Op-Ed: Remembrance of Prereleases Past by Eric Smith
bdm | 05:41PM on Mon Jul 11 2011(New York area tournament goers should be well familiar with our local Level 3 judge Eric Smith who has been Head Judging Gray Matter Conventions events in this neck of the non-woods for the last decade and a half. With no large-scale prerelease to judge this weekend — due to the recent Organized Play changes that put such events in the hands of Local Game Stores and not Regional Tournament Organizers like Gray Matter Conventions — Eric found himself in a reflective mood and fired off this ode to big events.)
This past Saturday was the prerelease for Magic 2012. Prereleases are always fun events. Seeing the new cards and wondering how they are going to effect the various formats makes for an excellent opportunity to dream about the decks you want to build and getting a chance to play with the new cards themselves makes for a great way to spend a morning (and afternoon and evening…). Or so I have been told, at least. You see, for the last 14 or so years I haven’t been playing in prerelease events. Rather I have been helping to run them in and around the New York area. So last Saturday’s prerelease represents the end of an era for me and I have found myself waxing a bit nostalgic. And it got me to thinking about the first few prerelease events I worked and where they have taken me…. <Cue: Wayback machine>
I first moved to New York from North Carolina in August of 1997. In those days the name of the Magic game in New York was Neutral Ground, the store founded by Brian David-Marshall and associates. That same group of folks also founded Gray Matter Conventions, which is still around as a tournament organizer in the New York area. At the time I was not a certified judge, the letters in the DCI still meant something, and the prerelease events in New York were held at the New Yorker Hotel. Being new to the city the first big event that I attended was the Tempest prerelease that fall. It was a pretty big change from the events I had attended in North Carolina and I was excited to get a chance to meet the local New York community. I have to admit that I can’t remember how I did at the event, though I do remember getting passed a Cursed Scroll late in a draft and thinking that the card might turn out to be pretty good. Though I didn’t know it at the time I also made one of the most life changing decisions I have ever made at that prerelease. Namely I asked if I could help out as a volunteer. From my point of view I thought that it might be a good way to get to know the local players a bit better. And since I had been one of the go-to people for rules questions back in North Carolina I had been thinking for some time about becoming a certified judge, and this seemed like a good way to start that process. Plus I knew how may Scryb Sprites it took to block and kill a first striking Sengir Vampire (a question that remains as relevant today as it did back then….) so perhaps my fate was already decided. I am still not sure why they agreed to take me on that first weekend but the folks at Gray Matter have been paying for that mistake ever since…. Read the rest of this entry »
