1996 World Championships

1996 World Championships

 

Competitors

 

Top 8 decks

 

Other decks

 

Side events

 

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1996 World Championships
Date	August 14-18, 1996
Location	Seattle, Washington, United States
Attendance	125
Format	Limited (Booster Draft) Standard (Type II) Classic Restricted (Type 1.5) Team Limited (Sealed)
Prize pool	$200,000
Winner	Tom Chanpheng United States (team)
Previous Worlds: 1995 Next Worlds: 1997

The 1996 World Championships for Magic: The Gathering were held between August 14 and 18, 1996 at the Wizards of the Coast headquarters in Seattle, USA. It was the third Magic World Championship.

Description

This was the first World Championship after the birth of the Pro Tour, and it was the event that concluded the Pro Tour season. 125 players competed, and the tournament featured four formats: Booster Draft, Standard (Type II), Classic Restricted (Type 1.5), and Team Sealed. In the final a relatively unknown player prevailed, with Australia's Tom Chanpheng taking down the widely considered 'best in the world' at the time, Mark Justice. Chanpheng's win was commemorated with a unique card, 1996 World Champion.

Qualification

Players from the following categories were invited to the 1996 World Championships:

• Top 4 finishers from each National Championship tournament:
  • Australia/New Zealand (joint), Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK/Ireland (Joint), and United States
• Top 4 finishers from each preceding Pro Tour event:
  • Pro Tour New York– Michael Loconto, Leon Lindbäck, Bertrand Lestree, and Preston Poulter
  • Pro Tour Los Angeles – Shawn "Hammer" Regnier, Darwin Kastle (Mess), Tom Guevin, and Mark Venhaus
  • Pro Tour Columbus – Olle Råde, Sean Fleischman, Peter Radonjic and Alvaro Marques
• Top 4 finishers from the 1995 World Championships – Alexander Blumke, Mark Justice, Marc Hernandez and Henry Stern
• Ten players with the best DCI ratings who are not already invited by another method.

Side events

While the World Championship proper was invitation-only, with players needing to qualify through preceding tournaments, there were also several side events open to the general public. These included a wide selection of constructed and limited events, for Magic and other Deckmaster games like Netrunner and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

Schedule

Wednesday, August 14, 1996

• Individual competition: Six rounds of Limited (Booster Draft).

Thursday, August 15, 1996

• Individual competition: Six rounds of Standard (Type II)

Friday, August 16, 1996

• Individual competition: Six rounds of Classic Restricted (Type 1.5)

Saturday, August 17, 1996

• Team competition: Team Limited (Sealed)

Sunday, August 18, 1996 (individual, top eight)

• Individual Top 8: Standard (Type II).
  • Quarterfinals from 9 A.M.
  • Semifinals from 1 P.M.
  • Grand Final from 4 P.M.

Day 1

The format of Day 1 was Fourth Edition and Homelands Booster Draft. This is format played at the earlier PT Los Angeles. Two boosters of Fourth and one Homelands were opened, giving players 38 cards with which to build a deck.

Individual

The individual standings at the end of the day were:

1. Mark Chalice
2. Jakub Slemr
3. Mark Justice
4. Mark Venhaus
5. Paul McCabe
6. Au Yeung Hon Ming
7. Alexander Blumke
8. Matt Place
9. Oliver Krebs
10. Javier Garavito
11. Henry Stern
12. Ondrez Baudis
13. Erno Ekebom
14. Mike Long
15. Scott Johns
16. Miguel Gonzalez

The number of match wins or points earned by each player was not recorded in the online coverage. However, we know Henry Stern had a combined record of 11-1 at the end of Day 2, which indicates that each day consisted of six rounds of swiss. This means that Mark Chalice, and most likely future World Champion Jakub Slemr, would have had a 6-0 record (12 match points) on Day 1. A further nine to twelve players, depending on the number of draws, would have had 5-0-1 or 5-1 records – including Stern at 11th place.

Team

The Team standings at the end of the day were:

1. Czech Republic (32 points)
2. United States (32 points)
3. Germany (29 points)
4. Switzerland (28 points)
5. Australia/New Zealand (27 points)
6. Denmark (27 points)

Day 2

The format of Day 2 was Standard (aka Type II) constructed. The legal sets were 4th Edition, Chronicles, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, Homelands and Alliances. Players weren't required to play a certain number of cards from each set as had been the case with Pro Tour New York earlier in the year.

“

As expected, there were plenty of Necropotence decks. Of the 120 players, 48 played Necro. Other prominent deck types included green/white Erhnamgeddon (21) and red/green landkill/Stormbind (14). While Turbo-Stasis decks may be the latest fad in local tournaments, there were only three at Worlds, and one belonged to Finland's Tommi Hovi, the originator of the deck.

”

Individual

The individual standings at the end of the day were:

1. Henry Stern (12 points)
2. Eric Tam (11 points)
3. Tommi Hovi (10 points)
4. Jon Finkel (10 points)
5. Erno Ekebom (10 points)
6. Andres Nyborg (10 points)
7. Amiel Feldman (10 points)
8. Satoshi Nakamura (10 points)
9. Olle Råde (10 points)
10. Guilherme Vila Couto (10 points)
11. Tom Chanpheng (10 points)
12. Michael Dove (10 points)
13. Peter Radonjic (10 points)
14. Rune Speich (10 points)
15. David Van Dijck (9 points)
16. Neil Guthrie (8 points}

Note that these results are for Day 2 only, rather than a combined leaderboard.

Team

The team results for Day 2 have not been archived, however, these can be determined by adding up the match points of individuals in each team.

1. Finland (34 points)
2. Canada (33 points)
3. Australia / New Zealand (28 points)
4. Denmark (28 points)
5. Hungary (28 points)
6. Japan (28 points)

Day 3

The format for Day 3 was the newly sanctioned Classic Restricted (Type 1.5). Classic, or Type 1, was what Vintage was known as at the time. Any card Restricted in Type 1 was banned in Type 1.5, making Type 1.5 a forerunner to the Legacy format. The card pool was all current Magic sets from Limited Edition Alpha through to Alliances.

Necropotence decks were still popular on Day 3. However, the most played deck was the "Monkey May I" which combined aggressive creatures like Kird Ape and Erhnam Djinn with countermagic. The "Storm Drain" combo deck, featuring Storm Cauldron, Drain Life, and Fastbond, had mixed results.

Scott Johns was the sole undefeated player with his Star Spangled Slaughter deck.

“

Designed by Americans Scott Johns, George Baxter, and Adam Maysonet, this patriotic red/white/blue deck was built to handle any challenge. While all three decks did well, John's was the best, thanks to his last-minute decision to include Martyrdoms in the sideboard. They turned out to be clutch in fending off the Storm Drain decks.

”

Individual

The standings at the end of the day were:

1. Scott Johns (12 points)
2. Matt Place (11 points)
3. Leon Lindbäck (10 points)
4. Niclas Eriksson (10 points)
5. Olle Råde (10 points)
6. Tommi Hovi (10 points)
7. Bertrand Lestrée (10 points)
8. Mark Justice (10 points)
9. Sven Runing (10 points)
10. Thomas Andersson (10 points)
11. Darwin Kastle (10 points)
12. Tom Chanpheng (10 points)
13. Homero Caballero (10 points)
14. Oliver Schneider (9 points)
15. Mike Long (9 points)
16. Peter Gysemans (8 points)

Combined individual standings

Day three was the final day of individual swiss rounds, so the combined results for each day were calculated to decide the Top 8 cut.

1. Olle Råde (30 points)
2. Henry Stern (30 points)
3. Matt Place (29 points)
4. Scott Johns (29 points)
5. Mark Justice (28 points)
6. Tom Chanpheng (28 points)
7. Eric Tam (27 points)
8. Tommi Hovi (26 points)
9. Jon Finkel (26 points)
10. Leon Lindbäck (26 points)
11. Mark Chalice (26 points)
12. Paul McCabe (26 points)
13. Erno Ekebom (26 points)
14. Toshiki Tsukamoto (24 points)
15. Michael Long (24 points)
16. Alexander Blumke (24 points)

Notably, future Hall of Fame members Tommi Hovi and Jon Finkel finished with the same record, Tommi making the cut to Top 8 and Jon finishing 9th. 1995 World Champion Alexander Blumke was one match win behind those players, finishing 16th on the ladder.

Team

Day three team standings were:

1. United States (32 points)
2. Sweden (32 points)
3. Germany (28 points)
4. Switzerland (28 points)
5. UK/Ireland (27 points)
6. Denmark (26 points)

Day 4

The format of Day 4 was Team Sealed. Players who weren't part of their National team didn't compete, and results did not count towards the individual championship.

Teams were given four Starter decks of Fourth Edition and had an hour to build four decks. There were six rounds where all four members of each team would play against the four members of another team. The National Champion played their counterpart, the runner-up theirs, and so on.

At the end of the day the results were:

1. Czech Republic (34 points)
2. Austria (30 points)
3. Switzerland (30 points)
4. Denmark (29 points)
5. Australia/New Zealand (28 points)
6. France (28 points)

The United States team had been leading the overall team standings coming into Day 4, but had a difficult sealed pool with minimal direct damage or removal spells. After the fifth round, they had a record of 10 match wins, 10 match losses, and were tied overall with the Czech team.

“

In the sixth round, the U.S. was paired against Italy. The Americans immediately thought they were in trouble. The Italian team had only three players, which meant that the US would receive an automatic victory. However, it also meant that the Italians' decks were tougher than most, since they had divided the same number of cards as other teams among fewer players. But that advantage wasn't enough to stop the U.S. from repeating as world champions. Long blazed through two games to grab a match victory, and shortly thereafter, Place also locked up his match 2-0. Bentley lost his match in a squeaker, but it didn't matter. Denmark had staved off the Czechs, splitting their four matches. Thanks to Baxter's automatic victory, the US. Eked out a one-win edge and grabbed the $22,000 team prize.

”

Team World Championship

The combined final results of the Team World Championship were:

1. United States (116 points) – Dennis Bentley, George Baxter, Mike Long, Matt Place
2. Czech Republic (114 points) – David Korejtko, Jakub Slemr, Ondrej Baudys, Lucas Kocourek
3. Switzerland (112 points) – Amiel Feldman, Frederic Lenoir, Michael Suwald, Andreas Weiss

Day 5

The final day of the Championships was the Top 8 in the individual competition. The format was Standard (Type II), with the same decks from Day 2.

Finals bracket

	Quarterfinals					Semifinals					Finals
	1	Olle Råde	2
	8	Tommi Hovi	0
						1	Olle Råde	1
						5	Mark Justice	3
	4	Scott Johns	0
	5	Mark Justice	2
											6	Tom Chanpheng	3
											5	Mark Justice	0
	3	Matt Place	1
	6	Tom Chanpheng	2
						6	Tom Chanpheng	3
						2	Henry Stern	0
	2	Henry Stern	2
	7	Eric Tam	1

Grand final

Both finalists, Mark Justice and Tom Chanpheng, made it past higher-seeded players in the quarter and semi-finals. Chanpheng's semi-final opponent was Henry Stern, who had been undefeated in the Standard pool play on Day 2.

Justice was playing a Necropotence deck, which was widely considered to be the best archetype in the format. Instead of the more usual monoblack build of the deck, as Stern had played, he chose to splash red to shore up certain match-ups. There was one copy of Fireball in his starting 60, and two Pyroclasm in his sideboard, which were effective against small creatures. A Red Elemental Blast and three copies of Shatter were targeted at the Turbo Stasis deck.

Chanpheng had made the meta call of playing a White Weenie deck, which was designed to prey on the popular Black decks. He had qualified for Worlds with a second-place finish at the Australian Nationals playing Necropotence himself, but had decided against it in Seattle. Notably his deck contained twelve costing Knights with Protection from Black: White Knight, Order of Leitbur and Order of the White Shield.

Sleight of Mind

The Ice Age printing of Sleight of Mind.

Chanpheng had planned to splash blue for Sleight of Mind. This interrupt could be used to change the Protection ability of his Knights to a more relevant colour in non-black matches, or turn the ability of Gloom (a common Sideboard card) against its controller. He had one copy of Sleight main and one copy in his sideboard, but had mistakenly missed the Adarkar Wastes off his deck registration form. This meant he was forced to play extra basic lands instead, adding 4 extra Plains to his deck.

Despite not being able to cast it, Chanpheng was reported as keeping Sleight of Mind on top of his sideboard, which he kept face up on the table. This act of gamesmanship was intended to make his opponents question playing any color hoser post-board.

In hindsight, many commentators have questioned the need for the blue splash, suggesting that not having it made the deck much better. This was a fairly conventional strategy in 1996, however. In a tournament report for The Dojo Australasian team leader Joseph "Gambit" Tan reported having to face the deck in round 6 of the Australian Nationals:

“	This is bad! Playing against my team-mate and my usual play-test partner, Jo "Zippy the Pinhead" Hope! We can’t even request a swap because it was too late in the Swiss rounds. We had to bite our lips, and the game went on. I knew his deck, and he knew mine. His White Weenie with sleights often wins him the 1st game before I sideboarded (due to his 11 Knights!). Surprisingly enough, he got mana-screwed! (not typical for a WW!) And I took the 1st game. My Dystopia and Knights killed him in the 2nd game, and he got mana-screwed again in the 3rd game!!! (This time, too much mana!).	”
—Joseph "Gambit" Tan, 1996 Australian Champion

This tournament report implies that he got lucky in this match, his White Weenie opponent having uncharacteristic mana issues. Tan had been playing Necropotence, as had Chanpheng, whom he had beaten in the finals. Another player, Dane Coltman, had finished 6th playing "White weenie/Sleights," thus narrowly missing an invitation to Worlds.

Game 1

Chanpheng easily took the first game as Justice's deck relied on its sideboard to combat white weenie decks.

Game 2

Game 2 was interrupted for half an hour when eliminated contestant Mark Chalice, who was now providing commentary on the match with Mark Rosewater, demanded that a judge's call be reviewed.

“	There are not a lot of moments in Pro Tour history where the game was halted so the tape of the game could be rewound and watched, and this might even have been the only one. So after about half an hour of the judges checking the tape, it turned out Chalice was…wrong.	”
—Mark Rosewater

Justice had a commanding position in this game, with Chenpheng only just hanging on at 2 life for several turns. But eventually Chenpheng drew the Plains he needed to be able to cast Balance and reset the game.

“	Responding to a Balance by Chanpheng that would destroy all the lands in play (in combination with Zuran Orb), Justice declared two Demonic Consultations (each for Dark Ritual) without seeing how the first would turn out. The Consultations ate through his deck so much that it cost him a game that many felt he should have won if he'd played it correctly.	”
—Mark Rosewater

The Dark Rituals were to allow Justice to cast Ihsan's Shade, but he ended up decking himself before he could finish off Chenpheng.

Game 3

In the deciding game, Justice was mana flooded. However, Chanpheng likely had an unbeatable draw, applying significant pressure by playing a Protection from Black Knight five turns in a row.

Final results

Place	Player	Standard Deck	Prize	Comment
1	Tom Chanpheng	White Weenie	$26,000	Pro Tour debut First Australian in a Pro Tour Top 8 First Australian to win a Pro Tour
2	Mark Justice	Necropotence	$16,000	Second Pro Tour Top 8 Second Worlds Top 8
3	Henry Stern	Necropotence	$9,000	Only Pro Tour Top 8
4	Olle Råde	Erhnamgeddon	$9,000	Second Pro Tour Top 8
5	Matt Place	Erhnamgeddon	$5,500
6	Scott Johns	Necropotence	$5,500	Third Pro Tour Top 8
7	Eric Tam	Erhnam Burn'em	$5,500	Second Pro Tour Top 8
8	Tommi Hovi	Turbo-Stasis	$5,500	First Finn in a Pro Tour Top 8

External link

• Wizards of the Coast official results