Community

Groan - its going to be a late night here in the UK

Middle of a weekend day in the summer. I am torn between partially blowing an afternoon and finding out who won before I even get a chance to watch the replays. These choices do seem to be easier to make in the winter

Someone should let Rich Hagon know that his podcast is just replaying his PT Kyoto wrap up with no new info on PT Honolulu....

The draft viewer is having an error with Conflux: Every single card won't display, while Shards and Reborn are fine (except in Shards, with a non-existent card Kathari Creeper - which I think is supposed to be Kederkt Creeper).

Booster draft in the top 8? How disappointing.

10 rounds of exciting constructed and then webcast the drafted decks?

I have to agree that the coverage seems sub-par this time around. I am sure there is a good reason, but there has to be a better way for those of us who cannot enjoy the island paradise to at least imagine we are there.

I love everything I'm being given so far, I just wish there was more, and I wish it came up faster.

JohnStuartMill wrote:

Why is the coverage getting worse pro tour after pro tour ??

Budget cuts.

I'm confused.

I didn't think it was physically possible for LSV to be this low in the standings. I thought he was auto-bye'd to the top 8 at this point.


The coverage needs some improvements. Twitter sucks worse than a six mana vanilla 0/1. I hate to say it, but it seems as if they're just doing the bare minimum for the site just to say they're doing it and not much else. I mean, really, you have all these people on the floor and you can't pump out two matches per round for the site and then try to take less than four hours to put them up. Its kinda annoying.

Especially when they could hire one of the many talented freelance Magic writers for a fraction of the cost of the in-house guys and get high-quality coverage for us to enjoy.

I'm sure a good amount of players would do coverage for the airfare, hotel, food, and a case of boosters, much like they pay judges with boxes for running events.

Heck, fly in Evan Erwin and pay him to do some coverage for this weekend!

Hooray for the Dragonmaster, what a nice comeback. The top 8 could have been better though, apart from Kibler and Mitamura it isn't that great.

zyxon wrote:

Best pic ever

Go Zac! I'll be rooting for you to get your first win. I've always liked the guy and it's great to see him get a second T8 (first was a GP T8 when Coldsnap draft was the format).

alpanon wrote:

Especially when they could hire one of the many talented freelance Magic writers for a fraction of the cost of the in-house guys and get high-quality coverage for us to enjoy.

I'm sure a good amount of players would do coverage for the airfare, hotel, food, and a case of boosters, much like they pay judges with boxes for running events.

Heck, fly in Evan Erwin and pay him to do some coverage for this weekend!

+1

I haven't played Alara block constructed a lot, but people were saying it was totally warped around Bloodbraid elf and Jund after ARB as it was around Naya before. While seeing some hate.dec around (Canonist and Vedalken outlander main) there's seem to be some variety despite the claims of brokeness. Has someone here been testing with block to claim if it is warped or balanced? It's particularly important this time because Alara is the first block with their precious new policy and it would be a blowout if it fails.

I suspect this whole idea of mixing a draft with the constructed format was intended precisely to difficult criticism to the state of the format, so people with lesser decks could have a chance to top8 and / or claim that results can't be translated directly to the health of the format because of the weight of the drafts.

JohnStuartMill wrote:

We are gonna see Kibler draft ?? Are u joking ?? Why not Mitamura`s draft ?? The man is great drafting and he made 6-0 in the tournament not 4-2 like kibler.

Who the hell decided to see kibler´s draft ??

This is the standard coverage decision that ruins things.

That isn't it.

USA! USA! USA!

No "interesting Americans," we would've gotten Mitamura (again, assuming no uberplayer like LSV, Saito, Nakamura, or Nassif

willyb_11 wrote:

How do I watch it with Windows Media Player instead of Quicktime?

I'd also like to know, I'm only getting audio.

Edit: Just had to restart it.

Anyone else getting bad picture quality?

Sene wrote:

I really don't like that Randy and BDM are talking about which cards the players are going to open before the draft is over. It makes the draft less exciting to watch. Even if they do know, they shouldn't talk about it.

They haven't really talked about that many cards in specific to be honest.

They mentioned there being a lot of bombs, but that's about it.

aarongapen wrote:

They haven't really talked about that many cards in specific to be honest.

They mentioned there being a lot of bombs, but that's about it.

Rietzl's Tower Gargoyle, Mitamura's Drumhunter, and that Conley Woods is going to open some terrific packs. Perhaps not a lot, but I don't wanna know yet!

teliot wrote:

I don't like this guy's chances.

still a whole pack to go and reborn and change that, but i guess we'll see

Rietzl's deck is going to be the nuts. In five-game matches, the better deck is much better positioned than in three-game ones. The only question is his mana, I guess.

i so wanted him to take the lich lord there

Well, Conflux was certainly sick for him. I really dislike the first Thresher pick (over the Trooper), but it looks fine with the next one; that's probably what he was planning for by taking the Borderpost over Crystallization. But passing Deny Reality? For Brainbite? WTF???

He came in with a plan with Reitzl, a good one as Esper is very good in Conflux...

Double Knight of New Alara? How awsome is that, there was once at a PTQ I went to and 2 different people had double Scourglass that was pretty cool.

I think Gleam of Resistance can become very relevant against Conley's Hellion and Lavalanches. It'll be interesting to see how Kibler plays those after getting to see the wrath effects in game 1.

They SERIOUSLY need to keep the camera on the board.

teliot wrote:

Eh, I want to know what's in the hands.

I think he was referring to the habitual head shots in the middle of gameplay.

teliot wrote:

Eh, I want to know what's in the hands.

WTB Picture in picture =) Speaking of picture, mine just got pretty sketchy ><

And as I said before, Kibler's deck just honestly isn't that exciting.

Jaksiel wrote:

Usually someone comes up with a Windows Media Player link or VLC link by now, unfortunately that doesn't seem to have happened yet. I don't understand at all why Wizards uses Quicktime.

Is it that big of a deal?

Enough with the extended shots of the players' faces! It's extremely frustrating to know that the players are putting cards on the board and we don't get to see them because you are too busy showing us the players themselves. This isn't Miss Universe. We don't care what they players look like. Show us the CARDS! There should be faces of Magic cards visible in EVERY SHOT while a game is in progress. If you wanna show the players and make their moms/gfs back home happy, do it while they're shuffling between games - not while a game is under way. Thanks.

- Sol

solmalka wrote:

Enough with the extended shots of the players' faces! It's extremely frustrating to know that the players are putting cards on the board and we don't get to see them because you are too busy showing us the players themselves. This isn't Miss Universe. We don't care what they players look like. Show us the CARDS! There should be faces of Magic cards visible in EVERY SHOT while a game is in progress. If you wanna show the players and make their moms/gfs back home happy, do it while they're shuffling between games - not while a game is under way. Thanks.

- Sol

+100

Why do we always have to look at players faces ?? We only need to see the table and sometimes hands. NOTHING MORE.

What happen with Zac hill quarterfinal ?? They stop in the middle of a turn to allow the cameras to film the match !!! Come on !!! You stop them from playing !!!! This is a joke.

Guys, a link for WMP is always provided by Wizards
mms://a549.l1897946548.c18979.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/549/18979/v0001/reflector:46548

I don't blame you for missing it.

EDIT: Scroll down under "Video Stream" to Problems. Click number 3 ("try other video streams"). Then you'll see the WMP link.

Apparently the coverage team isn't "getting it" even though a lot of people are echoing my sentiment (or I am echoing theirs) on the message boards. We're still seeing quick cuts to the player's face (and then a lingering shot of it) as he taps a bunch of mana and commits a card to the board. These coverage guys must be the children of the people responsible for the Heidi Game.

I know he's not Aussie but...

Conley, Conley, Connley! Oi,Oi,Oi!

Love the commentators talking about martial coup, whether or not you can regen., when it doesn't even kill the token that could regen.

billybob8356 wrote:

The player was asking if it had a similar wording to WoG, you know the no regenerate bit. They were talking about it and how it doesnt, and also how it isnt even in the deck. That is because the player was wondering if he should pump his thoctar. Pay attention to the players.

I know what the players did, Rietzel was wondering what could destroy him there, but for the commentators to not even recognize that coup is nontoken, they chime right in saying "he doesn't have it anyway" as opposed to "martial coup can't kill tokens so he won't have to worry about using the mana to pump". Just goes to show that these two STILL aren't familiar with the cards, even those in the most recent block.

Is the stream stuck for everbody atm?

solmalka wrote:

Enough with the extended shots of the players' faces! It's extremely frustrating to know that the players are putting cards on the board and we don't get to see them because you are too busy showing us the players themselves. This isn't Miss Universe. We don't care what they players look like. Show us the CARDS!

- Sol

Agreed 100%, this has been an annoying problem for a long time.

Unbelievable. We just missed the deciding play and conclusion of Rietzl/Mitamura Game 1 because the camera was trained on Rietzl instead of the board. These camera guys must be contractors who've never played a single game of Magic or anything else involving cards.

For those who missed it, Mitamura won with Vengeful Rebirth clearing the path for his team. I think.

The only other card that starts with the word is the card Deadshot itself which is from tempest.

sound would be nice...

Fleshformer is only on your own turn

What? Why didn't Hebky attack into the 6/4 when he has 3 creatures with exalted? That seemed terrible! I think he might have lost the game there...

Edit: He didn't, but he might have. A very exciting game, by the way!

Nooo not a mull to 5. Go Conley!

Wow, how did that happen?

Stellar Coverage Team,

I have a couple of questions to fill some air:

1) What kinds of things will there be for me to do if I decide to take the trip to US Nats (I'm not qualified)?

2) Did you foresee no US players in this final when you saw the top 8?

3) Do you have any advice for Mac users who want to play MTGO?

4) Lakers or Magic?

Only 4 decks with Bloodbraids, right? Tom Ross left them out for Ranger of Eos.

They spend like 30% of the shots on the board. Just great.

idk why he bant charmed the battlemage. He could have saved it for the larger threats like Jungle Weaver. He was still staying at 10 from the obelisk

That was a cute bluff, and it was blatantly obvious that he was bluffing. But you HAVE to bluff there. If Hebky was Kibler or Chapin, he would have called him on the bluff.

Good play by both guys.

MORE MTG!

EDIT:
P.S. "magicprotour(BDM) About 3 minutes away from Semifinal action. Rietzl and Woods favored to meet in Finals."

Spike only takes half the life with combat dmg.

Guest831299729 wrote:

Spike only takes half the life with combat dmg.

!!

StarDotStar wrote:

Can someone explain how the Waveskimmer was saved by resounding wave? Wouldn't Crystallization trigger from the wave also?

Sangrite backlash was the card.

And...3 minutes to midnight here in the East...PT CHAMPION KAZUYA MITAMURA!!!

Pretty good match. Grats Mitamura!

Sene wrote:

Hehe, Mitamura is overflowing with emotion... I can't blame him. Congrats!

Yea totally. Going 2-0, and still had to go to game 5. It's never easy.

Congrats to Mitamura and thanks to the Coverage team !

solmalka wrote:

Enough with the extended shots of the players' faces! It's extremely frustrating to know that the players are putting cards on the board and we don't get to see them because you are too busy showing us the players themselves. This isn't Miss Universe. We don't care what they players look like. Show us the CARDS! There should be faces of Magic cards visible in EVERY SHOT while a game is in progress. If you wanna show the players and make their moms/gfs back home happy, do it while they're shuffling between games - not while a game is under way. Thanks.

- Sol

I'm so glad I didn't bother to watch. It started at 9.45pm here, so I would have stayed up late to see it. And if I had been looking at the players for more than half the time I would have been seriously P'd off, LOL.

Any idea when the videos will be posted? Only had time to catch a few minutes of the draft.

drippinglight wrote:

Any idea when the videos will be posted? Only had time to catch a few minutes of the draft.

They're up as zipped WMVs on the right-side of the coverage page.

Gerdef

Kibler cracked his Kaleidostone to be able to play Arsenal Thresher, and revealed Esperzoa, Executioner's Capsule, and Sludge Strider. He took a point of mana burn

This raised my eyebrow watching the live cast, and I still don't get it: why did Kibler take a mana burn and not simply play his Capsule instead?