BUMP.
Anyway, I couldn't find the topic, so I put off posting my results. Here's the days events. Oh, by the way, this took place on Saturday.
12:00:
Two of my friends showed up and we play tested our decks for a little while.
1:00:
Two more of my friends showed up and we continued play testing.
3:30:
We put the finishing touches on our decks and we left to go to the comic shop it was being hosted at.
3:50:
We signed up for the tournament (it was supposed to be free, but since we had never registered for a MtG tournament card before, it cost us $5 each). We then had the judge (Just one of the store employees, and a super awesome guy) look through our decks to make sure they were tournament legal. Unfortunately, a lot of the cards weren't. Each of us had about half of our deck removed because of the illegal cards. Lucky for us, everyone in the store were super awesome and let us borrow their cards. They even helped us rebuild our decks with legal cards so that we could run the same strategies. The owner of the store even let one of my friends borrow a ton of his super rare cards (Ranging from $10-$40 apiece).
4:00:
The owner of the store printed off the roster of who was playing against who. We played in a "Swiss Tournament" style (2 people vs, the winner now has a rank of 1-0 while the loser has a rank of 0-1. The winner goes on to vs someone with the same rank, the loser does the same. If the 1-0 lost the second round, they would have a 1-1 rank and would vs someone with the same. Same applies if they got a 2-0 rank.). The judge set the timer for 45 minutes (most rounds take about 30 min as they are best 2 out of 3). I got paired up with an 11-year-old kid, so I was thinking to myself, "I may actually have a chance". The judge started the timer and we started to play. 5 minutes into the round, I had already lost 2 games in a row. From then on, I realized we were complete newbs. The last match of that round ended right as the 45 min was up. I started talking with my friends to see how they fared. We all lost. Only one of my friends at won 1 of 3 games, but he lost the other 2. We then got paired up and started round 2. This time I actually did a bit better, but I still lost. Afterwards, the guy I was playing ask me if I was new here, and I said I was. So he ask me to hold on for a minute. He ran out of the store, then ran back in carrying a stack of at least 150 cards. He said I could have them to help build my deck. I was all like :D and I thanked him. The last match ended at the 45 minute mark again. I ask my friends how they did. We had all lost except for one of my friends (But that was because he versed his little brother). The judge then announced that if anyone was doing poorly, that they could drop out of the current tournament to join in another one (Different rules), but it costs $13. One of my friends and I decided we would do the other tournament as we had a 0-2 rank.
6:00:
My friend and I paid our $13 and were handed 3 15-card booster packs and were told not to open them yet. We were told that we would be playing in what was called a "booster draft" (I'll explain the rules later). There were 13 people that were going to participate in this tournament, so they decided to split it up into 2 smaller groups for this next part. Although we were supposed to have groups that had at least 8 or more people, we split our groups to have 6 and 7. Luckily, my friend and I were put in the same group. Everyone in our group then sat down at a table and the "group leader" explained the rules. Each person had 3 booster packs (2 from the MtG 2011 series and one from the Zendikar series). We were instructed to open 1 of the 2011 packs and remove the Token card and land card that came standard with the packs (Occasionally there will be extra foiled lands, we were instructed to keep those with the remaining cards). After we had gotten rid of the two extra cards, we were instructed to take 1 card. We are able to pick whatever card we like, but they suggested that we pick one of the rares as they are more powerful. Then, depending on what color rare we chose, that's what color we should stick with. They also told us to try to keep the cards we pick to 1 color, but sometimes you are unable to do that if multiple people are picking the same color, so they said 2 colors are fine. 3 colors or more are not suggested and that only advanced players should attempt to do that. They also said that if you are taking one color, but you see a mythic rare card of another color, feel free to take it because those cards could pay for all 3 boosters if you sold just that one card. The final thing they said was that if you see a card you want for your normal deck that you play with, you could grab cards for it, but it will only hurt you in the tournament.
After I selected my card, I was instructed to set the remaining cards down on my left. Then when everyone was ready, I was told to pick up the pile on my right. I picked another card and repeat the process until I had 15 cards. After that, we'd open the second 2011 pack and did the same thing, except we passed it to our right instead of our left. I then ended up with 30 cards. Then we opened the Zendikar pack and did the same procedure, except we passed the cards to our left like the first time. We then were left with 45 cards. We then were told that we could only use those cards (With an exception of land cards) to make a deck with a minimum of 40 cards.
7:30:
Everyone in both groups finished making their decks (most people stayed around 40 cards) and we were given the roster. Same style as the other tournament, except everyone had a chance. I got paired up with this super nice guy. I lost the first match because I didn't draw enough land cards to be able to play anything. He then taught me how to "legally" stack the deck so that way there was a better chance of me drawing land cards. I won the second match almost flawlessly. He then won the 3 match, and in doing so, won the round. My friend had also lost, but in the same way I had. I got paired up with another nice guy and we started playing. He won both matches (I almost won one of them) and he ask to see my "draft". He said that I had picked an amazing draft, but I had put it together poorly. I ended up with too many lands and I had some worthless cards that weren't really beneficial to draft matches. He helped me rebuild my deck with my other draft picks and we played one more time just to try it out. I had a flawless victory against him. He said that deck building comes with times once I start to really learn the cards (Most of them knew the cards by heart, so I didn't even have to read the cards to them). My friend played against the guy I played before and lost, so then we decided to drop (and we were needing to get to a party we were already late to). Right as we were about to drop, the first tournament ended. They gave everyone the promo card for showing up and announced the winners. The judge that helped me build my actual deck got first (No surprise, he had some awesome ideas). The 11-year old that stomped me that first round placed 2nd, so I didn't feel too badly that I lost. My one friend was the only one of us 5 that placed in the top 8 (he got 6th with a rank of 2-2) and the only reason he did was because he played his bro and won, and then won the 2nd one because he was playing against the owner and he had to attend to other business, so my friend won by default. The two door prizes were awarded to my two other friends that didn't get 6th and didn't drop because everyone else dropped that weren't in the top 8. We were about to leave when we realized that we still had those cards that weren't ours in our deck. I went back to the judge to return my cards and he said that I could just keep them because he already had 4 of each (4 is the max amount of any card you can have in your deck).
9:00
We left.
TL;DR summery:
We spent 5 hours playing Magic: The Gathering at the comic shop.
I got stomped in two different tournaments, but learned many tips.
I walked away with about 225 more cards than I walked in with, about 180 were free.
Made a bunch of new friends.
It was a blast and I'll defiantly be returning to play in more tournaments.
Also, as for the status of my deck.
Start -> Current
Pre-built Black/Artifact -> Illegal Modified Black/Artifact -> Legal Modified Black/Artifact -> Custom Black Artifact -> Custom Black -> Custom Artifact -> Custom Black/Blue/Artifact (Working very well, mostly legal, and a combination I'm really liking.)
