Thursday June 10, 2010
I arrived in Seattle at 11am. I turn off the airplane mode on my iPhone to find that I had not one, but two people waiting to pick me up from the airport. Apparently, I mixed signals with Kyle Boddy and Steven Birklid, so they were both waiting at the Seattle Tacoma Airport for my arrival. After I broke the news to Birklid that he wasted thirty minutes of his life that he would never get back, Kyle, Peter Martinez, and I headed straight to Paseo.
Max McCall touched on this in his article last week, but if you have never been to Paseo, it is worth the trip to Seattle alone. For those unfamiliar, Paseo is a Cuban sandwich shop that is no bigger than the room in which you are currently reading this article. The wait time is a consistent ten minutes, and if you show up too late in the day you will not be able to order any food.
Paseo – and most of Seattle, as I learned – play by their own rules. They make a limited amount of baguettes each day, and once they run out, the store closes. Bad business? Yes. Does it keep the customers coming back? You betcha!
Luckily, the sandwiches are to die for, and if given the option, I would wait over an hour to eat the Cuban Roast or the Cuban Press. The marinade for the pork is done every morning by the owner of the restaurant because he refuses to tell anyone his secret recipe. Think Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, except much better, because no one actively wants to eat soup while no one can say no to a delicious sandwich. Don’t believe me?
Would you like soup in a bowl?
… or…
Would you like soup in a bread bowl?
Most would rather have soup in a bread bowl, amirite?
Well, guess what? Soup in a bread bowl is a soup sandwich! I win again!
Why the owner of Paseo moved from Cuba to the farthest relevant city in the United States from Cuba to open his restaurant is completely over my head, but all of our friends who reside in the Pacific Northwest are glad he did.
Did I mention that I am moving to Seattle soon? Paseo might have something to do with that. Just saying…
After the sandwiches were smashed, Kyle, Peter, and I took a trip to Gameworks in downtown Seattle. Street Fighter IV was played, and many games were lost to Kyle. He is a fairly competent Ryu, while I am a below average Abel, and Peter is a laughably bad E. Honda. We then moved on to a basketball shooting game that you would find in a broken down carnival. Peter and Kyle traded victories, while I showed another reason why I am one of the whitest black people you will ever meet.
I wrestled in high school for a reason, people!
After consistently missing a net that was less than 10 feet from me, we took on a bar called The Taphouse. Long story short, this bar has 120 beers on tap.
120!
We tried a few things, including my first dessert beer, and headed to Pike Place Market. I have a severe weakness for markets in any city because not only am I fat, but I am a foodie. I appreciate where food comes from, and you will find some amazing food in a city market. Not only did I try spicy jelly, but I had my first piece of chocolate pasta. All in all, a good time!
And then the real fun began!
We met up with Birklid, and headed out to the karaoke bar. It began with me, Max, Steven, Steven’s girlfriend Erika, Kyle, and Zac freaking Hill singing some jams. Then Daniel D, Zaiem Beg, Lee Sharpe, coverage reporter Nate Price, Community Cup champion Brad Nelson, and the host of the Magic Show Evan Erwin showed up. It was when I saw Evan consume his first beverage that I decided it was time to turn it up a notch.
I am normally a mild mannered gentleman when I go to the local watering hole, but this group was too awesome not to pull out some antics. Among good friends, I am known for my ability to sing with a very potent girl voice. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but…
Toot! Beep! Honk!
There were many insane moments that took place on this night, but here is a quick recap:
– Steven and I singing Taylor Swift — You Belong With Me at the top of our lungs.
– My fifteen-minute decision between Eagle Eye Cherry — Save Tonight or Natalie Imbruglia — Torn as my first song of the evening.
– Watching Erika sing Jay-Z — 99 Problems
– Watching Lee Sharpe get the whole bar to sing Bust A Move
– Watching Kyle B sing Beastie Boys to perfection
– Watching a girl from a completely different table pick Natalie Imbruglia — Torn
– Me performing a duet of Torn with said girl in front of the whole bar
– The girl in the Celtics jersey. I hate the Celtics, but wowie!
Friday June 11, 2010
I promised you guys I had a way to shake up this Standard format, but the cat is out of the bag now. Steven and I had done a lot of work on Turboland the week leading up to the tournament, and I even received a call from LSV late in the night about my build of the deck and ideas for the sideboard. I didn’t want to reveal too much about the deck leading into the tournament for the sake of the other people playing, but the deck should be established by this point.
Before you even ask!
Yes! The deck is very real.
This is the list I had settled on for the StarCityGames.com Seattle Standard Open:
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (29)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
Let’s cover a few housekeeping notes:
1) Lack of Lotus Cobra
LSV, Stephen and GerryT opted to play the mana snake. I chose not to. At the time of the tournament, I had no games under my belt with Lotus Cobra, a card that has a lot of interactions in this deck. Due to my unfamiliarity with the card, I opted against it.
2) Lack of Eldrazi in the maindeck
Simply put, Tectonic Edge is better than any combination of Eldrazi + Eldrazi Temple.
3) Playing All Is Dust
Sometimes you need to reset the board when things don’t go to plan. I had a lot of experience playing with All Is Dust and wasn’t ready to let it go.
Saturday June 12, 2010
A rather brief tournament report:
Round 1, I lost to a Mythic hybrid. Game 1, I mulliganed to five and had to keep a hand of Tectonic Edge, Ponder, Explore, x, x. I never played a second land with 28 left in my deck.
Awkward…
Game 2, many of my spells were Negated and Deprived. Just that quickly, I was 0-1.
Rounds 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 were crushing victories in my favor. Rounds 2 and 4 were against Grixis, round 3 was against Naya, round 5 was against Jund, and round 6 was a feature match against Brilliant Ultimatum.
Yes, I screwed up in the match!
Round 7, I played against my buddy Kent Ketter. Kent started game 1 with the only Jund card I care about on turn 2: Putrid Leech. The game was a back and forth affair that saw me one point short of killing him and him peeling a burn spell to finish me off. Rats!
Game 2 I don’t remember too much, besides that I won and it was not my best game of Magic. Game 3, though, was one of the ages. Kent started with a turn 1 Duress for my Narcolepsy, turn 2 Putrid Leech, and turn 3 Putrid Leech. I surely thought I was going to lose, but my deck let me fight on. An Explore yielded me a Khalni Garden to block his first Putrid Leech for a turn, and an ahead-of-schedule Rampaging Baloths with friend in tow were ready to handle this tag team of BG monsters.
Kent had a Terminate for my Rampaging Baloths and was able to put me down to six life. The next turn I drew a Mind Spring and needed to figure out exactly how many cards to draw. Kent had two cards in hand, a Putrid Leech, and a Lavaclaw Reaches ready to tear me to shreds. I had a Tectonic Edge in hand ready to handle the man-land, but what about the Putrid Leech? Even more important was trying to figure out what Kent’s other two cards were.
What could I beat? What couldn’t I beat?!
It took me a good three minutes to figure out that Mind Spring for four was correct. I drew into a Narcolepsy for Putrid Leech and sent the turn back, hoping I would get another one. Kent tanked for a little bit and then Bituminous Blasted his own Putrid Leech. Not the best of plays in my book, but I could see the reasoning behind it. Cascade revealed a Duress, and I was forced to discard a Time Warp that was going to be integral to my next turn.
The next few turns were spent trading my cards with his removal and discard until we got into extra turns. I had a Jace, the Mind Sculptor controlling his draw step, but had no way to win the game. On turn 2 of extra turns, I was left with a very difficult decision. I was at three life and could either Brainstorm with Jace or Fateseal with Jace. Fatesealing makes sure that I don’t lose the game by controlling what he draws, but Brainstorming gives me the chance to win the game…
We both had nothing on the board or in our hands. What would you do?
I chose to fateseal Kent, leaving him with a land on top of his deck. The next turn I drew Avenger of Zendikar, played a land to make 12 one-power plants, and fatesealed a land on top of his deck.
I asked Kent to concede, and he opted not to. Would you?
At this point, I was not upset so much as I was disappointed. If I went for the win, I would have gotten there, but I leave myself open to many different ways of losing. Perhaps my play was wrong? I’m still unsure. What I did know was that my deck was going to beat a turn 1 Duress, turn 2 Putrid Leech, turn 3 Putrid Leech when it was on the draw. That was exciting news!
I took a moment outside, let the draw process, and convinced myself the draw wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Decks with a draw at this point in the tournament had to be a good matchup for me, right? What decks could conceivably have a draw:
Next Level Bant
Not Mythic
UWr Plainswalkers
Not Mythic
UW Control
Not Mythic
Jund (from playing against UW Control)
Round eight, I got the big beatdowns from Mythic. How a Mythic deck gets a draw is beyond me, since the deck is fairly straightforward, but sometimes that is how the cards fall. Disappointed in another SCG Open finish, I took my ball and went back to Birklid’s after having some fun at the GGSLive table.
Sunday June 13, 2010
Belcher time! Another brief tournament report.
Round 1, I trick my Merfolk player into not casting Force of Will on one of my Ritual effects and am able to Empty the Warrens for ten. Game 2, I played a turn 1 Xantid Swarm and finished my opponent off two turns later.
Round 2 I am against Merfolk yet again, but this time my deck chooses not to cooperate. I have to mulligan more than I would like and lose games 1 and 3 in rather uneventful fashion.
Round 3, I get paired against Canadian Threshold. I don’t think there could be a worse matchup for me in the room. Game 1, my opponent had Stifle and Force of Will on the play, and game 2 my Goblin Charbelcher get Force of Willed.
I won rounds 4 through 8 to leave me in 22nd place. Disappointing but acceptable, due to Kyle winning the Legacy tournament. Kyle is one of my best friends from Ohio who fled the Midwest for greener pastures in Seattle. He is part of the reason I am moving there, and nothing could have made me happier than him winning the tournament. Not even winning the tournament myself would have made me as happy as Kyle winning it. I even got to ice him as soon as he won the tournament.
It. Was. Awesome.
The rest of the trip was spent donking around the Emerald City without a care in the world. Most knew that I was moving to Seattle, but this trip there confirmed it. The city is gorgeous, the Magic community is strong, the cuisine is fantastic, and it doesn’t snow very much. Not sure what else I could ask for.
Besides a Midwest Master Series win with Turboland this past weekend.
Which we got! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I will be talking about that win, as well as a lot more about Turboland, in my next article. The deck is legit, people! If you don’t own Avenger of Zendikar by now, you should!
Until next time…