Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:34 pm
Okay, still working on the complete sideboard plan for RWb burn. Culled some advice together and it now looks a lot better.
-1 Blood Crypt, +1 Boros Guildgate should help the list, white screw will lose you so many games.
I know it's a few pages late, but here is what I
learned about going to large magic tournaments:
1. Bring drinks and food. For food, it should absolutely be something that you want to eat. I wouldn't focus on it being a special healthy snack, as long as it's something you're going to want to munch on during the day. For drinks, I prefer to drink Gatorade or something that replenishes electrolytes, you're going to be their for hours and hours anyway and you'll likely have traveled to be there so you want to refuel your body. A buddy from my LGS drinks coconut milk with him for the same reason. (In WW2, they used to give Soldiers transfusions of coconut milk.)
2. Keep track of life totals on paper and verbally announce all life total changes. The last thing you want is for you to think they are at 3 and dead to your bolt, but they forgot to write down their shock from an untapped land and are at 5.
3. Don't bring anything that you'd be sad if it got stolen. I leave my trade binder and EDH decks at home for all large tournaments. Also, wrap
your bags strap around your leg, chair leg, or both during each round. Be sure to keep your bag zipped closed, so that someone can't just reach in and grab a deck box.
4. My normal checklist of things to bring:
-Deck. (Most important thing, Can't play any magic without it.)
-Printed out decklist that has been double and triple checked. During deck registration, I just copy my list onto their paper instead of laying my deck out by hand.
-Pens and paper. Always bring extra pens, you may lose one or someone takes it to sign their match slip and steals it.
-DCI Card.
-Dice. I have a small clear plastic box that holds my dice, but I also put the dice box into another box so that if the lid comes off the dice box they wont spill in my bag.
-Extra card sleeves. The last thing you want is a broken sleeve that you can't fix.
5. Sideboard notes are free. Use them if you want.
6. Don't put any cards that aren't in your deck in your deckbox. (Except official or non-MTG token cards.) I used to use a
non-standard Foil MTG card in a different color sleeve as a separator, now I used a sleeved fire energy from the Pokemon TCG to not cause any confusion.
7. If anything seems sketchy or you don't understand something; call a Judge. They'll resolve the issue. Never trust your opponent on a rules question, they have their best interest in mind and not yours. Also, ask the Judge for time back on the slip after their judge call. Some calls can be complicated and take several minutes and while judges are supposed to give you time back, they sometimes forget to do so.
8. Always double, triple, quadruple check the match results slip before you sign it. The last thing you want is to win and then find out that the slip was filled out wrong so that you lost the match.
9. Play the whole tournament. Even if you're dead with a 1-4-2 record, I'd still play out the rest of the rounds. Big tournaments require a lot of decisions to be made over many hours, people start to get sloppy in the later rounds and that
is where mistakes will really cost you. You need to be mentally tough for a whole day of games, the best way to get that way is just to play in lots of large events; you could also consider staging mock tournaments with an IRL playgroup that goes on for 10 or more rounds. (I also find playing in the dead bracket to be enjoyable; you're playing against people who love the game and love to play. The X-2 sharks left long ago and your opponent wont be salty after you beat them.)
10. If you play any formats besides standard, I'd recommend checking out one of the vendors bargain boxes. These usually have very worn cards, but at rock bottom prices. I can't tell you how much EDH and casual gold I've dug out of these. It's a good way to pass the time between rounds as well.
11. Use the restroom whenever you have a chance to even if you don't have to go that badly. Sometimes multiple rounds in a row go long and you wont have a good opportunity to go. I also don't want to be in a rush in these situations,
so I'd hate to accidentally get a game loss because I was in the restroom when the new round started.
-1 Blood Crypt, +1 Boros Guildgate should help the list, white screw will lose you so many games.
learned about going to large magic tournaments:
1. Bring drinks and food. For food, it should absolutely be something that you want to eat. I wouldn't focus on it being a special healthy snack, as long as it's something you're going to want to munch on during the day. For drinks, I prefer to drink Gatorade or something that replenishes electrolytes, you're going to be their for hours and hours anyway and you'll likely have traveled to be there so you want to refuel your body. A buddy from my LGS drinks coconut milk with him for the same reason. (In WW2, they used to give Soldiers transfusions of coconut milk.)
2. Keep track of life totals on paper and verbally announce all life total changes. The last thing you want is for you to think they are at 3 and dead to your bolt, but they forgot to write down their shock from an untapped land and are at 5.
3. Don't bring anything that you'd be sad if it got stolen. I leave my trade binder and EDH decks at home for all large tournaments. Also, wrap
your bags strap around your leg, chair leg, or both during each round. Be sure to keep your bag zipped closed, so that someone can't just reach in and grab a deck box.
4. My normal checklist of things to bring:
-Deck. (Most important thing, Can't play any magic without it.)
-Printed out decklist that has been double and triple checked. During deck registration, I just copy my list onto their paper instead of laying my deck out by hand.
-Pens and paper. Always bring extra pens, you may lose one or someone takes it to sign their match slip and steals it.
-DCI Card.
-Dice. I have a small clear plastic box that holds my dice, but I also put the dice box into another box so that if the lid comes off the dice box they wont spill in my bag.
-Extra card sleeves. The last thing you want is a broken sleeve that you can't fix.
5. Sideboard notes are free. Use them if you want.
6. Don't put any cards that aren't in your deck in your deckbox. (Except official or non-MTG token cards.) I used to use a
non-standard Foil MTG card in a different color sleeve as a separator, now I used a sleeved fire energy from the Pokemon TCG to not cause any confusion.
7. If anything seems sketchy or you don't understand something; call a Judge. They'll resolve the issue. Never trust your opponent on a rules question, they have their best interest in mind and not yours. Also, ask the Judge for time back on the slip after their judge call. Some calls can be complicated and take several minutes and while judges are supposed to give you time back, they sometimes forget to do so.
8. Always double, triple, quadruple check the match results slip before you sign it. The last thing you want is to win and then find out that the slip was filled out wrong so that you lost the match.
9. Play the whole tournament. Even if you're dead with a 1-4-2 record, I'd still play out the rest of the rounds. Big tournaments require a lot of decisions to be made over many hours, people start to get sloppy in the later rounds and that
is where mistakes will really cost you. You need to be mentally tough for a whole day of games, the best way to get that way is just to play in lots of large events; you could also consider staging mock tournaments with an IRL playgroup that goes on for 10 or more rounds. (I also find playing in the dead bracket to be enjoyable; you're playing against people who love the game and love to play. The X-2 sharks left long ago and your opponent wont be salty after you beat them.)
10. If you play any formats besides standard, I'd recommend checking out one of the vendors bargain boxes. These usually have very worn cards, but at rock bottom prices. I can't tell you how much EDH and casual gold I've dug out of these. It's a good way to pass the time between rounds as well.
11. Use the restroom whenever you have a chance to even if you don't have to go that badly. Sometimes multiple rounds in a row go long and you wont have a good opportunity to go. I also don't want to be in a rush in these situations,
so I'd hate to accidentally get a game loss because I was in the restroom when the new round started.
has me convinced about running the extra Temples 
Awesome!