I was just watching some of the coverage of worlds 98' over on the magical youtube.com. It was Finkel vs. Rubin in the semis, both playing monored burn, and Pikula and another pro were doing the commentary. It was incredibly good and made me somewhat sad at the same time Why would I be sad that coverage almost 10 years ago was so good? Because of how terrible it was this year.
Most of you have probably watched the worlds videos but to recap: Beuhler and BDM didn't know how much the ultimate ability on Garruk cost. They thought loxodn warhammer made doran deal 8. They questioned Chapin's decision not to flash out a hellkite on Peleg's turn with his sorcery speed rite of flame. I'm sure there's more i've forgotten. They just generally seemed clueless about the decks and the format. Also there was that embarrassing gaffe in the finals where chapin (and presumably Peleg) could...you know, HEAR THEM TALKING about the game and possibly the cards in each players hand. Obviously that wasn't the coverage team's fault, but it was still pretty shoddy.
The reason all this is so frustrating is that magic has ballooned in popularity over the past 10 years. Things should be getting more professional, not less. BDM and Randy are entertaining personalities and great people, but they don't play on the tour and they don't have the level of expertise that someone on the tour might. They either need to brush up on the card interactions or drag another commentator into the booth to set them straight (It doesn't seem like it would be hard to find someone who missed the top 8 and speaks english to do this).
The other thing that a friend of mine suggested is that they start utilizing standard camera angles like they have in other sports such as football or basketball if they aren't already. In the 98 coverage it was always clear what was in each players hand and on the board, this year more time seemed to be spent focusing on players faces. Reactions are great, but showing everyone at home what the game state is so they can try and figure out the right play themselves is better. Some of this may be due to the pro tour moving off of espn. I think maybe they should try and go back. They have commercials for the game on TV, why not the game itself?
As for dragonstorm, well, it's got the same card but it's not the same deck as last year. It's much easier to disrupt and the combo(s) overall are just weaker. Also the creatures are better now and can legitimately race it. Peleg basically only drew riftsweepers as his disruption in the finals and still managed to win convincingly. This is the power level combo decks should have in standard. Long live dragonstorm.
