LOBSTERCON 2022: A REPORT
By Andrés Hojman and Thomas Sutherland
Our Lobstercon story starts on a sunny summer day in December while sipping pisco sours on the terrace of the Tip & Tap restaurant in Santiago. I am in Chile for business, and I always make sure that I touch base with the rest of the Earthquake League. Today is Andres’s turn to meet me for lunch. He expects the usual: casual conversation with an old friend, and opportunity to receive his monthly fix of Japanese premodern staples and old school essentials that made their way to my apartment in Vienna.
But I have a hidden agenda.
I let the pisco sour work its magic for few minutes and then make him an offer that I know he will refuse:
– “Lobstercon. May. You in?”
Andrés puts down his glass. He takes a long look at it, and gives it a quick twirl to mix the egg white foam with the pisco and the Pica lemon. He takes another sip, sighs and with a heavy heart responds:
– “I can’t go. Impossible. No chance”.
Bummer, but not unexpected. I reply:
– “That sucks, but I understand. I’m going anyway, but it would be cool if you could make it happen”.
Andrés sits back, and for a moment he seems to be lost in thought. He wants to go to Lobstercon. He needs to go to Lobstercon, but he knows that too many stars need to align for that to happen. And even if they did, he believes that he does not have enough wife credit to cash in a long weekend that involves flying to another hemisphere to play old cardboard with some guys he met over the internet, while his spouse stays at home and holds the fort with two-year old Matilda and her vast Duplo collection. A miracle needs to happen.
WANDERLUST
Back in Vienna, days fly by. Work, family life, and a Magic-related side project occupy most of my time. Old school is put on the backburner, partially because I have a bad case of deckbuilder’s block that prevents me from brewing something competitive with a touch of spice and a surprise or two in the sideboard. Premodern is a different story: The format has an incredible gameplay and card pool, but a few violations of the “don’t-be-a-dick” rule by some opponents in online tournaments prevents me from sparking a real interest in it.
On March 18, the stars align. The miracle happens. Andrés reaches out and tells me that a conference on the niche topic that he is currently investigating will be held in Boston just two days before the tournament; handing him the perfect excuse to travel. His wife cannot say no to work-related travel. His career might be on the line. Or not. There’s no way to be sure. His employer will even pay for his travel and accommodation. Lucky son of a bitch.
Lobstercon is officially a go.
Andrés and I chat a little about our expectations for the tournament, our predictions for the metagame, and potential deck choices. We reach three main conclusions: First, time is scarce and both of us prefer to prioritize old school over premodern, and therefore agree to dedicate zero testing hours to the latter. Second, neither of us wants to play The Deck or Lion Dib Bolt, mostly because we’re not in the mood, and both of us prefer to wield something that is slightly lower on the spike metrics in order to give way to a pinch of spice. Third, we agree that Juzám Djinn and Hymn To Tourach are sweet cards, and that it would be great to find a shell that makes them fit.
Andrés and I stumble upon Ben Katz’s LobstercoM winning decklist. The deck has Nevinyrral’s Disk, which is a strong card against Shops and The Deck, as well as providing some outs against our worst nightmare: Blood Moon. Andrés decides to build it and add it to the gauntlet.
I fly back to Chile during the last week of April for Ignacio Parot’s wedding, which Andrés and the rest of the League also attend. We bump into each other next to the dessert table, and after hugs and salutations are exchanged, we both lament that neither of us has dedicated a single hour to test for old school and agree to remedy this by scheduling an early morning testing session at 7:30 am.
I meet Andrés on the restaurant located at the top floor of my hotel. The view is great, capturing most of the neighboring golf course and some residential boroughs of the city.
We gobble up our omelets in order to get food out of the way, and agree that the best way to use our time is to stress-test Ben’s deck and put it up against The Deck and Shops for the next five hours.
We go back to the ground floor to take over the hotel’s small business center, and put Juzám’s fat pierced nose to the grindstone. The matches against The Deck are less atrocious than we expected. Order of the Ebon Hand is gas, and untapping with a Disk is normally game. However, the black deck’s threat density is low, and giving The Deck the opportunity to untap with a Tome or an Abyss feels terrible. Sinkhole underperforms miserably.
We then put Shops in the ring, and is massacres the black deck in all pre-boarded games. Sinkhole again underperforms. We conclude that Ben’s version doesn’t have what it takes against these decks. We debate on whether the manabase can manage four disenchants in the maindeck, and after a small debate we decide to swap them with the Sinkholes and put the deck back in the ring. Unsurprisingly, the matchups improve. Andrés wants to try three Divine Offerings in the sideboard against Shops. I grumble, but accept. The post-board games against Shops are a blowout, recovering all the terrain lost in the pre-boarded games. We also debate on whether we should increase the number of threats. Hypnotic Specter, Sengir Vampire and Sol’Kanar are mentioned, but we don’t agree on any of them, nor on what should come out to make room for them.
The five hours evaporate and I have to leave for a family lunch. The testing session was fun, but we didn’t conclude anything other than that creatures with protection from white are good against Swords to Plowshares and that white artifact removal spells are good against decks full of artifacts. Science. The deck feels capable of doing solid things, but also feels like it has a 47%-win rate against every other deck.
The next 10 days are a blur of meetings, late night contract drafting sessions, and quality time with my family. I blink and I’m on a plane to Boston while Andrés soaring over the Andes.
FLYING MEN
The trip runs smoothly. The only incident occurs when my sleep is interrupted by a 90-year old lady who believes that I am on her seat and tries to unbuckle my seatbelt, only to be promptly removed by one of the flight attendants.
The Earthquake League’s two-pronged attack on Boston. Andrés (black) had a stopover in Canada (a free trip is a free trip) and traveled over 8,500 Km (5,200 miles), while I raked 6,500 Km.
I arrive to my room at the Residence Inn in Cambridge and relax for a few hours until Andrés arrives back from a pre-conference meeting. We decide that the best way to get things going is to crack some World Championship decks from 1998 and battle Selden’s Rec-Sur v Hacker’s White Weenie.
Andrés beats me 3-1, and while I failed to draw an Empyreal Armor, the matchup feels like it should have gone the way that it did. Survival Of The Fittest is a good magic card.
After our warmup we get to business and discuss old school. We both build the 4CB deck with disenchants main, and quickly discuss sideboards. I try increasing the threat density post-board, and add some Hippies and Sengir Vampires, while Andrés decides to go with Falling Star and more Spirit Links. I decide to sleeve up the following 75 and get ready for the first event of the week: claw-sharpening at Moogy’s.
The front part of the sandwich bar looks like slightly run-down pub for undergrads, but the food is eye-catching and they have a decent selection of beers. We make our way to the back and find ourselves in a spacious room full of tables with a bunch of players wearing their NEOS hockey shirts. We arrived at the right place.
Dave and Jared greet us with the type of hug that you give to an old friend that you haven’t seen in years, and are immediately introduced to the other locals who are welcoming and genuinely interested in our voyage to this little corner of New England. We also meet up with other travelers such as JC Saavedra and Michael Heup.
We drink beers, chat, and sling spells. The black deck performs as expected and wins 47% of its games, but the main point of the evening is to enjoy the gathering. You can have a conversation over webcam with some of your magic buddies, but it pales in comparison to an in-person chat with friends. Being able to share quality time in person with like-minded gentlemen that also happen to battle on the plane of Dominia is a pleasure.
Magic is played, beer is ingested, and new friends are made. We go back to the hotel jetlagged, exhausted, buzzed, and happy; putting an end to a great day.
On Thursday Andrés takes off to his convention while DFB picks me up to give a tour of the city. We walk through parks, the historical center, and the pier. A dude dressed like Benjamin Franklin stalks us through an old burial ground while we admire some tombstones with skulls and grim reapers engraved on them. We walk into an old bookstore and check out some old prints while Dave debates on getting a Boston-related antique poster as a prize for Lobstercon.
Boston is a beautiful city and Dave is a knowledgeable guide. Some tourists event tag along to hear some of his explanations on some obscure fact of the Boston Custom Tower House. Dave surprises me with stories about the big dig in Boston and that the promenade that we were walking on used to be the I-93 highway.
After our walk we meet for lunch at Legal Sea Foods with Jared; and I am introduced to Pez, and Shawn. Shawn studied in Boston, and is happy to be back in town. He is also basking in the the success that Fire Walk With Me, his Twin Peaks-themed tournament near Seattle that was the talk of the town. Pez is currently riding high with a string of impressive results under his belt, including a near miss to top 8 in a little tournament called Noobcon. The company is great. Spending the early hours of the afternoon sharing stories about Magic over IPAs and battered shrimp doesn’t hurt either. The only moment of tension comes when the waiter brings our oysters together with a bottle of ketchup. I wait to see if anyone else at the table will do the unthinkable and pour some red goo on them, but no one does. I sigh in relief; but I have so many questions: Was this a coincidence? Do Americans put ketchup on their oysters? Were our skills being tested by that goofy-looking server? Why is the guy on the table next to us putting hot sauce on his lobster roll?
A few minutes after leaving the restaurant we unexpectedly bump into Gordon Andersson, who was on his way to meet Akos and Jens at the Trillium bar. We decide to join them and continue our afternoon of beer tasting. I get spectate a match between Shaun’s Shops deck fitted with Lord Of The Ring altered power by Brossard and Akos’s White-Blue control deck, adding some wizardry to an otherwise Magicless afternoon.
We split ways around 4pm, which gives me enough time to walk back to the hotel and hop in an Uber to go to Dave’s house for a barbecue with some other long-distance travelers and some other members of the old school community.
I learn that Boston is a conurbation of a series of towns, and Belmont is one of them. My Uber drives by universities, and large parks, and arrives at a quiet neighborhood with small slopes and dense, bright vegetation. Dave’s front door has a sign welcoming all nerds and inviting to access the back porch. Hamburgers are on the grill, and a small gathering of wizards including Mano, Mase, Sped, Mari, Jeff White, Jason Schwartz, Svante, and one Olle Råde (whom you might have heard of).
As the time goes by, more people start to arrive. It’s a packed house. Duncan William shows up armed with a bottle of bourbon and an Ante 40K deck. Dangerous combination. He challenges Mase to a duel, ready to pop his cherry in the format of kings. Before I know it, a small group gather around the battle. Mase gets the upper hand with a Hypnotic Specter, which forces Duncan to cast a Contract From Below and then Regrowth it and cast it again, accumulating three cards on his ante stack. The fourteen additional cards do not provide sufficient answers to Mase’s threats nor a Jeweled Bird to minimize the losses, and Mase continues to move the advantage bar towards him by taking chunks of Duncan’s life total with a Su-Chi. Tension rises and the spectators are visibly exited. Duncan’s hands are shaking. His nerves get the best of him, causing him to make a few suboptimal plays. In the eleventh hour, Duncan draws a Bird and activates it. Mase pauses, debating whether he should use his Disechant, but decides to spare his opponent from losing 5% of his deck. Duncan graciously accepts, and flips his three cards, containing a Bayou and a Mind Twist. The crowd goes mad, but agree that Mase did the right thing. Mano casts a dissenting vote, being unable to condone such a pass on value. Duncan has the same face of fear and excitement that a seven-year old has after sneaking onto rollercoaster. “best match I ever played” he says with a huge grin. He has completed his rite of passage. He is now a man.
The insanity of Duncan and Mase’s match leaves everyone pumped and thirsty for more Magic. I ask Jared to fire up a premodern cube. We quickly take over Dave’s living room and set up a 10-man pod. I draft a green-white midrange deck with an assortment of bombs that includes Survival Of The Fittest, Genesis, Worship, Eternal Dragon and a total of ninteteen creatures, most of which had ETB effects. The deck is sweet. I go 2-1, beating Mike Heup’s pink weenie and Rob’s white-black shadow aggro; while losing to Flint Espil’s mono black Necro.
The night goes on. Back in the porch, the Ante 40K insanity continues with Mase and Svante. I manage to catch the tail end of it. After having a substantial amount of Duncan’s bourbon and an assortment of local beers, most of the guests call it a night. Gordon does not. I arrive to my hotel after midnight, have a brief chat with Andrés and crash on my bed around 1am.
If my adventure in Boston would have ended then and there, I would have considered it to be a huge success, but things were just getting started.
PREMODERN
Given that neither Andrés nor I really cared about premodern I decide to play safe and sleeve up red deck wins. I debate between playing a playset of new-frame Wooded Foothills and going with four more Tempest mountains, since I realize that I don’t own a copy of the OG. Aesthetics prevail.
I also decided to replace Urza’s Baubles with a mix of Firebolts and Volcanic Hammers. I cannot get behind playing bauble in RDW. The argument that it helps you streamline your deck, allowing you to have more access to your better cards, but my intuition is that the math does not support that statement. I also think that playing Bauble comes at the cost of two important drawbacks. The first one is that it makes your mulligan decisions harder. An important skill with the red deck is assessing the strength of your initial hand, and having a bauble in hand makes it harder. The second one is that the delay in drawing the card is really annoying. It makes for a lousy topdeck in the late game since it reduces the quality of sorcery-speed draws such as creatures (especially Ball Lightning). The argument of Bauble helping to fuel your graveyard for Grim Lavamancer and Barbarian Ring does not seem correct. I played with only four fetchlands and I always had sufficient cards in the bin. I don’t remember any of the extended decks of old playing any Baubles, and the card pool overlap was mostly similar to the one used by stock premodern lists.
Andrés also put little effort into his premodern deck and decided to play Rec-Sur (possible the least optimal Survival deck in the format) because it brought back the good memories of playing the deck in standard and extended formats of yore.
Andrés leaves for his last day of conferencing, knowing that he will miss the first round, while I make the seven-minute walk to the venue and get ready for the first tournament.
In round one I play against Stephen Hines playing The Rock. Game one can be reduced to him tapping out to play a second Blastoderm, while I burn him down to zero between his end step and my own turn. Fireblast is a good magic card. He laments that he should have played the Ravenous Baloth that was in his hand instead, which seems reasonable. On game two he whittles my hand with Cabal Therapies and I fail to put on early pressure, which allows him to take control with another life-gaining beast. On game three I mulligan to four, keeping three mountains and an Ensnaring Bridge, but he has all the goods and rolls me over with Pernicious Deeds and a Deranged Hermit.
Round two was against Gordon Andersson playing Blackjack (that is, PandeBurst Replenish for you newbies). I take over game 1 thanks to a trio of Jackal Pups and Gordons Adarkar Wastes and Ancient Tombs. Game two is all Gordon, and manages to Replenish for 21 points of damage before I do anything relevant. On game three Gordon stumbles, and I manage to create a huge tempo swing by Pyroblasting an Attunement and burn him out on the crackback.
On round three I battle against Marc Flore’s red-black discard deck, and take him down in two. His deck was mostly vulnerable to my removal spells, and I was able to clock him faster.
Round four I lose against Colin (Calvin?… no, Coilin) and Survival Madness. He gets to combo off with Devourer Triskelion and Volrath’s Shapeshifter. On game two we both keep a one-lander. I put some early pressure, but he manages to hold me back and a Chill puts me out of commission.
Round five I play against Hosier on Goblin. I manage to win the race on game one thanks to a trio of Ball Lightnings, and on game two I manage to create a soft lock with Ensnaring Bridge and Cursed Scroll that prevents him from attacking me.
Round six was against Joe on Enchantress. He misses a land drop on game 1, and I manage to capitalize on this. On game two I manage to pressure his life total during the first few turns. He tries to stabilize by tutoring for a Circle Of Protection: Red, but I have more lethal burn spells than he has untapped mana. Fireblast is indeed a good magic card.
Round seven pits me against Jared, playing Devourer Combo. On game one I manage to brig him down to 14 before he goes off and mills my entire library, but I have enough damage to kill him between his end step and my upkeep with a Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Fireblast and two Lavamancer activations. On game two I apply some pressure with Jackal Pups. Jared tries to accelerate his combo with a couple of Tinkers, but I answer them with Pyroblasts and he is unable to recover.
A 5-2 record puts me in 14th place. A pleasant surprise, considering that I did not prepare for the tournament at all and had zero expectations on my Friday performance. However, I did not enjoy playing red deck wins. Small dorks and burn spells can be an excellent strategy, but it is not my cup of tea. Preferences aside, I think that the deck is easy to play, and the in-game decisions are rather simple. This isn’t a bad thing, its just not my style of magic. You can convince yourself that playing red deck wins is “hard” or “satisfying to win with”, but in reality, the deck does not present too many decisions per turn, and most of your cards do the same thing (burn stuff). The majority of my games were non-interactive, and my decisions were reduced to maximizing the amount of damage I could do each turn. The deck is great, but I will not play it again. If you love red deck wins, that’s totally fine. Just don’t pretend its rocket science. It’s just rocket fuel.
Andrés ends up going 3-4, but enjoys every single minute of every single game. He also managed to make the best of his downtime between rounds, asking Jeff Laubenstein to alter a trio of Recurring Nightmares, and spending some quality time chatting with former world champion and Rec-Sur connoisseur Brian Selden.
OLD SCHOOL
Having conducted our premodern business for the week, Andrés and I head back to the hotel to continue testing for the main event. This time, its 4CB’s turn to face against Lion Dib Bolt. The results are not pretty, with LDB winning about seventy per cent of the games. The adverse results make me question the deck as a choice for the main event. Andrés agrees that further testing is necessary, and we agree that whoever wakes up first needs to wake the other up and continue testing. That night I dream of getting creamed by Savannah Lions and Psionic Blasts on a webcam game by an unknown opponent with fat hands that always seems to topdeck whatever he needs at the right time.
I wake up at the ridiculous time of 5:34 am, only to see that Andrés is already awake. I love playing Magic, I can play it for hours on end, but Andrés is on another level. I do not know anyone else who has a passion for the game that come close to him, nor someone who has the stamina to play non-stop for days.
I sit up in bed, he gives me a thumbs up from the other side of the room and without saying a word we both go to the table and start jamming. I unbox by plan b: a De Silva-esque deck with solid creatures, white removal, and restricted cards.
We pit it against The Deck and it gets absolutely wrecked. I expected this, but I did not expect how much of an ass-whooping it turns out to be. I know better than jumping to conclusions from such a small sample size, but the results are still disheartening, and I find myself back in square one.
After breakfast I decide that the green deck feels right and decide to submit it, while Andrés sticks to his guns and trusts that Juzám will go the distance. We both send our deck pics and start walking to the venue that will be the center of the old school world during this weekend.
I end up going 5-3, losing to a French-Canadian, Will Magrann, and Mari; and while I had some cool games my old school tournament is nowhere near as interesting as Andrés’s.
On round one Andres faces Brian Bogdon, playing a form of reanimator strategy. The first game is all Andrés, with Brian only being able to cast a Sedge Troll off a Black Lotus. Andrés sides out his Disks for Greeds, believing that he is playing against Disco Troll. On game two both players run into a stalemate, with Brian drawing cards with Library of Alexandria and Andrés fueling his hand with the black enchantment. Brian is able to remove Andres’s creatures with a smattering of Swords to Plowshares, which only keeps on fueling his greed. Andrés -who has now reached Gordon-Gecko levels of avarice- finally manages to push through a few point of damage with some Orders, and finishes the game off with a huge Fireball. Andrés has been trying to make Greed work for quite a while now, without much success; so having it give him the win in an important tournament gives him an extra dose of satisfaction, and he is off to an auspicious start. Greed is good.
In the second round Andrés faces Svante Landgraf, playing The Deck. Game one starts off with Andrés hymning a Plains and a Tundra. Svante has a response for his opponent’s pump-knights in the form of Lightning Bolt, but a Juzám quickly shows up and runs away with the game. On game two Svante manages to control the board and clock Andrés with a Serra Angel. In game three both players build up their mana base. Svante makes the first move with a Mind Twist for Andrés’s hand, who sighs in exasperation, only to return the favor with his topdecked copy of the black X-spell. The top of the black deck’s library continues to be kind to the Chilean, giving him a Sedge Troll and a Mishra’s Factory that end sup sealing the game. Mind Twist is a sick magic card.
Fate has decided to pit Andrés against Michael Scheffenacker for the second time in a weekend, this time on round three of the main event. The last time these two gentlemen played old school against each other was in the finals of a NEOS monthly in which Michael cast a turn-one Eureka into four fatties. Lucky man. On this occasion Scheff is playing Arabian Aggro. Andrés starts the hostilities with a Sol’Kanar thanks to a Mox Ruby, an Underground Sea and a Black Lotus. The Swamp King eventually gets taken down by an Argothian Pixies and a Bolt, but manages to reduce Michael’s life total by half. Andrés keeps applying pressure, and takes the game with a forestwalking Sedge Troll. On game two Andrés starts strong with an Ancestral, but Scheff manages to erase the advantage with a Timetwister that gives Andrés an unworkable seven. On game three Andrés buys tickets to Alexandria, and manages to amass an unsurmountable flow of cards that allows him to mana screw his opponent with artifact destruction, and take the game with a slew of creatures.
After refueling with a lobster roll and basking in the sun with Jeff White, Andrés is paired against Rich Bourque, on TwiddleVault. In the first game Andrés manages to apply pressure, but Rich steals a victory at the last minute. Rich dumps his entire sideboard into his deck, telegraphing a transformational strategy which prompts Andrés to keep in his creature removal. Game two is all Rich, who counters a Mind Twist and Mana Drains a Greed, and then follows up with an army of Atogs, Dibs and Pixies to give Andrés his first loss of the day.
Frank Ulip is Andres’s opponent for round five, and he is piloting a mono black deck with a white splash. Frank goes on the offense on game one with a pump knight and a Royal Assassin. Andrés stabilizes with a Sedge Troll to gum up the ground; while using a Chaos Orb and a Strip Mine to cripple Frank’s mana base. A Juzám joins the party and finishes the job once the Royal Assassin had been sent to plow. Game two is almost a carbon copy of game two, in which Andres’s Djinns and Trolls outclass Frank’s Black Knights.
On round six, Andrés is paired plays against Jeff Johnston on Shops. In the first encounter Jeff manages to power through Andres’s defenses and takes over the game. While sideboarding for game two, Andres has a flashback to our early-morning testing session in Santiago and the ridiculous amount of white removal that he has at his disposal for this matchup, upping the total payload to eleven cards that destroy stuff, plus disks. On game two, Andrés ramps out an early Juzám that manages to bring Jeff’s life total to single digits, before being put back in the bottle. However, the damage was done, and Andrés finishes off the game with a Fireball for exactsies. Jeff was all gas on game three, but so was Andrés. For every robot that Jeff played, the Chilean had a white piece of removal. Andrés end up drawing a Greed that he uses to cash in ten extra cards (thanks to those pesky Divine Offerings), which allows him to turn the corner and chip Jeffs life total to zero by chipping away with assembly workers.
Round seven takes Andrés to another trip to Mishra’s Workshop, this time operated by Brett Attmore. Andrés has a very solid draw with Mox Jet and multiple Hymn To Tourach which he uses to whittle Brett’s hand, and then followed up with multiple creatures to take over the game. On game two Brett tries to put pressure with multiple artifact creatures, but Andrés has a white removal spell for each of them. Brett draws a Wheel Of Fortune, but Andrés gets a pair of Hymn To Tourach and more white removal to turn the tide in his favor. Brett runs out of gas, and Andrés finishes the job with Juzáms. Andrés and Brett share a nice post-match chat, focused the latter’s collection. Brett’s beta Lotus is a sight to behold: an HP beauty with an extraordinary origin story. If you know Brett or have the luck of playing against him in an online monthly be sure to ask him about it. Playing at a top table and still having a super friendly chat like this afterwards is one of the things we love of our community.
We go outside the venue for air, and Andrés is filled with excitement about his chances of making top 8. I give him a small pep talk, and see him off to the eighth and final round.
The day’s end boss is the legendary Paul De Silva, playing Blue Moon. Paul takes game one by chaining a Goblins Of The Flarg into a Blood Moon into a Serendib Efreet. Andres’s lands are shut down, and the pair of creatures reduces him to zero before he can draw a Disk. In game two Paul starts off strong by sequencing a pair of Efreets on turns two and three, but Andrés is pacient and uses his life total as a resource to maximize his card advantage with a Nevinyrral’s Disk. He manages to clear up the board at the cost of lowering his life to single digits against a burn deck, but manages to claw back and take the game with a Sedge Troll, a couple of Factories and an opportune Time Walk. Game three is also one of patience. Paul once against starts off with a Serendib Efreet. Andrés uses a Demonic Tutor to get a Spirit Link to keep it at bay; while keeping white mana untapped to be able to respond to a Blood Moon, at the cost of delaying the development of his board. Paul eventually draws the red enchantment, but Andrés manages to deal with it by floating mana in response and disenchanting it. With that threat out of the way, Andrés passes on to the offensive with a couple of Sedge Trolls, and manages to clinch the match, and a top 4.
At the award ceremony Andrés and I receive the Traveler Award, for traveling from far away and being the first South Americans to come to Lobstercon. The beta Wanderlust is a thing of beauty and our trip comes full circle.
Andrés ends up getting third place, and receives a beautiful Disenchant. A fitting prize for the man who suggested to add those in the black deck.
We finalize an amazing day by having dinner with Olle and the gang, and going for drinks at Lord Hobo. Jetlag and the early start takes its toll, and by midnight we are both destroyed. We say our goodbyes, not to the guys that we play wizard squares over the internet, but to our friends.
Sunday is a hot day in Boston, and we make the best of it by strolling through Cambridge, walking up to Harvard Square and having some Ramen at Andres’ favorite restaurant in the city.
Our time in Boston runs out. We head to the airport. And say our goodbyes. The TSA operator gives Andrés a hard time on his blue-mana “Nope” t-shirt, telling him that he must change his evil, counterspelling ways. I don’t think he will.
As for me, I sit on the plane exhausted but full of wanderlust and the need for more old school magic. Adventure awaits.
PROPS
DFB, for being an amazing host, tournament organizer, and an overall awesome dude. I hope to repay you in kind, whether in Vienna or in Santiago.
Andrés, for being an awesome tripmate, and for kicking ass.
Jared, Duncan, Jeff, Mano, and Olle.
Pez. Cool dude.
Juzám Djinn and Sedge Troll.
The Premodern crowd, for upholding the golden rule, and being awesome guys.
SLOPS
Me for changing horses at the last hour, and refusing a chance to play with Juzám Djinn when the opportunity presented itself.
Stupid, powerful red deck wins.
