If you’ve never been to MagicCon Vegas it’s hard to describe the scale and ambiance. It has the magical feeling of GenCon, with the professional look and feel of a nice trade show. ReedPop and Wizards of the Coast have done an awesome job making this place hum. The energy is palpable.
Day one for Team Moonshot is all about the $100k Limited Open. All six members of the core team are playing this event so we’ll be blogging mostly about the big event today and will fill in details from around the hall and around Vegas as we go.
We started the day fighting an administrative uphill battle. I, Jayson, goofed when I registered everyone for the event. Turns out everyone should’ve registered themselves instead of me registering all. We showed up this AM and Hobbs, Roller, Charles and Abe were all outside looking in and I had been registered four times personally. Whoops!
Thankfully the event organizers got us taken care of prior to the event starting and the team members all got in and got their decks registered.
Charles is on Gruul Aggro splashing white for Trapped in the Screen.
Abe is playing Blue Green Manifest Oculus splashing white for Trapped in the Screen and Exorcise.
Nick is also playing Gruul splashing white for removal.
Moskal is on Esper Reanimator.
Rob is playing Golgari with Tyvar and Vagavoth.
Hobbs has a “fine” Blue Green deck.
Round One: Team is 5-1. Moskal dropped a tight three game match, but the rest of the team carried the torch. I watched Rob beat a dude with a 9/9 Flying Lifelinked Valgavoth.
Round two: Another 5-1 round. This time Hobbs lost to the 5/5 spider artifact vehicle and everyone else got there. Charles says the 3/2 hasty boy in his deck is averaging 10.5 damage per game to his opponents.
Apologies on the delayed update. My phone died. Thankfully Mrs. Moonshot brought my laptop from the hotel…so we’re back in business.
Round three: Charles got his first loss. Abe, Roller and Hayes all continue on undefeated. I asked Abe how it went, here’s what he said, “3-0, beat a pretty good Rakdos aggro deck with Overlord of the Boilerbilges 2-1. Game 3 I was on the play and had maybe the best draw I’ve ever had in a game of limited. Turn 1 Fungus, turn 2 crack it to ramp, turn 3 Threats around Every Corner, turn 4 Under the Skin hitting Zimone + Oculus, manifest Oculus return Zimone, play land for turn, cast Zimone and make a 7/7. So there’s that.
Round four: Roller got his first loss in a close third game where his opponent top decked his one and only out. Abe and Rob both won. Charles and Moskal both lost and went to 2-2. It turns out Hobbs’ deck wasn’t “fine.” His card pool was terrible. 1-3 drop.
Round five: Abe is the only 5-0 on the team as Rob lost a hard match to Colin Rountree who was top 16 at the latest Pro Tour. Roller got a win to improve to 4-1 and Charles and Moskal both won again to stay alive.
Round six: Abe moved to 6-0 and secured his spot for day two. His opponent was mana color screwed both games. Roller also won game three when his opponent missed his third land drop. Hayes lost to Esper Rooms to a Damnation. Charles got their 2-1 in a mirror (if that’s a thing in limited). And Moskal lost to Unholy Annex and Hauntwoods Shieker officially removing him from day two contention. 4 guys left. One is in. One needs to win one of the next two. And the other two need two straight wins to make day two.
Round seven: Abe continues his day one undefeated streak at 16 straight wins in the first day of the last two big events. Roller lost to the guy that wrecked Rob last round. But Rob and Charles both won, meaning all three have a win-and-in match in round 8.
Round eight: Abe finally lost and finished day one at 7-1. Roller and Eiler also lost knocking them out of day two. Rob won game three of his match and will be joining Abe tomorrow.
Overall it was a pretty solid day for Team Moonshot. 1/3 made day two, 1/3 lost their win-and-ins.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more live blogging from Vegas. But now I’m headed to the Black Lotus party at the House of Blues.
Onward!
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