Musings from Long Beach(Part 2 of 2)
Daniel Gray
Saturday, 4 May 1996
7:30am: Wake up. We're wise today and avoid the restaurant. I decide not to
volunteer today so I can play in the Japanese sealed deck tournament.
8:25am: We hit the Exhibit Hall, and get our registration materials for the
Japanese tournament, scheduled to start at 11. Kai has decided he wants to
jump on the bandwagon and start playing a Necrodisk deck. He puts one
together, and playtests against my Willowgeddon deck for a while. I win most
of the games. Kai then goes to play Netrunner with Sam, and I play a guy in
Type I, hauling out my Atog special against his ChainRack deck. He wins 2-1.
10:55am: They start lining everyone up at the top of the first floor stairs
for the Japanese tournament. The Seniors top 64 draft has been at 7:30, and
the juniors had just finished theirs a short while ago. Max comes up to tell
us he's got "the goods"(Big Daddy's slang for "Kick ass cards"), including an
Air Elemental, Castle, Balance, and several other good things making a strong
U/W deck.
11:10am: They let us downstairs for the Japanese tournament. The tournament
was "speed" format, where you just play and play until you've lost six games
and then you're out. The person with the most wins after five hours wins. I
sit at a table with Kai, Sam, and my friend Allan McComb(also from Santa
Barbara) to build decks. I get an OK deck, with a Force of Nature and tons of
cool red cards(including a Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Uthden Troll, Brothers of
Fire, and Orcish Artillery). Unfortunately, I get only 3 Mountains, and this
cannot use most of them. I build the best deck I can. Kai, lucky in sealed
deck as ever(he once got 2 Stone Rains, 2 Counterspells, 2 Lava Bursts, and 2
Illusionary Forces in an IA sealed deck tourney), gets 2 Vampires and a whole
lot of other good stuff. Ugh.
11:35am: By sheer random chance, Joel Unger and I wind up at the front table
at the same time, and have to play each other. Joel is very, very good, and
very lucky. I've only ever won one game against him. He has yet another
awesome deck. His weakest creature is a Scathe Zombies, and, due to being
pissed off about getting cool cards I can't use, I make a zillion mistakes,
and Joel sweeps me.
12pm: The next guy I play has The Hive. I have no flyers. Bah. I manage to win
one game, but get Wasped to death in both of the others.
12:40pm: I play another guy with five losses and a crappy deck. He draws
better than I do, and I'm out. Allan is also out, but Kai is romping
everyone(despite a loss due to a stupid mistake). Allan and I hang around for
a while, discussing selling cards and whatnot. We wander downstairs because
Allan wants to have Richard Garfield sign his Jester's Caps, and so he can
watch his son Matt, who is playing in the Juniors. We chat with Richard
Garfield, Matt(who went 1-2 in round one), and David Steel(another Santa
Barbaran playing in the juniors) for a while. Richard eventually leaves, as he
needs to leave to go back to Seattle. We sit around for a while longer, joined
by some other folks from Santa Barbara we know. A guy wanders up asking for
Disrupting Scepters, and I sell him four for $8.
1:20pm: Allan and I go back upstairs to see what's up. Kai is engaged in a
marathon match with Bertrand Lestree. Kai has the superior creature power, but
Bertrand has better creature removal, including an Immolation, 2 Fissures, and
an Aladdin's Ring. Bertrand beats Kai twice in a row with the Ring, and Kai is
out. Allan takes off to try and sell some cards to a guy from Spain. Kai and I
go upstairs so he can eat and teach me how to play Netrunner.
2:30pm: I play my first game of Netrunner. I love this game. If you haven't
tried it already, you should. I jump up to go buy my own starter deck and some
boosters, and as I walk by the demo table, I hear there's about to be the
second ever Netrunner sealed deck tourney downstairs. I grab Kai and we sign
up. We pass Max on the way down, and he is now 8-1 after three of the six
rounds. Cool.
3:15pm: Tournament starts. I have no clue what I'm doing really, but manage to
split rounds one and two with my opponents. Sam comes by at one point to
mention that Max got swept and is now 8-4. I play the third round against a
player who had played a lot before(Kai is in a similar situation, playing Bo
Bell). Just before I lose the second game, Ken comes by, mentions he got the
shaft in the top 64, but says that Max made final 8 for Sunday. Kai and I drop
out of the tournament after the third round.
6:50pm: The Seniors are finished. Several players got the shaft in terms of
drafting, including Brian Weissman. Mark Justice started out strong, but then
rapidly fell off. Making the top 8 are Preston Poulter, "Hammer" Regnier, Tom
Guevin, Jeff Wood, Vaughn Sandor, Mark Venhaus, and a guy named Darwin(who was
a member of Team SMK, the team from Masachusetts including Mike Loconto. I
never did catch his last name).
8:10pm: Kai and I are in our room, and I'm helping him construct a better
Necrodeck(using numerous cards borrowed from Max). We decide to go up to the
lounge again(everyone having been kicked out of the Exhibit Hall due to lack
of security) and find some ante games. None are forthcoming, so we play each
other in Type II. Kai antes a Taiga against my Wheel of Fortune. I win 2-1. In
the meantime, a guy has come up to me asking if I had any Mirror Universes. I
sell him the last of my Italian ones, bought in mass quantity cheaply, for
$25. Another guy comes up to me offering to play Type I for ante. I ready the
Atogs for battle, and offer to play for a Library of Alexandria. He doesn't
want to wager that much, having just lost $25 in another match, so I ante the
Taiga that I just won from Kai against his Badlands. He's playing a Millstone
deck with SIXTEEN damn counterspells. About the only thing that can ever beat
the Atogs(aside from more Atogs :) are decks with many counters. I usually
beat people using only 8 or so, but sixteen just annoyed the hell out of me. I
lose 0-2, partially due to countermagic, and partially due to my inherent hate
of stupid decks that don't do anything.
Sunday, 5 May 1996
12:40am: We wander upstairs, following rumors of another room filled with
players. We find Ken there, buying Beta commons from some guy. Kai & Ken play
Type II, while some guys come over to me looking for Japanese cards for their
set. I show them my one starter deck, and they give me $5 for my Inferno. Sam
then shows up, and we chat for awhile, laughing at Ken's hysterical G/W
Armageddon/Titania's Song/big artifact deck.
1:30am: I'm wiped and go back to our room, leaving Kai & Ken still playing. I
read the Netrunner rulebook for a while. Kai shows up about 20 minutes later,
and we go to sleep, after setting a 6:30 wakeup call in order to get up for
the Alliances premier in the morning. I don't know if Kai hears it, but I'm
kept awake by the people in the next room. There had, apparently, been a high
school prom on the ship that night, and two people are engaged in boisterous
amourous relations on the other side of the wall. Annoying.
6:30 am: Wake up. Little sleep again. Ugh.
7:20am: Get to Exhibit Hall. Pick up registration stuff for Alliances tourney.
The separate the players into two waves. This is one big tournament, with at
least 450 people playing and trying to get their hands on Alliances cards
early. Kai & I wind up at a table with Brian Weissman, Joel, Mario Robaina,
and Henry Stern. Brian, Kai, and I discuss how lopsided the previous day's
booster draft had been, and how shafted Brian, as well as several
others(including Mark Chalice) got because their tables had few worthwhile
cards, while one table had faulty packs with duplicate commons in them. We get
our cards and start building decks. My deck sucks, my best creatures being the
fantastically powerful Balduvian Barbarians and Woolly Mammoths. Ugh.
Alliances is neat, with lots of cards that do goofy things. Hand, library, and
graveyard manipulation seem to be big themes in Alliances. Many cards are
insnaely complicated as well, some having more rules questions than ice
Cauldron, and more lines of text than the 4E Bronze Tablet. I get the Sol
Grail(3, Name a color, tap for mana of the color you named), the new Psychic
Purge(Guerille Warfare, R1 to do 2 damage to anything, or does 4 damage to
opponent if something he/she does makes you discard it), the new
Shatterstorm(R1 to destroy an artifact. Nuke another for each R1 you pay, or
nuke another and gain 1 life for each G1 you pay), and the coolest art on the
planet(Chris Rush's Lim-Dul's Paladin[BR1, 0/3 Trample, discard a card each
upkeep, or bury it and draw a card. If it attacks and is blocked, it gets
+6/+3 until end of turn, and if it isn't blocked, the defender loses 4 life.
Ouch]).
8:40am: Start playing. Lose six straight games. I go to work on a spoiler
list, getting cards from several people around me to write down. I decide
Necrodecks are dead, between the new Purge and Gustha's Scepter, along with
several other things. Get hungry and go upstairs. I run into a guy from
Neutral Ground in New York doing the same thing I am, so I decide to let him
make the spoiler lists.
11am: Go back downstairs where Kai is still playing. Allan is out and
running around selling and trading for Alliances cards trying to make a set. I
sell him a bunch of mine. I watch Dale Conklin, Allan's partner, play the
tournament. He's got a great deck, and is romping people with "Dirty
Harry"(Gorilla Berserkers, GG2, 2/3 Trample, Rampage: 2, can't be blocked by
less than 3 creatures). I sell Dale the rest of my cards(all except Lim-Dul's
Paladin, whcin ain't goin' nowhere :)
12pm: Wander around some, hook up with Kai. We watch a little of the final 8
matches going on. Max has won his first, and made final four. In the Seniors,
"Hammer" knocked out Preston Poulter.
1pm: Kai and I play a couple games of Netrunner. He wins.
1:45pm: We go and watch the quaterfinal match between Hammer and Darwin.
Hammer has a really weird deck with very few creatures(all I remember seeing
were a couple Giant Albatrosses anda Wall of Bone), but he has tons of
control, including a Control Magic, one of every possible counterspell, a
Disenchant, a Giant Oyster, 4 Gaseous Forms, and some COP's. He beats Darwin
3-1. Max has also won again, and makes the finals.
3pm: Things get nuts. Many people are running around trading, buying, and
selling Alliances to make some sets. A couple of guys who had judged the
Alliances tournament come up, and offer to sell the free packs they got for
working. Allan gobbles up 8 of them for a large sum. This sets off a feeding
frenzy, as many judges and others with sealed packs start selling them for
inflated prices. I buy 2 packs from some guy for $12.50 each, and then, walk
about 10 feet and sell them for $15 each to someone else. Another guy sells me
4 more for $45, and I do the same stunt, and sell them within minutes to
another guy for $53. Allan begins trading feverishly to get a set, trading
away his extra Alliances, his packs, and even some dual lands. Kai sells off
almost all his Alliances cards, as do many others.
4pm: I continue to scratch my head as the Alliances frenzy continues. Many of
the referees who had been working also got free Alliances packs, and then
either sell them, or open them and trade to the set-makers. Allan gets over
100 of the 142 cards. I somehow wind up at a table with some dealers that
Allan knows. Deciding I've had it with Type I(and needing my money), I sell
off all my major Type I spoilers, selling my Emeral and'twister to a dealer,
and my other 4 Moxes, Walk, and Ancestral to a guy from Spain. I keep my Lotus
because no one can afford to buy it. I get Kai and he sells off some of his
remaining Type I stuff. Meanwhile, the finals of the Seniors have started
between Hammer and Tom Guevin. Max is also playing the Juniors finals.
6:15pm: I stand, hang, and generally sit around watching the matches, the
Alliances frenzy, and talking to Kai, Allan, or Bob Blackman.
7pm: Max Szalgor wins the finals and becomes the Junior Champion. Ken, Kai,
Sam, and I run to the second deck of the boat(where the matches were held in a
closed room to avoid distraction) to congratulate Max. The match between
Hammer and Guevin continues, with them splitting the first two 1-1.
7:40pm: I talk to Paul, the volunteer coodinator, getting my "reward" of 2
Alliances packs and $20 WotC credit(which I buy Netrunner boosters with). The
third game between Hammer and Guevin goes on forever. I talk to Bob about
history for a while.
8:15pm: The third game is STILL going on when Kai and I have to leave. On our
way out, we get major crap from the morons running Queen Mary parking. Since I
refereed, we were to get free parking. Since I left my ticket in my car, Paul
simply gave me an index card with the validation stamp. The parking goons try
and tell us we need to go back into the Exhibit Hall, find Paul and get the
ticket itself stamped so "the computer could read it." They give us more crap
until I finally manage to get a security guard over. The guard calls the
Exhibit Hall, they track down Paul, and he confirms my stamp is valid. Like I
would waste the time to try and steal free parking. Idiots.
8:40pm: I drop Kai off at LAX, and tell him I'll see him in July.
10:30pm: I get home to Santa Barbara, each the high nutrition of In-n-Out
Burger and Coke Classic(yum yum) and start writing this report.
Monday, 6 May 1996
1am: I finish writing this thing. I hope you enjoyed it.
Dan Gray
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Daniel M. Gray
Department of History
University of California, Santa Barbara