Monthly Archives: July 2015

Sphinx’s Tutelage; aka only a Matter of Time until my Son Asks for a Mill Deck. part 23

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Last night i had a most disturbing dream that kept me awake a lot of the night, in my half asleep daze my mind drifted to Magic as it often has done lately and deck lists floated past my eyes.

SphinxsTutelage

Sphinx’s Tutelage i think is a sleeping powerhouse. This guy might just the Magic version of the second coming. Lets look at a standard list that came to be last night as well as how i can use it to tweak one of my modern decks.

In standard there is actually a lot of directions we can go to abuse this card. Two that game to mind straight away are an enchantment themed Herald of the Pantheon/Eidolon of Blossoms and Secret Plans/Morph decks. I think that the Herald of the Pantheon/Eidolon of Blossoms is a little stronger. However, if you look at some of my past Morph decks you can see just how many cards they can draw almost at will. This could just become a sideboard option for those style of decks.

4 Herald of the Pantheon
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Eidolon of Blossoms
4 Font of Fertility
4 Nylea’s Presence
4 Font of Fortunes
2 Font of Vigor

4 Banishing Light
4 Sphinx’s Tutelage
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Starfield of Nyx

22 lands
4 white/blue fetch
4 white/green fetch
6 forests
4 islands
3 plains

Kruphix’s Insight is another card you could add here. I am hoping that the raw card draw is good enough. everything thing says draw a card more or less.

While i was looking for the links for cards another idea came to mind, Evolutionary Leap with Elvish Visionary/Jeskai Sage/Palace Familiar/Wall of Mulch/Fate Foretold and Military Intelligence…. This one could be amazing also. I am just not sold on its ability to win with out the Tutelage. Where i think that the above list could win with out its named card.

In Modern, i play a Swan’s Skred deck, it is not bad just lots of counters and burn spells relying on Swans of Bryn Argoll and things like seismic assault or isochron scepter + a burn spell to finish the game. This deck might have just got a new win con. Painter’s Servant + Sphinx’s Tutelage ….

Painter's Servant

Yes, i am modern legal!

Sure it is a multi card combo to win on the spot. But adding a few to a dedicated control/draw list should be easy. Now i don’t have an exact list of what i am currently playing i can get close.

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Skred
4 Anger of the Gods or Pyroclasm (do you feel like you need it cheap or to exile?)

4 Serum Visions/gitaxian probe

4 Remand
4 Mana leak
3 Cryptic Command

4 isochron scepter – Snapcaster Mage if you got them

4 Swans of Bryn Argoll
2 Painter’s Servant
4 Sphinx’s Tutelage

Snow lands and fetches.

Before i would run 6 bounce spells and plan to grind people out with card advantage. But now i could just combo them out. Skred my Swans for 6, i draw 6, mill you for 12…. Untap, play painter… skred for 7, 1 draw 7 you mill 14 did you flip lands? No? repeat….

Seems good.

<3s

Thresome with Pia and Kiran

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I am super impressed with Pia and Kiran. So much so that i have been tinkering around basing a deck around the couple. Turns out that my wife had a bad release weekend tournament. So much so she has decided to set that deck a side. Guess fast red/green decks are just not good enough for our local meta. Personally i think she is just rusty at constructed and wants to change it up. She only played to even up the numbers, if there was a draft ready to fire she would have dropped us faster then a 0-2 pro in Las Vegas. But she has a title to defend as the last Game day champ. And maybe it is time for a new style of mono red….

Capture

Are they getting it on in public? Hot.

Threesome:

4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Chief of the Foundry
4 Thopter Engineer
3 Pia and Kiran

4 Ghostfire Blade
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Lightning Strike or Collateral Damage
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Darksteel Citadel
2-3 Foundry of the Consuls
and Mountains

Maybe some Scuttling Doom Engines or Atarka’s Command i don’t know. What i do know is that this deck is assembled for the most part. I just need to get it sleeved up and put it through its grinder.

Thoughts?
<3s

The Call that Never Came.

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One of my favorite movies of all time, is EuroTrip. I watch it at least once a year and often more then that. It just is a thing.

One of my favorite podcasts is Papa’s Basement. I like talk radio and John is a funny guy for a Greek… Is that raciest? Nah. Hell are Greeks known for not being funny? He might be the only Greek i know other then the guy who made me a gyro like everyday i was in downtown Denver for a conference. Damn! I love me a good gyro…. Brb, lunch break!

And back. Anyway, he and his nerd friend Rich, started a new podcast the LSV Fanclub. This one is magic themed and practically licks LSV’s balls. And i think if Rich and John got the chance to take a man nibble they might if only for the story. But it is good and i think with some work it can be great.

Long story short, i have talked with John about being a guest on his show or on one of mine a few times but it is easy to promise but hard to follow through. Just ask my wife about favor repayments when sexy time rolls around.

But This weekend was the weekend. I would love to make this work. It could be great. They need a limited/standard guy, John loses co-hosts faster then then hot chicks in the middle east get stoned for showing too much ankle. So making some in roads seems like a no brainier if i want to widen my audience. He has a following that hasn’t yet come around to the glory that is my open hole. Ie my word maker, you sickos!

This weekend was it. I was hot of the Pre release here at the shop. I also happened to be fired up about some stuff that rocked the fun out of my weekend and a nice public venting is just what i needed. And then like that seen out of Eurotrip the girls never came.

There were some scheduling issues on their side and clearly we didn’t tape. Bummer, but it happens when one co-host lives in the same time zone or one over; let a lone 6. Rich is living in France at the moment. Guess he is into hairy chicks…. I don’t know.

I was hanging with my DDo peps blowing off steam, keeping an eye out in the event that their shit game together. Maybe next week.

Give it a shot if you are into magic or if you want to make sweet man love to LSV. They even say a little prayer to keep his beard full and lush. I like LSV a lot, he is one of my favorite pros hands down but a little prayer?

Fuck, why do i want to be on this show again? We all know that Conley Woods is where the real action is at! Oh god, i just downloaded Conley’s twitter photo to my desktop to use as the image for this post. Now my wife can mock me for being gay for Conley in new and exciting ways. Shout out Conley, one time in bed…

<3s

Soulfire Grand Master is a Myth Realized

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Last week i wrote about a jeskai list i have been theorizing about here is a link to that write up. My actual list however is a few cards different, mostly to my access to the cards issues. Here is the latest version of the list.

2 Myth Realized
3 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Monastery Mentor
4 Ojutai Exemplars
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Dragonlord Ojutai
3 Magma Jet
2 Roast
2 Valorous Stance – Devouring Light
2 Stoke the Flames
2 Ojutai’s Command
2 End Hostilities
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Dig Through Time
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Crater’s Claws
2 Narset Transcendent

So far this is what i know. Devouring Light is amazing in this list and i am main decking them at the moment. If you ever buy back or rebound a Treasure Cruise or a Dig you feel unbeatable. But i am not even sure if i want blue spells in the deck now.

You could go deeper into red/white with Elspeth, Sun’s Champions and token makers to make the exemplars and the over all theme of the deck even stronger.

But i was looking through my binder and i noticed that Naya mana is very sweet right now with all the fetches and temples. A 8 fetch land 8 basic 8 temple mana base would be quite good and having access to Atarka’s Command and Dromoka’s Command might be just stronger then the blue cards.

I am not sure.

Think i will get a few more games in with this list as it is then try it with out the blue and see if i even need the card draw. I might not.

I do want to make Narset good though. And i can’t foresee something doing a better job of abusing her then the Cruise/Dig combo…

We all get to Vote, MtG Hall of Fame!

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I had planed to go through a bit of an update of the Jeski list i have been working on for the last week or two, but then i saw the article on the “mothership” and i thought no brainier.

So my votes for the 2015 Class for the Pro Tour Hall of Fame

First off the easy one, Eric Froehlich. I have been a fan of Eric for a long time and he has been having an amazing year. Teaming up with Marshall Sutcliffe to do Constructed Resources was/is an amazing marketing idea putting him in the much deserved lime light.

Think my next vote would have to be for Gerard Fabiano. Gerard just lives outside the box the rest of the Magic world lives in and you can see that in his card evaluations and deck choices. I like that a lot so another easy vote.

Willy Edel, is G/B Magic. You might hear it said that he is Brazilian magic, and it is true. Looking at his stats i don’t know how he can’t be a shoe in this year.

If we are looking at records that make people a shoe in then Shouta Yasooka is just that. PT top eights, 2 including a win and second place. Something like 20 GP top 8s including a win and numerous second places finishes.

Then i want to wrap things up with a deck name i will always remember. Heezy Street, the name of the deck Mark Herberholz used to win Pro Tour Honolulu 2006. Ravnica/Kamigawa standard was an amazing time in magic’s history. And this was one of if not the first PT i remember watching live and being a huge fan boy. I am not a big sports fan, i don’t watch any sports on tv with any regularity. I do like a hockey game once and a while but for the most part, neigh. This was my first Super Bowl. And i remember being exited.

Bam! that was a fast five. I hope all Magic fans can take a moment and vote. Think this is the first year that us normal magic players get to vote people into the Hall and i would like to see it continue.

If you don’t know what i am talking about here is a link.

<3s

I want to be a Kingsman or aTerminator

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This past weekend was sweet. First of all i want to thank everyone that sent birthday well wishes, i did have a great day and weekend as a whole. Tobril, fled Nebraska for the shining glory that is the Kansas sky and we promptly hid from that burning ball of fiery death and watched a movie.

Terminator Genisys, was a fine summer movie. And a solid enough movie that i am sure i will pick it up from the Google Play store when i want to see it again. One of the things that really got me other then the super easy foreshadowing or the “Easter Eggs” with the story ties ins from the other movies or the shot for shot reshoots, was how much they made Emilia Clarke look like Linda Hamilton. There were so many shots that i could have sworn that they were the same person. Over all i really liked the movie a lot and it gets one of my highest ratings: the Confused Wife!

Then Tobril and i continued watching Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor. For those that haven’t seen this Amazon has it on their instant video section now. Guyver has been one of our favs for years. Back in high school we had to rent vhs tapes (the 1989 version) from Blockbuster and they didn’t have the whole series so we ended up missing huge chunks of it. Also there are a few live action movies, which are also good in that bad movie kind of way. Check it out if you can.

Yesterday, after Tobril headed home i was still in movie watching mode and bought Lucy and Kingsman from Google Play. Lucy was good but Kingsman was great. I “made” the wife watch Lucy with me. Once again we have the Confused Wife rating, i feel that it could have been a little stronger had they not beat that poor drum of a concept that we don’t use our whole brain over and over. They could have easily gone with IQ points vs % of brain; that could have been true and might not have pulled me out of the story each time they did so.

Kingsman, on the other side gets my highest rating. Not sure what that would be. I need to make a set scale i guess. I wish i would have seen it at the theater i would have bought it right away for sure. Just amazing. Remmie got the pleasure of watching it with me but wasn’t as big of a fan as i was. He had an issue with the use of animals in the film. He is an animal lover to the max.

Couldn’t have had a better weekend if i tried i don’t think. Well not in a very likely manor anyway….

<3s

Magic Online or not to Online? That is a Fucked up Question…

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Werds kids,

Day 2 of my write everyday and it is 11:54 Pm and i have a lot more to say then 6 mins will allow. But i want to talk about Magic Online aka Modo, it seems to be a hot topic at the moment. Not as hot as say ladies playing Magic which i am pro-more magic players. I don’t care if you have a vagina or not or are in the process of getting one if you dig Magic then play! Tell any haters to go to hell, and that includes me if i say something offensive. Was that more white privilege then i should have let out of the bag at one time? Nah….

No today i wanted to talk about me and Magic Online. Back in the day (Rav Block) i had my Modo account and i was rocking games. I was lucky enough to run into a few writers at the time and got a few brews written up by them and felt like a brew master. It was sweet. I was up all night playing Magic. Drafting/Constructed it didn’t matter i needed the fix. My constructed decks i was into were cheep to build and stole games off people with strange cards that no one else played. And 8 mans filled with ease. Life was good.

Then i got too deep. I was drafting more times a day then i could afford. But i was on the brink of going infinite, or at least i convinced myself that i was. But at the end of the night, selling to the bots, i was always a little short of the next fix. It was an addiction. About that time i decided that i needed to cut back and that is when i took a break. I switched to DDo. Another game i love (anther addiction) but had a fixed cost each month.

I saved money and fell off the planet to my “real life” friends. Now that i am not 100% locked in  DDo i can do things but my “real life” pals have a life and it is hard to break back in.

Now i want to play online again, if i work a draft or two in to the budget each month i could make things happen. But that is not the way to play online if you have the goal of breaking even or better. Now if i had the spare money to invest in both paper and Modo i would do so in an heart beat. And i might do a kickstarter or something i don’t know. If my schedule shifts the way i think it will here real soon i hope to have more time to stream different games and Modo would be a game i would want to stream for sure.

And while Modo, is great and i like it a lot in theory anyway i can’t give up paper Magic. At least not yet. If you listen to my tiny house podcast, i do with Tobril, TalkTiny2Me.com; I have said how my plan to get the tiny house going when the time comes is to cash out my paper collection at least the big dollar items. I can’t cash out my modo account and expect to build a house or even make a real dent in that cost. But my paper collection….. Maybe? The other day Tobril and i were talking about selling off his old games and whatnot and we started to talk about the value of some of his cards. And you know what he has 8 Force of Wills extra AT LEAST! Force is a little over a 100 bill right now. He has at least a thousand dollars in about 8-9 cards. You can’t expect to do that with Modo.

There are numerous good reasons to play Modo. The newest CONSTRUCTED RESOURCES, did a great job of outlining the pros and cons of doing so. But for me it would be a play both with paper and on Modo. I couldn’t just move to Modo 100%, it wouldn’t make sense for me with the way physical cards are being handled in the secondary markets. There is just too much free value in having those actual cards.

Also to their list i want to add a few things:

  • You can’t really sit down at the kitchen table with a few friends/family and play Modo over a few drinks and have a party. There will always be a box physical decks at my house that we can whip out at with but a moments notice. In my case i keep all the pre-made theme decks we buy together to battle when people don’t have a deck to play.
  • I can play with out power or an internet connection. Laugh but there has been more time in my life with out the internet then with it. And i know how easy it is for power to go down. A winter or two back some members of my family were with out power at their house for 2 weeks do to a bad ice storm. I live in Kansas shit happens here.
  • If Modo is so cheep to buy into how can you expect to cash out at a good rate?
  • And with physical cards i personally see generous people. A while back a local player won a win a box. And he sat down and opened said box while hanging out at the shop. He gave everyone his his circle at the time a pack to open to celebrate his victory. Then he gave away any of the cards he didn’t need for his collection (any card not just low value cards) to those that did have a use for those cards. That level of generosity is hard to come by in a digital only world. And that is not the only time i have seen one of our local players do something like that.

To any of my local magic players that read this far, i know some of you are thinking about the switch and if you are doing so please do not cash out of the physical cards completely. Keep your playsets or least the land base for any format/s you enjoy. Sure there are online events, but how often do you feel like playing away from the computer? There is a large group of people “fighting” to play Magic and be treated like any other player. See how i rounding back to the ladies playing Magic. Smooth. If you ask anyone that “quits” Magic and cashes out then comes back what their biggest Magic regret is I 100% know they will say is cashing out. Just sit on those cards. Maybe pair down. Sell things like extra copies or things that you feel will have a low rebuy in cost if you decide to return. For a minimum of at least for 2 years. After that if Modo is 100% all you need then God bless.

For me it is paper first.

<3s