Probably my second-favorite flavor text of all time. My favorite has always been “Do not react; anticipate” because it’s such a good mantra for strategic interaction, and for much of my life I assumed it was from some relevant, cool card but apparently I picked it up from this Portal goofball.
Anyway.
This is a tournament report. In the closest thing I've ever had to a cultural identity (early tournament Magic), a tournament report is something you get to, and must, write when you do well in a tournament. Writing is a way people used to create Magic content. (The upside of tournament reports being a dead art form is that nobody seems to have used the M10 Lightning Bolt flavor text as a motif for one yet, so, mise.)
Looking back at my Magic career, it’d be easy to call myself a has-been, but never-was would be more accurate. TOGIT was my local store, and as Team TOGIT ascended to being a force on the Pro Tour in the early 2000s, I was always treated as a sort of junior member just because I was younger than the rest on the team, and also because I was substantially worse at Magic and far less accomplished than them.
Looking back at my Magic career, it’d be easy to call myself a has-been, but never-was would be more accurate. TOGIT was my local store, and as Team TOGIT ascended to being a force on the Pro Tour in the early 2000s, I was always treated as a sort of junior member just because I was younger than the rest on the team, and also because I was substantially worse at Magic and far less accomplished than them.
I played in the 2001 Junior Super Series Championship and 2002 US Nationals but never played in a Pro Tour. I stopped playing Constructed when poker got more interesting than Skullclamp mirrors, but I never stopped drafting, because Limited rules. For the past few decades, I’d compete in any big local Limited tournament with prizes other than qualifying to play Constructed somewhere (which is not a prize). For a while, that meant a GP every few years. Then, for a while after that, it meant nothing at all. Lately, it has meant Arena events, which I love but do not scratch the aesthetic itches of paper play.
So the 2027 Limited Championship announcement got my attention. Even with no realistic expectation of qualifying through just the few local 4-slot PTQs (Limited Championship Qualifiers, but we’re honoring the old ways), the PTQs themselves would be a satisfying level of competition, and who knows if these would continue after this year. Might as well give it my all.
I made a lonely trek to SCG CON Richmond a few months ago for the first one, which started at 8:30am on the literal first day of Daylight Savings Time and used Magic cards that literally had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. Only 184 players bothered with those inconveniences. I lost in the quarterfinals, knowing that I had missed on the best shot I was going to get in terms of field size, but, as a never-was 40-year-old, even making the cut to the draft rounds felt amazing.
Cut to SCG CON Washington DC a few days ago, which had neither of those inconveniences:
My table for deck registration seems to be mostly locals and regular convention-goers in their second or third full day of Magic of the weekend, just playing the biggest event available on each particular day. We cut it up about how daunting the field size is. A fellow offers up a simple strategy to the table: just don’t lose any matches. We both agreed to do so. He let me down.
I take an unexplainable pride in being the fastest card sorter. Nobody else visible from my seat is done with their pool registration as I finish mine. Still got it.
My pool is a clear UG build with a few interesting decisions on the margins. I’d rather my Blue decks have more interaction and colors than this, but when that’s not possible, good big creatures and a more assertive midrange game plan has played better than expected in Sealed relative to Draft, in my experience. The deck feels pretty average overall and I am not expecting to have good matchups in the winner’s bracket as the day goes on.
So the 2027 Limited Championship announcement got my attention. Even with no realistic expectation of qualifying through just the few local 4-slot PTQs (Limited Championship Qualifiers, but we’re honoring the old ways), the PTQs themselves would be a satisfying level of competition, and who knows if these would continue after this year. Might as well give it my all.
I made a lonely trek to SCG CON Richmond a few months ago for the first one, which started at 8:30am on the literal first day of Daylight Savings Time and used Magic cards that literally had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them. Only 184 players bothered with those inconveniences. I lost in the quarterfinals, knowing that I had missed on the best shot I was going to get in terms of field size, but, as a never-was 40-year-old, even making the cut to the draft rounds felt amazing.
Cut to SCG CON Washington DC a few days ago, which had neither of those inconveniences:
I take an unexplainable pride in being the fastest card sorter. Nobody else visible from my seat is done with their pool registration as I finish mine. Still got it.
My pool is a clear UG build with a few interesting decisions on the margins. I’d rather my Blue decks have more interaction and colors than this, but when that’s not possible, good big creatures and a more assertive midrange game plan has played better than expected in Sealed relative to Draft, in my experience. The deck feels pretty average overall and I am not expecting to have good matchups in the winner’s bracket as the day goes on.
Round 1: Sam, 2-0 (1-0)
Sam’s WBR deck has decent card quality but low aggression and can’t win the attrition game, so I take over pretty quickly. After the match, he asks for deck advice, and the deeper Red splash was too ambitious, better to just play all 23 of his playable White and Black cards. I suspect a lot of people in the room would have been better off playing straight two colors, which I would have done too if not for Environmental Scientist and Proctor’s Gaze and a dual making it cheap enough.
I win my first of many games via lethal Mathemagics. Sadly, I never quite reach the level of rapport with any of my opponents to reach across the table and flip their deck into their lap like on Arena.
I accidentally submit the result as 1-0 instead of 2-0, so I have to go to the scorekeeper’s booth and tell them I’m a doofus. I’ll go on the record as missing the aesthetics of signing a match slip, but also that my feelings are wrong in this case.
Round 2: Nicolas, 2-1 (2-0)
Nicolas is deftly piloting a multicolored soup deck with strong card draw and removal, and we play three very close games. Stock Up is a real uphill battle for me. At some point, after tapping out for some card draw spell, I get to Force of Will a removal spell to great effect and to a delighted laugh of surprise. All of my opponents were good sports about Force of Will. I still wish I could have Dazed someone, or gotten Dazed at some point.
I’m met with an interesting Mathemagics decision on my final turn of the final game. I’m extremely dead on board next turn, I have 12 mana available, and he has had one card in hand for a while, probably nothing. He has exactly 16 cards in his library, so I can choose between spending 10 to have him draw exactly his deck, playing around Quandrix Charm and Spell Pierce but dying if his single-Mountain deck contains a Burst Lightning or Vibrant Outburst, or I can tap out to make him draw 32 and not give him a chance to hit instant burn. Not having seen any of either category of these after seeing most of his deck in the first two games, I decided to play around the counter. It worked out, but I’m still not sure if it was right.
My first clear mistake of the day was on this same turn: counting his library before moving through combat to put a counter on my Topiary Lecturer with Additive Evolution, which opened up the possibility of losing on the spot if his last card was creature removal and he figured out that he was about to get exponentiated out of the game.
Round 3: Jon, 2-0 (3-0)
Jon’s got a URW deck with strong one-for-one interaction, but less card draw and no aggressive draws to get under me. I’m able to pick off what matters and win this one pretty smoothly.
I’ve been continually impressed in both PTQs this year by how many of my opponents have a great time even when they’re losing. That’s pretty different from the early days. Kudos to the culture getting less toxic overall. I’ve gotten much better at keeping the game fun regardless of the swings, and I'd like to think I'm part of my opponents' good experiences. I’ll credit that to the 10,000 hours of poker, career around empathetic optimization (I write a free weekly productivity newsletter now, if you want to hear from me more often) and general maturity that I’ve acquired since my previous PTQ era.
My quick match was timed perfectly for a proper lunch. My buddy Howard stops by the con to say hey, join me for a sandwich and to heckle my next match. Howard’s newer to the game but getting better quickly. He promises to play in the next local Sealed PTQ. (OK, he didn’t promise, I’m just writing that to pressure him further.)
Round 4: Gabriel, 2-1 (4-0)
I'm fortunate to sneak through a pretty tough matchup here. In Game 1, he plays several Swamps and a W/R dual land, doesn’t cast much, and loses quickly. In Game 2, he reveals his true colors (Black/Green splashing Practiced Offense) with aggressive creatures that can go toe-to-toe with mine and a Diary of Dreams that can keep up with my own card draw. He takes Game 2, but I eke it out in Game 3, after which he reveals that he never drew Professor Dellian Fel or Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer, each of whom would have been tough unless I had a turbo math draw.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I remember that I am old. It is easy to forget while I'm playing.
Round 5: Juno, 2-0 (5-0)
Juno’s got a solid Black/Green aggressive deck that I suspect had better cards than I saw. I see my good cards and win a quick Game 1 against some mana stumbles and a long, super close Game 2 racing a Cauldron of Essence returning Sneering Shadewriter.
I’ve never been good at tiebreaker math, and it's not the sort of skill that gets better through prolonged unpractice. I had assumed that 5-0-2 would either not work or be too risky, but everyone’s talking about how it does work. I do some pen and paper combinatorics and attract a crowd of some of the other 5-0s, all of whom also insist that they’re also bad at tiebreaker math, to work together to figure it out.
During the course of this, I meet Matthew, an easygoing, seasoned RCQ player newer to the math of larger events. We strike up a burgeoning tournament friendship and I share some of my extra snacks with him.
I also find Tommy, a fellow dinosaur, among the 5-0s. In doing so, I realize that he is likely the only one of the other 511 players in this tournament that I in any way know, which is a feeling that comes with some sadness for a hometown PTQ, but one is a lot better than zero. We chat about being 40 and our deep passions for Invasion block.
Eventually, people who are good at tiebreaker math join us and confirm that double-drawing is quite safe. All 6-1s will make the Top 32 cut no matter what, and if every 5-0 player is able to draw their next two rounds, they all will, too. The only risk is in a 5-0-1 getting paired down or paired up with a player who can’t or doesn’t want to draw. Overall, the plan of drawing twice should convert at least 85-90% of 5-0s versus 75% for those who choose to play two win-and-ins. But, the 5-0-2s will be in the bottom half of the Top 32 standings and thus have to be on the draw in most of their elimination matches, which is significant. The double-draw route also burns somewhere between $50 and $100 of equity for the prize wall.
One of the early participants in my math circle, Jin, says he likes his deck and values the play/draw and prize tickets, so early in the discussion he decides to play it out and take fate into his own hands, happy to blame himself if he goes lose-lose. Fair enough, and gotta admire the conviction.
Round 6: Jin, 1-1-1 (5-0-1)
Sure enough, I’m paired with the only guy who wants to play. The rest of the top table is empty, so we stretch out and settle in. On an emotional level, I am happy to battle, but strategically, I am not liking my chances against a good 5-0 deck, though Jin did reveal while goldfishing that he’s playing a Wild Hypothesis, which I ribbed him about, so I’m curious to see what’s up there.
Jin’s got an assertive URG deck. I win Game 1 against a slower draw of his as he plays a Muse’s Encouragement and a Colorstorm Stallion, which explains both the Muse’s Encouragement and the Wild Hypothesis. Game 2 is tight as I’m facing down the Colorstorm Stallion again and Jin has 8 mana and 2 cards in hand that it feels like he’s setting up, but I think I’ll be able to race it. Those 2 cards end up being a second Colorstorm Stallion and a 5-drop spell, and I very much am not able to race that. Yep, not that wild of a Hypothesis at all.
After that Game 2, Jin changes his mind and offers the draw, which I accept. He admits that he has given up his conviction in favor of cowardice. Honestly, I gotta admire that even more.
Round 7: Richard, 0-0-3 (5-0-2)
It ends up being a perfect clean cut with no pair-downs, so all 5-0-1s are able to lock with a draw.
I use my time to get healthy food, which means I’m not among the first to receive my prize tickets, leaving slim pickings. I’m stuck with two Spider-Man boxes. No regrets prioritizing dinner, though.
I catch up with my old teammate Carlos and allow my mind to be boggled at the dealer booths by what the cards I once owned would now be worth.
The event is officially closed just before the Top 32 drafts begin, and the hall becomes almost entirely empty of players. We enjoy the bliss of a called draft with the classic soundtrack, a cacophony of disassembling vendor booths and tables. The vibes are perfect.
I open Green Emeritus, follow it up with Potioner's Trove and then basically all the monogreen cards seen above. Tester of the Tangential and Quandrix Charm both table and I’ve got my eye on UG Small/Tempo as an open lane.
Pack 2 Pick 1 I open the UG dragon and I believe I get the Berta p2p2. Colorstorm Stallion and Stock Up come mid-pack, but there isn’t any multicolor/Converge in either direction, nor are the foundations of a dedicated UG Small deck flowing. Pack 3 I open Proctor’s Gaze and p3p2 Mind Into Matter and the deck fills out pretty nicely as UG Rares. It felt like another average UG deck overall, with too little interaction to be great, but in hindsight I was perhaps too pessimistic about both of my decks.
As we register our decks, the loudspeaker announces that somebody has won the Standard Regional Championship main event. We provide the sparsest applause I’ve ever heard.
The event is officially closed just before the Top 32 drafts begin, and the hall becomes almost entirely empty of players. We enjoy the bliss of a called draft with the classic soundtrack, a cacophony of disassembling vendor booths and tables. The vibes are perfect.
I open Green Emeritus, follow it up with Potioner's Trove and then basically all the monogreen cards seen above. Tester of the Tangential and Quandrix Charm both table and I’ve got my eye on UG Small/Tempo as an open lane.
Pack 2 Pick 1 I open the UG dragon and I believe I get the Berta p2p2. Colorstorm Stallion and Stock Up come mid-pack, but there isn’t any multicolor/Converge in either direction, nor are the foundations of a dedicated UG Small deck flowing. Pack 3 I open Proctor’s Gaze and p3p2 Mind Into Matter and the deck fills out pretty nicely as UG Rares. It felt like another average UG deck overall, with too little interaction to be great, but in hindsight I was perhaps too pessimistic about both of my decks.
As we register our decks, the loudspeaker announces that somebody has won the Standard Regional Championship main event. We provide the sparsest applause I’ve ever heard.
Quarterfinals: Jin again, 2-1
Jin’s also and once again on a URG deck that is spread out between the colors – apparently he started BW and barely made playables – with Splatter Technique and a solid spread of removal, card flow and countermagic. I enjoy getting Colorstorm Stallion revenge in Game 1, but he handles it and turns out to have another Colorstorm Stallion in this deck and runs me over with it. In Game 2, he draws tons of extra cards with a Muse Seeker that I manage to grind through and eventually turn the corner with via my dragon.
My lack of creature interaction has been a real pain point in the matchup already, and in Game 3, on the play, he casts Colorstorm Stallion on Turn 3 and attacks with it and a Studious First-Year. I have just a Tester of the Tangential, no 3-drop, and nothing in hand that will tame a wild, cloning horse, but I do have a Quandrix Charm, which he hasn’t seen yet. My only hope is to suspiciously not attack for one with Tester of the Tangential, pass, and hope he reads my reason for not attacking as me having something like Quick Study to grow to a 2/2 for the purposes of blocking the 1/2. Sure enough, not only does he attack with the Stallion, he casts the Rampant Growth first to make the Stallion a 4/4, so blocking plus Quandrix Charm works. I gradually pull ahead from there with various rares, and Jin notes after the game that he had an Abrade in hand on Turn 4 and got too greedy Rampant Growthing precombat to try to get an extra point in. Phew.
Semifinals: Kellen, 2-1
At this point, I’m not too tired yet.
Kellen and his buddy were chatting about how Kellen is already qualified for a split-format PT in Amsterdam. Kellen asks if I’m qualified for Amsterdam, which I take as a compliment on the way I carry myself, but I assure him that I am deeply unqualified for everything.
Kellen’s on WB no-rares, has seen most of my deck, and isn’t optimistic about his matchup. We have three quick games where I find a nut draw in Game 1 and he stumbles on his draws in Game 3.
I’m on to the finals and already at a new personal best for PTQs. I’ll be playing the winner of Tommy and Matthew, promising a fun match either way, and both guys I’d be genuinely happy for if they took the slot. I decide to not look at their match as Tommy hasn't seen any of my deck and Matthew did, but seems willing to reciprocate.
I propose a footrace to the far side of the hall with another guy waiting for his finals match. I immediately remember that I’m no longer young enough for that, and he remembers, too. We take a nice walk instead.
Finals: Matthew, 2-1
At this point, I am tired. We both are.
Matthew prevailed over Tommy, so it’s a new-friend finals rather than an old-friend finals. Matthew was to my immediate right on the draft and has a strong WR deck with Ark of Hunger, Hardened Academic, all the fixin’s, an aggressive bent. We share some more of my snacks before getting into it.
Game 1 is an unsubtle gift of luck as Matthew floods out hard. Let there be no doubt that it takes a lot of this to win a big tournament. I am embarrassed by the amount of unwanted excitement prematurely entering my brain. I hoped to be better than this, even when tired. Something to improve on.
Game 2 is a slog against a pair of Spirit Mascots and a Tackle Artist that are growing faster than I’ve ever seen them grow, via Dig Site Inventory and the like. I have a solid board but am struggling to protect my life total against the ever-growing trampler. The Tackle Artist becomes a 9/8, I haven’t drawn either of my bounce spells yet, and it’s a problem. I end up having to block it with my entire board and hope he doesn’t have two removal spells, but he does, and that's it for me in Game 2.
At some point in one of these games, I attack a 3/3 Cuboid Colony into a 4/4 Magmablood Archaic, which has reach. I do not accept the overly generous offer to take it back, though I do appreciate it. Just a little bit more, brain.
In Game 3, he fires off Monstrous Rage on a Spirit Mascot on Turn 3 just to push damage, then soon thereafter flashes back Monstrous Rage with Practiced Scrollsmith, and I fall to 8 pretty quickly even as I develop my board quickly with an uncontested Berta.
I cast my dragon. Even if I get a decent hit off the cascade, I may be in trouble if he has one of at least two possible removal spells for it.
The dragon cascades into Noxious Newt. I say “Hello, newt!”, because that’s something my preschooler says constantly for no reason. I remember that I’m a father. This Noxious Newt will be in his binder tomorrow and that’s the only outcome he’s going to care about.
The dragon sticks.
The dragon sticks.
A few turns later, it’s over.
A deeply satisfying handshake sloughs off the last shreds of my focus. I find myself in a hall suddenly completely empty of players, all three other pods apparently having finished before us. I won the final game of Magic of the entire convention weekend. I end up in 1st place in the standings on tiebreakers, which doesn’t particularly mean anything when the Top 4 each get the same prize, but when this breaks your way, you take it.
Qualifying for my first PT ever, over 20 years after my heyday, is a lot. Happiness, pride, disbelief. Vindication for my teenage self whose Centaur Glade couldn’t get him past the Top 4. Excitement for the opportunity to push myself towards a new challenge.
I ask if there’s a blue envelope. Of course, there isn’t anymore.
They take my winner’s photo. I look pretty good for having played Magic for 14 hours. I look pretty good for having played Magic for 28 years.
Image credit Star City GamesThe TEAM TOGIT letters have long since started to fade on the back of that shirt, and the emptiness of the room reminds me of the ruins of that storefront, frozen in time long after it closed for good a few years ago. I text the news to a few members of the old crew. Patrick snap-calls me, his celebratory shouts loud enough to echo through the convention hall and to echo through the decades of my past.
There’s going to be another Pro Tour where people just draft.
And I’m going to be one of those people.
Here’s to fierce energies never thought to be seen again.
Props
- Limited Level-Ups, Lords of Limited, Play of the Game & Rough Drafts for their work, we are in the golden age of Limited strategy podcasts and this is the closest I had to a team
- Quandrix Charm
- medium UG math
- intentional draw math
- SCG judges and staff for keeping a tight schedule running smoothly and quickly, I did not expect winners before midnight and figured my play would degrade much faster than my opponents' in the late hours, but thankfully it was over by 10:30
- camaraderie
- Tales of Adventure for good chats & buying my Force of Will
- Huey, who I assume deserves much of the credit for the Limited Championship existing
- Unconventional Diner, who had a delicious takeout salmon dinner order ready for me in under 10 minutes
- the player somewhere in the Swiss who cast a Prismari Charm to deal 2 damage to a single target, yielding a 30-minute time extension due to a cheating investigation
- Magmablood Archaic for having reach
- myself because I did already know that
- Spider-Man boxes
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