Connecticon Convention Report - Top 8 in a StarCity Elite IQ

It was a long, mostly successful weekend.

I left work at noon on Friday, thinking to beat rush hour traffic. Unfortunately, that worked about as well as the George Washington Bridge’s Toll Plaza, and we arrived just after 10pm. Admittedly, we did get a late start due to some unavoidable circumstances regarding members of our party who weren’t necessarily ready to travel at the correct time, but traffic and dinner played a big part of it. We played Apples to Apples for the evening and Pop and I strategized for the next day.

Connecticon is a massive, multi-genre convention. If you’ve never gone, I strongly encourage you to give it a try. There’s literally something for everyone there. In previous years, I’ve spent the weekend roleplaying, attending panels on webcomics, buying magnificent art at bargain-basement prices, and playing Magic. This year, I will admit, my attention was a little bit more focused.

There were Star City Invitational Qualifiers firing off, two per day – all of Super Level or higher. Over the weekend, fourteen invitations would be given out – six for legacy, four for sealed, and four for standard. Nevertheless, Pop and I were leery about entering the Sealed Elite Qualifier. With a $40 price tag, it was certainly the most expensive event of the weekend, and neither of us wanted to get stuck with a subpar pool. I suggested that we swing by early in the day and make the decision to enter the tournament or not based on the number of people entering.

We arrived at 9:45, with only fifteen minutes left to enter. At that point, there were 35 people on the list. Cash prizes went down to the Top 16, and that seemed very reasonable, so we both entered. Unfortunately for our math, the numbers ballooned up to 65 in the last ten minutes, and so we were left with a (barely) seven round slog to the Top 8.

I opened a fairly lackluster pool, and was glad to pass it away, but unfortunately, Pop opened what some would conservatively call the Best Pool Ever. Featuring both a Liliana and an Ajani, the pool also had such all-stars as a pair of Serra Angels, double Murder and Pacifism, and enough exalted triggers to make Elves laugh at Titans.

Needless to say, he passed that away and got a pile of cardboard that could have been competitive if we were playing Homelands. Sadly, we weren’t. He went 0-1 drop on the spot.

I, on the other hand, received a pretty solid pool. It was a bit light on playables, but some creative choices ended up with a BW Exalted deck that splashed an Evolving Wilds and a single Island for Harbor Bandit. This choice ended up being the difference between winning a match and losing it in roughly half my matches.

Let me be clear about this – if you are using a member of the Kird Ape cycle, and you have any fixing in your deck, add one of the extra color. I promise you that you will not regret it.

I’m sitting there, building my pool, when I notice one judge stalking me. I look over at his nametag, and realize it seems familiar. I fish out my phone and start looking up a name on Reddit. It took me a good 45 seconds, but I eventually look up.

“Hello there Wingman.”
“Was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

Wingman2011, as many of you redditors know him, served as a judge for the weekend, and did a spectacular job. I have to give him some credit for being the primary announcer for the Fill-And-Fire events all day on Saturday, and managing to keep them amusing even the thirtieth time we all heard “Random So-And-So, your Draft is ready to fire. They would all LOVE to start playing, and we would LOVE to take your money. Please report to the desk immediately.” Also, ladies, he has an awesome radio voice, which had been described as both stand-up comedian and radio host.

Back to the sealed, most of the games eventually came down to one of my creatures being unblockable – either via flying, Harbor Bandit, or Tormented Soul. Add in a few exalted triggers, and it represents a very real clock that cleaved through opponents. Others were won because Vampire Nighthawk is incredible at racing. Others fell because Mark of the Vampire is an underrated card. +2/+2 and lifelink is a playable aura in Limited if you watch carefully and play it around instant removal. Often, a single swing would be more than enough to turn the tide.

Since again, I find limited summaries boring (and they often boil down to ‘and then I had it and he didn’t’) I’ll spare the details. I won my first four, lost the fifth, and then won round six to be able to draw into the Top 8 draft.

The Top 8 draft was one of the most harrowing Magic experiences that I’ve gone through so far. I’ve never done a competitive REL draft before, and I’m a little ashamed to know that I earned a warning for Improper Draft Procedure for looking at a pack of cards early. Then again, half the table got warnings for similar things, so I suppose that we were all fairly new to Top 8 drafts. I built what I thought was an awesome UW Skies deck – always a popular archetype in limited. Unfortunately for me, Big Green Stompy is also a good limited archetype, and Spiders beat birds in this set. Sentinel Spider, specifically, deserves some credit for being a huge road block for everything and their cousin. It’s a non-flying Serra Angel, but in Green, and at common. Seems pretty solid.

 I lose in the Top 8, collecting another SCG Top 8 pin (That makes three!), my first SCG IQ Playmat, and $100. I opted to receive the money in convention prize tickets, which allowed me to buy a pair of Scrublands for my legacy deck. While I was doing that, Pop had been doing some Fill-And-Fire Sealed events, and won one for a Convention-exclusive playmat – and enough tickets over the course of the day to buy a Karakas at an absurdly low price. Good for him.

We durdled around for the evening, playing one last Fill-And-Fire Sealed. (I lost in the finals in game 3 to Switcheroo on my 10/10 Slumbering Dragon. Mind control effects suck, but still good for some tickets.) Bed followed shortly thereafter, and on the morning, we were back at it.

The Standard Super IQ on Sunday went less well for me. I played my normal Tokens build with some minor sideboard tweaks for the Wolf Run matchup. I met Naya Aggro in game one, packing the newly released Thragtusk. I don’t want to say that I told you so, but that card is absurd. It throttled me in game one with a pair of Restoration Angels attached that I was never able to dig out from under. Game two came down to him miracling a Bonfire for 2 and killing more tokens than I’d like to admit. Neither match was close.

I won round two against RW Humans, which seems like a bad matchup unless you draw multiple Champions of the Parish like I did.  Sometimes you’re lucky, I suppose. Unfortunately, I was not, and I lost the third round to Delver after he blind flipped a lot of things and ran me over without much protest. He at least complimented that I blanked his Vapor Snags all game by playing around them.

Pop continued to play in the event and went on to Top 8 before losing his match. Still won a playmat and $50 cash.

While he did that, I entered the final Standard Fill-And-Fire  event of the weekend. Not wanting to go out on a 1-2 drop, I 3-0 the event and take home the prize of 32 tickets and a playmat. Two of the matches were pretty lackluster affairs – against Mill and a subpar version of Tokens that never got off the ground. The third match was against an extremely competent UW Delver player who put me down a game early, and took an advantage in the second. A well-timed Midnight Haunting put me back in the game, and I managed to crawl back before taking the game – and then the third in decisive fashion.

I cash in my tickets for my last Marsh Flats, my last Ethersworn Canonist, and three packs of AVR – one of which contained a Cavern of Souls. My luck was strong with this one. I’ve only got about 20 cards to go for my Legacy deck, and we’re making slow but steady progress on that front. I’ve resolved to not spend too much money on the deck from here on our, which means all the card acquisitions will have to be via prize support or trades. This is going to make it a little difficult, but I imagine that we can probably get there over time.

I caught up with Wingman once more before I left, and we made sure to get a picture for you guys. I’m the handsome one in green. He’s the handsome one in Judge Black.

Wingman2011 and Myself, Rocking the Con

Overall, the weekend went extremely well for me. I received prizes from 3 of the 4 events I entered, though admittedly not the events that I would have expected if you had asked me at the start of the weekend. We ended things up with a trip to Texas Roadhouse and then singing Linkin Park all the way back to Philadelphia.

This coming weekend will be spent in DC, so I won't likely get to play much Magic. There's an outside chance I might finally set up my Magic Online account though - and try out the new Beta Client (which I hear is sweet). The Magic Judge Open is coming up, and I'd like to have at least some familiarity with the system by that time. This Thursday, we'll talk about what I'm unhappy with in Tokens, and what deck I'll be testing out in Standard next week!

Have any suggestions for an article for me to write? I'm always accepting suggestions. Feel free to leave comments, message me on Twitter (@ajrula) or reddit (andrewrula). I also accept email suggestions - andrewrula at gmail.com.

Until Thursday, Happy Spellslinging!
-Andrew