Rookie of the Year and PWP update

It has been a while since I updated the PWP standings. Two and a half months, to be exact. I started to calculate the rankings for the new season immediatly after n00bcon 7, but the same issue I've been thinking about for the last two years hit me again. Once we started having tournaments with over 16 players, the rating system would get very top heavy and fairly skewed. I looked at a few options on how we could do it instead. After checking some different ways local Magic Leagues in other formats calculates points, I eventually reached the conclusion that the simplest way to do it is to use something similar to Wizards own Planeswalker points system. The new system is described in some detail at the PWP-page. But I digress.

The ball has started rolling on the Pimpvitational 14/15 tournament. It was originally planned to take place a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't pan out. Deciding on when, where, and most of all how to play it requires some strategic  planning. Erik "Sehl" Larsson is on the case however, and I have confidence that it will eventually get settled. We have 10 months left after all.

There were no less than 89 players competing in 93/94 tournaments in Sweden last year. That's a lot of new faces in the community. With that in mind, it felt like it was time for a "Rookie of the Year" award to the new player with the most points from last season.

It was a tight race. Samuel "Anthrox" Lowejko got off to a great start with his top4 at n00bcon 6, and held the lead for a long time. Felipe Garcia was another strong contender, who won the Playoteket tournament in Scania, top4'd a couple of others, and was a millimetre off a Chaos Orb flip to top8 BSK.

In the end, Felipe and Samuel had to bow down to Jenny "Moxin" Arvidsson. Jenny's top4 at the 27-player Frippan Open tournament in December, along with many solid finishes (including a second place at the n00bcon warmup tournament) was enough to grant her the first rookie of the year award.

Jenny with the trophy at n00bcon 7

A year ago, Jenny was not only an aspiring member of the 93/94 community, but actually fairly new to Magic as a game. She is one of a tiny handful of players that I know off that pretty much started to play tournament Magic with the Old School format. While most players may start their collections with a pre-constructed Duel Deck or a few boosters, Jenny went deep from the start. After borrowing a deck to try the format in a tournament at n00bcon 6, she bought her first Magic card. A Black Lotus. She found one at a decent price, and it was easy to argue that it would go in any deck. And it's pretty damn rad to own a Black Lotus :)

Black Lotus and black stout. A good start for any deck in the format.

Using a few different strategies last season, Jenny's top finishes came piloting monoblack and UR Burn.

Jenny's monoblack from Frippan Open.

UR Burn from the n00bcon warmup tournament.

What else can I say about her as playing casual Magic goes? First thing that comes to mind is that she is a cunning and dangerous opponent in Drinking Cube. Last summer she also picked up Vintage as her second tournament format. We used to live close to each other in Gothenburg, and I had the opportunity to playtest Vintage with her a few times. There were some rough White Trash mirror showdowns over good beer. (White Trash used to be a very strong deck btw, though very few players actually sleeved it up. I started to write a primer about the deck for EC but scrapped it once Monastery Mentor was printed and made the deck much worse).

Jenny is a pleasure to face both in a tournament and in a bar, and I'm looking forward to see new tech :)