One of our motivations in starting the Elo Project was that we wanted to create a narrative of competitive MtG history. Sure there are individual tournament coverage pages (or uh…there were), but what if you want to look through the journey of one player—your favorite pro, yourself, whatever—and track their ups and downs through the years? What if you want to know whether Luis Scott-Vargas has ever beaten Paul Cheon in a high-level match? Or who has the best all-time win percentage in competitive sealed events? We wanted to create access to those stories, both the birds-eye-view aggregated history and the random snippets of personal history that might fall through the cracks without all of this data in one place.
A few years ago, Yukio Kozakai stumbled upon just the sort of story that we hoped to help people find. I didn’t see his beautifully written Twitter thread until a few weeks ago, and he very graciously gave me permission to translate the thread and post the story here. I hope I did his storytelling justice. <3
I was looking up my history on MtG Elo Project when I noticed something surprising, so I thought I'd write about it here. As briefly mentioned at GP Shizuoka 2017, I went 0-7 in my first pro tour, PT Amsterdam 2010.
I had gotten completely crushed in standard and then lost my first match of draft as well, and since I was in a seven-person pod, if I didn't win my next match I would forever carry the dubious accomplishment of not beating a single actual human in my first PT. Intent on avoiding that fate, I sat down at the table and started making small talk with the boy sitting across from me.
"I'm 0-6 so far at my first PT," he said. We were in the same boat. But that was nothing to celebrate: it just meant that about fifty minutes from now, one of us would forever bear that mark. Losing was not an option.
The format was M11, and I was playing a UW deck designed to block with defenders on the ground while attacking in the air, giving me an advantage over more ground-based decks. My opponent was playing a green-based deck designed to attack on the ground. Okay. We got this.
I start by deploying my two Walls of Frost to shore up the ground. The opponent plays a Juggernaut. A 5/3 against my 0/7s. Ground attacks: neutralized. When the Juggernaut—which must attack each turn—got into the red zone, I calmly moved one of my walls in to block.
The boy piped up. "No, this is Wall." I hesitated, not understanding. He pointed to Juggernaut's text box. Can't be blocked by walls. He then mercilessly played out his second Juggernaut. I couldn't believe it. My trusty 0/7 wall led me right into the 0-7 record.
When the match ended, my opponent beamed the world's biggest smile, bursting with the joy of winning his first PT match. I was obviously disappointed, but even so his joy was refreshing. I went to meet up with my friends, who immediately teased me "play 0-7s at the pro tour, go 0-7!", and it became just a funny story to share with friends and colleagues.
Back to today. Browsing the Elo Project, I was hit by a wave of deja vu at my opponent's name. Reid Duke. My eyes popped out of my head. I clicked through to his page. Sure enough, that was also his first pro tour.
To think that I was the first step (well, stepping stone) in the history of this amazing, hall of fame caliber player. The very first of his 341 pro tour victories. I guess if you play for long enough, this sort of thing is bound to happen. Maybe there's a reason I've kept telling the story of “No, this is Wall” all this time.
If I ever make it back to the PT, I think I'll ask him to sign Wall of Frost and Juggernaut for me. And I'll request that he say the line, one more time:
'No, this is Wall.'
~ Epilogue ~
A miraculous reunion in the day two draft pod at GP Bangkok 2019. Apparently he remembers what happened back then. We met in round 12 with the 3-0 on the line, and I got the victory that was nine years coming. Keep playing long enough, and these things really will happen.