I know, I know – it’s been a while.

I can only offer my apologies – I’ve been sick (again! God, why is it always me?) and the hassles of being an Englishman in New York (Quiet, Sting!) are never ending. But I’m still here.

Just. Oh, and I’m not in New York, although sometimes I wish I were.

Why? Because when you live in a small town in the Mid-West like I do, your options as far as playing, trading and tourneys are very limited. I couldn’t make the Invasion pre-release which I was supposed to help judge, so I’ve had to content myself with the sneak-preview weekend and a sealed-deck FNM tourney to experience the new set.

Now remember, I’ve only been playing Magic for eight months, so the first time I saw a gold card it made me squint to read it. I’d never seen one before Sunday and never played with one, but I had to admit they looked cool, but I think I will stay away from them.

Why? Because it seems to me like WoTc is trying to dictate what colors we play. I know that they’re trying to draw everyone away from mono-color decks, but there are just some combinations that don’t seem right to me. All this talk of “allied colors” is just making my head spin.

So what did I do in my very first Invasion sealed? I broke with tradition and made a red/back thing that somehow put me in the top four.

I’m as stunned as you are. I can only point to my good fortune with my draws and my opponent’s bad luck as an excuse. Looking back on my magic tourney career, I can see definite stages of wins/losses that seem to be separated by almost identical time spans. This is how I worked it out:

Feb/March – Very Easy – constant 0-4 in every tourney because I thought 1/1’s were the best creatures ever.
April/May – Getting Better – pretty much constant 1-3 with the occasional 1-2-1. I’d discovered that drafting was NOT about getting as many rares as possible!
June/July – Better Still – 2-2 or 1-2 drop is the order of the day – while not necessarily better, I discovered the “stack” and was trying to get too grips with it

Which brings us to the present. I’m now at a more or less rock solid 2-2 in EVERY TOURNEY I PLAY IN. It’s starting to get frustrating, but I know the problem. There are some very weak players at my local store (even weaker than I) who I normally get paired up with in my first two rounds. I win both, then have to face the much better players for the last two rounds.

Take last week for instance. I went 2-0 and told myself that I would NOT loose the next round. I would play well, take my time, not be nervous and beat the living hell out of my opponent with all the grace I could muster.

I was right – I didn’t loose. I drew.

I won the first game easily in about 10 minutes – you just have to love those 2/2 flying first strike guys (white) coupled with the blue mage who taps creatures. Bung an Armadillo cloak on him (actually I had two, so I was dealing six damage and gaining eight life a turn) and it was all over.

The next match was a stalemate – I has to keep a semi hand, and we just sat there until he rushed me. I blocked (thinking my math skills from high school would tell me that I couldn’t kill him next turn with my surviving creatures) and conceded the match when I realized that there was only five minutes left in the round - I couldn’t do the extra five points of damage on my last of the extra turns to kill him.

I think I would’ve been happier if I’d lost. As it was, I lost the next round, and a 2-1-1 record just screamed “Cracked under pressure” to me. I didn’t even win the deck box (something I’m notorious for – I won the deck boxes at both previous sneak-preview weekends. The random ones, I hasten to add).

So I’m looking forward to my 3-1 stage. I’m not sure what I need to do to get there. I do make a lot of mistakes, and my first thought was to get one of the more experienced players to stand behind me and make a note of every mistake I made and how I could’ve played better. Then again, this will probably just be humiliating

Until Next Time

Banzi

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