In that year alot happened. I moved back from Florida to New York, leaving my best friend, for the hope of a better future. I met my wife. I changed careers. I quit Yu-Gi-Oh due to the format turning towards a more luck based combo architecture, and the lack of a tournament I could attend regularly. I tried to play serious Versus system card game, and actually won quite a few tournaments, but then they stopped having them. Apparently, if the same 10 guys show up every week, and the same guy trouces them everyweek no matter what deck he plays...people stop coming. Weird right?
So, with two games now defunct, I turned to my casual game to keep my skills semi-sharp, and reconnected with my best friend who'd been frosty to me for the past couple of months. He apologized for this, and admitted that I'd been a really good friend to him. This is atypical for my friend, or most guys for that matter. He also wanted me to try drafting Magic.
For those of you unfamiliar with drafts, the format is simple. Each person has three packs of 15 cards. You open the pack, take what you think is the best card in the pack, and then pass it down the line. Then you get passed another pack, and you choose the best card for your draft deck, and the process continues. In the end you have 45 cards, which you then trim to the best 23, add 17 lands, and play against the other people in the draft. This is alot more skill intensive then it seems, and it took me years to be able to win a draft. I accomplished that within my first year. I now win at least the first round of draft more often then not.
My accomplishment this weekend revolved around constructed Magic though. Now I had been a top Yu-gi-oh and Versus player, however, in Magic I've yet to achieve that skill level. The main reson that I think are for two main reasons:
A) The shuffler algorithm in the online game has something wrong with it. You get land screwed(too little land) and land flooded (too much land, and not enough spells) far more then in paper (real life) Magic playing. I can admit when I've made mistakes in gameplay, but not being able to play your spells, or not drwing any spells is just a shitty way to lose.
B) I don't see my opponent. This is very crucial to my style of playing cards, and it's taken me a long time to adjust. I can usually read people very well, and I use this in my card playing. I can usually tell whether my opponent has the card he needs in hand, and much like playing poker this skill can make or break the game. Being deprived of that, one must always play with the assumption that the opponent has basically the worst possible card for you in his hand. This leads to very cautious gameplay, a style I've had to work on as it doesn't come naturally.
So over the last two years when I started to get really serious about constructed, I joined strategy websites, played all different kinds of decks, and I saw incremental improvement, but nothing really solid. Recently, I'd been thinking about giving up the game due to it's cost. It's the thing I spend money on the most. Though it's not alot in the long run, I had come to the conclusion that if I wasn't going to improve then I probably shouldn't waste money on this. Maybe I just wasn't cut out for playing Magic. I've been thinking about this for many months now. Then, this weekend happened.
Over the past week, I've participated in many tournaments. I had found a deck that I really knew how to play well, and decided to play that this particular weekend. For the first time, I won both an 8-man constructed standard. I'd won block (less cards and skill) before as well as extended (more cards, but more defined metagame then standard oddly), but never a Standard whose metagame is extremely hard to crack. Well this weekend I did it not once, but twice. I won an 8 man, and then the next morning I won a 60 man daily. I came in first place in each and won over 76 dollars in prizes. I was on cloud 9, and felt that I had completed some quest or journey.
Now my name will be among those of the decks of the week this Thursday on Magicthegathering.com along with my decklist. This only happens to the winners of Daily's, which is something I've never done before in any format.
This achievement was a really spectacular day for me, and thanks for letting me share it with you.
BTW, here's the decklist I used
9 Island
5 Plains
4 Path to Exile
4 Cryptic Command
3 Jace Beleren
4 Mulldrifter
4 Ponder
4 Sower of Temptation
3 Gargoyle Castle
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Reveillark
4 Meddling Mage
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Mystic Gate
Sideboard
3 Celestial Purge
3 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Hallowed Burial
1 Broken Ambitions
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Negate
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