Monthly Archives: January 2015

Magical Monday 1.26.2015

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Welcome once again to my Magical Monday. For those in the know this last weekend was my LGS’s first Modern TCGplayer tournament, which was both my brain child and my first real opportunity to show off my deck design skills by winning a large event.

Unfortunately, i both failed to win which hurts. But the event was not the large event i was hoping it would be, which REALLY hurts. Release events for us are not big turnout events, but i guess they are large for our surrounding game shops as we only had 2-4 out of towners and a lot of our normal people decided that they would rather work then help make us the place to be for magic tournaments. Sigh…

* note, I have received some feedback letting me know that my word choice left something to be desired by those that had to work vs make it to the event. I want to be clear, i totally understand. Obligations are just so for a reason. I did not mean to make anyone feel like they are not supporting the LGS if they had prior obligations to attend work or whatever. I just wanted to say that people had to work and that that took away from the expected turnout.

I was able to draw into the top 4 being one of the two undefeated players. So that was nice.  But i made a deck registration error giving me my first game lost of the day and then in the simi finals to boot. Where i mulled to a solid 6, stumbled on lands for too long and just got beat to death by a 3/4 flyer. Thankfully, the gentleman that defeated me was able to win out so i can’t feel too bad, i did only drop one game it just happened to be a 2 for 1.

Let me be a lesson to you all kids. Someone will loose to mis-registering their deck. Don’t let it be you.

Okay now that the main event i was planing for is over i want to share my list and see if you all have suggestions.

A few quick notes, i felt that the best deck was delver so i wanted to beat that and i feel the best cards in the format are Thoughtsieze, Young Pyro, Lighting Bolt and Lingering Souls. With the best card draw being Bobs.  Yep see how Delever is the best deck… I know i often make no sense even to myself.

Mardu Delver…

4 Thoughtsieze
4 Lighting Bolt
2 Darkblast
4 Lighting Helix
2 Lingering Souls (This was my deck reg error, thought i cut 1 for Liliana but guess i didn’t and had 3 in my deck)
2 Crackling Doom

1 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Dark Confident
4 Young Pyromaster
3 Pack Rat
2 Butcher of the Horde

2 Seismic Assault
4 Liliana of the veil

Lands including 1 Mutavault 8 fetches 3 basics and a lot of shock lands. Other then the one game where i only had a fetch and a Mutavault my lands were not an issue.

Overall the deck ran like a charm. Each card won me a game and were nuts at different time. Sure Seismic Assault was a bit of a hedge for decks running Blood Moon or those games were i want to flood out or vs a deck with as much removal as i had. Crackling Doom was for Boggles and Affinity. Nothing says “F you too” as when they go all in and you Doom them.

If the tournament was tomorrow would i change anything? Well anything other then that registration error?

Not really. The deck just ran well until i was due to lose one, it is not the decks fault that i had to win both games and couldn’t. You can’t win every game.

Personally i feel that this deck gives you the best option to out play any deck. Has game one hedges vs every deck i could thing of other then Jeski combo. To win that you have to get lucky and Thoughtsieze the right card at the right time. Although Darkblast can catch a Jeski player with their pants down as well as Crackling Dooms. But it is a hard match up. If the deck lives though the loss of Cruse.

Well that was it. Next week i hope to have some new Standard lists ready for you all.

<3s

Magical Monday 1.19.2015

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Like every other person that writes about Magic on the planet i want to talk up the new set and how they apply to my pet deck. Dictate of the Defecting Palm as a refresher, here is the list.

4 Deflecting Palm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Searing Blood
1 Crater’s Claws
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Fated Conflagration
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Dictate of the Twin Gods
2 Circle of Flame
23 lands
4 r/w temples
4 r/w pain lands
2 r/w/u tru lands
rest mountains

My current sideboard is full of things to deal with Whip of Erebos and token makers like Hording Outburst and Goblinside. Guess i am also rocking a few Arc Lightnings.

After more then a few reps with this deck over this many months, i have taken note of its faults. Namely the lack of card filtering ie the tendency for it to flood out. It is a funny balance right, you are totally dependent on this 5 mana enchantment to finish the game so you want enough mana to cast it and then win out on the back of blowing people’s mind. Or blowing our wad to stabilize and then hunting for a win con.

However looking at Fate Reforged we have a great answer to not just one of issues but both!

Filtering and another win con all in one. Just happens to also be immune to sorcery speed removal and if the opponent uses a removal spell on this guy then i guess i will just have to try to not piss myself laughing.

Arcbond, is also another great one. Picture this it is the end of turn 5 and you flash in Dictate on to a board full all that is left in your hand is this guy, a land and some kind of sweet burn spell. Arcbond your Rhino, Anger your team you take 12. Pass.

What do you think?

<3s

Resolutions 2015

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Welcome back everyone. Good to be back after the new year and all the hoot’nanny that goes along with it. I want to start off by wishing everyone a good new year for the coming weeks and whatnots.

Long time readers know that every year i do a little review of last years goals and then set some new ones that i try and check in with midway through the year as to try and keep them on track. So lets began the year in review.

1, Be more forgiving in game. Wow, DDo was a huge part of my world at the start of the year last year. Now i barely play but i am happy to say something flipped in me and i am fairly forgiving of others mistakes as well as my own. Not real sure when that happened but i am glad.

2, Gencon and weight loss. So in January i was reeling from suddenly not being employed and i let it get to me in a bad way. A large part of that was a hit to my over all health mostly at due to my large belly. And i want to say i was doing well again. Or at least better. Then Remmie had his run in with the car and MY health was no longer an issue. But i could still fast walk from one side of the con to the other and not be super winded and that was my goal.

3, Education. Can’t say expanding my edu has been a huge focus. I mean i have been learning a lot of things in lots of areas but mastering a topic hasn’t happened. But i can always do more and i should.

4, Podcasting…. So i did some pods. I can’t help being on break, right?

5, The pen and paper module, well i did make some strides in that area. I did get to run it once this year with a trusted test group and while i think we added some things that made it less then amazing it was fun and showed me where my problems are. Now i just need to get them fixed and fleshed out.

Okay so with those in mind, i need to set some goals.

1, Be kinder. I am not a nice guy. Nor am i intentionally mean. But what is the difference between some one that is unintentionally mean and some one that is? Not a lot right? I have a lot of pain and baggage from my past that touches me every day every minute and it colors how i see the world. About once a month my wife gets her fill of my shit that i don’t even know that is bothering her and calls me on it. And it would be nice if she didn’t have to call me out so often.

2, Write more. I started another project that might if it goes well, change the way my family lives. It is risky but comes with great rewards. And instead burning all my free time on bullshit i should try and write more. I mean i have a hour or so each night before finally mentally chilling out i could spend some of that time sharing.

3, Play more. More DDo, more Magic, more Pokemon, more everything. To do all of that i need to better handle my time. there is 24 hours a day and if i spend 7 of them asleep and 15 of them working i have 2 hours somewhere for other things. I just need to get those 2 hours in a place where they can be better spent.

4, Try out the pro’s lists. I am not a deck copier. Sometimes i think i would get better results if i was. So i want to try a few “pro” lists and see if my own desire to build my own deck is holding me back or if it is my play skill.

5, Show Profit. My other other job is at my local game store, The Arena. I have been working as the Community Manager there for a few months now and the turnouts for a lot of our different tournaments/events have grown but sales have not grown by enough to say i am very profitable. And i both love this job and want to see my shop grow because they are my friends/my shop. So i need to start to show larger payoffs at the end of the day and i think that will happen as long as i keep giving it my all.

Bonus, Get my level 1. In Magic the Gathering, judges are a tournament resource like any other and in my area we need more of that resource. I have been working with a couple of guys to get them their lvl 1 judge and one of them did last weekend and i could not be more proud. But just like how i haven’t actually played in the last few larger tournaments to spend my time running said tournament. I didn’t want to over work the judge we were able to bring in to help us out with out event.

There we go, six simple to say hard to do goals. Plus the standard ones of getting back on the healthy track and more Edu…

<3s and i hope your 2015 is a great one.