My experience at Magic: The Gathering Kuala Lumpur Grand Prix

I attended the Grand Prix last Sunday. It was held at Sunway Pyramid Convention Center.

And guess what, it was my very first tournament! Yes! I have never joined any Magic events like WNM or FNMs. Am I crazy, or what? XD

I only attended for a side event though, which was the Standard Pauper (commons only). It had 4 Swiss rounds, and winners were determined by the accumulated number of points. It was held at 4pm but I was there at around 1.30.

There was quite a lot of people there. Although I can imagine this must have been much less than the 1st day (I heard there was 1000 people! Wow!). I can see some people already playing sealed decks.

Registration for side events starting at 4pm opened at 3pm. So at 3pm, we went to write down our name and Planeswalker ID. If you didn't have one, they can still register for us. Which is useful for new Planeswalkers who hadn't registered yet :)

While waiting for 4pm, me and my friend were doing last-minute tests with our decks.

At around 4pm, they announced which table the Pauper side event was gonna be. So we made our way to the table. Pairs and seating arrangements were pre-determined by a judge, who had a printout of all our names. Our judge was a Vietnamese guy who was very nice :D

Right off the bat, even before we began, we already knew that this was going to be a very casual game. Even the judge didn't seem too strict. And there was only 8 of us who registered for the event! Haha! We are the top 8!

My deck

I ended up using a fast (but not fast enough IMO) red aggro deck that focuses a lot on fire power (shocks, lightning strikes etc) and 1/1 red soldier tokens. Here's my decklist!

My side decks were simply put together. Some faster spells and a few spells to target land/artifact, heavier creatures in case my own creatures were too small to kill my opponent, but that's it.

Round 1

My opponent was a regular from Classroom Cafe. He was an easy going guy and both of us were struggling from time to time during the match. I even remembered him playfully asking help from the judge coz he land screw! And the exasperated expression when he thought he couldn't do anything... Haha! I couldn't stop laughing!

I lost the first round, won the second round, and then lost again. That last round was really close though! He was down to 5 and I was down to 6. He ngam ngam (just barely) had enough power to kill me off. If not, then I would have killed him in the next round XD So in the end I lost by 1-2 T.T

But it was a very enjoyable game. I had lots of fun and he was a great opponent!

Round 2

I got a bye, because there was a new player, so we ended up with 9 players. I think it meant I got an automatic win. So I ended up playing with someone else just to pass the time XD

He was nice to me and taught me a few tactics. And his sleeves were really nice! (Even though it was his friend's) He even jokingly offered me to use the deck in the tournament lol!

Round 3

A regular from The Tavern, Kota Damansara. I actually won against him 2-1 O.O! Actually his deck was quite weak against mine. It wasn't a matter of skill. Coz when he was playing another deck with me for fun, he got me down to 12 and I didn't even put a scratch on him OMG. Didn't help that my key card didn't come out and he kept putting 1 and 3 cards into my graveyard so many times T.T

The funny part I remember from this round was when I wanted to put down Deathbellow Raider, and he actually called it out before I put it down O.O He actually can tell by how many mana I tapped? So scary XD I even looked behind me playfully and asked that there was nobody behind me, right? Lol XD

Round 4

My opponent was a guy from Penang. He sat down unrolled his Chandra playmat. The moment I saw the playmat and black sleeves (idk why, it made him seem very yeng) I was thinking, I am soooo gonna lose. I keep getting this hou yeng aura from him haha! But he was a very nice guy =D

And true enough, I think it was sap sap sui for him coz I lost 0-3 OTL although I did make it hard for him to win, still, I lost all 3 rounds! T.T Oh well, he memang is a competitive player (he said he placed top 27 or something? O.O)

Total points

Round 1: 1-2
Round 2: Bye
Round 3: 2-1 (i think?)
Round 4: 0-3 omg
Total points: 6

6 points meant that I received 2 Theros booster packs as a prize. Yay!

Aftermath

After the event, we still hung around for a while while some other players were winding down. I remember some of the guys were laughing at my deckbox XD one even asked to take a pic and put it on FB/instagram. Haha! I feel flattered, thank you!

Back of my deckbox

Front of my deckbox

I cracked my pack that I won from the Pauper game. Nothing much, as usual. I have really bad luck when it comes to cracking boosters. I had one foil which was a Dragon Mantle, but gave it away to my first opponent coz he collected foils and I didn't have any use for it ^^;

Then after that we left. But went back because we forgot to check out Classroom's booth which sold nice leather deckboxes by OLD GAME STORE. I gave in and bought one for RM35, and it came with free 50ps clear glossy plastic sleeves. Sweet!

All in all, it was a very fun experience. I really enjoyed my first real tournament, and everyone was very friendly and cool.

Unfortunately next year's GP will be held in Taiwan T.T I will have to wait for 2 more years to go for the next KLGP. But I shall wait patiently, and become a better Planeswalker until then \o/

Thank you everyone for the awesome experience!

Introduction

Hello! I am a novice Planeswalker. At the time of this post, I am 2 months new.

I currently play mono blue -and- a Minotaur red black deck. I play almost exclusively Theros, with a few M14 cards here and there. Also looking forward for Born of the Gods next month!

This journal is to keep track of what I've learned about the world of Magic: The Gathering, or simply just to take notes about anything and everything.

Onwards!