In our last episode young Jones (me) had been defeated three times in Magical combat at GPDC and didn’t want to continue casting Reckless Revelers. He dropped from the main event and sleeved up a Standard deck and his Infinity deck (can we make “Infinity” a thing, please?).

I kept thinking about how much better the song Iron Tusk is than Fleetwood Mac’s entire Tusk album.

Jim probably agrees.

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Jim organized our hotel situation. It was a sweet suite. I slept on a pull-out bed. Hugh and Jim slept next to each other on a queen. Thanks for booking such a great room, Jim! It’s been recently discuvered that smelling farts can prevent cancer. Jim and Hugh’s attempts to gaseously out do one another in their sleep was not as awful as I thought. I’m cancer free!

Back to our real narrative, I had dropped from the main event as I already told you. Fuck Sealed. Let’s play some Standard while I have a chance to play wish some sweeties before they rotate.

I’d seen Andrew Boswell’s list in a Top 16 Standard SCG Open. It plays cards I love (Advent of the Wurm, Voice of Ressurgence, Fleecemane Lion Loxodon Smiter, Ajani, Caller of the Pride). Bos happily handed over the following list and a sideboard plan (I’ll keep the sideboard plan to myself, thank you very much.)

GW Good Cards

Maindeck (60)
Experiment One
Soldier of the Pantheon
Fleecemane Lion
Voice of Resurgence
Scavenging Ooze
Loxodon Smiter
Boon Satyr
Advent of the Wurm
Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Selesnya Charm
Banishing Light
Mana Confluence
Temple Garden
Temple of Plenty
Plains
Forest
Rogue’s Passage
Sideboard (15)
Skylasher
Mistcutter Hydra
Unflinching Courage
Archangel of Thune
Gods Willing
Hunt the Hunter

Round One vs. Sligh

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Jacob had alread won a bunch of win a box tournies with this deck. He told me more than once. He blasted me game one. I was able to stablize and gain tons of life thanks to Unflinching Courage games two and three.

Round Two vs. Naya Monster Walkers

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Look at that face. Spencer should replace Kit Harington as John Snow on Game of Thrones. He’s got “kind hero” written all over him. But I digress. Spencer remembered me from the SCG Team Sealed Open Hunter, Kadar, and I participated in ages ago. He’s as nice a guy as you could ever hope to play a game of Magic with. Neither of our games were very close. His crushed me.

I quickly sent an email to Bos with the subject line, “How the FUCK do I beat Naya Walkers?”

Bos responded with, “GR and Naya Monsters are fine, Naya Walkers is a bad match up.”

Great. Let’s get back to playing Infinity. Is that name taking hold yet? No? Maybe Nick Forker can convince you.

How freaking pumped is Forker to play Infinity? SUPER PUMPED! Me too! I piloted the same list as last time. For those of you who didn’t see it here’s what it looked like.

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And here’s the decklist.

Infinity

Maindeck (60)
Arcbound Ravager
Blinkmoth Nexus
Cranial Plating
Darksteel Citadel
Etched Champion
 Galvanic Blast
Glimmervoid
Inkmoth Nexus
Island
Master of Etherium
 Memnite
Mox Opal
Ornithopter
Signal Pest
Springleaf Drum
Steel Overseer
Thoughtcast
Vault Skirge
Sideboard (15)
 Ancient Grudge
Spellpierce
Gutshot
Etched Champion
 Rule of Law
Grafdigger’s Cage
Spellskite
 Thoughtseize
Torpor Orb
 Wear // Tear
Whipflare

Round One vs. Junk

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Lingering Souls is a bad matchup for Infinity. Oh well! When you lose in a win-a-box tournament you are out of the win-a-box tournament. Some call this “single elimination.” I call it an excellent time saver.

We went and got some BBQ and I received a text.

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Why, no, Bones. I’m eating really rad BBQ with you and Forky-Poo.

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We ordered a Feed Bag for Four (that’s seriously what they call it). It hurt my insides in a great way.

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Guys, what? I know I posted Bones’s text to Instagram but you don’t all need to climb on the Hooters train. We aren’t even onboard it ourselves!

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Seriously?

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Yes they have a Hooters in DC (I mean, I assume they do, we weren’t there, we were in Chantily). They also have a Hooters in Chantily. The Hooters in Chantily does not have laser tag. There’s a laser tag place next to the Grand Prix venue. No one ever wants to go in with me (two GP Chantilys in a row).

After not going to Hooters we decided to go back and play more Magic. I joined another Modern win-a-box tournament.

Round One vs. Soul Sisters (or whatever that deck is called)

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I beat through two Stony Silences and Whipflared the shit out of James’ deck. He looks serious in this photo but we had a good time in three close games.

This Jeff guy kept nagging me about how I had to play him next. I told him “I’ll tell you who you’ll play next,” and that phrase became our running joke.

Round Two vs. Splinter Twin

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Turns out he was right; I did play him next.

Jeff crushed me. While crushing he told me about MTG FIRST. I won’t get into it too much ‘cuz they don’t sponsor us and probably do something similar to our lovely sponsor Casthaven (tell your friends!). He really liked being one of the original two dudes on the MTG FIRST Magic team despite not being famous.

Jeff and I share similar experiences with our involvement as players in high school sports. I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.

It’s good to talk to fellow jock-nerds. I don’t know how many of us are left after the great purge of ’03. Young jock-nerds like Jeff give me hope. “I’ll give you hope,” said Jeff. Thanks, Jeff.

I met up with my buds for second dinner.

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I nursed my wounds with this sweet sundae.

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Jim licks all his fingers multiple times while eating ribs. I assume it’s similar when he’s eating wings. Hugh prefers texting to interacting with his friends at the dinner table.

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I finished the sundae in around three minutes.

Jon Sieber texted me. He wanted in on me Instagramming screenshots of people commenting on whether or not I was at Hooters.

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I instagrammed this text conversation and he was stoked (@matttheobliteratorjones is my handle).

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Fat with BBQ and ice cream I walked back to the hotel. Hugh, Longo, and Tony had day tw0’d. What the fuck was I going to do with my entire Sunday?

Thanks for reading!

Much love,
Matt

Matt Jones (born 1980, Rochester, New York) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY.  Matt works between a variety of inter-related genres that explore mythology, archaeology, ancient history, theoretical physics, comedy, and the paranormal—all developed and inspired by research and personal experience. Together his bodies of work form a way for Matt to evaluate, negotiate, and play with the world around him. You can check out his art at www.mattjonesrules.com.

Matt’s played Magic since early 1995, took a break for a decade or so, and came back to the game the weekend after the Scars of Mirrodin release. With Hugh Kramer he formed New York’s Team Draft League and is one of the original writers for Hipsters of the Coast. Matt’s been sober for seven years.

PS—I played one M15 draft on Saturday (with Team Draft Leaguers’s prize packs from a prerelease) and had an awful time playing with cards I hated playing. I WILL GET BETTER THOUGH!!! The bros were fun to play with. Still, I was pissed that I wasn’t drawing or painting or doing something creative with my time. The ugliness of the new card design didn’t help.

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