Changes to Friday Night Magic and Announcing the Innistrad League!

Big changes are on their way! With the recent changes transforming the old Rating System to the new Planeswalker Points system (click here to learn more), we've decided to overhaul our Friday Night Magic program in order to better accommodate players' needs. Starting this week, players will be excited to know that now, instead of our standard 3-round tournaments for both of our FNM formats, we are increasing the number of rounds we are running to whatever the correct number of rounds is for our attendance.

Every Friday, we will be running two FNM tournaments, one Standard Format and one Limited Format. Both tournaments will offer the FNM bonus multiplier as well as the participation bonus. The Standard tournament will be a full, multiple round tournament based on the number of participants using the following scale:

8 Players: 3 Rounds
9-16 Players: 4 Rounds
17-32 Players: 5 Rounds
33+ Players: 6 Rounds

After all rounds of Swiss are finished, prizes (including FNM promos) will be awarded to players based on record.

The other format we will be doing every week will be one of several Limited Formats. We've heard players' interest in playing some form of Limited, and now we're giving it to you. We will be doing a rotating schedule for these Limited formats, including Sealed, 2-Headed Giant, and Swiss Draft. This second tournament will always be 3 rounds of Swiss play, with prizes awarded to players based on record. This tournament will be designed to allow players who are more casual and don't necessarily care about accumulating Planeswalker Points a chance to play in a format they enjoy.

These changes will hopefully help players achieve the points they need through the new system, as well as promote a friendly community between Dream Wizards and our players. Come check out the new structure this Friday and if you have any other questions, feel free to email me at charles.ulsch@gmail.com or Laurel at laurel@dreamwizards.com and check out our Event Calendar on our website here for more information.

Also, don't forget to come down and join our Innistrad Sealed League! Come in and buy six packs of Innistrad, build a sealed deck of 40 cards including basic lands and play some matches with other League players! Thursday nights are still the place to be for casual Magic, and we can guarantee you can find players to play with. However, you don't have to play all of your matches on Thursday night. Anytime we have free table space, you can come in with some friends and play some games. So join the Innistrad League, where "Horror Awaits!"

Your Regional Top 8

The following players are today's National Qualifier Top 8.  These players will receive an invite to the National Championships at GenCon!

1 Michael Martin
2 Yoel Izsak
3 Jesse Oliff
4 James Buckingham
5 Ben Friedman
6 Eric Griffin
7 Lukasz Hall
8 Harrison Gardler

Congratulations to our Top 8!  Top 8 decklists will be up as soon as possible.

Top Players After Round 6

Here are your top players going into the seventh round.  These players have the best chance for a Top 8 berth and an invite to this years National Championship.

1 Jesse Oliff - 18 points
2 James Buckingham - 18 points
3 Shoeless Troy Brestel - 16 points
4 Michael Rooks - 15 points
5 Brendan Hurst - 15 points
6 Lukasz Hall - 15 points
7 Eric Griffin - 15 points
8 Ben Friedman - 15 points
9 Joey Page - 15 points
10 Matthew Lackey - 15 points
11 Harrison Gardler - 15 points
12 James Naughton - 15 points
13 Michael Martin - 15 points
14 Brian Schneider - 15 points
15 John Dreylick - 15 points
16 Yoel Izsack - 15 points

Today's Metagame

We're in the third round now, so I took a few minutes to walk around the tables and see what people were playing.  Between the dominant Caw-Blade and RUG decks, we're seeing some rather interesting rogue strategies popping up.

Several Infect builds are making their way up the tables, drawing from the deck that Brian Kibler ran at Star City Games Open Los Angeles.  Matching Caw-Blade's slew of Mana Leaks and Preordains with sets of its own, and Squadron Hawks with Necropede - a card that doubles as a source of infect damage and spot removal, Inkmoth Nexus, and Phyrexian Crusader.  The Crusader is the real key piece in this strategy as a virtual 4/2 with protection from White and Red makes it almost unkillable and unblockable against a majority of the cards being played by Caw-Blade and RUG.  Add first strike to the mix and you have a creature that laughs in the face of the most popular cards in this format.  While I didn't see any on the table, the deck also runs Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon.  This is the epitome of an Infect bomb, usually ending the game as soon as it hits the board.  The 4/4 flyer can give itself haste, almost always swinging in for 4 Infect right out of the gate.

An almost unseen archetype in today's Standard environment is making a bit of a splash today as well.  Elves are finding their way to the top tables including one build sporting Primeval Titans as a way to ramp into big Ezuri, Renegade Leader plays, and a build that can Green Sun's Zenith into a bit of a wild card:  Engulfing Slagwurm.  The wurm lets the Elf player to come back from late games when they don't explode early on and during the midgame when that right amount of pressure can really turn the game in your favor.  The deck is seated in a good position in today's environment as its plays can be explosive and downright unstoppable given the right draw.  But can it stand up to the consistency and proven power of Caw-Blade?  We'll have to see.

 

Several other rogue strategies are finding success here today.  Goblins, Black/Red Aggro sporting Goblin Guides alongside Vampire Hexmage and Koth, and Mono-Black Control running grips of Inquisition of Kozilek, Disfigure, Doom Blade, and Grave Titan are all performing well.  Check back later for more updates as the tournament moves along.

Magic National Qualifier Starts Now!

Welcome to today's Magic National Qualifier here in Tyson's Corner, VA.  We have 181 people in today's tournament which means 8 rounds of swiss play.  Keep checking back here for more coverage as the tournament goes on.  We'll be telling you how players are doing, which decks are being played, and more.