PUERTO RICO!!!

That was the battle cry heard all weekend long by the attendees at Pro Tour San Juan, it never gets old. I'm just returning from 10 days on the wonderful island of Puerto Rico, culminating in a great Pro Tour San Juan. Big congrats to Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa! This was the first Pro Tour that I worked the early shift on Sunday, which enabled me to actually watch the finals. It was a real nail-biter going all the way to game 5 between Guillaume Matignon and Paulo.

My Puerto Rico Magical vacation started with snorkeling and attempts at surfing off the west coast of Puerto Rico at Desecheo Island, a mini boat tour of the east coast near Fajardo, then a Hiking trip in the Rainforest of Puerto Rico at El Yunque. Even after all that I managed to find time for a marathon 6 player EDH game at a San Juan beach house rented by a group of crazy judges headed up by L2 judge Simon Cooper. After being picked on by the mean mean judges -and my wife- I was second to be eliminated after I took out newly advanced L2 judge Sam Straus (Congrats Sam!) with a kicked Savage Beating and my general Thraximundar. L2 judge Barry Swan, who is secretly Alexis Denisof in disguise, ended up with the win after eliminating me, Simon Cooper, Dave Nunni and my lovely wife Kimberly.

If you were in attendance at Pro Tour San Juan, you might have noticed a cute little blonde walking around with a camera and a ManaNation press pass, which was my gorgeous wife Kimberly. She took over 3000 pictures throughout the three day weekend, which we'll be getting up for public viewing in the near future. It takes a while to comb through and upload several thousand pics! Chances are there is a picture of you somewhere, so be patient and we'll get it up for you to see.

At the end of day 2 of the Pro Tour the judges in attendance were lucky enough to play in a prerelease of the upcoming Archenemy multiplayer variant that will be released on June 18th. I had planned to give out some spoilers of the Scheme cards coming out and how they work today, but the powers that be have asked that the judges who were allowed to play not give out any spoilers, so you'll just have to wait! Be a judge, see the world, and play Archenemy before anyone else...

Playing was quite interesting. The included decks are not great, there are not really any chase rares, and the M11 preview card in each deck is fairly underwhelming. The Scheme cards, that are necessary to play the game, are another story completely. These oversized cards are pretty darn awesome. The Scheme cards also have some seriously cool names. They're even cooler when you hear L5 “king of the judges” Sheldon Menery reading each card in his most menacing voice! There are more than a few Scheme cards previewed here on mananation.com so you can take a look for yourself.

Basically you have an Archenemy, who is a team by himself, versus everyone else. The "everyone else" team takes their turn together like they're playing Two-Headed Giant. The Archenemy gets to turn over a Scheme card every turn, which gives the Archenemy enough advantage to even out the many versus one disadvantage. The Archenemy always goes first, gets to draw on his first turn, and starts at 40 life. Everyone gets a free mulligan if they want, and the "everyone else" team each starts with 20 life.

Besides the judges Archenemy prerelease, the "Champions Challenge" (aka gunslinging) was allowing anyone to play Archenemy against former Pro's or game designers from Wizards of the Coast, so I was able to talk to a lot of people that played over the weekend. The consensus seems to be that 2 on 1 the Archenemy has a big advantage, 3 on 1 seems to be close to fair, and 4 on 1 the Archenemy is at a big disadvantage. Of course, this was with the stock Archenemy decks, with some better decks who knows how it will play out. And I haven't even begun to think about how cool Archenemy EDH will be!

All in all Archenemy is pretty cool. I can't wait to get my hands on all the Scheme cards and try out some Archenemy EDH. Now I'll have to start carrying around my set of Archenemy along with my set of Planechase cards! Can you say Archenemy-Planechase EDH? Now we're talking!

This weekend I'll be loading up everything I own and moving to Seattle. Tampa to Seattle, I just couldn't move much further in the Continental US! I arrive in Seattle June 10, and I'm judging StarCityGames Seattle 10K weekend June 12... Who needs a break!

Until next time this is Dale Lovelace telling you, play Archenemy, it rules!