SSO and I took part in the first PTQ of the season for Berlin 2008, at Pro Tour Hollywood 2008. You can read the PT Hollywood coverage here. One of the curious features of actually being at the event is that we have no real idea what's going on in the Pro Tour proper. We've been popping our heads out every so often to see what's going on, but that's not a clear picture. After I write up this quick overview of the first PTQ, I'm going to check out the YouTube coverage, and then SSO and I will be doing some deck building for tomorrow's PTQ.
The high-level view of today's PTQ? Well, there were some Faeries decks, but not as many as I'd expected. There's also a Doran aggro/tempo deck that operates much as the Extended Doran did, with Bitterblossom playing the role of Dark Confidant (i.e. "I trade life for stuff advantage"). There's also a terribly annoying five-color Elementals deck that tries to get lots of value out of Elementals evoked, in play, and in the graveyard.
Anyway, here's the high-level view of my eight match opponents in today's PTQ:
Round 1: BRG Planeswalkers and removal, featuring Spitebellows, Chandra Nalaar, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Nameless Inversion
Round 2: Mono-green Elf token horde (Gilt-Leaf Ambush, Promenade, Perfects...)
Round 3: Five-color Elementals
Round 4: WBG Treefolk with Doran
Round 5: UB Faeries (with Broken Ambitions playing the role of Rune Snag)
Round 6: WR Giants
Round 7: Five-color Elementals
Round 8: WBG Doran with Bitterblossom
There were a lot more Vivid Lands than I'd expected, but I'm definitely biased against them. Certainly, many mana bases were very colorful, but the format seems slow enough for that to work out okay.
Okay. Time to go redesign for tomorrow. Today's PTQ began at noon. Tomorrow, we start at 10am.