The following are random musings upon the experience for your reading pleasure. In no particular order...
1) I am a pathetic fanboy. Just being in the same room with such well known MTG personalities was awesome. Famous players, pundits, writers, podcasters...amazing. I saw @AffinityForBlue and @OMGWTFBHJFTW (the two Joes behind the @YoMTGTaps podcast) who were providing the coverage for scglive:
Evan Erwin (@misterorange), the man behind The Magic Show, was in attendance, himself competing in the tournament:
And I got to meet John Medina (@mtgmetagame) in person finally, and watch him in action trading (with no less than Adam Styborski, AKA @the_stybs):
And (without photographic evidence to back it up), I also saw the winner of the Standard event, Gerry Thompson (@G3RRYT), another amazing player named Alex Bertoncini, and everyone's favorite MTGMom, Megan (@LifeOnAuto). To see so many people that I've only read tweets from, or seen on screen from tournament coverage, or heard on podcasts...it was just very, very cool.2) Medina is a pretty cool guy. It was great to talk to him, and he took a second to Tweet after we got done talking: "Just met @TheSundry in person! He's #Legit" So cool. I've gained a few followers today, and I'm sure some (if not all) I have him to thank for.
3) I wish I had known more about the atmosphere of the tournament so that I could have convinced my wife it would have been fine for my 10-year-old son "c-bass" to attend. He would have loved it, and we both would have loved teaming up in the 2-Headed Giant competition in the afternoon. SCG will be holding Open events in Baltimore twice later in the year (in June and again in October), and I may look into attending one of them with c-bass.
4) It was amazing to see so many people in one place to play this game that I (we) love so much. And from what I understand, the attendance yesterday was twice as much - I can't even imagine!
5) Related to the above, my advice for any who may want to attend for the purpose of entering side events: go the second day. I imagine that yesterday was INSANELY hectic with so many people in attendance.
6) I REALLY need to make a more concerted effort to get more playing of this game in. I spend a LOT of time sorting cards, pulling orders, etc - but nowhere near enough time playing. Maybe if it's even just going to Friday Night Magic more often, I need to get more in.
So, in all, although I was only there about an hour and a half, it was definitely worth heading down for.
