fuck it, one more

4x Vatmother

4x Viridian Emissary

4x Phyrexian Crusader

3x Stoneforge Mystic

2x Sun Titan

1x Bonehoard

2x Duress

4x IoK

3x Journey to Nowhere

2x Doom Blade

4x Sign in Blood

2x Sword of Vengeance

2x Black Sun Zenith

add land and poof! GWB...i think I am missing some things and the deck could probably use some work. When I get the cards for the deck it should be a lot easier to test. I am just missing the MBS cards so I am just watiting on those. Duress and IoKs are insane turn 1. I would have done more refining but I found my other Foil Sea Gate Oracle sooo I got really happy about that :]

catching up

I have to admit I am not impressed with Nakamuras first article on IoK vs Duress. Sure its somewhat important but you should be able to go to MTGsalvation.com and find that same argument there. Also when trying to compare those two cards in particular, your going to have to assess your meta and properly adjust. When IoK first came out I asked many people which they thought was the right choice between the two was and I got a lot of different answers. Turns out at that time Duress was the correct answer and even adding 2 IoK was ok. Hopefully the next one is going to be better than this one. I also look forward to Juzas article as I am sure everyone is also wondering what he is going to channelfireball.

Second thing I want to quickly say is thank you to the SuperStars employees like eric, emily,tim, byron,tommy people that I see that are hard workers and bust their asses to make everyone happy. And they have to deal with so many people wanting different things all at the same time. They remain cool, calm and collected during the time they are there and they dont get the recognition that they deserve. I am so glad I have people like that working at SuperStars instead of some fucking douche that could care less about what goes on their.

And the last thing I want to mention is a conversation my friend and I had about 2 weeks ago about me, 60cards, SCG and CFB. He mentioned that he had read my articles and that he things my articles are pretty good, people see what I have to say, I get feed back and on average they are as good as most articles on other sites(lol doubtful they are on par with SCG articles) he mentioned that although I seem to be getting kind of noticed in the MTG community that I will only go as far as my skill and winnings will take me. In other words, I will only get to where I want to be in MTG if I win a larger tournament and continue to place higher than I do when I actually try. But he repeated himself again with the winning larger tournaments and gaining notoriety.

He also mentioned the post about CFB and my support of SCG. I love SCG, the customer service the provide, Evan Erwin and of course their articles. As of late most people that read my blog have noticed my dissatisfaction of the quality of channel fireball articles other than Conley and LSV, the loss of Brad Nelson to SCG and how they seem to have fallen behind since last year. My friends says to me that its best to hold my tongue when speaking about CFB for now as I seem to be pushing a little too much. Keep support of SCG but kinda back off a bit about CFB...i think I might do that for a bit...

FNM

i have returned! i have to apologize to those that actually read my blog for my absence for my life has been consumed with A.getting a new car B.testing Kor Spiritdancer control C.work D.fighing a cold E preparing for MBS!

Lets start with the prerelease or as I like to call it, The Night I Made So Many Misplays and Why Do I Go To Prereleases If I Just Lose In Them.

Lets start the night off with a little bit of standard at the FNM. I brought my Spiritdancer control deck as I mentioned and I don’t think I have ever made so many mistakes in a tournament before. I know it was just FNM but shit, I made so many misplays and terrible SB choices. For instance, when I played against Valakut, my favorite match up ever!, I didn’ttt side in ratchet bombs, DoJ or even leylines...wtf. If there is any match up that I personally favor in this format its valakut.but shit did I drop the ball in this time. I have to admit, my loss to RUG was not as bad as I thought. I didn’t draw and stellar hands, and I kept him off his important cards for as long as I could. I shut down his titans which slows RUG down so much. I lost, but I think I did fairly well for my first time battling against it.

Second was UW control which was another match I don’t mind playing against. Spreading seas 4 times in a row will set anyone back and I learned that elspeth is a beast. Her tokens and life gain got me out of many problems. I ended up winning that match.

BUG was another deck I had yet to play. I knew exactly what was going to happen and what she needed to win and I shut that off with pacifism and proper counter magic. Again elsepth proves her worth and how underrated she is by placing tokens on the board to stop onslaughts from avenger tokens and cobra beats. I pulled game 2 out of my ass with elspeth pulling all of the weight

last match was valakut where I royally fucked up.

Overall my standard FNM was full of misplays and me not paying attention. Not the best way to start playing standard again.

sigh

i have decided to just fully commit to making SCG the place where i get cards. CFB isnt working out any more as they never have what i want...SCG may be all the way on the east coast but they get me my cards in 2 days likc CFB does.
its the inventory thats killing me. if i want to build an EDH deck SCG. if i want to foil out my deck SCG. if i want to get cards from other countries like Germany...SCG. with the phyrexian slogan All Will Be One...its looking like thats whats SCG is going for...All Will Be One :]

contaminated ground

OK so this is contaminated ground. now at one point there i speculated that this card was actually on par with spreading seas. now as we all know, that is clearly not the case but i want to just say that while this card may not be better than spreading seas, its only slightly worse than everything thinks it is. 

i have asked a few people what they think about this card and most of the time i get the same answer of it doesn't replace itself and that it will never be a spreading seas, leave it alone. so i left it alone but now i am building my MBC list and this card has continued to show up.

There are a few key reasons that and MBC build should be main decking 4 of these cards.

#1

i have said this a few times, but the options for mana in the current standard world are phenomenal. i have played for a long time and there are so many duels and there man lands that are important and there is a land the destroys the lands that you don't want and ones that make tokens. plain and simple the quality of lands in standard is great. so great that every land you play and in what order is so important these days. you can play your come into play tapped man land or you can halimar depths or drop your fetch and pass. what you do with your lands in the first 3 turns is extremely vital unless your playing a mono color deck. so what Contaminated ground actually does is completely ruins all but what 3 decks in standard and there are like what 10 good decks? By turning the land into a swamp you will completely cut off your WU opponent that needs every land that he can get to keep an advantage over you. hes going to need those DoJ's and those Jace's and removing one of those colors from play is quite devastating. 

At the SJ open i was stuck drawing islands and i finally dropped a glacial fortress after turn 3. so i drop the fortress, then the spiritdancer then passed. my hand was full of guard duty's and pacifism and he is playing mono black vampires so i am looking forward to shutting down his creatures. so he untaps and plays contaminated ground...i am instantly fucked because i have been drawing shit as far as white sources and now i cant lock down his creatures. fantastic. i wait 2 more turns to finally draw the other fortress and crush him.

simply put, he took away the land that i needed in a black deck.

#2

this is also the trade off you get from not drawing a card like spreading seas, you lose 2 life and the 2 damage adds up. it really does hurt when you have to tap in the early stages of a match. you have to realize that you may not have drawn a card to replace this one but your board presence is as equally significant. you have now cut off your opponent from his land effectively giving him a land he can only use with cards that have colorless but you have also giving your also causing your opponent significant loss of life. over 3 turns that 6 life...

#3 

its a pseudo LD spell for black that doesnt suck. its stops man lands and valakut thats pretty important these days considering a lot of standard metas contain both of those decks. Man lands are everywhere and Valakut players will never see this coming from a black deck.

MBC

a while a go i made an MBC deck that did really well at my FMN. at that time there was plenty of UW control, Jund, Naya and what ever else was play at that time...Goblins, i beat a goblins deck. and now with the release of  MBS on the horizon, I, like many other black players out there, am trying to get MBC to work again. the thing is that as of right now, i am a better player that i was last year. i am able to make better decks on my own, i follow the coverage of event and whats being played. i find the weaknesses and i study the fucking format... nobody does this that net decks. anyways, what i see now is that MBC is might be possible so i am going to take a stab at it like i do with every new set that comes out. so if you actually reading this, then i am going to bring you along the process in which i will be building my MBC deck. right now, Step 1 :D, i am going to lay out some of the cards that i feel are good! and will actually contribute to the deck itself :}
   also i want to point out to people that dont play MBC builds or people that do play MBC builds and think its the best deck ever! and think that the deck has few weaknesses when in reality it has many.the main reason that MBC hasnt been good for a really long time is becuase of 3 things!
thing1

MBC has no global sweeper. no mutilate, no decree of pain, forced march, nothing! whats happend in the last 2 years is that cards like infest had been reprinted. we got a little hope in Cosume the Meek, a card i fucking love and now we get something i hope to scratch off the lists that MBC doesnt have that needs to be competative and thats BLACK SUN ZENITH

this card is positioned well to do some damage. vampires, elves and Avenger tokens Beware... i am sure this card deals more damage to lots of other things but i wanna do this quickly lol

thing2!
black has barely any kind of card drawing . sure Sign in blood and dark tutalege but...thats about it. crystal ball is a great option but your investing too much into it and MBC wants things to happen now and disrupt its opponent as soon as possible and as effectively as possible. unfortunately there isnt much you can to to help black except add blue. there isnt a necropotence :[ or a phyrexian arena  :[

thing3!
there isnt a card that throws MBC ahead like there is for other color decks. we dont have a jace or an oracle of mul daya or a Koth or an Elspeth or something like that. MBC is lacking a card that just give a huge distinctive advantage over an opponent. Mind sludge comes to mind but by that point counter magic is up or your facing a Primeval titan or something. i am hoping that there is something that comes out of the rest of the set so that i can touch more on this subject :]

the list is just a list right now. like rightnow as i am writing this i am going to be putting this deck together in my head and adding numbers and blah blah blah.
go for the thoart
gruesome encore
black sun zenith
bloodwitch
gatekeeper
sign in bloog
nighthawk
wurmcoil
IoK
Duress
Doom Blade
Consume the Meek
Mind Sludge
Nantuko Shade
Memoricide
Sadistic Sacreament
Contaminated ground
black knight
Blood Husk ritualist
corrupt
deathmark
Diabolic tutor
skinrender
Hexmage
Grasp
leyline of the void
crusader

this list only included 1 artifact in wurmcoil engine. the list isnt formed yet and i have ideas floating around. right now its got what flores calls "vampires greatest hits" in hexmage, bloodwhich, gatekeeper,disruption and kill spells.
i didnt mention any infect cards becuase i dont feel like th MBC will actually be an infect deck, thats something completely different.

half written article

so the deck is basically a deck that i came up with after i read whose the beatdown by mike flores. and i was reassured that this deck was ok and somewhat well positioned in the extended world after BDM and Flores were talking about a blightning beatdown deck on the top 8 magic cast. i had the deck built already and was testing before they talked about it. and to be honest i dont really have a grasp for extended right now as my main focus is standard. so right now i am just having fun running Gavins Revival deck and crushing people that dont see it coming

a little bit before Christmas I received the gift of awesome, Deckade, and so far its a really great read. At this point in time I am reading about how sligh decks are powerful, red is possibly the strongest color in the format and Flores is tinkering around using black knights. I love this book and everything I have learned so far from it.so while going through it I find “Whose The Beatdown?” and I have so many great things about this article so I read it...then I read it again. And when I finally got down to the end of It, I realized how great it really is. Now its a pretty simple article but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great by any means. What I also grasped from this article is that I see a lot of players, including myself, doing this same thing. You play an aggressive strategy, run into a deck with a similar agenda and you either A. decide to become more conservative and play defensively or B. you do what your deck was designed to do and smash face. So I got to thinking and with all the control decks running around in extended, why I don I turn on the fire and put some pressure on some people with a beatdown deck. And why not use my favorite color combination of R/B to do it.

List number 1

4 flame javelin

4 blighting

4 goblin guide

4 hellspark elemental

4 lightning bolt

4 oona's prowler

4 sign in blood

4 slavering nulls

2 goblin ruinblaster

2 skinrender

7 mountain

8 swamp

4 akoum refuge

3 dragonskull summit

3 graven cairns

SB

4 duress

3 goblin outlander

3 smash to smithereens

2 goblin ruinblaster

2 volcanic fallout

1 spitebellows

now this is just a shell for the deck and it was pretty bad. I could occasionally get the right draw and have goblin guide followed by oona's prowler or hell's thunder in the early game. Whats key about the Prowlers and Nulls is that it easily puts pressure on your opponent by having them discard cards,Nulls having the effect by controlling a swamp and Prowler by having the option for your opponent to discard a card to give it -2. the power of blighting is increased when your opponent has to make the decision of removing your board presence or dealing with the blighting after you attack.

Having the direct damage of flame javelin is what really puts you over the edge as its instant speed is very valuable in the world of Cryptic Command. Overall I didn’t lose every game I played. Most decks I played didn’t really have a plan for aggro decks and just kind of beat me because I gassed and the sign in bloods were drawn too late in the game to make a difference.

I quickly want to mention that when I was testing this deck, I had no problem with prismatic omen decks. Goblin ruinblaster was my best card along side Slavering Nulls and Oonas Prowler. The Nulls put early pressure and removed cards that would help the deck progress to gain a significant advantage that I learned by playing against it so much. This decks worst match up was WW and it was a really bad time when I was matched up against it.

List 2

now list 2 has a number of additions and an almost complete revamp of the sideboard. I had went into the tank and came up with all of the cards I was playing with during the time of lorywn block and I came to the conclusion that I some how forgot how powerful cards at that time were and that this deck defiantly needed work to make it better.

4 Blighting

4 Boggart Ram-Gang

3 Dark Tutelage

4 Flame Javelin

4 Goblin Guide

4 hells thunder

4 hellspark elemental

4 lightning bolt

4 oona's prowler

1 skinrender

4 aunties hovel

4 dragonskull summit

4 graven cairns

5 swamp

7 mountain

SB

4 duress

3 thought hemorrhage

3 incendiary command

3 guttural response

1 skinrender

1 lightning reaver

first I want to thank jesse for letting me borrow the Tutelages.

Now to get to the deck.The deck is a smiple blightning beat down and when I was testing you should never change your strategey for the deck. The deck hits hard, fast and it causes to many problems for my opponents.i really want to say that you need to think about your board position if your going to play this deck because in extended you need to take advantage of every point of damage possible. Every spell counts, every play is important.i am going to say this but I realize that most people think that they do this and most players in the community dont really do it.

I know many of your are asking how it does against faeries, just and omen and my answer is excellent. In fact my best match up is against faeries and jund. Let me help you out with those match ups

Fae

From my persective, the problem with fae is that most players sit at wait for you to act, play your important spells, counter them and then counter attack you. With Flores Beatdown you just take the fight to them. In my matchs against fae, the only problems I had was which order of spells I was going to hit them with. Goblin Guide is an all start and puts the pressure on them early and while they are digging for something to stop him, your hitting with blightnings, prowlers and hellsparks.

the week that was brad nelson

as you all know, brad nelson has jumped off the ship that is channel fireball and has joined the juggernaught that is starcity games. and to welcome brad to the site, SCG gave brad the oppertuinty to write articles all week and hey it was a pretty awesome week if you had premium.
i loved the content brought out this week by scg i felt that it was very strong and as always it had something for everyone. theres one thing that i am kind of in the middle with, and thats the videos. the vids are strong, full of informationand you get to see what the pros are playing. but what rubs me the wrong way is that this potentially gives players a. the hope that they will have the same results as brad or any other pro out there making vids  and b. continues the trend of people netdecking instead of building their own or adjusting to their own meta.
i think players that try to mimic these videos expect the same results but fail to acknowlege the fact that they arent the pros putting these vids out nor do they posess the same player skill that they are trying to imitate.

All Will Be One

now consider this....the mana fixing for standard is the best it has been in a long time. the SoM lands are now making it possible to make decks 2-3 colors plus. now consider that sphere of the suns is now in MBS and so far the set is low on Proliferate cards but proliferate aplenty in SoM. and if you notice that Infect is now in every color expect red, would it be possible to make a poison deck with the 4 colors that support infect? could it be possible that the saying "All Will Be One" is more than the phyrexian slogan but an actual strategy if built correctly? hopefully as MBS is further spoiled, more cards to support an infect deck will emerge. i for one welcome out Infected overlords :]

btw

i am sick right now, so the quality of my posts might suck..... booo

reaction to MBS spoilers

overall i think the spoilers tonight were great. i love that there are white phyrexian cards and now that i am making the switch over to UW control, i am really excited to have  phyrexian rebirth and miotic manipulation and potentially have them in a UW control deck. this is looking to be a really good set with the stuff that has been revealed so far. mbs is a small set, but its going to be exciting for what i see

late to the party

its seems to me that CFB is just failing at getting out there.
3 hours ago blightsteel colossus was reveled to all!...and 3 hours later CFB is just reporting it!
about 20 mins ago SCG has the card up on the site...while about 5 mins ago, TSG is reporting on some of the cards that were spoiled on several sites...
somebody needs to get their shit together or they are gonna lose what they have now and that includes LSV. one of my friends told me that LSV jumped ship from a site base up more in Nor Cal and that CFB made an offer to swoop him up and of course LSV jumped ship. now with Nelson gone, Flores rejoining SCG and the overwhelming force that SCG has made itself to MTG players, it wouldnt surprise me if CFB would be concerned.i am not saying that SCG is making offers to LSV, i am not saying that CFB is freaking the hell out, i am just saying i was pondering what situation that these sites are in and whose got the advantage over whom.

Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson is now part of the SCG family and to be honest it doesnt really surprise me. Its got the best writers in Gerry Thompson, Mike Flores, Brian Kibler, Patrick Chapin, the list can go on and on and now they have Brad Nelson. Its currently holding the largest events next to PTQs and GPs and giving the most cash prizes and has the most running events in a single weekend. its All over the US so if your on the East coast/ Midwest then your going to be able to get there, sucks for us West Coasters. Overall the Site, what its doing and what they are paying is much higher than what CFB is actually giving. 

if you look at CFB you can see that the writing staff isnt that great right now. you have Wrapter, Ochoa, LSV, Brad Nelson and PVDDR. you can see that the Events arent spread out in several areas and in fact do not leave the Bay Area other than to go to set up booths at WOTC sponsered events with Sales tables. the pay outs for the CFB arent close to the ones at SCG and it just seems that SCG is growing and they ended the year of 2010 with winners and are starting the year of 2011 off right and having more locations and more of a winning staff. I am not sure if many people know this, but at one point Gerry Thompson actually wrote for CFB and left them to write for SCG.

i have been saying for a long time that the article quality of CFB had started to lack severely and that the site and its group has started to go nowhere and all the while SCG is gaining the advantage in the best site for content. now i can defintely say that SCG articles arent always the best but they still offer more information that the ones at CFB.

i love CFB and have been with the store for a long time, i just wish they were back to where they wanted to be better than SCG and were trying to be a competetor as far as content and their players go...

my UW control list for the open

1 foresee
1 gideon jura
2 pacifism
2 sea gate oracle
2 wurmcoil engine
2 guard duty
2 negate
2 sun titan
2 condemn
3 jace beleren
3 hyena umbra
3 eel umbra
3 mana leak
4 spreading seas
4 kor spiritdancer

5 islands
6 plains
3 tectonic edge
4 glacial fortess
3 celestial colonade
3 seachrome coast

this is the list i played at the open. like caw go gets explosive starts and gets a strong creature that is harder to kill than the hawks. i will go into the strength of this deck in my open write up

i dont want to hate

but i have this feeling that vampires is basically the new rdw.if you really think about it, it really is.both decks play relatively cheap cards, both money and CC wise. they bot use quick strategies to deal damage as soon as possible and use quick and cute tricks to gain advantages.
what also makes me think that this deck is similar to rdw, is the fact that everyone is playing it. the last time i was playing at a large event everyone was playing rdw and everyone at this open was playing rdw. i didnt play against the deck becuase all of the lesser players were weeded out early on but i did see vampires played throughout the day.
point is there are alot of similarites in game and out of the game for vampires

tone it down

maybe i should tone it down a bit...some of my quote passionate rants seem to be pretty intense. i only say passionate becuase defenders of chapins rant at the eh team state that he is just passionate about thegame and the people invloved...sure.
but maybe if i tone it down and let my writing do the talking i will get more people to take me seriously. as much as i like to fly off the handle and be the chaos of a situation, it seems that i might be too much for people and it will a. drive people away and b. people will just think there is only one dimension of me and that is to get pissed and just rage and i know i have way more to offer the community.
i know and love this game so maybe its time i start to show it in a positive way...

fucking EH TEAM BITCHES

so i go online tonite to skype with my gf and the Eh Team fuckin voice calls me and i am like oooooooh shit this is fucking awesome. i got to do a shout out to flores, arthur, metakinght on twitter and of course to the guys themselves.it was really awesome and i feel so honored that they let me do that....and apperently i am Norin the cast bodyguard. no doubt because of  me telling jeebus that i didnt fucking ask for his opinion about priest of norin.
it was awesome :] cant even explain it

4CC

i have a 4CC list that i brewed today towards the end of my work day...seems pretty good and is definatly a reactive list. i feel like i know the format pretty well and i can just adjust my playing towards what i see in the 1st or 2nd turn. the mana base is still a work in progress and thanks to jon medina, prophetic prism makes the deck possible.unfortunatly i dont have Jace the mind scupltor so the deck is a bit lacking. having him would help me cycle through the cards that i dont need at that time.so for now i am going to use preordain and just see where that takes me. i also have a main deck of 2 negates becuase i expect Wave decks to appear and instead of leaking them i will just shut off the card completely. Ratchet bombs are in the main and are crucial at stopping early game aggression and will help late game with cards like jace, tokens made from titan and avenger and PW's. Doj is also included in this list....i am relying on my knowledge of standard to get me through the match ups and what i think the meta is going to be...so far i am pretty confident :] may post the list tommorow

american steel

4 arc trail
3 lightning bolt

4 tempered steel

4 spell pierce
4 preordain
3 trinket mage

4 memnite
4 ornithopter
4 etched champion
4 steel overseer

basically use the burn to clear the way
preordain to find answers and spell pierce for doj
aggro them out with your creature advantage, etched champion can push damage forward and overseer just pumps your guys if you dont have tempered steel.
i considered putting in mox opal to get more mana in play, but this is just a rough out line for a deck and i dont think much will come out of this other than a shell...

i am going to start from the bottom

i have been reading Brainburst.com for a long time and when i say brainburst.com, i really mean tcgplayer. thats how long i have been around for. i was around for when brainburst was a huge site, had really good writing on a consistant basis and was able to keep up and stay a top site. but now is a different story.

i mean nothing against tcgplayer, but they just wont be able to keep up with the larger sites such as channelfireball.com or starcitygames.com but thats actually really ok in my opinion. i like that it doesnt charge you to read their stuff and that they have really good writers for the site such as Flores, Conley,Frank and i guess Rich Hagon is there too. but the first 3 that i named are pretty big names right now and they each have thier own approach to the game. i love conley and his rouge decks that he brings to events and he contiunes to inspire me to keep building my own rouge decks as i am a rouge deck builder. Frank is the vet thats knows what he is talking about and will break it down for you. he also finds interesting decks out there and brings them to the attention to players so that they are aware that they exist. and Mike Flores...read deckade people seriously.

i have to give it to TCGplayer, they have a huge decklist data base in which you can post your decks on there for people to add their 2cents.you can find anything on there, its pretty awesome.But thats also the down side. the fact that you can go on this site and try to find a list of a deck you saw somewhere is awesome, but try looking at that samelist...but with worse cards. or a list that kinda lookslike your list but its a terrible version in extended. or just lists that play the most basic of cards and they want you to tell them whats wrong with it.if your looking for a competative deck list for MTG, your not going to find it there. theres too much clutter and not enough filtering of the crap, but i guess thats what seperates TCGplayer from everyone else.

another downside that i see from the site are the other writers...now there is one writer here that i will make an exception for and that is nick spagnolo. this kid is a rising star and has the potential to do big things and do great things. i hope that he keeps going and starts off 2011 well. with that said the other writers are...as Flores would say on the top 8 magic cast "bleeeeeeeeh". but mainly Wescoe and Kolos. we have one, i got fired from SCG becuase i am a douche, i am bad at the game with my terrible decks and Jon Medina does my job better and the other is a Worlds team failure and a mediocore article writer at best. i will say that he did write a particularly good article before worlds that was pretty good. it was about american magic and its rise to magic dominance.other than that...bleeeeeeeeh

overall i like this site. i am always going to check back for something nick has written or a new deck that conley is running with and older flores stuff and oddly enough, i wouldnt change much of whats going on here other than ditch some writers and pick up new ones to keep things fresh.

hehe...

i noticed that the decklist i posted was missing 4 of the 1/1s that gain flying when they are equipped...oh well that list isnt great.
i ordered 3 mox opals to complete my set for the open on saturday. i am going to be playing UW quest. i know that boosh said that UW quest was bad but i think the tech that i came up with is pretty sick. pretty much solves my problem of losing important cards that will be on the field.

also things seem pretty quiet after last week. last week i took it upon myself to respond to 2 hatin' ass douchebags. the first on puremtgo and the other on the 60cards site. the puremtgo guy hasnt said anything since i put my post up and the guy on 60cards came back with something, i responded and nothing else came of it. its nice not having to rage at people for fucking around.

i had this feeling today while i was building my SCG open deck that mox opal is going to get better as the Mirrodin block progresses...just a hunch but then again i was right about Frost Titan ;]

Counter Kor

So here is one list of what I was considering running for he SCG open next Saturday. I had a mono white version of it built before shards rotated and dismantled it after going 2-2. I have added Blue because Day of Judgment completely ruins this deck and I removed the Emeria, the Sky Ruin and Sun Titans for recursion in favor of counters.

4 Spell Pierce

4 Mana leak

2 Baby Jace

3 Stone forge Mystic

3 Kor Outfitter

4 Armament Master

4 Kor Firewalker

1Suntitan

2 Leyline of the Void

1 Sword of Body and Mind

2 Sword of Vengeance

1 Infiltration Lens

1 Darksteel Axe

and add land

todo list

one. put up counter kor on blog
two. write i am the beatdown for sixtycards.com
three. write the thank you to mike flores
four. get battery for droid
five.start putting together extended in paper form.
six. find place for dinner,a movie and a movie time...
seven enter an eightman on mtgo for extended
eight decide if i am playing standard or not at the open next week.

last 2 days

the last two days i have had the pleasure of raging back at several hatin ass mothafuckas. 1 on 6ocards.com for callin for the removal of scottymac and then calling him gay boy. as funny as jayboosh thinks it is to call scott gayboy, to me its not ok for some random douche to call scott that so i ranted and raged back at him.
the second instance was on some shit website in which he complained about the the last eh team cast and some other stuff that nobody currently cares about. so i flamed him. i acxtually enjoyed that one.
just want to say that people should watch what they say and who they say it to or what they post. becuase if you bash any of my twitter friends,the cast or the site i write for, i will find you and i will bash you right back.
and that goes doubley for medina...thats my homie and you should follow him on twitter at mtgmetagame and his blog mtgmetagame.com

its funny

that becuase my name isnt one that is easily recognizable in the MTG community, nobody will listen to what i have to say. or rather people will listen but nothing will come of it.i am more than confident in my playing, building and ability to put forth theories in this game. like i say a billion times, i have been playing for a really long time and i know what i am talking about
like right now i am Twitter and i see that scottymac is asking flores for the best deck in standard.i COULD reply to him and sat the RUG is clearly the best deck in standard. it puts up results,it shuts down aggro decks with oracles, counters, bolts and jace. its got answers to Valakut that most decks dont have ala spreading seas, goblin ruinblasters and its got beefy creatures in frost titan, inferno titan,primeval titan and whatever else you want to put in it. but more than likely the only thing that would come of that is, well nothing. i have responded to people on twitter about decks and constructed formats and i get nothing out of them.

hmmm

i am considering not playing in the constructed portion of the SCG open next week and just draft instead. i dont really feel like going and getting my ass kicked and paying 30 bucks to do so. i might as well just get product and hang out with people. i havent made up my mind yet...

:]

First and foremost I want to thank you. You see today I thought was going to be a boring day that I have off from work.then around 7am I awoke to find that someone had been talking about the podcast that I love and adore and about the people that write for, 60cards.com. Naturally I am excited to see what people have said on twitter about this subject and from what I got out of all of the conversations its just people saying how retarded this guy is and them laughing at this...well this bitchfest.

First off you obv didn’t really listen to what your father had told you when you were growing up because if you did then you would have hear him tell you to shut the fuck up or hes going to hit you against clearly missed this lesson in life or you have completely repressed that saying from him because this entire article or whatever you want to call it is nothing than a bitchfest

Yes, a bitchfest, because from the moment you mentioned how an opponent used whitesun's passage I knew I was going to be wasting my time reading your shit. Obv we have all played on MTGO and yes its very apparent that there are noobs online or people that don’t know how to play properly. Well its apparent to everyone but you it seems. Whats disgusting about this is that you basically bash someone that clearly doesn’t know how to play the game or isn’t sure how to go about playing against poison. And whats even more disgusting about this opening complaint is that you put this at the beginning of your bitchfest...article, whatever you wanna call it. You’d think that you would want to put this somewhere else other than the begging to make people want to read this and not assume that its a child with downs that stole your computer and accidentally posted something about magic.

LOL opponents draw Phase stop complaint...i am not even going to touch on that other than say lets move on with the bitchfest.

Now about the player rewards... where the hell have you been that for two months or so that his has happened that you have barely decided to say something about this? Look people love the decision, they hate it or they don’t care and now your pointing out that people bitch about curse of wizardry? Let me suggest that you get out from under that rock you live under and start keeping up with times broseph. You could have said something a while ago and now you just sound like a whiny little girl. Let us continue with he bitchfest!

The Saito issue is the only point that I will agree with you on, hes a cheater and should have been punished along time ago

at this point in your complaint filled bitchfest, I am reading this whole argument on the reprint policy and I have to ask you, did you just find things to complain about? Because this policy has been talked about for a long time...long long time and I don’t see why you would bring this up. Did Aunt Flow pay you a visit this month or something? I have a blog and I bitch too but man this was like hey what can I have a tantrum about and put on my site hmm, oh I know let me dream that one day those cards that sit in binders or deck boxes and sleeves will get played again. Oh wait they wont and that makes me angry let me rant about it on the site I write for :]

lol you opened packs to get playsets for things? Are you retarded? Why would you do that, just buy the singles dumb dumb.i read this part of your bitchfest and I was depressed for you. The fact that you spend so much time opening those packs thinking you were going to get playsets of everything was so sad.i can understand using them for drafts but then you don’t want to get beat by someone using life gain cards while your using poison. I would hate to see another bitchfest article the day that happens.

And now we get to what really inspired this post, lol. Wizards didn’t just shaft this cruise, they took a chapter out of your childhood, took everyone out to the woodshed and raped each person repeatedly. Not only was this entire cruise one of he most frustrating things I have ever heard of, but the customer service that was given to the people that had to deal with his entire change up was complete shit. If your a customer service rep, you do everything you can to make your customers happy. I am not saying hey build me a new boat or make the parts magically appear but at least assure your customers that they are going to be taken care of and that they as a company are doing everything they can to make this an easy transition. Let me switch gears here and touch on the boat replacement issue and ask you if your retarded? OK now if there is something that costs so much and people are putting so much of their time and money into this kind of vacation, don’t you think that there would be a back up plan in case something like this should happen? Do you really think that asking if there was another boat ready to take these people on that same cruise would be such a stretch? Like use your brain man, its a legit response and a legit request. But instead they find another boat several states over for something completely different.

All of the “highlights” of that cast are completely legit and I don’t see why you think what their saying wasn’t warranted. They have a right to be angry about how they were being treated. I am sure if Jayboosh being treated in the correct manner he wouldn’t have ranted about how shitty the service was. And for you to assume that they want magic to solve everything is ignorant.

“Podcasters and writers, think about what you say / write before you publish it. Ranting is fun and all, but your actions can have consequences.”

maybe you should follow your own advice so you don’t sound like a retard next time

have a nice day and thanks for making my morning an interesting one

extended update

so right now i have been on a hot streak beating jund, fae and now Naya aggro based deck. if you listen to the Top8magic podcast then you will know what i am playing. not really gonig to be screaming off the roof tops what i am playing becusae i think i have something pretty great going. the only deck i actually need to test for now is omens deck and then i will have run the gauntlet of top decks. i am pretty excited tha ti have built something different and what most people arent ready for...more to come from my results and eventual deck list

decided that white is too powerful not to play and that black disruption is super valuable against the control match up. so i have like always returned to an esper build. the side is really solid...i am really heavy in blue and when i sleeve this up i am going to goldfish it a ton. the mana base seems tricky and i run six basics in the deck and zero fetches... dont know if thats right. i am always iffy on the mana bases and three color is a challenge for me.i am running a pair of doj and ratchet bomb.i feel thats very right. i dont have big jace so i am already behind...if i feel the slightest discomfort in this deck i am switching to naya will it blend...i am going to be grinding out lists for the next week and a half until the event, might post the lists i pass over as duds so people have something to tank on. i know the magic community lacks creativity and everyone just waits a winning list to copy and play...i hate that shit. this has been the worst i have seen magic. information moves so fast that people dont bother to be original and everyone is copying the pros decks...its disgusting

i have compiled a list of the decks i expect to see at the open
valakut is top tier
followed by ub control and uw control
next tier is vampires rug and floreswave

i added floreswave to the list of tier decks becuase of its potental to be a huge problem...right now i am brewing mono blue control becuase playing defensivly seems like it would work in my favor...i know this format pretty well so i am relying on my knowledge of standard...

my late and half done ptq thoughts

so basically i am getting around to putting this up and its really not releveant anymore but its got this awesome story of how i rolled this guy and how i prepped for the event. like i said its half done and its not much but i am sure you all will enjoy it :]

So at the beginning of the month I played in a PTQ for Paris and I think I did fairly well, getting 15^th and going 5-2. my first loss was in round 3 to a deck that was similar to mine, but with better bombs Ala wurmcoil engine and carnifax demon. And what can I say nothing beats rock, good ol rock. And from that loss I went on a tear. I won the next 3 in a row and went to top 8 if it weren’t for luck and broken bombs from the nub in round 7. this guys was truly swimming in a deck of luck with double griffins and precursor gollies and drew the 3 cards in all 3 games.i may not have finished first nor am I going to pairs and I barely missed top 8 but I feel like I learned so much from this experience that will help me become a better player than I know I already am.

First I want to start by saying practice the format your playing in. practice practice practice and when you have got it practice again for good measure.now I understand that I was participating in a sealed event and that A) there aren’t a lot of sealed events in the area and B) sealed events on MTGO can be pricey and kinda hard to find. So to practice for this event I just drafted a ton on MTGO...a fuckin ton. And not only did that work out so much better than I had hoped, it would prepare me for the Draft portion of the top 8 if I made it.(and while drafting SoM I was confident I was going to get to top 8)

you realize your getting the hang out the format when your start drafting for free. So for me it took me about 3 days and I was just grinding drafts left and right until I felt comfortable with the format. Thats how I knew I was ready to get it done.i kept drafting until a week of the event and just took a rest period and just kinda hung out and just read what I could about drafting and sealed events. I took that week break because I didn’t want to burn out on Mtg. I have burned out before and I really really didn’t want to play magic after that event for a few days. Anyways I feel the need to reiterate the need to practice the format no matter how good you think you are you can always use practice.

I really want to share a quick story about my round 4 opponent. There are some players out there that are beaming with confidence and they feel like they are going to win and feel the need to share it with you...this was my round 4 opponent. He was oh so confident about going to Paris despite just losing his 3^rd round.i had just set up my little area of play mat, dice and had begun shuffling when he decided to start talking. He had begun to tell me about him going to Paris and how he was going to win this event and how I was standing in his way. Normally I would have gone off on him but I found it rather funny and just continued to shuffle my deck. He then mentioned that he had gotten his time off for that week and the place to stay and I am just sitting there smiling... listening to this diarrhea spewing from his mouth. I had finally stopped shuffling and finally retorted with “ lets play some magical cards” and we had begun deck is pretty insane it went turn 2 plague stinger swinging for infect while he is trying to stabilize with little artifacts and dealing damage. I turn four drop Tel-Jilad Fallen shutting down his mini attacks. And 2 turns later, i draw and play grafted exoskeleton because of myr on board. He has tapped out and is desperate so he plays more artifacts, I exoskeleton attach to the stinger and swing for 6 poison for the win. “sorry” I said to him and I smiled on to game 2.

Game 2 was even better as I kept a 1 land hand with a leaden myr and horizon spell bomb, I drew that hand all day and I would always top a land. He mulls to 6 keeps and terrible hand and that’s his end. Turn 3 into skinrender on his mana myr which takes him out of the game. Turn 4 is swing with render, drop precursor golem pass. Turn 5 is swing, drop Slagwurm scoooop. This kid is almost in tears as I say “sorry about Paris man” I pack up and leave. His shit is still on the table and he is just sitting and what sucks is that we were one of the first ones done with about 40 mins left on the clock. It was great

the point of this story is don’t be an idiot and tell your opponent that your going to beat him and win the whole thing and go to Paris huuurb durrp cuz then a bad ass player such as myself shows up, rolls you and now your sitting there whiny and full of tears. Just play the game people. Play it and have fun but also play to win. And if you play me and your talking shit and I am not saying anything to you, you better bring your A game cuz I am gonna rock you.

thank you

So my girlfriends brothers used to play magic and if there is one thing my girlfriend actually hate, its people that play magic. My girlfriend is a Softball player for her college and so if you know anything about high school social ladders then you know that jocks hate nerds and blah blah blah and unfortunately for me, my girlfriend never grew out of that...shes got growing up to do lol. and whats really funny about jocks hating nerds that I used to be the jock nerd hybrid... I dabbled in everything and meshed with everyone. You get friends and tons of girls that way :] anyways, so today I was having dinner with my girlfriend and her family and one of her brothers and I were talking about magic. BTW all of the brothers are pretty nerdy, they game pretty hardcore, love all things Nintendo and are into tech stuff and are involved with the coast guard. Sooo yeah they know what magic is. So I was talking to the youngest one and how he was playing around nemesis which is around the same time I was playing and in the background my girlfriend continued to say “he got his shirt Jacob.” “yeah he got a shirt for the people he writes for” “ yeah he writes for a website and people read his articles” lol it was funny because when I mentioned it that I wrote for a site,60cards.com, he grew quite and I just blurbed about how I came to write for them and what I write and that I rep Jesse and the site when ever I can. And it got me thinking...i should really thank the people that really made a difference in my life as of Gen Con... so here it is

My list is pretty simple

-Twitter people I want to thank you for the fast pace of information out and the answers to the questions that I post. The magic community is so strong online trolls and players can talk instantly, share information, strats and like Jeebus, Troll Mega hard for no reason at all. I am sure you have a reason...but I doubt anyone actually cares hugs :] also, metaknightmare, dcampa93 thedoctorbaker, shout outs to you guys.

-i want to thank joey from MTG taps. Seriously this guy works so hard and he manages to make that cast as great as it is. Yeah I only thanked joey cuz he makes the cast great, I got through a lot of this summer with this cast in my ears. I appreciate the time he put into it, keep on keepin on brotha

-i want to thank Jon fuckin Medina. I met this guy at Gen Con in Indy last year when he was finishing up his pack to power and it was a fuckin honor to meet him. Its been great seeing him explode onto the scene this year and I can only see him and his magic career going up, this man knows what hes talking about. Hes been really good at talking with me about his thoughts about the game and the people in it and I am really honored to call him a friend. Listen to what this guy has to say.

-i wanna thank Evan Erwin because that magic show is amazing and he can hype the shit out of cards...time reversal LOL.

-i really want to thank Vince Acosta because helped me test so much standard. Hes a true friend and it sucks that I don’t have a car right now or I would be testing and hanging out with him a lot more. Sorry man but no worries we will kick it soon again.

-i wanna thank the Eh Team Podcast. From the second episode of this wonderful cast, I have been pushing myself to be a legit magic player truly love playing the game an it inspires me to play my fucking best.

I can honestly say that this cast would not be the same if Jayboosh wasn’t in it and I probably wouldn’t listen to it if he wasn’t on it.hes funny, straight forward and will call you out and tell you to fuck yourself...listen to the earlier casts when he swore more, greatness.

Scott, thank you for answering my questions about control and being just such a fountain of information. Its an honor to be writing on the same site that you are.

And Jesse. I want to thank Jesse so much because if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be writing for anyone and I wouldn’t bet repping a site soooo hard. This guy just grinds magic so much and I admire him trying to break standard as it is no easy feat. I have so much respect for him and the fact that he has let me write for him means so much more than he and everyone will ever know and I got his back...except on the Koth is better than Jace argument, hes on his own there.

I'd write something for kyt but shit...he doesn’t even talk to me anymore. Sorry kyt :/

I wanna rep 60cards.com really quickly and say that I will do my best to rep them in California and in the Bay Area as much as I can. You guys can find me at tourneys wearing my 60cards shirt and hopefully I can get a hoodie and a play mat made as well. I will be repping 60cards as long as Jesse has me and doing my best to win doing so.

I also want to thank all the people that have read my site and getting me to 1000 visits in 3 months. It doesn’t sound like much but when I see that people have taken the time to actually sit and read what I have to say it drives me to write more for here and the site