... in which the Fool comes back from his Saturday reverie

I'm back from my game from last Saturday, and all I can say is, I'm now a big fan of Erik Josten, Atlas. I mean, I was never a fan of superheroes with "growing" as their only power, but after getting two victories due to this guy... Well, I had to pretty much rethink about what I thought of him.

Anyway, Saturday started out really slow. We were there early in the morning (before 11AM) hoping to join the first group of players, well it turned out that we were too late for the first group, but managed to slip into the second pod of players. Its just too bad that instead of playing as soon as we got there, we had to wait for over an hour, for no discernible reason...

When we did finally start opening the packs that were given to us, I saw that this kid had some incredible cards on his table. Damn, was I envious. But then, I had no choice in the matter, luck was in his favor, not mine, so I just opened my packs and assembled my deck as best I could.

My final record for the day was 2 wins, and 2 losses. Both wins came from the aforementioned Atlas, while both losses were mostly due to bad luck. I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to win on the last game, it was a really hard-fought game, but luck was on my side instead of my opponent, and I managed to win over him.

Its been two days since the event, and I can still feel the excitement that I felt since that day. I can't explain why, I just feel incredibly excited by the new set that came out (much more than the Green Lantern set that came out last May) that I really think that I'll be playing in the next major tournament that features the Avengers (of course, I've been saying that for the past expansion, and I still have to make a deck for Green Lantern).

But while the set itself has yet to come out, I'd rather content myself with subconscious deck-building. Besides, I think I'd best limit my excitement right now for the benefit of my cousin who's going to take the medical licensure exam soon. I at least will not be distracting him too much with his studies.

Anyway, after the pre-release tournament, I was really pumped-up to play in the planned Marvel Super-Hero RPG that my cousin was supposed to run for other people. I no longer had the misgivings that I had, I was primed to take on any and all obstacles, even if I was just going to be an assistant to my cousin. In my mind, I was a superhero, part of the largest superhero group in the world, and there was no problem that could not be solved by teamwork.

Don't ask me why I felt that way, I just did. I just felt like I was a part of a huge organization that time, despite the fact that I was not. Chalk it up to post-game adrenaline rush I guess.

Imagine my surprise when my cousin and I found out that there was nobody in the place. There was a low turnout of attendees (am I still using the right words? What the heck...) and the only people that were there were playing this card game called "Citadels" where the objective of the game is to complete 7 buildings.

My brain was still in hyper-superhero-mode then, but I kept quiet and watched the entire proceedings keeping myself in check. I was tempted to play a game, but the sheer boredom of having only 7 people in the place (5 of which were playing "Citadels") drove me to reconsider, and rush to get away from the place.

Of course, after we left, we went back to the Ortigas Area to grab some dinner and run the weekly Vs. Hobby League. Turns out that the usual people wanted to celebrate instead (one of them had his birthday within the week) and were pretty burned-out after playing in the morning. With nothing else left to do, we all went over to Dencio's and had a huge dinner, followed by heavy drinking (they drank, I didn't) while listening to the band. The band actually even invited the celebrant himself to play with them (he was initially asked to sing, but he refused opting to play percussion instead). I was tempted to sing in his place, but thankfully, I managed to refuse, I don't know how though.

The next day, with my weekly exam, I managed to get a higher score again (67 as compared to the previous week's 53) and was quite glad. I'll be checking the answer key tomorrow to see where I made my mistakes.

In the evening, we went out to watch Stealth with the family, and I was more interested in the trailers than in the movie itself. The movie had a pretty simple plot, and I didn't find myself exctied in any way during the movie. But my brother was amused as a significant part of the plot felt like a rehash of several missions from the "Ace Combat" game he so frequently plays.

Oh, my brother has been having a lot of fun with the Super Robot Wars game that I brought home last Friday. And while he's away for now, I'll be playing his games for the meantime... Hehehe.

And I managed to win a shirt, several EA cards, and two more packs as prizes last Saturday. I'll be wearing the shirt as soon as it dries, for a very special friend.