GP DC and the quest for Gold

Recently I moved from my hometown and childhood home of Lanham, MD to Reston, VA so I could move in with my partner and be closer to work. Reston is OK, but it has the distinct advantage of being about 15 minutes away from the Dulles Expo Center, where they usually host the GPs they have in "DC".

I'm at the tail end of my quest for Gold, and I'm burned out like crazy, so I really appreciated getting to play an event without having to travel very far. I practiced as much as I could with the format - I played in two release events, did maybe 5 phantom drafts, and played maybe 5 sealed leagues on modo. I like both the sealed and the draft format a lot! When you draft and build the decks, it feels like you just got a bunch of packs as a gift or something and you're making decks to play with your friends at the lunch table. The synergies and interactions that are good also happen to be fun. I was very excited for the GP.

I needed 4 total points between DC and Seattle, so I was mostly just trying to make day 2. I tend to be pretty good at going 11-4 in any given GP, so if I could just go 11-4 twice in these two events I'd make Gold. My goal was to just make day 2.

The Main Event

This was the deck I opened.