Pictures 2

Pictures

As promised, pictures from the weekend:

The Long Road Home

So...Worlds has come and gone. With it, lots of driving and Magic. Congratulations to the 2008 world champion Antti Malin of Finland and his Faerie deck. Antti defeated resurgent Jaime Parke and his 5-Color deck 3-1 to bring home the trophy. Another congratulations goes out to Team USA who defeated Australia in the team finals. You can find the lists for these decks and the rest of the top 8 at magicthegathering.com. For STD, today was a little trading and a couple of 8-man standard queues. One queue featured Ryan playing Faeries and Will piloting STD's ReveBant build. Both went 1-1 with Ryan losing to Kithkin and Will losing to the Fae. Carlos spent most of his day doing deck techs on the Legacy builds we had intended to play on Saturday for a podcast based out of Memphis whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry guys). I managed to catch the next Standard flight to finally give the River Kelpie deck I had been keeping up wraps a trial run. Unfortunately, the deck is completely cold to Mono-Red and that's what I got paired against first round and went 0-2. Here's the list:
3x Raven's crime
3x Negate
2x Pyroclasm
3x Firespout
4x Cryptic Command
2x Makeshift Mannequin
2x sower of Temptation
3x River Kelpie
4x Mulldrifter
2x Shriekmaw
2x Jace Berelen
3x Ajani Vengeant

4x Vivid Creek
3x Vivid Marsh
2x Vivid Crag
4x Crumbling Necropolis
2x Sunken Ruins
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x Sulfurous Springs
1x Shivan Reef
2x Underground River
4x Reflecting Pool
1x Island

Sideboard:
2x Mind Shatter
2x Glen-Elendra Archmage
3x Remove Soul
4x Fulminator Mage
2x Memory Plunder
1x Counterbore
1x Oona, Queen of the Fae

Admittedly, the sideboard needs loads of work. It was thrown together at the last minute. With a little work I think this deck could be really good.

Good Morning from Memphis!

Yesterday the Top 8 for the 2008 World Championships was decided. Along with the individual event, the team final will also happen today. As sad as it may seem, STDs will not be bringing you live coverage of the Top 8, especially since we're still in our hotel room as the semifinals play out. You can find all the official coverage of Worlds and the Top 8: here. Still haven't forgotten about the pictures they'll be up tonight along with another update re-telling the day's events.

Steven

Saturday at Worlds

Wow, I really meant to get this up before early Sunday morning. Most of Sexy Team of Dudes went out to Memphis this morning for a weekend of World Championship Magic. The team, consisting of Ryan, Carlos, Will, and I were geared up for the Legacy tournament in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the stars did not align and allow such a thing to happen (sorry D-Po). Even though we lost the battle between man and construction zone we did make it in time to play some flashback Ravnica block sealed deck. Of the team Ryan managed to finish the highest. He started out 6-0. Sadly, the event was 8 rounds of swiss. Ultimately, 6-2 would have to suffice. The rest of us struggled to 2-3 on the day in what could only be described as a disappointment. The night was not completely lost, however, since a late night excursion to Denny's was in order. Expect another update tomorrow with pictures from our adventure as the snoring contest going on beside me has completely broken all concentration remaining.

Until next time, if you say "Hi" and she says "Hi" back, you're probably off to a good start.

Steven