Like many people I began playing magic because of a friend. Well in this case it was a kid at the summer camp, which I was lifeguarding at, who introduced me. It was the end of July 2009 when a Magic card first touched my hand and right from the beginning I was more than intrigued, in fact I found it a bit strange that this games was so compelling. Every single time we had a free moment that week at camp we would look at each other and simply say "Magic?" That was all we needed to say. The guy had brought two decks with him, I can't even be sure if they were even both 60 card decks but to us it didn't make much of a difference. I remember having spells like Recumbent Bliss cast on me and never collecting on the life—or mulling over the flavour text and artwork on Slippery Bogle. What a game, what a very peculiar game. We promptly split the two decks into four so the four of us could all play at the same time—I had no concept of deck structures or mana bases or anything of that nature. To me each card was powerful or not, there were no interactions, at least not that I could see at the time.

That Friday when I got home I looked up Magic on the web just to see what all was involved. As it happened I found that a new set had just been released that day, the glorious and powerful Magic 2010. When I got to the shop I was quickly bewitched and dumbfounded. I couldn't understand how people could be buying single cards from the binders for such ghastly absorbent prices—I mean, $5 for a single card??? And there are supposed to be 60 cards in a deck... wow, I'll never be doing that I thought. I got the black and red starter decks for myself and the green and blue ones for my brother, then my friend and I sleeved them up and sat under a tree in the park and played for a couple hours. In all honesty we fought the entire time, mainly over rules which we both made up on the fly. It got really nasty at points—on a road trip the next week we were diametrically opposed over what would happen if Clone was cast on an Awakener Druid (I had cast it only because I knew we would break down into a rules debacle over it). In the end we were both wrong.

Over the next week I played every day and night with my younger brother in the warm summer kitchen as I infuriated myself over the game. My mono-black deck couldn't beat whatever green deck he had made. I couldn't handle his one-ofs trumping mine left and right. I would throw my cards and swear never to play again only to ask him to play ten minutes later or at the longest the next morning.

That next week I packed up my bags and went on exchange for university to Hong Kong for the year with all my new Magic cards in tow. I had already planned out where the shops were in Hong Kong and where I would be able to start playing this game in Asia. The first time I showed up to the shop was the first time I ever drafted. We drafted Alara block and I got absolutely worked over. It wasn't even fair as most of you can probably imagine, like taking rares from a baby. Yet as far as I can remember I enjoyed it—I was frustrated but enjoyed it. I was fairly stuck into the game by then, especially after witnessing the remarkableness of a Time Sieve deck in action. It is funny how fast you can move from being satisfied with one-ofs out of a starter deck to needing a playset of Baneslayers, Jaces, and every fetchland from the set, but that is exactly what had happened.

What magic became for me in Hong Kong was Friday night turned into something that Monday morning couldn't be further away from. I met Kevin Tung in Chinese class on the first day asking him on a hunch (somehow other Magic players have a distinct vibe or aura around them) if he played magic, and certainly he did or was about to start playing again on my behalf. I met Lawrence at the shop one night, a British guy working in the city, who would later introduce me to the wonders of EDH and Cube. I even re-introduced Markus, an exchange student from Germany who played as a kid, to the game. And there it was, a hodge-podge magic community revolving around a shop filled with excited and decent Hong Kong players who would struggle through the language barrier to teach me. Above everything else the locals in Hong Kong have taught me to just have fun while playing. I get frustrated very quickly but somehow even if they are losing they continue to laugh and enjoy the game. I certainly haven't been able to take this completely to heart but I try to remember it every time I get mana-screwed or flip over a draft deck and see every single piece of remove stuck in a clump at the bottom.

I hesitantly attended the PTQ in Hong Kong, I say hesitantly because I really just wanted to sleep in on that particular Sunday. I wasn't expecting to win anything or to even be able to play as long as I did. I had only played the sealed format once or twice before and was really only there for an excuse to open six packs in one day. I lost the first round and instantly dropped my expectation straight to the ground. I didn’t understand how I could play Magic all these weeks and still not be able to win a round? It was terrible. Round two after lunch I won. That was nice. Then round three I won. Great, but I still didn't feel as if I was doing anything right. Round three, four, five, six...win win win win. That was cool and now I knew that at the least I would go home with some boosters. I had to draft in the Top 8 and was under confident but won that too. It was the first time I had hands down legitimately won a draft and the timing couldn't have been better. I had to face Hong Kong's best pro in the finals who was a 2009 Level 4 Pro, so that is to my credit. On the way home I was just laughing to myself on the subway listening to Built To Spill's song Strange singing "This strange day is almost over" the whole way. It was truly a strange day, but I was going to Pro tour San Diego.

Over the next couple of months I really had a lot of work at University, so Magic was relegated to the background. I wanted to practice as much as I could but it is really hard to do any real play-testing by yourself or with people who don't really know what to do. In reality I didn’t know what to do either, what I needed was to have someone to teach me, but since that wasn't an option it didn't happen. The week before heading to San Diego I threw together a U/W deck that I thought might have some chance, and played it a bit at the local shop. It was okay but was definitely not perfect. I took it and Jund to the PT in hopes that I would be jolted in the right direction when I arrived.

I could tell it was a going to be a good solid weekend when I saw David Ochoa sitting in San Francisco Airport, then looked around to see Luis Scott-Vargas chatting with another pro whom I forget now. After meeting some fellow magicians in SFO I was brought into a loop and had the help I would need to make the deck decision. I sided with my own take on U/W control and lent my copy of Jund to Mat Marr for his own stab at the PT. I was happy to sit in the Comfort Inn and watch Mat, Forest, and Mathias put together decks for the weekend with another guy on the phone giving his input. It felt like something really big was going down, and if you wish to look at it that way (which I chose to) then something big was going down. It might not have been a top of the top magic team but they were putting the meta-game through its paces and trying to come up with the best solution they could—I loved it.

As for the actual Day One (my first, final and only day) of PT San Diego:

Round 1 - Sakito Sakamoto [JPN]

I felt that my deck was at least decent on Jund, not anything extreme but it could definitely get there. I sat down to play a Japanese guy and instantly felt at home. His English wasn't great (or you could say that my Japanese was absolutely terrible which seems more fair) and so I felt like I was back in Hong Kong trying my best to have a good game. My hands were sweaty—they were shaking and I couldn't get a grip on myself. I knew this is how I feel the first time I do anything like a tournament and I knew I would get over it by the second round. He beat me on the play with some brutally good Cascades back-to-back, but I snatched the second game after shutting down his army with defenders. The third game had me trying my best to not let 5+ Jund creatures destroy me before I could get to turn 6. Jund has a way of doing that doesn't it? Ahh, but that is magic, you have to lose some of them (unless you are LSV it seems) and I was okay with losing the first one because it had turned out fine in the PTQ. Really that game was a blur, I was too nervous to do much and fumbling with cards was about as far as I got in that match. On to the next one please was all I could think

0-1

Round 2 - Lucas Siow [USA]

I sit down across from Lucas Siow, 2009's 10th place rookie of the year, who was playing a version of the Boss Naya. He took the first game. I took the second after bringing the game to a terribly drawn out standstill with me eventually using Celestial Colonnade for a win. I felt this a victory in and of itself. I was happy to have a win and to be going to a third game; at least if I couldn't win I could be taking things to third games. My deck did exactly what it was good at in the final game, stall until a draw. I know it is terrible and not what any deck should be good at doing, but I turned out that that was exactly what mine would do. When we hit the last 5 turns of play he was dominating the board and had life-gained himself to somewhere near or past the thirties, when I ripped and dumped down a Martial Coup on 7. That gave me some sort of hope until by the end of his next turn he had replenished his board, attached Behemoth Sledge and sat waiting to crush my 1/1s with trample and more lifelink. Ugh, terrible. It all drew out to nothing though as he was one turn away from killing me when the game was forced to finish.

He looks at me and says "Will you concede? I mean you are dead next turn and a draw doesn't help you". What was I to say? I didn’t know about any of this point accumulation, or match manners, or whatever else might be going on. I tell him that I wasn't necessarily dead next turn because I had a Day of Judgment on top, but I wasn't thinking straight because really that would have been one turn too slow and yes, in fact, I would have died to him next turn. I tell him I am happy to take a draw and the 1 point that goes along with it. Exasperatedly (and fairly so) he leaves and I start to think a bit clearer. I didn't know whether or not the draw would be at all beneficial to me in the points later that day, or whether I was obliged in some way to politely concede a match that would be obviously lost in the next turn. I am all for being polite but even a Canadian has to question politeness from time to time. In one way I felt as if he thought he was entitled to the concession, but the future was unclear at the time to me. I do know that he missed Day 2 by two points (the points I would have been able to give him) and if I had known that would be the case and that I would not stand a chance for advancing I would have gladly given him the win. Still now I don't know what the call was, but I am hoping to better understand some of these things in the future.

0-1-1

Round 3 - Robert Anderson [CAN]

In this one I played a control mirror. He was playing U/W/R and I with U/W. I had never played a single control mirror prior to this one in my life making the game frustrating, long, and in the end nothing more than that. Since he was playing with Ajani Vengent and Lightning Bolt my land was never happy and my Jace, the Mind Sculptors never really alive. I got Armageddoned in the first round because I wan't watching Ajani closely. I could have attacked into Ajani unblocked with a Celestial Colonnade the turn before I got all my land blown up, but I wasn't watching. At the least I could have floated the mana and used to counter Baneslayer that would be coming from his side later that same turn but I didn't even do that. I sat there thinking to myself, "Desmond, what are you doing? You are playing on the Pro Tour right now and you aren't even paying attention to the game!" I really should have sharpened up after that one but the very next game I blew out again. It was the second game and I had accelerated out a turn two and three Everflowing Chalice giving myself a solid seven untapped mana to work with by turn four. I played a Baneslayer with Negate and Essence Scatter in hand passing the turn. I was very proud of myself for being so smart and taking control of the game, but I distracted myself with ordering my land. I don't know why but I was moving my land and Chalices around when my opponent says "Wall of Denial?", I glance up and say "Uh huh", and he says "Okay, end turn". I reach over to draw, put the card in my hand and when I looked at my cards and did a double take on the board I slunk down into my chair and groaned. He says "Not a very exciting draw eh?" (we were both Canadians so we obligatorily say 'eh') and I say "You don't even know". I haven't the faintest idea why I allowed myself to just miss an Essence Scatter so blatantly and when he was only on 3 mana. That one truely lost me the game and the match as my Baneslayer repeatedly bumped into the Wall of Denial gaining life but nothing else turn after turn until he was able to do away with it and smash me dead.

0-2-1

At this point I had consistently been moving further back in the table numbers, and now I started to snake my way back up the other side of the tables, closer to those at the top but very far away indeed.

Round 4 - Alex Binek [USA]

This game is another control match, he with U/W/R again, and again it didn't turn out too exciting. We went to game three at least and came desperately close to another draw but he was able to pull out the win with only a few minutes left. I wasn't so pumped to not be playing the matches I had planned on. Jund was supposed to be good but I didn't get to see it past the first round, why was that? And why were we doing badly with control down there in the pit of the PT? I figure it was because Jund was just winning and we were losing. I knew why I was losing. I didn't know how to play control, I didn't know how to sideboard and I didn't know how to play at a pace that wouldn't result in draws. If you look at Patrick Chapin and Gabriel Nassif who were playing control that weekend you can see what they did differently—and as far as I am concerned it is mostly to do with the preparation. Not only did they have decks that stood a chance they had tested and had years of control experience to back them up. Chapin's latest article gave me some good insight into my hopeless state with control at the PT. He describes some of the revelations he came upon the in the weeks before, such things like letting Jace bite the dust once even twice if that is what the opponent wanted to do, which to me is counter-intuitive and a conclusion I would have never come to on my own without extensive testing and even then likely not. Chapin also said that he will, after the first round shuffle in his entire sideboard and begin pulling cards until he has 15 out. I knew that sideboarding was definitely one of my weakest points and I probably lost many games before I even played them simply because my sideboard wasn't even suited for the match at all. I had Baneslayers coming in every round, but I couldn't even know if that was the right play all the time as it only seemed to be helping me stall games not win them. I will continue to look at control decks but not play them unless I am sure that I have a clear understanding of what to do with them.

0-3-1

Round 5 - Ellis Edmunds [USA]

This guy was not happy about playing magic. It appeared to me that the fact he was out of contention for Day 2 had crushed every dream he had built himself into during the past couple months. I believe he was playing mono red which seemed to fit his attitude, maybe mono-black would have too... but no, he was everything but boiling over. I understand the mood but I was just nowhere near that sort of let down. I had done worse than he but that didn't seem to matter, he was having a bad day and that was that. He beat me though, and beat me good. I was barely able to get up to 4 mana before I was bottoming out on life, and what good is countering a Hell's Thunder or Hell Spark Elemental when it will just jump out of the graveyard and bite you again next turn anyways? Sigh. His sideboard was extremely apt for facing my deck with myriad options for how to snap my game plan in half. I figure he had built his main deck and sideboard to destroy control but had not found as many favourable match ups as he would have liked, much the same with Jund and I. I would have loved to win that game just so I wouldn't have to say I never won a match of standard at the PT, but that isn't what happened. Oh well, life goes and comes. At least there was going to be some pro level drafting to be had next!

0-4-1

Drafting

Round 6 - Niels Doucet [BEL]

Round 7 - Mark Shapiro [USA]

Round 8 - Sakito Sakamoto [JPN]

There was no one remarkable at my table, at least no one whom I recognized. At this point I was far away from making Day 2 so I wasn’t completely off the idea of pulling a couple choice rares if the opportunity came along, though it never really did. I am not good at drafting let me say that first. I think of all the magic formats drafting strongly, properly and consistently takes the longest to learn. With Standard you can study the decks but with limited there is only what you open (of course seeing the deck amidst all that is hard to do). Drafting is raw skill, skill that I have not been able to fully develop. In Hong Kong we draft every Friday night and every time it is the same thing: most of the people will rare draft the hell out of the pack until there is nothing left. Every rare including the 50cent ones are eaten up right away. The problem with this is how skewed the drafts become. It is hard to get a good idea of what is strong and what isn't, and more so how a deck will be when you are passing strong cards which would fit into you deck for junk rares that will sit in a junk sideboard. The draft at the PTQ was the first I had ever really won and even then I was lulled into rare drafting fetchlands I had no intention of playing. Another strange thing that happens when you have a peculiar draft culture is that when you do some real drafting you can tend to be mislead by the proportional power of your newly drafted deck. Consequently at the PT I wasn't up for the challenge. I wanted to try my hand at drafting with integrity—drafting with the mind set that the deck was first priority not rares. The deck I built in San Diego felt incredibly powerful when compared to others I had made, but when opposing the other decks from the table it palled in comparison. I thought it was cohesive and competent, but it didn't really do much of anything and the others took the wind straight from under my wings. I went 0-2...0-2...then....WIN! I won. I won at the Pro Tour. Oh Joy! I wouldn't have to sulk home and face a shut out. I won. And who better to win against than the Japanese guy from the first round of the day who beat me and set me off on the road losing? Magic has a way of making things come around full circle. It is very beautiful in that way.

1-6-1

With no Day 2 on the horizon I was able to play in Saturday's Extended San Juan PTQ. I have so little experience with Extended that I didn't have too much of a chance on this one, but then if winning my very first PTQ taught me anything its that there is always a way. Though I didn't win or play well at all, it was great to get some experience with the format under my belt. I played a straight Thopter Foundry combo deck without having the luxury of Dark Depths or even black for some decent hate. Mainly I just sat back and watched other decks do what they are meant to do with the odd win because of great draws and having the combo online by turn 2 or 3. I didn't know what decks like Zoo or Dredge really did and so I just soaked up what I could about the current scene of extended, while learning that Engineered Explosives is best not used to blow up one opposing Tarmogoyf when it eats your Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek and Talisman of Progress. I was glad to be able to play every single round and really that was why I entered the PTQ—to play. After Day 2 didn't treat Mat Marr (the friend I lent my Jund to) as it should have I got the deck back and ran to lay the Jund beats down at the 8-man standard side events. I played three of them going 3-0, 3-0, and 2-1 losing in the third game to a Naya deck modeled after Tom Ross's. I know they are only side events but a boy just needs to get the taste of winning back on his tongue sometimes, and the 8-man's did just that.

Being that it was the Pro Tour I want to mention two things I observed pros doing that changed my view of Magic. The first happened at the end of Day 2. A bunch of us were playing Catch Phrase (basically charades with words) for a break from Magic with Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. I thought it was really funny how so many of the clues and explanations were coming down to Magic related things over and over. When Paulo had to describe the phrase "Wasp Nest" he started off by getting us to guess the nest part, which we quickly got, and then moved onto the wasp. He says "Ummm, Worldwake, 3/2 flyer, black two (meaning the casting cost)" which almost immediately got the response of Jagwasp Swarm leading to the correct guess of Wasp Nest for the point. I laughed and asked Paulo, "Why did you explain 'wasp' with that Magic card?". He said to me, "I didn't know what 'wasp' meant but I knew the card". I was taken back a bit. His connection to the word was linked completely to Magic, this guy must live and breathe the game. And its true, the top pros were living and breathing the game all weekend, its what they were doing at the time, but really its what they think about all the time.

The other thing I saw was the Channel Fireball team play-testing for LSV the night before Top 8. There was a melange of pros—past and present and hall of famers—sitting there ripping through game after game with all the decks that Luis would be playing the next day with all the different possibilities of sideboards. The efficiency they had was tremendous but more so they were a team. Ben Stark at one time was talking about a match-up and said something like, "No, Luis knows that deck well enough, he doesn't need to practice that one, he needs to play this one". Everything was for LSV the next day, nothing else mattered to the other guys, they would sit there all night if they needed just to make sure that he would have the best information for the morning. At one point they were figuring out how the opponent would be sideboarding against Boss Naya when Tomoharu Saito sat down. One of the guys turns to Saito, gives him the two deck lists and says, "Figure out how this guy is going to sideboard against us". Saito looked at the lists for a moment and then began writing. When he was done the other guys says, "Yeah, that’s about what we figure too". It was amazing how quickly a guy could look at the problem and come up with an answer. At the least it is something to attempt to be when it comes to play Magic.

All in all I would say these few things to people who haven't had any experience with professional Magic, so really people just like me.

1. Play the deck you know has a good chance. Its fun to play a deck you make, but it might turn out to be more fun to make Day 2. The tournament will be whatever you expect it to be.
2. Learn to play with some pace. 50 minutes isn't all that much for 3 rounds plus sideboarding, and drawing is not beneficial for you or the opponent.
3. Pay attention to the game. Slow down, take your time and think if you need to. Make sure you are happy with the play you are making. Even if it might be a mistake you have to be happy with it at the time. And don't miss plays for no reason—there is no reason to do that.
4. Choose a style you are familiar with and make sure you know what your sideboard is all about. If you can't learn all the decks in a format at least you should know what your board does and how to use it.
5. Watch the pros. They are pros for a reason. Though with that said don't get yourself caught in a inferior mindset--your Bloodbraid Elf does the exact same thing as theirs, and Blightning will hurt them as much as it does you.
6. Play all the games at the tournament. Don't drop. Both Evan Erwin and Brian David Marshall told me at the PT that playing all the rounds is impressive and important. You are there to play Magic so do just that.
7. The next time you draft... pass the pretty rare if you don't need it. Who knows, you might win FNM because of it and get packs. And those packs, they could be—well, it could be a Baneslayer.

I will be at Hong Kong's GPT for Kuala Lumpur this weekend looking for 3 Byes at the upcoming GP in Malaysia, and then hopefully in San Juan if the PTQ stars align again.

-desmond cresswell

[easybox]Editor Note: Brian David-Marshall, of Top8Magic.com, came to me and Evan Erwin in San Diego, holding up his iphone with the picture of Desmond saying, "You guys need to talk this guy, he just played in the Pro tour after playing Magic for just six months." And I knew he was right. I sought Desmond out, introduced myself, and gave him my business card telling him I wanted to get a tournament report from him. Given the above tournament, he did not disappoint.[/easybox]