I didn't work today or yesterday, but yesterday I actually did write something. I'll post my finished law school application essay at some point soon. And today I took the GRE's and don't find myself in the mindset to write more. I feel like I did really well on the essays, but the math was abysmal. Typical me, I guess. I guess I'm about average when it comes to numbers. But my verbal scores are good, and I never plan on going to grad school for numberology anyway. Hopefully that's all a prospective college will see. In the meantime, it's my sister's birthday today! So happy birthday to her if she happens to read this in the few hours before she gets here for dinner, and if not, I'm sure I'll tell her then (or sing it at her really obnoxiously).
And a quick observation:
I enjoyed the writing prompts. Something about being challenged to quickly respond to something with insight is appealing to me. I wonder if there is something to that? It feels like thinking on my feet, but being able to type it helps a lot. I noticed I was way better at these writing sections than the LSAT, and I'm pretty sure the only difference was that I had a backspace key and a way to write fast enough so that my fingers could keep up with my brain. Anyway, that's all for now. I had to get up pretty early, and almost five hours of testing is enough thinking for the next while. But I'm not done writing. I'll see what else I can think of in the meantime.
January 26, 2012
January 23, 2012
Mostly Magic
I'm getting a late start to writing today because people are apparently tired of me being ill. So I slept until I really couldn't sleep any more and realized it was already past 10:00. And today was a day I actually had some things to write about. Of course, if you've been around me recently, you already know I am excited about magic the gathering stuff right now. I've been playing pretty regularly again, and I usually do well at the local stuff on Mondays and Fridays, so when I came back from my friday tournament early in defeat, I felt I had to justify my poor showing. I had my excuse at the ready, though. I had spent all my time recently testing a new format for the tournament saturday and had thrown something together last minute for Friday.
So Saturday rolled around and I headed to the shop early to get the last couple cards I needed before the tournament started. I was playing a deck I like, and was looking forward to seeing how it performed against a variety of opponents. The thing I like most about my deck is that it has a combination of cards that allows me to gain infinite life, but it doesn't need to get that combo in play to win. This is a significant advantage, because most decks that do powerful things like that are focused only on pulling off that plan, while mine can switch roles and try and disrupt the opponent's plan while attacking them directly if they are trying for a combo of their own. Exactly 16 people showed up, which meant brackets would be filled out perfectly for a four round tournament with a cut to top four.
Round one I played against a guy who was all-in on a combo that would deal infinite damage. He played a lot of ways to search for the combo, but didn't have a lot to do if he didn't get to it. So in the first game (rounds are best two out of three games) I got my combo off before seeing anything about what he was trying to do, since he never found the pieces to his combo. Between games you have the option of changing up your deck a bit using a fifteen card "sideboard," and because I didn't know what he was trying to do I took out a card that was actually amazing against him. I lost the next game in fine fashion, dealt infinite damage by his combo, and retooled my deck to be at its optimum arrangement. I took the third game easily once I knew what to look out for.
The second round I played against a deck I had loaned out to a guy who wanted some tournament experience. Unfortunately, I loaned him a good deck, and I lost the first game rapidly. The second game I made a mistake by playing aggressively for my combo instead of disrupting him, and I paid for it when he cast a spell that says whenever I would gain life I lose that much life instead. Not wanting to lose infinite life, I had to rethink things pretty drastically. I just barely squeaked out the game by racing him dealing damage with my creatures. The third game I won handily, assembling my combo without any problems.
Third round was my worst matchup as far as decks are concerned. Luckily, it wasn't my worst matchup as far as opponents were concerned. This guy was sporting a deck worth $1,800, and he made so many mistakes it was almost laughable. the first game went as I was expecting all of them to go. I played some creatures, he killed them, then he played some creatures, I didn't kill them, and then he killed me. The second game I was sitting there with two creatures that when they die, they come back into play and I gain two life. This is only supposed to happen once, but the combo I play is a card that shuts off the mechanic that makes it only happen once. That card, combined with a way to kill my creatures, is how I gain infinite life. I had the card that shuts off the mechanic, but no way of killing my own creatures, so I was just bouncing them off his creatures as a way of gaining life. It was nowhere near infinite, and when he played a card that destroys any one of mine, I knew I was probably done for. Then he destroyed something irrelevant instead and I went on to win the game. Game three I disrupted him by making him discard a card of my choice. His hand was almost terrible, and I took the best card, leaving him with almost nothing. It was easy to win from there.
Round four I didn't have to play, since the tournament format is such that a record of three wins and a draw is guaranteed to make the cut to top four. Even better, the person I drew with is a friend, meaning we were both going to have a shot at victory. Also, since I didn't have to play for that hour time block, I got to eat, which is a surprisingly significant advantage as the rounds go on. I got back in time to see the guy I played round three make it intonthe top four with another victory.
Round five I played against another combo deck, but this time I knew exactly what I was up against, since I helped the guy test the deck in preparation for this tournament. Game one I got the cards I needed to prevent him from accomplishing his goal and he realized he had no chance, so it was on to the second game really quickly. Game two I had infinite life against his infinite damage, so we briefly played the game of who can choose a higher number before he realized I could always choose a higher number. Then I won the next turn.
The finals were, of course, against the guy from round three with the deck I am still pretty sure isn't a good matchup for me. Game one I got my combo quickly and he conceded. Game two I played a bunch of things to slow down the game and things got a bit stalled. I wound up going all-in on a big creature and just hoping to win that way, and he had a couple of chances to draw what he needed, but his deck didn't cooperate and I wound up winning.
So I turned a ten dollar entry fee into $60, and the best part is I got three byes for a tournament next month, which is sort of a big deal. It's a grand prix stop for magic players, which means it will attract people from all over the world. The first day will be nine rounds, so having three wins already going into it is significant, as it means I only have to manage to get four wins to be set up well for the second day of play. This is the situation all the professional players are in, because they automatically get byes based on pro points they have accumulated. Anyway, I'm excited to try my hand at it. It will be the first large scale tournament I've attended since I was in high school.
So I'll be busy preparing for that, I suppose, and I'm taking the GRE's on Thursday, and I have a handball tournament this weekend and another in Colorado the weekend after that. I suppose I'm also supposed to be applying to grad schools. We'll see.
So Saturday rolled around and I headed to the shop early to get the last couple cards I needed before the tournament started. I was playing a deck I like, and was looking forward to seeing how it performed against a variety of opponents. The thing I like most about my deck is that it has a combination of cards that allows me to gain infinite life, but it doesn't need to get that combo in play to win. This is a significant advantage, because most decks that do powerful things like that are focused only on pulling off that plan, while mine can switch roles and try and disrupt the opponent's plan while attacking them directly if they are trying for a combo of their own. Exactly 16 people showed up, which meant brackets would be filled out perfectly for a four round tournament with a cut to top four.
Round one I played against a guy who was all-in on a combo that would deal infinite damage. He played a lot of ways to search for the combo, but didn't have a lot to do if he didn't get to it. So in the first game (rounds are best two out of three games) I got my combo off before seeing anything about what he was trying to do, since he never found the pieces to his combo. Between games you have the option of changing up your deck a bit using a fifteen card "sideboard," and because I didn't know what he was trying to do I took out a card that was actually amazing against him. I lost the next game in fine fashion, dealt infinite damage by his combo, and retooled my deck to be at its optimum arrangement. I took the third game easily once I knew what to look out for.
The second round I played against a deck I had loaned out to a guy who wanted some tournament experience. Unfortunately, I loaned him a good deck, and I lost the first game rapidly. The second game I made a mistake by playing aggressively for my combo instead of disrupting him, and I paid for it when he cast a spell that says whenever I would gain life I lose that much life instead. Not wanting to lose infinite life, I had to rethink things pretty drastically. I just barely squeaked out the game by racing him dealing damage with my creatures. The third game I won handily, assembling my combo without any problems.
Third round was my worst matchup as far as decks are concerned. Luckily, it wasn't my worst matchup as far as opponents were concerned. This guy was sporting a deck worth $1,800, and he made so many mistakes it was almost laughable. the first game went as I was expecting all of them to go. I played some creatures, he killed them, then he played some creatures, I didn't kill them, and then he killed me. The second game I was sitting there with two creatures that when they die, they come back into play and I gain two life. This is only supposed to happen once, but the combo I play is a card that shuts off the mechanic that makes it only happen once. That card, combined with a way to kill my creatures, is how I gain infinite life. I had the card that shuts off the mechanic, but no way of killing my own creatures, so I was just bouncing them off his creatures as a way of gaining life. It was nowhere near infinite, and when he played a card that destroys any one of mine, I knew I was probably done for. Then he destroyed something irrelevant instead and I went on to win the game. Game three I disrupted him by making him discard a card of my choice. His hand was almost terrible, and I took the best card, leaving him with almost nothing. It was easy to win from there.
Round four I didn't have to play, since the tournament format is such that a record of three wins and a draw is guaranteed to make the cut to top four. Even better, the person I drew with is a friend, meaning we were both going to have a shot at victory. Also, since I didn't have to play for that hour time block, I got to eat, which is a surprisingly significant advantage as the rounds go on. I got back in time to see the guy I played round three make it intonthe top four with another victory.
Round five I played against another combo deck, but this time I knew exactly what I was up against, since I helped the guy test the deck in preparation for this tournament. Game one I got the cards I needed to prevent him from accomplishing his goal and he realized he had no chance, so it was on to the second game really quickly. Game two I had infinite life against his infinite damage, so we briefly played the game of who can choose a higher number before he realized I could always choose a higher number. Then I won the next turn.
The finals were, of course, against the guy from round three with the deck I am still pretty sure isn't a good matchup for me. Game one I got my combo quickly and he conceded. Game two I played a bunch of things to slow down the game and things got a bit stalled. I wound up going all-in on a big creature and just hoping to win that way, and he had a couple of chances to draw what he needed, but his deck didn't cooperate and I wound up winning.
So I turned a ten dollar entry fee into $60, and the best part is I got three byes for a tournament next month, which is sort of a big deal. It's a grand prix stop for magic players, which means it will attract people from all over the world. The first day will be nine rounds, so having three wins already going into it is significant, as it means I only have to manage to get four wins to be set up well for the second day of play. This is the situation all the professional players are in, because they automatically get byes based on pro points they have accumulated. Anyway, I'm excited to try my hand at it. It will be the first large scale tournament I've attended since I was in high school.
So I'll be busy preparing for that, I suppose, and I'm taking the GRE's on Thursday, and I have a handball tournament this weekend and another in Colorado the weekend after that. I suppose I'm also supposed to be applying to grad schools. We'll see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)