
First off Brian and I were just going to play judges but then Jay informed us of the fact protected Gideon can now be CM‘d or fell away with the new protection ruling. 😮 😉 (editor’s note: inside joke, don’t try this at home)
You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary….wait, sorry, wrong topic.
The LEGO Movie jokes aside, today I have the distinct honor of showing off the cards designed by the 3 lucky winners from Nats 2016. Oh, and the remaining 2 ultra rare cards as well!
When I won Nationals in 2015 (read about it here) I got a super cool prize, the ability to create a card! Now you may be thinking “But John, aren’t you a playtester, don’t you already create cards?” Yes, and no. A lot of the set-building happens before I come in. I do contribute from time to time on the creation side, but my focus is more on ability tweaking. Also, we tend to have strong themes in our sets – The Nationals Prize was outside of these lines.
I rarely play Teams. Most tournaments I attend run Teams at the same time as my favorite category other than T2-2P, Booster Draft, so I rarely have the chance. In the last 3 years after 2012 Nationals, when the esteemed Matt Brinkman and I ran a pair of 154-card monstrosities to capture 3rd place, I believe I played the category twice in tournaments: 2013 MW Regionals and 2014 Nationals, with little success in either. I was also not originally planning to play this year, but when my brother Justin decided that his success in the previous two days would suffice and he could step in as judge, I ended up teaming up with his planned partner, Martin Miller. Which is something like the Redemption equivalent of Venus Williams coming to you and saying that she will not be participating in a doubles tournament, so you can go ahead and team up with Serena.
I had a chance to sit down and talk with Friday’s Type A winner from Nationals, Forest Isbell. I’ll share his comments below and then follow with his deck list.
2015 Tournaments won: