When your girlfriend owns the LGS and you are it's biggest customer, I'm sure things will go just fine.
But more seriously, as long as you can rationalize the amount of money you spend (which obviously varies from player to player) and the amount of time you spend (that you could spend, possibly with her, doing something else), things should balance out.
It becomes more difficult when you're married and financial consequences aren't limited to yourself.
From your computer description, I would describe the following as the bottlenecks of your performance starting from the worst above:
The T4200 Processor
The Integrated Video
(Maybe) The HDD
(Maybe) Windows Vista
You could probably get a performance boost with a faster processor (For example, slapping in a T9600 which assumes your motherboard will take the faster, but same architecture processor) will cost a whooping ~$300 alone. A P8700 with less power will still thieve you of ~$200. While the boost in performance might be present (you might even only see it on figures in benchmarks) I would advise you to push your funds towards something new entirely. Why?
The Integrated Video. Although Integrated Video previously did a great job keeping costs minimum, now that both ATI and nVidia are addressing the lower budget-mind products with things like Optimus switching, its not a bad time to consider a new plaything (assuming you have the budget and the mindset to do so). If you do go this route, I would verify these products can handle whatever your needs maybe (such as SC2) before you commit.
Your computer has parts that can be upgraded and then it has parts that cannot (video). The decision is still yours.
There are a couple things you should pay attention to when buying a wireless router.
1) Look for something that has 802.11n standard. This is the latest standard in wireless technology that's readily available for commercial use. Although what treebeard says is somewhat accurate (the gap between older 802.11g and newer 802.11n today is now minimal of not non-existent) for longevity I would suggest 802.11n. I should not that you want 802.11n certified, not 802.11n draft. It's a slight iff on terminology, but certified has more longevity because it is rated for a certain wireless speed and distance.
2) Look for something that is dual band or tri-band (if it fits your budget). This simply means your router can use more than one band (frequency) when it makes wireless networks for connections.
3) DLNA if possible. This will help media streaming from your PC directly to your XBOX 360 console. It's possible without DLNA, but this makes media streaming a lot cleaner.
My situation is similar to yours, where my wireless router + modem sit in the second floor, but my PS3 and another PC are in the basement. So far this has worked for me but there could be range problems. That being said, assume there won't be until there actually is.
You realize I said that was an example. I said Tokens was a good answer. The Awakening Zone was just an example. And yes, I would know a thing or two about tokens.
It wasn't an answer about his elves; it was an answer about his problem with sacrificing his elves.
Tokens would be nice if they were elf creature tokens that could at least receive lord benefits or untap with copperhorn scout. They would also be additional elf count to Elvish Archdruid's mana ability, and Joraga Treespeaker at level 5. However, since nothing in standard currently makes elf tokens, I see no reason to give up space to play actual elves for the sake of generating non-elf tokens. When a decision isn't clear about whether to sacrifice a monument of elf, just bear in mind the number of elves you may have remaining in your deck, and whether you feel the possibility of another monument coming up is high or low. Even Nissa Revane only gives life for elves.
I let someone block my black flying creature which had protection from white with a 2 chump 2/2 white creatures with no abilities and put my creature into the graveyard.
Land destruction will always offer a worthy opponent to play against. Even while being on the receiving end of said destruction, I'm always thrilled to see just how one could snake his way back out of the disadvantage (or chuckle and concede with a gg).
601.2e The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs. Some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay, or may provide other alternative costs. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost or alternative cost (as determined in rule 601.2b), plus all additional costs and cost increases, and minus all cost reductions. If the mana component of the total cost is reduced to nothing by cost reduction effects, it is considered to be {0}. It can't be reduced to less than {0}. Once the total cost is determined, any effects that directly affect the total cost are applied. Then the resulting total cost becomes "locked in." If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.
Aura of Silence increases the cost by two, and it is then reduced by affinity to as close to as zero as possible. For example, if your opponent has 6 artifacts in play, and then plays frogmite then the math is 4 + 2 - 6 = 0.
I know Lightning Bolt is the perfect burn spell. The mighty Bolt !
But isnt Arc Trail just a better option for the deck ?
We're not playing bolt because it costs 1.
We're not playing bolt because we HAVE TO deal with a 3 toughness creature.
Arc Trail can 2 for 1, but its a sorcery.
It's good against RDW, kill a Kargan and a Geopede or a Spikeshot Elder and a Goblin Guide.
Against Elf aggro it's wonderfull ! It's pretty much always a 2 for 1.
I don't really see why Lightning Bolt is that necessary. It kills Vengevine for sure, but now that Lightning Ball and all those hasty guys are gone since the rotation, which could be the better option ?
Arc Trail is great, but it doesn't allow you to respond like Lightning Bolt does. I think for that reason I would prefer the Bolts.
So drawing 1 after a mulligan is also an auto-mulligan? Because if you draw 2 in your opening hand then you have 5 non-monument cards if you draw one in your 6 card draw you have 5 non-monument cards. Of course I know you wouldn't mull down to 5 because that puts you right where you started, but I'm making a point. 2 monuments + 2 land +Llanowar or arbor +Archdruid +Sylvan I would always keep just because the chance of mulling to 6 and getting better than that are probabbly less than 50/50.
Still with Ezuri as another win-con (and garruk in most decks) and Memoricide floating around to screw 4 of cards, it's tough justifying playing 4 until we see some real artifact hate.
I don't think that's the appropriate conclusion to draw about mulligan on 2 of in an opening draw. Rather, 2 of in any hand is probably a bad sign. This card I never really hope or need to use more than twice in a game, so I would stick to Eldrazi monument being a 3 of.
Do you really believe channelers to be a top teir card? A 2/2 with peer pressure problems? Yes fetches can be used for landfall, channelers and oracle. Do we want either of these in our deck?
Channelers is notoriously inconsistent. Something that you never want with a deck. It needs a lot of help from other cards to make it worthwhile something I wouldn't bother with in all honesty. There are other cards that do it's job better and are readily available. Llanowar Elves, Arbor Elf, Leatherback Baloth. I see no point to put a mediocre card up to talk about.
Oracle, I do like, but I don't think she fits the aggro theme that we're shooting for. So again how do fetchlands help our aggro theme if neither of these cards are in most deck lists?
@Deadly Budah
Your point is a valid one, but it is still a skeptical one with limited testing. I will post here what has worked in the past. This primer is meant to be a beginning to help people brainstorm ideas, not the end all to be all of Elfyness. If you feel you can run as little as 16 lands, go for it. But again aggro is not about dropping cards and winning by charging blindly, it's about being clever and fast. Any experienced aggro player will tell you when to extend, when not to extend, when to wait.
I agree with you. However, like I said, I was merely pointing out how someone may want to use fetches, not how we have to use fetches. Aggression comes in speed, quantity and power. If you wanted as much speed and quantity you might not necessarily want to play Khalni Hydra, but here they are in our decks. I would suggest something like "maybe we only want to play a 2 of with Channelers" but then we'll have another Wave discussion, so I'll just leave it at this.
I don't run fetches either, nor the chanelers and oracle, but I wouldn't be afraid of testing the fetches in said manner.
Here's a question I do have though! When should we run both available Planeswalkers in the same deck, and when should we only run multiples of one of the two?
At the expense of a maximum of however many fetches you would want to play (let's say 4, for example), Unfetched fetches have some decent synergy when we're playing cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Mul Daya Channelers.
Lets suppose we have the above listed, and one unfetched fetch. The top card is now a creature. Do we plan to attack this turn? If yes, then perhaps leaving that creature card on top is beneficial.
And if we don't? We could fetch a land card and see what the top card is. If it turns out to be another creature card, we've sacrificed 1 life for 1 usable mana on this turn. If, however, it turns out to be land, you have more possibilities to follow through with. If it's just a regular land, then you may want to play the second land now leaving you with 2 usable mana. Or you could tap Channeler's for its two mana ability, play a 3-drop of any sort, then fetch the land off the top and hope for a creature card. Sounds like fun yet?
I haven't seen a lot of Oracle being played at all, but the Channelers does come up. It's does come down to a matter of whether using fetches to turn Channelers into a wild card is significant to you in any way. The worst play for a fetch will always be losing one life just for one mana, but there is more to be done with elves even without landfall, but rather with our "Risqué" style of revealing our top
Generally speaking, are there any reasons I may not want to play 4x Misty Rainforest or any relevant variation of 4x instead of playing the 4 Forests straight up? Here I am assuming I already have 15 Forests, 2 Oran-Rief, the vastwood and need 4 more to make 21.
But more seriously, as long as you can rationalize the amount of money you spend (which obviously varies from player to player) and the amount of time you spend (that you could spend, possibly with her, doing something else), things should balance out.
It becomes more difficult when you're married and financial consequences aren't limited to yourself.
The T4200 Processor
The Integrated Video
(Maybe) The HDD
(Maybe) Windows Vista
You could probably get a performance boost with a faster processor (For example, slapping in a T9600 which assumes your motherboard will take the faster, but same architecture processor) will cost a whooping ~$300 alone. A P8700 with less power will still thieve you of ~$200. While the boost in performance might be present (you might even only see it on figures in benchmarks) I would advise you to push your funds towards something new entirely. Why?
The Integrated Video. Although Integrated Video previously did a great job keeping costs minimum, now that both ATI and nVidia are addressing the lower budget-mind products with things like Optimus switching, its not a bad time to consider a new plaything (assuming you have the budget and the mindset to do so). If you do go this route, I would verify these products can handle whatever your needs maybe (such as SC2) before you commit.
Your computer has parts that can be upgraded and then it has parts that cannot (video). The decision is still yours.
1) Look for something that has 802.11n standard. This is the latest standard in wireless technology that's readily available for commercial use. Although what treebeard says is somewhat accurate (the gap between older 802.11g and newer 802.11n today is now minimal of not non-existent) for longevity I would suggest 802.11n. I should not that you want 802.11n certified, not 802.11n draft. It's a slight iff on terminology, but certified has more longevity because it is rated for a certain wireless speed and distance.
2) Look for something that is dual band or tri-band (if it fits your budget). This simply means your router can use more than one band (frequency) when it makes wireless networks for connections.
3) DLNA if possible. This will help media streaming from your PC directly to your XBOX 360 console. It's possible without DLNA, but this makes media streaming a lot cleaner.
My situation is similar to yours, where my wireless router + modem sit in the second floor, but my PS3 and another PC are in the basement. So far this has worked for me but there could be range problems. That being said, assume there won't be until there actually is.
Tokens would be nice if they were elf creature tokens that could at least receive lord benefits or untap with copperhorn scout. They would also be additional elf count to Elvish Archdruid's mana ability, and Joraga Treespeaker at level 5. However, since nothing in standard currently makes elf tokens, I see no reason to give up space to play actual elves for the sake of generating non-elf tokens. When a decision isn't clear about whether to sacrifice a monument of elf, just bear in mind the number of elves you may have remaining in your deck, and whether you feel the possibility of another monument coming up is high or low. Even Nissa Revane only gives life for elves.
-2 Genesis Wave
+1 Fauna Shaman
+1 Joraga Warcaller
Something else you can try to tweak to your liking would be 2 Oran-Rief, The Vastwood versus 3 of.
Aura of Silence increases the cost by two, and it is then reduced by affinity to as close to as zero as possible. For example, if your opponent has 6 artifacts in play, and then plays frogmite then the math is 4 + 2 - 6 = 0.
Arc Trail is great, but it doesn't allow you to respond like Lightning Bolt does. I think for that reason I would prefer the Bolts.
I don't think that's the appropriate conclusion to draw about mulligan on 2 of in an opening draw. Rather, 2 of in any hand is probably a bad sign. This card I never really hope or need to use more than twice in a game, so I would stick to Eldrazi monument being a 3 of.
I agree with you. However, like I said, I was merely pointing out how someone may want to use fetches, not how we have to use fetches. Aggression comes in speed, quantity and power. If you wanted as much speed and quantity you might not necessarily want to play Khalni Hydra, but here they are in our decks. I would suggest something like "maybe we only want to play a 2 of with Channelers" but then we'll have another Wave discussion, so I'll just leave it at this.
I don't run fetches either, nor the chanelers and oracle, but I wouldn't be afraid of testing the fetches in said manner.
Here's a question I do have though! When should we run both available Planeswalkers in the same deck, and when should we only run multiples of one of the two?
At the expense of a maximum of however many fetches you would want to play (let's say 4, for example), Unfetched fetches have some decent synergy when we're playing cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Mul Daya Channelers.
Lets suppose we have the above listed, and one unfetched fetch. The top card is now a creature. Do we plan to attack this turn? If yes, then perhaps leaving that creature card on top is beneficial.
And if we don't? We could fetch a land card and see what the top card is. If it turns out to be another creature card, we've sacrificed 1 life for 1 usable mana on this turn. If, however, it turns out to be land, you have more possibilities to follow through with. If it's just a regular land, then you may want to play the second land now leaving you with 2 usable mana. Or you could tap Channeler's for its two mana ability, play a 3-drop of any sort, then fetch the land off the top and hope for a creature card. Sounds like fun yet?
I haven't seen a lot of Oracle being played at all, but the Channelers does come up. It's does come down to a matter of whether using fetches to turn Channelers into a wild card is significant to you in any way. The worst play for a fetch will always be losing one life just for one mana, but there is more to be done with elves even without landfall, but rather with our "Risqué" style of revealing our top
And to another extent, what sort of mentality are we holding on to when we want to run a couple to a few Eldrazi Legendaries like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth?