I was able to sneak Mark Rosewater away from the gun slinging, the public appearances and the challenge areas to get an exclusive interview.  We talked about MTGO and its role going forward as well as where it will fit into the overall strategy of Magic: the Gathering.  This interview was perhaps my favorite chunk of time from my non-MTGO Live coverage (it's close between this one and my interview with Adriana, coming soon!).  I'd once again like to thank Mark Rosewater for his time since it is certainly a very precious commodity for someone with his level of requirements.  Thanks again, Mark!  Details behind the link!

Okay, so here's some first quick shots uploaded (I have video's, and lots more pictures as well, but I wanted to get something up right away for you all!)

Above is the 'default' view of the duel scene. 

Hand is at the bottom.  

Chat and logs and notes go to the bottom.  Which is you know, standard.

You can move the whole left side to about 35 to 45 pixels.  When you do that, items in that screen pop out as needed.  You can also zoom out cards in the graveyard from that side.

Another item of interest, as mana is added to the mana pool, the mana pops out of the side.  There is no persistent pool to choose from/waste space.  This allows for some really cool stuff, like expanding out mana of special types.  So a Snow Mana, a regular Mana, and a doubling cube mana... are ALL IN DIFFERENT SPOTS!!! While that's a corner case right now, it's only just a matter of time until we get some new mana, or snow-covered basics make their way back into Extended.

Another neat thing is that there will now be a "Red Zone" that creatures move into when they're attacking blocking.  This seemingly simple change REALLY helps to show when you've entered the combat phase, which has been a particularily touchy subject over the past few years.  It also allows you to set the blocking order in a very, very obvious manner. 

As I mentioned, I have a lot more screens and a lot of video's of it being demonostrated that I'll post, as well as an interview with Adriana (yes, she still works at WotC).  I'll post that information as I get it transcribed for the web, and if the audio itself came out well enough I'll post that in MP3 format as well.

Suari's W/R Deck takes over Draconis' G/U Allies with extra reach provided
korhedron's G/U deck beats Strong Sad's U/B/r deck
MarcioCarvalho beat leearson's mono red deck 2-1
Spitfire_Moe loses to Taylor Webb 2-1 on the back of a beautiful topdecked Into the Roil.

And now we move in to the semi-finals!
Korhedron vs Suari
and
TaylorWebb vs MarcioCarvahlo

Taylor created a fantastic W/U flying deck that stood tall above the others in his pod.  With bombs like Sphinx of Jwar Isle, and many other solid evasion creatures and ample recovery elements his deck was perfectly poised to get him through the tough Event #4 Competition.