Magic Celebration

For quite some time Wizards of the Coast was promoting this event. 'Go to your local game store and play magic for free!'

I got the chance to play in Magic Celebration as well in Bratislava quite far away from Prague. How did it go? The format was Minimaster (single elimination). My first booster wasn't anything I'd feel good with. My rare card was Cemetery Reaper. I got Taste of Blood along with Gorehorn Minotaurs and Stormblood Berserker which was good. But that's already 2 cards that need either BB or RR (and with 3 lands of each color it was relatively hard to achieve). I did not manage to get the bloodthirst counter on stormblood berserker and lost game one. In game two this creature had to do it...
My best card in the booster was Merfolk Mesmerist though^_~ That card had to get me to round 2.

In the second round I had some difficulties with Carnage Wurm and Inferno Titan.
I managed to mill my opponent with Merfolk Mesmerist again though, my opponent wasn't that lucky. In one of the boosters I opened Devouring Swarm and Roc Egg which I included in the deck. This combination was awesome^^. I also got Dark (I opened three of those during the tournament) and Divine Favors. In the last game I hoped to get these two creatures on the table and manage to beat my opponent with my flyers. I sacrificed Roc Egg and enchanted the bird token with both of the favors swinging for 7 each turn which won me the game.

My deck had the strongest cards in Black and Red. I added some blue (with unsummon being my best shot at spot removal.) Later my deck was slowly changing into RBw deck (I had a Stingerfling Spider in the deck for quite some time, till I managed to get my hands on Wring Flesh and some other stuff)

The third game was pure hell. I played against someone who claimed this tournament to be his first. Ok might be, but I've seen this player play Dragonstorm that day and that did not really equate to beginner as the player claimed as well. But anyway...
he opened Jace, the memory adept. Jace is particulairly good in this format if you can play blue and support the Jace for a while. I tried hard to be fast and deal as much damage as possible, but it did not really work out. Jace showed up. I was lucky though as my opponent used the first ability. I ignored Jace and attacked the player, but when the player used the ability once again I decided to change my tactic and try to kill Jace hoping he would use the first ability again. He did...and Jace slowly died. In game two I was color screwed. I needed a second black badly and even white would be good. It came down to a situation in which I needed a blocker and getting rid of something. I top decked the plains needed for this but unfortunately my opponent countered my creature. Game three was similar to game 1. I won.

Well, I don't really have more to say. In the last round I played against a deck that was much bigger aggro than my deck. I mulled to four and lost the last game as well. My friend (opponent) got to the finals. We actually had a funny moment when waiting for the pairings. I don't know what happened or who was entering the data. But the top four players were supposed to be matched and we got different pairings and I got a bye^_^. Wel, in four players that should not be happenening. We got rematched then and everything was fine.

After 5 hours I got a nice deck and some cards for free. My notable rares are Solemn Simulacrum and Chandra's Phoenix. The last booster I opened was the best. It got Shock, Doom Blade, Turn to Frog, Negate and Mana Leak in it. There was yet another Dark Favor and Fiery Hellhound. The rare card was worldslayer though...I included shock, doom blade and the hellhound and hoped for another good game. But I got paired against someone with Incinerate (foil), Shock, Chandra's Outrage twice and fast creatures. The game was short at least^^.

Thanks to the organizer who managed the tournament well. I had a really great time. But the better limited experience came on Sunday (GPT Milan - coming soon).

Final decklist follows.

For my third place I got a Jace album (you know I wanted Jace, so I got him^_~) and a MBS t-shirt (thanks!).

BRw

1x Devouring Swarm
1x Cemetary Reaper
1x Bloodrage Vampire
1x Roc Egg
1x Gorehorn Minotaurs
1x Tormented Soul
1x Chandra's Outrage
2x Fiery Hellhound
1x Spirit Mantle (never managed to play the card)
1x Gravedigger
1x Mind Rot
2x Wring Flesh
1x Doom Blade
1x Arbalest Elite
1x Gideon's Lawkeeper
1x Goblin Tunneler
1x Serra Angel
1x Shock
1x Diabolic Tutor (yeah, as usual it had to tutor a land card)
1x Chandra's Phoenix
1x Solemn Simulacrum