It really sucks that they moved GP Charleston to November. Not only is it the weekend before Thanksgiving (making traveling expensive) but November weather is not really that great in Charleston. It should have been left in September when people might actually want to come here for more than just Magic.
At least we still have some of the best food in the nation...
My local gaming store has several cases of Counterpunch at retail cost. I can purchase them for people if needed (with a very small cut for myself). PMs.
I thought this deck was pretty darn solid. First game I get the guy to like 7 life, both boards fairly clogged (he had a lot of fliers), he had zero cards in hand and I have 5 lands in hand with 5 on the board, no other cards in hand. I attack all in, he blocks, is left at 2 life and I have 4 creatures all flying except one Skaab. He has one creature left. Untaps, draws Olivia, plays Olivia. I attack in again, get him to 1 life, he then proceeds to clear my board while I draw nothing and takes control of my Skaab. Awesome.
Game 2 he plays turn 4 Olivia and the only removal I have is Bonds of Faith so she can't attack but is still able to keep my board clear. His deck wasn't very good overall (but very good at stalling); I lost to a combo of a stupid Limited bomb and mana flood.
He finished second place. I read another tournament report from last month and the pilot only ran 4 Turnabout and 4 Time Spiral (all 8 mainboard). Judging by both of their performances, it seems extremely doable. Considering their results, they're both doing something right.
Eric Becker (the guy who piloted High Tide to 2nd last night) is a friend of mine here in Charleston. The thing about him is that he is an extremely talented combo player. He was very well known as a Type 1 player, especially in the midwestern US. His card choices were made for him as a player, not for the deck's archetype. I wouldn't necessarily take any of his card choices and just say they are "doable" if you aren't to his caliber of play.
I think Paii means they are at their highest when they are first released...at the technical "pre-release". They quickly dip after the actual release then even out a couple of weeks later.
It depends on the situation. If the guy was slowplaying the entire match then I would feel fine timing him out on purpose and keeping all of the packs. If he is going to be a dick playing slow for his full 25 minutes then I feel fine being one back.
If he was playing at a reasonable pace the whole match and his clock ran out because your decks were about even or that's just how the games came out (you stalled, slow creature progression on both sides, etc.) then you should have let him have his win.
Knowing players on MTGO, though, I'd say he was probably playing slowly until he saw he was in his last couple of minutes. I had someone get incredibly angry at me because I turtled game 3 against him to time him out. He was playing a Spider Spawning/Gnaw to the Bone flashback deck that made my killing him very difficult; game 1 I crushed him, game 2 I dealt over 80 damage to him but he was able to cast Gnaw at least 7 times. The entire time he was playing extremely slowly. Two minutes to decide blockers, 30 seconds to do end step, etc. Going into game three I had 12 minutes on my clock and he had just under 3 so I sided in every defensive card I had and played to not lose. I didn't do any unnecessary triggers I just made it so he couldn't kill me quickly.
And, I think it's plenty fair to point out deck list top-4's and top-8's when there are literally four different deck builds in a lot of the lists I presented (take a look again at the 2004 deck lists, for example). And then you look at the last pro tour and you have four decks that are almost exactly the same, against three decks that are almost exactly the same.
This is because teams of players come with very similar or identical decks. When the best players in the world are coming with decks tuned for a particular tournament then of course you will see top 8's with nearly identical decks. Teams like Channelfireball, etc. didn't really exist back during your "golden years".
I like that Wizards is tuning down combo-licious cards now. Remember how fun it was to prepare for a tournament only to play against Affinity every 3 games out of 4? Or going to turns every match against Mirari's Wake decks (both Cunning and Burning)? Oh wait, that wasn't fun at all.
Aside from super high level events let's list the decks that are viable right now: Delver, ramp (with or without Huntmaster), Spirits, Pod, mono-green, UB variants, RDW, and several other that are making showings. There is plenty of creativity in deck construction, I daresay as much as in Type 2 of any block from Urza to Kamigawa. The shift has only been from artifacts/enchantments to creatures which are more interactive.
If you can goldfish a deck as well as you could actually play it in a tournament then that deck is not fun to play against. Interaction is fun. Watching you play Solitaire is not.
As a Charleston player I'm happy to have one here again (I missed the one 6 years ago). Hopefully players travel out further than just the Colosseum and actually see parts of the city.
A LOT of people are at work or school where they can't view live streaming Magic tourneys. Tonight a lot are going to be at FNM. It isn't going to get the kind of coverage on a Friday that you might expect. Tomorrow, on the other hand, should have quite a few more viewers.
Anniversaries mark the end of the year of existence of something--the 20th anniversary is celebrated at the end of the 20th year.
That might be a cultural difference. In the US we celebrate the anniversary at the beginning of whatever year it is. Your 20 year anniversary is celebrated exactly 20 years later, not at the end of the 20th year.
Thanks to both of you. I had looked through the different official rules and didn't see anything regarding this so thought actual TOs would have insight.
As far as it being "good business"...this wouldn't be the first time this store does something to benefit only its regular players and discourage new ones from coming. Unfortunately they are holding the only local midnight prerelease...
Can TOs give registration "priority" to a certain subset of players if there is a limited amount of product?
The question comes because a local store in my area says they will have very limited stocks of ISD for the DKA prerelease and they will give their regular FNM players priority for playing in their DCI-sanctioned prerelease. I thought all sanctioned events must allow all eligible players to register on a first-come, first-serve basis and not discriminate based on store play history. To do otherwise seems (to me) to be a form of collusion.
I'm really surprised that, in times where you can just outright pay 14 tix to enter a draft, bot prices for current-set packs actually go higher than 4 tix.
Some people don't like to ever pay cash to play online and rely solely on their winnings/high dollar picks to play. Those people are (typically) the ones who pay the higher prices on bot boosters when they go above retail.
At least we still have some of the best food in the nation...
I'll second Grizzled Outcasts. Putting caricatures of each "major" ethnicity into one image to make it seem diverse makes for bad art.
1 Niblis of the Mist
2 Relentless Skaabs
1 Tower Geist
1 Chapel Geist
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Gallows Warden
1 Silverchase Fox
1 Slayer of the Wicked
1 Voiceless Spirit
1 Village Bell-Ringer
1 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Rebuke
1 Smite the Monstrous
1 Bonds of Faith
2 Saving Grasp
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Dissipate
1 Traveler's Amulet
1 Dead Wight
8 Island
8 Plains
I thought this deck was pretty darn solid. First game I get the guy to like 7 life, both boards fairly clogged (he had a lot of fliers), he had zero cards in hand and I have 5 lands in hand with 5 on the board, no other cards in hand. I attack all in, he blocks, is left at 2 life and I have 4 creatures all flying except one Skaab. He has one creature left. Untaps, draws Olivia, plays Olivia. I attack in again, get him to 1 life, he then proceeds to clear my board while I draw nothing and takes control of my Skaab. Awesome.
Game 2 he plays turn 4 Olivia and the only removal I have is Bonds of Faith so she can't attack but is still able to keep my board clear. His deck wasn't very good overall (but very good at stalling); I lost to a combo of a stupid Limited bomb and mana flood.
Eric Becker (the guy who piloted High Tide to 2nd last night) is a friend of mine here in Charleston. The thing about him is that he is an extremely talented combo player. He was very well known as a Type 1 player, especially in the midwestern US. His card choices were made for him as a player, not for the deck's archetype. I wouldn't necessarily take any of his card choices and just say they are "doable" if you aren't to his caliber of play.
If he was playing at a reasonable pace the whole match and his clock ran out because your decks were about even or that's just how the games came out (you stalled, slow creature progression on both sides, etc.) then you should have let him have his win.
Knowing players on MTGO, though, I'd say he was probably playing slowly until he saw he was in his last couple of minutes. I had someone get incredibly angry at me because I turtled game 3 against him to time him out. He was playing a Spider Spawning/Gnaw to the Bone flashback deck that made my killing him very difficult; game 1 I crushed him, game 2 I dealt over 80 damage to him but he was able to cast Gnaw at least 7 times. The entire time he was playing extremely slowly. Two minutes to decide blockers, 30 seconds to do end step, etc. Going into game three I had 12 minutes on my clock and he had just under 3 so I sided in every defensive card I had and played to not lose. I didn't do any unnecessary triggers I just made it so he couldn't kill me quickly.
This is because teams of players come with very similar or identical decks. When the best players in the world are coming with decks tuned for a particular tournament then of course you will see top 8's with nearly identical decks. Teams like Channelfireball, etc. didn't really exist back during your "golden years".
I like that Wizards is tuning down combo-licious cards now. Remember how fun it was to prepare for a tournament only to play against Affinity every 3 games out of 4? Or going to turns every match against Mirari's Wake decks (both Cunning and Burning)? Oh wait, that wasn't fun at all.
Aside from super high level events let's list the decks that are viable right now: Delver, ramp (with or without Huntmaster), Spirits, Pod, mono-green, UB variants, RDW, and several other that are making showings. There is plenty of creativity in deck construction, I daresay as much as in Type 2 of any block from Urza to Kamigawa. The shift has only been from artifacts/enchantments to creatures which are more interactive.
If you can goldfish a deck as well as you could actually play it in a tournament then that deck is not fun to play against. Interaction is fun. Watching you play Solitaire is not.
Charleston, SC is the only real Charleston. Besides, the following GP is in Philly so I really doubt they'd have 2 US GPs back to back that close.
That, and they've confirmed in several Twitter posts that it is, indeed, SC.
As a Charleston player I'm happy to have one here again (I missed the one 6 years ago). Hopefully players travel out further than just the Colosseum and actually see parts of the city.
That might be a cultural difference. In the US we celebrate the anniversary at the beginning of whatever year it is. Your 20 year anniversary is celebrated exactly 20 years later, not at the end of the 20th year.
As far as it being "good business"...this wouldn't be the first time this store does something to benefit only its regular players and discourage new ones from coming. Unfortunately they are holding the only local midnight prerelease...
Can TOs give registration "priority" to a certain subset of players if there is a limited amount of product?
The question comes because a local store in my area says they will have very limited stocks of ISD for the DKA prerelease and they will give their regular FNM players priority for playing in their DCI-sanctioned prerelease. I thought all sanctioned events must allow all eligible players to register on a first-come, first-serve basis and not discriminate based on store play history. To do otherwise seems (to me) to be a form of collusion.
Some people don't like to ever pay cash to play online and rely solely on their winnings/high dollar picks to play. Those people are (typically) the ones who pay the higher prices on bot boosters when they go above retail.