Preparation - I read several articles about signaling and how draft works and played with the widget that Wizards of the Coast provided.
Comfort Level - none - while I'm a little more confident about limited, draft requires you to find cards, keep a strategy in mind, build the deck based on your picks AND if you can strategically hate pick *(I hate the fact that I'm using slang already without defining it and I promise that after this entry is out of the way I'll either come back and make it better but these are notes I need to get here first - better intro after I've updated my regular blog)
Why I decided to enter: It might be the only open Monday or Wednesday night for the next few months, it looked like there might not be an even amount of players, and I will not get better if I don't play.
Results - I will also update this with the actual cards later but for right now
Unlike my other 1st tournaments I was not just 0-3 I was completely shut out. The good part is I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong and the weakness of the deck I was putting together the bad part is I couldn't seem to fix it.
Take- Aways
The first round I had a real problem with shuffling and the distribution of cards and land was not randomized. There are two things I can improve on - either making sure I have more buffer between shuffling and game start or asking not to move so fast so I can shuffle sufficiently 7 card pile twice and at least 3 bridge shuffles.
The second round I should have mulliganed when I was land heavy and didn't because I was worried about not pulling creatures.
I had a card that I kept looking at as though it was a sorcery but it was really a defender.
Rules we called a judge over for - damage resolution on a tap effect used as an instant - specifically tapping an attacking creature to prevent activation - of a battle effect. Not remembering the specific cards this next morning is the reason I'm starting this journal. I was trying to prevent an action with Feeling of Dread - but it ended up that the ability activated anyway.
I took advantage of the sideboard and switched two forests for creatures.
Third round - was most upset with myself for this round - I lost my temper through no fault of the person I was playing -he used a tap card on me to stop a declared attack on voiceless spirit with a trepanation blade. I know WotTC hated the word "interrupt" being different than instant but the reality is that sometime it would make things clearer. I should have just asked for a judge but in retrospect there were two problems - problem one is that I am not yet in the habit of announcing "attack phase" before declaring attackers so his response after I tapped an attacking creature could be considered a "rush" and the fact of the matter is I reacted by interrupting him saying "no" while he was trying to use "Feeling of Dread" because I had specifically had that card ruled against that usage in round two. When I realized I was reacting overemotionally due to frustration, overtiredness and the fact that I was still unable to break through my uncertainty about strategic timing in using some of the cards in my deck I walked back and let him have everything . It wouldn't have mattered to the game if I had been either correct or the play he made revoked, I lost focus, I wasn't in control of myself or the board and I knew that calling the judge over would resolve the rules question but it wouldn't help get me back to either focus or rationalism. It was more important that I disciplined myself rather than resolve the question.
This is the third time that I have competed and felt a physical toll in the last round ( but the first time it showed up as crankiness) I do not want to be THAT player.
End result - you can use Feeling of Dread to stop an attack by tapping the creatures it targets before they are declared as attackers but not after they have been tapped by their controller - so technically he was wrong, but in tournament rules I might have been considered "rushing" by not specifically saying I was moving into attack phase. This confusion ( since I had tapped the spirit) led to the seriously cranky part where I though the Trepanation Blade triggered ( which it would have if I had attacked). I should have asked for a judge but calmly, instead the lesson learned is that I'm going to have to practice announcing phases.
This post is the starting point for the blog/journal in a real sense I need to keep track of these things with words I understand instead of all the jargon that the forums are full of and centralize my references and resources. Origin stories next I guess.
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