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Grand Prix 2010 Guesses

By Trick Jarrett ⋅ October 29, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

When Man­a­Na­tion first began, one of the ear­li­est episodes we did was where Lee and I guessed the loca­tions of the 2008 Pro Tour (the only one we got right was Pro Tour Berlin). Well, with the 2010 Grand Prix sched­ule about to drop (being due any day now) I’m going to make some guesses about what 2010 holds for us. Again, this is in NO WAY offi­cial, it is almost entirely made up of edu­cated guesses and dart throwing.

We’re expect­ing there to be more Grand Prixes than ever before. Magic is doing well. Really well. It is on a major upswing and they are going to try and fos­ter that with more attend­able mar­quee events. It’s like build­ing a fire, once you have a solid set of embers, you must fuel it and in this case the fuel is com­posed of cards to play, and some­where to play them.

So how many is that? Let’s see. The first sea­son of GPs, 96–97, had only five Grand Prixes. The sea­son with the most was 2006, which had 26 Grand Prixes. Recent years are sit­ting around 21 or 22. So if we’re look­ing for a new record, that would prob­a­bly be near 30 Grand Prixes, but that may be greedy, so let’s say 29.

Let’s make some guesses, I’ll start near home and go from there.

GP Atlanta¹ — Atlanta just had a GP in 2008, but it’s always pop­u­lar and it is quite accessible.

GP Orlando² — Here I am get­ting a lit­tle greedy, Orlando is a tourist des­ti­na­tion and we haven’t had one since the 2003-04 sea­son. But it would mean a sec­ond GP in the South­east of the US, where nor­mally we get, at most, one.

GP Bal­ti­more³ — Going up the east coast I think we may make a pit stop in a city we have never had a GP in before. Bal­ti­more. Why shouldn’t they have one?

Keep­ing on up the north­east nor­mally gets 1, maybe 2 Grand Prixes. 2009 was Boston and 2008 was Philadel­pha. So how about 2010?

GP NYC⁴ — We’ve never had a Grand Prix IN New York. We had Worlds there in 2007, and we’ve had Pro tours there, but the Big Apple has never played host to a GP. If 2010 is going to be a ban­ner year, then it will prob­a­bly hit NYC.

Head­ing west from there, we’ve hugged the east­ern seaboard, so let’s nudge west.

GP Port­land⁵ — Port­land is a hap­pen­ing city, it would be a great host to a Magic tournament.

GP San Fran­cisco⁶ — A lit­tle birdy told me that this one was hap­pen­ing, so this isn’t really a guess. Sup­pos­edly the week­end right before Pro Tour San Diego. Rather awe­some syn­ergy there.

GP St. Louis⁷ — In the heart­land it is a great city (my fiancee is from there) and the city hasn’t hosted a GP since 2006. They got a SCG5k this year, but they’re ready for another GP I think.

GP Hous­ton⁸ — Head­ing south Texas pro­vides us with a likely des­ti­na­tion. Pro Tour Austin was well attended, and Hous­ton is per­haps even slightly more accessible.

GP New Orleans⁹ — Haven’t been back since the hor­rors of Hur­ri­can Kat­rina, but it is a pop­u­lar loca­tion and would do quite well I imagine.

And that wraps up the US Pro Tours. Except I expect we have one more North Amer­ica, in Canada. We had Van­cou­ver in 2008, Mon­treal in 2007 and Toronto in 2006. All of these are likely des­ti­na­tions, but I am going to pick the mid­dle one.

GP Mon­treal.¹⁰

Only 19 more to go. Let’s head South of America.

GP Mex­ico City¹¹ — It’s only played host to one GP, while poorly attended it could likely have been tied to the for­mat being Kami­gawa Block Constructed.

And then head­ing to South Amer­ica I think I see…

GP Rio de Janiero¹² — We haven’t been there since 2001, it’s high time we head back.

GP San­ti­ago¹³ — Same as above, in fact it was the same year when we were here last.

Now we travel across the ocean to Europe.

GP Lon­don¹⁴ — It seems crit­i­cal. We haven’t been there for a GP since 2003-04 sea­son. We need to return and see the Queen.

GP Madrid¹⁵ — In Spain two cities have really dom­i­nated in terms of the num­bers and those are Madrid and Barcelona. Recently they have been nearly swap­ping off on the GP loca­tion and this year should be Madrid’s turn.

GP Lyon¹⁶ — It’s like a great­est hits album, if it worked last time, and we haven’t over­played the song let’s bring it back! Lyon was last in 2003 and it had over 1000 play­ers, I bet we blow that atten­dance out of the water.

GP Leipzig¹⁷ — Last time we were there it was one of the most heav­ily attended Grand Prixes ever, and we haven’t been back since. Time to return!

GP Zurich¹⁸ — Another mul­ti­ple GP city which we haven’t been too in sev­eral years.

GP Bologna¹⁹ — Rome is a hard act to fol­low for a coun­try, but if any coun­try can it’s Italy and within it we can return to Bologna for another out­stand­ing atten­dance GP.

With that we turn eastwards.

In Rus­sia there have been pre­cious few Grand Prixes for Magic but this year I think they will give it a go and we’ll see one. Of the poten­tial cities we’ve only been to a few and I think they’ll test the waters in a new city with GP St. Peters­burg²⁰.

Then we’ll zip over into south-east Asia.

GP Shang­hai²¹ — China is an impos­ing loca­tion, but I have to believe that Wiz­ards dearly wants to make head­way into that coun­try, so we may likely see a GP there.

GP Taipei²² — Per­haps the most pop­u­lar loca­tion for a GP, they have held one nearly every other year since the 98–99 season.

GP Seoul²³ — This is me day-dreaming. Seoul has a vibrant and huge pro­fes­sional gamer league, the most suc­cess­ful in the world I believe, and I can only imag­ine Magic in that sort of envi­ron­ment where gamers are celebri­ties known on street cor­ners. I wish it were a Pro Tour but for what­ever rea­son this has never hap­pened, so per­haps we’ll start with a GP.

Japan is a strong­hold for Magic in Asia, the Japan­ese pros are well known and well respected for strong method­i­cal play and sur­pris­ing deck tech­nol­ogy, the coun­try the size of Cal­i­for­nia will play host to the World Cham­pi­onships in 2010, but what does that mean for GPs? Not much I still expect to see them get two.

GP Nagoya²⁴ — Hav­ing been there before and hav­ing decent enough atten­dance, it seems a prime spot to return.

GP Hiroshima²⁵ — Hiroshima has been quite pop­u­lar as a Japan­ese GP des­ti­na­tion, but we haven’t been there since 2006.

Then trav­el­ing into the Philip­pines where there is a very healthy grow­ing inter­est in Magic, I think we return some­where we have been in 2006 and 2008, GP Manila²⁶. The last GP there was nearly 700 atten­dees, and had dou­bled since just two years before, I must believe this is a prime loca­tion for 2010.

Then we head to the land down under, Australia.

GP Syd­ney²⁷ — Since 2006 we haven’t been down there, but Aus­tralia always gets at least one GP. Syd­ney would make a prime spot.

GP Bris­bane²⁸ — One of the pre­mier loca­tions for Aus­tralia, this would be its fourth GP the first being in the 2001-02 season.

And then, the cherry on top, the final GP loca­tion I think we’ll see is: GP Paris²⁹. We’ve been there often and it has con­tin­ued to deliver top atten­dance num­bers of any­where in the world. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So let’s keep hit­ting the city of lights until those lights go out.

There you have it, my guesses. We should have the real 2010 GP sched­ule out soon, and when we do I’ll com­pare notes to see how I do (I’ll be happy if I get 10 of these right.)

– Trick

Update: Replaced ‘Malaysia’ with ‘the Philippines’

Trick Jarrett is the host and founder of ManaNation.com, he writes, edits, covers, and spoils Magic for a living. Playing it whenever he can manage to find the time. He is engaged to a lovely woman who refuses to learn Magic, and they have a cute cocker-spaniel puppy who is all too eager to play Magic.

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