============= PARADISE POST ============= Issue 15. May 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=mtgparadise --------------- Hi readers and welcome once again to the Paradise Post. It has been a HUGE few weeks in Magic with so much to talk about I'm not even going to waste any more time with introductions, let's get straight into it! REGIONALS Well it's all over, Regionals have come and gone and people have risen up to take their places at the big show in Canberra. As expected Ravager Affinity was absolutely dominant taking about half of the slots from Australia's Regionals. In some States the deck absolutely monstered the competition with Ravager taking half or more of the slots in the ACT, Queensland and Tasmania and also grabbing a mighty six slots in WA. South Australians bucked the trend with a more balanced Top 8 including some Tooth and Nail decks, a couple of slide variants, the ever popular Goblin Bidding and some hateful Big Red decks that no doubt saw their share of artifacts to blow up throughout the day. Here's how they finished across Australia ACT 1st) Jens Light (R-Affinity) 2nd) Chris Graham (Urza's Fireball) 3rd) Oliver Mueller-Cajar (R-Affinity) 4th) Dominic Musolino (R-Affinity) 5th) Mark Reeve (RW-Slide) 6th) Terry Chai (R-Affinity) 7th) Ernie Berger (MWC variant) 8th) Tom Stoddart (R-Affinity) WA 1st) James Porritt (Goblins) 2nd) Pat "2 pair" Clohessy (Ravager Affininty) 3rd) David "Chunks" Chamberlain (MonoWhite Control) 4th) Patty (Ravager Affintiy) 5th) Ben Yuill (Ravager Affinity) 6th) Keh-Gan "Moakek" Hau (Ravager Affinity) 7th) Hayden Smith (Ravager Affinity) 8th) Paul Chamberlain (Ravager Affinity) QLD 1st) Sven Restel -Astral Slide 2nd) Thomas Twigg - Ravager Affinity 3rd) Thami Croeser - Ravager Affinity 4th) David Crewe - Ravager Affinity 5th) Kris Goding - Beasts 6th)Ross Schafer - Ravager Affinity 7th) Matt Anthon - Ravager Affinity 8th) Yu Sasaski - Big Red SA 1st) Chris Whittman (TnN) 2nd) Hieu Pham (Big Red) 3rd) Aaron Barnes (Big Red) 4th) Peter Geytenbeek (Ravager Affinity) 5th) Jarrod Scriven (G/W Slide) 6th) Neil Phillips (Goblin Bidding) 7th) Yi Fei Ruan (TnN) 8th) Jason Diprose (R/W Slide) TAS 1st) Matty Joseph (Ravager Affinity) 2nd) Dane Cowley (Ravager Affinity) 3rd) Michael F. Otway (Goblin Bidding) 4th) Delfin Sunsom (Ravager Affinity) 5th) Jole Freeman (R/G Beasts) 6th) Cameron Chen (Ravager Affinity) 7th) Ryan Cubit (R/W Slide) 8th) Stuart Back (U/W Affinity) NSW 1st) James G Pirie 2nd) Andrew D Corney 3rd) Jitendra Belani 4th) Wayne I Steele 5th) Wai Kit K Ho 6th) James Vincent 7th) Alex W Burrows 8th) Michael Dao Northern Territory 1st - Scott McPherson (Ravager) 2nd - Dean Ward (Goblin Bidding) 3rd - Jonathan Haslett (T&N) 4th - Damien Hill (BG Death Cloud Cemetary) 5th - Mikkel Iverson (WW) 6th - Matthew Semmens (WG Beasts) 7th - Bradley Shadwick (WW) 8th - Daniel Merrifield (????) North Queensland 1st Jean Paul 2nd Scott Wiltshire 3rd Mark Norton 4th Damin Clowes 5th eli ten dam 6th Leigh Wiltshire 7th Philip Mehigan 8th Julian Wong VIC 1st Wayne Pigram (G/W Control) 2nd Shane Dalliston (Gobbos) 3rd Timothy Tai (WWeenie w/Equipment) 4th Tyson Gleeson (Tooth&Nail) 5th Simon Henry (Mono-W Control) 6th Allen Tan (Ravager) 7th Julian Kong (Ravager) 8th Michael Kotchoff (Ravager) For the full nationals field check out this thread on the Paradise forums. http://www.mtgparadise.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12848 THE MAGIC INVITATIONAL Magic's "All Star Game" was once again played out on Magic Online. While, the actual players got to soak up the atmosphere at the E3 convention the rest of the world just logged onto Modo to see how things played out. The formats for this year's invitational included Bring you own block pack draft Online Extended including Darksteel Auction of the People (Artist Decks) Mirrodin Block Constructed 8th Edition Rochester Draft The tournament itself had its highs and lows with plenty of funny games and some memorable misclicks. None better than Brian Kibler's Seismic Assault play in the 8th Edition Rotisserie, with a Karma out and Bob Maher sitting at a precarious 6 life with 5 swamps in play Kibler drew his card (a land) and proceeded to slap it down despite having nothing to cast and a Seismic Assault waiting to fry Maher for the winning damage. Some of the lows included one of the most boring Auctions of the people and 8th Edition set draft which was pretty tame too. When the smoke had cleared and the final Misclicks had been made it was Bob Maher and Mattias Jorstedt who were left to duke it out for the right to make a card, while in another big shock the two greatest Magic players of all time, Jon Finkel and Kai Budde were left floundering at the bottom of the standings. If the winner of the finals were to be determined on the coolness of the card submissions Mattias was an unbackable favourite Mattias Jorstedt Ojtam, Supreme Strategist Artifact Creature - Legend 2/2 When Otjam, Supreme Strategist comes into play, you may search your library for up to four cards and remove them from the game, then shuffle that many cards you own from outside the game into your library. "Are you sure that this is the optimal build?" Bob Maher Asp's Grasp Sorcery Target player gets nine poison counters. However the invitationalists had to instead battle it out in the 3 constructed formats of the Tournament. Mattias was able to wrap up the Block Constructed with his "Big Red" but Maher was not to be denied and wrapped up both the Auction of the people and Online Extended. Taking the tournament in the deciding game of Online extended with a Furnace Dragon removing the entire board in the affinity Mirror. Thankfully Maher will be reevaluating his submission and hopefully we see a cool card from TGO. The replays of the event are still available for viewing on Magic Online and the event coverage is up at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/mi04/welcome PRO TOUR SAN-DIEGO Just days after the competitors had been going at it in the Magic Invitational, the Magic World's attention came to San Diego and MMD booster draft. With the format very well defined after literally millions of drafts both in person and online, the Pro's showed the world that this format is not the luck and bombs lottery that some would have you believe. With no less than 4 competitors backing up from the Top 8 in Amsterdam which was also a Mirrodin Limited event. In the finals Nicolai Herzog ran roughshod over the competition with his removal laden deck coming over the top of the other decks…. usually riding on the back of a giant Greater Harvester. Herzog's deck also showed the insane power of Panoptic Mirror as he imprinted the deadly artifact with any number of back breaking spells. The top 8 was also a swansong for Mike Turian who is in his last season of Professional Magic, it is good to see he will be going out on a high and with a fat end of year cheque. 1. Nicolai Herzog (Norway) $30,000 2. Antoine Ruel (France) $20,000 3. Michael Turian (USA) $15,000 4. Anton Jonsson (Sweden) $13,000 5. Mark Herberholz (USA) $9,500 6. Ben Stark (USA) $8,500 7. Angel Perez del Pozo (Spain) $7,500 8. Masashi Oiso (Japan) $6,500 As for Australians in the field, both Ben Seck and Alex Brown made the trip to take on the Pros. While Alex fell a few wins short of making Day 2. Ben was on fire in the early part of the Tournament, Riding high on top of the standings after Round 5. Ben was assured a spot in Day 2 but failed to win out on Day 1. A solid day 2 performance enabled Ben to come away with a respectable 73rd place finish, an achievement the average Aussie player only dreams about but something that TBS will no doubt consider an opportunity lost. Once again though, it's a huge commitment to put the money on the line and make the trip and it's great to see some Aussies throwing down at almost every PT that is played. No doubt Alex and Ben will both be keen to take out the rage on some fellow countrymen come Nationals. FIFTH DAWN The release of Fifth Dawn had been eagerly anticipated by the Magic community with the 5 colour theme set to throw a spanner into the artifact-centric world of Mirrodin. The set certainly didn't disappoint the huge numbers that turned out for prereleases around the nation, with the nature of the new cards providing interesting deck building decisions and potentially introducing a new limited archetype to the format in 5 color green. The Sunburst mechanic and the Bringers will undoubtedly provide huge incentives to 5 colour decks with these cards being a low pick for more conventional decks but their value skyrocketing with the ability to pump out rainbow mana. Expect to be squirreling away those off colour Myr and Darksteel Ingots even earlier than before. In terms of constructed, Fifth Dawn has been touted as the "combo set," while players aren't exactly adding U for every artifact they control, there are definitely some of the most engine-ready cards that magic players have seen since we paid one life to draw a card and threw it out to a Skirge Familiar. Karak Clan Ironworks seems to be the card that has most people shifting uneasily in their seats. With the ability to sacrifice an artifact for 2 mana, a pair of Myr retrievers can loop infinitely, a couple of artifact lands and perhaps some Talismans and moxes can see players with 20 odd mana in their pool on turn 3. Does this bode well for Standard? First we will have to see what happens on June 1. Whether the Ironworks is doomsday as some Chicken Littles have been proclaiming remains to be seen, that being said there is plenty of other stuff to keep combo mad players scheming away. Who would have thought a White card would help you to play both your game AND your opponents starting about turn 4????? Fifth Dawn is going to be very interesting. The boundaries are being pushed and while we may endure some periods of degeneracy when the balance finally comes about we may have one of the best Standard formats since players could Bargain, Replenish, Tinker, Stomp, RDW, White Weenie, Pattern or Hermit their opponents to death. BANNINGS? By the time you are reading this we will likely know the fate of some cards in Standard. It seems pretty likely that Skullclamp is on the chopping block as Fifth Dawn didn't provide us with anything to effectively shut out the powerful piece of equipment. Many people have called for other cards to go, with Ravagers components at the head of the list and Goblin Bidding's card soon after. If bannings come we may see a totally new metagame evolve for Nationals which should provide for some interesting times and perhaps allow enough time for some Fifth Dawn monstrosities to set up their complexes to do degenerate things. If we see some wholesale changes to the format expect more people than ever to be taking your turn, bring back those maindeck Gilded lights people. THE WEBMASTER IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE WEBMASTER For those of you who may not already be aware, after many years at the helm of www.mtgparadise.com, Yaro Starak has finally decided to hang up the webmaster boots. From humble beginnings as the geocities "Magic in Brisbane" Yaro has managed to grow this site into one of the foremost Magic Websites in the world and one of the absolute top of the crop in the APAC region. Despite having barely slung a spell since Necroing for Donates so many years ago, Yaro has put in countless hours developing the online community, bringing together players both in Australia and worldwide. Apart from being a very gifted player and an Australian representative, Yaro's contribution to Magic in Australia is undoubtedly one of the biggest ever and he will go down as an absolute pioneer of the game down under. On a personal note, I'd like to thank Yaro for his Website which actually allowed me to find some magic action in Brisbane back in 1999, not only did his site manage to get me in touch with the Tournament scene he even hooked me up with pretty much every card in a Sligh deck so I could play in Regionals that year (9th Dammit!). I'm sure almost everybody will have a great story of how mtgparadise or one of its earlier iterations has helped them in some way. Thanks for all the hard work mate. True to form, Yaro has ensured that those of us still slinging spells are taken care of by putting Scott Hunstad and Paul Van Der Werk into the enviable position of managing the site. I have known Scott for quite a few years now and he is one of the absolute gentlemen of Australian Magic, always keen to have a friendly chat, Scott is not only one of the friendliest guys going around, he is also one of the most savvy limited players the country has to offer. While I have never met Paul, I have seen the huge contribution he puts into the community with his activity on the paradise forums. Both of these guys seem to have a genuine enthusiasm for the game which should translate into a huge effort in making the site the best it can be. While we are already spoilt at www.mtgparadise.com I can see exciting times ahead with these mad-keen spell slingers at the helm. Best of luck guys! MAGIC ONLINE While the compensation for the Premier Events and League Beta received a mixed reception ranging from "OMG I'm rich" to irate players plotting the demise of some Wizards employees (I personally tend to be on the irate side getting only 12 bucks for about 20 odd hours dealing with the server). It all seems to have worked out for the best with Leagues alive and kicking and plans underway for Premier events to come back. The Invitational ran very smoothly with one big bit of downtime in the middle, but thankfully not at a crucial time. The coding for Fifth Dawn is well underway which all bodes well for Magic Online at the moment. The return of Premier Events if it happens will be a HUGE boost to the game online, with constructed getting a lot more attention as many players love to have a crack at a swiss constructed event. While I don't want to jinx anything, at the moment life online is good. It's refreshing being able to write an article without a huge MODO gripe. PHEW! As you can see, a lot has happened in Magic recently and with Nationals looming it's heating up even more. I'll leave you guys this time with my early picks for Nationals. While it's a bit premature seeing as though we haven't seen TBS's primer yet. I want to be first on the Thomas Twigg bandwagon. Bryce Trevilyan- he tasted it last year and seems as keen as ever. With an even better preparation this year who knows how far he could go? I had Will Copeman here but he took off on an overseas trip and just gets back before Nationals so his preparation will be non-existent. I'll put in Chris Kwan as a very strong alternate. Thomas Twigg- Plays Magic Online more than most on the planet. Absolutely cruised through Brisbane regionals. If he finds a strong deck early he has a huge shot for a relative unknown. Tim He- pure talent, despite the fact that he owes me MMM I'd still bet on him. TBS- you just can't bet against him always a favourite, playing in Melbourne just confirms that favouritism. Jarron Puszet- tight play personified. Also a really nice guy to boot. Justin West- see TBS and double it for Justin when you are talking Nationals. The event just brings out the absolute best in him. Anatoli Lightfoot- very experienced and tight as a drum, Anatoli is almost always in contention.