Born of the Gods set blur:
These always look cool. I like that they’re compressed content and generate an abstract image. There’s lots of room to look and think in these. But for some people they’ll probably always look the same (despite infinite variation-when variation isn’t dramatic enough it may as well not exist).
Comics occupy quite a bit of the time I spend reading. I’ve almost completely stopped buying physical comics, instead resorting to reading them on my iPad via the Comixology app. I wondered if an entire comic compressed into a single image would be better or worse than a compressed Magic set. My guess is that the comic compression would be awesomer because there are fewer images to compress (17 vs 165) so each page has more visual power in the overall compression. You decide. Here’s the most recent issue of The All New X-Men stacked and compressed:
I haven’t played any magic since the last team draft I participated in, so I was grateful that Hugh inspired a team draft at Dom’s apartment tonight (hence my late article posting). It’s rough coming up with Magic content when you haven’t played any. I’ve been finishing up paintings for a solo exhibition in the city, opening Friday, and have recently fallen in love. Magic gets back burnered when these things are in one’s life. Unless you’re Abe “Thrag” Lusk. Then Magic comes first.
Anyway, here’re photos from Sunday evening. I went 0-3 with a mediocre black/red deck with zero ways to interact with enchantments, lots of creature removal, and a few bombs. The matches were all pretty close except for one with Dom (his deck was better at three mana than mine was at four mana during our mana screw games). A number of times I lost the turn before I had the win in hand (we now call this Brayan Rodriguezing) and lost super hard to Bow of Nylea any time I saw it.
Hey! We’re at Dom’s house! HOORAY! Thanks for hosting, Dom!
Dom’s cat is named Leeloo. Like from the Fifth Element. She was fun to play with. I like medium aged kittens.
Abe beat me in three. Game three would’ve been different if both of us didn’t think Underworld Cerberus was a Living End threatening creature (like, the creatures came back to play and not into our hands—and that it wasn’t both players—Sean also thought it was a one sided Living End; Cerberus isn’t that good). Now all three of us know that it’s not as good as we thought.
I saw that Carrie’s Scholar got Viper’s Kiss‘d and she couldn’t use her ability. Carrie loves Scholar so much. Neutered Scholar not so much. She temporarily tilted for a few minutes after or maybe during this match. She was playing Sean. Sean *is* pretty infuriating to play Magic with so I totally understand her reaction.
Then I played Dom. He had all the Voyage’s Ends when he needed them and enough creatures to smash me into oblivion before I could do much of anything. I mulled to five game one after consecutive one-lander hands. Womp. After losing our match I threw my cards over my shoulder. Hugh reminded me that they needed me to play Carrie ‘cuz we still had a chance of winning. I picked up my cards after a few minutes of letting them sit on the floor and think about what they’d done.
When Hugh played Abe he stood. The entire heat for the apartment came from a giant Reznor (or Reznor-like) heater on the ceiling. The hot air it generated went directly to the bar making it the best place to play on this below freezing evening.
I needed to win the last one so we took the event but did not. Carrie’s Bow of Nylea beat me both of the games she won. I took game two when she was at one life by dropping a Blood-Toll Harpy onto the battlefield. That was neat.
Leeloo took a poop mid-tournament. It had no odor.
Here Hugh flips the bird at Bow of Nylea during my match with Carrie.
This photograph depicts Bow of Nylea and the affect it will have on my board state shortly. I drew the Raptor right after he played Bow. Really clutch, Raptor. Just the right timing. Asshole.
Five minutes later I conceded the match by pushing my deck and Carrie’s deck onto Carrie’s lap with her playmat while saying “fuck this game” in repeat and laughing my head off. Stupid Magic.
The winners had this sick pool to rare draft from as their prize. There’s a Master of Waves, Elspeth, Thoughtseize, Hero’s Downfall, and Nylea in there. Bastards.
I layered all of the above photos from team draft night and compressed them just to see what it looked like and hot damn if it isn’t the best of any compressions I’ve ever done.
I’m only Two-Headed Gianting during pre-release weekend. The pre-release is always the worst. It takes FOREVER and I always do terribly. Nah, I’ll play basketball draw all weekend instead. Good luck to those of you participating though! WOO!
None of the new cards get me too riled up. The set seems pretty mediocre. I can’t wait til they print “Return to Innistrad”. It seems like I haven’t really cared about Magic since Innistrad. #gettingold
Thanks for reading.
Love to all,
Matt Jones
MTGO: The_Obliterator
Twitter: Die_Obliterator
Matt Jones is a sometimes PWP grinder, all the time spell slinger, and one passionate dude. He started playing at the end of Revised and quit at Exodus. Upon sobriety and running out of self-help groups to join, Jones picked Magic back up at New Phyrexia, found his favorite non-Necropotence card, Phyrexian Obliterator, and earned himself a nickname. He loves Constructed and tolerates Limited.