============= PARADISE POST ============= Issue 11. March 2004. This newsletter is sent to all MTGParadise.com Forum Members. To unsubscribe email contact@mtgparadise.com with your forum username and your account will be deleted. FEATURE SPONSORS – Advertisers email contact@mtgparadise.com ---------------- CARDSHARK - www.cardshark.com Cardshark is the ultimate marketplace for BUYING and SELLING collectable games. We currently support Magic, MAGIC ONLINE, and Lord of the Rings. There are NO LISTING FEES to start selling and all payments are made via PayPal. You'll be amazed at how easy it is to buy and sell cards with CardShark.com. Click this link and make a $10 purchase today and get a FREE BOOSTER PACK! http://www.cardshark.com/default.asp?referral=cardshark&source=mtgpnews2 --------------- Hey everybody and welcome once again to the Paradise Post. There's been quite a bit happening in the past few weeks with a Pro Tour, some GP action, a new Type 2 environment and MASSIVE turmoil on Magic Online. We are also drawing ever closer to Regionals and Nationals so I'll give you the low down on all the relevant info for those huge events. PRO TOUR KOBE The Japanese have been threatening to do it for years now; oftentimes they were only stumbling at the final hurdle. Now that PT Kobe is in the books, the Japanese finally have a Pro Tour champion. Masashiro Kuroda had the honour of taking out the first title for the Japanese and he did it in a way that players the world over have been winning games ever since land was first tapped for mana- with a big fireball straight at his opponent's dome. Coming into the Pro Tour there was one certainty, that with this Pro Tour being Mirrodin Block Constructed, Affinity was going to be big, the only question was how big. In the end just over 45% of the field came packing the deck. While most people are well accustomed to affinity by now, the decks that the Pro's were sporting shared little in common with the deck that has been terrorizing standard since Mirrodin's release. The printing of Arcbound Ravager and it's interaction with Disciple of the Vault had turned affinity from an efficient Aggro-control deck, to a blazing Hyper aggressive beatdown deck, with some versions capable of killing an unwary opponent as fast as turn 3. Here is a sample decklist which was carried to the Top 8 by Jelger Wiegersma- MAIN DECK 4 Vault of Whispers 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Darksteel Citadel 4 Blinkmoth Nexus 2 Great Furnace 1 Glimmervoid 4 Disciple of the Vault 4 Arcbound Ravager 4 Arcbound Worker 4 Frogmite 4 Myr Enforcer 3 Ornithopter 3 Myr Retriever 4 Thoughtcast 4 Aether Vial 4 Skullclamp 2 Chroatic Sphere 1 Talisman of Dominance SIDEBOARD 3 Genesis Chamber 4 Electrostatic Bolt 3 Terror 1 Furnace Dragon 2 Glimmervoid 1 Myr Retriever 1 Great Furnace With such a huge showing many were wondering whether this Pro Tour was set to be another PT: Linn Sivvi. However for all the guys packing the artifacts there was another guy waiting with the artifact hate to crush the affinity players. Detonates and Oxidizes became one mana stone rains, Glissa and Molder Slugs chomped on artifacts and Furnace Dragons literally disintegrated entire affinity boards. Of the hate decks, the Mono Red Control variants came out well on top with 5 "Big Red" variants making the final day. While the versions all differed slightly they all had a few things in common, artifact hate, arc-sloggers and plenty of the fiery stuff. Obviosuly it is hard to go past the champions decklist here, which had not only the artifact hate but so much burn that it had a significant advantage in the Mirror, as it could crispify an opponent in a few short turns- MAIN DECK 16 Mountain 4 Darksteel Citadel 4 Blinkmoth Nexus 4 Solemn Simulacrum 4 Arc Slogger 4 Electrostatic Bolt 4 Shrapnel Blast 4 Barbed Lightning 4 Damping Matrix 4 Pulse of the Forge 4 Fireball 4 Detonate SIDEBOARD 4 Molten Rain 4 Echoing Ruin 2 Talisman of Indulgence 2 Talisman of Impulse 3 Furnace Dragon Once again the French did not fail to disappoint, with their frontman Gabriel Nassif yet again making the finals, only to fall short yet again. This time the French were running an innovative "12 Post" deck that relied on land searching cards Reap and Sow and Sylvan Scrying to search out Cloudpost after Cloudpost which then fed Mindslavers and entwined Tooth and Nails to search out various monsters including none other than Darksteel Colussus or the Leonin Abunis-Platinum Angel soft lock. While there were some doubts about the deck's ability to handle the speed of affinity, Nassif beat the deck often enough on the weekend to ensure that the deck is a major player in the format MAIN DECK 16 Forest 4 Cloudpost 3 Stalking Stones 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 4 Solemn Simulacrum 4 Viridian Shaman 1 Darksteel Colossus 1 Platinum Angel 1 Leonin Abunas 1 Duplicant 4 Oblivion Stone 4 Tooth and Nail 2 Talisman of Unity 2 Mindslaver 4 Reap and Sow 4 Sylvan Scrying 4 Oxidize SIDEBOARD 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Pulse of the Tangle 4 Tel-Jilad Chosen 1 Platinum Angel 1 Mindslaver 1 Duplicant Once again there was full Wizards Coverage including plenty of videos. Unfortunately I haven't seen much of the Video being cursed with that terrible affliction known as dialup. So if anybody out there has downloaded the vids and can burn a copy get in contact with me! For all those who are yet to check it out go and have a look at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/ptkob04/welcome GP SENDAI Hong Kong played host to a Mirrodin-Darksteel limited Grand Prix on March 6-7. The event was well attended, with a horde of pros sticking around in Asia after Kobe in an attempt to maximize their Pro Tour Point hauls for the year as the final payouts draw ever closer. While many pros managed to make the final draft for the tournament it was an unknown Malaysian Chuen Hwa Tan that managed to hoist the trophy after his extremely aggressive W/B deck was able to overcome veteran pro Oliver Ruel's much slower R/G deck. Tan was the heavy favourite going into the match with double blinding beam an absolute nightmare for Ruel's larger men. The finals played out true to the predictions and Tan was crowned champion in 3 games. NATIONALS AND REGIONALS The details for Australia and New Zealand national championships are out. Australia will hold its premier tournament of the year on July 10-11 of this year while New Zealanders will have their chance at glory one week earlier. These events promise to be absolutely huge with the tournaments being in all probability the first major events played with 5th Dawn cards in Standard. Undoubtedly New Zealand will be setting the trend for many Nationals to follow. In order to get to Nationals you either need to be in the Top 50 composite for the country (25 in NZ), be on the PT gravy train, be part of the previous year's Top 4 from Nationals or make it to top 8 at your regionals. Regionals will be the method of choice for the masses, a top 8 berth sees you qualified. The format is standard including Darksteel, so if you aren't prepared for ravagers, you just aren't prepared. The details for regionals are as follows New Zealand · Regional tournaments take place on May 8 or 9, 2004 as follows: City Slots Date Contact Phone Auckland (8) May 8 James White 02 142 6366 Christchurch (8) May 8 Chris Williams 021 164 4561 Hamilton (8) May 9 David Williams 07 834 6382 Wellington (8) May 8 Gene Brumby 021 259 4849 Australia · Top four (4) finishers from the Regional Qualifying Tournament in Darwin. Regional tournaments take place on May 8 or 9, 2004 as follows: City Slots Date Contact Phone Adelaide (8) May 8 Lee Copus 0412 909 582 Brisbane (8) May 8 Mel Parry 07 3366 9166 Canberra (8) May 9 David Low 0413 556 683 Darwin (4) May 8 Allan Prewett 08 8954 5544 Hobart (8) May 8 Stan Hutchinson 0417 447 826 Melbourne (8) May 8 Russell Alphey 0401 994 352 Perth (8) May 8 Scott Paisley 08 9371 5583 Sydney (8) May 8 Chris Foggin 0402 231 366 Townsville (8) May 8 Mel Parry 07 3366 9166 For those of you who are keen to get out there testing but are a bit short on ideas for where to begin. I will give you these 2 little tips. 1. Skullclamp 2. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/bd113 DUDE, WHERE'S MY SERVER? I stated in my last issue of the post that the Darksteel release leagues were going to be big. Unfortunately, I underestimated exactly how big they were going to be, I also meant big in a GOOD way. What did happen was without a doubt big, it was a crash and it was HUGE! So huge in fact that the live servers were actually taken down and replaced by beta test servers. Not no-pay and concurrent beta, just beta. While this was a great opportunity to do some free drafting and to perhaps try out some new strategies and maybe even do a few IPA drafts as well. You had to be very lucky, I managed to do quite a few drafts but not once did I actually get to play a game. Some people managed to play quite a few and despite the massive instability it was kinda fun to try to draft the g/w affinity deck, the b/u groundpounder and some IPA goodies. Constructed was the most skewed environment in the history of Magic, with the metagame almost entirely affinity due to the lack of basic lands. Trading included such good deals as "Trading Vindicate and Pernicious Deed for plains." The servers are back up now, and most of the functionality has been returned. However, just today we once again lost tournaments that include Mirrodin due to a bug that basically changed the wording of Fatespinner to Fatespinner 1UU At the beginning of your opponent's upkeep you win the game 1/2. Needless to say, fatespinner.dec had a brief moment of glory in 8 player constructed queues before all tournaments including Mirrodin cards were removed. So what we are let with at the moment is a fairly stable server that is missing quite a lot of events. There is obviously a balancing act happening with increasing functionality and keeping the servers stable so lets hope that the programmers at Wizards are able to get things going the right direction fairly soon. For a full run-down of the saga check out www.wizards.com/magiconline for all of Dam Myers updates and http://boards1.wizards.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=142 For up to the minute info. SOMETHING ELSE Applications for articled clerkships have left me a little frazzled this issue so I haven't got any amazing extra content this time around. Seeing as though the MMM queues are down and god knows when the MMD ones will ever be up, I thought I'd delve into my last foray into OLS The little Zombie deck that (almost) could. BLACK 2x Swat Festering Goblin Frightshroud Courier Shepard of Rot 2x Carrion Feeder Corpse Harvester Dragon Shadow Embalmed Brawler Lingering Death Noxious Ghoul Reaping the Graves Skinnthinner Soul Collector Unburden Undead Warchief 2x Vengeful Dead WHITE Akroma, Angel of Wrath Daru Sanctifier Defender of the Order Eternal Dragon LANDS 5x Plains 12x Swamp It went down in the finals but it has a dragon so I did fine on it anyway. If you want to get in contact with me about the newsletter (especially if you can make a CD of PT Kobe Video) send me an email at securitron_ch@hotmail.com, make sure you put mtgparadise or paradise post or similar in the subject. Until next time, Craig Hong