By Niels Viaene

On July 4th something very special happened for 16 people. The Gentry Leaderboard in Bredene started again. 13 players in a festive environment that featured the beloved “frietjes”, a cake by pixidustbaking (see instagram), and a fresh Core Set 2021 environment all came together for a very successful start of the leaderboard.

Let’s take some time to explain how this abbreviated season is going to work.

The Gentry Open

First and foremost, the next edition on the ‘Tabletop’ Gentry Open will be in Outpost Ghent on Saturday, September 19th. An event will be made on facebook soon, and it house all the important updates to the goodie bags and prize structure.

There will be a separate Arena Gentry Open taking place before this date.

Byes at the Gentry Open

Byes gained on any leaderboard will grant you a single bye for the tabletop Gentry Open. That includes the Arena Leaderboard that has now awarded a bye to Peter Jönsson, Robbe Schildermans, Kristof Van Holsbeeck, and William Jackson. Byes are not cumulative. Winning a bye on multiple leaderboards does not help you. On the smallest leaderboard you have won your bye, you will get passed over, and the bye will go to the next person in line.

For the Arena Gentry Open, only the Leaderboard based on the weekly Arena event will grant a bye.

How to win a bye

As there are only three months left before the Gentry Open, July, August, and September, a bye will given to the champion of every regional leaderboard. There is no cut-off for top finished like we had before since there will likely be only 3 or even 2 events in your region.

For the Arena Leaderboard we are dropping the regional subdivision and we will give a bye to the top 5%. That is one in 20 players. This is rounded up, so if there are 21 players total on the leaderboard, there will be 2 byes given. If we were to apply this to the current season, we would have the same number of players winning a bye.
Even though regions will no longer be functional, we will keep displaying them on the Leaderboard to showcase the reach of our community.

Decklists

In addition to the regular articles about decklists, there will be a decklist tab returning soon to make it easier for you to get some inspiration for your own deck or build some decks to test with and against.

The Invitational

There will be another edition of the Invitational before the Gentry Open. Considering circumstances, this edition will be more handpicked than earlier editions but expect a Facebook discussion soon for you to highlight some people or express your interest in participating.
The Invitational will use the same formula as previous editions, inviting 8 people to my home, having a nice meal together, and then playing a single-elimination bracket. Deck choice will be steered by me to have a good look at the option available in Gentry right now.
The Invitational will likely take place on July 25th or 26th.

Interested?

If you want to know more about what is going on, when regional tabletop Gentry events are being held, or want to chat about Gentry, go to our Facebook group and Fan Page. If you want to find the Arena events, check MTGMelee for updates. If you want to watch some content, see the YouTube channel. If you want to be there live for all the good stuff, tune into That_Happy_Viking on twitch.tv. And finally, if you want to discuss on another forum, we also have a discord server.

See you around,
Niels

Niels Viaene came into contact with Magic first through the Kazz & Zakk starter set in 1996, but it wouldn’t be until 2000, around the time Prophecy came out that he actually started playing magic thanks to his nephew. Niels’ Magic career has been a roller coaster up to now, including Grand Prix Paris 2009 top 8, Pro Tour San Diego 2010 top 8, becoming a L3 Magic Judge in 2015 and managing the community effort that is the League of New and Beginning Magic: the Gathering Players, the birthing ground for Gentry since 2012. All this comes from a deep love for the game that is far from diminishing.

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