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The GodFather Returns Apologies to you readers for the recent lack of new columns. That said I will now launch headfirst into a new set of Magic topics, as always these opinions are mine only and not necessarily those of Pojo, the editors, or even the Texas Guildmages. Today's topics include Regionals 02, Magic Online, and maybe a few gratuitous shots. Regionals 2K2 Anybody who has played this game for a while knows
that Regionals sucks. It is that simple. Wizards needs
to take a serious look at reforming this tournament.
Among the problems are 1) the tournament is too big, 2)
there are to few seats to Nationals awarded, Nationals serves for two purposes to crown the Nation's best player and to select the best possible team to represent the USA at Worlds. Players at Nationals play both limited and constructed formats and the same occurs at Worlds. Isn't it logical to think that Regional champions should also be required to either play both formats or that there be both a limited and constructed Regional tournament. I don't think the TO's would mind collecting additional money with a second tournament held a week or so after the first one. I know the players wouldn't mind having 2 shots at Nationals especially since it falls during the most boring time of year for Magic. Wizards might not like having more people at Nationals but I don't think that it would cost them a significant amount of additional money. Finally, Disney would be thrilled to sell more tickets and have more visitors to their facilities. South Regionals 2K2 I was a terrible 2-2 drop at South Regionals this year. I played a great mono red deck designed by the great Bryan Hubble but I didn't play it very well. The only thing that was really wacky that happened to me was a round 2 loss to a guy who played monoblack except for playing 3 maindeck Lashknife Barriers. Suffice to say that it takes a lot of burn to kill creatures when a barrier is on the table. No the deck didn't have Vindicate, Lynx, or any other white maindeck. To this day I am cursing Brian Kibler for not filling the world in on this amazing secret tech for his deck. South Regionals was also marred by a cheating scandal. It seems that a certain Mr. McKim played himself up into the 7-0 or so bracket by using sleeves that were so marked that on examination 3 different judges could identify virtually every card in the deck by looking at the back of the sleeve. He was DQ'ed but it was still a loss to the players he cheated in earlier rounds many of whom were fine players. As of yet the DCI has taken no action that has been published. The even sadder part is that many players had pointed out this fellow's cheating to judges and TOs before but nothing was ever done until he was Dqed at GP-Houston. Note to Judges: If over time many different credible people point out sloppy play and/or alleged cheating to you about a certain individual perhaps there should be a little extra attention paid to their matches. Besides this incident the South Regionals were run as well as a tourney of that size could be run. Tim Weissman and Edward Fox also provided extra prize support and deserve the thanks of all of the players at the tourney. Thanks Guys ! I know I said I would talk about Magic Online, which we call Steve's Card Shop, in this column but I have gotten myself so worked up about cheating that I'll save it for the next column which may also contain topics like Bil Payne's rules for drafting and maybe some Judgement info. Finally I want to thank John Rizzo for all the columns and great stories he has written. Good luck to you wherever you are.
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