G
Gumby Khan
Guest
I see that many people have posted already, so I won't re-iterate anything, but I'll try to compare my experience with thiers. I'll also try to keep it short (wish me luck).
First, the trip to Tokyo (Ikebukoro).
0630 - We (10 friends and I) met on base at Burger King to grab breakfast.
0730 - We head to the train station and pay about $8.00.
0900 - Arrive at Pre-release and wait in "English" line for 5 minutes to register. Pay 3,500Yen ($33.00) and grab a seat. Over 700 players entered the Pre-release and the Japanese Nationals were being held in the same room at the same time, so it was very crowded. I saw Alex Shvartsman and thought he was going to play against us, but luckily he only came to sell cards (whew)! They promised us English cards and told us we would deck swap with other English players. Cool. Announce only 6 rounds of swiss to be played, so mathmatecally, at least ten players will be undefeated at the end. Prizes are yet unknown.
0915 - Me and friends are ready to play, but people are still registering and finding seats. We decide to go out and smoke.
0930 - Still not ready, we smoke some more.
1000 - Smoke some more.
1030 - Smoke more.
1100 - Smoke, until I can feel the cancer grow.
1130 - Buy more smokes and scope out the female players. Many Japanese women play Magic and we must've counted at least 50.
1200 - They finally hand out the cards! We begin registering the cards. We had to stop, because in every Japanese pack of Prophecy, all the foils and uncommons were in Chinese! Judges scramble for a few, but they press on. Luckily ours were all English. Eric, my buddy, opens a Rishadan Port, but has to pass it. I open crap and pass to Jeremy (who does well with it), but I get passed a Thrashing Wumpus and dawnstrider. Needless to say, I build black/green. Shayne gets Two-headed dragon, shock troops, Kris Mage, and about 20 more red cards. He is very happy, but ends with a 4-2 record, I think.
1300 - Begin first round, play cute Japanese woman who speaks a little english. Shake her hand and wish her luck ("Gambata-ne" in Japanese). I repeat this ritual for every round and every opponent. Good sportsmanship is a mainstay in Japan. I am nervous, but so is she, I think. She vendetta's my 3/3, when she is at 3 life and I ask if she wants to take it back, pointing to her life counter. She does, then re-targets my 1/1 swampwalk. I ask if she would rather target my dawnstrider instead and she says no. Okay, so I win that match and we shake hands again. She tells me that we both have to turn in the score sheet to pick up our foil Avatar of Hope promo. This should illustrate the the skill level of the average pre-release player. Most of my opponents made only one fatal mistake, but if I could capitalize on it, I did. When I made mistakes, they jumped on it, too.
1350 - Lunch at McDonalds located in the basement of this 65 floor high-rise. Compare notes with friends and everyone else is having a good time. My friend, Wes, and me had made a bet. If one of us wins and the other loses after each round, the loser had to do ten push-ups. It's a testosterone thing. We both won, so no push-ups (whew).
1450 - Second round. Discover that Hobby Japan is playing the dice game, like in Nagoya (previous post of mine), but the prizes have changed. I played about $20.00 worth and walked away with two foils, two Magic hip-bags, two Vanguard cards, one prophecy uncommon, four single APAC lands, and a crap-load of cheesy Magic stickers! Must've learned from Nagoya that we were raping them. This round I also discover that the spoiler list I downloaded from NewWave is useless, since so many mistakes were on it. For instance, the 3/4 rare flyer for 2UU says "at end of turn, discard your hand." on the spoiler, but in reality, the card is printed, "at end of turn, tap all lands you control." This made an embarassing moment when I had to call a judge over to ask why my japanese opponent wasn't discarding his hand. Wow, NewWave lost their liscence over an inaccurate spoiler. tsk, tsk, tsk.
2100 - end of last round, about 500 players have already dropped. Twelve people are undefeated and of those, the top 3 win a t-shirt and box of Prophecy. Myself and Jeremy (14 yrs. old), both go 5-1. I placed 13th, he placed 49th. 4th-100th get only a t-shirt. Terry, friend and level 1 judge, placed 105th, just missing out on the t-shirt. He discovered how broken Squirrel Wrangler is in limited, but he kept forgetting to put TWO tokens in play and it cost him, going 4-1-1. Jeremy won three games with Searing Wind, which kicks Volcanic wind hands down in limited, IMHO.
2130 - A/C has been turned off in the building since 1800, so we take our sweaty American a$$ and head to McDonalds, again. We reminisce about the day and laugh about a lot of things. Everyone is still happy, even Arndrel, who goes 1-5. Hit the train and buy the cheapest ticket ($1.50), because we have a secret plan to cheat the system.
2300 - get back to base and most of us still want to play, so we draft masques with Vanguard cards and play to 0300. All in all, a great day.
If I ever go to another one, I will be prepared to wait a long time before starting (bring lots of smokes). I'll also not rely on spoilers, as much. Bring more than $100.00, since everything is so expensive (McDonalds cost me about $7.00 for a Double-cheesburger value meal and Pepsi's were $2.00 each)! Check out more of the side stuff; Wes found a vendor that sold 13 random pulls from a box of rares/foils for only 1000Yen ($9.50). Bring a camera; they had two cute japanese girls dressed as the Avatar of Hope and Avatar of Will! Save 500Yen for the ride home; they sell 40oz beers in vending machines and I sure could use a drink after that tournament. Other than those things, I really had a blast. I still prefer the Grand Prix, though. Sorry I made this so long, but I have a habit of rambling. Thanks, if you made it this far.
First, the trip to Tokyo (Ikebukoro).
0630 - We (10 friends and I) met on base at Burger King to grab breakfast.
0730 - We head to the train station and pay about $8.00.
0900 - Arrive at Pre-release and wait in "English" line for 5 minutes to register. Pay 3,500Yen ($33.00) and grab a seat. Over 700 players entered the Pre-release and the Japanese Nationals were being held in the same room at the same time, so it was very crowded. I saw Alex Shvartsman and thought he was going to play against us, but luckily he only came to sell cards (whew)! They promised us English cards and told us we would deck swap with other English players. Cool. Announce only 6 rounds of swiss to be played, so mathmatecally, at least ten players will be undefeated at the end. Prizes are yet unknown.
0915 - Me and friends are ready to play, but people are still registering and finding seats. We decide to go out and smoke.
0930 - Still not ready, we smoke some more.
1000 - Smoke some more.
1030 - Smoke more.
1100 - Smoke, until I can feel the cancer grow.
1130 - Buy more smokes and scope out the female players. Many Japanese women play Magic and we must've counted at least 50.
1200 - They finally hand out the cards! We begin registering the cards. We had to stop, because in every Japanese pack of Prophecy, all the foils and uncommons were in Chinese! Judges scramble for a few, but they press on. Luckily ours were all English. Eric, my buddy, opens a Rishadan Port, but has to pass it. I open crap and pass to Jeremy (who does well with it), but I get passed a Thrashing Wumpus and dawnstrider. Needless to say, I build black/green. Shayne gets Two-headed dragon, shock troops, Kris Mage, and about 20 more red cards. He is very happy, but ends with a 4-2 record, I think.
1300 - Begin first round, play cute Japanese woman who speaks a little english. Shake her hand and wish her luck ("Gambata-ne" in Japanese). I repeat this ritual for every round and every opponent. Good sportsmanship is a mainstay in Japan. I am nervous, but so is she, I think. She vendetta's my 3/3, when she is at 3 life and I ask if she wants to take it back, pointing to her life counter. She does, then re-targets my 1/1 swampwalk. I ask if she would rather target my dawnstrider instead and she says no. Okay, so I win that match and we shake hands again. She tells me that we both have to turn in the score sheet to pick up our foil Avatar of Hope promo.
This should illustrate the the skill level of the average pre-release player. Most of my opponents made only one fatal mistake, but if I could capitalize on it, I did. When I made mistakes, they jumped on it, too.1350 - Lunch at McDonalds located in the basement of this 65 floor high-rise. Compare notes with friends and everyone else is having a good time. My friend, Wes, and me had made a bet. If one of us wins and the other loses after each round, the loser had to do ten push-ups. It's a testosterone thing. We both won, so no push-ups (whew).
1450 - Second round. Discover that Hobby Japan is playing the dice game, like in Nagoya (previous post of mine), but the prizes have changed. I played about $20.00 worth and walked away with two foils, two Magic hip-bags, two Vanguard cards, one prophecy uncommon, four single APAC lands, and a crap-load of cheesy Magic stickers! Must've learned from Nagoya that we were raping them.
This round I also discover that the spoiler list I downloaded from NewWave is useless, since so many mistakes were on it. For instance, the 3/4 rare flyer for 2UU says "at end of turn, discard your hand." on the spoiler, but in reality, the card is printed, "at end of turn, tap all lands you control." This made an embarassing moment when I had to call a judge over to ask why my japanese opponent wasn't discarding his hand. Wow, NewWave lost their liscence over an inaccurate spoiler. tsk, tsk, tsk.2100 - end of last round, about 500 players have already dropped. Twelve people are undefeated and of those, the top 3 win a t-shirt and box of Prophecy. Myself and Jeremy (14 yrs. old), both go 5-1. I placed 13th, he placed 49th. 4th-100th get only a t-shirt.
Terry, friend and level 1 judge, placed 105th, just missing out on the t-shirt. He discovered how broken Squirrel Wrangler is in limited, but he kept forgetting to put TWO tokens in play and it cost him, going 4-1-1. Jeremy won three games with Searing Wind, which kicks Volcanic wind hands down in limited, IMHO.2130 - A/C has been turned off in the building since 1800, so we take our sweaty American a$$ and head to McDonalds, again. We reminisce about the day and laugh about a lot of things. Everyone is still happy, even Arndrel, who goes 1-5. Hit the train and buy the cheapest ticket ($1.50), because we have a secret plan to cheat the system.
2300 - get back to base and most of us still want to play, so we draft masques with Vanguard cards and play to 0300. All in all, a great day.
If I ever go to another one, I will be prepared to wait a long time before starting (bring lots of smokes). I'll also not rely on spoilers, as much. Bring more than $100.00, since everything is so expensive (McDonalds cost me about $7.00 for a Double-cheesburger value meal and Pepsi's were $2.00 each)! Check out more of the side stuff; Wes found a vendor that sold 13 random pulls from a box of rares/foils for only 1000Yen ($9.50). Bring a camera; they had two cute japanese girls dressed as the Avatar of Hope and Avatar of Will! Save 500Yen for the ride home; they sell 40oz beers in vending machines and I sure could use a drink after that tournament. Other than those things, I really had a blast. I still prefer the Grand Prix, though. Sorry I made this so long, but I have a habit of rambling. Thanks, if you made it this far.