Hosting Your Own Tournaments: A Different Way to Test

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve got some new playtesting partners, local San Marcos kids. Having partners who are available as much as you’re interested and on short notice is a god send. Hopefully, you can tell I’m really reinvigorated right now.

These guys are fairly new to competition, mostly making it to Austin and San Antonio for FNM’s, but they are looking to qualify for the Tour so we’re speaking the same language. So, in addition, to the unfocused battling we’ve been doing, I’d like to organize a weekly or biweekly tournament (I’ll tell Kyle to come up from San Antonio), probably round robin until we get some more people involved. Proxies will be legal and encouraged no matter what format we’re working on. I wanna get these guys regularly thinking about winning matches, preparing for it, making choices with that end (as opposed to card availability).

I’d like some kind of low-to-no-cost/high-incentive prize to add a little juice to the proceedings. any ideas? any input in general? let me know in the comments.

also look forward to plenty of material to come out of these nights once they get rolling. and if you’re in the area, let me know if you’re interested.

Hardcasting Eldrazi

I attended GP Houston this weekend, and even though I only posted a 4-2-1 with Scapeshift Zoo, the juices are flowing again. The next round of relevant tournaments are Standard qualifiers for Pro Tour Amsterdam, so that’s what I’m going to be looking at for the near future.

Coming to the format with fresh eyes (I know Jund is good, but I don’t hate it yet), the first thing that strikes me is how awesome the mana ramp is right now. Saturday, Bdm asked me what officially-spoiled card excited me most. At the time, I said Joraga Treespeaker, but that’s only because I hadn’t seen Kozilek’s Predator yet. I’m pretty comfortable comparing this guy to Garruk Wildspeaker; it offers similar flexibility and slightly better defense, while providing a Veggies effect much more consistently and just a little less explosively. I know he doesn’t come equipped with Overrun, but if that’s the party you’re going to, his three warm bodies are more than welcome. Steve Sadin, in his column at dailymtg.com, predicted heavy block play for this card but was hesitant to vouch for it in standard. Personally, I have no doubts.