Well, the Pro Tour was a bit of a disappointment but the stay itself was amazing.

Let me start with the flight trip. We traveled with a group of 4 people.

The original flight scheme was to go to San Diego, via Atlanta airport. Once we arrived at Atlanta, we found out that the flight to San Diego had been overbooked. They were looking for 25 volunteers who would fly to San Diego via Salt Lake City, with a delay of about 5 hours. In return, these people were given a $500 check, to be used for any Delta airline flight on this planet. I was more than willing to take this bargain, so I signed up. You must know that when you win a qualifier here, you’ll receive the airtrip for free. So I ended up with an extra free air trip, earned with me first free trip! Maarten Ferguson decided to go along as well, while Kamiel Cornelissen, being loaded with cash, and Jeroen Remie declined.

After a 26-hour flight we finally arrive, and find some random motel to sleep, as we can’t make it to our hotel anymore. The next day, we catch up with the others, among them my friend Johan Assen who booked the original hotel. However, this hotel is full and we spent a few hours to find another (payable) one.

Besides the Pro Tour itself, I had a great time. You must know that about 15 Dutch people are qualified for each Tour, comprising about 5% of the whole field! And I know all of them because Holland is such a small country. Among them are very familiar Pro Tour names such as Tom van de Logt and Jelger Wiegersma. Before the Pro Tour, all the Dutch went to the famous San Diego Zoo and we had a blast. We also visited the old center of San Diego, and went to check out the beautiful Californian coast. The temperature difference between California and Holland is more than 25 degrees Celsius, which is quite an experience I can say. In the evening we have discovered the San Diego nightlife, as we checked out some cool clubs. Kamiel had followed up his 7-0 performance on day 1 with a 0-7 one on day 2, so he was looking to party as well. Jelger, not being 21 yet, was smuggled in as well, and we had a great time. I did notice some odd differences between the US and Holland as well. It was quite odd to find out that alcohol is not allowed between 2 and 6 p.m. This is not what I am used to.

But, lets take a look at the pro Tour itself.

First draft, I get seated 2nd, being fed by Kamiel Cornellisen (thus seated 1st).

I know Kamiel pretty well (being a fellow Dutchman, and even my travel companion for this Pro Tour) so I count on a cooperative draft, despite our bad seats.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Rochester draft, seat 1 is considered the worst, while 4 and 5 are the best.

And here the madness starts.

Kamiel starts with a Nantuku Discipline, leaving me with a ghastly demise. So far so good. After the first 8 packs I am almost mono-black, and still without a second color. Kamiel has clearly settled into green, without a second color as well. My right neighbor has managed to go Green/Blue, clearly the best combination pre-Torment. This is bad for me; the reverse order of drafting makes it hard for me to take either green or blue as a second color because the person before me gets the first opportunity to draft a card. Moreover, Kamiel manages to go blue-green as well and the packs don't allow me to prevent it. Kamiel’s other neighbor decides to draft Black-red, which leaves Kamiel at an excellent opportunity to draft the 2 best colors of the set, and to do so completely unchallenged. I am forced to take white as a second color, and while black-white is not the ideal combination it can work decently if the card quality is high enough.

And this is the point where it goes wrong.

There has been much complaining about the terrible color dividing found in the Odyssey packs. Many boosters have too much of a particular color, and nothing in another one. This uneven distribution is really bad because one can get screwed by the packs so hard if this is the case, and there is nothing you can do about it. This draft was a particular case of that happening. Our draft had 6 Rabid Elephants, 6 Springing Tigers, 6 Aven Fishers, and 7 Syncopates. There was one single Mystic Zealot in the whole draft, one Morbid Hunger, and I believe no Hallowed Healers. The result is that all the blue and green players got amazing decks, while the others got nothing. Syncopate even went 12th pick, because all blue players had 2 already. Needless to say, I was feeling really unlucky.

After the draft, I talked about this with Kamiel, but he agreed with me that I couldn’t have drafted otherwise. I was in no position to fight him for blue, as the cards wouldn’t allow me to force it insteadd of white.

*** Interesting sidenote with regards to cooperative drafting. Cooperative drafting is not equal to sacrificing one’s own position to help the other. In this particular case, Kamiel and I cooperated to the extent that we would help each other. That is, not hating cards from one other and staying out of each other’s colors. However, his move of going into blue before me hurt me really hard, as I really wanted to draft it next to black. Moreover, going blue-green is very greedy as you’ll get all the best colors, and that practice can be punished even in a cooperative situation. I would have forced Kamiel out of blue even if it would mean that I had to hate drafting him, because he clearly knew that going into blue would hurt me. However, the packs didn’t allow me to do so, and I had to watch both green and blue being cut off from both sides. Does that mean I am angry at Kamiel? No, because it was in his best interest to do so. He was given the opportunity to draft the best colors of the set, and to do so unchallenged from both his neighbors. Allowing me to go blue meant that he had to draft white-green, a highly undesirable combination. I thought that this whole process was interesting enough to pay attention to.

Does that mean that I am angry at Kamiel? Not at all. I would have done the same in his position. And for the rest we really got along fine. ***

My deck sucks, and I know it. While Kamiel goes 4-0, I go 1-3 with a worthless pile, and loosing to Kamiel in the first round.

Draft 2 wasn’t very kind to me as well. First of all, I find out that I am seated nr 1. That’s really bad, and I am not at all happy to be seated nr and nr in 2 drafts. Why is seat 1 that bad? Because you have to make a first pick without any knowledge of what’s going on, which means the odds that you have to switch into another color much larger that in another seat. That’s exactly what happened. I first pick Rabid Elephant. My right neighbor picks a blue card, but my other neighbor picks green as well. That is really bad, as the person to my right is already fighting me for green. But it gets worse. The person in seat 2 opens Call of the Herd, and takes it. Now I am being forced to fight for green with both my neighbors, a fight I can never win. I curse my bad luck, and I’m getting pretty angry. I end up going blue-black with a decent deck, with the highlight being an Infiltrator.

However, a couple of mana screws and a savage misplay later, I find myself packing to drink large amounts of alcohol.

Then its time to go home. Experiencing a 9-hour time difference after a 26 hour flight is tiresome. Following that up with 5 days with an average sleeping time of 3 hours per day makes it worse. Traveling back to catch up with again a 9-hour time change will kill you. Trust me, I know.

However, when you are only there for such a short time, you want to get, do and see it all. I have no regrets. On to the next Pro Tour!!!

Thanks for reading,

Menno Rieff (mrieff on MOTL)