I awoke refreshed and of course just a little nervous. I was sitting prettier than ever before, and there was a big possibility I might screw it up royally and throw it all out the window, settling somewhere in the mid-teens. To make matters worse, I was of the opinion that my Blue/White draft deck was incapable of earning me any wins, which would mean I would have to win the last three rounds of standard to make the Top 8. The upside was the fact that I had 3-0’d the first Standard part of this tournament, so it was still entirely possible to pull it off. The flip-side of that however, was the fact that I would have to fight my way through some pretty good players to do it.
Oh the calamity! Me poor head a throbz0rs!
I showered again, this time spending a few extra minutes dragging a blade across my face for the added suaveness it so obviously brings a man. At least this time I had milk for my cornflakes. I think it would have taken an armed band of commandos to keep out of the store on the way home the night before. Commandos with like, speedboats and helicopters and, and all-purpose pocket-knives or something!
Anyway, I once again set off towards The Venue, and again retrieved Dave on the way. Once there I wandered about until I found the standings after round seven, so I could have a good look at my chances from here. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I though. There were only six people on 6-1 or higher, and I was at the top of the 5-2 pile with my super-awesome resistance. [Methinks the kiwi means “tiebreakers”. – Knut, translation department] Still, it was an awfully big 5-2 pile.
Round 8 got underway rather smartly, and I found myself sitting across the table from the ever-charming Mike Tan. This was convenient, because the pairings dictated that we were to play each other, and I guess it would have been rather difficult if we were sitting on opposite sides of the room, or something. Mike drafted Blue/Green, so I was convinced he was gonna play out multiple Gnarled Masses and my 2/2’s would have been all “slash cry daddy, I don’t wanna play no more”.
I won the flip, which may have actually been the only flip I won all weekend, and checked out my opening grip. Once again I had only Islands for mana, and very quickly pulled the face of a man in thought. You know, the one where you cock your eyebrow and peer into space up and off to one side slightly? Yeah, that one. Anyway, I remembered what happened against Mark Simpson the night before and slammed that crappy hand back into the deck. Mike leapt up from the table and did a wee dance for a few seconds before turning to me, pointing at me with both hands and screaming “In Yooour Face, Blisterloser!” Well, at least that’s what any other guy would have done, but not Mike here. He’s class act, and a real gentleman who would never do such a thing. My six-card hand featured two Plains and an Island, so I kept and remembered to lead with the Plains. You know, in case I drew the Hand of Honor on turn 2? Well it was a good thing I did, because I drew the Hand on turn 2 and flopped that puppy out and rode him and his friends rough and hard until Mike finally cried “uncle!” and started shuffling up for game two.
For game two, Mike played out a turn 1 O-Naginata. The math on that card in relation to my deck is ugly. Very ugly. If Mike is able to attach that to a three-power creature, he will be able to attack for at least six plus, or at the very least trade for one of my creatures and trample me in the teeth a bit. Let’s review the number of cards in my deck capable of trading with an O-Naginata’d creature:
Hand of Honor
Secret Keeper
Genju of the Falls
Eiganjo Free-Riders
If he puts it on a spirit creature, then I could perhaps hold it off with one of my Kitsune Diviners. Although he is playing Green, so he’ll probably be able to find a non-spirit creature without skipping a beat. My only chance is to find the Innocence Kami and get it down before he can make it connect with my precious skull more than thrice.
Luckily, after another quick mulligan, my opening hand had the Innocence Kami. Unluckily, Mike played a turn 2 Loam Dweller, and followed it with a Child of Thorns, sac and equip. I took something in the region of 18 damage before I was able to untap with the Innocence Kami in play and consider trying to reclaim the board position. I played out a Kami of Ancient Law and a Kitsune Diviner and then screw up royally to throw the game away. Not that I had a great future ahead of me in that game, but it’s still silly to make stupid mistakes when you don’t actually have to! He entered his attack step and I tapped down the Loam Dweller. Mike swung across with a 7/6 Okina Nightwatch and a Descendant of Soramaro (a.k.a. generic 2/3). I blocked the Nightwatch with the Diviner and figured that not blocking the Descendant while on two life would be a bad idea, so I shoved the Kami of Ancient Law in front of it. I then played a Plow through Reito on the Kitsune Diviner for four, causing the Nighwatch to revert to its natural 4/3 state. My eyes strayed down to the tapped Innocent Kami, who by rights could untap now if it wanted. I mean, sure, I didn’t have enough mana to tap anything else, and tapping anything at this point in the combat step would have been pretty futile anyway. What I did happen to have was a Kami of Ancient Law that was about to die to a Descendant of Soramaro of all things. I’m pretty certain that the Innocence Kami and his 2/3 body would have just loved to get in on that combat, too, but yeah, I screwed that up pretty badly.
Game three, we both managed to screw up. I got in some early beats after yet another mulligan of yet another three-Island hand, and he managed to stabilize on seven life. I had enough land in play to cast a Shining Shoal for six when I drew it off the top so I sent my whole team in to say hi. Mike was forced to make a few less than optimal blocks to survive, but assumed he was still okay as his Nightsoil Kami was at least going to eat my Kami of Tattered Shoji. Sadly, he did make sure he blocked every one of my guys, so when I tapped out to Shoal the Nightsoil Kami’s damage to Mike’s face, he was left on one life. The problem was that neither of us batted an eyelid when he then picked up the Nightsoil Kami and but it in his graveyard. I mean, I remember thinking to myself that it was a good thing he didn’t soulshift, but I never clicked that it had only actually taken two damage. Not that it mattered really, I would have found at least a one power flyer pretty soon anyway, so the fact that I had just enough creatures to rush him out a few turns later changed very little. After the match, a spectator pointed out our error, which knocked the wind out of both of us. He said it was his first big tournament, so he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to say anything, or not. I gave him the friendly version of the “get a judge asap” lecture, and apologized profusely to Mike, who remained the gentleman he is and said it was just as much his fault as it was mine.
Oh yeah, the spectators. I also managed to pick up my first warning this match for talking to spectators while we were still playing. After game one, the guy who spotted the mistake asked if that was the match or just one of the games. I replied that it was just game one, and one thing lead to another and next thing I know a judge is cautioning me about talking to spectators. I mean, no wonder this guy ended up unsure on whether or not he should point out our mistake! Anyway, something like five minutes later, Digby, who needed to 5-0 the day to make it, came over and while we were still playing, I asked Digby how he went. Next thing I know that same judge is tapping me on the shoulder and issuing me a warning. I manage to flat out put my foot in my mouth by saying “oh crap, you’re still here.” Thankfully he either missed that or decided that going any further than a warning would have been heavy handed.
After that game, the judge explained to me why he gave me a warning. I refrained from actually telling him that I’d been a level two judge longer than he’s been a judge at all, and just let him know that I was fine with the warning and knew exactly why he gave it to me.
So, the little deck that couldn’t somehow did, and I now had the win I could only hope for. Terrific, now all I had to do was go 2-1-1 or maybe 2-2 and I’d make the Top 8.
So who was up for the free win from me in the last round of the draft? Only the person I pretty much consider to be the Best Magic Player in New Zealand, Roger Miller. How lucky, at least I get to play him now and not be on the same number of points as him next round when I actually needed to win, or something. Roger was our national champ in 2001, second place in 2004, third place in 1997 and there could even be more I’m missing there. Not only does he win a great deal of the time, he usually does it on his own terms with a deck he has designed himself. As I sat down with Roger, I quizzed him on why he took the low road this year and played Tooth instead of one of his rogue creations. Roger was almost as disappointed as I was that he had to scrap his pet deck at the last minute for Tooth, but there’s no shame in taking the safe route. I mean, that’s what I did. Oh yeah, Roger is also one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet, and he’s always, always smiling.
Knowing full well that I was doomed in this match, I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to what happened in the first game. Somehow, I got off to a great start after my deck’s trademarked mulligan of an all-Island hand, and Roger’s Black/White deck was left on the back foot. So much so that when I actually threw away my utterly convincing board position by Plow Through Reitoing for three for no good reason, and I mean at all, I somehow still managed to win a couple of turns later. Despite Roger getting to land a telling blow with a Throat Slitter because of my blunder.
My opening hand for game two turns out to be quite the gassy little number, whereas Roger chucked his back for a better six. I kicked off with something like Lantern Kami, Hand of Honor and the Split-Tail Miko. Instead of excess lands, my hand filled up with neat tricks like Mending Hands (of which I boarded in an extra copy) and Indomitable Will. Roger started with a Shuriken and that Skullsnatcher Rat Ninja punk, which would ordinarily cause my deck a great deal of grief. Thankfully, I already had the Split-Tail Miko on the board, so Roger was going to have to expend some valuable tempo cracking the healer in my endstep, and then again during his turn. The first hit was prevented by the healer itself, and because the play Roger had to make was unfortunately quite obvious, I was ready with the Indomitable Will when he went for it again.
This pretty much sealed the game, but sitting back and trying to ride everyone across the finish line versus Roger is clearly a mistake I wasn’t ready to make. Sure enough, a few turns later he Shurikened my Lantern Kami in his first main phase while leaving three mana open. Obviously I was meant to try and protect the Kami with the healer because I was coming through the air with it and the Eiganjo Free-Riders next turn. Combined with the Hand of Honor sneaking past his Black guys on the ground, this attack would have put Roger on exactly zero life. I only had one White mana open at the time, and knowing that I had a Plow Through Reito in my hand For The Win anyway, I let the Kami die. I could almost see the disappointment in Roger’s eyes, and his smile almost faded. He followed through with his play anyway, to give me a chance to make yet another bone-headed mistake, by attacking with his Scuttling Death. After I declined to block it with the Split-Tail Miko, Roger ninjutsued into what would have been a game-turning Throat Slitter had I fallen into his play. I calmly prevented the Throat Slitter’s damage with the Miko, untapped and returned the healer to my hand with the Free-Riders. The 3/4 and the Hand of Honor trundled across the table unopposed, and one Plow Through Reito later I was 2-1 with the draft deck that I was somehow under the impression could not even win a game, let alone a match.
So, how about that? Now I only needed to go 1-1-1 or 1-2 with good breakers. I was very calm at this point, only allowing myself to grin openly when people asked how I went. The rest of the IRL team weren’t overly surprised that I had miraculously pulled off the 2-0 to exit the pod, they were all telling me how I had practiced quite a bit and I deserved to win anyway. My meager protestations of my all-round worthlessness went mostly unheard.
So next up was round 10, the beginning of the end, the last three rounds of Standard before the Top 8. In this round I got paired with Sam Kwang, who was the only person to beat in the draft portion of last year’s Nationals. Sam strayed from the path of the righteous man this year by bringing Islands to the table. Actually, I have a funny feeling he does that every year, but I wanted to say “path of the righteous man” somewhere in this story, and I happen to be rapidly running out of space!
(*bumps head on the side of the page*)
See what I mean?
Sam didn’t play BlueTron, or JushiBlue or even FrenchBlue. He played a variation of the deck Cormac Smyth piloted to a Top 8 finish at the Irish National champs. That’s right, he was Proteus Staffing away Nexuseses and other people’s creatures to serve up a dish of Colossus mash and beans. Okay, okay. I admit that “Colossus mash”, even when said out loud is perhaps the absolute worst pun I have ever committed to digital paper. I’m sorry you had to witness that.
Anyway, I mulligan away an opening hand that would be good against creature decks, and considerably poor verses the likes of Sam. Obviously my six-card hand is the same minus one card, so I keep and hope that Sam is for once playing with little men. Oh wait, that doesn’t sound like what I meant to say at all. Anyway, I started out by playing Mountains and little else. Sam must have assumed I was enjoying doing that, so he helpfully Boomeranged one of my lands to set me back a turn. I eventually got out a Vulshok Sorcerer, which was met by a Vedalken Shackles. One self-assisted suicide later, the board was again clear until Sam threw down a Bribery. Apparently my Arc-Slogger wasn’t good enough for him, though, because he soon Proteus Staffed it to the bottom of my library, and in the process traded up to the Iron Giant itself. At that point I figured becoming acquainted with my sideboard would be a good idea.
My opening hand for game two had Frostling, Shatter and the possibility of a third turn Song, Sword Equip type maneuver. Sam’s opener had two Sun Droplets, which can be pretty tough to fight through, but at least gave me a window to get some guys down to start that slow, uphill race. There’s only two things worse than two Sun Droplets, and one of those involves drawing all four of them. Thankfully, Sam didn’t draw all four, just three. Oh noes! I hear you all cry, how can blisterguy fight through three Sun Droplets?? Well, it’s quite simple. With Sam gaining the equivalent of six life a turn, things looked grim. I mean, no Red deck has ever been able to deal more than six damage per turn, right? Goodness me no. That’s like asking the impossible.
Sorry, what was that? You think Red can deal more than six damage a turn? Someone alert the authorities! There are Blue players out there under the assumption that Sun Droplet is going to save them, how can we prevent this becoming a full-blown catastrophe?
By the way, when Sam died in game two, the Sun Droplets had 9, 25 and 27 counters left on them. There were also 27 Sun Droplet triggers and one Sword of Fire and Ice trigger waiting to go on the stack. I dunno, it prolly would have looked cooler on Magic Online.
So then it was on to game three, and again I started with the seemingly sub-optimal “Frostling, go”. Sam tapped low for a Proteus Staff, and I had nothing to punish him for turning his back on me for a turn. Sam untapped and the Frostling continued his relentless attack. If you listened carefully, you could almost here the little guy go. “Nyeh, so yer playin’ Blue, are ya? Take that then *poke*” and “*grunts* I’ll show yer, ya conniving bastitch! *plink*”
But here’s the twist. Versus any other Blue deck, the best first turn play is obviously Slith Firewalker. Versus Sam however, the best play is instead the first turn Frostling. Onwards the little spirit stomped, one damage a turn and infinite embarrassment. Death by infinitesimal harassment, all the while Sam had his Proteus Staff in play and a Blinkmoth Nexus waiting to be Staffed away. All he could hope to do was wake up the Nexus, and activate the Staff targeting it. When the Frostling would finally throw itself in the air with a cry of “oi you cheeky little blighter, stitch this!” the Nexus would save itself with its ability before successfully morphing into an Indestructible 11/11 monstrosity. However, for this Sam needed a total of six mana in play, and he had all of five.
Finally, he snapped and uttered those words he had been hoping he wouldn’t have to say for the last few turns, “I’ll Proteus Staff your Frostling.” I looked at my hand, I looked at the Frostling. I looked at Sam, and I looked at the Frostling again. Just in case my hand had mysteriously changed within the last ten second, I looked at that again. I shuffled it around a bit. Nope, still the same. I look up at Sam. “‘Kay” I replied, and started flipping cards off the top to see who was stepping into the Frostling’s shoes.
It went something like this. Mountain, Mountain, Blinkmoth, Mountain… At which point I mentioned just how pleased I was that I wasn’t about to draw this trash. By now the spectators were beginning to lean forward for a better look … Mountain, Seething Song, Mountain, Mox, Mountain, Mountain, Blinkmoth… Eleven cards that did nothing. I was soooo dead if Sam had waited for that sixth land. So what was the twelfth card? The card that would decide who won this game and who lost? It could have been a Zo-Zu or Slith, two cards that ordinarily mean the start of something pretty nasty for Sam. They would have done nothing short of chump a Colossus. The Sorcerers were watching from the sidelines, and another Frostling would have been funny, but probably wouldn’t win me the game fast enough. In fact, I suspect he would most likely find that sixth land long before any Frostling would manage to go the rest of the way.
The twelfth card though, was an Arc-Slogger. “Oh, hello you” I cooed, and Sam broke into a grin. “Well I had to try, Good Game man.” I matched Sam’s grin and then some as he reached across the table to offer the handshake. I snatched up his hand and LOL’d. No, I actually Laughed Out Loud, for real.
So at this point, I now needed to go at least 0-2 to make Top 8, which IMO probably isn’t that difficult. I was effing elated, I was over the flipping moon and making moves on whatever planet comes next, which I’m just plain too lazy to google right now. This was my seventh Nationals, and I’d finally cracked that one, ever-important nut. But of course, the worst was yet to come. Other than the fact that I should probably try to pick up a draw somewhere in the next two rounds to make doubly sure, that first round in the playoffs could potentially be the most heartbreaking match ever for me. Imagine all that work to get to the Top 8, only to lose in the first round? It’s one thing to lose the twelfth round to finish ninth for instance, but to actually make the cut and then lose? That has to suck that much harder!
But I wasn’t worried about that yet. I could cross that bridge when I got there. I was still pleased to be in the position to draw my last two rounds if I wanted to. I thought that if I was going to be making the Top 8, that I would be clawing away right up to the last round, where I would just scrape in on resistance, or whatever. I never in a million years dreamed I would be in the top 4-5 of the standings for the majority of the weekend.
Do You Get The Idea Yet, Of Just How Pleased I Was To Be Where I Was Right Then? Do You? Do You See What I Was Going Through At That Very Point In Time?
Am. I. Getting. Through. To. You. ?
(*cough*)
I wandered out into the foyer and into the bathroom to fill up my water bottle. By the way, where I come from we can drink the water right out of the tap, and I don’t mean drink it and then wrinkle our noses a bit, I mean exactly like pure bottled water you buy from a shop. As I stood in front of the mirror with my hands in the basin, I looked myself in the eye and told myself that what I had achieved wasn’t that difficult, why should I be concerned by the prospect of losing in the Top 8? Wasn’t just another Standard match? I can do that, can’t I?
Sure I can.
The pairings for Round 11 went up, and I collected a draw from long-time friend Julian Brown-Santirso, who was already a lock for the Top 8 with his 9-1 to my 8-2. We headed out to get a bite to eat, knowing full well that we had quite a long afternoon ahead of us. We even joked that we didn’t even have to be back in time for the last round, as a match-loss for tardiness would not keep us from playing for the right to go to Japan. We also agreed that arrogantly flaunting our success in front of the event staff in that way was in fact Not A Good Idea, and made sure we were back will within the allotted time frame.
Round 12 saw me drawing again with another long time friend Martin Jeffreys, which we both agreed was pretty cool, obviously. Of the rest of my IRL crew, only Andrew from the North Island and if I remember correctly, Digby were left playing for a spot. Unfortunately, I know Digby didn’t make it through. Andrew however, would have made it in with a draw, but his opponent (I forget who) declined and made him play it out. Despite only being a young man, Andrew from the North Island showed that he was made not of bone and gristle, but steel girders and hand-grenades as he busted his way into the Top 8 the hard way.
So there was much celebrating all round, and even more once the Top 8 was officially read out. In previous years, the Top 8 has been made up roughly of six or seven North Islanders and one or two from the South, if we were lucky. There was much to celebrate this year, as we somehow managed to get five actual South Islanders in the Top 8, and even an honorary South Islander in the form of Andrew from the North Island. Not only that, but the remaining two players in the Top 8, in other words the other two North Islanders, would be playing each other in the quarterfinals. There was literally no way the national team would have less than two players from the South Island in it. Here is a list of players in no particular order, because I don’t remember where everyone finished exactly.
Julian Brown-Santirso
Glenn Patel
Me
Darryn Ying
Jon Manuuli
Andrew MacIntyre
Luke Tsavousis
Martin Jeffreys
Okay, so I lied. They are in order of highest DCI ranked player to lowest, because I went through the composite rankings to get the correct spellings of everyone’s names.
A small aside on an equally small animal. At some point in the day, a wee birdie flew into the room and never quite managed to find it’s way back out. It fluttered about from rafter to tabletop, narrowly missing players and occasionally dive-bombing people as they gathered in groups to gloat about their winnings or bemoan their losses. The best bit would be when it would land on the microphone on the podium, be silhouetted against the brilliant day showing through the floor to ceiling windows and start singing. The microphone picked up the sound quite nicely, and we were all treated to this little birdie’s melodious tones at seemingly random times throughout the afternoon. A little weird perhaps, but definitely an all-round pleasant addition to the day.
So who was the lucky odd one out getting to take on the honorary South Islander? Well obviously, it was none other than the guy who picked him up from the airport. Me. This wasn’t particularly good news in that we couldn’t face off in some kind of Glorious Finale for the crown, or something. But it at least did mean that one of us would be going to Japan.
Now thanks to my pretty atrocious story-telling skills, you already know what happens here. I win, and Andrew doesn’t. I can’t lie and say I’d have been just as happy if he’d won instead of me, because we all know that it just isn’t true. I’d be less happy if I lost to someone I just didn’t plain know like one of the other North Islanders for instance, but winning was going to be so far ahead of the alternatives that it’s basically a moot point.
So how did I end up beating Andrew? Well, first we tried it dirty. Both Dave and I as Andrew’s newly appointed guardians, tried to forbid him to play in the Top 8. He just laughed and told us we could suck certain parts of his body best left undescribed on this here family website. Next we tried to forbid him from going to Japan, giving him no reason to want to win. This didn’t work either, he again laughed and said that he would just beat me and not go. So it came down to this. We would have to play Magic for it. What has this world come to?
Sure enough, we started out with me once again losing the coin-flip. Kaloo, kalay. No surprises there, then. Thankfully, I righteously smashed face anyway, as Andrew developed his mana fine but failed to get off an actual Tooth and Nail or Oblivion Stone. I know I lost one of either game two or three because he managed to play an unentwined Tooth for Platinum Angel and Leonin Abunas after being Sowing Salted, which was obviously blatant cheats, but the table judge turned a blind eye. I’ve only just realized that the table judge was a North Islander! I smell a conspiracy! No wait, it’s just one of my cats “getting comfortable” beneath my chair.
Anyway, the other one of game two or three that I did win was won because of Sowing Salt, which also doubled as a discard spell due to my super-hax mind reading skillz. In game four Andrew was cheeky enough to raw-dog a Circle of Protection: Red off of an opening hand Plains, COP: Red combo. I was so enraged by this obvious display of contempt at the laws of all things fair that I Molten Rained his Green Source once it finally showed up, and then saddled up the Nexus and Sword combo to smack him about something fierce. Take that, mister Tooth and Nail!
So with that, I was going to Japan. It obviously took a certain amount of skill and preparation, but looking back over the two days I knew that it had also involved a great deal of luck. I guess something could be said about being prepared enough that when the luck hits, you’re ready to take it and run, but whatever. I’m one helluva lucky guy, it seems.
(*shrug*)
At this point however, my luck just plain disappeared. And I mean completely vanished. I certainly didn’t help it by clowning around and not paying nearly enough attention to the games at hand, because I was going to effing Japan exclamation mark, exclamation mark, one, shift, eleven, exclamation mark. But yeah, it was all down hill from there. After defeating Darryn Ying, Glenn Patel smashed me with his Tooth and Nail deck 3-0 with some pretty stunning draws on his part, and some particularly spectacular misfires coming off the top of my deck. This was not helped by the fact that I was practically bouncing in my seat at the prospect of playing at Worlds. At one point I pointed a Molten Rain at one of his Urza’s Towers to break up his Tron, when I knew he was only playing three Urza’s Mine, because we got to see each other’s decklists before starting. Sure enough, he found another Tower right on top of his library, but I think that mistake would probably only have meant the difference between me losing 0-3 and maybe losing 1-3, so oh well never mind. I guess that means I get one the awesome foil Lightning Bolt trophies instead, Haha, Take That Glenn. Owned!!1!
‘Cept the bit where he won way more money than me, obviously.
On to the third and fourth place playoff, where I had to face Luke Tsavousis and his BlueTron deck in what can only be described as a good match up for me. I started out well and was up 2-0 before I decided to give Luke the “Pep Talk”. You see, Luke is a local player who has a wee bit of a history in choking while under pressure. He’s a great guy though, so I let him know just how awesome it was that we’d both made it as far as we had, and that he was going to have to win three of the games in this match anyway, so why not just win these last three? Good ol’ Luke, he took my words to heart and soundly thrashed me without pause in the last three games.
Whoops.
In the last game I mulliganed to five, which was probably because I had told Luke about how my wishing people luck was forcing them to go to five more often than not. As I picked up my six, Luke started giggling and wished me luck. Heh, thanks buddy. Anyway, by the time I had enough mana to play anything meaningful, Luke had four mana in play and a hand full of cards. “How many cards in hand?” I asked him. “Five,” he replied. “How many of them are counters?” I asked facetiously, getting a chuckle out of the spectators while I pondered which of my three or four meaningful spells to play. “All of them” he replied with a grin. I smiled along with Luke, who then held up his hand to a spectator behind him. This innocent bystander let his eyes boggle in a somewhat alarming manner. My smile vanished, and he next word to come out of my mouth was “sh*t”. Sure enough, Luke then proceeded to counter pretty much every spell I played from there, including a Magma Jet to his Face while he was still on twenty.
Doesn’t matter.
I’m still going to Japan.
JAH-PAN, YOU HEAR ME?
So Luke joins Glenn and Julian on the national team, and I am their alternate. Together we will have the time of our lives in Japan this December, how cool is that? Okay, so maybe not as cool to you as it is to me, but I don’t really care, because I’m gon’ Japan!
I’ll have to get those Cymbrogi boys working on a couple of decks for me to take with me. Decks with Mountains, obviously.
(*grins*)
I’d just like to take a moment to thank you for reading this far. If you’ve read all three parts, then you’ve soldiered through something in the region of 15,000 words. Good job, you can now officially add the following line to your signatures in the starcitygames.com forums:
“I read the entire blisterguy nationals tournament report, and all I got was this stinkin’ signature”
And now to finish, here is me and the IRL crew.
From left to right, we have:
Digby: the filthy hippy.
James: the crotch-grabbing extraordinaire.
Francis: the dirty old man. No seriously, look and you can see that he has his finger sticking out of his fly in an attempted porno-hax of this group picture.
TEH HEROZ0R: the blisterguy himself, with the awesome foil Lightning Bolt trophy (upside down in the picture, because I’m that kind of guy).
Martin: the biggest man of all of us, and the one the most obscured. Somewhat unusual, I trust you’ll agree.
Dave: the man cuddling my knee. Right after this photo was taken, Dave then slide all the way down the banister the two of us were sitting on, then came half way back up it, and slide back down again head-first. Saucy.
Hugh: Martin’s little brother. Complete with rosy cheeks to show just how much of his spare time is spent drinking.
Giles: the astronaut.
Andrew: from the North Island, honorary South Islander and general, all-round terrific guy. And I’m not just saying that because I had to beat him to qualify.
And what would a tournament report be without props and slops? Not actually a tournament report, that’s what!
Props:
- The boys of Cymbrogi, for all of their tireless work on my standard deck. Now get crackin’ on my Worlds decks, you slackers!
- The IRL crew, for being great mates (a word we use down this end of the world to mean “friends” or “pals”, and which most definitely does not mean sexual partners.)
- Andrew from the North Island, for not beating me in the Top 8. Seriously, I was a little worried there, for a while.
- Glenn, Julian and Luke. Make us proud guys. Also, someone get sick so I can play in the team portion pls tks.
- Roger, Scott, Gene and Hemi and anyone else I don’t remember who took the time out to come and tell me that they were well chuffed I would be representing them at Worlds.
- All on my opponents for being either polite winners or gracious losers. You guys reminded me of why I love living in this great wee country of ours.
Slops:
- The Caesar-Salad-Wrap of Satan that tried to poison me on the Saturday morning. Who would do such a thing?? I mean seriously!
Until next time, everyone.
(gon’ Japan)