WAR OF THE ROSES

The routine is always the same, take a bin, place everything in said bin, take your shoes off, step forward into the machine, get scanned, step out, show them my wrist because I was told my watch can stay on, and gather my belongings from the x-ray machine; if I don’t get selected for a bag search because my deck box comes off as “suspicious”. If that happens, then I get to explain Magic the Gathering to the TSA agent and wait for the, “Oh so it’s like Pokémon”. To if I have time, I’ll give them a brief history lesson on how Magic predates most trading card games, but if I’m running late and need to get to my gate, “Yup just like Pokémon”.

I had never been to Portland Oregon before and like I’ve said in past Blog posts, I’m a dessert dweller, so when the plane finally cleared the thick fog layer on its descent, I was met by a dense dark green forest that immediately brought me back to when I was a wildland firefighter for the National Park Service. Once we landed, Brian Vegso and I got a Lyft to Kennedy School, this would be the venue we would be spending most of the weekend at. Now when I say we got a Lyft, I was not expecting the person or vehicle that pulled up in Portland Oregon. I would’ve 100% expected this in Texas though. As we waited, a lifted Jeep Wrangler playing country music rolled up, we joked and said, “How funny it would be if it was our driver. Now call me biased, but we expected a guy with a long beard on a bicycle drinking IPAs to roll up telling us to hop on the pegs. (On that note, if you haven’t seen the movie Tour de Pharmacy, you need to. 10/10 in my book).

We quickly arrived at Kennedy School and as I waited for Brian to check in, I immediately started googling to find out just how haunted this building was before I wandered off to help some kid find their parents who have all been dead for 50 years. Not to my surprise, the building is said to be extremely haunted and to have extraterrestrial sightings from time to time. Shortly after arriving, Kyra Sacdalan and her sister picked us up and we ventured to Mox Boarding House for an afternoon of Old School games and cocktails. For those who have never experienced this, it’s an LGS but on a whole other level. The bathroom reminded me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with the circular sink between the restrooms. The bar in MBH is on par with a top-shelf bar in Vegas maybe better than most. if you’re a fan of old fashions it was one of the best I’ve had to date.

After MBH, Kyra summoned a Lyft that arrived in the forum of a 1/1 Toyota Prius, and we traveled back to Kennedy School shoulder to shoulder and practically sitting on top of one another in the hybrid deathtrap for the Friday night meetup at the Community Room. Where we drank and played magic until about 8pm. After that, we found ourselves in the Boiler Room down the hall. We switched from Magic to shooting pool for a few bucks a game because we’re all degenerates with our money. The rules were simple, call your ball and pocket or its cue ball in hand for your opponent.

We called a Lyft back to Kyra’s sister’s house who generously housed me for the weekend, in what someone who is a plant addict like me would call a herbarium dream house. The following morning… the following afternoon, we woke up, and grabbed breakfast and coffee across the street from the biodome I slept in (all good things).

We arrived we about 15 minutes until the suggested start time, signed in, and I b lined it to Jesper’s booth to get a few signatures and alters started before the event started. I was on Power Monolith and my first opponent was none other than the man himself of This Old Deck podcast, Eric Martin. Eric saw me and said, “I came halfway across the country to play you again, we just played each other a few weeks ago” We laughed and began to tap the cardboard sideways. Eric was on GW Fungusaur ping. I fought through round 1 digging and digging to finally assemble the combo and smoke him out for 10 trillion damage… yes you read that right, 10 Triiiiillion damage (insert Doctor Evil) Eric beat me in rounds 2 and 3, and I drew 6 blue spells one after another with no land to cast anything with but my Mox Ruby and tropical island on the battlefield. I ended the day 3-2 in a happy 19th place.

(note) the rest of this report is well, non-existent. I got busy studying for a promotion at work that didn’t end up working out too well and forgot to get back to this and finish it…like they say, better late than never. I just got back from Ragnarök, so hopefully will have an article on that soon. ENJOY THE PHOTO DUMP!