Firstly, big congratulations to Team Malaysia for absolutely incredible performance during World Magic Cup 2014. You guys raised the bar for the 2015 team, which will only become better for Malaysian Magic!
Last week starcitygames.com posted an interesting article written by Pro Tour Winner Pat Chapin. In his article, he recollects his experience on his first-ever pro tour – as a junior and a senior player (yes there were two tours back then). It’s every MTG players dream and aspiration to one day participate let alone win a pro tour. So after reading his interesting piece, I decided to think back (and dug whatever information) of my very first pro tour as well.
Grand Prix Brisbane – Oct 2001
Between years 2000 to 2002, I was in my MTG prime. I was drafting well and my constructed skills were razor sharp. My favorite format of all time – Rochester Draft – was the flavor of the Grand Prix and I weaved my way into the top 8 by drafting Ember Beasts.
On its own, the Ember Beast is pretty harmless. However much like Siege Rhinos today, Ember Beasts hunt in packs and that was my simple strategy to draft as many Ember Beasts throughout the event. At one point I had four copies in my deck and they were holding hands during combat as well! A simple mana-screw took me off the top 8 but still, it was enough to earn an invite (plus airfare!) to my very first pro tour in San Diego 2002.
San Diego 2002
This was my very first Magic trip outside Malaysia and I was flying alone nonetheless. I was fortunate to hook up with then Australian National champion Rob Nadebaum and his pal Justin West. I just turned 21 a few months earlier, and was literally this skinny Asian kid out in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. There was once we were walking back to the motel, pretty late around 10-ish when a random guy, dirty and smelled like he hasn't had a bath in ages, just walks up towards us and stopped us in our tracks.
"Any smokes?"
I was terrified but Justin dipped into his pocket and offered him a stick and even helped him light it up! Thank goodness for Justin and hanging out with one of the coolest MTG dudes I ever met in the US never felt safer.
Justin "Bomber" West – Would you mess around with this guy?
I remembered arriving in Los Angeles airport around 4 or 5pm after 20 plus hour flight and had to hang out in the airport till around 9pm to wait for Justin and Rob. By the time we hopped on the bus for San Diego, it was nearly midnight and it was a two hour journey in the bus load full of Mexicans. Scary stuff. We still managed to arrive safely and crashed into a motel that had just enough room to fit one burly gangsta (Justin), a towering Aussie (Rob) and a frail Asian (me).
Pause for Interesting Fact #1
USA was the land of mouth-watering hamburgers which was the dream of a young growing Asian kid like me. But oddly enough, one of my travel mates was vegan (Justin) and the other ate no fried food (Rob). So we had most of our meals at Burger King with Justin handing his grilled chicken patty to Rob in exchange for his lettuce and tomatoes. And because the fries were cooked with lard (non-halal by the way), I had triple serving of chips (including mine) courtesy of my two Aussie mates!
Fast forward to the Pro Tour….
Back then the Pro Tour was a single format (unlike the present Constructed + Draft). For San Diego it was triple Odyssey Rochester Draft, similar to GP Brisbane format that I top 8 months earlier. Day One was 7 rounds with two pods of drafting. It was an odd cut off back then, needing 13 points to make Day 2.
So it begins….
The consensus non-rare first pick was still Wild Mongrel followed by Firebolt. I was fortunate enough to draft both and my trusty Ember Beast! My first pod in my first ever Pro Tour included Ryan Fuller who only months earlier had set the Pro Tour record for going UNDEFEATED at 14-0 for the swiss portion. I can’t remember the facts of the draft (as it was a looong time ago) but based on the wizards archive, I started with my Pro Tour 2-0 before ending the pod 2-2 for 6 points. The second pod had Justin Gary and the infamous Peter (“PTR”) Szigeti. Was fortunate enough to go 2-0 (beating Szigeti in round 6) and sitting at a comfortable 12 points. My heart was beating anxiously as I was only a handshake away for ID into my first Pro Tour Day 2.
When the standings were posted, I was abit puzzled.
Wee, Pang Ming [AUS] * BYE * Pod 24
Rob came up to me (he dropped out much earlier) and asked how I did. I said I got a bye and we just laughed. Later on I found out that both Justin Gary and myself had 12 points and everyone else was on 9 or less, basically out of the competition. Everyone else except one had dropped leaving only 3 players left in the pod. So instead of me and Justin shaking hands to ID, Justin had got paired down to play the 3rd guy (which had no chance for Day 2). I’m sure Justin got a safe passage through, but that was a weird mix of pairings for high level event like a PT.
Day 2 started with another four rounds of drafting and this time, I managed to maneuver to a 3-1 finish, ending round 11 with 24 points. At that time, I wasn’t focused on standings or the money and I just wanted to draft some more! When the final pod was posted, it was the all stars of all stars.
4 1 Ruel, Olivier 22
2 Hiltunen, Arto 22
3 Okamoto, Jin 23
4 Wee, Pang Ming 24
5 Rood, David 22
6 Littlefield, Glen 23
7 Humpherys, David 23
8 Maher Jr., Bob 22
So for pod four when all the marbles were on the line, something changed. I had my favourite green and red colors got sucked from under me by the Last Emperor (drafting on my right) and I was forced into uncharted Black-Blue.
Opening an Amugaba helped my cause, but my little bag of tricks comprise multiple Frightcrawlers and Careful Study which hopefully can pip out my unwary opponents. Because its Rochester Draft, you have a clear view on everyone’s decks around the table and I was pretty sure mine was the weakest. In Round 12, I somehow got lucky against Dave Humphery via my “Fearless” Frightcrawlers and I found myself within striking range of a Top 8! But the road to success was blocked by one major obstacle; The Last Emperor – Jin Okamoto himself.
My first (and only to date) PT feature match coverage here (Japanese coverage) here:
http://archive.wizards.com/sideboard/jparticle.asp?x=ptsd02/560jpfm13
Long story short, I was demolished by the great emperor and I was still left licking my wounds and couldn’t end the PT on a high note by falling the final round as well.
So end result was 9 wins (of 14) for a 42nd place finish and $825 plus five PT points which was good enough for invite to Pro Tour Nice!!
So that’s it for my first pro tour. Am sure other Malaysian veterans Terry & Joe Soh and also Chye (Jhun) would also have their interesting first time war stories to share.
Till the next one…
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Before you go….Interesting Fact #2
Back in the days there was a Fantasy Pro Tour ballot, much like the NBA all star ballot of today. Here’s how it worked:
Each owner will select an eight-player team worth 100 Pro Tour Points, based on the Professional Standings that led to that event. If a single Pro Player has more than 100 points, the team point limit will be raised to that Pro Player's total (for Fantasy Pro Tour Nice, Kai Budde had 128 points, so that was the limit for teams). People not listed on these standings cost no points. Owners are free to select a team that uses up the point limit in the first two people and fill up the team with six zero-point players or even just leave slots on the team empty.
The person with the most points (with the best performing team earnings wise) would be crowned the winner and walk home with 2 booster boxes!
So basically an amateur like me had no points and was basically used as fillers for participating teams. But what’s interesting is I had 12 votes, which was more than these guys:
Shuuhei Nakamura – 11
Lars Dam – 10
Gabriel Nassif – 10
Neil Reeves – 9
Of course, it was nowhere near the most popular players back at the time:
Jon Finkel – 479
Michael Turian – 345
Chris Pikula - 277
Kai Budde – 176
Perhaps this could be the next gimmick for our 2015 WMCQ ☺
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