Grand Prix Trial Milan

On Sunday - the day I wanted to play in PIU tournament or ITG one - I went to GPT Milan in Bratislava. I just wanted to play to be honest. I played in the prerelease tournament which I won (or was second? probably the latter) and then I played in the Magic Celebration events.

My draft experience being zero and I realized that there cards I did not even know existed in the set. But no matter what I signed up. I waited till like 30 or so people would register and pay the fee. I was all soaked up in sweat. The temperature was high and the air was stale. I could hardly breath and was really sweating I sat down and waited. In the meantime (I was bit dizzy and I did not sleep well...if at all) Ivan Floch started to play Magic with one of the Demo girls there. I haven't seen the girl play before even though I noticed her at the event.

She played a mono blue aggro (2012 half deck) and Ivan played a red half deck. The girl started to complain about things and started calling Ivan and the present Judge idiots (and other words). We tried to tell her how Magic rules actually work but she was resilient. She should be glad that she had the chance to play against such a nice player and good one.

It was time to register and wait for the seatings.

I got 6 boosters and hoped for something better than I got on Friday (in the end, it wasn't that bad after all^_~). I opened rare cards like monomania and doubling chant
which I did not really like much. I got no bomb in those six rares. I got Grim Lavamancer though. The red cards were actually good. I build a BR deck even though I could play UW as well.

BRw

1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Act of treason
1x Consume Spirit
1x Goblin Piker
1x Fling
1x Slaughter Cry
1x Warpath Ghoul
1x Wring Flesh
1x Gravedigger
1x Vampire Outcasts
1x Incinerate
1x Sorin's Thirst
2x Devouring Swarm
1x Bloodrage Vampire
1x Crown of Empires
1x Zombie Goliath
1x Mind Rot
1x Manic Vandal
1x Shock
1x Goblin Fireslinger
1x Gorehorn Minotaurs
1x Tormented Soul

I chose to play Crown of Empires because I did not have anything that could deal with creatures like titans, Carnage Wurm, Sphinx of Uthuum etc. I could kill on or two creatures like this via Fling/Devouring Swarm/Act of Treason.

The games were usually interesting and quite nice. In one game the duo - Tormented Soul + Goblin Fireslinger - won me the game. It took a long time, but it worked. Hopefully my opponent wasn't fast enough and did not show me any bomb right away.

In round three I played against someone who showed me Gideon's Avenger on T3, followed by Quicksilver Amulet on T4 and Sphinx of Uthuun on T5. Sphinx killed my poor Devouring Swarm (my mistake) and showed cards I did not rather wanted to see at all. GG and we tried a second game. Avenger once again on T3 - got shocked though. On turn five I had to deal with Belltower sphinx. I knew that If I would leave it there I would slowly die and wouldn't be able to do anything with it. I also knew that killing the Sphinx would mean that I wouldn't be able to deal with Sphinx of Uthuun. Well, I decided to deal with Belltower one and lost to Sphinx of Uthuun later as predicted.

In round 4 I got a really interesting game against the winner of the trial. He played blue/black control with Sorin and Druidic Satchel. That card does not usually do what you need, but still it meant that I wouldn't be able to attack well as the possibility of a Saproling was relatively high. Sorin ended up on the table and I couldn't do anything with that. Dealing six damage on my turn was impossible and majority of my creatures would simply die to Sorin's first ability. For the second game I decided to play a different deck as that one would be much better suited for this matchup. Too bad though when I needed a seventh land I did not drew it. It would help me and it might have made a difference. It was a really nice game.

UW

1x Negate
1x Armored Warhorse
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Cancel
2x Mana Leak
2x Belltower Sphinx
1x Ice Cage
1x Stonehorn Dignitary
1x Cancel
1x Skywinder Drake
1x Stave Off
1x Assault Griffin
1x Peregrine Griffin
1x Stormfront Pegasus
1x Merfolk Mesmerist
1x Celestial Purge
1x Mind Control
1x Aether Adept
1x Griffin Sentinel
1x Crown of Empires

From this point on it went downhill I played for a place in top 8 but did not manage it. First game I needed to seriously mulligan but it did not help. My hand in the end was bad. I still had a chance to win if I would top deck the right card, but no top deck brought nothing good.

After this round ended I was needed for moving Rare-Items stuff. There was quite a lot of it. It was heavy and it took some time to get it into the car. But after it we left, went to get something to eat and could finally breath a bit more fresh air and eat something warm and eat drink something cold.

It was a really nice tournament, everything went smoothly and the games were good. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to the TO and Judge.

I also won some nice prizes. There was a Magic: The Gathering Quiz that I was kind of forced to fill in. I did that not really count with anything and I did not leave a cell phone number. But Ondrej came to me and asked if by a chance I don't know someone called S'Tsung.^_^. Thanks for the nice stuff. Next time I'm going to fill this on my own and will include my cell phone number^_~.

That's about it.