Recently the Magic community was lucky enough to experience a Modern Weekend: Three simultaneous Grands Prix, all featuring the Modern format. Sadly, we were unlucky enough for the Modern Weekend to take place in the worst period of Modern’s history; Eldrazi Winter. Regardless, I was excited for the occasion. I was headed to Detroit, Michigan, a three hour drive from my hometown of Toronto, Ontario. Modern is my favorite format and the drive was reasonable. I made it my mission to attend the Grand Prix.

In addition to being relatively close to Toronto, Detroit has the enviable geographic feature of being on the border with Windsor. Windsor doesn’t have much, but it is the temporary home of some good friends of mine. For this reason, I was lucky enough to have a warm home full of good people, as opposed to the $200/night shoe box I typically live out of during a Grand Prix. My friends and I drove to Windsor early Friday afternoon. We traveled without incident to the house that we’d call home for the weekend. We dropped off our belongings, loaded up the car with the barest Magic essentials, and crossed the border to America, Land of [card]Opportunity[/card].

Once there, I proceeded to spend the next 4 hours in the most unpleasant way I could imagine: selling my collection to vendors. It took much longer than I expected, but with the resulting funds I was able to pay for the weekend, and have enough left over to jump-start my small business*. After the marathon fire-sale of my most treasured possessions we returned to Windsor, had a lovely dinner (shout out to The Loose Goose, purveyors of the best Beef Dip Sandwich I have ever had), and went to bed in time to get a much needed eight hours of sleep.

Just kidding. We definitely went to The Beer Store and Shoppers, bought a ton of Four Loko, Craft Beers, Malt Liquor, and Skittles, and promptly settled into a night of Skittlebrau**, Vice Documentaries, and 45 minutes of a strong contender for “Worst Movie Ever”, in the form of Dudes and Dragons. If you take nothing else out of this story, please: Do not watch this film. Not even ironically.

The day before the trip, one of my car-mates had been activated as a Judge. This meant two things:

1. There was going to be one fewer Lantern Control deck making matches go to time.
2. We had to get to the event for 8am.

With the number of hours slept being far outclassed by the number of beers consumed, we crossed the border for the third time in 14 hours. The judge was dropped off, and the rest of us drove off into the wilderness that is the City of Detroit. We trusted Google Maps to take us safely to the nearest Taco Bell, and were let down greatly for our efforts when the red arrow of the traffic gods hovered not above a Taco Bell, but a College dorm. We were running out of time and settled for McDonalds before rushing to the venue.

The Main Event

They spent a surprising amount of money on this.

Back at the event, my friend, and fellow dirty-combo-player, Jeremy Vasil and I both had a round one bye. We decided to kill some time in the most reasonable way possible, The Innistrad Escape Room. I won’t go into too much detail other than to say it was an absolute blast. I was concerned that we might not escape before our round started, but was buoyed with the knowledge that the Event was being Professionally Serviced, and as such, the rounds would likely go several dozen minutes over time. And I was not disappointed (unlike everyone else). So approximately 3 hours after the Player Meeting, I was ready to shuffle up and play round 2 of Grand Prix Detroit.

I played the following list (in opposition to the warnings of many well intentioned folks)

[deck]
[lands]
1 island
1 swamp
1 plains
3 temple of enlightenment
4 temple of deceit
4 gemstone mine
2 city of brass
2 dreadship reef
1 tolaria west
1 boseiju, who shelters all
[/lands]
[spells]
4 ad nauseam
4 angel’s grace
4 phyrexian unlife
4 serum visions
3 sleight of hand
3 peer through depths
1 spoils of the vault
1 mystical teachings
1 pact of negation
1 slaughter pact
4 lotus bloom
4 pentad prism
1 lightning storm
[/spells]
[creatures]
4 simian spirit guide
1 laboratory maniac
[/creatures]
[sideboard]
3 Leyline of sanctity
2 sudden shock
2 thoughtseize
2 hurkyl’s recall
1 echoing truth
1 supreme verdict
1 night of souls’ betrayal
1 teferi, mage of zhalfir
2 darkness
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

The Report

My first two rounds went by uneventfully, as they were against combo decks that are awful against [card]Ad Nauseam[/card]. Round 4 was notable for two reasons. Firstly was for the double [card]Magus of the Moon[/card] he managed on me by turn 3, and the second was for the story he told me. He had played against Jund the previous round, and had resolved a turn one [card]Blood Moon[/card] against him. His opponent flipped out, and went seriously on tilt. He proceeded to aggressively mash shuffle and bridge shuffle the guy’s deck during shuffling. After being asked not to do so, he promised not to, before immediately bridging again. A judge was called, who proceeded to do the shuffling himself. Only later did my opponent discover his newly damaged Foil 7th Edition [card]Ensnaring Bridge[/card]. I was at a loss as I looked at my opponent’s formerly $500 card, now trashed.

Magic Players and Vapers have a surprising amount of crossover.

After this round, I discovered that The Cobo Center in Detroit is also hosting VPX, a vape enthusiast convention. VPX is being headlined by none other than Alien Ant Farm, of Smooth Criminal (Alien Ant Farm Cover) fame! For the remainder of the event, in lieu of dice rolling, I offered my opponents the choice to play first if they could name an Alien Ant Farm song other than Smooth Criminal. No one accepted my challenge.

Round 5 was where I first encountered Eldrazi; poor sideboarding choices cost me the game. I played it again the next round; I lost to it because the deck is beyond broken. Then I lost to it a 3rd time because pros typically play the best decks.

This made the third time in a 12 month period that I had faced off against Matthew Costa at a Grand Prix. He not only remembered me, but remembered my Modern Masters 2015 sealed deck that only he managed to defeat. “You had the insane [card]Elemental[/card] ramp deck right? With the multiple [card]Apocalypse Hydra[/card]s?”, he asked. He starts rolling dice before I can request that he give me some trivia about the headliners of VPX’s musical offering. We wound up going to 3 games. In game 3, with me on seven mana, and him presenting lethal, I had two choices available to me: Spend one mana to [card]Thoughtseize[/card], taking whatever action he has, and use the remaining six mana to combo kill him or go for a blind kill and keep up one mana to pay for a [card]Stubborn Denial[/card] or represent [card]Spell Pierce[/card]. I elected to play it safe and pay a mana to see his hand. His hand contained two [card]Stubborn Denial[/card]s and I slide into the X-3 bracket. I wish Costa luck with the rest of his day and try to not be too on tilt.

After this match, we tried to go to Jimmy John’s. For those of you who don’t get to go to the States a lot, Jimmy John’s is like Subway, except better. That said, apparently every business in Detroit’s downtown core closes at 3pm on weekends. Three straight losses and no Jimmy John’s. I didn’t know how much more I could take. Back at the Cobo Center Alien Ant Farm was in full swing, or so I assumed with the constant thumping of the bass that made the last few rounds almost unbearable.

My final two matches, with me on the bubble, were fairly relaxed all things considered. I defeated my 12 year old Jund Goblins opponent before our match slip showed up and for my final round of the day I used my extensive history or losing to U/W Eldrazi all goddamned day to finally steal a match. I didn’t hate my Day 1 result, as it was my first Day 2 appearance with [card]Ad Nauseam[/card], but it didn’t feel great to get in on “scrub-tier”. All in all, I was excited to leave the Cobo Center, Alien Ant Farm’s bassline thumping in our wake.

Beautiful town, beautiful whisky, beautiful steaks.

A reservation had been made for us at Michael Symon’s [card]Roast[/card], the highest rated Steakhouse in Detroit. 11 of us made the trip to the Westin Hotel and awaited our table. I will fully admit that the reason for our relatively long wait for said table was due to me inviting way more people than the reservation was made for, unbeknownst to any of the other 10 dinner guests. That said, the wait was spent walking around beautiful downtown Detroit drinking great scotch. So it’s basically a wash. The highlights of the dinner included known degenerate and former National Team Member Daniel Fournier losing a die roll for the cost of his meal. This becomes important later, I promise***.

With the walk to and from the Westin, and other driving we managed to do, I can safely say that Detroit gets a bad rap. I mean, my friend may have almost died trying to find the nearest KFC (it had a bulletproof, opaque shield between the service area and the tables), but downtown Detroit is a beautiful space with great architecture and some decent restaurants. Truth be told, if you were at the Cobo Center there was a 75% chance that you were a) Playing Eldrazi b) at a Vape-Con, or c) in a Michael Jackson cover band. So with that in mind, maybe the worst of Detroit was just there for the weekend.

I was excited for day 2, but that was tempered with the knowledge that I could win all my matches and still not accomplish anything of any import. But then I reminded myself that I had never Day 2ed with [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] and decided to give it my best. Fate sure didn’t make the start of Day 2 easy on me.

For my first round of the day, I was paired up against Infect. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] knows that Infect is, without a shadow of a doubt, the deck’s worst match up. [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] plays marginal cards to create a powerful combo, but sometimes the power of the deck is in those marginal cards themselves. That being said, many of those cards gain exciting new text in the Infect match, as illustrated below.

Sure to be format staples in the new Modern format.

In spite of the massive handicaps involved (He Mulliganed to five cards, I was playing five mana instants), I took the match in three games due to drawing multiple copies of multiple sideboard cards. With that nail biter out of the way, I was content in the knowledge that it was all uphill from there. Just kidding, I played it again the next round. It’s at this point I want to note that the player to my direct left during this round was also playing [card]Ad Nauseam[/card], that his opponent was on Elves, and that there is no justice in this world. That being said, I managed to eke out another win against Infect. I took another win after this and was confident about my chances of prizing, until I saw the Round 13 pairing board. Table 82. Daniel Fournier.

Daniel Fournier’s and my interactions generally boil down to three flavours:

1. My deck is bad
2. What whiskey should Fournier drink tonight?
3. Hyperbolic trash talk (mutual)

I had asserted for the previous month, fairly non-stop, that we were going to play one another in the main event. I was pleased to be proven right, but that was more or less the only positive part to this round. Considering the fact that I never drew a copy of [card]Ad Nauseam[/card], and that Fournier appears to play 7 copies of World Breaker, I was officially placed into the X-4 bracket.

I managed one more win against an opponent who had no idea what my deck did, and finished with a respectable 11-4 record. I finished 124th out of 2550. Sadly, the prize cutoff was an absurd top 64, so I was way off of my goal of receiving a cash prize. That said, my record against Non-Eldrazi decks was a whopping 8-0, so I am confident about this deck moving into a post-Eldrazi world.

Saying goodbye to the U.S.of A, we met up with our hosts for one last hangout. Our final meal of the trip was at Malic’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in Windsor. It was a mom and pop place with no frills, but excellent Reubens. In spite of the downward turn the economy of Windsor has taken, they still have some surprisingly decent restaurants. We drove home later that night, tired, but content. On the horizon the green light of an oncoming billboard shone. It advertised that the Shamrock Shake was back, for a limited time only. We knew what to do.

*Yup, I sold my Magic cards to start a small business. No, it’s not a card store. It’s a craft cocktail bitters company. Check it out at facebook.com/flinksdrinks for all your cocktail additive needs.

**Skittlebrau is the combination of your favourite flavour of Skittles and a 40oz bottle of beer or malt liquor, made popular by The Simpsons.

The cause of many a hangover.

***Okay, it was never relevant to the story.