Our first constructed event of the year saw a decent turnout of 12 players - not bad, but somewhat smaller than the turnout I expected due to unexpected illnesses and homework burdened by some of the previously interested players. However, we still had an exciting event:
8/29/10 Top Finishers: Standard Constructed
1. 5-1 Red Deck Wins by Emile Paul
2. 5-1 "Old Jund" by Michael Smith
3. 4-1 UW Sun Titan Control by Hunter Garrett
4. 3-2 Naya Beats by John Kreinbring
Three rounds of Swiss saw the elimination of most of the control decks, as we saw Glen's 5-color control, Mike Mooty's Grixis, and Brent's Runeflare Trap all eliminated early along with Noah's green/black deck. However, a clear control-playing frontrunner emerged in Hunter's blue/white Sun Titan deck, which rolled unblemished through the Swiss. In the quarterfinals, my Mythic Conscription deck rolled him over quickly in game 1, but post-board he managed to recover and take the next two games and advance to play against Emile's mono-red, which took advantage of an unexpected opportnity to edge out Bryant's Bant Allies deck. On the other side of the bracket, John rolled over Michael Carney's mono-black deck but run into a buzzsaw against Michael Smith's "Old Jund," featuring previously forgotten high-end creatures like Broodmate Dragon and Siege-Gang Commander, as well as a large heap of removal and, of course, lots of Blightning. Emile joined him in the final after Hunter stumbled in Game 3 on a massive mana flood to take his first loss of the day at a rather inopportune time. Emile prevailed 2-1 in the final, which involved lots of mulligans and plenty of controversy, which made for quite an interesting feature match that you can read all about in the post below this one (or just click here: http://fitssffmagic.blogspot.com/2010/08/feature-match-standard-finals-emile_30.html).
The updated League Standings are as follows. As always, if you feel you didn't receive the correct amount of points for your performance, I'll be happy to send you my spreadsheet so that you can understand how I came up with your score.
1. 16 - Michael Smith (3 events)
0*. 14 - Dominic Casali (4)
2. 12 - Joe Hammond (3)
3. 11 - Emile Paul (2)
4. 10 - Dan Hooghkirk (2)
5. 8 - Bryant Benson (4)
5. 8 - Brent Kollinger (3)
7. 7 - John Kreinbring (3)
8. 6 - Hunter Garrett (2)
9. 5 - Scott Record (1)
10. 4 - Will Sturges (1)
11. 3 - Michael Carney (2)
11. 3 - Liz DiGangi (2)
11. 3 - Alycia Johnson (2)
14. 2 - Shawn Brabant (2)
14. 2 - Nick Catalfano (1)
14. 2 - John Chandler (1)
14. 2 - Michelle Karl (2)
14. 2 - Haren Lalchand (2)
14. 2 - Nikita Nikolayev (2)
14. 2 - Glen Parker (2)
14. 2 - Matt Wills (2)
22. 1 - David Chesnutt (1)
22. 1 - Helen Croce (1)
22. 1 - Kevin Crowley (1)
22. 1 - Kareem Elashmawy (1)
22. 1 - Stephen Kwokchoon (1)
22. 1 - Greg Lovell (1)
22. 1 - Krystal Lutz (1)
22. 1 - Mike Mooty (1)
22. 1 - Jennifer Mori (1)
22. 1 - Noah Senzel (1)
*Zero-rank players are not eligible for the top-8 invitational event at the end of the semester.
I want to take a little time to discuss one more issue known as "rulemongering," or trying to gain advantage on your opponents by using any and all rules infractions your opponents might make to gain an advantage. If you go to the feature match post, which you can find at http://fitssffmagic.blogspot.com/2010/08/feature-match-standard-finals-emile_30.html (the post below this one) and read about the final match, you'll see an example of a significant rules violation. I've heard people on both sides of the argument regarding whether or not what happens was right/moral/fair/whatever. I don't have a specific opinion on that issue, as I was there and could see both sides of the coin, but I would like to see people be lenient and work to avoid having rules issues decide the outcome of a match whenever possible. I'm not convinced it was avoidable in this situation, but I want to generally say that everyone wants to be friends here, and if we can avoid it, I would like to not have to be put in the situation to give out serious penalties in the future. So pay attention to your environment and what's in your deck, and try to be forgiving and flexible if a situation arises. They can't always be solved easily, but having that kind of good mindset goes a long way in preventing these types of problems from occurring on a regular basis.
Finally, our next event will be Rise of the Eldrazi draft this Saturday, September 4, at NOON (not 1:00!). You must sign up if you want to play, as I have limited product for this event. There are still a few spots left. Other September events are posted on the top-right portion of the site. Thanks again to everyone who came to the event, and have a great week!
- Dom
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