Fans,

Enjoy this great Deck Tech from Pro Tour: San Diego 2010 with Zvi!

Hey Top8Magicians,

I posted a Bonus Exercise in this week’s Limited Information <http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/li/64> and I wondered what you would do.

You’ve just drafted and constructed the following deck:

Zendikar Draft Deck

Main Deck 40 cards
10  Forest 1  Kazandu Refuge 7  Mountain 18 lands	1  Baloth Woodcrasher 1  Frontier Guide 1  Geyser Glider 2  Grazing Gladehart 1  Greenweaver Druid 1  Highland Berserker 1  Mold Shambler 1  Oran-Rief Recluse 1  Oran-Rief Survivalist 1  Shatterskull Giant 1  Territorial Baloth 1  Timbermaw Larva 1  Torch Slinger 1  Vastwood Gorger 15 creatures	1  Gigantiform 1  Harrow 2  Inferno Trap 1  Khalni Heart Expedition 1  Savage Silhouette 1  Vines of Vastwood 7 other spells

You sit down for your first match and draw this hand:

Forest, Mountain, Mountain, Khalni Heart Expedition, Territorial Baloth, Baloth Woodcrasher, Gigantiform

Do you keep this hand on the play? How about on the draw? Why?

XOXO,

Steve

Forget the buzz around Lotus Cobra and the rest of the Zendikar previews for a moment and read this fact sheet about how the SIXTEEN (!!!!!) Magic Online PTQs for Pro Tour San Diego are going to work. My The Week That Was column this week will include an interview with Digital Games Program Manager Michael Gills and MTGO superstar Brad FFfreaK Nelson. In the meanwhile you can check out all the details here.

Despite being at the tip-top of the standings throughout the closing rounds of Dutch Nationals, potential Hall of Famer Frank Karsten lost in the quarterfinals of this year’s Dutch Nationals. It was a missed an opportunity for the Netherlands bring the same star power to the Team Championships as the U.S., Brazil, and Japan. Kevin Grove is the Dutch National Champion, playing Cruel Control The team will also include; Niels Noorlander, who wwas playing Faeries; Tom van Lamoen, who was playing an exciting red-white control deck with Swans of Bryn Argoll and Baneslayer Angel; and Johnny Niemeijer, playing JundBlood, as the alternate.

Tom van Lamoen was the reigning champ from last year’s Dutch National team and earned that title on the back of another unusual, non-combo Swans deck. After virtually dissapearing from the Magic scene for a year he made the team again with another unexpected Swans deck. He has reportedly said it will be his last National team berth since his pet card will not be legal next year.

Tip of the hat to Sven Dijt of manamaze.com for the link to the coverage and the decklists, which I have copied here for your convenience, as well as the story about Tom’s Swans (no relation to Tom Swan).

Dutch Champion Kevin Grove

Cruel Control
Kevin Grove - Champion
2009 Dutch National Championship

3 Island
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Meadow
2 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
2 Flooded Grove
2 Cascade Bluffs
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Plumeveil
2 Shriekmaw
4 Mulldrifter
1 Reveillark
2 Cloudthresher
1 Essence Scatter
1 Agony Warp
3 Firespout
2 Makeshift Mannequin
4 Cryptic Command
2 Hallowed Burial
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Martial Coup
1 Pithing Needle
3 Jace Beleren
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Liliana Vess

Sideboard:
4 Great Sable Stag
4 Anathemancer
4 Volcanic Fallout
2 Runed Halo
1 Identity Crisis Read the rest of this entry »

The ballots for the fifth class of the Pro Tour Hall of Fame have gone out and 2009 is shaping up to be an interesting year as many people see this year’s crop of pros as a potential “catch-up” season for a handful of players like Steve OMS, Chris Pikula, Justin Gary, Scott Johns, William Jensen, Mark Justice, Mike Long, and a host of others.  Antoine Ruel and Kamiel Cornelissen are the only two people new to the ballot with numbers that leap off the page so there is clearly room for someone from year’s past to make a move. Here are all the players on this year’s ballot (which includes players still eligible from previous ballots). Read the rest of this entry »

Kazuya Mitamura may have won PT Honolulu but for the Constructed portion the winner was Jim Davis who went 9-1 with his cascade-based Jund deck. The Long Island, NY native wrote a tournament report for a local website about his unique approach to the format, which saw him choose to be on the draw in all the matches he won. In fact, the only Constructed match he lost was the last one when he veered from the script and chose to play first in the last game.

From his report:

The shocking revelation is that I chose to draw rather than play first. In fact, every single game in the constructed portion (save for game 3 round 16, which I will get to later) I was on the draw. This worked out very well because despite losing most of my die rolls in 10 rounds I was always exactly where I wanted to be as my opponents all chose to play.

Now, why draw? When I was first testing the deck Blightning was in the board, and it was simply devastating in the mirror. The deck has no card draw style card advantage, and needs its lands to get going, which means Blightning either stunted mana development brutally or spiked two big spells. This is huge because the way the deck is designed all of your spells have the card advantage built in, meaning most are in essence two spells in one. So if you discard two spells to Blightning you have discarded almost 4 spells of value.

With one or two more wins in Limited — a format that he has traditionally done well in — Jim could have easilly have made the Top 8 of this event and his decision to draw first would have been one of the most talked about in recent Magic history. Due to the split format his performance — and the decision that may have led to that performance — was buried in 33rd place in the final standings.

Fans,

Mike was just interviewed at Moxes, a Spain-based Magic website. Check out his interview:

http://www.moxes.com/2009/06/from-top-mike-flores.html

Best

Matt Wang

Interested in getting your hands on that alternate art foil Garruk? You’re going to have to download Duels of the Planeswalkers, which finally released yesterday for the Xbox (available through the Xbox Live Arcade). Scheduled to release yesterday morning, the game was not available for download until late last night (around 11:30pm EDT by my estimation) due to some technical snags on Microsoft’s part. Early buyers will receive a code which can be redeemed through the Wizard’s site for a limited edition Garruk.

For anyone who has the game already (or is thinking of getting it soon) there are two awesome events on the horizon: Game with Fame and Game with Developers

The Game with Fame event, scheduled for June 20th, will pit players to against these notable/notorious MTG figures:

Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering
Mike Turian, a Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Famer
Jon Finkel, a Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Hall of Famer
Gerry Thompson, Pro Tour player
Jamie Parke, Pro Tour Player
Brian Kibler, Pro Tour Player

Game with Fame will be followed up with the Game with Developers event, scheduled for June 27th. Players will be able to compete against 27 of the games designers, developers, and producers from Wizards of the Coast, Stainless Games, Microsoft and VMC.

I have been anxiously awaiting the Duels release since WotC announced the date a couple of weeks ago. Expect a review of the game early next week.

~WillPoP

PS: For anyone who isn’t on Twitter, check out this Russian site with some awesome looking M10 artwork. Notice anything interesting?

The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 3

The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 2