There's a lot to talk about so let's get going.
My Gen Con started off on Wednesday evening where I played in the 3rd Annual Gen Con Old School tournament at the JW Marriott's Velocity Bar and Grill.
I believe there were 40 people in attendance and it was 5 rounds with a cut to the top 4 after that.
I only played in the first 4 rounds because there was a bye for me in the 5th. That was fine because I was not doing very well in the tournament and by that time I was four 22oz Bell's Two Hearted Ale's in.
Here is the deck I took. It is an experimental deck I am trying to make Mill work in Old School. The only real win con is Milling my opponent. The four Factorys are there as blockers.
UW Mill
Well none of my games went very well. Everyone was faster than I was. I wasn't able to get a lock on anyone with the Winter Orb and Icy Manipulator and I lost every match.
Even though I didn't do well I was able to meet a bunch of new people and I had a great time. I am excited to go to the Old School Players Ball in a few weeks and see some of the guys I met at this tournament.
I made some purchases at Gen Con that I think may help my UW Mill deck.
One thing to note about Gen Con is that there are more booths buying and selling Magic Cards than there are at any Magic Fest you will ever attend.
If you plan to go to Gen Con you should be wary of the different prices and also be on the look out for dealers selling rebacked cards and fakes by accident. I heard some stories about this from someone else who also attended Gen Con.
Here are my two favorite Magic booths to buy from; Graded Power and Mr. Nice Guy Games.
Graded Power only deals in sealed product and Old School singles, both Graded and not. They have the best prices of anyone at the con and truly do base their prices on condition. I spent a lot of money at their booth both this year and last. They also have booster packs from almost every set.
The other booth is Mr Nice Guy Games. If there is a card you need they will have it at a decent price. They bring more cards than anyone else to Gen Con. You simply tell them what card you want, what edition and what language and they will most likely have several to a dozen of them for you to pick from in various conditions as well.
I bought a bunch of singles and a bunch of sealed packs from Graded Power this year.
For sealed packs I bought 4 Fallen Empires, 2 Ice Age and 2 Chronicles and I also bought one sealed 4th edition Starter Deck.
I should have taken a picture of what all of the cards from these but I forgot too.
I didn't get anything good except one Adarkar Wastes.
The Old School cards I did acquire will help out with a number of decks including Monoblack, MonoGreen, Blue/WhiteMill, UrzaTron or BlackTron, and Apes and Elves. I also bought a few Legends because I want to build some OS EDH / Brawl decks.
I am very excited about Boris!
I also bought a couple of playmats, one from Wednesday's Tournament and one from Mark Poole:
Mark Poole was at the convention again and I bought a bunch of Saproling and Goblin tokens from him and I also had him sign a couple of cards.
On Saturday I played in my second Old School Tournament in 3 days! It is the most in person Old School I have ever played.
This tournament was put on by Pastimes Games which organizes all of the Magic events at Gen Con. This was a fairly typical affair, I had to have a DCI number, which I didn't have so they gave me a new one, the winnings of the tournament would be in prize tickets which could be redeemed at a prize booth. There would also be official Judges but I do believe that they abided by Eternal Central rules. No one who played had any reprints that wouldn't be Eternal Central legal.
I played the following deck:
The first match was against a mostly Black and White deck. He played a lot of Black Knights and Hypnotic Specters.
The first game he got off to a very good start and my back was up against the wall. I was losing life quickly but eventually got out a Land Tax and nearly got back into the game. He eventually won the game but it was close.
Game two I started really fast and got out an early Land Tax and was able to Tax almost every turn after that until most of my land was out of my deck. It was very important because he had cast a Gloom and I needed to pay 4 mana to cast a Savannah Lions! I eventually won because I had more creatures and could get damage in in most turns.
Game three I simply outraced him and had a quick start and never let up winning pretty handily.
I was now 1-0 and pretty excited especially since I had lost every match on Wednesday.
Match two was against a White weenie deck supplemented by Blue Power.
Game one he was able to play 3 Thunder Spirits and a Order of Leitbur but began stalling with creatures. I played a White Knight, an Order, two Timber Wolves, a Mesa Pegasus and a Serra Angel. I was then able to cast Armageddon and he couldn't recover fast enough. I won because I had more creatures.
Game two I sideboarded in 3 Repentant Blacksmiths and sideboarded out 3 Disenchants. I wanted even more creatures and he really didn't have any artifacts or enchantments I needed to kill. This game I got even more creatures into play and we even each had a Crusade in play at one point. I eventually won with the help of a Serra Angel banded to a Mesa Pegasus on the attack.
I was now 2-0 and headed into the final match. The winner of this match would win the tournament.
I was playing against what I believe was a 5 color Shaharazad deck.
The first game was a fairly typical game for my deck, I had to mulligan but I had a lot of small creatures which I played out as fast as possible. I won in less than ten turns. He just didn't have the ability to kill or stop all of my creatures quick enough.
Game two is where things got interesting. I sideboarded out all of my disenchants and added in my Repentant Blacksmiths and a COP:Red because he had a few red creatures. I was doing fairly well and I had him down to 1 life when he cast Shaharazad. We started the sub game and almost immediately he cast a second one. The third subgame started and I started doing significant damage, I got him down to maybe 10 life but then time was called.
I had won the first game and we drew the second because of time. I ended up winning the match.
I finished 3-0 and won the whole thing!
I have never won a tournament before and it was pretty awesome! I was pretty surprised because I knew this deck was good but I didn't think it was this good. I may try it again at the Old School Players Ball.
I won 30 prize tickets which I traded in for 7 Modern Horizons and 1 Dominaria pack. I ended up getting nothing special in those packs but oh well.
It was a pretty great GenCon overall and it went by way too fast.
Next year I believe a decent contingent of the Northern Paladins will be coming so that should be pretty great!
I am not sure what my next post will be about but stay tuned.....
Mark Poole was at the convention again and I bought a bunch of Saproling and Goblin tokens from him and I also had him sign a couple of cards.
On Saturday I played in my second Old School Tournament in 3 days! It is the most in person Old School I have ever played.
This tournament was put on by Pastimes Games which organizes all of the Magic events at Gen Con. This was a fairly typical affair, I had to have a DCI number, which I didn't have so they gave me a new one, the winnings of the tournament would be in prize tickets which could be redeemed at a prize booth. There would also be official Judges but I do believe that they abided by Eternal Central rules. No one who played had any reprints that wouldn't be Eternal Central legal.
I played the following deck:
The first match was against a mostly Black and White deck. He played a lot of Black Knights and Hypnotic Specters.
The first game he got off to a very good start and my back was up against the wall. I was losing life quickly but eventually got out a Land Tax and nearly got back into the game. He eventually won the game but it was close.
Game two I started really fast and got out an early Land Tax and was able to Tax almost every turn after that until most of my land was out of my deck. It was very important because he had cast a Gloom and I needed to pay 4 mana to cast a Savannah Lions! I eventually won because I had more creatures and could get damage in in most turns.
Game three I simply outraced him and had a quick start and never let up winning pretty handily.
I was now 1-0 and pretty excited especially since I had lost every match on Wednesday.
Match two was against a White weenie deck supplemented by Blue Power.
Game one he was able to play 3 Thunder Spirits and a Order of Leitbur but began stalling with creatures. I played a White Knight, an Order, two Timber Wolves, a Mesa Pegasus and a Serra Angel. I was then able to cast Armageddon and he couldn't recover fast enough. I won because I had more creatures.
Game two I sideboarded in 3 Repentant Blacksmiths and sideboarded out 3 Disenchants. I wanted even more creatures and he really didn't have any artifacts or enchantments I needed to kill. This game I got even more creatures into play and we even each had a Crusade in play at one point. I eventually won with the help of a Serra Angel banded to a Mesa Pegasus on the attack.
I was now 2-0 and headed into the final match. The winner of this match would win the tournament.
I was playing against what I believe was a 5 color Shaharazad deck.
The first game was a fairly typical game for my deck, I had to mulligan but I had a lot of small creatures which I played out as fast as possible. I won in less than ten turns. He just didn't have the ability to kill or stop all of my creatures quick enough.
Game two is where things got interesting. I sideboarded out all of my disenchants and added in my Repentant Blacksmiths and a COP:Red because he had a few red creatures. I was doing fairly well and I had him down to 1 life when he cast Shaharazad. We started the sub game and almost immediately he cast a second one. The third subgame started and I started doing significant damage, I got him down to maybe 10 life but then time was called.
I had won the first game and we drew the second because of time. I ended up winning the match.
I finished 3-0 and won the whole thing!
I have never won a tournament before and it was pretty awesome! I was pretty surprised because I knew this deck was good but I didn't think it was this good. I may try it again at the Old School Players Ball.
I won 30 prize tickets which I traded in for 7 Modern Horizons and 1 Dominaria pack. I ended up getting nothing special in those packs but oh well.
It was a pretty great GenCon overall and it went by way too fast.
Next year I believe a decent contingent of the Northern Paladins will be coming so that should be pretty great!
I am not sure what my next post will be about but stay tuned.....
