Due the high price of the train ticket, food and the youth hotel, we (a friend accompanied me) decided to stay at the Worlds from Wednesday evening to Sunday afternoon. On Wednesday 6 am we entered the train in Burghausen (Bavaria, Germany) for a 12-hour ride and had to change trains several times before we eventually arrived at Brussels, north station.

We left the train and searched for the youth hostel, had to carry our bag backs and cases up a hill and finally found the place, where we were going to stay for 4 nights. We checked in, put our cases in the chamber, took out our binders and decks and went to the metro station.
There we took the train, had to change once and after half an hour, we were near Heysel. That's the place where the Brussels Exhibition Center can be found, the place were the Worlds were going to happen.

While we were still in the metro, we could already see the Hall 5, because there were big Magic Logos hanging down the wall. After leaving the train, we went to the BIG (yeah, REALLY BIG) hall.
When we arrived (7pm), there were about 400 desks and 1000 people in it, who were either playing or trading.
We had a short look at the different areas: Artist signing, trading, championship and side-events. There were no more games in the Worlds we could have looked at, so we decided to play a 8-player single elimination MM Block sealed deck. Tournaments like this were running by DCI-judges the whole day. There were drafts, sealed decks and all kind of constructed-formats. The participants chose the language of the boosters, which were used.
I won the side-event and got 2 Boosters and a Magic-Box (to put decks and such into it) for my victory.

After finishing the tournament we decided to go home, as it was almost 2am. Metro and buses were only available until 1am, so we were waiting for the special shuttle bus, which should have been bringing the players to their hotels between 1am and 6am.
But this day, the shuttle wasn't working fine. In fact, it had only been at the worlds once on this day and had left immediately, since at that moment there was no one waiting for it.
So the only possibility to get to the youth hostel was walking all the way. The 11 kilometers took us about 2 hours…

Therefore we were really tired, but, however, we stood up at 8am to play the PTQ on Thursday:

About 160 people played the PTQ, so it lasted 8 rounds. In addition there was the top8 single-elimination to find the finalists, who qualified for Pro Tour Chicago.
I played a Mageta/Rebel/Lion deck, but I had problems with creature removal, as I was only able to remove either all or no creatures. The wave was good for removing certain ones, but only for a short period of time…

My deck list:

Lands (24)

20 Plains
2 Kor Haven
2 Rath's Edge

Non-creature-spells (16)

2 Ramosian Rally
4 Cho-Manno's Blessing
4 Parallax Waves
3 Seal of Cleansing
1 Disenchant
2 Story Circle

Creatures (20)

3 Mageta the Lion
4 Chimeric Idol
1 Ramosian Lieutenant
3 Steadfast Guard
4 Ramosian Sergeant
1 Nightwind Glider
2 Blinding Angel
2 Defender en-Vec

Sideboard (15)

2 Defiant Vanguard
2 Wave of Reckoning
2 Aura Fracture
2 Disenchant
2 Thermal Glider
1 Nightwind Glider
2 Ramosian Rally
2 Blinding Angel

I won 2 matches against aggro blue and one against mono black, drawed against another white rebel deck and lost against a red/green beatdown/burn/control deck and rising waters. After loosing the second match, I dropped with 3-2-1.
My friend played a cowardice game and dropped after 1-2. He played a Grandprix-trial afterwards, but he didn't go really fine…
While he was playing, I looked at the competitioners, who were playing draft, talked to a friend of mine, Helmut Summersberger from Austria, who was going 9-3 on the first 2 days (5-1 in T2 with draw go and 4-2 in draft).
At 3am we decided to go home and took the shuttle, which was working fine this day.
We arrived at the hostel at half past 3 and thought about our decks for about an hour.

On the next day, Friday 8/4/2000, we stood up at 8am, too. We played another PTQ; I had changed my deck, had removed the 3 Magetas and 4 Idols and added 4 Snuff Outs, 2 Vendettas and one Seal of Doom. I'd also changed the sideboard (2 Crackdowns for Wave of Reckonings, adding Afterlife and Magetas etc.)
I went 3-1 on the first 4 rounds (won against cowardice, rebel and red/green beatdown, which were exactly the match-ups I've had problems against on the first day and lost 1-2 against a rebel deck with informer mainboard)
On round 5 I played against a black/red burn/creature control/LAND DESTRUCTION deck, which was using Rhystic Syphon, lost game one and won the second. Than I heard the speaker saying: 'The Grand-Prix-Trial is about to start.' I wanted to play this event, looked at my starting hand, saw only one land and didn't want to take mulligan, but dropped instead to play the trial.
My friend had added Accumulated Knowledge to his deck and went fine on the first rounds, 4-1, on round 6 he was only able to get a draw and lost the rounds 7 and 8, so he was at 4-3-1.

The Grand-Prix-Trial was a sealed deck with about 150 participants. Everyone got a starter and 2 boosters from the masques block and had to write down the cards he got and give the cards back. Then the packs were re-distributed randomly.
Sealed deck is my best format and so I achieved a 14-5 game result, which lead to a 6-2 match result. With a bit more luck I could have won the trial, but I was happy to get 5th, though.

On days three the format at the world championships was Masques Block Constructed. My friend from Austria was playing Aggro Blue and won the first 4 matches on this day, what provided him a place in the top8 on Sunday.

Saturday, 5th of August:
Last day of the big side-events. I decided to play in the 'unique sealed deck'. The first Price was: Foil Vampiric Tutor, Foil Cradle and Foil Serra's Avatar. Top8 got Cradle and Avatar, Top16 the Cradle…
Only 96 people were allowed to take part and they were sent to12 draft tables. Draft tables? Yes, really DRAFT, not SEALED DECK. Why? The wizards claimed that they wouldn't have enough Mercadian Masques Starters…
I still do not believe this, because they immediately had boxes full of stamped boosters from the Masques Block instead of the starters… If they'd just noticed, that they had to less starters, it would have taken longer to prepare another tournament…
I was angry, because I'm not that good at drafting as I am at sealed deck; and we had paid $15 and drafts only cost $10. Several players talked to the judges and we got a Chinese 4th Edition starter as a result of this(of course not for playing with it at the draft).
I drafted a Mono Black deck, containing Cateran Slaver, Coffin Puppets, 2 Rhystic Syphons, lots of mercenaries, but only one seal of doom as creature removal. I splashed green, Saproling Burst and Silverglade Elemental, for additional beatdown. My only problem was, that I only had 2 cards with casting cost 2, all others something between 3 and 6…
First we played 3 rounds of Swiss at the table and afterwards 4 rounds against players of other tables.
I won all 3 games at my table and was very happy due the big chance to get a foil cradle or even more great foils.
In the following 4 rounds I only won 1 game and lost the other 3 1-2, because I was mana screwed. My starting hand was always fine, but either I drew no more or only lands on the following turns.
So I had a result of 4-3 and was on place 27 and very sad about having no luck at all…

My friend played an Alliances/The Dark sealed deck and dropped after round 2, because he had got only crap…
We went outside at 3am, had to wait one hour for the shuttle and got home at half past four…

Sunday, day of the finals and of departure:

We took our cases, went to the expo center, played one draft and watched the quarter/half finals. Helmut Summersberger lost 2-3 in the quarterfinal, but he had played great magic, he had no good chance against tinker, though.
In the afternoon we watched the team finals sitting between the members of the US national team, but this is the theme of the next issue of Christoph's Comment.
Afterwards we had to return to the north station and took the train home (at 7pm).
We had to change the train 3 times and arrived 13 hours later, at 8am in Burghausen, tired, with almost no money left, but with the story of one of the greatest times in our life in our mind.

Finally, something about the organisation of the side-events:

Good: There were all kinds of tournaments, many judges and great players to play with. And I liked the free water, too. (Saved me lots of money, that would otherwise have been spent for coke…)

Bad: The breaks between the rounds were often way to long, the tournaments started too late and the shuttle was unreliable.

However, a big compliment for running this big, interesting and therefore amazing tournament in Europe. Hopefully it will return soon (or I qualify for the next worlds in America or somewhere else )

I hope you enjoyed reading the story, thanks for your time,

Christoph

Btw, if you have any suggestions or questions, post them

And don't forget to read Christoph's Comment, August 9, to get information about the great team finals.

__________________
Posted by Christoph,
the trader in Germany with the most refs:

Christoph's Reflist