A Miss Mosh of Topics

Lots of diverse topics to write about tonight; I'll get right going.

Cube Draft!
To expand or not to expand? That is the question. I have had a few votes in favor and one "meh" (who stated that he actually enjoyed culling the weakest Cube cards from the cardboard herd). I am sorta kinda against it, but not in any real substantive way. My only arguments are that 1) The completist in me loves to know that we will have a full pool of awesome cards when we have an 8 man Cube draft, and 2) The elitist in me likes knowing that only the very most powerful 360 cards are deemed worthy of such an honor. Changing the number upward is fine, most notably if it gets people engaged in the Cube process again, which has been lacking since the increase in the number of expert level expansion releases this year. Also, I need to actually bring it along to Magic nights. And then there's EDH to blame too. God damnnit is EDH fun. It just wrecks other formats. But I digress! Here are questions that need answering if we want to expand ze Kube.
1) How do we decide the number of cards to add to the Cube?
We can do arbitrary, i.e. 100, or another 360 (not recommended, super duper power level drop off alert), or 140 (because that's the number that after much deliberation we estimate will provide the most delicious add-ins without a significant power drop off); OR we can just start tossing in good cards until we have a consensus moment when we say "stop." This would be something like, "Well, Armored Ascension is good enough but we need to draw the line at Silkbind Faerie." Or something like that. I would argue for some iteration of the former, not the latter, lest mass chaos erupt.
2) How do we decide which CARDS to add to the Cube?
Sounds kind of "obv" worthy, right? But the biggest argument for increasing Cube size has come because of the large amount of rad ass uncommons of Shadowmoor. True, there are many awesome potential includes in Shadowmoor, but we have also cut dozens of cards prior to this. Are those rejects now getting a new lease on Cube life? What about cards that were in other Cube lists that we rejected during building? Are they now too in the running? I guess my point is that thousands of cards may be competing for a scant 100 or so slots. Are we up to the challenge? Or will we provide some guidelines going in, like new cards have priority, or that we are only adding Shadowmoor cards? I really do come down egalitarian side of every card having an equal chance here. If we are expanding the Cube then all those mint Shadowmoor cards should have to compete with the dusty also-rans of yore. The Cube is about distilled power level, whatever else it is about. Adding cards is one thing, but not allowing all cards consideration for entry is ageist. Yeah I went there.

Regionals!
I will apparently be there! I have not tested at all, but might try to do so Wednesday eve. I am running the consensus "best deck" (duhr Faeries, duhr) because let's face it; me+ type 2 + no testing = Hope to be Lucksack McGee or 0-2 drop and EDH. I am leaning to the latter more than the former, but at least Faeries can just win sometimes. Here is a list of cards I need, should you be so kind to loan them.

1x Faerie Conclave
1x Underground River
1x Mutavault
2x Pendelhaven
3x Razormane Masticore
3x Thoughtseize
3x Ancestral Vision

And any sideboard/maindeck tech against Chameleon Colossus/Squall Line/Cloudthresher, and/or Kitchen Finks, because they all scare the hell out of me. Makes me want to play more counterspells out of the board or something. Lookit me, all pretending to know about Standard and shit!

Big Changes with Shards of Alara!
I am still processing this, but off the cuff it seems like having what amounts to super-duper rares is not an idea I can really support. I already spend way more money on this stupid hobby than I should. The realization that no one really learns the game through the Core Set seems like an open secret finally being publicly acknowledged. How many people watching a Magic game for the first time see people playing Xth edition cards? And we know that's how newbs learn, from watching non-newbs play. I personally am happy to see the number of cards printed per year go down. Learning Limited formats takes time, and I feel like I never really got enough play out of Lor/Lor/Mor draft before the switch. I KNOW I won't have drafted trips Shadowmoor more than 15 times before the new rotation, mostly because of new time constraints on my part. I guess the real problem here is the Wizards needs to give us more time between set releases, not fewer cards per release. Yes Rav/Guild/Diss was boring by the end, but at least we had time to "figure out" the format. And that was a format that turned out to really give players a lot of enjoyment for doing so. Now only the super die-hard drafters are going to "get" the current format before it rotates. You hear that? I'm not enough of a Limited player to keep up anymore! What the hell is this world coming to?


Geekerus Miscellaneous!
Fans of Wizards of the Coast and their business interests should note that Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition will be in stores this weekend. Wizards is a crafty company, and have recruited several behemoths of webcomicry to inaugurate this occasion. Penny-Arcade's Gabe and Tycho (or Jerry and Mike) and PVP's Scott Kurtz have agreed to do an adventure DMed by a Wizards employee familiar with the new 4E rules. The result a series of podcasts and comic panels, drawn by Mike and Scott. Because all of these men are hilarious the experience is worth a listen even for those hypocrites who decry paper and pencil Geekery. D&D players will glean some knowledge of the new system and have an opportunity to hear how the system works in real time.

DJ TooSarcastic!
New mix is up. Tracklist here. It is dark. Not much melody up in here. I was inspired by the kind of music that I most enjoy dancing to; rhythm-heavy techno. I ended leaning toward progressive house vibe as well. I thought I gave that sound up in college, but apparently I was not well-informed. It was a really easy mix to make, two takes, a few edits and that was that. I am much more used to mixing music like this, since this was what I enjoyed playing when I used to have proper gigs. I put this into my Itunes and it appears to have compressed the volume or something such that one or two tracks sound pretty fucking awful. I promise that if you listen to the MP3 file on its own it won't sound as terrible.
T