============= PARADISE POST ============= Issue 3. October 2003. 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 --------------- GAMES PARADISE - www.gamesparadise.com.au Order Online or 1300 139 202 SPECIAL: All Boosters Boxes $149 AUD free delivery (Australia) when you mention "mtgparadise forums" in the special comments section of the online order. (Note: amount will be deducted when the order is put through the terminals manually). --------------- Hello readers and welcome once again to the Paradise Post. As the more perceptive of you may have realised, this edition has come somewhat late. Fear not though, the change in scheduling was not a result of complacent authorship or lazy editors, rather it was in order to allow for a wrap up of one of the biggest events on the Australian Magic Calender. In this issue I’ll be covering all the action from GP Sydney as well as having a look at the last few places in the line up for the upcoming Duelist Invitational, I’ll catch up with a young player who looks destined to make waves in Magic and I’ll let you know how you can be involved in a party. GP Sydney and Mirrodin Australia has held it’s biggest ever Grand Prix with 274 players making the trip to Sydney to compete in the prestigious event. The Centrepoint Tower Convention Centre played host to the event with the prizes on offer being plenty of cash plus an Invite to Pro Tour Amsterdam for the highest 8 uninvited finishers. The tournament was always going to be a hotly contested one with the field including such luminaries as returning Australian GP champion Ben Seck, strong contingents from all Australian States including all members of the Australian team, an overseas force including the ever present New Zealanders, Grace, Swannack, Brumby and Co. and the Japanese heavy hitters, Osama Fujita and Itaru Ishida. GP Sydney was the first major event using Mirrodin, with competitors giving the rest of the world an insight into the limited environment with 8 rounds of sealed followed by 6 rounds of Rochester Draft cutting to a top 8. When the dust had finally settled most were relatively unsurprised to find that the winner was a Victorian. Andrew Grain from the Deathdealers won the tournament and a $2400 US payout, piloting his R/W deck past one of the forefront members of rival Team Card Heaven, Andrew Gordon. It was a good day for Victoria with another Team Card Heaven member, Shun Jiang making top 8 but falling in the quarterfinals. New South Wales also had a strong showing, with often controversial Australian veteran Lenny Collins, young star Tim He and my co-writer Dan Turner all making the final draft table. Rounding out the Top 8 was evergreen Jake Hart making his second consecutive Australian GP Top 8 and Itaru Ishida, one of the Japanese pros that made the trip for the GP. Notably absent from the Top 8 were players from the land of the long white cloud, despite sending over the normal strong contingent the New Zealanders had what would be considered by their own high standards a pretty poor showing, with Richard Grace just failing to make the cut on resistance to back up for his second consecutive Gp top 8. Nevertheless it’s hard to keep a Kiwi down and I’m certain that this setback will undoubtedly see them redoubling efforts for more big finishes in the future. Also disappointing was the Queensland result this year, again failing to put someone into the Top 8, Will Copeman and Jan Reuss flew the flag coming away with some cash but unfortunately, Will fell just short of his second GP finals appearance on resistance. The top 32 rounded out as follows 1 Grain, Andrew 2 Gordon, Andrew 3 Collins, Lenny 4 Ishida, Itaru 5 Jiang, Shun 6 Hart, Jake 7 Turner, Daniel 8 He, Tim 9 Wong, Nicholas Jonathan 10 Grace, Richard 11 Copeman, Will 12 Puszet, Jarron 13 Zhang, James 14 Nadebaum, Chris 15 Steele, Wayne 16 Lo, Dominic 17 Fleming, Ben 18 Gall, Tristan 19 Witton, Adam 20 Dao, Michael 21 Schafer, Ross 22 Light, Jens 23 smith, nik 24 Brown-santirso, Julian 25 Smith, Hayden 26 woodrow, daniel 27 Wong, Minga 28 Nadebaum, Rob 29 kissajukian, sam 30 Laycock, James 31 Stratford, Dion 32 Barlow, Russell If you haven’t caught up with all of the events of one of the biggest weekends ever in Australian Magic, I would advise you to go and check out all of the Wizards coverage here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/events/gpsyd03. From the weekend’s play Mirrodin seems to be an intricate and well balanced set for limited play, with players seeking to strike a balance between powerful equipment to turn creatures into heavy hitting monsters, actual creatures to make use of the equipment and removal which is more plentiful and cheaper than it has been in the past. Players can be punished for going to far in any one direction, as they sit idly being beaten to death by mediocre creatures while their arsenal of equipment goes unused for lack of a target. This has brought an interesting dimension to Mirrodin limited and with the plentiful artifacts in the set it will be interesting to see how draft archetypes evolve as the format is more fully explored. Mirrodin has also provided plenty of options for constructed pundits with the biggest talking points being Chalice of the Void in Vintage and Chrome Mox and Ishochron Scepter in just about every format on the planet! With State Championships coming up it will be very exciting to see what new decks emerge. Magic Invitational and a surprise omission The voting for the 2003 Magic Invitational has been concluded and there was a very big upset in the voting this year. For quite some time now the pattern had been quite well established… Finkel, Mowshowitz, Kibler and Wise. Almost everything went according to plan though, but this year there was an APAC region upstart… Finkel, Mowshowitz, Kibler and Okamoto. Probably as a result of the significant reduction in the output of writing by Gary Wise, he has been ousted from the Invitational by Jin Okamoto. This is a significant victory for all players in the Asia Pacific region and great recognition for Okamoto who has had a very consistent season. It is great to see that players from the APAC region are starting to be well and truly recognised as a major force in professional Magic. Unfortunately home-grown talent and well know PT character Ben Seck finished well down in the voting but with the PT points to have him sitting on the train hopefully Ben can have some more big finishes this year to bring him further into the spotlight, something that TBS will undoubtedly relish. J Once again the Invitational will be held on Magic Online to give as many people as possible an opportunity to see their role models in action. Despite many peoples objections to the Online format it does give the average player a chance to see the Worlds best in action regardless of location, and after the event it even allows any average Joe to have a shot at their favourite pro in gun-slinging, a chance to beat Johnny Magic, who can complain about that! Unfortunately one of the drawbacks from the decision and the ongoing problems with the programming of Magic Online will be that the Invitational will be held much later than usual. Despite this drawback the Invitational is always a fantastic event and the wait will only heighten anticipation. For the full rundown on this year’s competitors see http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/news/20030919b. Time to party! As I highlighted in the very first issue of the Paradise Post, there have been significant problems with the introduction of Magic Online version 2.0 and while all of the bugs haven’t been removed yet, there has been an extended period of stability and slow improvement of the annoying glitches. That being said, there is still a long way to go as many options touted as being included in Version 2.0 still seem little more than hazy images across a desert of programming work. However the most important thing is that people can play without fear of dropping out from an unexpected server crash and Wizards have decided to take the opportunity to celebrate this functionality and to thanks the Magic Online community for the ongoing loyalty through the frustrating period of the launch with a virtual party, and what a party it promises to be! From 12:01 AM Pacific Standard Time on Saturday, October 25 until 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, October 26, there will be running tournaments in the Premier Events room. These tournaments will be Eighth Edition or Onslaught Block Sealed Deck, with no ticket cost and the normal premier prize payouts! As a special bonus players will be given an Akroma, Angel of Wrath Avatar for every tournament they enter, and as if that wasn’t enough for people who logged on during the periods of major instability they will be rewarded with enough product to enter one of the tournaments absolutely free. Perhaps even more amazing though is that these people will also receive one of three pre-invasion cards that can be used in Casual games in Magic Online the three cards are being voted on and will be from the following worthy candidates Force of Nature Squee Goblin Nabob Covetous Dragon Sliver Queen Palinchron Morphling Serra Avatar Hell's Caretaker Thrashing Wumpus Dakkon Blackblade Paladin en-Vec Deranged Hermit No matter which cards win I’m sure that casual players everywhere will be having a great time swinging with whatever old school monsters make it through the voting process and I am personally backing Morphling so can squeeze a couple into my prismatic deck! So what if you don’t play Magic Online? Well this is as good a time as any to consider having a go at it, with ticketless sealed events you too could be clicking your Akroma into the red zone as your opponent thousands of miles away sits helpless as she tramples over! In other Magic Online news Mirrodin is set down for release in early November, no doubt players will be waiting with baited breath for the next stand alone expansion to hit the virtual shores. For full details on the party and everything Magic Online check out- http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline. The New Kid As promised I’ve managed to squeeze in another interview. This time I’ve rounded up Tim He for a quick chat hot on the heels of his breakthrough Top 8 performance at GP Sydney. Tim finished Day 1 at a respectable 6-2 before coming home strong with a 5-1 performance to seal a spot in the Top 8. For those of you who don’t know him, Tim is a Sydney based youngster who is playing well above his weight category sitting firmly entrenched within the Top 20 players in the Country despite being many years younger than the majority at the age of 16. Tim has also made waves in the Online Community, with his account often seen gracing the Top 50 in limited ranking in magic Online worldwide. Congratulations on the T8 at GP, unlucky in the quarters :(. Thanks for taking the time out to do this interview. Did you feel confident with your knowledge of the format going into the GP? How much playtesting had you done? I wasn't very confident leading up to the GP since I had only played 2 Mirrodin Rochester drafts and no real sealed deck practice besides a couple of games on apprentice. Did you think that your card pool in the sealed portion was strong, weak or average? I thought my deck was weak but my fellow Sydney-siders told me that my deck was strong and had a lot of synergy. They were probably right since I haven't really played a lot of Mirrodin and they have. During rounds 1 and 2 I played a few practice games and won most of them, then realised that my deck wasn't too bad. How do you rate the drafts you did? I was very happy with the way I drafted and ended up with solid decks. Were you happy with your performance overall? Can you recall any memorable plays or mistakes by either you or your opponents? Yeah, when I was playing James Laycock from NZ, I played an Electrostatic Bolt on his 1/4 artifact creature and he responded by playing Razor Barrier on his creature and named Artifacts. And in round 12 against Rob Nadebaum I had a Brown Ouphe out and it stopped his Welding Jar from regenerating his Myr Enforcer after I shattered it and his Altar of Shadows. Who was your favourite opponent of the tournament? Probably Osamu Fujita since we had very close games that I will remember for some time to come. Tim, now that you have some significant experience with the format, could I just grab a few thoughts on Mirrodin Limited? Heh no problem. What are your top common picks for each color (including artifacts of course!)? Artifact- Bonesplitter, Red- Spikeshot Goblin, White- Skyhunter Cub, Blue- Neurok Spy, Green-Deconstruct, Black- Terror Best uncommon in the set? Without a doubt Loxodon Warhammer What's the biggest windmill slam rare in the format? Duplicant Most unfair card? Duplicant What is the strongest draft colour combination? R/W or R/U What is the weakest? G/B Play or draw? Draw in sealed, Play in draft. Thanks man, No problem. This is the end So there you have it folks, we are once again at the end of another issue of the Paradise Post and we have recognised a few more Australian’s with the goods to get it done in professional level Magic Tournaments. Hopefully this has kept you informed with all the goings-on over the past few weeks in the World of Magic and given you some material to check out until Dan returns with another issue of the Post and perhaps some GP stories as well! As always, if you’d like to make any comments or suggestions or ask any questions of Dan or myself drop as an email at newsletter@mtgparadise.com And don’t forget to check out the sponsors who ensure that we can keep bringing you the most up to date coverage of Australian Magic. Thanks for reading, Craig Hong