Nov 29

My first Top-8

dastels @ 11:33 pm

I had a good day today.

First, I played my first EDH game with my new (and fairly raw) deck. And won.

Then I took part in a sealed tournament. The deck I build was a somewhat random collection of decent cards… which garnered appreciative comments from friends.

I’m not sure how many players started, but when the standings were posted after round 4 (5 rounds total), there were 42 names on the list.

Round 1 went pretty quickly to me 2-0. Round 2 started with a loss, followed by 2 decisive victories to end at 2-1. I lost the next round 0-2… I hate being on the wrong end of a Realm Razer. But the loss was to the fellow who went on to the top-8 finals.. and may have won.. I left before that match ended. The next round was again a fairly sound defeat at 0-2.

So I was 2-2 after round 4. I was surprised when the standings went up that I was in 8th place.. leading the pack of folks with 6 points due to my tie breakers… if you have to loose, loose to someone good.

Round 5 was intense, as it was likely that only one of us would make top-8 and be in line for prizes. Game 1 went to me quickly in what looks like 6 turns (based on my life totals record) with me still at 20. Game two was hard fought but again only 6 or 7 turns, with me loosing while my opponent was still at 5. Now things got intense… game 3. Once again, in what looks like 8 turns, I’d pulled off another win with the help of Broodmate Dragon who was my MVP all day.

So I was into the Top-8. My first Top-8!

The draft went well… giving me with a strong esper/gryxis hybrid.. with 2 Master of Etherium and a Prince of Thralls and a pile of other fun artifact cards. I’ve started picking colour fixers (tri-lands, panorams, and obilisks) earlier, and the decks are proving easier to build and play.

Alas… in the quarterfinals I found myself seated across the table from Mr. Realm Razer that I lost to in round 3 of the swiss. And guess what.. he’d drafted a realmrazor. Sigh. Anyway… I made top-8, had a full day of fun magic, came out a few $ ahead (so… really… I can claim that I’ve made money playing magic), and left with a few nice rares for trade use.