This is the third game from the quarterfinals between Guillem Ragull and Xavier Hurtado at last LCV6 tournament in Berga. This game is shorter but intense!

Feel free to comment the games!

Tomorrow I’ll start with the games from the semifinals. Again, stay tuned!

This is the second game from the quarterfinals between Guillem Ragull and Xavier Hurtado at last LCV6 tournament in Berga. This time I uploaded the video in HD quality and added some subtitles to it to make it easier for you to follow. Hope you guys enjoy it!

LCV6 #4 Top8 – Guillem Ragull VS Xavi Hurtado G2

I should have the 3rd game ready for tomorrow. So, stay tunned!

I managed to record videos from the last Catalan Vintage League (LCV) in Berga. I’m doing some tests with the editing so I’d love to hear the suggestions, etc…

LCV6 #4 Top8 – Guillem Ragull VS Xavi Hurtado G1

I can advance you that Guillem reached the finals but lost to Israel Muñoz (to whom I lost as well in the swiss…).

As far as I can remember, in the top8 there were: 2 Workshops (1 MUD, 1 Blue Shops), 2 Tezzeret (1 Remora/Confidant, 1 with Welders), 1 Repeal Tendrils, 1 Zoo, 1 Iona/15-15 Oath, 1 Food-Chain Goblins.

The winner list was using Master of Etherium and Esperzoa main deck, as well as In the Eye of Chaos!

The Catalan Vintage League (LCV) will stop tomorrow by Berga (100km +or- north from Barcelona). Gerard Siles has prepared a wonderful Vintage party with the following prizes:

LCV6 – April 24th 2010

Where: Alberg de Berga, C/ Vila de Casserres, nº5. Berga, 08600 (Barcelona)
Sign in from 9 to 10 am
Tournament fee: 15€

Prizes:

• Winner – Mox Emerald + Mox Ruby
• Finalist – Mox Pearl
• 3rd – Depending on the turn out (Mana Drain o dual lands)
• 4th -  Depending on the turn out (Mana Drain o dual lands)
• 5th to 8th – 1 Dual or boosters, depending on the turn out.

Prizes are firm, regardless of assitance.

SIDE EVENT Rise of Eldrazi Launch party:

From 4pm there will be RoE booster drafts going on.

<hr>

Lately I’ve been testing hard and it seems like I’ve finally found a deck I like to play. JaceCast has performed excellent during my testing and proved to be a solid contender in the actual metagame. This is how the deck looks like:

The only changes I’ve made are on the sideboard: -1 Darkblast, -1 Diabolic Edict, +1 Claws of Gix, +1 Sundering Titan

So, last Wednesday I got to play 12 games against Iona Oath with a more than acceptable 6-6 result on games, (3-3 on rounds). We played 6 full rounds, as it would be in tournament. Claws of Gix rocked! Most of the games I lost weren’t due to his Oath, it was actually against Vault/Key…

Then I got to play against Remora Tendrils. Same list that has performed excellent in the last LCV tournaments with Top8′s from Alex Delgado and Rubén González (decklists here and here). Surprisingly, I managed to win 6-1 with absolutely no real opposition. JaceCast was so superior to Remora Tendrils that he couldn’t do much to stop me.

But I also tested the deck against the new MUD deck featuring Lodestone Golem and, even more surprisingly, it performed lot better than expected. Played 3 full rounds against Roger Riera and the results were: 2-0, 1-2, 2-0 for a total game score of 5-2. Null Rod wasn’t really an issue if you manage to play one or two Master of Etherium. Masters are lot bigger than Golems, so they end up blocking. On top of that if we add that we play 4 Spell Pierce + 4 Force of Will we can actually stop their early game quite well. If we manage to get the 4th producer, then the game is over.

And finally I tested JaceCast against Dark Tezzeret and “The Deck”, with even or slightly positive results against them.

So, I feel pretty confidant about the deck, the card choices and my possibilities. I didn’t get to try the deck against Noble Fish, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a very good match up. I guess I’ll have to protect my masters from his Swords and try Tinker for Leviathan asap. Adding Sower of Temptation and Pithing Needle from the sideboard will make games 2 and 3 lot easier.  Dispel has proved to be a real MVP against fish from other player’s experiences, as it protects all your bombs and can counter their bouncer/swords.

I’ll be probably recording the Top8 games on video, and if I get the time to edit them, I’ll upload them!

Wish me luck

There are only few who are gifted with the ability to do everything right at first try. If you are one of those gifted players then this article might not cheer you up. To the rest, this article is meant to convince ourselves of the importance of losing to become better players.

If you’re afraid to fail, you can’t be sure to succeed. Those who aren’t afraid of losing will probably win more games. Why?

To answer that question, I’d like you to start by watching this video from Steve Jobs‘ speech at 2005 Stanford Commencement. (If you don’t know Steve Jobs, then you better go google him before clicking play).

Hope you managed to watch the whole speech. I know it isn’t really MtG related, but it’ll work great to help me explain the concepts of this article.

Let’s start by analyzing this quote:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forwards. You can only connect them looking backwards.” – Steve Jobs

How can we relate “the dots” to our game? I like to think those dots as mistakes I’ve done during my

games. It’s really important to analyze our mistakes from past games, even if we won them. It’s almost compulsory to take notes during games if we want to be able to reconstruct them afterward. Once we’ve created our own map of the game, then we can say whether or  not those decisions we took were right or wrong. When losing, some games will give us that “Epic Fail” sensation after some bad game decisions, some other might seem like a “bad beat” or like our opponent was extremely lucky. Don’t blame the luck! I consider myself a lucky boy because I make enough mistakes to be constantly learning from them.

So, only by understanding our own mistakes or fails from the past, we will be able to understand who we are now as a MtG players. We might lose many finals before we actually get to win something (no matter at what level you play). Once we finally get to win and become something, then we’ll appreciate our path from the past. A path full with fails and losses.

For instance, let’s say you are an average player who plays regularly with your friends and go every Saturday to you local store to play their Legacy tournament. If the feeling you have after the playtest with your friends is that you always lose, try understand the nature of those losses. Why are they winning? Are you making the wrong choices? Is it because they have better decks? Or is it because you believe they are better players?

If the first rule to become a winner is to understand that you can lose, the second rule would be to think and act like a winner. I covered that second concept in my previous article “The Importance of Playing Competitive“.

Start by taking notes of all your games, hands, openings, etc… and review them after the day. If possible, run a blog where to write reports and share the games with other people. They’ll probably give you some advices too. If you are too lazy for a blog, try a forum for example.

What are the difference between these sentences?

The more you play, the more you fail.

If you are a more optimistic guy, you could also read the previous sentence as:

The more you play, the more you win.

If we said that losing = learning (Only if you care about your mistakes from the past), then we could also say:

The more you play, the more you learn.

And from this point, we could also say:

The more you lose, the more you learn.

The more you learn, the more you win.

I see absolutely no difference between the previously mentioned statements. All of them have the goal of making you understand why losing is positive and How it can help you become a better player. Don’t get too upset if you lose too much, try find the positive side to it and keep trying. One day you’ll be on top of the hill and will look backwards. Then, it will all make sense. That day, you’ll connect the dots!

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs

The April tournament of the Third Catalan Legacy League (LCL3) was held in Badalona (town near Barcelona) with a turnout of 83 players (March was 98). As usual, Enric Luzán brings us some videos from the Top8.

Top 8 (winners in bold):

• Oscar Lozano (Pro Bant sin CB) – Felix Sánchez (aka Felix_SR) (Faestalker)
• Albert de la Vega (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) – Xavier Muntada (aka Brainstormer) (Reanimator)
• Juan Moreno (aka Drow) (Tarmo Merfolks) – Francisco Fernández (SuperGro con Wee Dragonauts)
• Toni Miranda (aka Dibenzopiceno) (Countertop Progenitus) – Adrià Bosch (Supreme Blue sin Firespout)

Top 4:

• Felix Sánchez (Faestalker) – Adrià Bosch (Supreme Blue sin Firespout)
• Xavier Muntada (aka Brainstormer) (Reanimator) – Juan Moreno (aka Drow) (Tarmo Merfolks)

Final:

• Adrià Bosch (Supreme Blue sin Firespout) - Juan Moreno (aka Drow) (Tarmo Merfolks)

Congratulations to Adrià!

Vídeos

Top 8: Oscar Lozano (Pro Bant without CB) – Felix Sánchez (aka Felix_SR) (Faestalker)

Top 8 LCL3 April – Oscar Lozano vs. Félix Sánchez G1

Top 8 LCL3 April – Oscar Lozano vs. Félix Sánchez G2

Top 4 LCL3 April – Juan Moreno vs. Xavier Muntada G1

Top 4 LCL3 April – Juan Moreno vs. Xavier Muntada G2

Top 4 LCL3 April – Juan Moreno vs. Xavier Muntada G3

I’ll update with more videos as soon as Enric releases them. Stay tunned!

We are proud to announce that Ken Meyer Jr. and Team Pataners have reached a deal to work together! Our intention is to promote the art from this amazing artist, and specially his alterations. At TP we’ve always promoted alterations from mtg artists, such as Terese Nielsen, Ron Spencer, Amy Weber and now Ken Meyer Jr. (KMJ). Ken is trying to get closer to his fans by promoting his alterations, so, what better place than the TP site?

Ken Meyer Jr. is well known by his MtG art. He’s painted mythic cards like Kird Ape, Erhnam Djinn, Dark Ritual or Mystic Remora among many other! You should check the complete list of cards painted by him at his Gatherer. He also owns a website where he posts his artwork, that goes from mtg to sport illustrations or comics. Have a look at his official website:

http://www.kenmeyerjr.com

But let’s focus now on his alterations. If you check his website, there’s a page where you’ll be able to see many of the alterations he’s done in the past. I love his style! It’s really fresh and with lots of colors.

(Click on the image to visit the Alteration Page from KMJ)

He loves painting characters from movies and comics. So, how about commissioning a playset of Dark Ritual or Kid Apes with your favorite movie characters? If you’d like to contact him, you can click on any of the banners we’ve placed at our site, his Facebook, or you can send him a mail to:

kenmeyerjr@comcast.net

His commissioned alterations cost something between $30 to $50 per card (depending on what you’d like), but you’ll be able to make a better deal if you commission a playset of cards! And make sure to refer to us when contacting him, he’ll be happy to know that our banners are working good for him.

These are some of my favorite ones I’ve seen so far:

Visit the full Star Wars Series

Visit the full Musicians/Celebrities Series

Visit the full 300 Series

If you decide to commission a playset of cards from KMJ, once you got them on your hands, please send us a mail with some pictures or scans because we’d love to publish them here, at Team Pataners.

When we went to Zaragoza, behind Dan Frazier desk there was this playmat being showed. The organization of the tournament had the rights over that playmat but in the end they thought it would be better to sell it to recover some of the cash they lost during that weekend. My friends Filippo and Angelo, managed to buy the playmat together. This is probably one of the nicest playmats (made by mtg artists) i’ve ever seen:

Douglas Shuler + Dan Frazier + Christopher Rush

AWESOME!

From time to time, eBay gives us some real candy! This time, a playset of Force of Will altered by Terese Nielsen in 2004 has been released. Even though the auction is for one card of your choice (not the playset), it says in the descriptión that he’s willing to sell the whole playset. This is how they look:

Click here to go to the eBay auction!

This alterations are part from the early series she did. It’s her very first jobs altering cards and they are definitely worth a lot. Remember the posters she used to do?

Click here to go to the eBay auction!

This is the story on How I met Dan Frazier, yesterday in Zaragoza (Where? Yes, Zaragoza). If you aren’t familiar with Dan Frazier, let me tell you that he’s the artist that drew the first Moxen. Well, he’s actually drawn lot more cards, including the 12% of the initial Alpha collection. You can check the full list of his artwork for WotC here and his website here.

So, everything started back in this year’s GP Madrid when we saw Jose “El Cubano” giving some fliers away. In those fliers it said something about a couple of tournaments and, surprisingly, that Dan Frazier was the guest artist at the event.

Arnau, Roger, Edu and I started to organize the trip to Zaragoza, and early in the morning our pimp ride started!

This was some of our stuff to be signed before we actually met Dan:

(Sorry for the bad quality of the picture)

It was really needed an Alpha/Beta P9 in order to get to travel with Arnau’s Mercedes

Anyways, once we arrived at Freakland Games in Zaragoza we discovered that Albert & Pedro and Paco and his girlfriend were faster than us, so we weren’t actually the first ones at the queue But that wasn’t the issue, as we had plenty of time to talk with Dan as there wasn’t that many people there in the end.

When Dan realized of Roger’s presence at the queue, his wife Cathy gave Roger a folder and when he opened it we were all impressed to find out that Dan Frazier had drawn a portrait of Roger wearing the harlequin hat from Jester’s Cap. Meet the IMPRESSIVE Roger’s Cap!

I can’t wait to see a full-res scan of the drawing!

This is my personal goodie bag for the day:

Let’s havea a closer look at everything

Hand drawn and dedicated playmat:

A closer look to the drawing:

The Lost and not so Lost Mox Diamond:

The 5 Moxen funky altered:

A closer look to each of the Moxen:

A few more pictures of the day:

Me and Dan Frazier

Me, Dan and his wife Cathy

Filippo, Jose and me

Dan signing some white border swamps… not pimp!

Dan and the Revised swamp attack!

While in Freakland we played some Vintage games, enjoyed the awesome environment and had fun, lots of fun!

Around 18:45 we decided to go back to Barcelona because we still had something very important to do: Watch the FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid game of the millenium! If you are a soccer fan, then I’m sure you know that the spanish soccer league is incredibly crazy right now. I just have a picture to illustrate how the game went:

I’ll remember this day my whole life, for being the day I met Dan Frazier, having an excellent day with my friends, and Barça winning 0-2 against Real Madrid. Hope you guys liked the report.

Thanks for reading!

Lately I’ve been tinkering ideas around Jace, the Mind Sculptor in order to abuse the amazing raw power of this card.

My first idea was to build a control deck capable of defeating MUD and Fish efficiently. To achieve that goal I had to understand that the key turns at those matchups are 0, 1 and 2. Blue has plenty of good cards but not all of them are made to win games at the early game. Cards like Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction or even Tinker are pretty bad on your opening hand. The idea I had in mind was to minimize the dead draws in order to maximize the efficiency of your cards.

The first approach looked like this:

This list has a very strong mana base and the amount of plays you can do on your first turns is insane. Except from Force of Will, Inkwell Leviathan, Yawgmoth’s Will, Tinker and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, the rest of the deck has a CMC of 2 or less. This list reflects exactly what I had in mind: it’s awesome at the early game, it performs well at the mid game, but loses gas at the late game due to the lack of big bombs.

Then I thought: How could I improve the deck? If Dark Jace’s strengths were the early and mid games, then I should focus on those stages, and a card came to my mind: Mystic Remora. Remora plays as an excellent complement to this strategy and makes your opponent’s choices lot harder. I cut the Tinker/Robot plan and opted for the 4th Spell Snare since it’s incredibly good when playing controlish. Spell Pierce it’s incredibly good if you play aggressively but Dark Jace isn’t really like that.

So, the second list I put together looked like this:

I added a Mind Twist and Imperial Seal, and swapped Darkblast for Diabolic Edict. Mind Twist proved to be a very strong card at the mid/late game. I had the feeling that I needed a 2nd Jace in that deck, since every time it resolved equaled to win the game. It’s just plain awesome combined with Dark Confidant or Mystic Remora. With this deck I really felt having the control of the games, similar to playing Landstill in Legacy. The only change I would make now to that list main deck is -1 Imperial Seal + 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

The last deck I’ve tested, and I have to admit with surprisingly awesome results, is a total different deck. Well, its core it’s the same, but instead of playing control, you have to play aggro. The idea behind this new deck is to abuse, literally, the power of Mystic Remora while dropping bombs one after another.

Let me show you the list:

As you can see, JaceCast’s main deck is extremely aggressive. No bouncers, no Mana Drains and bombs, lots of bombs. Master of Etherium proved to be incredibly effective against Fish and Golems. It’s easily an early 5/5 when it comes alone and once you drop the 2nd Master you’re just giving your opponent one turn to kill you. You hit for 7 the turn you cast the 2nd Master, and then hit for 14 the next turn. If you combine them with the disruption/pressuring elements of the deck, such as Spell Pierce or Mystic Remora, it gives the feeling that you are playing a very solid deck.

The real problem of this deck is Null Rod, even though Master of Etherium solves somehow that issue. At the testing sessions, I had problems against Oath with Null Rod, because I couldn’t land my Master of Etherium.

All in all, JaceCast is a deck extremely fun to play with, that can easily surprise your opponents.

By the way, tomorrow I’m going to Zaragoza to meet Dan Frazier! Can’t wait to get my cards signed/altered!

In the past I used to write a monthly post with the review of what happened at the site during the past month. It’s always cool to see the site growing while remembering some of the experiences, reports, news, articles, etc…

It’s been 3 months already since the re-opening of the blog, and I can’t believe how good the blog is doing with just 3 months of life! This is the data provided by Google Analytics from March 2010:

• 14,317 Visits
• 29,096 Pageviews
• 2.03 Pages/Visit

The peeks belong to the release of articles

29K pageviews nearly makes it an average of 1000 pageviews/day, coming from 6999 unique visitors from 67 different countries. The top 3 countries are:

1. Spain
2. United States
3. Germany

Fear the world domination!

29 posts were published during March, making it almost 1 post/day. I believe this is a good pace to keep you guys entertained, but it’s never enough! My personal goal is to reach an average of 2 posts/day. Right now I can’t spend more time, but hopefully this is gonna change soon.

If you feel you could contribute the site somehow, you’d like your articles to be published or simply join the crew to write on a regular basis about eternal (news, reports, top8 decklists, etc…), feel free to contact us.

We started March with my epic report from GP Madrid (Parts I, II & III). That report created a lot of love/hate because it wasn’t simply a tournament report. It was more of a full weekend experience report that included a GP in it. You can find the Top8 decklists from GP Madrid here.

JACO delighted us with a series of articles about the reserved list and the problem of the cardboard’s price.

Thoughts on Breaking the Reserved List

Solutions to the High Price of Cardboard

He also wrote an EXCELLENT deck analysis for Legacy’s Ad Nauseam Doomsday Hybrid, where he shows us why this deck is probably the best deck in the format.

Focus on Legacy – Ad Nauseam Doomsday Hybrid

The guy(s) from ICBM (Ben Carp, aka The Guslinga) decided to play a Retro Vintage Tournament and JACO was there to witness how wonderful Vintage was back in the gush old days!

Of course, Team Pataners wouldn’t be Team Pataners without all its pimp. Few goodies landed in my hands and shared them with you. I believe I’m the only owner with 2 cards co-altered by Terese Nielsen and Ron Spencer. In Madrid I got my hands on this marvelous Yawgmoth’s Will.  I also got a couple more goodies for my decks, coming straight from Japan and signed by Anthony Francisco: Tezzeret & Leviathian Foil Japanese Signed!

We posted some cool alterations from Ron Spencer, first a couple of old Swamp playsets and then a Yawgmoth’s Will that went over the auction site. We also knew that Dan Frazier would visit Spain to sign cards! Great news for myself, who’s gonna be the proud owner of a beta P9 double signed (and altered)!

Tomorrow I’ll post this week’s What’s hot on eBay! So you don’t miss track of your favorite pimp stuff.

March has also been the month when WotC announced MANY things. First that Legacy would come to Magic Online, then March’s 2010 DCI Banned & Restricted list (nothing changed) and finally the most controversial announcement of the past years, The Official Reprint Policy & Revised  Reprint Policy. No matter how much you hate the collectors, here at Team Pataners decided to interview Favian Poh.

The Favian Poh’s Collecting Passion

Seriously, if you enjoy MtG, you can’t miss reading the interview to this passionate collector!

These were just few of the things that happened during March at www.team-pataners.com If you wish, you can browse the rest using the archives.

Anyways, we just wanted to thank you all for reading and for supporting this site!

Cheers!

Gus Schade, aka Yawg07 on most of the forum boards, keeps surprising us with his awesome alterations. It’s not the first time we’ve shown some “japanized” cards by Gus, you should check his previous jobs here. This time he’s commissioned some cards for Mike Solomossy. Awesome as usual!

And, as a bonus track:

Gratz Soly for your new cards!

Our japanese hero & Legacy combo player, Tomoharu Saito, has finally published his Top4 report at Grand Prix Madrid 2010.

Tomoharu Saito GP Madrid 2010 Top4 report @ChannelFireball.com

What I liked from his report is the previous analysis of the deck & card choices. Even though I might differ with some of his conclusions, I have to admit his done an excellent job! I totally recommend reading the report for any kind of player, not only from Legacy.

By the way, have you ever seen Saito shuffling?

We all know that Richard Ph.D. Garfield has always been very kind when it comes to sign your cards. If you are lucky enough to meet him once, he’ll be always up for some signing and, if you are brave enough, maybe some alterations.

What happens when one of the biggest collectors meets Mr. Garfield? In the following video, Daniel Chang asks Richard for some signatures and… check it by yourself!

Yeah, you better safe than sorry! Good job Daniel!

PS: 9.5 Lotuses are tooooo much for my eyes!

Once again, Terese Nielsen surprises us with her latest alteration. This time she’s altered a Force of Will with another movie character, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger from Terminator. If you want to get your hands on this card, you can bid on its eBay auction site.

Click the image to go to the eBay auction!

As a bonus track, Terese Nielsen on her personal blog has shown us another Arnold Schwarzenegger alteration featuring Connan!

Personally, I like a lot more the Terminator one. The details and the lights make it lot smoother to my sight.

So, don’t ask me how Evan Erwin, from Star City Games, has managed to get the list, but he’s spoiled all the cards that will come inside the FTV: Relics pack. The complete list is:

• Masticore
• Karn, Silver Golem
• Memory Jar
• Mox Diamond
• Akroma’s Memorial
• Feldon’s Cane
• Ivory Tower
• Ring of Gix
• Ornithopter
• Platinum Angel
• Lightning Greaves
• Oblivion Stone
• Legacy Weapon
• Sol Ring
• Oil of Psarl

All in all, it seems a pretty bad box, except for the Mox Diamond. The rest of the cards they either existed already in foil or they actually unplayable. Sure having Ivory Tower in foil is great… but it will never see play in today’s formats.

The spoiled card from Scars of Mirrodin will be the Oil of Psarl. They haven’t any information regarding its text, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer.

1st of April – 2010 (Better late than never!)

This Saturday I’m finally gonna be able to play the weekly Legacy tournament that is being held at the Black Lotus Shop in Barcelona. To be honest, I expect this tournament to be really crowded. Most students are off from school (Easter holidays) and that, in the past, has made the attendance to go sky rockets. I’m guessing we’ll hit a turn out of 60 players, maybe more.

I’ll probably be playing Affinity or ANT. Both decks are really fun to play while being very different. Affinity is like playing Pokemon (you know, standard and that kind of sh*t. R.E.S.T.E.C.P!). Kids play Pokemon, and even though I’m almost 30, I still consider myself a kid so I do have an excuse (not to mention kids don’t play full foil japanese). On the other side, playing ANT is more stylish. Real men play combo and winning with Storm is lot more satisfying than beating with insignificant creeps.

The deck I’ve sleeved up is this one:

I ain’t 100% sure about the sideboard! At the last Black Lotus tournament, two decks with the Thopter/Sword combo reached the Top8, and that added to the amount of dredge players and other decks playing Life from the Loam has made me wonder if I should play Leyline of the Void again (with the obvious 2nd Ill-Gotten Gains). Adding Leyline will also mean I could add a Helm of Obedience as an alternative win condition to storm. Winning with da Helm is even more stylish!

The other sideboard I was thinking about would be like this:

4 Dak Confidant
4 Tombstalker
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Tendrils of Agony

This sideboard ala “french-style” is awesome against Counterbalance decks or any kind of deck packing blue. But the obvious downside is that once you’ve won few people, everybody knows what your secret tech is…

Anyways, I’ll give it some thoughts and playtest a little bit. If you also want to play this Saturday at the Black Lotus Shop, you gotta be there at 10:30. This is where:

Bigger map!

We’ve talked and discussed a lot about the reprinting of old cards, the WotC policy, etc… Well, the solution to the problem is to force collectors such as Dioup77 from Solo Moxen to sell some of his stuff. Check this out!

More duals?!

The March tournament of the Third Catalan Legacy League (LCL3) was held in Badalona (town near Barcelona) with a turnout of 98 players (February it was 92). As usual, Enric Luzán brings us some videos from the Top8. All I can say is THANK YOU for the amazing work you put together with the videos.

Top 8 (winners in bold):

• Enric Bisbe (aka Equinozio) (Faestalker) – Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant without Progenitus but with Stoneforge Mystic)
• Rubén Medina (ProBant without Countertop) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)
• Adrián Moreno (Countertop Progenitus) – Adrià Romero (aka Dead_Style) (Supreme Blue)
• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Daniel Rodríguez (aka Elfeir) (Enchantress)

Top 4:

• Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant Agro) – Adrià Romero (aka Dead_Style) (Supreme Blue)
• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)

Final:

• Iván López (Ugr Faeires) – Jorge Almeida (aka Devian) (Bant Agro)

Congratulations to Iván López, who came all the way from Madrid, for the win!

Vídeos:

Top 8: Rubén Medina (ProBant sin Countertop) – Joan Antón Mateo (Countertop Progenitus)

Top 8 LCL3 March – Juan Antón Mateo vs. Rubén Medina G1

Top 8 LCL3 March – Juan Antón Mateo vs. Rubén Medina G2

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G1

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G2

Top 4 LCL3 March – Adrià Romero vs. Jorge Almeida G3

I’ll add more games as soon as Enric uploads them. Same with the Top8 lists. So stay tunned!

This new section is meant to help people find cool stuff over eBay. We do this because we know how difficult it can be sometimes to track certain stuff or hard-to-find items. The stuff1 we’ll post is stuff that we could categorize under the “pimp” label. But we won’t just post cards, so keep your eyes wide opened!

Let’s get started by playing some music! DJ Co-ma and some of his awesome drum & bass!

First of all, we’d like to show you a very cool altered by artist Fred Fields Mutavault playset.

Click to go to eBay and zoom in on each card

Next! We all know the hype about the new Jace, the mind sculptor. Here there’s a bunch of shiny staples for you:

Click on the side arrows to navigate and click on a single item to visit the eBay auction

The next 2 cards ain’t specially cheap at all. It’s getting hot in here! Spring has just arrived but we talking about Summer Edition, of course!

Click to go to eBay to know more about this Summer Edition Regrowth

OHH YEAAH!

Click on this link to know more about this Summer Edition Hurricane

Not a bad start eh? Guess you ran out of music by now already. So let’s play another one! DJ Shadow – The Organ Donor. Can’t stop listening this hit!

The following is stuff that isn’t commonly searched due to it’s extreme rarity. Have you heard about Uncut Sheets? Check it out!

There’s 2 other more uncut sheets right now on eBay, one is the FTV: Exiled and the other is the already framed 1996 Arena promos uncut sheet.

To end this first What’s hot on eBay we’d like to share few more cards. Misprints and miscuts are always hot for some collectors and players. Here there’s a bunch of Miscuts for you to choose from:

Hope you guys have some happy shopping!

In Magic: The Gathering, as in many other aspects of our lives, there are many different levels of how we do the things we do.  The beginnings are always tough and complicated, but it only takes a little time and dedication to end up reaching any personal goals you’ve set. Today’s article will talk about a man who’s passion for collecting (MtG) has reached such a level that is really hard to imagine the process he’s been through. Years and years invested to get cards you might not even know they existed. The man I’m talking about is Favian Poh.

I met Favian few days ago, when I contacted him after he posted some of his cards at MTG The Source. I was quite impressed by the beauty of his cards and specially by the difficulty of gathering that many impressive and very (VERY) rare staples together. So, it occurred to me that maybe I could interview him so he could tell us a bit about himself, his collection and about magic in general.

We’ll start with an interview and after that, he’ll explain us a bit about some specific cards he’s very proud of.

(Be aware, lots of pimp stuff are included in this article, so you’d better sit properly if you don’t want to fall off the chair)

PROFILE:

• Name: Favian Poh
• Nickname(s) on forums: Occam on The Source and Salvation, Twol84 on Scg and Motl, Ouallada on the libraries
• Country: Singapore
• Age: 25, 26 end of the year
• Profession: Banking Sector
• Year you started with MtG: 1994/1995

TP: Favian, could you please tell us the story behind your nick name(s)?

Favian: And we’re off to a relatively weird start. I wish I could say that my usernames are derived from some cool and obscure piece of information, but that is unfortunately not the case. Occam is derived from Occam’s Razor (by William of Occam) — the latter is something I generally believe in, and even though Occam is a place, I could not very well name myself William, could I? Ouallada is an ode to Juzam Djinn, which was one of my favourites back in the day, and still is one of my favourites now.

TP: Are you currently playing any format? If so, what deck(s) are you playing at the moment?

Favian: I mostly play legacy these days, sometimes Vintage and Extended. I usually play online (with an anonymous name) as I can get too busy to commit myself to paper tournaments. I play a wide range of legacy decks, from NLS to tempo Bant to 5/3. For extended, I used to play a rockish Doran build until the current extended format got inundated by Thopter-Foundry and Marit Lage. For Vintage, I play workshop aggro, although I have a soft spot for Cerebral Assassin, which is sadly not very viable these days.

TP: We’ve seen pretty cool stuff from your personal collection. When did all begun?

Favian: I have to say that I was pretty young when I started out in the game, but I was lucky enough to purchase all the right cards back then, in decent quantities as well. Most of what I do post online these days would be rarities, as most people have the P9, beta duals etc covered already. My foray into rarities started in 1999/2000, when I read about summer magic and was rightfully entranced by the summer hurricane. I managed to buy into summer before the price boom early in the nighties, and the affair with summer magic has carried on since.

As for test prints, it all began the first time I saw a textless lightning bolt get sold on eBay about a decade ago. It ended easily in the four digits, and I tried to find all the information I could on a card that I thought shouldn’t even have existed. Even though I didn’t actually get into collecting test prints until a couple years later, I treat that as the time I first sat up and took notice of test prints and how undeniably unique and beautiful they were. It was also about then that I decided that any rarities I have would be clean, never signed nor altered in any way. Sorry if this flies in the face of what most people prefer, but rarities to me are already unique, and there is no reason to customize them any further.

TP: I guess the new Official Reprint Policy must have been great news for such a collector. What do you think about the recent announcement and the controversy that has generated between players and collectors?

Favian: I kind of expected to get a question like this, to be honest, and it could not have come at a worse time, especially as the vitriol over the revised reprint policy still lingers strong in the air.

I am going to have to slightly turn my back on my fellow collectors on this issue. It is going to take a very long piece to fully articulate my thoughts on the revised reprint policy, and I do not want this session to be dominated by that. I was disappointed that Wizards pretty much slammed the door shut on the notion of possible future reprints, as while I don’t believe that legacy will ever become as stagnant as vintage, I do believe that having a flagship eternal format is one of the best things possible for the game, and the ever-increasing prices continually erode that possibility.

As for the public disagreements between players and collectors, I completely understand where both camps are coming from. The future of legacy is the foremost concern of players, while the slippery slope that reprints lead Magic to is the foremost concern of collectors. Neither side has the right to arbitrarily impose its views on the other, but judicious reprints could have created a satisfactory solution for all parties involved. As an example, when we have a public company that engages in research and development, what the company essentially does is funnel revenues and cash reserves into R&D, which may or may not pay off in the future. Thus, there is a good chance that the company’s shareholders (Magic collectors) are worse off if the R&D expenses come to nothing as no new product or innovation is created. However, R&D expense may be a necessary route for the company to take to ensure its future competitiveness (which is what legacy players are arguing for), and the shareholders need to be able to see that and call for judicious R&D expenditure.

On a side note, public outcries that Underground Seas will soon exceed $100 each does not do any good, as it is due to the presence of a culture of fear like that which leads to people bidding up the prices of Underground Seas right now to hedge against future price rises. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and does legacy no good right now.

TP: Do you consider collecting MtG as a long term investment? Are you afraid of your cards losing value over the time?

Favian: Yes and no. I would not like to blow a few grand on a set of beta power and have it be worth nothing tomorrow, and I believe that everyone shares the same sentiment to an extent. At the same time, I don’t mind taking some paper losses on some purchases if it ensures the longevity of the game. It’s all about one’s priorities, and as long as those priorities aren’t to make money, I’m sure most people can agree with that. The ability to recoup money from the game upon exit and liquidation is in my opinion one of the strongest selling points of the game, though, and cannot be stressed enough.

I’m not worried at all about various rarities and alpha/beta cards going down in value, as the only way their value gets blown out is if Wizards mass-released summer tomorrow, or if the bottom falls away from the Magic barrel. I do not expect that either will happen anytime soon, but the risk, however minute, is there and I accept it.

(Jordi: I believe this article needs more images!)

TP: What’s the card in your collection you are most proud of, and why?

Favian: My current favourite card in my collection is actually this:

It is not the most expensive card I have, but it has certain personal resonance. I quote a fellow libraries member: “Magic collectors are always broke”, and want to emphasize that the statement is absolutely true. When a once-in-a-lifetime rarity appears, you need to cough up for it or accept that you may never get a second chance. When this was first placed on eBay (and I believe it was covered on your site too), it provoked a huge reaction because it looked different with Parallax Tide’s picture, and was pretty much the first time foil 8ed test prints were revealed.

I wanted it badly too, but ended up the second highest bidder for the one on eBay because I was broke, so to speak. I immediately regretted not winning it, and as only 2-3 of each foil 8ed print exists, the chance that I would see another one was abysmal. As fate would have it, I was hunting for a bunch of other stuff when I came into contact with someone who happened to have one for sale, and purchased it without much question. Unlike most collectors and missed chances, I had a second go at the island above, and it has a personal significance for being destined to be part of my collection, so to speak.

That said, I do treasure most of the cards in my collection, and rarely see the need to sell rarities away. I am working on several projects which are currently unscanned, including a playset of another of the Exodus test prints, a couple of other 5D prints, some UD prints, summer, my dark ritual / Beeble global sets (for which I need plenty of help for the European languages) and hopefully a Fraternal Exaltation/Splendid Genesis. Look out for them!

TP: I understand you can’t reveal the sources that provided some of the stuff you own, but, what would you recommend to someone who would like to start collecting? Who should he/she contact first?

Favian: Jordi, I think you would agree with me when I say that with rarities, beauty really exists in the eyes of the beholder. I would encourage any new budding rarity collector to get familiar with the rarities that exist out there, from albinos to other color-based misprints, from miscuts and crimps to test prints and summer, and from unofficial cards to rare tokens. Sites like the librarities have an extensive pictorial gallery which provides some information about the rarities as well. Nano’s site http://www.nextftp.com/nano/ has a lot of different colour-based misprints, and Squt’s site http://squt.tripod.com/MainError.html has an exhaustive list of misprints and errors too. Then, each person needs to make his or her own decision as to which rarities appeal most, for reasons that differ from individual to individual.

As for who a new rarity collector should contact, building relationships on forums is usually a great starting point. When someone comes across as knowledgeable or as a large collector of a certain rarity, chances are he or she would have access to certain rarities, and could introduce one to a range of contacts too. For rarities, who you know is a lot more important than what you know. Due diligence is extremely important.

TP: Is eBay trustworthy when it comes to hard-to-find cards? (We ain’t talking about Alpha/Beta rares here, we are talking about real-hard-to-find stuff like misprints, test prints, summer rares, etc…)

Favian: The problem with eBay with regards to rarities is not one of fraudulent intentions, but usually that sellers themselves may have misconceptions about certain misprints, although the two concepts could be interlaced. For example, a lot of albinos and colour misprints on eBay need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as many of them are actually sun-faded. For summer magic and test prints, the market for these cards is minute, with very few collectors actually being very active in these areas. Chances are that if a large seller of summer or test prints is on eBay, some other collector of summer or test prints would know of him or her, and could verify the veracity of the cards. Having a subject matter expert (and there are definitely people who know a lot more about rarities than I do) to eyeball certain questionable auctions never hurts.

In the end, caveat emptor still takes precedence on eBay. The normal precautionary measures need to be taken for rarities as well. Bidders should try to bridge the informational gap by searching for information about certain misprints online before jumping in where angels fear to tread, and keep in mind that a deal that is too good to be true is probably just that.

TP: I know you don’t like to use the word “pimp” to describe this high-end collecting movement, but, If you’d have to list the top10 of your pimp scale, what would it be?

Favian: For me, the ten most expensive cards in the game are as follows (excluding cards like Proposal, 1996 World Champion, Shichifukujin Dragon and graded Lotuses):

10) Summer Shivan Dragon / Summer Sol Ring

9) Summer Demonic Tutor

Splendid Genesis

6) Summer Birds of Paradise / Top tier foil test prints

5) Other Summer Blue Duals

4) Summer Mana Vault

2) Summer Hurricane / Underground Sea

1) Summer Serendib Efreet

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And now let’s move on and see some of the stuff from Favian’s collection. First of all, some images and then he’ll talk about his CoTs (City of Traitors), Saga textless, Island (8e prints) and the EE (Engineered Explosives).

You’d ask yourself what’s wrong with the EE? He’ll explain more about this card later. And the Underground Sea? It’s partly albino!

City of Traitors Exodus Test prints

Favian: I’ve received a lot of PMs from various people across various forums in which I have posted the recent scans containing the foil Cities or Traitors, so I feel obligated to speak a bit about what these cards are all about. My definition of a test print is an aesthetic proxy that Wizards uses to test different design features and processes, be it a foiling process, different frames, usage of space on a card, where the P/T box should be and so on. The Exodus test prints are arguably the most important test prints ever, as they were the backbone on which the foiling process was tested before being rolled out in Urza’s Legacy. Urza’s Legacy was released in 1999, and test prints are typically created 1-2 years beforehand, which is why Exodus cards were chosen. Note that it is highly likely that these cards were already in the process of being tested even before Exodus was released in June 1998.

One card of each colour and type was chosen from Exodus. A land (City of Traitors), a white card (Oath of Lieges), a blue card (Mana Breach), a red card (Fighting Chance), a black card (Plaguebearer), a green card (Survival of the Fittest), a gold card (Pygmy Hippo from Visions as no gold card exists in Exodus) and an artifact card (Memory Crystal). All of these are available either silver-bordered (testing not just the foiling, but Unglued borders) or black-bordered. Both the silver-bordered (no foil star) and black bordered (most have the foil star) ones have different variations (lighter/darker), and the black bordered ones have a test number on the right side of the card to indicate the intensity of the foiling and colouring. The black-bordered ones are also unique in that they have different colours for textboxes, although only the Cities of Traitors were tested for this.

A closer look so you can appreciate the details.

I do not have scans for this, but there are also other non-foil test prints from Exodus (Bequeathal, Angelic Blessing etc) which have the foil star and with the symbols made from the same material as the foil star. They were likely created to test how the foil star would look like.

Exodus test prints are not as rare as the newer test prints, but a lot of people hold them in awe as they were after all the first bona fide test prints the game had, and because two of the cards are so widely played. Whatever it is, Exodus test prints are an integral part of the game’s history, and should be respected as such. I own a couple of silver bordered Exodus prints, but I generally only go for the black bordered ones. When I picked up the first CoT, the one with the black symbol and black textbox, which is also my favourite of the lot, I spoke to a friend of mine and was basically told to never half-ass a collection, especially when the possibility of a playset existed. I thought about it, agreed, and the rest is basically history. I’m not sure whether another playset exists out there, with all the huge unnamed collectors around, but this one is pretty special to me.

Parallax Island:

Favian: I have already stated that I like this card very much, and I hope its story did not bore anybody. Just a quick comment on 8ed test prints. There are between two to three of each foil variation (some have light/dark variations), and there are non-foil versions too. Some people have stated that they are actually 6ed prints, as they use 5ed art, but this is untrue. These were printed in 2001, after the release of 7ed, and the island above has the art of parallax tide, when Nemesis was released in 2000. As can be seen from the Counterspell, 8ed prints were a bit idiosyncratic with the way certain aesthetics were tested, with P/T boxes on spells.

8e foil test prints are also very arguably the most prestigious set of test prints, with the value of the worst common (not all cards in 8ed were tested, though) being close to a grand and the value of the high-end cards, rares like Adarkar Wastes, approaching two grand.

Textless Saga:

Favian: I actually had two slots on my recent scan occupied by two other nice rarities, but I managed to make a deal for the textless cradle and bolt, and those two are auto-includes in any scan that has rarities. Textless saga has an almost mystical aura as the saga prints are extremely well known like the Exodus test prints, but are much rarer than the latter, and were actually leaked out in product. The full saga test print complement consists of 11 cards, namely Pouncing Jaguar, Lightning Bolt, Serra Avatar, Thran Quarry, Gaea’s cradle, Rewind, Skittering Skirge, Duress, Stroke of Genius, Karn and the textless, all black foil filler with the star. The filler was there to make up a modular sheet component of 11, with sheet size of 110 cards. As you might be able to already tell, all these cards were essentially test prints for various Arena and Judge promos that were given out, besides the filler, of course.

Textless Saga was followed by textless Destiny, and the latter was quite a bit rarer as none was leaked out through product. Unlike Saga, every Destiny card is available as a textless foil test print. I was lucky enough to pick up a textless Beeble for part of my collection, as well as some other textless UD commons/uncommons that aren’t in any of my current scans. The hunt for some of the rare textless UD cards continues.

Engineered Explosives:

Favian: In every forum where I posted the recent scan, I stated very clearly that the Engineered Explosives was the cream of the scan’s crop. It is not an attempt to boast or to big the EE up – a test print EE, from a set of test prints that are all likely the only copies of their kind around, can easily be concluded to be a huge hitter, certainly one of those mysterious expensive cards that no one has heard about. I basically dragged out the deal to purchase the EE for a few months as I kept getting sidetracked by other smaller rarities and test prints, but it was always going to be a part of my collection eventually. The focus on the EE in the scan is also in the hope that 5D prints are brought into public perception just like the rest of the existing test prints, and that another person who sees the EE and who has information about 5D prints can step forward.

For the back-story of the 5D prints, they were created to test sunburst foiling for the JS range promos, which is why the EE is foiled like that. Like the Exodus test prints, the EE scans poorly but looks excellent in real life. The EE is a very favoured card in my collection and will never be sold, but hopefully everyone out there enjoys what was a previously unknown piece of magic history.

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From Team Pataners we appreciate the effort that Favian Poh has done in order to help us understand and discover how marvelous collecting MtG can really be when you have the passion, the time, the will and the money (of course)!

Big thanks again Favian!

My friend Eddy Wee, aka Grandeurmotl, has released on eBay this wonderful Ron Spencer alteration featuring Mark Tedin’s Sol Ring.

Click here to go to the eBay auction!

By the way, I’m gonna be starting soon a new weekly section to keep you updated with what’s hot on eBay that week. That way you’ll be able to keep track of the cool stuff that’s being hosted at the auction site. This section was very successful in the past, so I believe you guys deserve to have it again. This is the header for the future section:

I’m not sick, you’ve read the tittle right! Tomorrow I’ll be playing the Extended PTQ San Juan in Barcelona. Why? I’ve been convinced by some friends to go there instead of playing Legacy at the Black Lotus Shop. I thought it was a good chance to disconnect from all the things going on recently in Eternal.

My knowledge of the Extended format is absolutely zero. I’m going there to have fun with my friends and laugh over all the cards I’m gonna be facing. I’ll be playing my Legacy Affinity deck adapted for Extended, so no clue if it’s a good deck or not. This is the list:

Can you find Wally? Click image to zoom in.

I can’t imagine myself winning this PTQ or doing top8, but, ff that ever happens, fear the report!

March 19 2010 DCI Banned & Restricted List Announcement

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So, no changes to any kind of format. I guess my wet dreams of restricting Workshop, Wasteland, Null Rod and bannning Time Vault were just that, a dream.