This time, the location was the university restaurant Alma I in Leuven, which was more than big enough for all the competitors. Being part of the judging staff, I had to get there around 8 in the morning, which for me meant getting up at 5.30 in the night, a less than exciting prospect, made more so by attending a wedding of two of my best friends the previous evening. So, all of you that saw me staggering at the end of the tournament, now you know why ;)

Draft table 1 was filled the the top 8 finishers of the first day: they were Peter Gysemans, Kurt Foket, Steve Clarys, Jan Mortelmans, Mike De Greef, Pierre Cools, Mathijs Luts and …

The "draft master" Jaap then explained how the draft would be run and then the draft itself started. The first draft was Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight and all went smoothly with only a few stops to the draft as here and there a player got confused or dropped his cards. This earned them a draft warning, but luckily no-one accumulated three of those (earning ejection of the current draft). The biggest problem arose during the opening of the Visions pack. It seemed like at least 1 booster out of 3 either had 4 rares or 7 uncommons. These are the sort of boxes you dream about when buying a box, but not when playing a draft. Anyway, after a lot of replacing boosters, the draft successfully ended and players were scattered all over the room for deck construction.

Players were given 25 minutes for deck construction, which most people seemed to feel was too little. However, their opinion did not sway Wessel and deck registration and construction got underway. At the end of the given time period, 2 players got ejected from the tournement for failing to give in their decklist in time. Some players thought this was a very harsch decision; however this was a class-B event and the players had been informed that the tournament was going to be quite strict.

So it was with 34 players that the first swiss round started. I had the occasion of table judging a good number of top games, and as such saw Dominique Coene magically topdeck his Torch to scrape out a win against Gilles Grandjean. It was a sign that it just might be his day today. Another person with a strong start was Team Brassman’s Mike Degreef who went 3-0 with a G/W Empyrial Armour deck. Other people in a winning streak during the MiViWe rounds were Steve Clarys and Jean-Louis D’Hondt and Peter Gysemans. The upstart of a few weeks ago, Jan Mortelmans, missed his start this time and went 0-3. He would recover in the second part by going 2-1, but was out of contention for the top places by then.

The second draft was Tempest/Stronghold/Exodus and went much smoother. The only ‘incident’ was Steve Clarys getting caught up in his own enthusiasm and almost getting ejected (he had 2 draft warnings). Once again, 25 minutes were provided for deck construction. This time, no-one ran out of time (although a few came close) and play continued.

I sat in on a few interesting confrontations and watched Kurt Foket get screwed by the timing implications on the Exodus card ‘Fade Away’. Very few players were aware that it was not allowed to tap mana during the resolution of a spell and his opponent (Mathijs Luts) made good use of that fact. Kurt did manage to win the game though and seemed on his way to victory in the second when Mathijs pulled his Time Warp and was able to win, thereby calling it a draw and eliminating both for the top spot.

Another note-worthy moment was in the game of Steve Clarys versus the same Mathijs Luts, when Steve conceded in the 5^th turn, after getting hit 5 times by a Spindrift Drake with Curiosity on it. Quote of the day: "It’s like the Savannah Lion meets the Ophidian."

In the deciding game of the tournament, Dominique Coene won against Peter Gysemans and propelled himself to the top of the rankings. The only player who could then still threaten him was Jean-Louis D’Hondt, who did indeed win his last game and so completed a great comeback in day 2. Unfortunately for JL, resistance points came out in favour of Dominique.

So the final result was:

Qualified for Worlds and the Europeans:

1. Dominique Coene
2. Jean-Louis D’Hondt
3. Peter Gysemans
4. Kurt Foket

Qualfied for the Europeans:

5. Mathijs Luts
6. Steve Clarys
7. Mike De Greef
8. Dominic Symens

Finally, the customary props and slops:

Props to:

• Steve Clarys, the poulidor of Magic, for being a great guy and also one of the more sportsmanlike players around.
• Dominique Coene, for being King of the Hill for a year.
• Jean-Louis D’Hondt, for making a great recovery on day 2 and only missing the title by 3 resistance points.
• Mike De Greef for getting to the Europeans with no sleep (he was at the same wedding as me ;)
• Mathijs Luts for proving that Limburgers can have a sense of humour. Also the winner of the Consolation Award with his 5^th place.

• Vincent Geiling; four people got ejected, only one threw his cards around and deliberately broke his box. That’s no way to improve a reputation.