It probably wouldn't be worth doing, because it'd make it really hard to store, but it would probably look really awesome if some of those pieces of "wood" came "out" of the card itself. So that they would be bent (or glued) in such a way that there were above the top-most layer.
Hey there. I'm afraid I qualify for the super duper bonus points yet not the bonus points. Sorry about that.
In KMC Hyper Matte Blacks with KMC Perfect Fits, my EDH deck is 66mm tall (100 cards), 67mm wide (card width), and 91mm tall (card height). You might want to add a millimetre on to each of those, just in case.
Also, whereabouts in Japan are you? I live in Japan too.
For someone buying into the deck, what are the key cards that are ubiquitous amongst as many versions of the deck as possible? In other words, what should be the first cards on my shopping list if I'm looking to build the deck a bit at a time?
Snapcaster Mage's then Cryptic Commands, but unfortunately they are not cheap. The rest of the deck is pretty cheap and easy to acquire. I wouldn't go any less than 3 of each of those.
Thanks. That's pretty much what I figured. And, if we're being honest, those two cards tend to be pretty useful in any given Modern deck with Blue in them, so if I'm in it for the long run then they're going to be sound investments.
I've been looking to get into Cruel Control for a while now. I have a full set of each of the appropriate Shock Lands and Check Lands (whatever the M10 and Innistrad lands are called) as well as a few things here and there (such as a Creeping Tar Pit and several Cruel Ultimatums).
For someone buying into the deck, what are the key cards that are ubiquitous amongst as many versions of the deck as possible? In other words, what should be the first cards on my shopping list if I'm looking to build the deck a bit at a time?
I need new sleeves for my cube and was thinking about the new KMC hyper mat. I saw a review video on youtube which was very positive about the sleeves.
Do you have any experience with the hyper mat? How are they compared to KMC mat and KMC super?
I'm not a fan of KMC Supers; they're okay to begin with but as soon as they get the slightest bit of moisture on them they start to stick together, making shuffling an absolute nightmare. KMC Hyper Mattes, on the other hand, are really good; they're all I use these days, for EDH, Standard, and my Cube. I highly recommend the Hyper Mattes.
I want one to put into my Nicol Bolas deck. It's not very well tuned, but I have a lot of fun with it. There aren't that many "discard matters" cards that are very relevant in Commander, but Waste Not seems like it could be a good one. If you want to check out my deck, take a look here.
There's anybody to cube with in Gunma? Have they paved the roads there yet? I know Abe was talking about bringing electricity to the empty parts of the country.
Heh, fair enough. It is pretty rural around here after all. We hear that we might be lucky enough to get hot running water installed in our homes soon...
My gaming group had 6 players who regularly drafted new sets when they came out, but we're down to only 3 now (with a 4th who used to come in from Tokyo to continue drafting with us even after he moved there) so we're kinda putting drafting on the backburner. But, as you may be aware, the English teaching profession here has a high turnover, so there's every chance that we might snag some new players, especially next March. I'd prefer to invest in something like this now, when the product is fresh and not suffering from "out-of-print inflation," rather than later.
This is something I'm looking at doing myself. I wanted to buy a couple of boxes of Conspiracy, break one out and draft it with my friends now, then hold onto the other one for future use, but my friends pointed out that for that kind of money (living in Japan and all) I could probably make myself a Conspiracy Cube instead (and thus have infinite drafts from it).
Right now, it's a little tricky to calculate, since we don't have correct numbers of cards or anything, but I'm guess-timating that I'll need 3 of each Common, 2 of each Uncommon, and 1 of each Rare and Mythic Rare for this (though I'm not sure how the "draft-affecting" cards' rarities will be affected). I'm probably not going to change it after it's constructed, like you intend to do, but that's certainly an interesting idea. I *DO* want to be able to use it to draft other sets with (so, for example, we could do a 2xConspiracy/1xTheros draft) but I don't think I'd add the extra cards to the Cube afterwards.
So tonight, my friends K and S, and myself, played our first matches. I won one and I lost one. Here's what happened:
K's deck
Like myself, K made a Blue/Red Heroic deck. He didn't seem to have too many bombs and, in fact, included a lot of cards that seemed on the lower end of the power scale (such as Cyclops of One-Eyed Pass). It had some burn in the form of a Lightning Strike and a Scouring Sands, as well as plenty of Heroic enablers including Spearpoint Oread (like me) and Nyxborn Rollicker (unlike me).
S's deck
Despite pulling an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, S decided to go for a White/Green deck, with some Monstrosity and a little Heroic, due to lack of playables in Ashiok's colours. A Nessian Asp along with one or two Pheres-Band Centaurs were the backbone of the deck, but there were several cheap weenies too.
Match 1, Game 1, vs. K
Despite K getting out an Akroan Crusader and making a token or two off of it, a fourth turn Flame-Wreathed Phoenix from me meant that I could soar over his defences, whilst blocking his own ground forces, and got me a fairly easy win.
Sideboard: After this game, I sideboarded Gainsay in, as an extra weapon against any Blue spells he threw my way.
Match 1, Game 2, vs. K
This game was a little more balanced. On my second turn I got out my Artisan of Forms and on my third my Spellheart Chimera. Thanks to a Titan's Strength I had two Chimeras swinging in the air. My Phoenix came out to play again, though this time K chose to pay Tribute, and despite him getting out a Siren of the Fanged Coast, I was able to get past his defences and kill him relatively shortly afterwards.
Sideboard: due to the amount of creatures arrayed against me, I added Sudden Storm.
Match 2, Game 2, vs. S
This game was much closer. In the early game I got out my Satyr Nyx-Smith and started churning out Elementals. I lost it due to a misplay on my part due to messing up its Toughness value and that my Titan's Strength in hand wouldn't pump it up enough to survive a block. A Nessian Asp with a Bestowed Hopeful Eidolon on it changed hands several times due to my Akroan Conscriptor. The Conscriptor got up to a 8/9 due to a Bestowed Spearpoint Oread and an Ordeal of Purphoros triggering three times, as well as an Aqueous Form letting him swing past the defenders. However, a Time to Feed let his Asp kill my Consciptor without losing it and the game went downhill after that. I threw several creatures under the bus, trying to draw into something that let me bounce the Asp, but I died before I could do so.
S vs. K
The three games S and K played against each other were pretty close. K won the first game by overwhelming S's creatures, but lost the second game despite being in a position that he could have won due to a misplay (not realising that Loyal Pegasus requires something else to block alongside). The final game was ground out by S and his Monstrous Nessian Asp.
In the end, I went 1-1 (2-2 overall, in games), K went 0-2 (1-4 overall, in games), and S went 2-0 (4-1 overall, in games).
So, onto my new pack. As I suggested in the first post, I went with a pack of Born of the Gods due to its stronger Red component. Here's what I pulled:
I think the Disciple might be too expensive for this deck. I'm already pushing it with my mana curve and I don't want to have to add an 18th land for that. The Crypsis might be unnecessary, and the one copy I had didn't really do me any good in the one game I saw of it, but I still think that it's a reasonable Heroic and Inspired enabler. The Archetype and the Firedancer would push the deck towards more of an aggro bent, though, and I'm not sure the deck works well as aggro. With the Firedancer, I only have one burn spell that could be used with its ability, so I'd just be including it as a 2/1 for 2 at that point. It would certainly be the fastest deck of the three if I put in the Nyxborn Rollickers, the Archetype and the Firedancer, but I'm worried that a bunch of Red weenies won't win the day against a Nessian Asp.
Speaking of, I'm now giving some significant consideration to splashing White for Excoriate. A Monstrous Nessian Asp and/or Bestowed Pheres-Band Centaurs are practically impossible for my deck to deal with. I do have a little bounce, but I never drew into it in any of the games I played where I needed it and Excoriate is the only thing in my card pool that can deal with a creature of any size (the drawback of it needing to be tapped isn't that much of a drawback; the large creatures in general were almost always attacking into me).
I haven't come up with a new decklist yet, after pulling my new cards, but when I do I'll post it here.
My friends and are are very casual Magic players, and three of us decided to do a for-fun Sealed Deck League now that Born of the Gods has been released. I'm not that great a Magic player, so I thought I'd document my progress and hopefully learn something from it.
Here are the rules of the League:
Start by opening three packs of Theros and three packs of Born of the Gods. This is your initial card pool.
Create a sealed deck (40 cards minimum) from your card pool and an unlimited number of Basic Lands.
Once a week, play a "best-of-three" match against each of your opponents.
Once each player has played all other players, everyone opens one additional pack of Theros or Born of the Gods (player's choice) and adds those cards to their pool.
When your card pool is equal to 8 packs (I.e. after two matches played against everyone) the minimum deck size increases to 50 cards and when your card pool is equal to 10 packs (I.e. after four matches played against everyone) the minimum deck size increases to the usual constructed limit of 60 cards.
As it stands, I'm both looking for and NOT looking for advice on what I'm doing. If anyone would like to offer me advice, I'd like it if you could put it in Spoiler tags so that I can read it after the League finishes and I can see whether your advice correlates with my own thoughts on the matter or whether I did the opposite of what you suggested. This is a for-fun League and there are no prizes other than bragging rights, so if I win I'd like to do it off of my own merits rather than have the collective of MTGSalvation on my side giving me tips.
With all that out of the way, let's have a look at my starting card pool. All of the sensitive information I'm putting inside of spoilers in case my friends happen across this thread; if they want to cheat and look they can, but the chance of an accidental reading is reduced.
Wow. Just wow. This is my first time playing Sealed Deck other than for the Dragon's Maze prerelease and I don't think it's looking too good for me. I can see what I think are a few good cards, but they seem spread out across all of the colours with little concentration in any one given colour.
Looking at the pool, it seems that the most consistent deck, regardless of what I feel are the best cards in it, is a Blue/Red deck, using Spellheart Chimera and a number of Instants, Sorceries, and Enchantments to trigger what little Heroic cards I have in those colours.
I've only played a handful of Theros drafts, and no Born of the Gods ones, so I'm unsure how well this will play. I never played Blue/Red in any of the Theros drafts and I'm unsure how it plays, so I'm falling back on my usual Magic knowledge. Blue, of course, does well with bounce and Flying creatures, as well as some copy effects. Red allows for some burn and the great Akroan Conscriptor. I don't feel that there's anything extraordinary about the deck, though, so it may well lose.
Sideboard cards/cards that almost made the cut:
Gainsay - obvious sideboard card against other Blue decks,
Sudden Storm - considered leaving it in but felt I had enough removal. If it turns out that I'm losing out due to a lack of removal, though, it might go back in,
Nyxborn Rollicker - the cheapest of all Bestows would give very nice Heroic triggers but I don't feel that what triggers I have are all that good, and leaving behind a 1/1 with no abilities isn't all that great, and
Fearsome Temper - a regular aura, with all the inherent disadvantages that it brings, but that instant Power and toughness boost is tempting.
Splashing:
I'm not sure whether any of my other cards are really worth splashing. I've considered adding a little Green for Fanatic of Xenagos, White for Ephara's Enlightenment, or Black for Spiteful Returned, but I don't feel that any of those are powerful enough to warrant the splash.
Future Packs:
Due to the fact that I feel that Red does really well in Born of the Gods, I'm considering taking a Born of the Gods pack for my first additional pack.
My only concern is how do you ask the local players to have a game with you, especially if it's just a casual one and not the sanctioned events yet.
Your best bet is to ask them. If you don't know Japanese, the following will hopefully be able to help you out (whilst holding your Magic cards):
Japanese: すみません。ゲームをしませんか。にほんごはなしません。だいじょうぶですか。
Phonetically: Sue-me-mah-sen. Game-ooh oh shi-mass-en-ka. Knee-hon-go hanna-shi-mass-en. Die-joe-boo dess-ka.
Translation: "Excuse me. Would you like to play a game? I don't speak Japanese. Is that okay?"
Apologies to anyone out there with better Japanese than I, seeing as my skills with the language are cursory at best.
As mentioned before, I'm kinda out in the sticks (comparatively) compared to Tokyo, but my local game store doesn't have too much of a problem with me. I know a little Japanese but there are a reasonable amount of terms that are just katakana English. I'd say that it's more likely that you'll run into players with better levels of English in Tokyo, but that's not necessarily a given.
If you're going to draft then you may want to see if you can grab an English copy of the Fat Pack booklet (since it'll have a picture of every card in the set); my local store allows me to do this for reference since they tend to draft with Japanese cards rather than English ones.
Worst come to the worst, why not try and trade your English Magic skills for Japanese ones? Perhaps you could try and make some friends in the card stores and teach each other your languages over a few friendly (and perhaps slow) games?
Hey chief. Sorry that I didn't chip in before now, but it seems like these guys have gotten you up to speed on things out here in Japan.
I'm based in Ota, Gunma (around 100km NW of Tokyo). My experiences with Magic here have been few and far between, mostly because I work late on a Friday evening (when FNMs happen) and all day Saturday (when most of my local card shop's events are run). But all my experiences here have been good.
The players are friendly and, as others have mentioned, know a small amount of English. The blog entry linked with the Japanese terms is a good one; I've certainly heard and used a number of the words written there. If you can familiarise yourself with them then that's great, but it's not necessary (as you've probably discovered already).
I disagree with what some people have posted so far regarding Japanese players trading up for English cards. Most of the people I've seen would prefer Japanese cards to English ones. Some of the stores I've visited have had Japanese cards more expensive than the English cards, yet others have the English cards more expensive than the Japanese ones, which puzzles me.
Whilst singles do seem to be a little bit more expensive out here, I would recommend investing in some Japanese cards whilst you're here; they're usually pretty popular back in America (and in England, where I'm from) in some circles. Even if all you get are Japanese basic lands, you'll probably be able to trade them up when you go home, to the right people.
If you have any further questions whilst you're here, let me know and I'll try and answer them
Worse still, if you flicker Jeleva then you spent 0 mana on casting her so when she re-enters the battlefield she'll be a new object and will exile zero cards from every library.
In KMC Hyper Matte Blacks with KMC Perfect Fits, my EDH deck is 66mm tall (100 cards), 67mm wide (card width), and 91mm tall (card height). You might want to add a millimetre on to each of those, just in case.
Also, whereabouts in Japan are you? I live in Japan too.
Thanks. That's pretty much what I figured. And, if we're being honest, those two cards tend to be pretty useful in any given Modern deck with Blue in them, so if I'm in it for the long run then they're going to be sound investments.
Thanks again.
For someone buying into the deck, what are the key cards that are ubiquitous amongst as many versions of the deck as possible? In other words, what should be the first cards on my shopping list if I'm looking to build the deck a bit at a time?
I'm not a fan of KMC Supers; they're okay to begin with but as soon as they get the slightest bit of moisture on them they start to stick together, making shuffling an absolute nightmare. KMC Hyper Mattes, on the other hand, are really good; they're all I use these days, for EDH, Standard, and my Cube. I highly recommend the Hyper Mattes.
Heh, fair enough. It is pretty rural around here after all. We hear that we might be lucky enough to get hot running water installed in our homes soon...
My gaming group had 6 players who regularly drafted new sets when they came out, but we're down to only 3 now (with a 4th who used to come in from Tokyo to continue drafting with us even after he moved there) so we're kinda putting drafting on the backburner. But, as you may be aware, the English teaching profession here has a high turnover, so there's every chance that we might snag some new players, especially next March. I'd prefer to invest in something like this now, when the product is fresh and not suffering from "out-of-print inflation," rather than later.
Right now, it's a little tricky to calculate, since we don't have correct numbers of cards or anything, but I'm guess-timating that I'll need 3 of each Common, 2 of each Uncommon, and 1 of each Rare and Mythic Rare for this (though I'm not sure how the "draft-affecting" cards' rarities will be affected). I'm probably not going to change it after it's constructed, like you intend to do, but that's certainly an interesting idea. I *DO* want to be able to use it to draft other sets with (so, for example, we could do a 2xConspiracy/1xTheros draft) but I don't think I'd add the extra cards to the Cube afterwards.
K's deck
Like myself, K made a Blue/Red Heroic deck. He didn't seem to have too many bombs and, in fact, included a lot of cards that seemed on the lower end of the power scale (such as Cyclops of One-Eyed Pass). It had some burn in the form of a Lightning Strike and a Scouring Sands, as well as plenty of Heroic enablers including Spearpoint Oread (like me) and Nyxborn Rollicker (unlike me).
S's deck
Despite pulling an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, S decided to go for a White/Green deck, with some Monstrosity and a little Heroic, due to lack of playables in Ashiok's colours. A Nessian Asp along with one or two Pheres-Band Centaurs were the backbone of the deck, but there were several cheap weenies too.
Match 1, Game 1, vs. K
Despite K getting out an Akroan Crusader and making a token or two off of it, a fourth turn Flame-Wreathed Phoenix from me meant that I could soar over his defences, whilst blocking his own ground forces, and got me a fairly easy win.
Sideboard: After this game, I sideboarded Gainsay in, as an extra weapon against any Blue spells he threw my way.
Match 1, Game 2, vs. K
This game was a little more balanced. On my second turn I got out my Artisan of Forms and on my third my Spellheart Chimera. Thanks to a Titan's Strength I had two Chimeras swinging in the air. My Phoenix came out to play again, though this time K chose to pay Tribute, and despite him getting out a Siren of the Fanged Coast, I was able to get past his defences and kill him relatively shortly afterwards.
Match 2, Game 1, vs. S
This was a horrible game for me. My initial hand was Island, Mountain, Meletis Charlatan, Spearpoint Oread, Crypsis, Titan's Strength, and Ordeal of Purphoros. Sadly, out of my next seven or eight card draws I didn't draw a single land and died having never cast a single spell.
Sideboard: due to the amount of creatures arrayed against me, I added Sudden Storm.
Match 2, Game 2, vs. S
This game was much closer. In the early game I got out my Satyr Nyx-Smith and started churning out Elementals. I lost it due to a misplay on my part due to messing up its Toughness value and that my Titan's Strength in hand wouldn't pump it up enough to survive a block. A Nessian Asp with a Bestowed Hopeful Eidolon on it changed hands several times due to my Akroan Conscriptor. The Conscriptor got up to a 8/9 due to a Bestowed Spearpoint Oread and an Ordeal of Purphoros triggering three times, as well as an Aqueous Form letting him swing past the defenders. However, a Time to Feed let his Asp kill my Consciptor without losing it and the game went downhill after that. I threw several creatures under the bus, trying to draw into something that let me bounce the Asp, but I died before I could do so.
S vs. K
The three games S and K played against each other were pretty close. K won the first game by overwhelming S's creatures, but lost the second game despite being in a position that he could have won due to a misplay (not realising that Loyal Pegasus requires something else to block alongside). The final game was ground out by S and his Monstrous Nessian Asp.
In the end, I went 1-1 (2-2 overall, in games), K went 0-2 (1-4 overall, in games), and S went 2-0 (4-1 overall, in games).
So, onto my new pack. As I suggested in the first post, I went with a pack of Born of the Gods due to its stronger Red component. Here's what I pulled:
1 Nyxborn Eidolon
1 Charging Badger
1 Pharagax Giant
1 Sphinx's Disciple
1 Ephara's Radiance
1 Cyclops of One-Eyed Pass
1 Culling Mark
1 Crypsis
1 Loyal Pegasus
1 Archetype of Aggression
1 Black Oak of Odunos
1 Flitterstep Eidolon
1 Satyr Firedancer
1 Chosen by Heliod
1 Ephara's Radiance
1 Excoriate
1 Ghostblade Eidolon
1 Great Hart
1 Hold at Bay
1 Hopeful Eidolon
1 Loyal Pegasus
1 Mortal's Ardor
1 Nyxborn Shieldmate
1 Silent Artisan
1 Silent Sentinel
1 Aqueous Form
1 Artisan of Forms
1 Breaching Hippocamp
2 Chorus of the Tides (1 is a foil)
2 Crypsis
2 Deepwater Hypnotist
1 Fated Infatuation
1 Flitterstep Eidolon
1 Gainsay
1 Lost in a Labyrinth
1 Meletis Charlatan
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Nyxborn Triton
1 Ordeal of Thassa
1 Retraction Helix
1 Sphinx's Disciple
1 Stratus Walk
1 Sudden Storm
1 Triton Shorethief
1 Voyage's End
1 Black Oak of Odunos
1 Boon of Erebos
1 Claim of Erebos
1 Forlorn Pseudamma
1 Grisly Transformation
1 Insatiable Harpy
2 Marshmist Titan
1 Nyxborn Eidolon
1 Pharika's Cure
1 Rescue from the Underworld
1 Returned Centaur
1 Spiteful Returned
1 Weight of the Underworld
1 Akroan Conscriptor
1 Archetype of Aggression
1 Cyclops of One-Eyed Pass
1 Deathbellow Raider
1 Epiphany Storm
1 Fearsome Temper
1 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
1 Rage of Purphoros
1 Minotaur Skullcleaver
1 Messenger's Speed
2 Nyxborn Rollicker
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Pharagax Giant
1 Pinnacle of Rage
1 Reckless Reveler
1 Satyr Firedancer
1 Satyr Nyx-Smith
1 Spearpoint Oread
1 Titan's Strength
1 Charging Badger
1 Culling Mark
1 Feral Invocation
1 Karametra's Favor
1 Nylea's Presence
1 Ordeal of Nylea
2 Pheres-Band Centaurs
1 Sedge Scorpion
2 Setessan Oathsworn
1 Shredding Winds
1 Swordwise Centaur
1 Voyaging Satyr
1 Akroan Hoplite
1 Ephara's Enlightenment
1 Fanatic of Xenagos
1 Kragma Warcaller
1 Ragemonger
1 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Spellheart Chimera
1 Bronze Sable
1 Opaline Unicorn (foil)
1 Unknown Shores
I think the Disciple might be too expensive for this deck. I'm already pushing it with my mana curve and I don't want to have to add an 18th land for that. The Crypsis might be unnecessary, and the one copy I had didn't really do me any good in the one game I saw of it, but I still think that it's a reasonable Heroic and Inspired enabler. The Archetype and the Firedancer would push the deck towards more of an aggro bent, though, and I'm not sure the deck works well as aggro. With the Firedancer, I only have one burn spell that could be used with its ability, so I'd just be including it as a 2/1 for 2 at that point. It would certainly be the fastest deck of the three if I put in the Nyxborn Rollickers, the Archetype and the Firedancer, but I'm worried that a bunch of Red weenies won't win the day against a Nessian Asp.
Speaking of, I'm now giving some significant consideration to splashing White for Excoriate. A Monstrous Nessian Asp and/or Bestowed Pheres-Band Centaurs are practically impossible for my deck to deal with. I do have a little bounce, but I never drew into it in any of the games I played where I needed it and Excoriate is the only thing in my card pool that can deal with a creature of any size (the drawback of it needing to be tapped isn't that much of a drawback; the large creatures in general were almost always attacking into me).
I haven't come up with a new decklist yet, after pulling my new cards, but when I do I'll post it here.
My friends and are are very casual Magic players, and three of us decided to do a for-fun Sealed Deck League now that Born of the Gods has been released. I'm not that great a Magic player, so I thought I'd document my progress and hopefully learn something from it.
Here are the rules of the League:
As it stands, I'm both looking for and NOT looking for advice on what I'm doing. If anyone would like to offer me advice, I'd like it if you could put it in Spoiler tags so that I can read it after the League finishes and I can see whether your advice correlates with my own thoughts on the matter or whether I did the opposite of what you suggested. This is a for-fun League and there are no prizes other than bragging rights, so if I win I'd like to do it off of my own merits rather than have the collective of MTGSalvation on my side giving me tips.
With all that out of the way, let's have a look at my starting card pool. All of the sensitive information I'm putting inside of spoilers in case my friends happen across this thread; if they want to cheat and look they can, but the chance of an accidental reading is reduced.
MT's Initial Card Pool (week 0)
1 Chosen by Heliod
1 Excoriate
1 Ghostblade Eidolon
1 Great Hart
1 Hold at Bay
1 Hopeful Eidolon
1 Mortal's Ardor
1 Nyxborn Shieldmate
1 Silent Artisan
1 Silent Sentinel
1 Aqueous Form
1 Artisan of Forms
1 Breaching Hippocamp
2 Chorus of the Tides (1 is a foil)
1 Crypsis
2 Deepwater Hypnotist
1 Fated Infatuation
1 Gainsay
1 Lost in a Labyrinth
1 Meletis Charlatan
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Nyxborn Triton
1 Ordeal of Thassa
1 Retraction Helix
1 Stratus Walk
1 Sudden Storm
1 Triton Shorethief
1 Voyage's End
1 Boon of Erebos
1 Claim of Erebos
1 Forlorn Pseudamma
1 Grisly Transformation
1 Insatiable Harpy
2 Marshmist Titan
1 Pharika's Cure
1 Rescue from the Underworld
1 Returned Centaur
1 Spiteful Returned
1 Weight of the Underworld
1 Akroan Conscriptor
1 Deathbellow Raider
1 Epiphany Storm
1 Fearsome Temper
1 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
1 Rage of Purphoros
1 Minotaur Skullcleaver
1 Messenger's Speed
2 Nyxborn Rollicker
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Pharagax Giant
1 Pinnacle of Rage
1 Reckless Reveler
1 Satyr Nyx-Smith
1 Spearpoint Oread
1 Titan's Strength
1 Feral Invocation
1 Karametra's Favor
1 Nylea's Presence
1 Ordeal of Nylea
2 Pheres-Band Centaurs
1 Sedge Scorpion
2 Setessan Oathsworn
1 Shredding Winds
1 Swordwise Centaur
1 Voyaging Satyr
1 Akroan Hoplite
1 Ephara's Enlightenment
1 Fanatic of Xenagos
1 Kragma Warcaller
1 Ragemonger
1 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Spellheart Chimera
1 Bronze Sable
1 Opaline Unicorn (foil)
1 Unknown Shores
Thoughts on my Card Pool
From what I can tell, I think my best cards are Cavalry Pegasus, Ghostblade Eidolon, Hopeful Eidolon, Aqueous Form, Voyage's End, Insatiable Harpy, Spiteful Returned, Akroan Conscriptor, Fanatic of Xenagos, and Reaper of the Wilds. I am more than willing to accept that my evaluations of these cards are wrong, however.
Looking at the pool, it seems that the most consistent deck, regardless of what I feel are the best cards in it, is a Blue/Red deck, using Spellheart Chimera and a number of Instants, Sorceries, and Enchantments to trigger what little Heroic cards I have in those colours.
My Round 1 Deck, with commentary
7 Mountain
1 Unknown Shores
1 Akroan Conscriptor
1 Artisan of Forms
1 Breaching Hippocamp
2 Chorus of the Tides
1 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
1 Meletis Charlatan
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Nyxborn Triton
1 Satyr Nyx-Smith
1 Spearpoint Oread
1 Spellheart Chimera
1 Rage of Purphoros
1 Crypsis
1 Fated Infatuation
1 Lost in a Labyrinth
1 Retraction Helix
1 Titan's Strength
1 Voyage's End
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Ordeal of Thassa
I've only played a handful of Theros drafts, and no Born of the Gods ones, so I'm unsure how well this will play. I never played Blue/Red in any of the Theros drafts and I'm unsure how it plays, so I'm falling back on my usual Magic knowledge. Blue, of course, does well with bounce and Flying creatures, as well as some copy effects. Red allows for some burn and the great Akroan Conscriptor. I don't feel that there's anything extraordinary about the deck, though, so it may well lose.
Sideboard cards/cards that almost made the cut:
I'm not sure whether any of my other cards are really worth splashing. I've considered adding a little Green for Fanatic of Xenagos, White for Ephara's Enlightenment, or Black for Spiteful Returned, but I don't feel that any of those are powerful enough to warrant the splash.
Future Packs:
Due to the fact that I feel that Red does really well in Born of the Gods, I'm considering taking a Born of the Gods pack for my first additional pack.
Your best bet is to ask them. If you don't know Japanese, the following will hopefully be able to help you out (whilst holding your Magic cards):
Japanese: すみません。ゲームをしませんか。にほんごはなしません。だいじょうぶですか。
Phonetically: Sue-me-mah-sen. Game-ooh oh shi-mass-en-ka. Knee-hon-go hanna-shi-mass-en. Die-joe-boo dess-ka.
Translation: "Excuse me. Would you like to play a game? I don't speak Japanese. Is that okay?"
Apologies to anyone out there with better Japanese than I, seeing as my skills with the language are cursory at best.
As mentioned before, I'm kinda out in the sticks (comparatively) compared to Tokyo, but my local game store doesn't have too much of a problem with me. I know a little Japanese but there are a reasonable amount of terms that are just katakana English. I'd say that it's more likely that you'll run into players with better levels of English in Tokyo, but that's not necessarily a given.
As a minimum, I'd suggest brushing up on the language given in the link above (this one: http://thejapanhobbyist.com/current-magic-the-gathering-vocabulary-in-japanese/).
If you're going to draft then you may want to see if you can grab an English copy of the Fat Pack booklet (since it'll have a picture of every card in the set); my local store allows me to do this for reference since they tend to draft with Japanese cards rather than English ones.
Worst come to the worst, why not try and trade your English Magic skills for Japanese ones? Perhaps you could try and make some friends in the card stores and teach each other your languages over a few friendly (and perhaps slow) games?
Magic Tactics
Tactical Magic
They seem interesting, and certainly could be adapted for Commander relatively easily.
I'm based in Ota, Gunma (around 100km NW of Tokyo). My experiences with Magic here have been few and far between, mostly because I work late on a Friday evening (when FNMs happen) and all day Saturday (when most of my local card shop's events are run). But all my experiences here have been good.
The players are friendly and, as others have mentioned, know a small amount of English. The blog entry linked with the Japanese terms is a good one; I've certainly heard and used a number of the words written there. If you can familiarise yourself with them then that's great, but it's not necessary (as you've probably discovered already).
I disagree with what some people have posted so far regarding Japanese players trading up for English cards. Most of the people I've seen would prefer Japanese cards to English ones. Some of the stores I've visited have had Japanese cards more expensive than the English cards, yet others have the English cards more expensive than the Japanese ones, which puzzles me.
Whilst singles do seem to be a little bit more expensive out here, I would recommend investing in some Japanese cards whilst you're here; they're usually pretty popular back in America (and in England, where I'm from) in some circles. Even if all you get are Japanese basic lands, you'll probably be able to trade them up when you go home, to the right people.
If you have any further questions whilst you're here, let me know and I'll try and answer them