starting to think

that i am going to end up like flores...win a states and stuff but not really be one of the greatest players. i love this  game and i want to do great things while i am playhing it. if there is one thing i love about magic is the deck building and the way things are put together and why they should be put together...

probably going to give it a few more days before i put up anything meaningful. i basically have been testing Extended with a RB sligh deck, Standard With Pyromancer, Pauper with Mono Red and EDH/Commander with Kiku and her zombie squad. if anyone is interested in a match just DM me on MTGO @ Goodbyemylove.

also i got my 60cards.com shirt today in the mail, so i am pretty excited about that.

hmmmmmm trying to add stuff to this post... fuck i got deckade last week and its amazing. its something that i reccomend to anyone that takes this game serious and wants to better themselves as a player. Flores has pretty much been playing since the beginning and reading about his progression through the game is something completely different. He puts so much of himself into his writing. you can tell when hes disappointed or just doesnt care. As much as Flores loves the color Blue, he starts out not play blue at all but Necropotence deck and just kinds of evolves from there. at this point in my reading he is Building some Black weenie deck and suggesting that Winter Orb be in aggro decks instead of control decks.
anyways lots to learn and i still have so much of this book to go.
awwww and jin and sun found each other. i fuckin love Lost

brad nelson

does brad nelson completely shitting his pants at worlds actually make him player of the year? does losing at the biggest stage of the year for mtg actually mean he is the player of the year and not the biggest choker of the year? gaaaah? i dont have a problem with brad nelson and i certainly didnt wish for him to do terribly. i am just wondering if him doing so horrid at worlds should qualify him to be player of the year.

btw, i wanted gerryt to win worlds, dude was on fire those two weeks.

vids

how relevant are the drafting vids now?  now that the limited qualifiers are done do people even draft as much? i like that they do them but starcitygames and channelfireball could get more people watching their vids if they would start doing extended vids and articles. channelfireball is actually slowly  adding extended articles because it seems that lsv is a huge supporter of the format...
and  starcity just put out a bu control vid and it was pretty good. reallyenjoyed seeing the deck in action after worlds

pretty sure channel fireball is lacking in the content area. i dunno about most people, but i like to learn things from the articles and take something away from them but aside from fffreak, conley and lsv i dont really think they have much to offer. you have matt nass that is far from being a pro. you have some guy that does financial assessments of legacy cards, i know people play legacy,but if your going to write about the fiancial part of the game, at least know all of it like medina. the last thing i saw by a ruel was a recap of worlds...really? i understand that worlds was going on at the time,but how about some opinions on the current standard and ext portion? how about whether survial is actually good only in the us and not anywhere else?
all i am saying is that you get to read so little when they can offer so much more.
i like tolarian academy, shits crucial lol.

i dont remember i heard this but apperently in europe, survival of the fittest isnt a problem over there but here in america it is. could it be that americans are just lazy and just wait for pros to do something amazing,take the idea and run with it, and never try new ideas purely becuase we are lazy? survival didnt even make it to the finals of worlds and was still banned. and somehow wiuth all the cards in the history of magic, nobody could come up with a deck that could beat that deck? i dont understand that at all.
i am not trying to bash legacy players at all. i am a rouge builder for standard realizing that i need a tier deck to do well not a legacy deck builder...not yet anyways, theres tons of potential in legacy and i know a lot of cards in magic. i have been playing since masquesso i have seen a ton of things in this game. i feel like banning survival is an ok thing,but its going to stop the process of people building different decks and going back to gobs, merfolk and countertop.
i wish i had more to say about legac but until i dive right in i only have an outsiders opinion. but that might chnge this year, so who knows

deck is chosen and testing has begun

i finally put together my standard deck and i have chosen pyromancer. counter burn seems to be really good in my opinion and i dont mind digging for the cards. my sideboard is still building, but ii am really confident about the build so far.i have the deck complete irl but on mtgo i am missing a few rares. i am sure if i got those the testing would be alot more solid but right now its going well. i have shut down the ramp decks and i am getting better against the aggro decks...more testing and results to come

underrated cards

this is a list that i put together prior to worlds and from the looks of it people are actually starting to play cards like spell pierce and Doj and all i have to say about that is...its about time fuckers. dunno what took so long to realize that Doj was a soild card in white and how spell pierce has been sitting in the corner waiting to be played. its really disappointed to see the magic community not play cards liked those when they are clearly good. i attribute people actually playing these cards to Brian Kibler and his Caw-Go deck. becuase with out that deck, nobody would actually remember that Doj and Spell pierce exsisted.

here is a list of a few cards that i feel people have forgotten about in standard. they arent just a whole mess of random cards, but cards that i feel can potentially shake up standard if they are played in the right deck or making the correct meta call. i havent included all of the colors in the set becuase i dont feel like every color has something special that people arent seeing. i mostly wrote this article to show people that there are more cards in standard than Scars of Mirrodin and that if we look back, maybe there will come a combination that can set the bar for standard instead of these decks of the week that we all see so much.

terrastomper

I am pretty sure alot of the magic community is unaware that this card actually exists and its really a shame becuase he is a power house right now. allow me to breakdown terrastomper for everyone. Terrastomper comes in to play with an 8/8 body, which already is higher than most creatures in standard.the highest creatures power and toughness that actually sees play is emerkul and you are not getting him into play with out summoning trap or lots of ramp cards, cobras, overgrown battlements, birds of paradise, llanowars elves, the whole shabang. Alright to an 8/8 body takes down all of the titans along with wurmcoil engine but to go go with the 8/8 body is the trample ability. most cards these days dont have trample, in fact 36 out of 1036 cards in standard actually have trample and on this 8/8 body your gonna run over alot of creatures. like i said, stomper runs over the titans, but right now in standard you are starting to see a trend of smaller creature decks that just seem to overwhelm you, goblins, vampires, elves, boros if you live to play him, are all the smaller decks in standard right now. i also want to mention that Vengevine/ fauna shaman decks are starting to show up and quickly overrun the board, but terrastomper runs over them anways. probably my favorite part of this card is the fact that its uncounterable and thats a big reason that i feel the card is actually playable. Most of the decks in standard run blue and when running blue there are two cards that automatically go into the those decks, mana leak and Jace. and i have to say, Not being able to stop Terrastomper from coming into play is a big deal. he hits play an your opponent automatically has to deal with this guy or he is going to start taking lots of damage very fast. i also want to mention that Terrastomper being green makes him so much easier to cast. summoning trap, lotus cobras, birds of paradise and overgrown battlements make getting to 6 mana no problem at all in fact you could have him into play sooner if you played...

Channelers of Mul Daya

i love Channelers of Mul Daya and its really easy to see why. imagine the scenerio of turn 1 birds of paradise, turn 2 Channelers into a 5/5, turn 3 summoning trap into emerkul or primeval titan or even frost titan, you name it and you can cast it. Channelers puts you at such an advantage early game with double mana accelleration that its hard for your opponent to catch up, let me break it down for you. Channelers of Mul Daya is a 2/2 body with a CC of 3 and makes you play with the top card of your library reveled. if the top card is a land, Channelers gets you 2 land of any color you want, yeah it throws mana at you. there is a second ability that reads, if the top card is a creature then Channelers gets +3/+3 and becomes a 5/5. early game Channelers does so much and puts lots of pressure on an opponent with not only ramping you but the posibility of putting the beats on as well. i personally have played with the Channelers and i know how devestating this card can be. its one thing to actually critisize this card, but to actually wield the power of it is something else.

Bloodhusk ritualist

Right now hand maniplulation seems to be very handy and nobodys is prepared for it. Duress, Inquesition of Kozilek, Mire's toll,Mind Rot are just a few cards that damage the your opponents hand, but nothing is more devestating than mind sludge. MBC decks have the oppertunity to actually run the card but UB control cant actually use it becuase the mana base seems to be too fragile and in the deck of UB there are vitals cards in blue that would suggest putting more swamps in that islands would be a bad idea. One card that continues to go unnoticed is Bloodhusk Ritualist which is basically a mindsludge with legs and you are able to cast it for cheaper becuase of the kicker ability. Being a creature has the ability to dodge Negates and and also adds a creature to your board. Being able to kick the Bloodhusk makes it splashable in BU control making it the perfect card for the mirror and a trick card against other control decks

Smother

i am not quite sure how everyone forgot Smother, but they did. Smother has been reprinted in Worldwake from Onslaught for everyone that forgot and its a killer card to be using right now. The meta seems to be shifting towards early important creatures, Overgrown Battlement, Any Goblins, Vampire Hexmage, the entire WW argentum armor deck, LOTUS COBRA, birds of paradise, tokens, the list goes on and on and still people would rather not play it over lets say disfigure. And if people decide to actually look at this card again, just remember that it also says the destoryed creature cannot regenerate...seems kinda good. I think vampires is the flavor of the week and right now while people are still thinking that it is good enough to contend for standard, smother can now replace doomblade and it takes care of those Bloodthrones quite easily.

Thought gorger

Right now one of the big problems with playing Mono Black, is that it lacks card advantage and i am pretty sure Thought Gorger makes up for that in so many ways.Thought Gorger puts your hand into the graveyard and gives it +1/+1 counters for each card discarded and for some reason people tend to misread the part about the drawing of the cards. The card itself says that when Gouger leaves play you draw cards equal to the counters on him, not placed into the graveyard, not remove from game but leaves play. Which actually means not only will you draw cards when he dies, but if your feeling really desperate you can actually into the roil him, or Jace bounce him back to your hand. Or if you looking for something a little bit fresher, you can go with Venser him out of play, then back in to play. The other plus to actually playing the Gouger, is when he is cast the ability doesnt trigger until it hits the battlefield. so, instead of him discarding your hand when he is cast, you MAY discard your hand when he enters the battlefield. the other significant ability attached to thought gorger is defintatly out of place and that ability is Trample. now i cant rememeber the last time i saw trample on a black card, but this one has it and it seems to be a pretty good fit for the card. your controling the power of this card because of the cards in hand so trample seems way better than you would expect

An issue i have with playing Decks like Mono Black is that when your gasses out from mid to late game your going to continue to draw land and Thought Gorger now turns into a finisher and card advantage when removed from the battlefield

Shatter

Shatter is greatly undervalued in the current standard world and i am having a hard time understanding why.For one, it shuts down tons of cards, everflowing chalice, eldrazi monument, brittle effigy, wurmcoil engine,ratchet bomb, tumble magnet and a whole other lot of other cards relevent in standard. it has a simple cost of 1 red and a colorless and moves at instant speed. what most people aren't worrying about right now is artifact destruction and arent worried about losing their chalice when they really should be worrying about being set back a turn becuase they cant cast their jace. or not being able to have enough mana to play anything after a destructive force. most people are aware that this block of mirrodin is artifact heavy but they dont realize that they are relying more and more on artifact cards.

Day of Judgement

i am having a real hard time understanding why i am putting this card on this list of cards people should play. there are so many creature decks out there, its insane not to be playing this Day of Judgement as it easily handles everyone of them.Today jesse told me that Vampires is top 3 decks in standard and i thought to myself Day of judgement...i just solved that problem. what makes this card so good right now is that it kills everything in a standard format that has little to no creature regeneration and the only creature that ever comes back is vengevine.i am just really baffled that people cant seem to find an answer to these aggro decks, yet there are clearly answers to them staring them in the face.

Worlds

also, i dunno how i didnt write something about Worlds the night of the top 8 but congrats to Guilleume Matignon for Defeating Guilleume Wafo-tapa in the finals in a UB control mirror. i really was rooting for Wafo tapa but i am glad that both made it to the finals and now that Matignon is the champion at Worlds, he is now tied with brad Nelson for Player of the Year and they will be playing in Paris in Feburary which i am sure Guilleume will win...sorrry Brad.

Also, no fucking surprise that the US did shitty at worlds in the team event. and no surprise that they gave him Valakut to play considering it has really good match ups all around and this kid, anthony eason, is clearly shitty when it comes to magic.he should just stick to his childrens game of Pokemon and leave magic to players with skill and dont forget your cheetos kid.pfft

also thanks to flores for helping me get my deckade. its been almost a month and i still havent gotten it and i said something and he went to Matt wang and got this thing some what fixed and hopefully i will be reading his genius this week...

almost to 1000

i wanna thank everyone that has read my blog, i am almost a 1000 views. i have been really busy becuase of the holidays and i havent been able to get much as far as magic writing done. i submitted something to jesse today on the two new cards that were revealed at worlds from Mirrodin Besieged, Mirran and Phyrexian crusader. so keep an eye out for that article. i have also been working on an article about my ptq experience and how i learned quite a few things about magic and the players that play the game. Also if you saw my last entry, your going to notice that i have Decided to play Commander on MTGO becuase i have yet to get any money from my car being totaled and its going to be bad for these people. anyways, i havent gotten my car so i havent been able to go to my store and play for some time so thats kind of a bummer.

EDH update

so now that Commander is the new popular format and i have no way of actually getting to superstars becuase some idiot korean women destroyed Shelly, i have decided to commit to playing commander more often. originally my Commander was going to be Balthor and the them was going to be Zombies, but i have recently learned that Balthor is best used in the deck and that KiKu is a much more threatening Commander that most people will care to admit.

if i practice tons now

i am going to top i every event this year...i got this.

i love being right

i have been right about so many cards this year. spell pierce, frost titan, necrotic ooze,sunblast angel. i love this shit!

fckin deck doctor!

apperently conley woods is on to something with necrotic ooze and i am frantically seaching for what that something is...

Worlds

after seeing that Wafo Tappa own with BU control i decided to look more into him and he seems like hes one of the best. i played during the time of Pickles and that deck was nuts. anything past i am not too familiar with but i see that he is quite the accomplished player. And normally I would just bash him because he is french, but that’s not really fair of me to do, even though the french are kinda douchey. Anyways hes doing very well at worlds and I am rooting for him.

Whats really surprising is that Brad nelson as of now is 4-4 and is 205^th place as of round 9. which really sucks for him,LOL OBV. But whats worse is that Palo is doing really really well and is in the top 5, sitting AT 5^th. Good for him! But whats really outstanding is that the now newly inducted hall of famer, Brian Kibler, is undefeated and is 9-0 in day two and it really doesn’t seem like anyone is going to stop him. Right now hes is the main reason I am constantly check the Mother site to see if he is still winning and who he is crushing next. Hes had such a stellar year and clearly deserves to be in the hall after this run.

Worlds is going on right now

LOL and i am laughing at Saito for being a fucking cheater. he could have been in the hall. he could have been in japan right now playing with the best of Magic but right now hes kicking himself for being a dumbass. if hes not doing that then hes probably finding new ways to cheat, because once a cheater always a cheater. Its funny because Saito is like a child. if you let him get away with it more than once hes going to keep going until he is caught. lets hope right now the case isnt that he is going to keep being a child and will learn his lesson and not just say hes sorry and just do it again later...he probably will tho.

also wrote this for the Possible news portion for 60cards.com but i think jesse is going to go in a different direction and i want to mention that its got the Saito information before the Hall of Fame even this evening/in the morning in japan

Hey everyone, this is WillieGmyPrez and I am just bringing you all a few things that have transpired this week.

According to Cedric Phillips,his facebook status reads “No Worlds for me. My career grinding has officially come to a close. It's been real. It's been fun. Hard to say if it's been real fun. Cya on the flip slide Magic grinders!” and with that Cedric Phillips has retired from the game. From what I have gathered, thanks to Mtg Mom or @lifeonauto on twitter, he has recently finished schooling and has decided to focus more on his career and other endeavors. I am sure most of the magic community wishes Cedric the best. Good luck Ceddy P!

A Major development in the suspension Tomoharu Saito. Saito is now being removed from the Hall of Fame as confirmed by WOTC as of today. Yesterday, it was rumored that he had received several emails about the GP Florence situation and had posted a lengthy blog post about not being included into the Hall because of his DQ at the GP.

For those of you who are unaware, Saito was DQ'd at GP Florence for suspicion of clock management and it wasn't long ago that Saito was seen reading Jace, the Mind Sculptor multiple times in a single match causing people to question whether he was draining the clock to force his opponent into a game loss because of time. As a result of his DQ from Florence, Saito is now banned 18 months and will start his Pro Points at zero upon return.

Also Worlds is this weekend, so everyone get ready to have your minds blown by the new decks coming out for Extended and hopefully we will see something emerge out of standard! I am sure everyone has their favorites and an have mine, Go Gerry T!

Thanks for reading

wow

not a single ally deck in the whole standard portion...thats so wierd, i was sure that there was gonna be a large field

edh

i will be finishing my edh deck on friday and my general it balthor the defiler so look out for me my sn is goodbyemylove and hit  me up for some edh

allies with a touch of uw

might just be a rumor but i have been hearing alot about allies being the secret tech for standard at worlds. i dont know exaclty which colors the deck will be, but it will definetly have white. allies as a deck is so explosive becuase they are cheap, they all have triggered abilities that help you gain an advantage and if you dont deal with them quickly they overwhelm you...whats really sad is that people havent realized that that day of judgement is really fucking good and solves this problem.
i expect blue white control to make a huge comeback in the next few months. the deck is just too good not to play and now people are realizing that there are alot of sleepers from scars.tumble magnet and ratchet bomb should be seening more play as a way to deal with larger threats with tumble magnet and decks like vampires and boros with ratchet bomb. if large creature decks like vampires and elves and tokens appear to be a problem sunblast angel is a great answer. i am hoping that it starts to have a presence in peoples sideboard.
and finally people are starting to play spell pierce and its about fucking time. i looove that card. i dont see how people undervalue when it has so much potential. explore,harrow, planeswalkers, doj, fuck there are so many decks that tap out just to get their power cards in play that they dont even hesitate at playing them if you have one mana open. do yourselves a favor and watch how many times an opponent taps out during a game and think to yourself...spell pierce would fuck his shit up right now...

and another thing~

gah i feel like ranting is a good idea tonite, stir some shit up but theres one thing i really want to say but its probably best that i dont so instead i really want to leave this video of family guy that i just watched a few days ago. it just reminds me of...somthing... that i try to listen to from time to time and if you really think about it, your gonna get it...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caB8ftqmLsw shits hilarious...sorry its just how i feel about it

ALSO~

there was an LD deck that played in the invitational annnnd it did pretty well sooo i am thinking LD plus Will It blend...might work, just have to cut cards and change the way i play the deck...i am so ready to build again. i thought this PTQ was going to fry my brain but it has only reinvigorated me to build and play more... HERE WE GO!

US nats team

i am starting to think that this year, our nats team is going to be destroyed. sure we have people from channelfireball that are more than capable of winning together becuase they are able to gather the minds of so many pros of the game but what of the other two? right now i am looking up kolos and not finding much other than he works for tcgplayer and i am not even sure how valuable that is.AJ sacher and wescoe write for them...but they both got fired. Flores wont waste his time and i am sure frank has better things to do. as for Anthony Eason...who the hell is this kid and has he even done anything since he some how placed at nats? i posted something on twitter about him only placing at nats becuase he played RDW and how that deck is an auto pilot deck and i was jumped on for A. saying that RDW takes some kind of skill...yeah i dunno about that and B. because...well that was it. Never mind that i was talking about if this kid is good or not. He has played RDW and has accomplished nothing since then. the team is doomed unless he cant go to japan or hes smart and stays at home and watches it online while Ocho goes with wrapter and kolos and kolos steps up his game.
i understand that this is coming off as me talking shit but can you honestly tell yourself that this team is great and has a chance to win worlds as a group? do you really think that Kolos and Anthony are really ready for teams like Japan? China? Germany? France? other than channelfireball players, i this team has little to no chance of winning at Worlds and thats kind of a bummer.


If people have been keeping track of twitter and SCG events you will see that Gerry Thompson has won the invitational today and last week an Open and what a run its been for him this month. hopefully he will take worlds with the hot streak he is on huh? i am thinking that he should be thanking the Eh Team becuase prior to winning this Invitational he was on the cast and talked to the guys. Then he proceeded to win this weekend....soooo yeah dont forget to thank the guys GERRY! and Congrats to him, i really do hope he wins worlds.


This weekend i took part in PTQ paris and i finished 15th just barley missing the top 8 to a deck that also knocked my friend out of contention of top 8. if i would have won, i would have been in top 8 and i am confident that i would have at least made top 4 because of all the shit ton of drafting i had done. his deck was really good and i am going to do a write up on the event and a small video of what my deck was and how amazingly fun it was to play it and my opinion on sealed format and magic as a whole...i have a lot of things to say and i want to make sure i get a write up before i just start write off the top of my head.
another fun thing at the PTQ was that i unknowingly met @Baconhax at the ptq and didnt realize it. he was judging the event and i didnt even know. friendly guy and i think he answered my Slagwurm question.
SECOND! i met Arthur halavais and he was judging. really friendly guy and told me how he is playing a sembalance anvil deck and copies vengevines with rite of replications...W T F... smart guy. it was nice to finally meet. 
AND another thing.... i need a fuckin 60cards shirt...i wanna rep the site... i wanna keep winning and get the name out there...tha fuck is my shirt. nobody is gonna rep harder than i do other than maybe jesse...sigh
jesus my grammar is terrible, i should slow down when i am typing
on a quick side note, thought it was really cool that my friend,Vince, knowing that i write for 60cards.com still considered me apart of the Channelfireball group. in no way do i dislike the group or not want to be apart of them, i just decided to not write for channelfireball and decided to join 60cards.com and i dont regret that decision at all, i love what jesse has put together.

ptq

tommorow is the limited ptq and i guess i am as ready as i am gonna be. i played a shit ton of draft so i think i have a good grasp of what to do. i am really hoping i top sixteen again like the last big tourney i preped for. sooo wish me luck. probably post  on how i did and what went on there and if i think i have enough to write then i will ship it to jesse.
also while i am writing here, fuck mtgo. that shit is the biggest waste of time. anyone expecting to improve your game in anything other than limited is wasting their time. standard format is a bunch of idiots just copying th top decks and then theres the bottom feeders with their silly joke decks. your better off just going and playing irl standard or any other constructed format.sure online is available to all but the face that there is no human interaction makes this process weak. you can tell when your opponent has nothing in his hand, you can tell when your opponent is nervous, you get the satisfaction of actually interacting with a human being on the face to face level. your able to smile and say g g to that person and actually play the game. thats what this whole game is about, going out there and being the best not sitting in front of a screen.in no way has mtgo improved me as a constructed player...its just a waste....

Rock

http://www.mananation.com/understanding-control-establishing-identity-pt-2/

love this article about control and i am seeing a great portion on rock. which make me think that...rock might be possible...just no vindicate

dark naya

so basically i listened to the eh team podcast this morning and got really inspired becuase gerryt was on as a guest talking standard, his gp win and just hanging out with the group. i was thinking yeah, this is what i need to hear, exactly what he was talking about in standad. from rock paper being easy to break to vampires being a bunch of shitty bears. so i start thinking, what cards do i have that i feel can fight standard and i have come to the conclusion that naya has a really good chance to doing some damage and for a while i have been wanting to make a four color deck and poof dark naya is born. hearing the cast makes me want to work more with scott but hes got a life too and i understand that but i need his brain...scoooottymac help me with this list lol

my god

i have been so lazy, havent shaved my beard, gotten a hair cut, written anything of quality, sorry jesse, i was hella drunk and didnt edit my last article get it to you soon bro. i havent played anything as far as paper magic becuase i dont have a car. been really focused on sealed ptq this weekend and the holidays is rape, i am so busy all the time. i got  a sweet kelpie extended deck brewed so i am happy about that. and now i got my new cards in so i am pretty excited to make a solid coating deck. i am seeing what the good decks are and  my sideboard is definatly changing and i am making some main deck changes. i need to get off my ass and start playing more...