Dear Magic community:
After having read every frickin’ tournament report on the internet over the past year and a half, it has occurred to me that maybe none of you have realized that nobody’s really interested in them.
Reading tournament reports is like filling out your taxes: Nobody does it because they want to – they do it because they have to. If you’re too lazy to do your own damn playtesting, you read tournament reports and pray a lot.
There is not a person in the world who wakes up and says,”Oh boy! I can rise out of bed to read another blow-by-blow account from an incoherent twit!”
(Well, maybe Theron Martin. But I bet he’s not anymore.)
Anyway, people seem to think that tournament reports are their chance to shine – where instead of just giving useful strategy, they can muck it up with a bunch of useless information and”humorous” incidents that show off their shining personalities!* Every day, people are held hostage by that little First Place at the end of the title, forced to slog through a bunch of”fun” stuff and hackneyed road trip information just to get to the useful meat of the article.
Not that I’m bitter.
Not that I don’t have to edit these.
Every day.
But then it occurred to me: Maybe they don’t know. Maybe they all think that their journey to the Pro Tour is unique and exciting in some way! Perhaps all of these people – like any sane human being – has never read a tournament report before, and don’t realize they’re reinventing the wheel with each repetitive, turgid, and excruciating article!
And, of course, I knew that I could help out. So to increase the enjoyment of the Magic community as a whole, I have devised the Fill-In-The-Blank Tournament Report. All you have to do is list your deck, the critical plays you made, and the matchups – then fill out this form to show the world what a wacky, fun-loving person you are. All of your extraneous details glossed over in only a few checkmarks! How much more can you ask for?
The Amazing Ferrett Fill-In-The-Blank Tournament Report!
Name:____________________
PTQ Location:____________________
Date of PTQ:___________________
Number of people attending PTQ:___________
Where Did You Finish? (Check One):
___ i never rote no tourneis reportz before, but i finished first an i promised myslef that if I wun id write one
___ I finished in the Top Eight thanks to sheer luck, and I’d like you all to laugh and wonder how on earth I got there
___ I finished in the Top Eight thanks to unparalleled skill and painstaking playtesting, and don’t you all feel sorry for me that I got manascrewed in the final round when I deserved the win?
___ I kick ass at money drafts and am an arrogant jerk who has to make excuses for not actually doing well in rated events when I can’t cheat… What? Well, no, I didn’t finish in the Top 8. Why are you asking?
___ I finished really low, but I beat a pro due to manascrew!
___ I came in three slots above last place, but I consider myself to be a witty writer, and I’d like to use this excuse to inflict my”clever writing” upon you all
List All Of Your Nobody Friends Who Went To The Tournament With You, Who Nobody Cares About And Never Will: ________________________
The Standard Pre-Tournament Hijinks:
My friends and I:
___ Stayed up way too late before the tournament
___ Woke up late
___ Picked up a random friend
___ Got lost on the way to the tourney
___ Found a really weird restaurant we’d never heard of before on the way – ha!
___ (Constructed) Discussed what deck to play at the tourney (Limited) Debated which cards we were going to crack open
___ Showed up just before deck registration, but fortunately they were late and we arrived just in time!
___ Traded for all the cards we needed
___ Chose my deck at random just before the tournament started
___ Had a pathetic talk with my good-luck charm about how we were going to win
___ Witnessed some random omen that foretold that we were going to win
___ Corduroy pillows
The Standard Complaints:
___ Why don’t they ever start these tournaments on time?
___ This format sucks
___ Card X should be banned (name card: ___________)
___ Everyone is playing a deck that always wins
___ R&D prebuilt our decks
___ The food was overpriced
___ The people stank
___ Where are the chicks?
___ I was discriminated against (Note: Only Michelle Bush may check this)
___ They stole my cards
___ Corduroy pillows
The Un-Standard Pre-Tournament Hijinks:
My friends and I:
___ Participated in an orgy the night before the tournament
___ Won the local karate blackbelt championship the night before
___ Spent the night in jail being called”Louise” by a large black man with genital warts
___ Read William Faulkner’s”Go Down, Moses” aloud for the third time amongst ourselves, weeping openly at Faulkner’s uncannily sympathetic handling of racial identity while using a logging community in Mississippi to create a larger representation of humanity as a whole
___ Arrived at Friday Night Magic, realized that the only people who write tourney reports for Friday Night Magic are people who never win anything else, occurred to us that there is a distinct lack of demand for the writings of chronic losers, decided not to write tourney report, sorry for wasting everyone’s time
___ Realized we were all annoying teenaged whelps with no discernible lives and more pimples than the combined membership of Team Academy, threw up our hands in despair, left to go get pizza and perhaps find the agapean love of a good woman
__ Corduroy pillows
Interactions With Humanity:
___ I met a pro and he was nice
___ Someone recognized me from my feeble writings, and I got way too thrilled about it
___ Some jerk tried to rules-lawyer me
___ Some jerk tried to trash-talk me
___ Some jerk tried to cheat me
___ Some jerk tried to shoot me in the head with a .44 magnum
___ Some jerk threw talcum power on me when I was winning and told me it was anthrax
___ Some jerk tried to call me”Louise” in the bathroom, and he had genital warts
___ Rizzo took pictures of me while I was being called”Louise” in the bathroom, and now he’s posted the pictures on consumptionjunction.com
___ Corduroy pillows
My Games:
___ I lost every die roll, proving that God hates me
___ I got manascrewed
___ I got cursed with bad matchups
___ I was gifted with insanely good matchups
___ I played some kid who didn’t know what he was doing
___ (Constructed only) I hadn’t playtested at all against this deck, even though it was the most popular deck in the format, proving that I have incurable brain damage
___ My deck didn’t perform as well as I thought, but that’s okay because I’m a”rogue” player and creativity is more important than winning
___ The judges made a bad ruling, which I will dutifully whine to Sheldon Menery about
___ I placed better than these pros – am I a good player now?
___ My tiebreakers sucked
___ Corduroy pillows
My Mistakes:
___ I made a really obvious mistake, which I point out
___ I made a really obvious mistake, which I point out, then I do it again
___ I made a subtle mistake, which I point out
___ I made a subtle mistake, which I miss, but finer players than I will no doubt write me to point this out, helpfully adding,”u suck an why you think u can play?”
___ I made a really obvious mistake which loses me the game, the match, and the entire tourney, and I could have come in first place if I hadn’t made that dumb move
___ Boy, am I stupid for making that stupid mistake!
___ I could have won the whole thing if I hadn’t made that stupid mistake!
___Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!
___ I don’t shuffle my opponent’s deck because I’m a nice guy who still believes in the innate goodness of humanity, sportsmanship, and Tinkerbell will live if I applaud loud enough
___ My opponent makes some sort of play error, and I decide to be a nice guy and don’t call a judge, then I lose, then mention”Bruce” five zillion times
___ Corduroy pillows
Props:
___ My friends!
___ The Tournament Center!
___ My opponents!
___ An obscure joke which no one else in the world will get!
___ Corduroy pillows!
Slops:
___ My friends! (Ha ha! I am joking! See what a humorous person I am?)
___ The Tournament Center!
___ My opponents!
___ An obscure joke which is probably obscene!
___ Corduroy pillows!
Now get out there and check off some pillows!
Signing off,
The Here Edits This Here Site Here Guy
* – No, really. I love all of your tourney reports. Keep sending ’em in! – The Editor