XGL Invitational Report 2009
*Apologies of the delay of this report from the end of year championship.
The much sought after trophies and boosters!
We had 11 players turn up for our special end of year event for 2009. The schedule was for 3 rounds of 15 card Standard Highlander followed by 3 rounds of 56 card Rainbow Stairwell. The Highlander format turned out to be a very open format with decks varying from Bant to Blue-White Control to Mono Red to Grixis Mana Ramp. The players were much more enamoured with this format and after the 3 rounds Mark Glenister was leading the pack on 9 points closely followed by Christopher Westerlund, who was undefeated on 7 points.
Rainbow Stairwell produced a different conundrum with gold cards not available in this format the number of cards available was very limited. Players in general had very similar decks with most choosing to use the most powerful cards in each slot. Players general consensus was that this format was a little to random, but led to some interesting games. Going into the last round Mark Glenister was guaranteed a final place. Gordon Barnes was on 12 points with Steve Morton, Dan Gardner and Glenn Goldsworthy all still in with an outside chance of making the final on 9 points. With Dan and Glenn both losing it fell to Gordon v Steve to decide the 2nd finalist. Gordon won a close match against Steve Morton to gain the 2nd final slot.
So the final came down to our Player of the Year Gordon Barnes against the undefeated Mark Glenister. The players would be playing 3 rounds of Highlander and 2 rounds of Rainbow Stairwell with the 2 formats alternating between games. The first 4 games were shared bringing it down to 1 game of Highlander to decide the winner. After the early land plays both players tried to figure out what cards were left. After a little thought Gordon went for a Baneslayer Angel, but hadn't considered Mark keeping the Soul Manipulation in his deck to counter the Angel and return a creature, which was enough to win the match.
Thanks to all the players that attended the event and congratulations go to Mark for winning the Invitational and Gordon as Player of the Year. We hope you all enjoyed it and thank you for attending our events this year.
Mark receiving his trophy for the Invitational win
Gordon receiving the Player of the Year trophy
The winners!