You didn’t think Mike Flores and I would let the year slip by without at least one more podcast did you?

Okay we thought so too but just before the Christmas break we managed to sit down — along with special guest Steve Sadin — to reflect on the year gone by, talk about comic books, and pine for our various struggling NBA teams. If you listen closely you can find out exactly what it is about Luis Scott-Vargas’ recent online interactions that has prompted actual feelings of jealousy from Flores.

Hope you all had a great holiday break — be it for Chanukah, Christmas, Mothra’s Birthday or whatever — and are raring to go for the New Year. I leave you with this image from a recent Modern match because — well, because I want to use this image as often as possible.

Hope to see you all in Austin!

It has been a long time but Mike and I finally sat down and caught up on some of the latest Organized Play changes with more than a smattering of Mike’s recent obsession with Street Fighter. The exact topic of the podcast is a little tough to pin down since we had not done a ‘cast in quite some time and had plenty of stuff to talk about. There should be a little something for everyone but, alas no jackhammers. We made up for it with a special underground excursion toward the end of the podcast.

We probably won’t get another chance to update before I get back from Worlds so good luck to everyone in San Diego and San Francisco and have a great Thanksgiving!

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

“Would playing on a team with @fivewithflores count as ‘playing for charity’? Discuss.” - @Jonnymagic00 aka Jon Finkel

“yeah me Phil and Lachmann are a team, going all 3 days.” - @OsypL aka Osyp Lebedowicz

“wish there were events like this out in San Diego!” - @bmkibler aka Brian Kibler

What event could pique the interest of the likes of Jon Finkel, Osyp Lebedowicz, and Brian Kibler? None other than the return of the The Grudge Match, reborn as MTGGrudgeMatch.com, taking place in Philadelphia during the release weekend for Innistrad. It is a 32-person $10,000 tournament with entries being funneled into it from two events. The first is a Friday Night Innistrad Sealed Deck event that costs a preposterously low $20 and will send 8 players into the big Sunday Standard event. The remaining 24 spots will be decided on Saturday in a FREE Standard tournament.

Pretty sick, right? You have two shots to qualify and one is cheap and the other is free! Not only that but you can earn byes into the Standard portion on Saturday with a strong finish on Friday. The Top 16 players from the Sealed event will all get one-round byes the next day. You may be wondering what the Top 8 players who have already qualified for the event would want with the bye but there is a very good reason for playing both days.

Players can be sponsored to compete in the two events as three-person teams for $100 and the Top 4 teams at the end of the Sealed and Standard portions on Friday and Saturday will advance to a 3-person team event taking place after the Top 8 of the $10,000 event. The winning team will win $1,000 and the sponsor will an additional $1,000. And if you don’t have a store to sponsor you can sponsor your own team — which is what Finkel and Lebedowicz were referring to in their tweets. Additionally there is another $1,000 if the winner of the main event is a member of a sponsored team. There is up to $3,000 on the line for members of teams on the weekend.

The tournament is taking place during Epic Con over the course of Sept 30th - Oct 2nd and there are no hidden costs, badge fees, or any other nasty surprises in store if you decide to attend. I will be there the whole weekend doing live video coverage with Ggslive.com and if the winning team is sponsored by a store we will also be shooting a commercial for that store as part of the coverage. Interested stores can contact me at brian@Top8Magic.com for more details.

Oh yeah…there is also a FREE Modern tournament on Sunday for another $2,000 in prizes. Hope to see you there!

Location
Pennsylvania Convention Center
1101 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107-2299
(215) 418-4700

Friday September 30th

While I was away MichaelJ got lonely and called up Hall of Fame hopeful Mark Herberholz. I honestly have no idea what they talked about — it could be anything. I am going to listen to it as soon as it goes live (don’t try this method at home!) and you should do the same. Before I have to take it down.

I have had this podcast stranded since before leaving for San Diego Comic Con. This was Michael J Flores and I grabbing a quick half and hour before my trip to discuss the Hall of Fame ballots and various eligible candidates. Sorry for the delay.