A SCG-Richmond Report

by Bill Stark | posted at 2010-03-02 01:23:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, StarCityGames, SCG, Open, StarCityGames.com

 

StarCityGames.com Open Numbers

So Magic is crazy popular all over the place. Tournament numbers keep going up and up and up. I would love to go back to, say, 1997 and tell people someday over 2,000 people would show up for a Magic tournament in Europe. I have to imagine you'd witness the most prodigious spit-takes the world has ever seen.

 

Now those crazy numbers are not just for Grand Prixs, either. Richmond was the largest StarCityGames.com Open event in the history of the series (and including previous large cash tournaments from SCG). I think the tournament benefitted from being in StarCity's home area, Virginia, but you don't get 600 players out to play Standard just because they live in the state. It's actually just a really fantastic tournament series to play in, and the addition of the StarCityGames.com Open Invitational and StarCityGames.com Open Points makes a big difference; Top 4 an Open and you're q'ed to play for $50,000 in combined prize money in December.

 

Those prizes are great, but be aware that they're ONLY for StarCityGames.com Open events. There are other organizations running large cash tournaments called "$5ks" or otherwise (TCGPlayer.com and ChannelFireball.com are all running such events), but they are what they are: show up, play, get some money if you do well. No points, nothing after, that's it. Only StarCityGames.com has created its own mini-GP style tournament, and placing at any other events, even if they give out large cash prizes, does nothing for your standings in the Open Points race. If it's not a StarCityGames.com Open event, as one poor soul found out recently after playing at a TCGPlayer tournament, you don't earn any points for the Invitational.

 

Aaron Wayne

Aaron Wayne is one of the stars of the StarCityGames.com Open Tournament Series. He pulled this off by winning the very first event in St. Louis, then Top 8ing in Dallas a month and a half or so later. In Richmond he became the first player to lock up the second bye at the StarCityGames.com Open Invitational, and he has a pretty solid lead in the Open Player of the Year race. All of this comes in a relatively unassuming package. Aaron is probably not, by his own admission, winning a Pro Tour in the near future. In fact, here's a situation that came up during the Legacy event this past weekend:

 

Aaron is at 6 life. He has an active Jitte against his opponent who is playing an aggro deck starring red as a main color. Said opponent casts Price of Progress. Aaron surveys the battlefield. Non-basic land count? Three. Counters on Jitte? More than zero. Surveys the battlefield one more time…

 

"Okay. It resolves."

 

This is all on tape, mind you. He straight up allowed his opponent to kill him rather than just not lose the game. But don't let that incident trick you into taking for granted his accomplishments as a player. After all, he is leading the Player of the Year race because he has a lot of top finishes, not one single lucky day, and that's because he works to recognize his own weaknesses and works to minimize them.

 

Here's the truth about Aaron Wayne: I root for him at every event I see him at, and you should too. Why? Because he's "one of us." He is not a Jon Finkel, who through some type of exposure to radiation at a young age had some number of neurons in his brain rewire themselves to be perfect at calculating every variable of a Magic game. He is not a German juggernaut who can devote his life to studying every facet of the game in order to become the Michael Jordan of his genre. Aaron Wayne is simply a guy who loves Magic, and most of all loves to play Magic.

 

He's the type of guy who begs his boss to let him make up hours at work so he can cut out early to drive the 11 hours to Richmond for battling. He's the type of guy that cajoles his girlfriend into letting him go this one more weekend because, after all, he's already made some bank on the year and who knows what could happen and he'll be home next weekend promise. He's the type of guy who, in a Feature Match, calls off the crowd who want to get his opponent a warning for making a small clerical error while stating "I know you get a game loss if I get you three times, but that's just not important to me."

 

Yeah, he's the type of guy who double checks the number of non-basics he has on the table and lets his opponent's Price of Progress kill him anyway, on camera, but you know what? He's also the type of guy who wins that match anyway. HE IS YOU AND ME, or what we can hope to be if we're lucky; successful Magic players who get to love the game and experience some success from it even if we're not Jon Finkel or Kai Budde or a gravy trainer.

 

So I'm going to keep rooting for Aaron Wayne, and I hope in December I get to take a photo of him hoisting the Player of the Year trophy from StarCityGames.com alongside a shiny set of Power 9. And you should be rooting for him too, because at the heart of Aaron Wayne's story are elements of each of our stories.

 

GGsLive.com

During my countdown of the Top 5 most important things to happen to Magic in 2009, I put the "invention" of GGsLive.com at an honorable mention number 6. Years from now we may find that number laughably low because after working with them (and knowing most of the GGsLive crew members for years) I never cease to be amazed at the things they can do.

 

Like this weekend, for example. It was a two-man show with Rashad Miller and Ben Swartz in charge of everything, and headed to round 3 they were not ready to broadcast. Equipment difficulties meant they looked like they were going to be out of commission for the show. A stop at Radio Shack hadn't fixed anything and things were looking dire. That, of course, wasn't enough to stop Ben and Rashad. Through a lot of ingenuity, duct tape, and hilarious work arounds they managed to patch everything together just in time for the third round, and the viewers were none the wiser.

 

It also helps that Rashad and his assistant, whether it's Ray Punzalan, Peter Martinez, or Ben, are at each show with me. Coverage can be a lonely job when you work a 16-17 hour day; at the end of it, everyone just wants to leave, restaurants are closed, and even if you wanted to go out and eat, you don't have time because you have to be up in six hours to do it all over again. Having Rashad and company along to split some Domino's and chat about the day before hitting the hay for the evening goes a long way.

 

Also, I need a public shaming. For some reason I CONSTANTLY call Ben Swartz "Noah," the name of his older brother. I have no idea why I do this. I don't associate Ben in my head as "Noah's little brother," and I see Ben far more often than Noah. But subconsciously at least once an event I call Ben the wrong name without even recognizing that I'm doing so. Because of that, some public payback for Ben: I'm an idiot.

 

Sorry Noah! (er…Ben. CRAP!).

 

Jund

Stop whining about Jund. Stop whining about Faeries. Stop whining about Fires of Yavimaya. You want a broken Standard deck? Have your opponent open on Aether Vial and follow it up with Arcbound Ravager AND Disciple of the Vault. Or get a Windfall cast on your ass on the first turn. THOSE were broken decks.

 

Standard is a diverse format. Cascade was a mistake, but when a black-green-red deck is your format's "best deck" and all it wants to do is WIN IN THE RED ZONE, you're living in a beautiful rainbow, sunshiney Standard planet and you should thank your lucky stars. Blue is the worst color for the first time in the history of the game, and it's still really good (and can we stop whining about blue being the worst color? Cripes, Jamie Wakefield had to start a multi-year MOVEMENT to get green some respect; it's only fair blue blows for a while if blows = having the best card in Standard and possibly the best true deck in Chapin's control list). Listen, I get that you might not like playing against Jund, or that having your opponent Bituminous Blast into Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning feels about as good as finding out the prophylactic broke, but we live in a pretty happy Standard world. The enemy has clearly presented itself, there are lots of options available to combat that enemy, and the format in general is a lot of fun with plenty of options.

 

Besides, I predict there will be zero Jund decks in any Open Top 8s for the rest of the season. Why do I predict that? Because as the head of the coverage, I get to determine what decks are called, and after the GGsLive crew announced a Jund V. Jund Finals in Richmond, promptly losing a third of their viewing audience, we've decided from now on we're not calling anything Jund. So look out for 5-Color Allies featuring a LOT of black-green-red cards and not too many actual Allies, or blue-white Control that's swapped out its counters for Terminates and its Jace's for Garruks and Putrid Leeches.

 

(Yes, I'm kidding, calm down.)

 

(But seriously, Standard is great, so stop whining about Jund.)

 

Legacy Prediction

So far this season, Zoo has made a Top 8 at every single Legacy Open, even "winning" in Dallas in the hands of Tom Ross when his Finals opponent picked up his third Game Rules Violation and received a game loss. The deck is consistent, but is it impossible to predict there will be one copy in each Top 8 this season? I say no, and I'll say it now: Zoo will Top 8 each StarCityGames.com Legacy Open.

 

Closing Thoughts

You should be playing the StarCityGames.com Open events. Here's the upcoming schedule if you're not sure when or where they are:

 

 

March 13-14

Indianapolis

 

March 27-28

Orlando

 

May 1-2

Atlanta

 

June 5-6

Philadelphia

 

June 12-13

Seattle

 

June 26-27

St. Louis

 

August 21-22

Denver

 

August 28-29

Minneapolis

 

October 16-17

Nashville

 

October 30-31

Charlotte

 

November 6-7

Boston

 

November 20-21

Baltimore

 

Invitational

December 3-5

Richmond

 

The first day is Standard, and the second is Legacy. If you don't play either format, be aware that there are side events that run all day both days featuring Legacy, Standard, Draft, Sealed, EDH, etc. Even if you're not playing the main event, there are plenty of other things to do. Also, you can get your rent paid for quite a while selling cards at the StarCityGames.com dealer booth.

 

When Wizards altered their Prerelease structure so that the "big" events were no longer States or Prereleases, Grand Prixs and now the StarCityGames.com Opens stepped up to fill that spot in the tournament calendar. If you miss them, you're missing out on a huge chance to enjoy something that's both a lot of fun and a great opportunity.

 

And if you're headed to Indianapolis in two weeks, say hi on the forums!

---