Standard

Why You Should Play Champs

image from manadeprived.typepad.com

by Ian Baker

Hesitant on playing Champs this weekend?  The Doctor comes in to tell you why you shouldn't be.

Well, it’s October. The leaves are falling, I’ve been back at school for almost a month, and things are getting pretty busy. The arrival of fall also means that it’s time for the 2010 Standard Provincial (or State for you Americans) Championships. Now, I’ve known about Champs coming up for a while now, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to play in it. The prizes didn’t seem stellar, and I could probably have gotten more product had I played out the prerelease. (I dropped at 4-1 to go to work, for those interested). Also, you get your name on a plaque, and some measure of local fame, but these things seem pretty poor in comparison to a slot on the Pro Tour, and so Champs just seems like kind of a bad PTQ. The fact that you get your entry paid for all the PTQs for the next year is pretty nice though. Still, I realize I’m not doing a very good job of selling Champs here.

As October 9th got closer and closer, I slowly grew more excited about the tournament. The huge rotation seemed to have everyone brewing up all manner of new decks. Champs will be the first time that all those people have to show off those decks. That’s the first reason you should play Champs. It’s a brewer’s paradise. It’s a chance for all those people who had versions of the decks the pros make before the pros made them to actually play them and get some kind of recognition for them. At Champs, jank will reign supreme!

image from brokencitymagic.com image from brokencitymagic.com

Of course, that’s not entirely true. We’ve had one big Standard tournament (the TCG Player 5k) since Scars of Mirrodin rotated in, and Alara and M10 rotated out. Several powerful decks (Valakut, Eldrazi Ramp, UW) have survived the rotation and will be out in force, and there are good lists available for all of those decks. A large portion of the metagame can be predicted. Mono-red will be played because mono-red is played at every standard tournament. Still, at this tournament more than others, deckbuilding skill will be on display. Tweaks to the best decks will have to be made, and sideboards will have to be crafted. Winning on Saturday will require a knowledge of your local metagame, and as much post-SoM testing as you can possibly get in. I like that. I’m not the best brewer (Jared is the school’s go-to for new lists), and I think my skill in deckbuilding lies more in tweaking lists and changing a few cards to get them where I want them than actually coming up with new lists wholesale. There’s room for that, too.

image from brokencitymagic.com

Another interesting aspect of the Provincial Championships is that Scars of Mirrodin is not even available on MTGO at the moment. This means that all of the people who like to test-grind on MTGO will not have any advantage on the players who cannot afford to keep collections on both. The playing field will be evened out, and the players who will have the most advantage will be the ones that have gotten the most testing in with real cards. I’m not attempting to say that testing on MTGO is bad, and in fact if you want to seriously grind PTQs, I would heartily recommend putting the time and money into MTGO, because the testing can be invaluable. I avoided MTGO because of the financial impact for a long time, and finally came around on how amazing testing is on there about four or five months ago. Still, Champs is once again different, and there is a certain charm to wrangling a group of your friends together, getting some beer, and just playing magic until three in the morning, changing your lists one card at a time. The preparation for Champs seems to be a flurry of activity, rather than a methodical testing process. The scientist in me says that’s probably actually a bad thing, but another part of me (I’m not sure which part) really likes it.

image from brokencitymagic.com

I know that if it wasn’t for champs, I wouldn’t have gotten a phone call from Mr. Scotty Mac (of the Eh Team podcast and 60cards.com) discussing a certain list of cards we might both be playing on Saturday. It just seems like the Provincial Championships are bringing people together, rather than keeping them apart. So what am I playing on Saturday? Well, you’ll find out when I see you there…

– Ian “The Doctor” Baker

This article is brought to you by the Broken City School of Magic.

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