GP Salt Lake City

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

It is a fairly rare day that we here at MTG Realm, being more of a Casual Magic the Gathering site yatter about what's happening in the big tournaments and pro-tour circuits, but this news is pretty exciting from Evan Erwin, Director of Marketing and Jared Sylva, Events Manager with Star City Games - the upcoming Grand Prix Salt Lake City event, scheduled for the weekend of March 31st to April 1st, 2012.

Star City Games providing the ‘Gold Rush’ promo - One of every card from Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark, packages each card individually in specially branded envelopes (shown below), and then randomly distributes one envelope to each Grand Prix participant. That’s 923 cards worth a total of $12,000!

Some of the cards you have a chance of pulling out of these Gold Rush packs may be worth several hundred dollars . . .

Yep - that is pretty sweet and we're are seriously considering booking a flight down there. Sure it is a lottery but to be in the same room as someone cracking open one of these legendary cards is still well worth it. Anywhoos - here's the SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Date: March 31-April 1, 2012
Format: Standard

Tournament Location

Salt Palace Convention Center
100 S. West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101

Registration: $40
Friday, March 30: Noon – 9 p.m.
Saturday, March 31: 8 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

Format: Standard
Participation Fee: $40

Registration and Schedule

Friday, March 30: Registration Noon - 9 p.m.
Saturday, March 31: Registration 8 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
Saturday, March 31: Tournament begins at 10 a.m.
Sunday, April 1: Day Two begins at 9 a.m.

The main tournament at Grand Prix Salt Lake City is open to Magic players of all ages.

Players must have a signed publicity release form to be included in Wizards of the Coast's official online event coverage. Forms can be downloaded here (15k PDF) and will be available onsite. Minors must have a parent or guardian’s signature on this form. Publicity releases will be collected during registration.

Tournament Format

Standard
Deck lists are required.
Each Player must use the same deck on Day 2 that he or she used on Day 1.

Tournament Structure

Modified Swiss-style (50-minute rounds).
If 799 or fewer players register for the event, all players with an X-2-0 or better record OR the top 64 players—whichever number is greater—will advance to the second day of the event.
If 800 or more players register for the event, all players with an X-2-0 or better record OR the top 128 players—whichever number is greater—will advance to the second day of the event.
The Top 8 players after the final Swiss round on Day 2 will advance to the Top 8 single-elimination finals.
Top 8 playoff matches will be best 2 of 3, and have no time limit. (Players are still expected to play at a normal pace and complete playoff matches in a reasonable amount of time.)
Where necessary, the standings after the Swiss rounds will still be used to determine final order in the standings.
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