Invitational Update

Well we had us some weather on Friday and Saturday gave us - Sheffield twinned with Narnia! However, this did not blunt the enthusiasm of the participants for the invitation qualifier, 19 players for the standard portion and 12 for the modern gave us 8 new qualified competitors for the Invitational in October.  Before I put up the new revised list of those qualified I feel we should give a big virtual round of applause for the standard winner - Quinton Lip.  Quinton was unable to take part in last years invitational as he was not allowed to play magic at the time.  To see him back and come first was appreciated by all those present.  Congratulations to Ollie Frith for  coming second and earning himself a spot at the invitational.

I have no idea if they played this I just like the picture.

Before we look at the Modern section I need to mention the people in fifth, sixth and seventh place.  There were only 2 out of the 19 players who were already qualified so there was everything to play for.  However, this also meant that you needed to top 4 to earn the slot (unlike the modern but we will get to that in a bit).  Just outside the top 4 we had the following:

5) Lee Parker

6) Richard Fuller

7) Jimmy Wild

That's a pretty impressive line up there.  having played against Jimmy during the week I was pretty confident that he would top 4.  I expect to see these 3 names joining the list after the next qualifier in June.

4 of those playing in the Modern half of the tournament were already qualified which left the other 8 to battle it out for the 4 qualifying slots.  Following on from last weeks GP San Diego the first and second place went to Robert and myself playing Brian Kibler's Naya Aggro - such a sweet deck I just love it and so much fun to play, and thank you to Brian for tweeting Rob back to explain why we run Sword of Light and Shadow in the side board.  we both decided to include copies of blind obedience in the side board for Eggs and other aggro decks and the card was worth its weight in gold.  A special mention needs to go to Sean Crowley, who not only got mana flooded then mana screwed against me but just missed out of the qualifying slots by one place.  I am sure he will be there in June when we hold the next qualifier.

Apparently a really good sideboard card in Modern...

Speaking of the next qualifier I can now tell you that it will be on Saturday 22nd June 2013 with the same Standard/Modern mix of tournaments.  So here is the list of qualified participants:

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

With over half the places gone the next 2 slots will be awarded at the PTQ in just under 3 weeks as the winner and runner up also receive invites.

I'm going to be on a bit of a break as I am off to HUll on Wednesday and Mark Smith will be running Standard this Friday.  See you all after Easter.