There were seven players in the tournement: Sara, myself, Vitas, Shaun, Laurie, Vanessa, and Julianna. Liz and Leah stopped by, but didn't play magic (although they did play some Gran Turismo on the PS2). This wasn't a DCI-sanctioned event (I think the official rules prevent the organizer from playing, and I think most of the players didn't have DCI numbers anyway). It was a double-elimination draft tournement with the new Onslaught cards.
We started out by teaching Shaun and Julianna the basics of magic. I was looking forward to teaching the game to new players as much as I was looking forward to the tournement itself (: Sara and I have been playing Magic more or less since we met, and it'll be nice to have more people to play with. I wrote out all the things that I thought I should cover, in more or less the order in which I wanted to cover it, and also prepared a few simple decks to get them started. If we had more time, I would have had the new players play more initial games, adding more interesting mechanics one at a time. I think if I were to do this again, I would have all the new players come to a separate event before the tournement to make sure they understood the game completely.
In trying to explain the most important things in Magic first, I intentionally left out the upkeep step, planning on adding it to the mix later. I can't decide if it's more important to learn all the steps of a turn early on (Say it with me: "Untap, upkeep, main"), or to simplify things by omitting a step that doesn't impact the game 9 out of 10 turns. Of the 350 new onslaught cards, only 10 of them refer to upkeep, and most of the 10 are rare).
We then started drafting cards. For those unfamiliar with the process, it works like this. Each player opens a booster of 15 cards (1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 11 commons), and selects one card to keep. The remaining 14 cards are then passed to the player on the left. Each player then picks one card from the 14 cards passed to him/her, and the process repeats, until all the cards have been selected. At this point, each player has 15 cards, an equal number (more or less) from each booster that was originally open. This entire process repeats 2 more times, until each player has 45 cards. From those 45 cards, each player then creates a deck with at least 40 cards (adding as many land cards as they like, from my collection).
There are many, many strategies to selecing the cards in this manner. It's a much different process from creating a deck from all the cards you own. You also have to keep in mind that the cards you draft are also the cards that you own, and will take home, at the end of the day. It's tempting to pick rare cards, or cards that will go well with another deck you have at home, at the expense of the deck that you will play with later that day.
Generally speaking, non-creature spells are more interesting then creatures. Thus, it's easy to end up with lots of cool spells, but not have any creatures to defend yourself with. likewise, the more (mana-)expensive cards are always more tempting, but in a quick game, it's the cards that you can play on turn 3 and 4 that win.
Sara, Vitas, and I drafted first. I felt that it would be more fair to have the less-experienced players draft separately. It's was also quicker that way, as Laurie hadn't arrived yet.
Vitas pointed out the advantage in drafting low mana-cost cards when we started drafting, and I kept that advice close in my mind while selecting my cards. In fact, it prevented me from picking Silvos, Rogue Elemental when I opened my first booster. Instead, I selected Mistform Wall. I knew that creature types would be important, so picking a relatively cheap, defensive creature card that could become any type seemed to be a good strategy. It also didn't lock me into a particular creature type right away.
I don't remember what the next card I selected was, but I do remember that it was white. At that point, I had committed myself to only selecting white and blue. It was a gamble that, I think, worked out to my favor.
At the start of our third booster (30 cards selected, 15 left to go), I opened a pack with Ancestor's Prophet. At this point, I realized that I had the central card for my deck. With all the white cards, I knew I must have picked up at least a few clerics, and my mistform creatures (a few walls and the Mistform Skyreaver, I believe) could become clerics at will. My hope was that, with 5 clerics (or potential clerics) on the board (including Ancestor's Prophet, of course), I would not attack, wait until the end of my opponent's turn, and then tap all of the creatures to gain 10 life, and still have all my creatures untapped to block during the next turn. After a few turns of this, my opponent would, hopefully, conceed the game.
My only drafting regret was the way in which I ignored most of the more expensive cards. I didn't take into account the fact that expensive cards with Morph could come out in turn 3! In fact, in one match, I had to discard a card because I couldn't afford the printed mana cost of any of the cards in my hand, when I could have played a creature face down. I used morph a few times, but I think that this mechanic will really shine in constructed decks.
I would pick Daunting Defender as the most valuable card in my deck. I can't believe that he is common! It made all my clerics (which I included for my Ancestor's Prophet strategy) +0/+1 for each blocker, making them rather difficult to kill. Drafting again, I would have looked for more copies of this card.
If I had found Ancestor's Prophet earlier, I may have been able to get more clerics. As it was, enough of my white creatures were soldiers to consider a two pronged strategy, based on soldiers in addition to clerics. Pearlspear Courier and Daru Encampment were my main soldier cards, and my mistform creatures would support either strategy. I selected copies of the blue and white charms (Trickery Charm and Piety Charm, respectively), and some cards with cycling (Renewed Faith and Lonely Sandbar), although I'm not sure that I used cycling effectively.
When Laurie arrived, she came with a surprise: Vanessa. Vanessa had never played Magic before (like the rest of us), and would be at a considerable disadvantage. Nevertheless, she opted to play, so the four of them (Shaun, Julianna, Laurie, and Vanessa) began drafting, with Vitas assisting Vanessa in selecting cards and simultaniously explaining the game.
After they finished drafting and constructing their decks, the tournement began. Each match was decided by the best 2 out of 3.
Double-elimintation is an interesting format, with some anomolies that don't seem fair at first glance. One useful way of thinking about it is as two pools: a winners pool, and a losers pool. Everyone starts in the winners pool. Matches only take place between people in the same pool. The first time you lose, you're moved to the losers pool. If you lose from the loser's pool, you are eliminated from the tournement. When there is only one person left in each pool, they fight for first place. The person from the loser's pool has to win over the undefeated person twice in order to win the tournement. Otherwise, the undefeated person wins.
To make this fair (and understandable), we use a bracket. I won't recreate it here, but it's in front of me as I write this. The first match-ups were
Vitas vs. Shaun
Chip vs. Laurie
Sara vs. Julianna
Vanessa vs. no one (Vanessa was declared the winner, and watched Sara vs. Julianna, as she would play the victor of that match).
Shaun, being a new player, was the underdog against Vitas, but he emerged victorious. I believe his Foothill Guide was key, as Vitas had a number of goblins in his deck. I defeated Laurie after two duels, and Sara defeated Julianna.
The next set of matches were
Undefeated (1/0)
Shaun vs. Chip
Sara vs. Vanessa
Once defeated (0/1)
Vitas vs. Laurie
Julianna vs. No one
Shaun and I played two long good duels, both of which he won. The first duel took a long time as I started out with two Mistform Walls in play, and he had a Leery Fogbeast, which I would block to cancel all combat damage. Shaun had constructed a deck almost entirely of creatures, which worked very well for him. His Whipcorder would keep my flying soldiers from attacking until he could get his Silklash Spider in play. I was particularly proud of one moment: He used his Silklash Spider's ability to kill off some of my flying creatures, and I reacted by giving one of his creatures (a Daru Lancer, I believe) flying, thus killing that creature off, too.
I don't know any of the details of Sara and Vanessa's match, except that Sara won both duels. I believe at one point Sara had a 8/5 creature out, while Vanessa had a 6/6.
Vitas won twice over Laurie, eliminating her from the tournement.
The next set of matches were
Undefeated (2/0)
Shaun vs. Sara
Once defeated (1/1)
Vitas vs. Chip
Julianna vs. Vanessa (no winner)
Unfortunately, before Julianna and Vanessa had a chance to compete, they had to leave. It was pretty late by this point (around 9 or 10 o'clock).
I defeated Vitas twice to win the match. Our second duel ended interestingly. He had three creatures in play, a 1/1, 1/2 and a 2/2, and I had a flying 3/3 (Aven Soulgazer, I believe) which was tapped. I have only 3 life left. He attacked me with all three creatures, but I played Chain of Silence, targeting his 2/2 creature, which left me with 1 life remaining. The next turn, I untapped my only creature and attacked with it, which took his last remaining life point. It's great to be involved in such a close game, and it's even better to win (:
Shaun's winning streak was finally brought to an end by Sara's deck. It was getting late by this point, so we agreed to play only one duel each match, rather then taking the best 2 out of 3.
As this was Shaun's first defeat, he was not eliminated, but instead had to play against me for a second time. It was even later by this point, and neither of us was playing his best. I won, but I think it was more luck then skill.
As I had only been defeated once, I had an opportunity to win the tournement by defeating Sara twice. We waited until the next morning to play out this duel, and she absolutely crushed me. Her deck, which went through the entire tournement undefeated against 4 of the 6 other players, was by far the best deck there. And what was one of the key cards in her deck?
Silvos, Rogue Elemental. The first rare that I opened at the very beginning, and passed on, as it was "too expensive". Looking back now, a converted cost of 6 for a trampling, regenerating 8/5 legend wasn't really such a bad deal. Especially with the multiple copies of Explosive Vegetation that she included in her deck. Sara's victory was well-deserved.
The tournement took a lot more time then I had planned on. I think that next time I will either use a single elimintation format, or stick with the double elimination, but make each match a single duel, rather then best 2 out of 3.
posted by FlyingSheep @ 1:51 PM
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