The first day of the Zendikar Championships tournament on Magic Arena has just been concluded and the emerging player with the untarnished record was Autumn Burchett. A well-known player herself, after winning a major Magic: the Gathering event with Mono-Blue Tempo, she continued with another achievement being the only undefeated player with a perfect 7-0 record on the first day. Do take note that this event has two formats, Standard and Historic, and here are the two decklist played.

For Standard, we have Gruul Adventures which is also what I played in my Standard Ranked matches, and for Historic, the infamous Goblin aggro deck. Here below are the decklists.

Two years ago, I was in Hong Kong for the MTG Grand Prix together with JayR’s family. After the tournament, we went to some side trips and visited tourist spots such as HK’s Peak Tram. On the final day, they went to Disneyland while I explored the country’s history museum and also got into an old school boat day trip around Victoria Harbour for the sight-seeing experience.

While those memories make the foreign GP or Magic Fest trip worth it, it also concerns me if I will continue traveling for Magic in the future. One main cause would be the term adulting where my roles and priorities are changing for the long term. I am shifting my main objective to that of work and that includes the financial aspect.

Another concern would be the Masteral course for Urban and Regional Planning I took last August and would last for two years. That means two years of mental grinding particularly in developing my thesis research paper. It will surely take toll of my time and expenses and my tournament attendance will surely be lesser.

The Magic Fest schedule for next year was released recently by CFB Events and again, the Metro Manila location was not included. I think this is already the trend on how the organizers of these events can be beneficial on their part wherein selecting the places would at least give them an ROI. The Filipino hopeful players will again travel to the nearby cities in Southeast Asia to be able to compete.

I am wrapping this post to conclude that Magic Fests would not be part of my future concerns and I will focus on improving the local Magic scene with my role being a Magic Judge.

As I have needed to update the events that I have added as a judge, I decided to apply to a major tournament in Manila particularly in the Quezon City area. This event is primarily hosted by Laruan Atbp which I visited and played before back in April during my SCURP course training at UP Diliman. Their shop is near the UP Diliman campus and for this upcoming Into the Core event, their venue will be at the University Hotel located inside. The head judge is Sir Reuben and he was surprised that I applied since the product salary would not suffice my expenses. I insisted still as I needed an event that is supervised by a higher-level judge. This is in preparation for my plan to apply for the Level 2 examination. It was a good thing that he approved it and so I booked the plane tix and the hotel that I will be staying.

Here are the details of the tournament posted at the Laruan ATBP Facebook page and also at my fellow judges’ profile pics.

MTG: Into The Core

presented by @Laruan and @Ludus

Date: July 27, 2019 Saturday
Venue: University Hotel, UP Diliman
Guerrero St, Cor Aglipay St, Diliman, Quezon City

Top 8 at @Laruan Ground Floor Luisa Bldg, 107 Maginhawa Street, Teacher’s Village QC

STANDARD CONSTRUCTED 10AM

Pre Registration Entry Fee: PHP750

Same Day Registration Entry Fee: PHP850

Slots are limited up to 88 players

Guaranteed Prizes for Top 16

1st place receives a Complete Set of San Diego Comic Con 2018 Planeswalker Promos + 55 Core 2020 booster packs

2nd place receives a Complete Set of HASCON MTG 2017 Promos + 30 Core 2020 booster packs

3rd and 4th place receives 15 Core 2020 booster packs each

5th to 8th place receives 8 Core 2020 booster packs each

9th to 16th place receives 4 Core 2020 booster packs each

(1) 2018 Lunar New Year Promo Treasure Token to be raffled

SEALED

Deck building: 1:30PM

Start of Round 1 at: 2:00PM

Pre Registration Entry Fee: PHP1850

Same Day Registration Entry Fee: PHP1950

Inclusive of six (6) Core 2020 booster packs

Slots are limited up to 24 players

Guaranteed Prizes for Top 8

1st place receives a Complete Set of San Diego Comic Con 2018 Planeswalker Promos + 36 Core 2020 booster packs

2nd place receives a Complete Set of HASCON MTG 2017 Promos + 18 Core 2020 booster packs

3rd and 4th place receives 9 Core 2020 booster packs each

5th to 8th place receives 5 Core 2020 booster packs each

(1) 2018 Lunar New Year Promo Treasure Token to be raffled

*Players who join both automatically get the Pre Reg discount

Modern Side Event (TBD)

Progressive Prize Structure Modern Horizons Boosters

Tournament details may change without prior notice.

Pre Registration Payments accepted via:

We accept payment via

BDO Account Number: 003980270089
BDO Account Name: Michael Gary Salazar
BPI Account Number: 3329228087
BPI Account Name: Michael Gary Salazar

Cash payment via Laruan Atbp Cafe
Ground Floor Luisa Building, 107 Maginhawa Street, Teacher’s Village QC

I had expected that Formidable Green would be the deck of choice of most players on this week’s Standard Pauper event and my prediction was right. Almost half of the attendees (three players) played the deck because of its efficiency and consistency in its aggressive start.

I piloted Golgari Delve and referenced the list from this blog post on Writer Adept and I sorted the matchup with Green aggro by adding more Deathtouch critters in the sideboard. I switched the singleton Duress to Rakshasha’s Secret as the latter is more effective in discarding two relevant spells from the opponent’s hands in the late game.

Here is the tournament summary:

My first-round matchup was against a Black Red brew deck that is sort of a good matchup against mine because almost all of its creatures have Deathtouch. He also has spells like Fall of the Hammer to kill my fatty Delve creature and late-game gas with Gravepurge. I barely won Game 1 because he ran out of gas but in the second game, he got the board stalled and I died in a library burn. The decider game was also very grinding, us trading creatures while I dug through my library with Commune and Scout the Borders. I eventually overpowered him as he slightly got consecutive land draws while chipping on his life with Sultai Scavenger.

The second Round was versus Formidable Green. I overcame him in both games as I was able to set up with Delving and fight off his relevant creatures while he was not aggressive enough in the early game.

The third and final Round was a draw with another Formidable Green player.

My final record was 2-0-1 and I was quite impressed despite that Round 1 matchup which I think was unwinnable.

Here are the Top 3 finishers of the tournament:

MtG Iloilo Tournament Results
Wednesday Night Pauper (May 20, 2015)
Top 3:
1st, Mark Ian (Golgari Delve)
2nd, Mao (Formidable Green)
3rd, Christian Paul (Rakdos Deathtouch)

8 players, 3 rounds gameplay