This is a story of my two-month trip around the world. The plan was to go to five back to back Grands Prix, starting with GP: Milan, followed by GP: Brisbane, GP: Santiago, GP: Hiroshima, GP: San Diego, and ending the trip in San Francisco for the World Championships. It started on a cold October day when James and I were actually deciding if we should take this trip or not. On one hand, we both wanted to qualify for the Pro Tour again, and we’ve always wanted to visit some of these places. On the other hand, there would be a lot of long, tiring flights, and let’s be honest, that much traveling in such a short period of time is a little crazy. We realized that we would probably never have this opportunity again, so we decided to go for it. We booked a one-way flight to Milan, and three days later, we were off.

I was a little rusty at competitive Magic. Caw-Blade season was unkind to me, and I was so sick of Standard that I skipped all of the PTQs in my area to judge them instead. I was still doing plenty of casual Drafts, but my tournament Magic skills needed a lot of improvement. My hope was to practice at the Grand Prix Trials to become ready for the main event. It was also a great way to gain the much-needed Planeswalker Points to help aide my quest in qualifying for Hawaii.

Week 1 – Milan, Italy

I woke up bright and early on Friday before the Grand Prix and signed up for the first GP Trial of the day. Milan was Innistrad Sealed, a format that I had never played before. I did a few Drafts at the prerelease, but I didn’t know the cards well at all.

Well, I guess I was going to have to settle with the one bye I had from rating. My pool in the main event was abysmal. I was very disappointed with my deck, and I struggled to end up 6–3 after Day 1, failing to make Day 2.

On Sunday, I played in a Sealed side event. I opened a decent W/U deck that splashed red for Brimstone Volley and Geistflame. I ended up going 3–1 in the event, winning myself some sweet Italian packs!

There was an interesting judge call during that event. I was playing against a guy from Germany who did not speak English very well. At one point, he gained life from a Butcher's Cleaver that I forgot to write down. To be fair, at the time, I didn’t know what Butcher's Cleaver did. The format was very new, and I hadn’t played with or against that card yet. My opponent didn’t say that he was gaining life; he just wrote it down on his paper quietly. Throughout the rest of the match, whenever life totals changed, I announced what the new life totals were to verify with my opponent. Then, when I went for the win, he told me that he wasn’t dead and that I had just forgotten to write down the 5 life he gained way earlier. I thought that was a little weird since I was always verifying life totals with him, and he never said that we had a discrepancy in life totals. I called the judge who ruled with my opponent. After all, I did forget about the Butcher's Cleaver. I appealed the ruling because I thought it was strange that my opponent never corrected me when I announced an incorrect life total. The head judge upheld the ruling, and there was nothing I could do. This is just one example of how the language barrier can be a problem while playing, and you always have to be very clear about what you are doing.

Milan was over. I gained a lot of Planeswalker Points and was closer to qualifying for the Pro Tour. Our next stop was Brisbane, and we had a long flight ahead of us.

Week 2 – Brisbane, Australia

Our second leg of our journey began on a flight to Dubai from Italy. It was a seven-hour flight, and because of the time change, we were going to land a day later. Unfortunately, we didn’t factor that in when we bought the tickets the week before. Our ticket to Australia was scheduled for a day earlier than we thought, so when we got to Dubai, we had already missed our flight.

Aside: While doing our research for flights, we discovered the “bargain” way to book one-way tickets. Instead of buying one itinerary with layovers, it’s actually cheaper to book each flight separately. So, we booked one flight to Dubai and another to Australia with a different airline, and that’s why we messed up our flight times

So, we were stuck in the Dubai airport with no flight out. To make matters worse, it was 6:00 A.M., and no one would show up at the ticket booth for hours. What a mess. Well, I guess there was nothing for us to do but to go to Starbucks.

At Starbucks, we learned that everything in Dubai was super-expensive and that the exchange rate was terrible. I ordered a latte, but the barista kept asking if I wanted extra whipped cream, syrup, and whatever else they put in there. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I’ll have a latte.

Barista: Do you want whipped cream?

Me: No, thanks.

Barista: Are you sure?

Me: Yes, I’m sure

Barista: How about caramel sauce?

Me: No, thanks, just the latte please.

Barista: Really? Are you sure? How about now?

Finally, I got my latte, after paying something like 7,000 dollars in United Arab Emirates currency. I had no idea what that meant at the time, but when I finally looked at my credit card statement, it turned out that lattes were roughly $15 each.

We ended up getting our ticket to Australia straightened out, and we were finally on our way. Fourteen hours later, we were in Brisbane.

GP: Brisbane was Standard. The problem was we had no Standard decks. We had this great idea that instead of checking bags on all of these international flights, why not just mail ourselves our Standard collection? We carried our rares with us, but we packed up our commons and uncommons and had someone ready to ship them to our hotel in Brisbane.

After spending way too much money on overpriced commons and uncommons, we built our decks, and we readied ourselves for the GP. I played a W/U Blade deck, while James played Red Deck Wins. Unfortunately, the W/U Blade deck ended up being terrible, and I found myself 3–3 after Round 6. I felt very confident that if I stayed in the tournament, I would just lose, so I dropped and joined a side Draft. I easily 3–0’d the draft, after beating the player who opened Garruk, Daybreak Ranger, and some other good green rare, and I won some sweet Australian packs!

James ended up finishing in the Top 64.

Australia was a lot of fun, and we met some really cool people like New Zealanders Jason Chung and Matt Rogers who ended up rooming with us in Hawaii. The actual tournament was the most well-run tournament of that size that I’d ever played in. Our next stop was Santiago, Chile.

Week 3 – Santiago, Chile

After another fourteen-hour flight, we landed in Santiago. James had a family friend who lived about an hour outside the city, so we stayed with him for four days, and then we got a hotel for the GP.

The GP was Innistrad Sealed. After scrubbing out of a GP Trial on Friday, I was feeling pretty badly about my performances in the past three weeks. I really wanted to do well at this tournament. I was lucky that my Sealed pool was really good—actually, the best that I had opened so far—and I easily went 8–1 on Day 1. I had a great day drafting on Day 2, and I ended up making my first GP Top 8! You can read about my experience here.

Before the Top 8, I had to fill out the player profile questionnaire. One of the questions was: “What is the next Grand Prix you will attend?” to which I responded, “Grand Prix: Hiroshima.” I got a surprised look from Brian David-Marshall.

“Melissa, are you really going to Grand Prix Hiroshima next week?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there!”

“Wow, that’s just crazy!”

“Yep.”

After the tournament, I was a little bummed because I thought that since I was now qualified for the Pro Tour, I was no longer eligible for a plane ticket. WotC had been very unclear about how the Planeswalker Point invites worked back then. One of their documents stated that if you were qualified for the Pro Tour through some other way, your Planeswalker Point invite would pass down. I was kind of upset that I was now gaining all of these points for nothing, and I even thought about flying home. Then, Christian Calcano said that wasn’t the case and that the Wizards document was wrong. Sure enough, I received an e-mail a few days later stating that I was still eligible to receive award travel.

Onward to Grand Prix number four!

Week 4 – Hiroshima, Japan

The flight to Japan was long. Most people would take the short way to Japan—through Los Angeles or somewhere else in the U.S. Not us. We found a cheap flight to Japan going in the opposite direction: from Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Sydney, Australia, to Tokyo, Japan. That’s roughly thirty-two hours in the air, and that doesn’t even include the time we waited during our layovers. After we landed in Tokyo, we had to take a high-speed train called the Shinkansen to Hiroshima (another four hours). We were in for a long day and a half.

What seemed like an eternity later, we made it to Hiroshima, and we were lucky that our package of Standard cards safely arrived at our hotel room. We built some decks, slept for about a day, and we were off to the convention center. I decided to play Red Deck Wins while James chose Wolf Run Ramp. The tournament didn’t go our way, and neither of us made Day 2. We still had a great time in Japan. We met some awesome Costa Ricans, Arick Dickerman and Ricardo Madriz.

Japanese culture is very interesting. Every sign we saw had a cute anime character on it. We also played a game at a Japanese restaurant called Point at the Word and Eat It. The entire menu was in Japanese, and there were no pictures. The wait staff spoke no English either, so we had to just point at things and hope for the best. Ricardo ordered a weird drink instead of food, but we all shared our food with him. Poor Ricardo. Someone else ordered a vegetarian dish, but apparently in Japan, that means it had pork in it.

After Japan, we had a week off from Grand Prix events, so we decided visit a friend and attend a PTQ before heading back to the United States.

Week 5 – Vancouver, BC, Canada

We went to Vancouver to stay with our friend Sergio Ferry, who is a great Magic player and very nice guy. Our main reason for the week in Vancouver was to have some much needed rest. All the flying around the world made us incredibly tired, so we slept practically the whole week.

On Saturday, we attended a Sealed PTQ to earn more Planeswalker Points. I went 6–2 and barely missed Top 8. Sergio had to work that day, so he signed up for the PTQ, played the first three rounds, and then went to work without dropping from the event. After work, Sergio returned to the venue and played the final round. He didn’t drop a game beside the rounds that he missed. It may seem like a waste, but Sergio ended up qualifying for the Pro Tour on PWP, and the points he gained at that PTQ actually mattered.

Week 6 – San Diego, California

Before our trip, I won a Grand Prix Trial for San Diego, which meant that this was the first GP on my trip in which I had the full three byes, and it felt great! My Sealed pool that I received was very mediocre; it had a lot of removal but no good creatures or ways to win. I limped into Day 2 with a 7–2 record, and I really feel that without the three byes, I would have picked up more losses throughout the day.

I felt great about my chances for Day 2 because I had a lot of Draft experience from playing in Santiago. I went 3–0 in the first Draft with a great G/W aggro deck with three Hamlet Captains and two Travel Preparations. The second Draft didn’t go as well, and I ended up with a R/W aggro deck that was a few playables short of being excellent. I went 1–2 in the second Draft and finished the day in the Top 64, earning myself $200 and a Pro Point.

Week 7 – San Francisco, California, USA

After a thirty-minute flight out of San Diego, we made it to Worlds. This was the tournament in which everything started to fall apart. Neither of us was qualified for Worlds, but the side events all had 5× multipliers, so it was a great chance to pick up some points.

During the first day, Aaron Forsythe announced that players participating in the World Championships would earn Competitive PWP, which was not what everyone thought. The documents online stated that players would receive Lifetime Points only. This meant that some players who thought they were locked for an invite were no longer safe. There were many players who were at the bottom of the list who traveled to San Francisco to lock up their invites, and now all that money spent was wasted. Players such as Zaiem Beg, Alex Bertoncini, and Carrie Oliver were in an uproar.

The next day, WotC gave in to community pressure. They announced that there would be two invite lists: One for players who participated in Worlds and one list for players who did not. The players were a little confused about the poor communication from WotC, but they were happy that WotC honored what was posted in the original document.

That was one huge problem that WotC made during the whole Planeswalker Points announcements. Their communication was awful, and we never knew what was going on about anything. For example, the Pros never knew anything about the player’s club, which was very frustrating for them. WotC even posted letters of apology to the community for their lack of communication, and they then took the letters down days later! They did an overall horrible job with their announcements.

At Worlds, I realized how burnt out I was from Magic. I was locked for an invite at that point, so I barely played in any events, and I took the time to relax, enjoy San Francisco, and watch my friends play in the World Championships.

Week 8 – Home

I was finally home after two months of travel, and I had a GP Top 8, a GP Top 64, a plane ticket to Hawaii, and a lot of new friends and experiences. I had a blast on the trip and would do it again if I was given the chance.

I was able to win a PTQ in New York, so I’m qualified for Pro Tour: Avacyn Restored. My next step is to do excessive testing for that event and earn enough Pro Points to earn Gold status. It’s going to be a long road for me, but I’m looking forward to it.

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @AllWeDoIsWinPWP