9.  The Darke Tournament, May 2002 AD Damien Darke easily became the first example of why WWE-style environments do not belong in the DCI (the governing head behind the M:TG tournament system).  While I didn’t mind being introduced by the Gorillaz when I entered this new tournament format using a Holographic arena programmed to give life-like realism to the card game, but his sleezyness really turned off a lot of people.  Think of Vince McMahon with a bottle of Viagra In fact, nobody would’ve given him the time of day if it weren’t for the prize money for the winner:  One Million US Dollars or a chance for Ten Million if he or she beats Damion in a duel. There are two things wrong about it, and I’m not referring to his nighttime activities: One, the winners of these tournaments mysteriously dissapeared.  And two, there has been reports that Darke has his own Dominarian Book. It was those two reasons why I took it upon myself to enter this tournament with a Blue Green Madness deck on e of the most dynamic decks in Standard Play at that time and the plan to take the one million and walk if I’ve in fact won the thing.  My intentions, learn all I can about this Vinnie Mac wanna be, high tail it out of there with my skin, and come back with the authorities and some backup. That was, of course, before the semi-finals, when I discovered that of all the Dominarian Books that Damien would have gotten, it would have to be the Demonic Tutor; the book with the aforemention human-turned-demon locked inside.  A demon that needed human souls to get enough power to escape his wood product bonds. A demon that got a bit irate when in fact I did win the finals and still intended to walk, and in a fit of fury released his bonds, descended into Darke, and tried to suck my own soul anyway. A demon who found out the hard way that I have a Dominarian Book as well, as it flew up to block his attack.  (Did I tell you that it tends to do that?) But that wasn’t the wild part:   I also found out that The Book of FoxFire contained a pack of cards which it was saving for a time like this, but not just any cards:  The set of cards I just got is more valued than all of the cards in a certain destinquished competition: Ancestrial Recall, Black Lotus, Time Twister, Time Walk, and all five colors of Mox. The Legendary Power Nine. Also, while the other came may talk about the ’Heart of the Cards,’ but when I shuffled the Power Nine into my deck to defend myself against Darke’s Mono Black Control deck, I actually heard a heartbeat and felt a pulse from the pile of wood by-product in my hand! Needless to say, my following match was my hardest fought to date, even though I’ve pre-