Last week, I talked about not being able to host my prerelease. Not surprisingly, I focused on the negative aspects. The positive side of not hosting a prerelease was that I was able to play in a prerelease!

I hadn’t played in a prerelease since before the regional prereleases were canceled. This would be my first time participating in a local store’s prerelease.

I could see from the map of available places to play in my area that everyone would be crowding into Pandemonium Books & Games, the biggest store for Magic in Boston. A number of my friends would be going to the various prerelease events at the store, so it had that going for it, too.

Instead, I decided to go to TJ’s Collectibles in Milford. My son Spencer and I were going to attend the prerelease together—we knew none of our friends would be going to TJ’s, and we wanted it to be just the two of us. While TJ’s is farther away than Pandemonium (an extra fifteen minutes’ travel), there is free, plentiful parking. For those of you not in the Boston area, finding free parking is the stuff of legend, repeated in hushed tones in front of campfires, years down the road.

Both stores have their tournament space in the basement, and when I phoned ahead, TJ’s promised plenty of space for the tournament. I had been there once before and enjoyed myself, so I wanted to try again . . . a bonding experience for father and son in the basement of a card store.

TJ’s Collectibles is best described as the card shop you heard about, but didn’t really believe existed. It is one store along a street with all kinds of free parking in the back (yes, I know, I mentioned that already). When you come into the store, there is a glass case all along one wall, filled with Magic cards on display. Board games, card games, and other collectible items are on shelves along short aisles of the store. While most stores have product piled deep on any flat surface, you could instead actually see what was available and what was being sold.

The basement is another great feature: plenty of clocks, tables, chairs, and space. I’ve seen players crowded into stores like sardines for a tournament, but that would be pretty tricky here. There were easily twenty-five long tables in the basement, so they could hold one hundred players with plenty of space and one hundred fifty players comfortably. When we got there at 11:40 A.M., the place was tidy, with garbage cans around the room to help the players keep it that way. This was going to be good.

There were several players already there, waiting for things to get underway. The crowd was the usual mix of players: mostly college-age students there, but several younger children, and a couple of older guys. Some were paired off in games against friends. Others were playing Ascension. One group had a multiplayer game going. Spencer and I signed up and waited the fifteen minutes until things would be started.

Within five minutes of the scheduled start, seating for deck-building was posted. There were about forty people for the tournament. The judge posted the seating on two separate bulletin boards, so there was very little crowding. The microphone and speakers were a very nice touch, making it impossible to be unable to hear what was being said. The judge and scorekeeper passed out the packs and we were soon underway.

I won’t list off my cards or give you my decklist. Let me save you the trouble: I’m sure my card pool could have produced a better deck. My deck-building with Limited card pools is very rusty. The cards I opened were disappointing, but I thought I managed to put together a deck with some good synergy. I went with white and green, hoping to aggro my opponents before they had a chance to set up with their good decks.

Mark, a young guy between thirteen and sixteen years old, was my Round 1 opponent. This was his first prerelease, and it showed a little in his deck. He was running a W/U concoction that included plenty of bounce and Drogskol Captain. His bounce slowed me down a little, but he never found the defense he would need to follow up the bounce. We looked through his deck after the game, and he made a few changes. We chatted for a bit more after the round, and his excitement about his first prerelease was obvious.

Greg was my Round 2 opponent. He’d come from the town next to mine and was a regular at TJ’s, so I figured anyone willing to drive forty minutes to play regularly must be good. Greg dropped a Falkenrath Noble partway through the first game, that kept him in it until the finish. My deck just kept coming with creatures, and eventually, our creatures stopped going to the graveyard, and I was able to push through for the win. Our second game was anticlimactic: I hit my Daybreak Ranger on turn three, transformed it on Greg’s next turn, and Greg’s life total went 14, 7, and 0 in consecutive turns. Greg was a good player who did all he could with what his deck gave him.

Adam was my Round 3 opponent. I later discovered he was among the best players in the store. He was showing me his deck after beating me 2–0. Mikaeus, Sorin, Reaper from the Abyss, and Geist-Honored Monk were a few of the cards he had. He fully expected that his mana was going to be a problem (he was playing three colors with double-mana costs in each color), but it never did, and he ended up 4–0. Apparently, greed is good.

Walter, my Round 4 opponent, also beat me 2–0. He had a solid control deck that let me believe I was in both games when, in fact, I wasn’t. He was a solid player and a good guy.

The games were good, but time in between rounds with Spencer was the real fun. We were looking through each other’s cards, and both of us thought the other should be running blue. Spencer’s blue pool offered flyers and plenty of tricks. While we agreed that I had plenty of tricks, I wasn’t nearly as excited about my creatures as Spencer was. Both of us are cowardly when it comes to blue in Sealed. I never feel that I have a good enough handle on the cards to know when to bounce and when to wait.

We started the second flight almost immediately after the first flight, and I was cringing. After the first round, Spencer had the pizza deal the store offered, chowing through two slices, a drink, and some cookies. I decided to wait since I wasn’t hungry. Now I was hungry and had no time—a classic rookie mistake made by an old veteran.

I expected this set of cards to be better than the last. While I had built a synergistic deck, there were no bombs that I was excited about. There was no luck this time either, though. The difference was that this time I couldn’t even get decent synergy. My deck was a B/R/G abomination. I knew going in that this was a lousy deck and my chances of going 3–1 or better were almost nil.

Alex was a fun guy who made the classic prerelease mistake: He was reading the cards when he needed to be building a deck. He ended up tossing all his black cards together at the last second and calling it a deck. He managed to get some damage in early, then on the next four turns, I put out Ghoultree, then Tree of Redemption, cast Increasing Savagery on the Ghoultree, and flashed back the Savagery on Tree of Redemption.

In the second game, Alex found Increasing Ambition and ran over me with powerful Demons.

The third game ended when Alex drew his Increasing Ambition a turn too late to save himself. I knew I’d stolen the match from him and things would never be that easy again.

The next round was Eric. Eric was a nice guy who played very deliberately. He was running green and white, so he looked for every opportunity to push some damage in without getting himself run over. His horde of creatures was steadily whittling me down, and I had yet to move creatures into the red zone. With only half the round left, I was at 7 life and was almost ready to concede—I didn’t want to lose this game with almost no time on the clock. It was then when I drew my Tree of Redemption. I tapped it, and my life total was up to 13. I finally managed to bring a couple of creatures out and found an opening. I used Increasing Savagery on a Kessig Cagebreakers to force him to 8. The next turn, I flashed back the Savagery on my Tree of Redemption. After talking to the judge, it became clear that I was going to be able to reset my life total to 11 again and again. I attacked with the Cagebreakers, and two Wolves appeared with him, bringing Eric’s life total down to 6.

Spencer came by with about ten minutes left in the round, having once again 2–0’d his opponent. At this point, I chose not to attack with the Kessig Cagebreakers or any of the four Wolves he had created at this point. Spencer looked at me like I was insane.

It was obvious to me that I had this game won, but knowing how poor my deck was and how fast Eric’s aggro build could come out, I opted to stop attacking and simply wait. I wasn’t going to play slowly, but I wasn’t going to kill him quickly either. I was sure that I could win this game in a single turn if I had to, so I was going to wait until time was called before doing anything. Why give Eric the chance to draw the game?

Eric took his next turn in his usual style of play. He attacked for 2 with a creature with intimidate and vigilance, examined the board, and passed the turn. On my turn, I thought for a bit, then attacked with only two Wolves. I did not want it to be obvious what I was doing. Every turn he played and did not concede would work to my advantage. He blocked and I dealt 2 damage, bringing him to 4. We were down to six minutes left in the round.

On his turn, he spent some time reviewing the board. He could not see how he was going to win this game and decided at that point to concede. We shuffled up for Game 2. I knew I would need blockers to avoid being run over quickly, so I sent my six-land hand back and found a one-land hand. I sent that back and finally kept something I could work with. We were quickly running out of time.

I managed to bring out a couple of blockers, but I had no way to stop a forestwalker and an intimidate creature. Eric was explaining how tired he was and that he was probably going to head home after this round. His wife came by, and he told her that he was going to leave after this round, since he didn’t think he could win. Time was called, and the judge watched as I was reduced to 10, 7, then 0 in the extra turns. With even one minute fewer in the round, that match would have been mine. Barf.

Peter, one of the store employees, was up next. We talked through the whole match. It wasn’t as though we needed to engage our brains for this one. His deck was solid, and he just ran me over. Our first game was interesting since I managed to get the Tree/Savagery combo out again, but it didn’t matter. He ran me all the way to 1 before I reset with the Tree up to 28. He moved that life total down and killed the Tree along the way—58 points of damage compared to my 9 damage to him. Game 2 involved Sorin. I hit his Vampire tokens again and again, but I could never break through. He was able to use Sorin’s ultimate against my two creatures, but by that point, it didn’t matter—he could have killed me without them.

I would have dropped there, but Spencer was 2–1 and playing for packs, so I stayed in for the final round. I played Niall, who was enjoying his games and readily admitted that his deck wasn’t great. Niall was going out to eat with a friend after the round. He and the friend talked about where they were going to go afterward throughout the entire match. This was great strategy at 8:00 P.M. against the guy who hadn’t eaten since about 8:00 A.M. My deck played more like I expected it would, and I could do almost nothing to him, losing 2–0 in the process. I made some play errors, but nothing that would have prevented the inevitable. Spencer lost a heartbreaker in the final round to Walter, my final round opponent from the first flight. I guess this makes Walter our Nemesis!

Spencer and I commiserated over our fate. We both almost finished in the prizes. I had hoped to see how the humans versus monsters subgame would work out, but for whatever reason (I never thought to ask), it never happened. These were fairly minor issues, and we’d had such a good time that we didn’t focus on that for long.

Before we left, I made sure to thank the scorekeeper and the judge, Will. They ran a great event, keeping everything moving quickly. The judge calls were fast and directly to point, and the turnaround from end of round to the start of the next round was ridiculously fast. There was an incident toward the end of the tournament involving a regular at the store with Asberger’s who shouted the most notorious word of all in a voice for all to hear. Will handled the situation in a no-nonsense manner that kept things from spiraling out of control.

I talked briefly with Will, and he suggested that if I had a good time, I should tell Tom Shea, the owner. I had a chance to talk with Tom for a few minutes, and he was thrilled that I had a good time. It was clear that he has been building a Magic community in his store for a long time, and he has a fun bunch of regulars, great staff, and wonderful location.

Last week, I talked about hosting prereleases for the children in my area. While I love doing it, those days often mean I barely get to talk to Spencer. He can build his own decks, rarely needs a judge to come over, and is pretty independent. We have other, far younger children at most of the prereleases who need help. Between deck-building assistance, rules questions, and a little prodding to keep their games moving along, it is a full day of Magic with Spencer in the room, but very little bonding.

This trip involved ten hours of Magic. We had games in which we watched each other play. We talked between rounds. We rehashed games on the way home, and we talked about decks we were looking to build. We took full advantage and had a great day playing Magic together. Now, if I can just convince my wife that I should TO the next prerelease on a Saturday and play with Spencer at TJ’s on Sunday . . .