Dies to Removal

Sounds good then.

I didn't know there were "departments" in the clan council.

Who's in charge of calling the people to mass for the church of thirst? Because they're seriously fucking blowing it.

C'mon, Kaze...we're each of us on council a legend in our own minds...

Of course, we could just get the brewery thread moved out of the restricted area, though I'm loathe to do so when we will be starting our super-secret-double-hush-hush-world-takeover plans for post-rotation red.

Okay gents...gotta go to bed. My ex and her sister are coming by to see the kids this afternoon and I'm sure that they will make enough fuss with the dogs to wake me in the middle of my
"night". Besides, I don't feel comfortable letting the women snoop about the house with me asleep.

Photo, I know you're leaving and won't read this until you get back, but what you wrote on the previous page about your evolution from BG Rock to wanting to find an approximate in BR is exactly my thought process as well. Hence the existence of a card like Desecration Demon in my brew over in the brewery thread. My goal was a midrange-control deck, somewhat similar to BG Rock or Jund, but staying in BR colors, using Bonfire instead of Mutilate and being able to play Chandra and Burning Earth.

May you dream of beautiful women and burning your way through MTG.

I'm OK with toddulent being tier 2. I checked the archives, it appears that he was very active in our MTGS thread.

Make it so, number one.

I think that the card is only really good in that scenario and in that scenario most anything your deck does is winning IMO.

Point. Just as a straight-up first-striking deathtouch dude with a 4 butt he's nothing shabby, but I'm likely just being a bit too
Johnny. Other than the 4th Hellkite what else would you add/change?

I'd add a third Searing Spear and a fourth Hellkite really. There's no reason to run Master because in any board state that he resolves in with this deck, it's very likely that you're winning the game already with a card like Hellkite or Olivia. He's just too cute.

Really though I'm just not fond of the deck in general. The whole purpose of playing RB right now is to play a powerful curve of creatures and keep the pedal to the metal against your opponent. There's just no reason not to run Ash Zealot into Phoenix into Aristocrat into Hellkite right now. You still get to run Chandra which control decks hate, and every single one of your nonland cards are good in almost every phase of the game, and because you're running Burning Earth you can simply curve out, get your opponent to below 10 life, resolve Burning Earth, and laugh in their face.

Thanks for the comments, Val; I'm glad that Dos
Rakis is being good to you. Personally, however, I'm looking to do a different dance, and I don't think that BR (rather than RB) is relegated to playing an aggro curve. I played Dos Rakis through the early days of the deck and into Gatecrash Standard, and I watched the meta close down around it. Burning Earth does open up some possibilities, but Kibler's Gruul creation has more ramp and resilience--it's hard to justify not going that route for pure aggro. Although I will readily admit that the waning of Lingering Souls-based decks is opening the door back up for our beloved Aristocrat, the reasonable possibility of hitting Hellkite mana on T3-4 is big game.

But aggro preferences aside, I'm just not really interested in playing that style of deck right now. Locally, UWr and Bant both get too much play, and I'm tired of the matchups from an aggro perspective. I'm in the mood to wipe boards for a while, not get mine wiped by early-turn miracled Bonfires. I really like the Rock deck both in
terms of style and function, and I'm just looking to see if BR Midrange is a viable alternative. It certainly may not be, but then it's the whole point of this exercise to find out.

The other reason that I'm eschewing the aggro concept right now is that I know without question that I will be hip-deep in brewing red-based aggro as soon as we start looking to rotation. Variety be the spice of life...

If the question is simply whether or not BR midrange can be competitive, I think the list I posted earlier offers big game. Do you consider Rakhammer to be an aggro list? Because I would classify it as a midrange build.

If you're just wanting a BR build similar to what BG does, you have to look at what green offers vs what red offers.

Green: Thragtusk, Abrupt Decay, Putrefy, Deathrite Shaman
Red: Rakdos's Return, Dreadbore, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Olivia Voldaren, Chandra, Pyromaster, Bonfire of the Damned, Searing Spear

Those are two entirely different card pools that force
a certain strategy. Green allows you to play reactive cards during your opponent's turn and recover with Thragtusk, which synergizes well with Disciple of Bolas. Red offers pure power and rewards aggressive strategies.

Based on your dialogue, it sounds to me like you want to run BG control but want to replace the green with red. It's just not possible. It forces an entirely different strategy.

I'm OK with toddulent being tier 2. I checked the archives, it appears that he was very active in our MTGS thread.

Make it so, number one.

Thanks, guys! I missed this clan. The past few months playing Kaijudo I played their version of RDW to success quite often. I dabbled here and there with control decks, but I always ended up back with RDW or Gruul builds. I talked about this clan quite a bit when discussing aggro builds and what I learned here. Of course, a lot of them are former YGO players, so the theory went over their heads. They always end up with combo
decks that never seem to win vs aggro if played right. And my roommate argued that aggro is for newer players and I should branch out into control. I mentioned the old board and tried pulling it up. I found this one instead. Still not sure what happened at MTG Salvation, but who cares now? Lol

I'm off to look at the build and start getting the cards.

I played a bit of Kaijudo and enjoyed their version of Gruul aggro featuring the 4000 haste return to hand guy. I kept referring to him as Archwing Dragon.

Can I get the access to Fires forum?

Can I get the access to Fires forum?

For a dollar.

I could get my dick sucked for a dollar!
... okay.

Where do you live for those rates?

Grim and dark place you don't want to know. Poland.

Guys, just how addicting is MTGO? Also, is it really fun, or does it just help you improve your game? I want to get into it so I can try winning my way into Modern with AiR, but I feel like I'd lose too much of my free time to it. Is it easy/possible to play less than 8 hours per week?

I played with MODO once and never opened it again, so I'd say the appeal is subjective.

Was it weird that a German won GP Warsaw?

I love MTGO because it allows me to play at strange hours. I like to play in the early morning and very late at night, times where I couldn't find a game in meatspace.

The cards are cheaper which appeals to me, since I feel like the value will likely go up as wizards improves their client. The payouts are also better than at my LGS, so I have higher EV for an event.

The competition can be quite fierce though, there are very few janky FNM style brews in a daily. Better bring a real deck.

Was it weird that a German won GP Warsaw?

The actual knowledge about history helps a lot at dealing with this kind of stuff. I cannot hate Germans or even Russians (believe me or not, they were much worse from ideological standpoint) when I know for example what we did to Czech people during communism days. Past is the past, and you gotta live with that. It actually terrifies me that similar to Greece, ultra-nationalist movements gain popularity here in Poland. Seeing political party full of skinheads is pure madness.

Most people hold some terrifying stories about second world war. More than half of my family (the intellectuals) were killed by Russians. But you know what is worse than being victim of Nazi? Being Nazi. That is why I feel more pity than hate toward them.
Also, you just cannot link modern German person to Nazi and anything they did. Unless he starts to mention grandpa's best
holidays which were around 40's, somewhere on camp in Poland.

Sorry if I got too serious on this topic. It's just that people usually think Poles are narrow-minded nationalists. I want to at least try to fight that.

EDIT: Not to mention something nearly no Polish person will tell you. There were cases of Polish people killing Jews as well. And unlike Germans they were not doing because of anti-Semitic ideology, but because Jews were rich in here. For example city where I come from, Wieluń (city where II WW started actually) was nearly owned by them (around 70%, the most expensive buildings of the city belonged to them). Just recently people slowly started to mention that, if someone would be interested, he can watch Pokłosie. Pretty good movie as overall. (there are english subtitles available over the internet)

MODO is cheaper than paper, more events, better payouts. No need to travel. Don't have to smell my opponent. Cards are always available.

I really like it a lot.

I'm going to go to my LGS's inaugural Modern tourney this weekend (repping burn, naturally) to see if it's worth maintaining a paper Modern deck. If the scene doesn't pick up, I'll sell my cards and buy the MTGO equivalents.

Plus, streaming!

Give us streams or give us death!

Two days until we're child-free and on vacation. Two days.

Two days until we're child-free and on vacation. Two days.

Killing the kids and skipping the country with the insurance, eh?

You must be one of those blood-thirsty Poles I've been hearing about lately.

Well, back again for some tourney results

Sunday game day we had a short tournament with only 18 people, and i went 2-1-2 getting ousted from the top 8 by B/g Rock. I might of had a chance had i not drawn 19 land s in 2 games.


as for the vintage/legacy, i went 1-2 with MUD, and 3-0 with Tin-Fins. Was a really fun tournament, and getting to play with broken stuff like moxen was a really fun time.

Two days until we're child-free and on vacation. Two days.

Killing the kids and skipping the country with the insurance, eh?

You must be one of those blood-thirsty Poles I've been hearing about lately.

Well, I am of Polish descent, so I wouldn't put it past me.

I played a bit of Kaijudo and enjoyed their version of Gruul aggro featuring the 4000 haste return to hand guy. I kept referring to him as Archwing Dragon.

Ha! Gillaflame is my homeboy. He wins games on his own. I always seemed to have 2 in hand, so discard or removal never helped them.

Threw this together for FNM for the next month while I acquire the cards I need for Dos Rakis.

[deck]Lands
22 Mountain

Creatures
2 Stonewright
4 Rakdos Cackler
2 Lightning Mauler
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Guttersnipe
4 Ogre Battledriver

Spells
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Flames of the Firebrand

Sideboard
3 Mugging
3 Shock
3 Volcanic Strength
3 Traitorous Blood
3 Ratchet Bomb[/deck]

I have
no idea what the local meta looks like. I'm up for ideas to upgrade it.

Mutavault.

Though if you're transitioning to a different deck it may not be worth it to slam $65+ USD into a deck you're just FNM'ing with.

I eventually want to get Mutavaults. A couple might not be bad in this deck, actually. Would that be the only decent upgrade?

There's a few more. I suggest wondering over to the RDW thread in the Standard section of the forums for more contemplation.

Another fun shirt design for the Firefly fans:

Sorry if I got too serious on this topic.

Don't be sorry, it's important. The extreme right/nationalist ideas are getting more and more popular all over Europe, and to fight it people need to be educated and reminded of history. At school I thought history was one of the most boring subjects, but as an adult I have come to realise that it is perhaps the most important subject.

Sorry if I got too serious on this topic.

Don't be sorry, it's important. The extreme right/nationalist ideas are getting more and more popular all over Europe, and to fight it people need to be educated and reminded of history. At school I thought history was one of the most boring subjects, but as an adult I have come to realise that it is perhaps the most important subject.

Not just Europe.

Sorry if I got too serious on this topic.

Don't be sorry, it's important. The extreme right/nationalist ideas are getting more and more popular all over Europe, and to fight it people need to be educated and reminded of history. At school I thought history was one of the most boring subjects, but as an adult I have come to realise that it is perhaps the most important subject.

Well said. I particularly appreciate insight into the politicosocial state of other countries given that US education does such a poor job of imparting a world view...then as adults we spend all our time
focused on trying to deal with our government's insistence in sticking its nose in the business of other countries while our infrastructure erodes.

Anyone seen anything of LK recently? He hasn't been on since Sunday and I think it's been longer than that since he's posted.

Can't say I have; maybe shoot him a PM (he might get email notifications).

Ah, I'm not wondering with anything particular in mind, just noticed the lack of his typical commentary on the format after a tournament weekend. Still, I'll ping him for good measure.

It's nice to see you guys talk about politics.
I guess you're experts or something.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of a Berlusconi?

It's nice to see you guys talk about politics.
I guess you're experts or something.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of a Berlusconi?

In my case anything but...I simply love to learn about the world relates to other people I know.

It's nice to see you guys talk about politics.
I guess you're experts or something.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of a Berlusconi?

From what I hear, he's doing a fine job of getting rid of himself.

It's nice to see you guys talk about politics.
I guess you're experts or something.
Does anyone know a way to get rid of a Berlusconi?

I'm no expert at all. And unfortunately I can't get rid of a Berlusconi, unless it's a Pizza Berlusconi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotipizza)...

The rise of right wing nationalist viewpoints is particularly troubling given the state of the economy. People are hurting, and they are looking for someone to vent that hurt and anger upon. It's a volatile mixture.