Chapter 4: Game Day

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by _Ironclad_

by _Ironclad_

I walk into Blast Arcade with three boxes of trading cards. My brother, Anders, walks in behind me. The moment the door closes, Anders does the thing he does every time he comes, and I prepare my ears but he still destroys them.

"HOLA AMIGOS!"

Ow. Fuck.

Everyone playing card games stops what they're doing. They turn toward us. For a second they stop speaking. Then they see us and turn back to their games. Anders and I walk to the register and have Bo ring us up.

"We have Game Day today," he says.

"How much?" I ask.

"$10, but the snack and the drink aren't included. That's $5 extra." I look down at our money($20) and say no thanks.

"We'll just do the tournament today."

"Sounds good. That'll be $20." We hand him the money and he rings us up. "Here are your promos." Bo gives us a full-art card: Essence Extraction. The game we're playing is Magic: The Gathering. If you've ever played Magic, you'll know that Game Day promos are most likely not worth anything, although the art is AWESOME.

Sad.

I see James and walk over to him. "What're you playing today?"I ask.

"Green/Black Delirium," he says. For any of you that don't know, Delirium is an archetype- or a kind of deck- that plays in a certain way.

"The one with, like, one delirium card?"

"Yep."

Thirty minutes later, we start the tournament.

I start my first match against Anders, who, verrrry saltily, conceded both games. He was an asshole the rest of the day. Next, I was up against a little kid. I underestimated him at first but ended up winning the first game. He won the next two games and admitted to using his DAD's deck(Vampires). My final match was against Owen. I won the first game by pulling off an infinite combo, but then he went and won the last two games. That means I went 1-2. I ended up getting 8th place, which landed me a pack and a promo card, Cultivator of Blades.

Oh, and I got 8th place--

Out of ten people.

God DAMMIT.