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Do you know how many new Level 3 Judges were anointed this weekend? Eight! To put that in perspective, that's a new record. And this new crop gives the Asia-Pacific region three new L3s, which it sorely needed.

The process for certifying Level 3 Judges involves a written test and a 2-3 hour interview by 3-4 peers.

Here are the new Level 3s.

Smith Lo       - Thailand
Joel Bantilles - Philippines
Claire Dupré   - France
Alexis Rassel - France
Nathan Brewer - Australia
Fabian Peck    - Australia
Eric Levine       - USA
Edwin Zhang    - Canada/China

Congratulations to all of them!

When all was said and done, the December Dozen didn’t exactly dominate the Individual World Championships, but of course, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Here’s how they finished.

69           Asahara, Akira [JPN]      
81           Techarattanaprasert, M [THA]  
135         Nelson, Brad [USA]        
140         Romão, Carlos [BRA]      
147         O'Bryant, Christopher [USA]  
161         Nettles, Logan [USA]      
196         Ishimura, Shintarou [JPN]     
203         Duke, Reid [USA]        
205         Oks, Oliver [AUS]           
227         Subcharoen, Jakguy [THA]      
317         Fanxuan, Meng [CHN]  
335         Luke, Bing [USA]           

"Can we just draft?"

When Richard Garfield, designer of the game, asks if he can do a draft rather than regular Champions Challenge. Nobody is going to say no. There was even a nice draft table conspicuously ready in record quick time, right in the middle of the giant Magic layout ready for the Massive Magic that will be happening this Saturday Night.

It took but a minute to fill the queue. Richard's son Schuyler was in like a shot, it took no cajoling for Mark Rosewater to swiftly follow. The other five? Lucky members of the public. For reference, Richard first picked a Tempered Steel. Unlike Mark Rosewater, he may in fact be a Mirran.

Check out this game state:

That's forty minutes into the Round 15 mirror match between Brian Kibler and Josh Utter-Leyton. Kibler eventually lost the game.

Every now and then you see a player at an event that is dressed a little differently from the rest. Sometimes, they will just have got out of bed rather later than might have been ideal, and thrown on an unfortunate mix of clothes. Other times they will have on something a bit different for a bet, or maybe because they want to catch their opponents off guard.

This is not the way of the Swedish Triumph Fish.

Back at Pro Tour San Diego, Bertil Elfgren was seen sporting a rather distinctive hat while playing for top 8 of the competition. He just missed out there, but the hat remained in our hearts and minds.

Where the hat did not remain though, was on his head. Right now, it resides with Love Janse.

That fish on his head is not there just for mere decoration. It is a celebration of whoever is currently the most highly ranked Swedish player in any given competition. The Tour de France has a yellow jersey, Swedish Magic has its fish. Whether it will be worn when the team goes out for sushi later we thought would be tactless to ask, but we are very happy to see that there is a Swede near the top tables with their fish proudly on display.