Author Archives: samiusgurobo

The Death of June, Return of Updates

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Morning everyone,

Some of you might have noticed that i took a little bit of a break from blogging for about the last month or so. I just needed to recharge, i felt like i was just pumping out the same decks or talking about the same things over and over.  That is MY problem being a brewer, some times a card just gets stuck in your head and you can’t find a deck at clears the cache as it where.

I am not going to make any promises on formats but i hope to write at least a little something each day again through July. I have enough going on in in my daily gaming world/life i hope to have enough to talk about.

Lets look at a few cards that have been rattling around in my head for a while and see if i can make some “Magic” happen.

Soulfire Grand Master
Monastery Mentor
Ojutai Exemplars

If you don’t know what a card does/is i linked you to their gatherer page. WoTC must not like letting people use their images for some reason.

So that is a pile of mythics, am i right or what?

Personally, i have loved Soulfire Grand Master since the moment i read the card. I just want play this on 2 and then lightingbolts forever! So lets do it!

I spent a little time looking for other decks that use the Soulmaster of Funk online and most of those lists are dull. And none of them are using Monastery Mentor or the Exemplars and both of these cards are insanely good.

4 Soulfire
4 Mentor
4 Exemplars
12

3 Magma Jet
2 Roast
2 Valorous Stance
1 Jeskai Charm
3 Stoke the Flames
2 Ojutai’s Command
2 End Hostilities
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Dig Through Time
1 Icy Blast
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Crater’s Claws

22
2 Narset Transcendent
2

The mana base for this deck should be simple.

4 Flooded Strand
3 Mystic Monastery
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Triumph
2 Battlefield Forge
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Mountain

My thinking is just look at all the sweet cards no one is expecting. I wanted to over tax my opponent’s brain with “what can he have” and take advantage of that over thinking. Your removal is solid enough to handle everything, that loan Icy Blast is mostly for my son who is constantly using it to finish games in his artifact/blue rush deck he is loving in standard.

I kinda want more Narset also… SO many cuts. Can you guess that i had Mindswipe in the main? If you are crazy like me you could cut the charm, a dig and that icy for 3 in the main and then take them out during side boarding. My plan for side boarding at the moment is Anger of the Gods, Magma Spray, Glare of Heresy, Stubborn Denial, and more plainswalkers would be good.

Is it good? I am not sure. But i do know that those 3 dudes pack a ton of power that is not seeing a ton of standard play and i think it is because everyone has latched onto decks of old like Abzan (or however you spell is) and a deck like this would shake it up and i think whoop up on a lot of the current meta.

<3s

Magical Tuesday 6.2.2015

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This past week/weekend was a bag of crazy and some of it had to do with magic.  Lets start things off the LGS (Local Game Store) i work part time for got broken in to Monday morning around 1am. Thanks to a weird happenstance the would be thief got nothing for his time, well not yet anyway. Once he is found he might get something… Anyway, that is why no Magic Monday, i was assisting with that fall out. But lets rewind to magic topics.

Thanks to changing my hours at my evening job i have been able to attend the last few FNM drafts. At these drafts i am 16-2 in games. 8-0 in matches. Not a bad record overall but what is nice to know is that the weeks before my shift change the FNM attendance had been falling. Part of my job is getting players in the store on Fridays as well as keeping them happy. My not being around effected that turn out a bit i believe but now that i am back things seem to be turning around again. Well for now anyway. We have a few of our area’s players leaving for greener pastures in the coming weeks some for the summer, some for a time unknown. I wish these players well as they are my friends but i can’t lie i will miss having them a in direct correlation to $$ spent at the LGS. Greedy i know.

Then on this last Saturday, we had a small 4 round win a box as a going away event for one of these guys and i was able to play as well as run the event.

Lost my first round mostly to the deck just not wanting to run issues. Mulled to 5 before finding a reasonable keep. And proceeded to flood out to an opponent (mulled to 6) with an aggressive open lion into boon stayer into deathmist into den protector. We were both at 7 when he was able to enchant the protector with the stayer for the win. Game 2, i kept a risky hand of red cards with black mana. I figured if i hit a red source in the first few draws i couldn’t loose. But it came a turn too late and my last out was one of my anger of the gods. It was the draw i would have drawn when he was able to push through with a 3/2 den protector.

I proceeded to win out to end on a record of 3-1. My first round opponent ended up playing in the finals and loosing, locking up second. I was in the top 4. Not too bad really.

There was an issue after the tournament was done. I am not in charge of figuring out prize product. We had 13 people at 15$ a head and gave out about a box and a half or 54 packs. The winner got a box and 2-3 split 18 packs between them. At our prices that gave the shop 33$ for running the event + the margins on the pack sales. Which we run VERY small margins on magic packs. I am not the accountant but i would assume after costs the shop might have made 10-15$ or so on the event.

For the record, If we used WoTC MSRP we would have giving out 48 packs. Or a box + 12 packs at MSRP that would be 57$ish dollars before costs. Or a much larger profit.

We have a very vocal player that feels that we should give out 100% of the entry fees in packs to the winners taking 100% of the profits out of the pack margins. Doing so with our current margins would have netted about 9$ before costs. Ie cost the shop money to hold events.

I told this player i would look at the numbers and see what i could do to address his concerns, but even after having talking with him about it, he still went on to bash the shop in front of other players about what he fills to be correct. And i did my best to counter this in the mind of those players in hear shot but he droned on. Including implying that he would talk to other people about his feelings even outside of the shop. People that i can not hope to reach out side of here or Facebook.

So if you are one of those people i hope you read to the end here and that this counters some of his argument. That said I AM looking at adjusting/creating a formula to assign winnings that is as favorable to the players as it is to the shop. If holding tournaments is not profitable then they will not be supported and that would be horrible.

Aside: This issue has been forefront in my mind since it happened. It just so happened that GP Las Vegas was this weekend. So i did some back of the napkin maths.

The base entry fee was 75$ and the attendance was over 7,100 players. I know there were more then that and i also know that all the different levels of the event were filled as well as a number of side events but i just want to use these numbers.

75*7100 is 532500

packs for 7100 for 2 days of a sealed is roughly 50000 or have a MSRP of 199500 or a cost of 13750 assuming that they didn’t get a better deal on packs for the GP.

I did the math on the prize support in cash on Sunday, so pardon if it is not 100% right but i remember it being just under 250000

Fees 532500
packs 137500
prize 250000
———–
145000 before paying staff and other fees.

Assuming about 100000 cost for this one event that is about 45000 profit for this one event. The largest tournament of all time. And that is not counting the side events, sells, booth rentals, concessions, etc…. And or 10$ on 195$ is a deal breaker????

I would love to hear peoples thoughts on this.

<3s

Magical Monday 5.18.2015

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Welcome back, Once again it is time for another Magical Monday. This past weekend was a beating in the world of MtG.

First of all i was able to get sealed deck tournaments in the monthly Friday Night Magic rotation and last Friday was Sealed day and i missed it due to some BS at the other job. The whole ordeal was super disappointing. I thought i had an understanding with the boss about Fridays but i guess i will just have to stop going in altogether on Fridays sooner then i expected. I can’t do the things i need to do on Friday’s at the shop if i am working over at Old D until late. When i finally make it to the shop i learn that one of the pods didn’t even fire. That means that for the last 3 weeks we have had one of our events not fire. I wasn’t around to fire up the crowd or bolster the numbers. Not having events fire is a huge deal.

There was a little bit of good news on Friday however, we had a few new players to the shop. Even in it cost Remmie some packs. I guess the young man he was playing was not the most experienced PAPER MtG player. He is a Mtgo player however so things like going through the steps and timing his cards is controlled for him by the program. Also he was just slow over all. I sat with him for a game and helped with the steps and whatnot. Helping him put the match to 1 and 1 with about 5 minutes left on the clock. I asked another judge to watch the table so i could handle something up front and be impartial during the play. But as i got up Bilal, the person that brought and paid for Jeremy (think that is the right name), told him to concede if they went to time. Jeremy said okay and Bilal and i went up front. A few minutes later the other judge i asked to watch the table came up and reported 1-1-1. I asked what happened with that concession and was told that was how Remmie reported. Remmie ended up winning the rest of his rounds until he played the eventual winner but that draw was practically a loss for finial standings.

Saturday, was Graduation Day for my niece (Salutatorian btw) as well as the Store Vs Store at home vs the Wichita team.. When i arrived 2/3s of the Wichita team didn’t even show. To have something for those that made the trip we held a special Win a Box for a MM2 box at a heavily reduced price. The Wichita draft team wanted to draft, but a lot of my draft team bailed and i was left with some good drafters but not those that had signed up. So we were all on different plans. Seemed like the whole table was in black, i know i was due to opened bomb black rare and getting passed 3 or 4 great black rares then nothing. I was able to move into green which was fairly open and got a fairly solid deck out of the deal. But just had massive amounts of mana issues all day long, often ending on turn 10-13 not missing a land drop and lands in hand. It was just a beating. 0-4.

I was told after the games finished up that i punted real bad in my first match. My opponent, Nathan said I was up a game and was in the race game 2. I had a Return to the Earth and i used it to kill a Jeskai Runemark to knock Nathan’s creature out of the sky. I was informed that i could have killed his flier… He had a removal spell for my guy and was able to 7 me twice thanks to Artful Maneuver, as i drew lands. But i think he was confused. I remember his guy being a manifest from a Cloudform that he had battle shipped into a 5/x. I had to kill the Cloudform to have a shot at removing his guy. If i am right then i didn’t punt even if they play was not great. But even so i can’t help but feel bad.

Game 3, we were back and forth. He was down to his last guy 4/x and i attacked for game but he had a removal spell. I had one of the cards i had splashed red for in my hand and then drew my only other red spell with no red source to cast them. Had i drew any other spell or a mountain i would have won.

I did my best to be a good sport and take my lumps but i thought my 2 and 2 would be my worse record but i was wrong. Oh well, i still had fun and i guess i will just have to try and be more aggressive next time.

<3s

Magical Monday 5.11.2015

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Greetings and Salutations, Hope you all are well and that you are finding inspiration in the current meta that is Standard. Wow, so many options….

If you have been watching this site you know that i have become obsessed with the card Assault Formation, more so now that i filled out my play-set. Pumping out list after list building around this card has become one of my mental exercises to help wake up in the morning. Now if i can just get my brain to shut up at night so i can get some sleep.

Long time readers might remember that not too long ago i was infatuated with constellation themed decks. Namely those using two key cards.

And i think i have at least the beginnings of a list combining the two key ideas.

4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
2 Underworld Coinsmith

4 Grim Guardian
3 Nyx Weaver
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Courser of Kruphix

1 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Doomwake Giant
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
2 Dragonlord Dromoka

4 Assault Formation
2 Kruphix’s Insight
2 Whip of Erebos

24 lands including 12 temples and 4 tri-lands….
Is this list good? I don’t really know. But it should be a lot of fun. I could even see pulling out the white all together for a Green/Black list.

4 Grim Guardian
2 Nyx Weaver
2 Pharika, God of Affliction
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Master of the Feast

1 Fate Unraveler
1 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Doomwake Giant
2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier

2 Strength of the Fallen
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Assault Formation
2 Collected Company
2 Whip of Erebos

I like this list a lot also even if we don’t have the super cheep beaters but sometimes it is nice to have a good plan B and C.

There are a lot of ways to build an Assault Formation deck. A friend of my just loves his G/W/B list, and that is the point. It is a card that empowers diversity. Not like that big nasty Rhino that happens to also be good with Assault Formation…

<3s

Magical Monday 4.27.15

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4x Monastery Swiftspear
2x Bloodsoaked Champion

4x Dragon Fodder
4x Hordeling Outburst
3x Brutal Hordechief
4x Goblin Rabblemaster
3x Mardu Strike Leader

4x Impact Tremors
1x Break Through the Line
3x Stoke the Flames

2x Foul-Tongue Shriek
4x Hero’s Downfall

1x Temple of Malice
3x Bloodfell Caves (should be Temples but could only find 1)
4x Bloodstained Mire
7x Mountain
6x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

 

Sideboard

2x Outpost Siege
4x Anger of the Gods
4x Thoughtseize
1x Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury
2x Stain the Mind
2x Break Through the Line

Welcome to Magical Monday, This is the list i ran this weekend for my LGS’s Alternate Art Ugin tournament. I was able to place second loosing to Abzan Agro in the finals due to me not knowing what Sorin’s +1 would do to my math. I didn’t realize that he gave +1/0 as well as lifelink and messed up my math by 2 points. Costing me a game i should have won and putting me on tilt for game two again costing me the game by having the fear of Sorin.

But lets focus on what we learned.

I only need 2 Break Throughs in the 75. They are good in the matchups where they are good but i never wanted three of them.

I think i need a 23rd land in the main, think i can cut a Mardu Strike Leader. They are almost Rmaster 5-6 but not quite.

I want to add 4 Lightning Berserkers to the 75 somewhere. Maybe cut a Bloodsoaked for 1 in the main and the Kolaghan, a Thoughtseize, and that extra Break Through the Line to make room for them.

Oh and i got caught with my pants down by a Searing Blood out of the mono red list, wonder if they would serve me better then the Stokes….

Impact Tremors and Foul-Tongue Shriek were huge every game i had one. Often just winning me the game straight up. I could see adding a Purphoros some where. I could also see going up to 4 Shriek but i am not sure what to cut.

Felt i was in the driver’s seat all weekend until that finals even with the round 1 loss. There is another event this weekend that i think i will attend, this one has a cash payout. And i plan to run it back i think as the deck is just a beating assuming no huge play errors on my part.

As always, feed back is welcome.

<3s

Magical Monday 4.20.15

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Welcome back, it was another busy one magic-wise for me this last weekend. My shop, The Arena, had our game day tournament and i actually got to play. I took a deck that i wanted to try and thought was a lot of fun but wasn’t a “good” deck. But i knew that going into the event. Ended up going 1 and 3 loosing to the winner of the tournament, the guy that took second and the wife who was not having fun and we were having a good time so i might have “let her win” game 2, then she just smashed my face game 3 super badly. Which i think made her smile a little bit. So it was worth it.

Sunday, was an away game vs Hays in our Store Vs Store series as is the norm i was on the draft team. While i feel good about the format i was unsure about the Hays guys and their draft style. My last two away games were not great for me going 2 and 2 i believe. Spoiler alert i drew my first round which is my normal play for winning out the rest of the matches. Which i did.

This is my deck….

2015-04-20 23.37.09

 

I know that some of the cards are hard to read so i will hit the highlights.

Qarsi High Priest, insane every time i had it other then the one game where it was my only guy for like 4 turns.

S Faithful, I had 2 of these guys and while i only main decked the first one; the second one was huge in many games.

P Familiar/J Sage, 2 drops that drew a card when they die are good. Go figure.

Hand of “the bad touch” Silumgar, 2 power deathtoucher? Yep, he went almost all the way one game before trading way up.

M Loremaster/Spell-Eater, these guys did a ton of work. One game i was able to trade while regrowing the Foul Renewal to regrow/kill a card advantage dude and another real threat.

Marang River Prowler/Skeleton, MVPs! Not kidding. These guys are real. And they carried a ton of weight. At one point i was Attacking with the prowler then sacking him to the high priest then replaying him for the value. So good!

O Interceptor x 2, 4/2 fliers. Yep, Good.

Write into Being, I want this card in constructed deck. It did everything for me this weekend. Hit morphs, found or buried lands as needed. Just an limited all star.

M Adept, just yep. There was one play where i was facing down a huge flyer and my opponent cast the rebound protection spell on it naming blue (my only flyer and this guy) but i had a Coat with Venom (another all-star) giving a morph flying and deathtouch and blowing out my opponent.

V Aven/ G Drowner, these guys just drew me so many cards it was insane. I only think there was one time the Drowner found anything other then great spell, land, land, land. The games where it found Foul Renewal i was unbeatable.

A Statue, I love this guy if i have any value guys OR if my opponent is on white/x. Pacifism, is a real spell in the format. This just eat it and rebuys the value while just making a super killer.

Coat with Venom, I think this is one of the best black commons. Top 5 for sure.

Mirror Mockery, Also super good. There were a lot of places where i could but it on their guy and “blue Pacifism” it. Which i did a few times. And there was as many times where i was just able to get value by cloning my Avens/Drowners.

Whisk Away/Flatten, good removal spells. There was an attack where the warrior agro deck attacked me with 5 or 6 2 or 3/2 and he had the warrior that made all his warriors require two blockers. I was able to flatten him after baiting him into an attack. Then i lined up all these complicated blocks opening myself up to taking like 10 damage (via the pump warrior). But the opponent decided to go for the big blow out with a butcher’s glee on my M Adept/V Aven block on his 3/2 first striker. Away with you nasty 6/2 first stikeing life linker.

Foul Renewal, my first pick another one of them all-stars. If you can get one and regrow it, do it!

Reach of Shadow x 2, 5 mana removal…. Still good in limited.

Sideboard super helpers Shambling Goblins x 2, i brought them in against the warrior deck and they were huge.

 

Well that was it, between the boy and myself we got 11 packs for 30$ and i picked up a lot of important points in the Store v Store scoring. I just need to keep it up.

 

Alright kids it took me an hour to type this up and i need to get to bed.

<3s

Monastery Mentor for Modern

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I have been asked for a deck list or two for Modern that is focused around the card Monastery Mentor. Guess some people have them, i don’t at the moment but i plan to get some. Personally, i just feel like they are amazing in all formats. The fact there there isn’t already a ton of modern lists online floating around is a testament to how focused everyone is on other formats.

My head goes right to a red/white token list with a heavy burn sub theme.

 

4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Monastery Mentor

4 Path to Exile
4 Lava Spike
4 Collateral Damage
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Boros Charm

You could go a little more control like me i like Mardu control.

4 Young Pyromancer
4 Dark Confidant
4 Monastery Mentor

4 Bitterblossom

4 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix

4 Lingering Souls

Even something a little more out of the box now that i have learned that one of my favorite cards “Disciple of the Vault” is legal. And attack from a few angles.

4 Memnite
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Monastery Mentor
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

4 Mishra’s Bauble
4 Conjurer’s Bauble
4 Chromatic Star
2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
2 Trading Post

3 Bitterblossom

If it was me i would lean more towards the first deck at least until i knew that people were main decking a lot of token hate and even then i might just start to main deck more cards like Intangible Virtue and other anthem effects that are one sided.

Okay need to bounce, food before spring fling over on the twitch channel.

<3s