Pro Tour-San Diego Thursday

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-02-19 01:38:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Pro Tour, PT, San Diego, Bill Stark, 1, Belgians, Belgium

I managed to get six hours of sleep after my adventures Wednesday night, which isn't actually too bad for a Pro Tour. The plan for Thursday was to grab the coverage team and the Belgians and hit up Sea World or the San Diego Zoo. I had been to both as a kid, but who doesn't love Shamu?

 

My alarm went off and I rolled out of bed (my roommate for the weekend Nate Price insists I hit snooze a dozen times, but I have no recollection of this...). Brian David-Marshall (BDM) was unlikely to be up at 9:30, and Nate was clearly still asleep. The Belgians quickly sent me a text message saying "drafting with the Japanese on the roof of our hotel, no touristing." Rats.

 

I hit the computer and began posting blogs and tracking down leads for news stories. After that was down, it was approaching lunch, so I started checking attractions prices. The deadline was 4 p.m., at which time we had to be back to the tournament site for a coverage team meeting. So I had from about noon until four to see something cool. Sea World? That looked interesting, but at $70 per adult ticket...not happening. There are far better things you can do for $70 in three hours.

 

Er...that's a story for a different day.

 

In any case, I hit BDM up and he said he was busy working on an article. Nate was still out cold, and I didn't have anyone else's number. I called the Belgians again, and they said they were just finishing up. In! I packed up for the day and booked it over to their hotel. On the way, Rashad Miller gave me a call, and we agreed to meet up later for a draft.

 

I got to the Belgian's hotel roof hungry for lunch. About a dozen players had come over from Belgium to compete, but only four were staying in the hotel: Marijn Lybaert, Jan Doise, and Peter and Pascal Vieren (they're brothers). When I found them, however, they were most decidedly NOT preparing for the Pro Tour:

 

 

You can't blame them. San Diego is absolutely gorgeous. The cool breeze from the bay keeps the place from being overly warm, and it is in California so it's, um, exactly warm. They did do some testing, however.

 

 

I finally convinced them to get some lunch (I had consumed zero foodstuffs on the day), and Jan quickly said "Not American food." Fair enough. I suggested Mexican, as San Diego is as good a place as any in the U.S. to get Mexican food, Pascal and Marijn vetoed. Boo. Asian was also shot down, and before long we were a hair's breadth away from just getting burgers and fries. I came up with pizza, provided it wasn't some chain, and they agreed. Whipping out my space phone I found a spot that promised "traditional New York style pizza." I prefer Chicago, but that's just as delicious.

 

We ordered, though curiously none of us actually got pizza. I wanted a calzone, and the Belgians to the man ordered the lasagna special. While waiting to eat, the topic of birth years came up. I was the oldest at the table with a year or two on Jan, and he and Marijn battled it out over whether 1984 or 1985 was the better year. Jan's argument was that his year had a book named after it, while Marijn countered with "I've never heard of that." I pointed out it was written by George Orwell, and Marijn countered with "He wrote 'Animal...something.'" True, and I guess in Europe once a writer has written a single novel they're done. Socialism does crazy things to you...

 

(I kid! I kid!)

 

The food took a while to cook, so we caught up on life. Pascal shared a Belgian saying with me, "Ik been un mossel," which literally means "I am a mussel." In Dutch it's a saying that simply means "I'm up for eating anything" which is actually pretty accurate considering the average mussel's diet. Over the course of the conversation, I was able to counter back by explaining what "dime a dozen" meant in English.

 

The radio in the food locale started playing "Rocket Man" by Elton John, and Jan clued me in on some Belgian craze called "Wake Up With Elton John." Essentially it's playing an Elton John song when you first wake up in the morning. I thought that meant there was some Belgian radio station that plays Elton John songs in the mornings for a few hours or something, but Jan mentioned he only had "Tiny Dancer" on his iPod, so he just listened to that every morning. Maybe it's a Belgian Magic player thing? If you're a Belgian and you know, share in the forums because I STILL haven't got a clue.

 

After lunch we headed to my hotel to meet Rashad Miller for a draft. There we picked up Ben Swartz, AJ Sacher, and Owen Turtenwald along with Rashad, and split into U.S. versus Europe for battling. We played for an hour, but both Ben and I had to leave to get to the tournament site (me for the coverage meeting, him for the LCQ). One of my teammates said we had lost, so I left my cards behind, but Rashad pointed out later that we hadn't actually. I don't really know, but I think it wound up that someone got some free booster packs. Meh.

 

After the coverage meeting, I got in a coverage draft with Josh Bennett, Nate Price, Mike Turian, Alan Comer, Monty Ashley, Evan Erwin, and Craig Gibson. We split teams randomly after finishing drafting (pretty standard fare for a coverage draft), and my team was at a DECIDED pro point advantage. Both Hall of Famers were on the other side of the table. Rough. Still, we gave it our best. It wasn't enough (not even close!) but drafting is drafting and I still had a blast.

 

After that it was dinner at a place called Tin Fish with BDM, Nate, Bennett, and Craig, then back for a draft against the Coloradans. That crew featured Conley Woods, Raine Lourie, and a player Conley introduced me to before saying "aka..." and then trailing off trying to come up with a nickname for his friend. If you have to think about what someone is also known as, they're not also known as. But that meant my new teammate was now going to be known as "AKA." We lost that draft too, and I ran off to shoot some video, interview some people, and come back home to cut it all up for you, the readers.

 

And that was my second day in San Diego! I'm tired, and the actual competition hasn't even started yet. Time for bed, with more to come tomorrow...

 

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