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I'd like to start off this article by thanking everyone that joined in the first season. For those of you that missed out the first time round the Coalition League is a player run event, run by myself Flippers_Giraffe and sponsored by www.mtgotraders.com. The idea is to bring back leagues to MTGO, if you're wondering what is a league it's an event that run's over four weeks. On the first week you open a number of packs to make your starting pool and then each following week you open another pack to add to that pool to hopefully make your deck stronger. At the end of the four weeks prizes are awarded depending on the position you finish, there is also a gate prize for those who fall short of getting into the points.

For the first league I ran an open format where you were able to choose any boosters online and use them as part of your card pool. The event took off much better than I expected, although I did put in an awful lot of work in to build up the player base. In the end we pulled 31 players into the first season from all across the world.

I started off with 3 Shards of Alara boosters and 2 Apocalypse and ended up building a Naya build which is below

The first week went really well for me and I won four out of five of my games which was really good, the star of my deck was Realm Razer, which was quite funny as it was also Lord Erman's star card as well. The match I lost was to a deck built entirely of Urza's Legacy cards which was a sight to see it was a very powerful deck indeed and I got stomped by faeries although I did take one round from them.

In the second week I opened an M10 pack hoping to pull some extra removal and this is what it contained.

M10 - Week Two Booster Magma Phoenix Howling Banshee Wall of Bone Wurm's Tooth Burst of Speed Convincing Mirage Coral Merfolk Doom Blade Duress Horned Turtle Jackal Familiar Mist Leopard Pacifism Soul Bleed Mountain

Now the Magma Phoenix was an auto include into my deck as it's a flyer and removal all at once with the devour creatures I'm already playing the other card I added was Pacifism which is a removal source as well.

Again I done really well playing the deck that week and won four of my matches and the fifth I lost 1-2 which still gives me a point, at this point in time my Naya Battlemages really started to show their worth and yes I have two in my pool which is really good. As the week ended I decided to start off the next week again with another M10 booster. This time I hit a duff rare in the form of Indestructibility, in fact the whole pack seemed pretty useless until I realized I had a Fireball which is an excellent card in limited. 
 

M10 - Week Three Booster Indestructibility Bog Wraith Fireball Windstorm Berserkers of Blood Ridge Child of Night Emerald Oryx Firebreathing Lava Axe Llanowar Elves Palace Guard Sage Owl Silvercoat Lion Unholy Strength Island

I went into the third week with a big smile on my face knowing that I now had all the removal I required. But week three didn't turn out as planned I played really well but my three coloured deck was now being out paced by the dual colour decks who were a lot more consistent at this point in the league. I managed to pull a few swift wins with one of my now favourite cards Captain's Maneuver, with this and Fireball I really thought I was onto to something but sadly not.
 

The last week was even worse as I had a number of work pressures building up and I didn't have time to play until the weekend which were the last two days of the league. Being happy knowing how my deck worked I decided not to add a booster this week and was crushed in nearly every game I played as a result. I'm not sure if that extra pack would have made a difference or not.

But overall I had such a fun time playing in the event and found a few new cards that I really liked and will be building decks around in the future. Another one of those cards is Standard Bearer from Apocalypse. I know it's an old card but I had stopped playing paper magic when this set was released so missed out on it. It's funny when you know your opponent has a removal spell for your big guy but if they cast it this young lady will dive in front of the spell to be the target saving the big guy.

Well I didn't pull any super rares or mythics but some of the others did in the league here's some of the top cards that were cracked in the first season in no particular order. I'll just show you the pictures as they speak more than words.

Season One Results

Here are the results of the players who made it into the prizes after four weeks of battling it out.

1st spree4567 - 10 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

2nd Scartore - 6 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

3rd JustSin - 4 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

The door prize which was a play set (4) of Emeria Angel's donated by Flippers_Giraffe went to Orgion

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Season Two

Now season two is drawing near and I've changed the format so the league doesn't grow old quickly, the season starts on the 30th of August and will be core set constructed this time round. That means you can only use boosters from 7th, 8th, 9th 10th, M10 and the new M11 set. I've already got players busting packs so please feel free to sign up by adding your card pool to the thread. 

Now there are a few new rules I added to the second season the first was actually added half way through the first one which is the Sunday catch up rule where players are able to catch up on any missing games they haven't played from previous weeks. The other is that this time round I'm also offering the service of generating booster packs for those that have a small budget and can't afford to purchase boosters.

These new rules are covered in full in the last section of the article.

The prizes for season two have been kindly increased by Heath at www.mtgotraders.com and now look like this for the second season. We also have a donation for 4th place from jacobsldr which just goes to show that the players are fully behind the league, thanks jacobsldr.

1st 13 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

2nd 8 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

3rd 4 credits on www.mtgotraders.com

4th 2 tickets donated by jacobsldr

Door prize 4 Protean Hydra’s donated by Flippers_Giraffe

Now that's some nice prizes for a player run event.     

Ok last time round I showed you my packs to give you an idea of what you're up against so here we go, for this season I've started off with 5 packs of M11 as it's the new set and I really wanted the chance to crack a Titan for my pool.

M11 - Booster One Destructive Force Alluring Siren Autumn's Veil Condemn Armored Cancrix Azure Drake Barony Vampire Demolish Disentomb Inspired Charge Lava Axe Phantom Beast Thunder Strike Yavimaya Wurm Island

M11 - Booster Two Grave Titan Condemn Juggernaut Kraken's Eye Assassinate Assault Griffin Azure Drake Barony Vampire Ice Cage Lightning Bolt Llanowar Elves Scroll Thief Silvercoat Lion Sylvan Ranger Mountain

M11 - Booster Three Leyline of Sanctity Alluring Siren Cudgel Troll Dragon's Claw Cloud Crusader Fling Infantry Veteran Llanowar Elves Nightwing Shade Sign in Blood Stormfront Pegasus Thunder Strike Viscera Seer Wall of Vines Forest

M11 - Booster Four Dark Tutelage Diabolic Tutor Sorcerer's Strongbox White Knight Act of Treason Bloodthrone Vampire Giant Spider Goblin Piker Goblin Tunneler Jace's Erasure Plummet Silvercoat Lion Squadron Hawk Tireless Missionaries Forest

M11- Booster Five Hoarding Dragon Combust Mind Control Stone Golem Aether Adept Ajani's Mantra Armored Cancrix Bog Raiders Chandra's Outrage Fling Silvercoat Lion Stabbing Pain Volcanic Strength Wall of Vines Mountain

Now I 'm well happy as I got a Grave Titan for my pool so decided to play black as one of my main colours. I had a good look at the cards in my pool and decided to stay with two colours and have red as my second as I have some nice removal and the Hoarding Dragon. The only two cards I'm not sure whether to include or not are Dark Tutelage and Destructive Force.

Here's what the deck looks like currently which is how I will be playing it week one.

Now I'm ready for the second season if you're interested in joining the league please have a read of the below rules I've copied from my group from the Wizards site below. Please join the group so I can keep people updated with any changes as the league progresses and don't forget to bring your friends.

Thanks for your interest

Flippers_Giraffe

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Season Two Rules

League Rules

There are quite a few rules as you would expect so please make sure you read all of them before deciding to join up when the second season starts.

Basic Rules

1.The league will run in four week periods with a break between each one so you don’t burn out and lose interest or burn me out as the case may be.

2.There will be three posts on the wizards Player Run Events forums

3.The first will be the same as this article showing the rules of the format, this is also where the results will be displayed at the end of each week.

4.The second is for you to enter your match results The Coalition League Result Post. The league will run from Monday to Sunday, all results must be entered at the end of each week on Sunday in your time zone.

5.The third The Coalition League Card Pool is for you to enter the cards you have opened in your packs each week. You will need to edit your original post each week to save space.

Advanced Rules

1. Players can join in at any point during the league but will be at a disadvantage as they will not be allowed to play extra games to make up for any weeks that they missed.

2. The room to join to find other members of the league community in game is /join Coalition type it into a chat window to enter the room.

3. At the start of the league you get to choose any five core set boosters as your starting pool (as an example you could choose three 7th Edition, one 10th Edition and one M11 booster). Each Monday for the following three weeks you can open an additional booster to add extra cards to your pool, this is not mandatory you could play the whole league with your five starting boosters.

4. Minimum deck size will be 40 cards as per current sealed decks, you can have your entire card pool as your sideboard.

5. You may add as many basic lands from your collection as you need.

6. You may not add any other cards from your collection.

7a. When you open a booster you will be required to take a screen shot and paste it into paint and save it. You will need to update The Coalition League Card Pool post with the type of pack opened and the contents, but will not be required to upload the image you have just taken. This will need to be saved and may be asked for in case of a dispute.

7b. As a request for budget players I'm also giving you the option to have randomly generated booster packs instead. If you desire generated boosters you will need to send me a message via the forum and I will generate the packs required and send the results to you so you can add them to the card pool thread.

8. You may sell any cards you wish from the packs as this will only affect your pool, but you cannot add any to take their place.

9a. If you open boosters you may not use different versions of cards as proxies you can only use the versions opened from your boosters, this rule does not apply to foil cards which may be sold and replaced with a non foil version from the same set.

9b. If you have generated boosters requested via myself Flippers_Giraffe you may use different versions of the cards as proxies.

10. The Coalition League Result Post must contain your online ID and your opponents with the score. Both players are required to submit a post.

For example W vs playera 2-1

11. The cut off for entering results is the end of Sunday night in your time zone, as I will be updating the results on Monday I will be able to capture all time zones.

12. If anyone is found cheating they will be banned for ever from every event that I run so be warned.

Playing League Games

All games are to be played in the anything goes room and must be marked “The Coalition League” games will be 2/3 30 mins and must be made watchable and in the Freeform format.

You may only play each player once a week

You can only play 5 league games a week

The Sunday Catch Up Rule

If you have not played all your games you may play players who have already played their five games for the week. You both record you scores as normal the player who has played 5 or more games must put a note on their result page to show it as a “Sunday catch up game”  they will not receive points for this game.

Also on Sundays players can use the Sunday catch up rule to play games they are missing from previous weeks as well.

Note you may still only play a player once for each week even if it’s a catch up game, this could result in you playing the same person twice in a row but the games must be recorded for different weeks on the results page.

Points and Prizes

The prize support is as follows

1st Place 13 credit on www.mtgotraders.com

2nd Place 8 credit on www.mtgotraders.com

3rd Place 4 credit on www.mtgotraders.com

4th Place 2 tickets donated by jacobsldr

Points will be awarded for each round won.

At the end of each league the top three players will be awarded credit from our sponsor MTGOTraders. There will also be a gate prize for a random player who didn’t make the top four but played in each week of the league this will be donated by myself Flippers_Giraffe, the season two gate prize is a play set of Protean Hydra’s.

Please remember the sponsor www.MTGOTraders.com when purchasing boosters/singles for the league without them there would be no prizes.

At the end of each week the main The Coalition League post will be updated with the rankings, at the end of the four weeks (last day 26th of September 2010) the top four players will win the prizes. In the case of a tie then I will deduct any loses from their points to work out who out of the tied players works out with the highest points. If this is still the same then a playoff will be required.

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Links

  My PureMTGO Archive / The Rare Drafter July / The Coalition League