Delta flight 776 from Denver to Boston was on time. Departing DIA at 11:22am and arriving at Boston Logan at 5:30 pm. Pete and I had coordinated logistics the day prior. He was going to get to my house around 800, we’d drop my daughters off at their summer camp by 830 then head to the airport. Would we park in economy lots or shuttle? Difference was about $30 for the weekend and split between the two of us, we decided it was worth it to park economy and walk straight in from the parked car. In between discussing parking options, we were still discussing the final build for our premodern decks. We decided to run the same thing because we sped a lot of time discussing decks and have found it more efficient to debate single cards then an entire build. About 4 weeks prior, it was settled we’d run Survival Infestation. The red variant with Firestorm. Pete tested a little bit and in discussing with Rob Hackney and Rich Shay, it was determined Firestorm was a great card and underplayed. It wrecks Sligh, Goblins, and Elves which we figured would be prominent in the meta for the tournament. Biggest point of contention with the deck was to run a main Necratog or Vampire Hounds. We went back and forth and finally decided during the drive Necratog was the way to go. It was a wincon, and the hounds were just another beater like Arrogant wurm. (Spoiler alert, Necratog didn’t do anything for either of us).
Btw, Delta as an airlines is subpar. Pete and I specifically booked aisle seats across from each other and when we get to the gate the gate person told us Pete had been moved. He made a stink and they eventually put us in the same row. He in the middle and me in the aisle. They put some lady on the in the row with us who had made an issue that she “had to have an window.”
As we’re landing, this lady starts talking to the both of us after not saying a word they entire 4 hour flight. She was in her mid-40’s, fit, not unattractive, relationship status was complicated, has a dog and a cat, likes to ski Breckenridge, from Lakewood, has a masters in Psychology and was very worried about spending a weekend with children. She’s was going back to Boston for a college friend’s birthday party or something like that. After getting her life story, she finally asks us what we are in town for. Pete was opening his mouth when I blurt out, “GUYS WEEKEND, going to a baseball game and stuff…..gonna eat some seafood and drink beers.” Don’t know what Pete was gonna say, but as y’all know explaining Magic to a random lady isn’t the easiest or the most fun thing to do. I’d had enough of her and was ready to not ever see her again.
Plane lands early and we Lyft to the Bostonian Hotel. I won’t go into all of it, but I do not recommend this place. Location is kindof cool, inside is a dump. Pete goes to check in and we decide some beers are needed since we’re now on vacation and need a buzz. Fun fact about Boston, they don’t sell beers in convenience stores. I wander around a two-block radius of the hotel and cannot find any booze to buy. We’re running short on time and I’m getting anxious about finalizing the deck. I got to the Bostonian’s bar and get four Miller lights unopened to take back to the room. First loss of the weekend was paying $45 for 4 beers. We have a reservation at 730 for dinner which gives us an hour to break out the cards and play test the premodern deck a bit. Pete brought The Rock and I brought mono blue Stiflenaught to test against the build. Both aren’t great match ups, but it at least gives us a feel for what we need to do. Big decision was that we each needed one Spiritmonger that we didn’t bring with us. Agreed that in the morning we’d try to pick up a couple from a vendor.
I booked a reservation for two at Select Oyster Bar at 730. We get there and the place is packed. It was very much our vibe, trendy, dimly lit and crowded with what seemed like locals. The bartender greated the handsome older couple who came in behind us, which registered to me as regulars. This was a good sign. Food was excellent, service was great, drinks were strong and I strongly recommend to anyone to check that place out. The blue crab salad was particularly tasty.
After dinner, we wandered into A.T. O’Keefe’s an Irish bar right around the corner from the restaurant. It was nice, clean, but kindof empty. We each had a Guiness then Pete got ancy to get someplace with more action. We head to some other Irish bar that Pete had found good reviews of and immediately regret our decision. Place smells like whatever that disinfectant they use to clean up vomit with and is also kindof empty but with sadder people this time. Drink one bottled beer then leave heading back to hotel.
We get Spiritmongers after one of the dealers gave to us for free after we bought two FBB Dibs off him. Game 1 of the tournament, I immediately realize that I’m in for a long day. This deck requires you to make quite a bit of decisions on timing, graveyard stacking, shuffling, and all that on top of figuring out what your opponent is trying to kill you with. I was so flustered that match I can’t remember my opponent or what he was playing. I did win, so started 1-0 which was nice. It must have been something I had heard about before, I think…. Second match, I vividly remember, it was against Raymond Mitchell on Parralax combo. That was something else, I generally knew Tide and Wave were really good but I didn’t totally understand how the combo worked. Game 1 he did his thing, and I kindof got going then he looked over and said that he was about to remove all my permanents from the game. Then we talked it over for a couple minutes and I conceded. Apparently you’re not supposed to let him have replenish and at the time I thought two 4/4 Parallax Tide animated enchantments were gonna kill me. Lost 0-2. I’m 1-1 at this point and the day starts rolling by. Beers start being drunk around 1 and my nerves and memory are both dulled a bit. I get better at playing the deck and making quicker decisions which is helped by the booze. I go on to beat another parallax deck, Stasis (Stasis doesn’t stand a chance against Zombie Infestaton) Sligh (didn’t get to firestorm any jackel pups which was a goal for the day) and something else. Did get an L later in the day by Joseph Freshwater who was super friendly and great to play against. He was on the The Rock and I Cabal Therapy’d him terribly. Piece of advice, if you’re every playing against the rock with an Infestation build, always start with Deed. I ended the day 4-3 and my last opponent didn’t show up, so I ended 5-3. Better than .500 which is always the goal.
Around round 6 Jared Miller starts texting Pete and I about meeting up for dinner. He’s upstairs playing X-Point and I haven’t seen him all day. He’s starving and seemingly done with his tournament. Tells us that 7 people want to come to dinner and needs to be seafood. Pete and I confirm with Jared that we’ll figure out dinner later and throw out 830 for tentative dining time. We know at this point neither of us are making Top 8 so won’t need to stick around. I saw Yeti at the Tales of Adventure table in the middle of this trade:
I give tell him “fuck yeah” and fist pound. I have a stack of cards I brought to cash in and was glad to see the action buy tables was hot. Speaking of hot. It was 89 outside by 2-3PM. The venue may have had good AC but between like 250 bodies and all those bodies being asses to elbows for 6 hours, we all were getting sweaty and/or stinky. I throw on some more cologne because I’m a gentleman. Pete started buying Aperol spritzes around round 5 and those were a delight. They were all prosecco and ice with just the right amount of Aperol. The ice was the biggest bonus.
The number of people for dinner varies from 7 to 6 to 4 and back again. Jared can’t wrangle everyone and it ends up just Pete, Jared, Ryan, and myself. We’re about to got to some other seafood place that was available when I see a reservation for Select Oyster Bar pop up for 4 at 915. Pete and I are perfectly happy to go back. Jared and Ryan get very large pieces of Halibut and Pete and split a couple things. Place is very solid again. Jared and Ryan head back. Pete and I get ready to go the same then lyft is a 30 min wait, so we wander back over to O’Keefe’s. A dildo in a button down tucked into slacks chirps at us as we walk in, “nice hats.” I turn to him and give an overly loud “Thanks so much!” It always very amusing to me to be overly sincere to people who are obviously being sarcastic dicks.
Pete and I are wearing somewhat silly hats, Hawaiian shirts, back packs, shorts and probably smell pretty weird. We realize the scene in the bar has changed drastically and yeah, maybe a little bit out of place. Bartender lady is wearing a sports bra and tight workout shorts. People are dressed big city fancy and it’s fairly crowded. We have two more drinks then we planned and take it all in.
We Simpsons take our fashion moderately seriously, in that we consciously decide what we’re going to wear to these things. Pete called me at some point during previous two weeks to say,” I don’t want to see you wearing any fucking black t-shirts in Boston. I’m digging deep into my kook closet and you better fucking do the same. ” I have a hoody I bought specifically for this tournament from an indian casino after I lost $300 in 15 minutes. Had to come away with something…. Pete was/is very proud of his pants and Aphex Twin hat.
I wake up fired up. I tell Pete we need a fireball in the side because I “sure as shit don’t want to lose to any sort of silly spice deck.” This over Braingeyser. Pete didn’t bring one, so we buy two Alphas from a vendor before rounds. Little memento for each of us. Jury is out if that was actually the right decision. Don’t think I cast the Fireball.
The Deck- Arrabian/RUG Aggro
Pete played a similar build at Yeticon and had success. Having no desire to play anything remotely control-ish and robots being a little too obvious (everyone always has a robots sideboard plan), I agreed this was the way to go. Apes are awesome and City in a Bottle is a problem, but not a huge one. Barely any decks play main, except Robots and monogreen but even then, they still gotta get one and play it. Might be mostly dead by the time they get one out. Also post board, if we think bottle is coming, we can adjust to compensate for it. Primarily by taking out the dibs. Everyone also has a board plan if they see Dibs, whether it’s bottle, spirit link or maze. If you view the apes as shocks then even if they get bottled but do a little work, that’s success. Biggest point of discussion was whether to play black for tutor and twist. Counters, island, and a trop would have been removed for another city, jet and the black cards. Having one more bottle target with a city and the potential for more damage from using (Pete did a meta analysis of last Lobstercon and the majority of decks were some variant of 12 bolt) were downsides. Blood moon isn’t that great for us either, sure there are still plenty of red spells, but no green turns off the apes and all the other green beaters. Running a single island makes it sting a little less since all your game 1 blue spells would be online.
Round 1
Corey Adams on a Tax edge build. Super nice guy who I had played earlier in the month in NEOS. He’s primarily a premodern player but wanted to be a part of the action and play old school. I can’t totally remember the difference between games 1 and 2 at this point, but his deck of Land Tax with Ivory tower with bolts, red blast and swords proved a problem. The biggest being his potential life gain that negated my direct damage plan. Winds of change were never much in my favor when he got one off. I think I won game 1 after a decent start and my deck ran away with a victory. Turn 1 ape and then cascading from there. Game 2 I boarded in energy flux and shatters to deal with his Ivory towers and Library of lengs. I have no way of dealing with his Land Tax so was just hoping to stay under it. I’m pretty sure he got a turn 1 or 2 tax and was able to activate once or twice. Game went for quite a while until he was finally able to get his Land’s edge and put me away. We started game 3 with maybe 10 mins on the round clock. I didn’t have a fantastic starting hand but it was good enough to keep. Pretty sure he bolted or sworded my first threat and it quickly became obvious we were gonna go to Orb flips. DFB came by after clock expired to tell us to go to turns. We were both at high enough life that I knew what was going to be ahead of us. (Pete had mentioned on our walk to the venue that morning that neither of us had practiced orb flips in a while and we should take some time when we got ready to try a few. I shit all over that plan and said we should concentrate on making sure our decks were shuffled and we figured out a good side board map. Sweet, sweet irony that I was going to orb flips round 1 and potentially set the tone for my entire day. Props to Pete and sorry bro for blowing up.) We get line up for flips and go over the rules/etiquette. We both flip 3-4 times before a voyeur speaks up to say we need to make sure our orbs are going 360 because it appears that both of us have not flipped all the way over at least once. I was more paying attention to the orb hitting a card and had no plan of calling Corey out about not going 360. Anyways, after the bystander mentions it, I hit then Corey does not. I think he got the yips. I win 2-1.
I see Corey throughout the day and we relay how each other are doing and wishing the best of luck. He’s having a great time and finished somewhere around .500. Very nice to have met him.
Record 1-0
Round 2
Gregg Graham on a Eureka build with white. Game 1 I’m on the play. Opening hand was lotus, ancestral, timetwister, Tropical island and decent stuff. I stare at if for a sec, I’m obviously keeping but debating how to start. He keeps as well. I play the trop then lotus into timetwister. We both chuckle and he maybe tells me that his hand was good but not great. I say,” I’ll tell you what else was in my hand after the match because I’m afraid you’ll think I was stupid for ditching it.” I draw into another lotus and a wheel and a mox (let’s call it a ruby). So I do lotus to wheel before dropping the mox and draw into a couple creatures and nothing else broken. I see that he ditches one of the best hands he could have drawn, concordant crossroads plus a Eureka, maybe a bersek and two force of natures then mana ramp. He said he was going hit me for 24 turn two or three. Yikes. I get a turn 1 pixies after all that and pass to him. He doesn’t do anything great and I ramp out with my creatures and win in short order.
I see a spirit link game 1 and kindof assuming there might be bottles as well. Spirit links plus bottle means I’m pulling the Dibs. I put in 2 mazes, the control magic and 1 shatter. Land pass to start for him, I quickly get out two Apes. T1 volcanic then t2 trop turns them both on. I ramp into a T3 pixie then get a factory as well. Apes get in for damage a turn then bottle comes down. One ape did 4 damage the other did 2. Which having them basically as shocks isn’t the worst thing. After bottle, I hit him for another 4 getting his life to around 10, maybe less, then between some more direct damage and pixies and factory I win 2-0.
I run into Gregg here and there throughout the day and in the later rounds he’s cheering me on and wishing me luck. He’s a great guy and friend of Yeti-Dan. Gregg is solid on rules and we talk in snippets about a couple random issues that come up here and there. I always appreciate people that are confident and can succinctly explain why certain things happen in a certain way via the stack and priority and so on.
Record 2-0
Round 3
Sebastian on red/black/white hymn. Last year I went 6-2 which was good enough for 9th. Sebastian was one of my losses and the losses always stick hardest in your head. I assumed he’d be on the same build and was correct. Didn’t seem like he remembered me and I didn’t let on that I was gunning for retribution. He and I talk pregame about how he brought his wife out with him and she’d been fully enjoying the city. Apparently, she is now looking forward to more magic tournaments that she’ll travel with him to. Big brain move by him. G1 T2 he hymns me. I already had a threat or two out since I was on the play. He gets two lightning bolts. He’s pleased with the discards and I remember not minding a whole lot. I would have been a little concerned if he got my third land and dib. I proceed to get the dib out and cruise to a W. G2 things happen and I have a pixie out along with factory and he has a troll and factory. I have a bolt in hand and keep a red source up to signal as such. He proceeds to attack with the troll only as I respond with my unblockable pixie. I’m totally fine with both of us grinding each other down a bit. This ends up in my favor as I get a dib out and enough burn spells to get another W. I win 2-0
I’ve got plenty of time before next round so I cruise the room a bit. I watch a match at the top table that confuses me a bit. One guy is doing a whole lot of drawing and sacrificing and the other guy is just watching him. There is like 5 mins left in the round at this point and they are only on game 2. Then we see what was going on and it was a Lich deck. I turn to Pete and ask,” what the hell would we do against this type of build?” We talk about it for a sec and luckily we kind of got a plan together. I still don’t understand how this Lich deck works. However, counter spell is going to be critical.
Record 3-0
Round 4
Yep, I’m playing Doug on Lich. I ask a whole lotta questions once it’s obvious what he’s on, I didn’t want to let on I knew what he was up to. Did my best to keep my poker face on. I play conservative and hold unto a wheel. I grind him down a bit then can get a well timed counterspell against his timetwister to stop his plan. This works and I win G1. G2 I get an early-ish Chaos orb out after he already has Dark Heart on the board. I’m doing my thing with creatures and burn. He then casts Fastbond. I take a second to think about this and ask a few questions about the 3 card combo he needs. I finally decide to activate orb in response and take out the Dark Heart. I get it. I buy myself a couple turns then he casts another Heart and straight into a Lich. I ask the spectators (there are a few at this point since 12 mins left in the round) if I lost. They all say yes so I scoop and we move to game 3.
Things happen, I’m doing pretty good and he’s fairly low on life. We’re drawing lots of cards of Howling Mines but it appears his combo is very close to completion. I make a critical decision to not cast a Pixie turn before I would kill him and leave two Trops up and pass to him. I don’t have counterspell but if he timetwisters then maybe I get one. He draws a bunch, time walks, draws more then does Timetwister, I don’t get a counterspell, but he doesn’t get what he needs and reaches across to shake my hand.
Record 4-0
Round 5
I start drinking after round 3, would have been earlier but can’t take booze outside and there was a break for lobster rolls. I’m playing Oliver on blue/red counter burn. My opening hand is mox, library and other stuff. Good enough to keep. T1 library for me, and T1 strip for him, lol. I don’t top deck much land until it’s too late and he rolls over me. During this beat down I kick over my beer which I’d put on the floor. Some expletives leave my mouth and after the game he suggests match winner buys beers. I agree, I’m always down for a free drink and seems like I’ve finally run out of steam. He’s got basic islands and mountains so I assume blood moon and I saw a dib from him. I put in Bebs and Mazes and maybe control magic. My deck does it’s thing quickly and efficiently and I run away with G2. We both start chuckling after I mention he’s got a very elaborate hustle for getting free drinks. Fly to Boston, go 4-0, crush a guy game 1, and offer winner to buy beers. G3 was more of the same from me, maybe I get power? I do remember he stone rains one of my lands. I win 2-1 and owe him a beer. We roll over to the bar and chat for a while before we go our separate ways.
Record 5-0
Round 6
There are only 6 X-0s left at this point from 190-ish players. They put bibs on us. I’m matched up against Jans. I heard he was one a blue/white/black lion and angels build. G1 T1 Ape for me, T1 Lion for him. I’m already ahead with this. We both beat each other around a bit then I get more threats. He eventually must block my Ape with his lion (Apes are great). I’m already pretty ahead at this point and hit him with some burn. I didn’t see angels but knew he had some. Mazes and control magic in, and I probably took out Dibs thinking bottle or worse Spirit Links. G2 I keep a hand with spells and good mana and a control magic. It’s always kindof cool to see a card you boarded in on your opening hand. We both get going, I’ve got a couple creatures and he gets a Serra out. He taps out to cast it and I control magic it and swing in with at least 2 threats. I think he casts another Serra but I swing in with the team. I probably had a Psionic blast or maybe some bolts to finish off the game. We shake hands and I see him a couple times during the evening and we’re cheering each other on. He ends up 7-1 and good enough for 6th.
Record 6-0
Round 7
I celebrate my current top 4 with a top shelf scotch. I get two JW Blacks and give one to Pete who was focused on his match. I saw some disks from the other guy but Pete’s in the middle of the room and I can’t really stand around and watch.
Lucas is on the deck. Interestingly enough is Pete talked to him during Neos this month about boarding against the deck. Lucas said Energy Fluxes are real bad for him and that’s why Pete and I added. Can bring em in against Robots and the Deck. Against the deck, the idea is that it’s not back breaking but would keep your momentum going while they stalled out to pay for Moxes and books.
G1 T1 Ape off Taiga, he T1 swords it off a Tundra. I have another land, another threat and a Strip. I think about it for a bit then T2 strip his land and put down a Sprites. Sprites go in for a damage or two and I’m doing something unspectacular after that. However, I’ve got him off white. Then like T4-5 he gets library and starts rolling. He later gets abyss and a book. I do get to cast a Scavenger folk under the Abyss and hit his book. He must have had a brain fart about that interaction because it surprises him in the moment. In the end, didn’t matter since he’s already up half a dozen cards, but I pat myself on the back for knowing a fringe old school interaction. He wins.
G2 opening hand is Lotus, Flux, Mana drain, Dib couple lands and a mox. Pretty good but not outstanding. I have a thought about how nice it would be to have a Mind Twist for this match up…. Anyways my plan is to slow roll the Dib or Flux depending on what he does. I draw a sol ring which is awkward. He’s not doing anything and I get out the Dib with a Lotus. He attempts to Swords, I Mana drain off lotus. Again thinking I need to stay ahead of this because mid-late game is not in my favor. He still doesn’t have any artifacts and I have two. Wishing my Flux was a shatter at this point. I get another Dib which he red blasts and then soon after he gets on library again. I kindof hand in there and maybe get him to around 10 but card advantage wins again and I think I die to a couple factories with an Energy flux in hand. Didn’t cast it. ☹ I lose 0-2
Record 6-1
Round 8
Jordan on Lions/Dibs/Counters. I can’t remember what exactly happened G1 but I saw Dibs and maybe Lions and burn. I win moderately quickly. G2 is when things got interesting. Mid game, he and I have both been damaged a decent amount (our match is going quick which is nice because my brain is fried after 16 matches in two days and the scotch plus another beer or two has gotten my memory a little murky). He’s got a Dib and I’ve got a Factory. We’re trading 3 damage. He gets out a second dib, I get out a Maze. He’s in the danger zone of life total and I’m not doing particularly well either. He’s at 2 or 3 and I’m able to Psi blast him, he swords one of his dibs in response. This must have happened during my turn because then I’m at 2 and pass. There’s a lot of life tracking happening because he had the two dibs plus a City of Brass he was taking damage from, all that plus the Psi Blast and a swords plus I’m sure our brains not working great, lead us to him tapping his city, mox, land for a Psi blast to me for a draw. I was at 2 somehow and I had him at 1. If he’s at 1, then we both agreed he can’t tap the City to cast the Psi Blast because he’d die*. He thinks he is at 2 but admits he could have missed the upkeep from his last Dib or something else in the shuffle. We agree that I could have not been keeping the best track of things either. The spectators lost track of our lives as well and none of them knew. We talk it through for a bit then I suggest leaving it to a dice roll, if he rolls odd, he’s at 1 and even puts him at 2. He rolls a 3 and we shake hands calling it a good match.
*Gregg comes up to me later after the match to tell me that he could have tapped the city for the psi blast since the 1 damage would be on the stack. Jared Doucette tells me later in the bar that is indeed the case after I recap it for him. Dang it.
So I end up in 3rd on breakers, there were a few 7-1s. You can kindof see my fashion choice for the day. That’s my “cool” hat and indian casino gift shop hoody.
Rest of the night moves along into oblivion. Pete and I having not eaten dinner Lyft back to the hotel to drob off backpacks (I was being a bit of a diva and insisted we do this). We figured there would be some good around to get and there was none to be had, we inhaled some snacks we brought and head back out into the night. We met up with the crew at Lord Hobo (great bar name) and ordered a few rounds. There was one bartender on staff who seemed very stressed and uninterested in serving us until he saw Pete’s Aphex Twin hat. He looked at him something along the lines of “is that an Apex Twin hat!??! You and I are soulmates.” After that Pete was very pleased and the bartender was all over our orders. (Edit- Pete texted me to say the hat quote was “you must be a special kind of nerd”)
Then went to State Park where a whole lot more of Lobstercon was playing Ante 40k. They took over one of the side rooms. Place was packed with normals. I ordered two vodka sodas and got tequila sodas which we drank but were not super pumped about it. Drinks in hand, we noticed a bunch of 20-30 year old party people on the dance floor in togas. Two of them came up to Pete and I to ask what the hell was going on with those guys in the sideroom yelling at each other.
Me- “They’re playing magic cards!”
Her-“What’s a Magic card?”
Me-“Its a collectible card game.”
Her-“Like Pokemon?”
Me-“Uh kindof, but they’re actually gambling with them.”
This lady starts losing interest at this point
Me- “Some of the ones they’re gambling are worth thousands.”
Her- “What! Really?!? So they’re kindof playing poker.”
Me- ” Yeah, like poker, not like Pokemon…..”
She stares over there for a little bit and tells one of her friends then gradually loses interest because you can’t really see anything from where we were. They got back to dancing, I go back to drinking. Eventually they leave and the floor is empty. Paul, Pete, DFB and myself start dancing, there were a couple others for a bit then just us. I hit a wall at about 100-ish and talk to Pete about bailing. We talk each other out of the Irish exit, give DFB a big ole bear hug, thank him for the weekend and head out.
Real life came back in a wave once we landed in Denver the next day. My 7 year old daughter had a dance recital at 200pm and we landed a 1230pm. Pete and I go straight to the recital, watch that, get frozen yogurt and laugh about how a young girl’s dance recital is one of the furthest things from everything else that happened over the weekend. Good times.
Post Scripts below:
Huzah
DFB and Jared Doucette, even though everyone knows they do a ton of work and they shouldn’t have paid for a single drink all weekend, I still don’t think those guys get enough credit. Beyond that, they’re great dudes and very fun to hang with.
Select Oyster Bar
Hats
Aperol Spritz
Maze of ith, Control Magic, Kird Apes
Sad Clown
The Bostonian
Wearing business casual to go out
Tequila Sodas
Energy Flux
Post Post Script
Sideboard plan (I mostly stuck to it, wrote this up morning of tourney and referenced throughout the day)
Rocky Mountain Yetis 
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