TCG Player Platinum Qualifier Results

This past Saturday, 126Magic players descended on TJ Collectibles for their shot at winning some of Tom Shea’s Money. In the end, here’s what everyone walked away with- and who won!

Winners:
1st place: Dustin Taylor  – $500, TCG Player Playmat and 60 TCGPlayer points
2nd place: Joshua Grauman – $200, TCG Player Playmat and 40 TCGPlayer points
3rd  place:  Kevin Garroshen – $100, TCG Player Playmat and 30 TCGPlayer points

4th place: Joseph Didonato -  $100, TCG Player Playmat and 30 TCGPlayer points
5th  place:  Thomas Smiley$50, TCG Player Playmat and 20 TCGPlayer points
6th place: Andrew Capela – $50, TCG Player Playmat and 20 TCGPlayer points

7th place:  Andrew Marsden – $50, TCG Player Playmat and 20 TCGPlayer points

8th place: Hank Mead – $50, TCG Player Playmat and 20 TCGPlayer points

Congrats to all of the winners! Good luck in Indy!

Want to see the top 8 deck lists? Head on over to here and check them out!

Martin Juza Takes Down Grand Prix Hiroshima

Magic Grand Prix Hiroshima is now in the books. After 18 rounds of swiss (including the top eight), Czech Martin Juza is the Grand Prix Hiroshima 2011 champion, having bested Kouichi Tanaka, Rin Satou and Takahiro Shiraki in the finals with his Green & White Token-based deck.

Click the links below for the official coverage. Plus, the top eight deck lists!

Day Two Coverage

Day One Coverage

Top 8 Deck Lists

Top 8 Player Profiles

Jeremy Neeman win in Australia

Congratulations to Jeremy Neeman, winner of Grand Prix Brisbane! After a battling through a talented and international Top 8, Neeman takes home his second Australian Grand Prix trophy in a row, following on from his victory in Sydney last year.

Jeremy Neeman, piloting Blue/Black control, narrowly beat out Tim Fondum, piloting G/W Tokens, in three tense games. Rounding out the Top 8 were Shouta Yasooka, Andreas Pranoto, Jacky Zhang, Luke Mulcahy, Daniel Unwin, and Hao-Shan Huang. Congratulations to all the Top 8 finalists, and once again to ‘The’ Jeremy Neeman, the Grand Prix Brisbane champion!

Official Coverage

Day One Blog

Day Two Blog

Top 8 Decks

Top 8 Profiles

228 Magic PT Hopefuls Descend on Milford, MA

An amazing 228 Pro Tour hopefuls have descended upon TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA, braving both close quarters and heat for their chance at Magic Pro Tour fame, glory, and a trip to beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii! Participants will be testing their Innistrad sealed deck skills as they battle over a numerous swiss rounds to determine the final eight elimination rounds for Innistrad booster draft to determine a winner.

We’ll be bringing you all the action as best we can through out the course of the day. Stay turned to our Facebook and Twitter accounts (@tjcollect on Twitter) for all the Innistrad sealed deck action!

Innistrad Hits Shelves!

Today is the day, Magic the Gathering fans! Time to usher in a new era by saying good bye to our fetch lands and Zendikar block and hello to Innistrad, the newest Magic set (and block) that is on sale today! TJ Collectibles has all of your Innistrad needs, from booster boxes & packs, draft sets, fat packs, intro decks, single cards and more! Plus, our online store has a full inventory of Innistrad too. A perfect way to acquire the cards you need for up coming Friday Night Magic events.

Speaking of which, remember Magic players, tonight’s Friday Night Magic events will feature Standard play with Innistrad. Zendikar block (including Worldwake and Rise of the Eldrazi) is no longer legal for Standard play! This includes Magic 2011 (M11) as well.

Be sure to join us at TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA at 7:00 PM for your FREE Friday Night Magic action.

But wait, there’s more! With the new Planeswalker Points system in place, we’re adding a SECOND Friday Night Magic event to begin at 11:00 PM and this one is for your, limited players! We’re adding a Magic booster draft at 11:00 PM and this week, you’ll be drafting Innistrad! $15.00 to play and yes, the FNM foil promo will be part of the prizes! Looks like you have no excuses now.

See you there!

Congratulations to Richard Hoaen Grand Prix Montreal Champion

Congratulations to Richard Hoaen, Grand Prix Montreal Champion, having bested 1,054 competitors in sealed deck and a strong top eight utilizing his black and red Magic 2012 aggressive booster draft deck to best Alexander Hayne to earn the title.

In addition, congratulations to New England locals Matthew Costa, Brian Lynch and Jonathan Lewis for their performances! Check out the final standings here.

Top 8 Deck lists

Top 8 Player Profiles

Day 2 Blog

Day 1 Blog

 

 

UPDATE: Samuele Estratti Splinters the Competition at PT Philly!

Congratulations to Samuele Estratti, 2011 Pro Tour Philadelphia champion! He bested finalist Josh “Wrapter” Utter-Leyton in the finals with his Blue/Red Splinter Twin combo deck against Josh’s “Counter-Cat” deck.

Combination decks were all the rage over the course of the weekend, between Splinter Twin decks, Pyromancer Ascension, Storm-based decks, Through the Breach, Hive Mind and more. Perhaps one of the biggest stories is Samuel Blacks “Poison Shoal” deck, the goal of which is to deal ten poison damage as quickly as turn TWO!

Aggressive strategies were not left out in the cold however, as Zoo and Affinity both put up very respectable numbers.

Finally, it is interesting to note that not a single Cloudpost deck even cracked the Top 8! The big bogey man in the room appears to have suffered a sound beating at the hands of the numerous combo decks, Zoo and Affinity.

Can the format adjust and right itself? Will Control decks make an appearance in the future? Is Modern just going to be another combo-centric format? Only time will tell!

 

Official Coverage

Top 8 Player Profiles

Top 8 Modern Decks

All Modern Decks, 18 Points or Better

Fact Sheet

Congratulations to Yuuya Watanabe, GP Pittsburgh Champion

That’s right folks, not only has Yuuya Watanabe made three consecutive Grand Prix top eights in a row, but he is the 2011 Grand Prix Pittsburgh Champion and his second victory in a row (Grand Prix Shanghai last weekend! Other notable top eight competitors include Patrick Chapin, Matthew Nass and Max Tietze, finishing 3rd, 6th and 4th respectively.

From the official coverage:

Coming into the event, it was clear to everyone that CawBlade was the deck to beat. No matter whom we asked we didn’t get any answer other than that. However, if we learned anything from the first day of play, it was that maybe players should have been paying more attention to Splinter Twin decks. They comprised a much larger portion of the winning decks than CawBlade did, especially if you add up all of the varieties. With each event, the preferred method of assembling the combo seems to change. Early on, it was definitely the RUG Pod version of the deck that had the most traction, but for this event it appeared that the UR version had the most believers. Ultimately, only the UR variety made the Top 8, eventually losing to Yuuya Watanabe on his eventual path to victory. While it’s true he is playing Caw, there is a big difference between losing to Caw and losing to Yuuya Watanabe, especially right now.

Check out the coverage, including player profiles, featured matches, deck lists and more!

Day Two Coverage

Day One Coverage

Top 8 Deck Lists

Top 8 Player Profiles

LCQ Deck Lists

Grand Prix Montreal Trial – Tomorrow!

Please join us tomorrow, right here at TJ Collectibles in Milford, MA, for you chance to win a three-round bye (that’s three FREE wins) for up-coming Grand Prix Montreal the weekend of September 17-18th. Doors and registration open at 11:00 AM with a prompt noon start time. The format for this event is Magic 2012 (M12) Sealed Deck with a top eight booster draft. Each participant will receive six booster packs with which to construct a 40-card deck (basic land will be provided). Entry price is $25.00.

Event will have an appropriate amount of modifies swiss-style rounds before cutting to the top eight elimination rounds.

Come enjoy TJ Collectibles legendary prize support and come on down and enjoy an event run the TJ Collectibles way: fun, fast and friendly!

For more details, please see our event calender or click here.

 

Want to learn more about TJ Collectibles and receive news about sales, deals, events, new products and more? Then like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! In addition, TJ Collectibles is now on Foursquare and offering some cool deals. Be sure to check-in and take advantage today!

 

WotC Announces PT Honolulu and 15 Grand Prix Events

Wizards of the Coast, designers and publishers of the popular Magic the Gathering card game, announced today a huge, expansive premier organized play schedule for the first quarter of 2012 including a Pro Tour in beautiful, tropical Honolulu and fifteen Grand Prix events!

In February, the Magic Pro Tour will return to Honolulu, Hawaii as the marquee showcase of high-level Magic play, scheduled for February 10-12 just one week after the Dark Ascension release. WotC has decided to schedule the Pro Tour so close to the release of the second Innistrad-block set release in order to showcase the new set in the hands of some of the strongest Magic players in the world.

In addition, with Pro Tours turning into private events, Wizards promises increased coverage via streaming video feeds, audio, text, live chat and social media in order to involve fans from home and feel like they’re a part of the event. Expanded coverage will highlight the top players in the world showing off their latest decks and strategies with each and every Pro tour.

If Honolulu is a place you would like to visit, then qualifying at a Pro Tour Qualifier is for you. The season to qualify for PT Honolulu is fast approaching, with the season to do so beginning October 1st. The format for these events is Innistrad Sealed Deck. Likewise with 2011, winners of live PTQ events will be awarded airfare to the Pro Tour. Stay tuned, as TJ Collectibles will announce their PTQ’s in short order. Please see the event calender for details.

The newly expanded Grand Prix events begin in January with back-to-back events in the United States. The remaining announced schedule through March includes events in Japan, Spain, France, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia and Italy. The formats featured at these events will include Standard, Sealed Deck, Legacy, Extended and now Modern.

In addition, a newly expanded, flexible prize payout structure will be in place. Grand Prix will now offer between $10,000 and $40,000 USD in prize money, with the possibility that some events offer cash-equivalent prizes as well. Specific information about prize payouts and formats will be announced in the coming months.

With out further ado, check out this schedule:

Grand Prix Schedule (January-March)

City	Country	Dates
Austin	USA	January 7-8, 2012
Orlando	USA	January 14-15, 2012
Kobe	Japan	February 18-19, 2012
Lincoln	USA	February 18-19, 2012
Madrid	Spain	February 25-26, 2012
Baltimore	USA	February 25-26, 2012
Lille	France	March 3-4, 2012
Seattle	USA	March 3-4, 2012
Indianapolis	USA	March 10-11, 2012
Nashville	USA	March 17-18, 2012
Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	March 24-25, 2012
Mexico City	Mexico	March 24-25, 2012
Melbourne	Australia	March 31-April 1, 2012
Salt Lake City	USA	March 31-April 1, 2012
Turin	Italy	March 31-April 1, 2012