Patriot Games

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Now the Dust has settled

Well that was quite a weekend.  3 Days of Modern Masters (MM) drafts with a fair smattering of Goyfs  opened.  It was a great, fun, format but I don't think I ever got the hang of it and there was too many cards that I went "Oh yeah I want one of those" to really draft properly.

Magic the Gathering is an arms race.  It doesn't matter which format you play; having the most efficient deck with a variety of win conditions and the best card advantage is always the way to go.  Modern Masters has enabled a few more players to get better in Modern by filling in the gaps in their modern collection.  Sadly I don't think it will make any more players play Modern as the cards will just become fantastic trade fodder to those who play standard to get more powerful weapons off of the people who already play Modern and wish to win their own personal arms race.

The most notable thing is that the modern staples NOT in MM have gone up in price as Internet traders are keen to sell the hardest to get cards at greater profit.

Now at $29.99...

On the subject of prices I think the whole Sheffield MTG community would like to say thank you to Jim Freeman and Paul Moore for giving us a great price point for the MM drafts.  Also a big thank you to Justin for coming in early on Friday and running the drafts for us on Friday and Saturday.  Experienced as I am with organised play I know that getting MTG players to do as they are told is slightly more difficult than herding cats.

This ones for you Justin!


 So MM has been and gone and M14 is not quite with us yet.  However the Sheffield Magic bus doesn't rest for a second as on Saturday 22nd June 2013 is the next Patriot Sheffield Invitational Qualifier.

Lets just have a quick recap of who is already on the list of people with invitations;

Robert Tinsley
Andrew Mather
Daniel Cocking
Andy Sims
Mike Boon
Patrick Bateman
John Roberts
James Brook
Diarmuid Verrier
Grzegorz Flis
Fabian Quinn
Stephen Kay
Richard Tinsley
Adam Pollard
Matt Cooper
Owen Debenham 
Matteo Orsini Jones
Steve McAleer
Joe Alexander
John Kay
Chris Parks
Michael Shillitoe
Alistair Kennedy
Andrew Munro
Quinton Lip
Oliver Frith
Ben Pearson
Jordan Woodward
Declan Jones
Lai Chi Yin
Dom Parker
Sam-Luca Rolf
Paul Calver
Luke Southworth


Another 8 places will be decided between the Standard and Swiss tournaments on Saturday 22nd June 2013, leaving only 18 places remaining to be filled.  For those of you who don't know how the Invitational Qualifiers work here is the break down:

There are 2 tournaments - Standard at 10:30 and Modern at 12:30, £5 entry with 2 boosters in the prize pool per person.  The top 4 from each event will earn themselves an Invite to the invitational in October 2013 and the chance to become members of the Steel City Patriots Team 2014.  

Invites will cascade down if those already qualified are in the top 4.  Hopefully I will be back next week if not sooner with more meandering insight into Magic the Gathering.

Random Cryptic Command picture...

FNM Relax will be pauper this week so I expect to see some of those MM commons turning up and the other FNM will be Standard and not block as previously advertised.