Three-for-One

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Part One: Once You Paup’ the Fun Don’t Staup

It has been a very magical past two weeks for me. Yes, they would’ve been just as magical had I spent them in Disneyworld but instead I spent a significant of my time at adult-nerd Disneyworld (i.e. any Grand Prix, or in this case, Grand Prix Dulle…I mean Washington D.C.). But before I get into all of that Bohemian Rhapsody, I would like to begin by thanking Zach Barash (pictured below), the columnist of Drawing Live for his Standard Pauper tournament which I was able to emerge victorious from!

I will spare you most of the recapping and details since he did an excellent job of providing both in his article. Thanks again Zach and I am looking forward to the upcoming Standard Silverblack tournament (that sounds way cooler than “proletariat” lets be honest).

It is certainly a nice feeling to win back the Taiga that Zach himself won from me two years ago. Life is really funny sometimes, like when Matt Jones is in it. But sometimes it’s not funny; like when Matt Jones is in it.  Here are two screenshots of the decks I used for the tournament, both in the swiss portion (monoblue fliers) in the Top 8 (Aurastow).  Click to enhance.

U delvin’ bro?

U stowin’ bro?

This concludes Part I of Draftasaurus Rex’s “Three-for-one”. Please stay tuned for “Part II: Magic, The Grand Prixening.”

Part II: Magic, The Grand Prixening

I am a Limited player…both in my adeptness at playing Limited formats and at my limited (or lack thereof) interest in playing most Constructed formats. Last weekend was Grand Prix DC and although the format was legace (a better way of saying “legacy” just to be clear here), I had a fair amount of incentive to go. First of all, my best friend and introductour (I have decided that this is a word because it describes perfectly what I am trying to describe) to the game of magic, Jim Orr (“Day Two-er of Worlds…err GP’s”) was going to be in attendance. Jim is a stone cold day-two master. At the same time, I have also seen Jim attempt to eat a tree while hiking through Narnia:

mmm, conifers.

So needless to say Jim once again day two’d as the capable RUG Delver pilot he is. Meanwhile, I spent my time playing in two separate Sealed events. Saturday I finished 14th in the “Win-a-Trip-to-PAX-East” Sealed tournament and Sunday dropped at x-2 from my event so my car could make it back to New York at a reasonable hour. I would describe both decks as mediocre (with my Saturday pool being slightly better). The more I play Sealed the more I really do feel it is much more of a crap shoot when compared to draft. That is not to say that a high amount of skill is not involved as it certainly is but I do feel that overall sealed is the weaker of the two limited formats. As Jim puts it, I really need to day two a limited GP so I can let out my inner drafting animal. Sadly I will not be going to Toronto this month, which is yet another reason I decided to attend DC.  I had a great trip overall, loved hanging out with some dudes, playing mostly reasonable opponents, and even managing to find some Korean BBQ. I also got to sleep in the same bed as Alex Owen wearing his CPAP machine two nights in a row for whatever that’s worth. How could you not get lost in those baby blues?

¡AY C-PAPI! (machine).

Next up, the mediocr…errrr…exciting conclusion!

Part III: The EXCITING Conclusion!

Now what would a Draftasaurus Rex article be without a draft recap!? Well, actually, it would be a pretty standard Draftasaurus article from like the past month. But hey, shut up, fuck you! Let’s do this!

So last Monday at Twenty Sided Store I drafted my favorite draft format (Modern Masters) and essentially opened the nuts in my first pick of every pack (first picks from packs one, two, three from left to right):

Three (okay really only one) bomb, three Spellstutter Sprites, three Theiving Spirtes and $100 in rares later, lets just say that my deck wasn’t exactly faer (man, I’ve been waiting to use that one). Though to be honest, as good as I knew my deck to be, all of my games were really close and I still had to really play well to earn my wins which is truly a testament to how awesome this format is and how well my opponents played. My round two buddy Jon had a Meloku; a faeries decks worst nightmare. Just imagine if I’d lost to this guy in round two.  Dude looks like he uses two mouse pads instead of a playmat amirite?

This man Anax and Cymede’d the shit out of me last team draft. Double mouse pads for sure.

And now onto an MMA draft I did a few months back!

Pack 1 pick 1: