I haven’t been blogging lately because I injured myself again. I think Niles’ nicknames “Glass Dane” and “Black Lotus” are very fitting. I got injured a lot during my time playing organized sports as well. Maybe I just go too hard (that’s what she said?), this time fracturing the tip of my finger where the tendon holds it straight while going for a rebound in a basketball game with my friends. It’s called Mallet Finger. Seriously.
So I have a splint on my left ring finger that makes it more than awkward to type. I am developing some terrible typing habits because of this crutch and I hope it doesn’t affect me after I get it off (don’t have an actual timeline to stop using it). Okay, it’s really only one bad habit: Sliding my pinky over to hit the keys that my ring finger should hit.
Five of us – Tim, Niles, Jason, Eric and I – are on the long road to Perdition, or San Francisco in this case. We decided to take Tim’s (Lori’s) 4-Runner after I suggested that someone sit in the back like I (and I’m sure millions of others) used to do as a little kid in my dad’s Buick station wagon. Tim snap-vetoed the idea, stating legal and safety issues, but as it became apparent that there wasn’t enough room for four fatties and one non-fatty (not me) to fit in the seats, someone had to go to the back.
We Tetris-ed the baggage so that there was enough room for one person to sit with their legs stretched out and Niles climbed in. I quickly pointed out that if anyone was going to be sardined in the back, it shouldn’t be the lone Mexican in our crew.
Fittingly, I’m now writing this in the back of the sweet Toyota as we cruise past Buffalo Bill’s and Whiskey Pete’s. I figure this little nook will be comfortable for about 3-3.5 hours before I need to switch, which is less than half of the 8.5ish hours to our destination.
Darkmoon Faire San Francisco Mateo is this weekend and Tim, Niles and I are looking to repeat our California DMF success. The problem is that this time the format is constructed and World of Warcraft constructed is neither fun nor interesting, so we don’t practice much or as efficiently as we do for limited (excluding my cold 5-1 on draft day at NAC). Luckily, previous WoW limited formats were not complex at all, and my default plan of playing a decent curve topped by a slew of 5/5s+ and some removal is almost always good enough. People are so bad at the game (and at most games and things, myself notwithstanding), that it’s not very hard to capitalize on a bad attack or other mistake, making a 5/5 more than good enough when they fall behind.
As I was saying, constructed is the worst. I don’t like any of the decks in any of the formats I’ve ever played (aside from Gorebelly solo from the first Nats where I lost playing for Top 8). Constructed WoW is the most miserable grind imaginable. The worst part is, because of the open format in which all the cards are legal (no rotations yet, unfortunately), there are a wide range of viable-to-semi-viable decks, making it impossible to find a deck that beats everything and causing some matchups to be impossible to win. Frustrating, at best.
Fell asleep for a while back there, traded places with Eric who later did the same with Jason, and eventually we got to our sweet Tim-provided hotel in San Francisco around 3:30a.m. We woke up around noon and went downtown to get the dim sum Tim had suggested. I would put that place in the “top tree” (shouts to Niles, Big Jose and all you mongoloids who don’t speak English “good”) of dim sum places I have been to. The food was good and not as greasy as expected, which is always a plus.
Tim dropped us off at the site while he went to hang out with his grandparents and I farted around for a while before losing to Matt Markoff in an iPod draft that was pretty stacked as it also included DMF Champion Tim Rivera. I drafted the sickest deck ever with 3x Rensarth Shadowsun and 3x Twin Spire Ruins plus a Zip and a bunch of butts to burn with. Almost forgot to mention the third pick Bloodseeker I received. You know the one. It’s that insane bow that Jan Palys managed to “open” at Anaheim and I never had a Snipe for. Markoff ripped my hand apart with discard and eventually beat me down with some random blue dudes before doing the same to Tim in the finals. Matt had the worst deck of the three of us, but it just goes to show how good Priest is in the format. Anyone who poo-pooed me saying so earlier was and maybe still is uninformed. Hardly matters now, however, as Blood of the Gladiator is about to arrive.
I vacillated between a bunch of decks as the format solidified into Mage control, Black Ice and Kilzin. I eventually decided to go with Vorna as I couldn’t get the Varanis deck to win against the aggressive decks and Vorna tears up Black Ice. I did manage to beat a Slow deck, but it wasn’t very good. I lost to the totem deck as I never had the Nether Fracture for Myriam and he always had the Earth Shock for my Invisibility. Nice card, that Myriam Starcaller. Really.
I also lost to some stupid 4x Storm Shock Kilzin draw when I gassed up with Invocation against my questless, creatureless opponent. I decided to drop at 3-2 and play in the sealed minis qualifier but I opened a pile of crap with Thangal sitting on top of it. I feel like I outplayed all of my opponents, but my pieces were just poop so I couldn’t really get damage through without Thangal. I managed to get blown out by Tim’s Bolvar-led squad before crushing some duder[sic] and then losing to another sick team of Elendril (probably my favorite normal piece at this point), Phadalus and some mage. His guys hit hard and had a lot of armor in the wrong spots for me, so I was all-in on Thangal, since my Tidehunter and Mojo Mender Jana weren’t really able to break through their defense. Unfortunately, I got Earth Shocked once on Shadow Word: Pain I needed to land it on tick 5 and again when I needed to Starfire a guy out. I guess not knowing the cards is an excuse for the first one, but the second one was kind of win-win for me since it kept Phadalus from blowing the guts out of my dudes for while longer (at the cost of Thangal doing nothing for while).
Did a feature match on Sunday, but my busted finger really hurt after that and I had a headache from a cold I had picked up over the weekend (my lone prize), so I stopped. They probably wouldn’t pay me or pay me enough anyway.
Something is wrong with my A key. It feels different from the rest of them. I don’t know how to describe it but it is really annoying me at the moment. It kind of feels higher and harder to press than the rest of the keys. I hope it’s not really bad because I don’t want to send it back to Dell. I love my laptop!
We drove back late-ish on Sunday night and I passed out in the back of the truck again before trading with Eric hours later. Tim couldn’t make it all the way, so Niles drove back and I kept him company up front to the glorious light of The Venture Bros. We got back to LV around 7:00a.m. and that’s where this story of failure ends.
Next up: I’m going home for a couple of months, so I’m sure I’ll have something to talk about from sunny, boring Hawaii.
Peace.
