A look back at FNM

The following people showed up for FNM this past weekend: Don Hayes, Xiao Yu, Denis Sadowski, Terrance Bouldin-Johnson, Jeff Snape, and Paul Ohlhaut.

It was pretty successful and a lot of fun. Don played a creature feature green deck that he admitted was mostly for fun, Xiao played his tempered steal deck, Denis borrowed my red/white goblin and life gain deck, Terrance played one of Don's deck, Snape played an artifact deck (and later regretted not playing vampires), and I played Giddy Up (indestructible knights). It was very nice to see so many different decks. I did several walk arounds and while tempered steal and MBC were a little more popular than anything else, there were lots of verity. . It was pleasing and fun and stark contrast from last time I was at FNM, where I literally counted 10 squadron hawks, 5 swords of feast and famine, I don't know how many stoneforge mystics and jaces, on the remaining 4 tables. It was absurd and lame. So good to see variety.

We checked in with each other throughout. Xiao and I started strong, both going 2-0 in our first match-up. Unfortunately we paired up against each other next round, and unfortunate for me I lost both games. Couple of very close-ons but he bested me both times. It was a tough deck and too fast for mine. Xiao catapulted into the upper tiers right away after that. Denis also did well, going 1-1, against quality opponents. Don was getting whipped, and Snape was holding his own against some formidable foes. I watched Snape playing a guy I routinely see, and see doing well. He had the upper hand for most of the match, but a black sun zenith sent Snape reeling.

The final round was interesting, several of us had a chance to place, and Xiao had a chance to win the whole thing. Xiao was sitting at 3-0, Denis and I at 2-1, Snape at 0-3, Don at 0-3, and Terrance at 0-3. Although Snape got in a several single game wins as did Terrance and I believe Don did too.

I'll get my game out of the way first. I played a punk-ass little kid who was probably 16. He was kind of half retarded, half idiot savant. He clearly liked himself a lot. He had a deck similar to my old Obnoxious deck with Kiln fiend and fetch lands that can kill you in 1 turn. He was super annoying and saying "Go" really loud when it was my turn. So I yelled the same back at him, and started being an uber dick to him. He kind of settled down a little bit, I think seeing that I was being pretty aggressive for a typical magic player. Not aggressive in attacking him with creatures, but aggressive in words and calling him out for being cocky and making general fun of him. Anyway, he blew me up pretty bad the first game. So I sideboarded a bunch of creature hate. Unfortunately I made a critical mistake, which I knew would probably cost me on game 2. It's ironic because I beat James in a similar fashion once, when he got greedy in a similar way. He will know what I'm talking about. I've got the little cocky brat down to about 10 life. He hasn't touched me yet. He plays Obnoxious, says "Go". I have two choices at this point. I can play a sword of feast and famine and end him next turn without question, or I can oblivion ring his Obnoxious. Realizing I'm at 20 life, I think, how can he do 20 damage to me? I'll just put this sword out there and he will concede, considering it's protection from black, he is screwed, sure death. Well, he doesn't concede. I'm a nervous. His turn. He drops fetch land and 2 harrows, for  a total of 4 land fall, doing 12 direct damage to my face. This in turn makes Obnoxious 15/15, and then makes him unblockable for the win. I'm very sad. I got greedy, and I lost to the little bastard. He is then very anxious to play vintage. I take out Rape. But he has a fucking Dredge deck, which I had only read about on the internet  a week prior. He built the thing exactly to the pro deck's spec. And if you know anything about Dredge, you know that discard is the exact opposite way to beat it. THat dredge deck is pretty funny though. It has no lands in it. and uses these creatures that fly out of the graveyard on special reasons. You essentially want to rid yourself of your hand and library and build a big graveyard, because your shit explodes on the field for free after that. so his ego was pretty big by this time. So then he goes to the bathroom and asks me to watch his stuff. So I'm like "ok", I mean he is a 16 year old kid, playing magic on friday night instead of trying to get laid at that age like the rest of 16 year old boy humanity. but, I see him later sitting at a table talking to some other nerds. and I wanted a drink. I was pissed. I yelled over to him and said, "Hey you, what the fuck are you doing making me watch your shit.  I'm getting a beer."

Then poor Xiao lost, but Denis won. They both went 3-1, and won many packs. I somehow placed and one 1 single pack with shitty cards. It was nice to see them both do so well. And nice to see denis play my deck and get as far as he did.

After words, the winner of the whole thing, Travis, came over and played with us. He's a real nice dude, and very good at the game. I've seen him when 3 FNMs now. His deck crushed mine 9 out of 10 times. The one time I won, he seemed very happy for me. Which was nice, but made me feel like a retarded little kid at the same time. But I happily excepted the win, even though I think he may have lost on purpose. Regardless, Travis is in to playing with the group on Saturdays. I've got his number and exchanged a few texts. I think he will teach us a lot. We can offer him fun times with booze and good people in exchange.  He wanted to play this saturday, but it wasn't in the cards.  By the way, his deck did crazy things. He was drawing a thousand cards per turn and blowing up my shit simultaneously. It would be turn 3, and I would have one land, and he'd have like 18 permanents on the board.

Last thing... I was thinking about my favorite cards. They change slowly over time. It's like music, you have your favorite CORE bands and songs and then your favorite stuff right now. Well right now, I'm in love with the Grand Cenobite. What a sexy card. The art is fucking cool as shit. The white and red. It's evil, but kind of hot. And I love red and white together. It does really cruel things to your opponent but it's pure white. It has an odd power and toughness, and it has no fucking face. It will ruin your day when it hits, and at 7, it's hard to cast on pure white alone, but I think I may have a new General for EDH.

My favorite cards seem to be chics. Always number one core card is Braids, and even the paradoxical  Braids I love.

Happy Birthday!!! (NERD!!)

James turned 50 today, wish him happy Friday.

Also, I was kidding about you being nerd....

A close look up at: Eff Tez

I saw James building The Crafter on tapped out. So I made a deck in parallel whose only purpose was to beat it. It consisted of

4x solemn offering
4x Leonin Relic-Warder
4x divine offering
4x Kor Sanctifiers 
4x Devout Lightcaster 
4x Celestial Purge

and a bunch of other anti black and artifact cards. Oh it was great. He got real mad and said he would never play ef tez again. I'm going to reassemble it all over his face.

love
Paul

A Close Up Look at: The Crafter

What makes this deck tick?

Well first I had to acquire a playset of Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas because he really has some great mechanics to work with.

Next I had to decide on my mana base. What colors did I want? Should I go U/B with a solid control scheme, or should I go esper (U/B/W) to allow for more stall and some solid protection?

In the end, and after some playtesting, I came to the conclusion that U/B control built around this would be best, so I need have blue and black lands. I set aside a play set of Darkslick shores and a playset of Drowned Catacombs. I also set aside 10 swamps and 10 islands. I know that is more land than I needed but it would allow me to tweak my land base as I added and subtracted cards.

Next I had to look at what control cards I wanted. There are a lot of options available in both blue and black, but the bottom line is to keep a scheme that works well for what you feel like you will be playing against, which sometimes boils down to trial and errorl; winning and losing. This deck has seen many iterations in its lifetime, and may see more as cards because more or less useful. There is no right or wrong way, but keeping a consistency is something to always keep in mind. Also choice like Mana Leak over Stoic Rebuttal will have to be made, and ultimately those choices can boil down to preference, as well as imagined situations of usefulness. I chose Mana Leak here because it allows for more flexibility in a duel color deck, and for early game counters, when I need them.

Why not doom blade, or Go for the throat? Also preference. I could easily use those cards, and likely would have 2-4 of those in a sideboard for extra removal options.

I chose:

3x Despise

3x Dismember

1x Duress

3x Preordain

2x Tezzeret's Gambit

4x Mana leak

2x Contagion Clasp

4x Tumble Magnet

Next I needed My creature base, and I had one thing to keep in mind. I needed artifacts. It is not a lot of creatures, but keep in mind this is a control deck, and the main concept is to control the game until I can drop the hammer. The permission style of the early game should allow for that to happen as long as I can keep up with what the opponent is throwing at me. Keeping in mind that life is not a focal point for this deck. If I lose life early I should just let it happen and focus on my moves as they come to me. If everything is working as planned, I should likely be gaining life back as the game turns in my favor in the later stages of the match.

I chose:

4x Vault Skirge

3x Wurmcoil Engine

3x Phyrexian Metamorph

I also have:

4x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

For land I favored swamp mana and selected:

2x Darkslick Shores

4x Drowned Catacombs

6x Island

12x Swamp

(totally 24) Some may argue that it isn't enough for a true control deck, but this really doesn't need to hit wurmcoil titans to win, as I can pump out 5/5's with Tezz if I need to. Also, my mana curve hits a peak at 3-4 CMC (coverted-mana-cost), so I can't really see the need for more.

I took 6 true islands, just to ensure that in my opening hand I get some blue mana consistently for preordain (or maybe ponder) and mana leaks. As that is a key to being able to keep the game in my favor early.

Depending on how changes to this deck are made in the future I may have to slightly alter the mana base by the number of island, or swamps I am playing, but aside from that nothing should need to change for total count.

The control scheme works like this. I plan on being able to open most games with a preordain, duress or despise. I don't have a particular preference as long as I am either gaining a slight card advantage in some capacity. That seems like a miniscule distinction to harp on, but I can overstate enough how important getting those cards opening hand can be.

The rest of the game is going to hinge on countering or removal for the first few turns if necessary. Keep in mind, that playing creatures at this point is completely unnecessary, and I would only do it if I had satisfied my ability to control the game as much as I could, or I had no better play and I needed board presence. Ideally I would like to wait until I can board at least 1 tumble magnet, and hopefully a contagion clasp (in an ideal situation). That can keep me rolling.

The idea is to create a board state that favors me being able to play Tezzeret and start using him to dig through my deck for Wurmcoil engines. I have other options of course, but that is the favored. Vault skirge is a great tool with Tezz, as are tumble magnets if they loose their juice.

Once the board is controlled and wurmcoils rain down, it should be game over. If it is not stalling out until at least 5-6 artifacts are on the board to use Tezzeret's [-4] ability is a nice way to say "I'm winning now".

Also with regard to Tezzeret it is important to keep in mind that the 2 most important things I can do with him are [+1] to dig for artifacts such as Wurmcoils, or [-1] to transform a card like a used up tumble magnet into a useful 5/5 creature. Also...with proliferation in the deck...I can keep adding 5/5 creatures to the field if I have artifacts. His final ability is useful, but not something to focus on or play towards.

There isn't much more to it. You may wonder about Phyrexian Metamorph and that is simply used as a utility card to produce whatever it is I may need. More tumble magnet? Done. More wurmcoil to add insult to injury? Hell yeah. Emergency chump blocker? I guess. :(

Each card fits into the overall scheme, but some flexibility is allowed with Tezzeret and his ability to turn any static artifact into a beast, and phyrexian metamorph for being able to add more than 4 copies of a card in my deck. Nice.

So why only 3 preordains? Why 3 despise and 1 duress? Well, that's actually just trial and error, as well as knowing my opponents. Despise tends to have much more of a chance to successfully hit something in their hand and duress can hit anything that else that despise misses but it has less overall targets so having it is nice, but I don't want to dead draw any. 1 is a safe number, and together they essentially form a "playset". the 3 preordains simply indicates that I needed to strip down something to make room for another utility card and 4 preordains was not absolutely essential. In this case I had needed space for the 2 contagion clasps. Cutting 1 phyrexian metamorph and 1 preordain were easy choices.

What Efs this deck up? Well anything that hates black can screw me. Celestial purge is not a friend of mine. Artifact hate is terrible, and very quick, very aggressive decks can put me down if they are firing on all cylinders. Also, flying tends to be a bit troublesome as well, but not an outright weakness like artifact hate is. There you go, haters. :)

I have mentioned this before to all new deck builders. Start safe. Build a deck with only 9 cards (full playsets of each; totally 36) and then add 24 lands for a 60 card deck. This will give you a great starting place for a new deck-in-progress. I often times start losing lands to add more functional cards, but always keep in mind you mana-curve. If you have heavy costing cards, keep your land count up to ensure that you don't miss many land drops early in games. It can make or break a game.

I live a little bit on the edge sometimes, but that is only after many games of testing builds with a deck.

(9x4)+24 is a great stepping stone. Use it wisely or get tied up with the mana-screw.

Maybe this was enlightening?

Xiao had previously commented on wondering how it is I come out victorious so often. I would think a lot of careful planning is part of it, but in the end the games themselves often boil down to quick thinking, on the spot decisions, and a hefty helping of luck.

I will makes plans on doing this for other decks, in the near-future. If someone wants to hear insight on a particular deck. Let me know, and I will take that deck on the next blog tour.

Until next we duel.

What time is it?!

Fucking Adventure Time bitches.

...or maybe 10:30.

Last Saturday we nerded it up. Heavily.

In attendance was yours truly, Xiao, Snape, Denis, Felix and J.D. We partied at Snape's because sometimes it is easier to bring the party to a dude, than whatever you imagine is the opposite of that.

Felix abstained from Magic. He's waiting until they go steady to make that commitment. Instead Felix, J.D. and Denis spent hours embroiled in an epic battle on the high seas right in the middle of Snape's living room. I mean it was literally in Snape's real apartment this time. Not in a basement with the same name. The sea battle was straight out of 1988. Really. That's when the game was made, according to Felix's fake instructions he had for the game. So there was no way to know for sure if they were playing correctly at any given time. Although they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, so that really makes it irrelevant if the rules were correct or not.

Felix spent a lot of the evening cursing Poseidon's luck, while J.D. hung on splinters from ships he once manned. Denis sailed around them with a mighty fleet doing his best Thomas William Bevil (the only prominent Canadian sailor I could locate).

Snape, Xiao and I play some FFA games of Magic on the other side of the table.

Xiao was the big winner of the evening dominating the rest of us with his his mono-color pauper decks. I was able to squeeze out a couple of victories myself, but Xiao's were more celebrated and well won.

Denis and I broke out some EDH/Commander action as well. Denis was primed up on his Mayael deck while I finally got to show Ob Nixilis some serious action.

The first game was a lot of fun as we both same our decks play quite well despite Denis not being able to put out his Commander due to my having pestilence in play. I eventually was able to grow Ob Nixilis to become quite obnoxious, and over taken him after clearing the board with pestilence.

The second game was a long one, with all sorts of creatures coming in and out of play. finally Denis was able to get rid of my Commander and Geth, who had snuck back out again and fly over me with a slough of dragons that had be ejaculated out from Mayael.

We called it even so Xiao could swap places and play Denis with his EDH deck, based around Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer.

Xiao had Denis on the ropes early, but eventually Xiao lost his momentum and had to resign himself to the onslaught of the Naya hoards Denis through at him.

Another good night of gaming. If you weren't there you probably wish you were, unless you are Don, who was at PAX, which was also probably awesome.

Who is volunteering to scribe for the next meeting?

I'm also still waiting for every member of the group to get back to me with their ranked deck submissions, and whether or not they want to donate small fees towards being able to fund tournaments.

I am open to all ideas and suggestions on that front.

If you want your deck ranked please send:

Your deck name, your deck colors and play style and what legality it is.

Denis is the only person to submit a deck so far, for his EDH deck.

I have submitted the following:

War Vat: mono black/control/standard

Peace Vat: mono white/control/standard

The Crafter: U\B Control/Standard

Time Psycho: mono blue/control/Standard

Vampirehouse: R\B aggro/standard

Parody of Parity: mono white/aggro/standard

Permission to Infect: U\B control/standard

Apology Accepted: U\B\W\G Mill/Legacy

The Black Ajah: mono black/EDH

What are yours?

Until next time we duel.

Behold: Archenemy

Acrhenemy. If you ask me, I'd say they made this multiplayer format for me. Even if they did not, I still can't help but to feel like the archenemy in many free-for-all games. Or at the very least I find myself wanting to be able to play a scheme card as a last resort after my life total has been reduced to 1, and my chances of victory are 0.01%

The beauty of the archenemy setup is that it provides an interesting challenge for both the team against the archenemy and the archenemy in different ways. The archenemy is charged with defeating the opponents who are battling him. It could be 2,3 or 4 opponents and while the scheme cards are powerful, they are also unpredictable and not a reliable force each and every game. The schemes are something to effectively use when opportunities present themselves, but a greater strategy is dismantling the attacks and strategies from the team working to tear you down. On the other side of the coin is the team working to bring the archenemy down, which is quite an undertaking. The teams need to plan a strategy and work together to plan their attacks and when to makes aggressive moves and when to hold back, as scheme cards can wreck a plan as easily as they can set things in motion.

The game itself is not much different than a regular game of Magic. The biggest difference is the scheme cards, which are placed in a separate deck of 20 cards. I find that, it is more fun to add more cards than what is specified by the rules because it add less consistency to the scheme deck, as well as it allows for games that could go longer than 20 turns to stay away from redundancy. The multiple sets of Archenemy also allow a certain amount of customization for the Archenemy to make the deck of scheme cards more tuned to their specific deck. I currently only have 2 of the 4 archenemy decks, but I would eventually like to have all four sets of Archenemy scheme cards available for the group to use, which would allow us to have various pre-set scheme decks for the archenemy.

From the start of the game each participating player draws a hand like normal. Mulligans are allowed. Once play starts the archenemy always goes first and immediately turns over a scheme card. The scheme is set in motion and affects the game for however the card specifies. After the scheme is set in motion play resumes as normal. The archenemy starts his turn as normal and draws (yes even going first). The archenemy plays through his turn as normal and once complete the opponents go. The players opposing the archenemy complete their turns simultaneously, the same as how turns are done in a game of 2-headed giant. The players can number from 2-4, but I've also considered a variation where a team of 2 archenemies play against a team of 4-6 opponents, still only using one scheme deck (or maybe 2?).

The archenemy starts the game with 40 life, while each opposing person will start with the standard 20 life.

The game is over when all opposing players to the archenemy(s) are eliminated, or when the players have eliminated the archenemy(s) from play.

I was also thinking that as we move forward, and possibly incorporate EDH play into our group we may be able to combine both EDH and Archenemy to have and EDH archenemy play against a team of of EDH teammates, in the exact same format as listed above.

Let me know your thoughts on this, as nothing is set in stone, and any tweaks to the gameplay that would enhance the gameplay and create a more enjoyable experience for the group is ultimately the goal.

-James

Where have you been all summer?

Hello. I hope the summer has been filled with Magic.

This is just a brief introductory into what this group is currently and what it has been. We are a group of Magic: the Gathering players (just without official cosplay costumes) who meet about once a week and play casual games in a variety of formats, including drafting.

The group formed in June of 2010 and has been picking up members ever since. We've seen a lot over the last year as a group. People who have come and gone, sets that have come and gone, and decks that have been good and bad.

Currently we have been having our primary play day on Saturday in the evenings, and this seems to be the best day to gather the most people at once, so we will remain on this course for scheduling, unless anything else necessitates a change.

Statistics are an important part of most games that involves winning and losing, and in our group we have, in the past, kept up on this information for everyone's individual decks. We have gotten away from it over the summer months, and we are planning on getting it integrated back into the group. In order to facilitate this happening, we will need every member to submit each of their decks that they want to have stats tracked for. The stats include wins and losses for categories of play such as: Head's Up play, Free For All play, Archenemy games, EDH games, and tournaments and drafting. Each deck will have overall win/loss percentages tracked as well as overall wins and losses in each of the aforementioned categories. It is not required that decks be submitted for the spreadsheet, but only decks tracked on the spreadsheet for rankings will be able to have information tracked, as well as participate in Magic Mondays Group sanctioned tournaments.

I will reply to this post to give an idea of what information about your decks I will need, with regard to the spreadsheet.

Also, I am opening up this blog for other members to write about our get-togethers, or whatever else they have on their mind Magic related. Surely sometimes it might be neat to hear thoughts from other group members about decks they are conjuring up, or thoughts on specific cards or game-types.

If you would like to be involved let me know and I can email you the specifics on the blog to become an active scribe.

In addition, each get together needs to have someone assigned who is responsible for keeping track of the wins and losses of the games, as well as notes, and photos of the games and people involved to keep this blog's heart beating with a healthy pulse. I used to be able to do this seamlessly while still being able to play plenty of games each week, but I just can't foresee being able to do it consistently each week. Besides it may be nice to have different voices from week to week sharing their thoughts about our games.

I don't want this blog to get in the way of playing, however, as that is the main goal of getting together, which is partially why I let it sit on the back-burner all these months. I just wanted to play. If we pass the torch around, we can surely make this a much more lively blog to participate in.

Please let me know who is interested.

Additionally, I am thinking about group tournaments every month or so, that actually produces prizes and swag that you have a chance to win by destroying the competition with your deck. Or we could concoct some sort of light-hearted "league" or sorts where each week we play a number of "league" games against assigned opponents and the wins and losses of the league determine who makes the "play-offs" and the "championships".

I was thinking that we could fund something like this if members of the group were willing to shell out $5 each months towards getting prize cards, or prize swag for the winners. I want something to feel competitive but not so much that there is pressure. A prize could be something like: sweet high-quality deck sleeves, or a playmat, or a couple of single high-value cards that are mythic-rare etc.

I hope this lights a bit of a fire under the group to get creating on decks and ideas and to get playing some serious magic. Screw FNM! This is where the real Magic happens.

Sausages

Here follows a synopsis of what happened Friday night. Paul O turned thirty-something today. But before that happened, the two of us showed up at the Card Kingdom game shop in Ballard.


It was 6:15pm. We checked our name on the list. We paid our $5. FNM man. FNM.


I brought my "Another Man's Poison" U/B infect deck. Paul brought his mono green ramp Omnath artifact deck.


Round 1: I played a fellow who obviously enjoyed his four Jaces. The deck was U/W control with stoneforge mystic, celestial colonade, day of judgment, mana leak, preordain, gideon, ... ok, it was exactly Edgar Flores's White-Blue Caw-Blade deck featured on "Top Decks". But with a different sideboard. There was a Journey to Nowhere in the sideboard. 


I won the first game, lost the second game, and tied the third game.  The first two games lasted at least twenty turns.  I felt pretty good. My opponent was definately shaken. I have 10 counter-spells in my deck. That was the pinnacle of my evening.


Paul played against another mono green deck. He won his first game, and lost the next two.

Round 2: I played Paul(!). I won the first game. I think Paul won the second game. I won the match. This was the only game I deliberated over my side board. It turns out I didn't really care whether I beat anyone else. 


Round 3. Paul had to sit out since there were an odd number of players. He went to the bar.


Round 4. I lost the match. Paul played a belligerent 11 year old named Zeb. Paul lost. I saw the end of Paul's last game. It was pretty brutal. The kid's Dad was at the table gloating. At the end of the game, Zeb asked Paul a question "How many people did you beat tonight?". Paul said "A few. I beat a few people.". Zeb was like "oh. really? who did you beat?" Paul ignored him.


I think I was mid-pack. I believe Paul was dead last. Paul was very unhappy. "Everyone plays the same stupid decks." He's right. For the most part they did.


As we left, Paul told me about this German alehouse down the street that served really good "sausages". We found the place. Paul pointed to a table and said "that's our table", and I walked up to the counter and asked the bartender if they were still serving sausages. He looked at me like he didn't quite understand what I'd asked. So I said "I'm wondering if I can order a German hot dog". After quite a bit of miscommunication, it turns out that they don't serve sausages. We ordered cans of Olympia. Meanwhile two people had sat down at "our table".  Paul just walked over and asked them to leave. Hilarious. There was nowhere for them to sit, so they just stood at the bar.


We sat down. Paul looked into his drink and said "I got beaten by a stupid kid. How humiliating". 


Paul turned thirty-something today. I gave him four copies of Tentacles of Agony for his birthday. 


In retrospect, I don't think we were in a German Alehouse at all. Next weekend, I say we cook up some sausages.

29th Edition of Magic Mondays

Back for more Magic.

Many games have come and gone since the last recap. So this is more accurately an overview of the many gatherings and games that have occurred throughout the month.

Welcome back to the fold: Felix. Felix has come crashing back onto the Magic Monday scene winning a draft over at Matt's when Paul was out of town, and then the following week, with Paul gone and needing a place for Snape's Apartment to relocate to we landed at Felix's humble abode.

Snape, myself and Felix sat down and settled in for the night with decks in hand. I came armed with my Tezzeret deck 'The Crafter', my Mimic Vat deck, 'A Tale of Two Mimics' and my Vampire deck 'Vampirehouse-5'.
Felix came sporting his remodeled U/B infect deck 'Another Man's Poison', ready to make us sick.
Finally Snape, who had along with his Magic decks, came prepared for the night with a gigantic bottle of Livingston wine. And mind you all that this was a 1.5 litre bottle of a vintage year (2010...). It required no fancy glass, and nobody to share it with.

With the battle plan laid out before us we sat down for some nice FFA action. Out of the five games played, there was not one that had a clearly defined winner until the final turn of each game. Snape was quite a powerhouse on the evening, especially in the game where he played a U/W control deck. I mean, sure, maybe it wasn't the prettiest Magic game for Snape dropping negates onto the table from his hand without noticing and then thinking that they were land, but he still won in the end be denying me the creatures that I needed on the battlefield to gain some much needed board presence. Snape took two of the wins, in what was one of his better FFA performances of any gathering. Felix and I were left trying to pick up the scraps on most games, with me scraping together a few wins despite the odds being quite out of my favor. In the end the wine was long gone, and Felix's face was stuck in a mischievous grin from the antics, and I was mentally taxed from 5 epic and long grueling games.

The following Friday found Chris, Paul, Xiao, Don and Halo trekking to the local card shop to compete in the weekly Friday Night Magic event. Unfortunately the card shop was having technical difficulties and was not running online for a sanctioned tournament leaving many of the contestants soured and heading home. For the people who remained it was a nice casual round of games. Later on I headed over to the real Snape's Apartment in Paul's basement and met up with Xiao, Don and Paul and played some good best of threes. I matched up well against Paul and Xiao and was able to take those matches but I got thoroughly whooped by Don who was curiously yelling "WAAAAAAHHG!" throughout the entire three games.
The moment of the night was in the match with Don and myself. I was playing my Tezz deck, and Don was playing his Goblin deck. It was turn 7 and I was poised to come across on my next turn with a flying ornithopter for lethal damage. Don had two creature out and I was open, but he did not have the attack power to deal lethal damage. I pass my turn, and Don takes a deep breath before drawing (or at least from my point of view it was a deep breath). He pulls the card off of his library and a glint flashes across his eyes. He holds it up momentarily before declaring his pull as a lightning bolt. I groan. The top-deck moment of 2011 as far as I was concerned. Xiao pulled out a couple of great wins against Paul towards the end of the night.

The next night most of us came back to Snape's Apartment for some more Magic action. Felix was in attendance (much to Paul's disbelieving eyes), with Xiao, Paul, Snape and myself.
We had quite a large amount of action. Some of the memorable moments of Saturday:

-Paul and Snape drink alcohol from a bottle that contain a dead cobra in the bottle. Snape declares the alcohol quite delicious and requires more. Paul reels backwards in agony as his face contorts in 5 different ways and spews the alcohol out of his mouth in a fine mist all over the garbage can before audibly declaring his hatred of it. Meanwhile, Felix watches in horror as both participants react. Ok that's only a single moment. But it was the best one.

Paul's record for the evening: 10 wins and 8 losses.
Felix's record for the evening: 5 wins and 5 losses.
Xiao's record for the evening: 2 wins and 8 losses.
My record for the evening: 16 wins and 7 losses.
Snape's record for the evening: 3 wins 8 losses.

After all of the constructed play, Xiao and Snape had departed. Felix, Paul and I all drafted from some boosters Felix had left from his box of Mirrodin Besieged.
Felix ended up drafting mostly red with his artifacts. Paul drafted Green and Blue and Black mostly. And I drafted White and Black.
We decided with three players to do a FFA game with the draft decks, and the first person to get 2 wins would be the tournament winner. I won the first game, with a little luck and some good draws. The second game went to Felix who eventually overwhelmed us with too many creatures. The third game went to Paul who was drawing ridiculous amounts of Shriek Horns and targeting me with everyone, which with a 40 card library was devastating. Paul was thrilled. Felix declared all of our decks terrible, for after three games, and having no decisive winner we had to play a deciding game 4. Game four was a slog, and Felix came at me hard to begin. Then Paul got more shriek horns and whittled my library down. When the 4th game was in its final stages I was dead in the water with a good number of weenie creatures out and nearly no cards in my library. I looked at Paul with his Hexplate Golem and various other baddies with toughness greater than 1. Then I looked at Felix and saw his various creatures with 1 toughness. I did the only thing I could. I began picking off his creatures with my mortarpod. I first sacrificed a creature and targeted his Rusted Slasher which he promptly regenerated by sacking his own artifact. Then I attached the pod to another creature and went after the slasher again. He sacked another artifact. I attached and sacked again and he sacked another artifact. Paul could not believe it, and he tells Felix that he has an uncanny amount of love for that card. Finally I run out of mana, and creatures and Felix's army also looks significantly ravaged. From there on out each time I draw a creature I simply attach it to my mortarpod and kill one of Felix's creatures, because I couldn't do anything else with 2 cards left in my library. The result was that Paul eventually overwhelms Felix and deals lethal damage right after I have to draw my last card leaving me with no cards to draw for the next turn and he wins handily.
A nice Green Suns Zenith prize, awaited Paul.

Two night later on Monday Felix, Paul and I were back for more. We played a night full of FFA games. In the first game I played my G/R 'United in Boom' against Felix and his U/W control deck and Paul's Vedalken Creepazoid deck. At the outset of the game I steal Paul's ratchet bomb because I have foreseen the inevitable play of a Frost Titan late game from Felix, and I want to have something on hand to destroy it before it causes havoc. Many turns later I have added the Ratchet Bomb up to 5 and Felix has plenty of land at his disposal to drop the bomb any moment. Then Paul drops a Contagion Engine and begins killing all of my creatures and my defenses, AND to top it off his uses the proliferate to add two charge counters to my ratchet bomb to prevent me from killing his Engine, which was the last thing on my mind! The next turn Felix drops a Frost Titan, and I watch helplessly. I then explain the whole saga to both of them which causes Paul fits of hysterics. I still feel miffed about that move. STUPID PROLIFERATE! How you hate me so! Paul ends up winning the game after slowly dismantling, and I mean he really did piece by piece dismantle all my efforts. Even when I finally drew into Genesis Wave, it produced nothing to keep me in the game.
As the evening went on Felix took two matches with his U/B infect deck, leaving Paul exclaiming he could not believe Felix beat us both with infect. In fact, Felix summed up most of the games correctly saying that the first person to kill off another person eventually loses to the other person, and that held true for every one of our games except the final one.
Paul took two matches with both his Creepazoid and his Giddy Up each tallying up one win apiece.
I took three of the seven with one win from each my Mimic Vat deck, my Vampire deck and my U/B tezz control deck.

The last game of the night saw the game come down to all three of us at a stand still. It was my turn, and I had a 10/10 flying vampire that could swing and kill either Paul or Felix. The problem was that if I killed Paul, Felix could swing at my the next turn and do 4 poison to me and I had exactly 6 at that moment. The other option was to swing at Felix, but if I did that Paul could swing at me with a Hero of Bladehold and 5 other soldier tokens and my health was only at 7. I was dead either way. Every other game we had played had ended with one person killing off somebody only to find themselves on the receiving end of lethal damage a short time later. I broke trend and opted to kill nobody. This caused quite a different ending to the game, and it was Paul who drew better and was able to swarm Felix, who was left outgunned by the Hero of the Bladehold army.


In general news, those who are interest in New Phyrexia, and buying into a case please jump into the email string as Don is going to research a connection in the mid-west to see what the pricing on the case will be.

In secondary news, the deck building challenge issued a number of weeks back is still pending, as no one has officially submitted an entry besides myself. My deck is ready for the competition (should anyone else want to join). I suppose if no one else does I will simply declare myself the victor and buy myself a $10 prize.
If anyone is still interested please see the rules and restrictions from the previous post and contact me with your official interest/entry for the challenge and once we get enough submissions we will set a date and have a fun tournament with the decks. Or not. I thought it would be a fun challenge.

If you have not yet seen anything from New Phyrexia, you should go online and start checking out some of the spoiled cards. There are some major new powerhouse spells on the horizon! It should really give our decks some new life, and probably will be the foundation for even more decks to spring up.

Recap 28 and Surprise Draft

That is the smug satisfaction of a man who just won a draft tournament.



This past Monday was a relocated night as Snape's Apartment was unavailable so we went to an actual apartment. Big thanks to Matt for letting us invade his flat and nerd it up.

The big news of the week was the return of Felix, who has been absent for a number of months. We welcomed him back and kicked off the evening with some casual play while we prepared to draft Mirrodin Besieged. This marks the 12th draft tournament, and Felix's second 1st place ranking.

Felix took over the FFA game with his U/B infect deck after he gained a foothold killing off my bad dudes directly with his livewire lash. Matt kept the pressure on him with unblockable creatures but in the end Felix was able to overwhelm me with poison and stay alive just long enough to give Matt the same dosage.

Once Chris arrived we divided up the twelve packs of cards and began drafting.
Felix drafted black and white, with focus on infect.
Matt drafted a lot of artifact bad dudes with some burn and defense in red and white.
I drafted G/B deck focused on draw power and aggro beatdown.
Chris drafted U/W with focus on flyers and artifact generated tokens.

The first round saw me match up against Chris. I locked down early keeping Chris at bay and then built up 3 Fangren Marauders which decidedly had his smaller artifact creatures locked down for fear of giving me loads of life. Finally a Black Suns Zenith swept the field away and gain me 75 life points, and then cleared the way for my to sweep in for damage. By the end of the game I had 129 life and Chris was feeling defeated. The second game Chris came out swinging but before long I had out another Fangren Marauder and was destroying artifacts and gaining life. I had his number again.

Felix and Matt were matched up and Felix was quick to receive the note from Burn the Impure that infect could be dangerous. Unfortunately for Matt, Felix drafted creature heavy and had no problem recovering. Before too long Felix was coming over with Imps, and Priests of Norn and Flensermites for the win. The second game played out similarly with Felix slowly grinding his way through Matt's beefy creatures until Matt was overwhelmed.

In the second round Matt and I matched up. The game started off badly for Matt who was land hosed to begin the match. I took advantage and swooped in with Glissa, and a Viridian Emissary. I slowly whittled him down. The second game was quite different as I was quick to get out some emissaries and do some damage, but then Matt come back and suddenly had a giant creature out with a sword of Feast and Famine on it. I was feeling the pinch as he suddenly had pro-both-of-my-colors. I took a huge hit, discarded and watched him untap and play more bad dudes. He passed the turn to me and I drew and it was Black Suns Zenith. I had the mana to change the game, and I did. I drew into a Viridian Corrupter after that putting the Sword into the graveyard for good. That changed the game and I was able to swing at Matt for lethal damage over a few turns while his defenses were down.

Felix and Chris were playing and Felix trampled Chris under poisonous feet while Chris, who was drawing fine during the first match, struggled to draw land and get board position in both games, leaving Felix to walk away with the sweep.

In the third round Matt and Chris met up and Matt was overpowering Chris with his big artifact creatures. Chris mounted a defense but Matt kept the pressure on overwhelming Chris bit by bit. Matt took the two games in brutal fashion leaving Chris wondering where his draft wins went.

Felix and I matched up to decide who would win the tournament. We were both feeling confident as were undefeated up to that point. We both raced for board position and Felix was eager to ring up some poison counters on me. I was creating a lot of draw power but was unable to find and answer for the Mirran Crusader and lost due to its Pro G/B which were my colors and Felix won the match without even having to poison me. The second game swung back in my favor with Felix unable to draw a plains leaving me able to control the board and swing for victory and by turn seven I had the game locked down with a Piston Sledge and the Spine of Ish Sah. The third game was quick, with Felix getting creatures swept away by the Black Suns Zenith but responding with a Flesh Eater Imp to which I could find no defense. He swooped in for the lethal infect three turns later to win the tournament.

Felix took the big prize, the Sword of Feast and Famine (sorry Paul). And I nabbed the Black Suns Zenith (as if I needed another!).

Good fun for all.

Stay tuned as there is more to come!

DECK BUILDING CHALLENGE

Annoucement: 'Attention Magic Monday participants. You are hereby challenged to a deck building tournament. There will be a tournament for all who choose to participate on April 23rd, Saturday of 2011. The rules are simple. The deck must be Extended legal and playable with tournament specifications. Minimum 60 card mainboard and a 15 card sideboard. The tournament will be swedish style and matches will be best of three. Decks are allowed to be any number of colors. Decks are allowed to have Sorcery spells. Decks are allowed to have Enchantments. Decks are not allowed to have planeswalkers. Decks are not allowed to have creatures. Decks are not allowed to have instants. The coverted mana cost of each spell in the deck must not be less than three. Decks are allowed to have Artifacts, but not artifact creatures. Deck are not allowed to use "man-lands", lands such as Inkmoth nexus, or Creeping Tar Pits. All other types of lands are legal as long as they are legal in extended.'

AMENDMENT TO TOURNAMENT CRITERIA: IMPORTANT: IMPORTANT:
The card 'Telemin Performance' is currently banned from any deck list for the tournament (for obvious reasons). Thank you to Sir Paulage for pointing out that the card is broken in this Deck Building Challenge.


Extended Legality includes: Lorwyn, Morningtide, Shadowmoor, Eventide, Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn, Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise of the Eldrazi, Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, M10 and M11.

I suggest a "donation" of each participating play of $10 so we can purchase something for a prize for 1st and 2nd places.

Please direct any questions to me via email!

The deadline is Friday the 22nd of April for committing and submitting your deck, name and color(s).

Good deck building! Let's have some fun.

27th Rapecap of Events

Sometimes the best battles between decks are the battles that happen before they ever even play each other, or are even created. In the last month Paul and I have had an imaginary deck battle revolving around his deck that focuses Braids, Cabal Minion dropping on you turn 2 and then evaporating the rest of your hand while all your shit is sacked from the table. Paul was raking in the wins, and was slowly creating a powerhouse deck that no one seemed to have a viable answer for. The deck went from being called 'Dude, She's Checking You Out,' to simply 'Rape.' As Paul put it, the deck makes you feel violated and makes you do things against your will. For weeks I had threatened to make a deck that could stand up to Paul and his powerhouse deck, but sadly I did not have the card resources at my disposal to create the deck I had envisioned. Slowly, but surely, I did acquire the cards and resources I needed to make a deck that could be competitive in the vintage scene, and against a deck like 'Rape'.
So the speculation and posturing could end, and we could sit down and take the talk to the table and settle it like men.
First let's start back at the beginning of the night's battles. With Don, Snape, me, Paul, and Halo playing in the first FFA game of the night, we were ready to get the night off to a raucous start. Don brought out his G/W deck 'When Elves Attack' to compete against Snape and his mono-B 'We Are Legion' deck. Halo play his mono-U 'Golem', Paul played his U/B 'Rape' and I played my G/B 'Mace'. Paul got off to a roaring start getting Braids out turn 2. He locked everyone down expect me and my anti-rape deck. I was able to board 2 Vampire Hexmages on turn 2 and he could not stop them without chumping Braids, which he was unwilling to do. I got board presence with a Royal Assassin on turn three giving me defense, but Paul was ready to keep my hand to a minimum with Hymn of Tourach and recoils. Paul finally gave up the ghost, which broadened the game and Don and Snape gained quick board presence while I struggled to maintain hoping to keep top decking anything useful. Snape slowly built up a zombie hoard and I was never able to combo my Dark Depths out onto the field. Snape slowly overwhelmed turn by turn, and took the game in a rather lop-sided win.
While that game was finishing up, Paul and I broke off and played 'Mace' and 'Rape' against each other again, but this time in heads-up. In a strange game, neither one of us drew well, and the game went into late turns before it really got underway. Paul had out hypnotic specter and I had a Tajuru Preserver and we were trading blows, but then I drew a Go For the Throat and took out his attacker and then I got my Dark Depth and Hexmage combo to go off around turn 12, which is crazy, but it did end the game. So the first game of these two decks, that had more history to them then games, actually played out unexpectedly and not showcasing any of the decks main features. We shuffled into a second game and had yet another strange game. I was able to get Tajuru Preserver out in a pair and started picking off Paul's life. He got out another Specter and started picking off mine. Then we both had a terrible string of dead draw land for three to four turns. I boarded a Dark Depths, but had no Hexmage to combo it. Then as the game was slogging on, I realized with nine lands, and no viable options in hand I started removing counters manually from the land. It put Paul on a counter, and we both scrambled to get to our goal. Paul was looking for a bounce card, and I was looking to unlock the secrets of Dark Depths. Three turns later with Paul at 10 health and me at 6 health, I removed the last counter and unleashed Marit Lage for a second time. It was game over and 'Mace' goes 2 and 0 in its first outing. Of course, we both sat there momentarily wondering why neither one of our decks played out as we expected them to do two games running. It turns out it was a precursor of things to come, as Paul and I stank it up in the games following out heads-up match getting smacked around by Don, Chris and Snape.
Paul took his revenge in our next match where I played the U/B 'Invitation to a Decking' and Paul played his mono-W 'Fear of a White Planet'. He took me to town, and I could not draw a worthwhile hand to do much of anything. It only added insult to injury when I finally drew enough land to play a Mind Funeral and he topped four straight lands, pretty much killing the card. I took it as a sign to concede the game then and there.
Meanwhile Don, with his mono-R 'You Gotta Have Waaaaaaahg' (unsure exactly how many A's are in the name exactly), was showing Halo and the 'Golem' deck, Snape and his mono-B 'Deep 6', and Chris and his U/W 'I Fly?' how a FFA game is played. I periodically checked out the board of their FFA game only to see a lot of goblins with counters on them and a Sword of Feast and Famine. I watched as the rest of the players struggled to shore up defenses, and could not mount a solid offense against the goblin onslaught(er). Don took the game, even if he did forget to equip the sword two turns running.
Before the end of the FFA game, Paul and I started a third match heads-up. I played a new R/G deck 'United by Boom,' which was inspired by Paul's land hate deck. Paul played his R/W goblin deck 'Ball Milk.' Genesis Wave proved invaluable as I picked up a win in the first game. Paul came back as was able to overwhelm me in the second game, keeping the pressure on which became too much. The third came was close, with Paul getting me down in life further and further as the game wore on. I chump blocked many times, and had to rely on a little help from his Goblin Guide. The guide spilled land into my hand and then onto the field. Then with a little desperation I tapped out for nine including my blockers my Overgrown Battlement and Harabaz Druid to play a Genesis Wave for 6 on X. I drew well. Four allies hit the table as well as another battlement and a land. I had 2 liquimetal coatings out and quickly gave Paul two artifacts while each ally could destroy an artifact because of the Scappers. Three scappers came into play causing exponential damage from the destroyed artifacts killing Paul instantly. It was rather epic.
Snape took another FFA game with his mono-B 'IDK' facing off against my U/B Tezz deck 'The Crafter', Don's Mimic Vat deck 'When Elves Attack' and Chris's 'I Fly?' Snape was tearing up the competition in multiplayer.
Don played Paul in some hot goblin on goblin action. Don was bring it agains Paul with upwards of six creatures coming at Paul, but Paul had a Transcendent Master out who was lifelinking his way to victory. The two games played out nearly identical with Paul taking some initial hurt from Don's quickness, but then Transcendent Master coming out and ruining the goblin party. Both games the Master saved the game for Paul and gave him the match over Don.
Snape and Chris matched up with Snape playing the mono-B 'IDK' and Chris playing his mono-R 'FACE DESTROYER!!!' (and yes, I've been told to type it out that way). Chris took both games keep Snape on his toes with a steady life loss from each move Chris made.
I played Paul (finally) against his mysterious new deck that he built and that he refused to play against anything other than my Tezzeret deck. I was suspicious, and wary, but finally gave into it. The deck was annoying and had my number to be sure, but I squeezed out a victory from a mistake on Paul's part at the end of the game one. The deck was a mono-W deck with nothing but Diving Offering, Revoke existence, Relic Hoarders and Kor Sanctifiers. It does nothing but destroy artifacts, and then for good measure he also added Celestial Purge to combat both my Tezzeret and Grave Titan. All in all it was a good deck to play, but only against this one deck of mine. I managed the one victory, and was on the verge of being able to win the other two we played, but I could not keep up with the sheer amount of hate cards that existed in his main board for the deck, that no other person would purposely put in a main board as they are too limited. Seriously. Who mainboard Celestial Purge? What if you play a white or green deck? That's a dead draw. To Paul's credit the deck did exactly what he wanted it to do, taking the match 2-1 and pissing me off in the process. As if my luck needed a nudge in the wrong direction. Paul and I both struggled after that.
Paul played Snape with his R/G/B deck 'Rotten Leftovers' and got swept two matches in a row and going 0-4. Snape was playing his mono-B Vampire deck 'Sundowners' and was able to keep Paul off balance with the relentless onslaught of the vampires and Paul's favorite card in standard Gatekeeper of Malakir.
Meanwhile I was playing Chris with 'The Crafter' and doing horribly. I was able to win the first game because I drew Grave Titan in a timely manner before I was pinged to death by lightning bolts and various other direct damage sources. The second game I was completely land flooded totalling 13 land by the end of the game, meaning I had 13 turns to draw at least one useful card but could not, while Chris slowly pinged me to death. The match was at 1-1, and I started the third game well and had a Grave Titan on turn 5. I was just getting ready to wreck with it when Chris promptly pyroclasmed the board and then burst lightninged twice on my titan. I felt okay considering the resources that were spent to make that move, but I could not draw anything after that but land and Chris stayed in the game and pinged me to death for the second time in a row.
The night ended with some 3-way FFA action where I spent all my time mana hosed or mana flooded with no board presence in 75% of the games. I went 0-3 in the games and managed to play 1 baneslayer angel in three games, and 1 sun titan both of which were killed and put on someone else's mimic vat. Paul won two of the games in rather lop sided wins, and Snape crushed Paul in the other after I conceded so I could browse the internet and pass the time until we could start a new game.

Snape ended the night nearly falling on his face again tumbling over a chair and bouncing off a wall, staggering back and forth and nearly smashing his face in a wall before catching himself on it.

Another classic Monday night. If you were not there, you should have been. If you were there, you know why it was good.

James Recaps the Case Draft in the 26th edition of Magic Monday Recap!

Before I get into the draft results I think it may be nice to once again see an overview of all the previous drafts, as we have not yet done that for this blog.
The very first draft that we play was last summer, and since then we have drafted in tournaments eleven times as a group.
The first draft was an M11 draft, and I took first place.
The second draft was another M11 draft with the victory also belonging to me.
The third draft was again, M11 with me taking a third straight victory.
The fourth draft was a disaster draft with a mix of Scars of Mirrodin, Zenidkar and M11. I took a fourth straight victory.
The fifth draft was full Scars of Mirrodin. Felix won this draft.
The six draft was also Scars of Mirrodin, and I took the victory for a fifth draft win.
The seventh draft was a full Rise of the Eldrazi set and Paul grabbed his first victory.
The eigth draft was again Rise of the Eldrazi and Chris came away with his first victory in drafts.
The ninth draft was another M11 draft and Paul grabbed his second draft victory in brutal domination of the crowd.
The tenth draft was a smaller group draft of Mirrodin Besieged and Snape took a victory for the first time.
The eleventh and most recent draft? Well let us jump into it.

The eleventh draft was a five person draft of the people who paid to buy into the case of Mirrodin Besieged. Don, Chris, Snape, Paul and Me. We did a round robin style tournament with each stop along the way being a best of three match.

Don drafted particularly well getting a lot of marquee cards and making a seemingly brutal black and white infect deck. It seemed that luck was not on Don's side as he ended the night with only 2 victories to his name and came in fourth place.

Snape drafted the most creative deck, utilizing some interesting blue and black cards creating a lot of draw power for him, and discarding for his opponents, mixed in with some mill. His luck was not so good though, and he got swept each match. Snape took 5th with his efforts.

Chris drafted red, of course and attempted to burn the house down and slam some bad dudes down some throats and ended up smack dab in the middle at 3rd place.

Paul draft white and blue artifact hate, that could also become an infect deck in a pinch grabbing 4 victories and enough for second place.

I drafted red and green and not a lot of artifacts for Paul's artifact hate, and focused on battlecry and Fangren Marauder for health. I grabbed 6 victories going undefeated and grabbing my 6th draft win, and breaking a slough of losses across many months of drafting.

The draft pool prize was rich with bounty. There was enough Tezzerets for everyone, Massacre Wurms aplenty, Hero of Bladehold and Oxridge, Glissa, Thrun, and a coveted Sword of Feast and Famine. The winner was awarded three booster packs. The second place was awarded two and third place took one all in addition to the mythic rares that we had pooled.

All in all I felt like the draft format and pooling mythic rares from the case of cards was a fun and successful way to draft. It certainly gave the draft a different feel to it, with quite a bit of card value on the line.

Keep posted back, as I am putting together our first group deck building contest. I will post the rules and criteria after I finalize it, and then I will give a timeline on when we will have a deck tournament with the constructed decks. Prizes for the top finishers will be awarded I think, so maybe a small donation from each participating member will go towards that.

Great news?

Recap of last Saturday

Last Saturday Xiao, Matt, and I joined Paul and Halo for the weekly throwdown. Matt showed up a bit late so the rest of us got started with a 4v4 game.

Paul was playing 'Mana whore', Halo 'Indifference', Xiao 'All Your Base (are Belong to Us)', and I was playing 'Farce of Nature'. The match started off pretty evenly, but then Xiao made the mistake of doing well. The pack jumped on Xiao like hyenas on a bucket of livers. After the dust settled Xiao was eliminated. After that things just became more brutal. Halo was eliminated next and I followed shortly after, leaving Paul victorious.

Matt showed up and he and Xiao faced off. Matt was playing 'Haematoma', a vampire deck against Xiao's AYB. I was busy with the remains of the 4v4, but Xiao went 2-0 and managed to pull out his Platinum Angel at least once.

While Xiao and Matt's epic game was continuing, Paul, Halo, and I settled in for a 3v3. Paul switched to 'Giddy Up' and I changed over to my White/Green mimic-based 'When Elves Attack'. When Halo and Paul realized I was playing my mimic vat deck, they showed no mercy. I was swiftly eliminated and then Paul mopped up.

Next Matt, Xiao, I faced off for a 3v3 game. Matt switched to 'Artifsck', while Xiao and I stuck with our previous decks (AYB and WEA, respectively). As soon as I realized Matt was playing anti-artifact, he became enemy number one for me. I was gambling I would be able to eliminate both him and Xiao before Xiao locked the game down with Platinum Angels. I was right. I drew all of my cheap ramp elves and got them out one after the other. Matt fell with Xiao right after him.

Next we squared off for a couple 1-on-1 matches. Paul and Matt faced off with Paul playing his unnamed goblin deck and Matt playing first Haematoma, and then True Blood (another vampire deck?). Paul defeated one deck and then the other. Matt then busted out with Artifsck and won.

Xiao and I likewise squared off. Xiao with AYB and me with my newly finished goblin deck "You Gotta Have WAAAGH!". The speed of the goblins was just too much for AYB to cope with, and I finished 2-0. With the last Paul-Matt game still going, Xiao and I had a go with AYB against WEA. Xiao locked the game down with counters and managed to get his Platinum Angel out. I had no response and Xiao finished me off.

We swapped opponents and Matt and Xiao played. A Very. Epic. Game. I wish I could have payed closer attention to what was going on, but I know the game lasted a long time, and both of them had a strong board presence and strong hands. Matt was playing Artifsck and eventually triumphed against AYB. Their second game was like was one for the history books. Matt had True Blood against AYB. From what I remember Xiao had negative life from very early in the game, but had the Platinum Angel. Xiao laughed at his life total. Xiao laughed all the way to the bank and (eventually) defeated Matt.

I squared off against Paul for some hawt Goblin-on-Goblin action. The first match (yes, we played twice as many games as Matt and Xiao, though I think they had a considerably more epic experience) went quick. Paul got me down to very low life, with me answering him and making him pay for every damage he dealt, but after the dust settled, I was victorious. The second game went down exactly the same (complete with my first two turns being the identical Goblin Balloon Brigade followed by kicked Goblin Bushwhacker). We went 2-0. After seeing the Long Game still going between Matt and Xiao, we settled in for another couple of games. The first game saw Paul slightly faster on the draw then myself, and pulling out a victory. I made up for it with the second game by being a sliver faster and we ended the second match 1-1.

We then decided to play a massive 4v4 game. Matt pulled out 'Red Cross' and Paul played with his new golem deck, 'Golly!". Xiao was playing AYB, and I was playing WEA. I don't recall exactly what happened in the first part of the game, but I remember I got out an Elspeth Tirel and built up to enough loyalty to trigger her board-clearing ability the next turn. Paul and Xiao were not amused and I had no real blockers. I was assaulted by Paul and answered with a Fog! Then Xiao looked pleased (he was on Platinum Angel life support) and went after Elspeth. He was considerably less amused when I played my second Fog. Matt was looking forward to my board clearing so he could get at Paul, and didn't attack. My turn rolled around and I finally breathed again. I cleared the board of all non-tokens and non-basic lands. By this point Paul had a single MASSIVE golem and a couple smaller golems. With his life support destroyed, Xiao bit the dust. Paul was not about to let that happen again and finished me off, with Matt following shortly after.

Matt headed out and the three of us remaining went for a 3v3. Paul was sticking with Golly! and Xiao with AYB. I went back to FoN. I was not about to let the massive golem stockpiling that Paul got away with happen again, so I went after Paul with reckless abandon. Perhaps a bit too much reckless abandon, as Xiao managed to eliminate me after I took out Paul.

Good times!

A Look at the Slang of Magic (or in other words, a way to provide readers of this blog, who may be naive to the words of Magic a way to understand)

Are you a relative, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, wife or friend of someone who plays Magic: the Gathering? Have you ever sat listening to them playing a game, or had to pretend to listen to them as they drone on about spells and creatures only find yourself staring at them with a look that tells them you are listening, when in fact you didn't understand anything they said for the last five minutes?
The Magic vernacular is certainly something that exists only within the game of Magic, but with a little help anyone can decipher the slang that the players are using. The following will be an overview of the language of Magic, designed to help everyone speak on the same terms, and avoid being left in the dark.
What are some common words that are used worldwide?

Let's start with talking about land, and the many ways people talk about that. Land is represented in a player's deck by various cards that act as the fuel for a deck. Each of the five colors in Magic has a corresponding land type. Red spells have mountains, which produce red mana, and Green spells have forests which produce green mana. Not all land cards are the same, and not everyone uses land the same way, but every player has to use land and mana generators in some capacity or they will not be able to play spells.

What are some common slang phrases you may hear?

Basic lands- these are as mentioned previously the lands that are associated with each color. Mountain, Island, Swamp, Forest, and Plains.

Dual lands- these are another type of land players will talk about referring to land cards that can produce two different types of mana.

Pain lands- these are a variety of lands that produce more than one type of mana, and will cause damage to the controller when tapped for mana.

Fetch lands- these are yet another variety of land that do not produce mana on their own, but can be sacrificed by the player to search their library for a land card. Some fetch lands have activation costs that act in the same variety a pain land would.

Taplands- these are any non-basic land that will enter the battlefield tapped, rendering it useless until the player's next turn.

Shock Lands- these are a variety of pain lands that will do equivalent damage to the player as the spell "Shock" would do. Shock is a red colored spell that when cast will do two damage to a player or a creature.

Manland- this is a variety of land that has an attached activation cost that will allow the land to transform into a creature for a short period of time.

The commonality between all of these phrases for the common ear, is that they are all lands. For the player these types of cards will be the fuel for their deck, but typically not the interesting and fun parts of a deck. Players will talk about land when describing how matches went with either an indifference, because they had the land they needed or will scorn and hatred because the land was not there and failed them miserably.

The utter disgust for games where land has become a hindrance to the outcome ending positively has produced a number of slang phrases players will use to discuss their contempt.

My personal favorite is the mana screw. Being mana screwed is a terrible feeling because it means you sit there turn after turn trying and hoping to draw more land, with a pile of spells in your hand that you cannot cast. In the mean time, the opponent is usually mopping up.
Mana screw is the same as mana fucked.

On the flip side of being screwed is being flooded. To be mana flooded is to draw so much land that it is too much, and the player gets no spells to cast. Being mana flooded is also a terrible feeling, but not quite so bad as being screwed. Mana flood can also be called a land flood as well.

Another land related term that players will use is ramp. Ramp is a term that describes a players ability to play lands at an accelerated rate. Typically a play is only allowed to play one land from their hand per turn, but their are powerful spells that allow players to get more lands in play, or produce more mana. When this tactic is used by players it is called ramping.

Now that we have discussed a bit about lands and mana related terms, and you have all become fast friends with these bits of slang, let us move on to a different aspect of the game. The players themselves.

Wizards of the Coast has, for quite some time, had psychographic profiles on the three major types of Magic players. As sometimes accurate as these profiles can be, we are forever stuck with the names for better or worse, thanks to the R&D department and Mark Rosewater.

Timmy- A player being referred to as Timmy is player who loves the power and excitement of the game. Timmy players love casting ridiculous spells and wielding ridiculous creatures against opponents. This is a "power" player. Timmy loves to win in big, dramatic style or else it seems rather boring.

Johnny- A player being referred to as Johnny is the creative player. A Johnny is a player who loves to spend just as much time playing as they do building and working on decks. Johnny players love to win with specialized combinations of cards and cards that are "weird" or unique. This is the "creative" player. A Johnny still enjoys winning, but only if they created the right environment for the win to happen.

Spike- A player being referred to as Spike is the competitive player. A player who builds decks in order to win and compete in tournaments. This is the "tournament" player and thus, a player who values cards that are powerful and efficient.

Amongst Magic players there are all sorts of types of decks that players will build. There can be infinite possible ways to combine cards and create decks, but players will agree that the archetypes behind decks are well established.

Aggro- This is a deck type that relies on speed and overpowering opponents. It usually contains creatures that are quick to play and can attack the opponent before proper defenses can be erected.

Control- When players talk about control decks it simply means that the deck is designed to stifle the opponent and their ability to play spells or keep cards on the table. The term control can also be replaced with the term Permission.

Mill- A less conventional type of deck, this is the term used to describe the type of deck that will attack an opponents library making them discard all of their cards until they lose. The term mill is also used in slang as an verb to describe the action of cards being moved from the library to the graveyard.

Tribal- A term to describe a deck that focuses on a singular creature type, such as Goblin, or Elves. There are many "tribes" of creatures that exist within the game of Magic, so there exist many possibilities for various tribal decks.

Burn Deck- This is a type of deck that is focused solely on doing damage to an opponent directly with spells, rather than through creatures. As the name implies, this is largely based around Magic spells that have to do with fire, and lightning.

Combo Deck- This is a way to describe a deck type that focuses on a singular purpose of playing two or more cards together in conjunction with each other to perform a specific action that will win the game. If this criteria is not met than the player's deck will fail.

Rogue- This basically describes any kind of deck that utilizes techniques or cards that are not popular. Rogue decks are typically decks that feature one or two cards that are more Johnny in style (pulling from some previous slang already used).

Now that we have covered some of the basics and fundamentals that Magic players live with whenever they are playing and discussing Magic, let us delve deeper into the world of Magic and look at some of the more conversational slang that occurs amongst players while they are playing the game. The game of Magic, is a game full of conversation. In that, it is a very social game, and through those social gatherings a common usage of slang is formulated and unintentionally born. Many of the words are based on acronyms, or shortening words. In some instances combining words, or drawing reference to pop-culture. Whatever their origins, they become standard fare and spread like wild fire throughout local playgroups, the internet, and beyond.

One of my personal favorites is: Board-wipe. This odd sounding phrase is actually quite literal, as it defines a cleaning up of the battlefield of creatures and/or other permanents that are in play. There are many cards that produce said effect and are quite popular in decks that fit within the control-style scheme. Conversely people who are playing the aggro-style theme would feel quite adverse to a card producing board-wiping effects on the game battlefield.

Scoop- This is another of my favorites, as this is also quite literal in that it describes the act of a playing taking all of his cards, with the obligatory cussing or grumbling, off of the battlefield and back to their hand to re-shuffle prematurely. The act of conceding, in other words. While I myself do employ this tactic from time to time, I am not the connoisseur of this that some people are.

Popping, Cracking, Sacking- These are all rather interchangeable for use when using a fetch lands ability to sacrifice itself in order to search your library for a land. I try not to use the same one over and over, and I always emphasize the word while I am doing it to whoever I am playing against. It adds a different dimension to an otherwise rather mundane act.

Chump Block- this quaint little term is used to describe the act of one player defending an attack with a weak creature, to prevent being damaged by a massive creature controlled by the opponent. The creature dies, but your own life is saved...temporarily.

Dead Draw- this is simply the act of drawing a card into your hand, to find that it is a completely useless card within the context of the game that is currently being played.

Top Decking- this is another draw related phrase that is used when a player has no cards in their hand, and they must rely on luck-of-the-draw to get the cards they need each turn.

Playset- this term is describing someone having four copies of one card. In a Magic deck, the maximum amount of a single spell that can legally be played in a deck is four. When four copies are owned by a player that is considered having a playset of that card.

Pop or Go Off- this phrase is referring to a deck that relies on a particular combo in order to win the game. A player would say that once their combo "goes off" they will win the game.

WinCon- this is simply an abbreviated version of winning condition, usually meant to describe what it would take for a particular deck to win within a certain set of constraints.

Tilt or On Tilt- this is used to describe the act of a player making a bad decision, or rash decision because of them being upset with regard to the game being played.

To the Face- this is a phrase used exclusively when a player casts a spell that does damage directly to an opposing player. It is pretty much mandatory that it be said, and possibly spit in their face when pronouncing it to if possible to rub salt in the wound.

Ball Hit- this phrase would be used any time that you incur damage as a result of something you do to yourself. The pain lands are a wonderful example of something that you are doing, that causes yourself damage. This would be an appropriate time to say it.

Snape Smash, or simply Smash- would be the act of destroying anything directly. There are many spells that denote that a particular target can simply be destroyed and aggressively announcing that you are doing so is a good way to win lots of friends.

Jace-Down- this is a reference to the Planeswalker named Jace Beleren, who is very powerful. When people use his abilities it removes some of his loyalty which is why people have appropriated his name in usage with the loss of loyalty. I think this could eventually be used with all Planeswalkers.

Pro or Prot or COP- these are all referring to a player having an ability to protect themselves against a particular type of color or damage. There are many sources that this can be gained from but the usage remains the same throughout.

Tims- this refers to an older card named Prodigal Sorcerer, but is still appropriated today when talking about any creature spell that when in play can deal direct damage to an opposing player. The name was originally taken from Monty Python's movie Quest for the Holy Grail.

Jank- this refers to odd cards that seem terrible when reading them, and seem terrible when playing them.

Hardcast- this is a term to describe the act of paying a cost entire converted mana cost, which on every spell is listed in the upper right-hand corner.

Bounce- this is a term used to describe the act of playing a spell that returns a card to a player's hand, where it could be conceivably re-played at a later time.

Broken- this term is typically used when describing a card that by itself seems ridiculously overpower, or a combination of cards that when played together seem too powerful and not in the least way fun at all.

Proxy- this is when the use of a placeholder card, representing a different card, is used in a deck. This could be done when playtesting ideas, or when playing a deck that has valuable cards in it that could otherwise be damaged or devalued through physical play.

Splash- this refers to players building decks with multiple mana colors present in the decks. If a deck is primarily one color but contains a small amount of another color, this would be considered splashing the secondary color into the deck.

Tutor- this term is describing an action of a player casting a spell or using an ability that allows the searching of their library for a particular spell.

This is certainly not a comprehensive list, nor is it meant to be. I do not even know if the ultimate Magic Lexicon of Slang words exists. What I do know is that if you were to read this and become familiar with some of the terms you could certainly read through a blog such as this one and have a much clearer idea of what is being written about.

Or maybe not.

Either way, it is certainly a fun exercise to wade through the dynamic world of slang within a sub-culture that exists throughout the world.

A special thanks goes out to all the members of the website Tapped Out, and especially Sir Caley: www. tappedout.net
They were tremendously helpful in coming up with familiar slang terms I knew about but would not have otherwise remembered. A second thanks goes out to Wizards of the Coast for providing the community with such gems as Timmy, Johnny and Spike.

Enjoy.

Commemorating 100th Game for Don

Congratulations Don! You played your 100th game on Saturday in the pit FFA's against Snape and Xiao on Saturday.

From here on out each win that you accumulate will remove exactly one card from this girl's dress.

I believe it looks like they are attached by yarn should it shouldn't be to hard to yank them off.




Matt and Xiao are on their way to their 100th games as well, so brainstorm ways of celebrating theme commemorative experiences.

I think for Matt we should get him a box of new cards and make him open it at a Starbucks all by himself.

Thoughts?

The 25th Recap of Events

Saturday saw some fun format of Magic being played as we played quite a bit of free for all, and we also played some Prismatic as well, which is a change of pace from the ordinary multiplayer games.

Saturday we had a nice turnout as Don, Xiao, Snape, Paul and Halo were all in attendance to start the night off.

There were a lot of games played but the most fun on Saturday was surely the Prismatic game. If not familiar, this is a game where five players each play one of the colors of Magic. The decks played must be only that color. The five players sit in accordance to the order of the orbs, as seen on the back of a Magic card. Each orb has two orbs across from it that are that color's enemy colors. In the prismatic game, the object of the game is to kill both of your enemy colors before anyone else kills their enemy colors. Easier said than done.
In our game on Saturday, Paul sat in the white position, Xiao in blue position, I sat in black position, Snape sat in red position and Don sat in green position.
As the game got going Paul got out to an early start only to see his position weaken when Snape blasted his creature into nothingness with burn. Paul retreated back to his hand, and allowed other people to incur the wrath of Snape, while he collected card advantage in his hand. Xiao was content to throw a counter out here and there, but most of the action settled on Don and me. Don was aggressively playing cards and getting ramp built up, while I was trying to kill everything Don had. By turn 6 I had board presence with 2 Royal Assassins, who were eager to kill off anything Don tapped, which was many things each turn with all of the mana he was trying to generate for his Eldrazi spells. While I wasn't purposely trying to target Don, both he and Paul were the colors I had to kill and Paul was not posing a threat, and Don was specifically targeting me with his attacks so I had to counter. Early on Don attacked me with a Eldrazi causing me to sacrifice some much need land, but I kept me Royal Assassins for "blocking" and kept the pressure off as much as I could. Snape proved to be my worst enemy of all, as most of the damaging moves he made were game-crippling for me and no one else. One would expect that as Blue and White were his enemy colors, he would have been content on killing and disrupting their plans, and actions. Instead the only person throughout the entire match that killed off any of my creatures was Snape. Which wouldn't have been as frustrating as it actually was had other people had creatures out when he chose to play board-sweeping burn spells. Maybe it was just confusion. Or maybe he was wearing Pabst goggles.
Around about the time I was losing yet another wave of creatures to Snape and his burn, I was nodding to Paul across the table that I knew who would win the match, and Paul knowingly nodded his head towards Xiao, to which I slowly nodded.
Assessing the situation, and the events as they transpired had seen my board presence thwarted at each turn by Don and Snape, and Paul was not able to do much, while Xiao was slowly building up a nice army of land to be able to play his Platinum Angel, which we knew was coming. It was the moment he played Whispersilk cloak, that I understood what the game would amount to.
Many....many...many turns later Snape, and Don were both dead, and Paul and I were left alive trying to figure out if there was something we could have done to prevent the inevitable, but there was not.
So, a brief history of our Prismatic game boils down to Paul winning the first one playing Blue, Snape winning the second match playing Red, and Xiao winning the third playing Blue. It almost makes me want to play a mono colored Blue deck for the next Prismatic game, although...I just can't seem to condone that for myself. I like Black and White far too much to stray away into uncharted territories.

After we finished up the Prismatic game, we split up having three people play a FFA game, and two people playing heads-up, best of three. We rolled for original seat positions and then started. The idea was that the winner of the heads-up game would stay in their seat playing the winner of the FFA game, and the loser of the heads-up game would move into the FFA game, which became known throughout the evening as the Magic Mosh Pit. Paul was stymied by the format at first until it dawned on him what exactly we were doing, in a moment of clarity. Paul did spend a good amount of time playing at the heads-up table against various challengers, and Snape was a little bit frustrated during the FFA games when he could not get a win to save his own life, and the games that started well for him saw him ganged up on by the opponents as a mutual threat. It was a bit funny for me specifically because I like seeing someone else experience the usual treatment I get within the FFA format. A taste of their own medicine, as it were. (I'll have a good example of this to share from the Monday night games, to be certain).

Overall for Saturday evening Paul seemed to be the most dominant, as he was seeing some extremely good draw from his decks, for some good solid wins.

For a note of personal glory I was able to face Paul with my Vampirehouse-5 deck, against his Giddy Up deck for a re-match of last week where in brutal fashion he smash those white knights down my vampires throats. This week I was able to redeem myself and give him a nice dose of Vampire lovin' with a little help from Paul's new BFF: Gatekeeper of Malakir, which in a nice serendipitous fashion I would get in my hand when I needed them, but wasn't hoping for them.

On Monday we were pleased to see Matt, with many new deck creations! and Chris stop by Paul's to join in some nice Magic melee.

Since each of the games were logged, I will give a brief synopsis of each:

The first was a 3-way FFA with Chris playing U/W, Halo playing mono-U, and Paul playing mono-W. Paul was victorious with the quicker deck, and a nice helping of battlecry bonus damage for the win.

In a heads-up game Chris was playing his new G/W infect deck against Paul's mono-W Giddy Up and got slapped around, watching Paul take the match 2-0.

Chris then faced up against Matt, playing his R/W Red Cross deck, while playing his own mono-R Face Destroyer and winning the match 2-1.

Then in a 4-way FFA game I was able to eek out victory with my B/W Tale of Two Mimics, over Chris's mono-G Eldrazi deck, Matt's U/B Hematoma, and Paul's mono-G Mana Whore Eldrazi deck.

In a second 4-way FFA game, I watched by idly as Matt and Chris both beat my ass down rendering me useless with my Tale of Two Mimics. Matt was playing his mono-R artifact deck, and Chris was still playing the mono-G Eldrazi deck. Paul won the match with his mono-G Mana Whore deck, letting the other two focus all of their attacks and enery on me, while he built of land and resources to spit out Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. The game was notable for me as it was the first time that I had lost, with that deck in a 4-way FFA game. I had no chance. The bad blood was still in everyone's mouth from the previous game. I should never again play the same deck in a 4-way FFA back to back.

Matt played his G/B Vampire deck True Blood against my R/B Vampire deck Vampirehouse-5 and I took both games due to overwhelming creature power from a Blade of the Bloodchief.

Matt and I also played a match with his Artifact deck against my U/B One Day War infect deck where I was able to ping him for Poison counters with Phyrexian Crusaders aplenty.

Chris and Paul matched up with the mono-R Face Destroyer getting destroyed by Paul's R/B Rotten Leftovers, where Kiln Fiends and Ob-Nixilis are the flavors of the day for his leftovers.

After Chris left a 3-way FFA ensued where I played U/W control, Matt played his mono-R haste deck, and Paul played R/W land destruction/damage prevention. I had shit luck and didn't draw a single Luminarch Ascension the whole game, which left me on permanent defense, as the only creatures I put out were promptly lightning bolted by Paul. I promptly scooped my cards in disgust and frustration as soon as Paul play armageddon. Matt spent the whole game attacking me, which pretty much just forced me to use resources and make stupid decisions allowing Paul to sit back and watch. It's like Magic played as The Scarlett Letter.

The next 3-way FFA Paul won in a see-saw battle with his mono-W Giddy Up deck against my R/B Vampires and Matt's mono-R haste deck. Every advantage I gained against Paul was promptly taken away by Matt who certainly had it in for me all night, as he was my kryptonite for the evening.

To end the night Paul and I played another heads-up match where he was out for revenge from Saturday with his white knights against my vampires. The first game saw me get advantage on Paul early, and he spooged guard duty's all over my creatures only to see me get a Malakir Bloodwitch out on the field effectively rendering his spells and creatures useless. He scooped with no answer. The second game was a bit closer with a Student of Warfare out early and deemed indestructible by a Knight Exemplar on turn 3. Luckily I was able to come back on turn four with a Burst Lightning to kill of the Knight Exemplar leaving the student vulnerable. I played a Gatekeeper of Malakir (kicked) to kill it off and shift the tide of the game, while I still had 11 health points left. I bolstered my position on turn five with Anowon, the Ruin Sage and then drew a Malakir Bloodwitch to seal fate.

We decided to play one last match where I played Parody of Parity, and he played Rotten Leftovers. The first game I had him on the ropes and was ready on turn 5 to come over for the last poison counters, but his kiln fiend, came over on turn four for the full 20 damage in one turn leaving me shocked and impressed at the same time. He stole the game right out from under me. The second game I had to mulligan down twice to get land and still drew poorly, and Paul capitalized on the advantage playing Kiln fiend aggressively and forcing me to chump with my creatures to block and kill it. Ob-Nixilis came out and a turn later with the help of an Oracle of Mul Daya I saw the demon pump up drastically, and drain my life. I waited until he attacked to play condemn, but Paul had his own trick up his sleeve and cast fling on top of the stack in response to my condemn ending me again with a surprise. It was the best win of the night for Paul.



In other news, the photo at the top of this post is actual Magic art that is on display at the Wizards Cupboard in Tampa Bay, Florida. I can't believe people do stuff like that to their Magic cards.