As the title indicates, this event was originally slated to take place on modo. That idea was scrapped when someone pointed out that as a level 5 judge, modo was entitled to participate, and it couldn’t figure out how to play on itself. So we all met up in person instead.

Round 1

My opponent plays what he assures me are a lot of modal effects with linked abilities that resolve in different layers (contingent on dependencies) and may or may not be characteristic-copying. I don’t know what any of this crap does, but I know none of it deals me 20 damage. I defeat him handily in 2 games.

1-0

Round 2

Even the simplest actions like untapping and drawing a card take my opponent several seconds. I call over a judge, my round 1 opponent, and accuse him of slow-play. I begin to methodically lay out my case that he was stalling, then my current opponent reports me to his round 1 opponent for slow-explain. I guess those guys were pretty sore about losing last round and having their second round interrrupted, because they award us respective match losses. We appeal those decisions to the head judge, who it turns out is me. I recuse myself due to the conflict of interest, and without any way to resolve the situation, the match goes to time and ends in a draw.

1-0-1

Round 3

My opponent is immediately very rude. He asks me to sing a Beatles song of my choosing, then tells me my voice is absolute rubbish and I don’t have the star quality to succeed in this competition. I’m feeling pretty down about this until one of his barns tells me to keep working at it and calls me his ‘dog.’ At this point I notice he still hasn’t presented his deck, and doesn’t even appear to have one. I disqualify him from the event, but not before he tells me America has voted me into the bottom 2 and probably won’t be returning next week.

2-0-1

Round 4

A nice, quiet guy playing an impressive new deck of his own devising. He didn’t make any mistakes all match long, and saw a lot of plays I never would have. By game 2 I had begun to suspect he was a ringer. I considered calling someone over to check his certification, but decided that it was better to lose gracefully than risk a repeat of round 2.

2–1-1

Round 5

This guy was a real stickler. He made me tap my lands one at a time, untap everything simultaneously, announce each time I was passing priority, and go through spell announcement step by step in the correct order. At one point twelve identical “gain one life” triggers happened at once, and he asked me what order I wanted to stack them in with a straight face. Things were close but looking good in game 1 until accidently pointed at the wrong guy when choosing what would have been lethal attackers, and he wouldn’t let me take it back. I then disgustedly told him “I give up” and he asked if I was sure, yes or no. I said yes, and it turned out I had just conceded the whole match instead of the game.

2-2-1

I’m about to head home when the top 8 is announced, and I am in. I point out that this should be mathematically impossible given my record, but it turns out they just ran way too many rounds of swiss. I hit the bathroom before heading to the final table, and the rest of the top 8 is already there. My round 2 opponent says he needs the rating points for byes and we all agree to let him win his matches in exchange for the lion’s share of the prizes.

Quarter finals

I get paired vs the agreed-upon winner. Our games go quickly as I just mana burn for the maximum amount each turn.