Grand Prix Post-Mortem
So none of the players I game with at Your Move or Pandemonium made it to day 2 of the Grand Prix. My team and the other team that had any shot at making it to day 2 lost in round 7 on the first day, making our records 4-3 and sticking us in 119th (them) and 120th place (us) - far enough out of top 64 contention that our breakers might have kept us out even if we'd won. One team among our local players actually went 5-2, but they took a match point penalty for mis-registering their decks and got paired down all day as a result, leaving them in 83rd place with miserable tiebreakers. The MA state champs did worst of all, dropping from the tournament after going 2-2-1 and ending in 198th place out of 345 teams. It should be noted that these rankings are almost a direct inversion of where these people place when we draft together.
Overall, I think that while working with a teammate can be enjoyable, two-headed giant is a miserable competitive format. Your card pool has a huge impact on whether you can win or not, the matches are swingy, consist of a single game and don't allow for sideboarding (and given how long they take, it's far too easy for cheaters to stall a game into a draw if they're losing), and those games are often are won and lost on the mulligan. Two of our opponents mulliganed badly and got crushed as a result of having one of their heads mana- or color-screwed for the entire game. While this obviously benefitted us, I prefer formats that allow players at least a chance to recover from mana screw or flood.
Anyway, props to my 2HG partner, Kevin, who kept us in several games when I was tired and on tilt, and was definitely an asset to the team. Slops to the facility owners who wouldn't rent any place in Boston to the Grand Prix's organizers for less than $25k, and forced us to go all the way out to Fitchburg to play. More moderate slops to the people at WotC who thought competitive 2HG was a good idea - we've tried it now, and it's not fun. It'd be nice if we could go back to three-person team formats from now on.
Overall, I think that while working with a teammate can be enjoyable, two-headed giant is a miserable competitive format. Your card pool has a huge impact on whether you can win or not, the matches are swingy, consist of a single game and don't allow for sideboarding (and given how long they take, it's far too easy for cheaters to stall a game into a draw if they're losing), and those games are often are won and lost on the mulligan. Two of our opponents mulliganed badly and got crushed as a result of having one of their heads mana- or color-screwed for the entire game. While this obviously benefitted us, I prefer formats that allow players at least a chance to recover from mana screw or flood.
Anyway, props to my 2HG partner, Kevin, who kept us in several games when I was tired and on tilt, and was definitely an asset to the team. Slops to the facility owners who wouldn't rent any place in Boston to the Grand Prix's organizers for less than $25k, and forced us to go all the way out to Fitchburg to play. More moderate slops to the people at WotC who thought competitive 2HG was a good idea - we've tried it now, and it's not fun. It'd be nice if we could go back to three-person team formats from now on.