On Friday, Oct 12th (the release date for Lorwyn), TCG hosted it's first ever player rewards tournament (dubbed 'The Magic Olympics'). For those who don't know, we have our own
player rewards program instituted at the store. For every qualifying event you play in, you earn 1 point. You earn more points for finishing high in the brackets of each event. After 10 events,
you earn a free booster pack. At the end of the quarter (in this case, July-Sept), the top 4 players will play off in a special event to see who is the winning player for that season. Next summer
(after we have our 4 seasonal winners), those players will face off in the player of the year race. We are also trying to get some friendly competition going with other local stores next summer
to pit Team TCG vs their players.

So, for the end of this first quarter, we had the following players: Alex Gfroerer (with a huge points lead, with 40 pts), Jon Pelosi with 21 pts, Tom Crone with 19 and Ryan Colantuono with
18pts (most people know Ryan by his nickname of  'Tuna'). They each were allowed to pick a format for play (so each player would have a 'home field advantage'). Each format would be
played as a 1-game match, with two pairings per format. Alex chose Type II Post-rotation (Time Spiral block, 10th Edition and Lorwyn the only cards allowed); Jon chose Peasant (5
uncommons and the rest must be commons); Tom wanted Lorwyn draft while Tuna chose Legacy. The 5th, final format was chosen by a store representative (I get to have some fun every now
and again, eh?), in the form of Reverse Draft (you draft the worst possible card pool you can, and then it is given to someone else to try to make a wiining deck from it). The packs used for this
included Fallen Empires, 10th Edition and Scourge.

Each win in each format gained the player 3 points, with a possible total points of 30 overall. The final standings looked like this:
Jon Pelosi- 24 pts
Alex Gfroerer- 15 pts
Tuna- 12 pts
Tom Crone- 9 pts

Jon's decks seemed to surprise everyone. He chose the Life deck for Legacy (sometimes going off on turn 3 or 4, and hitting 20 million life), Affinity for Peasant and a combo deck for Type
II that used Pariah on Stuffy Doll or Cho-mano to lock the game down, and then ping the opponent to death.
Alex chose Affinity for Peasant, a Type II deck sporting Tarmogoyf and a Legacy Psychatog deck.
Ryan had Elves for Peasant (where he was undefeated), Trinisphere for Legacy and his self titled 'Total Jank' for Type II.
Tom Crone, who had sold his magic collection to the store the week before the event, had to count on his friends to get the following: Green Stompy for Peasant, Black Control for Legacy
 and Type II.

Alex Gfroerer showed a large understanding of the newest card pool, going undefeated in Lorwyn Draft. Jon won both of his reverse draft games, with a deck that seemed to have great
removal and ways to pump up his creatures at will.

For their efforts, the players received pack prizes, as well as some dci foily cards and free admission to some future events. TCG would like to thank all those who participated in our quarterly
events, and look forward to our Oct-Dec event to be held in the middle of January (and no, Jon, you are not eligible ot play in it. Your spot would pass down if you're a top 4 finisher!).


The 4, hard pit during the Reverse Draft round: (l-r: Tom Crone, Jon Pelosi, yours truly, Alex Gfroerer and Ryan Coluntuono):


And, the winners with their FAT LOOT: