Unlocking the Vault #49: Time for a Classic Invitational

Posted on July 16, 2013 by enderfall

It’s been a crazy year. 12 months ago, Classic was on its deathbed. Something drastic needed to happen to save the format. With the help of fellow clanmate abstrakt66, we came up with the idea of a season of Qualifier Tournaments (QTs) to feed into an end-of-season Invitational. The prizes would be donated by the community and roll into a progressive kitty that would be handed out at the Invitational. In order to earn your entry into the Invitational, you needed to finish in the Top 8 of one of the QTs. A second Top 8 appearance would grant a bye in the 1st round (however, players could only earn 1 bye).

Prize Support

Since the first QT last August, the community has amassed well over $1,600 worth of prizes, of which more than $900 have been set aside toward the Invitational alone! This kind of prize support easily makes this tournament one of the largest prize pools ever awarded in a PRE on MTGO. I’m proud of the amount of support that the entire community has provided. This helps prove the notion that Classic players will make the effort to participate in organized events so long as we aren’t playing for a measly 6 or 12 packs of the latest iteration of the Core Set.

Live Broadcast

It was our vision that the series would follow a similar style to what StarCityGames has developed with their Open Series and subsequent Invitationals. While our QTs would play out over the course of 6-8 weeks each, we wanted the Invitational to be a big event and be held on a single day. The plan was to stream the Invitational, live, on twitch.tv to showcase the format to anyone who might have a passing interest in watching competitive Classic matches. For anyone who is interested, please visit this link to catch the broadcast at 12:00pm EDT (UTC -5) on Saturday, July 20:

After 4 grueling QTs coinciding with the release of each major set starting with M13 and ending with Dragon’s Maze, we finally have our field of participants. 27 players earned their way into the elite tournament. Here is the final list of the players who qualified, in no particular order:

FISHY FELLOW
CAT WEASEL
ALBERTORODALV
PLANETWALLS + 1 Bye
CHRISKOOL
CALAVERA
THE_CRISP_ONE
XKORPIO
DURANOTH
TOMMYTOPDECKER
THORME + 1 Bye
THEWOOF2 + 1 Bye
MONTOLIO + 1 Bye
BLUEDIAMONDS
LORD SAPPHIRE
BACTGUDZ
THEWILDDOG
PHILIPJFRY
GAINSBANDING
ILSKEN (MAXEEL)
FOIL TARMOGOYF OWNS YOU
ENDLESS_NAMELESS
NCSU31SB
BLIVEN731
FISTALPHA
REXDART
ENDERFALL

You might recognize the last name on that list. Yes, yours truly managed to squeak into the Invitational on the final try. My first 4 rounds were recorded and can be found here. Rounds 5 and 6 were scoops/draws in order to get into the Top 8, so I did not record them. However, I do have the videos for the Top 8…


Future of the Classic Quarter League

I expect to run another season of the league; however, I wish to propose some changes. Here are some thoughts that I have and would welcome everyone’s feedback:

  • In order to promote the firing of Daily Events (DE), any players that 4-0 a DE during the season will qualify for a last chance qualifier tournament (LCQT) to be held the weekend before the next Invitational.
  • Any player that manages to win a Premier Event will earn an invite to the Invitational.
  • In order to shorten the length of the season, there will be only 2 formal QTs that feed into the Invitational, with the remaining slots filled by the last chance qualifier the week before the Invitational (roughly, there would be 2 seasons per calendar year).
  • Total slots for the Invitational will be set at a minimum and maximum of 32 (~16 from the QT Top 8’s, and another ~16 from the LCQT or winner(s) of a Premier Event to equal 32).
  • Each Premier 1st-place finish or QT Top 8 in excess of the first would award 1 bye, with the byes being capped at 1.


Slowing Down

One final note, after two amazing years writing for MTGO Academy on basically a bi-weekly basis, real life has dictated that I take a step back for a little while. I still plan to write and cover the Classic format that I dearly love, but I simply can’t devote the same amount of time that I could in the past. In addition to a full time job that requires that I travel very frequently, I have decided to go back to school and earn a Master’s degree. While I’m excited to pursue an opportunity to further enhance my career, it comes at the cost of my ability to write as much as I would like.

I want to be clear that this is not a good-bye, just an acknowledgment that you’ll see me around a little less often. I will still support the Classic Community through the PRE(s). My hope is that I can write an article about once per month, though I may ramp up my activity when there is more clarity on when and how Vintage is going to be finally released online. Regardless, I hope to see many of you viewing our live stream on July 20th to celebrate the top Classic players of the past year!

enderfall
Clan Magic Eternal
Follow me on Twitter @enderfall

 

  1. I enjoyed this, thanks. If you are doing this again would it be possible to include a copy of the opponents decklist at the beginning of the video or just in the post, as sometimes you were discussing choices before we even knew what deck they are playing.

  3. You tilted so hard in the finals. For like, no reason really. You took a mulligan or two, your opponent had what I would call pretty average draws from that kind of deck, and you just started whining like a little baby.

    It was kind of painful to watch, really.

  4. I’m all for constructed criticism, but to claim that the finals opponents hands were “pretty average” is absurdly false. All 3 games my first play was Force of Willed, which is the best possible play against a Workshop deck. I play with Fish decks quite a bit, though I am not an expert in them. That said, I can’t remember many, if any, matches where I had 2 Turn 1 FOW’s against an opponent, let alone 3. Workshop decks can gain no card advantage whatsoever, and top decking does not always work, as clearly evidenced in those games. I’m sorry if you thought I was whining, but really, there was nothing more that I could do in the match since I can’t recover with a Brainstorm or a Jace. Next time, I suppose I’ll just sit there in silence since describing the board state as it was is apparently whining.

  5. He mulliganed to 5 one game to find it. Are you really claiming that having a card that is a four of in his opening hand 2 out of 3 times is outside the realm of possibility? Even unlikely? No. Of course it isn’t. If force wrecks you there its your fault for not frikken playing around it.

  6. The only game I won was the one that he mulled to 5, so yes, it is important. You presumably watched the match, so I would love to hear how you would propose that I play around FoW. Do I simply play a land and not play the only artifact that I can cast on Turn 1 and just hope and pray he doesn’t turn around and Wasteland it? There is very little option for a Workshop player to “play around” FoW. The whole point is to get off to an early advantage and lock them out of playing their spells. FoW is the ONLY card that can prevent this and not playing something on Turn 1 for fear of FoW is a guaranteed way to lose.

    Also, having FoW is not the only requirement to cast it on Turn 1. You also need a second blue card. I’d go through the math, but I can only assume that you understand it already, and frankly I have better things to do. Regardless, the opponents deck has 16 non-FoW blue cards. Anyone who has played Legacy, Classic, or Vintage will tell you that it is a highly unlikely chance that someone can have FoW on Turn 1 with an available blue card to pitch in all 3 games. I’d bet it’s something like 1 in 200 chances.