Gifts Ungiven

The 2009 Grand Prix schedule has been posted. Click here to read it.

The Extended GP in Los Angeles in January is about the only one I might realistically make it to, unless work travel somehow puts me near one of the others.

Wizards has also updated the rules for making it to day two in a GP. Previously, GPs cut to the top 64 players, or, for GPs of 800 players or more, the top 128. The new rule will be either a cut to 64/128, or a cut to all players at X-2-0 or better, thus avoiding the heartbreaking "Yeah, you managed an X-2 record, but you're being cut on some marginal tiebreak" situation that popped up a lot this year in the massive European GPs. That seems like a good change.

Courtesy of a heads up from Top 8 Magic, here is game one of the finals from GP Kobe 2009:

I thought their method of resolving Desire was interesting and unexpected. Thanks to Brian for the heads up, and Naoaki Umesaki for taking the video and putting it together nicely (notice the helpful tracking of life totals, cards played, mana pools, and storm counts). Apparently the remaining games from the final match will be posted as well. I'm looking forward to it.