The TCG 5K in Philadelphia

For the second time in so many months the call of Magic brought us back down to Philadelphia for another 5K tournament. Oddly enough, prior to this past summer, I had never been to Philadelphia at all. Now I've been there three times since July, granted two of those times have been for Magic, and I didn't get to explore the city a whole lot other than to be awed by its ghetto superstarness...but moving on.

This time only Conta, Matt, and I made the trip, getting on the Megabus at 6:50am after a scant two or three hours of sleep, having been at a party for Matt's girlfriend the night before. Conta slept all the way down, while Matt and I debated Magic strategy, theory, and history for about two hours. We got into Philly at 8:30, which was about half an hour before the Convention Center even opened and so had roughly an hour and a half to do deck registration (which is when players write down their deck lists so they can't cheat), get cards signed by artists, and make some purchases.

We also got to socialize with some familiar faces like Joe Shi, Lauren, James, Deon, Kevin, and Izzy (who's actually our newest team member) all from Jim Hanley's, as well as Will, a guy from Upstate New York who we've become friends with after having seen him at the last three tournaments (the Philly Open in Edison, States, and now this 5K). Who says Magic isn't good for making friends?

We were all rocking pretty much the same decks we've been playing with. To recap, that would be Boros for Conta, a fast-paced aggro deck that can consistently win the game in four or five turns. Matt was playing his USA Control deck, an ever-evolving project that got him some decent standings at the previous two tournaments. Izzy and I were both playing Jund, the dominant deck in the format, and basically a mid-range house that has so much card advantage it's almost impossible to stop once it gets going. Izzy was playing the ramp version, which uses mana acceleration spells to put out larger, late-game threats faster. I played this version of the deck at States and had a solid 0-5 record with it (0-8 actually, if you include my loses at Hanley's prior to States), so I decided to go back to the more aggressive version of the deck which features my homeboy Putrid Leech, a Turn 2 beater who can be pumped into a 4/4 for the mere cost of 2 life points. Really, the dude's a baller.

Though this tournament wasn't nearly as bad for me as States was, it wasn't all that exciting either, so I won't go into the gory detail of all nine rounds of play. Suffice it to say I ended with a winning record of 5-4, which made me feel better about playing the deck in the future (really I just think I need a better sideboard and a little more luck). Izzy went 4-3 but had to drop in order to catch a train back to New York. Matt had the roughest time of all of us with a 1-3-2 record.

Conta had an explosive 6-0 start, and was sitting at the top tables pretty much all day (Note: players are seated by table numbers, and when a player is doing well he/she is generally seated in the top 16 slots). Unfortunately he lost the next two rounds, making him 6-2 and unable to contend for the Top 8. As such, he scooped (forfeited) to his final round opponent, who had a chance to make Top 8 if he won that last round. This player ended up only making it to 10th, a $100 prize, which he gave to Conta as consolation for attempting to get him into the Top 8. Naturally that money was used to buy two Baneslayer Angels...Go Team!

Our friend Kevin offered to give us a ride back to the city, but he wanted to watch the Top 8 play out, so we stuck around and rooted for another friend (another Anthony actually) who was playing Mono White Control, and ended up losing to the eventual champ in the semi-finals.

The finals was between a Jund player and a Bant player, who split the prize money and played for the trophy (as is traditionally done since 1st place at a 5K gets $2,000 while 2nd only gets $600). The Jund player, who was playing the ramp version, won the last game after mulliganing to 5 cards in his opening hand, only 1 of which was a land (most cards in this deck cost between three and six lands to play). He ended up playing about six removal spells and a ton of creatures, killing all of the Bant player's threats and swinging home for victory. It was a combination of card-advantage and luck that I've only ever seen a Jund deck able to achieve in Magic, which is why the deck is awesome, and playing it is often compared to legally cheating.

We got back to New York at around 1am, after nearly crashing when the car hit an ice-patch on an off-ramp, and we went swerving wildly for a few seconds. Thankfully Kevin is a good driver, so it ended up being a non-issue.

In the coming weeks there are a couple more tournaments, but I'm not sure which ones the team is going to go to given that it's the holiday season. But keep checked back here; I'm sure there will be more adventures coming soon.