I couldn't remember when was the last time I've had twelve hours of sleep ever since I've had insomnia. When I came home from the PCQ, it was around 10 pm and I told myself I'd go lie for a while before posting my thoughts. Next thing I knew, I only woke up on the next day. I guess I was really tired.
On Sunday, I had planned to go for the Sealed event which starts at 10 am. My main aim was to hopefully get some great cards for Marvel Knights out of the packs I drafted. I was unable to sleep the night before as I was restless and kept reading through the MMK cards I got. In the end, I went to bed at 7 am, slept for an hour, then woke up at 8 am to prepare to leave home for the PCQ.
I arrived at the same old room and there were traders there already. Most of them have whacked MMK the day before, so I browsed around and tried to learn the prices of the more expensive cards (for the curious, it's: Wild Ride, Mystic Chain, Weapon of Choice, all around $15-$20. Some guy was even selling Weapon of Choice for $25). Soon, the event was starting. I went to sign up and thus began my first VS sealed tournament.
First up was registering the cards. We were all seated at tables while the judges passed out 5 packs and a MMK checklist to each person. (I studied the checklist and found it to be exactly like the one that was put online during the American MMK pre-release.) When everyone was ready, I cracked opened my 5 packs, sorted them according to affiliation, and started filling up the checklist.
I was rather delighted as I opened my packs, since I knew I was not going to be the one using them. I got crap card after crap card, with nothing exciting at all in my 5 packs. There wasn't even a team-up card. "Good luck to the person drafting my packs," I said to myself. Somewhere across the room, a guy was cursing aloud because he got power rares in his packs (I later learnt it was foil Wild Ride, foil Doop and Mystic Chain). Everyone laughed at his outburst.
Finally, time was up, and the judge announced everyone to pass the packs to the person sitting opposite them. I looked up and saw that the guy opposite me had a foil Professor X: Mental Master on the table. David (the office guy) was sitting nearby; he knew the guy opposite me and remarked, "Lucky Kelvin! You're gonna get the Prof. X." It felt comforting that I'd get at least one good card.
Everyone then started passing their cards, but the guy opposite me seemed to be very slow in filling up his checklist. The judge allowed him a bit more time, but he was still taking an eternity. In the end, I traded cards with someone else. In the end, the guy opposite me did not have to pass his cards at all; he just played with whatever he got. David went up to him and asked, "Eh, how come like that?" to which the guy just smiled. Somehow, I feel that he planned it all along. He was deliberately slow because he knew he would keep his stuff. After all, he knew David so he could not be new at this. Heck, this is my first time in Sealed and I filled my checklist faster than him.
Anyway, I looked through the cards I got through the exchange. First, I looked through all the rares and to my dismay, they were all crap; just like the ones I started with. I was a little disappointed and went on to sort out my cards. To my horror, my selection of cards were very weak. To sum it up, the deck I made was a mess. It was a Crime Lords/Marvel Knights deck with an unstable character curve, no team-up cards and zero offensive pumps. (You'd think I'd at least get one of the three MK pumps, but nooo). I had no confidence in my deck at all and told myself that I would probably drop out soon to join the Constructed event or something.
And so, the matches started. The format was was 8-round Swiss, with a lunch break after the 4th round.
I didn't know what happened, but I was pleasantly surprised when I won my first 4 rounds and had a clean 4-0 record. This was something I never expected out of the mess of cards I was carrying in my hand. It was also very comforting when I checked the standings and found that I was currently ranked 3 out of the 47 participants that day! All of a sudden, my morale was high and I told myself that I actually stood a chance of advancing if I won at least one more round.
From then on, things changed and my fairly-tale dream ended. I began losing my matches, and before I knew it, I lost all my matches to the end, putting me at 4-4 and 19th place.
I was in a pretty bad mood after that. It was almost as if the heavens was making a fool out of me. I originally planned to drop, but since I was blessed with the 4 straight wins, I carried on, but only to lose the remainder of my matches and wasted my time. My original plan of getting good rares from draft was also down the drain because I ended up with crap that I already got since the asshat sitting opposite me schemed to keep his cards.
Overall, I was very pissed. It was a complete waste of time. After this, I don't think I will ever dare join another Sealed event again.
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