2017 Malaysian Nationals

You probably know the saying that “If you get a second chance in life, you give it all you got and make the best of that opportunity”.

That pretty much sum up my experience in the 2017 Malaysian Nationals.

This is my story.

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October 15th 2017

“Stesyen berikutnya, Taman Jaya. Next station, Taman Jaya”

I stood by the door of the train, peering out to the greens as the trains moved along speedily towards KL. It’s been a long time since I took a local train and it was surprisingly a pleasant ride. The air conditioning in the train was cool and the people in the train were minding their own business while keeping the chatter noise low. It was in a way a therapeutic start before the long battle ahead.

Despite the rumbling of the train and the chatter, I could hear the soft beats of my heart thumping in rhythm. I wasn’t nervous but at the same time I wasn’t feeling excited. It was just the calm state where for that few moments my mind blanked out everything as I watched the train passed another station. And another.

“Stesyen berikutnya, Dang Wangi. Next station, Dang Wangi”

I looked at my watch, 8.40am. 20 minutes to the start of the next draft. I ended Day one on a 5-2 record, an extra loss to what I targeted to need to break top eight. I wasn’t the best of drafters out there, but I did have help from Chye for the last few weeks. I did my pre-requisite twenty drafts, got a few trophies and pretty much familiarized myself with a format. If I were to put a rating on my own skills, it was probably a solid 7.5.

But yesterday didn’t pan out the way I wanted and despite my best efforts of cutting red hard in pack 1, I was not rewarded with any red coming in pack 2 and 3 and ended with a mediocre draft which Chye rated a 5 and I 100% agreed. I was indeed lucky to pull off a 2-1 record for that draft but I needed a strong performance today after giving the one standard loss in Day one which I didn’t want to give out that early in the competition.

I kept thinking back to my Day 1 loss to Chung Wye on whether it was a misplay on my part. But as I kept rewinding the play, the more I was convinced that it was the right play and I was only at the mercy of the top of his deck. His deck replied to his call but mine didn’t and that was the loss of the day. Normally I shake off these kind of losses pretty easily. But when you know that your tournament would come down to the mercy of the packs you open for the draft portion, every constructed victory was gold.

I took a deep breath, wiped that thought off my mind as the train doors opened for me to step out. It was time.

Rewind…..October 7th 2017

I celebrated my 37th birthday the night before. I remembered I just turned 17 when I played my first MTG game in college. Sashi Loco reminded me how long exactly I have been playing this game in my interview with him and it’s a peculiar sense of realization that one tournament such as Nationals would bring so many flashbacks to the past 20 years. For the past two years, I’ve taken every tournament I played seriously and I knew that in order to do well you needed three things to be right:

- Skill
- Effort
- Luck

I’ve never been faulted for my lack of effort but sometimes my shortfall in skill and the normal culprit of bad luck plagued my earlier tournament results. I’ve since learnt to accept the luck factor and made every effort to improve both skill and work ethic to the game. Some people, my family included, often query my dedication to a hobby. A past time.

However, MTG to me is in fact a sport. It’s a competition all the time. Not only to best your opponents but it’s to best yourself and to continue to better yourself to be the best you can be. It’s a sport that requires plenty of endurance and the amount of hard work needed is an unwritten requisite that many take for granted. After all, why do you stress for a hobby? It’s so much more than a hobby to me.

So while I was having my quiet birthday dinner with my wife, she asked me what doing well this Nationals would mean to me, aside from representing the country to a third straight World Magic Cup?

My response was I’m assuming 90% of the attendees to Nationals would call the title National Champion, prestigious, honor and excitement. But for me is validation. The number of hours, the sacrifice of time and effort we put into this game all needed to be validated. And for this sport, the only way of demonstrating this was through the cards we sling on the table. So in conclusion, I had something to prove.

Conclusion of Draft #2

I wasn’t happy. My BW vampires deck was okay but it was missing plenty of playables. It didn’t help that Wei Han on my left was BW vampires and Edison, three spots away was also on vampires. All our decks were diluted to the point that had there been two vampire drafters instead of three, our average power level would have been an 8.5 of instead a 6. I wasn’t the kind of guy who complains and realized I just needed to carry my best draws into every match and hopefully squeak some wins.

But I took a loss to Nicky Woo in round nine of the competition effectively putting me in the three-loss bracket. It was a bitter pill to swallow. There were still rounds to play and from my earlier computation, there were a certain number of players with 27 points who would make the top eight. I didn’t like my chances but all I could do was keep winning and cross my fingers.

The win came. And another. And finally my Bristling Hydra did the lethal to seal my 9th win in Round 12. I got there and did what I could. The standings after round 11 were not in my favour. There was a slight hope and Joe Soh decided to play his last match in order to try and open a slot for me in the top 8.

After I ended my match, I went over to catch the critical game 3. The game was in a seesaw mode and Joe did his best to try and press the advantage. But the clock in the background was ticking down. And every second I felt my heart beat slower knowing that Joe was not going to make it. I tried to telepathically send some thoughts to be more aggressive with the clock ticking down. But Joe had different ideas and when he exhausted his last attack step but failed to win, Joe felt dejected. He looked at me and knew what was on the line. He didn’t apologize but you can feel the aura coming from the Malaysian captain that he had failed. I knew this was not meant to be and accepted the bitter pill. I was touched that Joe gave his all to try and let me have a shot only to have it come slightly short. I guess he was equally as disappointed as I was.

“Nationals players, standings after Round 12 have been posted!”

Loco looked at me and said he was sorry. I had hit the dreaded 9th and Nicky had squeaked in at number 8 with tiebreaker difference of 1%. I was pretty much speechless but it was expected. It was the narrowest of misses and the earlier constructed loss to Chung Wye came back to haunt me for a few moments.

Before the tournament began, I already informed Chye that if I somehow got into the top eight, I knew I had a shot. Chye agreed and just gave me a pat on the back. Chye was equally disappointed as well that not only he didn’t perform, but also it was two notches behind the very minimum of what he expected. He did his best to offer his consolation and reminded me that Joe tried, as he really wanted me in as well.

So I asked – “What if Joe dropped? Would it be top seven or still a top eight playoff?”

Chye wasn’t sure and we got Joe around. Joe wasn’t sure either and he decided to walk up to the Head Judge. After a few minutes he came back to us and extended his hand to me.

“Please make my sacrifice worth it.”

I was stunned. I asked Joe what did he do. He basically went up to the Head Judge and inquired if he dropped and whether it would bump me up the standings and the Head Judge confirmed that it did. Joe didn’t take a moment to second guess and dropped immediately, opening the road for me to enter the playoffs.

I asked him again on whether he was sure, as by bumping me into the playoffs, it would pit me against Au Yong, his former teammate. Joe also had earlier conceded to Au Yong to allow him to break into the top 8. Joe reassured me of his decision and while the potential pro points meant a lot to him, but he felt this was the right thing to do. I shook his hand again and said:

“I won’t drop the ball.”

The shakeup in the top eight stunned almost everyone. It was unprecedented. This was more than just a simple concession. It was a sacrifice. A sacrifice that I will not allow to be in vain.

And so when the quarterfinals began, I was literally possessed. Every play versus Au Yong’s Temur Energy mirror match was crisp and on point. I showed my experience in the matchup and dismantled Au Yong without even thinking what was the prize on the line. Chye had mentioned a few times that I was a good at closing up matches, but this was basically putting an exclamation and slamming the door shut.


Ian Chin was next with Temur Energy’s toughest matchup – Black Blue Control. In game one I mulligan to five and was hardly in the game. But if there was a game to give versus Black Blue, it was game one. When we went to the sideboarded games, I blanked out my game one and went back into overdrive. Through some questionable plays by Ian, I evened the match at one game apiece and a mulligan to five by Ian opened the door for me to walk through to the finals.


Chandra Torch of Defiance went to ultimate and my Negate was at ready to Ian’s Disallow. Ian had enough knowing he was not stopping the runaway train and offered his congratulations. I shook his hand and stood up, looking for Joe. I gave him the loudest high five that cracked the audio of the event hall.

The usual stoic Joe Soh let out the biggest of smiles, not seen after he won Grand Prix Kobe months back. He told me well done and I just said:

“I told you I won’t drop the ball.”

There was still another match to play to claim the title. Not that it didn’t matter but I wanted to put that little icing on that cake. If the semi-finals result was for Joe, the final was entirely all for me. The match itself was uneventful, Adwin flooded badly in the second game while I was stuck on four lands. But when my lands came my grip was strong enough to overcome whatever little resistance he had remaining. Temur Energy’s signature card, Bristtling Hydra, rumbled into the combat zone one more time for lethal and there I was, the National Champion.

It was unbelievable. Only a few hours ago I was sitting at 9th place on the standings. Through my determination and the sacrifice of Malaysia’s WMC captain, I was now Malaysia’s National Champion. Joe came up to me and said it’s my second shot at redemption at Worlds and I said it was the same for him. He nodded in agreement but I added:

“This time - I got your back.”

World Magic Cup – here we come.


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Epilogue:

Props & Slops –

Props:
- My loving wife who has supported me throughout this process
- Joe and Chye, no need me to remind what you guys did for me
- C&H, awesome event as always. Had you not be strict on the 9am start on Day 2, I wouldn’t have gone up on the LRT train.

Slops:
- It didn’t start at 9am eventually, but oh well. I still enjoyed the train ride regardless.
- Coming in 9th in the standings. The ending of the story could have been very different.

-end-