I Didn't Strike Gold

     The night before the Gold Rush my Facebook status declared that I wouldn't join the tournament until my sideboard figured itself out. Since that didn't happen, I concluded that this wasn't the time for werewolves to shine. It just lacked...something. 

     On the day itself I showed up to cheer on my friends. It was like a reunion of sorts for a lot of us who hadn't seen each other for years. There were more than six hundred contestants and the Glorietta Five activity center was filled with cardslingers of all kinds. There were couples, high school teens, professional teams, and returnees to the game among the many in attendance. It was great to meet everyone again and we traded cards while they waited for the event to start. 

     Sure enough the pairings for the first round were posted and people began battling it out. I watched a match here and there, seeing how nervous most were as an indication of their serious intent to take down the whole thing. Matches became heated as the losses piled up and more people became dejected around the fourth round when three defeats guaranteed they wouldn't be coming back the next day to compete in the money rounds. I left at around that time confident that I had made the right decision not to play. Without a lot of practice and a deck that wasn't even close to being broken, I knew that there wasn't a decent chance of me winning fifty percent of my matches. The last idea I had for werewolves was to splash white or black for removal and disruption respectively but the mana-base was shaky and unfamiliar at best. Facing a sea of Rakdos, Selesnya, Bant, Junk, and Esper wasn't appealing to me, not with a red/green concoction made at the last minute. I preferred everything to be ready a day or two before a major tourney. 

     The second day of the Gold Rush was a bit of a letdown as the finals came down to one player conceding to the other. Both were pretty exhausted after thirteen rounds so it was understandable that they split the prize rather than dueling it out for another hour or two. Still, it would have been better if they had played the match. I wanted to find out if red-blue-white aggro would triumph over white-black-green reanimator. 

     It was six in the evening when we all trooped out of the Neutral Grounds Centris play area. We bade each other goodbye and vowed to meet at the next big tournament: Regran's 10k on the 29th. With two weeks to go, I just might finally decipher the shape and form of my werewolves.