Tom and I haven’t been back to our home LGS in nearly six months. We’ve had a busy summer full of absolute chaos. In addition, there were a few problematic aspects of our LGS that we didn’t know what to do with and weren’t aware had since been resolved. In the meantime, we pub crawled between several other shops. We wandered as desert nomads, selling our wares and completing trades with those we met along our journey. During this time, we greatly identified with The Littlest Hobo because, we too had no home.
“Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on,” we sang.
Alright, I know. I’m being a bit dramatic here. I couldn’t help myself.
We still enjoy the locations we found and will absolutely be back to them, but ultimately decided it was time to finally return home.
Now wizened and with more experience under our belts, we prepared for our glorious reestablishment.
What better way to show off all we had learned in our time away than with Dominaria United/Jumpstart, we thought. Spoiler alert: It turns out that there are many better ways.
We were hard pressed to get any of the Commander players to take part in our Jumpstart shenanigans. It ended up just being a four person event between Tom, myself, the store owner, and a store employee.
On the one hand – awkward. On the other hand – sweet that they participated just so that we could do the event. The other people there later claimed that they had wanted to do the event but didn’t know it was happening because they were so enamored with their games. You snooze, you lose, suckers.
…Except I lost regardless.
The problem that I’ve been having in Dominaria United Limited is that if you don’t get enough (or in my case – any) black cards, you’re pretty much done for. There doesn’t feel like there are enough answers in the other colours or as many big powerful crazy effects. However, let me know in the comments if you feel differently.
Jumpstart was no different of an experience for me.
I had my mono green (and later Izzet) butt handed to me in every single match. Luckily, the shop owner took mercy on us and offered up a Silverback Elder, a Shivan Devastator, Braids, Arisen Nightmare, some stained glass basic lands, and two additional unopened packs all for free. One of them contained a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. (I was more than happy to pass this over to Tom who had a deck that was begging for it. It also gave me an excuse not to look at art that made me dry heave. Keep your centipede body to yourself, Sheoldred.)
All in all, our prodigal return to our favourite LGS was bittersweet. We got around $70 worth of new fancies for our decks in exchange for a bit of damaged pride. Maybe we’re just being humbled into staying. If this is the case, it’s working. On the other hand, it could be a gentle nudge to “get good”.
Whatever the situation might be, I’ll probably win the next one, right?
Nichole Bolas 