"He's a good friend of mine - we've been friends since before he started managing my store, Cool Stuff Games in South Florida," Ben said.  He told me Omar told him about the event, and thought, since he was qualified for San Juan anyway, he should play and try to qualify for the Championship event.

"I just called him," Ben laughed.  "And he said when I get back, dinner is on him!"  Omar, as the store manager at Ben's store, also gets a free trip out to Amsterdam -- great incentive for you to use to convince your local stores to get more involved in the WPN!

Ben played Jund in both the store tournament and the San Juan Championship tournament - he chatted with various players about his strategy, especially in the mirror, which he took down in the finals against James Wheeler. 

"I gotta say, despite kind of a disappointing finish in the Pro Tour after going 9-3 and then 0-4 to finish out of the money, this trip was awesome," Ben concluded.  "The site is close to the airport, the weather is great, and I feel like I'm really getting my skill back."  He left the game right after back-to-back PT Top 8 finishes and is just now getting his "groove" back.

His plans for Amsterdam?  "A good finish," he said with a smile.

But as the Pro Tour gets put in boxes and shipped to its next destination (Amsterdam!), the other side of the hall still looks like this:

The public events are still happening. People are still drafting. Somewhere in there, the WPN Championship is working its way to a conclusion. The weekend isn't over yet!

The battle raged on into the night, highlighted by a [c]Dawnglare Invoker[/c] riding a [c]Warmonger's Chariot[/c] and multiple [c]Keening Stone[/c]s causing trouble all over. The battle, in fact, is raging even as I write this, with four players locked in a struggle to the death. We wish them all luck!

UPDATE! The battle eventually ended. In retrospect, that's not much of a surprise. Anyway, congratulations to Benjamin Idoni and Uriah Oxford, who finished first and second, respectively.

Lucas, who plays under the username toon_, took down Shane "Shaner's Edict" Dowry in a three-game final match. The key point came when Shane thought he'd stabilized with [c]Linvala, Keeper of Silence[/i], but Lucas immediately responded with [c]Induce Despair[/c] -- which did.

Lucas takes home $2000 for his efforts. Incidentally, he's a ChannelFireball writer. We bring that up in case you're following the Top 8 of the main event.