Magic the Gathering: Nationals

At the GCBGB event on the weekend I was talking to some people and someone asked if I ever went to 401 Games. (Duncan and Sara run a board game night there every Wednesday, I believe.) I said I hadn't been there for board games before but had been a couple times for Magic. Some people asked if I had any old decks kicking around to play with and I told them I always just borrowed cards from Duncan. Duncan overheard and mentioned that he hasn't actually been keeping up with Magic sets recently but was thinking about starting again, and it came up that Canadian Nationals for Magic are in Toronto this year, and are in the middle of August. Conveniently for me, between the World Boardgaming Championships and Fan eXpo. I've been qualified for Nationals for quite a few years now on rating but I've been steadily slipping. Two years ago I believe it was top 75 in Canada make it in and I was 76th, but tied with 75th so I got in. I went to take a look to see about this year... Top 100 qualify. I am 101st. And tied with 100th. So I'm in, again, barely. (I'm tied with Josh Rider and I seem to recall I was tied with him last time too but I can't actually find any reference to the 2009 invitation list. Google is letting me down! This is why I need to blog about this stuff.)

At any rate, I now have a major Magic tournament going on a short jaunt from my apartment. I guess it's time to learn a constructed format full of cards I've never seen before. And a draft format that doesn't even exist yet. And to find a source of cards to build a constructed deck. Possibly just cash money. I wish there was a deck rental service for Magic...

The official website from the tournament organizer doesn't even say what the format is. The wizards.com site does, in a sense. It says 3 M12 boosters are used but there are two drafts. I'd assume both drafts are the same format but that hasn't always been the case and core set drafts seem weird to use in a major event. At any rate, it turns out M12 isn't even out yet so I can't really get started on practicing the actual format straight away. It comes out on Magic Online on August 1st, while I'm at WBC. Nationals is the second weekend after I get back from WBC so that'll leave almost 2 weeks for playing on Magic Online which should give a reasonable amount of practice. The paper pre-release for M12 is next weekend, July 9th, so I should probably head to that. The release is the next week so hopefully I can find some kind of drafts to get involved in during the second half of July.

As far as constructed goes, the format will include all of the last two blocks, the last core set, and this one. A very full format of which I have no information at all. I did a bunch of drafting with Scars of Mirrodin but the other 7 sets are completely new to me. (M12 being unreleased is new to everyone.) They also just banned two cards so the format should be shaking up from that change along with potential changes from M12. I think I should put a bit of a focus for the next couple weeks on reading up about rules changes in the last two years along with what's going on in post-ban standard to get some ideas percolating in my little brain.