From: Daniel Duterte [dduterte@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 8:48 PM
To: CardTips@pojo.com
Subject: Retraction of my Letter
Okay, I forwarded a letter I wrote to Keith Strohm to Pojo.
 
I would now like to retract my letter.
 
From what I understand, we've got STS's back.
 
http://boards.wizards.com/tcg-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=75&t=001388
 
That's a thread by Dark Master Trainer Mike opening the floor for questions about the 1/3/2002 chat.
 
There was a chart illustrating the schedule for 2002.  The "STS-like Events" caught my eye.  This is the 12th reply from the top of the 1st page.  I then inquired about these STS-type events in the 15th reply of the 1st page, and the very next one, I got a response from DMTM:
 
You have an open event at the Stadium challanges just like the open event at the STS's.

3 of them! That is one more then last year! They are the Prof. only Events!

In addition you have a Prof. event at Origins! That will send the winner to the World Championships as a Judge.

DMTM

I double-checked and asked again in the 19th post, and in the 21st post, he tried to clarify once again:

Let me be as clear as possible. There will be 3 Stadium Challenges.
At these Challenges there will be Two Championships that will feed the World Championships.
There will be a Prof. only Event that is open to Profs only.
There will be other tournaments that are open to people of all ages.

I was going insane at this point, and started trying to tell people on #pojo.  But everyone was caught up in being shafted in the first place.  I have now tried to clarify it entirely, it seemed too good to be true:
 
 Okay, 1 more clarification DMTM, I wanna make sure I get this absolutely right.

We've got these open events similar to the STS with 3 divisions: 10 and under, 11-14, and 15 and up. The only difference between the divisions are that 14 and under feeds into the World Championship.

You are NOT saying that 15+ can go to these events just to play in the side events.

You ARE saying that 15+ has its own event and will crown a champ and get recognized and stuff.

Is this all correct?

I haven't gotten a reply since I wrote it.  I'm pretty certain this is correct.  I know a LOT of people will be happy, some may be still bummed about still being shafted from World Championships, but we've got STS events!  We didn't complain at all in 2001, so if we've got MORE of the same thing, this is going to be great!
 
Go WotC!  Rebuttals and flames will be taken at my email, give me your worst >=)
 
Daniel Duterte aka ebArt
dduterte@earthlink.net
 
"If there's a door, we go in.  If there's something we can break, we break it.  And in the end we blow the place to smithereens!" - Selphie Tilmett, Final Fantasy 8
 
(go heels)