2014 World Magic Cup

2014 World Magic Cup
Date	5–7 December 2014
Location	Nice, France
Attendance	286 (72 teams)
Format	Team Sealed and Team Unified Standard
Prize pool	$250,000
Winner	Denmark

The 2014 World Magic Cup, the third World Magic Cup, was held on 5–7 December 2014 in Nice, France. It featured 72 different national teams, with Colombia and Paraguay making their WMC debut.^[1] It was won by Denmark, captained by Martin Müller, who won against Greece in the final with an iconic Duneblast, dubbed "the Daneblast".^[2]

Format and schedule[ | ]

The 2014 World Magic Cup featured two formats: Khans of Tarkir Team Sealed and Team Unified Standard. Team Sealed is a variation of Sealed deck where the team shares a pool of twelve Booster packs, which is used to build three 40-card decks. Team Unified Standard differs from regular Standard in that all three team decks must not include more than four copies of any given card (other than basic lands). In both formats, teams played against opposing national teams, with the winning team being the first to win two matches (each match being best-of-three-games).

Day 1 - Friday, 5 December

3 rounds of Khans of Tarkir Team Sealed
4 rounds of Team Unified Standard

Day 1 was seven rounds of Swiss play, with the top 32 teams at the end of the day advancing to Day 2 of competition.

Day 2 - Saturday, 6 December

3 rounds of Khans of Tarkir Team Sealed
3 rounds of Team Unified Standard

On Day 2, teams were divided, according to their standing within the event (seeding), into eight groups of four teams each, where each team played every other team in the group once, the format being Khans of Tarkir Team Sealed. The top two teams in each group advanced; if two or more teams were tied, the team(s) with the highest seed advanced. The teams were then divided again, according to their standing within the event, into four groups of four teams each, where each team played every other team in the group once, the format being Team Unified Standard. The top two teams in each group advanced to Day 3 of competition; if two or more teams are tied, the team(s) with the highest seed advanced.

Day 3 - Sunday, 7 December

Quarterfinals, semifinals and final, featuring Team Unified Standard

The top eight teams then competed in a seeded (based on total number of points from Day 1 and Day 2), single-elimination bracket.

Day 1[ | ]

With 72 teams in the field, 40 of them were eliminated after the first day. Surprising casualties included Japan, headed by two-time Player of the Year Yuuya Watanabe; although they made it to a 4–3 record, they ended up just outside of the top 32 due to poor tiebreakers. Sharing this fate was Germany, captained by Pro Tour Born of the Gods top eight competitor Patrick Dickmann. Another team many had anticipated to do well was Switzerland, led by Nico Bohny, and also containing experienced players Andreas Ganz and Samuel Marti. Canada was a team with two Pro Tour champions, Shaun McLaren and Alexander Hayne, but they only picked up a single win on the day. On top of the standings after day one was Malaysia; their captain being Raymond Tan, and they also had Joe Soh on the team, brother of Terry Soh.

The top eight teams after day one:

Rank	Country	Points
1	Malaysia	19
2	Slovak Republic	16
3	Netherlands	16
4	Israel	16
5	Sweden	16
6	Argentina	16
7	Uruguay	16
8	Serbia	16

Day 2[ | ]

First round of pool play[ | ]

The first three rounds on Day 2, featuring Khans of Tarkir Team Sealed, eliminated the top ranking team after Day 1, Malaysia, despite having been three points ahead of the field.

Pool A
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Hong Kong	6	16
2	Greece	6	32
3	Malaysia	3	1
4	Thailand	3	17

Pool B
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	South Korea	9	15
2	Slovak Republic	6	2
3	Scotland	3	18
4	Guatemala	0	31

Pool C
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Netherlands	7	3
2	Russia	6	14
3	Venezuela	4	30
4	Spain	0	19

Pool D
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Israel	9	4
2	Brazil	6	13
3	Portugal	3	20
4	Belarus	0	29

Pool E
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	England	6	12
2	Hungary	6	21
3	Sweden	3	5
4	Norway	3	28

Pool F
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Mexico	9	11
2	Denmark	6	22
3	Argentina	1	6
4	Colombia	1	27

Pool G
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Uruguay	9	7
2	United States	6	26
3	Dominican Rep.	3	23
4	Taiwan	0	10

Pool H
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Serbia	7	8
2	Slovenia	4	25
3	Czech Republic	3	9
4	South Africa	3	24

Second round of pool play[ | ]

In the second round of pool play, the top four seeded teams were all eliminated, posting a combined record of 0–12 in the final three matches.

Pool A
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	England	9	8
2	Brazil	6	9
3	Slovenia	3	16
4	Uruguay	0	1

Pool B
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	South Korea	9	7
2	Greece	6	15
3	Hong Kong	3	10
4	Israel	0	2

Pool C
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	United States	9	14
2	Slovakia	6	6
3	Russia	3	11
4	Mexico	0	3

Pool D
Rank	Country	Points	Seed
1	Denmark	7	13
2	Serbia	6	5
3	Hungary	4	12
4	Netherlands	0	4

Day 3[ | ]

Quarterfinals			Semifinals			Finals

1	South Korea	1
8	Greece	2
			8	Greece	2

			5	United States	1
4	Slovakia	0

5	United States	2
						8	Greece	1
						6	Denmark	2
3	Serbia	0
6	Denmark	2
			6	Denmark	2

			2	England	1
2	England	2

7	Brazil	0

Place	Country	Player	Prize	Pro Points	Place	Country	Player	Prize	Pro Points
1	Denmark	Martin Müller	$12,000	8	5	South Korea	Nam Sung-wook	$2,000	5
		Simon Nielsen	$12,000	8			Oh Joon-hyun	$2,000	5
		Thomas Enevoldsen	$12,000	8			Cho Jeong-woo	$2,000	5
		Lars Birch	$12,000	8			Kim Sang-eun	$2,000	5
2	Greece	Marios Angelopoulos	$6,500	7	6	Serbia	Aleksa Telarov	$2,000	5
		Bill Chronopoulos	$6,500	7			Miodrag Kitanovic	$2,000	5
		Panagiotis Savvidis	$6,500	7			Boris Bajgo	$2,000	5
		Socrates Rozakeas	$6,500	7			Milos Stajic	$2,000	5
3	England	Fabrizio Anteri	$4,000	6	7	Slovakia	Ivan Floch	$2,000	5
		David Inglis	$4,000	6			Jan Tomcani	$2,000	5
		Francesco Giorgio	$4,000	6			Michal Guldan	$2,000	5
		Riccardo Reale	$4,000	6			Matej Zatlkaj	$2,000	5
4	United States	Owen Turtenwald	$4,000	6	8	Brazil	Willy Edel	$2,000	5
		Isaac Sears	$4,000	6			Gabriel Fehr	$2,000	5
		Andrew Baeckstrom	$4,000	6			Thiago Saporito	$2,000	5
		Neal Oliver	$4,000	6			Matheus Rosseto	$2,000	5

External links[ | ]

References[ | ]

↑ Adam Styborski (2014-12-05). "THE NEW COUNTRIES ON THE BLOCK". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2016-01-22.
↑ DANEBLAST. Wizards of the Coast (2014-12-07). Retrieved on 2016-01-22.

[1] Adam Styborski (2014-12-05). "THE NEW COUNTRIES ON THE BLOCK". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on 2016-01-22.

[2] DANEBLAST. Wizards of the Coast (2014-12-07). Retrieved on 2016-01-22.

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