Your Favorite Tournament Report

[Bardo]

Doing a little research for a thread in the Legacy forums, I thought it would be cool for people to link their favorite tournament reports of all time.

Being a coninsseur of the topic*, I thought I'd list some of my favorites as well:

"Its all about the Dinosaurs," Jamie Wakefield

"Untold Legends Of The Million Dollar Magic The Gathering Pro Tour: Peter Szigeti," Jeff Cunningham

"PTW's Central Coast Championship tourney report," Mark Perez

"Ti Esrever Dna Ti Pilf," Tim Aten

"Always The Bridesmaid, Or How Ghettocon Tourney Was The Awesome," Carl Winter (Picking a CCW report was much harder than I though. There are so many good ones to choose from.)

"Dragons and Deep Dish," Brian Kibler

"Solution For Drudgery: The Fill-In-The-Blank Tourney Report," The Ferrett

And finally, no thread such as this would be complete without Otter Driver's sublime ""Redemption Report."

Third game is bull... she gets the God draw, drops *two* Scrolls, and gets the kill with Flogging the Pharisees... WTF?  Who plays FtP anymore? ... I can't believe this.  She gloats, too... oh, well, those hips aren't going to stand up to childbearing, so laugh now, harlot.

So, what is your favorite report?


(* Heck I've pounded out 3,000 word reports on lousy 8-man tourneys...)

[Razvan]

And finally, no thread such as this would be complete without Otter Driver's sublime ""Redemption Report."

Third game is bull... she gets the God draw, drops *two* Scrolls, and gets the kill with Flogging the Pharisees... WTF?  Who plays FtP anymore? ... I can't believe this.  She gloats, too... oh, well, those hips aren't going to stand up to childbearing, so laugh now, harlot.

So, what is your favorite report?


(* Heck I've pounded out 3,000 word reports on lousy 8-man tourneys...)

Jesus Christ, I have no idea what the hell game that is... although the report is amusing.

And Carl's tourney report is one of my favorites. The dude knows how to write, and probably should more.

[LordHomerCat]

The PTR article is one of the finest things ever written about Magic, along with Cunningham's other articles in that series.  They are hard to top, although Wakefield is also pretty entertaining.  Old Tim Aten stuff, when he was more sad and depressed than hateful of everything, were good stuff too.

[Bardo]

Jesus Christ, I have no idea what the hell game that is... although the report is amusing.

Redemption was a Bible-theme CCG that came out in the mid-90s to cash in on the popularity of MtG.

You can still find the cards if you're interested.

Edit - Oh!!1! The TMD of Redemption! Sweet. Or something.

[seer]

PTQ Mainz report -- How to not qualify - Eric Taylor


thread over.

[Bram]

Jeez....how could you guys forget Bryce Reynold's legendary "Type 1 Players Have All The Fun"?

Hot-sounding chick: Hello?
Me: Hi, is Jason there?
Chick: Yeah, hang on.
Me: Cool, thanks.
Jason: Zzzzz... Hello?
Me: Jason, it's Bryce; we've got a minor hiccup.
Jason: What's that?
Me: Smack's not going.
Jason: Why?
Me: He got plowed over by a bus.
Jason: WHAT?!?! Is he okay?
Me: What do you think? He got plowed over by a bus.

[Matt]

The Story of Low Tide

[Komatteru]

Anything I wrote.

Hey, I had to get myself in there.  I've been mostly forgotten about, so I know no one else is going to mention "A Tale of Origins", "JD's Triumphant Return to the State of Indiana", or "I Don't Need No Lands, I Gots me a Meaaaannndeck". (Unfortunately, all the upgrades have messed them up a bit, so the text might be hard to read.)

Man, it's been a friggin' year since I wrote a tournament report.  Really makes me wish I had written reports for all those events I won early in the year....

[Cross]

Anything not written by jdizzle.

Seriously though the Mainz report is hilarious.

[andrewpate]

How I won the Mid-Atlantic Regionals with my Song of Blood Deck

This report is just pure pwnage.

On his turn, he incinerates the ghazban and says go. My turn, I drop the undiscovered again and attack with the keepers [of Kookus]. Granger pings one, and I active the ability. Chad is not happy.

I start throwing my useless red creatures at [Flores]. Take 2. Take 2. Take 2. Skull catapult is about to do him in, when he begs me to kill him properly, at least, for his own peace of mind. To show his good faith he lets the justice go away (he's at 2, on my turn he dies anyway). Since mike is cool, I summon a ball lighting to take him down on my turn. So it's not as if he was KILLED BY SKULL CATAPULT or anything, because he wasn't...

[Disburden]

My favorite tournament report,as of now, is Vroman's report from Gencon. That is not only a totally fascinating report on how to be an expert on your deck, but it is also a mega sideboarding primer.

[jpmeyer]

Since people have already listed Shuler's report and The Redemption Report, I was going to say Playing Baked in the Bean Bracket, but the existence of the article is more of a joke than the article itself.

Also, while I love The Redemption Report, does it actually make sense to people that weren't playing Magic 10 years ago?  All the humor in that article comes from the mid-90's TCG boom and from the typical Dojo tourney report.

[Bardo]

First for the lazy pants above who didn't bother to link to the reports:

Eric Taylor and the Story of Low Tide

The Grand Experiment: Playing Baked In The Bean Bracket

Since people have already listed Shuler's report and The Redemption Report, I was going to say Playing Baked in the Bean Bracket, but the existence of the article is more of a joke than the article itself.

I considered adding Knut's article in my OP, but decided against it for the reasons you cite: brilliant idea, not so brilliant on the execution. But to be perfectly honest, I wish I'd thought of the idea first, since I've played many tournaments in various and twisted states of consciousness. Though when it comes to writing my reports, I usually wuss out and edit out or cleverly hide the drug references--even going so far as to encode them in anagram form.

But, in my opinion, one of your reports, JP, is both brilliant in idea and execution. I love that "report" and even used the idea for a recent "report" that I wrote where I went to a wedding instead of tourney. But the result was kinda crap, so I never posted it.

Also, while I love The Redemption Report, does it actually make sense to people that weren't playing Magic 10 years ago?

Probably not. You had to be there. I remember trying out L5R but I didn't get into it like MtG, which had a phenomenal hook. But Redemption just seemed creepy -- like some covert Christian youth recruitment tool. Pass. Thanks.

[Parcher]

You know you are a legend when the best tournament reports are about you and someone else writes them:


My match up with John Shuler was hardly a 'great battle'. When I sat down to play John, I'd never actually spoken with him and have to admit I didn't know too much about him, so what I got was a total shocker. John has as much personality as anyone on Tour, and he brought it to that particular table with as much vengeance as I've seen anyone do.

"Before the first game, John informed me that he would concede to me if we ever got to the point where he might achieve victory. I kind of half-smiled, worrying that he might be playing some kind of mind game and didn't accept his word at face value. Game one, he absolutely crippled me, with some combination of Dark Ritual, Mana Vault, Smokestack and Processor coming out of his hand on the first couple of turns. Game two was much of the same, with John doing something obscene involving a very fast 19 point Processor and the mana to make a token.

"Now, when he gets down the Processor, he calls over Mike Feuell and asks him to go to the side events area and get a Pikachu card to represent his 19/19 guy, and he refuses to continue until Mike gets back. I'm getting worried about time issues because this could be a stall, but Nat Fairbanks is watching the whole thing and is making sure everything's copasetic.

Is this the right one, John?
"I ask John, who is again telling me about the impending concession, about why he's conceding, and he explains that Matt Vienneau cheesed him out in their match, offending him so much that he wanted to lose as much as possible in order to hurt Matt's tiebreakers. Now, I've had my battles with Matt, who I like a lot around 80% of the time and despise the other 20%, but even I have never found myself disgusted enough with him to throw a Pro Tour, so I'm sitting there wondering what kind of a psycho I'm playing against when Feuell gets back and presents the Pikachu card. Shuler inspects the card and informs Mike that it's the wrong Pikachu, that he wants the common variety and sends this level iii judge scurrying back to the play area, and we sit there chatting, with our match frozen in time. Five more minutes pass (this is round 14 and we're both out of the money) and Feuell gets back and informs John he needs to get the card back to its owner, and Shuler goes off, talking about how he'll need to keep the cards and what the hell was Mike thinking. Rather than continuing to weather the storm, Feuell sheepishly heads back to side events, showing up another five minutes down the line, and Shuler is finally appeased. He grabs a marker, signs the Pikachu, marks its power and toughness on the card and puts it into play. Two turns later, as I'm about to die with damage on the stack, John finally extends his hand, conceding, and gives me the card. I think he lost his last five matches in a row on purpose or something. With the time stops, the insane draws, the continued yelling between Shuler and Mike Flores, the smirking judges surrounding the table, the end-of-PT fatigue and the anti-Vienneau venom, it was definitely one of the strangest moments of my career. Matt finished 32nd, and John and I now do a dinner each year. Good times."


In the early days of magic, John Shuler was the patron saint of tournament reports. The Regionals one already posted is tremendous. Here is a little known one:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991104081031/thedojo.net/tourney97/t2.971205jsh.txt

Unfortunately, his best ever, "Magic's new Chair-Throwing Champion", regarding Chris Benafel, was scoured from the internet.

[nataz]

"Untold Legends Of The Million Dollar Magic The Gathering Pro Tour: Peter Szigeti," Jeff Cunningham

[greyareabeyond]

Former mtg rules manager Paul Barclay's report playing Full English Breakfast. The report used to be on Neutral Ground's website and I can't find it anymore. I used to have a printout and if I could find it I would retype the whole thing and post it somewhere for posterity. It was during my favorite period of extended when duals were still legal and just before Necro, SotF, and Replenish were banned.

[Bardo]

"Untold Legends Of The Million Dollar Magic The Gathering Pro Tour: Peter Szigeti," Jeff Cunningham

As we opened our first sealed decks, I was taking a dump. I spent the entire deck building process trying to figure out how to let one loose in a European toilet. If you have never encountered one of these ghastly devices, consider yourself lucky. The toilet is basically a hole in the ground, with a step. My description cannot do it justice, but it does have one good thing going for it, there is no possible way Gary T could clog a hole in the ground. Now I have heard this oft-large Hindi man claim he could clog Mt. Everest, but I would wager one million Lira he could not clog a European toilet. When I got back from my adventure - which I can only describe as a disaster (I just doodied in my pants rather than a hole in the ground) - I saw my deck. It couldn't really be described as a deck... it had a lot in common with what was lurking in my underpants. It was basically a mound of cards Brock and Clegg didn't want to use. I quickly assembled the four-color masterpiece, it was truly the worst Team Sealed deck I have ever had the pleasure to play with. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate this masterpiece somewhere between poor, and piss poor. Thankfully, I only had to play one round with this unreasonably bad pile of detritus. I lost within ten minutes, which gave me enough time to rush back to the hotel, change my diapers, and prepare for the final three rounds of sealed deck. Brock won, celebrated with pizza. Dan won, celebrated with pills. To each his own.

The best tournament reports fall into one of three varieties: 1) exceptional prose; 2) conceptually brilliant (ex. TF's "fill in the blank report"); or, 3) hysterically funny (CCW).

Majestically, the Cunningham report hits all three areas here. Genius, really.

[wuaffiliate]

This is a little old school, but its been in my favorites for 4 years now heh.

Type 1 Players Have All the Fun
Bryce Reynolds aka Mr. Clown of Tresserhorn himself

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3565.html

This is the best tourney report of all time, i never get bored of it and even friends who dont play magic got a kick out of it.

[Moxlotus]

This is a little old school, but its been in my favorites for 4 years now heh.

Type 1 Players Have All the Fun
Bryce Reynolds aka Mr. Clown of Tresserhorn himself

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3565.html

This is the best tourney report of all time, i never get bored of it and even friends who dont play magic got a kick out of it.

This report contained my favorite tournament quote of all time.  I could not for the life of me remember where it came from...

During the drive home we had the pleasure of getting wicked freaked out while watching the pieces of an eighteen wheeler's back tire rip off and spark against the pavement. Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I decided to let the driver know that he was about to kill hundreds of innocent people in a 27-car pileup with his 20,000 lb. steel machine of death. I grabbed a spare slice of paper and dug my trusty Sharpie out of my pocket, then wrote upon the previously mentioned slice of paper:"YER TIRE'S FLAT" and held it up to the window. The guy nodded and continued on his way.

Well, I did what I could.
 

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

This is a little old school, but its been in my favorites for 4 years now heh.

Type 1 Players Have All the Fun
Bryce Reynolds aka Mr. Clown of Tresserhorn himself

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3565.html

This is the best tourney report of all time, i never get bored of it and even friends who dont play magic got a kick out of it.

Sorry Chet, I'm Bob Yu, not Bryce. You're thinking kl0wn.

Speaking of tourney reports, my favorites were probably by those I know. JDizzle's, Steve's, Roland's, Kowals, etc...

[wuaffiliate]

My apologies i meant "Klown" i saw a post you made and for some reason typed the wrong name completely.