It is barely a few weeks to go until the travel to the Grand Prix in Hong Kong this September and honestly up until now; I have not yet prepared or even planned my travel schedule and budget. That may be because I was used to that destination and it has already imprinted in my mind but it is safe to have notes on the things that you would do there along with the places to visit and its possible costs. By the way, the header image was taken last year at The Peak.

The good thing though is that I was able to pass through a few blog posts online with regards to traveling on a budget. The blog site, Travel Made Simple, has posted a few tips for travelers on a budget. I will just highlight a few that can be related to my current trip.

Pile of MTG Cards to be drafted in Day 2 of the GP

1. Making a Budget for the Major transportation – That would mean airfare ticket, bus travel from the airport to the hostel or bnb, etc. My booked plane ticket was a major bargain of a sale from Cebu Pacific so basically, that is already covered. The travel from the airport will probably via the A21 bus and I had purchased before an Octopus card that I will just reload again and swipe for the fare. The Peso to HKD conversion would probably my only problem as it is expected to be higher than last year.

2. Make a budget for the other transportation – Going to the tournament venue would just be via MTR and the convention center shuttle bus services so that won’t cost me much. As for the other destination after the GP, that would still be calculated via the distance from our hostel.

3. Make a budget for your accommodation – quoting, “Lodging can also be a big part of your budget depending on where you like to stay.” This is very true, even if I decided to stay in a cramped hostel room that would still cost me around P2000 per night which is a regular rate for a single occupant. Sigh. I will make sure to note my balance due to that hostel.

4. Make a budget for Food – While I might limit my food intakes during the tournament, the rest will cover the late night food trip destination with the perks. My breakfast and dinner option are the fast foods near the hostel, wherein they cost cheaper than that of the traditional restaurants there. Last time in our BnB stay, we cook our food in the kitchen and so we can estimate our budget on the ingredients.

Street food in Mongkok area.

5. Making a Budget for Activities – this one will take another huge cut in the overall budget. Going to tourist spots like Ocean Park and HK Disneyland will really cost you at the entrance and the amenities inside.

6. Making a Budget for GP Exclusive products – this one I have also highlighted because, in Grand Prix, they have guest artists of Magic cards which we can get our own copy signed and also buy their exclusive playmats. While my practice is buying on the last day as they usually sold it at a discount, which might change if I could not make it to Day 2.

The blog site also presented a travel budget example which mentioned the round-trip flights, nights of lodging, the entrance tickets for tourist spots, food budget, and public transportation ticket costs. They have also mentioned tracking your travel spending after the total budget cost has been made. I may allow a huge budget for this trip but it is safe to note the specific and forecasted cost of spending per day.

I will come up with a detailed travel schedule and cost once I coordinated my plans to my fellow MTG player Ramon and his family.

That is a wrap for now. Do note that making a realistic travel budget is an important part of planning your vacation and every detail of it.

Reference post: https://travel-made-simple.com/how-to-make-a-travel-budget/

I will be playing Humans in the coming Grand Prix Hong Kong 2018. On what would be the reason for that final deck choice is due to the presence of Combo archetypes in the Modern format. The deck is somewhat resilient in stopping off these decks from going off with their combo.

What my issue currently though is the time to review and playtest the matchups with the Tier 1 decks in the current metagame. I remembered the last time I played the decks was last April in a Friday Night Magic held at Critical Hit in Atria. A lot has changed especially in the recent major Modern tournaments. The last Pro Tour 25th Anniversary in which the format was Team Trios saw the emergence of the BRVine deck that has explosive openings. It somewhat has copied the speed of the Vengevine deck in Legacy at the time Survival of the Fittest was still legal. It is another deck that can overpower the Combo archetypes as well as the Humans deck. It would matter on the good sideboard setup.

As of this posting, I have just made a few viewing of the MTGO streams of the pros that are using the deck. I then have talked with Ramon to schedule a gauntlet playtest and a good thing is that we have agreed to have it this coming Saturday evening. DURP classes for the first semester is just starting and so there is still no hectic assignment and study of the report just yet.

I have also talked with the store owner of Nth Dimension to hold a Modern FNM on Friday though we are still gathering the participants.

I am hoping this weekend will be a productive playtest of the deck and also to learn a lot with the popular matchups. The final decklist to be posted soon.

Until the next post.