So I happened to be perusing the Wizards site and noticed that two local guys are playing at Nationals right now.  There might be more, but there are two that sometimes attend Madness events, so I thought it might interest some of us to see their progress.  Chris Connely is 0-2 right now, and Doug Effler is 1-0-1.  They’re playing round 3 right now if anyone cares to follow.  I just thought it was kind of interesting.  We might be able to follow Jeremy Ross’s progress at JSS soon, too.

Chris Schoppe is also in the JSS.  I spoke to Stephen last night and he said that he got beat-up through the grinders, but Christopher was excited, and was playtesting really well.

Chris Mettler
Madness Games & Comics

“Play the Games because You Love the Game"

Doug Effler ended up 6/6/1-Drop at Nats, Placing 64th in the final standings.

Chris Schoppe and Jimmy Frink both played well at the JSS Main event, unfortunately I think both were largely under-prepared for the HUGE appearance of Tron-based decks.

I worked both the JSS Grinder and the JSS Main Event on Day 1 as a Judge, in the JSS Main Event I did 2 deck checks every round after the first (2-9, 16 decks total.) Of those *I* checked, well over 50% were Tron based.

If Jimmy can Q before his birthday, he has 1 more shot.
Chris has a really really good chance next year, he has just got to stay focused.

As a side note, it was pretty well known on staff that these two guys were my friends, and after the Day 1 event wound up, the HJ (Jason Ness, Lv 4) cornered me and said that the kids from Texas (Chris, Jimmy, Jeremy, and the kids from Pats in Austin) were some of the best behaved and technically correct players in the tournament.

Good show guys, lets do it again next year.

Providing Central and North Texas with monthly $300 CASH Tournaments.

End of Year Extravaganza! December 16th @ Czech Inn of West, Tx. $1000 CASH IN PRIZES! (and of course the coveted playmats)
Ron Spencer will also be there to sign your cards!

Wow, that’s kind of surprising to me… well, mainly because I asked a few people who played in the main tourney, and they said not NEARLY as much Tron showed up. But, I guess that’s the difference in the main event and the JSS portion… hmm…

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Current Decks:
UG Aggro
Mono-Green Turbo-Allosaurus!
Mono-Red BURN

RGD Draft: 25-7-2
RGD Sealed: ***Censored***

Chris Connely was mentioned on Wizards.com this morning and had his decklist displayed (he ran snakes at Nationals).  The writer gave him special attention primarily due to his handwriting being far nicer than everyone else’s.  I thought that was kind of cool. 

Also, Olivier Ruel has been banned for six months for rules infractions, and has given a statement saying he’s quitting Magic.  Interesting indeed.

Christian - 03 August 2006 09:07 AM

Chris Connely was mentioned on Wizards.com this morning and had his decklist displayed (he ran snakes at Nationals).  The writer gave him special attention primarily due to his handwriting being far nicer than everyone else’s.  I thought that was kind of cool. 

I saw this as well, and emailed Flores about it.

Team Mostly Harmless member, Tuan Phan, actually wrote Connelys decklist.  Tuan also got kudos from the side events staff when he wrote Drew Drumanski’s decklist.

Those of you who dont know Tuan or havent seen his caligraphy are missing out on a great guy.  Hes funny and always a good hoot to be around, one of the reasons Team MHC snapped him up so quick :D

Providing Central and North Texas with monthly $300 CASH Tournaments.

End of Year Extravaganza! December 16th @ Czech Inn of West, Tx. $1000 CASH IN PRIZES! (and of course the coveted playmats)
Ron Spencer will also be there to sign your cards!

on the Olivier Ruel subject, i’ve gotta say that if you go look at his footage from past events, the way he shuffles his opponets deck makes it look a lot like he was looking at his opponets cards. i don’t know if he was cheating, but to suspend someone with his large fanbase they must have been rather sure. i still think that he is one of the best active “pros” in the world.