Huy's blag

It has been a while since Grand Prix: Paris 2008, when I got to work on the last event coverage. All that traveling and what seemed like many "wasted" weekends (I had a lot of fun most of the time, really!) were enough for me. The decision to stop was an even easier one when I realized that after I had not been able to join the Pro Tour as a judge, I would meet the same fate as a coverage reporter. It could not get easier than being invited to Pro Tour: Berlin, I had hoped. It was not to be.

Fast forward: Two-and-a-half years later

So there was this Pro Tour Qualifier upcoming and I absolutely did not feel like studying or preparing for exams. Playing was beyond question, because even if I somehow managed to get a deck, I wouldn't know how to play it well enough. I mean, I do not even know how those Planeswalkers really work in detail. But I suppose I still can write about people who know. I do not have a clue about the game as it is, but that lack of knowledge never has stopped me before. As if I had known anything worthwhile about Shards of Alara sealed deck!

I pretty much did all the coverage work to stay in touch with all the great people I've met at events and hang out with them in different places, having a great time. But this time, when I entered the store the PTQ was held in... I did not know anybody except for the store owner. When the tournament started, I still did not know more than maybe 10 people on-site.

All the regulars I've known from "back then" apparently have become non-regulars by now. In their stead, other regulars have emerged. They might be cool people, as well, but from what I can tell, they probably are not the kind of people I would like to hang out with in random cities all over Europe. Maybe I am just too old for that mindset...

Wark!

The tournament itself was a pretty smooth one and coverage work went okay (I suppose). As Torben Thies and I did not really intend to do a full-fledged coverage, anyway, we were slacking off big times. A few feature matches, a metagame breakdown (no surprises here: Faeries were the most played deck, followed by Scapeshift, mono-R and Jund) and a few quick interviews. After all, 55 players unfortunately do not provide a lot of content.

Sifting through the 55 decklists however yielded about 0.5 interesting decks and another apparently strange one: It looked like its pilot had fallen in love with Caw-Blade ever since it had dominated Pro Tour: Paris. Take said Standard deck, try to fit in cards like Cryptic Command, Kitchen Finks, and Vendilion Clique, then go crush some Extended PTQ. Or so.

Crush the PTQ it did. Johannes Löchert went 4-0-2 (two IDs) during the Swiss part of the tournament and then proceeded to dominate his quarterfinal and semifinal with his Squadron Hawks. Christopher Passow from Rostock managed to put up a long fight, but in the end, he lost a very close fight over the Pro Tour slot.

Congratulations to Johannes Löchert! May the Pikachus be with you.

Real questions I wanted to address

Going into the event, I had hoped to be able to provide answers to a few questions that have come up recently. Those answers did not really turn out to be clear, though...

Jace, the Mind Sculptor - ubiquitous?

No single deck in the top 8 featured more than three Jace, the Mind Sculptor. In fact, only 7 Jaces could be found between all those decks, but three of them did make their way to Nagoya. And they did so by defeating the other four Jaces in the top 8.

Jaces or Scions?

Finalist Christopher Passow decided to go the Planeswalker route, but he did so in favor of the smaller Jace. Two Jace Belerens and one Jace, the Mind Sculptor ended up in his deck. Semifinalist Jasper Grimmer however decided to run a single Jace, the Mind Sculptor only and no Scion of Oona, at all.

Tectonic Edge?

Jasper also did not play any Tectonic Edge in his deck, at all, whereas Christopher went with the full four copies, having two among his 26 lands main deck and another two in his sideboard. Other top 8 players with the full set of Tectonic Edge were Torsten Anders (U/W control) and eventual winner Johannes Loechert (U/W Caw-Blade).

Coverage reloaded?

At no time before, during or after the tournament did I feel the urge to rejoin the PMTG coverage team (I'm sorry, TobiH!). I can see myself attending Nationals 2011, because Nationals are more of a reunion event for elderly people like me than anything else, but I just cannot talk myself into a "real" event like a Grand Prix or Pro Tour anymore, unless it is going to happen in the neighborhood.

In fact, it is pretty unlikely at this time for me to cover yet another event, even in the close vicinity of Berlin. The people I would love to see again just don't come here, after all, and ever since my love for this game has faded away, there is no incentive for me to keep going with as little reward as this job yields.