A New Voice: Introducing Anthony Conta

5:15 AM: I close the door quietly as I stumble into my
apartment, half drunk-I would hate to disrupt my neighbors
with my ubiquitous slamming door this early in the morning. Or
my roommate for that matter. After drinking this much, I guess
I should go to bed-I’ve got a tournament tomorrow to win...

5:45 AM: My alarm rings, and I barely remember my head hitting
the pillow-it’s time to travel to Binghamton to take that
Black Lotus as a prize. A part of me wonders if Dunkin Donuts
carries enough coffee for me to get through this day as I
proceed to the shower, ready to kill myself.

Yes, this is how I normally go to tournaments. Well, legacy
tournaments at least-for all my other tournaments, I usually
get at least four hours of sleep. See, being a Magic player is
really hard-you end up killing your day and night when you go
to a big event because you go with a bunch of friends and
usually have to travel to get there. By the time you get home,
it’s 1:00 AM and a bit too late to pregame. The only way to
“salvage” a weekend (and by that I mean hang out with more
than just 99% guys and an odor you can’t really get off you
until the next day) is to party the night before a tournament,
as most of these events are on Saturdays. It’s almost become a
ritual for me.

So why do we do it? Why do we subject ourselves to the pain of
the hangover, dehydration, and sunlight? It’s because we have
a passion for competition and the game; we love to wake up in
the morning and feel that anticipation of winning, that maybe
we’ll be the ones at the top tables, envy of all those around
us, playing for some of the most coveted cards in Magic. It
isn’t just about the cards, it’s about proving to ourselves
and our peers that we have the talent, intelligence, and the
ability to WIN the cards through honest competition and skill.
If it were just about owning the cards, we could have bought
them years ago-that’s not why we compete.

But I’m not here to tell you why we do this; I’m here to give
a tournament report. So, I recently went to Binghamton to
participate in the 5th annual MTG The Source Tournament hosted
by Jupiter Games (perhaps the best card store that does or has
ever existed). The top prizes were allocated via a prize pool
based on tournament standings to the top 16 players, and in
that pool besides various fetch lands, black bordered (read:
prestigious and pimplicious) dual lands, and powerful cards
were one copy of the Power Nine (except Timetwister, but
that’s the worst one).

A brief aside: for those of you who don’t play Magic, the
Power Nine are, you guessed it, the most prestigious,
illusive, rare, and powerful cards in the existence of the
game-they are SO powerful that they are in fact only allowed
in one format of competitive play. As such, they are also the
nine most expensive cards in the game. Outside of the older
format circuit, you won’t come across them at all-just seeing
one is quite rare. Owning one…well, forget about it.

So the prizes for this tournament? If you finished in the top
eight players, you got one of these cards. The cheapest one is
worth about $350 dollars, depending on the condition of the
card. It’s no wonder why people want them; they want to sell
them. I think if I ever won a piece of power, I’d want to keep
it as a memento to the occasion.

So, did I in fact win a piece of “power” at the tournament
last week? No, I didn’t, but I came pretty close. Coming up in
my next post, I’ll tell you all about the tournament and how I
did…

by Anthony "Corta" Conta


Upcoming: The Source 5th Annual Anniversary Tournament

Check us out at: http://sites.google.com/site/teamdamageonthestack