It's been a week since GP Lille.
I was DQ-ed in round 6 trying to come to a clean win-loss over a draw that would have happened since we were 3 minutes into game 3. I think that I should have dragged game 2 instead of prematurely conceding so that I would have won on a 1-0-1.
Being primarily on MTGO makes one think that games are meant to finish, even if through the clock.
It's something that takes time to cultivate I suppose.
I guess that's how miracles players do it since it gets difficult to close 3 actual games at times I would think (unless using Monastery Mentor as a win con).
The DQ has left me quite shaken since I am at a risk of being suspended depending on how my statement is interpreted. The odds are about 10% that I would be but the chance of it being there clings on very hard. I tried to look around for some info but the only thing I've gathered is that it is unlikely for anyone to be suspended on a first time offence (unless it's very big). I was upfront and honest about it so I hope it turns out well.
It being able to take effect in September is a big problem since GP Seattle-Tacoma is in November.
My friend at the shop was able to help host 2x GPTs at 2 different shops in Modern and in Legacy. Another shop has a Standard GPT for it as well. (I hope the dates do not clash)
I think I should be able to get the byes across those 3 chances since I probably just have to make top 8 for it as most people shouldn't want the byes. At least that is how I heard people used to do it.
For GP Lille, I brought with me 3 decks, a Food Chain deck, my BUG Delver and a deck that was heavily prepared to beat Miracles (or so I thought). They all run on the same BUG base so I only had to swap out some cards to get each one up. I heard that Europe was all about Miracles and Show and Tell. I met so many creature decks. I intended to play Food Chain in the grinders to guard my list, change to my delver if I couldn't win my first 2 attempts, and change to my third list if there were indeed many Miracles and Show and Tell around.
I timed out versus Miracles with Food Chain, got annoyed and changed to my delver deck and played a few grinders before changing to deck 3 to give it a shot and I played in 2 grinders.
I chose to play my delver deck for the GP onsite when I felt that the main reason to play it would be to avoid getting any unnecessary draws.
Round 1 I beat Miracles
Round 2 I lost to Cloudpost
Round 3 I beat Death and Taxes
Round 4 I beat UR Delver (running reactive spells which isn't optimal)
Round 5 I lost to Storm (with a bad call on hindsight after everything happened the way it happened).
Round 6 I was going to draw with Esper stoneblade with Lingering Souls but was DQed.
After that I played in a Legacy rebound side event.
Sunday I gave up playing to get to the artist Michael Sutfin who drew Sensei's Top, Yawgmoth's Bargain and my favorite Vendilion Clique.
I played some random stuff not Legacy after that and called it a day.
France was a very interesting country.
Every wall not privately owned seemed to have graffiti on it, probably an ongoing freedom notion.
There was much greenery around like Singapore, with more further away from the city center.
I'm not too sure why they call Singapore a green city if other places have so much vegetation.
They stand on the right side of the escalators.
Cars are left hand drives.
European women are at least C cupped. Most under that were probably Asian tourists or so I assumed. My brain was constantly narrating this point in many different forms.
They wore comfortable clothes and they like to show their bras from the side or from the shirts being transparent. Hardly anyone wore skirts to draw attention behind. I think their main allure is in front.
Their comic book translations were rather up to date and plentiful. I was quite surprised when I walked into a comic book store along a street littered with such shops. (I was walking a lot)
Everyone was probably used to it being cold since the metro was like an oven when it was frigging warm and there was no air conditioning.
I went to three card shops in Paris. In the third, everyone who came into it came by to shake each other's hands, including mine.
It felt to me like everyone could be French as long as they spoke the language. Everyone looks like what they would look like at my local card shop other than the fact that they primarily spoke French.
There were many people asking for money during my trip, with the first on my train ride to the city from the airport.
A homeless guy came and snatched my fries one night as I was eating at the street side shop.
The day time was incredibly long. I did not ever get to catch the night sky. When I woke up at 5am, the sun was already out and when I was out at 10.30pm, the sky was like the 7pm sky that I know of.
I was glad not to be pickpocketed during my trip and was very cautious throughout.
At Lille, everyone was out on the streets having dinner at 10+pm.
