Not surprisingly I’m writing this as I’m watching Dredd, again. ConEd has me on hold for the next available representative. I tried the automated system and it put me back in line, adding 15 minutes to my wait. Awesome. One of my rommates surprised the other two of us with news that she was moving out October 1st so I’ve gotta transfer gas, power, and internet to my name. It’s no big deal. The cat is gone and new roomate Trey Love (yes, that’s his real name) is one sweatheart of a human being. But, seriously, who cares?
Is Theros any good?
I can’t tell. My friends can’t tell. I’m not even sure if I’ve had that much fun this weekend playing it. I needed the practice for GP OKC (Theros Limited). I went 4-7 between FNM and Saturday’s release events.
All I can think about is getting the cards I need for a Legacy Jund and reading Reid Duke’s primer.
PreRelease Related Instant Messenger Conversations with Friends
#1
Bones: The prerelease was really fun.
Me: Really?
Bones: went 8-2 in games
Bones: 2-0 in 2hg
Me: i don’t think i’ve ever heard anyone say “prerelease was really fun”
Me: but i don’t think i’ve ever heard anyone do that well either
Me: WHAT IS YOUR SECRET
Bones: open a really strong boros pool
Bones: and kill elspeth on sigh in the finals
Bones: *Sight
Me: niiiiiiiice
Bones: yeah, i had the promo, hundred-handed one and the red god
Bones: plus a good amount of midrange creatures
Bones: that ill-tempered cyclops is nuts, by the way
Bones: absolutely nuts
#2
Me: MONIQUE! How was your pre-re?
Monique Garraud: Jonesy!! great. had a blast
Me: Oh really? What was your record?
Monique: 4-0
#3-ish
Kadar and I talked in person a bit about his pre-re experience. He said it was horrible and that he didn’t envision playing this set much. He went 1-3 and then did poorly in another sealed (I didn’t catch his second event record).
We put this information into the Hipsters of the Coast Super Correct Fact Generating Computer and got the following result: people who win Magic: The Gathering events have fun and people who loose Magic: The Gathering events have less fun (if any fun at all).
I drafted Tuesday with the crew at Fat Cat. I EDH’d with Stacy, Less Evil Rob, and Micah until our drafters showed up. We had eight people and then seven when Richard realized he forgot to bring his packs. Kadar got the bye. I drafted a UG deck that wasn’t hot and had no enchantment destruction. Hugh beat me with Nylea’s Bow two games in a row. He helped me re-tool my deck and it didn’t matter. When the opportunity came to drop and go paint I took it.
It’s time for some pictures to do some of my writing for me.
I love Less Evil Rob.
Elder Dragon Highlander on the prototype old school Hipsters playmat!
I’ve been making cool shit in my studio lately and looking at cool old shit I made a little while ago.
The crowd outside Twenty Sided for Theros Release Weekend FNM was pretty intense.
Luis beat me as usual.
Then Bones beat the snot out of me.
Then Grant’s deck failed him and I won.
And Seth sent me home with one prize pack (i.e. he beat me, too).
That was Friday. Next came Saturday.
I love playing Mikey here but I’m not sure I’ve ever beaten him. I hear the Scrub Report needs a new writer. I should probably apply.
Things started to look up when my round two opponent didn’t show up. I rebuilt my deck after round one, with Mikey’s help, and was pretty excited to give it a go. Oh well.
Arthur was a treat to play. His deck failed him game two (game one was pretty good though). I found out he was running 16 lands. I recommend never running 16 lands unless your deck is hyper aggressive.
Sean’s deck was insanely fast and my deck was slow and un-landy.
And Saturday just kept going!
Daniel here is 12 and I beat him. I beat through Heliod, God of White. Turns out flying creatures win games if they can’t be dealt with and every time they do damage I get to draw a card. Daniel’s a good new player and I’ll hopefully face him in battle again over the years.
Today I sorted my cards ‘cuz Horror has been replaced by Greek and I just can’t cry about it anymore. I’ve gotta move on. All good things, you know? My sleeve color choice is often related to Francis Bacon’s palette.
Team Hipsters OKC met at Carrie’s place in downtown Brooklyn. We weren’t sure why she ever leaves her apartment other than to work her job so she can afford her sweet apartment. Look at this view!
It’s super sweet. She lives in a corner apartment. Every day she gets to see the sickest sunsets EVER. She can see all of Manhattan, most of Brooklyn, a chunk of Queens, and all sorts of weird harbor shit.
I put together four different decks. The version above gave me the most creatures and the most removal. The other versions, expecially the red black one, had some cool cards, but none of them beat this one. Carrie and I added the flying and the draw-a-card-when-does-combat-damage-to-a-player enchantment-creatures and got rid of some dumpy cards. But I played with the above version for all matches.
Hunter and I had almost exactly the same decks. I beat the living hell out of our editor-in-chief. He didn’t do a single point of damage to me and I easily dispatched any of his threats.*
Diamond Dave McCoy kept a shitty hand and got stomped game one by Giant Foxes and Monstrous Snakes (not their real names). Games two and three he handled me with controlly brilliance. Well done, Bones.
Carrie’s hero deck beat my mull to four and a mull to six. We played a third and the same awful thing happened: mana screw. Then we retooled my deck as described above and he kicked my ass again. What a nice guy! HAHA!
The four of us laid out our decks and pools and we chatted about what would potentially been more or less optimal than what we put together. It’s very helpful to do this with good minds and evaluate cards and builds and generally have a better understanding of “good” versus “what I think is good”. Things we figured out (that other writers on other blogs have also figured out) include:
1. Gods aren’t that dope unless you’ve got lots of devotion.
2. Heroic in sealed is super hard to accomplish with any quality or quantity (even in Carrie’s very heroic build shit falls apart pretty quickly).
3. Three out of four of us would’ve been super happy with a big monster based black red deck.
4. Knowing when to use your removal is more important than it’s been in a long time (this includes enhantment removal now, too!). Reid Duke—you know, the pro I freaking mention twenty times an article—wrote a good article about it (if you’ve got SCG Premium).
So the four of us are heading to GP OKC next weekend. Dave and I get in around 11:30 hot off a 6am flight from NYC. I’ll let you know how we do either next week or the week after. Tomorrow I’m playing this deck, Robert Lopuski’s 2nd place deck from SCG Baltimore:
Punishing Jund
| Creatures (16) 4 Dark Confidant 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Tarmogoyf Spells (21) 1 Life from the Loam 4 Liliana of the Veil 3 Hymn to Tourach 1 Sylvan Library 2 Lightning Bolt 1 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Punishing Fire 3 Thoughtseize 3 Abrupt Decay | Lands (23) 4 Grove of the Burnwillows 3 Bloodstained Mire 3 Wooded Foothills 1 Forest 1 Swamp 3 Wasteland 4 Verdant Catacombs 2 Badlands 2 Bayou Sideboard (15) 1 Golgari Charm 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Umezawa’s Jitte 2 Duress 3 Choke 3 Pyroblast |
Looks sweet, right? I hope so.
I’m gonna go study up on this deck and how to play it. I’ll see you all next week! Thanks for reading!
All the best,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator
*I didn’t beat Rolex that badly. I mean he even flooded game three. Busting Rolex’s chops is one of my favorite things and I hope he forgives me.