Hello folks,
I haven’t been writing much lately, so unless you’ve been following me on the coverage, you may not know exactly how it went for me. Also, a lot happened regarding Magic as a whole, and I haven’t always expressed myself publically.
So let me give you a little recap of my Magic year along with my point of view on what happened over the year.
Part 1: Every point counts
Here is a breakdown of the tournaments I played along with some words/fun facts about them:
February 10-12: PT Paris: 49th place, 5 Points
(http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21155_GW_Quest_at_PT_Paris_49th.html)
It’s the last round of the first PT of the season; you play against a friend. Winner may make top 32. Loser goes home empty handed. A draw probably puts both players in the top 64. Time runs out in game 3. You’re dead on board, but he can’t kill you in the extra turns. He gives you the pen to fill in the result slip and tells you that it’s up to you (to scoop or not). What do you do?
That’s exactly what happened against Gabriel Nassif in Paris. It was tough, as I knew no decision was good. I filled in 1-1. It was tough, especially when I saw that Gab took it wrong at first…
Had I scooped, he would have finished 34th, and I would have finished out of the money with no points. In the general interest, my move ended up working out (5 points each instead of 5 and 4).
He understood why I did it and wouldn’t hold it against me. No hard feelings. I would attend his wedding in August later that year (congratulations again 🙂 ).
February 11-12: GP Paris: 69th place, 0 Points
At 12-3, you can say that your tournament went quite okay. With one round left to play, you expect that your efforts will pay off and that you’ll rack up some more points to start off the season as well as you can. However, with 2182 players, nothing was sure. A win would have put me in 14th place, to get 3 points and $500. A 2-1 loss against Gabor Kocsis put me in 69th place with 0 points and $0… 16 rounds of grueling play with no reward is cruel.
March 26-27: GP Barcelona: 21st place, 2 Points
April 30-May 1st: GP London: 14th place, 3 points
I finished Day 1 with an x-2 record and the worst tiebreakers in the room, setting me up for a seven-player draft to start Day 2. In a seven-player draft, you have a one-in-six shot to catch up on tiebreakers and get the 3 points that go with a win against bye. Also, you have the insurance to never go 0-3… unless one of the players doesn’t show up on Sunday morning. After 14 years of Pro Magic, it was the first time I ever drafted in a six-player pod at a GP or a PT!
My plan was to draft mono-white (Scar of Mirrodin / Mirrodin Besieged Draft), as it was still an unknown archetype but the best by far. Running 15 Plains in both drafts, I had a 5-1 run on Day 2, ending 14th, tied with 8th.
May 21-22: GP Prague: 0 Points (no Day 2)
June 4-5: GP Singapore: 9th place, 4 Points
(http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/22111_9th_At_GP_Singapore_With_Elves.html)
That 9th place was indeed frustrating, and I kind of started to believe that I would never Top 8 an event again…
June 10-12: PT Nagoya: 11th Place, 8 Points
Facts about PT Nagoya:
-It was the first time in years that I played a deck I designed, without anyone’s help and no one else playing it. After starting the tournament 1-3 (in the Constructed portion), I swore I would never play a deck of my design ever again… (The deck can be found here.)
-I drafted mono-white again, twice, bringing up to 60 the Plains count I played in the last four drafts in GP/PT, going 5-1.
-I 5-0’ed the second portion of Constructed, which made me think that maybe I should start building decks more often…
-At 4-3, I was paired against 2008 World Champion Antti Malin. Winner makes Day 2; loser goes home. Antti offered a money split.
Me: Sure. How much? 5%?
Antti: Make it 20. I mean, we’re 4-3; if one of us makes big money, he’ll be happy already.
Me: Makes sense…
This is the kind of split that MAKES you win. There’s a universal rule that could be summed up with “you can’t have it all.” Even though I had to ship a fair share of my winnings to Antti, I never regretted it.
July 21-24: French Nationals: No attendance, 0 Points
I had been planning for a long time a trip to Brazil with friends to train in hardcore Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in July, therefore missing French Nationals. However I thought I could take a weekend off training to play in an M12 Prerelease and meet players in Rio, see how things are done over there. I had an overall bad experience with South American tournaments (GPs Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo) and hoped it would be different. I emailed TOs in Brazil to know where and when the tournaments would be held. I was excited to play when I received a message telling me they hadn’t received the products and that the tournament would happen a week later… A couple of days later, I received the same message again. In the end, the Prerelease never took place.
August 27-28: GP Pittsburgh: 42nd Place, 1 Point
Facts about GP Pittsburgh:
-73 days between my last sanctioned match and round 4 of GP Pittsburgh.
-Overall game-win ratio over the GP: 50% (15 games won, 15 games lost).
In round 8 at 5-2, I played the Splinter Twin mirror against Olle Rade. Olle and I have been friends for a very long time. I helped him back in 2005 to get inducted into the Hall of Fame, and he helped me find a place to live in Göteborg in 2006 back when I lived in Sweden. Game 3, time was called in the round. Playing “for fun” and knowing I was playing for Pro Points, Olle scooped.
In round 9 at 6-2, I played the Splinter Twin mirror against Adam Yurchick. Game 3, time was called in the round. A draw would kick both of us out of the tournament. Adam scooped, and I can’t thank him enough…
Round 16 against Glenn Jones. Winner makes top 64. Glenn asked me if I needed the point, I answered yes, and he scooped…
Not the most deserved point I got… but a point nonetheless…
September 2-4: PT Philadelphia: 2 Points (no Day 2)
September 17-18: GP Montréal: 0 Points (Day 2, no money)
I hated Scars of Mirrodin, but I think I hated M12 even more. My combined record in M12 drafts in Philadelphia and Montréal was 2-6. Despite a strong Day 1 in Montréal (9-1), I could not pull it out and make a point in French Canada.
About my North American jaunt:
-On my way from Philadelphia to Montréal, I stopped by Toronto where I stayed at Rich Hoaen place. First thing Rich did in the morning was put on Lady Gaga… Please, don’t talk to me about/sing Lady Gaga ever again…. Rich proceeded to win GP Montréal afterwards.
-In Montréal, I stayed at my old teammate and friend Marc Hernandez’s (World Championships runner-up in 1995). Marc proceeded to not win GP Montréal.
-I traveled by bus from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia (7h), from Philadelphia to Toronto (13h), and from Toronto to Montréal (5h). 25 hours in buses may sound quite long, but it wasn’t so bad after all (especially when there’s free Wi-Fi).
No points but lots of good times.
October 8-9: GP Milan: 2nd place, 8 Points
-I hadn’t made a GP Top 8 in 3 years (last one was Manila in August 2008).
-I was so pumped during the top 8, I couldn’t wait to play the next match…Anything else than first place would have been a disappointment.
-I was so bummed to lose the finals. I wanted that limited title so badly…
October 22-23: GP Amsterdam: 0 Point (no Day 2)
It was more an opportunity to visit my friend and 2005 World Champion Julien Nuijten than play in a format I don’t know much about and haven’t put enough effort in to perform well.
November 12-13: GP San Diego: 0 Point (no Day 2)
Grrr, I wanted to draft so baaaaad!
November 17-20: Worlds San Francisco: 20th place, 7 Points
-5-1 on day 1, 4-2 on day 2, and a 3-0 start on day 3. Three rounds to go, 1-1-1 makes Top 8.
-Lost to LSV in round 16
-Lost to Nico Bohny in round 17, thought I was out of contention…
-Got paired against Richard Bland, realized I had another shot. Game 3, had a double-Thoughtcast on turn one (playing Affinity). Lost anyway…
Not making Top 8 was a major cooler. That Sunday stage isn’t gonna run away from me forever!
With the last top 24 finish, I made exactly 40 points, just enough to reach Level 7. Meaning that every single point I made this season was extremely important and every story told above just as relevant…
Part 2: WotC and us in 2011
WotC and the Tsunami
On March 10th, a tsunami wreaked havoc in Japan, leading to the situation we know in Fukushima and the whole of Japan.
One thing that bothered me (among other more important issues) following the big wave was the way WotC was handling it. For a long time, the only announcement they made was that GP Kobe (a GP happening a month or something later) would be postponed but that the PT was maintained.
It was impossible at that time to evaluate the risks accurately. They had no idea if the situation in Nagoya would be safe enough for us to play, and players logically started to worry.
Antoine, Olivier, and I created a Facebook group “Would you attend PT Nagoya?”, raising questions about the situation in Japan and safety, to let people discuss it. In no way did we “urge people to boycott the PT,” like I read on some sites…
After a few weeks of discussion, we finally got an announcement from them saying: “The PT will happen.”
I know things weren’t easy at their office. They had to make quick decisions. The way they told us: “Why are you even wondering? We told you it would happen, so it’s happening,” not really showing they were taking our concerns into account, was really disappointing and proved that their communication was still lacking, a lot.
The Secret Meeting
In July while I was in Brazil, I received a mail from the HQ of WotC, inviting me to a secret meeting in Seattle before GP Pittsburgh in August. The message didn’t say much: a few other people would be there too (they wouldn’t tell me who), and I was not allowed to tell anyone about it.
I had been trying to unite the player community to discuss with WotC on multiple occasions (cf. Nagoya). For example, when they first decided to cut a PT back in 2008, I tried to establish a connection between them and the players, to try to improve the communication they have with us. It felt really bad for us to hear that a PT was cut through BDM’s column, where he was covering the fact that a PT was missing but that we should not worry, because there were summer GPs!
I met them a couple of times to discuss potential arrangements, for some of us to maybe work as consultants in the player ranks. I gave them the idea in Berlin (after the Suit Up episode), and they told me they would think about it. In Kyoto a few months later, they told me straight that they didn’t need/want to work with me.
Three years later, they invited me to a secret meeting in their HQ. A step in the right direction… or so I thought.
I was expecting something bigger. Or something we could actually discuss and offer our opinion about. They introduced the Planeswalker Point system, a project they had been working on for years. It would be in place just a couple of days later.
I did appreciate the invite, but I’m not sure I understood the point of having us over. When attending the meeting, I basically had two questions:
-How would the PWP work with Pro Points?
-What are they going to do to prevent players from abusing the system?
My first question met one answer: “We can’t talk about that yet.” It turns out they would simply remove the Pro Points (and replace them by…?).
I didn’t ask my second question, since I thought: Why would people spend so much money to “maybe” qualify for a PT? Probably not worth it. I didn’t quite do the math and preferred to trust them with the multipliers. Turns out we saw some pretty ugly things in Pittsburgh/San Francisco.
When you want feedback on how to improve a system, you don’t ask people for their opinion ten days before you implement it, especially since there’s no way they see all the breaches within the one-hour meeting. Their intention was probably just to have people explain the system to the public as soon as it came out and not to get any feedback at all.
Worlds ends here
Following the announcements WotC made about Worlds, the end of Pro Points, I thought I would just wait and see before judging. I was disappointed with the way it was announced. Once again, I don’t understand how WotC communicates with us.
When the target audience is your most fervent and loyal customers, even if they’re not your biggest customers, you should be honest and respectful. “Thanks for having been with us all along, but honestly, you don’t matter as much as all the people who will never read this” doesn’t quite do it…
Even if they do care about us, the competitive players, it sure doesn’t sound like it. I have no idea what’s coming up next, and I sure hope it’s going to work out fine.
Conclusion:
I had some strong finishes and some misses. I finished way above my expectations, considering my 2010 season was extremely miserable. Not that I doubt my ability to play; it’s just that I know there are a lot of better players out there who put a lot more dedication into it than I do.
WotC kept “not surprising” us with their very poor communication. Hopefully they will make up for it by designing an even better Organized Play system…
Thanks a lot to everyone who’s been supporting me all along, I’ll win even more next year, and hopefully won’t let you down again in the rounds that count!
See you next year!
Raph