Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

Really, I’m just asking for pain. I’m treading on dangerous ground here, going to three parts for one tournament report, but this way, the reader doesn’t suffer information overload. Some would call this pacing, but I’d refer to it more as a convenient excuse to explain the lack of planning that must have occurred for me to present this much information in any one article.

Generally, you don’t want a tournament report to go over 4,000 words. It becomes boring and repetitive, and frankly, the attention span of most readers (myself included) insists that after a few paragraphs, skimming must begin, and that’s almost surely followed by clicking on the back button within ten to fifteen seconds. In other words, don’t use this report as an example for your own. More often than not, the KISS[1] principal should apply to any writing.

This begins the conclusion of the odyssey that was my PCLA experience. The idea when I set out was to give you a better idea of what attending a major event was like, and I hope I’ve succeeded on that front. All that’s left to do is to tell you about Sunday and offer you a little incentive for having gotten to the end of this series.

As it should be, Sunday’s something of a blur. If you’re doing the tournament weekend right, by Sunday, the fact you’ve gotten 5 hours sleep in a 72 hour span should be manifesting itself in the form of punishment administered by your body. If that’s not the case, you’re younger and healthier than I am, for which I curse you. Of course, neither is a stretch, but I maintain that’s its important to live in a fantasy world where I’m younger and healthier than I actually am.

As Sunday is the easy day for coverage, with the 300-player field having been trimmed to 8, I was able to sleep in until 8:00 AM. My plan was to get to the site and catch ignorant glimpses of the Top 8 matches, but I was immediately assigned to blog work, so I set out looking for the little stories and to familiarize myself with the players I’d be seeing at future events.

I headed to the secondary tournament area where the $10K was getting back under way. I was really impressed with the idea behind the $10K: two separate tournaments, one DC, one Marvel, with the winners meeting in the final to determine which part of the field would see its prize pool doubled. This was the brainchild of R&D’s Brian Hacker, a former wild child who once defeated Tiger Woods in a round of match play. I believe Woods was five years old at the time, but I can’t say I’ve done it myself, and by virtue of that alone, I find it impressive[2].

This set up two things: a few more players watching the big matches of the weekend, and an interesting discussion on metagaming of a different sort. See, with Superman, Man of Steel having just become tournament legal, the DC tournament was waiting to be exploited in a field that would otherwise be assured of fewer players than the Marvel half with weaker decks due to most of the competitors sticking to DC Comics Origins because either they’d spent all their prep time working on PC decks, or there were no net decks to copy for MoS. The result was a Marvel field twice as large as the DC one, with the Marvel players needing as many wins, eight, as the DC players had rounds to play in order to advance to the single elimination rounds.

By the way, the fact Upper Deck is putting on multiple mega-tournaments on these weekends is a huge blessing that attendees may not truly be appreciating yet. In Magic, you’d have to book your flight in for Thursday at the latest[3] for the Friday morning start of a Pro Tour, and book out for Sunday night or Monday morning in case you had the good fortune to qualify for Sunday play. Of course, as with the PC, more than two-thirds of the field find themselves knocked out of the main tournament at the end of Day 1, but for us, there was nothing to do. Sure, there’d often be a ballgame to attend or casino to lose money at, but these are things I could do at home. The Saturday $10K’s, while obviously very tough in terms of the caliber of opposition, are a way to not only occupy your time, but also pay for your trip despite the unplanned crash and burn that resulted in Day 1 failings. When I heard about the $10K at Indy, I was shocked and amazed. When I found out that the following day there would be yet another tournament for yet another valuable prize, I was shocked, amazed, bitter, and jealous. I hate you all.

While I didn’t find much in the way of little stories, I did find chatter. Burian and some of his Realmworx cronies were hanging around in support of Ryan Jones, who was waiting for the now-infamous DeRosa-Sottosanti match to finish. We had a good talk going when we were joined by Dylan Northrup, a level two judge with an eye on the future. Dylan talked about ways the coverage could be improved, specifically through streaming video and the like, while I played devil’s advocate, explaining that some things are possible, while some things are not. He’d put enough thought into all this that it quickly became obvious that I was the wrong guy to be talking to, so I introduced him to Metagame.com editor Toby Wachter, who will likely edit this paragraph to include a couple of glowing sentences about himself, not that he’s not deserving. Obviously, he edited the last one.

From the press area, I headed over to the feature match pit where Antonino and Sottosanti were going into what felt like hour nine of their first game, which I had the good fortune to not be assigned to. I don’t know if you guys are going to appreciate what a monumental happening this was, but the closest thing I can think of to compare it to in competition of any kind is the May 1, 1920 game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves[4] where the two teams went 26 innings before the game was declared a 1-1 tie. This is going on 85 years ago and stat-head freaks like myself still remember it.

There were complaints that the game would have eventually ended if left to the player’s devices, but it seemed to me that rather than trying to win, both Paul and Antonino were playing to not lose[5]. In a matchup like this one, regardless of the game, when two players are both trying to use patience as a strategy to win a game, its more likely than not that the first one to blink, and by doing so expend resources on trying to win, is the one who’ll eventually lose. These guys have both been around games for long enough to realize this fact, which is why neither one was willing to make the moves needed to win. Throw in the fact that the hall had to be cleared by some point late Sunday and that there were still two rounds of matches to be played, and the conclusion the organizers and players came to was about the only one that worked. My guess is that there’ll be some kind of extensive time limit on Top 8 matches in the future to ensure this doesn’t happen again (and that next time, Eugene Harvey, the deck’s designer, will include a way to win the mirror match).

There wasn’t much more beyond that to the rest of my weekend. I spent the next few hours chatting a little more and writing a little more and celebrated with everyone else when Ryan Jones took down the title (as well he should have—what a dominating performance . . . fourteen matches in a row is a record that’s going to stand for a while), but the celebration was subdued by our collective exhaustion. Sunday afternoon is the time where reporters can hear the clock ticking slower and slower as we prepare to let loose, with close to 40 hours of work over a three-day period close to done. It’s an exhausting job, but a worthwhile one: When your coverage duties are finished, you look back knowing you put a hell of a lot into it, as evidenced by the few days it usually takes to get back to 100%.

I found Osyp Lebedowicz and Craig Krempals, with the three of us bumping into Rob Nieves as we made our way to the Commerce Casino, where I proceeded to lose a good portion of what I’d made on the weekend. Playing poker while exhausted is never smart, but after three days of watching other people game, there’s always a part of you that needs to fulfill your competitive urges. At least the losing was fun—at one point, we had Osyp, Craig, Rob, and all-around good guy and coverage man Patrick Sullivan all at the same table, collectively exercising our weekend demons, as Brian Kibler and Kate Sullivan watched. If you’re going to lose money, it might as well be to friends, am I right?

So concludes this all-too-extensive recounting of the weekend’s events. Before I finish this, there are two orders of business:

The first is called “Props and Slops”, a tradition begun by an old school gamer named Chris Pikula, recognizing the good and bad in a series of one-liners. In my experience, this makes for a nice, tidy way of summing up your feelings on the weekend:

Team TOGIT – An extraordinary showing, with three in the Top 8 and another four in the Top 16. This community is going to learn very quickly that these guys are comparable to the evil favorite in every great underdog-story-turned-movie, except they aren’t so much evil as efficient, kind of like nice-guy versions of William Zabka, the blond-haired actor who played Johnny Lawrence in the Karate Kid. These guys are the Yankees and Lakers and Ivan Drago all rolled up into one.

Team Vs Paradise – A great example to all those out there who might think the PC is only about money. Their dedication to one another shows what gaming is really supposed to be about: fun and friendship.

Tony Burian – Many of you don’t know who Frank Kusimoto is. He started the first great TCG website, and it ended up being the rallying point for the Magic community for a long time. Burian, without trying to do so, is mirroring his efforts.

The Metagame staff – A great group of people who will help take Vs System to the next level.

“Bam Bam” Rich – Because I gave him a nickname and he took it in good stride.

Everyone else – This has gotten way too long as it is, and I don’t want to leave anyone out.

Eugene Harvey – Next time, put something in the deck that can handle the deck. (Kidding, of course. But only sort of.)

Me – For including a props ’n slops section in a report where, frankly, I don’t have much bad to say about anyone.

The second order of business is something of a reward for getting this far. If you’ve read this long, you’re definitely a trooper, and your gamer spirit should be commended. See, I’m going to be writing fairly regularly in this space, but as of yet, I don’t have a decent Vs. System nickname or good name for the column.

Most of my nicknames have been either insulting or a play on my last name, like “The Wise One,” but I’m thinking something a little more in tune with the comics theme. Dr. Strange is a little too easy. In the past, my columns have included the monikers “Wise Words” and “Limited Skills,” and now I need something new. I’m relying on you guys to come up with something good, and names chosen will of course be rewarded with the fleeting fame that comes with being mentioned in these pages and a little product thrown your way as a bonus. All suggestions should be sent to MetagameGaryWise@yahoo.com. Make me laugh. Entries should be very funny the first time they’re read, then increasingly less funny each time thereafter.

So that’s it: a lesson in report writing, a look at the events of last weekend and some musings about those personalities that will become more familiar with each passing event, all rolled up into one neat little nineteen-page package. You have to trust me when I tell you I’ve seen communities like ours built on reports far less lengthy than this one. If and when you have something to say, whether it’s, “These are my opinions on this deck,” or, “Look what happened to me at tournament XXXXX last weekend,” don’t be afraid to type it up and submit it to VsRealms.com, VsParadise.com, VsUniverse.com, or any of the other community sites that are popping up with remarkable frequency. It’s just a small investment of your time, and the feedback you’ll get combined with what you’ll learn when others follow your example will pay you back tenfold. Oh, and if you have a site or other important information that you think the community will want to get their hands on, don’t be afraid to send it to the above address.

Thanks for reading, guys. I’d go on a little longer, but three of my fingers are broken and two others are bleeding. I take that as a sign it’s time to stop. Hope you enjoyed,

[1] Keep It Simple, Stupid

[2] Of course, I’ve never defeated anyone in match play, let alone in any form of golf. I was the victim of the nastiest slice you’ve ever seen and eventually gave it up to pursue my baseball career. We all know how that worked out.

[3] For future reference, I recommend you give yourself a full day for time zone adjustment if you can get the time off work/school. The important part of that statement, at least for you parents out there reading this, is that I did not advocate skipping school.

[4] If you’re a casual baseball fan, those are not typos: Brooklyn was the second of the two franchises to relocate, and Boston moved to Milwaukee before heading onward to Atlanta, a great choice as evidenced by their inability to sell out playoff games. The Dodgers moved in 1957, so this is real historical history we’re talking about. I write good ’n stuff.

[5] Any Trekkies out there? Think Commander Data playing Strategema versus “Sirna Kolrami, a Starfleet master strategist from Zacdorn”. You would not believe the lengths I had to go to find that quote. I’m here only to serve you.