GP Cleveland Walkthrough

Disclaimer: Unless you know something about Magic the Gathering then this blog post will make even more less than usual. I will write with as wide an audience as possible but note A) No one reads this and B) There is some "inside baseball" knowledge you need to know to get it. Imagine you were watching Rocky Horror for the first time in a theater full of people who KNOW every damn line. Or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you enjoy my posts then you may get some humor from it. I am also writing this kind of tipsy so there is that. It has my patented asterisk aside style which I have found gets most people to read my work emails and memos.

I played Magic: The Gathering (MTG) from about 1996 to 2003 with then a large gap (broken up by maybe a peek at some plot point or new twist. I thought Progenitus was ridiculous when I stumbled on it in some chat board by chance. Not even an MTG one* to boot!

Still dumb

Then around the time was son was born I noticed a box of MTG in, of all places, a Target. This was incredibly odd because when I used to play you had to go to a specific store to get cards. And growing up in PR (without a car) meant options were limited. I got most of my cards from buying booster packs (sealed packs with randomized cards) at video game stores. They were usually behind the counter and the clerks (Because Game Stop style stores are known for excellent customer service) really could care less. "What do you want? Urza's what?"

And when I played a kid there were no "big" MTG events that came to PR (At some point during my lapse there was a Pro Tour there) and pre-releases were still the regional kind where you had to go to one place in your state or metro area. Those were the biggest events I ever attended. 300 people and maybe one local vendor with a few vendor. As a kid, if you visited the states and came back with some sleeves or a store with entire tomes of single cards then we looked at you with the same suspicion as if you told us a girl liked you. No way, bro. Urban legend stuff.

And while MTG is old it has never been bigger. The information age has maximized it. And as an adult, with a car and disposable income, I really took to it back in 2013. Don't get me wrong. I am not good. But good enough to know why I lose.

I enjoy playing the limited*** version of MTG. That is where you make a deck based on cards you open from sealed packs.

That was the format for GP Cleveland! 6 Pack Sealed. Open 6 packs and lets go! Oh, and I will only refer to it as GP Cleveland. In the last year these events (Its like winning an open in golf or tennis) have been rebranded "Magic Fests" and while I get it (It really is like a mini convention) that sounds even too lame for a basement full of guys shoving little pieces of cardboard
into little plastic sleeves.

Nerds

So, after all that start up, here is my GP Cleveland diary! If you are still reading this then here is where it gets very specific...And the "voice" changes to be more narrative. If you are still reading you are a saint.

I tend to be one of those people who gets to the airport very early. 2 to 3 hours early. I once went on a business trip and the relief I felt when my colleague told that she too also liked getting early to airport has to be akin to hearing the test results are negative. The event said we needed to be at the convention center by 9am. So, of course I leave by 7am for what is supposed to be a 25 minute drive to downtown. "What about parking!?" I panic but then I think "Oh well, its Saturday. It will be ok"

No, apparently Cleveland PD has a ban on pretty much any street parking on weekends that isn't under some bridges in the flats. I pull into a parking garage and pay someone $10 to save the 30 minutes of sharking around town. 

Our convention center is neat but every time I walk into it I feel as if I am walking into some half finished movie set. Its the abandoned warehouse that villains use to stage their attacks. You walk and there is a giant black void behind the welcome desk. Its a hall that seems to never have been used. Or meant to be used "Oh, this is the hall for when guests come over. We are not allowed to use it.
 The signs tell you to head to the halls buried deep under the lawn and over the bones of Public Auditorium. The entire thing has a regional airport vibe. Lot of polished satiny stainless steel.

I weaved through the hallways and came to halls A and B. THey look like the perpetually empty one save with light. And the halls feel to me, and my untrained eye, as elegant in their brutal and utilitarian simplicity. All you needs is chairs, tables, lights, and sealed concrete. One hall holds the Mythic Championship (What they know call the Pro Tour, a branding name I feel even more egregious than the Magic Fest) and this is invite only. Actual pros attend. People who play the game for a living.

In the adjoining hall is the open Magic Fest. And this is a mini mecca. Endless rows of tables and then corporate branded swag. Pop up banners and standups of all the characters. Dozens of vendors selling not just cards and sealed product (often old sealed product. Still sealed boxes of sets I played as a kid. These are my people**** And there a lot of them! At my LGS there are maybe 15 people at some time there. But here are thousands of people all saying we enjoy the same and are willing to spend some cash on it.

I was registered for the main event which, if you own, you could get $25K in prizes. Nine rounds of MTG at roughly 50 minutes a round (plus time between to switch tables and such). That is more than a half day of MTG!

Registration for this was $80 bucks. Which is a lot since you get 6 packs.  For comparison you can get a pack at Target for about $4 (most game stores sell them for $3 for 11) so you could make you own sealed deck (That is what this format is formally called) for $30. What else does the extra money get you.

Well, not too much, but these events are expensive to put on right?

We did get some custom printed sleeves***** and plastic deck box, a life pad (ie note pad) and then a custom event only card. This gorgeous card...

Lighting Bolt is an iconic card from the game's very first printing. Its can be text less because you know what it does. I mean, if you play the game. And these were being hunted on the floor by retailers and people not in the main event for anywhere from $25 to $30 each. Its also shiny.

But we can't use it in our decks. Only the cards in the packs!

Except there are no packs. Just a big bundle of cards. This was my first GP but I learned that this is something new where the organizers pre register your card pool (Saving you from writing down every card you open AND then writing down every card in your deck. This is to prevent people from bringing in their own collection) to save time. Ok, neat. What did I get?

Before that I want to say that I am not that lucky in MTG. Skill is a big part of the game. And practice. But the game has a natural variance that is near quantum. If I played 100 games aginst John Finkel (The best player ever IMHO. ******) I may win one. But I am not that lucky^


SO what did I get...well I got a foil Prime Speaker Vannifar

She is shiny and like $40! Not that great in sealed but I tried to make the "Birthing Pod" ladder. Note enough 3 drops. I non-bowed once when I sacked a 5 drop to look for a six drop not knowing I had no more 6 drops. "Well I just sacked a creature to shuffle my library. HA!"

I also got a foil Growth Spiral which is like $4 bucks and looks so biogenically spiffy!

Also had another Growth Spiral, a Simic Ascendancy, Biomancer's Familiar, three Territorial Boars, 4 adapt creatures, some bounce, and a SHARKTOCRAB! Lets go Simic!

RHARR! GET EM!

And then I lost the first game to mana screw. Then the second game to a very synergistic Orzhov deck that had 6 removal spells. Absolutely sucks to get time walked when you sink all your mana into making your Galloping Lizrog a 11/11 and then they just Consign to the Pit. Not cool

Never got to squish anyone

I then won Game 3 against a kind of wimpy Mardu deck but avoided the damn Dagger Caster/Blade brand combo.

I then won Game 4 against a Gates deck in sealed! They had the ram and the angel but was able to thwomp them with counters flying due to Simic Ascendancy.

Then lost two more in a row and dropped after 6 rounds. I needed to get home

But then someone I knew said "Hey lets do this quick fire draft. $20 bucks!" I still had $55 on my "mad money" budget so yeah why not. It was single elimination but winner would get enough prize tickets to buy a booster box. Lets go!

I lost in game 1. I went Rakdos (Black and Red) and tried to go very small with 5 one drops and then some sacrifice value to sneak in the Blood Mist Infiltrator. I had 3 (THREE!?) Get the Points which helped but did not show up when I got run over by that 2/5 unblockable knight with High Alert on the table. I hate High Alert and all the toughness matters/butt fight shenanigans. And I loved Walls as a kid and butts now!

Please burn all copies of this card

But I had fun and got lots of cool swag. A Simic Pin for my work bad. An Azorius "Comply" shirt to confuse people with. A Noble Hierarch for Rafiq EDH for only $36! And some other EDH goodies. Thank you, SCG!

Honestly never thought I would own this card.

I get why people travel for these. It helped that the Pro Tour was there ^^ but I played against people from Windsor, ON and Raleigh, NC. A lot of people from Cleveland or Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Columbus but yeah it was fun. Highly recommend.



*During the peak of The Office's (US) popularity, NBC actually ran a sort of mini game/social media website called Dunder Mifflin Infinity where fans could join branches (usually based on location) and try to win "prizes" (nothing real. It was stuff you could put on your digital desk. The Newton's Cradle was a TON of points) by playing games as team. I was part of the Rochester, NY branch (at the time I lived maybe 1.5 hours away in upstate NY**) and we won two years (seasons) in a row

**This is the caveat that Rochester is not upstate NY but Western NY. Upstate is like Mexico, NY or Fort Drum. Really back of beyond stuff. But unless you live/lived there it is much easier to say anything not in NYC is "upstate."

***The game can be played a million different ways. Formats restrict what kinds of cards you can play. Their age, their numbers. Some cards break the game by circumventing the rules and are banned. Some formats are hyper competitive and others are very casual. This makes the game very fun but also sometimes scary because your "kitchen table" deck getting steamrolled by someone's hyper tuned $1000 modern deck just sucks.

****And boy do I feel better about myself when I go to these. Because there is always someone weirder or fatter than me. But overall people are nice which is wonderful to see knowing how vocal some of the nastier elements of the community can be online. I would link to them but fear getting the troll on me and this master blog!

*****In theory you can play MTG with just the cards as they are. But, that is akin to child abuse in anything but the maddest player's eyes. You need to sleeve those cards. Would you have a phone without a case?!

******This is MJ vs Kobe VS Lebron level anger. Stay out to be safe. And its John Finkel! JOHNNY FUCKING MAGIC!

^Started going nuts with the stars. I am very lucky in life. I don't have some horrible disease. My kids don't. I was born in the United States in a post world war and post cold war ear of relative peace and prosperity. I had a privileged education and it allows me to code switch so i get all the benefits of being a straight, white guy even though I am only 2 of those things. And I have a family, a house, time and money to spend on MTG, a super smart sexy wife who supports all this with infinite patience, and a decent job with people who honestly appreciate me. And that job has a ton of smart people who make me better. And that job also has a ton of super good looking people at it! I am living my best life indeed. This really is just a game guys.

^^Some Pros who did not make Day 2 of the Pro Tour signed up for the GP main event. Which is terrifying because I saw Luis Scott Vargas, Gaby Spartz, and Gerard Fabiano! Imagine you signed up for a pick up basketball game at the Y and you can randomly be paired against Lebron James.Except you had to pay for the pleasure of your guaranteed loss!