So I attended my first ever Grand Prix (or “Magicfest” or whatever the hell they’re trying to call it). It came at a price, since the in-laws were also in town. But the Momma Raptor was encouraging (even if she did burst out in peals of laughter when I talked about my chances of making day 2. It could happen!) and off I went.

Co-Benalish Daddy Chris repeated his key tips for me. Bring a water bottle and bring lots of snacks. Large breakfast, 50% cut in caffeine. If you can take a break to get outside and recharge do it. Or do something not magic related. Got it!

Having never done this before, first was the hour of pool confirmation and paperwork. Seated randomly, the person across from your verifies and records your pool. Then you get it handed back. And you have THIRTY MINUTES to build your pool. I’ve enjoyed Modern Horizons more than most sealed pools because it’s complicated in the right ways. The rares, while powerful, aren’t necessarily game-breaking. So you have to find these little pockets of synergy to make your deck more powerful than the sum of its parts. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it’s real hard to do in thirty minutes. For example, here is what I came up with.

Not bad right? Always nice having Serra around to bail you out, but some big chunkers and some card advantage. But you can tell the total lack of synergy. There’s not really a combo in the entire set. Some cards even work against each other (the aggressive of Knight of Old Benalia vs. the controlling card advantage of Pondering Mage).

Drew, champion who qualified for Day 2, swung by while I was slamming some lunch. In the span of four minutes built a much MUCH better deck.

Drew leaned into the red splash. I initially avoided it because I was so worried about my sketchy manabase (lots of UU or WW) that I didn’t think I could handle it. But he rightfully pointed out a few things. First, with the dual-land, the dino-Manalish, and a Talisman, I could splash without hurting myself. Second, and more damning, is that my deck wasn’t really powerful enough to survive without a splash. I didn’t have the killer 2-color, on-theme deck. So if you don’t have that, you need to maximize the upside at the risk of sketchy mana. Cut the lame blue Sliver, the Faerie Seers (who need Ninjitsu to really shine), and aggressive cards and put in the red removal, the Efreet and fixing-enablers. If you’re going to control, control! And, the big lesson here for me, if you have a lot of card draw/selection, then don’t be afraid to splash.

The Matches

A few words on the “actual playing of magic”. First, it wasn’t actually all that intense. I had to make sure that I was diligent, but several times there was some mildly loose play (like tapping lands, then choosing different lands before the spell was cast) that sailed through. Mind you, I had one horrific cheating moment when I tried to cast a Sorcery as an Instant. In my defense, it totally FEELS like an Instant, amirite?

A judge was lurking right behind me, almost as if he knew I was going to botch it. So I got a warning, as I rightfully deserved.

A bigger strategic blunder I committed was not going for the throat as running out of time. There’s only 50 minutes per round, and my deck was pretty grindy with good defenses and not a lot of great offense. I ended up drawing two of my matches, which is basically the same as losing those matches. In one case I played defensively (trading fliers) instead of going aggressively and racing the oppo.

Aside from the playing of Magic cards, it was super fun just wandering around. Artists’ Alley was well represented, especially by the classics. Brian Snoddy! Drew Tucker! Liz Danforth! Mark Poole signed my Farmstead (always a favorite of mine, even if WWWWW for gaining 1 life isn’t exactly a mover & shaker).