You Don’t Have to Sacrifice Chickens or Virgins. By Christa Stenger (w/Andrea Kunstt) They may be silly, they may be strange, or they my simply involve thinking evil thoughts of your opponent before a match begins; whichever the case, competitors at the World Championship have their own unique ways of paying homage to the very capricious and ofttimes frustrating lady luck. CLOTHES Scott Johns (USA) – When Scott does well, he will wear the same shirt. On Day 2 of Worlds, he wore his Day 1 shirt over his old World Championship T-Shirt Fortunately, Scott bathes frequently so it isn’t an offensive smell but rather skillful play that defeated his opponents and earned him his final 8 at this year’s Worlds. Paul McCabe (Canada) – Paul says when he does well he doesn’t change anything that he does from match to match. On the bad luck side, he said the worst luck he had was at PT Mainz and Chicago when he was given a gold shirt to wear by Wizards staff to honor his Player of the Year status. He and Jakub Slemr (the reigning World Champion) both wore the shirts and suffered through losing records at the tournament. Wizards must have forgotten that lady luck never did favor the color yellow…… Jakub Slemr (Czech Republic) – He wears the same shirt and hat if he is doing well (hopefully he burned the yellow Player of the Year shirt). Lukas Ladra (Czech Republic) – Not only does Lukas wear the same clothes if he is doing well, he also will put out his opening hand in the same manner: 4 cards in one row on the top of his play area, 3 cards on the bottom. Gustavo Chapela (Mexico Team) – Gustavo will wear the same shirt if he does well, but says that he hasn’t found his real lucky shirt yet. He placed 2nd in a PT Chicago qualifier in Phoenix two weeks ago in a shirt that had “Porn Star” in big letters on it. He tried to wear it to Day 1 of Worlds, but WoTC officials had him change into his Worlds Competitor T-Shirt as they felt his shirt might offend people. Romario Brito (Brazil Team) – He wears the same shirt and uses the same Spellground. Sigurd Eskeland (Norway Team) – Sigurd has a lucky Spice Girls T-shirt (for which he gets teased by other players) as well as a lucky ½” high pink plastic pig with big black eyes that he got from Jack Stanton. He thought the pig looked “mean”, but “adorable” would be a better word for it. LUCK PIECES Satoshi Nakamura (Japan) – Satoshi uses tiny plastic cupcakes, cakes, and cake slices for tokens. If his luck goes out the window, he can always gnaw on the plastic confections and think of the real thing back home… Brian Seldon (USA) – Brian wears his red cap (backwards) to every event. He finished 1st at Regionals, 9th at Nationals, and Top 8 in Worlds. It’s a safe bet that he’ll be wearing that cap all through the next Pro Tour season. Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz (USA) – Steve has a little rat and a lizard that he kept perched on his deckbox (Rumor has it that the rat represents a certain US Pro Tour player and the lizard a Pro Tour judge). Mark LePine (USA) – Mark was using a little plastic lizard that looked just like Steve O’s that Tony Tsai gave him. After he did poorly early in the tournament, he threw the lizard and its head came off. Later, when he took another match loss, he threw the lizard against a fireplace and it broke into a hundred pieces. Enric Rodamillas (Mexico Team) – Enric has a small red box that he uses for a deck box. The hinges are loose, and he just keeps working them back to functionality. He also has a lucky Duelist life counter that he keeps losing, but keeps finding its way back to him. Ezequiel Do Rego (Argentina Team) – Ezequiel says he calls his girlfriend in Argentina before each day of major tournaments (as he did at his Nationals). On Day 1, he talked to her in the morning and did very well. On Day 2, he was told that she was away at school and not only had a losing record but lost his sideboard due to a deck checklist errors. He didn’t mention it as a luck talisman, but he was wearing a cape proudly sporting the blue and white of his homeland Terry Tsang (Canada Team) – Terry had a little stuffed green frog early in the tournament, but when he wasn’t doing well, it ended up on a University of Washington roof. Tsang had the frog on the first day and went 2-5 (and the two wins were by byes). The next two days (after ditching the frog), he did so well that he made it into the top 32. When asked where the frog when, Tony laughed evilly and said, “I’m glad the stupid frog is gone and may I never see it again!” Casey McCarrell (USA) – Casey carried around a big stuffed monkey that he got in Canada. Sometimes he would put it on the table, and during a few matches, he left it sitting on his lap facing his opponent while he played (there were a few interesting comments about that). Worth Wollpert (USA) – Back at PTLA, Worth’s amazing and legendary girlfriend Dana gave him a notepad with a basketball print on it and he did very well at PTLA. He says that she has to go and buy more and give them to him or they won’t bring him good luck. Worth also has his sigature baseball cap, although he gave up his Boston cap and now wears a New York Yankees cap because the Boston cap wasn’t lucky. Perhaps he should try an LA Dodgers cap now that 4 Southern Californians made it into the top 8 at Worlds this year. Chris Pikula (USA) – Chris and Worth were the only competitors whose lucky talismans were from significant others. Chris’ girlfriend Kerry was shopping and saw a series of Buddha figurines. She found one that she liked, and lifted it up to see what it stood for. That particular Buddha was for MONEY. The Buddha luck was seen in action during a match with Finland’s Mikko Snygg. Chris used his Cursed Scroll with 6 cards in hand, calling Hammer (he had two in hand). Mikko promptly chose a Hammer, and proceeded to keep choosing one of the Hammers 6 times in a row. On the 7th Cursed Scroll, he chose the Fireblast that ended his game. During competition on the 3rd day, Chris was playing a match with Steve O and he ended up mulliganing. After eyeing the budda suspiciously; he realized the little figurine was facing his opponent. Chris gave a theatrical cry of despair before crying aloud, “Oh my god, he’s facing his master! What was I thinking?!!1” Chris switched the Buddha back so it faced him, and drew a better hand. Chris ended up in the Top 8, earning him at least $5,000. I think Chris could auction this Buddha off with a minimum bid of $1,000 at this point. John Yoo (USA) – John was using tiny Jawas for counters, but this was probably for the coolness factor and not because he thought they brought him luck. David Bachmann (USA) – Bachmann kept two small plastic animals with him – a wolf and a little thing that looked like a mouse with big ears. At the end of Day 3, the wolf somehow found its way onto the floor and was being stepped in the lounge area. Darwin Kastle (USA) – Michelle Bush, Darwin’s girlfriend and the most distinguished pro female Magic competitor, says that Darwin takes the rubber band that holds the plastic-encased booster packs together before the draft and puts it around his wrist. He kept it there on Day 1 of World’s the entire day. Note to Darwin: it might be a good idea to choose good luck items that might cause gangrene. Manuel Bevand (France Team) – Cathy Nicoloff gave Manuel a stuffed hedgehog that makes grunting noises when you squeeze it. He kept it with him for most of the tournament, and also adhered to his pile and riffle shuffling ritual for good luck. Olle Rade (Sweden Team) – I asked Olle if he had any superstitions and he said that he didn’t have any. However, he always plays with the large 20- sided green die that Cathy Nicoloff gave him. Daniel Gallion (Luxembourg) – He always uses his green dice. Sources report it wasn’t a gift from Cathy Nicoloff. Randy Buehler (USA) – Randy forgot to wear his CMU cap on Wednesday and he did not have a good day. He remembered it on Thursday and just kept winning. “Bostrevis” Machado (Brazil) – He keeps a jar of small rocks from Paris in his pocket. “Bostrevis” must be something bad in Portugese but his Brazilian Team members wouldn’t translate it to English. Brian Weissman (USA) – Brian had a stuffed Rhino. This was one of the only stuffed animals in the hall that managed to look mean instead of cute. Alan Comer (USA) - Alan says he doesn’t have any superstitions, yet he always has the same cardboard deck box that is all brown and yellow and peeling around the edges from excessive wear. It might be a good idea to burn the box and try something else so that he gets the extra push into the Top 8 next tournament. SHUFFLING Tomi Walamies (Finland Team) – Tomi carries around the same deck box all the time that says “Bore” on it, but he says his real superstition is shuffling. If he is winning, he doesn’t shuffle his opponent’s deck a lot. If he is losing, he shuffles it a lot. Mikko Punakalilo (Finland Team) – He always shuffles the same way, in a pile shuffle of 6 and 5 riffle shuffles. Mikko Snygg (Finland Team) – He never shuffles his opponents’ decks when he’s doing well. The Finnish team might garner some luck by switching to shuffling their opponents’ decks uncontrollably. Douglas Maioli (Argentian Team) – Douglas shuffles his oppenent’s decks and thinks evil thoughts about his opponent while his teammate Gero Maier prefers to stay up all night dancing. Rumors of chicken sacrifices notwithstanding, Douglas might try thinking karmic good thoughts of his opponent at next year’s Worlds in the hope he does better. Mike Turian (USA) – Mike will always shuffle longer than his opponent and won’t put his deck down until after his opponent does. I mentioned that if this got printed, it might start a shuffling war. With his usual good natured grin, Mike said someone already does try to out-shuffle him but he always wins. He also started CMU’s tradition of drinking chocolate milk the night before the tournament. And on the lighter side………….. Marcello Rodriguez (Brazil Team) – Marcello doesn’t shave for a few days before the tournament. (That’s an improvement on not showering before tournaments). Timor Dogan (Switzerland Team) – Timor doesn’t cut his fingernails for a week before a major tournament. DO EVERYTHING THE SAME WAY Truc Bui, Kurt Burnger, and Bryce Currence (U.S. Team) all say that when they are winning, they will do the same thing from match to match such as sitting on the same side of the table. WE DON’T HAVE NO STINKING SUPERSTITIONS Dave Price, Gabriele Pisicchio, Tommi Hovi, and Matt Place say that they don’t have any kind of superstitions or good luck tokens. On being asked if he had any superstitions, Jon Finkel philosophized. “I don’t believe in superstition. There is no good luck or bad luck, it just doesn’t exist.” Maybe that’s why Jon is Player of TheYear. AND THEN THERE’S THE RUDE ONES When I approached Mikie Long, I asked friendly, “Mike, do you have any superstitions?” Mike looked at me and said, “Yah, I have a lot of them.” I began to ask him what they were when he turned his back on me and began a conversation with someone else. Mike didn’t place in the Top 8. I believe in Karma.