Worlds as a Bystander
by Magnus Deck
Worlds was a really solid experience this year, even if you weren’t qualified. I was surprised by this considering I was nowhere near the points they had set to be able to participate, so I expected that I would end up mostly being bored outside of any chance I would get to be able to hang out with my friends. Normally, I'm not particularly drawn to side events, and have little to no interest in the prize wall cards, so if I'm not doing the main event… I usually feel there isn't a reason to be there. That was not the case this year, this year's Worlds was something special to me.
I went to Worlds with the sole intent of hanging out with some friends this year. I took paid time off, ended up with extra days off before and after, and was just gonna have a nice relaxing weekend where I didn't spend money outside of eating…. and boy was I wrong about that. The first night, the night before the event, I had my hangouts with my friends and I got to bunk with Marvin and Grant from Undefeated at Locals (both amazing people, so happy I got to get to know both of them even better). The next morning was interesting because I was curious about trying out the new Hero Too format, but first…. We had announcements from Levi for the year… and BOY OH BOY did I enjoy these announcements.
The announcements began simply, talking about organized play the following year, that they were improving prizing. The prize wall is gonna see improvements overall, via the addition of their new in-house IP Rebel Frontier, as well as the normal types of promos (though these seem to be better chosen now as well played cards), then custom event sleeves and deck boxes if you place above a certain threshold. They talked about Local Championships (LC) and Store Scrambles as well, for the first time ever, I actually cared about LC prizing. Both cards are super playable, and VERY beautiful to look at. Also if you win your LC you get a travel voucher alongside a round 1 bye in a majors and a Worlds invite, and a travel voucher based on player counts. Genuinely, I was impressed by the intent towards prizing and rewarding players for playing this game this year. They continued on with discussing their new IP more after showing a really solid and cool trailer they had made. Then there was the final announcement… the one that made me excited more than anything else and is something i’m saving up for…. That our final set next year is INVINCIBLE. All of these announcements did one thing for me, and that was make me more excited for this year AND next year.
Now let's move on to my experience at the Worlds event itself. I played Hero Too on day 1, I brought Erwin Smith, 13th Commander of the Survey Corps. That format was something I ended up enjoying a lot, I played three rounds, round 1 was against an All Might 3, piloted by Zach Richards. I went 1-2 that round… this was because in round 3 i asked him if i should do the funny build or the right build, he responded "you're here to have fun right?” and damn right i was…. I slammed my five diff foundation on turn 2 and checked a three… he proceeded to kill me the following turn. But I did have fun! Round 2 I paired into Shridhar H, who was running Midnight! We ended up tying 1-1, but we had a blast. I don't even remember how I won or how they won because I was more enjoying talking to them and just slinging cards back and forth. Finally I paired into Bailey F in round 3. He was super fun to play into and talk to as well, so unfortunately, I don't really remember our 1-1 tie games as much either… all in all though? Hero Too is a very fun format that lets me replay characters I won’t or can’t play in standard anymore. I'm going to use it to let me build out and bling out my favorite characters and just keep them built. It is a format I think I will always be down to play at any event if I scrub out, or have time to participate in.
Finally there was the prereleases for Godzilla Reign of Kaiju, both of these side events were super fun! I pulled Gigan in my first sealed pool and went 1-2 overall, but all my games were very close and just relied on me pulling one more attack or checking one more successfully. It was a blast! My second kit I played Hedorah, I also went 1-2 overall here for the same exact reason. This prerelease was BY AND FAR the best feeling we have had to date. Having the limited chaff actually have effects made the game feel explosive once they were online, in this set it was a combo of access to power tokens (sacrifice for plus 2 damage) and if your opponent has cycled effects…. Whoever cycled first…. Usually lost. That alone made it feel like different gameplans and approaches were VERY possible in sealed. And i wont forget that my friend Marvin pulled me my alt Mothra in his first kit…. Then pulled her chrome in the second… All of the alt arts are SO PRETTY this set…. (thank you for that Sean Donnan).
It also was a wonderful weekend I got to spend split between two teams…. and the friendships I have on both. I got to spend some time with Marvin, the guy who convinced me to go (how dare he do well in the main event). I got to spend a lot of time with Grant, Marvin’s brother, and I am so happy I got that time. Grant is an amazing guy and I'm happy I know him so much better. I spent time with Luna and Lena, who I met last year at the Atlanta regional. I got to meet Steven, Edgar, and Mike, and I wish I'd gotten to spend more time getting to know them better, but I'm happy I got to meet them. I spent a much smaller amount of time with my friends here in CwC, but it was really nice hanging out with Paul, Austin, Richard, Jordan, and Jett.
All in all this genuinely felt like a celebration to me, a celebration of both the game and the players. The path forward has me excited to continue playing this game. I felt like I was given a lot of reasons to stick around, or at least come back when I can. I expanded friendships, made new friends, and got to strengthen old ones. I finally have promos I look forward to having. I got to see two of my favorite people in this game do very well and get top 32 in the world this year (Congrats Paul and Marvin). It genuinely made me enjoy this game a lot more than I was prior to it. I genuinely recommend going to Worlds from here forwards, it was so enjoyable and I wish I was less scatter brained at big events like this so I could give more details. I hope to go to more events by next year, and I hope to meet a lot of you there!
