Not your average Comic Book Shoppe...

Stay awhile, stay forever!

Welcome back to another weekly installment  of the EDH in Ottawa blog! This week we’ll take a closer look at the Commander tournament scene in Ottawa, the thriving Commander tournament scene, I should say, and its roots and location.

It all started a long, long time ago when former Toronto resident James Larking made his way to the arctic wastes here in the National Capital. More precisely, it was in April 2010 that James met Stéphane Bisson at a draft at Comic Book Shoppe (CBS) where they had a game or two of EDH and it grew from there. In tournament organizer Gilles Labelle’s own words:

“James Larking had just moved to Ottawa and he had been playing the EDH format in Toronto. When he was at the Comic Book Shoppe for a draft he ran into Stephane Bisson who also happened to have an EDH deck. They played some games, but in the end there was no one else playing the format. Most people hadn’t even heard of it. This was around the release date for Rise of the Eldrazi.
“So I got together with James since we’d been best friends since the age of 13 and he showed me the format. I was playing his Wrexial deck. Immeadiately I was hooked. I started building my first deck, which was Lyzolda, and I had fun with that for a while before moving on to another general.
“One of the store employees noticed us getting together at the back of the store every week and suggested the idea of tournaments (CBS had only just started getting into magic seriously). And thus EDH tournaments were born. For the first six to eight months our turnouts were four to six people at most but we fired anyways, and gave packs out for prizes. I think most people would have given up with those kinds of numbers, but we stuck it out, and we’ve come a long way since.”

Have we ever. Turnouts for 1 v 1 events are 30+ people and the Gauntlet (more on this later...) draws close to 40 as well. That’s not even counting the other events like CMT, where EDH tournaments are held, Game Breakers and any other tournaments. But let’s zoom in on the Comic Book Shoppe itself...

Nestled right downtown on Bank Street, a stone’s throw from amenities such as Tim Hortons, Gabriel Pizza and various banking and clothing outlets, Comic Book Shoppe’s unassuming facade would never lead one to believe that zaniness of the highest order lay beyond that glass door. But don’t take my word for it, here are a few shots of the area, all courtesy of The Comic Book Shoppe on Facebook. Rob Spitall, co-owner at CBS, was quite amiable and added: "We have been around 14 years on Bank St. and I am very thankful for the help and support our clientele have given us over the years." As are customers at the great niche store, I'm sure.

Some of the funky items on sale...including a “Batman” shirt...baseball enthusiasts rejoice!

 

A different assortment of snacks, a nice change from the chips/chocolate and soda gamer mix.

 

The gaming area. Do NOT sit in Vince’s chair. Just don’t...please?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but words alone will never do justice to CBS staff. Imagine you were a shop owner that had a steady stream of customers, a happy eclectic bunch, but once a week dozens of card-slinging geek heroes gathered joyously in the confines of your store.  Now imagine if you’re Gilles Labelle and Vincent Laplante and you have to herd the cats into their proper seating areas, call the matchups while an incessant thrumming of Magic lingo drowns you out until you use the “Big Boy Voice”, all the while answering questions about the game like: “Is punching someone in the face when they cast Decree of Annihilation a state-based effect, does it go on the stack or can it be countered by running down Bank Street?” CBS staff including its many Tournament Organizers should take a bow because without them and their patience we’d be playing somewhere else at the moment.

But all that aside, why should one go to CBS? What kind of crowd gathers for the EDH events (which start at Noon sharp on Sundays, so be there at 11:30 at the very least) and what’s in it for you, the gamer looking to take that step into competitive EDH? Well, you should go to CBS because it’s one of the most inclusive stores out there. Like the Lady says, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, if you’re a boy or a girl, you can let your inner geek go wild with your 100-card stack. You’ll find all age ranges, all occupations and all tastes here working toward a common goal: crushing the living bajeezus out of the other people at the table. And hey, they let me come back so it can’t be that bad can it?

As for what you have to gain? How about the respect of your peers, the enmity of your fellow EDH players or the adulation of dozens, if not hundreds, of fellow gamers? Still not enough? How about Shoppe Bucks? Potentially lots of Shoppe bucks? Each person’s $5 entry to the tournaments is put into a pool of store credit that can be used toward entry into future events, Magic cards, comics, anything in the store that you might desire (within reasonable limits, of course).  At the end of each event, the top players receive a split of the pool while the rest of us tweak or decks so that we can win...the Gauntlet!

The Gauntlet, and why it may be the best mix of multiplayer and competitive EDH you’ll ever see!

A while back, demand grew for a multiplayer event to complement the steady flow of 1 v 1 play. Gilles Labelle got on Facebook, started surveying people for ideas and came up with a three-tier tournament with its own ruleset and challenges.  All games follow the standard EDH banned list, found on www.mtgcommander.net.

The first part is a four player multiplayer game with a few tweaks. You get one point for every player you eliminate and one point for being last person standing. You can’t concede or you’re dropped from the rest of the event and you can’t “suicide” (IE Going to 0 from Necropotence) or future rounds are out as well. While you can infinite combo the table, you only get the one point and no additional points for individual player kills. The point system leads to some nice jockeying for position, since while you might not want your rival to win, you’ll need their help to finish off that pesky Edric player. Do you allow them to get a kill only to mop up the table, or do you overextend to get a clean sweep, leaving you vulnerable to a return strike? Fun problems to have!

The second part is a 2 v 2 event. Teammates are seated diagonally from each other and if they want their partner to know what they’re playing they need to reveal it to the whole table. And this is where I confess (as promised) how I punted the last 2 v 2 for my poor partner Billy Wray. A terrible mulligan decision at the very start cost us the match. I had a Path to Exile, a few non-white producing lands and fatties and a Sylvan Library in hand. Of course, anyone worth their salt keeps the Path, maybe the Sylvan and a few lands and chucks the rest. But no, of course not! Why would I ever need a one mana spot removal spell in EDH? My gracious and skilled partner Billy Wray also had to mull down to five, so we were in dire straits to begin with, and all the more so when Greg Tierney dropped an early Serra Ascendant and a few other beaters that we struggled to keep at bay. Eventually I did draw into a Blazing Archon, which sadly did nothing to help Mr. Wray and we were roadkill a few turns later. So yeah, next week, keep the broken spot removal and stop being bad at this game.

The last part of the Gauntlet is a 1 v 1 event and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have yet another catastrophic tale of implosion in a Magic game. Seated in front of me is the somewhat wild-eyed but quite pleasant Abhay Mehta on Balthor the Defiled and accompanying endless graveyard shenanigans. A spectator notes “Game 2?” as Abhay drops Swamp, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and turn two Grave Titan.

I frantically hope for Terminus but alas none is coming and we move on to game two, another sterling effort by Mr. Mehta as board wipes are answered by Balthor recursion and...the end. Still a fun time though!

At the end of the gruelling competition comes prize distribution, handled by Vincent and Gilles and Vince’s awesome scorekeeping program. Once that’s done, we disperse home or to Gabriel’s Pizza for more Magic and tall tales.

All in all a whole lot of fun for the price of a Magic booster back, a little time and a lot of cooperation and patience from CBS staff and our valiant TOs, Gilles and Vince. So if you’re bored one Sunday and looking to improve your EDH skills, hop onto Facebook and check out the Magic the Gathering in Ottawa or MTGOttawa pages for event information, or just drop by! There should almost always be a game going on!

See you at the Gauntlet next Sunday, so that blog update late Sunday or early Monday!

Until then, may your Gauntlet rounds never go to time.

Upcoming EDH events:

Comic Book Shoppe: The Gauntlet 25/8/13, Noon start (11:00-11:45 registration), $5 entry.

Game Breakers: 1 v 1 22/8/13  , 6 p.m. $5 entry.

Wizard's Tower: Casual EDH  24/8/13 starting around noon.