This is the first in a pair of posts about my weekend adventures in Magic. This one will be devoted to all things not directly tied in to the actual PTQ. There are a ton of things that I'd like to touch on that happened, but I figured putting both the PTQ recap and the side notes all in one post would make it exactly half the length of the book of Genesis.
So what is this post going to relate to... Well, there's travel plans and last minute changes. There's also trading to touch on. And lastly, I think card choices and sportsmanship need to be touched on.
So, let's start with travel plans. The original plan was to meet up with some guys from Legends and ride the majority of the trip with them. Due to some events in the personal life department, my girlfriend and I decided to drive up together. There were a few reasons for this. First, she has friends in Indy and wanted to get out of the house and see them again since we don't get up that way very often. The second is that my step-dad has been having health issues and I didn't want to be stranded if I needed to head home in a hurry. It all worked out for the best and we ended up having a great time both before and after the tourney. Sorry to the driver from Legends from changing plans so many times over the course of the week. I'm sure it had to be a headache!
Of course, at events such as PTQs, Grand Prix, and other large Magic related tournaments and gathering, there are always people looking to trade cards. It's a great way to meet new people and help the community by enriching card pools and wallets. This is a story about the two kinds of traders that I met this weekend. The first guy that tried to trade for me was a complete pain in the neck and I regret even trying to swap cards with him. I don't know where he was from and I didn't catch his name. The long and short of the story is that he wanted to trade for full value for his cards, and wanted an average of 25% of value off of mine. Needless to say, when I want to swap cards, I want equal values. If I want a 25-30 dollar card, I want to be able to trade my 25-30 dollar card for it. Not 40-45 dollars for the 30 dollar card. That is unfair and just being a jerk. Nice not trading with ya, pall. The second part of my trading story is actually very cool. The guy's name was Cameron and he was from here in Indiana. He was there with some friends and was s'possed to be my opponent on round 3 but conceded to me to go have lunch. He didn't end up getting to leave in a hurry because his ride was in the middle of a trade, so we started talking. He was trying to break into Legacy and was building up his card collection. We just BSed about the tournament so far and what our opponents were like and about some of the cards we were looking for. We started to hash out some small trades at first and they were all very easy going. I ended up trading off some of my dual lands to him for some Standard stuff that I really needed. I kinda regretted it, but was willing to make the sacrifice to get the cards I needed in a much more played format. Afterwards, we parted ways, he went and got lunch and I went on to round 4. Later that day, we got back to trading and I ended up getting my playset of duals back in tact. It only cost me a few prized collection pieces that I never played with. I do miss those cards, but at the same time, I helped him get his collection started, restored my playset of duals (with an artist signed copy after the trade), and picked up a ton of stuff I needed or could trade off a lot more easily than the Mox and Chaos Orb.
The moral of the story is... Don't be a jerk when you're trying to trade. It builds bad blood and makes people avoid you. Be cool. Be sociable and likable. Don't be standoffish and over value your cards while undervaluing your trade targets. The fact that Cameron and I were able to establish what values we were comfortable with using, and then sticking to them made things go much more smoothly and even made it fun and profitable for both of us.
Now, on to the sportsmanship portion of my rant.
I played a guy 5th or 6th round that was playing a deck that's very easy to hate against and has a few very solid hate cards to shut it down. My problem with this player's sportsmanship was his attitude about me sideboarding in the card against him in game two. When I played it, he just got a crummy attitude towards me and started being really salty through the rest of the game. I can't help it that he picked a strategy that 1, I knew would be present 2, that I knew how to play against, and 3, that has such easily playable hate. If you play a popular deck choice that has cards that oppose it like that, don't be shocked or angry when it happens to you. Be a better player and play around those cards.
That's all of my non-game related ranting for now. I'll be back in a bit with the PTQ follow up.
SD13
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