Something to start the weekend right. This song just reminds me of all those folks who are coming at life from a different angle.
"I hear 'em whispering- 'How he doing this, why he doing that, how he sellin this?' You know I tell 'em that my soul ain't for sale."
"If you singing to the beat and listen in between the lines, you will probably hear that I'm way before my time, I'm way out the box, like over here."
"My Soul Ain't For Sale" - DJ Jazzy Jeff.
Yes, that Jazzy Jeff.
It's the weekend gentlemen.
T
Friday, February 29, 2008
I can't believe I already posted about the ptq
Okay, next time I go to a ptq, will somebody please remind me that I should save that story for Friday so that I don't have to think of a topic? Let's do a weekly recap/response post.
On Monday, thanks and praise to Fugie for reminding me that I made boneheaded misplays in all three rounds. I either need to practice Constructed or not go. My current Constructed rating: 1518. No shit. My last sanctioned Constructed match win? September 15th.
On Tuesday, a delightful poem by Fugie about the Holy Grail of Magic, the Turn One. The only way it gets better is if R&D makes a mistake and prints some broken draw 7 Leyline that makes mana. I am surprised this didn't get more commentary, because I thought it was both original and good, a rare enough combination around here.
On Wednesday, another insightful post by TooSarcastic, about how to make his already formidable EDH, formidabler, uh, more formidable. I learned a lot from this post and also from the last couple games of EDH. (1) Never solve other people's problems for them. (2) Things you can only do once a turn are bad, full stop. (3) Doran off a birds or other off color accelerant? Broken.
On Thursday, a nice little wrapup on a month's worth of casual sealed from major_luck. Did I get any props for knocking off the previously unbeaten Jake? No, I did not. Oh, but Jake had a really nice play against me to force a game 3. I had pretty much stabilized but he did have a Dauntless Dourbark, so I left a chump blocker. Unfortunately, Dourbark has Trample if you control another Treefolk, which he did after Footbottom Feast for Moonglove Changeling. Which was also the last point of needed damage. Oops. I guess we have learned that contrary to this post, Green does not suck in sealed now.
And now it's Friday, and what do you get? Dumbass meanderings and random thoughts. On that note, did you see this?
So what are the implications of this for MODO 3? This sounds like a Sharazad (Is that the name of that old game?) type of thing, where you don't actually play Magic against real other players. I totally agree with trying to extend this to a larger community but I don't know how well the Wizards TCG model translates to XBox Live or whatnot. It seems like subscription for unlimited play is far more common there. Then again, I am talking out my ass.
Finally, congrats and thanks to the regular writers on this site. Total posts for February:54. Nice.
On Monday, thanks and praise to Fugie for reminding me that I made boneheaded misplays in all three rounds. I either need to practice Constructed or not go. My current Constructed rating: 1518. No shit. My last sanctioned Constructed match win? September 15th.
On Tuesday, a delightful poem by Fugie about the Holy Grail of Magic, the Turn One. The only way it gets better is if R&D makes a mistake and prints some broken draw 7 Leyline that makes mana. I am surprised this didn't get more commentary, because I thought it was both original and good, a rare enough combination around here.
On Wednesday, another insightful post by TooSarcastic, about how to make his already formidable EDH, formidabler, uh, more formidable. I learned a lot from this post and also from the last couple games of EDH. (1) Never solve other people's problems for them. (2) Things you can only do once a turn are bad, full stop. (3) Doran off a birds or other off color accelerant? Broken.
On Thursday, a nice little wrapup on a month's worth of casual sealed from major_luck. Did I get any props for knocking off the previously unbeaten Jake? No, I did not. Oh, but Jake had a really nice play against me to force a game 3. I had pretty much stabilized but he did have a Dauntless Dourbark, so I left a chump blocker. Unfortunately, Dourbark has Trample if you control another Treefolk, which he did after Footbottom Feast for Moonglove Changeling. Which was also the last point of needed damage. Oops. I guess we have learned that contrary to this post, Green does not suck in sealed now.
And now it's Friday, and what do you get? Dumbass meanderings and random thoughts. On that note, did you see this?
WIZARDS OF THE COAST EXTENDS ITS MAGIC: THE GATHERING IP TO MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
Industry Leading Partnerships Enhance Strategy Fantasy Gaming Options for all Gamers
RENTON, Wash.—February 18, 2008 — Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the leader in strategy hobby collectible trading card, board and role playing games, and a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS), today announced its plans to extend the Magic: The Gathering® franchise to gamers on Microsoft's Xbox 360 Xbox LIVE® Arcade and the PC through partnerships with Stainless Games, Ltd. and Mind Control Software, Inc. Stainless Games will develop a game using the Magic: The Gathering IP for both Xbox LIVE Arcade and the PC, while Mind Control will develop a game for the PC and Mac.
So what are the implications of this for MODO 3? This sounds like a Sharazad (Is that the name of that old game?) type of thing, where you don't actually play Magic against real other players. I totally agree with trying to extend this to a larger community but I don't know how well the Wizards TCG model translates to XBox Live or whatnot. It seems like subscription for unlimited play is far more common there. Then again, I am talking out my ass.
Finally, congrats and thanks to the regular writers on this site. Total posts for February:54. Nice.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Old Fart Magic League, Week 4
Wow, what a month it has been. I think I can distill my learnings into three truths.
1. Black/Blue Rogues is quite powerful and can be fairly consistent. This is true even though most limited black/blue rogue decks will not necessarily have bombs that are on theme. The bombs will likely come from other areas (i.e. Dread, Guile, or some other splash color) but will flourish due to the consistency of the rogue theme.
2. Black/Green Warriors is ridiculous (A shout out to Jake for opening like a mad man). After Week one, I was only able to beat black green about one in three games. The number of bombs was just too many for me to deal with.
3. The mana gods may not hate me, but there isn’t a whole lot of love going on either. I ended up playing a seventeen land deck with seven swamps and ten islands. Twice out of ten games, I managed to get all seven swamps before I saw my third island (only once did it keep me from winning the game, but still).
Overall this past month was fun. Next month we plan on doing Morningtide sealed with a little twist.
In week 1 you have two options.
Option #1
1 Tournament Pack of Lorwyn
2 Booster packs of Morningtide
Option #2
3 Booster packs of Lorwyn
2 Booster packs of Morningtide
In week 2, you are free to add a pack of either Lorwyn or Morningtide.
In week 3, you add a pack of the set you didn’t add in week 2
In week 4, same options as week 2.
1. Black/Blue Rogues is quite powerful and can be fairly consistent. This is true even though most limited black/blue rogue decks will not necessarily have bombs that are on theme. The bombs will likely come from other areas (i.e. Dread, Guile, or some other splash color) but will flourish due to the consistency of the rogue theme.
2. Black/Green Warriors is ridiculous (A shout out to Jake for opening like a mad man). After Week one, I was only able to beat black green about one in three games. The number of bombs was just too many for me to deal with.
3. The mana gods may not hate me, but there isn’t a whole lot of love going on either. I ended up playing a seventeen land deck with seven swamps and ten islands. Twice out of ten games, I managed to get all seven swamps before I saw my third island (only once did it keep me from winning the game, but still).
Overall this past month was fun. Next month we plan on doing Morningtide sealed with a little twist.
In week 1 you have two options.
Option #1
1 Tournament Pack of Lorwyn
2 Booster packs of Morningtide
Option #2
3 Booster packs of Lorwyn
2 Booster packs of Morningtide
In week 2, you are free to add a pack of either Lorwyn or Morningtide.
In week 3, you add a pack of the set you didn’t add in week 2
In week 4, same options as week 2.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Elder Dragon Highlander: Learning from Mistakes
TooSarcastic Wednesdays? It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it? I woke up on Tuesday and wondered, “Hmm, who’s posting today on the blog? Oh shit. That would be me.” So Fugie grabbed the opportunity to throw in another post and kindly let me post a day late.
Today we’re discussing a little more multiplayer wisdom, mostly things that I am picking up as I go along. The format is Elder Dragon Highlander, but the lessons should be broadly applicable elsewhere in multiplayer settings. Because the last few months have been the first time I’ve played multiplayer in years, I was forced to start with a top-down strategy- all theory, no practice. Hence my theory-driven bias toward power over utility. So now that I’ve been playing for little while I’ve done a lot of learning, made some stupid mistakes, and seen some cards that I thought would be great turn out to be mediocre. So let’s talk about some things that didn’t quite pan out. Let’s talk about some failures.
Failure #1: Manlands.
Early on I actually had some success with Faerie Conclave and Forbidden Watchtower. They killed Fugie in a game after a board sweeper removed his blockers. And that was the point of including them, after all. They do great impressions of lands while Wrath of God does its thing. They also are assets that don’t clog up your hand waiting to be played. Those are all positives. The downside? I would rather be doing just about anything else with my mana than pumping up a manland. They are the absolute last resort, either on offense or defense. Hardly appealing. But what got them removed from my deck was the fact that the Xth edition manlands come into play tapped. I really underestimated how important it would be to have that mana available the turn it comes down. I figured this format more than any other, wouldn’t care about fast mana. Multiplayer is slow as hell right? Yes and no. Games go longer, but (and this will be an important theme throughout this topic) with so many other players, more happens that affects your board with less opportunity for you to react. It’s really painful to have no plays for a turn in a five person game, because there’s a very good chance another player has some plays in store for you, if catch my meaning. Four other people get an opportunity to harass you before you get to draw a card or lay another land, or whatever it is that you hope will get you back in the game. So CIP tapped lands are no fun to rip off the top when you really, really need to play your Platinum Angel to have a shot to stay in it.
Failure #2: Expensive reusable effects
In my “Scalpel vs. Hammer” post I asked the question “Why play a tutor spell when you could be casting Whispers of the Muse with buyback every turn?” Now I know why. Because if I play Whispers with buyback, that is all I will be doing. Maybe our playgroup plays with more land destruction than normal, or maybe I need to work on my manabase, but I have never been able to cast Whispers and play another spell the same turn. Land just doesn’t stay in play that long. The best thing about Whispers of the Muse is that I can burn it turn one as a cantrip. It has never gained me the overwhelming card advantage I had sought. There just aren’t enough turns in a multiplayer game for that kind of return. This is same problem with Urza’s Factory (if I have eight mana on board, I guarantee there will be stronger plays than making a 2/2), Spell Burst (I never got to cast it- even without buyback), and to a lesser extent Sacred Mesa. The Mesa is the closest to being playable, but my deck is full of better stuff to do than spend four mana a turn to get a 1/1 flyer. Sacred Mesa could win a group game, given enough time, but come on, nobody has a way to deal with a bunch of Pegasi? They’re Pegasi!! If three or four other players combined can’t kill me and my army of weenies then I guess they deserve to lose. One more example. In the last EDH game I played, I had a Shattering Pulse in hand. I was killing an artifact every turn I didn’t have a more relevant play (let’s say once every three turns or so). Swizz Dizzle was dropping artifact mana accelerants like there's no tomorrow. I had an Armageddon in hand and knew that I would end up coming out worse off if I played it, despite having the so called “answer” to his artifacts. Again, multiplayer games just don’t last long enough. Never before have a wished more for a Shatterstorm. It would have netted me just as much card advantage, but for about 16 less mana. That’s the better hammer card.
Failure #3: Cards with a heavy color commitment
Okay, so I don’t have to play a three color deck. I just really like the flexibility. And I have enough duals that I can make the mana work, amiright? No, TooSarcastic, you are wrong. I don’t know how many games I have needed a board sweeper AND had my budget Wrath of God (aka “Hour of Reckoning”) sitting in my hand, just thinking, “You know, I wish I could get a third white source. Or a white creature to help with the convoke.” Similarly I have stopped seeing Shard Phoenix as reusable because I know that if I have three red mana available during my upkeep, there will inevitably be a more important play that I must use that mana for during my main phase. Let’s not even talk about Pyrohemia. I love you, red Pestilence, but in my three color deck you just aren’t going to be taking down the 5/5 dragons that I need to you to destroy. We’re just better as friends, Pyrohemia. Sorry.
So if these cards are the mistakes, what are the correct answers? I’m still trying to find that out, but I have some ideas. Or, more accurately other people in my playgroup have had some ideas that I have seen and will be copying. Shatterstorm is in for Shattering Pulse since CBG continually complains that he should be playing it (but doesn’t). Deep Analysis is in for Whispers of the Muse because seeing Fugie and the Dizzle draw four cards in one turn for six mana beats my one card for six mana. Momentary Blink gets in there, not because it is super abusable in my deck (like it is in Fugie’s- Duplicant and/or Sundering Titan FTWs) but because it beats trying to actually counter targeted removal spells. Swords to Plowshares is a one for one trade, but (just like Major_Luck) at one mana it’s a trade I’m willing to make.
There are also a few experiments I’m trying out myself. Quicksilver Amulet is an Elvish Piper that gets in any deck. I like the idea of flashing out Duplicant, or Ixidron. During an attack step perhaps? It also inadvertently mana fixes and accelerates. Maybe that Blazing Archon will finally hit the table, at instant speed no less. And Mizzium Transreliquat will copy the best artifact on the table, even if it’s just a signet. (My newest “cute idea” involves the Transreliquat and a Darksteel Ingot on the table, with Jokulhaups in hand). Finally, I have some super secret mana-fixing tech. Can you think of a three mana enchantment in White Blue or Red that will make mana of any color? With any six land a guy could play Desolation Giant and still play Guile the next turn. I’m pumped by this possibility. But who knows? Maybe it will be awful. I’m still learning.
T
Today we’re discussing a little more multiplayer wisdom, mostly things that I am picking up as I go along. The format is Elder Dragon Highlander, but the lessons should be broadly applicable elsewhere in multiplayer settings. Because the last few months have been the first time I’ve played multiplayer in years, I was forced to start with a top-down strategy- all theory, no practice. Hence my theory-driven bias toward power over utility. So now that I’ve been playing for little while I’ve done a lot of learning, made some stupid mistakes, and seen some cards that I thought would be great turn out to be mediocre. So let’s talk about some things that didn’t quite pan out. Let’s talk about some failures.
Failure #1: Manlands.
Early on I actually had some success with Faerie Conclave and Forbidden Watchtower. They killed Fugie in a game after a board sweeper removed his blockers. And that was the point of including them, after all. They do great impressions of lands while Wrath of God does its thing. They also are assets that don’t clog up your hand waiting to be played. Those are all positives. The downside? I would rather be doing just about anything else with my mana than pumping up a manland. They are the absolute last resort, either on offense or defense. Hardly appealing. But what got them removed from my deck was the fact that the Xth edition manlands come into play tapped. I really underestimated how important it would be to have that mana available the turn it comes down. I figured this format more than any other, wouldn’t care about fast mana. Multiplayer is slow as hell right? Yes and no. Games go longer, but (and this will be an important theme throughout this topic) with so many other players, more happens that affects your board with less opportunity for you to react. It’s really painful to have no plays for a turn in a five person game, because there’s a very good chance another player has some plays in store for you, if catch my meaning. Four other people get an opportunity to harass you before you get to draw a card or lay another land, or whatever it is that you hope will get you back in the game. So CIP tapped lands are no fun to rip off the top when you really, really need to play your Platinum Angel to have a shot to stay in it.
Failure #2: Expensive reusable effects
In my “Scalpel vs. Hammer” post I asked the question “Why play a tutor spell when you could be casting Whispers of the Muse with buyback every turn?” Now I know why. Because if I play Whispers with buyback, that is all I will be doing. Maybe our playgroup plays with more land destruction than normal, or maybe I need to work on my manabase, but I have never been able to cast Whispers and play another spell the same turn. Land just doesn’t stay in play that long. The best thing about Whispers of the Muse is that I can burn it turn one as a cantrip. It has never gained me the overwhelming card advantage I had sought. There just aren’t enough turns in a multiplayer game for that kind of return. This is same problem with Urza’s Factory (if I have eight mana on board, I guarantee there will be stronger plays than making a 2/2), Spell Burst (I never got to cast it- even without buyback), and to a lesser extent Sacred Mesa. The Mesa is the closest to being playable, but my deck is full of better stuff to do than spend four mana a turn to get a 1/1 flyer. Sacred Mesa could win a group game, given enough time, but come on, nobody has a way to deal with a bunch of Pegasi? They’re Pegasi!! If three or four other players combined can’t kill me and my army of weenies then I guess they deserve to lose. One more example. In the last EDH game I played, I had a Shattering Pulse in hand. I was killing an artifact every turn I didn’t have a more relevant play (let’s say once every three turns or so). Swizz Dizzle was dropping artifact mana accelerants like there's no tomorrow. I had an Armageddon in hand and knew that I would end up coming out worse off if I played it, despite having the so called “answer” to his artifacts. Again, multiplayer games just don’t last long enough. Never before have a wished more for a Shatterstorm. It would have netted me just as much card advantage, but for about 16 less mana. That’s the better hammer card.
Failure #3: Cards with a heavy color commitment
Okay, so I don’t have to play a three color deck. I just really like the flexibility. And I have enough duals that I can make the mana work, amiright? No, TooSarcastic, you are wrong. I don’t know how many games I have needed a board sweeper AND had my budget Wrath of God (aka “Hour of Reckoning”) sitting in my hand, just thinking, “You know, I wish I could get a third white source. Or a white creature to help with the convoke.” Similarly I have stopped seeing Shard Phoenix as reusable because I know that if I have three red mana available during my upkeep, there will inevitably be a more important play that I must use that mana for during my main phase. Let’s not even talk about Pyrohemia. I love you, red Pestilence, but in my three color deck you just aren’t going to be taking down the 5/5 dragons that I need to you to destroy. We’re just better as friends, Pyrohemia. Sorry.
So if these cards are the mistakes, what are the correct answers? I’m still trying to find that out, but I have some ideas. Or, more accurately other people in my playgroup have had some ideas that I have seen and will be copying. Shatterstorm is in for Shattering Pulse since CBG continually complains that he should be playing it (but doesn’t). Deep Analysis is in for Whispers of the Muse because seeing Fugie and the Dizzle draw four cards in one turn for six mana beats my one card for six mana. Momentary Blink gets in there, not because it is super abusable in my deck (like it is in Fugie’s- Duplicant and/or Sundering Titan FTWs) but because it beats trying to actually counter targeted removal spells. Swords to Plowshares is a one for one trade, but (just like Major_Luck) at one mana it’s a trade I’m willing to make.
There are also a few experiments I’m trying out myself. Quicksilver Amulet is an Elvish Piper that gets in any deck. I like the idea of flashing out Duplicant, or Ixidron. During an attack step perhaps? It also inadvertently mana fixes and accelerates. Maybe that Blazing Archon will finally hit the table, at instant speed no less. And Mizzium Transreliquat will copy the best artifact on the table, even if it’s just a signet. (My newest “cute idea” involves the Transreliquat and a Darksteel Ingot on the table, with Jokulhaups in hand). Finally, I have some super secret mana-fixing tech. Can you think of a three mana enchantment in White Blue or Red that will make mana of any color? With any six land a guy could play Desolation Giant and still play Guile the next turn. I’m pumped by this possibility. But who knows? Maybe it will be awful. I’m still learning.
T
Monday, February 25, 2008
Hoodies today!
I should have the hoodies today! UPS shows them being "out for delivery". Woohoo! One day early!
Exclamation point!
heh
Exclamation point!
heh
Sunday, February 24, 2008
CBG proves his point
Well, not to say I told you so or anything, but I did indeed tell you so. I went 0-3 at the ptq yesterday, losing 1-2 to Aggro Loam, 1-2 to monoblue (like Next Level Blue but without Tarmogoyfs) and 0-2 to Astral Slide. The deck was not the problem, except perhaps in the 3rd round, when I twice was one card off from a turn one kill, and I couldn't get the damn thing to cough up a burn spell. There were some interesting stories though and I got to play some more EDH and extend my losing streak through the entire day, casual and sanctioned. Oh! Also, I finished my EDHs, so i am 100% proxy free. Dealers are nice, if mercenary.
The deck is Blazing Saddles of Fury!
4 Blazing Shoal
4 Serum Powder
4 Myojin of Infinite Rage
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Fury of the Horde
4 Spark Elemental
4 Lightning Serpent
4 Raging Goblin
3 Shard Volley
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
10 Mountain
I didn't run a sideboard.
This is Blazing Saddles, sped up by including Fury of the Horde. Fury is pitchable to Shoal, so it improves your odds of getting something big to pitch to the shoal, but it's not dead alone.
Round 1
Game one I blast him for 12 turn one. He stabilizes with a couple Wall of Roots and I am kind of wondering what he is playing, until his friend walks by and he points to his board and says, "No second red." So I put him on Aggro Loam with Countryside Crusher. I burn him out with Rift Bolt, Shard Volley, Shard Volley.
Game two I keep a hand which needed something (I think a red card) and I kept it since I had gone to six. He wasn't going to play anything relevant on turn 1 (no moxen) so I wasn't particularly concerned. I didn't draw what I needed until he had Crusher (tapped) and Wall of Roots in play (and I had 3 lands, what the heck am I doing with 3 lands). I had a Cajun and I thought I had enough to Shoal and Fury in the same turn. And I did. If I didn't cast the Lightning Serpent. Then, once I made that mistake, he of course blocks the Serpent with the Wall and I proceed to Shoal the cajun instead of the Serpent. Cause the extra 5 damage is totally more important than getting rid of the blocker. Sheesh. So he goes down to 5, then I Lava Spike. Then he Devastating Dreams for 4 and kills me.
Game three I keep a no lander. I rip it on turn 2, blast for 10 and proceed to not draw burn or further shoals. But he's playing around it. I am fidgeting in my chair and I realize that the floor feels slippery. The carpeted floor. I look down and there's three of my cards. I had dropped a couple cards in my lap when I was side shuffling between games and picked them up and put them back in my deck. Unfortunately, I had also apparently dropped some on the floor and missed them. So I called a judge and told him I had presented an illegal deck for game 3. I just conceded to my opponent, but this is not quite right. I should have actually sat there and had the judge enter the penalty and give me the game loss officially. This judge just ignored it because I conceded but they really are supposed to give me a game loss and if he was doing what he was supposed to, I would have started a game down in round 2 if I had conceded in round 1. So don't concede.
Round 2
Turn one blast for 12. Opponent playing monoblue. Turn 2 suspend Rift Bolt, getting Lightning Serpent Counterspelled. I assumed he didn't have it since he had let me bolt him down to 5. Oops. He was tapped out so I Lava Spiked him. Turn 3, he lays a Chalice for 1. Well frack. I just blew the two cards that avoid that (that would be Lightning Serpent and Rift Bolt). I die with him on 2. Incidentally, Fugie's Lightning Helix tech would have saved me here. One, because it's a 2, but also because he went all in to deal exactly enough with Meloku tokens. Helix over the top would have done it.
Game two. This was a moment I got to live in fear. When I put this deck together, I didn't think a monoblue opponent could do anything relevant turn one. So I let him go first. He lays Polluted Delta and says go. I lay Sparky, and put Shoal on the stack. He cracks the delta! Oh crap I forgot about Force Spike. He searches, finds an island, shuffles his deck, looks at me and says, "resolves." Whew. He lays a Tolaria West and I double Lava Spike to kill him turn 2.
Game three. I get him to two. I get a Gargadon down. I again play the card that I need to power my Fury of the Horde. He had Meloku and two mana, so he could have made double chump blockers for two gargadon attacks, but as it was, I just died. I need to test more.
Round three
I play against some fool playing Astral Slide. This is what happens when you punt yourself into the 0-2 bracket. He draws a bunch of Renewed Faiths, and I am a single card off a turn one both games. I had him as low as 3 game one and 6 game two. It's irrelevant though, as the games lasted too long. Once turn 3 arrives, I lose.
The End
Changes to the deck. Well, now I know what to run for a sideboard. If I did, it would look something like
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Shattering Spree
4 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Tormod's Crypt
I'd also change 2 Shard Volley and 1 Lava Spike to 3 Magma Jet. It's nice to have a little diversity of mana costs and the card selection doesn't hurt. Last, I'd go up to a full set of fetches. Your life total is almost completely irrelevant. I would not try to splash a second color. If I did, it would only be off Rav duals. Topdecking a land that doesn't produce red is stupid. Even stupider than topdecking a land at all.
The deck is Blazing Saddles of Fury!
4 Blazing Shoal
4 Serum Powder
4 Myojin of Infinite Rage
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Fury of the Horde
4 Spark Elemental
4 Lightning Serpent
4 Raging Goblin
3 Shard Volley
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
10 Mountain
I didn't run a sideboard.
This is Blazing Saddles, sped up by including Fury of the Horde. Fury is pitchable to Shoal, so it improves your odds of getting something big to pitch to the shoal, but it's not dead alone.
Round 1
Game one I blast him for 12 turn one. He stabilizes with a couple Wall of Roots and I am kind of wondering what he is playing, until his friend walks by and he points to his board and says, "No second red." So I put him on Aggro Loam with Countryside Crusher. I burn him out with Rift Bolt, Shard Volley, Shard Volley.
Game two I keep a hand which needed something (I think a red card) and I kept it since I had gone to six. He wasn't going to play anything relevant on turn 1 (no moxen) so I wasn't particularly concerned. I didn't draw what I needed until he had Crusher (tapped) and Wall of Roots in play (and I had 3 lands, what the heck am I doing with 3 lands). I had a Cajun and I thought I had enough to Shoal and Fury in the same turn. And I did. If I didn't cast the Lightning Serpent. Then, once I made that mistake, he of course blocks the Serpent with the Wall and I proceed to Shoal the cajun instead of the Serpent. Cause the extra 5 damage is totally more important than getting rid of the blocker. Sheesh. So he goes down to 5, then I Lava Spike. Then he Devastating Dreams for 4 and kills me.
Game three I keep a no lander. I rip it on turn 2, blast for 10 and proceed to not draw burn or further shoals. But he's playing around it. I am fidgeting in my chair and I realize that the floor feels slippery. The carpeted floor. I look down and there's three of my cards. I had dropped a couple cards in my lap when I was side shuffling between games and picked them up and put them back in my deck. Unfortunately, I had also apparently dropped some on the floor and missed them. So I called a judge and told him I had presented an illegal deck for game 3. I just conceded to my opponent, but this is not quite right. I should have actually sat there and had the judge enter the penalty and give me the game loss officially. This judge just ignored it because I conceded but they really are supposed to give me a game loss and if he was doing what he was supposed to, I would have started a game down in round 2 if I had conceded in round 1. So don't concede.
Round 2
Turn one blast for 12. Opponent playing monoblue. Turn 2 suspend Rift Bolt, getting Lightning Serpent Counterspelled. I assumed he didn't have it since he had let me bolt him down to 5. Oops. He was tapped out so I Lava Spiked him. Turn 3, he lays a Chalice for 1. Well frack. I just blew the two cards that avoid that (that would be Lightning Serpent and Rift Bolt). I die with him on 2. Incidentally, Fugie's Lightning Helix tech would have saved me here. One, because it's a 2, but also because he went all in to deal exactly enough with Meloku tokens. Helix over the top would have done it.
Game two. This was a moment I got to live in fear. When I put this deck together, I didn't think a monoblue opponent could do anything relevant turn one. So I let him go first. He lays Polluted Delta and says go. I lay Sparky, and put Shoal on the stack. He cracks the delta! Oh crap I forgot about Force Spike. He searches, finds an island, shuffles his deck, looks at me and says, "resolves." Whew. He lays a Tolaria West and I double Lava Spike to kill him turn 2.
Game three. I get him to two. I get a Gargadon down. I again play the card that I need to power my Fury of the Horde. He had Meloku and two mana, so he could have made double chump blockers for two gargadon attacks, but as it was, I just died. I need to test more.
Round three
I play against some fool playing Astral Slide. This is what happens when you punt yourself into the 0-2 bracket. He draws a bunch of Renewed Faiths, and I am a single card off a turn one both games. I had him as low as 3 game one and 6 game two. It's irrelevant though, as the games lasted too long. Once turn 3 arrives, I lose.
The End
Changes to the deck. Well, now I know what to run for a sideboard. If I did, it would look something like
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Shattering Spree
4 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Tormod's Crypt
I'd also change 2 Shard Volley and 1 Lava Spike to 3 Magma Jet. It's nice to have a little diversity of mana costs and the card selection doesn't hurt. Last, I'd go up to a full set of fetches. Your life total is almost completely irrelevant. I would not try to splash a second color. If I did, it would only be off Rav duals. Topdecking a land that doesn't produce red is stupid. Even stupider than topdecking a land at all.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Extended, maybe some grab bag
Well, I guess I am going to ptq this Saturday for only the second time ever. I am going to play a deck that has around a 10% chance of a turn one win. I have been following the extended metagame ever since Worlds, but I hadn't planned on playing any ptqs. The format is pretty wide open but none of the decks really excite me. Doran Rock is cute. Next Level Blue is great if you like control. Aggro is thriving, with R/B Goblins, Doran (5/5s on turn 2 are aggro), and Zoo being viable. Combo has several winning decks, with TEPS, Dragonstorm, Hulk, and you can probably throw Ichorid in there as well if it's not a category of its own.
I think a big part of the problem for me is that I am just not that excited by Constructed competition. So much preparation is necessary for me to play any deck well. So much of high level Constructed is pattern recognition. Correct play is very difficult. I have a tendency to go to a tournament unprepared and have to think through too many situations. This probably sounds like a complaint about the amount of time I have to prepare but really it is more complex than that. Even if I had the time to prepare a gauntlet of 5 decks and play sets of 10 with them, I wouldn't do it.
Oftentimes in Constructed, a matchup just feels unwinnable even when it's not. Maybe you are focusing on the wrong things in the matchup (who's the beatdown and whatnot). Maybe your main deck is four cards off and that dramatically changes the matchup. Maybe you're tired of thinking about Magic. Point being, I don't have what it takes to be great at constructed and if I don't, why the hell am I ptq'ing? I know I am not going to win on Saturday. My goal is to have fun. And the way I have fun is to do silly stupid things. Jokulhaups into Rakdos? Silly stupid. Counterbalance your Tribal Flames? Not silly, nor stupid. So I am playing a deck that either wins turn one, or dies horribly. I don't think I am going to play with a sideboard. The deck is perfect as is.
------
I really liked the Richard Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) articles published on the mothership on Monday. I am talking about the Lost in the Shuffle columns from Issues 17 and 18. In them, Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) talks about political games and why he doesn't like them. This struck a chord with me because TS had spoken recently about his dislike for multiplayer FFA. I personally have really enjoyed the FFA EDHs lately and protested TS pretty vociferously, especially because he didn't really back up his argument at all. Richard (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) did though, and in a way which really affected my thoughts on the subject.
He brings up several characteristics of political games and describes them as bad, when I had previously thought of them as good. For instance, the incentive to lie low and appear weak in a political game is something that he really despises. I've always thought of that as a feature not a bug. He goes on in this vein for a bit and then he lays on the crux:
And that's a really great point. It doesn't matter if you choose a scalpel or a hammer. It doesn't matter if your deck is terrible or awesome. All that matters is your political skill, and Magic should be about a more complete skill set. Otherwise, it's just complicated poker. Richard Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) is really smart.
----------
I like the idea of Two headed giant EDH. We'll see if we can't arrange something this time. Maybe the incentives for abusive generals is still too high. Numot is totally fair in FFA. Not so much in duel:) As I have proven. Multiple times.
----------
I have to get to Olde Fart. I love sealed deck. Stupid job.
I think a big part of the problem for me is that I am just not that excited by Constructed competition. So much preparation is necessary for me to play any deck well. So much of high level Constructed is pattern recognition. Correct play is very difficult. I have a tendency to go to a tournament unprepared and have to think through too many situations. This probably sounds like a complaint about the amount of time I have to prepare but really it is more complex than that. Even if I had the time to prepare a gauntlet of 5 decks and play sets of 10 with them, I wouldn't do it.
Oftentimes in Constructed, a matchup just feels unwinnable even when it's not. Maybe you are focusing on the wrong things in the matchup (who's the beatdown and whatnot). Maybe your main deck is four cards off and that dramatically changes the matchup. Maybe you're tired of thinking about Magic. Point being, I don't have what it takes to be great at constructed and if I don't, why the hell am I ptq'ing? I know I am not going to win on Saturday. My goal is to have fun. And the way I have fun is to do silly stupid things. Jokulhaups into Rakdos? Silly stupid. Counterbalance your Tribal Flames? Not silly, nor stupid. So I am playing a deck that either wins turn one, or dies horribly. I don't think I am going to play with a sideboard. The deck is perfect as is.
------
I really liked the Richard Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) articles published on the mothership on Monday. I am talking about the Lost in the Shuffle columns from Issues 17 and 18. In them, Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) talks about political games and why he doesn't like them. This struck a chord with me because TS had spoken recently about his dislike for multiplayer FFA. I personally have really enjoyed the FFA EDHs lately and protested TS pretty vociferously, especially because he didn't really back up his argument at all. Richard (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) did though, and in a way which really affected my thoughts on the subject.
He brings up several characteristics of political games and describes them as bad, when I had previously thought of them as good. For instance, the incentive to lie low and appear weak in a political game is something that he really despises. I've always thought of that as a feature not a bug. He goes on in this vein for a bit and then he lays on the crux:
The result for me was discovering that most political games were, underneath the veneer, the same game, and that I was tired of playing that game.
And that's a really great point. It doesn't matter if you choose a scalpel or a hammer. It doesn't matter if your deck is terrible or awesome. All that matters is your political skill, and Magic should be about a more complete skill set. Otherwise, it's just complicated poker. Richard Garfield (spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch) is really smart.
----------
I like the idea of Two headed giant EDH. We'll see if we can't arrange something this time. Maybe the incentives for abusive generals is still too high. Numot is totally fair in FFA. Not so much in duel:) As I have proven. Multiple times.
----------
I have to get to Olde Fart. I love sealed deck. Stupid job.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Crusher is coming
Oh yeah baby. I think we gonna do up standard right next saturday.
4 Countryside Crusher
2 Fury Charm
4 Terramorphic Expanse
50 Mountain
Crushers are coming down from their $15 high point. Woohoo!
4 Countryside Crusher
2 Fury Charm
4 Terramorphic Expanse
50 Mountain
Crushers are coming down from their $15 high point. Woohoo!
Old Fart Magic League, Week 3
Well as so many league sealed pools end up, I have enough cards in the pool to make two almost completely separate decks. I chose to split along the thematic lines I eluded to last week, black-blue rogues & red-green warriors. As I expected black-blue rogues was more consistent and capable of explosive silly starts way more often than the more powerful, less consistent red-green warrior build. I won’t bother to list the list for red-green warriors but will note that even with Garruk and Nath, its lack of removal for creatures with four or more toughness made these two bombs too little too late.
However, I will list my build for blue-black rogues which after losing the first game to Jake, proceeded to win the next seven straight, including 2-0 sweeps of Kiersten, Dale, and Ed. Without further ado:
Black-Blue Rogues:
Boggart Loggers
Deeptread Merrow
Dewdrop Spy
Drowner of Secrets
Fencer Clique
Inkfathom Divers
Latchkey Faerie
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Mulldrifter
Sage of Fables (2)
Stinkdrinker Bandit (2)
Stonybrook Angler
Morsel Theft
Pact’s Disdain
Research the Deep
Thieve’s Fortune
Violet Pall
Weedstrangle
Whirlpool Whelm
Wings of Velis Vel
A couple of quick comments about this build. In eight games I never saw Pact’s Disdain once. Wings of Velis Vel isn’t really that good in this deck, so it would be one of the first things to go, in favor of an addition from the next pack. Overall, this deck did exactly what I expected it to do, generate a lot of card advantage early and swarm with evasion guys and use its pinpoint removal to stall my opponents big guys.
I also seem to be reinforcing the belief that I prefer to play control decks. Whether this true or not, in sealed I build & play the best build and tend to lean towards consistency versus raw power (However, this is still format dependent as some formats are full of bombs in every color combination and others have very few overall) which in Morningtide sealed either becomes a controlling rogue build or an aggressive warrior beat down deck. Feel free to disagree, but that is what I see.
For next week, the last pack:
Changeling Sentinel (#2)
Graceful Reprive
Dewdrop Spy (#2)
Fencer Clique
Floodchaser (#4)
Mind Spring
Stonybrook Banneret
Morsel Theft (#2)
Nightshade Schemers
Squeaking Pie Grubfellows
Mudbutton Clanger
Spitebellows
Ambassador Oak
Luminescent Rain
Reins of the Vinesteed
This brings the final sealed pool to:
White:
Cenn’s Heir
Crib Swap
Harpoon Sniper
Hillcomber Giant
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Kithkin Healer
Shields of Velis Vel
Springjack Knight
Ballyrush Banneret
Burrenton Bombardier
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (2)
Changeling Sentinel (2)
Forfend (2)
Graceful Reprive
Mosquito Guard
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue:
Deeptread Merrow
Drowner of Secrets
Ego Erasure
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Ringskipper
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Dewdrop Spy (2)
Disperse
Fencer Clique (2)
Floodchaser (4)
Latchkey Faerie
Mind Spring
Merrow Witsniper
Nevermaker
Research the Deep
Sage of Fables (2)
Stonybrook Banneret
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieve’s Fortune
Black:
Boggart Birth Rite
Boggart Loggers
Facevaulter
Final Revels
Nectar Faerie
Thieving Sprite
Weed Strangle
Festercreep
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Morsel Theft (2)
Nightshade Schemers
Pact’s Disdain
Pulling Teeth (2)
Scarblade Elite
Squeaking Pie Grubfellows
Stinkdrinder Bandit (2)
Violet Pall
Red:
Adder-Staff Boggart
Blades of Velis Vel
Boggart Sprite-Chaser
Flamekin Brawler
Goatnapper
Hearthcage Giant
Ingot Chewer
Lash Out
Lowland Oaf
Needle Drop
Kindred Fury
Stingmoggie
Boldwyr Intimidator
Brighthearth Banneret
Lunk Errant (foil)
Mudbutton Clanger
Release the Ants
Rivals’ Duel
Roar of the Crowd
Seething Pathblazer
Sensation Gorger
Shard Volley (2)
Spitebellows
Sunflare Shaman
Taurean Mauler
Green:
Fertile Ground
Garruk Wildspeaker
Heal the Scars
Jagged-Scar Archers
Kithkin Daggerdare
Kithkin Mourncaller
Lignify
Warren-Scourge Elf
Ambassador Oak
Cream of the Crop
Deglamer (2)
Elvish Warrior (2)
Everbark Shaman (2)
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
Luminescent Rain
Orchard Warden
Reins of the Vinesteed
Winnower Patrol
Multi:
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Artifact:
Moonglove Extract
Rings of Brightearth
However, I will list my build for blue-black rogues which after losing the first game to Jake, proceeded to win the next seven straight, including 2-0 sweeps of Kiersten, Dale, and Ed. Without further ado:
Black-Blue Rogues:
Boggart Loggers
Deeptread Merrow
Dewdrop Spy
Drowner of Secrets
Fencer Clique
Inkfathom Divers
Latchkey Faerie
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Mulldrifter
Sage of Fables (2)
Stinkdrinker Bandit (2)
Stonybrook Angler
Morsel Theft
Pact’s Disdain
Research the Deep
Thieve’s Fortune
Violet Pall
Weedstrangle
Whirlpool Whelm
Wings of Velis Vel
A couple of quick comments about this build. In eight games I never saw Pact’s Disdain once. Wings of Velis Vel isn’t really that good in this deck, so it would be one of the first things to go, in favor of an addition from the next pack. Overall, this deck did exactly what I expected it to do, generate a lot of card advantage early and swarm with evasion guys and use its pinpoint removal to stall my opponents big guys.
I also seem to be reinforcing the belief that I prefer to play control decks. Whether this true or not, in sealed I build & play the best build and tend to lean towards consistency versus raw power (However, this is still format dependent as some formats are full of bombs in every color combination and others have very few overall) which in Morningtide sealed either becomes a controlling rogue build or an aggressive warrior beat down deck. Feel free to disagree, but that is what I see.
For next week, the last pack:
Changeling Sentinel (#2)
Graceful Reprive
Dewdrop Spy (#2)
Fencer Clique
Floodchaser (#4)
Mind Spring
Stonybrook Banneret
Morsel Theft (#2)
Nightshade Schemers
Squeaking Pie Grubfellows
Mudbutton Clanger
Spitebellows
Ambassador Oak
Luminescent Rain
Reins of the Vinesteed
This brings the final sealed pool to:
White:
Cenn’s Heir
Crib Swap
Harpoon Sniper
Hillcomber Giant
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Kithkin Healer
Shields of Velis Vel
Springjack Knight
Ballyrush Banneret
Burrenton Bombardier
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (2)
Changeling Sentinel (2)
Forfend (2)
Graceful Reprive
Mosquito Guard
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue:
Deeptread Merrow
Drowner of Secrets
Ego Erasure
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Ringskipper
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Dewdrop Spy (2)
Disperse
Fencer Clique (2)
Floodchaser (4)
Latchkey Faerie
Mind Spring
Merrow Witsniper
Nevermaker
Research the Deep
Sage of Fables (2)
Stonybrook Banneret
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieve’s Fortune
Black:
Boggart Birth Rite
Boggart Loggers
Facevaulter
Final Revels
Nectar Faerie
Thieving Sprite
Weed Strangle
Festercreep
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Morsel Theft (2)
Nightshade Schemers
Pact’s Disdain
Pulling Teeth (2)
Scarblade Elite
Squeaking Pie Grubfellows
Stinkdrinder Bandit (2)
Violet Pall
Red:
Adder-Staff Boggart
Blades of Velis Vel
Boggart Sprite-Chaser
Flamekin Brawler
Goatnapper
Hearthcage Giant
Ingot Chewer
Lash Out
Lowland Oaf
Needle Drop
Kindred Fury
Stingmoggie
Boldwyr Intimidator
Brighthearth Banneret
Lunk Errant (foil)
Mudbutton Clanger
Release the Ants
Rivals’ Duel
Roar of the Crowd
Seething Pathblazer
Sensation Gorger
Shard Volley (2)
Spitebellows
Sunflare Shaman
Taurean Mauler
Green:
Fertile Ground
Garruk Wildspeaker
Heal the Scars
Jagged-Scar Archers
Kithkin Daggerdare
Kithkin Mourncaller
Lignify
Warren-Scourge Elf
Ambassador Oak
Cream of the Crop
Deglamer (2)
Elvish Warrior (2)
Everbark Shaman (2)
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
Luminescent Rain
Orchard Warden
Reins of the Vinesteed
Winnower Patrol
Multi:
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Artifact:
Moonglove Extract
Rings of Brightearth
Cutting States etc.
Well they finally released more information about the Organized Play changes and even posted it on the mothership main page this time. Here is the summary (from WoTC 's perspective, obv) about a Q & A session at Kuala Lumpur. I would not have liked to have been Chris Galvin sitting around trying to explain to a bunch of guys who play Magic for money why Wizards was cutting tournament budgets for grassroots marketing strategies. Why they picked this venue to address the issue is beyond me, but at least it gives a little more insight into why States got axed, regardless of whether or not we agree with it. BTW, I don't agree with it. Can you imagine States being a failure? That is Galvin's argument. Check it.
T
T
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Great Magic the Gathering Color Pie Personality Quiz
Finally! Hard evidence that everyone really is out to get me. Or at least out to take credit and profit from ideas that were originally mine. Okay, that opening could be chalked up to paranoia or just hyperbole, but I’ll let you judge that for yourself after reading.
I stumbled across the “What Color Are You” personality quiz on one of Wizards’ “learn to play Magic” sites. Looking at the wording of the questions left me a little suspicious, since I had emailed excerpts my own Magic personality quiz based on the five colors to Mark Rosewater a few years ago. I’m posting my old quiz unaltered and in its entirety so you all can compare yourselves. None of my exact questions are used, but they seem eerily familiar to me, even down to the rambling attempts at humor. I do have to admit that their quiz is more appropriate for the preteen age group, which is to say it is more boring. Also, I made an ill-fated attempt to synthesize personality into several colors per person, if appropriate. This made my quiz hopelessly complex, for no good reason. In my defense, at the time of its composition I was in graduate school and had just finished a research methods course where I had been evaluating the quality of survey data for the entire semester. Breaking down the concept of personality into five arbitrarily discrete categories seemed like an evening of good fun at the time.
Here’s how it worked. I would email about bunch of people this quiz, asking them to fill it out. Annoyed, they would refuse and then I would badger them about it until they fill it in to get me off their backs. It worked better with non-Magic players since they had no idea what the “flavor” of the five colors were. They would email their results back to me, and then I would add up the results and send them back long-winded explanations as to what kind of a human being they were. Actually what they received was more of a primer on the color pie. As such, the results were often in part lifted directly from MaRo’s articles. (Does this make it ironic that I am accusing him of using my idea without permission?) Unfortunately, MaRo hadn’t written his article on Red prior to this, and as I disclosed last week I am about as anti-Red a person as you can find (excepting Senator Joe McCarthy). As a result the Red questions generally focus on angrily breaking objects into pieces, which (unless you’re on steroids or a 14 year-old boy) is unlikely to be seen as an attribute people would seek to correlate with their personality. If I were to redo this quiz, I would play up the spontaneous, creative side of Red and play down the “mindless rage” aspect. Without further ado, here is the quiz in full.
Startled and embarrassed by the outstandingly low quality of stupid online personality quizzes, I was inspired to write my own stupid personality quiz. When composing such an assessment tool one should attempt to quantify personality using the most useless framework available. Being a huge geek, I decided to utilize my embarrassing familiarity with a certain collectable card game, namely Magic: the Gathering. Magic uses a color coding system to denote different “flavored” cards. You don’t have to understand this, just keep reading. My idea was to take the “principles” governing the flavor of these colors and apply them to people’s personalities (so instead of a “green and white deck” I’ll talk about a green and white person’s attitude). If this sounds to you like the biggest waste of time ever, I’ve been successful in picking a theory of personality to assess. After all, the last personality test I took told me what Christian Theologian I was. This is way cooler than that! So take my stupid quiz! You’ll get your personality codified by a color system unknown to 99.99% of the US population. How elitist is that? Just forward this message back to the sender, but add your answers on the blanks provided. Results will be forthcoming!
What M:TG Colors are You?
1. If you were to get a pet, what would it be?
A. I’d have to go with a dependable dog. One that I could train to help others, like guarding the house, scaring up game when I hunt, leading my blind aunt when she visits, you know, productive stuff like that.
B. I’d get a cute little purebred puppy. When it’s young I can take it for walks and snag admiring members of the opposite sex with its cuteness, and then when it’s older I’d enter it in dog shows and rake in the cash! Cha-ching!
C. I suppose I could have one pet, maybe a cat that would show its sophistication and subtlety at all times, even when taking a dump.
D. A pet? The more the merrier. I want a freakin’ menagerie.
E. A monkey. Definitely a poo-throwing monkey.
F. You didn’t mention any animal that I’d ever want.
Question 1. Answer - _______
2. When I grow up I’m going to major in-
A. Economics or some hot tech job that’ll make me loads of cash!
B. Definitely Quantum Mechanics… or maybe Hegelian Metaphysical Philosophy… Ooh! Or 18th century European History! Oh yeah!
C. I’m not going to college. I’m going to work the land in the jungles of Uruguay. But if I were, I’d major in something completely un-academic like Music …or Ecology.
D. Beer Bonging with a minor in Public Urination.
E. Pre-Law or Pre-Med.
F. None of these descriptions even come close to capturing what I want to study.
Question 2. Answer - ________
3. Pick the most delicious meat.
A. Fish. Its brain food, you know.
B. You’re kidding, right? I don’t eat meat, I’m a vegan.
C. BBQed steak. The rawer the better, baby!
D. I’ll have the free-range chicken, please.
E. Veal. Nothing beats the sinful taste of young, atrophied, sensory-deprived flesh.
F. I hate all these meats or non-meat alternatives.
Question 3. Answer - ________
4. You’ve had your meal. Now pick an after dinner drink.
A. Just a big glass of ice water, please.
B. Beer. Oh, you wimps can chase it with tequila if you need to.
C. A nice desert wine would be fine, thanks.
D. A tiramisu martini. So rich.
E. Absinthe. What!? It’s chic! It’s so chic you’ve never heard of it! Stop laughing!
F. None of these options holds even a passing interest to me.
Question 4. Answer - ________
5. I listen most to-
A. Punk. The more hardcore, the better.
B. Perfectly crafted pop masterpieces exactly four minutes long.
C. Rap. I gots to get mine, beeyotch!
D. Electronic dance music so arcane you can’t dance to it.
E. Singer/Songwriter folk that strips away the artificiality so prevalent in today’s society.
F. You didn’t mention any sort of music I like, you reductionist jerk.
Question 5. Answer - ________
6. You’ve just received a letter in the mail from the library saying that a book you have is now a week overdue. What do you do?
A. There must be some mistake. I can’t have forgotten about something so important. But if it’s true, I’d return the book immediately.
B. Throw the letter in the trash and keep the book. What are they going to do? Send the librarian over to break my legs?
C. Return the book, but only after copiously studying it and taking notes. Knowledge is worth any price.
D. Anxiously try to locate the book in the compost pile.
E. There must be some mistake. I can’t read.
F. I would do something completely different from and infinitely cooler than any of these lame options.
Question 6. Answer - ________
7. You’re at a great party. Where at the party can you be found?
A. I’ll be at the bar, looking for a second “date” to complement the one already on my arm.
B. I’ll be on the couch, in a drunken argument about the philosophy of science.
C. I’ll be in the basement, passing the fattie around, if you know what I mean.
D. I’ll be on the dance floor, shaking it and shouting “Wooo!” really loudly.
E. I’ll be at the kitchen table sipping on orange juice and playing Scrabble, or maybe Outburst if I’m feeling really wild.
F. I’ll be hiding in some place that you never mentioned, because I wouldn’t be caught dead in any of the above places.
Question 7. Answer - ________
8. I would give my right arm for-
A. A state of the art, robotic arm that could type twice as fast.
B. An arm with a big hairy claw instead of a hand. Rraarr!
C. The grenade I used to be holding when I had a right arm.
D. Nothing. Some things aren’t worth sacrificing.
E. Just about anything I needed at the moment.
F. Something. Just not any of your choices, dork.
Question 8. Answer - ________
9. You and your friends have decided to go see a movie tonight. What do you want to see?
A. I want to go see a nature film at the Imax theatre. I have to deal with idiot humans all day; the last thing I want to do is pay to watch more of them on a screen.
B. Don’t you ever just want to have a little fun? I’ve spent all day thinking; I want to see an action movie or a comedy.
C. I want to see a movie that illustrates a righteous man’s struggle for justice against all odds. Something moving and uplifting that will restore your faith in life, not question it.
D. I don’t know yet, but whatever it is, you can be sure we’re going to see my choice and not anybody else’s!
E. If I’m going to invest my eight dollars on a movie, it better challenge me. Maybe an engrossing drama or an arty independent film.
F. All these movie choices make me want to wretch.
Question 9. Answer - ________
10. It’s a really hot day and your vehicle breaks down on lonely road. What do you do?
A. I’d pop the hood, inspect the smoking engine like I know what I’m doing, then admit I don’t have a clue and angrily destroy the vehicle with my tire iron.
B. Get out and take a look at what’s wrong. If I can’t fix it up with what I’ve got on hand, I’ll walk to the nearest town and buy the supplies I need to finish the job.
C. Strip down to almost nothing and lean provocatively on the side of the road. I’d make sure to have my tazer handy to jack the first Pervert Samaritan that stops and steal their wheels. Didn’t see that one coming did you? Neither did they!
D. I’d uplink to my dashboard navigational system and connect to roadside assistance. I’ll be home and out of the heat in no time!
E. I’d get my hiking gear out of the Jeep and start off through the woods. It’s a beautiful day and I didn’t like driving anyway.
F. None of these scenarios come even remotely close to what I would do in that stupid, contrived situation.
Question 10. Answer - ________
11. Say a few words about your parents.
A. I have great respect for my parents. They taught me the value of discipline and obedience.
B. I’d like to sell them into slavery.
C. They were always reading to me. And so proud of my grades!
D. What can you say about the ones that gave you life? I have a deep love for them.
E. Love ‘em. Pa taught me how to drink and Ma taught me how to fight.
F. I’m adopted, you asshole.
Question 11. Answer - ________
12. My favorite member of the Simpson’s family is-
A. Bart. Entertaining, self-serving, has almost no morals… what’s not to like?
B. Lisa. She’s a seven year old that was accepted into Mensa. ‘Nuff said.
C. Maggie. So innocent, unlike the rest of those dysfunctional freaks.
D. Homer. “Aahh!” “Doh!” “Why you little…!” “Mmm. Doughnut.”
E. Marge. She might get put down for being bland and always worrying, but she’s the only one who keeps that family from falling apart.
F. Who are these “Simpsons” that you speak of?
Question 12. Answer - ________
13. Pick an economic system.
A. Although it is now synonymous with less advanced cultures, the barter system is the only real economic structure that allows the canny businessperson to utilize every subtle facet of an ever changing value system. Here the most intelligent trader wins. Ideally the whole world would be set up like Ebay, and we could troll for the best deals (and the most ignorant sellers), or bluff indignantly when selling off a “precious” item to others.
B. Economic systems are a necessary but unavoidable evil based on leaky philosophies. I don’t care which one is in place because they’re all just as artificial.
C. Anarchy!
D. Communism. It gets a bum rap, but if you could just get the right people, I mean really good people, at the top, it would be the best. It radically protects the poor and underprivileged in a simple, orderly way. Beautiful.
E. Laizzes Faire Capitalism. Everybody looks out for themselves. Hey, I can’t help it if you aren’t as ingenious or as well-funded as I am to start off. Just don’t get in my way, or I’ll monopolize your ass right out of business!
F. You never mentioned my favorite economic system. How could you have forgotten it?
Question 13. Answer - ________
14. Imagine you and a (heterosexual) partner are engaging in frequent sexual activity, but do not yet want to have children. What would your birth control of choice be?
A. I believe in the sanctity of all life. I refuse to use even natural family planning. If we weren’t meant to have babies, then I’d have been born sterile!
B. Did you know that you only have to worry about getting pregnant if you put it one specific opening? There are plenty more to choose from!
C. Obviously, there are some ethical obligations to think about when considering birth control. I would choose a balance between heartless use of technology and irresponsible breeding mania. Like natural family planning, or maybe even using a condom.
D. I’d use my condoms only once before throwing them out. Same goes for my partners.
E. I’d use the most effective current prophylactics (yes, even abortion- if all else failed, you uptight moralists!), in combination with the latest medical advances possible, as evidenced by controlled experiments in peer reviewed journals. We ain’t takin’ no chances!
F. My answer would fall into a gray area for which you did not provide a choice. How insensitive!
Question 14. Answer - ________
15. You and your partner are going to try something really adventurous in the sack. What would you do?
A. Drunken naked wrestling, baby!
B. Leave the lights on.
C. Tie ‘em up. And watch ‘em beg for it.
D. Pull open the bedroom shades to sneak a peek at your horny neighbors getting it on, then copy exactly what they do.
E. Call the dog into the bedroom… Woof!
F. I would never do any of those horrible things. Especially leave the lights on.
Question 15. Answer - ________
16. You’ve got a report due tomorrow and you’re computer crashes, taking with it all you’ve written. What do you do?
A. I’d just load the file again from one the other two back-up disks I’ve been obsessively saving to. That’s why it’s always good to plan ahead.
B. I’m not going to write that damn thing again. I’ll trade whatever I have lying around (i.e. cash, drugs, my body) to get someone else to do it.
C. I’ll use my mad programming skills to hack into the hard drive and find the back up of the file somewhere.
D. I don’t own a computer! I’m against the rabid proliferation of such technology. I use a Unabomber-style typewriter that never crashes! Who’s laughing now, suckers?
E. I’d do something I should have done a long time ago- take that obsolete piece of shit out into the alley and bludgeon it into dust with an aluminum bat.
F. Despite your provision of a wide array of plausible and humorous choices, not a single one has any appeal to me whatsoever. Asshole.
Question 16. Answer - ________
17. You’re plotting to overthrow the current Powers That Be in your quest for world domination. How would you go about it?
A. I would devise an economic system that works solely on individualistic greed and then watch its insidious tendrils wriggle into every other culture around the globe, slowly turning them all into parodies of my own culture. Oh wait, capitalism’s already taken…
B. I would use my clearly superior intellect to manipulate and twist everything my opponents said into something different. Then I’d steal their own platform and tell the public it’s mine. Basically, I’d run for a political office.
C. First I would forbid any new construction projects, ever. Then I would close our nation’s schools and release the children back into the forest. Then I would open our zoos and declare the animals our sovereign leaders. It’s back to nature for me!
D. I would blow up a lot big important stuff. Then blow up some more stuff. Like at the end of “Fight Club.” It’ll be a terrorist organization, but without the pesky “beliefs” and “goals.”
E. I would preach the inherent Truth of my mission to all who would listen and once we had enough people on our side, we’d overthrow this regime and liberate the poor deluded masses.
F. I have a secret, way cooler plan than any of those stupid ones! And soon you’ll all witness it in action! Bwaahh ha ha ha haaaa!
Question 17. Answer - ________
18. Tired of your incessant plotting to take over the world, a friend complains that you’re “evil.” You reply-
A. “That statement is, I’m afraid, irrelevant. My theoretical framework does not allow for such painfully dichotomous absolutes as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’”
B. “The word ‘evil’ doesn’t apply to living things. It only applies to constructed, artificial terms… like the word ‘evil’”.
C. “I know you are, but what am I?”
D. “You are lying. Therefore you’re evil.”
E. “So I’m evil. At least I can admit it to myself.”
F. “This is ludicrous. I refuse to answer this asinine quiz question.”
Question 18. Answer - ________
19. Which Bible character suits you best?
A. I like Noah. Imagine having to contain all of creation in a single ship- that must have been one wild ride.
B. King David. Big guy and little guy square off. Little guy cracks big guy’s skull with a little rock, then cuts big guy’s head off. Cool!
C. Moses is awesome. He leads his slave brethren out of oppression and then delivers to them the Ten Commandments- the basis of the law they’ll use for the next four thousand years, right up to today. He literally brought unity and order to his people.
D. Definitely Abraham. The asshole was willing to sacrifice his only son to achieve his ends. Here’s someone who doesn’t shy away from the ugly side of life.
E. Jacob is a fascinating individual who is able to use his superior intelligence to steal his older brother’s inheritance. Even if the historical existence of such an individual is debatable, on a purely academic level Jacob’s character is worth studying.
F. You neglected to include my favorite Biblical character, Melchizedek. Where’s the love for Melchizedek!? Huh!?
Question 19. Answer - ________
20. What’s your opinion on religion in general?
A. C’mon, I spend all day avoiding conversations like this! What are you doing to me? I know what I know and that’s all that matters. I don’t think about this sort of thing. I just feel it.
B. Religion is great! It creates order, allows a framework for protecting those who are less fortunate, and it gives us a morality that allows us to make difficult choices. All the important things that humans need religion provides. Of course, my religion is the only true faith, so all those other religions are wrong and shouldn’t exist…
C. Let’s be honest. The world is not a happy place, and people like you and me aren’t all that great either. If you keep insisting on believing in something greater than yourself you’ll ultimately be disappointed. The only god worth worshipping is inside you.
D. Hundreds of years of scientific study have furnished absolutely zero proof of any divine power. If there was a god, why doesn’t that god want us to find it? You can keep an open mind about religion because science can never invalidate its claims, but don’t succumb to actually practicing any of the superstitious hokum peddled by the “faiths.” You’d do better to spend your time looking for evidence of a god before following one.
E. Religion is overrated. Spirituality on the other hand, is truly genuine. We can see Truth all around us; the millions of perfect leaves on the tree, the uncanny beauty of a sunset, the silent struggle of the wild animal for life. This is the essence of spirituality that so-called religion tries to box up and make rules for. Surprise! The real Truth is bigger than the walls of your church! Walk out in the wild to find true meaning.
F. My thoughts on religion were not represented above. They involve rope, an ice pick, and whoever made me take this retarded quiz. It’s a nondenominational thing.
Question 20. Answer - ________
Return your finished quiz to the sender to see how your personality is best represented by the Magic: the Gathering color pie!
For anyone so foolish as to want to know how to score this beast, I will append my “scoring system” below*. You've been warned. Here are the “explanations” I wrote and then sent out to people.
A Short Primer on the Colors
Excerpted (and slightly amended) from the M:tG Website (http://www.wizards.com)
Black
The black-flavored person’s view of the world is quite self-centered. In essence, black-flavored personalities define the world by how it affects him or her. Thus, to them, each individual has their own purpose in life: making their life as good as it can be. And this is fair as far as a black-flavored person is concerned, as everyone has someone looking out for their own best interest (themselves). Now, this way of life has many victims (after all someone has to lose for others to gain), but black personalities feel this is simply the world’s way to weed out the weak.
Black-flavored personalities believe that others want to change the world to make it something that it isn’t. They feel they are simply accepting the world as it is. Humans are essentially selfish beings. Any other belief is simply denial. Sure, it would be great if the world worked differently, but it doesn’t. And if black personalities have to live in this world, then it’s going to play by the rules that exist. And those rules are simple: Do what you want until someone more powerful stops you.
It is important to remember the having a black-flavored personality doesn’t necessarily denote being evil, just not believing in conventionally “good” institutions or philosophies.
Some things that describe black-flavored personalities:
Amorality
Darkness
Corruption
Deceit
Manipulation
Machiavellian thinking
Individualism
(Calculated) Destruction
Self Absorption
Examples in art of black-flavored characters:
Bart Simpson
Daffy Duck
George Costanza
Blue
To a blue-flavored personality, the world is a collection of resources that allow an individual the ability to transform himself into whatever she or he wishes. Each person is born as a blank slate. The purpose of life is to learn what you want to be and how to achieve that goal.
To accomplish this, the blue personality learns to value the most important resource in the world: information. In order to find one’s place in the world, a person must collect as much knowledge as she or he can. With this tool at her disposal, she will find the answer to any and every problem. Thus, blue-flavored folks want to know everything. For he (or she) who knows all has no weakness.
Some things that describe blue-flavored personalities:
Knowledge
Creativity
Subtlety
Intellect
Trickery
Passivity
Manipulation
Academics
Control
Examples in art of blue-flavored characters:
Lisa Simpson
Spock
Willow and Giles from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Green
Each color's view of the world is heavily influenced by the thing it values most. What do green-flavored personalities value most? Nature. The way green-flavored folks see it, the world has gotten it right. There is no force more powerful, more peaceful, or more elegant than nature. Their end goal is simply to let the natural way evolve. Green-flavored personalities, in their hearts, want nothing more than to sit back and watch life unfurl around them. Thus, their ultimate goal is growth. Green personalities would be happiest in a world where nature has been allowed to run rampant.
Green-flavored personalities dislike artificiality wherever they find it- in the way other people act and in the way urban sprawl takes over farmland. They also have a special affinity for animals.
Although not explicitly stated on the M:tG website, I believe smoking weed is a very green-flavored trait. It’s all natural, man!
Some things that describe green-flavored personalities:
Growth
Nature
Reality (as contrasted to illusion)
Community
Interdependence
Spiritualism
Instinct
Animals
Examples in art of green-flavored characters:
Maggie Simpson (had to fit her in somewhere)
Winnie the Pooh
King Kong
Red
Red-flavored personalities like to have fun. They’re often the life of the party. They have one goal in mind; to do whatever they feel like doing at the moment. Red-flavored folks enjoy spontaneity and live chaotic lives. They tend to be impulsive, sometimes even violent. This doesn’t worry a red-flavored personality. This is healthy expression of emotion. If it were up to red-flavored personalities society would stop being so uptight and just go a little crazy, consequences be damned.
Some things that describe red-flavored personalities:
Chaos
Humor
Impulsiveness
Spontaneity
Violence
Uncivilized
Energy
(Wanton) Destruction
Enthusiasm
Irrationality
Examples in art of red-flavored characters:
Homer Simpson
Tyler Durden from “Fight Club”
Chris Farley’s characters in just about every movie or SNL skit he’s ever been in.
White
White-flavored personalities want a world where everyone gets along. They enjoy community. They want what is best for the whole. They look out for everyone. White-flavored personalities would be happiest in a utopian society where everyone shares and cooperates with one another. The ultimate goal is peace. But sometimes white-flavored personalities can use disquieting methods to attain peace.
Consequently, white-flavored personalities are neither inherently good nor evil. For example, preservation of life is very white-flavored. Most people would probably classify that as “good.” Fascism is also very white-flavored. Most people would probably classify that as “evil.”
Some things that describe white-flavored personalities:
Order
Religion
Civilization
Law
Honor
Morality
Dogmatism
Cooperation
Honesty
Medicine
Examples in art of white-flavored characters:
Marge Simpson
Superman
Captain Jean-Luc Picard from “Star Trek: the Next Generation”
Inspiration for this post was obtained from these guys, by producing a track about being paranoid.
T
*Scoring Guidelines and answers:
There are three possible levels of colors - "Primary, Secondary, and Splash." A person could have all three levels or none at all (in which case a score of "No Color" is given). Whether a color is considered Primary, Secondary or Splash is determined by the number of responses that color has garnered relative to the other significant colors.
A respondent must answer more than 3 questions in a color for that color to be considered significant.
Colors must have scores that differ from one another by at least two to be considered on a different level (i.e. a “primary” color vs. secondary vs. splash color).
No more than 3 colors should be named in a final score unless an “evenly balanced” score (i.e no color is dominant) is given.
For example, Dakkon McBlackblade had scores like this: W:4 U:6 B:8 R:0 G:1 None of the above:1 He would be considered primarily Black, with a secondary color of Blue and a splash of White.
Example number two: Saffi Eriksdotter has scores like this: W:8 U:2 B:1 R:0 G:9 None of the above: 0 She would have a score of White/Green, both as primary colors because although she responded to one more question with an answer of Green, the difference between this and the sum of her White scores is not at least two, and thus the difference is not significant enough to consider the White a "secondary" color.
Example number three: Karn McGolem has scored thusly: W:3 U:3 B:2 R:3 G:3 None of the above: 6 Since none of his scores for any of the five colors are greater than what would be expected by giving answers at random, Karn has "No Color" as his final score.
Here are the answers. Magic colors are given as the normal abbreviations (i.e. Black=b, Blue=u, etc.)
1. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F. no color
2. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
3. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
4. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
5. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
6. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
7. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
8. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
9. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
10. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
11. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
12. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
13. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
14. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
15. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
16. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
17. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
18. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
19. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
20. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
I stumbled across the “What Color Are You” personality quiz on one of Wizards’ “learn to play Magic” sites. Looking at the wording of the questions left me a little suspicious, since I had emailed excerpts my own Magic personality quiz based on the five colors to Mark Rosewater a few years ago. I’m posting my old quiz unaltered and in its entirety so you all can compare yourselves. None of my exact questions are used, but they seem eerily familiar to me, even down to the rambling attempts at humor. I do have to admit that their quiz is more appropriate for the preteen age group, which is to say it is more boring. Also, I made an ill-fated attempt to synthesize personality into several colors per person, if appropriate. This made my quiz hopelessly complex, for no good reason. In my defense, at the time of its composition I was in graduate school and had just finished a research methods course where I had been evaluating the quality of survey data for the entire semester. Breaking down the concept of personality into five arbitrarily discrete categories seemed like an evening of good fun at the time.
Here’s how it worked. I would email about bunch of people this quiz, asking them to fill it out. Annoyed, they would refuse and then I would badger them about it until they fill it in to get me off their backs. It worked better with non-Magic players since they had no idea what the “flavor” of the five colors were. They would email their results back to me, and then I would add up the results and send them back long-winded explanations as to what kind of a human being they were. Actually what they received was more of a primer on the color pie. As such, the results were often in part lifted directly from MaRo’s articles. (Does this make it ironic that I am accusing him of using my idea without permission?) Unfortunately, MaRo hadn’t written his article on Red prior to this, and as I disclosed last week I am about as anti-Red a person as you can find (excepting Senator Joe McCarthy). As a result the Red questions generally focus on angrily breaking objects into pieces, which (unless you’re on steroids or a 14 year-old boy) is unlikely to be seen as an attribute people would seek to correlate with their personality. If I were to redo this quiz, I would play up the spontaneous, creative side of Red and play down the “mindless rage” aspect. Without further ado, here is the quiz in full.
Startled and embarrassed by the outstandingly low quality of stupid online personality quizzes, I was inspired to write my own stupid personality quiz. When composing such an assessment tool one should attempt to quantify personality using the most useless framework available. Being a huge geek, I decided to utilize my embarrassing familiarity with a certain collectable card game, namely Magic: the Gathering. Magic uses a color coding system to denote different “flavored” cards. You don’t have to understand this, just keep reading. My idea was to take the “principles” governing the flavor of these colors and apply them to people’s personalities (so instead of a “green and white deck” I’ll talk about a green and white person’s attitude). If this sounds to you like the biggest waste of time ever, I’ve been successful in picking a theory of personality to assess. After all, the last personality test I took told me what Christian Theologian I was. This is way cooler than that! So take my stupid quiz! You’ll get your personality codified by a color system unknown to 99.99% of the US population. How elitist is that? Just forward this message back to the sender, but add your answers on the blanks provided. Results will be forthcoming!
What M:TG Colors are You?
1. If you were to get a pet, what would it be?
A. I’d have to go with a dependable dog. One that I could train to help others, like guarding the house, scaring up game when I hunt, leading my blind aunt when she visits, you know, productive stuff like that.
B. I’d get a cute little purebred puppy. When it’s young I can take it for walks and snag admiring members of the opposite sex with its cuteness, and then when it’s older I’d enter it in dog shows and rake in the cash! Cha-ching!
C. I suppose I could have one pet, maybe a cat that would show its sophistication and subtlety at all times, even when taking a dump.
D. A pet? The more the merrier. I want a freakin’ menagerie.
E. A monkey. Definitely a poo-throwing monkey.
F. You didn’t mention any animal that I’d ever want.
Question 1. Answer - _______
2. When I grow up I’m going to major in-
A. Economics or some hot tech job that’ll make me loads of cash!
B. Definitely Quantum Mechanics… or maybe Hegelian Metaphysical Philosophy… Ooh! Or 18th century European History! Oh yeah!
C. I’m not going to college. I’m going to work the land in the jungles of Uruguay. But if I were, I’d major in something completely un-academic like Music …or Ecology.
D. Beer Bonging with a minor in Public Urination.
E. Pre-Law or Pre-Med.
F. None of these descriptions even come close to capturing what I want to study.
Question 2. Answer - ________
3. Pick the most delicious meat.
A. Fish. Its brain food, you know.
B. You’re kidding, right? I don’t eat meat, I’m a vegan.
C. BBQed steak. The rawer the better, baby!
D. I’ll have the free-range chicken, please.
E. Veal. Nothing beats the sinful taste of young, atrophied, sensory-deprived flesh.
F. I hate all these meats or non-meat alternatives.
Question 3. Answer - ________
4. You’ve had your meal. Now pick an after dinner drink.
A. Just a big glass of ice water, please.
B. Beer. Oh, you wimps can chase it with tequila if you need to.
C. A nice desert wine would be fine, thanks.
D. A tiramisu martini. So rich.
E. Absinthe. What!? It’s chic! It’s so chic you’ve never heard of it! Stop laughing!
F. None of these options holds even a passing interest to me.
Question 4. Answer - ________
5. I listen most to-
A. Punk. The more hardcore, the better.
B. Perfectly crafted pop masterpieces exactly four minutes long.
C. Rap. I gots to get mine, beeyotch!
D. Electronic dance music so arcane you can’t dance to it.
E. Singer/Songwriter folk that strips away the artificiality so prevalent in today’s society.
F. You didn’t mention any sort of music I like, you reductionist jerk.
Question 5. Answer - ________
6. You’ve just received a letter in the mail from the library saying that a book you have is now a week overdue. What do you do?
A. There must be some mistake. I can’t have forgotten about something so important. But if it’s true, I’d return the book immediately.
B. Throw the letter in the trash and keep the book. What are they going to do? Send the librarian over to break my legs?
C. Return the book, but only after copiously studying it and taking notes. Knowledge is worth any price.
D. Anxiously try to locate the book in the compost pile.
E. There must be some mistake. I can’t read.
F. I would do something completely different from and infinitely cooler than any of these lame options.
Question 6. Answer - ________
7. You’re at a great party. Where at the party can you be found?
A. I’ll be at the bar, looking for a second “date” to complement the one already on my arm.
B. I’ll be on the couch, in a drunken argument about the philosophy of science.
C. I’ll be in the basement, passing the fattie around, if you know what I mean.
D. I’ll be on the dance floor, shaking it and shouting “Wooo!” really loudly.
E. I’ll be at the kitchen table sipping on orange juice and playing Scrabble, or maybe Outburst if I’m feeling really wild.
F. I’ll be hiding in some place that you never mentioned, because I wouldn’t be caught dead in any of the above places.
Question 7. Answer - ________
8. I would give my right arm for-
A. A state of the art, robotic arm that could type twice as fast.
B. An arm with a big hairy claw instead of a hand. Rraarr!
C. The grenade I used to be holding when I had a right arm.
D. Nothing. Some things aren’t worth sacrificing.
E. Just about anything I needed at the moment.
F. Something. Just not any of your choices, dork.
Question 8. Answer - ________
9. You and your friends have decided to go see a movie tonight. What do you want to see?
A. I want to go see a nature film at the Imax theatre. I have to deal with idiot humans all day; the last thing I want to do is pay to watch more of them on a screen.
B. Don’t you ever just want to have a little fun? I’ve spent all day thinking; I want to see an action movie or a comedy.
C. I want to see a movie that illustrates a righteous man’s struggle for justice against all odds. Something moving and uplifting that will restore your faith in life, not question it.
D. I don’t know yet, but whatever it is, you can be sure we’re going to see my choice and not anybody else’s!
E. If I’m going to invest my eight dollars on a movie, it better challenge me. Maybe an engrossing drama or an arty independent film.
F. All these movie choices make me want to wretch.
Question 9. Answer - ________
10. It’s a really hot day and your vehicle breaks down on lonely road. What do you do?
A. I’d pop the hood, inspect the smoking engine like I know what I’m doing, then admit I don’t have a clue and angrily destroy the vehicle with my tire iron.
B. Get out and take a look at what’s wrong. If I can’t fix it up with what I’ve got on hand, I’ll walk to the nearest town and buy the supplies I need to finish the job.
C. Strip down to almost nothing and lean provocatively on the side of the road. I’d make sure to have my tazer handy to jack the first Pervert Samaritan that stops and steal their wheels. Didn’t see that one coming did you? Neither did they!
D. I’d uplink to my dashboard navigational system and connect to roadside assistance. I’ll be home and out of the heat in no time!
E. I’d get my hiking gear out of the Jeep and start off through the woods. It’s a beautiful day and I didn’t like driving anyway.
F. None of these scenarios come even remotely close to what I would do in that stupid, contrived situation.
Question 10. Answer - ________
11. Say a few words about your parents.
A. I have great respect for my parents. They taught me the value of discipline and obedience.
B. I’d like to sell them into slavery.
C. They were always reading to me. And so proud of my grades!
D. What can you say about the ones that gave you life? I have a deep love for them.
E. Love ‘em. Pa taught me how to drink and Ma taught me how to fight.
F. I’m adopted, you asshole.
Question 11. Answer - ________
12. My favorite member of the Simpson’s family is-
A. Bart. Entertaining, self-serving, has almost no morals… what’s not to like?
B. Lisa. She’s a seven year old that was accepted into Mensa. ‘Nuff said.
C. Maggie. So innocent, unlike the rest of those dysfunctional freaks.
D. Homer. “Aahh!” “Doh!” “Why you little…!” “Mmm. Doughnut.”
E. Marge. She might get put down for being bland and always worrying, but she’s the only one who keeps that family from falling apart.
F. Who are these “Simpsons” that you speak of?
Question 12. Answer - ________
13. Pick an economic system.
A. Although it is now synonymous with less advanced cultures, the barter system is the only real economic structure that allows the canny businessperson to utilize every subtle facet of an ever changing value system. Here the most intelligent trader wins. Ideally the whole world would be set up like Ebay, and we could troll for the best deals (and the most ignorant sellers), or bluff indignantly when selling off a “precious” item to others.
B. Economic systems are a necessary but unavoidable evil based on leaky philosophies. I don’t care which one is in place because they’re all just as artificial.
C. Anarchy!
D. Communism. It gets a bum rap, but if you could just get the right people, I mean really good people, at the top, it would be the best. It radically protects the poor and underprivileged in a simple, orderly way. Beautiful.
E. Laizzes Faire Capitalism. Everybody looks out for themselves. Hey, I can’t help it if you aren’t as ingenious or as well-funded as I am to start off. Just don’t get in my way, or I’ll monopolize your ass right out of business!
F. You never mentioned my favorite economic system. How could you have forgotten it?
Question 13. Answer - ________
14. Imagine you and a (heterosexual) partner are engaging in frequent sexual activity, but do not yet want to have children. What would your birth control of choice be?
A. I believe in the sanctity of all life. I refuse to use even natural family planning. If we weren’t meant to have babies, then I’d have been born sterile!
B. Did you know that you only have to worry about getting pregnant if you put it one specific opening? There are plenty more to choose from!
C. Obviously, there are some ethical obligations to think about when considering birth control. I would choose a balance between heartless use of technology and irresponsible breeding mania. Like natural family planning, or maybe even using a condom.
D. I’d use my condoms only once before throwing them out. Same goes for my partners.
E. I’d use the most effective current prophylactics (yes, even abortion- if all else failed, you uptight moralists!), in combination with the latest medical advances possible, as evidenced by controlled experiments in peer reviewed journals. We ain’t takin’ no chances!
F. My answer would fall into a gray area for which you did not provide a choice. How insensitive!
Question 14. Answer - ________
15. You and your partner are going to try something really adventurous in the sack. What would you do?
A. Drunken naked wrestling, baby!
B. Leave the lights on.
C. Tie ‘em up. And watch ‘em beg for it.
D. Pull open the bedroom shades to sneak a peek at your horny neighbors getting it on, then copy exactly what they do.
E. Call the dog into the bedroom… Woof!
F. I would never do any of those horrible things. Especially leave the lights on.
Question 15. Answer - ________
16. You’ve got a report due tomorrow and you’re computer crashes, taking with it all you’ve written. What do you do?
A. I’d just load the file again from one the other two back-up disks I’ve been obsessively saving to. That’s why it’s always good to plan ahead.
B. I’m not going to write that damn thing again. I’ll trade whatever I have lying around (i.e. cash, drugs, my body) to get someone else to do it.
C. I’ll use my mad programming skills to hack into the hard drive and find the back up of the file somewhere.
D. I don’t own a computer! I’m against the rabid proliferation of such technology. I use a Unabomber-style typewriter that never crashes! Who’s laughing now, suckers?
E. I’d do something I should have done a long time ago- take that obsolete piece of shit out into the alley and bludgeon it into dust with an aluminum bat.
F. Despite your provision of a wide array of plausible and humorous choices, not a single one has any appeal to me whatsoever. Asshole.
Question 16. Answer - ________
17. You’re plotting to overthrow the current Powers That Be in your quest for world domination. How would you go about it?
A. I would devise an economic system that works solely on individualistic greed and then watch its insidious tendrils wriggle into every other culture around the globe, slowly turning them all into parodies of my own culture. Oh wait, capitalism’s already taken…
B. I would use my clearly superior intellect to manipulate and twist everything my opponents said into something different. Then I’d steal their own platform and tell the public it’s mine. Basically, I’d run for a political office.
C. First I would forbid any new construction projects, ever. Then I would close our nation’s schools and release the children back into the forest. Then I would open our zoos and declare the animals our sovereign leaders. It’s back to nature for me!
D. I would blow up a lot big important stuff. Then blow up some more stuff. Like at the end of “Fight Club.” It’ll be a terrorist organization, but without the pesky “beliefs” and “goals.”
E. I would preach the inherent Truth of my mission to all who would listen and once we had enough people on our side, we’d overthrow this regime and liberate the poor deluded masses.
F. I have a secret, way cooler plan than any of those stupid ones! And soon you’ll all witness it in action! Bwaahh ha ha ha haaaa!
Question 17. Answer - ________
18. Tired of your incessant plotting to take over the world, a friend complains that you’re “evil.” You reply-
A. “That statement is, I’m afraid, irrelevant. My theoretical framework does not allow for such painfully dichotomous absolutes as ‘good’ and ‘evil.’”
B. “The word ‘evil’ doesn’t apply to living things. It only applies to constructed, artificial terms… like the word ‘evil’”.
C. “I know you are, but what am I?”
D. “You are lying. Therefore you’re evil.”
E. “So I’m evil. At least I can admit it to myself.”
F. “This is ludicrous. I refuse to answer this asinine quiz question.”
Question 18. Answer - ________
19. Which Bible character suits you best?
A. I like Noah. Imagine having to contain all of creation in a single ship- that must have been one wild ride.
B. King David. Big guy and little guy square off. Little guy cracks big guy’s skull with a little rock, then cuts big guy’s head off. Cool!
C. Moses is awesome. He leads his slave brethren out of oppression and then delivers to them the Ten Commandments- the basis of the law they’ll use for the next four thousand years, right up to today. He literally brought unity and order to his people.
D. Definitely Abraham. The asshole was willing to sacrifice his only son to achieve his ends. Here’s someone who doesn’t shy away from the ugly side of life.
E. Jacob is a fascinating individual who is able to use his superior intelligence to steal his older brother’s inheritance. Even if the historical existence of such an individual is debatable, on a purely academic level Jacob’s character is worth studying.
F. You neglected to include my favorite Biblical character, Melchizedek. Where’s the love for Melchizedek!? Huh!?
Question 19. Answer - ________
20. What’s your opinion on religion in general?
A. C’mon, I spend all day avoiding conversations like this! What are you doing to me? I know what I know and that’s all that matters. I don’t think about this sort of thing. I just feel it.
B. Religion is great! It creates order, allows a framework for protecting those who are less fortunate, and it gives us a morality that allows us to make difficult choices. All the important things that humans need religion provides. Of course, my religion is the only true faith, so all those other religions are wrong and shouldn’t exist…
C. Let’s be honest. The world is not a happy place, and people like you and me aren’t all that great either. If you keep insisting on believing in something greater than yourself you’ll ultimately be disappointed. The only god worth worshipping is inside you.
D. Hundreds of years of scientific study have furnished absolutely zero proof of any divine power. If there was a god, why doesn’t that god want us to find it? You can keep an open mind about religion because science can never invalidate its claims, but don’t succumb to actually practicing any of the superstitious hokum peddled by the “faiths.” You’d do better to spend your time looking for evidence of a god before following one.
E. Religion is overrated. Spirituality on the other hand, is truly genuine. We can see Truth all around us; the millions of perfect leaves on the tree, the uncanny beauty of a sunset, the silent struggle of the wild animal for life. This is the essence of spirituality that so-called religion tries to box up and make rules for. Surprise! The real Truth is bigger than the walls of your church! Walk out in the wild to find true meaning.
F. My thoughts on religion were not represented above. They involve rope, an ice pick, and whoever made me take this retarded quiz. It’s a nondenominational thing.
Question 20. Answer - ________
Return your finished quiz to the sender to see how your personality is best represented by the Magic: the Gathering color pie!
For anyone so foolish as to want to know how to score this beast, I will append my “scoring system” below*. You've been warned. Here are the “explanations” I wrote and then sent out to people.
A Short Primer on the Colors
Excerpted (and slightly amended) from the M:tG Website (http://www.wizards.com)
Black
The black-flavored person’s view of the world is quite self-centered. In essence, black-flavored personalities define the world by how it affects him or her. Thus, to them, each individual has their own purpose in life: making their life as good as it can be. And this is fair as far as a black-flavored person is concerned, as everyone has someone looking out for their own best interest (themselves). Now, this way of life has many victims (after all someone has to lose for others to gain), but black personalities feel this is simply the world’s way to weed out the weak.
Black-flavored personalities believe that others want to change the world to make it something that it isn’t. They feel they are simply accepting the world as it is. Humans are essentially selfish beings. Any other belief is simply denial. Sure, it would be great if the world worked differently, but it doesn’t. And if black personalities have to live in this world, then it’s going to play by the rules that exist. And those rules are simple: Do what you want until someone more powerful stops you.
It is important to remember the having a black-flavored personality doesn’t necessarily denote being evil, just not believing in conventionally “good” institutions or philosophies.
Some things that describe black-flavored personalities:
Amorality
Darkness
Corruption
Deceit
Manipulation
Machiavellian thinking
Individualism
(Calculated) Destruction
Self Absorption
Examples in art of black-flavored characters:
Bart Simpson
Daffy Duck
George Costanza
Blue
To a blue-flavored personality, the world is a collection of resources that allow an individual the ability to transform himself into whatever she or he wishes. Each person is born as a blank slate. The purpose of life is to learn what you want to be and how to achieve that goal.
To accomplish this, the blue personality learns to value the most important resource in the world: information. In order to find one’s place in the world, a person must collect as much knowledge as she or he can. With this tool at her disposal, she will find the answer to any and every problem. Thus, blue-flavored folks want to know everything. For he (or she) who knows all has no weakness.
Some things that describe blue-flavored personalities:
Knowledge
Creativity
Subtlety
Intellect
Trickery
Passivity
Manipulation
Academics
Control
Examples in art of blue-flavored characters:
Lisa Simpson
Spock
Willow and Giles from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Green
Each color's view of the world is heavily influenced by the thing it values most. What do green-flavored personalities value most? Nature. The way green-flavored folks see it, the world has gotten it right. There is no force more powerful, more peaceful, or more elegant than nature. Their end goal is simply to let the natural way evolve. Green-flavored personalities, in their hearts, want nothing more than to sit back and watch life unfurl around them. Thus, their ultimate goal is growth. Green personalities would be happiest in a world where nature has been allowed to run rampant.
Green-flavored personalities dislike artificiality wherever they find it- in the way other people act and in the way urban sprawl takes over farmland. They also have a special affinity for animals.
Although not explicitly stated on the M:tG website, I believe smoking weed is a very green-flavored trait. It’s all natural, man!
Some things that describe green-flavored personalities:
Growth
Nature
Reality (as contrasted to illusion)
Community
Interdependence
Spiritualism
Instinct
Animals
Examples in art of green-flavored characters:
Maggie Simpson (had to fit her in somewhere)
Winnie the Pooh
King Kong
Red
Red-flavored personalities like to have fun. They’re often the life of the party. They have one goal in mind; to do whatever they feel like doing at the moment. Red-flavored folks enjoy spontaneity and live chaotic lives. They tend to be impulsive, sometimes even violent. This doesn’t worry a red-flavored personality. This is healthy expression of emotion. If it were up to red-flavored personalities society would stop being so uptight and just go a little crazy, consequences be damned.
Some things that describe red-flavored personalities:
Chaos
Humor
Impulsiveness
Spontaneity
Violence
Uncivilized
Energy
(Wanton) Destruction
Enthusiasm
Irrationality
Examples in art of red-flavored characters:
Homer Simpson
Tyler Durden from “Fight Club”
Chris Farley’s characters in just about every movie or SNL skit he’s ever been in.
White
White-flavored personalities want a world where everyone gets along. They enjoy community. They want what is best for the whole. They look out for everyone. White-flavored personalities would be happiest in a utopian society where everyone shares and cooperates with one another. The ultimate goal is peace. But sometimes white-flavored personalities can use disquieting methods to attain peace.
Consequently, white-flavored personalities are neither inherently good nor evil. For example, preservation of life is very white-flavored. Most people would probably classify that as “good.” Fascism is also very white-flavored. Most people would probably classify that as “evil.”
Some things that describe white-flavored personalities:
Order
Religion
Civilization
Law
Honor
Morality
Dogmatism
Cooperation
Honesty
Medicine
Examples in art of white-flavored characters:
Marge Simpson
Superman
Captain Jean-Luc Picard from “Star Trek: the Next Generation”
Inspiration for this post was obtained from these guys, by producing a track about being paranoid.
T
*Scoring Guidelines and answers:
There are three possible levels of colors - "Primary, Secondary, and Splash." A person could have all three levels or none at all (in which case a score of "No Color" is given). Whether a color is considered Primary, Secondary or Splash is determined by the number of responses that color has garnered relative to the other significant colors.
A respondent must answer more than 3 questions in a color for that color to be considered significant.
Colors must have scores that differ from one another by at least two to be considered on a different level (i.e. a “primary” color vs. secondary vs. splash color).
No more than 3 colors should be named in a final score unless an “evenly balanced” score (i.e no color is dominant) is given.
For example, Dakkon McBlackblade had scores like this: W:4 U:6 B:8 R:0 G:1 None of the above:1 He would be considered primarily Black, with a secondary color of Blue and a splash of White.
Example number two: Saffi Eriksdotter has scores like this: W:8 U:2 B:1 R:0 G:9 None of the above: 0 She would have a score of White/Green, both as primary colors because although she responded to one more question with an answer of Green, the difference between this and the sum of her White scores is not at least two, and thus the difference is not significant enough to consider the White a "secondary" color.
Example number three: Karn McGolem has scored thusly: W:3 U:3 B:2 R:3 G:3 None of the above: 6 Since none of his scores for any of the five colors are greater than what would be expected by giving answers at random, Karn has "No Color" as his final score.
Here are the answers. Magic colors are given as the normal abbreviations (i.e. Black=b, Blue=u, etc.)
1. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F. no color
2. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
3. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
4. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
5. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
6. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
7. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
8. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
9. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
10. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
11. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
12. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
13. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
14. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
15. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
16. A.w B.b C.u D.g E.r F.none
17. A.b B.u C.g D.r E.w F.none
18. A.u B.g C.r D.w E.b F.none
19. A.g B.r C.w D.b E.u F.none
20. A.r B.w C.b D.u E.g F.none
Friday, February 15, 2008
R/g/b Goblins and Apocalyptic Storms
Have you seen the forecast for Sunday?
I consider it highly unlikely I am gonna make it out to the tournament on Sunday. While fun, it's just not worth crashing. Maybe we could do EDH at my house on Saturday? Anybody interested?
Here's the list i would run if I were going.
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Stingscourger
3 Earwig Squad
4 Aether Vial
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Mountain
3 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Strip Mine
2 Badlands
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
Sideboard
1 Earwig Squad
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin King
4 Leyline of the Void
The maindeck Earwig Squads hopefully improve the Long matchup a little since they play so few win conditions. Capping them turn 2 doesn't help against the T1 win, but they don't always have the nuts, right?
I am not convinced the 4 Leylines in the board are enough to fight Ichorid. If I were to get a Squad against them, I am not even sure what i would take. Probably the GGTs, since I can kill their Bridges and the rest of their dudes are less than impressive.
I am really not convinced on Game 1 vs Workshop Aggro. I have the four Fanatics that can kill a Welder, which is nice, but it's hard to fight through fat butts, and if they land a SOFI, I am dead. It gets a lot better when I can Matron up Goblin King and combo kill after board. Unless of course they are playing MUD, rather than red.
The matchup vs. GAT is pretty solid I think. If I Cap them, I can get their Cunning Wish and if they can't get Berserk, it's almost impossible for them to fight through all the dudes.
PlatzPact is a problem, especially since Menendian wrote about it (including an Oath version) on Wednesday. I think I just scoop to a resolved Plat. Maybe those Grudges should be Krosan Grips. Hrm.
So why am I playing this deck if I think it's a dog to the whole metagame? A few reasons. It's cheap to build, I know how to play it, and if they stumble at all, Goblins just wins. Goldfishing this deck is insane. I have swung for 17 on turn four after a mull to 4. Yes, I know turn 4 is just a rumor in Vintage a lot of the time, but sometimes it's real, you know?
Oh! The metagame! Here was the field for the last tourney...
3 It’s Raining Men
1 Ichorid
2 Flash
1 UW Control
1 Bomberman
1 Counterbalance Goyf
7 Long
3 Fish
2 Dem Goyfs
2 SS Goyf
2 R/G beats
4 Empty Gifts
1 Red Burn
1 PlatPact
4 GAT
1 Goblins
3 MUD
1 Control Slaver
1 Affinity
1 Stax
Ichorid won. I expect MUD and Long to continue their high numbers, possibly with more PlatzPact due to Menendian's article. I have no idea why someone would play Empty Gifts instead of Long. GAT draws a lot of cards and then dies a lot. It's such a typical 'vintage' deck in that it dies to decks that use the attack step. So weird. Anyways, I think that's enough random ranting from a dude who has played in a single vintage tournament. Again, I don't think I am going to be there this weekend unless the forecast changes dramatically. Hope you guys have fun.
...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH
SUNDAY EVENING...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A
WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING
THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING.
SNOW AMOUNTS GENERALLY IN THE 6 TO 13 INCH RANGE ARE POSSIBLE
SUNDAY INTO SUNDAY EVENING...WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS OVER
SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN. SLIGHTLY LOWER AMOUNTS ARE POSSIBLE TO THE
NORTHWEST. IN ADDITION...STRONG WINDS WITH THE LOW MAY CAUSE
BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. THOSE WITH TRAVEL PLANS SUNDAY AND
SUNDAY EVENING SHOULD KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST FORECASTS.
I consider it highly unlikely I am gonna make it out to the tournament on Sunday. While fun, it's just not worth crashing. Maybe we could do EDH at my house on Saturday? Anybody interested?
Here's the list i would run if I were going.
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Stingscourger
3 Earwig Squad
4 Aether Vial
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Mountain
3 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Strip Mine
2 Badlands
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
Sideboard
1 Earwig Squad
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin King
4 Leyline of the Void
The maindeck Earwig Squads hopefully improve the Long matchup a little since they play so few win conditions. Capping them turn 2 doesn't help against the T1 win, but they don't always have the nuts, right?
I am not convinced the 4 Leylines in the board are enough to fight Ichorid. If I were to get a Squad against them, I am not even sure what i would take. Probably the GGTs, since I can kill their Bridges and the rest of their dudes are less than impressive.
I am really not convinced on Game 1 vs Workshop Aggro. I have the four Fanatics that can kill a Welder, which is nice, but it's hard to fight through fat butts, and if they land a SOFI, I am dead. It gets a lot better when I can Matron up Goblin King and combo kill after board. Unless of course they are playing MUD, rather than red.
The matchup vs. GAT is pretty solid I think. If I Cap them, I can get their Cunning Wish and if they can't get Berserk, it's almost impossible for them to fight through all the dudes.
PlatzPact is a problem, especially since Menendian wrote about it (including an Oath version) on Wednesday. I think I just scoop to a resolved Plat. Maybe those Grudges should be Krosan Grips. Hrm.
So why am I playing this deck if I think it's a dog to the whole metagame? A few reasons. It's cheap to build, I know how to play it, and if they stumble at all, Goblins just wins. Goldfishing this deck is insane. I have swung for 17 on turn four after a mull to 4. Yes, I know turn 4 is just a rumor in Vintage a lot of the time, but sometimes it's real, you know?
Oh! The metagame! Here was the field for the last tourney...
3 It’s Raining Men
1 Ichorid
2 Flash
1 UW Control
1 Bomberman
1 Counterbalance Goyf
7 Long
3 Fish
2 Dem Goyfs
2 SS Goyf
2 R/G beats
4 Empty Gifts
1 Red Burn
1 PlatPact
4 GAT
1 Goblins
3 MUD
1 Control Slaver
1 Affinity
1 Stax
Ichorid won. I expect MUD and Long to continue their high numbers, possibly with more PlatzPact due to Menendian's article. I have no idea why someone would play Empty Gifts instead of Long. GAT draws a lot of cards and then dies a lot. It's such a typical 'vintage' deck in that it dies to decks that use the attack step. So weird. Anyways, I think that's enough random ranting from a dude who has played in a single vintage tournament. Again, I don't think I am going to be there this weekend unless the forecast changes dramatically. Hope you guys have fun.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Old Fart Magic League, Week 2
Week two definitely started out better than week one. I beat up on Jake in game one fairly convincingly and things went down hill from there (I proceeded to drop three of the next four to Jake). After refueling @ Omega*, I proceeded to beat Kiersten and then Ed**. Overall a much more satisfying (winning is usually pretty satisfying).
I almost forgot, here is the pack that I added for week 2:
White
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (#2)
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue
Dewdrop Spy
Merrow Witsniper
Sage of Fables (#2)
Black
Pulling Teeth
Red
Boldwyr Intimidator
Rivals’ Duel
Shard Volley
Seething Pathblazer
Roar of the Crowd
Green
Cream of the Crop***
Everbark Shaman
Elvish Warrior
In the end I went with a build very similar to what Tobasco posted in the comments to last weeks post, with a few notable exceptions.
Out
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieving Sprite
Winnower Patrol (only two elves/warriors)
In
Research the Deep (I really like this whole cycle)
Sage of Fables (two is better than one)
Dewdrop Spy (faerie rogue in the main color)
Played List
Fertile Ground
Thieves’s Fortune
Research the Deep
Moonglove Extract
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Pact’s Disdain
Weedstrangle
Violet Pall
Garruk Wildspeaker
Deeptread Merrow
Dewdrop Spy
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Moonglove Changeling
Drowner of Secrets
Sage of Fables (2)
Latchkey Faerie
Stinkdrinker Bandit
Fencer Clique
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
3 Forest
8 island
6 swamp
In the end the deck performed pretty well. There is a reasonable amount of removal, decent card draw, and a few bombs. However, it has a hard time dealing w/ multiple fatties & is lacking for playable guys with three butts or bigger.
Here is the pack that I’m adding for next week:
White
Burrenton Bombardier
Mosquito Guard
Blue
Disperse
Floodchaser (#3)
Black
Moonglove Changeling (#2)
Morsel Theft
Stinkdrinker Bandit (#2)
Pulling Teeth (#2)
Red
Brighthearth Banneret
Release the Ants
Sensation Gorger
Sunflare Shaman
Green
Everbark Shaman
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
For those of you who like lists, here is the complete pool with the two packs added. Quick note on a couple of trends, the red is getting better and the rogue sub theme is improving as well.
White:
Cenn’s Heir
Crib Swap
Harpoon Sniper
Hillcomber Giant
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Kithkin Healer
Shields of Velis Vel
Springjack Knight
Ballyrush Banneret
Burrenton Bombardier
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (2)
Changeling Sentinel
Forfend (2)
Mosquito Guard
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue:
Deeptread Merrow
Drowner of Secrets
Ego Erasure
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Ringskipper
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Dewdrop Spy
Disperse
Fencer Clique
Floodchaser (3)
Latchkey Faerie
Merrow Witsniper
Nevermaker
Research the Deep
Sage of Fables (2)
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieve’s Fortune
Black:
Boggart Birth Rite
Boggart Loggers
Facevaulter
Final Revels
Nectar Faerie
Thieving Sprite
Weed Strangle
Festercreep
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Morsel Theft
Pact’s Disdain
Pulling Teeth (2)
Scarblade Elite
Stinkdrinder Bandit (2)
Violet Pall
Red:
Adder-Staff Boggart
Blades of Velis Vel
Boggart Sprite-Chaser
Flamekin Brawler
Goatnapper
Hearthcage Giant
Ingot Chewer
Lash Out
Lowland Oaf
Needle Drop
Kindred Fury
Stingmoggie
Boldwyr Intimidator
Brighthearth Banneret
Lunk Errant (foil)
Release the Ants
Rivals’ Duel
Roar of the Crowd
Seething Pathblazer
Sensation Gorger
Shard Volley (2)
Sunflare Shaman
Taurean Mauler
Green:
Fertile Ground
Garruk Wildspeaker
Heal the Scars
Jagged-Scar Archers
Kithkin Daggerdare
Kithkin Mourncaller
Lignify
Warren-Scourge Elf
Cream of the Crop
Deglamer (2)
Elvish Warrior (2)
Everbark Shaman (2)
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
Orchard Warden
Winnower Patrol
Multi:
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Artifact:
Moonglove Extract
Rings of Brightearth
* Froggering in the light snow was just not wise.
** I did manage to pull off Garruk overrunning for 30 trample damage for the win.
*** This is the fourth one that I’ve opened since the Pre-release.
I almost forgot, here is the pack that I added for week 2:
White
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (#2)
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue
Dewdrop Spy
Merrow Witsniper
Sage of Fables (#2)
Black
Pulling Teeth
Red
Boldwyr Intimidator
Rivals’ Duel
Shard Volley
Seething Pathblazer
Roar of the Crowd
Green
Cream of the Crop***
Everbark Shaman
Elvish Warrior
In the end I went with a build very similar to what Tobasco posted in the comments to last weeks post, with a few notable exceptions.
Out
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieving Sprite
Winnower Patrol (only two elves/warriors)
In
Research the Deep (I really like this whole cycle)
Sage of Fables (two is better than one)
Dewdrop Spy (faerie rogue in the main color)
Played List
Fertile Ground
Thieves’s Fortune
Research the Deep
Moonglove Extract
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Pact’s Disdain
Weedstrangle
Violet Pall
Garruk Wildspeaker
Deeptread Merrow
Dewdrop Spy
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Moonglove Changeling
Drowner of Secrets
Sage of Fables (2)
Latchkey Faerie
Stinkdrinker Bandit
Fencer Clique
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
3 Forest
8 island
6 swamp
In the end the deck performed pretty well. There is a reasonable amount of removal, decent card draw, and a few bombs. However, it has a hard time dealing w/ multiple fatties & is lacking for playable guys with three butts or bigger.
Here is the pack that I’m adding for next week:
White
Burrenton Bombardier
Mosquito Guard
Blue
Disperse
Floodchaser (#3)
Black
Moonglove Changeling (#2)
Morsel Theft
Stinkdrinker Bandit (#2)
Pulling Teeth (#2)
Red
Brighthearth Banneret
Release the Ants
Sensation Gorger
Sunflare Shaman
Green
Everbark Shaman
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
For those of you who like lists, here is the complete pool with the two packs added. Quick note on a couple of trends, the red is getting better and the rogue sub theme is improving as well.
White:
Cenn’s Heir
Crib Swap
Harpoon Sniper
Hillcomber Giant
Kinsbaile Balloonist
Kithkin Healer
Shields of Velis Vel
Springjack Knight
Ballyrush Banneret
Burrenton Bombardier
Burrenton Shield-Bearers (2)
Changeling Sentinel
Forfend (2)
Mosquito Guard
Redeem the Lost (foil)
Shinewend
Blue:
Deeptread Merrow
Drowner of Secrets
Ego Erasure
Inkfathom Divers
Mulldrifter
Ringskipper
Stonybrook Angler (foil)
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Dewdrop Spy
Disperse
Fencer Clique
Floodchaser (3)
Latchkey Faerie
Merrow Witsniper
Nevermaker
Research the Deep
Sage of Fables (2)
Stream of Unconsciousness
Thieve’s Fortune
Black:
Boggart Birth Rite
Boggart Loggers
Facevaulter
Final Revels
Nectar Faerie
Thieving Sprite
Weed Strangle
Festercreep
Moonglove Changeling (2)
Morsel Theft
Pact’s Disdain
Pulling Teeth (2)
Scarblade Elite
Stinkdrinder Bandit (2)
Violet Pall
Red:
Adder-Staff Boggart
Blades of Velis Vel
Boggart Sprite-Chaser
Flamekin Brawler
Goatnapper
Hearthcage Giant
Ingot Chewer
Lash Out
Lowland Oaf
Needle Drop
Kindred Fury
Stingmoggie
Boldwyr Intimidator
Brighthearth Banneret
Lunk Errant (foil)
Release the Ants
Rivals’ Duel
Roar of the Crowd
Seething Pathblazer
Sensation Gorger
Shard Volley (2)
Sunflare Shaman
Taurean Mauler
Green:
Fertile Ground
Garruk Wildspeaker
Heal the Scars
Jagged-Scar Archers
Kithkin Daggerdare
Kithkin Mourncaller
Lignify
Warren-Scourge Elf
Cream of the Crop
Deglamer (2)
Elvish Warrior (2)
Everbark Shaman (2)
Fertilid
Hunting Triad
Orchard Warden
Winnower Patrol
Multi:
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Artifact:
Moonglove Extract
Rings of Brightearth
* Froggering in the light snow was just not wise.
** I did manage to pull off Garruk overrunning for 30 trample damage for the win.
*** This is the fourth one that I’ve opened since the Pre-release.
Monday, February 11, 2008
TooSarcastic: In the Beginning...
I was going to post a Cube Draft list update (it’s been a while) but Fugie and CBG have inspired me with their halcyon tales of yore. So at the risk of this being one “How It All Began” story too many, I will present the brief version of my growth as a Magic player.
Phase I: Juggs FTW.
In junior high, Jamie was the cool kid. He had three older brothers. One was in the army, one was a lawyer, and one was a stoner who played D&D and sold beer to high school girls in exchange for- well you know why he did it. Guess which brother Jamie idolized? Pretty soon we were all playing D&D and Sega Genesis at Jaime’s house. One day Jamie came back from the Twin Cities* with a Magic: the Gathering Revised starter deck. He taught us all to play by shuffling the deck, cutting it in half, and dueling each half against the other (usually with a bunch of other guys just rapt, quietly watching the two players). I remember the rule of thumb being whoever got the Juggernaut won. It was the best card in the starter deck (and still ain’t bad after all these years). The other rule was that Jaime always got to play. They were his cards. About four of us would take turns playing against Jaime. Exciting stuff. Oh, and we also thought that damage stayed on creatures over turns (or was “permanently subtracted from toughness” as Jamie would sagely put it). Thus the Ironwood Treefolk were a lot better than they eventually end up being. I was the nerd who actually got bored and read the rulebook while Jaime played some other scrub. So I was the one who had to inform him that damage wore off at the end of turns. Jaime did not take this well. It was around this time that my best friend Engler and I decided that when our moms** took us shopping in the Twin Cities we were going buy us some Magic cards of our own. I'm not really quite sure what happened to Jamie, but I hear these days that he's living in Jamaica, participating in some sort of non-traditional lifestyle. That’s the small town gossip anyway.
* It’s rural Minnesota. The closest thing resembling a city was an hour south.
** I know, I know. It's hilarious now. But think back to that time. How else would a fourteen year-old get seventy miles away from his house? "Mooom! I need a ride!"
Phase II: Beating the Metagame
I don’t know when it was that I bought my first packs, or what they were. I bought a lot of Ice Age. I bought a lot of Alliances. I bought tons of Chronicles. Even back then we figured out quickly that Fallen Empires and Homelands were awful, and stayed away. For some reason most of the guys Engler and I played with*** began do other things with their time. So it became a pretty well defined metagame. Let me recreate it for you: I played blue. Engler played red. Got it?
*** This was strictly kitchen table stuff, if we had even known about sanctioned play it would have been an hour away, and us with only our learner’s permits.
I don’t know why, but I loved playing blue. I wasn’t actually good at knowing what threat to counterspell, but in my opinion, saying “no” was just about the best thing a guy could do. I played a bunch of counterspells, a bunch of islands, four quicksand, four Nevinyrral's Disk, and four Mahamoti Djinn as win conditions. Engler better understood the idea of threat density (or something like that) and preferred to be the guy asking the questions instead of holding answers. He played a bunch of weenie guys and burn. Ironclaw Orcs, Mogg Fanatic, Shock, that stuff.
In order to stay competitive I had to dip into white for the Wrath of God effects. I read an article in Scrye once that advised putting in Rainbow Efreets and Avenging Angels to withstand your own Wraths. I could only ever find two Rainbow Efreets, but I had the quad Avenging Angels going strong. (I also put both of those creatures in my current EDH deck for the same reason, plus a little nostalgia).
Once I upped the number of board sweepers Engler decided to ditch the weenies. He grabbed up four of every instant burn spell he could find. Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Kindle, Fireblast, Lightning Blast, even Searing Touch for goodness sake! And of course Kaervek’s Torch. It was like the proto-Demonfire. Blue decks hated it. He even put in Viashino Sandstalkers, which were like reusable Fireblasts, until I started adding red to my deck.
Out went the white. Now I got serious and copied a U/R deck out of some magazine. In went four Lighting Bolt (Hey, if you can’t beat em’…) and the biggies- four Shard Phoenix.**** In came four Forbid. I would ditch the Phoenixes early to pay the buyback on Forbid then return the Phoenixes during my upkeep after I had enough mana to cast them. Now I have on-board mass removal for those pesky Sandstalkers! Beat that Engler!
****At one point I remember having about eight Nevinyrral's Disks and about seven Shard Phoenixes (both are also in my EDH, btw), but refusing to trade any to Engler. I traded for the entire town’s supply of both cards, just so I wouldn’t have to play against them! Hate draft much?
But Engler, he was a wily one. One day we bust out the decks to play, and he drops an artifact turn one. I thought it was a Sol Ring until I looked more closely. “Cursed Scroll?” I said, squinting. “That doesn’t seem very good.” After Engler had dumped his hand five turns later, it started to seem a little better.
Him: “I’ll activate the Scroll, naming mountain.”
Me: “Again? Ugh, shock on a stick… I need a way to counterspell something on turn one.”
After losing many a game to Engler’s Cursed Scrolls,***** I remembered a really expensive counterspell from back in the day. The next time Engler played turn one Cursed Scroll I was ready.
Engler: “Scroll, go.”
Me: “Hold on there, partner. I have a response to your Scroll. I will play…Force of Will!”
And so the metagame went. My senior year in High School Urza’s Block was going full bore, wrecking the game with crazy combos. I started to lose interest for other reasons, mostly because of house music and going to 18+ clubs and girls.
*****I recently picked up a minty Cursed Scroll trading at the Morngingtide Prerelease. It is going in the Cube, in honor of Engler.
*****I recently picked up a minty Cursed Scroll trading at the Morngingtide Prerelease. It is going in the Cube, in honor of Engler.
Phase III: Mr. Flametongue's Wild Ride
In college I think I played once. I brought my U/R counter/phoenix deck to multiplayer game in the campus library. It was a game night put on by the local science fiction club. The only thing I remember is a young woman two, maybe three times my weight telling me “Flametongue Kavu your Ophidian, go.” “Uh, what’s a Kavu?” I asked, puzzled. She licked her lips and eyed me from across the table, unable to stop giggling. “Mmmm. He’ll know all about Kavu soon enough, won’t he? Yes he will…yes he will, Mr. Flametongue.”
Yeah.
I’ll be honest, that was a little bit- much. DJing and drinking seemed like a more enjoyable way of spending my collegiate leisure time.
Phase IV: When I Met You
So I left Magic alone until graduation, when I moved all the way to Milwaukee for grad school and was rooming with Engler. Many a gin-soaked game of Magic was played in our North Side apartment. After he left to go to seminary, I was really jonesing to play, but I didn’t know where. By now Kamigawa block had started and I found a store (named Games Universe) that advertised Friday Night Magic tournaments. I decided to make the leap to sanctioned play. I had drafted once or twice prior and was excited by the idea of not having to shell out for a competitive standard deck, so I began with draft. Man was I terrible.
Started talking to Major_Luck because he had on a battered Minnesota Twins hat and I was pretty sure he didn’t live in his mom’s basement. Turns out we lived about four blocks away from one another. We pretty much carpooled to every event after that.
Scoop_phase was there too. We froggered to the McDonald’s across the street from the game store between rounds. I asked him if he was always a geeky gamer. “Hell no,” Scoops replied. “I was a pretty good athlete in high school. I used to play football all the time. Back then my wife thought she was marrying a jock!”
First time I met Fugie we were playing a match and I tried to cast Cranial Extraction in game two. I think the target was some enchantment like In the Web of War or something that had wrecked me game one. Fugie, being a judge, allowed me to describe the card I was choosing, since I couldn’t remember the exact name. Of course I was one off on the mana cost and so I wasted the Cranial, despite both Fugie and myself knowing exactly which card I meant. I should have known that a judge’s mantra would be “Follow the letter of the law, if not the spirit.” I bet after several years The Fugitive Wizard could probably still tell you what that enchantment was, long after I have forgotten, cause he’s good like that.
I met coyoeuglly trying to scrounge up an afterdraft. I had packs, but we had to drive to the residence of another acquaintance, let’s call him Rhyno, looking for basic lands. We busted in on Rhyno getting high in the basement. Awkward.
I met Captain Bondage Goth carpooling to a prerelease, which is a boring story. With a screen name like his I should have made something up about a gay BDSM chat room. Sorry CBG. They can’t all be thrillers.
Since I’m dishing out, I might as well be willing to take it. Feel free to embarrass me with any recollections of meeting me, if you have any.
T
Friday, February 8, 2008
Growing and changing
I first started playing Magic about 7 years ago. I had known about it since high school (so yes, 1993) and had friends who were way into it then, but avoided the game due to the cost. In 2001, I had some free time and a couple people to play with so I bought a 6th ed starter and 4 precons*. I enjoyed it a lot, but again, the cost worried me and I didn't get in with a crowd of people to play with. MODO was just starting and was very much in the, "I have to pay full price? For fake cards? That I already own? You have got to be kidding!" phase. So no, I don't own invasion block cards in large numbers. I basically quit the game for a few years.
I got a real job with an actual income. When PvP did a series of comics promoting Star City, I checked out the site and headed from there to the mothership and found out 9th edition was just coming out. I didn't get up the gumption to go to the store that first time**, but kept reading the free articles at SCG and magicthegathering.com and decided to attend an FNM. I took a modified Kamigawa precon, which was terrible, but went 2-2. I lost to White Weenie (Jitte!) and Kuroda Red (Arc-Slogger!) and beat a monoblack discard homebrew (remember, 9th had just come out and people still thought Hyppie was good) and the friend I had dragged with, piloting my other terrible modified precon. People were hilarious. Apparently, there was a ptq the next day and they invited me. I still resent that behavior. It's nice to invite people into the community but ptqs are not for new players. I can't believe I need to reiterate that point. I think the format was Kami Block Constructed but still, honestly.
Ravnica was going to be my first large set release. Temple Garden was previewed and my reaction was, "What? What's the big deal?" This actually goes to a niggling peeve of mine about Magic writing on the internet. An enormous base of knowledge about the game is necessary to even make sense of a lot of writing. Magic Academy was a great intro, but they need to be promoting that stuff on the front page. Are reruns that bad? Anyway, I was really excited for Ravnica and even shelled out for a box, which I cracked. I didn't even know about booster drafting at all. All the FNMs at our store were Standard. Bought the Golgari Deathcreep precon and modified it for Standard. Bennie Smith was my hero for winning Virginia States with a Dredge deck (be4 Rizzo broke dredge, obv). I was super excited for Guildpact. I went to my very first prerelease and managed an 0-2, against (and this is not hyperbole) a 65-year old woman and a 20-something female science teacher. I was just happy to be there. I played Sky Swallower. No, not the good one (that was Dissension). I also got to watch the dude who owned our local store clean up at that prerelease***, ignoring the flights, to sweep 3 booster drafts instead. I picked up the habit of drafting for a couple months there, losing miserably and losing often.
Shortly after Dissension was released (as in, a week), we moved to the MKE and I started playing at Ye Olde Farte Magicke Nighte. There, I met a bunch of awesome casual and not-so-casual players and started getting much, much better. Late that summer, I attended GP:St. Louis**** with coyoeuglly and managed to add 60 points to my Limited rating while going 3-3. Yes, actually, it was that low. Since then, I have continually drafted with a ton of people who are better than me. It makes me a lot better and I am grateful for the opportunity. Nowadays, I don't buy boxes to crack them because I rarely play Standard anymore (UW Control, 0-5 in sanctioned matches). I get a totally different type of enjoyment out of the game. For me, getting together with a few close friends and drinking and gaming is just about the best time there is. It's fun to go to a big tournament together but for me, that's peripheral to the playgroup. I wasn't sure where I was going when I started this post, but now I guess I have a point. People always point to one thing or another (changes in the game, the DCI, crappy sets) and say they are going to quit. I'd never threaten that because I'm grateful to have the game and people to play it with. It's fun as hell and I am not giving it up.
--CBG
* Eruption, Breakdown, Blowout and Dismissal if you're curious. And I know you are.
** Something to remember when you see new players in the store. They are often intimidated and would like you to provide reasons to stay, not reasons to leave.
*** A very nice guy/ambassador of the game named Dusty Ochoa. He's the one guy who managed to go 7-0 in Standard last year at US Nats with R/G Gargadon (later know as Sadin Gargadon (thanks for pimping your friends, Mike)) and not get his name mentioned in any freaking articles! Seriously, I must have seen ten articles in the three weeks after nats, both on SCG and MTG.com that mentioned "The only deck to go 7-0 in Standard at Nats" without mentioning the words Dusty Ochoa. Ugh.
**** Not actually in St. Louis.
I got a real job with an actual income. When PvP did a series of comics promoting Star City, I checked out the site and headed from there to the mothership and found out 9th edition was just coming out. I didn't get up the gumption to go to the store that first time**, but kept reading the free articles at SCG and magicthegathering.com and decided to attend an FNM. I took a modified Kamigawa precon, which was terrible, but went 2-2. I lost to White Weenie (Jitte!) and Kuroda Red (Arc-Slogger!) and beat a monoblack discard homebrew (remember, 9th had just come out and people still thought Hyppie was good) and the friend I had dragged with, piloting my other terrible modified precon. People were hilarious. Apparently, there was a ptq the next day and they invited me. I still resent that behavior. It's nice to invite people into the community but ptqs are not for new players. I can't believe I need to reiterate that point. I think the format was Kami Block Constructed but still, honestly.
Ravnica was going to be my first large set release. Temple Garden was previewed and my reaction was, "What? What's the big deal?" This actually goes to a niggling peeve of mine about Magic writing on the internet. An enormous base of knowledge about the game is necessary to even make sense of a lot of writing. Magic Academy was a great intro, but they need to be promoting that stuff on the front page. Are reruns that bad? Anyway, I was really excited for Ravnica and even shelled out for a box, which I cracked. I didn't even know about booster drafting at all. All the FNMs at our store were Standard. Bought the Golgari Deathcreep precon and modified it for Standard. Bennie Smith was my hero for winning Virginia States with a Dredge deck (be4 Rizzo broke dredge, obv). I was super excited for Guildpact. I went to my very first prerelease and managed an 0-2, against (and this is not hyperbole) a 65-year old woman and a 20-something female science teacher. I was just happy to be there. I played Sky Swallower. No, not the good one (that was Dissension). I also got to watch the dude who owned our local store clean up at that prerelease***, ignoring the flights, to sweep 3 booster drafts instead. I picked up the habit of drafting for a couple months there, losing miserably and losing often.
Shortly after Dissension was released (as in, a week), we moved to the MKE and I started playing at Ye Olde Farte Magicke Nighte. There, I met a bunch of awesome casual and not-so-casual players and started getting much, much better. Late that summer, I attended GP:St. Louis**** with coyoeuglly and managed to add 60 points to my Limited rating while going 3-3. Yes, actually, it was that low. Since then, I have continually drafted with a ton of people who are better than me. It makes me a lot better and I am grateful for the opportunity. Nowadays, I don't buy boxes to crack them because I rarely play Standard anymore (UW Control, 0-5 in sanctioned matches). I get a totally different type of enjoyment out of the game. For me, getting together with a few close friends and drinking and gaming is just about the best time there is. It's fun to go to a big tournament together but for me, that's peripheral to the playgroup. I wasn't sure where I was going when I started this post, but now I guess I have a point. People always point to one thing or another (changes in the game, the DCI, crappy sets) and say they are going to quit. I'd never threaten that because I'm grateful to have the game and people to play it with. It's fun as hell and I am not giving it up.
--CBG
* Eruption, Breakdown, Blowout and Dismissal if you're curious. And I know you are.
** Something to remember when you see new players in the store. They are often intimidated and would like you to provide reasons to stay, not reasons to leave.
*** A very nice guy/ambassador of the game named Dusty Ochoa. He's the one guy who managed to go 7-0 in Standard last year at US Nats with R/G Gargadon (later know as Sadin Gargadon (thanks for pimping your friends, Mike)) and not get his name mentioned in any freaking articles! Seriously, I must have seen ten articles in the three weeks after nats, both on SCG and MTG.com that mentioned "The only deck to go 7-0 in Standard at Nats" without mentioning the words Dusty Ochoa. Ugh.
**** Not actually in St. Louis.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
The heck you say!
Well isn't this interesting? What on earth is going on? I am cool with them cutting a Pro Tour because frankly, irrelevant. But more Grand Prix and awesome States and Regionals should be the trade off here. Magic is not dying. It's healthier than ever. Ravnica was one of the most popular blocks of all time, along with Time Spiral. Magic's reach is solidly global and European Grand Prix regularly draw 1200-1500 people.
My theory is that Hasbro's bottom line is being hurt by failures of other Wizards ventures (Transformers TCG, anyone?) and so the company is being punished. Unfortunately, it's hurting the one part of Wizards that is going unequivocally right.
--CBG
My theory is that Hasbro's bottom line is being hurt by failures of other Wizards ventures (Transformers TCG, anyone?) and so the company is being punished. Unfortunately, it's hurting the one part of Wizards that is going unequivocally right.
--CBG
Old Fart Magic Night
Well, I survived the big snow storm and made it all the way down to "the store" (Game Universe in Greenfield, WI) only to lose to a girl. Actually, her deck was quite good and my sealed pool is not. Over the next couple of weeks I'll document my experience at "Old Fart Magic Night."
For those of you who aren't familiar, I'll start from the beginning. It all goes back to Ravnica Block. At the time Fugie was working at "the store" and convinced the general manager (GM) that he could get more people into the store if there was a night set aside for more casual minded players that were reluctant to come in on the weekend due to many issues (schedules, crowds of younglings, & certain "pro tour" players that shall remain nameless). Throw in a 10% discount on product night of event with a 21 minimum age, and Old Fart Magic Night was born.
So for the past couple of years we’ve been playing sealed league every Tuesday night. It is a lot of fun. We don’t take ourselves very seriously and play for the fun of it. I guess it brings me back to a simpler time when I played because it was fun & winning was secondary. We have a pretty good core group of players: myself, Scoop Phase, Ed (not Fugie), Jake (not Captain 50%), & Bill (no known nick names). We also seem to have a few reoccurring characters, that move in & out from month to month (Too Sarcastic before he got hitched, Captain_Bondage_Goth before his wife’s schedule changed, and a few others whose names escape me right now).
So, back to this past Tuesday, I open my tournament pack and am amazed to see Garruk, Rings of Bright Earth, & Nath as my three rares, with Crib Swap & Weedstrangle as playable removal. Unfortunately the only fixing I had was a lone Fertile Ground. However, I did have quite a few playable blue merfolk & faeries in Lorwyn. When I opened the two Morningtide packs for this week, I found some more rogue/wizard type cards. So long story short, I ended up playing blue/black wizard/rogues (mostly merfolk & fairies with a few goblins for flavor).
I proceed to get crushed by Jake & Kirsten and racked up six straight losses before winning my first and only game of the night (Black green treefolk/elves got even better with the warrior enablers from Morningtide). I was planning on posting my deck list and sealed pool, but I am not sure if I left my cards at home or if they are somewhere in my car. Either way I’ll post the lists later this week. Until then may the mana gods hate you less than me.
For those of you who aren't familiar, I'll start from the beginning. It all goes back to Ravnica Block. At the time Fugie was working at "the store" and convinced the general manager (GM) that he could get more people into the store if there was a night set aside for more casual minded players that were reluctant to come in on the weekend due to many issues (schedules, crowds of younglings, & certain "pro tour" players that shall remain nameless). Throw in a 10% discount on product night of event with a 21 minimum age, and Old Fart Magic Night was born.
So for the past couple of years we’ve been playing sealed league every Tuesday night. It is a lot of fun. We don’t take ourselves very seriously and play for the fun of it. I guess it brings me back to a simpler time when I played because it was fun & winning was secondary. We have a pretty good core group of players: myself, Scoop Phase, Ed (not Fugie), Jake (not Captain 50%), & Bill (no known nick names). We also seem to have a few reoccurring characters, that move in & out from month to month (Too Sarcastic before he got hitched, Captain_Bondage_Goth before his wife’s schedule changed, and a few others whose names escape me right now).
So, back to this past Tuesday, I open my tournament pack and am amazed to see Garruk, Rings of Bright Earth, & Nath as my three rares, with Crib Swap & Weedstrangle as playable removal. Unfortunately the only fixing I had was a lone Fertile Ground. However, I did have quite a few playable blue merfolk & faeries in Lorwyn. When I opened the two Morningtide packs for this week, I found some more rogue/wizard type cards. So long story short, I ended up playing blue/black wizard/rogues (mostly merfolk & fairies with a few goblins for flavor).
I proceed to get crushed by Jake & Kirsten and racked up six straight losses before winning my first and only game of the night (Black green treefolk/elves got even better with the warrior enablers from Morningtide). I was planning on posting my deck list and sealed pool, but I am not sure if I left my cards at home or if they are somewhere in my car. Either way I’ll post the lists later this week. Until then may the mana gods hate you less than me.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Hoodies order
Okay, we've decided to "heh." on the front with no other explanation and this...
...on the back. In case you can't read it, it's got a semi stylish "The Fugitive Wizards/Sometimes a 1/1 is all you need." on the back with the blog address in Courier below it. Here's a link to the customink page.
It would be really, really nice to get to a dozen of these. If we can do that, they are a mere $24.25 shipped. If we only order 6, they are $35+. Fugie and I are both ordering 2, so we'd like to get orders for 8 more. Even getting 8 (so 4 more) rather than 6 brings the price down to $29. Also, they look awesome. And it's funny. Don't you think your brother wants one?
Finally, I registered http://thefugitivewizards.blogspot.com because it's an easy mistake to make.
...on the back. In case you can't read it, it's got a semi stylish "The Fugitive Wizards/Sometimes a 1/1 is all you need." on the back with the blog address in Courier below it. Here's a link to the customink page.
It would be really, really nice to get to a dozen of these. If we can do that, they are a mere $24.25 shipped. If we only order 6, they are $35+. Fugie and I are both ordering 2, so we'd like to get orders for 8 more. Even getting 8 (so 4 more) rather than 6 brings the price down to $29. Also, they look awesome. And it's funny. Don't you think your brother wants one?
Finally, I registered http://thefugitivewizards.blogspot.com because it's an easy mistake to make.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Scalpel vs. Hammer: A Word on Multiplayer Strategies
After playing two whole Elder Dragon Highlander games I feel qualified to deliver a theoretical discourse on deck building. That’s sarcasm people, look at my screen name. However, you might want to read further since my lifetime record in EDH games is 2-0. I’m undefeated! Actually I just noticed a difference in strategy that might be worth noting. There are, I’m sure, many different philosophies that can undergird any multiplayer deck choice. I’ll talk about two general ones today; the first being a “Toolbox” approach, the second being “Generalist” approach.
I’m not saying that either way of building is superior (actually, I have a definite slant, as you’ll see later, but I really do believe that both views are potentially successful ways to build a multiplayer deck), and yep, there’s plenty of other ways of conceptualizing deck building too (anybody ever heard of “Recursion,” for example?). I’m just giving a bipolar framework for looking at EDH or any other multiplayer deck building. Maybe it will be useful the next time you sit down to build. Let’s start with the Toolbox approach. This term is ubiquitous enough within Magic writing that most of you already know what I mean. In EDH, you have 100 card choices which must be unique (yeah, yeah, except for basic lands, Whiny McWhinerson). Given that the number of different threats others will be playing will be quite diverse, why not include pinpoint answers to many different types of threats along with several redundant ways of searching out theses answers? We could be using Idyllic Tutor to fetch Oblivion Ring to get rid of an opposing Garruk, or Cream of the Crop in an otherwise creature-laden deck to put the Shriekmaw on top. Maybe it means transmuting Dimir Houseguard for Damnation, or Mystical Tutoring for Disenchant. You get the idea. Card advantage comes from dealing with threats (or, I suppose, making the most abusable threats) so efficiently that other players can’t execute their plans effectively.
On to the “Generalist” approach. This is not simply the converse of a Toolbox strategy. The two philosophies share similar core ideas about how games are won. Generalists also believe that the way to win in multiplayer is to deal efficiently with threats and provide the best threats of one’s own at the right time. The difference is in the execution. Oblivion Ring is a great card- the perfect card to get rid of a single planeswalker. But Apocalypse gets rid of every planeswalker, every scary enchantment and artifact, and every dude in play (and your hand, but hey, you can always suspend guys prior, right?). We know there will be many times when O-ring will be better, but Apocalypse is a more consistently useful way of removing things from the game, and that is more valuable to the Generalist. That is the essence of this strategy- no scalpels, only hammers. If any of you have read Anthony Alongi’s multiplayer stuff, this would be sort of a cross between Cockroach and Gorilla strategies. Keep your things around, affect as many permanents as possible, and hopefully the quality of your threats and answers will net you card advantage (and the win) long term. The Generalist wants every card to be as useful as possible in as many situations as possible. Konda, Lord of Eiganjo is a 3/3 for seven mana. That’s pretty much the antithesis of efficiency. But he also lives through 75% of your opponent’s removal (and your own board sweepers) so Konda is a lot better than his stats belie. Speaking of board sweepers, they all get in the Generalist’s deck, not because sometimes they would be the perfect answer to have when you’re behind on the board (that’s a Toolbox ideology) but because most of the time they’ll deal with most of the threats that most of your opponents throw at you.
To whit: You know what two card combo is really amazing? Triskelavus and Acadmey Ruins. Make the Trike, make dudes, kill stuff, rinse repeat. Some good. And they’re even okay cards on their own. That’s the scalpel approach. Here’s the hammer. Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Yes, Trike/Ruins combo will remove opposing creatures, chump block, and given enough turns and mana, win the game all on their own. And yep, Akroma will never kill that annoying Royal Assassin. But she will beat face. Most of the time, against most opponents, the better threat is Akroma. Hey, it’s good to be one of the best creatures in the game. Let’s try some more examples. Scalpel: Mystical Teachings. Hammer: Whispers of the Muse. Teachings is objectively better on the first (and even second, flashbacked!) use. But with the buyback Whispers only gets better the longer the game goes. Scalpel: Sundering Titan. Hammer: Armageddon. I know everybody really wants a 7/10 after binning all your opponent’s land and none of your own non-basics, but Armageddon does the job, every time, against all opponents. Suck it up and sandbag some lands prior to blowing up the world. One more. Scalpel: Cryptic Command. Hammer: Time Stop. “But wait, TooSarcastic! Cryptic Command gives a player all sorts of flexibility- it should be the epitome of a Generalist card!” Au contraire, voice in my head. You can counter exactly one spell. You may also bounce a guy (useful in multiplayer, but not usually backbreaking) or tap an opponent’s team (again, less useful since tempo is glacial in multiplayer games) and or draw a card (cantrips are only exciting if the original effect is good as well). Now look at the hammer. Time Stop ends the turn. It ends the freakin’ turn! No more Storm count. No more attack step. No nothing. See how the Cryptic Command is really a scalpel masquerading as a hammer? It deals with very specific needs, not general ones. It’s still a good card for multiplayer, but only if you buy into the Toolbox strategy to begin with. If you want to be a Generalist, just end the turn already.
And yes, in case you can’t tell, I am a Generalist. So come to Captain Bondage Goth’s place on Friday nights to beat me with your Toolbox EDH decks. I’ll have a hammer waiting for you!
I’m not saying that either way of building is superior (actually, I have a definite slant, as you’ll see later, but I really do believe that both views are potentially successful ways to build a multiplayer deck), and yep, there’s plenty of other ways of conceptualizing deck building too (anybody ever heard of “Recursion,” for example?). I’m just giving a bipolar framework for looking at EDH or any other multiplayer deck building. Maybe it will be useful the next time you sit down to build. Let’s start with the Toolbox approach. This term is ubiquitous enough within Magic writing that most of you already know what I mean. In EDH, you have 100 card choices which must be unique (yeah, yeah, except for basic lands, Whiny McWhinerson). Given that the number of different threats others will be playing will be quite diverse, why not include pinpoint answers to many different types of threats along with several redundant ways of searching out theses answers? We could be using Idyllic Tutor to fetch Oblivion Ring to get rid of an opposing Garruk, or Cream of the Crop in an otherwise creature-laden deck to put the Shriekmaw on top. Maybe it means transmuting Dimir Houseguard for Damnation, or Mystical Tutoring for Disenchant. You get the idea. Card advantage comes from dealing with threats (or, I suppose, making the most abusable threats) so efficiently that other players can’t execute their plans effectively.
On to the “Generalist” approach. This is not simply the converse of a Toolbox strategy. The two philosophies share similar core ideas about how games are won. Generalists also believe that the way to win in multiplayer is to deal efficiently with threats and provide the best threats of one’s own at the right time. The difference is in the execution. Oblivion Ring is a great card- the perfect card to get rid of a single planeswalker. But Apocalypse gets rid of every planeswalker, every scary enchantment and artifact, and every dude in play (and your hand, but hey, you can always suspend guys prior, right?). We know there will be many times when O-ring will be better, but Apocalypse is a more consistently useful way of removing things from the game, and that is more valuable to the Generalist. That is the essence of this strategy- no scalpels, only hammers. If any of you have read Anthony Alongi’s multiplayer stuff, this would be sort of a cross between Cockroach and Gorilla strategies. Keep your things around, affect as many permanents as possible, and hopefully the quality of your threats and answers will net you card advantage (and the win) long term. The Generalist wants every card to be as useful as possible in as many situations as possible. Konda, Lord of Eiganjo is a 3/3 for seven mana. That’s pretty much the antithesis of efficiency. But he also lives through 75% of your opponent’s removal (and your own board sweepers) so Konda is a lot better than his stats belie. Speaking of board sweepers, they all get in the Generalist’s deck, not because sometimes they would be the perfect answer to have when you’re behind on the board (that’s a Toolbox ideology) but because most of the time they’ll deal with most of the threats that most of your opponents throw at you.
To whit: You know what two card combo is really amazing? Triskelavus and Acadmey Ruins. Make the Trike, make dudes, kill stuff, rinse repeat. Some good. And they’re even okay cards on their own. That’s the scalpel approach. Here’s the hammer. Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Yes, Trike/Ruins combo will remove opposing creatures, chump block, and given enough turns and mana, win the game all on their own. And yep, Akroma will never kill that annoying Royal Assassin. But she will beat face. Most of the time, against most opponents, the better threat is Akroma. Hey, it’s good to be one of the best creatures in the game. Let’s try some more examples. Scalpel: Mystical Teachings. Hammer: Whispers of the Muse. Teachings is objectively better on the first (and even second, flashbacked!) use. But with the buyback Whispers only gets better the longer the game goes. Scalpel: Sundering Titan. Hammer: Armageddon. I know everybody really wants a 7/10 after binning all your opponent’s land and none of your own non-basics, but Armageddon does the job, every time, against all opponents. Suck it up and sandbag some lands prior to blowing up the world. One more. Scalpel: Cryptic Command. Hammer: Time Stop. “But wait, TooSarcastic! Cryptic Command gives a player all sorts of flexibility- it should be the epitome of a Generalist card!” Au contraire, voice in my head. You can counter exactly one spell. You may also bounce a guy (useful in multiplayer, but not usually backbreaking) or tap an opponent’s team (again, less useful since tempo is glacial in multiplayer games) and or draw a card (cantrips are only exciting if the original effect is good as well). Now look at the hammer. Time Stop ends the turn. It ends the freakin’ turn! No more Storm count. No more attack step. No nothing. See how the Cryptic Command is really a scalpel masquerading as a hammer? It deals with very specific needs, not general ones. It’s still a good card for multiplayer, but only if you buy into the Toolbox strategy to begin with. If you want to be a Generalist, just end the turn already.
And yes, in case you can’t tell, I am a Generalist. So come to Captain Bondage Goth’s place on Friday nights to beat me with your Toolbox EDH decks. I’ll have a hammer waiting for you!
Monday, February 4, 2008
New one.
The more I think about another dang Got Milk takeoff, the angrier and more depressed I get. This shirt makes me laugh.
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