The last Magic event I played at was the World Championship in 1994… I played a Neither void deck that brought me through the single elimination qualifiers and up to the quarter finales, where I lost to Cyril Martin de Foucaud.
Everyone knows that Zak Dolan won the first World Champiosnhip held at Gencon, but what is less known is that there were 3 french speaking players in the semi finales: Bertrand Lestree, Cyril Martin de Foucault and Dominic Siemen. In Europe, we had been playing Swiss rounds from early 1994, where in the US all the tournaments were single elimination. I believe this was one of the factor that contributed to these results.
Bertrand had won his qualification for the world’s top 64 round through the French Championship, a favor I had personally negotiated with Steve Bishop, then DCI’s head, when I met him at Gencon UK on behalf of our Arena organization, but both Dominic, Cyril and myself had to qualify through the single elimination pre-qualifiers and we all made it to the top 64.
Monty Ashley put up a web article on the first world championship here, and the photos you can see were all taken by myself during that event, the last event I played as a player.
This trip to memory lane was just to put my participation into this PTQ in perspective: I had not played in any live official event since that 1995 world championship.
Of course, I have dusted off with Magic Online since the beginning of this year and playing online with Silvain, Hiroki and friends helped me a great deal.. But for my first live PTQ, my result ended up being not great: 2-4-2. It could have been 3-3-2 if I had not done a big mistake by not paying a Pact cost at the next upkeep, which cost me a critical game.
In any case, it was a good jogger for getting back into competitive magic, and I am going to very slightly change my deck for the next event, putting a Fink in exchange for Sarkhan Vol (despite how much I like him, he is too slow..)
So here is my updated deck list for the next event. I’ll still call it Srakhan’s Scape, im memory of this planeswalker I really wish I could play with….
4 Magma Jet
3 Mountains
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Tilling Treefolk
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Repeal
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Arid Mesa
1 Island
2 Forest
4 Stomping Ground
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Burning-Tree Shaman
3 Ponder
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Steam Vents
3 Scapeshift
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Bloodbraid Elf
Sideboard
3 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle
3 Pact of Negation
2 Regress