by Peter Smout
Hey Guys. Welcome to my personal diary ramblings of Australian Nationals ’09. I’m not sure if you heard but Friday night was a catastrophe -
However, my story starts before that.
The plane ride down to Canberra was quite enjoyable, the whole flight seemed to only take 15 minutes as I happened to be engrossed in reviewing draft picks from an array of online articles that had been printed out and professionally bound by a sympathetic work colleague. I learnt much from the mentor otherwise known as GFish beside me, dissecting and analysing our way through the turbulence that is ACR.
Some quiet discussion ensues about the uniformed officers that keep staring in our direction while we wait for my checked in luggage. Before they get to ask any questions, my bag finally arrives, and we jump into the first cab on the rank and head off to the hotel. It’s 9:30pm on Thursday night in chilly concrete-ridden Canberra, what else is there to do but sling some cards and talk tech? GFish was keeping me company while we waited for Weasel to arrive and we discussed mana bases and the relative merits of Lavalanche/Banefire/Fireball/Hellkite when I get the call. Weasel was arriving any minute and he had mentioned something about a pub and beers and meeting up with some Canberra players… I now had to choose between getting some much needed sleep or … well… beers always wins that matchup. I grab a jacket and follow Weasel out the door.
We meet up with a champion named Juzza in the lobby and jump into his car. I thank the gods that he doesn’t seem to recognize me from Nats last year as we navigate out into … well, a highway of some kind?!? We had directions to the place we were going, but due to Canberra being a maze of ring roads and roundabouts, we were soon lost. With a committee of three navigators how could we possibly fail? A few phone calls later and we arrive at the place, which, as it turns out, happens to not be a pub with beers, but someone’s house with sleeping flatmates.
Some games of Magic are underway, and I get my first inkling of what the field is going to be like on Saturday. Elf Combo, and a lot of it. We meet a few people and play some games for an hour until we’re ushered out at about midnight as we’re being too loud. What a weird pub this is indeed.
Apparently we are now going to another guys place so they can watch the cricket on the TV, we just have to follow them, sounds easy – in theory that is. The windows keep fogging up, so I’m on window-opening duty, trying to find the happy medium between freezing cold wind being blown into the car, and Juzza being able to see out the front window. 10 minutes go by, 15, 20, 30 as we drive further and further away from anywhere remotely resembling Canberra. We pass some signs that warn about speed cameras being used in NSW… I’m pretty sure we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
We arrive and are ushered into a one room shack, which later we find out has been built out of sweat and spare parts. There is no toilet, however if you *do* need to go, apparently you get some kind of prize if you manage to hit the chickens in the coop outside. I am offered another beer which disappears all too fast, and I borrow someone’s elf combo deck and get schooled by missed triggers and Faeries – much needed practice all the same. An hour passes as the rest of the party is focused on the cricket and a MODO draft that someone has started. I know it is time to leave when both Weasel and Juzza are falling asleep where they sit… we somehow have to get back in one piece and don’t have a clue where to go! A mudmap is drawn and some hasty directions given. Somehow we manage to get back to the hotel by 2am? 2:30? Who knows? All I know is it’s bed time.
Seven o’clock Friday morning is not the time I was expecting to be woken up. Definitely not by the sounds of a construction site directly under our room. I was not going to get back to sleep with all the drilling, banging, jack-hammering, etc going on, so up I get. Downstairs is already filled with a hundred or so people, all rushing around trying to buy cards and register decks for the day of grinding ahead. I pick up some relatively cheap deals on some of the cards I need, grab some breakfast, and generally mill around, talking to people, watching grinders, soaking up the atmosphere.
Midday comes around and I figure it’s time to catch up on some sleep. Of course, I can’t sleep due to aforementioned BS noise that starts up again, just after I start drifting off… they must have been on lunch break I guess. My earplugs that I brought from home manage to dull some of the roar, and somehow I get an hour or two of relative relaxation/rest. I finally give up on the sleep plan and decide to see what can be done about the noise. The hotel is quite heavily booked, but a little bit of complaining to reception and voila my room has been changed/upgraded to a room on level 10. Super!!! I can’t wait to get a good night’s sleep, possibly, maybe, surely?
… some other exciting things happened during the day, such as ChubToad grinding into Nats with his very first sealed pool (congrats mate!), the whispered revelation of sordid secret Merfolk tech that must be kept under maximum secrecy, another road trip to fetch some bags from a high security university campus building with a moat, and I manage to convince Bobmarlay to keep me company for the weekend instead of staying somewhere far less exciting (i.e. the place with the moat)…
Friday night after dinner a few of us try and begin a draft starting at 9pm. After much shenanigans and delay, we get going at about 9:45pm – but because we are doing a Rochester draft it takes us hours and hours, discussing picks and generally all learning from the experience. I keep on threatening to go to bed because I want to get as much sleep as possible, but every time I get up something drags me back in and I end up staying until the end of it. Just as we’re finishing up at about midnight (we get told to pack up a couple of times by the angry looking hotel staff) the lights dim a little, just for a second. That was weird, maybe it was just the hotel staff giving us a not-so-subtle hint?
No, it was something else. The fire alarm begins to wail. Awesomesox. The whole hotel is evacuated. Firies turn up and an hour or two of playing the “wait-around-in-the-hotel-lobby-or-outside-for-the-all-clear” game ensues with no prizes awarded, it was a team effort. I spent the time writing up some sideboard-plans and trying to think of ways to play around sweepers. After a few false starts (apparently they were having trouble resetting the fire alarm) we are finally told that we can all shuffle back up to our rooms, in the three elevators. I have positioned myself right next to the far right one, so I manage to get in the only elevator that didn’t OVERLOAD WITH PEOPLE AND LOCK THEM INSIDE IT FOR ANOTHER HOUR. Apparently it took about 50 minutes for the lift technician to arrive, eventually the hotel nightshift staff let people use the fire stairs to get back to their rooms, unlocking each floor one by one (the fire doors are normally locked from the stairs side, for security). I find out about all of this from upstairs in my room, the fire alarm goes off a few more times (not that I paid any attention to it heh), apparently there’s a problem resetting it or something. What an interesting evening this turned out to be.
So, it’s 2am again and I can’t sleep due to stress and all the excitement… my mind is playing tricks on me and I keep thinking my alarm has already gone off and I’ve missed Nationals. I wake up at 7:30am, kind of feeling hung over even though I haven’t had a single drink the night before. I have a big breakfast downstairs which will hopefully prepare my body and mind for the day ahead, finalise/double check my sideboard and deck, and head downstairs. One long drawn out players’ meeting later, it’s time to check the pairings and sit down and shuffle up for round 1.
Oh, were you trawling through all of this article to find out how the actual magic games went? I’m sorry, I should have explained earlier. It’s not that sort of story.
Cut forward to Saturday night, a bunch of us have done poorly enough to drop from the tournament. The only thing on my mind is beer, and lots of it. I get drunk and have lots of fun, catching up with Brisbane dudes, a few of us end up back in my hotel room, helping those still in the running by playing some games with our draft decks, and working out what deck/s we are going to play at the PTQ the next day. Apparently this is my weekend to shine, as I’m the most popular guy in the room – everyone is eager to test against Elf Combo and that happens to be the deck I’m playing.
Sunday I wake up with a hangover (but this time I deserve it), somehow manage to make myself presentable and get downstairs to register for the PTQ. I have fun the first few rounds, with many “wtf” moments as I play banishing knack to combo off or bounce their entire board back to their hand (“stop, wait, lemme read that, uhh, what does that do? Ohhh I see now, WTF!”) I get a few compliments and manage to not make *too* many mistakes. I get to play my first mirror match and lose, mostly due to a really bad mulligan decision game 3.
Sunday night was more of the same, beers over a good hearty meal, and then back to my room for a bit of a farewell party. After all, ssthetrain had come top 8 at nationals the bastard! Much congratulations were in order! Early on in the evening I was summonsed downstairs, I can’t remember why, all I can remember is performing a simple card trick to some random teenagers that were flicking cards onto a table for fun. They were suitably impressed, and being suitably inebriated myself, from then on and throughout the night, everyone I saw was forced to put up with repeat performances of The Card Trick (I do apologize if you were one of these unfortunate people, hopefully I was entertaining enough!)
For some reason, I was in an exploratory mood that night. Some of the people that were there may have noticed I disappeared for a while. I have a small confession to make. While the hoard was trashing the hotel room, I decided to go for a wander. Instead of taking the elevator, I decided to check out the fire stairs, for some reason I had a desire to see if I could get onto the hotel roof. I carefully left the fire door ajar so I can get back in (I know from Friday night that the doors automatically lock) and walked up the five flights of stairs to the top of the hotel. Of course the door to the roof was secure, duh, so I walked back down to level 10. As I grabbed the door handle to open it, I overbalanced and pushed a little too hard on the door and, you guessed it, the door closed (and locked) with a thud.
I’m now stuck on the wrong side of the fire door and have no option but to walk all the way down to ground level to get out again… I trot down at a good pace, with the cloud of alcohol keeping me warm, I don’t notice how much damage I’m doing to my calf muscles at this stage.
After the 2HG event finished even more Brisbanites packed into the hotel room – the night was already in full swing. As the night went on things got progressively messier. We went through multiple bottles of red wine, beers, and all of the mini-bar except for one Cascade Light (please, no cascade jokes)!
I have one other confession to make… after everyone had left to their own rooms, before crashing for the night, I vaguely remember sitting on the bathroom floor for what seemed like over an hour eating pistachios out of a bag that happened to be there, contemplating if I should force myself to vomit, have a shower or just go to bed. I cannot remember which out of the three I decided to do. All I know is that those nuts are damned addictive!
I wake up the next morning to an 8/10 hangover, piles of magic cards are everywhere and there’s bottles strewn all over the place. There’s a few hundred pistachio shells on the bathroom floor and the mini bar is pretty much empty. I don’t have time to reminisce or remember the fun from the night before, I only have an hour to clean up the room as best I can and pack all the random items that people have left in my room, check out of the damned place (they comp me a free breakfast and bottle of wine for my troubles, better than nothing but IMHO lame) and somehow manage to get to the airport on time. I manage to get some sleep on the plane even through some pretty heavy turbulence (which apparently is not a remedy for a red wine hangover, no matter what anyone tells you). I get almost twelve hours sleep that night and wake up at 9:15am, late for work, still tired, coughing and gluggy.
It is now three days later and all I have to say is…
My calves still hurt.
