19 players, one draft, one champion
La Cala League just ran its biggest event yet: a The Hobbit Draft with 19 players — 11 league regulars plus 8 guests who came just for the tournament. Four rounds of Swiss cut to a Top 8 single-elimination bracket, run start to finish on MTG Picker's tournament system, with live standings, pairings, and match reporting the whole way through.
What is La Cala League?
La Cala League is a casual limited league — a group of friends who get together to draft and battle for fun, no prize wall, no stress, just Magic. This Hobbit draft was a one-off special event on top of the league's regular play, and turning out 19 players for it says a lot about how much the group has grown.
How the day went
With 19 players, every Swiss round had one player on a bye. After four rounds, the standings cut to a Top 8 bracket: quarterfinals, semifinals, and a final to crown the champion.
Final standings
| Player | Record | |
|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Traume Garfella | 7-0 |
| 🥈 | AritZ | 5-2 |
| 🥉 | Burntflapjack | 5-2 |
| 4 | Miki | 4-3 |
Traume Garfella went a perfect 7-0 on the day — undefeated through Swiss and the entire bracket — to take the title. AritZ made the final after grinding back from a Swiss loss, and Burntflapjack took third place, beating Miki in the bracket's third-place match. Full pairings, round by round, are on the tournament page.
Yours truly (guily19) went 2-2 in Swiss and didn't make the cut this time — but I filmed every round from my seat, so you can watch exactly how that went below.
Watch the Swiss rounds
All four of my Swiss matches, start to finish. Round 1 and Round 3 went my way; Round 2 and Round 4 didn't — that's limited for you.
Round 1 — guily19 vs. David
Round 2 — guily19 vs. Amotep2
Round 3 — guily19 vs. MNAWARRO
Round 4 — guily19 vs. Burntflapjack
Watch the final
The title match: Traume Garfella vs. AritZ, with the whole league watching. Traume Garfella closed it out 2-0 to finish the day undefeated.
Top 8 footage from the rest of the bracket wasn't filmed from my seat since I wasn't in it — we'll add those videos here as they come in.
Congrats to everyone who played
Nineteen players for a Wednesday-night draft is a great turnout for a casual league, and the whole bracket — Traume Garfella, AritZ, Burntflapjack, Miki, and everyone who made Top 8 — brought good games. Here's the crew after handing out the league box:
Run your own league on MTG Picker
La Cala League runs entirely on MTG Picker's free league and tournament tools: Swiss pairing, automatic Top Cut, ELO ratings, and guest registration for one-off events like this draft. If your own playgroup wants a home for standings and brackets, it takes a couple of minutes to set up.
Browse leagues · See La Cala League · Try The Hobbit draft yourself
Subscribe on the MTG Picker YouTube channel for the rest of the Top 8 videos as they go up.