How to Game a Gamer...

"Nuh Uh...."

"Yeah huh!"

"Wanna bet?"

Do you remember the first time this happened to you? I don't. I don't remember the first time, or how it was explained to me, or how things would proceed from here, but whenever that first time was, was apparently a very influential moment for me. I do remember many times coaxing a bet out of someone, and we're not just talking about the outcome of a Boxing match or a Football game (those too) but specifically a Prop Bet.

What is a Prop Bet?

I'm going to presume most of you are at least somewhat familiar with the term, you can find more lengthy explanation here. But we're basically talking about two people wagering on an otherwise arbitrary future event. Gamers, especially poker players and golfers, are known for placing prop bets on just about anything. At a poker table, I've wagered on the following. "How many of the tiny complementary waterbottles can you drink in 45 seconds?" "How many people will drop out of this table before a female sits down?" On the golf course I've had wagers like, "Closest to the pin." or "Longest Drive." These aren't exactly the traditional prop bet, but technically fit the definition because they are arbitrary to the actual outcome of the golf match.

Prop Bets of Recent History
Most of you who read my blog know about my bet with @semisober. I sold him an options contract. If you're familiar with options, I sold him 75 puts on snapcaster mage, at a average cost of $4.50 each, and a strike price of $22 expiring Dec 1. For those of you who aren't, I made 75(x-17.50) where x is the current cost of a snapcaster, but my winnings are capped at $4.50 per card. While he wins if price falls below 17.50, and he would make 75(17.50-x). I won this one, and we settled on a final amount owed of $150, or $2/card. Yay money. This isn't my typical prop bet, but I enjoyed it. I don't typically take prop bets that are "sharp". This one was pretty sharp. I was willing to take on some amount of risk here, but I also wanted to prey upon @semisober talking in superlative about the future of Snapcaster Mage.

I've also won a few recent bets against @SoupaJoeViola (this guy is an EDH king, and an overall funny guy, #FF etc). After a draft at our LGS, he shows me his deck saying how strong it is, and he's guaranteeing a trip to the finals. I grin, and peek at his deck. I bet him $5 that he wouldn't make the finals with said deck. He was offended, but snap called. What did I know that he didn't? Even if his deck was amazing (which it was OK but not something to write home about) and he had a 60% chance of winning each match, thats only a 36% of making the finals, and i'm betting him 1-to-1. After I won this bet, and the next one he drafted I won another $5, I think he learned his lesson.

My proudest Prop Bet...
For those of you who've met me, I'm not exactly an athletic guy anymore. I played sports in high school, but sports was always a distant third in priorities behind academics and social life. I played on the UCSD ultimate frisbee team my first few years of college, but that quickly fell down my list of college-life priorities also. My senior year, my closest friend coaxed me into joining the Water Polo team with him. He'd payed all 4 years, and was a local star. I, on the other hand, didn't know how to swim. At least, not much more than survival level. He sold me on it because the JV squad needed a goalie, and there was some caveat that Seniors could play JV if they hadn't played in the previous years (kinda like red-shirting I guess?). Anyway, long story short (Too Late!), I played the year, led our team to a 13-1 season, and the take away is I'm now a pretty strong swimmer. Fast Forward 4 years to my senior year of college.... My room mate, some friends and I are participating in some illicit entertainment at our apartment, and he gets to talking about how when he went to visit his folks, he exercised in their pool. He was surprised how exhausting treading water could be, and that he could only do it for about 10 minutes without getting winded. I laughed in his face. Being in my worst shape of my life as a senior in high school, he's certain he'd be better at this physical activity than I. After about an hour of discussion, I say... "I could tread water for an hour." The room quiets down. Everyone knows what's going to happen next. My room mate hits the tank for about 45 seconds, and then says, "Can you do it tomorrow?" The rest is negotiating the details of the wager (no Floating-must stay verticle, chin can't touch the water for an hour), and me making sure we can pool up enough action where i'm willing to make an ass of myself in a swimming pool in front of everyone. After $300 in action is on the table, we wake up early the next day and hit the local Pool. It's hard to give much detail to the actual event itself. I mean it was probably the most boring thing in the world if you didn't have any action on it. But my friends were either Cheering or Jeering depending on what side of the bet they were on, as i calmly cycle my legs around in the diving well of this local pool. Parents of kids getting swimming lessons were staring and whispering, but I just kept treading. Surely enough, I completed the hour (as I well knew I could a few hours if needed), a bunch of money changed hands, and we had a huge party.


Why make prop bets?

Prop Bets, in my opinion, are the gamer's games. There are no fixed rules to the prop bet, the two gamers decide them when the bet is place. This is where the 'magic' happens. The definition of the prop bet at the beginning is often times a big indicator on who will win. But not always. The "Wanna Bet?" moment becomes very loaded when both parties know the other is likely to accept. In reality, one person is acting on emotion, and who ever isn't, usually wins. In my Treading Water example, my roommate, a decent athelete, wasn't willing to admit I might have an edge on him in this physical activity, even though I'm in much worse shape. He just had to pick an amount of time where he was sure that edge would show. 1 hour wasn't it, and he lost the bet. Notice here, that I had all the information, and all the power. I knew what I could do, and for those of you who haven't had formal swim training, treading water in a deep enough pool is actually easier than standing up, if you have the proper technique. The key is finding a gamer who makes a superlative or hyperbole-ridden comment that they may be too stubborn or emotional to back down from. Believe it or not, this happens all the time. The terms of the bet need to be clear, with minimal loop holes. It's okay to make them complicated too. Lots of caveats, or exceptions or situations that guarantee a double-action. Don't waste your energy convincing them, spend the time crafting the bet. Keep in mind, many times a simple, "wanna bet?" is all thats needed. Usually once money is on the line they'll already curb their over-enthusiasm, and you can see where they're really at, and if you want to make a bet. It's equivalent to a trader saying, "What do you value this at?"

The best Prop bet ever...
This is an amazing story about some online poker grinders that made a prop bet that changed their lives and friendship. Not exactly the type of prop bet I'd reccomend, but its an awesome read.

This weekend, make a prop bet. Even if you're not the gambling type, maybe it's playing the Credit Card game at dinner, or gambling on who has to drive first on the road trip to the Vegas PTQ this weekend. Just do it. When you out game a gamer, nothing feels better.

Happy Friday!

Grand Prix San Diego - Diligent. Patient.

It seems I only actually write on this blog when my emotions are at one extreme or the other (or both). I think that's the only time I feel like i'm venting way too much on Twitter, and need a more complete forum to get all my thoughts out. It's really kind of selfish, actually. This blog started with good intentions, bringing weekly light-hearted fun about the goings on of the MTG community across the interwebs, but the weeks where I didn't have anything i was passionate enough to write about, were really dry and boring, and soon enough, i just skipped those weeks, and soon enough, months would pass without writing... Until I feel the need to vent or gush or whatever. The people who pay me the courtesy "pat on the back" make it work for me, and I appreciate them. Looking back, its unlikely they got much useful from anything I've written thus far, but hopefully at least a chuckle here or there.

I used to care how many people read this blog. I used to actually look at the statistics, and see how many people clicked my morning link and my afternoon link. This is really just for me, and I've got some kind of mental block against just a journal of my own. So I have to put these emotional pieces under the ruse of a blog about Magic: the Gathering.

Back on 6/24/11, I wrote one of my lengthier, emotion ridden, blog posts. Near the end, I talked about how good it was for me to set a goal on my performance for a StarCity Event. I spent some time thinking of a new goal. I wanted it to be realistic, and not too distant. I chose GP San Diego, and Day 2 as a very respectable goal. What I said on my blog that day: "I need to be diligent in preparation and patient in execution. Diligent. Patient. Not my two best qualities."
Diligent in Preparation
With nearly 5 months to prepare, for what i thought was going to be constructed, I know I can create a plan that will put me in the best spot to attain my goal. When the format changed to Limited, my chances only improved. I've actually been grinding PTQ's this season pretty hard, trying to Qualify for Hawaii to attend with some friends of mine. I've been drafting many times a week. I've been building sample pools, sharing them with friends and rebuilding them. I've been watching videos of pros playing the format. I've been opening/participating in some great productive conversations about card valuations and archetypes. I will say, that up until 11/11/11, I was following my plan to a T. The more I knew the format, the more scared I was of sealed. I knew I wanted a strong pool, and was confident in my abilities if I got one.

Patient in Execution:
Since I set this goal, my actual game play finally started edging out of the plateau I had been experiencing, but very slowly. I punted my way out of a Standard PTQ top8 in round 9, when I was the only X-1 who couldn't draw. (notably, this is the last time i was emotional enough to blog about magic) I've been also playing a lot of MTGO both by myself, and with my local ringers. My execution was improving. I don't typically make a punt where someone points it out later, and I never saw it. That does happen sometimes though. Usually I see it the second I commit to the exact opposite line of play. This is why I wanted to focus on patience. I now feel that may have been a mistake in my mindset. It's the actual physical execution that i need to focus on. I need to play every turn the same way whether I have a trick or not. I need to focus on playing the same whether I feel the game is locked up or already lost or down to the wire. I need to execute my lines of play perfectly. I see the lines, even in the moment, I just don't execute them correctly. Sometimes I think too far ahead and get confused as to where I am in the line once I get half way through it (This happens when I'm playing Solidarity in Legacy, more than limited and also chess). I also need to not let my EMOTIONS affect my execution. not only does my body language reflect how I'm feeling and likely tip off my opponent that i have 4 lands in hand, but it makes me play worse. I've been forcing myself to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and re-evaluate the board in these cases. It helps. But sometimes i don't catch myself until its too late.

The Trainwreck

So I opened a pretty amazing pool. In the hulabaloo that is the GP, I ended up with way too many sealed pools to keep them all separated for further review. But I did save my maindeck, and remember all sideboard cards I actually played:

White:
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Geist-honored Monk
Rebuke
Silvertail Fox
Midnight Haunting
Mausaleum Guard
Thranben Sentry
Avacyn's Priest
Voiceless Spirit (x2)
Smite the Monsterous
Slayer of the Wicked

Black:
Abatoir Ghoul
Bloodline Keeper
Night Terrors
Victim of Night (x2)
Deadweight
Tribute to Hunger
Walking Corpse

Artifact:
Juggernaut

Green:
Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
Parallel Lives (While, I used this card to AWESOME effect every time i cast it, i decided that was just really lucky, and i boarded it out EVERY round, usually for an urgent exorcism, or sometimes just a stromkirk patrol)

Lands:
Shimmering Grotto
Forest x2
Plains x6
Swamp x8

SB cards I used:
Night Terrors (second copy)
Urgent exorcism x2
Stromkirk Patrol
Purify the Grave

Round 1 (yeah, no byes, i suck etc etc. I had a bye for a while, but been rough beats this PTQ season)
I show up about 45 seconds late to my round from a restroom break, to see I've got a Game Loss. NBD. I play Tapper, into Mikaeus into bloodline keeper. My opponent played a pump wolf or something. Next Game, I played Mikaeus into Garruk. Was never close either game. At this point I'm feeling pretty good, just won two in a row in the face of a game loss. (1-0)

Round 2 I played a nice guy, by the name of Kelvin. He must have been somewhat local, because a lot of my friends knew who he was. He played solid, but game 1 i resolved a bloodline keeper and a garruk with a parallel lives in play. Game 2 I curved out against his mana screw and put it away. Now i'm ready to take on the world. haven't lost a game yet, and loving my deck. (2-0)

Round 3 I played Jiann, from Australia. I lost game 1, on a marginal keep. Certainly owning that. I kept 5 lands (all 3 colors) Night terrors, and Geist Honored Monk. When I never drew another spell, I never had a chance. I won Game 2 on the back of a mikaeus on x=6, pumping a field of dudes. Game 3 had some play to it, and I didn't win. I'm pretty sure I played it right, but couldn't get there. I made an attack that would set me up to win the next turn, supposing my opponent didn't top deck brimstone volley (i just night terrors him, and knew it wasn't in hand). He did. I lost. Bleh. After Fallin gto 2-1 it made me sad I never got there on a GPT. I knew this was a big setback, but was pretty confident my deck could easily 5-1 the rest of the day.
(2-1)
Round 4 I misplaced my notes on this round, but it was very short, I remember eating lunch before round 5, and my opponent playing some marginal cards. (3-1)

Round 5. This is the most important round of the day to me, for several reasons. 1, i played my strongest opponent of the day. Noah Long, CAN nationals team member. 2, I played very poorly. 3, I was a dick. Noah's deck was pretty poor, IMO. Game 1 I won on the back of a quick curve out. Game 2 he won with a team of moon herons, i couldn't find removal for. (removal was my only out to multiple fliers). Game 3, however, is the reason why a great player with a bad deck wins over a mediocre player with a good deck. I punted 3 times to my memory thsi game, and any one of them probably saves me the game/match. I neglected to remember a geistflame in the graveyard that was milled to a splinterfright, which cost me the creature I was applying pressure with. I also used the wrong removal spell on the wrong creature. I had a rebuke and a victim of night in hand, and i Knew his deck had werewolves, but i still used the rebuke on a moon heron, when i could have used the victim, and saved rebuke for a werewolf (which ultimately killed me). And third, when he played a trick I wasn't expecting, i responded and used that victim i didn't use earlier on a creature that basically didn't matter to "offset" his trick. I was saving that removal for an actually relevant creature, and totally putned. After all is said and done, all of our threats had traded off (instead of me still having a 5/4 trample thranben sentry in play) and we were topdecking. He had very few cards left due to splinter fright, and we were matching threat for removal and vice versa. I was at a decent life total, while his was fairly low. Eventually he flops down a villagers of estewald 2/3. It soon becomes a 4/6 and is beating me down, i hit a pocket of lands, finally get down a chumper, which he grasps 2 turns, and i replay it the 3rd time, he top decks a kessig wolf run with 3 cards left in his deck. The activation was well-enough to finish me off. I lost this match. It was my fault completely, and it was frustrating. My opponents deck was not that strong, but he played tight, and deserved to win. I made a couple comments earlier on in the match, that i believed to be light-hearted, but it seemed as though he thought i was taunting him or being salty. I just backed off with my jokes, as to not continue giving that impression. One such comment was when I night terrored him, and he had 3 lands in play, none in hand and 2 double-R spells, among other cards he couldn't yet cast (no mountains in play). i said, "wow i'm bad, but you kept that?" Respectfully, he said, "I would never insult another player like that, I probably just drew them." I nodded. This part, i'm not embarrased about. But after he won game 3, i said, "I guess Noah brings me the flood!" I was joking, obviously, but still, it was rude of me to say anything like that, especially since it wasn't the flood pocket at the end that cost me, but my play error. I said after, "I know who you are, I know you're a good player, i'm not trying to talk down on you, i'm just frustrated." but i think my tone still may not have come off right. He walked away kind of abruptly. This bothered me for a while after (continued). Now I"m x-2, and need to win out 4 in a row. Again, i know my deck is capable, but i no longer have room for variance, and certainly not to play as badly as i just had. (3-2)

Round 6

i played a player who was clearly pretty new. He was unclear about rulings, and asking a lot of elementary questions. His deck was bad, but he wasn't making awful plays or anything. This match was nothing noteworthy. I'm sure i made mistakes, but none of them were notable because my opponents deck didn't do very much. (4-2)

Round 7
I played a "very nice gentleman" by the name of Matt Kurtin.
I stomped this fool into the ground with my bombs. Yeah, I had bombs, it was nice.
This was my best story of the event. This guy is an angle shooter. He admitted being an angleshooter, and then called me a dick for calling him an angleshooter. He indicated no blocks by asking "6?" the amount of damage he was about to take with his pen in hand about to adjust life totals, when I said no, and went to play a midnight haunting to increase the size of my geist-honored monk, he claimed he never passed his blocks. I told him right then, that it was shady, he argued with me and got aggressive, i won the next turn anyway so i didn't bother with a judge. Prior to this, we were both very friendly, but when i called him out on the shadiness, he just totally flipped modes. (huge mistake, seriously, just call a judge in this case) After I beat him, he started trying to twist the story to get his buddy Matt Nass to not realize what a prick he is, i cleared it up promptly. After our voices escalate a bit, I start just walking away with my match slip, and he shouts behind me, "I hope this tilts you out of the next round." I replied, "I'm not the one tilted, you're the one going home." Albeit, not the "bigger man" thing to do, but it does give a nice punchline to the end of the story. (5-2)

Round 8
I won this round with @marshall_lr sweating me immediately on my right. My first game, marshall was getting deck checked and was watching my first several turns. I played especially bad that game. Threw me off when i noticed out of the corner of my eye he was taking a picture! Ack! I didn't actually mind, but it did kind of startle me. It ended up not being relevant, but i tried to cast smite the monstrous on a 3 power creature, just dumb. During game 2, my opponent cast a garruk, and killed my voiceless spirit, then the next turn made a wolf. I followed that up by casting my own garruk. This was the first time i had to cast a planeswalker to kill another planeswalker in limited, hopefully it will also be the last time. I lost that game, but went on to win the match when my opponent boarded into a completely different (see: much worse) deck game 3. (6-2)

Round 9
I played a guy who had a very aggressive red deck, with tons of burn spells. I lost two quick games, one of which was a mull to 5, and likely should have shipped that in for 4. My deck literally took a nap this round, and of all the rounds this was the only one where i felt totally hopeless. This was my variance round, and I shouldnt' have put myself in such a situation where I couldn't afford this to happen at least once. When I scooped game 2, i picked up 15 face up cards off the table, 3 of them were spells, one of which was my most recent drawstep. I was seated right next to my good friend who was simultaneously losing his win-and-in. We had our whole team of friends behind us watching us get pushed out of day 2. fucking heartbreak. (6-3)

So that was my GP experience. That was the result of the "Diligent" preparation and the "Patient" execution. It's clearly the execution I need work on. Focus on each round, each play, each turn, each line. Keep centered at all times, leave the emotions for telling stories between rounds. All much easier said than done.

Sunday was a nightmare, I dropped 0-2 from the PTQ, after being shafted by a bad judgecall that i didn't appeal, but the Head Judge later told me i should have (and yes i should have). Played a bunch of side events, and about half my rounds were no-shows because people think its really cool to double queue and just max their pwp. Once i'm out of the GP, i'm trying to have some fun and play some magic. Thanks a lot for ruining that guys. Even in an X-0 bracket, the free win is nice and all but after 4 or 5 times of just sitting theri waiting for the 10 minute match loss is really annoying, its like disconnecting on someone in MTGO, except i can see you in the Standard event across the hall, and i still have to sit here and wait.

The good part (Yeah, there was a good part)
I got to meet a few twitter people like Kenji (@numotthenummy) and Marshall (@marshall_lr) which was pretty cool. We only got a brief chat, but was pretty cool to put real faces to the voices I know. When I sat next to marshall, it was almost as if i was listening to a podcast while i play, because i could hear him announcing his plays and such right next to me, and he has a very distinctive voice. Was a bit surreal. I also got to meet Tom Martell (@semisober), and tease him about my Snapcaster play. I was waiting for an opening to introduce myself, but tried my best to pick a moment when he wasn't surrounded by 100 other pros, as to not come off as the biggest barn in history. Tom was really cool, which was refreshing. Most pros i've met so far have not been cool at all. I get it, I'm not a pro, I am there for not capable of understanding your intellectually superior speak. Assholes. Anyway, Tom's not like that, seemed like a genuinely good person. Or, at the least, fooled me. Had a lot of fun with my buddies just playing magic. Between rounds of the side events, or when we had no shows, we battled legacy, and birded our other friends. Sunday definitely had a gloomy feel to it, as most of us were pretty disapointed in not making day 2, but we made the most of it, met some pretty cool people, and played a bunch of magic. 5 of us joined a 32man sealed event, winner takes home a foil set of ISD. My friend Justin won, and we finally got to go home, in the last event before the hall closed. We all got to smile a bit, knowing at least someone got to leave with something, and so closed the weekend.

Thanks for reading this purge. I know it was long, but thanks. I just don't understand how Pros do it. how do they play perfectly every time. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO PERFECT MY EXECUTION?! I see things correctly, i just don't DO them correctly. I've tried slowing down, i've tried speeding up, i've tried sitting on my hands, I've tried counting to 3 once i've made my decision before i announce any plays. I'm not rage quitting magic, or anything, but i'm just not sure playing competetive magic is something I"m going to excel at. Prior to saturday, i was confident i'd get there one way or the other some day. Now i'm not so sure. I had a perfect pool, and i couldn't do it. I was prepared (diligently). I had the tools to do it. I didn't do it. Only one thing wasn't perfect. Me. *sigh*

The last time I wrote like this, i set a new goal (to day 2 gp san diego). I dont have a goal now. I have 1 ptq left before hawaii, and i honestly dont even want to play. I doubt i'll be travelling to any non-limited GPs, and this last 5 months i've committed the maximum amount of time (and other resources) i have available to preparation and improving my game. Either I'm just not ready, and I need to hone on a smaller stage, or i wont be ready, and i should just be happy drafting at my local store and performing well there. Unfortunately, thats not the way I operate. I'm a passionate person, I like to do things full-measure (breaking bad, anyone?). I know if Magic becomes less competetive for me, and more fun, I'll simply stop playing. Just like I did with Poker 6-7 years ago (i now play on and off at low limits if friends invite me). Just like I did with basketball 10-12 years ago (haven't laced up the sneaks in years), just like I did with MAGIC 15 years ago. These are all things I am/was VERY good at. But I ran out of room to grow, or when I tried to advance, i was forced to retreat. A week ago, I'd have told you I'd play magic for life. now i'm not sure. i'd like to think so. it really is a great game. But if I don't feel like i have room to continue to grow, i wont keep doing it. I'm never satisfied when things are stagnant, and i likely wont have another big opportunity like the GP to prove myself worthy on a higher level of competition for sometime. I guess after the post-GP depression wears off, we'll see if i can find another big event to prepare for. If not, who knows....

Final Ascension - Pyromancer Destination

Luckily for all you @torerotutor fans, the blathering about Pyromancer Ascension is likely nearing its finale. The namesake card will rotate from Standard soon, and while I may brew up a Modern version, I doubt I'll have many opportunities to play the format, unless GP San Diego is indeed changed.

I have however, had a great deal of success with my most recent version, and I want to share some of the progress since my last post about this deck. An important thing to note, is that this deck is /MEANT/ to be flexible. The only required cards are the Ascension and cantrips. The win-con (in this case: burn) can vary to be mill using Archive Traps etc. I played this list in a PTQ and did pretty well, forced to play the 9th round as the worst-breakered 7-1 and lost finishing 15th at 7-2 :(. I have slightly tweaked the sideboard since then, but not many changes. As the format morphs, this deck needs to too. So if you have thoughts of improving other matchups, there's certainly room to do that.

The Decklist:

4x Pyromancer Ascension

4x Mana Leak
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Visions of Beyond
4x Twisted Image
3x Into the Roil

4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Gitaxian Probe
2x Red Sun's Zenith

4x Halimar Depths
4x Scalding Tarn
8x Island
7x Mountain

SB: The sideboard needs to be flexible, but as of now, I'm playing
3x Frost Breath (will likely cut this to 2 or remove it all together)
1x Flashfreeze
2x Mental Misstep
2x Spell Pierce
4x Deceiver Exarch
3x Splinter Twin

Note on the Splinter Twin Combo. I've had a ton of success boarding this in against almost everything, but i've been told that on MTGO its nearly expected, and the surprise factor is non-existant. I've just started playing this deck on MTGO and i'm 3-1 in 2-man queues. (0-1 in an 8man also). I haven't run into people packing too much hate for twin g2, but there were some instances of dismembers. My plan is usually to leave Ascensions in against most decks, while bringing in the twin combo, so even if they left dismembers in the deck, they may see a Ascension, and think they boarded wrong, and leave you an opening to win via Twin. If they don't give you that opening, the Ascension itself needs to be answered, or winning that way is just as easy.

There is only 2 G1 matchups that are tough. Vampires and RDW/Goblins. This version doesn't run a ton of removal, so you are literally racing. Using up too many bolts to kill guys could mean you have trouble finishing the game. that does NOT mean to save your RSZ's. You should kill dudes with it whenever possible. You'll always be able to find it again once you're active and ready to win through a chain of cantrips. You probably need to use some bolts too, just be smart about it. Usually winning a G1 against these decks involves getting multiple ascensions online. Burning up a couple bolts early to stay alive, using one PA to dig and load up another one, so that your cantrips are all refilling your hand every turn. Eventually into the roils will bounce their whole team, and a single Red Suns Zenith finishes 'er up. I know it sound slike a lot of pieces have to fit the puzzle, but remember there are 20 1mana cantrips in this deck mainboard, so digging to pieces isn't exactly hard, especially when 8 of those cantrips dig fairly deep. there is also the Into the Roils, which when kicked aid in the digging. Also remember, this is one of the worst G1 matchups. Typically the splinter twin plan is pretty effective G2, and it takes a bit of a read on your opponent g3 to figure out how the board plan should go. Be sure to slam your full 15 cards in to your deck each game, pulling out the 15 you wont play. Even if its the same 60 you had the previous game. I need to figure out a way to work on this methodology for MTGO, because I rely on it heavily "over-the-table." Even if your opponent employs the same strategy, of hiding their plan by shuffling all 15 in, then pulling 15 out, a resounding number of opponents will groan about dead cards in their hand. At high levels, obviously people won't do this, but you'd be surprised. I had an opponent at the PTQ in Round 7 X-1 bracket, show me a hand of 3 removal spells after I won g1, and did no amount of work to disguise the fact that they were immediately going into the SB. If Twin is truly expected, then maybe it doesn't even need to be in the board to do its job. If my opponent is keeping dismember in their deck, then i should be able to just win using my normal plan and adding removal or counters to firm up the given matchup. Maybe arc-trail/slagstorm needs to replace those slots and an increase on spell pierce and flashfreeze. IDK.

Against Control decks: Please, just don't punt.Every time I lose to a control deck, I can usually point to multiple punts that created a perfect storm where I could lose that game. You can win with 5 cards against a control deck, please read mulligan portion below. I've had a lot of people ask me how to play a variety of matchups, especially U/B or Caw. Both should be literal cake-walks G1. you only have to counte rtheir big threats, and nearly everything else can be ignored while you cantrip your way to victory. Against Caw that means Hero/Angels/Planeswalkers against U/B that's really just the 6-drops whether its sphinx/titan or wurmcoil. U/W players think their o-ring is good against you. Tip: it's not. Just into the roil your asension in response, they'll have to exile their own permanent. G2 I rarely bring in the Twin combo against CawBlade, but i sometimes bring it in G3 if i dorp g2. Depending on the variety of hate they have, the mainboard is usually good enough after swapping the twisted images for the 2xpierce 2xmisstep. If I fizzle g2, sometimes I'll bring in twin g3 if i think it will be surprising enough, otherwise, the same plan on the play should be just fine. Against U/B i run both wincons PA and Twin. Mainly to protect yoruself form Memoricide. Missteps are a must here too, likely spell pierces also. This means you cut Visions for sure, but only cut image if you think they don't have spellskite. Sometimes when running both plans I"ll cut one PA and one RSZ to open up some slots. YMMV. A rule of thumb, your hand size should almost always be 7 against a control deck, unless you're about to win the game. You're only playing cantrips till they hit a big spell you want to counter, or you're trying to land a PA.

Against Combo/Valakut: Against valakut, use images to kill walls/birds. Use counters to stop explores, rampants, and avoid countering creatures lest you're sure they dont' have traps. You may need to counter a slime to protect your acsension, but thats fine. The into the roil trick can work to save an ascension if needed, because they don' thave many permanents you want to bounce other than walls/expeditions. Literally you should just be able to hinder their ramp just enough to out race their titan. Usually i win the turn they cast their titan, but before they can attack/killme with it.Post board, twin-combo is usually heartbreaking for them. Again, my experience comes from real-paper-Magic not MTGO, so if they have some anti-twin hate other than natures claim, then maybe an adjustment to the trap plan is better. Mental Misstep and spell pierce come in here too. both stop natures claim fairly well, and spell pierce also hits the mana rampers and traps.
Against Twin, or even a mirror, into the roil is the best card in your deck. be stingy with them, waiting till the last possible moment to start a counterwar at their endstep so you can untap and win the game.

I'm going to find out what it takes to record some games on MTGO. Some people birding me at the PTQ said i made some really interesting lines that they wouldn't have seen, so I dont know how to describe those, or the strategy. After two years of playing this deck, it just takes experience looking a few turns ahead as to how you want the game to progress. Just remember you're in the drivers seat, you decide what happens each game.

Some stuff that i thought was straight forward, that a few people didn't realize.
If you have 2x ponder and 1x preordain, but no PA yet. You cast ponder T1, then Preordain T2, hopefully finding an ascension by then (having dug up to 8 cards deep if you count the draw-step inbetween). That means on T3, when you cast asension, you can cast ponder and immediately put your first counter on. You should really really avoid casting your 2nd copy of any cantrip until you have an ascension in play, UNLESS YOU HAVE NO OTHER ACTION. You need to be doing something every turn, unless your hand size starts dwindling. If you're wiffing on cantrips, start bluffing counters. you can't let your hand size get too low. Also. YOUR LIFE TOTAL IS A RESOURCE. Take beats to the face. You don't lose till you hit 0. Be wary of goblin grenade though. I win a lot of games under 4 life. If your opponent has a creature in play, you always cast twisted image before visions, unless of course you know they have 0/x creatures in their deck you want to kill with it. A lot of it is using probe to see what they are playing, and how to sculpt the action of the next few turns aroudn it. Other times its god draw of: PA, PA preordain preordain preordain Island mountain. halimar depths is a sweet Turn 1 play. And you should almost never pay 2 life for probe turn 1. better to wait till turn 2, because thats when it actually matters, and they've drawn an extra card by then. The exception to this is against aggro, because you never really want to pay 2 life for probe against them. It's an auto-exclude post board.


MULLIGANNING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF SUCCESS WITH THIS DECK. People tell me they are losing matchups that I say are easy. I watch them play and they just don't mulligan enough. There are a lot of 7 card hands that are basically 5-6 card hands anyway (multiple ascensions early, RSZ in your opener, etc), so sending them back for a fresh 6 is fine if the opener isnt impressive. I dont feel hindered until I have a 5 card hand, and even then, I'd rather have a shot at a fresh 5 than an awful 6. Your hand must have a blue source. Period. There are 16 of them, so it's not that hard, but you have to have one. Your hand has to have one of the 3: Halimar Depths, Preordain, Ponder. That on its own doesn't mean keep, but you want it to have one of those 3 with an ascension, one of those three with some removal/counters, or two+ of those cards. Alternatively, you can keep a hand with a nice mix of land, and no draw spells, just leaks/bolts/roils. Just keep in mind you're playing a more control role from the onset, and you'll just want to use those resources wisely to find the drawspells to find the pa to win the game... Once you get down to 5 cards, then you have to be willing to take some chances, depending on what configuration you're in. Mountains become a bit more valuable with the twin plan in. I once kept a loose 6 of Mountain Mountain Probe probe probe Into the Roil  G1. I managed to win that game, but he also stumbled and I was really unhappy with the keep later. Blue mana is important, it drives all of your action until you're ready to win the game.

I'm putting this up now on friday night, but will include more tomorrow, and hopefully some videos. (and probably also some copy editing)

Hall of Long, Color Me Shamed, and #SDCC

Friday upon us again folks. Another week behind, and another weekend ahead.
Ended up playing some Cockatrice with @theBG_D, and i'm getting tired, so going to cut the chitchat and dig in, because there's a few things on the agenda today.

Hall of Long
Lot's of #mtghof talk lately, and rightfully so. For those selected, there is a great responsibility to conduct due diligence with respect to submitting a ballot. I applaud the conversation and effort that I've witnessed, which I'm sure dwarfs what actually goes on. I am not in the group that thinks people should vote privately and without lobbying... It's silly to think Pros, Writers, Judges and other members of the election committee(s) aren't going to talk to one another.Hall of Fame speculation is covered heavily in the press for major sports, so I'm not surprised that's what happens on Twitter for MTG. Further, I don't think @mtg_law_etc's post on his website MTGlampoon.com was that out of line. I understand why some people were offended, but to be brutally honest, he didn't really say anything negative about anyone. Just stated his opinion repeatedly that most weren't worthy. It's just one opinion people, ON A FUCKING LAMPOON SITE. Excuse my language. Wait don't. Don't excuse it if it bothers you, let me know, so I can direct more curse words at you.
Digressing... digressing... digressing... Digresed. Really, the post just wasn't funny, so people didn't get that it was supposed to be funny. We've seen this before from Sperling, when he made the Pro-player Fake MTG Cards and posted them on his blog. Felt attention deprived so he pissed off enough people so that people talked about him for a couple days. Shit, its effective, can't blame him for going back to it. (See, THIS is how you troll/lampoon someone and actually be funny... Just sayin')

Well, the part of the Hall of Fame discussion I want to talk about, is one that apparently comes up every year. @maro254 has been known to encourage people to vote for him. Many of the community quickly dismiss him as a cheat. I wasn't in anyway following Pro-Magic at the time Mike was around the pro-tour. I was playing magic at the time, I was about 13-14 when his famous Pros-Bloom deck was born, and was months before I stopped playing the game. I remember losing to someone who showed up with the Pros-Bloom deck at our local tournament, my understanding of the rules was pretty loose, and was mostly a casual player. I still liked going to the LGS to play in the tournament, mainly just to find new opponents. After losing to the Pros-Bloom guy, I gave up magic. Whether it was directly related to that match, or not, I dont know. But was probably part of it. I didn't understand what was happening in the game, i was confused, and intrigued at the same time. The other part of it was coming of age, and all that other good stuff, but none-the-less, i distinctly remember playing against that deck...

Fast forward to 2005-2006. I'm a recent graduate from UCSD. I had spent my college years, along with my buddy (who just won his first WSOP bracelet this year, grats to John Monette) working labor as movers. Johnny did most of the advertising and found us work to fund our party lifestyles all the way through college. After he discovered poker (this was when you could only play Limit poker here in San Diego, NL just didn't exist) he basically passed the reigns on to me, and I found other help. I couldn't do it long, once I finished school, I got a real job in Marketing, and was also just getting my feet wet in tutoring. I'd ocassionally still get calls for moving jobs, and depending on how hungry i was that week, I'd take them. One day I get a call from a lady, who said she's the personal assistant to a couple of guys who need my help. They are moving to San Diego from out of town, and they need some labor. I show up, and I meet Mike Long. He was not very interested in chatting with 'the help' (which is fairly common) and was busy settling in to his new place. Me and my friends are unloading endless amounts of stuff, when I open a box with a Magic: the Gathering World Champion trophy. I set it on the Mantle, and ask him about it. I kinda chuckled, I mean, I played this as a kid, thats like the World champion of Chutes and Ladders, right? He sorta brushed off my question, and I went about my work. At the end of the day, he, and his co-workers who were also moving to San Diego with him, paid us (very generously) and we were on our way. That night, I googled Mike Long, and found out he won $10,000 as world champion, WOAH! That was that, or so I thought. Two days later, Mike's assistant called me again, saying they had some more work for me. Ocassionally people would do this, they'd realize i'm not just dumb labor, and I'm capable of handling lots of little projects, so they'd ask me to do something else. They had me pick up Ikea furniture and build it. Ummmm okay, I was pretty stoked with my $40 wage to sit on my ass and build furniture. After a few other similar jobs, I got to know Mike and his co-worker Dave pretty well. Dave had a lot more mini-projects for me. These guys were doing some marketing work for Mystery, the pickup artist. You've probably seen him before, but he's faded from the limelight a bit since then. Dave had me help him fix up his bachelor pad per Mystery's direction as part of their plan to get a VH1 show for Mystery (it worked). Infact you can see the video they did afterward on Mike's Youtube, but it says you can find the 2nd half (the good part) on some other website, and I wasn't able to find it. Bummer. We basically made this "dream room" dave called it. THe floor was covered in Love Sac's and the ceiling we covered with billows of off-white sheets, with colored disco lights underneath that pulsed to music. We blacked out all the windows with dark canvas, and set up a sound system. Dave's only goal: "I dont want people to know it's morning yet..." After getting to know these guys better, I asked Mike a bit more about his Magic career, and he told me about how when he started playing it was all mind games and shuffle tricks, and you had to know the game too, but the real edge was outside of that. He showed me some shuffle tricks, none of which I now remember, and I didn't think much of it. Months later, at Dave's house, I saw him playing Magic Online. What? You can play this online? I watched him play through a single match of a draft, and was surprised, that from my rudimentary understanding of the game prior, I understood what was going on pretty well. I scoped out Magic Online, but the program was a bit too initimidating for me so I approached Mike about it later. I asked him to teach me a little about the game, and told him about my brief history with it as a kid. He broke out a couple decks and we talked a bit. He showed me a pros-bloom deck and I started laughing. I said, "This was your deck!?" It all came full circle to me at that time, and the Planeswalker's spark was back in me. Not long after Dave left town, in an apparent hurry not on the best terms with Mike, but I"m not here to speculate nor slander either one of them. They were great clients of mine. However, after all I witnessed, the conversations I had, and the information I gleaned, I have no doubt Mike Long has the ability, skill and knowledge to cheat successfully. I cannot personally vouch for whether or not he did so, but he was quick to show me how to do it. Would I vote him into the Hall of Fame? FUCK YES. With out Mike, I would not be playing Magic today. Without Mike, we wouldn't have epic stories about someone sideboarding out their only wincon in their deck just to next-level someone into scooping. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! I do. Mike could do that. For realz. For those of you who don't know the pros-bloom deck, it basically generates stupid amounts of mana by using prosperity and cadaverous bloom. I believe it also used Squandered Resources too to help fuel the engine. After chaining a few prosperities, you could draw your whole deck, making enough mana for a lethal drain life. Apparently in his world championshiop match, he boarded out his Drain Life, and was able to bluff his opponent into scooping, by discarding every card in his deck but the drainlife, so his opponent assumed it was in his hand. Another version of the story, was that he bluffed his opponent into thinking he had 2 when he only had 1, and I dont think that's been confirmed in any way. Without deciding to take that moving job, I never would have pulled a Magic trophy out of a box, and meet some long term clients who taught me a lot about a lot of things, and mostly things I probably never needed to know. Thanks Mike and Dave. I'm certainly not vouching for Mike's moral character, as the circumstances underwhich they both left town was suspicious to say the least, and I don't know much about their business other than online marketing schemes (most of which appear to be complete ripoffs in my opinion)
As far as I know, the stuff I saw, participated in, and heard about was not deemed to be private or secret, but  I used my best judgement on this, and kept it as surface level, and relevant to how I feel about Mike Long with respect to his place in the Hall of Fame. In some slim chance Mike or Dave happen upon this blog post and they object to anything I say here, let me know, and i'll gladly edit.

Color Me Shamed
I read some alarming news Thursday on Twitter, and apparently I seem to care about this more than most. I hope by spending a few words on it here, some of you at least take a peek at a different perspective. I'm not going to rehash the whole story, but its here. Read that, if you're too lazy to read that, then don't bother with the rest of this section. I said my piece in the comments, and also left a blurb in the forums of the most recent article from the offender, and spouted off on Twitter. This is a pretty interesting Game Theory problem.

Robby has two options in this game, He can Express his discontent quietly, and attempt to cooperate with Sean, or he can Rage and try to bring awareness to the issue. Sean also has two options, or decision alternatives or strategies, he can take. He can comply/cooperate and change the name of his column, or he can resist, and tell Robby to take a hike.

There are 4 possible outcomes here, let's look at the payoffs, or outcomes associated with each outcome.

They both cooperate. In the Prisoner's dilemma, this is where the two prisoners don't rat each other out. They both get off scott free! In this case, Sean maybe has a minimal effect on his new coulmn, as it was brand new when Robby first approached him, and Robby is no longer slighted, and the world goes on. Essentially we can call this a $0 gain over all, and in reality for each player individually as well.

They both Defect. In the Prisoner's dielmma, this means both players actually rat the other out, so they get huge jail times. In this case, Sean is resisting the change, and Robby is making the public aware of the issue, and using his influence to show the community what we /can/ do about it (which is not visit SCG's website). Sean loses a portion of his potential audience, many of which are supporters and fans of Robby. Robby loses his quiet stoic "Switzerland" appeal, and possibly alienates some readers, some of whom may be affiliated with SCG, or otherwise loyal. In this case, Sean probably loses out more than Robby does, but Robby's bruised ego is certainly part of the loss to him in this situation as well.

One Cooperates, the Other Defects. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, the one who defects is the one who gets off the sentence easy for helping authorities, while the other serves a ton of time. This is similar to if either Robby or Sean tried to cooperate, but the other refused. If Robby approached Sean, and Sean said, "Take a Hike" Robby is still out his brand, and Sean is in no way affected. Viceversa, if Sean said, "Hey man, sorry i did xyz, i'll stop." and Robby said, 'I don't forgive, GTFO." Then he loses the connection, and likely more the brandingi he was once trying to protect.

From a Game Theory Standpoint, the Nash Equilibrium says that both players will defect, even though its in their best interest to cooperate. Advanced computer simulations have shown that if this game is repeatable (like it is here) you should cooperate with your partner until they defect on you. This is a very interesting take-away for every day life, by the way. Robby is playing this optimally, as far as Im' concerned. He attempted to work things out behind the scenes but was turned away a number of times. since his opponent has now defected, he's basically eating up all the jail-time in that prisoner's dilemma example, and in order to force Sean to share a piece of that, he needs to change strategies.

Anyway, just a a game theory aside. My comments in the article explain my feelings as a whole. There's just no need to not cooperate here, even if you think you're entitled to it. Just pick something else. Done.

#sdcc
I normally attend, since its in my town, but this year I couldn't go. I went to high school with MCLars, and he usually can hook me up with some passes, but this year he's on Warped tour, so he didn't come. I didn't want to shell out the dough, so I'm riding the pine on this one. I didn't think i'd be that disappointed until i felt the energy downtown SD yesterday. Wow. So much fun. I'm terribly jealous of everyone who got to go. Fuck you all.

No time for FF's this ran way too late. All of you follow each other!

#FF Blog - Cubism for Dummies

I really hope some kid searching for stuff on Cubism for a Art History class happens upon this blog. I hid all sorts of relevant keywords in here just to trick them. Hey, College Student from the future, you've been rick-rolled. LULZ.

Friday again. Just finished up a cube draft with @wmap's online cube! LORDHAVEMERCY.
I drafted this monstrosity (in pick order, *'s did not make the main deck:)

Pack 1
Ajani Vengeant
Bloodbraid Elf
Slagstorm
Duplicant
Mox Diamond
Ghitu Slinger
Treetop Village*
Beast Within*
Journey to Nowhere
Harrow*
Molten Rain
Crystal Ball*
Aftershock
Arbor Elf*

Troll Ascetic*

Pack 2
Path to Exile
Inferno Titan
Wild Nacatl*
Volcanic Fallout
Joraga Treespeaker*
Qasali Pridemage*
Incinerate
Figure of Destiny
Avalanche Riders
Kor Skyfisher
Karmic Guide
Stomping Ground
Keldon Marauders
Pouncing Jaguar
Black Vise
Pack 3

Swords to Plowshares
Imperious Perfect*
Earthquake
Chandra Nalaar
Wheel of Fortune
Harmonize*
Comet Storm
Forked Bolt*
Masked Admirers*
Grim Lavamancer
Kird Ape*
Nantuko Vigilante

Temporal Isolation*
Firebolt
Carnophage*

The deck was a R/W/g mid-range, not a ton of dudes, but lots of removal and lots of burn. My strategy was to land a 2-3 power dude, and bash and remove, hopefully force them to commit into one of my sweepers. I'd then rinse and repeat, ideally landing a Chandra, Ajani or Inferno Titan in a long game, using Land Destruction to attempt to edge ahead. It was mostly successful. This was my first cube match, and I was really uneasy as what to expect. Since so many of the cards in the pool I was unfamiliar with, I was having trouble remembering all the cards I passed. I can see that's crucial. In my first round, I played @mtglegacy. He had a very classic style control deck. A ton of counterspells, and won both games easily off hte back of a puppeter clique. I punted really hard, thinking i was making a sick play, because I had forgotten how the wording on puppeteer clique worked.Drew Puppeteer'd my Keldon Maurauders, i should have killed the clique in response with volcanic fallout, but decided to let mauraders come in, and do it mid combat, so that he couldnt' attack with both of my creatures (assuming he'd clique my karmic guide off a persist trigger), and I kill the maurauder before damage. However, as most of you who have already face palmed by now know, if i kill the creature before puppeteer cliques ability exiles it, it goes back to my graveyard... And he clique's it again. So i got double stone rained there, and was so embarrassed i just scooped. Obv feels great in R1 of your first cube, and have one of the games top players saying, "Hmm... I think i would have played that fallout differently." was the most humbling experience in my time playing Magic. I played fine the 2nd game, almost had it, when i landed a chandra when he tapped out for either a tutor or a draw spell, I can't remember. It looked like CHandra might go the distance, with me picking off any threats he might have to deal with her. Instead, he cryptics a spell to counter it and bounce my chandra. which i never even recast. I saw at least 5 different counterspells in his deck, as well as a thieving magpie, and the puppeteer clique. I think thats all i saw. Also a couple draw spells/tutors. His deck was solid.
After that i played @thebeme. I pretty much got there with figure of destiny game 1, and g2 with a couple dudes while he was mana screwed. Not a very exciting one. :( sorry robert.
Then i played @semisober, if that isn't sweatin it, I also have spectators including @marshallLRcast and @meta_knightmare. I win the first one easily, as Tom moans about misclicks in the chat box. He wins the second one by dumping a mana vault into an upheaval while he's at 4, and I have an inferno titan in play. He plays an oona and passes back. I have a journey in my hand but i need two turns to play lands and cast it. Ultimately thats what happens, en ends up getting a single token off of oona before i can kill it with journey, and he adds more dudes to the board, as i'm struggling to keep up. not much later i was dead. The 3rd game was very similar, except after the upheaval he had 2 life, and i has 17, he had a kira in play (coming off my journey after upheaval) and i had the sorcery speed shock with flashback in my bin, as well as an inferno titan i discarded after upheaval so i could karmic guide it. I also had a keldon mauraders. So i just needed to survive to post upheaval-turn 4 to start ploping down must answer threats to his 2 life total. I topdeck incinerate before that happens, and win the game. Tom says his Elspeth Tirel in his hand would have saved him, but I was "on the play" in the post-upheaval world in terms of lands, so if i play marauder on turn 4, i plow up his land drop, and i can cast 2 5 drops before he can cast an elspeth, so i think he's just whining. :)
So, 2-1, was tons of fun, i played red, which isn't my favorite color. But i really love ajani vengeant, never drew it though. Thanks so much to @wmap for facilitating it. Tappedout.net, the site she normally uses to run the drafting protion was down, but she audibled and it ran very smoothly, despite @meddlingmage whining every 2 minutes about how slow it was. I guess HoF'ers are too busy for that. &sigh&
Release this weekend, #FF to all my cubing pals today. Also in the cube was @jakeantonetz (was on my left in the draft). see ya'll next week.

MTG Review Presents: Billicent San Juan

Hey Everyone, thanks for stopping by! Today I want to introduce you all to a good friend of mine, Billicent San Juan. I've known him as Billy for a couple years now, but I found out today, that Billy was not short for William, but Billicent. "The More You Know. ™"
If Billy isn't busy with his Psycology Externship counseling people, he's teaching his "Kitchen Table" playgroup how to draft, or hanging out at the LGS drafting, playing EDH, making perverse jokes that make everyone extremely uncomfortable, or otherwise making everyone happy he's around. When Billy told me he was interested in trying out some writing in the MtG realm, I was excited. He's got a very sharp sense of humor, and he really relates well to all types of players. He sent over his first piece, about the casual player's view of the Draft Pod Landscape, and I know He and I would both really appreciate any feedback you can provide him. I expect we'll see much more from him. Billy brings smiles and laughs like its his job.


Without Further Ado...... Billy..... San..... Juaaaaaaaaaaaaan....

Silver, Gold, and Platinum

Drafting. A simple word which can evoke so many emotions. Excitement. Fear. Confusion. Joy. Perhaps even a hint of nausea. For many Magic: The Gathering players, drafting is the ultimate experience. It's the excitement of buying cards, building decks, and playing games all condensed into a few hours.

Many people assume that the ultimate goal of a draft is to win, and they'd be right. But there are different motivations to card-picks, and varying definitions of a "victory." For some people, drafting is about pulling rares, or trying to make Shriekhorn a win condition. Some people will lose in round-zero, laughing their butts off.

I haven't drafted for very long (I started in the Shards of Alara block), but I've noticed three demographics arise in a pod. [Note: Most people will accuse me of "biting" off of Mark Rosewater's landmark article: "Timmy, Johnny, and Spike." Mea culpa.]

Silver Drafters: For Fun.

A Silver Drafter is in it for the fun. The silver medal is fine, as long as you were in the race. The process of drafting is where enjoyment lies, not in victory. They pay the money to sit with friends, pick cool cards, and play a few games. Cards are chosen not merely for the draft deck, but also to round out Standard and Legacy decks sitting at home. Sleeving cards is optional, and free mulligans are often given.

The majority of drafters are Silvers [Not to be confused with Slivers, which would just be creepy]. I suspect that in any draft pod, 3-6 players will be Silver players. They want to have a good time, relax, and play some Magic. Can you blame them?

Gold Drafters: For Win.

Gold Drafters know their DCI numbers. Gold Drafters study spoiler lists and read signals. Gold Drafters, as their name implies, are in it for the gold. They can be heard muttering phrases like, "Really? Fifth pick?" or "I'm sending you some good stuff." They often have playmats bejeweled with Top-8 pins, and their sleeves are worn with scars of battles passed.

Having Gold Drafters in your pod may seem intimidating, but it's the best thing possible for an amateur player. Gold Drafters offer great advice, so don't be afraid to ask. They've been in the beginner's seat before, and they've already made every mistake that you will make. After the draft, show your deck around and ask what they might "cut" or if you made any play mistakes. In my personal experience, Gold Drafters are happy to help anyone in the Magic community.

For the Gold Drafter, the thrill is in the victory. They put their pride on the line, and each play is a crucial moment in the tide of war. Every pick is important, and can fall into one of three categories: Main Deck, Sideboard, and Hate-draft. They are efficient and deadly. Beware.

Platinum Drafters: For $$

Every now and then, a draft pod will have a person looking for money. If, while drafting, someone is checking prices on their iPhone or constantly asking a card's trade-in value... well friend, you've got a Platinum Drafter.

People often misunderstand the Platinum Drafter, thinking he/she is after a lazy profit. After all, in an eight-man single elimination pod, you've got to get through three matches to break even. Why do all that work when you can just draft rares or foils and sell them (or trade them in, depending on your local hobby shop)? Ah, but there's more than meets the eye.

For the Platinum Drafter, the thrill isn't in the profit. It's in finding gems and treasures. It's about the release of endorphins when we encounter something promising. Every player has experienced the thrill of opening a pack, tossing aside the commons, and heading straight for the rare. The same feeling happens about 24 times in a draft, and it's what the Platinum Drafter thrives for.

***

It doesn't matter if you're a Silver, Gold, or Platinum drafter. It doesn't matter if you're a Timmy, Johnny, Spike, or Volrath. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner, casual player, or Pro. In the end, we all come together for the same reason: To play a game we love with people we can mildly tolerate.

Non-#FF Blog - Another week in the life of a magic player...

Here we are, thanks for spending a fraction of your Friday (or whatever day you decide to read this) with me. I'm moving away from the Follow Friday format for today, because I realize, i often #FF the same people weekly, as those are the people I "chat" with as i scroll through my feed from the past week. But in reality, #FF's should be people I appreciate listening to, more than talking to/with. I'll come back to #FF's next week, I'm thinking of making it a 2-4 person limit, so I don't get overwhelmed trying to include everyone who included me in a mention that week, and I can also say a little more about why they deserve a follow. (As always, if you feel you're not getting love, make sure i'm following you!)

Last weekend, a friend of mine, who is a casual player, wanted me to help him out with preparation for the Overextended game day at our LGS Jul 3rd. He's primarily an EDH guy, who's just beginning to dabble in building his cube, and I planned to show him how a spike prepares for a tournament. I show up at his house, and he's got nicely printed proxies for his deck sleeved up, and he's ready to test out his Astral Slide brew. I brought 12 printed decklists, a sharpie, and about 200 basic lands. I said, well, what's your worst matchup? I was anxious to take the U/W/B stoneforge control list for a spin, and figured it would be sharp enough to knock any johnny dreams out of his eyes, and we could get down to brass tacks to fix his homebrew. He kind of scoffed and said something like, "Eh, that match up should be easy." I chuckled, and said, well if I'm going to play in this tournament, I'll likely play this, so do you mind if we run a few quick ones with this. He was busy fiddling with his deck, he didn't even notice I was about 90% done proxying the deck, and he agreed. After 10 games, I finally won one, on the back of manascrew, none-the-less. Woah. He wasn't joking. He told me he hadn't even tested the deck against anything, but it sure as shit crushed any equipment based strategy. It made my value-bears seem like Eldrazi Spawn tokens. My only way to win was to try and jace him out, but eventually a storm of Qasali Pridemages and Eternal Witnesses would knock me down. Next I proxied up the 12-post U/G deck, and woah, my first run through was T1 Cloudpost, T2 Cloudpost, Signet. T3, Tree of Tales,into a Primeval Titan, to get a 3rd and 4th cloudpost T4 Eye, hard cast Emrakul. with a couple mana left for condescend if something unforseen happens. While, that's basically the nut-hand, I fell in love. It reminded me of casting Emrakul off a Brilliant Ultimatum not too long ago in Standard. This matchup was not as good for him, but i was able to point out some key flaws in his game play that i think will help him. After running this game for 10 tries, i started to proxy up a Zoo deck, and he said he'd had his fill. At first i was disappointed, he seemed really motivated to try out the decks, and i had driven a long way and taken the time to organize a gauntlet for him, so I was bummed he wasn't willing to really test the deck. Then I realized, He just wanted to play some magic with me. "Oh Yeah, we play this game cuz its fun, sometimes." We chit-chatted a bit longer, and after i looked at the 12-post deck more closely, and my friend mentioned 20 proxies were allowed, I decided to try and throw it together. Within a few days I'd traded for all the pieces I needed (allowing for the 20proxy space) and have tested with anyone willing at our LGS. THis format is so much fun, and while I had no intention of playing in the event (because the prize support is so poor with respect to the entry fee), now i just want to play in the event. During the week I also helped a friend brew up a Melira Combo deck, and man, i wouldn't be surprised if he takes down the whole event with it. If i had the cards to play it also, i probably would. He was testing it against people's legacy decks (because most people didn't have overextended built) and was crushing it. I did manage to win a test game where he had an arbitrarily large amount of life, though. I had 6 or 7 cloud posts in play after a long drawn out game, as well as an eye of ugin, and i basically had to continously tutor an emrakul, take an extra turn, attack, tutor my 2nd emrakul to take an extra turn and legend bomb, and keep repeating the process as my emrakuls would shuffle back in. I said, "I'll just keep doin this till you're dead, right?"  he said, "well won't you still deck out before you kill me?" I pointed at my Acadamy Ruins in play, and my expedition map in my graveyard... "nope." Pretty cool. I love decks like this that are so powerful but can find interesting ways to win in unusual circumstances.

It turns out that I may not be able to play in the event, which is a bummer, but oh well. I may catch up with my closest friend from youth, for the 4th of July weekend. I keep reminding myself that i didn't even want to play in this tournament a couple weeks ago. It appears my casual-player friend really rubbed off on me that day.

Further, Sunday marks the Planeswalker tournament on MTGO. Thanks to the Community Cup team, i got a free Planeswalker pack, and entry to the Planeswalker tournament on Sunday at 9am. Just for participating I'll get a M11 booster, and if i manage to win a few games i'll get a few more. I checked out this format, and boy is it weird. I'm actually kinda curious as to why this is the format that was chosen. My speculation is its a non-monetary prize for everyone, but you have to participate in the event to get something of value out of it. That part makes sense. What doesn't make sense is this format. Even @modogodot didn't understand my explanation of what this format is. Essentially there are 4 planeswalker packs you can buy on MTGO, and they are Gold Bordered cards, like collectors edition. These cards can only be used in Planeswalker format online. Each pack has a hanful of precon configurations you can run, but it appears each one is geared towards one of the actual Planeswalkers. THe one I got thanks to the #mtgocc, is the Nissa Revane pack. I'm assuming everyoen got the same one. It is the original planeswalker pack. It has a decent Elf deck included, with pieces available to splash into any of the other colors. This format also has no Sideboard, but includes many cards that should really belong in the sideboard. This was hard for me. Could I really have Terror be my only removal spell? What if i play against a black deck. Am I really going to maindeck some Deathmarks? What about Natrualize? My pool has a Loxodon Warhammer in it, so I assume I'll be seeing that card a lot. What deck isn't going to include that card. I toyed around with the elf precon, tweaking and tweaking, and took it for a test spin in the New Players room (which is the only place i could find people playing this format). My first go around, I died to a T3 Emeria Angel, followed by a T4 Baneslayer Angel. My next match was a Kor equipment deck that involved a Kor Duelist wearing a Kitesail and followed by, you guessed it, a loxodon warhammer. That game didn't last long either. Because these games are without sideboard, most players are looking to play single game matches. I'm assuming thats what the format will be like this weekend also. I double checked my cardpool to make sure I didn't have a Baneslayer Angel that I had just overlooked, and this is when I realized there were other Planeswalker packs than the one I had. Now it makes sense, of course wizards needs some kind of way to encourage me to buy something for this event. I was starting to worry about those guys up there, but the fact that i almost considered buying another one, so that I could have Vampire Nighthawks, Baneslayers and more at my disposal was telling. It also was obvious to me that this is an awesome tactic for teaching new players the way this game works, and getting them used to buying more product. I overheard (overread?) some people in the New Players room asking ORC's how to buy more cards. To be so naive again.... *wanders off wistfully* I digress. I realized even though an additional planeswalker pack is only $5, I'm only playing for a few boosters here, and you can't use these cards in any other MTGO format, so I slapped myself in the face and wisened up. I re-evaluated my pool, realizing I needed to be prepared for more than just the cards I see here. I had thought everyoen was looking at the same pool as me, but that was not the case. I loaded up on removal, and my elf deck had less elves, and more black cards like Nekrataal *drool*. Eventually i scrolled down to the gold cards and saw there was  copies of Sprouting Thrinax. Most cards didn't have more than a couple copies each, so this was a good find. I had also already come to accept that Rampant Growth was going to be a 4of, and there was also a Rampant Growth on a stick that gave a 1/1 body for an additional mana, as well as civic wayfinder. Those three became my only non-gold green cards, and I built a Jund deck, maximizing my playset of Blightnings by also runing two copies of The Rack. If i wake up early enough on Sunday, I'll be playing this:

Jund Rack - A planeswalker format (using only cards from the original Planeswalker Pack1)
4x Rampant Growth
4x Blightning
4x Rampant Grown on a stick guy
2x Civic Wayfinder
4x Mind Rot
1x Mind Shatter
1x Nath the token making elf
2x Broodmate Dragon
3x Terror
1x Final Revels
1x Destroy Target Non-Elf
3x Incinerate
1x Flameblast Dragon
2x THE RACK
1x Loxodon Warhammer
1x Nekrataal
1x Naturalize
and a bunch of random dudes, i'm having trouble remembering now, and the *.dek file doesn't show me the card names. It's a surprisingly decent Jund deck. I did find that i was not very good against pacificsm, and apparently thats the white removal spell of choice in this format. I rolled a bunch of people in the New Player room, and while that's nothing to write home about, i did steamroll the mirror match twice, with the Rack being the key player to break the blightning mirror. I basically used it to outrace an opponents Thrinax. There is also a Thieving magpie deck that apparently has 12 counterspells in it, which makes a bloodbraid-less Jund pretty embarrassing. I have to get a dragon down to win that match. Mind Spring and Tidings mainboard essentially negate my Racks. Did I mention these are 1 game matches without sideboard? so awkward. The deck is decent, but the format just isn't that much fun to play. It feels like a busted sealed pool, but you're battling against other busted sealed pools (or someone who bought all 4 sealed pools). At a minimum i'll try to at least log in to collect my single pack, and play if I'm feeling up to it.

Finally had some success with drafting in the past week. Had a sweet G/W infect deck, that i'll certainly try to draft again at my next NPH draft. Starting with a1st pick triumph of the horde 2nd pick Shriek raptor, and a 4th pick infect Bear, I commited to the archetype early. I normally wouldn't suggest doing this, but because its a fringe archetype, you're rewarded for choosing it and sticking with it. I ended up with 2 Shriek Raptors, 3 Lost leonin, 3 Tine Shrikes and 1 priest of norn. That's a solid amount of White infect guys. I didn't get many of the green ones, instead focused on pumpspells, and grabbed artifact dudes in pack 3. It turns out there was a green infect player on my right, he'd take a green infect guy, and i'd take the pumpspell right behind him. It was actually pretty awesome. It's also pretty sweet knowing you can get a couple Seize the Initiative in Pack3, as this card gains a ton of value in Infect strategies. I easily ran through my opponents with this deck, and you're able to table extremely awesome commons in packs 1 and 2 like Tine Shrike and Shreik Raptor.

The next draft I also opened a Triumph and immediately thought to build the same deck, but was passed an Act of Aggression and went into Red. I had a number of Razor swines in this deck, as well as a late voltcharge. I was able to get a ton of green guys to fill out my curve, and my deck was pretty aggressive. A late Trigon of Rage Pack 3 sealed the deal.

I also won a draft with a typical G/B infect deck. I passed a Red Sun Zenith for a Flesh Eater Imp, here, and many ridiculed me with things like, "You never pass fireball!" I tried to tell them that Flesh Eater Imp was an infect Fireball, and actually had synergy with my deck. I didn't like passing it, but i'd do it again. I really do think the top tier infect guys are more important than removal in an infect strategy. While you certainly can't forgo removal all together, you need to have threats to apply. That deck had 3 blightwidows in it too *drool*. There was a point where I had 2 Blight Widows, a Scourge Servant and a Flesh Eater Imp on table. I had just cast the imp and bashed with 1 servant and 1 Blightwidow, and my opponent was at 8 poison. My opponent tapps out for Cerebral eruption, and I'm at 12 life, and I have a mutagenic growth in my hand. What do? I mentioned this on twitter, and got some interesting responses. It turns out it wouldn't matter what I had done, but it's a really intersesting choice. My deck had 1 5-drop remaining in the library, as well as a spinebiter 6 drop. It was pretty thick at 3 and 4 drops, with a some 1-2 drop pump spells. I think What i did was wrong. I paid 2 life for Mutagenic growth to fall to 10, and pumped my imp, and let the Eruption resolve. Of course it hits the Spinebiter, I lose my board and fall to 4, and die to an attack of a myr token and a Furnace Scamp (+sac). I likely should have also sac'd my servant to the flesh eater, if i was going to pump it up to 6. That way I still have a blocker in the worst case scenario of the 6 drop coming, although i'd be forced to trade it with the furnace scamp. Was a tough call. I ended up winning the match anyway, but that was such a blowout and interesting decision.
I also had a G/U ramp deck, featuring vorniclex, Maul Splicer, Green sun zenith, 3 mana myr, a Emmisary, and a sphere of the suns and a bunch of 4 and 5 drop fliers and a myr battlesphere. I lost single handedly to the white chancellor both games, and it was pretty embarassing. I was staring at this chancellor with 6 lands in play staring at a maul splicer, Phyrexian Juggernaut, and the 6-drop 4/4 flier in my hand wanting to die. I boarded in two pistus strikes, but never found one game 2, and died in the same fashion. This time I had ramped up to 8, and died with vorniclex in my hand without being able to pay the 1 for chancellor.

The chess game with @Bgardnerdurbin is near completion. Looks like i might lose this one. I felt like i was ahead the whole game, but he turned it around late with a move I wasn't expecting. I think we're pretty well matched opponents, so i'll be trying to get my rematch! Anyone else who is interested in some correspondence chess, sign up for an account at Chess.com and add me (user name ChadHavas). 

Have a great weekend, all!

#FF Blog - Oh you know, Strikes and Gutters, ups and downs... Exarch's Life

I love the polarity of the Exarchs in NPH, such a interesting play on life. Every coin has two sides, and it doesn't mean one side is good, and one side is bad. Just each side is distinct and opposite. Lots of things about my life recently have been strikes and gutters all wrapped into one. It's like karma is both punishing me for my mistakes and my misfortune is coming around all at once. Kinda creepy, to be honest.
I haven't been shouting around too much on twitter lately, i've forced myself to a bit of a reality check to the amount of time I spend on there, and while I miss the constant interaction, its been a pretty good change. I still chime in from time to time, but I'm not digging in to afternoon-long debates, and thats likely healthier for everyone. *chad dodges* (#ff @cardboardwitch while i'm at it). I'm still poking my head in daily, and at least picking up on what's happening, and chiming in here and there. I think I honestly started following too many people. I love everyone, and there's no way i could cut the 250+ "playables" in this pool down to 40 (or even 23). It's surprisingly easy for me to connect with everyone, to a degree, because of the common thread we share. And the more people I meet, I almost felt an increasing pressure to be chiming in more and more. Moderation, Chad, Moderation... Anyway, most of you may not have even noticed the slight departure, because you're also following 250 people, and its all just part of the feed you see at any given time, at least thats the way it is for me. Not that *YOU* aren't special to me, because indeed you are...

As such, I dont have many crazy shenanigans to report from twitter, but I've got some stuff to discuss.
First is the Jace banning. I'm bummed. Big time. I had a running wager going with @mrfridays (you gotta #ff this guy, man he's a riot) and as you'll note we made this bet on Mar. 14th, the day Jace was at his peak price on blacklotusproject.com. He had fallen all the way to 69 the day before the banning, and of course our bet had a no-action clause on a banning. *sigh* I'm pretty confident my under would have hit here. Demz da breakz. To be honest about the bannings, i'm a little disappointed. I'm disappointed that Magic R&D caved. But the proof is in the pudding, if tournament attendance is really affected, I can see a business decision being necessary  I am also disappointed that both cards were banned. I think JTMS should still be around. While he was so powerful he'd be in every deck, that was only an issue due to his price, and WotC should not set a precedent that they will just ban a card if it is format defining AND expensive on the secondary market. Stoneforge is simply busted in this format without enough early answers for the threats it can spit out. That being said, there were plenty of strategies to beat Caw Blade (yeah yeah, but you sacrifice your %'s against the field). Even if you suck against the rest of the field, since Caw was getting bigger and bigger, your chance of winning and event with an anti-Caw deck should be improving. I have no doubts in Pyromancer's ability to run all over caw with 4-5 distinct builds. Could it beat an aggro deck? ehhh, not with one of those 4-5 builds, and that was the problem, but dream crushing cocky Caw Blade players is what makes me scratch that johnny itch. It just seemed like there really was enough room to play other decks in the format, to reasonable chances to win. Luckily for me, I lost my standard decks, and had basically resigned to holding out for rotation anyway, so I'm not terribly invested in it either way. What i do think is amusing, however, is how heated the debates are about it, and how people are offended when some people like a skill testing format, and some people insult others who like more variance and innovation. It really does show a ugly side of intolerance, from my view. Magic is about choices and preferences. That's the whole game. There's a guy at my store, who always plays his own cute mid-range decks. And the're fun. And he's fun to play against (most of the time). But he hates playing against planeswalkers and counterspells and land destruction. So if you play any of those, be prepared to hear about it. He just wants to plop his creatures down and run them into yours and see who wins. This is obvious when his decks revolve around creatures that don't lose combat fights, like Glissa, Thrun, or Bloodghast. People that can't appreciate what the variety of tastes that can exist in Magic bring to the game really bother me. A lot. Probably too much. I just want to say, "If this isn't fun, and you're obviously not here to just crush with netdecks, then what ARE you here for? You do know this is Magic, right?" He's nice to me while he complains, because I always mention that his decks seem fun to play, and they're fun to interact with, and he appreciates that, but he still would groan endlessly about my Mono-R Chandra-Ponza deck for, "messin with his mana" or my Pyromancer deck that doesn't interact enough to his liking. I'm just losing patience with people that aren't there to enjoy themselves, or willing to let others enjoy themselves.
That aside, the new format does bring out some new innovations, but i just think valakut will crush the format now. now THAT deck is one that is absolutely gut-wrenching to play against. Is there seriously anyway to beat a T4 titan? oh mana leak? sure, here's a double summoning trap into two more titans.... Obv he has it. I hate playing against that deck. I'm glad i dont have a standard deck completed at the moment. (see what i did there, i totally proved my earlier point by having something that i want to complain about, didn't catch it until my quick proofread, god i'm a terrible soul)

Other news. My collection is on some VERY serious progress. Thanks to 3 of my twitter friends. Firstly the LR crew @marshallLRcast, and now WotC employee @modogodot hooked me up with a TON of stuff. Marshall offered me some draft extras, and i sheepishly refused as long as I could, but ultimately I caved, and wow did these guys leave me speechless. They sent a stack of rares much larger than anything I expected, including many playable/tradable staples. As i scanned through the pile sorting it into binder pages, i dug into some Crusaders of both varieties and thought, Woah, this must have been a mistake. Then a Tezzeret?! A Pyromancer Ascension! Wow, these guys went all out, and this was an amazing boost to get me going again. There was also some promo foils in there too, like spellstutter sprites and such. It's so hard to thank people for generosity like this. My only forum that I typically communicate with this folk is through public tweets, and it's a personal gesture they made to me. while they deserve public praise for what they did, i dont want to minimialize the truly selfless thing they did, by blasting out a thank you on a very public forum. I battled with it a bit, and probably shouldn't have waited so long to at least show them due respect on my blog. These guys are the most supportive people that i've never met. While I'm here, I also want to thank @dzimet for not only helping me out with some trades, but also making some generous offers as well. I have to say, that i'm not "down and out broke" where i can't play anymore, and i'm certainly not asking for handouts. I'm still drafting as much as possible, trading and at least thinking about standard, even if not playing yet. but these guys really went above and beyond, outside of the financial impact, and made a gesture that I doubt I could ever repay to them. If i would, I could. So quickly.

On the other side of this coin, i have to also thank @mtgonline aka Worth Wollpert. A lot of you follow him, but many of you may not know that he was one of the greatest players that ever played the game. I followed him on twitter, and we've engaged a couple times, but to be honest, I was never 100% sure it was always him tweeting. Maybe he had an assistant who handles a portion of his social media stuff or something. I was honored when I got a follow from him, to a degree I can't even explain. This guy would have easily been a Hall of Famer if not choosing to sacrifice his tournament play to work for Wizards, he now heads Magic Digital. I've been real hesitant to talk about this on twitter at all, because I didn't know how people woudld react. As I told the story around my LGS (more on this to come) people were surprisingly supportive. I expected a lot of jealous responses, but i've decided that you can choose to be happy for me, or not, but Worth deserves the recognition for impacting both myself, and my community so positively. Worth, being in charge of MTGO, has access to MTGO redemption sets, and set me a complete set of the entire Scars Block, as well as M11 and also a M11 Foil set. WOW. Yes, thats 5 complete redemption set boxes. When i saw the box from wizards, and picked it up, it was heavy. Instant Woah. Once I cracked it and saw what was in front of me, I was in disbelief. Also enclosed with the cards was a letter from Worth, written to me. To be honest, this is what really made the gift so special to me. It was on WotC letterhead, and he offered his sympathy for my lost collection, and some caveats for the gift. Essentialy, he wants me to share the cards with other people who's stuff was stolen, and if my original collection is recovered to sell the cards for charity, or regift them. Both obviously understandable caveats, and it just really hit me that one of my most admired Pros not only follows me on Twitter, but pays enough attention and cares enough to reach out like this is really amazing. The next day i was at my LGS, and a friend of mine tells me his sword of war and peace was stolen form his binder the day before, and it gave me an excuse to crack open a redemption set and replace it for him. I"ve been able to replace a few other pieces for people form these boxes, and it's also been an amazing jumpstart to building up my staples for next standard season. Both gifts, from the LR guys and from Worth were amazing to me, but for different reasons. The LR guys sent me stuff from their personal collection, and we're not just talking bulk rares, this is stuff they could easily be trading, selling, or even using. An extremely generous offer, to say the least. Worth is generous to give a ranting PTQ hopeful like myself the time of day, and to extend a gift to one of his fans is the most unexpected thing. To all of you, if you're reading this (i know you are Marsh), thank you very much. Thank you Marshall. Thank you Ryan. Thank you Worth. I seriously don't deserve such generosity, so i hope the Karma comes back around to you sooner rather than later. (I was kinda hoping you'd catch some in Vegas Marsh, but hopefully the mtgocc was enough)

/gush

QS/Writing stuff: There isn't much to say about this other than, A) I"m writing weekly now, which is a challenge to me(and the blog), and B) The QS team is pushing out some amazing insider content at the moment, and i'm pretty excited to be a part of it. I know financial material isn't something everyone gets into, but if it is, you probably already know because you're signed up. If you're not, you should try to get on the mailing list, they send out free snippets and stuff. I was featured on the first one, which was pretty cool to feel appreciated enough by at least doug linn (co-founder/owner and legacy guru) to be selected for inclusion. I know my writing style needs some work, but I've been pretty happy with the content I've been working on, so thats something.

I'm anxious to see what happens with Limited resources without Ryan. I have no doubts Marshal will be fine running the show without him, i just hope he's able to dig into some deep limited stuff soon, because i've been really struggling lately. I'm working stuff over with guys at the LGS, picking brains for pick preferences, talking about archetypes and more, but every time a deck seems amazing to me, I'm out in the first or second round. And the few times i've actually stolen a pod, i've felt my deck was terrible. THere's certainly some times that my gameplay has been an issue, and i just need to focus a bit more, but there's been others where i'm not abandoning my first pick easily enough, or likely misbuilding my pool. Ugggh. With no constructed action at the moment I really need to pick up my game.

I've had some struggles in the non-MTG parts of my life, some of them have been going on for a while, some are recent, some have been resolved, but it hasn't been easy going for quite some time. I've loved MTG because it lets me get away from everything else, to focus my energy on something thats not destructive, and something that i enjoy. Losing my collection has impacted that a bit for me. And i've replaced the constructed play with Trading. I"ve been doing lots of it, trading for legacy pieces, and just trading to trade. It's become a cathartic exercise for me, and it almost calms me now to flip through other peoples binders. It's funny because i used to trade out of necessity, and now I do it to keep myself involved in constructed formats from a different angle. I found that I made great success with my magic game when i set the goal to perform well at the Star City Games open i blogged about a few months back. While my finish wasn't terrible for my first constructed tournament of over 100 people, it also wasn't what  I had hoped. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my game is in a much different place as a result, though. And setting a new goal I'm hoping will do the same. My next goal is to make Day 2 of GP san diego in November. This is a ways away, but it's currently scheduled as an Extended tournament, a format i've never played, nor had much exposure to, and i'm working with a collection that i will need to trade into a competitive deck by then. I'm not sure what hte format will look like then, if they will change the format of the event to Modern, or what the new sets will bring etc, but I know I have the skill level to do it, I need to be diligent in preparation and patient in execution. Diligent. Patient. Not my two best qualities, that's why I think this is a good exercise for me.

I've also been slowly picking Chess back up, and anyone who wants to battle with me can find me on Chess.com with the username: ChadHavas. @Bgardnerdurbin and I just started a game there, and it looks like he's chosen the Sicilian Open, should be fun. For those that don't know, its correspondence style chess, meaning you have up to 3 days to make your move. There's apps for both Android and Iphone where you can play on the go as well. They also have a premium service, but i haven't explored that option too closely yet.

A lot of things in my life are at a point of stagnation, while others are in flux. I know i can be doing a lot more to be happy and successful, but I'm having trouble focusing on a specific goal. Do I want to beocme a college professor? Yes. Do I want to go back to school? No. These are conflicting pressures that cause serious problems when I want to focus on making it happen. Do I want to qualify for the Pro Tour? Yes. Do I have the resources to commit the Time and money into testing and travelling that it takes to do that? No. Am I comparing these two things on levels of importance? No, but the same issues apply. I've been a "Jack of all Trades" since college, running several self made business/opportunities to use my own skillset to generate income for about 6 years, but I've never been willing to focus on one of them to push it to the next level. Something has to give, and I'm still gunshy to commit. Some close to me say I'm afraid of failing. I don't know that its true. I've failed tons in my life, and i've always gone back to doing things my way until I can make it work. I think I'm just stubborn. I dont like taking directions from anyone, and I've made choices through out my professional career that reflects that. While I feel I have a strong skill set that would be desirable to many employers, i dont want to just "give" that away for a salaried position, where my skill set then belongs to them.  This is totally irrational, because i'm not maximizing my skill set on my own, so clearly a mutually beneficial arrangement must exist somewhere, I just haven't been willing to do that. Time will tell.

Sorry for the only partially related-MTG paragraph there, I know, no one wants to hear about that crap, but sometimes one has to vent, and well, this is a blog, so yeah, that just happened.

I'll close with some #ff's that didn't otherwise get mentioned above. @ahalavais- Arthur worked up some sweet mock-ups for me of the new planeswalkers, and also shared a bit of his own set design he's working on. Some REALLY cool stuff. Marshall whom i've alreayd mentioned a couple times, has a blog where he posts his art-alters, that i've been digging on. Also, @wmap seems to have resurfaced to being more vocal lately, and its been cool to hear her talk about changes to her cube. @baconhax has been back recently, and while he's slightly less involved in MTG as he once was, it seems is interest is coming back, and i'm glad to see him around more. @dzimet puts up with me at the LGS like few others would. And @smi77y, @setzerg, @itomarhernandez @rwildernessr @steve032 and @alawley are some of my favorites to chat about cards/decks with. I haven't been caught up on too much reading lately, because i haven't been playing much standard, but always keeping my eyes peeeled for @samstod goodness.

Happy Friday to everyone.

#FF Blog - Yes, this blog still exists...

What's better than a 3-day weekend? A 4-day week. Friday has arrived. Some quick catchup... Since I blogged last, I cranked through finals, played in Pre-release/release events, a PTQ and a handful of other local drafts. I finished 5-1 at my first pre-release, with a mostly Mono-B pool, running Obliterator and Sheoldred, along with a suite of black removal, splashing red for a couple artifact removal spells and a burn spell. Somehow the breakers put me into 5th place, which was a significant drop-off in prize support, from 4th. The following day,  I went 4-1, to finish 3rd, but getting the opportunity to play against Brian Kibler. I played fairly poorly against him, but managed to pull it together game 3. The following Thurs we had midnight drafts at the LGS, I broke even on the first draft, and my buddy and I crushed a 2HG. He had a U/B control, and I had a rage extractor deck. Rage extractor is sleeper nutty in a 8 pack NPH sealed. If you happen to have 16 packs of NPH and you want to school some people, do it. The release events I couldn't play in, but I played in a Legacy tournament and embarassed myself with ANT to a 1-2 drop finish. Played the deck with out ever seeing it before, and i was in way over my head. The PTQ was a nightmare also a 1-2 drop. Both of my losses were of the nastiest beats ever, but I'll spare the 2-week old bad-beat story(ies) for now. I did manage to crush 2 side drafts after dropping, and with those prize packs, battled some winston drafting to convert those packs into $$. All said and done, the day was a wash.

So that's the fast forward catchup. This past weekend I went to a buddy's place up in LA, and my backpack of cards was stolen from my car. Most of you have heard my moaning about it, I'll spare it again here. But, yeah, it sucks. I caught up on last weeks Limited Resources podcast (they are at MTGcast.com) and I chuckled. Ryan (@modogodot) has just gotten hired at WotC in what he considers to be his dream job. On the cast, he talks about how difficult it is to explain to non-gamers how big of a deal this job is to him. In this same vein, I've had trouble communicating to my non-gamer friends how difficult it is to have your collection stolen. Obviously, it was a decently expensive collection, but on top of that, it's my continuous 'trophy' of my last two years drafting. Not to mention my custom playmat a guy at our LGS made for me, along with my PTQ top 8 pin, and my beloved Pyromancer Ascension deck are all gone... forever. It's so hard to describe the gravity of this loss to a non-gamer. My gamer friends think I'm taking it extremely well, I'm still anxious to be drafting, and I'm still excited about Magic. My non-gamer friends think i'm over-reacting. Perhaps both groups are right. I wrote a bit about how I'm going to approach rebuilding my collection over at @quietspec today, and this weeks article is outside the paywall, so feel free to read a little more about what losing my collection means to me over there. That being said, the outpouring of sympathy, well-wishes, and generous offers is really heart-warming. Thanks.


On to the Follow Friday already! Jeez, okay guys, don't all yell at me at once!

Had a brief back-and-forth with @mrfridays this week about comapring Volt Charge to Fallen Ferromancer. We both felt it was not close at all, but we disagreed (big surprise). I like volt charge here, because it will always do what you want it to do, while ferromancer is really swingy and fragile. #ff to @mrfridays because he's not only extremely entertaining, but very opinionated as well.

Huge #ff to @modogodot and @marshallLRcast who prepped me well for my pre-release and release events. I love their new set material, because they dig so deep on each card, that even when I don't agree with a particular valuation, the facts they bring up are very complete, and give me the tools I need to make my own judgements. Congratulations to both Ryan and Marshall, Ryan on the WotC gig, and Marshall who was selected to the Community Cup team. Nice work, fellas.

#ff to @semisober who is still pushing great draft material on his blog, www.tommartell.com, he also got a 17th place finish at the GP due to some awful tie-breaker shenanigans.

#ff to @smi77y just for being smitty, also to @williegmyprez who both really have their ear to the Standard Meta, and have fresh ideas constantly. Same goes for @cavemankellen who also writes on quietspec, as well as the other spike guys @dtlerch @bgardnerdurbin and @joshjmtg

I try to avoid directly promoting quietspeculation.com 's subscription service here on my blog. But @chosler88 and @fatecreatr have put together the Prediction Tracker for Insider subscribers, and it's really impressive. It collects information from all of the finance writers (including YT) into a very well organized and detailed spreadsheet. It's any serious traders guide to being "next level" on trading.

#ff to @samstod, one of my favorite writers, and @wrongwaygoback who has (somewhat) recently joined quietspeculation.com writing about commander, is my other favorite writer.
Before this blog existed, I applied to the SCG talent search, and while continuing on there wasn't in the stars for me, @wrongwaygoback gave me, a simple fan of his blog, his time and effort to review my submission for me. He also really gave me a wake-up call about writing style. This guy has good digs. Check out his blog, you can find it through his twitter tag.

Also, #ff to @rtassicker, @necr0mancer, @ahalavais @hobbesq @dzimet @metaknightmare and @thewachman because they are all awesome! (yeah yeah, i'm getting lazy, sorry to sell you guys short... another day another blog...)

have a great weekend everyone!