Previous thread because it doesn't show up in search
I won't be bringing any MtG stuff to GenCon other than EDH for the bar, stuff to get signed, and stuff to sell. I'll be happy to do some testing if anyone has a deck they want to test against and I'll be bringing at least one proxy deck.
As for meetups, I'm down for whatever.
@nedleeds said:
Coming in from Atlanta with 3 others, 2 of whom will likely play all the Vintage for Byes events. I'm planning on playing everyone but the Friday. Should be fun and interesting. Past few years with the expansion of the food trucks I've been eating a little more on the run. The sit down waits can be brutal now that Gencon is topping 65K.
This year they are rotating food trucks on a published schedule.
Here is the schedule link text
Personal opinion: DO NOT GO TO THE RAM - It's a brewpub with Warmachine shit on the walls and all the food rebranded to be Warmachine related. It's not worth the 60-90 minute wait to get a table for generic pub grub.
Getting outside the few-block-radius of GenCon certainly helps. Due to wacky alcohol laws, there's a ton of brewpubs downtown. The past few years, I've met up with a bunch of the Privateer Press staff and players at The Rock Bottom. Getting there before six-ish usually gets an immediate. They sell branded vacuum-insulated growlers for something like $25 (which, looking at amazon, isn't bad). If you refill a branded growler, they give you a discount. I'm borrowing one from someone who claims that it more than paid for itself in a single day last year.
On that note: There is no off-premise (ie, take home sealed containers) sale of alcohol in Indiana on Sunday. However, you can still get growlers at all the brewpubs. Be prepared.
The beer at the beer garden isn't bad. IDK what the rules on open containers are but last year I walked out of the beer garden with a full beer, past several cops on the street, into the convention center, past security, and into the vendor hall without anyone saying a word.
Even the food trucks end up with pretty insane waits after about 11:30. I had the Pierogi truck last year and it was solid. There's a stand I can't remember the name of and nothing on the list sticks out that was there last year - they do like chop suey bowls. If they're there again, give them a shot. It's a lot of food for very little money and they make the food in bulk, so the line is super short. There's also a coffee truck that comes highly recommended from /r/gencon .
The Pro Tour is this weekend. I wonder how many pros who now work with gaming companies will skip the PT. My schadenfreude is super excited for one other thing - this week is the DotA 2 International; a video game tournament with a purse nearly double that of The Masters. WotC claims MTG is a #top5eSport. Let's see how it fares against the biggest videogame tournament of the year.
