Dies to Removal

Good morning, brothers!

Yesterday was a very bipolar day. On the top end of things, the kids and I had a blast hanging out with Windstrider and company for his birthday. The weather was beautiful; we took advantage with Nerf assassinations, a bonfire and fireworks. Windstrider has an awesome family, and his toddler decided that I was the perfect cohort for rough-and-tumble play...I had a fantastic time.

On the other end of things, my heart is dragging over something so surreal that I am yet trying to come to grips. My ex, like me, was the "baby" by a number of years, so her niece had 3 boys (eerily matched to each of my two nephews who have the same). I woke yesterday to find a message from my ex--who's been avoiding me for weeks--telling me that the youngest of these boys had been shot. It turns out that the boys--ages 12 down--were out target shooting with real rifles and obviously questionable
supervision (I have yet to get the real story here and don't know that I ever will). One of the older boys accidentally discharged his weapon and shot his youngest brother in the head.

I knew the prognosis would be grim, and indeed they pulled life support last night as there was no brain activity. I'm devastated with the utter wrongness of it. My ex's family shares some serious issues between them, but this was a little guy who I saw, held and played with as family from an infant up. And my heart is dying for his brothers...they should not be carrying the weight of what they will now have to see in their minds for the rest of their lives. They trusted in their parents and family to keep them safe and well, and now they will be forever haunted.

My thanks to Dan and his family for including us in their celebration of life yesterday...it meant more under the circumstances than I can say.

Heavy stuff photo. Deaths in the family are always a trial - especially when the victim is so young.

I hope you don't mind if I throw a prayer or two your way.

Prayers would be most appreciated, my friend...thanks.

My heart goes out to the family and especially the older brother that has to live with that guilt and regret...

May he find peace some day.

You are most welcome, Jerry. I'm glad we could provide a distraction from that situation. That's a level of horribleness that I just can't comprehend.

I'm very sad to hear the news, Jerry. My thoughts and good vibes go out to you and your family.

Suddenly, my first world problems seem pretty inconsequential.

Dude... Jerry, I am so sorry. No mere words will help to fill that space in your heart which is suddenly vacant. But we're here for you brother. You need anything, you let me know. If it's in my power to do so, consider it done.

Sorry to hear that man. Wow, what an unfortunate accident.

This level of powerlessness is hard to fit in my head. It was a senseless, meaningless, totally preventable accident, and an innocent boy lost his life because of people being too lazy and stupid to stop it from happening. Thanks to all of you for the support...I seriously love you guys.

My heart reaches out to you, friend. I'm so very sorry.

You are most welcome, Jerry. I'm glad we could provide a distraction from that situation. That's a level of horribleness that I just can't comprehend.

We had fun, my friend...your "home clan" is a great group of folks. And that little energy bomb on legs of yours made my heart smile all day!

Keeping you and yours in prayers, Jerry.

I'm without words to say, photo, but you are in my thoughts.

I'm really sorry for what happened Jerry. I'll pray for him and his family.

Big ups to Jerry (photodyer) for the sig banner!

Sorry to hear that, bro

Jesus, that is awful, photodyer. My heart and Native American prayers are with you and yours. It always breaks my heart when accidents like this happen.

Oh, and I am still around guys. I am just lurking in the wings due to my work out schedule and my new part time job is eating all my time. It has been making playing even Magic and whatever video game I make time for non-existent.

I'll be damned... a non-blue deck won a legacy GP. I suppose I have to eat my hat.

EDIT: Just read the above posts. I'm really sorry Photodyer. If there's anything we can do, let us know. We're all here for you.

Just finished Hyperion. I'll reserve judgment until I read Fall of Hyperion, but I did enjoy the book.

Photo, I'm so sorry to hear that news. Senseless accidents are always the hardest, especially when young ones are involved. My thoughts and prayers to you and yours.

Jerry, so sorry to hear that, man.

My condolences Jerry.

@photo: That's incredibly...awful. I wish you a peaceful mind and a serene heart tonight and on the nights that follow.

Again guys, thanks for the support--y'all are just flat good people. It's an ugly situation...as I said before, indications from my ex were that one of the other boys accidentally shot his brother. But now the party line is accidental self-inflicted wound...I don't know that I will ever get the straight story, but in the end it all leads to the same broken outcome. The underlying issue--child access to firearms--is a real hot-button political/regulatory topic right now, so regrettably the family is getting hounded by the media. On the other side of it, though, community support has been pretty remarkable; my wife's sister (the grandma) said they've been getting calls from classmates and other kids at the school with poems and prayers. The impact of it all is pretty overwhelming when one stops to consider it.

Someone charged about $500 to my account at two different Home Depots today so now I'm totally broke until that gets resolved. Fml they were both in the la area so if they deny the refund ill fucking rage

That sucks. Do you actually live in LA?

I live in Glendora. The charges were in Van Nuys and Panarama city. I've never charged anything in those cities ever, or to Home Depot. Paranoid me though is worried that they are both within an hour or so drive from here, so I'm worried they could say well you could have made those charges. They had to have skimmed my card somewhere because I still have it. Guess I'm paying in cash most of the time from now on.

He's just a 2/2 for 4 mana eww....

Wait, did I read indestructible? I want this in my midrange deck.

Also, throwing it out here but Madcap Skills

^That one will see play, and will be annoying. I must say that black removal (Tragic Slip, Mutilate, Tribute to Hunger, Devour Flesh...) start to look better and better.

Would you play a 7/7 for 4 mana. Cause at best, that's what Tajic is.

It would probably see most play post-rotation as the 4-drop slot right now is heavily contested. I have to agree that midrange is the best deck it can perform right now. You probably don't want this in aggro right now as it just turns out as a win-more card.

@LP, don't forget indestructible

Forget that noise. Should have guessed the Boros runner would be unplayable. Sadness.

So, that's all of em, eh? Looks like Exava has got the edge as far as playability goes. With Lavinia a close second in my book.

I'm not overly impressed with him. They'll just use the removal spell on one of his Battalion buddies, and he's still just a 2/2.

Exava is VERY good in our colours at least.

We have already seen what 2-power first strike does in Ash Zealot; Exava is 4-power first strike ~ that is a huge beating.

On a totally unrelated note, how long as Entreat the Angels been floating around six USD? Is it not the big finisher it one was in UWx control?

That card is NOT good.

Reading back after the weekend, I'm really sorry to hear that photodyer. Given all the gun regulation talk in recent times I really hope the media are sensible enough to give the family the space they need. I can't imagine what it is to go through such a situation, my thoughts are with you.

Over here, me and my girlfriend have started our hiking season, doing some small to decent hikes as the snow melts and the sun starts to pop out in preparation for decent to harder hikes later in the year. Switzerland really is a great place for doing that sort of thing. Open the spoiler for a segment of the view at the highest point (it was a 360° view up there), plus a picture of us if you'll excuse my rather unkempt beard.
Still haven't gotten around to publishing images from Florence... soon I hope. Haven't played Magic in a long while either... Still want to play a few DEs before DGM lands to see if I can get some soon-to-be-expensive GTC boosters, problem is finding time.

I'd like to hear your opinions on how we should be organizing threads in our new home, specifically because I'd like to get some feedback on sideboarding plans with my current Mono Red build. Might as well do things right from the beginning, and the way I see it we have a few options:

- Post such things in the Primer thread? This sounds like the least ideal to me as I feel it should be dedicated to the initial Primer posts and subsequent updates as new sets come out and the meta evolves. Specific builds and their sideboard plans sound too... specific, and there is already an example sideboard guide following the main purpose of the thread - giving guidelines on how to play the deck.
- Take the opportunity to finally create the "[Variant] RDW" thread, perhaps actually "[Variant] RDW deck garage", where all things RDW-related go in. It would serve as a compliment to the primer but where specific
builds could go to get feedback. Sounds better to me.
- Create a general "Sideboarding in R/x Aggro", dedicated to sideboard plans and catching all the variants (duh). Sounds fine too. In this specific case (me wanting to talk sideboard) I'd go ahead and create the SB thread and postpone the [Variant] RDW although I feel it will still be necessary eventually. I'm also very willing to go back to Sally to find the pretty good posts on sideboarding that were written some time ago and repost them here. I remember zemanjaski and Dromar doing a great job at it, anything else I find I'll also refer to as well.

What do you guys think?

Here's how I'm thinking we reorganize things:

We'd make the Restricted FoS sub hidden to non-members and keep the general thread here in the Open sub. We'd do this for two reasons:

1. The general thread is doing fine here anyway, so if it ain't broke, why fix it?
2. Some members would like to be able to post pics or other information concerning themselves and friends/family that they don't want open to the entire Internet but aren't Tier 3 members - currently they have nowhere to do that.

The Open FoS sub would be open to anyone and would house the general FoS thread and "I want to join" thread.

The Hidden FoS sub would be the place to discuss policy changes or promotions to iron out the details before posting it up for everyone.

The Restricted FoS sub would be for everything else.

Sound good to everyone?

Sounds good to me.