GP Washington DC 5/22-23

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtg/event/grandprix/washingtondc10

Is anyone interested in going to this? It's a 2 or 3 hour drive, but GP's are awesome. Lots of side events, lots of dealers, promo cards, and the chance to win a few thousand dollars. I'm not naive enough to think that I have a good chance of winning any of it, but it can be a lot of fun. I'm considering driving down and staying the weekend. Anyone else?

i would do it but cant due to bad timing. My wife's best friend from ireland is coming to visit that week.

I'd be down for this. Road trip!

This looks fun for me too. I will plan on going.

I am to afraid to go to these things TT__TT

~Zuty

hmm, i may be able to go to this after all. My wife's friend isnt coming until the 25th...

I definately want to go to this. I dont care if I go for saturday or sunday or both days. There are a couple guys I could go with already, but I'm wondering if we could get a cardload from our playgroup. Hit me up this week if you are going.

I was planning on going down, but on Friday (I took the day off). If that fits into your schedule, let me know and we can carpool.

BTW, here's the details about the non-Grand Prix portion:

http://www.dreamwizards.com/MagicGPDC.html

Some really awesome stuff.

are you going down just on friday or staying over night?

Wow, John and I had a blast at the GP.

We got down there on Friday around 5, and browsed the dealer tables. It was interesting to see which prices were jacked up, and which cards were hot in general. We traded for about 2 hours, and then signed up for the Super FNM, which was sealed.

My pool had some amazing levelers in blue and white, some decent red, and Awakening Zone in green with nothing to support it. After agonizing for a while, I decided not to splash for red removal, as I had Smite, Oust, Guard Duty, and 2 Regress. I was going for the tempo win anyway. The player across from me opened a Vengevine, and the guy next to her opened a foil Sakrhan the Mad.

I ended up going 2-2, winning me one FNM promo (BB Elf!) and one pack (Deathless Angel...). I lost one round to someone with foil Nirkana Revnant, Consuming Vapors, Emrakul, and Gideon. I was a bit suspect, but I guess it can happen. That ended up being the only tournament I entered the entire weekend.

I also got my cards from the cube signed by Darken, Dan Scott, and Matt Stewart. I gave Dan Scott $5 to alter my foil Ponder that he did, and I liked it so much, I came back the next day to get a playset done in the same theme. I already sent this to some of you, but here's the final playset... so awesome!

Spoiler:

We finished Friday night around 1am, when the security guards threw us out. John and I stayed up a while longer to build UW Control in case I wanted to play it in a side event. Which, I didn't. I did, however, feel nervous for all of Saturday, carrying around 4 Jace, Elspeth, 4 Glacial Fortresses, and other waaay too expensive cards.

We got there at 9:30 on Saturday to try to make some last second trades, but by then almost everybody had their shit together. I browsed the bulk rare bin and dealer tables while the first few rounds played out. Once round 4 hit, I knew there would be more players interested in trading. I did get to watch a feature match between LSV and Osyp which can be sadly chronicled here.

After lunch we did a flurry more trading. I got some high end foils for my cube, as well as stocked up on Umezawa's Jitte, the GP foil. They sell for $35 online (probably closer to $25), but people were trading them for $20 and below, and dealers were selling them for $20. Having made the mistake of not stocking up on Chrome Mox for cheap at GP Tampa, I picked up a playset +1 at the booth, through trades, and from Wolsky. John, in his need to outdo me, picked up 6 on the way out for $110.

Overall, it was a blast. Next time one comes close to our area, try to stop by for at least a few hours on the main event day(s). The side events, pros, artists, dealers, and camaraderie were tons of fun.

And at the very least, you can play the game of "Count the number of morbidly obese hunchbacks at the tournament game." Alternately, you can make bets as to whether there will be more men over 350 pounds, or women at the tournament. I think the women had it beat by a slim slim margin.

I saw mention over on Salvation about a Judge Promo Land Tax popping up in Washington. Did you see any sign of it, or even snag one?

Just wanted to say that those Ponders look fucking sick-nasty.

~Zuty

I saw the Land Tax on Friday evening, even though it wasn't released yet. Man, should posted a pic and put it on salvation...

The GP was an absolute blast, and thanks Dan for getting me down there on such short notice. I also played in the super fnm sealed tourny and also went 2-2. My pool was pretty insane with playables, even though my most expensive card was a wall of omens. I am gonna list the relevant parts of my pool because I want your oppions on how you would have built it. I really have no idea what is right or wrong. I did open a Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, so I had to play black. I only had 1 ondu giant and no other color fixing, so black had to be a main color to support drana. I really had trouble figuring out the second color though. The gap in cards are cards that I would definately play in that color and cards that are filler in that color.

Black
Drana
2 Dread Drone
2 Zulaport enforcer
null champion
bloodrite invoker
essence feed
last kiss

bloodthrone vampire
skeletal wurm

Red
Lord of shatterskull pass
emrakul's hatcher
battle rattle shaman
rapacious one
traitorous instinct
2 wrap in flames
heat ray
forked bolt
2 staggershock

battle rampart
2 grotag siege runner
explosive revelation
lagac lizard

Blue
Sphinx of Magosi
3 venerated teacher
frostwind invoker
skywatcher adept
guard gomazoa
champions drake
sea gate oracle
lay bare
see beyond
narcolepsy
domestication
reality spasm

phantasmal abomination
eel umbra
aura finesse

Colorless
ulamogs crusher

skittering invasion
not of this world
reinforced bulwark

Green
Momentous fall
Gigantomancer
broodwarden
aura gnarlid
ondu giant
stomper cub
overgrown battlement
snake umbra
boar umbra

2 sporecap spider
2 nema siltlurker
leaf arrow
ancient stirrings

White
Makindi griffin
caravan escort
souls attendant
ikiral outrider
affa guard hound
hyena umbra
hyena umbra
smite
smite

eland umbra
demystify
time of heroes

I have 3 venerated teacher, but only 7 level up guys total spread across all colors. I have to play black cause of drana, and i do have other quality black cards including levelers that can win on their own. So 9-11 black cards set already. Red gives me a ton of quality removal, a legitimate bomb in the Lord, and a few guys that are subpar. Green has 2 bombs in the fall and gigantomancer but not enough cards that I really want to play in just black/green. I would probably splash red for some spells. The broodwarden isnt really that good cause I have no good token makers. The white has some decent creatures and removal but it is not enough, and not as good as the other colors. Blue has another bomb in the sphinx, but it does require a heavy color commitment. If I played blue/black there is no chance that I could splash another color. I also can't play the venerated teachers because I only would have 4 levelers in my deck. I also had ulamogs crusher, which I would play no matter what deck I built. The other colorless cards really dont do anything for me at all, and I would not play them in any deck I built. I really dont know what the correct deck is, but I want to hear everyones thoughts. I will post my deck after everyone has a chance to respond.

I lost the 3d and 4th rounds after absolutely demolishing my round 1 and 2 opponents. Round 3 was mana screw and terrible luck that I will go into after I show you my deck. Round four my opponent was just an absolute luck sack. He was playing green white blue with no mana fixers but still managed to have GGWWUU on turn six every game. He also drew all 3 of his narcolepsies in both games I lost. His deck seemed to be playing some very weak cards besides the narcolepsies, I think he was just luck sacking his victories that night.

The next day I did some trading, picked up some decent cards, talked to friends, sold cards to dealers, traded more cards, and had a great time hanging out. Yes I did buy 6 dci jittes for 110 dollars. This is after Dan had been talking all weekend that he regretted not picking up the chrome moxes at the last gp. What he didnt tell you was that I actually bought 11 total Jittes over the weekend. I was trading with a guy and after the trade he said he was willing to sell me cards for cheap. I bought a Gideon for 35 dollars(dealers were buying it for $40), 3 regular Jittes for 12 dollars each (dealers were buying them at $16), and 2 promo Jittes for $15 each (which I then sold to dan for $18 each). The six promo Jittes I bought at the end of the night were definately an impulse buy, and I am willing to sell them to any of you for $23 each.

Also I heard later that they had actually ran out of the promo Jittes for the participants, so they are actually pretty hard to come by after all. Thanks Dan for talking me into buying them!