We had two special events at our Christmas meeting, the LXG Christmas Trivia, and the Grand Melee League Final. Here’s a short report on each of those events.

LXG Trivia
This event followed in from last year’s debut. 2012 saw seven teams competing through Keith’s sinister subject list. The questions were difficult for all teams concerned, which I think means they were pitched at the right level of difficulty! All teams had their good and bad subjects. Each team had the opportunity to pick a ‘joker’ round in advance (ie before seeing the questions). The Joker allowed a team to score double points for a category. There were some groans once people saw their questions! Some teams fell flat on the warfare questions, others did poorly in the rules lawyer section. I don’t think any teams did well in the music video quiz.

There can only be one winning team, and in the end Team Immovable Object were victorious by just two points. Team Failure 2.0 lived up to their name by coming dead last, while Team We Just Want to Beat Nigel’s Team did not.

Congratulations must go to Keith for putting on a superb event again, and for his preparation which made everything run so smoothly.

Grand Melee Final
The top eight after 11 rounds of Grand Melee league competed in the finals. This is the first years finals have been held and the format was chosen to test everyone’s skill in a slightly different way to the league itself. The game was still a grand melee game, but sealed rather than constructed. This meant that each participant chose 6 packs from the prize pool, opened them, and had to build and use a deck using only those cards plus basic land. The minimum deck size was 40.

Players had a number of different sets to choose from. The most recent set represented in the prize pool, Return to Ravnica, disappeared quickly, as did Magic 2013 boosters. Once packs had been chosen, deck building took 30 minutes and then players rolled to determine their seating for the match.

Everyone had an aggressive deck, which had a curious effect. Each player hit the player to their left hard and was hit hard by the player on their right. before long, most players were on 12 life or less. Players all became more defensive, with just a few players or creatures with trample attacking each turn.

At this point Eddie played Shrieking Affliction, an uncommon from Return to Ravnica that I suspect we may see at the melee tables next year. This enchantment causes player to lose three life at the start of their upkeep if they have 0 or 1 cards in hand. Players found themselves caught between playing creatures to get past their opponents’ defences or keeping cards in hand to avoid the life loss. Eddie happily built his own creatures up.

The first three players fell within minutes of each other. David took out Anthony, Adrian took out Geoff, and Dalton took out Tim. Everyone except Eddie was low on life at this point and still taking damage from Eddie’s enchantment. Jeremy fell next, followed quickly by Dalton. Now there were three – David on five life, Adrian on six, and Eddie on about thirty-six.

David’s equipped Mortis Dogs were the end of Adrian after he successfully defended against them for a couple of turns. David was unable to defend himself against Eddie’s creatures and fell almost immediately after.

Eddie C is the Grand Melee Champion for 2012!

Eddie’s winning decks was made from packs of Avacyn Restored, Magic 2011, New Phyrexia, Return to Ravnica, and Worldwake. Here’s what he ended up playing:

Creatures (19)
Arbor Elf
Baneslayer Angel
Blind Zealot
Butcher Ghoul
Cathedral Sanctifier
Driver of the Dead
Glistener Elf (x2)
Golgari Decoy
Hovermyr
Mortis Dogs
Restoration Angel
Scrib Nibblers
Suture Priest
Toxic Nim
Trained Caracal
Vault Skirge
Walking Atlas
Wild Griffin

Non-creatures (19)
Condemn
Dispatch
Essence Harvest
Explore
Glissa’a Scorn
Golgari Keyrune
Grave Betrayal
Hunters’ Feast
Mutagenic Growth
Naturalize
Nature’s Spiral
Norn’s Annex
Pristine Talisman
Remember the Fallen
Shrieking Affliction
Sign in Blood
Slingbow Trap
Solemn Offering
War Report

Land (22)
7 Forest
7 Plains
7 Swamp
Transguild Promenenade

One thing to note is that Eddie chose to make a 60 card deck (well, 58) from his six packs, even though 40 was the minimum. In the end it served him well.