Welcome back. This is Part Three of the extremely long story of one man’s trek through a State Championship Tournament.

If you missed Part One or Two, you should check here, where you will find the archive of all the parts of this story. Make sure you read them in order, or you may miss something important and/or funny.

Part Three

“PAIRINGS!”

“Crap, I forgot to hit the toilet between rounds. Well, I guess win, lose, or… no, a draw would last an hour, I need to finish this game quick.”

The day had been going surprisingly well so far. The side events were about to start and I was still in the main event. Actually, I was quite alive in the main event at that point. To quickly recap, I started off at table six, swept the guy, moved backwards to around table 39, swept that match, and then ended up back at table 60!

"Here we go again, fighting through the crowds." I should note here that the crowd seemed to be dissipating. I would have wagered that around 100 to 200 people had dropped and enrolled in the side events. "Suckers. Thanks for paying the entry fee!"

"Who am I kidding,” I thought, "according to my estimations, I was going to be the first sucker." I didn’t understand how the deck could have utterly failed the previous night and then run so wildly the day of the tournament. It was almost like the deck was resting during Friday Night Magic. I knew that I was on to something with this build, but I never could have anticipated it doing so well.

"Ah, here we go, let’s see… table… 25! Oh yea, going the right direction finally. Why don’t we all just go in a circular fashion to find out the pairings? Why do we all just run as fast as possible and create the biggest traffic jam this side of New York City? Then we can all stand around looking at each other like… ‘Move?’ We really are a bunch of idiots."

I walked back across the room and found my familiar spot at table 25, which was directly in front of the seat I had in round two. "Wow, most of the guys I was sitting with before have fallen to the back of the room," I thought to myself. "This should be interesting." Normally I would have taken a loss by the third round, so I was not used to this crowd of 3-0 guys. "Hopefully, getting paired down last round won’t hurt my chances too much. I am not exactly sure how the tie breakers work, but I am guessing that having beaten guys with good win percentages is better than beating guys with bad win percentages.

"Here comes my opponent." He was a tall lanky guy who could have used a shave that morning. He arrived at the table and warmly shook my hand. Taking a look at his posture, I could see no indication that he was out of place, or that he was nervous. He pulled his deck out of his breast pocket and then set down his sideboard. I noted that his side was sleeved already. He was a seasoned vet. A normal guy wouldn’t sleeve his sideboard, as most packs of sleeves only come packaged in sets of 60. He had 75 sleeved cards. He knew what he was doing.

“How are you doing today?” I asked nicely with a smile.

“I am doing well, surprisingly. I thought I would see more artifact hate than I have thus far.” I rolled my inner eyes. "Why the hell would you give away your deck so easily before everyone has had a chance to even sit down?" I thought. "Expecting to see more artifact hate means he is playing Affinity. That means I bring in my four copies of Shatter in game two and begin breaking his lands on turn two. Not to mention how much artifact hate he is about to see in game one. I think I will make up for the amount that he missed in rounds one through three."

The game started off with a quick jump for him. Artifact lands and cheap Welding Jars sprung into being, which brought Frogmite and then a Myr Enforcer. I was holding two Starstorms, an Oblivion Stone, and two Demolish. “Wow. What the heck deck, where the hell were you last night?" The sheer quantity of creature removal was too much for him to overcome, and I soon won game one.

As predicted, I brought in my Shatters next game and it didn’t last very long either. I got in a quick potty break and sat and waited for my team members to finish their games. Reflecting back for a moment, "I am surprised at how low the number of lands I have actually killed is today. Considering that I am running four Stone Rain, Molten Rain, Lay Waste, and three Demolish, you’d think I’d be a pillaging mo-fo, but instead I am the King of Starstorm and Oblivion Stone today. While I don’t understand it, I will certainly take it!"

Slowly the guys straggled in. I could see by their faces how they did. It looked like Sam lost again. Tysene looked zoned out, and therefore I’d have said he was schooled by someone. Patrick was having a loud discussion with one of the judges across the way, so it was probably safe to assume an "L" there as well. Looking around, I finally found Ryan getting up from his table. He shook his opponent’s hand, looked to our group, and gave a big smile and a thumbs-up. That made the current standings: Chris and Ryan 4-0, Tysene 3-1, and Sam and Patrick 2-2. "That is better than I would have anticipated when I woke up this morning."

Patrick declared upon arrival that if he lost another game he was dropping and Tysene agreed with him. "I’d say that they will both be dropping after this round, then." Sam, the warrior that he is, was determined to make this his deck work. He made a declaration that he would fight it out to the bitter end. On the other hand, Ryan was a complete goof ball, and really wanted to just drop and enter the draft over in the side events. After threatening to break a few legs, Patrick convinced Ryan to at least wait for two losses before bouncing.

“PAIRINGS!”

"Here we go again." I found myself to be a lot calmer by that point and more confident as well. So much so that I decided to pull an a-hole move. I decided to hit the toilet then, and make my opponent wait for me. After a bit, I finally made it over to the wall and noticed that the crowd had almost completely found their way to the tables and I could easily get to the pairing sheets. "Why didn’t I think to do it like this more often? " There was next to no wait for the restroom, and no wait for the pairings sheets.

"Ohh... table 12. This is getting good."

I headed on over to my seat and met up with a normal guy. Completely normal, except that he was much too overweight for the clothing he was wearing and his lip rings and earrings were digging into his flesh. "I didn’t think your ears would get fat as you got fat. You learn something new every day, apparently. Thank God I attended this event, or I would have never known that your ears can be fat."

I offered him a hand shake and a good luck, and he offered me the weakest handshake in the history of the world. In my realm of the universe, a weak hand shake is a sign of disrespect. He didn’t think enough of me to SHAKE my hand, and just merely pushed his big mitt out there and pointed in the general direction of my hand. "You mean to tell me that you couldn’t close your hand?"

The guy immediately gave away his deck build by simply existing. If he was not able to shake a man’s hand, he sure as heck was not an aggressive person and therefore was not playing Aggro, which eliminated Goblins, Red Deck Wins, and Affinity. His garbage-looking clothing and numerous piercings told me that he was not the most patient person and liked to be different, so he was not playing UW Control. The only thing left to be a serious contender and be 4-0 at that point was Slide. After shuffling up and offering my cut, I watched him while he adjusted his life counter. I must admit that I had not seen a Scry Life Counter in years, however what he did do (that could have been a mistake) was that he left his deck face up on the table while setting the counter. Of course there would be a Lightning Rift sitting on top. Foil-y and pretty I might point out. "If memory serves, I have already beaten, no, swept two Slide decks this morning… afternoon… what the hell time is it anyways?"

“That is a very pretty foil there.” A slightly embarrassed smile crossed his face and he showed a sign of humanity. Flipping the deck over he found his 20 sided die and we began our game.

Game one went as predictably as possible. My LD spells showed up in quantity and I pounded his Plains into the dirt. He continued to hold out some semblance of hope as he was able to plainscycle Eternal Dragons for a time in an effort to keep his White mana count at one, however he was never able to draw into an Astral Slide, and Lighting Rift only deals two damage; Stalking Stones requires three damage to be killed.

Game two resulted in something that I had not experienced all day, my first loss. He mulliganed twice to start and I learned the reason for this on turn two. He needed to desperately get a Sacred Ground and then slowly pounded my face. It is too bad that I was so scared of running into Goblins and Affinity that I could not fit Stabilizer in my side.

Game three was a good game. He again mulliganed twice, however this time my deck responded. On turn two, he played a Circle of Protection: Red. I followed with a Stone Rain. He then played another land and out came Sacred Ground. I followed that up with an Oblivion Stone. His face revealed shock. “He must not have brought any Disenchanting spells in. Uh oh....” I then concluded that I had the upper hand, as he began to cast spells in order to try and trigger the Stone. I knew that he probably had another Sacred Ground and probably a Slide in his hand, as he was not wasting his cycling stuff until he could get control of the board.

After staring at him for a time of land, go, land, go, I blew up the Disk... er... Stone at the end of his turn. On my turn, I was able to cast three LD spells - two Stone Rains and a Molten Rain - crippling his White mana base. He ended my turn by plainscycling, and then putting out another Sacred Ground. I took the opportunity provided to me by his using all of his White to cast two Blazing Firecats and brought him down by 14 points. The following turn I needed to use a Starstorm to kill a face-down Exalted Angel, and then I top-decked another Oblivion Stone to really grab the man by his neck.

Then a funny thing happened. I drew a Siege-Gang Commander. I had forgotten that I added him to the deck earlier in the week. This was the first time that I had drawn him all tournament. What was my opponent going to do, Astral Slide him? Reminding myself that he was at six life, I set the Commander on the table and waited for my opportunity. He ended my turn by trying to Starstorm my guys away, and I responded by blowing up three Goblins in his face for the victory.

Back at the waiting spot, I was feeling really good. I had never been 5-0 before, and was stunned to be doing so well after wanting to take a blow torch to the deck just the night before. I had even overheard some guys talking while the previous game was going on. They were saying that they didn’t want to run into me, as they were not prepared for Ponza, which kind of made me mad. "This is not Ponza, this is ‘Old School’ Land Destruction. I pound your mana base into the ground and when I am ready, I kill you. Ponza barely disrupts your mana flow, just enough to hinder you and attacks with good quality creatures. Does Blistering Firecat jump out as a good quality creature to you? He can’t even block as a face up creature. Well, that is not true. I did kill an Angel earlier with my Firecat. He thought he was going to use his Angel as creature removal; attacking with the Angel while face down. I blocked with my face down 'Mystery Creature,' and when he flipped his, revealing an Angel, I flipped mine, revealing a dead Angel."

After reminiscing for a bit, I noticed Patrick approaching, and the look on his face told stories. He had lost, dropped, and he was not happy about it. Looking past him, I saw Tysene walking in his normal depressed manner. Sam looked happier, so I assume a victory there and Ryan was, again, nowhere to be found.

After a bit of chatter, I discovered that Patrick’s deck had shut down. He was playing against Affinity in the back of the room and his deck only gave him lands. "It’s tough to deal with Broodstar with a fistful of Plains," he had remarked. Tysene came across a Goblin deck and after giving a detailed, hand-gestured story, which I will spare you, he revealed that he won again, which surprised me as I thought from his posture that he had lost. Sam told us that he had played against a kid with a really bad White Weenie deck and then told us about this kid who sat down next to him.

“Are you kidding me? I played him earlier!" I shouted. "Little jerk sat down and wanted to tell his buddy my hand.”

“Yea, I threatened to break his nose if he so much as looked across the table. He left shortly afterward.”

"What a jerk. Even cheating, he can’t get to the front of the room," I thought.

“PAIRINGS!”

"Damn, what time is it? I haven’t eaten in some time and I forgot to hit the toilet again." I followed my pattern from last round and this time I found myself seated at table 9. I was really feeling confident with myself and my deck. The fact that I was not playing a deck that everyone was prepared for was working well for me. “Hopefully that trend continues.”

I approached the table and found myself playing my first ever Asian player. I had always wanted to play against an Asian player. The hype was that they are so much better than American players and are always a step ahead of us. Here was my chance!

…to be continued.

cpn

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