I’ve been planning this one for a while. You could say it’s been fifteen years in the making, ever since I started working for cruise lines as a headline entertainer, and traveling to far-flung places, often alone. In the last three years alone, Magic has sent me to Kyoto, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, Memphis, Birmingham, Chicago, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Rimini, Copenhagen, Madrid, Indianapolis, Brussels, Philadelphia, Vienna, Stuttgart, London, New York, Essen, Valencia, San Diego, Yokohama, Geneva, Krakow, Florence, Strasbourg, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Athens, Malmo, Toulouse, Torino, and Dortmund. I am indeed a very lucky man. But the simple laws of travel suggest that the more you do, the more entertainingly disastrous things tend to happen to you, and keeping these to a minimum is one of the best ways you can enjoy your first Pro Tour or foreign Grand Prix experience. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to bring you hundreds of thousands of miles worth of practical advice without sounding like everyone’s Grandpa, dispensing words of wisdom before being carted off to the land of senility. Everything that you already do, great. Hopefully even the most experienced travelers amongst you will find a new wrinkle or two to keep things nice and smooth. (Do wrinkles keep things nice and smooth?) We are all, when it comes down to it, Playing the Game of Seeing The World, and games have rules. Here are mine.
A Long Time Before On An Internet Really, Really Near
Assuming that you’re booking your own flight, get online and compare. Google for ‘cheap flights to Oslo’ and you will find no shortage of options. However, travel companies are sneaky, and don’t like the fact that the internet has largely broken down international borders. Why is this a problem for them? Simply, they like to charge people from different countries different prices. That means that your typical search engine in the UK (for example) won’t necessarily direct you to tuifly.com, a website designed for German customers. Any time you can wriggle your way round this system, you’re likely to come out ahead. If you have American friends, for example, and are traveling from Europe to a North American Grand Prix, it might work out best to book the trip from their end.
As for which airline you fly with, there’s a bunch of things to consider. Chances are, price is number one for most of you. That’s fine, but ‘you get what you pay for’ tends to apply to airlines just as much as anything else. Frankly, Business Class is a ridiculous waste of your cash unless you are a true gourmand and are desperate to experience the joys of caviar and champagne at 35,000 feet. Airlines differ slightly in their Economy packages, largely involving a few inches here or there in terms of seat room and leg stretch. On a cross-Europe flight of a couple of hours, this really isn’t a big deal, but if you’re trans-Continental, 8+ hours in an uncomfortable chair can be quite close to a breach of the Geneva Convention on human rights. Unfortunately, it is true that airlines like British Airways, Air France, or KLM in Europe tend to have the better facilities. Unfortunate, because they’re comfortably the most expensive. To my mind, most American airlines are pretty similar in level of service and comfort, although it may surprise European travelers to discover that the idea of in-flight entertainment within U.S. domestic flights tends to be ‘oh look, a window.’
Another factor to consider is meeting up with other players. If you possibly can, I recommend this in every possible way. Traveling companions hugely reduce the risk of bad things happening to you. There are more pairs of eyes to spot signs in airports. If a customs official decides he doesn’t believe this whole ‘coming to play cards’ story, there’s other people telling exactly the same story at the next counter. Taxis get radically cheaper shared three and four ways. You don’t have to wander the streets of a strange city on your first night, carting a suitcase with you, anxiously trying to find your accommodation. In short, arrange your trip if at all possible with others. Apart from all the practical considerations, traveling is one of the quickest ways I know to foster a bond between people that can lead to (mushily) life-long friendship or (cynically) a really good deck for the Pro Tour!
Still A Really Really Long Time Before On An Internet Really Really Near
Here’s the two most important words in any traveling language. Passport. Visa. Replace either of these words with ‘no passport’ or ‘no visa’ and it’s basically Game Over. I am aware of exceptions to this, but if you imagine being married to Kylie Minogue, winning your fifth straight Pro Tour, playing backing guitar for the Elvis comeback tour, and being declared President of Bahrain all on the same day, you have the approximate odds that all will be well. As a result of this, a bit like the love letters from your Mistress, you should know exactly where these documents are at all times. Have I said this clearly enough? At all times. At. All. Times. (Yes Dad.) There are few more heart-stoppingly awful moments than the dawning realization that somehow you’ve misplaced/lost/had stolen these lifelines. As a result, you should almost certainly develop a habit of putting these documents together in the same place every time you travel. Initially that probably means a document wallet, but the step beyond that is to have a dedicated space in your hand luggage, whether that’s a laptop bag, rucksack or (if you’re Japanese) Man Bag.
What To Pack Because You’re A Human Being
Let’s start with your hand luggage. This part of your packing is really important, because it’s the part you don’t have to relinquish control over. At check-in, your hefty backpack or suitcase gets forcibly removed by those helpful folk who are mere seconds away from sending you to Switzerland and your luggage to Singapore. If you imagine that you will never see anything you pack in your hold luggage ever again, you’re not going to get caught out. In truth, airlines are a lot better than they used to be about losing your gear, but you still need to plan that they will. This is where our first part of the title comes in handy — underpants. Yes, this is Uncle Rich telling you to pack a spare pair of grundies into your laptop bag. Most of the time this will do nothing other than provoke strange glances from X-ray machine staff, but the way I figure it they don’t get many guns, bombs, or drugs to alleviate the tedium, so why not give them a giggle? Occasionally, this delightful little piece of advice will feel like it saved your life.
You travel for 27 hours. You arrive halfway round the world. They lose your luggage. Humidity is 98%. You get to your hotel. It’s a national holiday Saturday, the day before everything closes due to a little-known religious festival on Sunday. You are at least 46 more hours away from clean underwear. And then you thank the God of Smalls that you packed your lucky traveler knickers. Bliss.
In addition to passport, visa, tickets, hotel information and other documents (plus underwear), hand luggage should generally have pen and paper, your mobile phone, house/car keys, some water, prescription medicines, general accident kit (couple of plasters, ointment, headache tablets, indigestion tablets, sleeping tablets if that’s your thing). These are minimum requirements, and we’re about to add a ton more in the next section, but for now, let’s look at your suitcase.
In Fact, Let’s Look At Your Suitcase
Can you see it? Can you describe it? I’ve only had luggage lost three or four times, but even with the helpful visual reference guide airlines use for identifying baggage, it can be tough to explain just what makes yours yours. Oh, and it helps if you actually know the correct color. A color-blind friend of mine discovered that his ‘blue’ suitcase was in fact green when he lost it in India last year. Truly. Assuming that it isn’t lost somewhere over the Atlantic, you can save yourself some time by having luggage that stands out from the common herd. I’m not talking about necessarily investing in leopard-print purple suede, but even a yellow stripe or a ribbon can instantly help you know ‘that’s mine.’ This also has the added advantage of ensuring that nobody else takes your luggage accidentally, or you theirs. I don’t in real life have an extensive thong collection, but I did for about three minutes in Copenhagen airport until the rather fetching young lady whose luggage I was clutching came to swap it for mine.
Once we’re inside your suitcase, clothes are obvious, but use that whole internet thingy all over again to check the weather. It is not the same all over the world. Really, it isn’t. Some places are hot, whilst others, bracingly, are cold. Knowing which you’re traveling to can be a majorly cunning plan in determining whether you’re taking bikini or lambswool sweater. (Personally, I always take both.) Toiletries can always be replaced at any half-decent hotel, so your washbag goes here, along with power cord for shaver and shaver itself (and that applies to the men, too.) If you can, leave some room in your suitcase. Chances are, you’ll want to bring back some souvenirs of your trip, or potentially do some entrepreneurial shopping. It turns out that you can frequently get major electronic items a lot more reasonably in certain countries than your own. I should point out that bringing an Xbox 360 back into your country without paying the duty on it is, technically, illegal. I make no judgements, just observe that this kind of thing is done.
You Said That ‘Illegal’ Word
Okay, let’s talk about the law. This is the ‘sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ part of the article, so if you’re under the age of eight, go away. Right, now the kiddies have gone to bed, let’s settle this like adults. Bill Stark once memorably reminded us that dicing with drugs meant dicing with death, particularly if you were planning on turning up in Kuala Lumpur. There are plenty of places around the world that are quite happy to comprehensively shorten your stay on Earth if you decide that hard drugs are your Metagame choice. ‘It was only a little bit of cocaine’ isn’t a sentence I’ve heard has much success with officers of the law, and I obviously implore you to use whatever common sense you were blessed with at birth to avoid this kind of unpleasantness.
To some, every bit as addictive as the illegal substance path is the illicit experiences that can be found in assorted late-night parts of the city associated with the google search term ‘crimson lantern region.’ Many of the most outrageous stories you tend to hear where a large bunch of relatively well-off young men gather together in the bar of an evening, are the stories of ‘the hooker, the banana, and the Wrath Of God,’ or variations on such. It won’t surprise you to learn that, having worked with sailors on cruise lines, I’m well versed in such tales. If you decide that’s for you, I’m not going to try and impose a moral judgement on you. However, and this is important, these stories almost never begin with the words ‘so I went off alone at 2am’ and frequently do end up with the words ‘$1,500 later….’. Be careful. Be. Very. Careful.
What To Pack Because You’re A Magic Player
This is going to shock some of you, but most Constructed tournaments tend to go better when you have a deck. Yes, even at the Grand Prix and Pro Tour level, decks come in handy. Sometimes, indeed most of the time, you may not have your 75 in place before you leave. Fair enough, then take a small box of possible cards with you. You can easily get a 300-400 card fat pack-style box into hand luggage, and if you’re prepared to risk actual Magic cards in your suitcase, you’re a fool. Don’t do it. As recently as this weekend, Pro players were spotted cracking open individual boosters of old sets in search of a particular common card for their deck. Remember, airlines charge you for the weight of goods you take, and for traders that means that they literally bring no commons with them in any serious quantity. Thrill Of The Hunt? Don’t be silly. Boosters are your only hope. Chances are that you’re pretty serious about your Magic if you’re going abroad for a Grand Prix, and only Quentin Martin in my experience doesn’t have a deck to play as the player meeting starts.
Sleeves you can buy at the venue, but if you have favorites you should bring them. You should bring a lot of them too. At the very least, you want three full sets of 75, ready to go for a clean set each day. Nobody wants warnings and game losses for marked cards, so don’t let that be you. Scorepad, pens (plural is deliberate, nobody seems to have them), dice… you know the drill. Somehow even the best players in the world seem to be scrabbling around for a pen and something to record the lifetotals with, but that kind of inattention to detail doesn’t need to be something you emulate.
Now, the fun stuff. One of the things I hear a lot from new qualifiers for the Pro Tour is a low-level anxiety about meeting Big Names, whether they’ll be ignored, have anyone to talk to, draft with, and so on. Here’s the best tip of all time — bring basic land. Bring packs too, but bring land — Pros will love you, because as a group they’re hideously disorganized. Don’t look at me like that, Pros, we both know it’s true. There are few more miserable groups than 6 or 8 players staring at unopened packs that have become useless because of no basic lands. If you’re the guy with 40 or so of each basic, you can get into any draft you care to name. Want Olivier Ruel on one side and Shuuhei Nakamura on the other? Basic land is your passport to this, other than the marginally tougher route of making Super Sunday at a Pro Tour.
Another question I get asked a lot is ‘should I bring my trades?’ For the most part, I feel no is the answer. Weight is an issue. Security is an issue. Also, you should remember that you’re not allowed to actually sell your cards in or around the venue, except to the official traders. This can be an ideal opportunity to dispense of your collection in one fell swoop if you have plenty of ‘big ticket’ items, like Dual Lands or Power, but most collections are made up of a ton of chaff, unexciting rares that aren’t going to command nearly as much as you’d like. As for trading on the floor, I’d be extremely cautious. Trading is a game all to itself, and while it’s always true that both parties are trying to secure themselves a good deal, at the major events the trading waters are packed with sharks. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful to the trading crowd, who obviously have a ton of fun (which is great), but for the most part every trade has a winner and a loser. In your local metagame, familiarity, friendship, a watchful eye and the realization that you’ll be seeing them again every week for the foreseeable future are all brakes on gouging. When someone you’ve never met and don’t share a language with in a country 5,000 miles from home is your trading partner, most of those brakes are removed. Frankly, unless you’re a demon trader, you’re setting yourself up for a serious downturn in your collection’s value.
Let’s Reach An Accommodation
It’s almost time for me to go (I have a plane to catch), but we still haven’t got as far as the airport in our imaginary excursion. Next week, we’ll go through the no-fun and no-frolics that is any airport, and talk about what to do when you’re on your Magic trip of a lifetime. But before I go (and before I go, and before we go, if you’re still with me), let’s reach an accommodation.
Arranging accommodation before you travel is not optional. It’s a requirement. One of the more jaw-dropping trips into nutcase land I’ve witnessed through Magic is the tale of two well-respected American Pros traveling to Kyoto for the Pro Tour last month. After a super-long timezone-crossing day of travel, they arrived at the staff hotel at 9pm. Understand that this wasn’t their hotel, just the one that the Wizards of the Coast staff were staying in. I know it wasn’t their hotel, because they didn’t have a hotel. Sorry boys, you know I love you, but this is dangerously high on the stupidity list. You might assume that all would be well, since they would obviously either (a) book themselves an admittedly expensive room in the staff hotel in which they were now standing or (b) go at top speed about the business of finding themselves accommodation.
Let me give you a moment to contemplate what option (c) might have been. Can you guess? That’s right, they proceeded to join the coverage staff in a draft. Some of you may think this displays admirable brand loyalty and an unswerving devotion to the truly important things in life, and with one eyebrow raised I partly agree with you. Fact is though, that at midnight they proceeded to spend two hours walking the streets of Kyoto in search of a room at the inn. There’s no possible world in which this is the smart play. Apart from any other considerations, many countries won’t let you in the front door unless you have proof of address when you arrive at passport control. Do you really want to be deported because you didn’t book a room? You do not. You really do not.
Final Word
As for the title this week, you already know where the Underpants bit comes from, but what about the Teddies and Toblerone? That has to wait for next week, but suffice to say that it definitely comes under the heading of ‘too much information’, and, as usual, it’s too much information I’ll be happy to share with you in seven days time.
As ever, thanks for reading…
R.