I think I really pissed Tabasco off Tuesday, which wasn't my intention. I built a Rg warriors deck that I wanted to test. Obviously, I threw it up against Alex Bertoncini's Faeries list. Here's my list.
4 Tattermunge Maniac
3 Firespout
3 Greater Gargadon
4 Obsidian Battle-Axe
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Stingscourger
4 Lash Out
4 Flame Javelin
4 Brighthearth Banneret
4 Fire-lit Thicket
4 Karplusan Forest
11 Mountain
3 Mutavault
The good: (1)Banneret. Dropping Battle-Axe, followed by Stingscourger and swinging for 4 is basically the reason to play the deck. Well, that or Keldon Marauders. Is that 12 damage from a single Marauders? Yes. Yes it is. (2) Lash Out is really solid right now.
The bad: (1)Mutavault. This deck really, really, really wants its colored mana. I'd almost rather have Monkeytown since it (a) powers Thicket and (b) doesn't get chump blocked or countered. (2)Gargadon. Hot Sauce says should be Mogg Fanatic. I agree. (3)Firespout. I am a Limited player at heart, and the fact that I didn't immediately recognize this as trash in Constructed says all you need to know about how good a player I am.
The ugly: 0-5 vs. Faeries, 1-4 vs. Hot Sauce's RGoyf anti-faeries list.
I am giving up on this in its present form. Battle Axe is insane on turn 2, much less so on turn 3. I may run RedGoyf as I have most of the cards and it seems good. I do like the idea of maindeck Magus Moon (Man Cow).
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Maybe I should just play Faeries. Or I could shoot myself in the face. That sounds fun.
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coyoeuglly and I were talking and he made some comment about Shadow Guildmage being virtual card advantage. I didn't know what the heck he was talking about because (say it with me) CBG is bad at magic. Once he explained it, I talked about my unnatural love for Liege of the Pit and we promptly made this spicy little sauce monster.
Dirty Aggro
4 Shadow Guildmage
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Inkfathom Infiltrator
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Flame Javelin
4 Lash Out
4 Rift Bolt
3 Liege of the Pit
3 Gathan Raiders
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Mountain
10 Swamp
I don't know if the lands are right. Maybe one runs more mountains + 2 or 3 Urborg to get there. I think I will at least throw it out there and see how it does. It couldn't possibly be worse than Warriors.
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Tabasco and I have different views on testing. This is because he is good at magic and can figure out what is wrong with a deck after a couple games. I need a little more time with it in my hands just to get the kinks out. Losing tends to be my own misplays as much as anything else so deck doctoring is pretty tough for me. I hope I don't have to forfeit writing on the blog just because I admitted I am complete trash at magic and now have proof.
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My current Constructed rating : 1504
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I don't deny that the correct strategy for the EDH is to gang up on me and kill me dead. I just hope you all hate yourselves while doing it. No mercy. I will attempt to kill you. Actually, right now I just wanna Tunnel Vision coyoeuglly after he inexplicably activates his Mistveil Plains. Who does that?
Showing posts with label coyoeuglly is supernatural. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coyoeuglly is supernatural. Show all posts
Friday, May 16, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
On Honor
Egil Skallagrimsson was in trouble. He was quite possibly the greatest (and most terrible) Icelandic Viking ever. A berserker and bard, he was a mighty warrior poet of the North three hundred years before Braveheart’s William Wallace stole the term for the Scotts. But this night he was imprisoned by his enemies, locked with a few unarmed warriors in a well-secured barn, awaiting certain death. While his captors feasted their victory in the nearby longhouse, Bald Skull’s son sat brooding. Egil was an exceptionally ugly man, hulking, with a broad brow. Like his father, he was mostly bald. When he was angry Egil had an odd habit of raising one thick eyebrow up high, then quickly lowering it and raising the other. Back and forth the eyebrows danced. Finally Egil got up. He wasn’t beat yet. He ordered his men to slam their bodies in unison against the weakest (inner) wall of the room where they were jailed. At first, nothing changed, but when Egil joined in, dust began to fall from the ceiling slats. Then in one smash, the wall burst forth, leading the prisoners into another locked room. Egil listened closely. No sign of any guard outside. He and his men smashed through another wall, this time an outer one. As soon as they were outside they found they had not been guarded. Perhaps the thirsty guards had snuck into the feast. Who knows. But Egil and his men were free. They found their gear outside the barn. Now they could silently torch the outside of the hall and wait at the entrance to slaughter the fleeing feasters. They were severely outnumbered, but they had the element of surprise. A man of Egil’s stature would never consider running from enemies, not when he had such a great advantage. So they quietly gathered the supplies for the house burning. As his men began stack the fuel, Egil had a thought. He held up his massive hand in the silent air. All work ceased. “Now,” he said, half to himself, as his eyebrows danced, “it seems to me that I would not get much honor from burning my enemies without warning. We shall knock on the door instead.” The text does comment on what it must have been like to be a retainer supporting Egil on that night. But I imagine there was a noticeable sigh of frustration. “We’re going inside to fight how many men? When we could just roast them instead?” But no one dared voice doubt in Egil’s judgment. Egil and his men “knocked” on the door alright, ripping it asunder. They burst into the light and warmth of the feast screaming unintelligible war cries, hacking their way through the panicked mass of drunkards. Terror does not begin to describe what it must have been like that night for the enemies of Egil Skallagrimsson. The smell of blood and smoke, the sound of screams and metal against bone. Men stumbling drunk for swords, tables overturned in defense, women carrying lifeless children from the fray, dogs lapping the blood mixed with mead dripping through the floorboards. Several hours later there was silence, broken only by crying women and the moans of the dying. Egil had had his revenge.
To be fair I took a little dramatic license with the above summary, and it has been a while since I read the tale. But the core facts are all there. I told that little story because I wanted to illustrate a concept that does not receive enough discussion in our Magical pastime: Honor.
House burnings were not particularly honorable, but they were fairly common. A superior force usually surrounded a longhouse, negotiated the release of women and children, and then set the building ablaze. The besiegers would keep watch and thrust back any men trying to escape the fire. Many an honorable man participated in house burnings. So why did Egil decide instead to fight? Because honor is scalable; what is honorable for one person may be dishonorable for a greater one. A lesser hero might well have gained honor from such a daring exploit, but Egil, the greatest warrior of his generation, felt it would have actually reduced his honor. We know that wonky things can happen when players with vastly differing DCI ratings play one another. This is similar. When Kenji Tsumura sits down at your local FNM, chances are he will not be doing his rating any favors, even though he will probably win the event. Winning such an event would not get a player like him much honor, or DCI points.
But honor in Magic is not synonymous with DCI rating or play skill, at least that’s not how I see it. To stick with Kenji, I remember reading Brian David-Marshall sometime just after Future Sight came out (I wish I could cite the article or podcast, but I can’t). BDM reported that Kenji had mentioned that he had four opponents forget Pact triggers at that Pro Tour. And Kenji could only stop one of them from drawing his card. The moral was that Kenji didn’t WANT his opponents to lose by failing to remember the upkeep trigger off a Pact of Negation. He was actively trying to help his opponents remember the trigger and thus not lose them the game. Why would Kenji want to give his opponents help? The same reason Egil decided not to burn his opponents. Honor. A player of Kenji’s caliber apparently does not see getting that kind of game win as rewarding, even at the PT level. Kenji can beat those players without hoping they move right to draw step with Pact trigger on the stack.
“All right TooSarcastic,” you’re probably saying. “That’s all well and good for the best of Magic’s best, but I need all the help I can get, honor be damned.” Well, honor doesn’t always mean helping your opponents remember triggers (and keep in mind Kenji wasn’t allowing take backs either. I don’t believe take backs are particularly honorable at any competitive level). I’m going to give two examples of players within this community that have shown honorable play against me.
Let’s start with coyoeuglly. For those of you reading this who don’t know coyoeuglly personally, he looks a little sketchy at first blush. Hell, my wife thought he had cancer the first time she met him. Turns out coyoeuglly had simply tried to shave his head drunk the night before (It’s all love, man. All love!). The point is that I wasn’t quite sure I could trust this guy the first time I played against him. I was on the lookout for all kinds of cheats. What I found was that coyoeuglly was a fierce maintainer of the game state. He would correct my life total- upward. He would remind me that Venerable Monk’s life gain was not a “may” ability with a gruff, perfunctory, “gain your life.” And over time I realized that I was never going to have to worry about him drawing three cards off Counsel of the Soratami. Coyoeuglly is not interested in getting cheap wins off such shady antics. I’ve never asked him, but my guess is it’s because coyoeuglly knows it will serve him better at high levels of competition to avoid the warning for failure to maintain the game state and play as though his opponents aren’t chumps. It makes him a better player overall. And it is also, in my opinion, worthy of honor.
Next up: The Captain. We know that The Captain is a skilled Vintage player. But I want to speak about the most competitive match I’ve ever played against him. It was the finals in an unsanctioned after hours draft at Game Universe (that’s about as competitive as I get, by the way). Winner gets a Garruk. Every single turn The Captain would put his hand on the top card of his library, look at me, and ask, “Draw step?” The first few times I wanted to say, “Listen man, this is Limited. The chances of me having an upkeep effect are pretty slim.” But I realized that he really wanted me to have an opportunity to play any effects. He wasn’t being a dick. When we clashed he would leave his top card revealed, although I’m sure he had no trouble remembering what the card was. And when I got my Shelldock Isle active he would briefly announce his transition through the phases of his turn, allowing the opportunity for me to activate the Isle at every step. The Captain was not interested in gaming me out of opportunities to interact. He wanted to win outright, because he played better Magic. My guess is that this style of play also helps him if there are ever any arguments about where in the turn The Captain is, or who has priority. So is it beneficial for The Captain to play clean? Definitely, yes. And I believe it also demonstrates honor.
I think many of us have been taught that short of cheating, anything that garners even the slightest competitive advantage is worth doing. I know I have tried to get a player to pass the turn preemptively, or quickly flipped back my top card after revealing it for the clash, or stacked up my graveyard so my opponent would have to ask me to see it if he was interested in looking at what was under the top card. Any little advantage, right? But what if we started looking at the game from a different perspective? What if we saw superior technical play or transparency of play style as the better advantages? What if we stopped lighting the proverbial longhouse on fire and started kicking down the doors? I propose more honorable play. I don’t mean being soft on opponents for mistakes, or pointing out ways they can win, or anything like that. I mean playing, clean, merciless Magic. I mean being the kind of player, like coyoeuglly and The Captain, who can truthfully say “I would not get much honor from burning my enemies without warning.”
T
To be fair I took a little dramatic license with the above summary, and it has been a while since I read the tale. But the core facts are all there. I told that little story because I wanted to illustrate a concept that does not receive enough discussion in our Magical pastime: Honor.
House burnings were not particularly honorable, but they were fairly common. A superior force usually surrounded a longhouse, negotiated the release of women and children, and then set the building ablaze. The besiegers would keep watch and thrust back any men trying to escape the fire. Many an honorable man participated in house burnings. So why did Egil decide instead to fight? Because honor is scalable; what is honorable for one person may be dishonorable for a greater one. A lesser hero might well have gained honor from such a daring exploit, but Egil, the greatest warrior of his generation, felt it would have actually reduced his honor. We know that wonky things can happen when players with vastly differing DCI ratings play one another. This is similar. When Kenji Tsumura sits down at your local FNM, chances are he will not be doing his rating any favors, even though he will probably win the event. Winning such an event would not get a player like him much honor, or DCI points.
But honor in Magic is not synonymous with DCI rating or play skill, at least that’s not how I see it. To stick with Kenji, I remember reading Brian David-Marshall sometime just after Future Sight came out (I wish I could cite the article or podcast, but I can’t). BDM reported that Kenji had mentioned that he had four opponents forget Pact triggers at that Pro Tour. And Kenji could only stop one of them from drawing his card. The moral was that Kenji didn’t WANT his opponents to lose by failing to remember the upkeep trigger off a Pact of Negation. He was actively trying to help his opponents remember the trigger and thus not lose them the game. Why would Kenji want to give his opponents help? The same reason Egil decided not to burn his opponents. Honor. A player of Kenji’s caliber apparently does not see getting that kind of game win as rewarding, even at the PT level. Kenji can beat those players without hoping they move right to draw step with Pact trigger on the stack.
“All right TooSarcastic,” you’re probably saying. “That’s all well and good for the best of Magic’s best, but I need all the help I can get, honor be damned.” Well, honor doesn’t always mean helping your opponents remember triggers (and keep in mind Kenji wasn’t allowing take backs either. I don’t believe take backs are particularly honorable at any competitive level). I’m going to give two examples of players within this community that have shown honorable play against me.
Let’s start with coyoeuglly. For those of you reading this who don’t know coyoeuglly personally, he looks a little sketchy at first blush. Hell, my wife thought he had cancer the first time she met him. Turns out coyoeuglly had simply tried to shave his head drunk the night before (It’s all love, man. All love!). The point is that I wasn’t quite sure I could trust this guy the first time I played against him. I was on the lookout for all kinds of cheats. What I found was that coyoeuglly was a fierce maintainer of the game state. He would correct my life total- upward. He would remind me that Venerable Monk’s life gain was not a “may” ability with a gruff, perfunctory, “gain your life.” And over time I realized that I was never going to have to worry about him drawing three cards off Counsel of the Soratami. Coyoeuglly is not interested in getting cheap wins off such shady antics. I’ve never asked him, but my guess is it’s because coyoeuglly knows it will serve him better at high levels of competition to avoid the warning for failure to maintain the game state and play as though his opponents aren’t chumps. It makes him a better player overall. And it is also, in my opinion, worthy of honor.
Next up: The Captain. We know that The Captain is a skilled Vintage player. But I want to speak about the most competitive match I’ve ever played against him. It was the finals in an unsanctioned after hours draft at Game Universe (that’s about as competitive as I get, by the way). Winner gets a Garruk. Every single turn The Captain would put his hand on the top card of his library, look at me, and ask, “Draw step?” The first few times I wanted to say, “Listen man, this is Limited. The chances of me having an upkeep effect are pretty slim.” But I realized that he really wanted me to have an opportunity to play any effects. He wasn’t being a dick. When we clashed he would leave his top card revealed, although I’m sure he had no trouble remembering what the card was. And when I got my Shelldock Isle active he would briefly announce his transition through the phases of his turn, allowing the opportunity for me to activate the Isle at every step. The Captain was not interested in gaming me out of opportunities to interact. He wanted to win outright, because he played better Magic. My guess is that this style of play also helps him if there are ever any arguments about where in the turn The Captain is, or who has priority. So is it beneficial for The Captain to play clean? Definitely, yes. And I believe it also demonstrates honor.
I think many of us have been taught that short of cheating, anything that garners even the slightest competitive advantage is worth doing. I know I have tried to get a player to pass the turn preemptively, or quickly flipped back my top card after revealing it for the clash, or stacked up my graveyard so my opponent would have to ask me to see it if he was interested in looking at what was under the top card. Any little advantage, right? But what if we started looking at the game from a different perspective? What if we saw superior technical play or transparency of play style as the better advantages? What if we stopped lighting the proverbial longhouse on fire and started kicking down the doors? I propose more honorable play. I don’t mean being soft on opponents for mistakes, or pointing out ways they can win, or anything like that. I mean playing, clean, merciless Magic. I mean being the kind of player, like coyoeuglly and The Captain, who can truthfully say “I would not get much honor from burning my enemies without warning.”
T
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Coyoeuglly is vindicated?
Last Friday night Coyoeuglly got assaulted by another (peripheral) member of our playgroup for taking a Lash Out over Deathrender 1st pick 1st pack. Actually the guy was salty because Major Luck ended up pounding the hell out of him with the Deathrender, not really because of Coyoeuglly's card choice. Regardless, Coyoeuglly got shit all night for it. Now, I think Deathrender is really good, in almost any deck, but even I thought the Lash Out pick was justified given the kind of decks Coyoeuglly drafts. Now, we have an opinion from the Mothership's own Quentin Martin, albeit one that is hastily tossed off as an aside. I will quote; "Deathrender is far too expensive for what it does, although it is still okay, but six mana to give a guy +2/+2 is pricey." He also ignores the second ability of the sword, which is obviously more relevant for most decks. Keep in mind this comment comes as ol' McMarty is deliberating his FOURTH pick, not his first of the pack. So in his in tempo-oriented faeries deck, Q wouldn't touch this Deathrender with a 10-foot clown pole. Is this a vindication for Coyoeuglly? I don't know. But it does seem to imply that we may be valuing the rusty sword a little higher than we should be. Or do we know better than this four-time Limited Grand Prix Top 8er?
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Hey!
Well, CBG finished 52nd in this 199 player ptq, with a 4-4 record. Major Luck went 4-4. Fugie went 4-4 (perhaps you are noticing a pattern). TooSarcastic finished 3-4-1. Thank goodness for that most supernatural of dudes, coyoeuglly. He lost in the first round and then won out from there, making top 8 with a 7-1 record. The wheels came off in the draft and he landed in 5th or 6th. An impressive showing, despite coming up empty of a ticket to Malaysia.
Squee!
I am going to my first PTQ this morning. Yes, that's right. If you don't count GP:Saint Louis, this will be my very first tourney where the top prize is more than "packs". I am excited. Let's all do a happy dance. Also, let's win.
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