08.10.09
Posted in Hardware, Computing at 7:17 pm by Roy
Иконописиконииконисондажиобзавеждане за спалниAfter a quick, painless upgrade of my 64 bit Sony Viao to the Windows 7 RTM, my wife decided to take the plunge with her Alienware MX-15. She’s had Vista on it since we got the machine last December and other than the OS she’s been very happy with it.
The Sony Viao upgrade was a snap. I upgraded from 64 bit Vista Home Premium to 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium. After the reboot everything worked, and faster than before. It was awesome.
Well, apparently Windows 7 isn’t very happy with Alienware, or the maybe the other way around. The Alienware machine had Vista Home Premium 32 bit so I upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit. I rebooted to a variety of errors. Most immediate was the fact that after the desktop came up I got a message that “Your TouchPad has been disabled because the Synaptics TouchPad driver has detected another pointing device plugged into your computer.” My wife doesn’t use an external mouse so I had Windows with no mouse. Hard to use. I stole a mouse from another machine and plugged it in but Windows 7 didn’t recognize it. Uh oh. Fortunately after a reboot it picked up the mouse. After trying a number of things I finally uninstalled the Synaptics Pointing Device driver (she was running v10.1.8 06Dec07) with the intention of reinstalling it. I rebooted (again) and the TouchPad worked, presto. Apparently Windows 7, left to its own devices, was able to work directly with the TouchPad.
The next scariest problem was the fact that CA Anti-Virus wouldn’t allow me to turn on real time monitoring. It kept complaining that I didn’t have permission and then it wanted to reboot. A few reboot cycles later and persistent clicking on the Enable button got it working.
This was getting annoying and had already taken twice as long as the Viao to upgrade. The next annoying problem was an “OSD Utility” which kept dying on startup. Windows 7 came up with the “fix or close” dialog and I just closed it. I turned it over to my wife for her to play around some and see if everything else seemed to be working.
It wasn’t. A few minutes later her machine froze, requiring a reboot. We determined that the AlienFusionController.exe had a memory leak, a suspicion discussed on this forum: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=326911&page=3. Wish I’d have checked that before! So we called Alienware. After a short time on hold we got a customer service rep who apparently just answered the phones, because a short time later we got another one who asked the same startup questions (account number, model number, etc.) She basically told us to drop dead. She was convinced we were running the Windows 7 Beta even though I told her repeatedly that we were using the RTM. She just kept giving us the same line that they only support the OS which was originally installed on the machine. I can understand that, but they couldn’t give us anything? An empty claim that it would be fixed on the Windows 7 release date? An expectation that this might be fixed someday? Nothing. I told her they might want to look into it since in a couple of months there are going to be a lot of pissed off Alienware users, then we gave up on “support.”
The support person’s complete indifference left my wife steaming and we started talking options. I went into msconfig and turned off Alienware Fusion but it kept restarting. Then we realized that it must be a Windows Service and yep, sure enough it was and set to automatic start. I stopped the service and set it to Manual, which stopped the leaking EXE from coming up. Unfortunately, that stopped all the cool Alienware stuff from working including FX and the facial recognition.
My wife decided to live with it for a bit and see what else happened. She tried to run a game called Seven Wonders II and it reported that she didn’t have a compatible video device. Uh oh again! I checked her system info and it was reporting a generic VGA driver. I went to www.nvidia.com and installed a Windows 7 driver. Presto! The game worked. But that wasn’t all. Suddenly Alienware FX worked again and so did the facial recognition! Wow. Apparently Alienware really is all about the graphics. No graphics and half your machine stops working.
She’s happy now. Everything’s working and she is noticing better performance under Windows 7 than Vista. Hooray for NVidia for having Windows 7 drivers already. But let this be a warning to Alienware laptop users: support isn’t going to help you, and you’re going to have to mess with services, startup and/or device drivers to get your machine back up and running. Probably not a big deal for Alienware owners, but you should know what you’re getting yourself into.
I’d also like to add my voice to the torrent of unhappy Alienware support users. They were completely useless. I know they’re not responsible for an OS I add to the box but their attitude was the biggest problem. Years ago I had to call Dell support after royally hosing my machine by installing a driver for an external CD burner. They didn’t tell me it wasn’t their problem, they talked me through what I needed to do to fix it. I wasn’t necessarily expecting that from Alienware (which is now owned by Dell, of course) but something more than a big “F you” would have been nice.
Oh, and for OSD Utility we finally just removed it from startup using msconfig. It seemed to be the appendix of the machine.
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05.27.08
Posted in Extended, Legacy, Magic at 8:08 pm by Roy
Can someone please tell me who is playing Rancid Earth? It’s a common Sorcery from Torment which costs 1BB and reads
Destroy target land.
Threshold - If seven or more cards are in your graveyard, instead destroy that land and Rancid Earth deals 1 damage to each creature and each player.
OK, not bad, potentially good in limited. But I’ve been selling playsets of these things for the past week. Who is playing this?Wenn man ein neuer Spieler ist, darf man das Blackjack Spiel im roulette online spielen Modus erlernen, die in fast allen Online Casinos erhaltlich sind. In what deck? And most importantly, why? Please clue us in!
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05.26.08
Posted in Standard at 8:17 pm by Roy
I was glad to see that Faeries didn’t win PT: Hollywood (see the top 8 decklists here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/pthol08/top8decks). First, it should quiet all those prone to panic who were calling for the banning of Bitterblossom or other components of the Faerie deck. Second, I want to play Faeries in Standard for awhile so hopefully the perceived “failure” of the deck in Hollywood will lead people to bring some of that hate out of their sideboard (or even their main deck, where some of it ended up) and free the skies for my little 1/1 tokens to do their thing.
We sold out of most of the key rare Faerie deck components on Saturday, long before the top 8 was settled. Apparently some people are still planning on playing Faeries at Regionals. It will be interesting to see if the level of hate we saw in Hollywood plays out across the rest of the country.
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05.25.08
Posted in Market Report, Standard at 8:40 am by Roy
OK, I’ll state the obvious: Bitterblossom and Mutavault are hot. When was the last time we had two cards worth $30 each in the same set while the set was still Standard legal? With those plus Bosk, Colossus, Reveillark, and Crusher all $7+ each I’m thinking we’re going to see a lot of Morningtide packs cracked over the next couple of months, especially if Wizards does the right thing and reinstates States.
I think this will mean the rest of the set will drop in value as people accumulate way more than they need of the rest of the cards in the set. I don’t think it will affect prices on the cards I’ve named because demand is so high for those.
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08.26.07
Posted in Time Spiral Block, Tournament Reports at 9:26 pm by Roy
мебелиIt’s funny, I really wasn’t going to play in the PTQ. In fact I called a friend and told him I wasn’t going back to Parkside Hall until later in the day, then I wound up in front of him in line to register about 10 minutes later. Never underestimate the power of an understanding and supportive wife.
One last block tournament for the season. I figured I’d give GWR Fires Goyf (Dateline NBC) a try since I’d really had my fill of mono black control.
I went with a pretty standard build with just a couple of tweaks:
Creatures (25! Now that’s the way I like a deck. I’m a Timmy, sue me.)
————————————————————————
4 Calciderm
4 Kavu Predator
4 Riftsweeper
2 Saffi Eriksdotter
4 Serra Avenger
3 Stonecloaker
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells (11)
———-
4 Dead // Gone
4 Edge of Autumn
3 Fiery Justice
Land (24)
———-
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Horizon Canopy
2 Llanowar Reborn
1 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Vesuva
Sideboard (15)
————–
1 Fiery Justice
3 Krosan Grip
4 Mystic Enforcer
3 Rebuff the Wicked
4 Temporal Isolation
Round 1 - Travis Owens - UGw blink/Goyf
For game one I shuffled up and drew a hand of a couple of Plains and a bunch of green and red spells. I decided to go for a more aggressive start so I shuffled again and drew a hand of the one Mountain and five other random spells. Ship again, keep five. Not a great start. I was never able to recover and never put up a serious threat.
Out went the Saffi’s, in went the Fiery Justice and one Temporal Isolation.
By turn three of game two I had two Predators in play and was taking burn from my Grove to pump them up, GCB-style. Between that fast start and Travis’ mulligan I won quickly.
Game three I got another pretty good start but this time Travis had creatures of his own. I got him down to three but he had two powered up Mystic Enforcers in play and a Goyf. I had my own Goyf plus a Stonecloaker and a Serra Avenger. On the turn before I’d drawn two extra cards by cycling Edge of Autumn and sac’ing Horizon Canopy. Untap, upkeep, then I ripped Dead // Gone off the top. He had an island and a forest untapped but I went for the win and bounced one of the Enforcers, then when it resolved I swung with everyone. Travis extended his hand and it was official: I like this deck.
Rounds: 1-0
Games: 2-1
Round 2 - Greg Hatch - UGWb blink
Yes, four color blink, and he never had trouble finding the right color in any of the three games between Terramorphic Expanse and Chromatic Star. Why did I have so much trouble getting to three land in a mono color deck?
Game one was very back and forth. I played creatures and he either bounced them with Vensers and Mystic Snakes or countered them outright. He got me down to two before I finished him off.
Once again out went the Saffi’s, in went the Fiery Justice and one Temporal Isolation.
Game two I got another fast start with a turn three Calciderm. Unfortunately I attacked into his untapped Goyf and didn’t realize it was a 5/6. Then, even worse, I didn’t Stonecloak the Calciderm back to my hand. Ugh. During the second main phase I played a Riftsweeper, Stonecloak’ed it back and removed the lone artifact from the yard, killing his Goyf. The next turn I played another Calciderm and it was off to the races. I was mad at myself for such a stupid series of plays but glad it didn’t cost me the game.
Game three I had to mulligan again and didn’t draw many threats. He used Snakes to counter the ones I did try to play and Slaughter Pacted the rest.
Rounds: 1-1
Games: 3-3
Round 3 - Michael Lew - UB control/bounce
Game one Michael suspended Cloudskates on three consecutive turns but got stuck on one Island and two Deserts for the whole game. I played the same Predator four times at least, but kept swinging with other creatures and he had to keep chumping with his Cloudskates. Eventually my creatures started connecting.
Game two Michael hit his land drops but didn’t draw much else. I helped that cause by Riftsweeping away his Ancestral Visions on turn three. I got a Predator into play and he didn’t find any bounce. I Fiery Justice’d away his team and created a 10/10 Predator and he conceded.
Rounds: 2-1
Games: 5-3
Round 4 - Richard Kho - Teachings
Game one started slowly. He played a River of Tears then an Academy Ruins which I removed by copying it with Vesuva (yay one copy of Vesuva main!). Unfortunately he played Urborg next. D’oh. I played a Predator but he killed it, played some other creatures which he Tendriled away, then he started hitting with Teferi and Urza’s Factory tokens. The Hellkite was the icing on the cake.
Game two he boarded in seven or eight cards and accidentally flipped one up while shuffling. I saw that it was black and thought it looked like Augur of Skulls but figured I must have seen it wrong. I took out Dead // Gone and put in Rebuff the Wicked.
I mulliganed twice (the set of seven just had one land, the set of six was 3x Rebuff the Wicked, a Forest, Fiery Justice and a Riftsweeper) then on turn two I played a Goyf. Then Richard played Prophyry Nodes. Ouch. Goodbye Goyf. I played another creature and he played another Nodes. I don’t know why more Teachings decks don’t run those, they’re easy to cast with Lens or Coalition Relic. Goodbye creature #2, a Predator I believe. A couple of turns later he did cast Augur of Skulls. I had a Serra Avenger and two lands in hand and two plains and a Grove in play when he sacrificed the Augur. I tossed the two lands. This proved to be key since after that I drew two Calciderms but never drew another land. Richard kept tapping out to kill my smaller, targetable creatures but I couldn’t take advantage by ripping a land and casting a Calciderm. Richard finished the game at 30 life since I had to keep tapping the Grove and his Triskelavus and associated tokens finished me off.
2-2 drop. Apparently I was destined for .500 Magic at this GP.
Rounds: 2-2
Games: 5-5
�
Lessons:
1) The internet writers were right, Saffi isn’t very good in this deck. It’s not bad against Teachings and is pretty good against mono black (which nobody plays but me) but isn’t aggressive enough to really suit this deck. Often just plain Grizzly Bears would have been better since they wouldn’t have had the rough mana requirement.
2) I might run this in Standard because it’s such fun to play but if I do I’ll probably move a Riftsweeper to the board, cut both Saffis and put in another three of, maybe Call of the Herd. You want four Riftsweepers against blue, at least in block, but otherwise it’s often just a grizzly bear and can just wind up shuffling one of your own Delayed spells back in. They might need to go to the board entirely in Standard or perhaps out altogether if Ancestral Visions and Cloudskate go out of favor.
3) Rebuff the Wicked is way too situational. This needs to be something else. Sunlance would have been better in block; I’m not sure what goes here in Standard. Maybe Glare for the mirror for the next month or two.
4) I should have boarded in the Grips instead of the Rebuff the Wicked against Teachings. I knew that going in but just forgot it there in round four.
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Posted in Time Spiral Block, Tournament Reports at 9:08 pm by Roy
For my first Grand Prix we packed the whole family up and drove down the coast on the fabled Highway 101. We stopped at lots of beaches, drove through the Redwood forest, got stuck in traffic in Coos Bay and Willits, the whole bit. We did take a bit of a detour through downtown San Francisco because we missed the exit onto Highway 1. In California they like to only post a sign right in front of the exit you want with no warning, that way you have about two seconds to see the sign, realize it’s where you want to go, and cut across four lanes of traffic to get there.
I went out to Parkside Hall on Friday night and decided to enter one of the 32 man grinders, more to see what kinds of decks were being played than for the three byes (although the byes would have been nice). I scrubbed out of that in round one and it happened so fast I don’t even remember what it was against. Some flavor of Goyf as I recall. I know I was mana screwed both games and had to mulligan game two because I had two lands in hand, neither of which produced black. I decided going up to 24 land was in order so I added another Urborg. I got more productive deck tweaking by talking with the Portland crew, especially Peter Zaworski. He suggested adding a Vesuva instead of a Swamp in the main to blow up other peoples’ Urborgs and Academy Ruins.
I went with this build:
Creatures (11)
————–
4 Augur of Skulls
4 Nihilith
3 Tombstalker
Spells (21)
———-
4 Damnation
3 Funeral Charm
3 Slaughter Pact
4 Smallpox
4 Stupor
3 Sudden Death
Artifacts (4)
————
4 The Rack
Land (24)
———
3 Desert
18 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vesuva
Sideboard (15)
————–
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Extirpate
1 Sudden Death
2 Tendrils of Corruption
4 Withered Wretch
We had 671 participants and I was still, alphabetically, the last one. We had a brief player meeting at the beginning of the tournament including the announcement that they were now allowing you to place “non-game” items on top of your library to remind you to pay for Pacts. Good call, although later in the day I still overheard somebody losing a game when they cast two Pacts when they only had mana to pay for one. I also saw one of the Japanese pros put the Pact itself on top of their library and the judge didn’t complain so apparently the rules on this are still being worked out, but it was still a welcome announcement since I was afraid of losing a game to my own Slaughter Pact.
Round 1 - bye (on rating)
Round 2 - Rich Jacques - Renimator
Game one Rich threw some critters in the yard, played Dread Return for Hellkite and won. It was pretty simple really. I didn’t find enough discard to disrupt his plan and I couldn’t find a Funeral Charm to kill the Magus of the Bazaar. I had mulliganed once and pretty much drew land the rest of the game.
Game two in came the Withered Wretch, out went some of the targeted removal. I decided not to bring in Extirpate because he had so many different threats that I didn’t think it would help as much as the Wretches. I got the Wretch in my opening hand, played him early, and kept his yard bereft of threats. I love removing a white Akroma from the game with a black creature.
We went to game three and that’s when the trouble started. I suspended Nihilith on turn two and Rich’s Looter removed counters quickly. At end of one turn Rich Extirpated something from my yard and the Nihilith went from two counters to one. He passed the turn and I untapped, then removed the die from the Nihilith, put my hand on it and slid it toward my Wretch, saying “Comes into play?” Rich didn’t respond so I drew for the turn and attacked. Unfortunately I did that a bit quickly and Rich called for a judge, protesting that I didn’t give him a chance to respond to the Nihilith. I told him I said “Comes into play?” and when he didn’t respond I proceeded but he said he didn’t hear me say that.
The judge took both of our cases, conferred with one or two other judges, and announced that he was going to rewind to the upkeep step but after the Nihilith was already in play. Rich was not happy and showed the judge the two Delays he had in hand. He said he was taking time to think about what he wanted to do and that I didn’t give him a chance to respond. He appealed the ruling to the head judge. The head judge took our cases again and asked a few more questions than the other judge did. He decided that we had both established shortcuts in our previous game play, such as not announcing each step as it passed (which was one of Rich’s objections, that I hadn’t done so). He made what I agreed was the correct ruling and rewound the game state back to when the Nihilith was coming into play. Rich Delayed it and I still won because the Nihilith only got two counters (after the Delay hit the yard) and Rich still had two Looters in play. My Wretch continued to eat his yard until the Nihlith came back and finished the job.
Later on the player who was sitting on Rich’s left came up to me and told me he heard me say “Comes into play?” which made me feel better about the situation.
Whew. My first real non-bye win at a GP. I had to work for it.
Rounds: 2-0
Games: 2-1
Round 3 - Joseph Lee - Teachings
Ugh. Teachings piloted by a good player. This was the matchup I was dreading since in testing it’s proven to be pretty much an auto-loss for me. The Rack is pointless because I can’t stop them from drawing lots of cards. Tendrils doesn’t help either since I’m fairly good at doing 20 damage with Rackage and critters but 30 or more is kinda tough.
Game one I tried to strip his hand and keep creatures into play but wasn’t too successful at either goal. Eventually, after softening me up with a Factory token he got a Triskelevus into play and bashed me with it, then made some token flying critters and threw them at me too.
Game two in went four Dauthi Slayers and three Withered Wretch, out went Funeral Charm and The Rack. I played creatures, he played Damnation. We went through that cycle three times, along with a timely Tendrils to bring him back from 8 to 14 life. Eventually he found a Hellkite and Flashed it in for five, then finished me off with it.
I hate Teachings.
Rounds: 2-1
Games: 2-3
Round 4 - William Mattox - GWR “Fires” Goyf (or, as Nathan Saunders calls it: “Dateline NBC, To Catch a Predator”)
Finally, the nuts draw. Play The Rack, Suspend Nihilith, play Augur, sack Augur and play Stupor. William’s hand was empty and Nihilith was in play. Game one was pretty quick.
Game two in came the Wretches, out went a Sudden Death, a Slaughter Pact and two Funeral Charm. I wanted to cut down on the targeted removal since I figured he’d bring in Mystic Enforcers and possibly even Whirling Dervish. I suspended two Nihilith’s only to see them whisked away by Riftsweeper. I did some Rack damage but not nearly enough.
Game three was one of the weirdest I’ve ever played. He played some early threats and I killed them. We got to the point where both of our hands were empty and we each had five or six land in play and both in top deck mode. Neither one of us could draw a threat, even with him cycling Edge of Autum and sac’ing Horizon Canopies. I even Vesuva’d his Horizon Canopy and sac’d it on the next turn looking for something which dealt damage. Meanwhile I drew removal spell after removal spell.
William found a creature here and there and I let a couple stick around, trying to work the Damnations, but he never found more than one creature at a time so my Sudden Deaths and Smallpoxes and Slaughter Pacts did their work. At one point I had a hand of three Smallpox, three Damnations and a spare Swamp to toss to Smallpox. I think I Smallpoxed two consecutive Calciderms away at one point. Finally I was down to one lonely life and he had a Predator in play. He cast Fiery Justice at my Nihilith for four and me for one, then swung with the Predator. I cast Slaughter Pact to kill his Predator and my remaining Nihilith finished him off.
Rounds: 3-1
Games: 4-4
Round 5 - Warren Eng - Slivers
Warren’s was kind of a mix of aggro and poison slivers. He had Virulents but his whole deck wasn’t built around one drops. I was happy when Warren played a turn two Gemhide since, in testing, Slivers has been a good matchup for me. He played slivers, I killed them. He found a Frenetic and I had Sudden Death. Eventually I got him with a Nihilith and The Rack.
Game two in came the two Tendrils and the Sudden Death, out went three Racks (if he gets a decent draw he’ll be drawing lots of cards, if not I win anyway). Unfortunately my strategy didn’t matter much as I was mana screwed much of the game after a mulligan to six keeping two Swamps. I finally got to three swamps but it was way too little too late.
Game three he got Telekinetic and Frenetic and I couldn’t find removal (after yet another mulligan). You wouldn’t think a mono-color deck with 24 land would get mana screwed so much. What I wouldn’t give for Dark Confidant in block.
At least Warren went on to finish in the top 64 and he was playing in a feature match. Unfortunately for him his opponent was playing Serrated Arrows. I should have run those instead of Extirpate, which I didn’t wind up boarding in all afternoon.
Rounds: 3-2
Games: 5-6
Round 6- Matthew Siler - Slivers
Matthew was running a more typical aggro build, without Warren’s Psionic Sliver. Much of game one was spent playing mana sources and building our position. Eventually he found Frenetic and Telekinetic. He built up to one large attack and I Sudden Death’ed his Frenetic with a Delay’ed Damnation coming into play the next turn. His alpha strike took me from 15 to 2. After that I hard cast a Nihilith and an Augur and thought I was in good shape. Then he played another Telekinetic. I sent the Nihilith and passed the turn. He ripped Firewake Sliver, tapped my Augur with it and swung for the remaining two. Grr. I’m beginning to hate slivers now too.
Game two, same board as round 5. We traded attacks back and forth. I had a Tendrils, Nihilith and Augur in my hand and we each had a couple of creatures into play. Unfortunately he had two Gemhides and used them to cast Bust. All my land went away. After that he was able to cast spells but I wasn’t and he started swinging with Slivers until I succumbed.
Rounds: 3-3
Games: 5-7
Wow, from 3-1 and right in the thick of the race to 3-3 and out of it. To top it all off we had an hour and a half delay after round 6 because they lost some of the results or something and had to “reconstruct the matches by hand,” which apparently was a lengthy process. And I thought Cascade Games was inefficient.
Eventually, after a few crazy 2HG games with Nick (formerly of Portland) vs. Erik and Becky, we proceeded to round 7. I would point out that both Smallpox and Nihilith proved to be pretty crazy it multiplayer.
Round 7 - Thaum Christman - UR Suspend
Thaum was playing a version of the UR precon, I think, but tricked out with some rares like Akroma, Angel of Fury. All I saw in the first game was Shivan Sand-Mage and Chronozoa. You’d think I could remove those with ease but I spent the entire game on two Swamps with two Sudden Deaths in hand. I eventually had to Smallpox with just two Swamps in play just to kill a creature. I drew another Swamp but couldn’t find a third land and died to dividing Chronozoas.
Usually I’m a pretty happy, congenial player but I was pissed after this game and did some bitching. I boarded out three Funeral Charm and boarded in Tendrils and Sudden Death. I got a good draw and stripped his hand, then Thaum drew nothing but land. Game two ended quickly. Game three was more of the same except I got the nuts again and stripped his hand by turn four. The Rack and a Nihilith took it home. Good. Thaum was a nice guy but I would have been really mad at myself if I’d lost this round.
Rounds: 4-3
Games: 7-8
Round 8 - Kalib Walker - UW blink
In game one Kalib suspended some Cloudskates and played a Calciderm but two Damnations cleared the board and The Rack eventually did its work.
Game two, in came the Sudden Death and the Wretches, out went Funeral Charms and — um, I forgot the other two cards I took out. Game two I double mulliganed and never recovered. Game three was close as he played creatures and I killed them. He kept resolving Cloudskates and bouncing my third land, then I kept replaying the land and Sudden Death’ing his Cloudskates. I had him down to four but he was able to bounce my Nihilith. I was down to one life and he had one Cloudskate on the board. He attacked and I showed him the one card in my hand, an Urborg. He exhaled and we shook hands. I dropped before the final and, for me, meaningless round nine.
Rounds: 4-4
Games: 8-10
Well, not great, I finished in the middle of the pack somewhere, but it wasn’t a totally embarrassing finish. I was in it for awhile. Still it was a disappointment after a PTQ top 8 with essentially the same deck. I think the deck’s time had come and gone but it was the deck I knew best and I’m glad I gave it a shot.
Lessons learned:
1) If you want to play control, play it with blue.
2) Forget about Extirpate, it’s not very useful. I never boarded it in, even against Reanimator which is designed to throw cards in their yard.
3) Coalition Relic is nuts and is going to enable some pretty wacky control decks over the next Standard season.
4) Again I was proven right: several people saw me play and complimented me on Nihilith vs. Korlash. It seems like Korlash should be good but there are too many aggro decks out there who can just chump Korlash all day long. Usually Nihilith gets a win against Slivers but Korlash in the same position would be bouncing up against one drops all day, and half of those wouldn’t even die due to Frenetic. If you want to rip Swamps out of your deck I think Twisted Abomination would be better.
Congrats to Peter though, he made day two after playing against pros in three or four consecutive rounds!
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07.08.07
Posted in Time Spiral Block, Tournament Reports at 6:21 pm by Roy
I’ve been playing around with MBC for several months and tried a Standard build in Friday Night Magic. I didn’t even bother writing up that report because basically I got crushed. I went 2-2 but beat two inexperienced players playing slowish creature decks (which Damnation loves) and losing badly to Dragonstorm and Dragonstorm.
Fortunately I didn’t let that deter me when Tarmogoyf reared its ugly head in Block PTQ’s a couple of weeks ago. I really liked the idea of having Damnation in a block deck but when Goyf became the prominent deck I figured MBC might finally have its turn. I know, I know, Mystic Enforcer, but he still dies to Damnation and my build had another (albeit more difficult to use) answer in Smallpox.
Spells (20)
———-
4 Damnation
4 Funeral Charm
4 Smallpox
4 Stupor
4 Sudden Death
Creatures (13)
————–
4 Augur of Skulls
2 Epochrasite
4 Nihilith
3 Tombstalker
Artifacts (4)
————
4 The Rack
Land (23)
———
3 Desert
19 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard (15)
————–
4 Dodecapod
3 Extirpate
4 Slaughter Pact
4 Withered Wretch
Before I get to the round by round coverage I want to discuss a couple of my more unusual choices. Most MBC or BU control decks are running Korlash as their finisher. I went with Tombstalker instead for two reasons: first, he has evasion while Korlash can be chumped by anything, even lowly Mogg War Marshal tokens; second, Tombstalker strips my own graveyard and keeps Tarmogoyfs smaller. My second decision was omitting Tendrils of Corruption. These can backfire against Kavu Predators but in general I just didn’t want spot removal for four. I was beating mono red even without those in my testing and I didn’t really have another matchup where those were better than Pact or Sudden Death.
Extirpate is probably my shakiest spot in the board. I had it in there against cards I just couldn’t deal with like Sacred Mesa and Wild Pair. My hope was to get those into the yard and then remove them from the game. Not a great chance of doing that, I know, but better than no chance at all. Withered Wretch was definitely my sideboard MVP. He provides an early threat and a Shadowmage Infiltrator blocker against UB control, an early chump blocker against random aggro decks, and a graveyard cleaner against Goyf.
OK, on with the countdown.
Round 1 - Kyle Mayfield - Bu Korlash control
For the first few turns this looked like a mirror match: swamps, discard spells, hands dwindling rapidly. Fortunately I found The Rack and he wasn’t running it so his relatively empty hand started hurting him. Unfortunately for me he had Phyrexian Totem and started swinging. I was one turn away from finishing him with a Nihilith but he was swinging harder with the Totem and I died first.
Game two my deck just clicked. I stripped his hand and got The Rack into play and his life total slipped away. I was encouraged.
Game three was much the same as game one but he got Korlash again and this time I wasn’t able to find removal. I wasted a Nihilith by attacking into an untapped Korlash who was a 5/5 instead of a 4/4—I forgot to count all his lands as Swamps since I had Urborg in play. He also had 1B untapped so he could have just regenerated anyway. Not my brightest move but I would have had to use the Nihilith to chump anyway if I’d kept him home so I don’t think it affected the game too much. It did cost me a turn though which could have bought me the time to draw Damnation. Not so encouraging.
I did like Kyle’s one Plains for Temporal Isolation from the board but I still liked my build. I really needed to win though or this would be a very short afternoon.
Matches: 0-1
Games: 1-2
Round 2 - Thomas Kiene - WRu Blinkrider
I kept a hand with a Desert, a Swamp and some relatively expensive spells. Not bad, I figured I would draw a land in the first three or four turns which is all I really needed to do. Bad idea. He played an Avalanche Riders turn three off Prismatic Lens and blinked it a couple of times, this leaving me with no land and just a Rack in play on turn four or five. He played the big land destroying Dragon a couple of turns later and I scooped.
Out went Funeral Charm, in went Withering Wretch to get rid of those Blinks from the yard and provide some early threats. I stripped his hand but he had two lenses and three or four land in play so he was able to play a Lightning Angel and a Bogardan Hellkite. Fortunately I had Smallpoxes for both threats and the Rack eventually got him.
Game three he was stuck on two Mountains for much of the game. I had a slow start but I found disard before he found land. He scooped when a second Nihilith came into play.
Whew. I was scared after that first game but my deck worked after that.
Matches: 1-1
Games: 3-3
Round 3 - Tristan Emerson - Wild Pair slivers
Tristan knew what I was playing from earlier discussions with our group but I didn’t know what he had. I was not happy when he started to play Slivers. Wild Pair had been my worst matchup in testing. He got Wild Pair into play fairly quickly but I was able to keep Telekinetic Slivers off the table with Sudden Deaths and my unblockable Nihilith did the job eventually. Well, actually he ripped Take Possession when he was at four to grab my Nihilith but I found another one and killed his.
Out went the Racks (they’re pretty useless against Slivers since once they get going they’re actually discarding at EOT to get back down to seven cards) and in went the Extirpates and one Slaughter Pact
Game two he eventually combo’d out even though I Extirpated Gemhide Sliver on turn three. I thought that would buy me enough time to strip the rest of his hand but he still got Wild Pair into play off two Coalition Relics. He also boarded in Riftsweeper to get my Nihilith’s back into my library. I had no chance to win the game but after winning game one I had no reason to concede either. I was hoping he’d either take the rest of the round to kill me or accidentally deck himself. He did neither and killed me off with plenty of time for game three.
Game three he played creatures and I killed them until I got a Tombstalker in play. Fortunately he didn’t find a Telekinetic and four turns later the Tombstalker finished him off.
Matches: 2-1
Games: 5-4
Round 4 - Sean Collins - UBr Mishra
This deck has given me trouble online because it can be very explosive. Game one went according to plan with me emptying his hand after killing a turn four Mishra. He did get me down to three with a Phyrexian Totem but the Rack finished him off.
Game two I made oh, about 600 of the same mistake in a row. I kept killing his Epochrasites in a variety of ways and I had a Withered Wretch in play but I didn’t remove the Epochrasite from the game when he went to the graveyard and triggered his ability. I finally realized what I was doing toward the end of the game and instead Damnation’ed, then Extripated three of the four of them away (the other was suspended) but I was kicking myself the rest of the match. I still would have won game two but he ripped Void and cast it for one, killing my Rack. I would have won on the next turn as I had Smallpox which would have brought him down to two life and one card in hand.
Fortunately I didn’t let my horrible play get to me too much in game three. I stripped his hand and two Racks did their thing. I think Sean was quite annoyed to lose to someone making the same mistake over and over but as he said I don’t think it was a good matchup for him.
Matches: 3-1
Games: 7-5
Round 5 - David Ballon - URb Bridge/Madness
David ran an unusual deck which basically splashed black for Dread Return and Magus of the Bazaar to activate Madness and get big critters into the yard.
Unfortunately for David, Nihilith really likes when you are discarding three cards a turn. Discard should have helped him but I was able to get the Dread Return out of his hand and keep him to less than three creatures in play so the Akroma in his yard stayed there. Even after mulliganning once I killed him pretty quickly with a Tombstalker after getting rid of his Bridge and two cards from his hand with an Augur.
Game two I brought in Withered Wretch and took out Smallpox. The Wretch kept the relevant reanimation cards out of his yard and a Nihilith swung for four.
Matches: 4-1
Games: 9-5
Round 6 - Joel Popick - mono white aggro
Joel and I got the nerve-wracking deck check and it took forever. Well, 13 minutes actually. We were both starting to wonder if they’d found a problem. They took a long time looking at Joel’s deck and then took a long time looking at mine. Eventually they brought our decks back and asked if I would resleeve after this match. They said some of the sleeves were marked with little bumps but that they couldn’t find any pattern which would indicate that I’d done it deliberately which, of course, I hadn’t. They were brand new sleeves which I’d just put onto the deck the day before. Fortunately Joel agreed to loan me some sleeves since he had enough extras for my entire deck. Very nice of him.
We started with Joel suspending creatures on each of the first three turns (one Shade and two Knight of Sursi). I Damnationed them away after he played Calciderm and my Nihilith and Rack started doing their thing.
Game two I had totally under control with two Nihilith’s in play and Joel at 8. He had two cards left in hand and a Serra Avenger and a Knight in play. I wasn’t sure what he could have in his hand but I wanted to be sure he couldn’t pull out of the position he was in so I cast Stupor. Big mistake. Dodecapod went into play as a 5/5 and he swung for my last 10 points. Ouch, that hurt.
Game three went very similarly to game one. He played some creatures, I killed them and got two Nihilith’s into play and they swung and swung.
Matches: 5-1
Games: 11-6
Round 7 - Trevor Chart - mono blue control (BU control?)
I can’t remember if Trevor played a River of Tears or not so I’m not sure if he ran mono blue control or a tiny black splash. I tried to calm down and focus despite all the onlookers. We were the top table which was actually playing. Everyone above us drew into the top 8 but we had to play. Especially me. My tiebreakers were horrible, or at least Peter Z told me so. They’d started posting pairings after round four but I hadn’t looked. I figured I just had to keep winning so I didn’t want to worry about what position I was in or what my breakers looked like.
Game one I was able to empty his hand pretty quickly and get The Rack plus a Nihilith into play. He killed the Nihilith by copying it with a Shapeshifter but a few turns later I got a Tombstalker out and he did the final 10 damage in two turns.
Game two was much more intense. He played Willbender face up, hoping to find a Shapeshifter later. He played a Morph and I had two Sudden Death’s in hand. I wanted to play them very carefully so I kept them in hand for several turns. I had suspended a couple of Nihilith’s but he Cancelled one and Dismal Failure’d the other, causing me to discard one of the Sudden Deaths. Eventually I found Damnation to clear the board, then cast the Tombstalker I’d been saving. After the Rack had been bleeding him much of the game, Tombstalker did the final five points of damage.
I had made Top 8! Since I actually had to play to get in, the Swiss ended with me ranked first.
Matches: 6-1
Games: 13-6
Top 8 - Round 1 - Gabe Carleton-Barnes - GWr Goyf
GCB was not the player I wanted to be paired against but I felt I had a good chance against his deck. I’d tested the matchup online and mainly lost when I had bad draws. Of course, most of those players weren’t as good as GCB.
We filled out our names and addresses and, for some reason, dates of birth on the forms provided and this revealed exactly how old I actually am. Gabe and I joked for the rest of the match about age and as we shuffled over and over and over I asked a judge if we could start since I wasn’t getting any younger.
Finally we did start and he played a Kavu Predator turn two. He had a Grove of the Burnwillows in play and took every opportunity to give me life with it. I stripped most of his hand and put the Rack to work but his Predators got bigger and bigger (he played a second one on turn four or five). Eventually he had an 8/8 and a 4/4 Predator and my life total went from 16 to zero in two turns.
Game two he played a Whirling Dervish but attacked into an untapped Desert. “I’ve never played against Desert before in my life,” Gabe said as he read the card text. Sadly that wasn’t enough to help me. He played another Dervish and played a Griffin Guide on it and swung a few times. I had Damnation in hand but was waiting vainly for him to play a few more creatures. He never did and I had to Damnation the Guided Dervish away.
He played a Goyf and I had a Sudden Death and a Damnation in hand and two Deserts in play. I could have let him attack me and Sudden Death the Goyf, then finish it with the Deserts but I was afraid he’d Griffin Guide or Thrill of the Hunt it and my plan would backfire so I cast Damnation on my turn instead. Unfortunately my plan did backfire when he played Mystic Enforcer next, and he was well into Threshold territory. Two alpha strikes later my day was over. I had two Damnations and all four Smallpox left in the deck but that game illustrated the biggest problem with mono black in Time Spiral block: no card drawing and no tutoring.
Matches: 6-2
Games: 13-8
Top 8:
Matches: 0-1
Games: 0-2
Yes, that was my first PTQ top 8 after several GPT top 8’s and last year’s limited States second place finish. It was nice finally getting the pin but I wish I’d done better in the top 8. Like, say, winning a single game. Still, I was happy with finally getting there especially after losing the first round.
Lessons learned: slow down and focus on what’s happening (the Withered Wretch/Epochrasite interaction), check your sleeves more carefully, and don’t face 1900+ rated players in the Top 8. Oh, and don’t get greedy when you have the win on the board.
I still like the deck and might play it in GP San Francisco. I do like UG Goyf as well but what can I say, I’m a sucker for The Rack. I think Extirpate may come out of the board. I need some way to get rid of Mystic Enforcer. Perhaps two more Epochrasites and one Triskelevus to block the pro black creatures, although Triskelevus is a very slow answer. Maybe three Grave Peril’s since it doesn’t target the creature and would, at worse, force them to slow down and play creatures differently.
Thanks to my lunchtime playtest group! I think the practice is helping.
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06.11.07
Posted in Tournament Reports, Standard at 8:56 pm by Roy
OK, as mentioned in my last post I finally completely buckled to netdecking and took Dragonstorm to Regionals. Usually I take an aggressive net deck and tweak it to my liking but there’s really no room left for tweaking Dragonstorm—the deck is pretty much set. The only difference is to the sideboard.
My sideboard was:
Sideboard (15)
————–
4 Ignorant Bliss (for discard, obv)
4 Repeal (for aggro)
4 Sulfur Elemental (for aggro and control—he’s so good!)
3 Trickbind (for the mirror)
Round 1 - Mark Claborne - RDW
Mark was playing a mono red aggro deck with the usual suspects plus Viashino Sandstalker, which I’d forgotten was even still legal. I game one he got me down to ten and I went off turn four. Game two I boarded in the Repeals and took the Gigadrowse out but went off turn four for five dragons after suspending two Blooms on turn one. OK, it’s confirmed, Dragonstorm is nuts.
Mark did get me down to eight in game two but even mono red isn’t fast enough to kill Dragonstorm.
Matches: 1-0
Games: 2-0
Round 2 - Nathan Saunders - RG aggro
My old pal Nathan, packing Ohran Vipers and Rumbling Slum. His was a more traditional RG build with the Vipers and Stone Rain to hose all the multicolored decks running around. I foolishly kept a one land hand in game one but I did have Sleight of Mind, a source of blue, and two Blooms. Naturally I couldn’t find another land before Nathan blew up my first one and then I only found one more. He crushed me game one. Games two and three I found Dragonstorm. Sorry Nathan, what can I say, the deck is lucky. In all three games I started Bloom, source of blue, Sleight. That was good.
Matches: 2-0
Games: 4-1
Round 3 - Levi Star - Zoo
Levi’s game one started like the games I used to have with Zoo. He couldn’t find a source of green to save his life. Three consecutive Sacred Foundry’s came out and his Kird Ape was left shivering and alone as a 1/1. That kind of thing happened to me way too often when I tried to play three color zoo. It’s the main reason I stopped playing the deck. Anyway, Kird Apes aren’t nearly as scary when they’re 1/1’s. I was having my own mana troubles after mulliganning twice and sticking with a four land hand consisting of four lands and a Hellkite. Eventually I did find some gas and the one Hellkite took out his team, then started swinging for five.
Game two Levi mulliganned once and then kicked my butt. He took 10 damage from his land but unfortunately for me he didn’t play any more shock lands untapped.
Game three he got me down to two before I finally combo’d out. He threw everything at me and I was just able to get dragons onto the table fast enough, by one turn.
Matches: 3-0
Games: 6-2
Round 4 - Michael Greybeal - Angelfire
Michael had just beaten Peter Z so I was wary of him when we sat down. I had a good start but he Helixed me to go to 23. I played one Hellkite and started swinging but then he found another Helix and his Lightning Angels finished me off.
Game two I mulliganned once. He boarded in his full life gain, anti-Dragonstorm package and at one point actually Faith’s Fettered my Island to go to 27 life. I got a Hellkite out but he just picked me apart with angels and the 2/2 knights I was forced to give him with my Hunted Dragon.
Michael went on to win the whole thing so I guess Angelfire is still viable.
Matches: 3-1
Games: 6-4
Round 5 - Michael Keith - Gruul
Michael was playing typical Gruul. Game one he played some critters and I comboed out. Sorry—tournament reports with Dragonstorm get a bit monotonous, don’t they? Game two in go the Repeals, out go the Gigadrowse. He tapped out to Skarrg a Tin Street Hooligan on turn three and I took it even though I had a Repeal in hand. I knew I could go off the turn after that and I wanted to goad him into tapping out for three points of damage again. He did and I bounced his man, leaving him tapped and me to take one damage from the Rusalka who was still on the table. Then I played dragons.
Matches: 4-1
Games: 8-4
Round 6 - Josh Jones - Project X
This was the first round where the pressure really ramped up. I was at the top table and Josh and I knew whoever lost this round was probably out. I mulliganned once, he mulliganned twice and we both started fairly slowly. He did get an Elephant out there to go from 18 (after a shock land) to 22. But then my Bloom resolved and I sac’d it for Seething Song, Rite of Flame and —- oh crap. I had a Hellkite, not Dragonstorm in my hand! God, was I really that tired? Fortunately it still worked out. I played the Hellkite and killed all his creatures, then swung for five at a time. Man I was mad at myself and bucked down for game two, thanking the Magic gods that I had won that game despite such a stupid misplay. I really thought I had Dragonstorm instead of the one lonely Hellkite in my hand. Apparently Starbucks macadamia nut cookies are hallucinogenic.
Game two he put in Persecute and it resolved for red. Ouch. That was pretty much it.
Game three I boarded in the Ignorant Bliss. I wasn’t sure if he’d gone for the discard package since Project X decks with the full Wish sideboard usually don’t have four of anything in their board. Game three they really shined though. He played Castigate and Persecute and I Blissed out of the way of both of them. I also had three Remands to stop his other business spells, including a Chord of Calling which he cast in response to me casting a Hellkite. Fortunately I’d waited to cast the Hellkite until I could leave U1 open because I figured he might have one more trick up his sleeve and he wasn’t in imminent danger of going off.
Matches: 5-1
Games: 10-4
At this point, after six rounds, I was in third and I think I let myself start thinking that I might actually make Top 8. Big mistake.
Round 7 - Gerald Sixkiller - MBA/discard Rack
Gerald was playing a very fast mono black deck with Mindlash Sliver (!) and Cry of Contrition which combined for three discards in the first two turns. I had a great setup game one but watched as my precious acceleration got stripped out of my hand, followed by my Hellkite. I was waiting for Extirpate as the final insult but he was content to play two Racks and crush me the old fashioned way. Game two I put in the Ignorant Bliss but couldn’t find them in time. Again I had a pretty good start but soon my hand was empty and he was swinging with Bob and making me lose two or three a turn with the Rack.
Damn, that’s the way my mono black deck was supposed to work but it never quite worked out that way. His worked. Really well. Especially when you don’t have Ignorant Bliss.
Matches: 5-2
Games: 10-6
I was really bummed. I thought I had a good chance at top 8 and a friggin mono black deck, of all things, seemed to have taken that away from me.
Round 8 - Carmen Ahmad - UWB control
Once again I had to mulligan game one. I had a slow start and could never find the card, you know, the one that starts with D? Telling Time twice, once for three land, once for two land and a Bloom. Land after land. I just couldn’t find any business spells. That is one danger of this little net deck.
Game two was much the same. I did get a Hellkite out but unfortunately I had to use him to block a 5/5 Aeon Chronicler. We played land, go for awhile but then he found COP: Red. Dang. I figured Gigadrowse would get me out of that problem but he played way more land than I did and I quickly lost the ability to even come close to tapping him out. I should have boarded in Trickbind against the COP but I didn’t and it cost me the game, the match, and any chance at top 8.
Matches: 5-3
Games: 10-8
I finished 22nd out of 130+ players. Not that bad but compared to third after six rounds it was quite disappointing.
I’ve got to tell you, I really won’t miss Circles of Protection when they finally bow out in 10th Edition.
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06.08.07
Posted in Standard at 11:56 am by Roy
I’m going with Dragonstorm with a few minor variations from the net deck version (no details in case my future competitors are reading). I tried to make my mono black control deck work, I really did. I even splashed red for Sulfur Elemental and Dragonfire and even Void but nothing made that deck competitive. I lost too many games to Dragonstorm where they just randomly ripped a dragon off the top and won.
I like Project X with Glittering Wish but I think it’s got some issues, mainly that it’s vulnerable to some of the same hate which is floating around for other decks (Sulfur Elemental, Extirpate and especially Blood Moon and Magus thereof). I think it’s a very interesting deck concept and it’s a fun deck to play, but the Elemental in particular hosed me worse than I thought in test games. I could play around one since I’m only running one Soul Warden but two meant Saffi couldn’t hit the table long enough for me to sac her and that’s, as the kids say, Some Bad News. Even one Elemental turns off the Teysa alternate win condition.
I’m a RG player at heart but I don’t think Gruul can kill in turn four and it has no way to disrupt Dragonstorm before it does so. It’s also not a great matchup against Dralnu and can even have trouble against Pickles unless it gets a really fast start. RG does eat up those Bridge decks though so those of you packing the newest crazy combo deck beware of those first turn Kird Apes.
Good luck to all tomorrow!
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06.04.07
Posted in Legacy at 4:16 pm by Roy
OK, maybe not, but I did have a customer order eight Urborg Justice today. Is this a flash in the pan (sorry, I couldn’t resist)?
Urborg Justice does meet one requirement of a combo piece, it’s an instant. It costs BB and the Oracle text reads “Target opponent sacrifices a creature for each creature put into your graveyard from play this turn.”
I’m not sure how that’s good. The only way it could have a large effect is if your opponent has a lot of creatures in play. Isn’t that usually a bad thing? I guess I could see a lot of Forbidden Orchard activations or a bunch of Hunted creatures on your side or something but I’m still not seeing how Urborg Justice is useful.
Is this a new deck I don’t know about or just one customer who is way out on the edge?
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