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This week there is a ton of stuff going on.  I figured I would take this
opportunity to address some of these items.  So much to talk about and so
little time.  Ah, here's a good place to start....

ALL LAND DECK ON THE PRO TOUR

Apparently someone is pulling off a dare by playing an all land deck at the
highest level of the game.  You can check out the two following links.  The
first one is the feature match report.  The second one is pictures of the
deck in action:

http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=PTTOK01\897fm1c
http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/images/PTTOK01/950.jpg

OK, now some of you are probably thinking, "What the $#%*& is this guy up
to?!"  I personally feel that is what you SHOULD be thinking.  I feel that it
is OK to mess around in local tournaments.  Honestly, it is probably even OK
to screw around at Pro Tour Qualifiers.  If you were messing around at a
Grand Prix, that might be stretching it.  On the Pro Tour however, you should
be more professional than that.

Many people have gone out of their way to try and legitimize magic in the
public eye.  Also, with ESPN and ESPN2 cameras covering the event, you need
to be holding up an image that helps promote the game on the competitive
level and professional level.  It may seem humorous at a quick glance, but
after a bit of thought, it may actually be setting the game back a step in
its evolution.

NO MORE LEGENDS PROGRAM

The Legends program that has been offered by Wizards of the Coast for years
is being discontinued as of February 28th 2001.  They have decided make the
match report summaries more easily accessible to the general public.  For
long time, this was one of the better benefits of the Legends program. 
However, if your Legends membership would expire after the deadline, don't
sweat it.  Wizards is still going to honor all memberships until they expire,
so you will still get Sideboard magazine delivered to your home and any other
small benefits you were garnering from the program.

The new system however does have a few more perks.  After a player has 5
recorded tournaments in his/her tournament history, that player will receive
a never before seen token card.  In addition to that, once a player reaches
20 DCI Tournaments, they will receive a Foil Wasteland.  I am sure that they
will be changing the cards down the road, but for now, this is pretty good. 
It's a great incentive to play.  Also, if you were part of the Legends
program all matches that you played this year (January 1, 2001) will be
grandfathered into your match history for this program.  All non-Legend
members will only have matches counted starting in March.  Oh, did I mention
that WotC is sending all current Legend members a free Foil Gaea's Cradle.

This seems like a very neat and interesting program.  If WotC keeps up with
it, there could be great rewards in it fro players of all levels.  Now we can
just wait and see if people start to auction off their legends membership
cards :)

MAGIC GURU PROGRAM OFFICIALLY GONE

We all knew that this program was on it's way out.  They have not been
supporting it for a few months now, but this week many GURU participants
received their letters showing stating the official conclusion of the program.

WotC is again making their players happy.  For everyone that helped out with
the GURU program there is a free prize.  You should be receiving two free
GURU lands in the mail as a thank you.

However, again, WotC has a new program starting up.  This one allows people
to sign up to give their input on all the different aspects of Magic in the
future.  It is also going to allow participants to get the low down on new
items and promotional materials.  It will basically put you on the inside
track.

This program might have some benefits, because it will give the game a
specific group of players from varied backgrounds and interests giving input.
 This could turn out to help progress the game in many ways.  As this type of
deal is totally experimental in the industry, we will just have to wait and
see the results.  There is a similar program running for Dungeons & Dragons
and they have experienced mild success with it, so this may not be a bad
thing.

REGIONALS AROUND THE CORNER

Everyone is sitting at home trying to find a way to break the format on April
21st.  Everyone wants to becomes an innovator and a superstar.  For many
decks and people Regionals has become somewhat of a coming out party.  Many
of the Regionals tournaments held across the nation are some of the largest
tournaments in the world.  Many regions carry strong histories of various
players and performances throughout the years.

My biggest gripe is that there needs to be a larger prize package for
regionals.  At the very least, come up with a system that allows more invites
for the regions with more participants.  Ohio Valley, Northern California,
Southern California, and Southern Regionals are always huge.  For some reason
they get the same number of invites to pass out as the smaller regions. 
Definitely unfair.  Just have a system that reads something like:

80-100 players = 4 invites
100-125 players = 5 invites
126-198players = 6 invites

etc.  You know, something like that.  That's not likely to happen any time
soon, however.  The second thing to worry about is getting some money added
to this tournament.  We need a cash prize.  At least cash to the top 8 or
something.

My store is hosting a Standard (Type 2) cash tournament the weekend before
regionals.  E-mail me fore details and/or directions.  We are trying to get
the regionals feel going to get everyone's decks a good test run and prepared
to play.

ALL MAGIC MAGAZINE AROUND THE CORNER

I'm not sure about how at liberty I am to speak to you all about this.  I
just figured I would get your mind turning.  We have been clamoring for an
all Magic magazine since the beginning of time.  Honestly, most of the sales
for Scrye and InQuest come from Magic players.  Trust me, I know.  I have
been polling my customers.  Well, sleep well, because your writers right here
from Pojo are putting together a magazine.  We are trying to have it out by
June.  In the month of May However, there will be a Magic section added to
Pojo Magazine.  We don't have a tittle or anything decided for the Magic
magazine at this point as far as I know, but most of the articles are almost
done for it.  I'll try to keep you posted.

I think that's about it as far as the general news goes.  I do need to make a
a correction from my last article.  I posted a link to my e-mail address and
we posted it wrong.  As a matter of fact, I am adding some moxen, chaos orb
and other items to my list as of tomorrow...

http://come.to/powrdragn

This next link is to the auction site, but without the ad window:

http://user.auctions.yahoo.com/show/mystatus?select=selling&s1=end

Please keep sending in tournament reports and the like.  Also, keep sending
me fan mail. I love it :)  Remember to tell your friends about the website. 
we need all the hits we can get and we can't do it without you guys :)

Well, as usual, I hope you folks enjoyed the article.

DeQuan Watson
a.k.a. PowrDragn