Dies to Removal

An hour from now, it's on Sir.

Hey guys! Thanks so much for the early birthday well-wishes...I love getting extended birthday hours across the time zones!

Wow...not loving the tension over MTGS. I hate to see things go to crap on MTGS, but that is part of why we left. It bothers that the quality of posts over there is in decline, but that will have to eventually sort itself out. I'm not going to question or judge what anyone chooses to do, but I would love to see us become a repository for good competitive info. Take the Field of Dreams attitude and all...eventually, if things continue to crap out over there, people are going to go looking for better information and interaction.

Then again, the bottom dwellers may just keep coming over here and swiping tidbits to post over there as if they actually know something. Ah well, Serenity Prayer time.

As to their sending spies over...just wow. I love you guys as brothers, and I truly look forward to
catching up, bantering and talking Magic. But sheesh, I think we all acknowledge that at the end of the day, this is a frackin' game! That so many folks over there have their panties in a twist over our opinions--and that their sludge is starting to seep into our clan thread again even after we vacated--really chafes my nargles.

Is it time to move our clan discussion "into the clubhouse" so to speak? I'm not saying that it is, but I think the question should be asked so here I am asking.

Moving on.

I will post about PR's in a bit...gotta do other stuff first. I took the opposite approach to LK, running a pretty tight Dega aggro list to beat up on people trying to make all their bombs work. 3-1'd today, and honestly my one loss was to a guy who either is the biggest lucksack in history or who prebuilt a deck. Details in a bit!

Did any player try to cheat you since you were playing with foreign cards?

Yeah, it happens. Most of the guys at my LGS play with me every week and are not scumbags. They help me out if I make a mistake based on reading, and most of them have above average English ability and play with some English cards, since they are cheaper. We have a pretty good community and I trust them to not fuck me over. There was one instance last night of cheating due to my language ability by someone who is not a regular at my LGS.

I played Luminate Primordial and targeted his 4/7. I thought it was equal to toughness, but I asked him, he read the card, and said toughness, we both marked his life total as +7 and moved on. That
won him the game while at 2 life, so that cost me the match.

My fault for not knowing what the cards do, but scummy none the less. I usually stick to standard for that reason. I have all the cards that see play in standard memorized, so it's harder to pull a fast one.

So...I started playing around in Magic Set Editor, and I've managed to make cards for over half of the League of Legends champions.

Anybody down to draft the set with me once I'm done? Yes/Yes?

100%'yes

Sorry Alex, but I failed. Played your Boros Midrange deck at FNM and got destroyed. I think it was just because I had never piloted a deck like this before. Oh well, chalk it up to lessons learned and move on.

Decided not to attend any pre-releases this weekend. Not feeling very excited about DGM in general. Just pre-ordered Skylasher and Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, as those were the only 2 cards I really wanted out of the set.

@photodyer I picked up a bottle of syrah and was quite pleased! Your recommendation was excellent, many thanks. I will put this varietal to good use the next time I have a lady caller.

Giggidy.

So...I started playing around in Magic Set Editor, and I've managed to make cards for over half of the League of Legends champions.

Anybody down to draft the set with me once I'm done? Yes/Yes?

Fiora better have haste. She feels very Boros to me.

So...I started playing around in Magic Set Editor, and I've managed to make cards for over half of the League of Legends champions.

Anybody down to draft the set with me once I'm done? Yes/Yes?

Fiora better have haste. She feels very Boros to me.

I haven't gotten to her yet, but Jax ended up being a very Boros card. He's kind of like Aurelia, actually. Maybe I should change that. (Although it fits him so well.)

done lee sin yet?

Does anyone here have experience drinking over a bonfire? Me and some friends are planning to in a couple of weeks and was wondering what drink would be excellent.

Went to a pre release today and a draft after. The common joke with limited with DGM is what color aren't you running. For the pre-release I just got a random box, because I'm a red mage and an agent of chaos. I got an Aurelia War Leader, but other than that nothing great. Went America, 2-2 overall and somehow 7th place. In draft pack 1 pick 1 got a ruric, went 2-1. Didn't really open anything of value this weekend except an Exava with the pack I one after the draft. But I already ordered 4. Oh well I had fun at least.

Im in Alex.

Another excellent episode of Game of Thrones. I really like the way their depicting Daenerys. It's the same character as in the book, but she's WAY more awesome in the show, to me at least. Looking forward to the wedding scenes for Rob and Joffrey.

I just watched the first episode of The Walking Dead on Netflix, since I've completely missed the bus on this one. Anyone here a fan of the show?

I'm a fan of The Walking Dead. The best episode in the whole series is the pilot, then season 1 slowly drifts downhill. Season 2 is awful. Season 3 is much better but I was disappointed in the way it ended.

No spoilers LK! I haven't read the books.

done lee sin yet?

This is what I have so far. Also spoiler: Jax.

We're big time The Walking Dead fans, both books and show. I agree about season 2, it has its moments but is a bit weak overall. Season 3 was just great, but the ending was a bit disappointing. I guess they build up for some stuff in Season 4. I'd like to involve the books in that discussion so I won't do it for spoiler reasons.

Thanks for being understanding about the infraction guys. You're all amazing and sexy beasts.

We only hate you a little, Sasky.

(With our cocks)

No homo.

@Alex,

The spacing between your text lines is weird. I think you don't need that extra empty line. Also, you can generally follow this order for creature keywords:

Defender, flying, intimidate, first strike, double strike, vigilance, lifelink, landwalk, trample, shroud, haste, protection from <name>

The next keywords after the first need not to be capitalized.

Or you can ignore my OCD

EDIT: Use ~ in card text to refer to the card name.
EDIT 2: You can base your ruling from Aurelia, and cannot be equipped can be handled with protection I think.
Double strike, haste, protection from equipments
Whenever Jax, Grandmaster of Arms deals combat damage to a player, untap all permanents. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.

Argh, sorry!

@photodyer I picked up a bottle of syrah and was quite pleased! Your recommendation was excellent, many thanks. I will put this varietal to good use the next time I have a lady caller.

Giggidy.

Glad to hear it...you really can't miss with big reds!

I'll challenge you to go one better, ham. Just east of you in Placerville is Lava Cap Winery, and they make mind-blowing Petite Syrahs. I would kill to go there myself...a friend went some years ago and we used to be in their wine club to get access to their Syrah and Zin out here. Find a lady with appropriate potential and head out to the tasting room...you will not regret it. I know they have a web presence with all the relevant info, but I cannot access it ATM to send you specifics. Google
will get you there!

Their wines were not cheap when Iast I bought from them, but they were more than reasonable from a value/cost perspective. They are big, highly-extracted wines that keep well; the bottle I was gushing about the other night was over 10 years old and still packed a punch.

Lava Cap Winery
2221 Fruitridge Rd, Placerville, CA
(800) 475-0175

Yeah, I won't spoil anything. I'm actually surprised at how much I'm enjoying the show considering that I know everything that happens. Not looking forward to season four though, because that book was reportedly terrible(skimmed it and nothing interesting seemed to happen. Book 5 was great though). I may rewatch the end of season two just to see Tyrion go to war because that was one of my favorite parts of the series.

@Alex,

The spacing between your text lines is weird. I think you don't need that extra empty line. Also, you can generally follow this order for creature keywords:

Defender, flying, intimidate, first strike, double strike, vigilance, lifelink, landwalk, trample, shroud, haste, protection from <name>

The next keywords after the first need not to be capitalized.

Or you can ignore my OCD

EDIT: Use ~ in card text to refer to the card name.
EDIT 2: You can base your ruling from Aurelia, and cannot be equipped can be handled with protection I think.
Double strike, haste, protection from equipments
Whenever Jax, Grandmaster of Arms deals combat damage to a
player, untap all permanents. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.

Argh, sorry!

The spacing fixes itself when you export the cards. It's spaced weird because of MSE's clickable borders.

Using ~ usually just pops up as CARDNAME, it doesn't actually parse the card's name. The program is pretty glitchy. The same thing happens with the auto-parse for mana symbols on card texts. (You have to force it to convert using [R] and , etc.)

Can't be equipped is a real rules text that has been printed on real cards.



I'm an editor for a living. It's likely that none of these cards are in their final form, they're simply brainchildren for now.

Yeah! I could make a day trip out of that, thank you for the hot tip Jerry. Is the petite syrah different from the regular syrah that I drank tonight?

The spacing fixes itself when you export the cards. It's spaced weird because of MSE's clickable borders.

Using ~ usually just pops up as CARDNAME, it doesn't actually parse the card's name. The program is pretty glitchy.

I'm an editor for a living. It's likely that none of these cards are in their final form, they're simply brainchildren for now.

That's weird with regards to the spacing. Maybe the templates are glitchy? I did encounter that ~ just puts out CARDNAME once but I forgot how it got fixed.

Can't be equipped is a real rules text that has been printed on real cards.

Well I'll be. You learn a new thing everyday. Makes me wonder though what would be the difference between can't be equipped and protection from equipments.

Well I'll be. You learn a new thing everyday. Makes me wonder though what would be the difference between can't be equipped and protection from equipments.

If there's an equipment that animates into a creature, (Is there one of these? [card]Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang[/card] doesn't count) a creature with protection from equipments could block it forever.

Also it would be immune to debuffs from [card]Umezawa's Jitte[/card]. Can't be revived by Sword of Light and Shadow too, I believe.

That's the only real difference.

Under the spoiler: Rules regarding protection.

If protection prevents it from being targetted by Jitte, then it's significant.

The set is ideally going to be large enough to play within itself. I aim to balance the cards around each other more than around the entire Magic environment.

There is going to be a fair bit of equipments, though. I plan on trying to cover all of the items, or at the very least make some items equipments and take other items' effects and turn them into spells.

Pro Equipments creature should still be recurrable via Sword of Light and Shadow since cards in graveyards don't have abilities.

>add to the list of reasons that I'm only a rules adviser.

Many years ago on this day, the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse, known to us mortals on this earth as Photodyer, began his life as a human being. Today we celebrate that moment in ways that only Red Mages can do - with Fire. Happy Birthday, Jerry! I'm going to light somebody on fire today in your honor!

Zhuar Tar druid and Ral Zarek? Is there a deck there? I'm gonna sleep on it and see if ramping into Ral plus incremental pinging actually does anything besides make me feel cool. I imagine that you'd just be playing an aggressive deck with tempo plays. Basically jund agro replacing Falkenrath Aristocrat with Ral and having access to card draw and bounce instead of black removal.

Adding acidic slime to the board lets you do nasty things to reactionary decks that try to hold up mana. The thinking cap is on kids.

Zhuar Tar druid and Ral Zarek? Is there a deck there? I'm gonna sleep on it and see if ramping into Ral plus incremental pinging actually does anything besides make me feel cool. I imagine that you'd just be playing an aggressive deck with tempo plays. Basically jund agro replacing Falkenrath Aristocrat with Ral and having access to card draw and bounce instead of black removal.

Adding acidic slime to the board lets you do nasty things to reactionary decks that try to hold up mana. The thinking cap is on kids.

It's hilarious that you're posting this. Yesterday my buddy and I brainstormed on this same exact idea - RUG Ramp with Zhuar-Tar Druid and Ral Zarek. We built it and played with it for a few hours. It was more more or less
a big ramp deck with Hunstmasters and Thragtusks, Druids and Slimes, plus Garruk, Jace, and Ral. We threw in some Pillars, Spears, and Turn//Burn, but eventually the Turn//Burn became Izzet Charm.

The finisher in the deck was Ruric Thaar. And Ral is pretty damn good, I've learned.

It could use a few tweaks but I think it's solid. However, Aristocrats Act 1 did beat it the majority of the time.

Prerelease weekend was a bit on the strange side for me…I played pretty much the same deck at both events. Friday night, I called Rakdos and got paired with Orzhov; Sunday, I called Orzhov…and got paired with Rakdos. Seems I was supposed to being playing Dega Aggro, as that’s all I pulled.

Given the Rakdos guild pack—and the fact that so many people were stretching mana bases and playing keystones for bombs—it made sense to take a run at coming in under before people could stabilize. Add flyers, pumps a little Extort and some decent Boros cross-color support, and it was time for for some Dega beats.

Coming from the post-rotation Standard season, I had forgotten how wicked the Rakdos clan can be in Limited. GHC comes down and starts chopping before stretched mana decks are generally fielding decent threats, and following him with Splatter Thug for 3/3 First Strike is often more than slow
decks can handle. I also had a couple of copies of Viashino Firstblade at 3, and when he comes in at 4/4 something else dies or the other guy takes a hit.

Another great player in the plan today was Tajic, Blade of the Legion; every time he hit the field, people groaned. And with so many people running Naya and such without black splash, few people had removal to keep me from getting up to Battalion triggers. I’d play him with a handful of other middling dudes; swing with Battalion for 7/7 indestructible, and they would be throwing all their stuff under the bus to chump him. If a dude died in combat, I just dropped another 2nd Main to prepare for the next turn. I often had Corpse Blockade out acting as a wall with the potential for Deathtouch, so I had room to swing big more often than not.

Support cards were awesome in these colors. Deviant Glee probably did more work than
any other single card overall; whether strapped to [card]Kingpin’s Pet[/card] for evasive beats, or to Thug for 5-power First Strike, or Tithe Drinker or Daggerdrome Imp for Lifelink or to Tajic for utterly gross swings, the card was a powerhouse for the persistent pump with ability to trample. [card]Legion’s Initiative[/card] was also just flat unfair in these colors. And for extra early damage, 2 copies of Rubblebelt Maaka often shocked people when they were looking at life totals approaching 10 before they even fielded a creature. And I had a whole removal suite to choose from, usually running Devour Flesh, Orzhov Charm and one of the scalable black spells.

I thought about splashing over to green for copies of Phytoburst and more importantly [card]Unflinching Courage[/card:
3mae8z9k], but I decided it wasn’t worth the potential slowdown because I had little fixing to support it. I even pulled Advent of the Wurm, but at double-green it just wasn’t feasible. As it was I got hung for red sources in one round, so I left the manabase be with 4 gates in my colors.

The biggest issue with this game plan was having to run some lesser-impact early dudes to keep on pressure and add Extort to maximize mana usage. When I didn’t get in for a good chunk of early beats, things got sticky unless I hit appropriate support or a big bomb. Maze Abomination came down once to save my butt as a Deathtouch wall while I mixed swarm damage and Extort triggers to close the deal.

Friday night I went 2-2 primarily due to having jitters going into Round 1. My son was seriously lost trying to build from his pull, so I was splitting time helping him (we take a laid back attitude about such things at PR’s; no one would ever interfere in a
game in play, but helping the kids deck build is something of a community project) and really in the wrong head space for first round. I made a couple of bonehead errors that cost me the round. My other loss was to keeping middling hands against a Gruul deck. Both games I was in for early damage but then lost to huge swings from the hasty Maze Rusher with Bloodrush and/or Trample.

Sunday with the cards detailed above was 3-1 with no game 3’s; I swarmed over opponents. The only really slower game came against another Rakdos-based deck where the dude dropped Contaminated Ground on my only red source and slowed me down until I hit a Mountain. We traded dudes until I landed Tajic, then I won the attrition battle.

The match I lost left a bad taste in my mouth simply because I didn’t see a single bad or even middling card from the guy either game. He was in Naya colors, landing Trostani and Reckoner Game 1 with enchantments to outrange my
removal, then second game he got Unflinching Courage strapped onto Reckoner with [card]Legion’s Initiative[/card] on the field and then dropped Boros Charm for Double Strike. I did get my only serious mana screw of the day the first game, not seeing red until it was too late to overcome his board state, but still his nut draws were freakish. But oh well…into everyone’s life some variance must fall.

Yeah! I could make a day trip out of that, thank you for the hot tip Jerry. Is the petite syrah different from the regular syrah that I drank tonight?

By strict definition, Petite Syrah is Syrah mixed with Peloursin; in reality, almost all varietals are blended with other supporting grapes in some ratio, and styles of winemaking vary widely. Thus, they are for all practical purposes the same, and there are both outstanding and questionable examples of each out in the wine world. I will say though that I have never had anything from Lava Cap that I didn't totally adore...their whites are remarkable as well.

I will say, the one PR that I didn't place in was do to losing my first match, and going on tilt. My first opponent was bant whatever, I'm playing 5 color junk. Game one, I'm flooded, but I lay the beats getting him to 3. I misplayed(probably losing me the game) by swinging in with my 2/2 death touch guy and dreg mangler into his bird which he traded with my deathtouch dude. Should just have attacked with mauler. Eventually, he lands collective blessing, I play Teysa which I had tutored for with jarard's orders and he rapid hybridizations her. He later beats me with huge dudes from collective blessing. Game two same thing happens. Blessing, hybridize Teya, 0-2 for me. He tells me after the game hybridization is his only answer. TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILT.

Round 2, I play against one of the store workers. First two games, we trade mana screw. third game I'm at ten, just played teysa, trying to stabilize. He swings, I
block with teysa, decide I don't want to trade my extort guy for his bear, he double bloodrushes and kills me. MORE TIIIIIIIIIIILT. I 3-0'd from there, but my opponents where bad, I was super tired, and my breakers where terrible so I finished 4 slots out of placing.

@PHOTO, your deck sounds like it was nuts. There was one three color agro deck that performed well in the three releases I played, but it 5-0'd and was a brutal base Gruul naya build I believe.

Many years ago on this day, the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse, known to us mortals on this earth as Photodyer, began his life as a human being. Today we celebrate that moment in ways that only Red Mages can do - with Fire. Happy Birthday, Jerry! I'm going to light somebody on fire today in your honor!

Khaos, I now know how James feels to be bellowing laughter as his coworkers look at him askance...I'm still chuckling! Thanks so much for the props, my friend...I'm sure when you're done burning the poor soul you will do the responsible thing and piss on him to extinguish
the flames. Safety first, after all...

Thanks for being understanding about the infraction guys. You're all amazing and sexy beasts.

I think you handled it expertly sir

In other news, competing again in two weeks, need to drop on 4 pounds this time...yeah...stress and not sleeping and not eating enough can be helpful sometimes?

^Stress on the job, zeman, or life in general? Feel free to give a holler if you need an ear...