Overdrive! 100
I have a plan, bubu.
Overdrive!‘s second birthday, and Overdrive! 100, is this weekend! Woo hoo! I have put together a cornucopia of Modern awesomeness fit for the brouhaha, I think. The festivities start this coming Saturday with Eurodrive! #82, and continue through to Overdrive! 100 on Monday. Thanks to the great folks here at MTGO Academy, sponsored prizes have been doubled for all Modern events that weekend! Overdrive! and Eurodrive! will pay out TWELVE (12) tickets credit to the winners (6 to runner-up), and the Where Angels Fear To Tread prize pool will be TWO tickets per player entered! (the seating is still limited to 24 for WAFTT, tho!)
Masters of the Universe
As if that wasn’t awesome enough, after haranguing and haggling with them and being passed around like a… uhhh… yeah. 
Anyway, look what I persuaded Wizzo’s to give you: Modern Masters draft sets! (3 boosters) How cool is that?
Eurodrive! #81 (July 6)
Winner: 3 Modern Masters draft sets
Runner-up: 2 Modern Masters draft sets
Semifinalists: 1 Modern Masters draft set
Where Angels Fear To Tread #61 (July 7)
12 points: 2 Modern Masters draft sets
9 points: 1 Modern Masters draft set
Overdrive! #100 (July 8)
Winner: 3 Modern Masters draft sets
Runner-up: 2 Modern Masters draft sets
Semifinalists: 1 Modern Masters draft set
All players playing in Overdrive! 100 will also receive an ME3 Old Man of the Sea, as a gift from me to you.
The MTGO Academy News Desk
Ha! The staff here at MTGO Academy have foolishly handed me the keys to the News Desk! You are now also reading the words of BlippyTheSlug, Cub Reporter! Mwahahahaha! If you take a look at the News Page, you’ll see that it’s now being updated on a much more frequent basis. Sometimes even with news!
Part of my responsibilities include the Event Calendar, so that will be up to date, as well. (Although I haven’t entered July yet!)
Since I already try to keep my finger on the pulse of MTGO, all parties concerned kinda feel like this a “natural fit”, as far as I can tell. But what do I know? I’m a senile old coot. And they put me in charge of the news. Woo hoo! So… what were we talking about again? Oh, yeah!
I promised myself I would try be unbiased (ha! riiight…) and balanced in what I report to the feed, and avoid editorializing. I can leave that for my various articles, poems, and other outlets.
So without further ado, “real time” coverage from my fragile little mind up to the start of the Greatest MTG Event ever…
Viva, Las Vegas!
Last night, with over 3,100 pre-registrations, the Tournament Organizer announced that Saturday “in person at the door” registration would no longer be an option. GP Las Vegas has gone pre-registration only.
This put many MTG players who also happen to be playing in the World Series of Poker on the spot. Many of these players were waiting to see how they fare in the WSOP before regging for GP Vegas. Contingency plans are in place to handle people who didn’t get the word on a case by case basis. For example, paper players in Winnemucca, NV or along the Albert Ridge in Oregon. But this still puts the poker players on the spot. I don’t consider “I was waiting to see how well I did in this other tournament” as a valid excuse, and I don’t think the TO will, either. Someone’s gonna feel hurt.
Now I see that the registration has been capped at 4,500! Wow! This is going to be the biggest MTG event, ever! And people will be turned away at the door. I have a dream. A silly pipe dream, where 14-1-1 would not be a lock into the T8. Which would, in effect, turn GP Vegas into a “functional reprint” of Overdrive! I would cover my lair walls with slug slime should this happen.
I can see the venue’s view in this. By limiting the top end, it can’t go overboard, and will provide the “best bang for your buck” for the players. A lot of players don’t even think about the “overhead” of a large event, they’re just there to play.
I have some idea how much work is involved in getting something like this together, not that my rinky dink stuff is even peanuts to this monstrosity.
By everything I’ve seen, Tim Shields, and the crew at Cascade Games is doing a superb job of holding all this together, and has provided wonderful ongoing infobloggage, right down to where the food vendors are, with menu and prices. Kudos!
Speaking of kudos, as these important changes have been happening, Wizards of the Coast has provided prominent banner notices on their website in reasonably close to real time. This in itself is noteworthy, and I hope it represents a new trend.
With this many people still wanting to play, something had to be done, so “Consolation Drafts” were arranged.
This morning, I see pictures of people lined up around the block to get in for the “Consolation Draft”, and hear tales of people selling their places at the head of the line. Really?
Really. Commercialism at it’s finest. Anyway…
There also seems to be some wailing and gnashing of teeth over exactly where the product is. I can only imagine the uproar if the pallets and pallets of boosters show up late, or not at all. But no fear. It’ll happen.
…and Woo hoo! It’s here!
Some guys came and plopped a few pallets into the vault, then some other guys opened all those boxes, separated the contents, and got ‘em ready to play. They have to set guards.
There are more lines, and in .a reasonably short time, everyone’s seated! Dip me in chocolate and call me an Eskimo Pie, I’m continually amazed at how smoothly this is running! Let’s do this thing!
Of course, being Las Vegas, there’s your fair share of drunks, vomiters, and passouts. Viva Las Vegas!
The packs are opened! About 350 people took one look at their pool, and scooped. Down to about 4150.
Ok. I can see the temptation. Staring at something like triple Goyfs and a Bob is not something to sneeze at. And they did say in the player meeting that scooping on open is ok if you do it right. I fully understand looking a $800 payday in the face and saying “Thanks for the cards, I’m outta here!”. I would probably scoop in this situation, as well. I’m not going to be playing those cards if I stay, I have to pass that pool. Would you pass some random guy $800? I’m sure some people did just that, and kudos for their sportsmanship.
Four thousand one hundred and fifty players for Round 1! Woo hoo! The rest, as they say, is history.
Meta Madness
It’s that time again. Time to break out the restraints and put the Q2 meta to bed. Since today is the first day of Q3, there is no meta yet. This will change very shortly, and the blank graph at the end of this section will start to fill in, if you’re inclined to check back.
So. The Modern meta. Since the last time we looked, the meta has split one last time. So there are now four chunks to deal with.
Saturday afternoon: Ok. I’m in a panic. I cannot see my Google charts appearing anywhere I link them. So I do not know if the below charts will show, or if you’re going to see a white space. I had a whole “Wall of Voodoo” prepared, but I’m not going to take the chance of presenting you with a very large white area. So I’m going to limit it to the basics.
Top of the Pops
Melira Pod has been going on a tear lately, and has ended up at the top of the charts for Q2.
The Big Leagues
The one line to one paragraph captions to go with the sub-meta charts for U/x/x Control and Valakut look incongruous without the accompanying charts. In U/x/x Control, the vast majority of it is UWR Control (65.8%), with 4c Loam Gifts a far second at 19%. The rest is a mishmash of Red Esper Gifts, Esper Teachings, Cruel Control, etc.
Valakut is a bit less varied: plain ol’ Scapeshift (56.6%), Titan Ramp (27.3%), Titan Baloth (14.1%), and Blackshift (2%).
The College Leagues
Here is where we start seeing more of the “left field” type decks, like Breach Cannon, Aggro Loam, and their ilk.
The Little Leagues
These guys never made it out of the sandbox.
Overdrive! is the original Modern format Player-Run Event! In fact, it’s even older than Modern, having started out as an event in the Overextended format. Overdrive! is free to enter, and happens every Monday evening at 8:30PM Eastern time. Eurodrive!, a Euro-time friendly Overdrive! clone, happens every Saturday at noon UTC.
Overdrive! #97 Champion: fatkiddestroyers / Bant
Overdrive! #98 Champion: longtimegone / UW Gufts Tron
Eurodrive! #78 Champion: olioolli / Melira Pod
Eurodrive! #79 Champion: longtimegone / UW Gufts Tron
Decks from all Overdrive! can be found here.
Decks from all Eurodrive! can be found here.
Where Angels Fear To Tread is a limited-seating Modern format Player-Run Event that follows the same structure as the MTGO Daily Scheduled Events: 4 rounds of Swiss pairings, with prizes going to all 4-0 and 3-1 players. As with all of my events, it is absolutely free to enter! WAFTT happens every Sunday at 1800UTC. (2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific)
Where Angels Fear To Tread #58
Players: 15
4-0: olioolli ~ 3-1: DirtyDuck, andres_1995, Vizier
Where Angels Fear To Tread #59
Players: 16
4-0: andres_1995 ~ 3-1: justcanceled, Nyzzeh, allstar997, ChineseNotebook
Decks from all WAFTT events can be found here.
Interesting Tidbits
MTGO will host a Modern Masters Limited PTQ for PT “Friends” on July 6.
Modern’s Second is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 24 at 1800 UTC. (2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific) This event will be 1v1 Modern, Swiss pairing, and the number of rounds will be determined by attendance. There will be a T8 cutoff. I will be starting to hit up sponsors, Wizzos, etc., at the beginning of August.
I wasn’t able to track attendance during my netless period, hence the gap.
