As someone who has played and been a vendor in numerous Grand Prix’s there are always certain things that come up. If you’re new to Grand Prix’s (or tournaments) this article will hopefully help prepare you for the gruelling 9+ rounds ahead of you.

1). Know your deck – Have your deck

Firstly, make sure you have your deck ready before the event whenever possible. As a vendor, if we had £1 for every person who asked us for an obscure common or uncommon, we could probably buy a Tarmogoyf! Vendors cannot bring 99% of commons and uncommons, especially the cheap ones on the off chance that they might sell one and make 50p, there just isn’t the room to bring everything. Cards like Ancient Stirrings or Serum Visions will be there but Pyroclasm, probably not. You don’t want to make all the effort to get to a GP only to have to change deck last minute.

This goes with the previous part but practice with your deck as much as possible before the tournament. Knowing your deck really well can be the difference between making day two or not. Enough people online have written about this so I don’t think I need to discuss it more, but practice like mad!

2). Bring food and drink where possible

Playing magic at tournament level is tiring and will make you very hungry and thirsty. This will affect your game over 9+ rounds, as well as your general happiness if you’re anything like me. I always bring a big bottle of water and some kind of snack or sandwich to an event. This not only saves time but also means that you don’t need to take out a loan to buy at the event.   It sounds small, it sounds silly but you will be glad you came prepared.

3). Only bring the essential bits of cardboard

These events are long. You will get tired and even the most vigilant people have been known to lose decks or worse, have them stolen. Now I know you’re probably a new player, so I don’t want to scare you with horror stories of people having things stolen at a Grand Prix’s, this is very rare and losing things out of tiredness is much more common. It’s worth being prepared, decide what you will be doing before you get there; just playing in the events? Don’t bring trades or minimal trades as you wont have the spare time. Want to do lots of trading? Only bring the decks you will play (Also, Check out my Trading Tips!). You get the point. As vendors we occasionally get people ask us if anyone has sold us their deck or folder because they lost it and trust me, you don’t want to be that person, so travel light.

4). Have what you need plus spare sleeves

If your deck uses lots of dice or tokens, bring them. But more importantly bring spare sleeves especially if at a limited Grand Prix. This saves so much time and money because when one breaks you can replace it with another of the same type. If you don’t bring any then you could be buying 100 new ones of a different colour and trying to sleeve up a whole deck in 5 minutes before a round starts.

5). Relax

Many new players get stressed and put off their game at smaller tournaments, this then goes catastrophic at a Grand Prix that can be several thousand players. Try to remember a Grand Prix is just like 9 regular games of magic in a row. The people aren’t way better than you because they also didn’t practice or get any sleep, and you will be fine. Most people at tournaments are really friendly so try to view it as a fun experience and you will have a much better time.

6). Book hotels and flights in advance

Every Grand Prix I have been to, every single one has had someone who didn’t sort anything out until the last minute and had to pay hundreds extra to book things late. This one seems fairly self explanatory but I figured I’d mention it as it happens every time.

And lastly always remember to have fun, if you plan on attending any of the GP’s that Troll Trader are vending then feel free to come and say hi, we will always be friendly and help out where we can.