I went to one at Guardian Games in Portland this afternoon (“sealed” I think is what the format is called – 1 tournament pack + 2 boosters) – man did I suck this time! My first two games were straight out losses, and the couple games I played in between were horrid losses too. And it’s not like I was playing against hardcore gamers – again I was surprised by how mellow a lot of (but not all!!!) of these guys were.
I’ll lay at least 40% of the blame on my cards. I didn’t have anything I felt I could build a deck around, while both my opponents got at least 3 rares into their decks. I went white/green/black for kicks, but in retrospect I think black/red +blue splash would have gone over better (this is the other 60% of the blame that should be on me). But hey – I’m just playing for fun & to learn, not to win. So on that level, I think I learned a lot about what not to do next time. Especially land & deck size, mine was just too big with 49 cards & 20-24 lands (I varied it as the rounds went on). Next time I really need to stick closer to 40 and go with less land.
So yeah, I didn’t get any bombs, or even the little tiny common combos that I like (like the untapping->tapping common faerie is awesome…and 3 tournament packs + at least 8 boosters now and I still haven’t gotten one. Yes I have 3 Kitchen Finks & 2 Leech Bonders. Go figure).
Unlike the deck from my previous tournament, I will not be keeping it and attempting to tune and reuse it.
But I still had lots of fun, even losing (sometimes very fast!) and met some nice people. I look forward to the next time.
OH – and weirdness! I picked up a tournament deck & 3 packs on the way out – the tournament pack had NINE uncommons and NO rares. Lame!! Of course, all the uncommons were decent so it wasn’t horrible. But still, rares are where the “money” is at, so I’m a little frustrated that way.