but he's usually on to something. This evening, he posted on MTGia that he was going to be doing an internship at Wizards and would be moving to Renton. I am extremely happy for him and I hope he has the time of his life.

 

Well, that's all for now. I want to have something else up in the following weeks, but with exams coming up soon, it was really hard just to write this. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed it.

 

-Andy

 

*A blatant exaggeration. My boss and I happen to have multiple alleles in common. I just wanted my list to look more impressive.

 

**Worst beat in my life was losing to a pretty terrible player at a sealed PTQ in Madison, who's deck contained two Wort, two Mad Auntie, and a host of goblins and removal spells; his busted deck didn't keep him from forgetting to deal me 8 points of damage in a single game from Boggart Shenanigans. To this day, it gives me a sour taste in my mouth just thinking about it.