Humor

"A, B, C. A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always be closing! ALWAYS. BE. CLOSING." - Blake, Glengarry Glen Ross

Alec Baldwin's profanity-laced speech as Blake in the film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross is one of the most famous 'motivational' speeches in movie history. In it, Blake threatens the workers at the real estate agency with termination if they fail to win one of the two prizes in the monthly sales contest. The winner of the sales contest gets a Cadillac El Dorado. Wanna see second prize?

A set of steak knives. Obviously a major step down from a Cadillac. Magic players have drawn a similar conclusion from 1-slot PTQs and Nationals Qualifiers. The tournaments are basically winner-take-all and the packs you get for losing in the finals? Might as well be some steak knives. And now, for the first time, I know the bitter taste of stainless steel.

On Saturday, I played in a Nationals Qualifier tournament at MuGu Games. 29 competitors braved the drive to deepest, darkest Everett to battle it out for one invitation to US Nationals 2011 at GenCon. I was battling with the venerable Caw-Blade and over 5 rounds, I beat U/W Venser Control, RUG, and Valakut, lost a match to Valakut, and drew into the top 8. A quarterfinals rematch against the Valakut player I lost to was on the horizon, but the good guys ended up triumphant. A mirror match with 2010 Worlds competitor Joe Bono was lined up in the semis, and although I played far too conservatively, I still managed to get the win and head to the finals. My opponent? Former contributor to this site and owner of more sets of steak knives than any other man I know, Greg Peloquin. What's one more set to add to the collection? Unfortunately, he wasn't willing to go so quietly (like he did in the Swiss playing RUG), and in the end, his Titans prevailed over my Hawks. (Let's see how many misguided football searches hit that phrase!) The king of steak knives had just given me a set. No coffee for me this week.