Team Draft League has begun. Week one is over (as of you reading this, there is one bout that got pushed to Sunday). ScryDucks, my team with Nick Forker and Kadar Brock, won our battle with the Clockwork Bea(s)ts. Kadar’s 3-0 performance with RB Aggro (his new favorite archetype, he won’t shut up about it!) and my 2-0 (and eventually 2-1 when I played Carrie after Kadar’s third victory had already clinched team glory).
Forker’s deck was light on dudes and he didn’t do so hot. He managed to snag almost every bomb rare which kept the other team off of them. That COULD be a strategy. Draft all the good shit so your opponents can’t get at any of it. Right? I dunno. Just one guy does that and then you rely on the other two to crush. Maybe bomb-drafter puts together a good enough deck to win one or two, too. Meh, I dunno. Sounds weird.
ScryDucks are my lifetime favorite team to be on. I love my teammates. Forker’s PMA, Kadar’s loopy madness and thirst for blood, my inane commentary throughout … what’s not to love? Our opponents, the Clockwork Bea(s)ts, are three swell dudes, too. It was a great night capped by success.
I shot the whole thing with a GoPro Hero 3. Here’re the things I learned about GoPro’ing and posting videos to Youtube:
1. The GoPro internal mic is bullshit. You can kinda hear me and barely (if at all) hear what anyone else is saying. I’ve googled the best way to get around this and I’m going to be doing so in the next recording.
2. GoPros will shoot for 17 minutes and 25 seconds before starting a new recording.
3. 17 minutes and 25 seconds at 1080i takes two or more hours to upload to Youtube.
4. Despite the shittiest of sound quality, if you have any music playing in the background that’s owned by a label/copyright holder with serious Youtube issues, Youtube will tell you that it’s there, offer to delete the sound from that portion of the video (in some circumstances), or simply mute your video in its entirety.
So, next time I’ma have a good external mic. I’ll ask forker to keep his music even LOWER than it was so we don’t get sued (despite not having any nasty intent, gotta keep those corporations getting paid for shit they didn’t create, you know, cuz ‘merica).
I recommend watching these in Youtube ‘cuz they’ll be MUCH bigger and thusly easier to see.
Drafting
There is a recognizable song in this video which has been deleted by Youtube. It may be muted, it may not be muted. I really won’t know until this article is already posted. However, the video shows off how cool a GoPro’d draft looks. Extreme sports eat your heart out.
End of Drafting
Due to the 17’25” GoPro limit the last minute got cut out of the first clip and fuck if I was going to spend the 10,000 hours it takes to edit a vid, render it, and THEN upload it. I’ve got a girlfriend, a studio practice, a job, and several game based addictions that eat up all my time.
Deck Building Part One
Deck Building Part Two
(A couple bonus minutes cropped from part one’s 17’25” limit.)
Round One vs David “Bones” McCoy
I didn’t shoot round two due to potential battery constraints (and our round one took 500 years). Turns out “Bones” couldn’t deal with Arbor Colossus.
Round one game one continues in the next video (game one took 500 years, remember?).
Round Two vs Hunter “Rolex” Slaton
Here’s some more round two action, including “Rolex” saying “Fuck you, Spark Jolt! Right there in the GoPro!” (it’s at the end).
Round Three vs Carrie O’Hara
Our games meant nothing as my two wins and Kadar’s three wins gave us the five wins ScryDucks (and all teams) needed to take the night. Carrie’s deck crushed mine. Just outright crushed it. She had all the tempo, all the removal, and was never not in control of our games.
Thanks to Carrie, Bones, and Rolex for being such good sports and such fun dudes to MTG with. Thanks to my fellow ScryDucks, Nick Forker and Kadar Brock. You’re the best teammates I can imagine having.
Finally, a handshake with Carrie and a question for Kadar.
Next week I’ll hopefully have an external mic available. We go up against Monique, Orlando, and Lebron’s team, Life from the LOaM (L, O, and M are capitalized ‘cuz they line up with each of their names). We’ll be playing in das Atelier von Forker again so you’ll be treated to more of his artwork in the background of my shots.
Team Draft League has totally picked up my love of the game. Since the shift to four ProTours and shorter seasons with the same point system I haven’t had much love for PTQ grinding, etc. I barely play at my LGS because the nights they have events have lined up less and less with the nights I have free to play Magic (which are fewer in number already). Team Draft League is has got me back in the saddle in a big way. Thanks to Hugh Kramer for supporting this dream and getting the whole thing moving forward. Your work is greatly appreciated.
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.