Welcome back to the longest article series in the history of MDV. Now that we are at the final part, I'd like to thank you for sticking it out with me. You may be interested to know how long the article actually is. The entire article was 39 pages before I broke it up into eight parts, making it the longest single article in MDV history (at least to my knowledge).

That is right my friends; this is part eight, the final installment. Should all go well, you may walk your way in peace, knowing the result of this lengthy tournament.

Part Eight

Upon returning to the designated waiting spot, I noticed Patrick standing in a group of guys. Once he had seen me standing in our spot, he walked briskly over. “Even though you lost, you lost to a 9-0 guy, so you have a good tie breaker. The bad news for you is that you cannot lose again.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I sat down at the table and tried to clear my mind. Soon afterwards, Tysene and Ryan came over to see how I was doing. Patrick left to meet them halfway. I looked up and saw that he was chatting with them and Ryan glanced past him to me and frowned. I could only shrug to him in response.

Patrick returned with a smile, albeit a forced smile. “I tried to keep them away so you can focus. I uh, wanted to tell you that I am proud of you man. We’ve been to a lot of tournaments in our time, but this is the best we have done. Good job.”

I looked at him for a long time. I have known the man for basically my entire adult life; I know his family. I have seen him upset; I’ve seen him overjoyed by the birth of his child. I have seen him fight, and I have seen him on the verge of tears before, but this was something completely different. This went past a simple game of cardboard and mathematics. It went past probabilities and possibilities. It went past the metagame and the actual game. It went directly to the core of everything that I have ever held dearly. He was showing pride.

Pride, though it has always been called a sin, has also always been something that the rich man could never take from a poor man. The only way to lose one’s pride is to give it away; to allow someone to take it from you.

Looking at Patrick revealed a side that I had never seen, and that was pride in our team. I knew he had respect, and I knew he really, really wanted to win. I knew he really, really knew he didn’t have a chance in this tournament. I also knew that this very well may be our last chance at playing in a big tournament, as we were both getting close to the age of adult maturity and wanting to begin a family life and leaving the games behind.

All of that said; Patrick showed me a side of humanity that I didn’t know existed in him. It all began to fall into place for me. He had been talking to my deck earlier in the day. He took time to shuffle my deck up. He had quit the tournament early and yet never left my side. He had fought through the crowds to get to the pairings sheets so I didn’t have to. All of this was because of team pride.

“Patrick.”

“Yea, what’s up?”

“What was with you earlier? Talking to the deck and all?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yea.”

“I told it not to disappoint you today. That this is a big day, and we needed it to cooperate.” He paused and looked off into the distance. “And that if it failed you I would personally rip each and every card out its sleeve, wipe my butt with it, and flush it down the toilet.”

“If I lose this round, will the deck survive?”

“Oh yea. Dude, you are at worst in the top 100 of 650 people. You’ve beaten 5/6th of the field. You’ve done great.”

“What do you think of my chances?”

“Of top eight?”

“Yea.”

“Win and you are in I’d say. You have good tie breakers.” I nodded in understanding.

“Patrick.”

“Yea?”

“You know that you’re crazy right?” With that he laughed and then looked at me.

“Why?”

“Only a crazy man would hold a conversation with a Magic deck.”

“It worked didn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

“PAIRINGS!”

We hustled through the crowd and found our seat; Table 20. Upon finding the seat, there sat a guy. I don’t remember what he looked like. I don’t remember the deck he played. I don’t really even remember playing the game. I felt so tired and so out of it. I remember nothing except drawing my opening hand and seeing zero lands. I showed Patrick and he sighed. I mulliganed and again drew zero lands. A second mulligan revealed two lands and three spells.

He apparently won the game.

Game two revealed a one land then a two land opening hand. I was told that I struggled a bit with the guy and then was overpowered by bad luck and draws. Finally I fell, finishing the day off 7-3, and most likely out of the tournament.

We walked around for a minute, not speaking a word. We just walked, not knowing where to go, what to see, who to talk to. We just walked. Finally, “I can’t believe it just shut down,” Patrick said.

“You saw me shuffle.”

“I know. It was just like last night.”

I looked at him. “You’re right; the deck lasted eight and a half rounds, and then broke again.”

After a while, we finally drifted back to the meeting spot and sat down. Not too long afterwards, the final brackets were lifted and pasted to the wall. I got up and walked across the room only to not find my name listed anymore. I returned to the table and shook my head. Patrick nodded in understanding. A little later Tysene and Ryan returned and received the news.

They had done well in the draft they took part in and had received some product and offered to share it. I shook them off, as I really just wanted to head home. It had to be around midnight, and I was very tired.

As I gathered up my things, Patrick looked at me and asked, “Don’t you want to know your final standing?”

“Nah. 50th place is the 49th loser. Let’s just get out of here.”

Just then the head official stepped up to the mic and announced that the final positions for places nine and down were official and we could take a look and see where we finished. He then made mention that due to the tournament size prizes were extended down to the 32nd finisher.

What were the odds? What the hell?

We went as a group to the final rankings and began to look for my name. Just then Sam arrived. “I finally found you guys.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Ryan asked.

“I was in the main event still. I finished 6-4. This is the best day ever!” As he said that, I found my name. I do believe that Sam was right; this was the best day ever. My name was next to the number 31. I had earned a prize.

We all jumped for joy, if you really could do that, and hurried to the judge’s stand. I gave him my name and number and he looked me up. “Sure enough, you have placed 31st. Congratulations. Would you like your product in Mirrodin or would you like some Onslaught Block packs?”

Surprised, I thought to myself, “I wonder how much I get?” “No, Mirrodin is fine sir.” He reached below and pulled out a booster box and reached again. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there. He again pulled up a box and set it down.

“Your prize is 195 dollars in product, which is approximately 60 packs. You can have one of these boxes, and all but four packs of the other. I’ll let you pick the packs you don’t want.”

I looked at Patrick and his mouth was dropped completely open. Again I didn’t know what to do, so Ryan stepped up and grabbed the first box and pulled it close to me, and then tore the plastic off of the second box. He grabbed two off the top, and then found two from the bottom and tossed them on the table in front of the judge. “There. Now you can have your prize.”

We took the cards and walked back to our waiting area. We were all silent as no one wanted to break the moment up. Finally I asked, “Should we open it here or at home?”

As if broken from a trance, Patrick stepped forward. “Wait!” He grabbed a pack and handed it to each of us; five packs for five people. “On the count of three, open your pack.” Each of us took our pack and held it at the ready. “To the Outsiders.” Each of the guys repeated it, and we all laughed at how corny we were. “We came, we saw, and we kicked a little [butt]!” Ryan helped Patrick out with the last bit, as he recognized the movie line. “Ready? One, two…” with that Patrick quickly tore open his pack so he could be first. We each followed suit and laughed again.

My pack had an Oblivion Stone in it as the rare, which was fitting, and with a grunt I slammed the card down on the table mightily. Patrick laughed out loud and we began a game which we would not allow anyone else to join in on, where we would open a pack face down, and then thumb through to the rare, which was the last card in the pack. Once we both had a rare, we would count down from three and slam the rare down face up revealing it to the crowd. The winner was the one with the better rare. In the case of a foil that was not a rare, that person would flip until finding the rare and pound it down. If it sucked the person could use the foil as their best card.

This game lasted for quite a while as you might guess, and brought many people to watch with a strange look on their faces, and yet in its own way, this was the best way we could have ended the day: Both friends and strangers standing around watching Patrick and myself making fools of ourselves, but enjoying every minute of it.

While you might think this the best way to end a long story, I would be remiss if I did not finish the story.

As we left, we again put in the Disturbed CD and were blasting through traffic at a mad pace trying to get home and get some well deserved rest. Once I got the car outside of Columbus, it was on. I was cruising at around 90 mph and with next to zero traffic on the road; I felt safe at this pace.

I looked into my left side mirror and saw break lights in the opposing direction of traffic. Wondering why I would see break lights on a highway, I saw the left turn signal blinking on and it occurred to me. ”Oh crap! That is a State Trooper turning around to ticket me!”

I quickly looked back up to the road and grunted and Patrick turned around to look. He observed the same thing and worry creased his forehead. I saw a sign that indicated an exit was coming up on the right, and so I darted towards it.

I barely made it on the pavement trying to make the quick turn, and then once off the exit I hit a hard left and pulled into a restaurant. As quick as I could I yelled, “Get out of the car now and get into the restaurant!” With that I bolted out of the car and into the restaurant. Laughing with an anxious worry we all stood in the place and watched out the window. Sure enough, the Highway Patrolman pulled into the drive, and then turned around, most likely unsure if this was the car he was after.

I released a nervous sigh and looked at the guys. “Hey, I think I’ll buy you all dinner. It’s my treat!”

“We should be buying you dinner,” Sam said.

“No way. I will gladly buy you guys dinner. $10 times five is only $50. If that Trooper had caught me, I bet court cost alone would have been $60. Let alone the ticket! Eat up boys!”

The End.

Now that the entire story has come to a conclusion, I'd like to know what you think. Did you enjoy the story? Did I leave out anything that you would have liked to see (besides deck lists, as that was done on purpose)? Are you able to see your screen after reading so many of my long winded articles?

Let me know what you think by heading over to the forums and leaving me some feedback.

cpn

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
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