Travels began in mid-February with a trip to Seattle to hang out with some bros. The trip began on a weekday evening after work with some solo Panda Express at DIA while waiting at the gate.
Once in Seattle, the cuisine...
...and company...
...got infinitely better.
Fast-forward a few months to June and the Denver Comic Con. A few of us went to the Con to play in the Star City Games Invitational Qualifier tournament being held there. For some unknown reason, all of us played in an 80-person FNM (7 rounds with a cut to top 8) the night before to try to win a box of Modern Masters, and after getting home at 2 in the morning all empty-handed we were in line at the Con at 8:30 after a solid breakfast nearby.
There were some horror stories from the previous day of the Con that involved a line wrapping around the convention center a few times and thousands of people getting turned away because of insufficient door staff. Fortunately, none of those shenanigans happened on Saturday, which was when we were there. Playing a 7-round cut to top 8 tournament on 4 hours of sleep is pretty taxing, but I somehow made top 8 nonetheless. The lack of sleep and food caught up quickly 5 rounds into the tournament (the Clif Bar and cafeteria sandwich didn't do a whole lot for me during the day). After losing a 3-game semifinals to barely miss out on qualifying for the Invitational but walking away with $100, we walked to BD's for probably the best Mongolian BBQ I've ever had.
Later in June was the Luscious Nectar Vegas Man-cation. The trip started with a free alcoholic drink on the flight thanks to Southwest Airlines's birthday.
Now, I understand that typically what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I'll make some exceptions here. The house that we rented for the week was pretty nice.
Costs were kept low by sharing the house between 13 guys. With 13 guys in a house with only 8 beds (plus numerous couches, both indoors and outdoors), we all got by without any problems.
The main reason for our Vegas trip was Grand Prix Las Vegas, which turned out to be the largest Magic tournament ever at 4500 players (the previous tournament attendance record was just shy of 2700). Our team was featured in the tournament coverage here (photo courtesy of Wizards of the Coast event reporting).
At the end of day 1, 4 out of 13 of us (including myself) made day 2 of the GP, which means we got to draft Modern Masters, and it doesn't get much better than that.
With 454 players in day 2 alone (the size of a small overseas Grand Prix!), 3 of the 4 of us scrubbed out of the money rather quickly. However, the "chatty and affable" Steve ran the tables from a 9-0 start on day 1 to a 3-0 draft on day 2, followed by a 13-0 overall record to be the last undefeated player at GP Vegas. A loss and a draw later, we watch Steve draft and play Affinity for the third time in a single day - this time in the top 8 of the largest Magic tournament ever. That was certainly the highlight of the weekend for us.
I must say that Steve was definitely the best-dressed player in the top 8 with his donkey cufflinks. Overall, the details of our Vegas trip could be summed up with a single photo.
Enough about Vegas for now. Summer kickball with coworkers has been in full swing, and we are something like 3-3 so far, which is already miles better than our 1-X record in the fall season. And yes, we get to drink beer while playing kickball.
Two weeks after Grand Prix Las Vegas, a few of us headed out to Kansas City during the long weekend for yet another Grand Prix. Aside from Magic, we consumed lots of delicious barbecue.
Josh was the only one out of the three of us to make day 2, so on Sunday I decided to play some Dragon's Maze sealed in the Super Sunday Series. After winning 12 games in a row, I took a match loss in round 7, then drew into top 4, where we combined with the top 4 of the Standard tournament for a top 8 draft. I fell into the P1P1 Mirko Vosk trap for the third time in DGR draft, so I ended up with what I thought was a poopy Dimir deck (I passed a Vraska in the RTR pack to take a Rogue's Passage...). Josh and Steve drove out to Buffalo Wild Wings for beers while I was drafting in the top 8, and after the draft I texted them to let them know I may be done very soon because my deck was terrible. They returned to the nearly-empty tournament hall just in time to watch game 3 of the quarterfinals. After watching me win the quarterfinals and the semifinals with my sweet combo of Paranoid Delusions plus a pile of cards, all they could say was this.
Basically, I just kept playing Magic that day until I was told I could not play anymore Magic. For the finals of the tournament, I found myself sitting across perhaps the most successful female Magic player on the professional circuit (photo courtesy of Steve).
After getting my face bashed in by Skaarg Goliath in game 1, I won games 2 and 3 on the back of being a lucksack and milling her good cards to win the Super Sunday Series (there were no Progenitor Mimic, Collective Blessing, or Trostani's Summoner cast against me in the finals because they were all milled). Part of the prize for winning the tournament is an expenses-paid trip to Wizards of the Coast headquarters in Seattle next year to meet and mingle with Wizards R&D members and other Super Sunday Series winners, which is pretty freaking sweet. (And yes, after the finals they told me I could not play anymore Magic that day and that I should go home.)
The M14 prerelease this past weekend was pretty cool. Several well-known professional Magic players were in town for a wedding, and a few of them came out to play in the prerelease with us. I was on Reddit today here, which was also pretty cool I suppose.
