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IRISH NATIONALS 2003 Cormac Smyth
For me, last years Worlds, my most enjoyable and
yet disappointing Magic event ever ended with a visit to the dentist. Weird. It had been 6 years so I was nervous:) 20 minutes later and he’s leaning over me, elbow
pressed against my numbed jaw as he wrestles the dead molar out of my
gums…yanking it back and forth, back and forth: He stops midway, takes a step back, eyeballs me,
gives me a friendly, reassuring grin and asks me: ‘Do you wish you hadn’t waited 6 years now?’ MotherFucker. Waiting till he has half my tooth out
to stop and ask me that. He must love his job. I’m aware that I’m pretty helpless right now so
I bite back the sarcastic reply and grimace at him in agreement. [Plus he has
got a point: I just wish he hadn’t timed the comment specifically for his own
amusement!] Yeah, yeah so the bold dentist eventually yanks the
miscreant tooth out. Big Deal, I hear you say. Get on with it. Well, to you
impatient reader I have 2 points: 1.
It hurt. Talking about it helps me:) 2.
That incident more than anything else made me
realise that I was back in Ireland and not in the magical fairyland of Worlds in
Sydney anymore. Personally, it was a big bump mentally coming out
of that marvelous trip for once and for all and coming to this years Nationals I
was pretty determined to qualify again. So I tested. A lot. Other Important things to know when reading this
report: I like beer. I am from Cork. Cork is the cultured, refined
‘real’ capital of Ireland. I have not drunk alcohol for 10 days before this
tournament so that I am in a proper frame of mind for it. And I really, really like beer. Cork people are arrogant but there’s a reason. We
are that damn good. Dublin is merely by an accident of history the
‘official’ capital of Ireland. Therefore they tend to be jealous of us and
this reflects in their attitude. I arrived in the Dolmen hotel on Friday evening
after driving up with 3 friends that day: Paddy ‘Family Guy’ Walsh, Darragh
‘Kryptonite’ Long and Ian ‘Yeah!’ Desmond. We strolled into the Tournament Hall and said hello
to all the other players we knew. Ireland is a small country with an active
player base and at this level we all know 80% of the competitors already. I end up in the pub chatting to World’s teammates
from last year Robbie McKeown and John Larkin and showing them the photos from
Sydney that I had got developed earlier that day and resisting the urge to have
a pint. I also had a good chat with Steve Thompson, a
Scottish multi-classed player/poet who’s been living in Belfast for the last
few years. Note: Ireland, being the civilised, literate
country that it is, also uses it's national magic mailing list as a springboard
for various online poetry reading sessions, after one such unsuccessful foray
into the genre from Michael McFadden, the aforementioned Steve [our Magic Poet
Laureate] had this to say: A note to young Michael McFadden, I know what you are thinking. The man will go far if he ever joins the American
Foreign Service:) Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell eat your heart
out! And why the hell is this doing in a Magic report? I can’t work that out either. I can never stay
on-topic. Alas! Steve’s drunken state didn’t augur well
for a good performance this year but it didn’t look to me as if he was going
to lose any sleep over it! Unfortunately I was wrong as apparently he stayed up
with Robbie drinking till about 5 hours before the first draft started. McKeown never seems to play well unless he has some
kind of performance millstone hanging around his neck. [Normally it’s his lack
of talent!] 1st Draft: I woke up Saturday morning with a throbbing pain at
the base of my head that I am very used to. I used to think it was a hangover as
I get it every Saturday morning but I have realised over the last 2 Saturdays
that it is merely my body clocks inherent indolence shining through: Body: ‘Hey, it’s Saturday morning. Give Upper
Neck areas 1,2 and 4 a throbbing pain and link it up to the rest of the back of
his head’ Brain: ‘Why? Cormac hasn’t drunk in 10 days.’ Body: ‘Meh, Force of habit, I guess’ After a lot of draft testing I had 3-0'd the two
most recent drafts where I had gone with B/W clerics getting multiple vile
deacons in both. Therefore, all things being equal I was ready to go
for U/R, B/G or preferably B/W. [Zombie/Soldiers are also nice:)] I’m not
picky! 92 Players invited. 86 Playing. I ended up [un] lucky enough to be at a 7-person
pod, which has its advantages [byes mmm] and disadvantages: colour declarations
getting skewed and impossibility to evenly divide the removal colours. This didn't appear to bother Roger to my right who
happily went into W/G after I had established W/B early on and with the player
to his right B/U. These things happen and I was amused when he opened Rorix in
his 2nd booster and then hate-drafted it:) 9 swamps 8 plains 1 starlit sanctum 1 festering goblin 1 battlefield medic 1 wretched anurid 1 withered wretch 1 shepherd of rot 2 smokespew invoker 1 daru healer 1 gustcloak
harrier 1 daru sanctifier 1 Aven Redeemer 1 Deathmark Prelate 1 Sootfeather Flock 1 Daunting Defender 1 Aven Soulgazer 1 Grassland Crusader 1 Swooping Talon 1 Crowd Favourites 1 Phage the Untouchable 1 Pacifism 1 Swat 1 Aphetto Dredging 1 Profane Prayers 6 Zombies 10 Clerics 4 Soldiers Sideboard cards of note: Soulless One Dawning Purist Crude Rampart Crown of Awe Round 1: Pavel B/G/r I wrecked Pavel utterly in Game 1 with an army of
clerics that destroyed his elves. Game 2 Pavel killed me quite quickly with his
Rockshard Elemental and we were shuffling up for Game 3. I can't remember a lot about the deciding game but
I do remember winning the turn before I would have died. I didn’t take notes
for this match. Sorry. I may have taken notes and just lost them, I just don’t
know. I do now know to pay more attention/take care of my notes if I plan on
writing a report though! Aaanyway: He was on 5 life and had no fliers. I
attacked for 2 with my only creature left, Aven Redeemer. I cast Profane Prayers
for 1 and then sacrificed the redeemer to my starlit sanctum to have him lose 2
life. Too close. 1-0, 2-1. Round 2: Noel Peare U/R Noel is a good friend of mine and regularly tests
with me. We had had a very cooperative draft and after I had established myself
in B/W clerics and he had done same with red he had quickly spotted the
underdrafting of blue and collected a lot of the better cards available in that
colour. He offered me the draw at the start and I really
wanted to take it but [as you shall see] I tend to pick up more draws than most
and felt it was too early in the tournament not to risk 2 points just to get 1. Game one I came out of the blocks flying and had
him under pressure from the off and in the mid game with attacking Daunting
Defenders, Wretched Anurids and morph creatures with 3 damage preventers on the
board. By the time he was stabilising [thanks to a
well-timed Willbender unmorph that I had gambled on] it was a little too late
for him. Game two I got a good start again but lost control
of the game when I drew 6 land in a row from turn 6 on and Noel was patient and
retaliated savagely in 2 big turns to kill me with 3 minutes left. At this point we agreed to ID and Noel was generous
enough not to harp on [too much] about the wasted 47 minutes beforehand:) 1-0-1, 3-2. Round 3: Ed O'Kane U/G I soaked up a bit of damage early on before taking
control of the board after he attacked me with a crown of vigored morph creature
with 5 mana open. I blocked with an Aven Redeemer, a Daru Healer, a Festering
Goblin and a Withered wretch. Odd block? I did it as he had only 1 venomspout
brackus in his deck that could hurt me here and multiple Snarling Undoraks and
Spitting Gournas, and besides, he was bluffing, I thought. Aside: I really like Rochester drafting as it
allows a very different sort of bluffing to booster draft. In my opinion, a good player will know what tricks
another player has available and to a certain extent what morphs they have. After both drafts day one after I registered my
deck I went to the toilet and mentally went around the draft table and tried to
remember the tricks and major threats that each player had drafted which, I
felt, benefitted me greatly a lot of times during the day. Aaanyway, he tapped 5 and unmorphed a Treespring
Lorian. I panicked for a second before realising he had only had 5 mana. I told
him this and watched his face. His absolute, dawning, horror convinced me that
if he had been trying to cheat me he was a really good actor. I didn't call a
judge, blocked his morph killed it and made him take 5 mana burn. Punishment
enough:) I untapped, resolved crowd favourites and the game
was over. Game two Ed's briefly active pair of wirewood
savages netted him enough card advantage to keep blockers up while his glintwing
invoker sauntered over to do me 22 damage 4 of it in extra turns after a game
winning vitality charm:( Booo! 1-0-2, 4-3. So, 5 points from 3 rounds. Not so hot. I already
can't make my target of 15 and it's only half way. Grim. And my headache hasn’t gone away like a
normal Saturday, it’s just taken up residence in Neck area 3 as well:) 2nd Draft: There were 4 Cork Drafters in a row in the next pod
in positions 5,6,7 and 8 and I was in position 7. The rest of the table was Pavel, Gary Cosgrave,
Kiaran Maher and some guy. [Philip? maybe] The draft ended up not as good as it could have
been as I went B/W again and was feeding Noel all the R/G [Sean to my right in
U/R] but Noel went B/G instead with a B drafter to his left and right. This
weakened my deck a little bit but it's a card tournament not a love-in so after
frowning at him as much as I dared, I did the best I could. I was the one
feeding him after all! 8 Plains 8 Swamps 2 Secluded Steppes 2 Festering Goblin 1 Deftblade Elite 1 Starlight Invoker 1 Glory Seeker 1 Boneknitter 1 Whipcorder 1 Smokespew Invoker 1 Daru Healer 1 Gustcloak Harrier 1 Akromas Devoted 1 Daru Stinger 1 Gustcloak Sentinel 1 Aven Redeemer 1 Daunting Defender 1 Corpse Harvester 1 Aven Soulgazer 1 Daru Lancer 1 Gempalm Avenger 1 Crowd Favourites 1 Dirge of Dread 1 Swat 1 Crown of Awe 5 Zombies 7 Clerics 9 Soldiers I was pretty despondent at this point as I felt
sure I wouldn’t do well enough here to leave myself breathing room the next
day for the Standard portion. One thing to note here is that although I rate
Crown of Awe if you have a number of utility creatures that have incredibly
useful abilities the reason it made my deck was the other 7 opponents at the
table had all drafted red or black. This is unlike the first table I drafted at where
it had been [a] a 7 person table and [b] a table with only 4 other black and/or
red drafters, hence the lack of the Crown in my first deck. Round 4: Noel Peare G/B Noel had ended up with a less than optimal
selection of Black cards to go with his green and we joked a bit about which of
our decks were worse beforehand. Game 1: I resolved a turn 4 3/3 Daru Stinger with
my deftblade elite on the table and butchered his early creatures to begin
swinging for the win early. Game 2 was similar to the first. Mmmm. Gotta like
the Stinger/Elite combo! 2-0-2, 6-3. Round 5: Kieran Maher U/R Kieran had a pretty broken selection of cards to
his name including: Butcher Orgg, Imperial Hellkite, Shapeshifter to fetch them,
a lot of removal including a skill and that annoying Riptide Director. Thankfully he arrived late for the game and my
greedy little paw was up in the air like lightening looking for the game win for
tardiness:) Maybe I could top off my good play above in Game 1
with a mana screw victory! I certainly knew I wasn’t going to win any other
way. I’m not
too proud:) Kieran is a nice guy who I haven’t seen around a
lot so he mustn’t have that much experience and it showed a bit here. Basically from an incredibly advantageous position
Kieran, after making some errors during the game, managed to win in the 5th
extra turn thanks to an error on my part 4 turns earlier. Essentially, from a complicated board position I
had used various tricks to keep all but 1 creature alive from a butcher orgg
attack when with better use of my resources I could have kept them all alive.
Pretty much unforgivable at Nationals, no matter how complex the situation was. 2-0-3, 7-4. Round 6: Ian Desmond B/G Ian is another good buddy I had done a lot of
testing with and he had a pretty strong deck, which tempted me to look for my
FOURTH draw of the day here as I was pretty demoralised at this point. I figured he wouldn’t take it after I hinted at
it before the game and met with no real response but it turns out later he had
missed my references. Anyway, Ian made some uncharacteristic errors in Game 1,
which helped me steal it thanks to the amazing Corpse Harvester, which got me
two festering Goblins and then the killer Smokespew Invoker. Game 2 and a Crown
of Awed gustcloak harrier went all the way when his only way of killing it:
Noxious Ghoul didn’t turn up. His other fliers were all black and he had no
gournas. 3-0-3, 9-4. Well. Day 1 over and I have 12 points. The
equivalent of 4-2. Mehh. At least I hadn’t lost a match yet! That night I wrote out the decklist that I had been
testing with for about 4 weeks: 3 Tog 4 Counterspell 4 Circular Logic 4 Force Spike 4 Smother 3 Innocent Blood 3 Aether Burst 3 Compulsion 3 Standstill 2 Upheaval 2 Cunning Wish 10 Islands 4 Swamps 4 Polluted Deltas 4 Underground Rivers 2 Lonely Sandbars 1 Darkwater Catacombs Sideboard: 3 Duress
[vs. Tog, Wake, Reanimator and MBC] 2 Callous Oppressor
[vs. U/G and W/G] 2 Persuasion
[vs. U/g, W/G and R/G] 1 Persecute
[vs. Tog, MBC and Wake] 1 Compulsion
[vs. Tog, MBC, Wake] 1 Ghastly Demise 1 Coffin Purge 1 Mana Short 1 Opportunity 1 Chain of Vapor 1 Aether Burst I like playing control and had been playing with
Kai’s Tog list from his Sideboard article for quite a bit after it came out. I felt that the u/g and r/g match-up’s were quite
difficult to go more than 50-50 with and did not expect Tog to dominate
Nationals so much this year. Because
of this, about a month ago I had taken out the Deep Analysis’s, Concentrates
and 1 Darkwater Catacombs to put in 3 Aether Bursts and 3 Standstills. This, while weakening my mirror match percentages
had shored up the u/g and r/g match up quite a bit and I was willing to take a
chance on running into more u/g and r/g than tog over the day. Round 7: Roger Grealish Tog: I went first and winced when his second land was an
underground river. Mirror matches would not be what I want today.
I had the turn 3 compulsion with force spike backup though so I was at
the races when he missed his 4th land drop and had not cast a
compulsion of his own on his turn 3. I eventually won game 1 comfortably after patiently
waiting to wish for the mana short before upheavaling with him tapped out and
slapping down two togs. Out: 3 Standstill, 1 Smother, and 1 Burst In: 3 Duress, 1 Compulsion and 1 Persecute. Game 2 was not so good as he echoes’d away my
circular logics, duresses and 3 of my compulsions [the 4th safely
resolved:) ] among others but I was able to force through upheaval on the 3rd
extra turn for the 1-0 win. 4-0-3, 10-4. Round 8: Dara Butler U/G: Dara went first and despite a slow start my poor
draws couldn’t prevent him from killing me just as I was stabilising. Out: 3 Compulsion, 1 Standstill In: 2 Callous Oppressor, 2 Persuasion Game 2 was great as I steadied the board with a
callous oppressor and then a tog to his Squirrel Nest. I then persuaded his Arrogant Wurm over to my side
Innocent blooded for two turns in a row taking his madness enablers first and
laid a devastating standstill, which filled my hand up again. Out: 2 Standstill In 2: Compulsion Game 3 Dara got the nuts draw against me and I knew
I was dead before I untapped for my turn 3. Dara is only playing about 15 months and has come
on an awful lot in that time. He impressed me a lot with the way he represented
threats that didn’t exist and made me doubt whether he had answers or not,
especially Game 1. 4-1-3, 11-6. Round 9: Colin McBurney W/B Clerics: I have been playing against Colin every year for
the last 4 or 5 years and I always enjoy playing him as he is a gent to play
against and is always up for a laugh. This year he had a brought a wacky cleric
deck to the table with enough early threats to keep me under pressure and a
nasty Patriarchs Bidding that I could barely counter with all the resources I
had used already to contain his religious fervour. Standstill was amazing here
as I would not have been able to match him card for card indefinitely especially
as it cost me only 2 mana to cast which allowed me the ability to counter, kill
or bounce threats in his end step. As it was on 5 life I was able to
upheaval-tog for the win. No Changes. Game 2 was all about his 3 cities of brass and my
turn 2 or 3 standstill and I was never really under pressure here even though he
resolved Withered Wretch as he was simply too low on life to survive any kind of
Combo win, let alone the good kind involving Upheaval and a close personal
friend of mine… 5-1-3, 13-6. Round 10: Vincent Murphy U/G: Vincent is a pleasant guy who claims to be from
Dublin but who now lives in Carlow. I won game one when Standstill absolutely wrecked
him 3 times. I seemed to draw it and an Aether Burst or Smother every time he
broke standstill:) Out: 1 Compulsion, 3 Standstill In: 2 Callous Oppressor, 2 Persuasion Game two I mulliganed to 6 and kept a dodgy hand of
island, swamp, oppressor, innocent blood, smother and tog. We all know what
happened to me here… Out: 2 Compulsion In: 2 Standstill Game 3 started with 11 minutes left and when
Vincent was slow to shuffle his deck I called a judge over in case things got
slow. I don’t believe that Vincent deliberately stalled me out here but I
would have appreciated it if he knew what Callous Oppressor did before I cast
it! I upheaval-togged in the 2nd extra turn
with him on 18 and logic’d his logic of my tog and so had nothing for his
Walla in his turn besides the aether burst in my had that would cost me 2.5
damage to cast. I could only do 17.5 to Vincent. No matter how many times I counted it:) 5-1-4, 14-7. Wow! 4 draws. That is pretty impressive even for
me! Now I have to win out to make it. Oddly enough I felt great. I had not
played especially well up until then over the weekend but I was 2 wins from a
probable top 8. This is the kind of situation I love and I had done the exact
same last year [with less draws:)] and as Jamie Wakefield would have said [if he
was still alive and from Ireland] ‘I could feel the hand of destiny on my
shoulder.’ A lot of the time in Magic I find that the attitude you have going
into a game can really help decide how it goes. In this case I think it was a
great help to me that I 100% believed I was going to do it and carefully and
methodically made sure that I made no errors in the next 2 hours. Round 11: Stewart Shinkins B/R Reanimator: Stewart and I are good buddies and used to share an
apartment in Cork a few years ago and traveled to PT LA ’01 together. We
looked at each other and grinned. We’ve been in this situation against each
other too many times. He’s definitely got me on PTQ final battles as it’s
2-0 to him. I’ve nailed him at nationals before though so there is no need for
either of us to play mind games with each other. [yet!] Stewart just reminds me that a draw is no good for
either of us and it’s in our best interests to play fast. [Hey! What are you
implying? That I’m a slow player? NEVER!] I’m a bit worried about his hand disruption but
he has no turn 1 duress and I resolved the turn 2 standstill that I wanted. If
he draws a duress off the top that will be a shame but any discard/reanimation
tricks won’t be fast enough here and I have 2 aether bursts in hand:) Sweet. I stay in control here for most of the game and
even have the luxury of wishing for an opportunity instead of the Coffin Purge I
imply isn’t in my Sideboard with Akroma and Arcanis in his ‘yard due to the
bursts still in my paw on about turn 9 or ten. I have benefited from a second
standstill at this stage and just want to find a certain sorcery to Upheaval-Tog
the second he overextends himself mana-wise. I can’t remember my sideboarding here as I
hadn’t tested against Reanimator so I presume I brought in Duresses and
Persecutes for Standstills. That’s what I’d do now anyway:) Game Two He resolves a Haunting Echoes after I wish
for the now revealed coffin purge and remove the only counterspell and logic in
my graveyard. This all takes time and I draw straight into 2 counterspells in a
row straight after this to hold him off. He resolves a hasted Visara with my tog
on the board and I aether burst both my tog and the legend when he kills it.
Next turn I wish for the Circular Logic I removed earlier and he concedes in
extra turns when he can’t win. I thank him for not playing the next 2 turns
just to fuck with me and he smiles wanly. He’s out again. Next year play a
tier one deck ya fecker! At this point it became apparent that my buddy
Darragh Long who was 5-0 with his modified U/G deck with maindeck unsummons
could ID into the top 8. Sweet. 6-1-4, 16-7. Round 12: Dave Gray Tog without Wishes: Dave is a great guy from Belfast who would make Bob
Marley look stressed. Dave always gives the impression he is only there
because he had nothing better to do that day. Don’t be fooled by it! He’s
made numerous Nationals Top 8’s and PT visits, but that doesn’t mean he’s
not great fun to play against, as you’re always guaranteed a bit of banter
with him. Game 1 was a bit too close for comfort as after my turn 6 I had a
compulsion and a standstill with 4 mana untapped. Somehow, control of the game
slipped away from me as I drew more and more bounce and creature disruption. He
resolved his own compulsion in that period but I was able to wish for a mana
short unmolested when he ill advisedly tapped out to discard to compulsion.
Eventually I was back in control again as Dave was unfortunately missing land
drops and Dave was forced to make ever increasingly desperate moves to prevent
me compulsing into an even better situation and tried to resolve his 3rd
tog with 5 mana left. I wished for opportunity with 8 mana left and
opportunitied [ is that even a word?] in response. He countered and I countered
his counter, which he countered with 1 mana left. I untapped, cast innocent
blood and he conceded. Out: 3 Standstill, 1 Smother, and 1 Burst In: 3 Duress, 1 Compulsion and 1 Persecute. Game 2 ended when I upheavaled twice, the last
before extra turns after duressing away both his upheavals. [One of which was
foil which I wanted to trade for right away:) I’m a sucker for the foils! What
a scrub.] This left him just a control deck with 3 kill
methods and I held him off quite easily in the 2 turns he had left to cast a
Tog. 7-1-4, 17-7. [4-1-1 for the day] Wasn’t my deck meant to beat U/G and lose to Tog? What’s up with 6 points versus 2 tog decks and 1
point versus 2 U/G decks? Hey, what do I care? I’m in the top 8 for the 3rd
year running! I come in 7th and get paired with Gary
Cosgrave, the only other Tog player in the Top 8. For the Record the other Top 8 players were: John Larkin: Wake John Cowan: Wake Darragh Long: U/G Dave Coughlan: R/G Oli Bird: Clerics!? Alan Meaney: R/G Quarter Final: Gary Cosgrave Tog: I had gone through Gary’s decklist and I wasn’t
overly happy with what I saw. 2 maindeck Memory Lapse, 3 Cunning Wish, 3
Concentrate and a Deep Analysis instead of my 3 Standstill and 3 Aether Burst.
He must have grinned when he saw my list:) I still felt really confident as I hadn’t lost a
Nationals Quarter-Final [What do you mean I had only played two before? Shut
up!] and thought as long as I got compulsion I would be OK. I’m smiling now as I think of it. What planet was
I on? At least I don’t suffer from a lack of self-confidence. Anyway Game 1 was a farce as I missed my 3rd
land drop going 1st after mulliganning down to 6. I played a turn 4
lonely sandbar and Gary forced compulsion though the next turn countering my
counter as I tried not to look at the two force spikes in my paw. When I
didn’t top deck a compulsion the next turn the writing was on the wall. Gary
didn’t make errors here and calmly ramped up to 12 mana, tapped me out and
upheavaled and then double togged. As he said: ‘12 mana to 6, and drawing 16 more
cards through compulsion and concentrates is SOME good’ Nice, insightful analysis there, Big Guy! Out: 3 Standstill, 1 Smother, and 1 Burst In: 3 Duress, 1 Compulsion and 1 Persecute. Game 2 I keep a decent [going first] hand of land,
Compulsion, Force Spike, Aether Burst and Smother. I lay my second land turn two and instead of
playing the turn two compulsion and risking the spike I decide to wait a turn.
Gary misses out on laying a blue land turn 2 and lays a swamp and duresses
instead. He takes my compulsion and draws 3 blue lands off the top in the next 3
turns and then resolves another duress and a compulsion to take control. At this
point I play out a tog with the purpose of purely forcing him to spend his mana
on anything but getting ridiculous card quality advantage over me. I eventually
run out of things to do to annoy him and after lapsing my desperate upheaval he
duresses me, takes nothing and upheaval-togs for the win. We embrace and I’m out. I was pretty disappointed to miss out on being on
the Worlds team again but it was a big consolation to be knocked out by a pure
gent. Gary is a friend that I have a lot of respect for and have shared many a
cigarette with between rounds. [Tog players don’t get as much Nicotine time as
the R/G players:)] I’m glad he’s on my National Team. Another big consolation was Darragh had won his
Quarter Final against Dave Coughlan [and ended up 4th], which was the
least he deserved with the massive effort he put in, in testing. (Mainly due to
the threesome his hot girlfriend promised him if he made top 8. Sorry Pam, I
felt it was important that you knew that he was boasting to us all about it) Elements of the last paragraph may not be exactly
true. I hope Darragh, Gary, Alan and Oli have half as
much fun this year representing their country as I have done in the past 2 years
because if they do they’ll have a lot of tales to tell, and a lot of good
memories to smile at. I think that this year’s National team is a good
one with plenty of talent and willingness to test. I would worry that it only
has 1 pro tour between the 4 of them, but hopefully Euros will be enough of a
learning experience for them to profit from in time for Worlds and Ooops!
Let’s not forget that Darragh has a GenCon US Worlds Top 8 in L5R. As I type this I realise this means nothing as to
many Magic players L5R is merely a lame, bastardised hybrid of Magic and Snap
but hey, but we all have our weaknesses, I mean, I support Liverpool:) It was weird writing this report. Any free time
I've had in the last month has been spent thinking about the nationals. Now
they're over and all I feel is the same nagging echo of disappointment that I
quickly drowned in beer last Sunday night only for it to swell up every time I
think about what might have been. It would have been cool to be on the team
again but Top 8 is some consolation I guess. And I suppose it’s not that bad as I am flying
out to SARS infested Asia:) for PT Yokohama in a week with John Larkin. All you
good players out there: Stay away from Japan! Best of Luck, Cormac. Well done to: John Larkin, Dave Coughlan, John
Cowan and my wonderful self. Congrats to Alan Meaney, Oli Bird, Gary Cosgrave
and Darragh Long. A big thank you to: All the Cork Players who tested with me: Noel, Paddy, Ian, DQ, Wayne, Ayden, Sean [good
skillz on Euros man!], Conor, Steve, DaveF, Elaine, Lee, The Bunyanator, Mulkabu
and Darragh. Paddy for driving me there and back without
crashing:) Ben Andrew Fulton on MTGAuction.com for the
support. Team5fu international membership for being there:
Two more teammates going to Worlds! A big shout out to Dalton Maloney who hid his
disappointment of not being allowed play really well to help judge an event he
really wanted to Top 8. All the other judges: Darryl, Lee, Justin and Thomas. Ye all did a great
job and helped make it a tournament that was a pleasure to play in. I don’t
think that there was one bad call made or 1 minute longer spent on the
tournament than was necessary. Kudos. The TO’s: Jim Brophy and Paddy McDonagh were determined to
have Nationals in Carlow and due to hard work and perseverance got their way and
with those same qualities made it a real success and a Nationals to remember. Ralph for being a gent, a fine chuckler and the
beginner of the now annual Slow Clap for Brosnan:) Dave Kearney for making the effort at 06:00 Monday
morning. I don’t care what Darragh says. He’s just got weak lungs:) All my opponents. Thanks for the games and the
general good sportsmanship. John Larkin for becoming ‘Bi-hemispherical
Ring-Golf’ Champion. Dara and Gary for beating me. I needed to be taken
down a peg or two as is apparent from the 12 page monstrosity above. Niamh for once again offering to put me up even
though the tournament wasn’t even in Dublin! |