AuthorTed Knutson

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to get the behind the scenes of what happens before a Pro Tour and examine the contributing factors to both team and player success. Since I knew I was going to attend New Orleans well ahead of time, I figured I’d start chatting with various pros in the month leading up to the tournament, in order to see how their testing was progressing. I wanted to find out what decks they thought looked good (or bad) ahead of time, examine their predicted metagame, then look at what they ended up playing, and analyze what went right or wrong and contributed most strongly to their success.

I’ll do the responsible thing and issue a warning: This article, like nearly all my articles, contains links to scantily-clad women. It may also contain references to and stories about sex, marijuana, alcohol, and sundry other adult concepts. It is meant to be read by fine, upstanding adults who would never dream of emulating any of the lunacy that may or may not occur as part of the events depicted here. If these sorts of things don’t appeal to you, then feel free to hit your”Back” button and seek out other, more palatable authors with names like”Bennie Smith,””Anthony Alongi,” and”Peter Szigeti.” I promise I won’t be offended.

As for the rest of you… Come on in.

At Grand Prix: New Orleans, I thought it would be fun to run a bet with Jim, so on the plane I figured out the whole Over/Under on”Women in the room as of round three” thing. Originally, the bet was just between the two of us. Gamers tend to be gambling men, though, so I mentioned it to a few more friends and they hopped in on the bet as well. Next thing you know, I’m mentioning it to Ferrett and he’s suggesting that I start polling all the Pros to see what their answers are. What started as a simple wager between friends blossomed into a goofy little contest article (and four extra bucks for me). Well, now it’s tradition.

What do you know about Dirk Baberowski? Uh, he’s German, right? And… Um, he’s friends with Kai – and um, uh…
Well, if you want his Magic resume, he’s the 2003 German National Champion, he has three Pro Tour titles under his belt (two team titles with Kai Budde and Marco Blume, and a solo Pro Tour title from Chicago ’98), a second-place finish at Euros ’99, and an additional Pro Tour Top 8 at Chicago ’99.
But what do you know about Dirk, the man? He has more Pro Tour wins than Finkel, is part of the best three-man Magic team of all time, and yet nobody on this side of the Atlantic knows a damned thing about him. Hopefully we’ll change that today, and show you how a master of Rochester prepares for Team Drafting.

Ted gives his usual dose of”strategic excuses to post pictures of scantily-clad women,” discussing Onslaught Block and the futility of his attempts to win at it, and dissecting a recent Roanoke PTQ to see what the field looks like these days.

For those of you unaware of what this week’s title means,”in my wheelhouse” is yet another baseball term used to describe the location of pitches where batters typically hit them the hardest. Just after I turned in my last article, both Nick Eisel and Rob Dougherty released articles dealing directly with topics that I discussed – and needless to say, I was a bit dissatisfied with the product. So let me tell you the real to draft U/W in Onslaught Limited, and explain why Goblin Bidding is completely worthless in Onslaught Block.

There’s a lot of crap out there in Magic land, and there are a lot of things that I’m not fully satisfied with. People keep telling me it’s not good to keep things bottled up, and I’ve been feeling a bit ranty lately, so I figured I’d try and get it all out in one big lump of bile and filth – including Rob Dougherty’s articles, the lameness of certain forum bitchers, and the quality of internet writing. Oh, and Mary Van Tyne guest stars for a female take on how much women hate my weekly cheesecake photos!

The discussion is deeper than anyone has talked about. In fact, it relates directly to the advancement of knowledge for our game. And aside from Ben Bleiweiss complaining to me over AIM, nobody else is discussing it. So it looks like it’s up to me to eat the parfait, and explain why not having decklists for every deck played at a Grand Prix or Pro Tour is the biggest problem in the game today.

Tournament Operator Mike Guptil found another (slightly less well-known) player passed out in the elevators. Upon being awoken, that player was very drunk and very disoriented, and was asked to leave the premises (though I doubt he could find the exit without some help). In case you’re missing the point, Grand Prixs are great times – but try not to destroy the hotel and venue, and also do your best to pass out in your room or a friend’s room. This can result in compromising photos of you that get posted on the internet.

The response to the idea of a Magic Writer’s Hall of Fame has been exceptional, and while most everyone has quibbled about who was selected or how the Hall is constructed, in general the feeling for this topic from the public has been that it’s an excellent idea that deserves to happen now. After taking a great deal of advice from all parties concerned, I therefore propose that we back up a bit from the original way I had things laid out, and create the Hall properly.