I haven’t done yet with my writeup on my Grand Prix Hong Kong tournament experience last year and here I am again announcing that I will be going back again this September of 2018. The confirmation was earlier than expected, but a big thanks to Piso fares for airline tickets

I was already planning beforehand since the announcement of the Grand Prix schedule for this year and luckily, I came upon Cebu Pacific’s Piso Fare sale last December after going home past midnight. I immediately checked the possible dates and booked the one with the lowest price possible. The total ticket price for the round trip was amounted to just P3k plus which is almost 50% off of the ticket I bought for last year’s HK trip. It was not all direct trip from Iloilo as I will be on connecting flight via Manila on the Thursday and will arrive in Hong Kong around 6pm that evening. Fortunately, the return trip is a direct flight so there would be little hassle for me and my baggage.

As for the Grand Prix tournament details, the format is Modern and so I started my preparations this month by first being familiar with the archetypes. The format is very well diverse as compared to Standard but it is a slightly changing metagame, with almost the same Tier 1 decks. That means I won’t be pressured to do regular play testing. Hoping the new organizers will be able to pull off a better event output and a cheaper registration fee than that of the previous one.

I have not decided yet of the side trips in the city but I am eyeing of going to Macau on a one-day trip. For the meantime, I was looking and browsing on travel blogs for reference and tips. Hoping my friends could also book the same schedule as mine.

Overall I am happy to be able to book my abroad trip this year as early as January and that I will have enough time to plan out my budget and day by day schedule.

That’s a wrap for now. Back to finishing my tournament report I guess.

Arriving early morning in Hong Kong on Friday, we are planning to rest in the airport until around 8am and then go directly to the GP venue at KITEC. The reason because the check-in at the apartment will still be around 3 in the afternoon so we can burn time by joining the events on the first day.

For early registrants, the organizer CL events have provided 50% discount vouchers for ODE (on-demand events) which we availed three as we registered before the end of August. JayR opted for a sealed Trial event as practice for the main event while my choice would be to play a Standard Trial or maybe join him in the Sealed event.

My priority would be to choose which format is easier for me to get byes so I am considering Standard but then again the main event’s format is Sealed so I needed that additional as well. If time permit then maybe I can join both, we shall see on Friday.

I will secure my Standard deck this afternoon after office and I think I will be piloting Temur or Sultai Energy as it is one of the best decks in the current Standard metagame.

Until the next post.