I am back from Gen Con, with amazing results! Now before we get into all things Gen Con I wanted to say a huge thanks to every one who came out to compete. It was ABSOLUTLY AMAZING to meet everyone, from people who just play the game to those who are subscribers and to the all the fantastic people at Wizards of the Coast! Now I will get to this more later but it was by far the best part of the trip. Community is my main thing and being able to live in the community (so to speak) for 3 days was amazing. I got to help people top 8 in prelims, I got to meet fantastic people, and I got to meet many of the other content creators!
Now with all that being said lets start from the beginning. I landed on Wednesday and heard it was a process to get a badge so I head to Gen Con first to acquire my badge and see the guys (they were working the event and were setting up the booth at the time). Now when I say the lines are long you cannot
how long these lines were unless you have been there. Picture the longest line you have ever been in....then times that by 6. No joke, now I did get lucky with being there a day early so mine time in line was about 30 mins or so, but I did hear stories of people waiting for about 3+ hours. So after that It was heading back to my hotel to prepare for the events in the morning. They way they work is it is 2 prelims each day, one starting at 11am and one at 4pm. So I begin the morning event and all goes well and at 3:15 I am sitting at 2-1 (2 wins-1 loss). So at this point I have 2 options, 1- keep playing and see how it goes, or drop and get into the night event. I choose to drop so I can play with the other guys from Colorado in the night event. Now sitting here I should have stayed in the morning event but hey.. So we begin the night event and round 1 ends in a draw for me, round 2 I get paired against Kevin from Colorado. So we decide to draw and at this point now I have to win the next 4 matches to possibly make top 8. I win the next 2 and this is where things get...Interesting. I am playing in round 5 and it is an aerialbot mirror match, and I won game 1. We are about 3 turns in to game 2 and the judges come by to rematch us. Yea no joke I have to get a new opponent and start over 30 mins into the round. So I get a new opponent and we go all the way to game 3, I win but at this point I am exhausted, I just had to play 4 and a half games in about and hour and a half. I will say I was very unhappy with it, I found my self at the center of multiple issues this weekend some I wont talk about. So here I sit 3-0-2 and I have to win my last match, Wes and Rudy are also in a win and in scenario. We head into the next round and we find ourselves in another pairing debacle, Wes gets paired up and wasn't supposed to and plays the guy sitting at 5-0. I end my match in a draw so that takes me out of top 8, Wes takes a loss and that puts him on the bubble (a term Ill explain later) and Rudy is around the same. Pairings get posted and Wes comes in 10th, Rudy comes in 13th. It sucks and we begin to pack up, it is at this point they tell us the standings are incorrect and they have to redo it. Now we are thinking maybe Wes and Rudy will get pushed up and maybe make it. Wes moves from 10th to 9th and Rudy from 13th to 10th. Damn... Next day beings and I hear while signing up there is over 100 players! This means we are in for a long morning and I decide to run my primetime deck, my plan is to just pay the first 3 rounds and see where I sit. Hard part about a 8 round tournament is if you take 2 losses you can essentially miss top 8 and if I decide to keep playing I will miss the night event and that will be my last chance to qualify. So we being round 1 and I am very confident in my deck and I take the first match, then the second and then the 3rd match. At this point there is no way I can drop, not being 3-0. However I have to put it all on the line in this event since this is the last event I will be playing in. Round 4 begins and I lose, it was a match I should have won but my opponents last character lived with 1 heath!! On the crack back I lose. So I just tell myself it was ok, it was a close match and I just need to win the next one. Round 5 begins and I take game 1 against 3 wide prime, game 2 begins and I get his Battlefield Legend down to 1 heath (sensing a pattern here..) I get 1 more turn and have to KO big man here to win the game. I rip the top card off my deck and its a zap! I was so excited I just needed to play it and win but make sure I check the board to make sure he doesn't have a secret action waiting and after I don't see one I show him and win. Now I have 1 more hurdle to get through, I have to win or draw my next match. I am sitting at 12 points and at 4th place. If I get paired down I will have to play which would suck.. Or I get paired like normal and we draw. Luckily we get paired like normal, we draw and I get 7th and the guy I drew with got 8! Worked out and thankfully I am done gaming for today.
So after we take our picture for top 8 I head over to see how Jacob and Rudy are doing. Jacob is 3-0 and Rudy is 1-1-1 and has a climb ahead of him. Going into round 4 Jacob takes a loss and Rudy wins. Round 5 Jacob wins and is in the same boat I was in earlier in the day 4-1 and hopefully he can draw his way in. Rudy wins again and is in a win and in scenario. Jacob gets his draw and he is in, Rudy takes it to game 3 and I remember looking at him and him having his head in his hands (never a good thing to see). Boom! he wins and he is in! So out of our CO group 5 went and 3 got in, great numbers. So I head back home for some sleep and the finals don't begin until 2pm so I am going to sleep in. I wake up and ponder what deck I am going to play. Again here I have 2 options 1- my prime deck ( I played this already and didn't want to play it again) 2- (I play the other deck we brought that Jacob built and took him to top 8). Since I was already going to be getting my invite I wanted to run Jacobs. Round 1 and I lose game 1, I side board and find myself in this scenario. I have to peace through tyranny my lionizer to get 2 turns to KO his barrage and his General Optimus, if I don't I lose. So I being the assault, I peace, I place it on Barrage. Now I get an attack here, we stand up and I get another attack because the extra turn. I attack and KO his barrage (great 1 down) We untap and I draw a bad card. I play reckless charge and swing for the fences. He flips 3 blues meaning I have to deal 18 to win. I have 9 base meaning I have to flip 9 damage out of 6 cards (2 for normal attack and bold 4) I flip NO white pips and end up dealing 17 and he lives with 1. Now this is where this part of the game is a love hate relationship. Had he not flipped 3 blues I would have won, had I flipped 1 more double orange I would have won and if I would have flipped 1 of my 6 whites I would have won. I just flipped bad and he flipped great. This was ok though, because I knew there was nothing I could have done better, and that was awesome! When you lose on a play mistake it sucks, when you lose when you get a bad match up it sucks, but when you do the best you can and lose to the rng of the game that is OK.
So after that lose I got to chat with others and get some casual games in, then the best part of the entire weekend happens. I was approached by the fantastic guys at Wizards of the coast and they asked me if I would like to commentate. Now I will be honest and say there were other things in play and this ended up working in my favor. So Me Matt and Steffon from SDOTAKUMA got to commentate on the semi finals and finals and this is literally my dream for this game. I want this to be a thing! SO BAD! I want the live streams for lots of reasons, one for those who cant attend the event to be able to still watch and be apart of it. Second to generate my hype and bring in more player for the game who get to watch awesome gameplay and here great commentary. Finally because this is a HUGE sign that this game is great. Now again I got lucky with this situation but this is something I would love and did love to do this and want nothing more than to do this again in the future! Although I have sent this article telling you pretty much every detail I cant being to tell you how much fun and how much this event meant to me. Again being able to meet all those that I did, being able to say thank you face to face to those that do a lot for this game from the pastimes team to the content creators and especially to the Wizards team. Being able to get the highest level of competition in, hanging out with friends, and again being able to live in the community and see it face to face was absolutely amazing! It reminds me of why I try so hard for the channel and this site and for all those who contact me and why I will never stop trying to be the best version of myself. I hope you enjoyed this article and were able to see a little more into my thoughts throughout the weekend and see how much I truly love this game.
-Jamie
