Yesterday during a hallway meeting at work, one of my task leads announces to everyone, "Tomorrow is Hans's birthday. He will be a half century old!" Needless to say, that was a momentary slip of the tongue and/or mind, as she meant to say quarter century. Someone did jokingly remark how well I looked for being 50 though.
Anyway, I thought I'd write a post on everything that I should have written about in 2012 but neglected to. Basically a recap of interesting events in 2012, complete with photographic commentary in some cases.
TRAVEL
Traveled to Virginia twice for work. Got to see Kevin and the Mullers in the DC area both times. In June while I was in Virginia, there was a massive storm that knocked out power for a few days. The hotel had no electricity, which made the room very hot, the showers very cold, and being at work very desirable.
Went to Chicago for University of Chicago graduation. Also drove south to UIUC to visit the campus.
Went west into Utah for Labor Day weekend. Saw some lakes and a lot of dunes out there. Did a lot of impromptu hiking.
DRAGON BOAT
Raytheon Rowing Racers returned to the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival this year, this time with a Hong Kong team and a Flag-Catcher team. I had the privilege of being the flag-catcher hanging over the front end of the boat, which was interesting.
MISCELLANEOUS
Learned how to bake banana bread (or rather, found a recipe online and followed the instructions carefully).
Took the homegrown big-as-my-arm zucchini that my uncle gave me and turned that into 4 meals' worth of zucchini pasta (again, another recipe I found online).
Went out dancing at a country bar on a Wednesday night with some coworkers (they convinced me to join them). Had more than a few drinks, hung out with coworkers (including my team lead), learned the two-step and three-step, pretended to line dance with the crowd (also known as line dancing with your head cocked backwards to see what everyone else is doing so you could imitate that), and watched some mechanical bull-riding.
Saw the biggest bottle of Cholula I've ever seen at CB & Potts during Svien's last night in Denver outing. Sadly, the waitress told us the bottle wasn't for sale.
Met up with Brian in Minnesota during the winter holiday and played some Ascension with him and his friend.
Read some books. Stephen King's 11/22/63 was pretty good. Reminds me of The Butterfly Effect. Currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman since Ken told me I should. Still have a ton of books to read.
Saw some movies too. Silver Linings Playbook has to be my favorite movie of 2012.
MTG
I played in 5 Grand Prix in 2012, making Day 2 in three of them and cashing one of them (top 64).
At GP Lincoln in February, which was the first Modern format GP ever, I played Jund and finished Day 1 at 7-2 (which is the minimum record needed for advancing to Day 2), losing to Zoo with Kessig Wolf Run in round 6 and to the mirror match in round 9. Being my first GP Day 2, I had no idea what to expect on Sunday, but what I did learn was that GP Day 2's are rather rough. Starting Day 2 in 45th place and going 0-2 in the first two rounds (punting to Martyr and losing to timely topdecks from U/R Storm), I then won against U/W Control and Melira Pod before punting to Twin and losing to U/W Control to finish 71st in a 96-player Day 2 (note that top 64 makes prize) out of 716 total players. Highlights of the tournament include beating a Melira Pod player in round 3 on the verge of defeat (he was about to pod into Sun Titan to stabilize the game, but drew the one Sun Titan in his deck that turn instead while on 4 lands), having a U/R Storm player in round 7 so flustered after mulliganing to 5 that she cast Gitaxian Probe on turn 1 and forgot to play a land before passing the turn to me, and beating a Melira Pod player in round 13 for exactsies the turn before my own Dark Confidant would have killed me by revealing Bloodbraid Elf while at 4 life. Also, the 5 of us who traveled to Lincoln together decided that eating 6-packs and a pound from Taco Johns for 2 nights in a row was a good idea (to be fair, our options for food in Lincoln were rather limited).
About a month later, I played in a local Pro Tour Qualifier (also Modern format) to a 4th place finish, my first and so far only PTQ top 8. R/G Tron was the breakout deck of the week, having won an online PTQ the previous weekend, and I was convinced last-minute to put Jund aside and play R/G Tron instead. The PTQ was 120 players, 7 rounds of swiss before single-elimination top 8. I managed to start 5-0 (didn't drop a single game either) and drew the last two rounds into the top 8 cut. I beat U/R Storm in the quarterfinals, then promptly lost to U/W/R Delver, who ended up winning the PTQ. The deck was a blast to play - I mean, who doesn't like casting turn 3 Wurmcoil Engine or Karn, or Mindslavering the opponent? Highlights of this tournament include killing a Melira Pod with his own combo after Mindslavering him, and beating Tempered Steel while at 9 poison both games.
A week after the PTQ was GP Salt Lake City (Standard format). It was also the Gold Rush, which added a little more incentive to attend, as if having all of your friends attend wasn't enough. I decided to play U/W Delver, since it was the only Standard deck I felt comfortable playing that would give me a reasonable shot of doing well with. After opening a lousy Frankenstein's Monster in the Gold Rush (a friend opened a solid Mox Emerald, which he shipped for $300 to a dealer on site), I finished Day 1 of the GP at 7-2 again, losing to U/W Humans in round 6 and White Wolf Run in round 9. I then proceeded to fall apart on Day 2 again, going 2-4 for a combined 9-6 record and 104th place out of 1133 total players. Highlights of this tournament include locking in Day 2 in round 8 with Mutagenic Growth against a lethal trampling Inkmoth Nexus (then Dissipating his Elesh Norn the next turn for the rub-ins), as well as drunk karaoke on Sunday night in Salt Lake City.
GP Minneapolis (Standard format) was about a month and a half later, in May. I decided to play in it after a week of work in Virginia. I didn't do so well, started 4-0 with R/G Aggro and lost the next 5 rounds in a row. On Day 2 I decided to play in the Standard Sealed side event. Playing U/W fliers, I started 1-2 and won out, finishing 5-2.
In August was the Star City Open Series in Denver. I decided to play U/W Delver in Standard and Hive Mind in legacy, finishing 5-4 for no prize in Standard and 5-3 for 32nd place and $100 in Legacy. Highlights of the Legacy Open include having an opponent cast Show and Tell to put Emrakul into play, allowing me to put Hive Mind into play and killing him next turn.
GP San Jose was in October, a week after Return to Ravnica was released. The GP was Team Sealed format, the first time in several years that such a GP was held. My team had won a Grand Prix Trial, so we started the tournament with 2 byes. Our sealed pool wasn't the greatest - there was a nutty Selesnya deck with 5 rares and Guildmage (which I played), then the rest gave us a U/R/w Doorkeeper/Lobber Crew control deck and a Jund deck with no real focus. After the tournament we realized that we should have just played an aggressive Rakdos build as our third deck, but that's what happens when you play in a fresh new format that no one's really familiar with yet. The GP had 571 teams (1713 players), which meant 11 rounds on Day 1, with a 9-2 record needed for Day 2. Our team lost in rounds 4, 9, and 11. It kind of sucked to lose in round 11 to miss Day 2, especially because round 11 ended shortly before 1 am. However, 42nd place out of 571 teams wasn't too bad, we thought. I decided to play in California States on Day 2, which I quickly bombed out of. Highlights of this tournament include beating a double Collective Blessing deck, beating Mercurial Chemister two games in a row, and watching my teammate sideboard from U/R/w Control into Izzet Aggro and beating his opponents after they decide to play second in sideboarded games. We then went out drinking in the bars of San Jose that Sunday night.
GP Chicago (Modern format) came about a month later. I thought it'd be nice to visit Ken and play in a GP, which is what we did. I had not touched Modern since the PTQ in March, so I decided to play R/G Tron again, especially since it stayed relatively under the radar at Pro Tour Seattle and GP Lyon the previous two weekends, and Jund was still a popular deck. I finished Day 1 at 7-2 yet again, losing in round 4 to G/W Hatebears and round 9 to Robots. This time, I didn't crash as hard on Day 2 as I have before, going 4-2 for a total 11-4 and 49th place out of 1113 players for $200 and 1 pro point (first one). Highlights of this tournament include going 4-1 against Jund over the course of the GP, beating Robots through a Blood Moon (it involved his Inkmonth Nexi being turned off and me Ghost Quartering my land in response for a basic Forest), overloading a Vandalblast against Robots to clear his 4 creatures and his Glimmervoid, locking in Day 2 in round 8 by having my Infect opponent attack his turn 1 Inkmonth Nexus into my Nature's Claim (which he thought was a different card after seeing it with Gitaxian Probe) which left him stuck on 1 Island until I ate it with Karn a few turns later, and drawing a total of 7 Relic of Progenitus over the course of 2 games against Eggs in round 14 (he had a hard time fighting through those).
Overall, quite an eventful year for MTG for me, and I'm looking forward to more in 2013. I'm fortunate to have good friends and teammates.
