TheManaDrain at GenCon!

Brass Man

Are you going to Gen Con? are you a Mana Drainer?

Gen Con is coming this week! While there's no flagship Vintage event at GenCon this year, I know there's some Vintage Player/GenCon attendee crossover. I'll be going with group of players, and I'd love the chance to meet some TMD'ers - and I'm sure some TMD'ers would love the chance to meet each other!

Honestly I have zero idea how many TMD'ers will be attending GenCon (besides the group I'm going with), so I didn't want to make any plans without a sense of scale.

If there's only a handful of people, we can try to find a time that works to get dinner or lunch, if it's a larger response we can figure something else out, or split into smaller groups if there are logistics issues. If anyone has any better ideas, I'm open.

If you're interested in meeting up, getting some food, playing some games, vintage or otherwise, with me and/or some other TMD'ers, let me know in this thread. Feel free to message me here on TMD, or on facebook, or twitter.

GrandpaBelcher

I will be playing in the Friday 11 a.m. Vintage event (the one that doesn't conflict with dinner) and will play in the Saturday 11 a.m. Vintage Artist Constructed event. We should hang out.

I would definitely be interested in doing dinner some evening, even if we go to St. Elmo's or somewhere ridiculous. The only night I won't be able to is, I think, Friday.

nedleeds

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

Cambriel

Also heading in from Atlanta, arriving early Thursday morning. Planning to play as many vintage events as I'm able. Thursday is out because St. Elmo's, but Friday and Saturday should work.

thecravenone

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.

Cambriel

I was really impressed with Granite City last year. Their beer was great, and the prices were quite reasonable.

Weber Grill was Chili's at double the price.

Avoid the indian food truck. You don't want to me mid-round and have that hit you in the guts.

nedleeds

@thecravenone why do you own vintage cards? you don't come to champs, no EE. Do you just balefully stare at them? It's a chance to play vintage 4 times in 4 days. I hate you.

thecravenone

I'm scheduled for champs this year. EE conflicted with something local.

I don't like to play Magic at GenCon because I feel that 6 hours and $26 isn't a good use of my time at GenCon, where I can do a bunch of other things that I wouldn't be able to do anywhere else.

And don't worry, I'll be selling them soon.

nedleeds

@thecravenone if I could ever get any events during event registration maybe I would feel the same but every event with text has sold out in 4 seconds the past 3-4 years. Anyway, see you there. I am doing vintage three days, running an event Friday and dropping a fucking roll in the dealer hall.