Or There and Back Again, a short novella dedicated to my ego.

4 of us made the trip from sunny California to just-a-bit-too-sunny Indianapolis - ex-mothafucking Sannin Thomas Cao, alcoholic bad player Mike Alpers, token black guy WillieG, and your beloved hero... me!

Building on my past experience from last year, where our layover in Las Vegas had resulted in the loss of our hotel money to Thomas Cao's gambling habit, we decided to take the much safer route of booking a flight with a layover in Milwaukee. I mean, it's Wisconsin. Absolutely nothing can go wrong in Wisconsin, unless you are wearing a Brett Favre jersey.

Aside: speaking of Wisconsin, if anybody finds my Respective Dreams deck (black Dragonball deckbox) at Gate 41B of the Milwaukee airport, I would appreciate it back. Thank you very much.

In any case, we made it to Indianapolis on Wednesday morning, picked up our badges, and then proceeded to rampage through a local K-Mart in search of food to stock the hotel for the weekend. I have never seen a sadder cashier in my life than the young lad who was confronted the sight of our mega-mountains of frozen food and alcoholic beverages.

30 minutes of scanning and a total of just over $100 later (or, approximately $0.03 per pound of food)...

*fast forward through boring bits*

Midway through those boring bits, new challengers had arrived in the form of first class noob and all-around ginger Nick Botchis, ultra-noob Pat O'Neill, and king of the noobs Andrew Kardis. Luckily for them, they had arrived bearing offerings of Smash Bros. and Wii and so were allowed to prostrate themselves in the temple of me.

We ended up cubing (so much fun, btw - every group should have someone with a cube) and I felt so sorry for Alpers that I graced him with a victory in the finals. Considering this was the one and only time that he had ever won anything in his entire life, I decided I had done enough good deeds for the day and disemboweled a kitten before heading to sleep.

zzz...

zzzzzzzz...

zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Crono! Wake up!

zzz....

My electric travel razor doesn't work! Curse you and your inferior products Remington!

(That was why I was unshaven the whole weekend, in case anyone cares.)

*fast forward through more boring parts*

We partook in a variety of adult beverages on Thursday night - vodka and Sierra Mist, vodka and cranberry juice, vodka and coke, vodka and diet coke, and of course, Thomas Veazie's favorite of vodka and vodka.

Pop quiz!

What did Pyrot do/say while drunk in our hotel room?
A. Attempt to hook up with Alpers.
B. *in high pitched girly voice* "Woah! Laurent! You're... BLACK!" *extends fist* "Knuckles?"
C. Attempt to gift various members of our hotel room with an iPod touch, his virginity, and a small quantity of weed (ironically stored in a Naruto deckbox).
D. Drink all of our vodka, the fucker.
E. Get punched out by Amir (lol).
F. All of the above.

If you answered anything but F, you're an idiot.

*fast forward through fuzzy parts*

Watching Pat play Blazblue drunk against a completely sober Andrew was hilarious. The amount of Jack Daniels left in Pat's cup corresponded inversely with the savagery of the annihilation he was dishing out to Andrew. By the time he had none left he was perfect-ing Andrew in 3 seconds flat. Drunken fist ftw?

*fast forward through parts not for public consumption*

I ordered the same thing at Steak and Shake the 4 times we went there over the weekend (Western BBQ Bacon Double Steakburger) - it got better each time.

...

Plus: getting humped by Ari's girlfriend
Minus: getting humped by Ari

...

If you would like to hear someone rage more than Thomas Cao using Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu, please ask Andrew Kardis about his experiences in 2HG MTG Draft at GenCon.

...

Dude, I swear I thought it was a Negate.

...

Oh, the actual tournament. Because nobody actually likes reading about matches, I have condensed each game into one sentence.

Round 1 - Kelvin Smith - ANBU
Game 1: Sealing Barrier on Dispatch elicits the insta-scoop.
Game 2: No Sealing Barrier, I insta-scoop.
Game 3: Time is called when I have 9 BRs and a Sasuke/Oro + Sasori/Deidara, and he has 0 BRs, 0 cards in hand, and 0 ninjas in play.

1-0 (SoCal players faced: 1)

Round 2 - Juan Romero - Taijutsu
Game 1: Chidori Stream!
Game 2: Chidori Stream (after a mulligan to 4)!

2-0 (SoCal players faced: 2)

Round 3 - Colin Mitchell - Dreams
Game 1: Lots of yelling, and he sacks the shit out of me.
Game 2: I sack the shit out of him (after attempting to ambush a platoon - this is what happens when you don't play the game for a year).

In all fairness, I was, as Zero puts it, "playing to my outs."

2-0-1 (SoCal players faced: 2)

Round 4 - Mynor Del Aguila - Taijutsu
Game 1: Chidori Stream!
Game 2: I get buttfucked.
Game 3: Snake Waves!

3-0-1 (SoCal players faced: 3)

Round 5 - Nick Brady - Earth
Game 1: Chidori Stream (eventually)!
Game 2: I am the Prince of Persia!

4-0-1 (SoCal players faced: 3)

Round 6 - Steve Aragon - Dreams
Game 1: Pillars! Pillars! Pilla- oh wait, I died.
Game 2: You can't miss drops against the Prince of Persia and expect to win.

4-0-2 (SoCal players faced: 4)

Round 7 - Michael Cano - Dreams
Game 1: Chidori Stream!
Game 2: Sasori/Deidara!

5-0-2 (SoCal players faced: 5)

Round 8 - Joe Colon - TBM Earth
Game 1: I Sealing Barrier his Yamato, which lets me set up for... Chidori Stream!
Game 2: I mulligan to Oro, Oro, mission, mission, and proceed go: drop, drop, drop, Oro, Snake Waves on time.

This "playing to your outs" thing is pretty effective.

Saul: "Hey Josh, how does it feel to have god licking your ballsack?"

6-0-2 (SoCal players faced: 5 out of 8 rounds)

...

We go to some horrible wings place and watch Anderson Silva get the shit beaten out of him (and not care) for 23 minutes, only to make the other guy tap out in the 24th minute. Best fight ever.

...

Top 16 - Ari Kathein - Concentration Water
Game 1: Chidori Stream! Oh wait, he's not dead... Chidori Stream!
Game 2: Snake Waves! ...holy shit Ari, what is with you and not dying to game-ending jutsus? Chidori Stream!

Ari bestows upon me the title of "Master of Water." He also mentioned someone else, but I don't really care about them.

Top 8 - Mike Cancelleri - OneWingedToads

Ok, fine, I'm going to go longer on a sentence in this one. But that's because I made my only good play of the tournament in this game.

Game 1: I get a Sasori in play while getting beaten down by turn 2 Gamabunta. I know he has a Shika U in his hand after seeing it with Temari WS, so I organize a Shino into Sasori's team with my only ninja being a bug coin. He takes the bait and deploys Shika U, uses it on my Shino, then organizes into Naruto Reliance/some random 1 drop, Gamabunta/Lee, Choji/Shino, ShikaU/bug coin. I give him some BRs, then Invasion for Freezing Eyes, ambush it, activate Sasori, hard charge to give me more chakra than him, organize, activate the squad...

Boom!

His 1 card in hand was not enough to make a comeback.

Game 2: I see Oro/Snake Waves in my opener. He doesn't get Bunta out on turn 2.

Top 4 - Thomas "Knuckles" Veazie - Dreams
Game 1: Tragic Destiny does WHAT?!
Game 2: I go all in with my trips Stream and trips Wind Scythe. Unfortunately, there is only one person playing poker at this table, and it isn't him.

I put the same curse on him that I put on Brandon Thieben 3 years ago and he draws horri-bad in the finals and loses. Revenge?

Mmmmm... noodles...

They really need one of those places in Cali.

We go to the arcade and Mike Alpers tells me he's good at MvC2. I have never played in my life. I beat him by repeatedly slamming my hand down on all 6 buttons at once.

Victory!

I also crush Andrew 7-1 in air hockey but fail to draw Snake Waves against Joe and lose my air hockey king title. I blame my ignominious defeat on button-mashing related fatigue.

Back to the hotel, more cubing...

THERE ISN'T ANY BOOZE FOR SALE IN INDIANAPOLIS ON SUNDAY. EPIC FAIL.

Monday was mostly Fogo de Chao and raging.

Overall, not a bad way to go out.

...

Hello Hello (Good to be Back)

3 Sea Monstah [Monstah of the Sea]
2 Anko Mitarashi [Pupil of Orochimaru]
2 Cursed Warrior [Ubiquitousness]
2 Shino Aburame [Insect Warriors]
1 Sakura Haruno [A Double Personality]
1 Kiba Inuzaka [Keen Nose]

3 Temari [Wind Scythe]
1 Kabuto [Database]

3 Konohamaru Ninja Squad [Successors to the Will of Fire]
1 Shino Aburame [Silence]

2 Orochimaru (Childhood) [Shown Signs of the Legends]
1 Naruto Uzumaki [Reliance]
1 Sakura Haruno [Reliance]

1 Sasuke Uchiha [Severing the Bond]
1 Sasuke Uchiha [Freezing Eyes]

1 Sasori [Creating the Masterpiece]

3 The Second Hokage [Supremacy]
1 Sasuke Uchiha and Orochimaru [3 Years Later]

3 Sakura's Decision
3 Loss
2 Invasion of Akatsuki
1 Sealing Barrier
1 The Next Target
1 Tragic Destiny

3 Chidori Stream
3 Wind Scythe Jutsu

3 Tobi [Man of Mystery]

Sideboard:
1 Shino Aburame [Insect Warriors]
1 Shino Aburame [Parasite]
1 Kigiri [Smoke Screen]
1 Shimon Hijiri [Keeping an Eye]
2 Yakumo Kurama [With a (Sea) Monstah Within]
2 Make-Out Tactics
1 The Next Target
1 Ten Thousand Snake Waves

Labels: Gencon, josh, reports