#topdecking

Don’t be jealous that I’ve been top-decking online with babes, all day.

We've all been there. We just need one more land and our deck will be rockin' and rollin'. Inevitably, that land never shows up. Other times, we keep that risky hand and the risk pays off. Elation is off the charts. It's a mighty fine feeling.

Melek + Howl + Topdecked Traumatize

For those of you who don't know, I play Eric on the Magic-centric web series Top Decking. So, Alex Kessler, who is one of the producers of the series asked, "Hey, wanna play a standard tournament on Saturday?" 

Of course I did. I'm not a standard tournaments kind of guy, really. I can count on one hand the number of Standard tournaments I've played in. During Alara block, I said to myself, "I'm going to do this!", and I play-tested with friends and put proxies in a deck for the first time and built my own take on Jund, and was really proud and excited for the Grand Prix... then I got appendicitis and couldn't go, and then I backpacked around the U.S., taught English in Germany, and moved to L.A. and now we're at today. Wow. 5 years goes by fast.

Anyways, I've always been a kitchen table and prereleases kind of guy.

So I went in with fairly low expectations for myself, intent mostly on enjoying the people and the playing. Alex had built a Blue Devotions deck for me. He picked me up early, we got registered, and then sat down to make a side-boarding guide.

I am sad that I haven't played more Theros or Born of the Gods. I've watched from afar, reading the mothership columns, MTGO release draft... wishing... but I haven't acquired any paper cards of my own. 

So, yeah. I'd never played with this deck before. Didn't know most of the cards. 

You know that HR Block commercial where they say Americans will lose billions of dollars by doing their own taxes? Brendans lost billions of bident and scry triggers that day.

But there was delight yesterday as well! My favorite moment... spoilers.

Round 1 was a mirror match in which my opponent put it succinctly. Whoever gets more Master of Waves wins... which was me.

Rounds 2-5 were a blur. I could hardly believe it. I was winning. Only once did I feel kind of bad about my win, because it was a mis-block by my opponent, and he had me dead-to-rights the next turn. Part of me wanted to let him take it back, since, after all, I was there to ... you know, promote the show and stuff, but the other part of me was thinking about how awesome it was that I was winning. MAN that stuff's addictive. (And lest you feel sorry for him, it's not like he let me draw cards when I missed my triggers or anything. Magic is a game of mistakes. In the aggregate, whoever makes fewer mistakes wins.)

Also! Once, I sat next to a man who knew the show. He told my opponent about it. My last game of the tournament, I lost to him. Hooray! By then, I was EXHAUSTED. So, if he's reading this, I'm sorry I didn't put up much of a fight. Even though we were battling for money (MONEY!), I... just... couldn't... think. That's what happens when you've never played a deck before, the sense memory isn't there. I hypothesize that I did well early because I was really trying to figure out how everything worked. It stuck on a game-by-game basis because I was relearning everything and processing and understanding it and I was fairly well-rested and well-fed. By the end, I had to operate on instincts I didn't have and that my opponents did have.

Round 6 is the turning point. I'm 5-0, up against Brian at Table 2, who eventually was in the Top 8. I could tell, playing him, that he knew his way around a deck, even though we both missed the fact that Master of Waves has pro red and so can't be targeted by Domri Rade. I won one game and lost two, then we talked about my sideboard. I think I did it all wrong. I probably should have left the deck almost the way it was. He thanked me for picking up my play pace. It must be a big thing that people slow-play. I know there was that big scandal about a pro who did it. Awful. There needs to be more emphasis on sportsmanship. Barrier to entry. It's part of why MTGO is so beloved by pros and amateurs alike. Still, I prefer the tangible.

Later, I saw him in the hall on my way to the bathroom. We talked a little. Shared stories about getting our Significant Other into the game, and also how we started, then I continued on to the bathroom. On my way back, he told me a guy had come up to him and said, "do you know who that was?" About me. I'm super famous, guys. That was my favorite moment of the day, the culmination of everything: going over and talking to Austin and his friends about Top Decking. I also got to chat with Ben and I even played against David. Good times, great web series. I'm totally famous. OH! And every time I turned a creature into a frog lizard, I used a token with my face on it. (I'm a beast, but creature type was never relevant.) That was awesome.

To recap: a 6-4 record is really amazing for me. And being 5-0 at one point! I went 2-1 against the mirror. While I wasn't up to battling UW control, the deck in more deft hands might've gotten to parity there (Judge's Familiar never got sacrificed even though there were opportunities for that. I just forgot that it could.). And my only other loss came at the hands of a Top 8 player.