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GP Paris: Mickey Mouse et Les Quatre Rapaces de L'Oumara du Mort. Part (1) |
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Written by Tboy
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Saturday, 14 November 2009 |
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PART 1 of 2
By Joe Jackson
Taking the night bus to Paris feels like the start of an Orwellian tale of delinquency, a picaresque adventure amongst the poor, the ostracised, and the miserly. Mere moments after pulling out of Victoria on our cheap Eurolines coach, one unfortunate realised she had forgotten to bring her passport along with her and after a few minutes of earnest conference with the bus driver decided the best solution to her dilemma was to run off into the dark streets of London. Leaving behind all her luggage. And her children. I sighed with the sagacity of a thousand Greyhound trips. Truly people on the bus are odd.
Our second departure was more auspicious, with the children returned (safely?) to the bus station, and a bus driver driving with demonic intent in order to save his job. He must have had an unforgiving employer, because despite leaving an hour late, we arrived half an hour earlier than scheduled. I must have been sleeping when he hit 120 mph out of Calais… Since they cruelly required us to leave the bus when we were on the P&O, my sleep ended up all sorts of broken.
Getting off the bus at 6.40 am, a gelid Paris welcomes me. It takes me about twenty minutes of wandering the streets to realise I am not really very close to the Eiffel Tower, and should find a map. Cleverly I determine that transport hubs often have maps, so I go to the nearby international bus terminal. Sure enough, I find a route into the city on the Metro system. However, it is now just after 7 am; I decide to walk to Paris from Gallieni station instead, since I have time to kill and it will save me 1.5 euros. Hot tip for people going to Paris for tourism in the future: the Bastille isn’t there any more. Don’t search for it. Three hours later I’m asleep on a bench outside Notre Dame Cathedral, propped up on my backpack and being pointed at by tourists speaking German. Yes, yes, I am a genuine Parisian itinerant.
Eventually my host for the weekend, one Marco Orsini-Jones, texts to inform me he’s ditched his lectures in favour of something called a GPT, and would I like to go? So after a shower we’re off to struggle manfully with the language in a 55 man GPT. My pool has precisely 9 black cards, and 11 lands. I opt for a pretty much entirely non-interactive U/G build with some bombs and a decent curve. Round 1 I sit down opposite the only girl in the room, Aiste Kesminaite from Lithuania. All ready for my bye, imagine my chagrin when her deck vomits forth a perfect curve from 1 > 5, 5, 5. Promising. I pull it out of the fire, but Marco and I are both losers in round 2 and drop for some sightseeing. Arc, check, Champs Elysee, check, Tower, check. We pick up another career vagrant in the form of Orsini-Jones the Younger and go for food at what appears to be a family-run kind of place, which turns out to be very tasty. The customer service is a bit lacking, setting the tone for a weekend of surly French service personnel snarling at my attempts at pronunciation and instructing, nay, commanding me to ‘just speak English’.
We rise bright and early at 5.30 am and make our way, bleary-eyed, to the neon paradise of EuroDisney. Scammed the Metro successfully (eat that, Bertrand Delanoë). The registration process involves two stints of standing around in the biting cold, but fortunately I am surrounded by behemoths of British magic in the form of Matteo, Richard Bland, Andy Morrison, and Guy Southcott – well-insulated. Everyone opens some Magical Cards (tm Rob Hall) and makes a deck out of them.
My pool is an 03 reg company Ford Mondeo. It drives nicely but has seen enough miles that it occasionally breaks down; it is neither a Maserati GranTurismo nor a Piaggio Ape. This particular model is not available in blue or green. After agonising endlessly over whether to partner red with white or black, I buy in to the hype and build a R/B deck, which ends up quite slow but with a few big hitters like Mind Sludge, Mosquito and Kalitas. As soon as I hand in the decklist I regret my decision, and spend most of the day siding out my slow, awkward black cards for the much more efficient and reliable white. Kalitas hit the table exactly 0 times; Mind Sludge was cast three times for three land each time; Mosquito did some nasty work though. We have breakfast in McDonald’s, the only reasonably priced eatery in a six mile radius
(Me: ‘Un McChicken Meal, sil vou…’
Him: ‘Just speak English’.)
And so begins a marathon nine or ten rounds of Swiss sealed on the first day of this, the largest Magic the Gathering tournament in history. 1949 sweaty blokes and a dozen girls.
Round 1 & 2
Byes. Slops to Tyler Abar for beating me in Austin, thus depriving me of my third bye.
Round 3: Tobias Wolff
Forgive me, but so many of my rounds are so similar they blend into one another in an awful blur of 2 drops and mad, crazy races determined by the dice roll. Tobias is a cheery German who reminds me of Michel Foucault, or Christian Berkel. I won 2-0 in short order, firstly with black, then with white. Apparently you can go back.
3-0
Round 4: Bram Volkaerts
A young lad from Belgium, so we chat a bit about our mutual Belgian friends. Turns out his deck hasn’t lost a game so far, and he destroys me in game 1 after I mulligan a suspicious hand into not much else. He is also B/W. In comes the Steppe Lynx, on goes the scope, and here comes the retribution. I hit land on every swing and draw a spell every turn, slamming in for 4, then 4, then hitting Teetering Peaks for 6 on turn 4. A combination of crazy damage output, rampant mana acceleration and cool-filtered card quality puts him away. Game 3 he fails to make land drop number 3 until he is already in chump block mode.
4-0
Round 5: Christian Hochel
Another German gentleman, playing the Michael Jackson build. The only memory I have from this match is his degeneration into full tilt mode, with some table thumping. I’m not entirely sure it was justified since he seemed to cast plenty of spells over the two games, but since I was still unbeaten, I was in a forgiving mood.
5-0
Round 6: Cedric Batteau
Now this is a memorable match. His deck is black/red, card quality is high and he is fast and aggressive. Fortunately he throws a couple of play mistakes my way, minor things. Game one is in the balance until he resolves Obsidian Fireheart and I am fresh out of removal spells, then I'm on Fire. I’m too fast for him in game 2. Game 3 is the real nail-biter, and classic Zendikar. He makes a Quest for the Gravelord and a Giant Scorpion, then other small men. I make a Kor Skyfisher and some small men of my own. With a counter on the quest and no way to deal with a 5/5, I can’t afford to trade in combat, so I just have to take a beating on the ground while my own men are held off at pincer-point. The Skyfisher fights a lonely battle in the air, inching his life total down. Eventually I find a Cliffthreader and put him on a faster clock, but the Zombie Giant hits the table and starts picking off chumps. He lands Fireheart again, but has no solution to my evasive Kor assassins, and he’s dead, Jim. One turn before I'm on Fire.
6-0
Round 7: Gilles Durand
More B/W, but his card quality is high and his deck does a number on me. Vaguely remember a not-close game 1, in which his tempo outstripped me. Game 2 was closer, but in the end he Skyfished a Gatekeeper, traded it off, and I was in for a grim discovery. The recurring removal was too much for me.
6-1
Round 8: Ales Borek
The sole round where black proved to be desirable over white, Ales was playing a G/W control monstrosity. It was a shame he wasn’t playing black really because his straitened face, Eastern European accent and talon-like fingernails made him seem more vampiric than all the rubicund Germans who had been smashing me in the face with Nighthawks all day. I’m feeling pretty jovial in game 1 when I’ve curved out with berserker, ruinblaster and Ruinous Minotaur, but he goes all Vlad Tepes on me and casts Day of Judgment. Maybe that’s more Van Helsing’s line. Anyway, he doesn’t actually have much game after he wipes the board and I make some more men and kill him. He draws a lot of land, since at one point I Mind Sludge for his remaining hand and hit only plains and forests. Game 2 I have Trusty Machete on a Giant Scorpion holding back his Turntimber Basilisk and Territorial Baloth. Fearing some kind of chicanery I sandbag my Mosquito, trade the two deathtouchers and sting his Baloth. He makes a Steppe Lynx so I feel I can commit another guy to the board, drop a Boar and equip the Machete after getting in with the insect. He must have drawn a lot of lands in this game too: he makes a Verdant Catacombs and swings with the Lynx into my boar; I go for the trade, he cracks the fetch… and fails to find a forest. That draws out Day of Judgment again, but I have two more creatures including Gatekeeper for the follow-up, and the Machete ensures I am in day 2.
7-1
Round 9: Marcio Carvalho
One of the very top players, who I lost to badly in Austin. I grab him in the stramash before the round and shake his hand. Unfortunately, he hasn’t looked at the pairings yet so he correctly pinpoints me for the wannabe I am. He is surprised but friendly when he sees we’re playing again in a large scale tournament so soon afterwards. Marcio also comes complete with an intimidating Portuguese mafia who stand all around our match… observing. Game 1 and I am never able to deal with Living Tsunami. Game 2 sees him react with melodramatic shock to the appearance of a plains, and I see why as he makes turn 5 Bog Tatters. Which I steal with Mark of Mutiny for the win. Game 3 and he ponders his hand forever, almost rolling a dice to see if he’ll keep. Of course, he sticks with it, draws the required creature then land then land then land and kills me. That’s one of the reasons why he’s a level 8 professional.
7-2
Round 10: Gianluca Zani
The most disappointing of matches. Luca is an smiling, older Italian player. He seems clearly very surprised and happy to be in day 2, and I celebrate inside that I’ve not been paired against a hard-nosed pro looking for the best chance at securing those vital two pro points the next day. Unfortunately my celebration is wholly premature. Impaired by a mulligan in game 1 and a double in game 2, his slow-ish deck takes me down with double Torch Slinger and some quality red removal spells.
7-3
It’s 11.30 pm and in the Chamber of Horrors downstairs, round 10 has barely begun. Guy is suffocating in an oppressive miasma exuded by a thousand French gamers. I offer a silent prayer of thanks to Azathoth that I was stuck in the blue section of the draw. Richard B. and I watch him die to someone with maindeck Caller of Gales (Also put in an appearance in the top 8 … is there something I’m not seeing about this guy?). Then we pile off to the local American Diner for burgers. Horrendously overpriced, but if I could look twenty four hours into the future to see the meal awaiting me on Sunday evening I would have relished my avocado burger like it was manna from heaven. I was so popular I could have my pick of beds, but in a momentary lapse of reason I agreed to share a room with Ben and Richard (Just kidding boys, it was much appreciated). Suffice to say the Brighton Phenomenon rematerialised. Three nights of ‘imperfect’ rest - let’s hope that sleep deprivation was what gave me the edge back in August?
After all the CGI explosions, the faceless masses of zombie gamers, the figurative deaths of literally thousands of extras, the deus ex machina and apocalyptic interventions of climate, the humble McChicken sandwiches and animated Lithuanian starlets, only Guy, Richard Parker and myself emerged integral from the thirty-odd intrepid Brits who had crossed the Channel. Little did I know at that moment of sweet innocence that in my near future lay a fateful meeting with the fearsome ‘Quatre Rapaces de L’Oumara du Mort’.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 December 2009 )
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