2014 World Magic Cup

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. It was won by Denmark, captained by Martin Müller, who won against Greece in the final with an iconic Duneblast, dubbed "the Daneblast".

## 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:

## 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.

### 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.

## External links

* 2014 World Magic Cup coverage
* 2014 World Magic Cup final standings
* Top 16 Team Unified Standard decklists
* 2014 World Magic Cup invitation list
* Video coverage playlist

## References

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.