​Eternal Weekend NA 2023 Recap

Eternal Weekend NA 2023 Recap - Jeremy Pinter

Eternal Weekend has come and gone and I did not do a lot of winning; at least not on the battlefield. The saving grace for me was meeting nice opponents, getting to see old friends I haven’t seen in years, and spending nights going out for great dinners. Opportunities to play high stakes Legacy and Vintage are few and far between, so falling short is disheartening. However, I know I didn’t put in enough effort this time around so my result is not surprising. Four years ago I was able to top8 the Vintage event, but I was streaming regularly and getting my reps in person as well. With additional responsibilities at work, my “testing” comes a lot more in the form of watching streams/YouTube and theorycrafting in my head. As evidenced by my finish, that’s nowhere near good enough. I did feel more comfortable with Legacy because I’ve been able to get out to the Thursday night events at All Star, but I made some last minute adjustments to my sideboard that really hamstrung me in combo matchups.

For Vintage, I am blessed to have great friends that were able to lend me cards to play. Mike let me use his beautifully altered Power. Charlie chipped in with his Time Walk and Time Vault. Finally, when I foolishly decided to add Timetwister at the last minute, James came through with an early morning hand off. Last, but not least, travel mate Andrew loaned me a fourth Tundra.

Thursday was planned to be our travel day, so we could take it a little easier and not rush for the start of an event. Even though we had to stay outside Pittsburgh due to the Thursday Steelers game, we drove the extra 20 minutes to head to the site to pick up badges and save time in the morning.

I took a spin around the vendors looking for cool non-english cards. I stopped by RK Post’s booth to get some sweet tokens for my Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Forth Eorlingas!. After that we headed to dinner for some meatballs with my good friend Kiet.

As for the event itself on Friday, my lack of Vintage testing was pretty obvious due to how unrefined my deck choice was. After bouncing between a few ideas like Lurrus Control or Grixis Underworld Breach, I settled on a UW Tinker Combo shell.

Friday - Vintage with UW Tinker: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ey3oKJYkgE27-VQjOy031A

R1: LWW vs Esper Tinker

R2: WLL vs SqueeVine

R3: WLW vs Rhinos

R4: LL vs Doomsday

At 2-2 I could no longer make Top8, so I decided not to battle the rest of the rounds for min cash. Instead I went for a walk around Pittsburgh to blow off some steam and get my head right for the next day.

I went back to the event site and got some cards signed for teammate Matt, while I waited for the friend group to finish up. Then the four of us went to dinner at Fogo de Chao and finished the night with Milkshake factory after.

I felt ready for Saturday’s event and had visions in my head of making a deep run, but that’s why we play the games. I had seen recent RW Painter finishes swapping Thorn of Amethyst in place of Mindbreak Trap, so I made that change before I left home on Thursday. Turns out that I had multiple losses against combo holding a Thorn in my hand, waiting to play it. It definitely was frustrating, but I feel I played well in the games I had agency. Speaking of which, Round two I won the die roll and kept a great 7. Before I could get started my opponent stopped me and mentioned having “pre-game effects” as they dropped a Leyline of Anticipation into play… then proceeded to kill me before I took my turn. I did rally to win that match, but it was definitely a humbling feeling watching my opponent do whatever they wished.

Saturday - Legacy with Boros Painter: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/0Qbk302coE-2Syh5rNhW_A

R1: WLL vs Scapone PO

R2: LWW vs Belcher Storm

R3: WW vs Abzan Depths

R4: WW vs Lands

R5: LWL vs Oops

R6: LL vs 8Cast

Once I was out of contention I grabbed more signatures for teammate Matt, said goodbye to Kiet and Jake as they headed back to Virginia, then went for dinner at the bar across from Convention Center that has a notorious

milkshake. If the day before was a Milkshake Factory, then I guess this one is the weaponized version considering they called it the Peanut Butter BOMB:

Sunday was some pretty uneventful travel, but I was still glad to be home. Things didn't turn out the way I had hoped in Pittsburgh, but on the whole it was a good experience. Next time around I’m hoping we can rally a bigger crew to travel together because the camaraderie or ‘the gathering’ is truly what makes Magic great.