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The Australian National Championships 2009, the height of competition where the elite and the lucky come to throw down and step up.
This is not where we start our story... Rather we start this tale one day earlier at the Last Chance Qualifiers, lovingly referred to as the "Grinders", where the not-so-elite and the not-so-lucky come to throw down and hopefully step up.
Having made our way to Canberra and the hotel across from the venue the night before, little sleep was had in preparation for the serious business of qualifying for Nats. I chose to run with my little white hobbits deck (Kithkin for the uninitiated), while many silly combo ideas were thrown together along with serious decks for my friends to use.
My first experience at Nationals was standing in an impressively long queue to sign up and rego for a grinder, wherein I was promptly put in the same 16-player pool as 8 of my friends, and matched up against the one who had a 99% chance of spanking me silly. Add in a Game-Loss for misregistering my deck, and I was quickly on my way back to the rego queue for another shot at qualifying.
My second attempt was rather more successful, beating my way into the final match, only to be paired against my friend Montey, who was happy to take the majority of the prizes (Booster Packs) in exchange for me taking the Qualification slot. In hindsight it was the best deal i've ever made, because he promptly beat the snot out of me in the games we played for kicks!
Happily qualified and eager to commence carving my name into the hallowed halls of Magic History, I mucked around for the rest of the day, supporting my friends in their endeavours to grind as well, and generally not paying much attention to cards. Ended up having Fish On A Pancake for dinner (I recommend the Pancake Parlour in Canberra city if you go there) and playing poker in a hotel room until far too late at night.
My second day in Canberra begun with another leisurely stroll across the GIANT ROUNDABOUT in the chill, sunny morning. Supportive phone calls from my mother and girlfriend the only things interrupting the serene walk. The competition started out and I was immediately paired against someone I'd never met, who had decided to bring some odd concoction of cards to the tournament in the hope that banging his head against the table would confuse me enough to let him win. A quick victory was just the fuel I needed to inspire confidence in my abilities and push me on for the remainder of the day. The second round brought about a capable opponent who ran afoul of the main-deck white knights and pro-red guys that swarmed past his red and black goblins deck. The third opponent was a familiar face piloting a familiar elf-combo deck, who, despite obvious misplays and overall unimpressive skill, pushed me off of the cloud I'd been riding, and let me come back to earth before the next phase of the tournament began.
Aside: Magic Nationals is divided into 5 phases, first, fourth and 5th (the top 8 playoffs) being "Standard" or "Type 2" Constructed, where you play a deck of your design from the most recent sets. The second and third phases are "Draft", which I hopefully don't have to explain.
The field is divided into tables of 8, and we sit down to our first draft, picking and building a deck to use for the next 3 rounds. My deck worked out to be a medium-strength Blue/Black/White artifact control deck with a couple of strong combinations that would eventually overwhelm anyone in the long game. I quickly won the next 2 matches against players of varying skill, and coming into the third match of the pod I was once again riding high on my unexpected success. Once again I was thrust from my peak by someone with more luck than skill, but I was not yet out of the running for the glory!
The next draft table is set up, and after building our decks, one more round is played before the day ends and we can get some sleep before day 2. I play against a fellow who's playstyle could only be described as "glacial", something which did not go unnoticed by a passing judge, who handed him a Warning, and proceeded to watch the rest of the match closely. I won in the closing minutes of the evening, with a large portion of the players crowded around the table to watch.
At this point I'm 5 wins, 2 losses, and a contender for the top 8 playoffs if I rack up a record of 4-1 tomorrow. The evenings activities consisted of tracking down dinner, and playing cards far too late in the evening once again.
The next morning's stroll across the roundabout was just as refreshing, with the call from my mother coming before I even left the hotel. My first round opponent beat me in the first game, but, had I been paying attention, would have been penalized with a game-loss and possibly worse for a 39-card deck in the second game... which I lost by managing to draw 14 of 17 land in my deck out of 16 cards I drew.
Round 2 of the day fared better, with me dispatching my opponent and eyeballing the top 8 prize. Moving back to Standard Constructed play, it became apparent that every match was the decider for both myself and every opponent i played. Were we to drop a match, we had no chance of winning. Thankfully I once again played someone who was unfortunate enough to be using Red and Black creatures, and I moved on to the penultimate round of the tournament. This time paired up against the mirror-match (someone else running little white hobbits), I lost the all-important dice role, and proceeded to lose the match because he played dudes out faster than me.
Saddened to be out of contention, I was nonetheless happy to have performed so well on the national level, and resolved to play the final round of the tournament for a chance of getting prizes and a better ranking. I was once again paired against a white player, and this time won the dice roll, handily putting away the next 2 games and cruising to an impressive 8-4 total score over the weekend.
My final placing was unluckily 17th, just below the prize structure cutoff of 16th place.The rest of the Sunday was taken up with more casual side-events and some of the most fun I've ever had playing cards: counter-wars were fought and won(and lost), people's combos were broken in the most hilarious fashions, and as a sour counterpoint, I played against the biggest dickface in the room.
I still took away more pleasant memories than not, and am happy with my result and my playing across the weekend. I learned to be nicer to people casually, and harsher to them during games, because not called a Judge can, and did, cost me a match. I made some friends, caught up with others, and genuinely enjoyed my time in Canberra.
Now how many of you can say that!? |
Children's Card Games! Srs Bznss!
RJorb: Sounds like a fun weekend, cK. Congrats on placing so well at that high level of competition!
GrubLord: Hell of a post, Crouchman. This is the kind of feel-like-you-were-there goodness that gets people excited about stuff. Why, I'm suddenly keen on Magic again.
teh_saq: Congraŧs on ŧhe greaŧ resüŀŧ cK. 
