Gifts Ungiven

Although Wizards has been rather pokey about putting up the pro tour qualifier schedule for the PTQ Kyoto 2009 season, our local TO, Conan Blackwell, has the first two Northern California PTQs up at the Matchplay site. Here's the info:

PTQ Kyoto 2009 - Sacramento
October 11, doors open at 9am
$30 entry fee
At Great Escape Games

PTQ Kyoto 2009 - San Jose
October 25, doors open at 9am
$30 entry fee
At Superstars in San Jose (I'd heard they had a new location; it must be a nice big one, given how huge our PTQs are. I'm not sure if the address on their website or on the Matchplay site is correct, so I recommend calling ahead to check.)

I won't be attending the Sacramento PTQ, as I'm being a corner man for my friend in a wholly different kind of tournament that day, but I should be able to make it to the first San Jose PTQ of the season. I expect there will be at least one more San Jose PTQ later on in the season, as we're a large feeder market and we've had a couple for each of the last few seasons.

All the Kyoto PTQs are Shards of Alara sealed, leading into draft for the top eight. I'll post a link to the general schedule once Wizards has it up.

Note that Matchplay is also coordinating our area prereleases for this coming weekend, with events at Superstars in San Jose, Great Escape in Sacramento, and A Place to Game in Marysville. Marysville is the county seat of Yuba county, and is about forty miles north of Sacramento, and just west of Beale Air Force Base. For more info on these prereleases, go to the Matchplay web site. This is your chance to get an early view of the set and pick up an alternate art Ajani Vengeant.

Update: Here's a more up-to-date URL for Superstars, with all their current information:

http://www.superstarsgamecenter.com/

It sounds like they're planning some impressive stuff for the prerelease, including booster box giveaways between rounds, and a midnight opening this Friday.

The full schedule of PTQs leading into Pro Tour Kyoto 2009 is finally up. Click here to get to the PTQ information page, where you can find format information, as well as dates and locations for PTQs.

The format is Shards of Alara sealed, with a cut to a booster draft top eight.

For California players, here's our PTQ schedule:

October 11 - Sacramento
October 25 - San Jose
November 15 - San Diego
December 6 - Sacramento
December 20 - San Jose
December 27 - Los Angeles

With one Los Angeles PTQ date TBA.

This weekend, I went to the first Bay Area PTQ of the current season. This was the first of our local PTQs to be held at the expansive new Superstars Game Center in San Jose, just two blocks from the San Jose State campus. Thanks again to the Superstars owners for hosting the event, and to the excellent judge staff for keeping the thing moving at a good clip. I don't have the exact count, but they said it was about 188 people or so, per Bay Area PTQ tradition.

I didn't win, but I was happy overall with my performance. See the extended for my card pool, the deck I built, and my round-by-round.