At the Kitchen Table

I took my Dragon deck to FNM last night. This was at the shop in Nova Scotia where I learned to play (well.. between the shop and home). I went 3-1, loosing to a friend who loosing to is no shame.

One especially poignant moment was when I smashed the fellow that gave me my early schooling in Magic at the hands of his Blink-Hellkite deck. Beating him with Dragons was especially apropos.

If you haven’t read about Richard Garfield’s gunslinging deck at Worlds, check out his match against Aaron Forsythe.

Come on wizards… you have to publish those cards in some form. Even gatherer size images that we can use to proxy up the deck. Even a text spoiler of his deck. It looked like so much fun! Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to play him.

I started chatting with someone in between events… cool dude… I’ll let him remain anonymous. We finish a game and he pulls out his cellphone… “I got a photo of me touching Serah Angel’s boob.” He did, indeed. Priceless.

It was the finals match in individual competition between Antti Malin and Jamie Parke. I’d been watching the coverage on the big screen and needed to walk around a bit. I decided to try to get some shoots of the match. Now they’d restructured the feature match area brought in the coverage cameras, including a boom, and cordoned the whole area off.

So there I was zoomed to the max, trying to get some shots (note to self.. screw portability and go for quality: take a real camera next time, you’ll want it). Anyway.. I digress. So I’m taking shots… Up walks Scott Larabee. “Hey”, I’m thinking to myself “I’m outside the ropes.”

“Would you like to come in and take some pics?” (paraphrased based on memory) he asks. “Sure… how close can I get?” “Right up to the table… I’ll walk you in”. So I took a few shots at the table, the best is below.

That experience sort of exemplifies my whole feel of Worlds: very well run, but also very mindful of the fans and trying to make it as rich and rewarding of an experience as possible.

Wow.. what an incredible 4 days.

Now I have to sleep and catch my flight in the morning. I’ll be writing some posts reviewing my experience.

The crowd watching the individual finals. If Jamie Parke had won the match, the US would have taken every protour title this year.

Day 4 of worlds is rapidly passing. The final game in the national team events is underway. Once that’s over we switch to the finals of the individual competition. Some very exciting games. I’ve been watching the coverage, talking to people, taking photos, getting cards signed, and am currently in line to play Rob Douerty.

The next best thing to being tableside. Watching live coverage on the big screen, with Brian and Randy doing commentary in the booth on the lower right.

It’s Sunday morning at Worlds and that means top8. I’m watching in the viewing area. At the moment the focus isthe quarter final match between Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa (in 1st place going onto this) and Jamie Park (in 8th).

The photos below show the big screen and the commentary booth housing Brian David-Marshall and Randy Beuhler.

From the mouth of the director of Magic R&D, Aaron Forsythe “All cards will be black bordered from now on, white bordered cards are ugly” (slightly paraphrased from memory)