Subject: Junior Super Series & My Hero Jasar Elarar Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 09:52:13 -0800 From: Jeff Cunningham To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Um..hi. Many of you may have heard about the "Junior SUPER Series", a series of tournaments designed to be like pro tours for those under eighteen. A great idea in iteself but the way it's being put together its really lacking credibility. Most people look at the shawdy top eight of the various events with their blatently copied decks and dissmiss them as bad players or "Scrubs" (n 1.To clean or brush vigorously, 2. Bad magical card player, "That kid who plays with Craw Wurm is a scrub"). The truth is, some of these players are not *COMPLETE* scrubs, they are usually halfway decent. I see the problem as a static format. T2 T2 T2 and then some T2 for good measure. That is ok but the reason why we see so many similar decks at the JSS is because the majority of the decks on the net are T2. I was at the Chicago Super Series and about 50% of the decks were DIRECTLY or 1-2 cards off 'Net' Versions. As you can imagine, this doesn't look good. Randy Buehler, Andrew Cuneo and to a lesser extent Paul Sligh are building our decks for us!! The decks that do best at the super series are the ones tweaked to beat these because one knows that everyone will be playing them. One thing I like (when playing in) the JSS is how easy it is to predict the metagame. In chicago it was death, why? First of all in general junior players enjoy playing '5 colour (canadian spelling :) )' decks more than seniors, it has cool cards and is reasonably stable. We need something to shake this monotony. Draft is perfect for sooo many reasons; can't copy a draft deck off the net, not a completly known format, more skill involved in most cases, gives a limited kinda guy a chance to do well. Why the JSS is ALL T2 baffles me! It makes a bit of sense why the divisionals challenges and what not are all the same format to make it fair for everyone no matter where they live but I definitly think the worlds needs some diversity. How about 2 days, 6 round draft, 6 round T2 like Nats? Let's not throw it all in one 6 round day of a format known like the back of my hand all based on metagame predictions. On a brighter note, wizards has made lots of good changes to the JSS (like RANKING!). All we need now is AGE FILTER!! :o. Please wizards! Make the JSS something great! Not some joke where we all pick our favourite deck from regionals (well most of us) (not me) (i swear). That's all the ranting for today I'm afraid. Looking forward to JSS worlds this year.... Jeff Cunningham Team Digital Boy #1 fan of Jasar Abdul Elarar