What it’s like to play your first competitive Magic: The Gathering tournament

Saturday, it was time for more practice. First, we played some Sealed among our group by buying a box and cracking the packs. Then, I signed up for a Sealed on-demand event at the venue. At the end of the day, I headed out for dinner with some old friends who were also attending the event as vendors, confident in my preparation for the following day. Of course, we ended up staying out too late, and I didn’t get enough sleep. Not what a pro would do!

Sunday morning. 9:00 a.m. Showtime. The most important thing in Limited, regardless of the set, is pure luck. What cards do you actually get in your pool? Looking at my cards, I rated my pool a seven out of 10. I had good rares in matching colors, but I lacked card advantage and ways to end the game. The deck I built is below, and I feel it was the best possible option (with just a couple of cards that I left out and should have been playing, which you can see at the bottom).

Photo by Francesco Cacciatore

Blossoming Defense was better than Auntie’s Sentence, as a combat trick that can also act as “removal” and protect my Doran or Eirdu. Wildvine Pummeler may not look like much, but its big body and trample ability were exactly what I needed in this deck for the late-game, especially with two Thoughtweft Imbuers.

The first match started in the worst possible way. As I drew my opening hand, I realized I had shuffled my sideboard with my deck! I called a judge who allowed me to remove the sideboard cards from my deck. I got away with just a warning. (That’s why you need to get a long night of sleep before a big tournament!) I ended up tying the match with a final game that went to turns despite me playing an early Sapling Nursery.

My second game was against a white-red aggro deck, and the misfortunes kept coming. We got a random deck check, and the judge determined that my sleeves were not perfectly opaque, something I failed to notice. This is an issue when you play a double-faced card like Eirdu. I lost one game, but then proceeded to win the following two games and the entire match. As one MTG Arena loading screen says, “Everybody loves a comeback story.”

I won my third match against another aggro deck, a favorable matchup for my deck. In my fourth match, my opponent didn’t seem to have much going on in his red-green-blue elementals deck. We quickly got to a point where he had one life left versus my 35. I had Eirdu and a bunch of other creatures on the board while he had nothing. Thinking I’d win in my next turn, I decided not to play my Sapling Nursery — it would have given my opponent too much insight into my deck’s strategies for the second game. Instead, he played his own Nursery, followed by Prismatic Undercurrents, two land drops to make two treefolk tokens, and an Omni-Changeling that copied my Eirdu! This ended up being a very long game. I only eked out a win because he attacked a bit recklessly with all his creatures. I sacrificed my Nursery to make my treefolks indestructible, then swung back for a lethal attack thanks to a double activation of Timid Shieldbearer. Give this little guy a medal! Unfortunately, this match also ended up in a draw, as I didn’t have much going on in the following game, and then we were out of time.

Image: Wizards of the Coast/Edgar Sanchez Hidalgo

With two wins and two draws, the fifth round determined whether I was still in the race for a spot in the top 32. Fate spun its wheels, and I was paired against one of my friends. By the end of the match, the journey would be over for one of us. I had an advantage against his blue-red-white aggro elementals deck, and I easily won the first game. In game two, however, he pulled off a fantastic sequence, with only an Enraged Flamecaster and one card in his hand. Unfortunately for me, the card was Ashling’s Command, one of the best bombs in the set. He duplicated the Flamecaster and drew two cards, which happened to be Twinflame Travelers and Bre of Clan Stoutarm. By playing both, he managed to inflict 12 points of direct damage with the two Flamecasters to win the game. Wild. Sadly, in game three, I got stuck on two lands and conceded, an underwhelming conclusion to a great match — and also the end of my top 32 dreams.

I kept playing and got another win and another loss in my final two matches, ending on a 3-2-2 overall score. My minimum goal for this first competitive tournament was to get more wins than losses, so I was satisfied. I was also happy that my loss was to a friend, even if he missed the top 32 in the last match, due to another wild sequence, with his opponent doing 18 damage in one turn. That’s modern Magic for you!

I was a bit surprised that I didn’t feel sad or deflated at the end, which tells me that I approached this challenge with the right mindset. I think that’s the most important part about making the jump from casual to competitive Magic. Obviously, winning is a lot better than losing, but how you react to the latter is what truly makes the difference. I had a fantastic weekend. Big Magic events are fun, even if you go there just to play the side events or look at the vendors and artists.

Picture by Marco Ricci

While some Magic players might feel intimidated by the competitive side of the game, you’re missing out on a lot if you stay away from it. I would encourage everyone to try a local tournament at least once. Limited is the perfect format for this, because it doesn’t require spending money to build a competitive deck. I’ll keep trying to qualify for the Magic Limited Championship. The next stop will be London in May with Secrets of Strixhaven. The original Strixhaven is one of my favorite Limited sets ever, so I hope that this new one will play similarly enough that I can rely on old tricks.

I may have missed out on making it into the top 32, but I also didn’t walk away feeling like I’d failed. If anything, I left Turin wanting to do it all again. Competitive Magic isn’t some distant pro-player arena — it’s just another table you can sit down at, shuffle up, and have fun playing. But please, remember to check your sleeves and have a good night’s sleep.