As many of you know Wizards of the Coast has invited 8 MTGO players (John Baichtal, Sam McCarl, Hamtastic, One Million Words, Bubba0077, Dangerlinto, SpikeBoyM and Tweaker) to participate in the 2009 Magic Online Community Challenge Cup held at the Wizards of the Coast home office in Renton, WA (Yah a vacation!!).  The rewards for the MTGO Community are:

• If (MORE LIKE WHEN) the Community Team defeats Wizards of the Coast, all eligible Magic Online users will receive a copy of the Momir Vig avatar and will be invited into the free Community Cup Momir Tournament.
• If the Community team loses to the Wizards of the Coast team, all eligible Magic Online users will instead receive a non-foil version of the Gleemox promo card.

The challenges that have been presented to us are rather unique to say the least.  We have the daunting challenge to come up with 8 unique 100 Card Singleton Constructed and Standard Constructed decks.  Where the challenge for us lies is we cannot OVERLAP any of the cards.  They must all be unique decks for BOTH challenges.  This has proven to be an incredible task for everyone in the MTGO Community Team.  Fortunately we have the skills and knowledge of all of the contibuting MTGO players to help us with this challenge.  There have been two threads on the new Magic Online website where members of the community have been offering ideas, strategies and suggestions to help us come up with these unique decks.  The 100 Card Singleton Constructed and Standard Constructed threads have been absolutely amazing.  In particular, the 100 Card Singleton Constructed challenge has seen some of the best minds in the format step up and help us create not one but TWO uniquely contructed decks.  Platipus10 and Zimbardo have both spearheaded this effort for the 8 of us and created this Google Spreadsheet that lays out all of the 100 Card Singleton decks for us.  Hamtastic has put together this Google Spreadsheet for the Standard Constructed decks.

Standard Constructed

So where are we today?  Let me start with the Standard Constructed.  There are 8 decks we are currently tweaking.

• "John" - RDW
• Bubba0077 - Jund
• CC_GamingAngelSam - Mill
• Dangerlinto - Esper Control
• Hamtastic - W/R Ascension
• One Million Words - Warp World/Enchantress
• Tweaker - Vampires
• SpikeBoyM - Bant

Wizards of the Coast Team

• Adriana Moscatelli
• Chris Kiritz
• Eric Sorensen
• Erik Lauer
• Lee Sharpe
• Mike Turian
• Tolena Thorburn
• Tom LaPille

100 Card Singleton

For the 100 Card Singleton decks we have the following:

• "John" - GWB Rock
• Bubba0077 - Goblins
• CC_GamingAngelSam - Elves
• Dangerlinto - URB Reanimator
• Hamtastic - UG Storm
• One Million Words - UW Control
• SpikeBoyM - RG Aggro
• Tweaker - White Weenie

Wizards of the Coast Team

• Aaron Forsythe
• Chris Kiritz
• Lee Sharpe
• Marcella Kallman
• Matt Tabak
• Mike Turian
• Ryan Dhuse
• Vincent Price

We need everyone in the MTGO Community's assistance over the next week to help us practice these decks.  You do NOT have to play any of these decks yourself, just bring a deck in any of the formats.  Afterall, we don't know what WoTC themselves are playing but they are under the same rules as we are.  How you can help is by joining us in the CCC room when you log in.  Just type /join CCC inside any chat bot in the MTGO Client.  You'll see all of us in there throughout the day, most of the time during the night time USA timezones.  You can also help us by looking at these decks and making some comments and suggestions.  Remember, we have a unique format here.  While there are some cards that would go GREAT in a deck, that card may be used in a different deck so we can't really take every deck suggestion we receive.

Zendikar and Invasion Block Drafts

Aside from the 2 unique challenges we are also drafting in two formats; Zendikar and Invasion Block.  We need your support and suggestions as to how to draft these formats because here's who we are going up against in both of the drafts.  We've been practicing as a team Invasion Drafting.  So far, SpikeBoyM has been getting all the top draws for us, so we're very hopeful!!  But check out who we are facing in each of these drafts.

Zendikar draft

• Aaron Forsythe
• Adam Dixon
• Chris Kiritz
• Gordon Culp
• Mark Rosewater
• Tolena Thorburn
• Vincent Price
• Worth Wollpert

Invasion block draft

• Eric Sorensen
• Erik Lauer
• Lee Sharpe
• Marcella Kallman
• Mark Gottlieb
• Matt Tabak
• Ryan Dhuse
• Worth Wollpert

Has anyone seen that show Joe's vs. Pro's?  Yeah, that's kind of like what is going on here for us all.  But on the reals, I'm sure I can safely speak on behalf of the 8 of us when I say to Wizards of the Coast and the MTGO Community that we are very honored to have this opportunity to play for the MTGO Community.  This experience thus far has been amazing for each of us personally and we are all looking forward to playing the WoTC team on the 5th and 6th of November.

Tweaker

Attention all players.  This is your open invitation to join us throughout the month of September for a 100 Card Singleton tournament sponsored by MyMTGO.com.

Game Play

New matches will be announced on Wednesday's starting on September 9th.  Based on the number of registered players we will do this event in weekly waves.  A waves consists of each player playing between 3-5 games between different players.  Each game will play best 2-3 matchups.  Everyone will have 12 days to coordinate with their opponents and meet up online to play their matches.  Each win earns you 2 points with a max of 4 points per match.  Each loss earns you 1 point.  A draw earns 0 points.  During the wave portion of the tournament players are allowed to change/modify their decks.

Each week I will place an announcement on both the home page of MyMTGO.com linking to the 100 Card Singleton Group discussion thread for that weeks matchups.

There will be between 4-6 waves depending on the number of participants.  At the end of all the waves there will be a Top 8 single-day, single-elimination bracket tournament.  The Top 8 players will be the players with the most points at the end of the waves.  In the event of a tie in the 8th position or below there will be a single-elimination, best 2-3 matchup to determine the tie breaker.  The bracket tournament will pit 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 and 4-5.  During the T8 bracket tournament, players must submit to the deck database their final deck.  No changes will be allowed during the bracket tournament.

Results

The results of the games must be posted in that weeks wave thread found in the 100 Card Singleton group discussion by the home team regardless if the home team wins or losses.  Failure to report the matchup will result in a loss for the home team.  Failure to report will cause you to forfit the match and no points will be awarded to the home team.  In the event if a discrepency in results I will personally communicate with the players and make my decision on a case-by-case basis.

Prizes

Awarded at the end of the tournament are top 3 prizes.

1st Place: Force of Will

2nd Place: Grindstone

3rd Place: Sword of Fire and Ice

Entry Fee

There is no entry fee for participating in this event.

Registration

You must be a member of MyMTGO.com in order to participate in the event.  You must join the 100 Card Singleton Group.  Respond to the registration thread.  I strongly encourage that each player only register one of their MTGO accounts for this tournament to be fair to all of the competitors.  Regsitration closes on September 5th, 2009.

Promotion

I strongly encourage everyone to help promote this event.  You can simply link them to this blog here or whatever you want to do.  The more participants the more waves.  The more waves the more fun.

Good luck and may the draw be with you.