Here we go then boys and girls, time to take another look at the comings and goings at the highest levels of Magic: The Gathering. Yokohama brought us plenty of Block entertainment, and Grand Prix: Strasbourg – just three days away as you read this – is likely to provide more of the same. And more of the same. And quite possibly, more of the same. I’ll talk a bit more about Strasbourg later, and also Grand Prix: Flash, (oh, I’m sorry – Grand Prix: Columbus) which is happening simultaneously. And who’s idea was that exactly?
Let’s get to the men who have been putting up the numbers so far. We’ll be looking at the Player of the Year Race as it stood after Pro Tour: Yokohama. As befits the entirely arbitrary nature of this column, the cut-off this time around is 10 Pro Points and up. Why? For one thing I don’t know much about Andy Sauro with his 1 Pro Point from GP: Dallas, other than he, well, got 1 Pro Point at GP: Dallas. Also, simple math says that these are the guys with the best shot at Level 3 for next year. With 10 points in the bag already, another 6 guaranteed from attending the three remaining Pro Tours of the season (San Diego, Valencia, and New York) and realistically they can expect to pick up the four bonus points they need to reach the Magic number of 20 for Level 3. And if you’re new to the whole Pro scene thing, 20 is the Magic number because it guarantees you a slot at every Pro Tour for the following season. That’s a whopping 5 sets of Pro Tour Qualifiers you don’t have to fight your way through.
Of course, plenty of players have yet to make their move, and when Gerard Fabiano and Jon Sonne win Pro Tour San Diego they’ll be rocketing up the table and into contention for Player of the Year with almost 6 months of points-chasing still to come. Incidentally, those names weren’t chosen randomly. Fabiano and Sonne, you heard it here first. Right, eyes down, and from the bottom up we have….
10 points: Tiago Chan, Aaron Brackmann, Andre Coimbra, Ryou Ogura, Antti Malin, Daisuke Hirose, Jan Doise, Jose Luis Echeverria Parredes, Kim Valori, Saul Aguado, Tsubasa Tomii.
A bunch of interesting stories to get us going. Regular readers will know that Tiago Chan was my pre-year pick for Player of the Year. A succession of near-misses continued in Yokohama and Stockholm, where a fast start petered away in Japan, and then a final round defeat against Rich Hoaen put him out of Top 8 contention in Sweden.
I was accused in the forums of hating Japanese players when I said that Ryou Ogura wasn’t my idea of a contender for the overall crown. He’s currently the 17th ranked Japanese cardflinger. What’s that sound? Oh yes, it’s the gentle thud of my case being rested.
Still with Japan, Tsubasa Tomii has made a splash in 2 events. Five points at GP: Kyoto were doubled with $800 worth of 43rd place in Yokohama.
Antti Malin is an interesting guy. A regular on the European Grand Prix circuit, he seems permanently poised on the edge of being Level 3, or not quite, which means he often has to rely on performances at each Pro Tour to get him a slot at the next one. Case in point, Malin took White Weenie to Yokohama (Error! Error! Error!) and was one of only two mages to successfully pilot it to a finish inside the Top 50, albeit in exactly 50th place. When he told me about his finish, I was slightly puzzled why he was looking so pleased with himself. Did he want his decklist in the ‘Top 50 Decklists’ on MagictheGathering.com? That didn’t seem likely. Then the penny dropped. Turns out, the Top 50 get invited to the next Constructed Pro Tour in Valencia. Bargain. Maybe even Yawgmoth’s Bargain. Or is that Banned in Extended?
Our next tale comes from the vaults of Things That Do Not Exist. This includes Print Runs, Prize Splits, Money Drafts, and assorted other goodness. In this story, we’ll be talking about Prize Splits. Jose Luis Echeverria Parredes, or J-Lep as he will henceforth be known, is a player from Chile who really did the business in Yokohama. Going into the last round against Dutchie Frank Karsten (more of whom later) Parredes knew that the winner would make Top 8. Those of you who listen to the Pro Tour audio coverage will know what a thrilling match this turned out to be. Eventually, with the hundred or so spectators only just matched by the number of judges watching out for underhandedness, what I think of as The Dance began, and you can recreate The Dance in the privacy of your own home. Simply utilise as many of the following phrases as you like, and randomly assign them to either of your two players:
"Wow, a draw would be soooooo lame."
"We’ll both miss out."
"I have such great tiebreakers."
"I don’t think you can make it in."
"Your matchup against Herberholz is unwinnable."
"Your matchup against Tsumura is unwinnable." (chances are at least one of the last two will be useful!)
"I’m clearly winning this one."
"I played the game differently."
"I was going all-out for the win."
"There’s a lot of difference between 9th and 10th."
"There’s very little difference between 9th and 10th."
"I may never get here again."
"You’ll be here again."
"Will you concede to me?"
I’m going to stop at this point, and remind you that you only get to use that last phrase once and once only. Use it twice, you’re in big trouble of the DCI variety. Now here’s a phrase you can’t use at all, ever:
"If you concede to me, I will….
a. Contract murder your mother-in-law."
b. Give you my Beta Black Lotus."
c. Give you an as yet undefined percentage of my winnings from the Top 8 that you are so generously about to let me in at the expense of the other poor schmo sitting over there desperately hoping that you’ll be foolish and turn down this guaranteed money-making offer."
This is, of course, a variation on the "Dad" tactic from family games of Monopoly, a tactic that I’ve used with enormous success on my five-year-old daughter. Bless.
"Well Elizabeth, if you give me Boardwalk, you can stay up an extra ten minutes. Throw in the four stations and you’re looking at a whole extra half hour of fun."
And some people say I’m competitive. Tsk.
Anyway, back to Parredes. Because this is a tale of Things That Do Not Exist, I can’t tell you that Parredes could by now have been financially better off, nor that the entirely honorable Karsten would have said any such thing, or that Sebastian Thaler might well not have made Top 8 had Karsten been facing a more experienced Pro in that final round. What I will say, is that if you’re J-Lep’s Mum reading this, you might want to have a word with your boy for next time. Just in case.
11 points: Yuuya Watanabe, Steven Wolansky, Ren Ishikawa, Mattias Kettil, Matthias Kunzler, Masaya Kitayama, Fried Meulders, Christophe Gregoir, Christian Flaaten, Jonathon Sonne, Makahito Mihara, Shouta Yasooka.
Of these twelve, fully nine are currently Level 2, and therefore eleven points represents a good path along the road to full Pro status next year.
Christian Flaaten is a guy associated with compatriot Oyvind Andersen, a purveyor of fine decks and with a growing reputation as such. Flaaten piloted Andersen’s deck, a concoction that pretty much defines the term Control, to a top-notch 14th place in Yokohama. This deck really did kill anything that even came close to moving. In many ways it was a thing of exquisite focus, since so many decks fall by the wayside trying to do one too many things. I confess to enjoying the extremes of Magic, so while I love the idea of being able to win on the very first turn of the game when your opponent passes you priority during his upkeep (that’ll be Flash in Legacy then) I also think there’s a brutal awesomeness about a deck that wins with a lone Caribou Range or, I kid you not, a lone Aladdin’s Ring. Now that’s what I call an control deck. The only problem with the deck was… that… it… was… slow. Andersen suffered with any number of 1-1 draws during the event, and by my reckoning the deck is a veritable festival of no fun on MTGO. One day, Pro Tour rounds will last 3 hours, and then Andersen and Flaaten will be in the final.
Of the three players with current Pro status, Jon Sonne made the best of his Yokohama weekend with a comprehensive annihilation of the Two-Headed-Giant field on the Saturday, when assorted colleagues were still busy with main event action. Neither he nor teammate Fabiano are realistically Top 10 players in the world right now, but they are the living embodiment of synergy. Control and Beatdown, Little and Large, Madness and Sanity, you choose, whatever way you slice it these guys are a Team.
The remaining two eleven-pointers will be less than pleased to be featured this early. Reigning World Champion Makahito Mihara is still a long way from Level 5 for next year, but then he was a long way from Level 5 before he won Worlds. Shouta Yasooka meanwhile has yet to live up to his Player of the Year status. I can’t tell you why, and I’m not sure he can either.
12 points: Luis Scott-Vargas, Ben Rubin, Masashi Oiso, Masahiko Morita, Gerard Fabiano, Carlos Romao, Quentin Martin, Johan Sadeghpour, Richard Hoaen.
Sometimes clear-sightedness doesn’t get you very far. Seeing the lorry coming towards you when you can’t move doesn’t stop it hurting when it hits, and Rich Hoaen season is starting to resemble a degree of car-crash TV. Talking in Geneva, Hoaen was extremely lucid about the makeup of the Pro season this year, with limited opportunities in Limited, the format of choice for the blue-haired Canadian. Needing a fast start, he was less than happy with his Geneva finish, only netting four points. Sharing a two-headed team with Kenji Tsumura didn’t deliver the goods in Amsterdam, and it was something of a surprise to see him make the transatlantic trip to Stockholm. Rational as ever, he pointed out that he really couldn’t afford to let the one and only Limited event on the European GP circuit slip by without at least trying to garner some much-needed points. And, to be fair, it so nearly went perfectly. If a GP tournament reaches 800 players or more, the tournament is generally split into two halves on Day 1, and 128 players qualify for the draft portion on Day 2. In Stockholm, 700+ players meant just 64 playing on Sunday. Hoaen, Limited strongman that he is, was comfortably amongst those, but the quest for the Top 8 is really tough from there, and even a last round win against Tiago Chan wasn’t enough to clinch him a spot in the final draft. It’s hard to think of 10th place out of 713 as disappointing, but when you’re arguably the world’s best drafter of recent years, staring down the barrel of Constructed events around the globe, 10th just seems two tantalising places too low.
Ben Rubin and Johan Sadeghpour represent two ends of the "play the game, see the world" scale. Rubin spent a small fortune on a taxi ride from hell that took him all the way from Frankfurt to Geneva. Sadeghpour meanwhile acknowledged in Amsterdam that he’s not a big fan of the whole travelling thing. I’m not suggesting that either of these approaches is right or wrong. What I will say, is that if you’re contemplating coming to one of the GPs around the world, you must be coming for more than the main event. Enjoy the train ride to the airport, enjoy meeting players from around the globe when you reach Amsterdam or Frankfurt or Paris – one of the big hubs for European flights – and enjoy attempting to draft across six seats in a 747. Enjoy the drafting and playtesting on the Friday night. Go out on the town on Saturday night if you’re part of the 92% who don’t make it to Sunday. Play side events, meet the artists, gunsling against the Pros, trade… above all, just have fun. If you can’t do that, home and MTGO is the place for you, because coming halfway across the world to go 1-3 with a sealed pool of garbage isn’t the way to spend a weekend. It really isn’t.
Note to self: It’s easy, when you’re still getting to know lots of the big names to listen to the hype. I know Willy Edel and Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa fairly well, but Carlos Romao? Not at all. And yet Romao, a former World Champion, is well on course for Level 3 once again, and is showing signs of going further. Must speak soon.
13 points: Gabriel Nassif, Shuuhei Nakamura.
151st in Yokohama added to the list of sub-optimal performances from Level 6 mage Nakamura. Thankfully, the charming Japanese ambassador maintains a sense of humor through what has turned out to be a difficult first half to the season. Meanwhile, if you want value for money, I highly recommend watching Nassif. There are few certainties in life, but in Yokohama one of them was that you could go and watch two other standout matches and then pop back in time to see Nassif sideboard for game 2 with his U/B/w control deck. Seriously, when it comes to stamina, this man is unbeatable. One day, there’ll be a Pro Tour where Nassif, Oyvind Andersen, Bram Snepvangers and Frank Karsten are the control-on-control best-of-five semi-final matchups (and who-knew-I-could-fit-so-many-hyphens-into-one-sentence?) and we will finish the Tour on Monday.
14 points: Katsuhiro Mori, Koutarou Ootsuka, Paulo Carvalho, Rogier Maaten.
Stockholm wasn’t the most successful for the Pentagram of the Mages, the five players we follow through the tournament on the audio coverage over on MagictheGathering.com. Marijn Lybaert, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, David Brucker, and Tomaharu Saitou were all out on Day 1 despite three byes to kickoff the tournament, and only Dutchie Rogier Maaten made it in to Sunday. To be fair, he had an extreme deck featuring a sum total of seven monsters, coupled with every piece of removal in the known world. Frankly, it was a surprise that he lost twice on Day 1. There are so many great Dutch players on the circuit right now, Maaten is one of those quiet figures that doesn’t really make the headlines, despite being a former National Champ (2003) and part of the Dutch Worlds Team the following year too. Having spent much of Saturday watching him, he’s one of the Pros I’d most like to play. Sure, chances are he’s going to utterly destroy you, but you’ll have a great time while it’s happening. Positively wanting your opponent to enjoy the match isn’t a habit I’ve encountered a great deal on Tour so far, but Maaten definitely belongs to this philosophical camp. As he sees it, obviously he wants to win, but if that isn’t going to happen, at least we might as well be enjoying the competition, friendship, and rivalry across the red zone.
The big news amongst this group is the sixth-month suspension of Katsuhiro Mori. Accumulated warnings is a nice bland phrase that covers a biblical quantity of sloppy play. "Sloppy" generally means one of two things in Magic. One version has you forgetting to take pain off painlands, putting in lands off Mwonvuli Acid-Moss untapped because you think they come into play untapped, taking one point of damage off an Ironclaw Buzzardiers because you think they deal one damage, that kind of thing. This is, of course, the norm for beginner players around the world. Then there’s the "sloppy" which means doing the exact same things when chances are you know better, or, in the case of the DCI versus Mori, "sloppy" means "nobody in the world could possibly be as good as you at Magic without knowing full well how stuff like this works, and since we’ve warned you 476,273 times in the last fortnight about stuff like this, you’re outta here." That’s not the exact wording, but you get the gist. Mori misses San Diego and Valencia before returning (if he wants to) in time for Worlds in New York. Without commenting directly on the punishments meted out to Olivier Ruel last year (and now Mori this), it does at least reflect a truth that no name, however outstanding, is immune from the "long arm of the law," and since the integrity of Magic is something we can probably all support as an ideal, I guess the Mori banning sends a powerful signal.
15 points: Willy Edel, Antoine Ruel, Osamu Fujita.
Willy Edel. One word. Oops. Turns out it doesn’t matter how good a deck is, if every man, woman, child, dog, and Sulfur Elemental in Christendom has decided to bomb your deck back to the Stone Age, three things happen in this order – Your. Deck. Dies. I’m the last person to question Edel’s assessment that White Weenie was the best deck in Time Spiral Block Constructed. Taken, to use a Floresism (would that make me a Florist?) in the abstract, he’s spot on. But Fortune Thief maindeck? That’s just metagame nonsense. Sulfur Elementals can make more of a case for themselves at a pinch, but the playskill of Edel and Co were never going to compensate for this much abusive metagaming against the small white men. Given this, his fifteen points so far make me think that at least Level 4 is likely, even though the gap to the top is starting to look unbridgeable.
Antoine Ruel. One word. Sleeper. Normally Antoine is one of the most recognisable players at an event, because stuff just seems to happen around him. He’s a focus for fun, and he’s always at the business end of things on Sunday. At least, that’s how it seemed last year on the Grand Prix circuit. This year, he seems somehow quieter. Two points in Geneva, 191st in Yokohama, only in Singapore has he really made the headline brigade. And yet… And yet, he’s already amassed fifteen points, locking in Pro status for 2008, and with plenty of time to ease his way past plenty of rivals and make an assault on the upper end of the table.
16 points: John Pelcak, Frank Karsten.
Three points in Geneva started Pelcak’s season, and the U.S. man has gone from strength to strength since. Five points at Grand Prix: Dallas continued the points improvement, and in Yokohama, playing the Mono-Red Whitekiller beatdown / burn deck, he played in the last round for a slot in the Top 8, before tediously missing out in 17th place. Still, a chunky seven points has him secure for Level 3, and he’s undoubtedly looking beyond that with over half a season still to come.
When God invented illness… (welcome to the philosophy pit of doom. I’m not trying to debate God’s existence or otherwise, or why He / She allows suffering, okay? It’s just the start to a paragraph. Chill.) When God invented illness, I wonder if he knew just how irritating nausea was going to be to us humans. I mean, chances are we’re not going to die just from vomiting. Besides, just look at what the Romans have done for us. But let’s be honest, throwing up is even less fun than triple drafting Betrayers. So hats off and buckets down to Frank Karsten who was doing a pretty passable imitation of Death on Pro Tour Saturday in Yokohama. A lot of players would have gone to bed and examined their stomach lining in the comfort of their own hotel. Not The Fanatic. Karsten, who let’s remember was playing a stamina-sapping, skill-intensive Control deck, fought his way through round after round before becoming the irresistible force running into the immovable object that was Chile’s J-Lep. So Karsten winds up 10th, J-Lep 9th, and Sebastian Thaler has the warm glow of what goes around comes around, as he sneaks into the Top 8 following the utter beating he took in the last round at Geneva. If Karsten doesn’t make it back to the Invitational, something’s gone seriously wrong with the vo(mi)ting.
17 points: Jim Herold
18 points: Amiel Tenenbaum
19 points: Ervin Tormos, Paul Cheon
Two Europeans and two Americans in our next batch, although maybe one of those will be "European" before too long! Jim Herold was a slightly eyebrow-raising member of the Geneva Top 8 back in February, but he’s certainly taken the opportunity of that good start to put himself in a decent position for Level 4+ by season’s end.
Amiel Tenenbaum is one of those guys for whom the glass is generally half empty. Being a glass half full person, I can’t readily identify with this outlook on life. I’ve watched a lot of Magic over the years, and of the many truths that have become apparent, here’s one of my absolute certainties:
There may not always be a way to win. There’s always a way to lose.
Don’t make the right play, don’t mulligan correctly, don’t attack, attack, die to the onboard trick… Oh wait, hang on, I’m lying, there isn’t always a way to lose – it turns out that your opponent’s draw step with no cards left in their library is quite a hard position to lose from. Then again, you could just punch them and get disqualified, so that’s alright. My point is this – a lot of the better players I’ve watched tend to do things in the expectation that good things will happen, and they’re frequently right. On the face of it therefore, an expectation of bad things happening isn’t something that would lend itself to success. So what’s the deal, Amiel? I’m still working on my grand unified theory of the Tenenbaum Paradox, but here’s the work in progress:
The glass may be half empty, so I better make sure that I grind you into the dust first and then enjoy what’s left.
Add in the fact that he and Nassif are a pairing for San Diego, and it seems reasonable to suggest that he could now go well beyond the Level 3 that he has already locked up. And at Level 5, which isn’t beyond him, that glass would look decidedly full.
I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with U.S. National Champion Paul Cheon until Yokohama, and I was keen to meet the guy who was putting up such consistent finishes. This doesn’t make for exciting journalism, but all I want to tell you is that I was very impressed by his demeanor, his competence, his straightforwardness. I’ll try and fit in a humorous aside next time I speak to him, which might be when he wins something, which might not be too far away again.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to work out whether Ervin Tormos is American or European. See, obviously the truth is that he’s thoroughly American. However, his heritage is Russian, a fact nobody could have missed in Stockholm, when a fabulous Russian contingent raised the roof in response to the victory of compatriot Nikolay Potovin. Frankly, just the fact that Tormos was in the building makes him "European," since almost nobody from the land of the brave comes to these Euro GPs. With 19 points, wherever he’s from, he has a good chance of Level 4 next year.
20 points: Marijn Lybaert, Sebastian Thaler.
21 points: Olivier Ruel
23 points: Kazuya Mitamura
Both the Europeans on 20 points were disappointed last time I saw them. Thaler had just lost his quarter final in Yokohama, a match he felt was just about the worst he could face in the Top 8, but still an anti-climax nevertheless to his first Super Sunday appearance. Lybaert, to be fair, could only grin at the disaster that was GP: Stockholm. There are certain Sealed pools that just can’t save you, and Lybaert pretty much got one of those. For both of them though, it’s been a terrific first half to 2007, and another Top 8 appearance would likely set them on course for a pretty spectacular Level 5 next time around.
There’s no deliberate play on words here, I genuinely believe Olivier Ruel is where he is partly through sheer force of will. I don’t believe there is a "Backs to the Wall" slot at the Invitational, but Ruel has spent plenty of time this year in that position, and he keeps fighting through adversity. Of course, it helps to be as talented as he is, and the way he tells it, to be as lucky as he is, because he felt there were any number of bad matchups for him going into day two at Yokohama.
As for Kazuya Mitamura, he went into the Top 8 of Yokohama as the third favorite Japanese player behind legend Masashi Oiso and Level 6 mage Tomoharu Saitou. Piloting the "Pickles" deck, utilising Brine Elemental and Vesuvan Shapeshifter for hard lock technology, he made it all the way to the final, including taking down Saitou in an all home team affair in the semis, before finding Wafo-Tapa just too much control to handle. Astonishingly, despite a whacking twenty points from Yokohama, he’s still only the 5th placed Japanese player in the Player of the Year race. Frightening.
25 points: Mark Herberholz.
If he was Japanese, Herberholz-san would probably be widely acknowledged as the best Constructed mind in the game right now. Not taking anything away from Wafo-Tapa, who independently arrived at many of the same conclusions that Herberholz did, but it was pretty clear that Herberholz had once again examined a format from top to bottom and come out the winner, albeit not quite as spectacularly successfully as he had last year in Honolulu. Coupled with the fact that the Japanese deckbuilders failed to come up with a format-defining deck as many expected them to, and it’s fair to say that the home of cutting edge deck tech is now a global one, as evidenced by Herberholz testing with players from all the major Magic nations. It may only be May, but if Herberholz comes out of San Diego unscathed, Valencia, with it’s Extended format, is going to loom pretty large in the outcome of the Player of the Year race. Herberholz represents a really solid chance of another Top 8 performance there. An outstanding weekend.
26 points: Takuya Oosawa
27 points: Shingou Kurihara
29 points: Kenji Tsumura
A trio of Japanese players next, and given that there’s one more still to come, anyone thinking the Japanese dominance of the Magic globe is on the wane may be indulging in some seriously wishful thinking. Oosawa ran U/B Control, and Kenji played a Control deck designed by Katsuhiro Mori. Kurihara went down a more aggressive route, mirroring the deck of Tomaharu Saitou, a R/G Stompy-esque concoction. Well, I’ve ticked one thing off my "to do" list now, because I’ve seen Kurihara smile. Indeed, in the faltering conversation we managed to have, he seemed genuinely thrilled with his rise up the Magic ladder that coincided with his shift into a playgroup in Tokyo with many of the big names, Kenji included. 134th doesn’t sound terribly impressive, but it still sees him gain an extra point beyond the basic "I’m here and I’m alive, 2 points please."
Oosawa, last seen analysing his final game defeat at the hands of Mike Hron in Geneva, fell 188 places to wind up 190th in Yokohama, but like Kurihara may be grateful for the extra point that generates come the end of the year.
And then we have Kenji. When someone’s this good, a performance like reaching the semi-finals of a 700 player Grand Prix, as he did in Stockholm last week, seems almost run of the mill. Perhaps we’re in danger of taking him for granted. Either way, from a neutral viewpoint, Kenji not making Day 2 in Yokohama was one of the big stories of the weekend, and maybe the entire season. There was nothing wrong with the deck, and certainly nothing wrong with the pilot of the deck, so perhaps we were just seeing the matchup curse of Constructed, where some players just get the bad pairings. What is unquestionable is that Kenji’s failure to generate points on home territory has made the Player of the Year race, if not wide open, at least more interesting than it would have been had Tsumura reached, say, the semifinals. At that point he would have a whopping ten point lead at the top, and although by no means mathematically insurmountable (after all, someone may win all three remaining PTs this year and get seventy points in the process!) many players would have felt that Kenji was away and gone. With San Diego likely to be an extremely swingy format, where a surprise result is entirely possible, the likelihood is that, just like 2005, Kenji will find himself very much still in a contest as we head for the bright lights of New York City come December.
30 points: Mike Hron
One of you guys on the forums described Hron as stoic, and that’s a pretty good word. Laconic is another I keep in my bedside table just in case it comes in handy, and following several years of zero activity, it’s moment has come again. With five rounds gone in Yokohama, people were starting to talk about Hron as a potential repeat PT champ, and that idea was so far off the radar going into Geneva you’d have needed a telescope to see it coming. Stormbind turned out to be good for Hron, just not quite good enough for more Sunday shenanigans. Nevertheless, a healthy five points for 55th spot means Hron could easily make Level 5 this year, purely on the back of PT performance. Let’s go further, just for a moment. Sure, he isn’t a player du jour, and he’s far from being a poster boy for marketing. He is, after all, stoic and laconic (just like Harry LaConnick Jnr.) The numbers don’t lie, and right now he’s just three points adrift from the top. Logic says he won’t be Player of the Year. Logic said he wouldn’t win Geneva.
31 points: Tomaharu Saitou
Air Miles and will to win don’t necessarily go hand in hand. You could be rich, bored, and just fancy travelling around the world spending Daddy’s money on trivialities. However, like Olivier Ruel before him, Saitou has spotted the possibility of turning Air Miles into Pro Points, and nowhere was this more evident than his somewhat surprising appearance in Stockholm. Still, when you’re already a Level 6 mage there isn’t much ceiling room other than Player of the Year, and the likelihood is Saitou has his sights firmly set on the ultimate prize. The big question is, will his face stand the strain of the repeated slappings he gives himself to stay alert?
And then there were two. As we headed out of Japan, two players stood side by side at the top of the table, and both are from the same country. Japan? Nope. American? Pur-leeze. Dutch then? Wrong again. They’re French, and here they are….
33 points: Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Raphael Levy
Regular readers will know that if I have an opinion, chances are I’ll probably voice it. I don’t mind being wrong, it’s been happening at a dizzying rate for over 35 years now, and it’s a pretty much constant companion. But there’s one question that I just can’t decide on. How important are Grand Prix tournaments to the Player of the Year Race? If we take 2005 as our guide they absolutely determine the direction of the title. Olivier Ruel and Kenji Tsumura were separated by a solitary point, and under the new points rules, that equates to a Day 2 appearance at a GP. In this year’s schedule, it’s GP: Kitakyuushu that is likely to be high on Pros’ shopping list for end of season bargain bonus points. This all seems perfectly reasonable. The counter-argument is embodied in the two Frenchmen sharing top billing. Levy’s outstanding season is amply demonstrated by the fact that Geneva was his lowest point-scoring outing so far with five. The quarter final in Yokohama generated twelve, and then we see his back-to-back GP wins in Dallas and Singapore. Surely that would be enough to see him clear at the top? Wafo-Tapa has zero points from GPs. Eight in Geneva, and then the maximum 25 courtesy of his Japanese adventures. That’s it. Two results, and a share of the lead. Win three Grand Prix in a row, and you’ve still got one less point than the winner of the next Pro Tour… and if you look at someone like Mike Hron, he’s another with nothing in the GP column who’s well in the running. My guess is that for many players it’s the quiet, unassuming finishes in GPs that will determine whether they squeak up to the next Level, wherever that may be. As for the title itself, on consistency alone you’d currently have to favor the Hall of Famer Levy over deckbuilder extraordinaire Wafo-Tapa.
And that’s where we are, with Stockholm results still to be added to the mix. By the time we meet right here on StarCityGames.com next week, two more GPs will be in the books. In Columbus, we’ll find out whether all the assorted varieties of Flash decks are for real when it counts, and I’ll be in Strasbourg bringing you all the action over at MagictheGathering.com.
Next week, among other things, I’ll be telling you why, when it comes to Time Spiral Block Constructed, White Weenie is The Terminator. But until next Wednesday, thanks as ever for your time. I will, like Arnie, be back.
Play hard, and play fair.
As ever,
R.