I had a friend who used to work on the other side of CFB's buylist, and he said that anything the receive that isn't NM only gets 50% of the buylist price. Even still, their prices are competitive enough that it's pretty fair. (He was there about 3-4 years ago, so things could be different now, I don't know.)
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Turns out I finished 68th. Not all that bad, out of 1620 or so, I guess.
I don't have my sealed pool anymore, but there were highlights, beginning with an odd little fact about it.
-Emotionally, it's always easier to open what appears to be a poor sealed pool and get passed a powerful one during deck swap. I had the unfortunate experience of opening a ridiculously bad sealed pool and getting one back after passing pools that was just as bad. Scratch that: it was exactly as bad. It was the same damn pool. I was toward the end of the table, and after passing across for verification, we passed left three times, and it plopped back in front of me.
-My Theros offerings in black were as follows: Agent of Fates, Read the Bones. That's it. There were 6 black cards in Born of the Gods, one of which was a Gild, but only 3 of which were even remotely playable.
-My white had Eidolon of Countless Battles, Hopeful Eidolon, Archetype of Courage, Elite Skirmisher, and Battlewise Valor as playables.
-My green had one pump spell (Mortal's Resolve), no 2 drops, 1 3 drop, and a bunch of mediocre fat, like a pair of Snake of the Golden Grove, a Centaur Battlemaster, and a Vulpine Goliath.
-As a result of this, I had no choice but to run RU, the worst archetype in the format. My red had no burn. My blue had a single Voyage's End as far as tempo spells go.
Here was the sealed deck I registered. I probably should've cut the Pharagax Giant for a Portent of Betrayal, in hindsight:
I had 2 byes, and my 3rd round opponent didn't show up. Weird, but I'll take the free 3rd bye. Round 4 I played Mani Davoudi, who posts around here as Zapgaze. He's very, very good, and we had a fun time in our cripple fight of a match. He was 3-0 off of byes, and he had a really bad GW deck. He mana screwed a bit in game 3 while I had a pretty solid aggro draw. The next 2 rounds saw me lose horribly to better decks. I then won 2 straight on the back of a game 3 mull to 4 from my round 7 opponent and a game 2 mull to 5 from my next round opponent after I beat her down while she tried to find a second color. Shrug. Round 9 I paired against a friend whose RW aggro deck was just about as bad as my pile. He had a ton of 2/2s. I had a ton of 2/3s, so I won. In my 4 wins, I avoided a metric ton of cards my deck simply cannot beat: Gray Merchant, Hopeful Eidolon, Voyage's End, Griptide, even Nessian Courser.
My first draft was weird. I first picked a Kragma Butcher over a Flitterstep Eidolon, second picked an Archetype of Courage, and correctly evaluated that my neighbor had taken an Akroan Skyguard over the Archetype, so I abandoned white. Pick 5 I see a Nyxborn Wolf and Pheres-Band Tromper, so I take the Wolf and move into green. The Tromper tabled. Yeah, green was open. My deck wasn't great, as it lacked interaction, but it felt like heaven after Saturday's 40:
I ended up beating a good RW aggro deck, losing to a solid, interactive RU tempo deck that assembled the Flamespeaker/Stormcaller combo in each game, and then beating a mono blue deck (!) in 3, losing game 1 to a Prognostic Sphinx and a copy made by Fated Infatuation and winning games 2 and 3 by, you guessed it, playing dumb guys and turning them sideways.
Draft 2 was a disaster. I should have been in GU from pick 3 onward, but I stuck to the second pick Skyguard I took and ended up with a pile of UW aggro garbage. I'm not even posting the deck; it was that embarrassing. The first round, I faced a BW deck with a bunch of 1/3s and 1/4s, and he had Hundred-Handed One, Nighthowler, Hythonia the Cruel, and Herald of Torment. I won game 1 by aggroing him out. Game 2 he barely beat me. Game 3, he stalled my air attack (the mighty Vaporkin) with Ephara's Warden. He hits 6 mana, played Hythonia. I Stymied Hopes. The next turn, I play Floodtide Serpent, with a Fate Foretold and Chosen by Heliod in play (I said the deck was bad...it did have 5 cantrip auras with the Serpent, at least), leaving U up. He bestows Herald of Torment. I Annul. A few turns later, after drawing 2 cards a turn, I get a Skyguard that keeps growing, and I just demolish him. I lose the next round in 5 minutes to a much better UW deck, and I draw the final round to end up in 68th.
2 bad decks and 1 mediocre one, and a 10-4-1 finish. I feel preeeeeeeeeeeetty good about my finish.
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I hereby found the American Chapter of the Zealots of Semantics. All glory to The Curmudgeon.
Is it at all possible to say Richard Parker without an Indian accent? I can't resist doing it when I meet him, anyway.
I also played a PTQ this weekend, actually! First one I've played in 3 years, and the first Limited one I've played in six years. 118-man local PTQ, went in with 1 IRL prerelease under my belt as testing. Thought my sealed deck was quite mediocre - it had no bombs, no removal (literally), no late game power besides a Nemesis of Mortals and a Nimbus Naiad, and no aggro. But I ended up going 5-0 into double ID. Drafted a monoblack deck (splashing 1 green card) I thought looked fairly insane, with trips Gary, 5 removals, the 3/3 flying bestow demon, the black prerelease card from Theros, the 4/5 reaper guy, and solid cards otherwise (2 Baleful Eidolon, Disciple of Phenax, 3 of the 4/5 for 7 that gets cheaper = to devotion to black, and some other good stuff). Unfortunately, I did not succeed in drawing my good cards (no Gray Merchants all match :(), and went out in the quarters in a way that kept me awake for a while last night, even though I am fairy confident that I made the correct play.
Here's the situation: I'm on 5, he's on 3. I have 8 lands in play, 4 lands and Asphyxiate in hand (I had been quite flooded this game), he has 6-7 lands (combination of forests and islands, all untapped), an 2 unknown cards in hand. I have a 3/3 flying demon and a 4/5 ground guy, he has a tapped 12/12 green prerelease promo thing. He had already played most of the tricks I knew about (including 2 Voyage's End), with the exception of Savage Surge. It's my declare attackers step. Attack with one or both?
I attacked with both because he might have drawn Horizon Chimera, Griptide, Shredding Winds, a Naturalize effect, and probably more stuff I couldn't think of, and if I left back the 4/5 and he managed to deal with my Demon, I'd be essentially dead (forced to chump his 12/12 forever). And if he just has a bounce spell to delay me, he could potentially draw something like Sudden Storm or Sea God's Revenge to kill me past two blockers.
But he had Defend the Hearth. Boarded in against my mono-black control deck Utterly punished for my play, good game.
Not really big deal though. I'm not that keen on going to Portland anyway. It'd just be nice to get that monkey off my back and finally win a real event - to put it this way, no matter how many PTQ finals you guys have lost, I've certainly lost more! So yeah, it's kinda difficult to not think "if only I had just attacked with my Demon! If only..." blah blah. It would have been the inferior play (again, I'm pretty sure, but you are free to correct me if I'm wrong), but it would have won me the game. Such is Magic!
I had a friend who used to work on the other side of CFB's buylist, and he said that anything the receive that isn't NM only gets 50% of the buylist price. Even still, their prices are competitive enough that it's pretty fair. (He was there about 3-4 years ago, so things could be different now, I don't know.)
They post that policy pretty openly on their buylist FAQ, and it is a decreasing % based on condition of the card. Without double checking I'd say it's 70% for a SP, 50% for moderate, etc. I'm not too concerned about that part, as these FoW's are in pristine shape. Also, I've ordered enough singles from CFB to know that their SP grade would pass for NM at most other sellers so I feel good about their integrity on card condition. If they try to tell my, upon receipt, that my FoW's aren't actually near mint there are some real shenanigans going on as these cards have never been touched since being cracked.
Semantics, I actually think your sealed pool looks like a fairly impressive aggro deck (for a sealed pool) and think you did well with it. Dodging a lot of power cards along the way doesn't hurt, but congrats on the impressive finish!
Sene, I think you were exactly right in you're double attack. Who plays around Fog? So many other cards you were more likely to be punished by in a single attack scenario.
It's more that people always overvalue removal. Really, if they make a card ":symb:: Sorcery: As an additional cost, get F'd in the A. Destroy target creature." people will say "removal is removal" and first-pick it.
Drafted on modo today - insane, all bombs...out in the first round. Went to LGS afterwards and had a pretty sick 3-0 draft deck.
Been doing well lately. Had some decent finishes at GPs and ptqs but lately I've been on a pretty bad streak. I think that for the first time in a long time I misbuilt my sealed pool last weekend. I just hate the red cards so much in this format that I immediately dismissed red for being underpowered (which it was). What it did have, however, was a reasonable curve and a pseudo-bomb in ember swallower. It was like a bunch of mediocre cards but perhaps together they made a decent deck that I didn't see.
Otherwise, I've been doing pretty well. I have a very funny story from the Mexico City tournament that I'll throw out there at some point.
Fun catching up and reading about PTQ and GP experiences. Semantics, nice work in Montreal. I was trying to convince some friends to go up there with me, but it's a long drive from St. Louis, and no one was as crazy/on spring break as I was. Instead as a consolation I am driving with a friend tomorrow to Cincinnati from some Standard action. Playing a deck very similar to the one that won in Argentina last weekend. I haven't tested nearly enough, so I'll probably just end up scrubbing out early and drafting in some side events and getting a few more drawings on my play-mat.
The question is really whether your opponent would have attacked with the 12/12 if he had a trick that would only deal with one attacker. Given that you have a hand full of cards which the opponent doesn't know are lands I think it's completely reasonable to assume that he would. Consequently, attacking with both makes the most sense by far because it plays around most of the things he's likely to have.
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The question is really whether your opponent would have attacked with the 12/12 if he had a trick that would only deal with one attacker. Given that you have a hand full of cards which the opponent doesn't know are lands I think it's completely reasonable to assume that he would. Consequently, attacking with both makes the most sense by far because it plays around most of the things he's likely to have.
Oh, the attack on the previous turn was complex and involved a trick (from me) & five creatures dying. So I don't know if that really was a tell either way. The cards I mentioned (Horizon Chimera, Shredding Winds, a Naturalize effect) would have been irrelevant on that turn, so it's not a case of "if he had drawn one, he'd have used it already".
I wish I were going to Philly. Montreal got my competitive juices flowing again, but I'm still a bit Magicked out, so to speak. I think I will end up coming down to D.C. in June, though, to see family and play the GP down there. I know that's more in your area, so hopefully I'll get a chance to catch up with you there.
I haven't really been playing much, but thinking a bit about my high level experiences, I realized I'm 4-for-5 in day 2s at GPs, and I've cashed in 3 of them now. I don't get many opportunities to be genuinely proud of myself, so I'm going to pat myself on the back for that and hope it continues in my nation's capital this summer.
Oh, and "Deadly Recluse" seems pretty hilarious, given that you're spending so much time clicking "refresh" for such a silly purpose. :-P
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:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
Signalling is like farting: it's a natural thing that helps people avoid being where you are, and if you try to do it deliberately, things turn to crap fast.
Quote from Hardened »
I hereby found the American Chapter of the Zealots of Semantics. All glory to The Curmudgeon.
I was missing draft earlier this week, but just noticed this morning that there's Cube up on Magic Online. Hurrah!
First draft went pretty well, but the aesthetics of my deck were slightly spoiled by the fact MtGO only has white-bordered Phyrexian Arena! (See attachment.)
ATTACHMENTS
cube_monoblack
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Oh, and "Deadly Recluse" seems pretty hilarious, given that you're spending so much time clicking "refresh" for such a silly purpose. :-P
The thing is, I know a lot of recluses, and very few of them are deadly.
I'd say "none," but I'm not sure about my old-roommate. He was one of those quiet types with an emergency go-bag and ceramic jars of rice and grains buried in the back yard. A funny thing happened to us, November 2008, when we were watching election coverage. At almost the exact stroke of midnight, the power went out. Now, I don't know WHY my roommate equated power failure to a possible end-of-days-riot, but between his being 50% convinced, me being 0% convinced, we settled on both being about 20% convinced that maybe something might get looted or smashed on such a historic day.
My roommate, in light of the situation, declared that he was going to go sit by his bedroom door with "the crossbow." Fearing he might mistake one of his cats for a burglar, I suggested that maybe he didn't need to protect his bedroom with a deadly projectile weapon. He agreed, and then proceeded to get "the meathook" (things in parenthesis are things I did not realize he owned).
In non-meathook-related news, I did a swiss cube draft on MODO today and went 1-2. I was maybe a little distracted by co-drafting with a friend who was just getting back into magic, and took a few too many pieces of fixing and was short... oh, a StP from a good UWx Geist deck.
My deck was sort of UW/br midrange, but the real plan was to cast Elspeth Knight Errant and follow up with Ravages of War.
That mostly worked out, except for R1G2
Board state
His - Level 2 Student of Warfare, 4 plains
My - Esper colored four lands, Elspeth Knight Errant on 6 loyalty
My turn five
+1 Elspeth to make a token, Ravages, Island, go
Opponent's turn five
Plains, Aether vial, go
My turn six
Um... use elspeth, worry.
Opponent's turn six
Counter on vial, Land Tax, go.
Way to have all the one drops in your deck that had no curve game one... That's what I get for ravaging too early, though.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
You know, in retrospect, him having vial/land tax didn't really matter that much. Land tax wasn't turning on because I was bricking on lands for forever. Vial was going to eventually kill me. It was definitely a morale killer to see him just keep playing spells after a Ravages of War.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
I don't agree that was too early as such. The problem there was really the Student. Elspeth tokens can't realistically kill it (you'd need six), which means your only viable on-the-board plan is to chump and then ultimate Elspeth. The turn you do that, he kills Elspeth unless you first got her up to 12 loyalty. That's six turns away, so not realistically happening before Student turns into a double striking monster. Which means your real plan is to trade Elspeth for the emblem and hope you can draw enough land to deploy indestructible creatures FTW. Put that way, it does sound pretty risky...
...but not necessarily wrong, it all depends what other stuff you had in hand. How did the game play out?
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<Limited Clan>
I lost. His land tax didn't end up mattering much, but I bricked on lands and he drew lands.
I think, given my hand, I should have probably not Ravaged. I had a lot of action - Meloku, Opposition, other spells.
It was a frustrating draft, for sure. I was playing 18 lands, hoping to draw one of my 3-4 counters early, to make up for my curve essentially starting on three. Games where I drew countermagic went exceedingly well, but games where I didn't... those were hard fought.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
Hmm... I don't think I like that build much. A lot of your two drops are tricks, so you're looking at slow starts in most games. But the higher end of your curve isn't looking too great either. Nothing bomby, no evasion to speak of.
I think I'd prefer a G/U base. Light on removal, but way better card quality and more consistency.
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<Limited Clan>
Also, why aren't you playing Nyxborn Eidolon? I haven't played this format much, but that guy seems a bit better than some of the chaff you have in there (like Viper's Kiss and Black Oak thingy).
I've done a few drafts myself during the last couple of days - first a couple of cube drafts to win NBS packs, and now I've done 3 NBS drafts. Pretty fun, probably because I haven't encountered any ridiculous bombs yet, which is pretty much unheard of after playing 7 matches in the format.
Here's a fun screenshot though:
Sorry about the bad caption. That's me on top. He ended up losing that game. His Fangren Marauder won it for me, heh - it made it take just a couple extra seconds to resolve that Artillerize.
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Things I never thought would happen: I have Wurmcoil Engine in the sideboard of my Cube deck!
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Wasn't even a particularly great deck, it just had such an all-in strategy that a six drop without haste wouldn't help much. Indeed, putting aomething with lifelink onto the board would have been seriously risky!
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Funny, I also played mono red in my latest Cube draft (and I also wouldn't have played Wurmcoil if I had it). It was quite comical; it's probably the first time in ~100 Cube drafts that I draft mono red, and I promptly got flamed by two different opponents ("monored noob", "****ing idiot"). My first opponent seemed to be unable to come to terms with the fact that his t2 Silver Knight in both games two and three was not enough to win the match. In fact I only played two spells in the game I beat it, winning on turn 5.
You really just need to embrace the rage. I keep a small colony of hamsters next to my computer and every time I lose a match to mana screw I throw one against the wall.
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Turns out I finished 68th. Not all that bad, out of 1620 or so, I guess.
I don't have my sealed pool anymore, but there were highlights, beginning with an odd little fact about it.
-Emotionally, it's always easier to open what appears to be a poor sealed pool and get passed a powerful one during deck swap. I had the unfortunate experience of opening a ridiculously bad sealed pool and getting one back after passing pools that was just as bad. Scratch that: it was exactly as bad. It was the same damn pool. I was toward the end of the table, and after passing across for verification, we passed left three times, and it plopped back in front of me.
-My Theros offerings in black were as follows: Agent of Fates, Read the Bones. That's it. There were 6 black cards in Born of the Gods, one of which was a Gild, but only 3 of which were even remotely playable.
-My white had Eidolon of Countless Battles, Hopeful Eidolon, Archetype of Courage, Elite Skirmisher, and Battlewise Valor as playables.
-My green had one pump spell (Mortal's Resolve), no 2 drops, 1 3 drop, and a bunch of mediocre fat, like a pair of Snake of the Golden Grove, a Centaur Battlemaster, and a Vulpine Goliath.
-As a result of this, I had no choice but to run RU, the worst archetype in the format. My red had no burn. My blue had a single Voyage's End as far as tempo spells go.
Here was the sealed deck I registered. I probably should've cut the Pharagax Giant for a Portent of Betrayal, in hindsight:
9 Mountain
8 Island
Spells
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Ordeal of Thassa
1 Fearsome Temper
1 Titan's Strength
1 Rise to the Challenge
1 Voyage's End
1 Akroan Crusader
1 Nyxborn Rollicker
1 Deathbellow Raider
1 Arena Athlete
1 Vaporkin
1 Reckless Reveler
2 Crackling Triton
2 Minotaur Skullcleaver
1 Kragma Butcher
1 Chorus of the Tides
1 Borderland Minotaur
1 Pharagax Giant
1 Prescient Chimera
1 Thunder Brute
1 Shipbreaker Kraken
It was just awful.
I had 2 byes, and my 3rd round opponent didn't show up. Weird, but I'll take the free 3rd bye. Round 4 I played Mani Davoudi, who posts around here as Zapgaze. He's very, very good, and we had a fun time in our cripple fight of a match. He was 3-0 off of byes, and he had a really bad GW deck. He mana screwed a bit in game 3 while I had a pretty solid aggro draw. The next 2 rounds saw me lose horribly to better decks. I then won 2 straight on the back of a game 3 mull to 4 from my round 7 opponent and a game 2 mull to 5 from my next round opponent after I beat her down while she tried to find a second color. Shrug. Round 9 I paired against a friend whose RW aggro deck was just about as bad as my pile. He had a ton of 2/2s. I had a ton of 2/3s, so I won. In my 4 wins, I avoided a metric ton of cards my deck simply cannot beat: Gray Merchant, Hopeful Eidolon, Voyage's End, Griptide, even Nessian Courser.
My first draft was weird. I first picked a Kragma Butcher over a Flitterstep Eidolon, second picked an Archetype of Courage, and correctly evaluated that my neighbor had taken an Akroan Skyguard over the Archetype, so I abandoned white. Pick 5 I see a Nyxborn Wolf and Pheres-Band Tromper, so I take the Wolf and move into green. The Tromper tabled. Yeah, green was open. My deck wasn't great, as it lacked interaction, but it felt like heaven after Saturday's 40:
10 Forest
7 Mountain
Spells
2 Nylea's Presence
2 Savage Surge
1 Sea God's Revenge
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Sedge Scorpion
1 Satyr Rambler
1 Voyaging Satyr
1 Leafcrown Dryad
1 Kragma Butcher
1 Nessian Courser
1 Boon Satyr
1 Nyxborn Wolf
1 Spearpoint Oread
1 Pheres-Band Tromper
1 Nylea's Emissary
1 Ill-Tempered Cyclops
1 Nylea's Emissary
1 Snake of the Golden Grove
1 Nessian Asp
1 Stoneshock Giant
I ended up beating a good RW aggro deck, losing to a solid, interactive RU tempo deck that assembled the Flamespeaker/Stormcaller combo in each game, and then beating a mono blue deck (!) in 3, losing game 1 to a Prognostic Sphinx and a copy made by Fated Infatuation and winning games 2 and 3 by, you guessed it, playing dumb guys and turning them sideways.
Draft 2 was a disaster. I should have been in GU from pick 3 onward, but I stuck to the second pick Skyguard I took and ended up with a pile of UW aggro garbage. I'm not even posting the deck; it was that embarrassing. The first round, I faced a BW deck with a bunch of 1/3s and 1/4s, and he had Hundred-Handed One, Nighthowler, Hythonia the Cruel, and Herald of Torment. I won game 1 by aggroing him out. Game 2 he barely beat me. Game 3, he stalled my air attack (the mighty Vaporkin) with Ephara's Warden. He hits 6 mana, played Hythonia. I Stymied Hopes. The next turn, I play Floodtide Serpent, with a Fate Foretold and Chosen by Heliod in play (I said the deck was bad...it did have 5 cantrip auras with the Serpent, at least), leaving U up. He bestows Herald of Torment. I Annul. A few turns later, after drawing 2 cards a turn, I get a Skyguard that keeps growing, and I just demolish him. I lose the next round in 5 minutes to a much better UW deck, and I draw the final round to end up in 68th.
2 bad decks and 1 mediocre one, and a 10-4-1 finish. I feel preeeeeeeeeeeetty good about my finish.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
I also played a PTQ this weekend, actually! First one I've played in 3 years, and the first Limited one I've played in six years. 118-man local PTQ, went in with 1 IRL prerelease under my belt as testing. Thought my sealed deck was quite mediocre - it had no bombs, no removal (literally), no late game power besides a Nemesis of Mortals and a Nimbus Naiad, and no aggro. But I ended up going 5-0 into double ID. Drafted a monoblack deck (splashing 1 green card) I thought looked fairly insane, with trips Gary, 5 removals, the 3/3 flying bestow demon, the black prerelease card from Theros, the 4/5 reaper guy, and solid cards otherwise (2 Baleful Eidolon, Disciple of Phenax, 3 of the 4/5 for 7 that gets cheaper = to devotion to black, and some other good stuff). Unfortunately, I did not succeed in drawing my good cards (no Gray Merchants all match :(), and went out in the quarters in a way that kept me awake for a while last night, even though I am fairy confident that I made the correct play.
Here's the situation: I'm on 5, he's on 3. I have 8 lands in play, 4 lands and Asphyxiate in hand (I had been quite flooded this game), he has 6-7 lands (combination of forests and islands, all untapped), an 2 unknown cards in hand. I have a 3/3 flying demon and a 4/5 ground guy, he has a tapped 12/12 green prerelease promo thing. He had already played most of the tricks I knew about (including 2 Voyage's End), with the exception of Savage Surge. It's my declare attackers step. Attack with one or both?
I attacked with both because he might have drawn Horizon Chimera, Griptide, Shredding Winds, a Naturalize effect, and probably more stuff I couldn't think of, and if I left back the 4/5 and he managed to deal with my Demon, I'd be essentially dead (forced to chump his 12/12 forever). And if he just has a bounce spell to delay me, he could potentially draw something like Sudden Storm or Sea God's Revenge to kill me past two blockers.
But he had Defend the Hearth. Boarded in against my mono-black control deck Utterly punished for my play, good game.
Not really big deal though. I'm not that keen on going to Portland anyway. It'd just be nice to get that monkey off my back and finally win a real event - to put it this way, no matter how many PTQ finals you guys have lost, I've certainly lost more! So yeah, it's kinda difficult to not think "if only I had just attacked with my Demon! If only..." blah blah. It would have been the inferior play (again, I'm pretty sure, but you are free to correct me if I'm wrong), but it would have won me the game. Such is Magic!
They post that policy pretty openly on their buylist FAQ, and it is a decreasing % based on condition of the card. Without double checking I'd say it's 70% for a SP, 50% for moderate, etc. I'm not too concerned about that part, as these FoW's are in pristine shape. Also, I've ordered enough singles from CFB to know that their SP grade would pass for NM at most other sellers so I feel good about their integrity on card condition. If they try to tell my, upon receipt, that my FoW's aren't actually near mint there are some real shenanigans going on as these cards have never been touched since being cracked.
Semantics, I actually think your sealed pool looks like a fairly impressive aggro deck (for a sealed pool) and think you did well with it. Dodging a lot of power cards along the way doesn't hurt, but congrats on the impressive finish!
Sene, I think you were exactly right in you're double attack. Who plays around Fog? So many other cards you were more likely to be punished by in a single attack scenario.
Proud bearer of the Sigil of Distinction, bestowed by the Limited clan.
Drafted on modo today - insane, all bombs...out in the first round. Went to LGS afterwards and had a pretty sick 3-0 draft deck.
Been doing well lately. Had some decent finishes at GPs and ptqs but lately I've been on a pretty bad streak. I think that for the first time in a long time I misbuilt my sealed pool last weekend. I just hate the red cards so much in this format that I immediately dismissed red for being underpowered (which it was). What it did have, however, was a reasonable curve and a pseudo-bomb in ember swallower. It was like a bunch of mediocre cards but perhaps together they made a decent deck that I didn't see.
Otherwise, I've been doing pretty well. I have a very funny story from the Mexico City tournament that I'll throw out there at some point.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
For those curious here is my deck:
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Courser of Kruphix
4 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Reaper of the Wilds
2 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Xenagos, God of Revels
Spells
2 Dreadbore
2 Mizzium Mortars
4 Domri Rade
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Vraska the Unseen
5 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Abandon
1 Temple of Malice
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Sire of Insanity
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Dreadbore
2 Golgari Charm
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Ultimate Price
1 Bow of Nylea
2 Rakdos's Return
The question is really whether your opponent would have attacked with the 12/12 if he had a trick that would only deal with one attacker. Given that you have a hand full of cards which the opponent doesn't know are lands I think it's completely reasonable to assume that he would. Consequently, attacking with both makes the most sense by far because it plays around most of the things he's likely to have.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
Oh, the attack on the previous turn was complex and involved a trick (from me) & five creatures dying. So I don't know if that really was a tell either way. The cards I mentioned (Horizon Chimera, Shredding Winds, a Naturalize effect) would have been irrelevant on that turn, so it's not a case of "if he had drawn one, he'd have used it already".
-click-
Vengeful Rebirth. Uh... no.
-click-
Unified Strike. Maybe if I was starting a grassroots militia instead of posting art and pictures of baby animals...
-click, click, click-
Deadly recluse. NOPE.
Also! I might be at GP Philly. Anyone going?
I haven't really been playing much, but thinking a bit about my high level experiences, I realized I'm 4-for-5 in day 2s at GPs, and I've cashed in 3 of them now. I don't get many opportunities to be genuinely proud of myself, so I'm going to pat myself on the back for that and hope it continues in my nation's capital this summer.
Oh, and "Deadly Recluse" seems pretty hilarious, given that you're spending so much time clicking "refresh" for such a silly purpose. :-P
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
I was missing draft earlier this week, but just noticed this morning that there's Cube up on Magic Online. Hurrah!
First draft went pretty well, but the aesthetics of my deck were slightly spoiled by the fact MtGO only has white-bordered Phyrexian Arena! (See attachment.)
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
The thing is, I know a lot of recluses, and very few of them are deadly.
I'd say "none," but I'm not sure about my old-roommate. He was one of those quiet types with an emergency go-bag and ceramic jars of rice and grains buried in the back yard. A funny thing happened to us, November 2008, when we were watching election coverage. At almost the exact stroke of midnight, the power went out. Now, I don't know WHY my roommate equated power failure to a possible end-of-days-riot, but between his being 50% convinced, me being 0% convinced, we settled on both being about 20% convinced that maybe something might get looted or smashed on such a historic day.
My roommate, in light of the situation, declared that he was going to go sit by his bedroom door with "the crossbow." Fearing he might mistake one of his cats for a burglar, I suggested that maybe he didn't need to protect his bedroom with a deadly projectile weapon. He agreed, and then proceeded to get "the meathook" (things in parenthesis are things I did not realize he owned).
In non-meathook-related news, I did a swiss cube draft on MODO today and went 1-2. I was maybe a little distracted by co-drafting with a friend who was just getting back into magic, and took a few too many pieces of fixing and was short... oh, a StP from a good UWx Geist deck.
My deck was sort of UW/br midrange, but the real plan was to cast Elspeth Knight Errant and follow up with Ravages of War.
That mostly worked out, except for R1G2
Board state
His - Level 2 Student of Warfare, 4 plains
My - Esper colored four lands, Elspeth Knight Errant on 6 loyalty
My turn five
+1 Elspeth to make a token, Ravages, Island, go
Opponent's turn five
Plains, Aether vial, go
My turn six
Um... use elspeth, worry.
Opponent's turn six
Counter on vial, Land Tax, go.
Way to have all the one drops in your deck that had no curve game one... That's what I get for ravaging too early, though.
I don't agree that was too early as such. The problem there was really the Student. Elspeth tokens can't realistically kill it (you'd need six), which means your only viable on-the-board plan is to chump and then ultimate Elspeth. The turn you do that, he kills Elspeth unless you first got her up to 12 loyalty. That's six turns away, so not realistically happening before Student turns into a double striking monster. Which means your real plan is to trade Elspeth for the emblem and hope you can draw enough land to deploy indestructible creatures FTW. Put that way, it does sound pretty risky...
...but not necessarily wrong, it all depends what other stuff you had in hand. How did the game play out?
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
I think, given my hand, I should have probably not Ravaged. I had a lot of action - Meloku, Opposition, other spells.
It was a frustrating draft, for sure. I was playing 18 lands, hoping to draw one of my 3-4 counters early, to make up for my curve essentially starting on three. Games where I drew countermagic went exceedingly well, but games where I didn't... those were hard fought.
I think I'd prefer a G/U base. Light on removal, but way better card quality and more consistency.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
I've done a few drafts myself during the last couple of days - first a couple of cube drafts to win NBS packs, and now I've done 3 NBS drafts. Pretty fun, probably because I haven't encountered any ridiculous bombs yet, which is pretty much unheard of after playing 7 matches in the format.
Here's a fun screenshot though:
Sorry about the bad caption. That's me on top. He ended up losing that game. His Fangren Marauder won it for me, heh - it made it take just a couple extra seconds to resolve that Artillerize.
(he was up 1-0 too)
Thanks for the advice. Ended up 3-0ing it anyway, none of the matches were really hard-fought. Guess I just got lucky.
(Viper's Kiss is awesome, though.)
And that's why I don't play old formats.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
Yup - mono Red.
Wasn't even a particularly great deck, it just had such an all-in strategy that a six drop without haste wouldn't help much. Indeed, putting aomething with lifelink onto the board would have been seriously risky!
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>