Do you like Pie?

As anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows I am a wrestling fan and used to play a card game called Raw Deal.  There was a card based on one of the Rock's catch phrases called "Do you like Pie?"  The card did exactly the same as Magic's Intuition from Tempest.  Allowing you to look for 3 cards keep one and 2 go in your graveyard.  The card could not be countered if played by the Rock.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and his eyebrow!

However, this is not about The Rock or his Pie but about a completely different pie - the Magic colour pie.

The above is a very posh representation of the colour pie but if you look at the back of a Magic card each one features the same thing in a more simple way:

Just in case you didn't know what those coloured dots on the back were...

Going right back to the beginning of Magic the colour pie was not as established as it is today and you had weird and wonderful things like Red counter spells and blue "pingers" (creatures/artifacts that tap to shoot you for X damage).  The colour pie is actually really clever and very simply shows the relationship of all the colour's to one another.

On each side of a colour are the 2 friendly colours to that colour and if you take all 3 together you get the popular 3 colour combinations which have the most synergy and also make up the various shards of Alara (more on that in a bit).  Opposite each colour are their enemy colours which make up the "wedge" colours they based the commander decks around a couple of years ago.  Some of these have catchy names based on the acronym of the colours that make them up.  So we have;

• RUG - Red, Blue, Green (Blue wedge).
• BUG - Black, Blue, Green (Green Wedge).
• Junk - Black, White, Green (Black Wedge).

Ok so Junk is not an acronym but that is what they call it.  Oh and it is also known as Rock... 

By now you should be familiar with the 2 colour identities Wizards came up with as they are the guilds from the original Ravnica block.  These are;

Azorius	UW (Blue/White).
Boros	RW (Red/White).
Dimir	UB (Blue/Black).
Golgari	BG (Black/Green).
Gruul	RG (Red/Green).
Izzet	UR (Blue/Red).
Orzov	BW (Black/White).
Rakdos	BR (Black/Red).
Selesnya	GW (Green/White).
Simic	UG (Blue/Green).

Blue is shown in abbreviations as "U" because black already had B.  20 Years ago single colour decks were far more popular than they are today partially because there was not the degree of mana fixing we now enjoy - only having 4 underground seas in your deck as your only duel lands wasn't great.

The most expensive of the original dual lands.

2 Colour decks have been covered pretty extensively recently as we are in the Return to Ravnica block at the moment.  So I wont bother to go into any more detail about that here.  

Magic has a habit of naming things based on the first thing to do a thing, this is why we call putting cards from your deck into your grave yard as "milling" after the card known as Millstone from Antiquities which did this as it's ability.

Mill you for two...

This is why we call the Ravnica lands "Shock" lands as Shock is a spell, originally from Stronghold,  which does 2 damage and so do the lands if they come in untapped.  This is especially true when it comes to the 3 colour deck archetypes given names as the Shards of Alara.

Each of the shards in the story line were devoid of 2 colours of mana and this allowed Wizards to create really strong identities for each shard and the names are still used by players 5 years later.  the 5 shards are:

Bant	UWG (Blue, White, Green)
Esper	UBW (Blue, Black, White
Grixis	UBR (Blue, Black, Red)
Jund	RBG (Red, Black, Green)
Naya	RWG (Red, White, Green)

These 5 make some of the most potent combinations in Magic and can be found throughout all formats.  Several of these are recognisable as top tier decks in current standard, with Naya Blitz and good old Jund making waves in the current meta.  Wizards did this Planes Explorer thing for the shards of Alara which can be found here.  It helps get the flavor and feel of each shard across.

As mentioned above certain of these colour combinations see play across formats so I would like to look at 3 deck lists, all of which are "Jund" but are notably different.  Here we have the popular standard Jund list:

4  Blood Crypt
3  Dragonskull Summit
3  Forest
2  Kessig Wolf Run
4  Overgrown Tomb
1  Rootbound Crag
4  Stomping Ground
4  Woodland Cemetery

25 lands

3  Arbor Elf
4  Huntmaster of the Fells
2  Olivia Voldaren
4  Thragtusk

13 creatures

2  Abrupt Decay
4  Bonfire of the Damned
1  Dreadbore
4  Farseek
1  Murder
2  Pillar of Flame
2  Rakdos's Return
1  Ultimate Price
17 other spells

2  Garruk, Primal Hunter
3  Liliana of the Veil

5 planeswalkers

Sideboard

2  Duress
2  Grafdigger's Cage
1  Murder
1  Olivia Voldaren
1  Pillar of Flame
1  Rakdos's Return
2  Staff of Nin
2  Strangleroot Geist
1  Tragic Slip
2  Underworld Connections

Now here we have a Modern Jund list after Bloodbraid Elf got itself banned:

1 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs

Lands (23)



3 Bloodhall Ooze
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Putrid Leech
4 Tarmogoyf

Creatures (21)

4 Liliana of the Veil

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
2 Blightning
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize

Spells (12)

Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Spellskite
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Burst Lightning
1 Dismember
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Molten Rain
2 Thoughtseize

And then we have Legacy "Punishing" Jund.  Please note that Legacy Jund has similar cards but they are notably better and it gets to play all the really cool stuff that has been banned in Modern (Like Bloodbraid Elf and Punishing Fire).

3 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Graven Cairns
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Lands (24)

4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf

Creatures (16)


3 Abrupt Decay
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Punishing Fire
2 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize

Spells (16)

4 Liliana of the Veil

Planewalker (4)

Sideboard

2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Sylvan Library
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Pyroblast
3 Duress

As you can see the term Jund refers to the colour combination rather than a specific set of cards.  I hope this explains what people mean when they talk about Bant and Esper from now on.

I'll be back next week with more blogs, till then keep turning those men sideways!

In development

Well that was quite a weekend.  2 Standard Grand Prix around the world, Steel City Magic and 2 headed giant in FNM.  An incredibly close finish to FNM saw Henry Hart and Tom Lewis first winning, then not winning, then winning again to take away 2 copies of the much desired Farseek promo ahead of myself and Mr Smith.  i can't remember a more exciting end to an FNM ever.

Great art work on a card that is seeing massive amounts of play.

Last September I bought you a personal 10 step plan to help you play better magic (see here).  The very first step, even before the golden rule of "Read the Cards!" is to be honest with yourself.  I referenced Sam Stoddard's article on Star City Games about making a fearless magic inventory (seriously if you have not read it already go read it here).  Part of making this inventory is to share it with your fellow Magic players to get help with being a better player.  I did  this over a year ago now and wanted to share my own inventory with you and look at how I have progressed in the last year or so.

Rich Tinsley's Magical Inventory (or what I do wrong when I play MTG!)

1. I don't always mulligan when I think I should and fear going to 5 or even 4 card hands.
   
   Well good news on this one - I took it by the horns and now mulligan those borderline hands about 80% of the time.  I have even gone down to 4 cards and still managed to win the game so this doesn't feel like a problem anymore.
2. I don't write life totals down and keep a proper track of my opponent's life total.
   
   I now always have a notebook for serious tournaments and use my handy MTG Familiar app on my phone at other times.  I think this one gets a tick too.
3. I don't always check to see what my opponent could do in response to my play (counter spell etc).
   
   Yeah, this is still a problem - I still tend to be far more focused on my game plan than I do what my opponent is/could do - loses me games, really need to work on this one.
4. I assume my mind can keep track of everything without any assistance.
   
   Less of a problem than it was thanks to the notebooks but still forget what is in hand etc sometimes.
5. I have a strong dislike of net decks and net decking.
   
   I am not keen on net decks.  I think they remove a key skill piece in playing cards and that is the ability to build decks.  Also I find that because Pro player A won a GP with this deck everyone copies it card for card and doesn't even try to develop the deck ideas around the meta.  Having said that I have surrendered to several net decks and even quite enjoyed playing one or two.  Generally, those that net deck need to brew more and those who exclusively brew need to net deck sometimes.  I don't think this will ever change.
   
6. I will rare draft when there is no prize support.
   
   I have actually got worse at this.  I will rare draft and then try and build a really good draft deck as well.  Worse of all sometimes it works and I feel vindicated.  Need to work on this one too.
7. I don't keep track of what I pass in draft so can accidentally pass cards I should not.
   
   Thanks to recognising that this was something I did wrong I have stopped doing it and have got much better at reading signals and not giving people immense cards for their deck by accident.
   
8. I play too fast and don't take the time to think things through.
   
   This one took a bit of work, but I finally have it licked.  In have got to the point where I even think 3 times about which land I should play to have the most impact on the game over the next 2 - 3 turns.  I feel this is no longer a problem, Relax has been really good for this as I often have to explain what the hell I'm doing.
   
9. I don't always check what cards do.
   
   I occasionally fall foul of the "Oh yeah that does X" when in fact it does "Y".  Generally though if I am even slightly unsure I apply rule number 2 - Read the Cards!
   
10. I tend to not take responsibility for my own errors.
    
    
    I hope this is one of the areas I have made the most progress.  Being able to go "yeah I screwed up" is very important if you want to get better.  Sometimes you get mana flooded/mana screwed but more often you keep a bad hand and get punished for it.  See number one...
    
    
11. I need to love Modern/Legacy and learn how to play them.
    
    I love modern and really enjoy playing it,so job sorted there.
    
    
    I have had a go at Legacy and it is not the format for me.  There is a certain amount of the more money I have the better I am at Magic cause I have all the cards.  However, Legacy takes this to an extreme - If you have plenty of money you can buy the best deck and win most of the time.  I also have a far deeper understanding of Legacy than I did have and also the same goes for Legacy players.  I really admire the passion that Legacy players have for their format but then I find that it is a real pain in the ass at the same time.  Legacy is not my cup of tea but I do recognise that it is a "thing" and that many people think it is just the best thing ever.  What I object to is Legacy players trying to embark on some kind of evangelical crusade to convert me to the true faith.  Some of us just want to play standard/modern/limited/extended - please piss off and leave us alone!
    
    
12. I am obsessed with Planeswalkers and want to play them in every deck.
    
    
    This one is sorted but I think it needs some explanation.  When I started to play Magic revised/unlimited was the core set.  You played against people who had Black Lotus and Moxes as a run of the mill thing.  Playing 4 balance in your deck was fine and my first limited tournament was for ante!
    
    
    One thing we didn't have was Planeswalkers.  I remember seeing Steve McAleer and Andy Mather playing EDH against one another and playing loads of planeswalkers against one another.  I was like wow these cards are so cool, and I didn't own any.  Having said that the first planeswalker I ever opened in a booster was Jace, the Mind Sculptor, so that was pretty sweet.  I have a pretty good collection of planeswalkrs now but they only ever make the cut if they really bring something to the whole shebang.
    
    
13. I need to build better EDH decks.
    Well I would say that this is a done deal.  Robert Tinsley would disagree.  However, we now have a standard rule added to the universe and that is "Never play EDH with a Hull player" as Rob counts as one of those we will ignore his input.
14. I don't need to play Eldrazi in every format.
    
    Well I have played Eldrazi in every format but tend to leave the tentacled beast in the box nowadays.  So I guess this is not really a thing anymore.
15. I need to write my decklists down.
    
    This too is sorted. I have a MTG notebook which is where I am getting all of these points from and is filled with deck lists.  Yet again FNM Relax really helped with this as I used to put my deck list up on the blog every week until people told me not too.
16. I need to proxy decks up and get a goo deck in each format.
    
    Well I have done this quite a lot since I wrote this.  When Mike Boon lived with me for 3 months last year we proxied up some crazy stuff and tried to break formats.  We failed but it was good fun.
17. Sometimes my pigheaded belief in "my build" is not enough.
    
    Yeah this is a thing.  I still find, even when I net deck, that lists do not suit me and my play style (if I have such a thing).  This tends to make me run things like a 1 of Vorapede in Jund and main board tragic slips in Aristocrats rather than Reckoners.  Sometimes I am right, and sometimes I am wrong.  Don't have a solution just yet.
18. Playing untested, unproven decks at big events is stupid.
    
    This reads like a statement but refers to me building a deck in my head on the way home the night before a nationals qualifier and then not doing very well.  I don't do this anymore.
19. I assume the outcome of some matches before I even draw a card.
    
    I guess that it was pure ego that took over when I did this in the past.  You just sit down and go "Yeah I have this guy beat" then 30 minutes later you go "What went wrong?"  I never underestimate people anymore.
20. Magic is not about emotion.
    
    I think this is the hardest part of all.  When you win you feel happy and when you lose you feel disappointed.  Sometimes you feel really annoyed, quite often at yourself.  I play my best Magic when I have a clear head and it is devoid of feeling about my opponent, my day, or any outside consideration.  In the end it is strictly business, its nothing personal.

I hope this is of help to people and inspires you to make your own Magic Inventory.  This Friday it is draft and the blog will be going back to basics and looking at why things are what they are in Magic.  See you then.

For Your Information

Ok, so no witty repartee or complicated puns this week.  Not even random celebrities that have nothing to do with the topic in hand other than they wandered into my mind while I was writing and I thought it would be cool type of thing.  Just the facts, man.

Firstly, as Spock says to McCoy, "Remember!"  Two weeks tomorrow it is the second invitational qualifier.  There will be two tournaments with a standard event at 10:30 and a Modern event starting at 12:30.  Entry to each will be £5 with 2 boosters into the prize pool for each participant.  The top 4 will each get an invite to the invitational in October as well as booster prizes.  If you are one of the people already qualified you are still more than welcome to come and play as the entries will cascade down to lower places if players in the top 4 have already qualified.  Here is the list of qualified players:

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

That means that more than 3rd of the places have already gone, so if your name is not on the list make sure you are there on 23rd March 2013.  If your name is on the list come along anyway as the slots will cascade down the rankings and £5 with 2 boosters in the pool is pretty sweet value.  If time allows we will probably draft the boosters afterwards.

Speaking of value I can reveal the cost for the Sheffield PTQ on April 13th 2013.  After much crunching of numbers by Jim and discussions on how we can do this for blah we have decided that we are going to go with a price of £15 with 3 boosters per head in the prize pool.  We decided that cost was more important than how many boxes of boosters we give away and wanted to encourage people to come and play.  we are working on a couple of other funky incentives to add value to the Sheffield PTQ experience but will  let you know about those shortly.

Today in Relax it is 2 headed giant (Standard) with promos going to the first team and the last team - in your effort to come last you are not allowed to scoop to your opponents!  

Also this weekend sees the return of Steel City on Sunday with the usual competitive standard tourney and a draft later in the afternoon.  Standard is £7 and draft £10 - considering the massive standard season we have looming this is a good time to come get your game on and try to win some boosters or store credit.

Its all happening at Patriot Games Sheffield in the next few weeks!

This has been a public information broadcast for the Magic Community of Sheffield.

See you later.

Standard formation.

This FNM its Standard in both tournaments.  There is an element of coincidence that we have a week of double standard just as we have the announcement of a standard PTQ in Sheffield on 13th April 2013 (if you missed it look here).  However, we are about to have a lot of standard going on all over the place; not only do we have a standard PTQ season which starts in the next couple of weeks but we also have 3 World Magic Cup Qualifiers (WMCQ) coming up too.

Move over Thragtusk - I got this...

For those who don't know about the WMCQs let me explain.  Wizards of the coast changed the way they do things last year and instead of a National Championship leading to the world championship we now have 3 World Cup qualifiers the winners of which join the top pro player from their country in forming a team to compete for the Magic World Cup (I hear there is something similar in football but my total lack of knowledge about football means I have to take other peoples word for it).  You need to have accumulated 300 planeswalker points in the year 2nd April 2012 - 17th March 2013 (I have 1225 so 300 is not too hard to do).  This year all those participating will get a foil alternate art promo in the form of the awesome Vengevine;

I love this card - my replacement for Bloodbraid Elf in Modern Jund.

Here are the dates and locations for this years WMCQs:

07th April 2013 - Dark Sphere (London).
21st April 2013 - Wargames Workshop (Milton Keynes)
02nd June 2013 - Fanboy3 (Manchester)

The London and Manchester WMCQ are double-header weekends with a PTQ on the Saturday and the WMCQ on the Sunday.  

As a result I will be organising a number of testing/practice sessions over the next few weeks to hone our decks and ideas ready for a hopefully memorable standard season.  The first of these sessions will be this Sunday at Patriot Games from 11am.  Here are some of the decks we will be testing/testing against;

Naya Agrro

4  Cavern of Souls

1  Rootbound Crag

4  Sacred Foundry

4  Stomping Ground

3  Sunpetal Grove

4  Temple Garden

20 lands

4  Boros Elite

4  Burning-Tree Emissary

4  Champion of the Parish

4  Experiment One

4  Flinthoof Boar

4  Frontline Medic

1  Ghor-Clan Rampager

4  Lightning Mauler

4  Mayor of Avabruck

33 creatures

3  Giant Growth

4  Searing Spear

7 other spells

Sideboard

3  Boros Charm

2  Fiend Hunter

2  Gruul Charm

2  Nearheath Pilgrim

3  Pacifism

3  Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Free men are good right?

Arbor Jund

4  Blood Crypt

3  Dragonskull Summit

3  Forest

2  Kessig Wolf Run

4  Overgrown Tomb

1  Rootbound Crag

4  Stomping Ground

4  Woodland Cemetery

25 lands

3  Arbor Elf

4  Huntmaster of the Fells

2  Olivia Voldaren

4  Thragtusk

13 creatures

2  Abrupt Decay

4  Bonfire of the Damned

1  Dreadbore

4  Farseek

1  Murder

2  Pillar of Flame

2  Rakdos's Return

1  Ultimate Price

17 other spells

2  Garruk, Primal Hunter

3  Liliana of the Veil

5 planeswalkers

Sideboard

1  Devour Flesh

3  Duress

2  Grafdigger's Cage

1  Liliana of the Veil

1  Olivia Voldaren

2  Pillar of Flame

1  Rakdos's Return

2  Staff of Nin

2  Underworld Connections

So I hear turn 2 Liliana is a thing...

The Aristocrats

4  Blood Crypt

3  Cavern of Souls

1  Clifftop Retreat

4  Godless Shrine

4  Isolated Chapel

3  Plains

4  Sacred Foundry

1  Vault of the Archangel

24 lands

4  Boros Reckoner

4  Cartel Aristocrat

4  Champion of the Parish

4  Doomed Traveler

4  Falkenrath Aristocrat

3  Knight of Infamy

1  Restoration Angel

2  Silverblade Paladin

2  Skirsdag High Priest

2  Zealous Conscripts

30 creatures

2  Lingering Souls

4  Orzhov Charm

6 other spells

Sideboard

2  Blasphemous Act

2  Lingering Souls

1  Mentor of the Meek

2  Obzedat, Ghost Council

2  Rest in Peace

1  Skirsdag High Priest

2  Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

3  Tragic Slip

This card was $3 in April last year, glad I got them then...

Esper Control

4  Drowned Catacomb

4  Glacial Fortress

2  Godless Shrine

4  Hallowed Fountain

2  Island

4  Isolated Chapel

4  Nephalia Drownyard

1  Plains

2  Watery Grave

27 lands

4  Augur of Bolas

3  Restoration Angel

2  Snapcaster Mage

9 creatures

4  Azorius Charm

2  Devour Flesh

2  Dissipate

1  Dramatic Rescue

2  Planar Cleansing

4  Sphinx's Revelation

4  Supreme Verdict

4  Think Twice

1  Ultimate Price

24 other spells

Sideboard

2  Angel of Serenity

1  Dispel

2  Duress

3  Gloom Surgeon

2  Jace, Memory Adept

1  Negate

1  Psychic Spiral

1  Rest in Peace

2  Witchbane Orb

Back after a short break, mill.

Bant Control

4  Breeding Pool

3  Glacial Fortress

4  Hallowed Fountain

4  Hinterland Harbor

2  Kessig Wolf Run

1  Sacred Foundry

1  Steam Vents

1  Stomping Ground

2  Sunpetal Grove

3  Temple Garden

25 lands

3  Augur of Bolas

3  Centaur Healer

4  Restoration Angel

4  Thragtusk

14 creatures

4  Azorius Charm

1  Detention Sphere

2  Dissipate

4  Farseek

4  Sphinx's Revelation

3  Supreme Verdict

1  Syncopate

2  Think Twice

21 other spells

Sideboard

1  Centaur Healer

1  Detention Sphere

2  Garruk Relentless

1  Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

2  Negate

2  Rest in Peace

3  Rhox Faithmender

1  Supreme Verdict

2  Witchbane Orb

A great card even with Skull Crack.

So come on down and join us.  Next Friday is Standard but in a totally different way as we play 2 headed giant.  More blogs next week including the prices for the PTQ in April.

Announcing...

Great weekend of magic just gone with Gatecrash Game Day - well done to Jack Biddell and Mark Smith for walking off with the title of Game Day champions (and a rather nice playmat).  Personally I managed a 3rd and 2nd - yet again always the blushing bridesmaid and never the bride!

I know I promised this last week but this is something that we were not allowed to bring to you until Wizard's were going to put it on the main web site.  However, Jim has had an e-mail from them to say that we can announce this on the blog before it is announced on the mother ship so this is a kind of exclusive (maybe I should ask them if I can have a card to spoil for Dragon's Maze?  Ok maybe not...)

Pro Tour "Friends" will be in Dublin on 11 - 13 October 2013 and Patriot Games Sheffield will have a Pro Tour Qualifier on Saturday 13th April 2013!  The tournament will be constructed standard and will be held at the Royal Victoria Holiday Inn which is a short walk from Patriot Games and looks a lot like this;

Its a fabulous Hotel and has enough room to comfortably seat 400 players.  This is the first constructed PTQ we have had and we intend to make it a big one.  There will be side event drafts (at £10 with prize support) and other attractions will be announced in the next few weeks. The Holiday Inn is offering free parking to all players (yes free parking in the centre of Sheffield) and will have cheap bottles of water and a special menu available for players.  Full details , including cost, will be posted here shortly (as soon as Jim and I have worked them out).  Also to help travellers from out of town there will be special room rates at the very close by in the Holiday Inn Express.  We tried to show players what you can do with a PTQ last year and the feedback was really fantastic, so we want to deliver on all fronts again this time.

But that's not all.  As anyone who reads my ramblings will know we are trying to make the whole Magic experience in Sheffield something special and cater to everyone who wants to come along and play some cards so adding value to the things we do is kind of a thing for us.  We started the Invitational to recognise excellence in our player base and give everyone in Sheffield something to aim for if they didn't make the Pro Tour.  Celebrating peoples achievements is part of that and so we will be shortly unveiling the Sheffield Magic Hall of Fame where the Planeswalker points scorecards of players who have achieved something in the world of Magic the Gathering.  A full list of inductees tot he hall of fame will be announced soon but it will include the 6 members of the Steel City Patriots.

So standard PTQ 13th April 2013 in Sheffield.  You really don't want to miss this one!

Gatecrash gameday

Just a quick blog to get everyone up to speed.  This Friday is Modern at FNM Relax and this weekend is game day (Saturday and Sunday).

Game day will follow the usual format of a Standard tournament cutting to top 8 for the play mat unless people agree to just play the Swiss.  We will then have a draft.  It has been suggested that we do a "Standard Grab bag draft" with random boosters from Innistrad, Dark Ascension, Avacyn has a bad hair day, M13, Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash which sounds like a lot of fun.  we will put it to a vote (always a terrible idea) and see what people want to do.

 As well as the above play mat there will be a Zameck guildmage promo for all those attending;

The top 8 will also get a foil alternate art Firemane Avenger;

The standard portion of the event will start at 11.00 and the draft will follow when we have finished.  Times will be later for the Sunday.  

Sorry about the big announcement but I am not allowed to tell you it until Wizard's have put it on the mother ship first which we hope they will do next week.

The Grand Prix Experience.

So it's been a while but I'm back and with my third GP under my belt after a weekend at GP London 2013, but lets not get ahead of myself.  A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks and needs to be addressed.  Firstly the following cards are now banned in Modern:

• Bloodbraid Elf.
• Seething Song.

I am a great fan of Bloodbraid Elf but have no feelings at all with regards storm.  I think Wizards are still missing the point that banning the good cards does not actually make the crap ones better.  On top of these the following are banned in pauper;

• Empty the Warrens.
• Grapeshot.
• Invigorate.

So storm is just not a thing ever in Pauper and infect got it's turn 2 win condition removed. Not sure we needed to nerf storm but obviously Wizard's see it differently.

A No, No for Infect in Pauper...

We have also had some rules changes with regard to triggers.  These have had a number of changes recently as they try to get it right and basically now says a trigger remains on the stack until it becomes relevant for things like Jace, Architect of thought and Pyreheart Wolf.

No you can't block me with your Resto Angel just cause I didn't say "Trigger"!

We also now have the date for the next Patriot Games Sheffield Invitational Qualifier.  There are 3 more of these to go before the invitational in October and the next one will be on 23rd March 2013.  Yet again there will be two tournaments with a standard event at 10:30 and a Modern event starting at 12:30.  Entry to each will be £5 with 2 boosters into the prize pool for each participant.  The top 4 will each get an invite to the invitational in October as well as booster prizes.  If you are one of the people already qualified you are still more than welcome to come and play as the entries will cascade down to lower places if players in the top 4 have already qualified.  There will also be qualifiers in June 2013 and September 2013 but the exact dates for these will be announced at a later date.

This guy has dropped to $10 - let's see where he is after Pro Tour...

Anyway back to Grand Prix London 2013.  I have a great love for GP in London, firstly because London is my home town and secondly because GP London 2011 was my first GP and it was a great experience.  I wish I could say the same for GP London 2013.  Before I devolve into a massive rant about the GP I would like to mention the really great things about it.  The company was excellent hanging out with Rob Tinsley and all the Sheffield and Hull MTG crews (I started to make a list of everybody but it was stupidly long - you know who you are) was great.  We had some fantastic laughs ("Khannnnnnn!") and cheered on Jimmy Wild, Ben Pearson and Mike Riedhead as they tried to take down some actual players - and nearly succeeded in Ben's case.  The hotel was very comfortable and the breakfast very good.

Other than that the feeling for the GP was one of less for more.  2 Years ago the main event at GP London was £30, this year it was £40, the prize payout from Wizards has remained the same and no ones wages have gone up so why the 34% rise in price for the event?  There was no prize support in the way of boosters and the venue, although bigger (which considering the 1,970 people that attended was a good thing), was not great and was a long way out of central London.  In 2011 a last chance GPT for sealed was £15 (which was very reasonable).  In 2013 it is £28,  yeah I'm trying to work that one out too.  The free spell slinging event is gone and the Judge Booth didn't give away foils any more unlike 2011.  There was no free duelling allowing you to win foils for getting so many points and all of the fees for side events had gone up.

One of the sadly few cards by Richard Wright.

One of my favourite parts of GP in the past has been getting the artists to sign my cards.  In 2011 we had Mark Tedin and Daren Bader.  These artists were great and I had various conversations with them and they signed loads of cards.  In consideration of others I took 20 cards at a time to be signed and went up multiple times.  In 2013 we had Richard Wright and Svetlin Velinov; Richard Wright was great and we had a chat while he signed cards for both myself and Mark Smith who could not make it to the GP  Richard has only 12 Magic cards to his name so it wasn't a big thing to sign all of the cards I had in one shot. Svetlin Velinov was sadly quite different,  I had to line up for 30 minutes in order to see him for one thing, but this is generally fine and I accept this as part of the whole GP artists thing. However, after waiting this time I was informed that he would only sign 5 cards for free and if I wanted more I would have to buy something in the form of a post card or picture.  At this point I did not really have any money spare and explained that I could not afford to buy anything as I had no money, so he refused to sign more than 5 cards.  I had a foil copy of Obzedat, the Ghost Council which Stephen Kay had asked me to get signed and 4 Memnites for Mr Smith so I got him to sign these and decided that I didn't really want this guy signing any of my cards under the circumstances.

Art by Snivelling Bellyflop or something...

I had a chat with Rob on Sunday morning and between us the weekend had cost around £500 including travel, accommodation, food/drink and tournament entry.  We decided that we could actually have had a lot of other things which would have felt a much more worthwhile expense than GP London 2013 did.

Anyway back to Sheffield Magic and this Friday is Standard with all the new gatecrash cards included.  This weekend is Pro Tour Gatecrash and we will be back with the blog next week looking at what Pro Tour has done for Standard and with a big announcement for competitive play in Sheffield.  Have fun and see you at FNM...