“Dude… where’s my horse??” - Wei Han (Team Decards)
Its barely 24 hours since the end of Grand Prix Nagoya and I’m now tucked nicely in my Air Asia seat on the 6 hour or so flight back home. This article is the first of the many MTG stories I will sharing as a travelling planeswalker – Play the game. See the world. Gotta love it.
2013 I travelled 6 countries – Singapore, Thailand, Japan, UK (London), Ireland (Dublin) and France (Paris), playing five Grand Prix’s and a Pro Tour. I have been out of touch with the game for a good number of years and I have to admit, its been a long while since I played at such a high level and it shows with the mistakes and lack of mental toughness when a match is on the line. I’m not proud of my lack of money-finishes, but that’s the pain even the pros endure before achieving greatness. So my simple motto is take every match and every tournament as a learning experience while see the world and have loads of fun along the way.
While Grand Prix Nagoya was nothing different, in terms of outcome Magic wise, but it certainly been one of the most interesting trips I have had in a long while.
Several months before, I decided to join the ranks of Team Decards sporting the likes of our very own future Malaysian captain and Grand Prix winner Raymond Tan, 2013 WMC representative Shawn Khoo and other young aspiring competitive players in the Malaysian MTG scene such as Eugene Tong, Jeffrey Yap and Nicholas “Obama” James and Chin “Mr Bacon” Wei Han. Taking an article I posted a while back on the site by Pierre Dagen mentioning that to really get your game to improve, you need to align yourself with the best possible teammates to give yourself the best chance to win. For those who missed his good article, refer to the link below:
http://www.1mtg.org/smf2/news-2/food-for-thought-not-just-another-pt-report/
Team Decards has been around for a while now, sporting their black shirts with “Thundercats” logo at the back. Yes – we’re changing it. But heaven knows to what. Hopefully its not a horse (more on that later). While Raymond has been posting up strong international and local results, the others are holding their own as well and with the aspiration to travel and compete make them the perfect group for me to join. Despite being the elder-statesman of the group (I’m a full10 years older than half of the members of the group), I didn’t feel too left out overall.
Team "Emblem"
Preparation for Nagoya started shortly after Born of the Gods release, where I did MTGO drafts almost daily whenever I could. MTGO has been a revelation for me since I started it only end of last year after I bumped out in Grand Prix Hong Kong drafting so horrendously. My skills and games is still no where it was used to be twelve, thirteen years ago and no where near where I want it to be, but MTGO certainly did push it up a few notches.
For this limited meta, I had a huge fondness for blue. Drafting and playing with blue cards whenever I could, pairing with the usual suspects of white or green seem to be my favorite and raking the most number of wins and QPs. I was somewhat confident heading into this GP.
So once I knew I was ready somewhere early March, I booked my tickets and chose a hotel near the team (theirs was full) and did my online pre-registration and also did a little homework about Nagoya, food, transport etc. Everything a savvy traveller would do. But when I said little, meant I spent like 15 minutes because this trip we had our Japanese translator in Raymond so I wasn’t too worried as I “assumed” we were going to know what were doing.
So when I arrived at the airport on Friday morning, the group was all ready and checked in. That was a good start. Jeffrey couldn’t make the trip so it was going to be the six of us plus Ida who wanted to tag along. Then I found out that (1) they missed the online pre-registration cut off and (2) Chye (Jhun) who was suppose to be on this trip as well had troubles with his baggage and didn’t make the flight. Throughout our trip to the land of the rising sun, we talked strategy and others such as using English boosters instead of Japanese, taking the sleep-in-specials to maximize our rest time given that all of us, except Obama, had 2 round byes.
“We’re in Japan!!!”
The flight arrived on time in Nagoya at roughly 4:30pm local time. The registration at the venue closes at 9pm so we had plenty of time. But we spent another good two hours at the airport trying to get a IDD sim for another Malaysian competitor and a wifi router for ourselves. It didn’t help as well that we boarded the wrong train ie the regular train which stopped at EVERY stop and took us nearly an hour or so to get into the city.
The absolutely long train ride….
We decided to hit straight to the venue (instead of checking in) and got there close to 8pm which was still in time for the registration but the sleep-in-specials were closed. So not only the guys didn’t get their playmats etc, but they had to get up early to register their packs after such a long day…. Tips for next trip – pre register EARLY!!!
Aside from Raymond and myself, the atmosphere in a Japan GP was an eye opening one for the others. They could feel a very different vibe compared to the other GP’s they have attended. Shawn and the others were extremely fascinated by the lotto machines such as spinning the wheel for packs/sleeves etc. I told the guys we had the whole weekend and its time to go off back to hotel for food and some sealed practice.
My room in Nagoya – RM130 a night, what more can you ask….
The guys treated themselves to their first meal in Nagoya, a vending machine meal. For clarity, the machine just disburses order tickets; the food still gets cooked in the kitchen. After dinner, we did three interesting sealed pools which really tested us of some on how pools can be not so straight-forward which was what was coming to them the next day.
End of Friday.
Saturday, the guys headed early for their start while I joined them a little later as they were doing their deck registrations.
I took the extra time to have a proper breakfast. Food in Japan is pretty much standard priced. For a decent sandwich with coffee, you expect to spend between 550-700yen at a decent café, while average lunches and dinners can cost you between 650-850 yen for a bowl of noodles or rice and meat. What would you give for a pack of RM2 Nasi Lemak here…
BLT sandwich + Coffee for 600 yen (RM20)
I got to the venue around 9:30am and the guys took my advice of taking all English boosters but had to sit literally next to each other . Eugene had to pass his absolutely monstrous (and that I meant disastrous) pool to Raymond which no matter how he twist and turned, the pool was not salvageable. Raymond didn’t see a match win the entire weekend. Eugene ended with a solid Blue Green tempo deck, but a last minute decision to splash for Xenagos planeswalker was vital in one of his match-ups later on. Obama was fortunate enough to get passed a Brimaz. However, he had to pair his insane white some mediocre green which ended in some awkward stalemates. Shawn initially had weird white based deck which he threw aside for a more consistent red green splash black deck.
I opened my pool with the other sleep-in-special guys and seated next to GP KL quarterfinalist and Spartan hero – MK. There was no English option for sleep-ins and I figured I had enough experience and information to do this sealed in Japanese. As I pulled open my cards from my pool, my eyes were suddenly blinded by the shiny Foil of the Sun’s Champion – Elspeth.
The Sun’s Champion
And Elspeth brought friends too – Heliod and his trusty Spear, two copies of Nimbus Naid, Thassa’s Emissary and Battlewise Hoplite. Elspeth had many tricks too offering the pool a selection of Griptide, Sudden Storm, Ephara’s Enlightenment and Retraction Helix. Now as I’m sitting here writing this, if this was GP KL or Bangkok or Manila, it would have safely said to be a 9-0 deck. But this was Japan. After three Japan GPs, I can safely say that our top 10% players in Malaysia perhaps will stand just slightly above the middle of the pack of the entire Japanese contingent. Japanese were so efficient in their skills and plays which perhaps is a strong testament to their regular practice and discipline.
So as the day progressed, I didn’t get any walkover games but I had Sun’s Champion appearing once to take control of a game speeding to a 6-0 start. Shawn started 5-0 and dropped his 6th round, while Wei Han and Eugene were still in it at 4-2. Raymond and Obama slipped to 3-3. In round 7, my opponent had a controllish BUG deck with Phenax God and Nighthowler (awesome combo!) and ripped me in the deciding game as I struggled for mana. All streaks had to come to an end. Shawn had lost round 7 as well so he and Wei Han were still in it at X-2 with Eugene bowing at because of game loss from deck mis-registration. Lesson to be learnt here….
In Round 8 I was paired with a hyper aggressie boros which took me down in game 1 in less than 10 minutes after a turn 1 Favored Hoplite followed by a Phanlax Leader and start doing their Heroic thing. I stabilized in game 2 but in game 3, he slammed turn 5 Strombreath Dragon and turn 6 Forgestoker Dragon. With land #6 in hand and 5 in play, I prayed for my one out. But the Sun’s Champion didn’t answer my call and I was heading to a very unfamiliar territory – bubble match after 6-0 start.
We all caught up with Shawn in his teeth biting deciding match trying to stay alive. Shawn had barely stabilized on board before opponent showed him a Hundred-Handed One. Shawn could only draw a Minotaur Skullcleaver and promptly sent it to battlefield and cursed and shrug at himself a second later for an awful error…
“5 toughness???” as Shawn picked up the white Giant and handed back to his opponent.
Fazed and confused, his opponent which by the way was on a healthy 20 life, pushed the Giant for the block. Shawn’s momentary dejection turned into opportunity and fired his Scouring Sands, finishing off the Giant and taking down another creature as well for value. But his joy was short-lived as his opponent proceeded to continue to draw well and Shawn’s mana flood couldn’t bring him back and his tournament was over.
And from six of us who travelled, I was the last one standing for a chance at Day 2…
My blue white Heroic powered by the Sun’s Champion, Elspeth, had now raced to a 6-0 start in GP Nagoya. But the momentum was halted in two hard fought losses and suddenly I found myself playing my fourth bubble match in last 6 GPs. I was 2-1 going in and hope to improve on that record. Mana gods were kind in the first game as my opponent was stuck on 3 mountains for 6 turns before drawing a plains but still managed to deal me 12 damage before a Sudden Storm closed off the first game.
The second game was intense as opponent kicked off with turn 2 Arena Athlete, turn 3 Kragma Butcher and turn 4 Borderland Minotaur. My turn 2 play was Battlewise Hoplite and I held back 3 lands declining to cast Nimbus Naid to hold up for Battlewise Valor. I had only a Griptide and lands in hand so every resource was important. The open lands worked as my opponent held back his forces before swinging into my open mana with just the Borderland Minotaur on his fifth turn. I sent it back with a Griptide, and he followed it up with Stormcaller of Keranos and shipped the turn back.
My land number 5 (drawing another) followed and played a Nimbus Naid still holding up 2 mana for the Valor. He swung with his team, the Hoplite jumped infront of the Butcher and Naid infront of the Stormcaller. He passed priority and I aimed the Valor at the Hoplite. He fired a Fall of the Hammer at the Hoplite in response, the Naid traded and he played land 6 to replay the Minotaur. With just lands in hand I was staring down at a Butcher, an athlete and Minotaur. Thassa’s Emissary came in to try and stem the bleeding, but Rise to the challenge was played on the Athlete (side stepping the Emissary) and a swing for 12 put me on a precarious 6 life, with blanks in hand.
I untapped and on the top of my deck, she was waiting. The Sun’s Champion offered deliverance and stabilized immediately. My opponent shook his head in disbelief. His next draw was a Fanatic of Mogis and faced the agonizing decision of shooting for 4 to Elspeth or straight to my dome. He chose the former and ticked Elspeth down to 1 loyalty and swung his team at Elspeth. I lost my Emissary to the Minotaur, and 2 tokens chumped the Athlete and Butcher. But once I got to untap and ticked up Elspeth, the game was mine. When I eventually went for the kill, my opponent slumped in his chair, conceded and digged the top 5 cards of this deck. And there she was. His copy of the Sun’s Champion (not foiled ☺ ).
So it was a narrow Day 2 for me despite a god-like deck hence the admiration to the Japanese players playing at such a high level.
Day 1 ended with a dinner at a curry house. Shawn is a massive rice king, demonstrated by the meal the night before with unlimited rice. Heavenly… Alas this place, while they served delicious rice, but it wasn’t free refill. Still good for 800 yen though.
Curry rice – its no Kayu but still tasty…
End of Saturday.
Day 2
I was to meet Edwin (who made Day 2 as well) at Starbucks below the hotel at 7:45am. We were to have a good breakfast before making it to the venue well before the 9am start time. Raymond, Eugene and Obama had signed up for Super Sunday Modern the day before and was due to check in at 8 (EIGHT)am at the venue. But at 7:45am, Raymond and Obama were still at Starbucks. It was a good 25 minutes journey from the hotel, and no way the guys were going to make it.
Edwin and myself pushed off for breakfast and got to the venue at 8:45am. I saw Raymond standing beside Obama, who was in the midst of an intense battle with Melira Pod.
“How’d you do in Round 1?” – PM
“I dropped” – Ray
“What? Why? How come?””
“Came late, didn’t register my deck. They started eight sharp. Obama and Eugene had a game loss each.”
Japan time is nothing like Malaysian time. Eight means Eight. Not Eight thiry, nine o’clock etc…. Take note people. Tardiness is for real in high level events.
Draft 1
I opened the first booster containing Herald of Torment and a several blue cards. Herald was the obvious pick followed by an Asphyxiate. The rest of the pack was rather mediocre as I picked up two Nyxborn Eidolon, a Spirit of Labyrinth and a Loyal Pegasus.
Pack 2 offered Polukranos, the World Eater and nothing else. I didn’t see much green in Pack 1, so perhaps the guy on my right was on green. But I didn’t see any reason not to take it and went with the mythic. The next pick offered an interesting choice of Nessian Asp, Ordeal of Erebos and a Sip of Hemlock. I tossed between the snake for a while and finally settled on the Ordeal. My devotion to black started to pay off as I followed the pick with two Insatiable Harpies. A sixth pick Triton Tactics and seventh pick Shipwreck Singer offered a clear signal in blue.
Pack 3 was pretty much automatic as I rounded the deck with more supporting creatures, a Voyage’s End and a Griptide. All in all was a pretty good draft.
Draft 1 Deck
1 Shipwreck Singer
2 Nyxborn Eidolon
2 Insatiable Harpy
1 Herald of Torment
3 Blood-toll Harpy
1 Baleful Eidolon
1 Coastline Chimera
2 Precinct Chimera
1 Horizon Scholar
1 Returned Centaur
1 Tormented Hero
1 Ordeal of Erebos
1 Griptide
1 Voyage’s End
1 Triton Tactics
1 Scourgemark
1 Sip of Hemlock
1 Asphyxiate
9 Swamp
8 Islands
Quick recap on my games:
Round 10 we split the first two games even. Opponent was also on black blue but more controllish with a tad more removal such as Pathrika’s Cure for my Harpies and Lash of the Whip for Precinct Chimera. But in the decider, I was stuck on 3 lands for the entire game and that was that.
Round 11 was all about Stymied Hope. Opponent was on a Red/Blue tempo deck which after losing game 1, I boarded in the Hope for games 2 and 3. Each game I managed to cast it on turn 2, blunting my opponents tempo and rode my aeriel fleet to victory.
Round 12 once again we split the first two games but this time it was my opponent who was stuck on mana for the decider and couldn’t come back with three forests.
At 9-3 I was feeling ok, but draft 2 was a trainwreck.
Draft 2
My pack offered a choice between Arbiter of the Ideal, Retraction Helix, Sudden Storm and Fall of the Hammer. I was concerned of sending two blue picks down the line but I stuck with my preferred colour and went for the Arbiter. Second pick offered nothing except an Akroan Skyguard (the guy took a rare which was not a signal). The third pick was another interesting choice of Nyxborn Triton or Sudden Storm. The Storm was a more powerful card, but the Triton would fit better in a Heroic theme. But I was concerned of shipping two Sudden Storms and took it over the Triton. The fourth pick offered another Storm which I gladly took. I had fifth pick Retraction Helix which was also nice. I rounded the pack with a few black cards – Drown in Sorrow, Servant of Tymaret and Eye Gorge.
I opened pack 2 and yield no blue and black playables. I took a Phalanx Leader to see if I could hop into white (with my earlier Skyguard). My next few picks were mediocre – Precinct Chimera, Cackling Triton, Pathrika’s Cure and Returned Phalanx. Pick 8 of the pack arrived and a Battlewise Hoplite was staring at me. I had close to zero Heroic and took a normal Cavern Lampard.
In pack 3, another Hoplite showed up which I DIDN’T take and the white kept flowing – God’s Willing, Dauntless Onslaught, Heliod’s Emissary. All which got passed on…. In the end, I ended up with a disastrous black blue control deck:
Draft 2 deck
1 Servant of Tymaret
1 Ashiok’s Adept
1 Arbiter of Ideal
2 Returned Phalanx
1 Omenspeaker
1 Precinct Chimera
1 Breaching Hippocamp
1 Cavern Lampard
1 Cackling Triton
1 Fellhide Minotaur
1 Mnemonic wall
1 Disciple of Phalanx
1 Triton Tactics
2 Dissolve
1 Stymied Hopes
2 Sudden Storm
1 Pathrika’s Cure
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Eye Gorge
1 Retraction Helix
9 Island
8 Swamp
I got a severe thumping in Rounds 13 and 14 which I clearly expected from this pile of thrash. I did pull off a Stymied Hopes into Dissolve that was rather cool. But my follow up turn 4 play was a mere Ashiok’s Adept which only created shivers down my own spine.
In the final round of the GP, I was paired against a lesser-experienced Japanese player playing green-white. He was playing a lot of good cards in his green white deck but his plays were less than optimum. Still he managed to take one game from me in Game 2 with me flooded on lands. In game 3, late in the game, his board had a Monsterous Hundred Handed suited up with a Hopeful Eidolon (7/9 – Vigilance, Lifelink, can block 100 creatures – WTH). I was still on healthy 12 life as my servant of Tymaret was doing a lot of work holding the Giant down. But soonafter, Karametra joined the party and was online. I had my Arbiter out, suited with a Cavern Lampard. But I was not winning this race and my Inspired Arbiter yielded my mediocre chumps in Fellhide Minotaur and Cackling Triton.
A Disciple of Phenax joined my team and took away a Vulpine Goliath (also revealing Pheras-Band Centaur). I went in again with my Arbiter (opponent was on like 25 life) and my team of Disciple, Fellhide, Servant, Triton and a Returned Phalanx held back facing a God, a 100-Handed Lifelink Monster, a Settesan Griffin and a Vovaging Satyr.
My opponent main phase Nemesis of Mortals and swung with his God, Griffin and Hundred Handed. I went into the tank and decided to put the entire team in front of the Hundred Handed and take 9 to the chin. My opponent started to sit uneasily, obviously didn’t expect my un-obvious blocking strategy. He contemplated on pumping his Griffin to bring me down to 1 but passed. So I lost my Returned Phalanx and Triton but I brought down the mighty giant. His second mainphase a Pheras-Band Centaur and Karametra was still online with 8 devotion. 6 creatures on board against my 4. Without effects, he had 19 power on the table and with effects, a whopping 26 power attack the next turn.
My Arbiter untapped…. Inspired trigger - Mnemonic Wall.
My graveyard gave me option of Retraction Helix or Drown in Sorrows. I went for the removal. And to top it, my draw was a Triton Tactics.
My Arbiter swung in again and followed that with the Drown in Sorrows, taking out the Griffin, Hopeful Eidelon and Satyr, bringing his devotion count to 5 and I scryed a land to the bottom. My opponent shrugged, untapped and swung with this Nemesis and Centaur. I Triton Tactics targeting the Servant and Arbiter, untapping my Arbiter (revealing Dissolve) bricking his attack against my Servant and 0/4 Wall. With a dissolve on the top and his best attacker tapped down, he conceded.
So the Grand Prix ended in a spectacular fashion but I still finished out of the money for a 10-5 finish. While the Grand Prix was over… but Team Decards was not done horsing around in Nagoya…
Meet the most popular guy you’ll find in a Japan GP:
For a “mere” 1000 yen (RM30) you randomly select a repacked booster containing 14 assorted junk rares plus a bonus card. The bonus card is labeled A, B or S.
S = Special
A = Average
B = Bad
Depending on what bonus card you pulled, it allowed you to redeem from a designated selection of singles from revised Badlands, fetches, Foil Japanese Elspeth down to a Fact or Fiction or Whip of Erebos.
Obama was an a hot streak striking three S’s for two polluted deltas and a flooded strand. Nice….
But no one could top Ida who pulled a B, A and S all in the same pack!!!! Good times… Unfortunately not all of us were lucky as Eugene was the B-Boy of the day with consecutive B’s for RM5 rares….
Finally we were off to dinner and Raymond suggested an "authentic" Japanese meal. See photos:
Skewers - assortment of Liver, Kidney and other lovely parts of a chicken
Fish Sashimi
and finally....
So the highlight was this dish – Horse Meat sushi (the last 2 pieces on the extreme right of the photo). I’ve never seen horse meat, never tasted and never will. But when the plate was served in front of Shawn and Wei Han, Shawn asked Raymond what it was.
“Horse meat” – Raymond
“What? Horse??” – Shawn
Wei Han started looking around the room - “Where got horse???”
As if that wasn’t funny enough, Wei Han began picking up the lovely sushi with his chopsticks. But as though the horse was resenting, the piece of sashimi fell off its rice bed just as Wei Han was just about the consume it.
Wei Han scoured about his plate area searching for his lost steed - “WHERE’S MY HORSE??”
That did it. Two rounds of beers plus Wei Han was enough to send me cracking up the whole night. So after dinner and a short shopping trip (to buy snacks) at a shop that sells everything, it was back to hotel.
The next day, we visited Nagoya’s iconic Nagoya Castle.
Shawn to Obama: Wahhh freaking high leh....
Obama: So you plan to go all the way to the top?
Shawn: Got LIFT I go larrr (which there was, thankfully)
Wei Han: Is that my horse behind the bushes?
Too bad you can't buy this at the gift shop
The famous dragon-head or Gold Dolphin statue (or whats left of it)
Team photo. R to L: Eugene, Wei Han, Obama, Raymond & PM. Front: Shawn. Missing - Jeffrey (we will photoshop him in later....)
It was a nice end to an amazing 4 day trip. Till the next one – see you guys in July for Grand Prix Taipei!
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