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I’ve Got You Covered

“Nothing in this life quite compares to the sweet exhilaration of making your move. When you just put it all on the line and go for it.” – Older Ted Mosby

What I’m referring to is a moment in time. The one opportunity that presents itself where you have a chance to control your life. A moment when your heart is lurching in your stomach and every sense in your body is telling you that giving up and not taking a risk is a better scenario than any disaster the situation could cause.

Yet the inch of your being telling you that regret will never ease your heart, no matter how small it may be, is always going to be correct. So standing, staring into the infinite abyss, feeling the abyss staring right back into you, you take that leap. You jump with every part of you and even though it seems to truly be an endless abyss, you land. Some landings are sooner than others and some are softer, but in the end you land.

If you do not know to what I am referring to, I feel bad for you because no matter what you spend your life doing, no matter the adventures that make their way into your life, none can justify or match that same exhilaration. And while I am referring specifically to love, the same sentiment can be applied almost universally to everything. In this case, the tale of beginnings.

So the story begins with that moment of exhilaration. It could begin earlier, but right then and there seems like the best place to start. You see, the problem with that moment is that it did not go as it should have. The landing should have been harder, the time it took to hit torturously longer, but it wasn’t. When I looked up I could see from whence I had leapt. (N.B. England has great vocabulary)

Many people believe that answers come in either black or white, with no shades of grey. Others feel that answers range from black to white, with many options in between. I believe both of those people are wrong, in part.

Answers deal in absolutes.

If you imagine black and white to be up and down, then you forget about right and left. If you let choice be an aisle in the supermarket, then you forget that the reason you left your house was to pick up your dry cleaning.

So I took that leap, but the landing was a different kind of soul crushing. It did not leave me with a pain that would eventually subside and allow me to move on or despair that can blanket one’s world. Instead, it left me with hope, and I will always agree with Andy, hope is one of the best things. It lets you know that while the abyss may seem infinite, that you can stand up straight and stare in the abyss and make it fear you.

For this reason, I needed to get away, so I left for Toronto. Nationals was taking place and I figured it was far enough away and enough of a distraction from real life that I would find momentary peace. As it turns out, even the Falls could not achieve that goal.

Nonetheless I showed up at the venue to try for grinders. KYT and I had briefly discussed coverage and I had mentioned on the site how we would try to do something, but there was no part of me that had an interest in doing that.

As it turns out, no part of me felt like playing Magic either. Every match I played, there was no desire to win and sitting across from my opponents, even they could see that. Had I wished to qualify for Nationals, I would not have scooped to my opponent in the finals of a grinder three months ago. And had I played this weekend, I would have surely lost earlier and been out soon.

Of course, I couldn’t just leave. Although I did arrange for everyone I drove down with to find an alternate means home, I did mention that there would be some coverage going on. I even talked to Jason Ness, the head organizer of Canadian Nationals, in person and he said ultimately I would have to talk to the Wizards coverage reporter on Saturday to know how we would set up. Plus, I kind of wrote an article saying that we were definitely going to have something up on the site.

So instead of bailing, I showed up on Saturday, with a notepad handy. Just wanting to leave as quickly as possible on Thursday, I forgot my laptop in my office drawer and had no means of actually updating the site short of writing everything by hand and then typing it up later.

Thankfully, KYT had his iPad with him and he was willing to lend it to me to do coverage. I was then pointed in the direction of Josh, the coverage reporter, who was rather laid back and more than willing to help me out with my endeavor even after having explained that I had never done this before.

He later mentioned that he would make sure the official Wizards twitter would post a link and he would try to get one up on the official Wizards Canadian Nationals coverage page. Both of these things he did and we are extremely grateful for it, as he kept telling me, “all coverage is good coverage and if we can get double the coverage to get people excited about Magic, then Wizards can support that.”

Which brings us to match 1 and Josh handing me the pairings telling me he will do the Phil Samms match and that I can chose to do any match that I want. As it turns out, this is quite a daunting task. Now I have the choice to choose people I know or some of the best players in the field. But since Josh chose Phil Samms, I figured I would go with Dan J. Macdonald or DMac.

I figured that both players would be bringing the jokes and this would put me at ease and take some of the pressure off. An interesting thing about this matchup is his opponent for the match was Paul McKinnon, who went on to claim the last place in the top 8 and this was the only time that we had him on for a feature match and thanks to this match we can make the claim that everyone in the Top 8 got a feature match.

So sitting down for the match, I’m not sure what to expect as for all the tournaments that I’ve been to, I’ve never been to a feature match area. The closest I’ve ever been to was when I crushed Jay Elarar at the Scars of Mirrodin Gunslinger event. True story, I have a lifetime record of 2 – 0 against Canadian National Champions if you count that as a win.

So figuring that this match, like most Standard matches, was going to be slower paced, I would be able to work out the kinks and have time to write slowly. I was wrong. Both players were playing aggressive decks with Paul on Mono Red and DMac on Boros. The first game lasted about three minutes and the second game lasted maybe a bit longer.

The longest part about the match?

The players pile shuffling each others’ decks. The match was over quickly enough that I had a chance to cover part of the other match for practice, but also because it would give a different perspective to the match when compared with Josh’s coverage. Though there was one similarity: I believe both of us wrote about Phil joking around a lot, which was true and he did make everyone laugh, only the jokes weren’t exactly “family friendly.”

The first three rounds of Standard were an introduction to doing coverage and updating the coverage live. Surprisingly, there were not any problems with what I was updating. The next two rounds, I chose to cover Ben Moir and Eric Gaudreault, who I knew, but more importantly who I knew were playing Exarch Twin, which happens to be one of the slower matches. It was also the introduction to Jeremie’s Turn 4 Titan deck.

At the end of round three was the beginning of the draft portion, so I took that time to go over my coverage once again as well as read Josh’s coverage. It allowed me to see that I was much more interested in the play by play aspect of coverage but also that I could get away with not writing about every land drop unless it was of importance such as with Dan Lanthier and [Card]Dragonmaster Outcast[/Card]. This in turn allowed me to focus more on the actual spells and less the nitty-gritty, which with Limited coming would be important.

Round 4, Josh suggested I cover Jonathan Smithers, winner of GP Toronto, going over how he thought Jon had a good chance of going all the way and since he won a limited GP, his prowess in the field would be good to display. After everything he just told me, it struck me as odd that he was letting me cover the match. I then found out the other match was Jon Boutin vs. Jay Elarar, which explained why I got to cover Jon.

The next round, I’m still unsure how Josh let me cover. I believe he mentioned that since he had already featured both of them, I could this time. Regardless of the reason, I was fortunate as the match featured Dan Lanthier vs Marcel Angelo Zafra. Throughout the match, Dan remarked how he did not know how he even had a chance against Marcel’s deck as it was outstanding. Maybe not two Gideons/three [card]Doom Blade[/card] outstanding, but it was really solid.

The first match was probably the best of the three, as although Dan kept drawing gas card after gas card, Marcel’s deck was simply rolling along, still outclassing Dan’s deck. It was also the first match where I really noted the level of play. Everyone always states how good players play better than the general populous, but actually seeing them play turn by turn is another thing completely and a great learning experience.

Round six was by far the most enjoyable of Day one based solely on the player’s commentary. On one side of the table was Vincent Thibeault vs. Jon Boutin and the other side was Nassim Ketita vs Alexandre Savoie. The jokes started early from Jon as Nassim was playing with sleeves featuring a Puppy & Kitten (the picture is almost all the way down the page, and if you hit the picture of Dan spazzing out, you’ve gone too far). Sorry PSamms, but Jon dethroned you as joke teller!

After round 6 was the second draft and I took this opportunity to walk among the player tables and look at what people were drafting while silently judging picks. It was also nice as I was allowed to walk around as I pleased among the players. Thank you Press Badge.

Press Badge

Following the second draft, there was one round left to be played. Originally I was thinking of featuring KYT and Jay Elarar this round, but because there were still a few X-1 players who had yet to be featured, that idea was nixed. Instead, I chose Alexander Hayne, who is one of my regular play partners and probably the most cerebral person I know in regards to Magic. What I didn’t know was this would mark the beginning of the Marc Anderson show. When they sat down the first thing Marc said was that his draft deck was pretty terrible and that he didn’t have a chance. At that point, I figured that this guy was someone that Alex would easily be able to roll on his march to Top 8. Oh how wrong I was, as between round seven and the finals there were nine rounds of feature matches and Marc was featured in seven of them, with only round 11 and his quarterfinals match against Paul McKinnon not being covered.

And with that, day one came to end an. Unlike most of the players, I was not staying at the hotel, so instead of going out to eat, I headed back to where I was staying and picked up some food along the way. I got back and did a little editing before going to bed, setting my alarm for nine as I thought round eight started at ten. Now to make a long story short, I was in a mega rush and showed up at the venue at the start of round eight.

When I showed up, Josh had already picked out two matches, so I went to sit down only for Marc to come up happy that this time around his feature match was actually posted on a site as well as hoping to continue his unbeaten streak in feature matches. While waiting for his opponent he was joking about how the guys in his pod had figured out 21 of 24 cards in his deck, sometimes it is nice to know people are reading! When his opponent arrived he joked about how the three missing cards were his best ones! As it turns out the only blemish on the feature match record for Marc was round 10 against Jeremie Ross-Latour which proved to be little more than a speed bump on his march to the top.

The shift back to standard seemed like a nice change of pace and re-reading what I had originally written, there is clearly a difference between day one and day two. So the improvement is a positive!

Round 12 was the start of the hype for Top 8, as there were four players that could draw into Top 8; Jeremie, Mani, Ronald & Dan. There were two guaranteed win-and-in matches while the other two slots were not decisive and were reliant on tie breakers. The crowd began to grow as well with more on the line, though it may have also been to hear Jon cracking jokes once again, even in a losing effort.

Finally, it was the finals. With the top eight set and three players already sporting Mana Deprived/Face To Face Games T-Shirts, I asked the other players if they wouldn’t mind doing the same with both Marc and Marcel gladly agreeing to represent the site. So the Top 8 was set with Marc, Noah, Dan, Marcel & Paul all representing Mana Deprived. Thanks A Lot Guys, the Trophy Picture with the Top 4 sporting the T-Shirts is really cool and great publicity.

Sorry for side tracking but the publicity for the site is awesome!

For the Top 8, again my Press Badge was of great use as I was allowed in the cordonned off area. For the Top 8 matches Josh choose to cover Dan Lanthier where as I decided to go with U/W Control vs. Valakut, two format defining decks. The next round feature a similar matchup with the difference being Marcel had replaced [Card]Hero of Bladehold[/Card] with [Card]Emeria Angel[/Card].

For extra coverage only on Mana Deprived there was a second Top 8 feature match as we had help from a person whose name I should know but cannot remember so sorry to that person but a shoutout for helping out.

Though Noah’s string of winning on Mana Deprived coverage was at three, I would not be covering the finals match for a very cool reason. See usually the 3-4 match is played before the finals so that Wizards is able to get coverage of both matches. There are times when that changes however it is the generally used formula.

The cool part is that it was changed up for Nationals since there were two sites doing coverage Josh decided to let Mana Deprived have exclusive coverage of the 3-4 matchup which was awesome. And even better we got the full five game treatment between Dan and Marcel with five matches that were back and forth.

Press Badge
Dan, ever the diva, needed hand drawn dragon tokens for the 3/4 match!

The night ended with Mr. Scotty Mac inviting us out to eat, which I was not too keen on as it was already going to be a long ride back to Montreal to begin with but he decided to play dirty by stating that his entire family came to have dinner with us, using his newborn Lily, so I gave in as who can say no to a baby.

Dinner was a great time with Chris Lansdell coming along as well. The positive of dinner as well, was that there was no traffic back home except for a minute during the weird hill part of the highway in Kingston, that piece of highway is terribly designed. If you didn’t get a chance to read coverage during the event or if you would like to see it now that it is nice and cleaned up click on the links for Part 1 and Part 2.

Overall, I had a great time. I was so constantly busy during the weekend that no other thought crossed my mind, which was a very nice change of pace and allowed me to forget about a whole lot for a while.

In terms of Magic, what was really cool for me was watching such a high level of play. Now every match cannot be a classic, and indeed there were some that were not the finest displays of skill, however there were others which were quite remarkable. It was also a great learning experience, as from my perspective I often had a view of both players’ hands and there were times I wrote down in advance what I thought would happen that turn only for the player to follow a different course, usually to much better results.

Of all the games, the first one between Marcel and Dan in the swiss was by far my favorite and my favorite match was the 3-4 finals in constructed between the same two players. Sorry to seem like I am picking favorites but they seem to bring out the best in each other. Something to note in my coverage, however, was that there was one of the games were I wrote that Marcel had used [Card]Phantasmal Image[/Card] to copy his [Card]Squadron Hawk[/Card] when it was actually to copy Dan’s [Card]Dragonmaster Outcast[/Card]. I asked them after the match, with both players explaining it to me which made much more sense than what I had originally written.

My favorite part of the weekend was listening to the conversation between players. In limited, just from what they saw in packs, they were able to determine which player had drafted which color and what cards their deck contained. Further, their discussions on lines of play were equally as good as they were able to re-track back to a point in the match and play the ‘what if’ game, with complete accuracy. It was impressive.

Another point of interest was that at no point during any of the matches did players get on themselves for misplays or make plays that were punts and led to them being on tilt. The general atmosphere was very laid back and pleasant, with no players really feeling the pressure (or so I believe). And before you say anything, Dan wanted to explain that he photographs badly, which I can attest to as he was always in a good mood, though the photos of him tell a different story!

Before closing I’ll leave you with two sequences of plays that show even good players make mistakes. Both come from the first game of the quarterfinals match between Noah Long and Mani Davoudi, sorry Noah, but I’m using you as an example.

Example 1: Mani attacked his [Card]Hero of Bladehold[/Card] into Noah’s [Card]Inferno Titan[/Card], creating two tokens. Noah let everything pass most likely for fear of [Card]Dismember[/Card]. As it turns out, Mani had [Card]Oblivion Ring[/Card] instead meaning blocking would have been the correct play. Now with perfect information, this was a misplay and regardless of which card Mani had, Noah lost his Titan. Had it been myself I would have snap blocked because I play the “if-you-have-it-you-have-it-game” and even after the fact I think blocking is the correct play. What I do want to highlight is that while not blocking was a mistake, Noah actually took the time to think the play through and arrived at the conclusion he felt was correct. The reason for highlighting this is because many players do not think all their plays through which leads to losses or being put on tilt, but if you believe you followed the right course of action and are alright with the line of play you took, you’ll be more successful in the future. Noah did win the match afterall.

Example 2: From the same match is another mistake on the next turn. Mani cast [Card]Oblivion Ring[/Card] on the Titan removing it. For Noah’s turn he untapped with six, didn’t have a land for the turn and instead of right away playing his [Card]Nature’s Claim[/Card], he decided to pass the turn in order to kill three of the four tokens with the Hero attacking and then kill the Hero with his Titan blocking. The problem is that for his turn, Mani drew a second [card]Mana Leak[/card] which won him the game as he was able to counter the Claim. Unlike in the 80s, Greed Kids, is not always good. And while this misplay Noah knew for sure was wrong, it didn’t phase him as again, he did win the match.

With that, I wanted to make a small note before shoutouts. Originally my column was titled Ancestral Memories, which at the time worked well with the first article, though I’m not really a fan of it anymore and am considering doing away with a column title altogether. As for shout outs, here they are:

To Josh Bennett: Thank you for helping me out with anything I needed the entire weekend and for allowing me to cover some of the better matches while taking a lower profile one, that was awesome and thank you so very much.

To KYT: for lending me his iPad to cover the event.

To Mike & Jake: That car ride was epic, thanks guys.

To Sal: For the T-shirts with my name and everything else.

To Alex: Karma will reward you with a Pro Tour, which many see as better than National Champion!

To The Top 4: Every round you provided for great matches to cover and it was a pleasure talking to each one of you. Best of luck representing Canada at Nationals.

And to everyone, thanks for reading everything, you are the reason this site is ever expanding so continue helping us out and supporting us, also read next week’s column for more ways to do so. Sorry there were no pictures on the coverage, the lighting in the room made for weird looking pictures. As always, Have Fun Playing Magic!

All the best,
William

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