When I Herp, I Derp

As of recently I have obviously neglected posting anything. Not sure what has been happening with myself. Of course I have been conscious and aware of my surrounding, but rather than stick to my rigid grind of MtG 25/7 I have taken an extended hiatus from that world and delved into my past. I have taken up playing video games again. Currently I have been immersed in a free PVP game called League of Legends (Lag of Legends) and have been enjoying it immensely.

I honestly enjoy writing to myself. Realizing of course that no one in their right mind actually reads my boring little posts it's more of a way to converse with what I would find to be the most fascinating person to talk to, myself.

With that in mind, I should remind myself to go to bed. However I must mention one thing.

Be it that I may be the only person who reads these, to anyone who would happen to stumble across this and take the time to read it I would like to tell you;

Do not mistake what you perceive as something to have it seen as the same by others.

Probably a bad way to say that.

Oh well.

Drafting and other Unmentionables

So I've finally capitulated and downloaded/installed MTGO. Which, by the way, took several hours. Props to my crappy laptop.

I've never considered myself that great at sealed, and have proven that belief a number of times. So I have been trying to improve by playing online. I've gone through 5 drafts now and have yet to win more than one pack.

I've played 2 swiss events and 3 4-3-2-2 events.

I do not think I've had the best decks I could draft with the cards given yet I always find myself being upped one by my opponent. I am not sure if this is due to lack of skill, inferior card choices, or just luck. Granted I know that no one can truly answer this but I've been reading as much as possible on drafting techniques and when applying them I still seem to just be crushed.

I guess my problem is drafting in general. Anyways. Yea.

I haven't posted due to extreme debate going on in Facebook and Youtube and real life about the recent health care bill.

This is more of a pity post than anything.

So anyways.

Report tomorrow about FNM.

Either playing Koros or Jund.

Reconciliation

Has anyone ever noticed when someone does something stupid and then tries to play it off as if nothing happened? I myself am guilty of just that and I'm sure everyone else is either.
So with that bearing in mind is anyone watching what is going on in the Senate?
Has anyone heard what they are saying? What the Senate Majority Leader and House Speaker are telling us?

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. [emphasis added]
-Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

So while all this is going along we're taken back to a time of NUCLEAR OPTION [add in booming voice] where House and Senate Democrats were making the lovely argument that Republicans could not do what they wanted simply because they were the majority party.
All this along with Senator Robert Byrd (one of the authors of the legislative process known as reconciliation) was on floor proclaiming:

"Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process. The writers of the Budget Act, and I am one, never intended for its reconciliation’s expedited procedures to be used this way. These procedures were narrowly tailored for deficit reduction. They were never intended to be used to pass tax cuts, or to create new Federal regimes. Additionally, reconciliation measures must comply with Section 313 of the Budget Act, known as the Byrd Rule, which means that whatever health legislation is reported from the Finance Committee or legislation from any other Committee that is shoe-horned into reconciliation will sunset after five years. Additionally, numerous other non-budgetary provisions of any such legislation will have to be omitted under reconciliation. This is a very messy way to achieve a goal like health care reform, and one that will make crafting the legislation more difficult…

…It is the one place in all of government where the rights of the numerical minority are protected. As long as the Senate preserves the right to debate and the right to amend we hold true to our role as the Framers envisioned. We were to be the cooling off place where proposals could be examined carefully and debated extensively, so that flaws might be discovered and changes might be made. Remember, Democrats will not always control this chamber, the House of Representatives or the White House. The worm will turn. Some day the other party will again be in the majority, and we will want minority rights to be shielded from the bear trap of the reconciliation process…

…While I support the admirable budget priorities outlined in this resolution, I cannot and will not condone legislation that puts political expediency ahead of the time-honored purpose of this institution."

I admire Senator Byrd's bravery for standing up in the face of his political allies, he seems (in this matter) to be one of the few sane voices in the Democratic Party.

And we are told that this is good for us, we need it and that it will not break the bank any further. Numerous criticisms and demonstrations against this bill, Senate and House popularity plummeting into single digits, 3 major elections lost to the Republican, and a president with no previous executive experience making over 4000 speeches to convince people "his" health-care plan (do date he has not made public any plan he has authored) is what the United States needs.
And this is "what the people want".

In the words of the GREAT Keith Olberman,
"Have you no shame, sir?"

Extended....again.

After testing the Pyromancer combo didn't seem to be working out that great for me. So...I'm going back to red. For now.

We'll see how this goes.

From the Extended World That Is...

Well I've been gearing up for GP Houston and have, for a while now, been planning on playing Thepths. I have the deck and the cards and it's roughly the "correct" build. I do not mess with Extended much due to the lack of money and a solid testing group. Both of those are starting to come into place slowly but surely. So I've really be getting ready to play Thepths and while testing yesterday against a friend's SmallpoxRock deck I learned something; I know virtually nothing about Thepths. I understand the concept and how to maneuver in certain situations but not the nuances that make the deck the Tier 1 deck it is.

So after getting crushed I decided to look for a new deck.

I think what I've settled on is Ascension Combo. It's a very explosive combo deck premiering in Toronto (according to deckcheck.net)

So here's the list:

The only thing I have changed is I have added the Punishing Fire and Grove combo and added 4 Cascade Bluffs.

We'll see how this goes.

FNM- 3/5/10

I have not been playing at any sanctioned MTG event as much as I'd like what with school and music commitments however I was determined to play this past Friday.

The previous week I took Jund and "auto-piloted" my way to 6-0. But this week I wanted one of my old favorites.

Big Red.

Here's the list:

4x Ball Lightning

4x Hellspark Elemental

4x Goblin Guide (henceforth known as GG)

4x Hell's Thunder

4x Plated Geopede

4x Lightning Bolt

4x Burst Lightning

4x Searing Blaze

3x Earthquake

2x Elemental Appeal

4x Scalding Tarn

4x Marsh Flats

4x Teetering Peeks

11x Mountian

Side Board

4x Unstable Footing

3x Punishing Fire

3x Goblin Ruinblaster

2x Pithing Needle

2x Manabarbs

1x Earthquake

The deck is pretty basic. You smash face with your beats and burn the rest of the way.

I admit that the SB is jank, I honestly did not have the time or care to throw together a legit side. The FNM meta I'm in is rather casual and a solid MD normally ensures top 8. So I sleeved it up and did the usual wheeling and dealing with the regulars to get last minute tech and scope the field.

Round 1

White-Weenie

Game 1

To be fair to my opponent he is a complete casual player who gets a kick out of playing interesting things. It seems that him and I always get paired up first round (3rd week running)!

The games were honestly uninteresting considering the match-up. It was a slightly jankish build of the little guys and RDW was too much. 4th turn kill.

Game 2

I was a complete idiot and did not side in my Unstable Footings, in fact I declined to side. I had to mull to six and stuck with a triple GG hand with 1 land and a Lightning Bolt. I was promptly reminded why you side in Unstable Footing against White Weenie. I amazingly top decked my fourth GG and he was purely overwhelmed by the little 2/2 hasty beats.

1-0

Round 2

Open the Vaults

My opponent was someone who I had long known to be a solid player. He'd been here multiple times and always had interesting decks. However tonight wasn't his night as he had Open the Vaults combo. Quite literally a auto win for RDW. The games were completely one-sided and it was an easy 2-0 for me.

2-0

Round 3

Grixis?

I honestly do not remember what I played round 3...I believe it was a Grixis build. Not sure. I just know that I won.

3-0

Round 4

Jund

My opponent and I were both 3-0 so we decided to split to guarantee top 8.

Quaterfinals

Boros Jank

Game 1

My opponent had a very strange take on the Boros Bushwhacker deck and I'm not exactly sure what he really playing. Sometimes RDW kills so fast you do not get to see what your opponent is doing and this is a textbook example. I had a double GG start and he couldn't come back from it.

Game 2

He went first and played a Plains and shipped turn. I again had a 1st turn GG but it was immediately PtE'd. I passed and he played a Mountain and returned the favor. He had ramped me up into a Ball Lighting and double Hell's Thunder. I was sure he had Celestial Purge so I decided I'd get more bang for my buck from the Hell's Thunder and played the Ball Lighting. Sure enough he had the Purge. However My next two Hell's Thunder's were too much on turn's 3 and 4 and then a Elemental Appeal. I top-decked a land and unearthed the Thunder's. He scooped.

Semifinals

Vampires

Game 1

Ironically I had played the same guy 2 weeks ago for first with Jund. (I had Great Sable Stag's MD and he scooped both games 1 and 2) He thought I had Jund again and kept his hand accordingly. He was sorely disappointed when he discovered that 2 Hellsparks were Gatekeeper of Malakir proof. Turn 4 saw him digging for creatures to block with Sign in Blood into another Sign in Blood and Swamp. He scooped.

Game 2

We both felt like we were keeping bad hands this round and I knew I was. He proved he kept worse when he sat on just one land the entire game. I beat him to 8 and he scooped after peeking at the top. It was a Tendrils of Corruption.

Finals

"Mythic" Bant

Game 1

The first game was awful. My deck was completely crapping out on me and I was getting 6 land/spell hands. A process my friend Jacob called "RDW Karma". Regardless I kept a 4 land hand with a Ball Lighting and Lightning Bolt. He promptly beat my face in with a turn 4 Sphinx. It was bad.

Game 2

I made a slight comeback with a GG in the opening hand and it was too much for him. I scraped by at 4 with him having lethal next turn.

Game 3

I sided out my Earthquakes for Unstable Footings for fear of Kor Firewalker's. (I'm still not sure if that deck runs them or not) I had to mull to 5 keeping a terrible hand, 2 Arid Mesa, 2 Teetering Peek and 1 Elemental Appeal. I actually drew the second copy of Appeal 2 turns in but it actually turned out to be ok. He kept a slow hand as well, banking on the fact that I mulled to 5. However he had a Sphins AND a Baneslayer. Both proved too much in the end. I beat him down to two and relied completely on a burn spell top deck to win. It wasn't.

1-2

Second is decent enough.

I guess a major difference between this build with current RDW decks (that I have seen) is the lack Quenchable Fire. There are multiple reasons that this card is terrible, especially now with WWK being excellent to blue.

1. It is four mana.

2. It's only three damage now, it will be 6 on your next upkeep.

3. It's a sorcery.

4. It's four mana.

This card is extremely slow for it's cost, is extremely inefficient for it's casting cost, and on top of that doesn't even let you hit a creature! By contrast, Earthquake lets you hit creatures (non-flying ones that is) AND their owner! A much better bargain for RDW's mana.

There are so many differences that can be made to this deck but most of them shouldn't be made. This deck's only ally is it's speed. So adding cards that slow the deck down for power make the deck worse overall. I'd say the MVP of the deck is most certainly GG. Him on turn one and things almost always go right granted you kept a decent hand overall. But a GG can turn a mediocre hand into a great hand, applying constant pressure on turn one and making your opponent think about his game plan immediately.

Anyways, there is my FNM/RDW report!

Back Again

It's been awhile since I've blogged or done any of the sort but I guess now is a good a time as ever. For the most part I will talk about Magic the Gathering, American Politics, and the occasional musical musing. I have an odd way of writing I have been told, so if anyone who reads this feels the need to point out something that could be fixed that'd be much appreciated (My Theo teacher hates my prose).

But honestly it'll mainly be Magic.

Hope you enjoy.