The Gameswalker 50k trial tournaments here for the Iloilo City local gamestores were held last week with the purpose of giving the first-place winners a first-round bye at the main event. The organizers have allotted two slots for each game store which is valid in accordance to the number of players in the area.

The first trial event was held at Nth Dimension last Wednesday night at was attended by 18 players. The winners’ decision was ranking-based after Swiss rounds and it was Ruel Dolar playing Gruul aggro that emerged as the winner of the tournament. I have known him as a long-time pilot of this archetype but his build is a little spicier than that of a typical list. He would include one-ofs of his favorite creature or spell that would gain him a huge advantage in certain situations.

Saturday Trials tournament was at Pro Reis Place with 18 players in attendance. The first place in rank after the five rounds of Swiss was Christian Atienza with Simic Flash. He outlasted his Esper Hero opponents in grueling matches with the freebie Wolf tokens from Nightpack Ambusher protected by the sideboard card Veil of Summer. My teammate Ace played the same archetype but only finished in 3rd place. Anyway, we are looking for adjustments in the metagame again in the coming weeks as the new archetypes make their mark in Standard.

Congratulations to the two winners of the first batch of Gameswalker Trials Iloilo.