Today is the day after the release parties ended, so now Alara Reborn is in stores. I bought a fat pack at the release party on Saturday, Zach bought a booster box. (He managed to pull only 3 mythics out of it.) We first played in the normal sealed flight, and I opened an Elspeth, Knight Errant in the Shards of Alara booster. The problem was, there weren’t enough Bant cards, so when I made my deck, there weren’t enough good uncommons and rares. (I got good cards, but scattered throughout the colors. I didn’t have enough mana fixing for a 5 color deck, and I decided Bant was the best option.) I went 2-3 because of this, and Zach also went 2-3. After the sealed tournament, we both played in a booster draft. This was single elimination, and I made another Bant deck. It was a good deck, with a lot of flying cards and exalted, but I faced a deck that had 3 Ember Weavers, and my removal was not enough to deal with them, so I lost. Zach fought the same deck in the second round, and lost to it also.

In the fat pack, I opened two Maelstrom Nexuses and 6 good rares. I traded the nexuses to Zach so that he could make a cascade deck, which he’ll probably talk about in a post of his own. In Zach’s booster box, he opened a Maelstrom Pulse and a few other good rares. (He actually didn’t get a lot of good cards, for a booster box.)

I’ll post tomorrow with the second part of my set review, and soon after that with my Alara Reborn strategy and combos post. (Which will not be organized the same as it had been.)

It was FUN! Alot better than the prerealease. Both Clavin and I bought fat packs I got junk the only good this I got was Noble Hierarch, and during the game I opend a banefire. Calvin for the far pack opend a banefire and Noble Hierarch and a few other good rares. He got a mythic rare but I forgot which one it was. (EDIT by Calvin: It was a Maelstrom Archangel, and I didn’t open it I traded for it. Then I traded that and Banefire for a Nicol Bolas) I STILL can’t make a good deck when it comes to limited but I got some tips while I was thier so hopefully I will get good at the alara reborn and live (the 1st of the block after the shards block, live is its codename) and the 11th edition. Calvin and I are thinking about going to the store we went to during the release for both release and prerealese.

My progenitus deck (dont know if I spelled that right) got some upgrading to 60 cards and I got advice to throw some lovely natural orders and some more mana producers!

I’m sorry for the recent lack of activity. I’ve been out of the house every day since Thursday. (Zach will have to make up an excuse.) There are two upcoming tournaments that I am going to talk about today, neither of which I am going to. (I don’t know about Zach.)

First, the Grand Prix Kansas City, which I’m sure Zach isn’t going to either, unless he can go to Kansas City. (from Long Island, New York)

Grand Prix Kansas City

Website

Date: October 17-19, 2008

Location:

Overland Park Convention Center
6000 College Blvd.
Overland Park, KS 66211

Entery fee: $35

Format:

• Day 1: Sealed Deck
• Day 2 and Top 8: Booster Draft
• Sealed Deck Product: 1 Shards of Alara tournament pack and 2 Shards of Alara boosters
• Booster Draft Product: 3 Shards of Alara boosters
• Deck lists are required
• If product is not stamped or preregistered, deck registration and deck swap will be performed for the Swiss Sealed Deck.

Schedule:

Friday, 10/17: Registration from 6:00 P.M. – 10:00 P.M.
Saturday, 10/18: Registration from 8:00 A.M – 9:30 A.M.
Tournament begins at 10:00 A.M. If less than 800 players participate in the event, the Top 64 players advance to competition on Sunday If 800 or more players participate, the top 128 advance to Sunday.
Sunday, 10/19: The Top 64 (or 128) players begin play at 9:00 A.M.

Tournament Legnth:

Advancement:

Top 8:

Prizes:

• All participants in the Grand Prix will receive a Call of the Herd exclusive Grand Prix foil card, while supplies last
• The top 16 Players will receive invitations to Pro Tour-Kyoto 2008.

Main Tournament Prize Schedule

World Championships Online Qualifier

Website

Preliminary top 8 tournaments:

Dates: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 through Tuesday October 14, 2008.

Thirty-two (32) Daily Events will be designated “Worlds QT Prelim” events. Each Worlds QT Prelim will invite the Top 8 finishers to play in the 2008 World Championships Qualifier Tournament on Saturday October 18, 2008 at 9:00 AM PST. See the Magic Online Event Schedule for a complete schedule of Worlds QT Prelims.

Formats: Constructed – Standard, Extended, Classic, LRW-SHM Block
Limited – SHM-EVE Sealed, 10E Sealed

Cost: Constructed Formats – 10 Tickets (Tickets are the MtG Online currency)
Limited Formats – 4 Tickets, plus Product

Prizes: Prizes paid as follows.

In addition, the Top 8 finishers of each Worlds QT Prelim are invited to the 2008 World Championships Qualifier on October 18, 2008.

Magic Online World Championships Last Chance to Qualify Queues:
After the completion of the scheduled Top 8 Qualifier tournaments we will run Last Chance to Qualify Queues for approximately 36 hours running from Wednesday October 15 after the weekly downtime (approximately 12:00 PM PST) until midnight (12:00 AM PST) Thursday October 16.

These 8-player single elimination queues will award the 1st place finisher an invitation to compete in the 2008 Magic Online World Championships Qualifier. No other prizes will be awarded in these queues.

Dates: Wednesday, October 15 after the weekly downtime through Thursday October 16, 2008 12:00 am

Formats: Constructed – Standard
Limited – SHM-EVE Sealed

Cost: Constructed Format – 4 Tix
Limited Format – Product only

Prizes: The winner of each 8-player queue will be invited to participate in the 2008 World Championships Qualifier on October 18, 2008.
2008 Magic Online World Championships Qualifier:
START TIME: Saturday October 18, 9:00 am PST

FORMAT: Standard

ADMISSION: FREE – (No Tix, Invitation only)

PRIZE SUPPORT:

In addition, the winner of the World Championships Qualifier receives an invitation to the 2008 World Championships in Memphis, TN, USA, including two round-trip economy-class tickets from the airport nearest the winner’s location to Memphis and five nights hotel accommodation during Worlds*.

Although players may have multiple accounts qualified for the World Championships Qualifier event, players are not permitted to have more than 1 of their accounts entered in the event. Players are not permitted to have secondary accounts played by another person. If a player is discovered to have more than 1 account playing in the Championships before, during, or after the event, appropriate penalties will be applied (including disqualification from the event with no refund of product or event tickets).

Playing on another person’s account, selling your account, etc. are all violations of the Terms of Service. If you play in these, win, and expect to get your prize, be very, very sure you are on your own account. We do not recognize “I and a friend jointly own the account,” “It’s my brother’s account but he gave it to me,” or similar. The only exception is an adult may authorize a single dependent child age 13-18 to play on an account that adult has purchased.

A list of all players that have qualified for the World Championships Qualifier will be maintained on the Wizards of the Coast web site. Players will be registered into the Championships the morning of the next day after they qualified. It will be the player’s responsibility to make sure that they have been properly entered into this event and are able to join it PRIOR to the start of the Championships. If a player is qualified and is unable to join the Championships, they will need to contact customer service to get this corrected.

If a player wins who has previously qualified for Worlds in Memphis, the airfare and accommodations will be awarded to that player while the invitation to 2008 World Championships will pass down to the player with the best finish who is not already invited to Worlds. The final Swiss standings will determine the difference between third and fourth place and the difference between fifth through eighth place, should that be necessary.

If a player wins that is ineligible to play in DCI™-sanctioned tournaments (i.e. DCI suspended and/or a paid contractor), then the Worlds invitation and the travel and accommodation prizes will pass down to the player with the best finish who is not already invited to Worlds. The final Swiss standings will determine the difference between third and fourth place and the difference between fifth through eighth place, should that be necessary.

In either of the above cases, the booster pack prizes will not pass down.

In order to remain eligible for Prizes, all qualified players must email molworldsqt@wizards.com by Friday, October 17, 2008 at 10:00 AM PDT with the following information: Full Legal Name, Full Address, Telephone number, and DCI Number. Players must put their MTGO Username as the subject of the email. (Account passwords will not be requested–never give your password to anyone.) Please do not email unless you have already qualified for the Championships. Do not send an email for another player or account, and do not have another person send the email for you.

In addition, during the tournament, Wizards of the Coast staff (marked with the Wizards logo beside their online name) may ask players for their name and/or contact information. Do not give out your information to anyone who is not a Wizards of the Coast Staff (marked with the Wizards logo beside their online name).

Failure to provide accurate information may result in significant penalties, including suspension from online Magic tournaments up to and including termination of your Magic Online account