Merry Christmas

Just a quick Merry Christmas, or a pleasant Sunday if you don't celebrate the previously mentioned Holiday!

I received a pocket video camera so hopefully i'll have time to start doing little videos! I plan to do a Bant Pod Deck that I ran to my pre Christmas FNM!

If I don't get it up before hand hope everyone has a good new Year!

No FNM But still a magic Filled Week

Thursday 15^th December

So Today I had a brewing/deck construction day. I'm not much of a brewer, but I do look at decks from the bigger tournaments sleeve them up and then try and adapt from there. This usually depends on local meta, my play style and of course card availability.

I Started with This UW Illusions Build and A R/B Bloodhall Build. I had to make my own tweaks here and there, but fortunately they aren't major, and I also think that both these decks fit my style. I think that I will have to finally take the plunge and Pick up that 4^th snapcaster, as it seems to be a major player that I don't think will be going anywhere any time soon.

This brings me onto something that I have an interest in – Math! Now before I scare everyone else, I think that it's interesting! For all those that haven't noticed I personally feel that mana basses are particularly bad if you want to play anything that is not friendly colours and therefore 3+! So I'm in the process of building a Bant POD (Blue White green Birthing pod) with the basis being sent by a friend I made via Twitter. However he has left with me a little room for customisation for a few creatures and the mana base!

This led me to do a bit of a google search on articles and I stumbled across these:

This one is my Favorite but I also found this , this and this offering interesting outlooks on the topics. If this is of any sort of interest to you then I would recommend giving them a read.

I guess all this does is offer the amount of basics to play, the trickier part for me is selecting and playing the correct amount of Dual lands and scars fast lands.

So With 3 standard decks now out of the way, it was time to update my Modern deck. It is a very budget "Eggs" deck that I first saw many moons ago Here on the Building on a Budget Site. This deck was very in expensive to pick up so worked on it and ended up with this list. Now of course this was mid-August which was Pre Pro Tour Philadelphia. Since then the ban list has had an update. (I also believe that it's getting another update on 20th December). From said ban list I unfortunately lost 2 ponders and 4 Preordain! Gah. Oh well. From that I have taken those 6 cards out and replaced with 3 Locket of Yesterdays, and actually added 4 Creatures. A singleton Disciple of The Vault and 3 Riddlesmith. I used a list that appeared on Tcg Player, but is a natural evolution of the original deck.

I'm not sure if there are other Modern Players in Cornwall but I'm always up for a game and it can inspire me to build a sideboard. I'm always tempted to start working on a legacy deck. The beauty of the Eternal formats is that the cards don't rotate and, unless cards appear on the corresponding ban list, you will have a deck that is always playable.

 

Friday 16^th

Drinking and EDH, Do go on…..

So our shop owner was away for the weekend running a stall at a very large Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament, fortunately enough I had a friend Invite me and a few others round, for pizza, EDH and drinks. Awesome. We even managed to fit in a game of Settlers of Catan. It was only my second time playing it and I sucked hard.

EDH is a great open game. For me it lets you do very silly things, and ultimately play with cards you want to play with. I like to apply the theory "Go Big or Go Home".

I basically got banned from using the horrible combo of Hive Mind and the "Pacts" from the future sights set. It is a quality combo that lets me win, (In all honestly it's a cheapskate's way to play and win!). I do still have my one turn win combo which has won me some games with Hellkite Charger and Bear Umbra! Yeah!

All in all a solid fun night. I would heart fully recommend drinking and playing social casual games. It can help you unwind just relax whilst still playing a game you love!

Next time I hope to upload how my FNM went when running the Bant Pod list, and hopefully I'll get it up on Christmas eve but that might be a big ask. If you don't see me before that then I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays.


 
Adam


 
P.S Exsanguinate is a horrible card to be cast in a multiplayer EDH game.

Friday Is Draft Day

Friday The 9^th December

So after a fairly quiet week on the MTG front due to university, Friday rolled round and it was time for our monthly draft! Yay.

As most new players Standard (Or Type 2) was my favourite format, but if you want to play a Top Tier deck then this can cost a fair whack. I'll talk about how I budget my money whilst being all studenty on another date.

Draft is very quickly becoming my favourite format. It gives everyone a good level starting point: Nothing. You get your boosters and then have to make skill based decisions dependant on information coming from what you have previously pulled and signals being sent to and from other players. The quicker you can adapt to all of this info then the better deck you will have.

I used to be a terrible drafter but I think over time I've gotten better. Well I hope so at least.

Anyway Draft time:

Pack 1 Pick 1 and It's a bomb: Olivia Voldaren! It's always nice to pull a card that is playable in the format. Also this has gone up in price recently and I've been after a third so win win.

However my next picked turned into a Bonds of Faith. For the non-eagle eyed amongst you, this is neither Red Or Black. And is therefore not very synergistic with my first pick. Third Pick was a Chapel Geist.

Awesome. Am I in white now? Seems so

Pick 4: Stitched Drake. Now I think I need to explain this pick. I think that blue is ridiculously strong in this set. I've drafted it a few times and thoroughly enjoyed it each time. Now for me this is a strong 4^th pick card and I am very happy to try and pick up blue.

And this is where my draft started to gain momentum in kind of an odd way.

I couldn't stop picking up removal. I think I ended up with:

• 3 Dead Weight
  
• 2 Victim of Night
  
• 2 Blazing Torch
  
• 1 Grasp of Phantasms
  
• 1 Silent Departure
  
• 1 Claustrophobia
  

This did leave me a little creature light. I splashed red to play Olivia and a 12^th Creature which was an Ashmouth hound. This deck was actually insane even if a little suboptimal. Admittedly I didn't play all of the above cards but I had a blast. Even spectral flight worked well to bring home the beats in several games.

I rode this to a 3-0 and won a FNM! I've now won a few and I treating this as a development in my own game. Russian Boosters as Prize's are cool too. Very happy with the Dismember, Shrine of Burning Rage and Beast Within:

Sorry for the late update – as mentioned been a little busy but Ill try and post again on Sunday about this FNM-less week!

FNM and the Weekend

It's Friday

So after a test at University on the wonders of Partial Differential Equations, hoped on a train to St Austell to Play at FNM. I had my deck all set up and sorted, and was all set to play UW.

Then after a sudden change of heart I found myself pulling mono-black infect out of my bag, making a few changes from when I won the Innistrad Games Day.

I decided to try and go for a more creature kill style rather than hand disruption as I thought this fit our meta appropriately.

Round 1 – UW Control

Now I love coming to FNM and trying to play good decks, but do you ever sit down against one opponent, who you just can't beat. Now Jake is a good player and a friend, so In a perfect world I'd rather meet him in a later round or not at all.

Game 1 I took a hand with 3 lands, 1 being an Inkmoth, spellskite, lashwrite and a bit of removal. Jake got Land screwed and by the time he managed to set a Gideon, I was in a pretty good position with 2 lashwrithes, one equipped to a spellskite and one still on a germ. He used the Giddeon to kill the 6/10 spellskite, and as he was tapped out I dropped Skithiryx, gave it haste, and equipped to swing for game. As you can probably tell I'm not afraid to start beating down with non-infect creatures if that route is not working.

Unfortunately games 2 and 3 took similar roots involving Jake just getting Lands, and card advantage via Think twice and Mana leaks. He's basically playing an altered version of his old Caw-blade deck. One card that grows on me more and more is midnight haunting. I think I originally took it as a sorcery, but after playing with and against it I've never thought it was terrible. Watch this space for me playing a deck with Spirit tokens involved.

Round 2 - The Bye

Why does this guy play Magic? He turns up and just loses!

I hate having the bye, I come to play but when there are odd numbers someone has to have it. Oh well. At least you still get planeswalker points for the "Win".

During the round I just walked around, talked with people and just watched some games.

Round 3 – Ian – Blue Black Control

I say control but I'm not overly sure. Game 1 started with me just chipping away at Ian with Plague stinger, as I just couldn't find equipment or a pump spell. Managed to get Ian to 9 poison and then Tezzeret's Gambit did the last point of poison.

Game 2 – Started terribly, I had to Mull to 4 as none of the 3 hands before had any land. Disastrous! What made this even worse was this was land free too. Ian Dropped a typhoid Rat and started chipping away at my life – He got me down to 14 but I managed to stabilise by drawing lots of lands, playing Virulent wound and then resetting my mulligans by playing 2 Tezzeret's Gambit. I didn't go any lower than 10 life and again Skithiryx was able to finish the game off for me.

I have no idea why I was so land light in that game as the deck contains 26 land and I do try to thoroughly shuffle so my land doesn't clump together.

Round 4 – Tim – Bant Control

Not a week goes by where I don't seem to play Tim. I do enjoy our games as Tim is a rogue deckbuilder with a lot of skill. He always seems to play a different deck each week and I always have fun seeing what he has come up with.

This week was a little different. In game 1 I was on the play, passed and then Tim played Land then birds of Paradise, to which I quickly put a virulent wound onto. I managed to get Tim to 5p from I belive a Inkmoth nexus and a Lashwrithe but then I met a powerful Beast within which destroyed my only threat. Tim then started picking off my equipment but by that point I had made the decision to be the aggressor and was beating down with the beasts, which eventually killed Tim.

I didn't really see much from Tim other than a Birds and a couple of midnight hauntings, so made the decision to board in 2 Curse of Death's Hold.

Which in Game 2 I was luckily enough to start with in hand, which also consisted of 2-3 land and an early threat so I kept that hand. And then the Curse hit the board on turn 5, which slowed the game down for Tim. After that I only saw a Geist of St Traft equipped with a Sword of War and Peace. I had already dropped Phyrexian Crusader, and was beating down as I had a lashwrithe too.

Overall ending 3-1 and coming 3^rd is a good evening – however was a little disappointed that I had a bye. Oh well – Next Week booster Draft!

Saturday 3^rd December

I had to pop into University mid-afternoon so had a slow start to the day. After a quick yet productive group meeting, I popped back home and then noticed that it was a Star City Games open weekend. For those that don't know SCG host tournaments on most weekends that have a good payout structure and they broadcast feature matches. As this was a mid-American venue the time difference wasn't too bad and I believe it started around 5-6 ish. As this is broadcasted, this allows players to watch some good competitive magic, and as the metagame is healthy, we get a good variety of decks. The commentary tends to be very good and explains plays very well. If you ever find yourself with the time to watch one then I would recommend it!

I also did a little bit of work towards Judge Tests, as it is a bit of a time sink I unfortunately won't probably have the opportunity to do said test until next summer. Oh well, better late than never. Here's hoping for a British GP in 2012!

Sunday 4^th December

The Top 4 of the SCG open was on at 2pm so I tuned into that, before I found out that there was an offer on something that I've wanted to buy for a while. This resulted in me popping into town to pick that up. Turns out there are things I put before magic. When I popped back I put the remainder of the broadcast on in the background, as I went about writing up decklists, and also doing some uni work. Nothing exciting here today really. From next week I'll start putting up decklists of what I've played at FNM.

 

Today I also decided that, whilst I enjoyed playing the Infect deck, I still can't get used to the style, so will be switching it up a little bit. I need to find the balance on weather I want to be more controlling in a hand disruption style, or a creature kill basis. It will come with Time. Don't expect much from me next week. It's my last week before Christmas holiday, and Have a bit of work to be doing, but There will be a post FNM update.

So Untill next weekend,

Laters

 

Mid-Week PRE-FNM Update

Monday 28^th November

Not too much on the magic front today, but I would like to point at the Draft Viewer over on "The Mother ship". If you've never drafted before it's a good place to start, due to the helpful inclusion of a hint button. Obviously you don't have this when using real cards, but it can give you a push to understanding what is good in a draft environment. I use the acronym "BREAD". This stands for:

• B – Bombs. A Card that is efficient to cast, whilst not overly expensive (but probably not too cheap in mana), and that will have a big impact on the
  
• R- Removal. AKA something that can kill, destroy, get a sacrifice effect. It will Remove a problem.
  
• E – Efficient spells. Whether it's a spell that isn't too expensive or a flying creature for a slightly reduced cost to normal cards. You will be able to work out what is efficient and what will come under "Dregs".
  
• A-Aggro. A Card that will force through damage and allow you to be aggressive
  
• D – Dregs. Stuff that just doesn't cut it, has little to no effect on your deck/strategy.
  

This is a little loose and maybe not the best description, but it's my interpretation of a common drafting strategy. Hopefully I will run through a draft one day, and giving my thoughts.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Not a lot really as I'm pretty swamped with Uni work. But on a positive note I did get confirmation I'm now a Rules Advisor.
It's kinda the stop gap between the normal player and Level 1 Judge, which I'm working my way towards. Even if you have no interest in doing the same I do recommend heading over to the judge centre (judge.wizards.com/).

It has a few Practice tests and they are good as they will test your basic knowledge of the rules. I recommend it.

I have watched a couple of draft videos and read articles as I've mentioned before, it keeps me up with current idea's and such. Even if you don't want to read much I would at least try and bookmark The Mothership and look at it daily!

 

Thursday

Still really busy, but decided on a deck I will play on Friday. Not going to say what it is yet, but I made a few tweaks and also shuffled it thoroughly. I do a 7 pile shuffle, followed by my very failed attempts at riffle shuffles. Seems to work ok for me.

 

Will Post another update on Sunday with a possible deck list and let you know how my FNM went.

Laters

Week Ending 27th November 2011

As I have only started this week on Thursday, Would give a brief rundown of My FNM and Weekend magic related on goings.

 

Friday 25^th

 

So I ended up running a build similar to Patrick Chapin's world's list with a few adjustments. List can be found here.

I had to make a few changes due to not having 4 darkslick shores or a 3^rd Olivia Voldaren. To fill the 3^rd slot thought I would try a Bloodline Keeper. The mana was an issue so I put the drowned catacombs to 4 and added a Swamp and an Island instead.

This is my style of deck, however I just couldn't find the right balance of what sort of opening hands to keep as well as playing desperate ravings at the right times. I understand it is to make a bad hand better, or to find lands, but I think I was playing it when I had cards I needed in the matchup. This hurt me a little as I discarded a slagstorm when I needed one. Ouch.

I played Tempered Steel and Mono Red. Not a terrible matchup but with cards not hitting the table until turn 4 at the earliest I felt very far behind. I wasn't keeping enough removal or permission and this punished me. In one game when I thought I had sided out Percursor golemn, to my surprise I drew one. Oh well, need to tighten that one up.

Against tempered steel I had a tough time when My opponent dropped 3 Etched champion. Ouch. Hard to deal with, in fact I don't believe this deck can deal with them.

Against a cool Red/Black build with Chandra and Liliana, I Won 2-1 but with my opponent locking the board, and my hand, down with Liliana and just pinging my life total away with Chandra I did scoop in game two. Saved by a rogue wurmcoil engine in game three and took it from there.

For my fourth and final round played against a good Player playing a good deck; his spin on UB control. He took game 1 after a lot of draw go, but unfortunately he had to go to catch a train so had to drop, giving me the win as such. Wasn't a fun way to "win" as I truly think he had a very good win chance against me but unfortunately we will never know.

Overall this deck is very powerful, however on reflection I need a little more play testing with it. I also don't think It fits my metagame very much. I was a little disappointed with going 2-2 as I feel I'm playing the best I have played in a while. With 2 recent win's under my belt I feel I need to build on this. My decision making needs to be tighter as well as looking at potential lines of play. No need to rush, but to play sharply and clearly is a skill that I need to tighten up on.

I won't be unsleeving it anytime soon, but will go into the shop play and discuss and make some changes. I like Olivia a lot and want to make a deck around her, so will start here and try to adapt and evolve it. Will keep you updated on this one.

Will try running everyone's favourite mono red again soon. Fits my style perfectly and is nice and aggressive. I like being able to float between being able to play agro and control. Maybe the blue/red counter burn deck is on the cards too.

 

Saturday 26^th

Nice and easy one today. Woke up showered and then watched the Magic: TV over on channel fireball.

Now there's not so much I can really say, however I will say this: I try and read and watch as much Magic related stuff as I can. This is because It gives you an insight to how some better players, make decisions and can see lines of play. This isn't for everyone but I think it's worked for me. I've gone from a player that used to be happy with a win, but was ultimately disappointed I wasn't doing better, to a 2-2 player to a person that has now picked up a few wins.

One thing is key: I still enjoy playing win, lose or draw! Obviously winning is a perk, but I think if I didn't enjoy playing, then I probably wouldn't bother anymore.

A Quick Hello

After many attempts to start a blog about something, I have decided to move into something I actually care about at the moment:

Magic The Gathering

Now some may see it as just a card game but I think of it as a relaxing way to keep my brain on edge and have a bit of fun.

At the moment I'll be treating this as a weekly breakdown of anything Magic related, but hopefully Ill be picking up a video camera over Christmas. This will then allow me to do things such as: Deck rundowns, pack openings and laying out a pack and talking about possible draft picks.

If I get enough followers I may even start to do small giveaways! Although that will not be anytime soon.