New Alpha/Reboot seems to be the most practical, applicable of all the new design philosophies, in that it also provides aspects of consistency with regards to color power levels (seeing as White and Blue have consistently been the best colors throughout Magic).
Also, they involve the fewest changes to the way the game operates.
- Zelderex
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Member for 13 years, 4 months, and 28 days
Last active Mon, Jul, 13 2015 02:01:34
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Jan 27, 2012Zelderex posted a message on Alternative Color Pie/Wheel Design/TheoriesPosted in: Tahazzar Blog
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Jan 20, 2012Zelderex posted a message on Honestly , Come On. New Legendary Equipment!It's definitely a commander card. Do I think it's good? Not really; especially not for that price. But eh.Posted in: KIllerKongo Blog
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Jan 19, 2012Zelderex posted a message on GREEN DECK WINS: STANDARDOkay, so it turns out I'm stupid busy today. The next two parts will show up during the weekend.Posted in: Zelderex Blog
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Jan 19, 2012Love it. How's BoP treating you? I'm worried that the deck won't curve out right.Posted in: FuneralofGod Blog
I'm iffy on the sideboard though. Lost in the Woods seems too slow tbh, and Grafdigger's is good against decks with copious artifact removal. I would just throw in a Spellbomb instead.
Maybe bump up your GSZ Count? Especially with all that ramp.
Other than that, it seems pretty solid. -
Jan 19, 2012Zelderex posted a message on GREEN DECK WINS: STANDARDTitan is too high on the curve, doubtful about Slime, and I dunno about BoP in an aggro deck.Posted in: Zelderex Blog
Good to know we're on pretty much the same page Funeral of Gods. -
Jan 17, 2012Zelderex posted a message on Dark Ascension Tastes Like CrapAlso; how the hell did Mikaeus send the letter?Posted in: Mockingbird Blog
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Jan 17, 2012Zelderex posted a message on Dark Ascension Tastes Like CrapI feel like Sorin was kinda flubbed, yeah. I was really hoping that he fled the plane when his noble house fell or some ****, forcing him to flee in the aftermath. The vault kinda confuses me too. What the **** is going on there?Posted in: Mockingbird Blog
What bugs me most though, is that this set is Esper. White, Blue and Black havemostall of the flavor. Red has...half of vampires? And half of werewolves! And uh...well, ****ing nothing. Same thing for green, except they get random forest monsters, and some werewolves.
I just don't think they're doing enough setup. They haven't introduced any real characters. Why wasn't the cavalry lieutenant on a card? Or either of the necromancers? Knowing this is a flavor set, they should have included more legends. Period. Right now, the second block still feels like setup. There's no tragedy that ****'s falling apart; it's just the way things have been. Every death is just a statistic. So when Avacyn comes home and fixes everything, we still get...well...nothing. Everything is back to the way it was during Innistrad! Woo! :|
The least they could do is give R/G some actual flavor. Every time that color pair comes up, there are a billion great ideas. A coalition of humans, werewolves, and whatever other creatures are trying to fight the undead? Lolnope.jpeg. Some ****ing legends? Feelsbadman.png. Only ONE mayor for Avabruck? Trollface.jpeg.
I can't help but feel like they've lost the art of character oriented storytelling. Lorywynn was the last set with a set of characters, groups, and themes that were truly enthralling, but they weren't even very well explored. -
Jan 17, 2012Zelderex posted a message on The Legends Of ViridianVerbine and Illik sound familiar...Magic Wars?Posted in: secrethumorman Blog
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Jan 11, 2012Zelderex posted a message on B/R Burn (Modern) UpdateMy two favorite things: Modern Rakdos Deck Wins and Primers, together!?!?! I love you.Posted in: Xenphire Blog
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Jan 9, 2012Zelderex posted a message on Currently Running52 land Modern? I'm curious.Posted in: The Corinthian Blog
I'm also curious about Mono G control. -
Jan 8, 2012Zelderex posted a message on On the Eve of the Next EraThis thing will be CRAZY ****ing nuts. But here's the thing you forgot:Posted in: Mockingbird Blog
****ING DREDGE.
Remember, it's not just red careful study.
It's careful study with ****ing flashback. That is literally printed on the card: "****ing flashback."
It does so much for consistency- being able to dredge big, hard, and repeatedly is gonna be huge, especially in Modern- where Dredge is successful, but needs some more oomph. This is some serious oomph. -
Jan 4, 2012Zelderex posted a message on [RET] Elvish Waves of WarSeems really good, actaully. I think your mana might be iffy, but I think that Asceticism is the only thing to even CONSIDER cutting for more lands. With that many nonland mana sources, you should be in the clear.Posted in: jander_blackheart Blog
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Jan 4, 2012Zelderex posted a message on FrustrationsYour casual group is full of dicks then. They'll probably let you borrow a deck; I know I lend out my decks all the time (I'm probably the poorest dude in my playgroup, but I'm the best deckbuilder, and second best player. So yeah)Posted in: Dakarai Blog
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Jan 4, 2012Zelderex posted a message on A tribute to the single seachrome coast I have in my deckI spent four months trying to get my playset (I had ONE). Then I finished it. Then I sold three of them today, for a 50% markup. Now I go and buy a new playset, AND get my SCMs.Posted in: Greatness at any cost
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I liked it. It was earnest, very direct and elegant, in a way unburdened by irony or modernism. The rhythm and structure were impeccable, and along with the staidness of the language, compounded to a work that reminds me a great deal of Frost. Excellent work
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We stand atop the mountain-
Bemoaning the thinness of the air
And the brightness of the Sun
Unaware of this great height
And the privilege of the sight
Unaware that we will never
Be able to make wrongs right
Never write our greatest works
And never see God unfurl
A mile long spool of truth
And drag it through the dirt-
A calloused fist raised at us-
Us; Who sprinted hard and ran
The gauntlet with jilted gaits
So that no one won the race
A finish line well never find-
Though the end is in our gaze.
Before us stands a specter:
A reflection and a ghost
Of the sins of past days
With a scratchy, haggard voice-
It sings a coded wall of noise:
A litany of mistakes and missteps
And a wellspring of regrets
That of us, implores:
"Feel you not, the heaving
Of your tired lungs?
The fading away of that
To which you clung?
Breathe- the end has come"
A few million years.
Not enough.
And never might have been.
Welcome to the twilight years-
The culmination Of unfelt fears
The Sprint is over, our world
Will Lilt and down the drain
We can only swirl-
It's already too late.
So look, Ye mighty-
Upon your work-
On your songs and
Your paintings
And your poems
And your porn-
And despair.
The dust will swirl
And the dirt will rise
And a foot, alone, will
Stand above the desert-
A plaque of golden bones,
Beholden to no man's gaze-
A reminder, from dead men
To dead friends-
"This is the only product of our days."
But! NEW SHABAZZ PALACES
Thank god. I've only listened to two singles so far, but both are incredible. This year might shape up well after all.
Felt like a lot of the pieces were a little clumsy and aimless this week (mine included), and ilvaldi just happens to have a really strong grasp on reeling in wandering thoughts. Echoe's was about...something? Actually, literally as I'm writing this I'm realizing that it was probably about blasting for oil, which clarifies quite a bit. Before now I was only sure that it was set in the desert, and they all wanted to be in San Francisco. Blippy successfully recreated Radiohead's most popular song. And I'm not sure what to make of "Netherlands wins on penalties" except to say that mexico would have lost sooner or later against a superior netherlands team, and that the title probably confounds the subject.
If nothing is forever then why doesn't guilt have a ceiling or a floor?
If nothing is forever then why won't forgiveness ever open the door?
We've all got a cross to bear- a torch to bear- lions and tigers and bears and a thousand yard stare
And sometimes god damnit life's just not fair
And sometimes at night you sneak outside and think about crying by the moonlight
But you can't because Buchowski never cried but you can't be Buchowski because you never smoke and you never wrote a thing worth the ink
And all the bling in the world won't give you a name
That doesn't roll around the inside of your mouth
Like a caged rat in its miniature madhouse
Like a bloated blue tinged floater bashing against the rocks
With the letters arranged all wrong for you to ever be worthy of a song
If nothing is forever then when can i stop writing?
Will there ever be a more perfect tomorrow sighting or am I just another chain link
In my own enclosures siding?
Am I an artist or an addict if I just can't stop?
I can't hop trains I can't jump ship
And By self harm do you mean every time I open my miserable lips
Because the ***** that slips through those two,
Man it's like a long corporate letter typed in comic sans
Or a too-long poem written by my shaky hands
It's the banality of being bland
Even my regret is second hand
I am not an artist because art is forever
I am not an artist because I am just a guy whose read too much and not lived enough
I am just a snuff film in real time broadcasting live to your captive eyes
If nothing is forever then what happens when I die?
If nothing is forever then how could nothing be forever
If nothing is forever then when will I reach the end of my lies the end of the line the sublime finish sign that signifies some sort of symbolic retort against my short lived life?
I am less than an artist at best I am lip service to the god of mediocrity on his laminate throne;
I am the bone unpicked I am 3.4 billion slightly below average dicks I am wasted mouse clicks in an ocean of information
I am a reminder that nothing and no one will ever be perfect
I am a reminder that this hollow, stale bull***** is all worth it
I liked Echoe's haiku, but I guess like all Haikus it felt missing something. Maybe that's the point. It just didn't have much weight, to me; it hit my mind like a feather and floated around but never burrowed into anything. Felt similarly about Talore's: it was a fine piece of allegory, but I don't know that it made me feel any differently about the wind, or the sun, or your perspective. Maybe it's just me being a bitter Southwest native.
I liked Ilvaldi's. I didn't love it, but I certainly liked it, and it was certainly the one I was able to read deepest into. The most obvious reason is the delightful butter/jelly wax/wane metaphor being one of the most creative I've ever heard. More personally, the lines about the mouth "educating its existence," to me, is a reminder of metaphysics, and the fact that all things exist only in relation to other things.
And as proud as I'd like to be of my formatting- I didn't even think of it that way at all. I wrote it down in a fairly straightforward format, but whenever I email my poems to myself (to get them from my phone to my computer) it clears all the formatting and replaces them with a wall of doublespaced text. I only kept it because I liked the conversational rhythm it lent the poem, which I found fitting given how much my poetry of late owes to Frost.
The rain came with the same
Sudden, bitter chill of the first
"No" heard.
A gulletful of denials
Spilled drunkenly
And in waves-
A thing of such
Healing and such
Hurtful splendor-
That the sun covered
Her face until cracked
Soil smiled in surrender-
A small thing,
Resigned to regal
Roilings in the sky.
I liked it. I liked Intensely Personal, it just felt a little clumsy. But maybe that was the point. Wireless I think suffered from a bit of a classic misstep of clunky rhymes; my advice is to focus on the meter (syllable counts; stressed/unstressed patterns) rather than the rhyme initially, since that's what makes it actually sound good. Everything else was good but not remarkable.
I'd write for that
We are the last wave gone by.
We are the dying of the light.
We are the gold; hard held by
nature's failing hands-
A hard edge on soft skin-
An ill wind blown in gentle ears.
We'll try and count the books
while the library burns;
A function of frailty
leaves no stone unturned
I think I might hate the album. I'm serious. Even as a huge fan of Sage and his whole sect of battle rap indie diehards, the schtick is tired. He's officially milked it dry. At best; it sounded like a tired retread of his last couple albums and EPs, and at worst it sounded like Sage had no ******* clue what he wanted to do. The first track, to me, was the most telling. The schizoid tangle of random sounds works for guys like Mac Miller who, musically, make very bizarre music in the name of experimentation- Sage doesn't have that. He's very proudly anti- experimentation in hip hop. It feels bizarre that he's still fighting against the "current" state of hip hop, when hip hop is perhaps at it's most experimental stage ever- Mac Miller and Chance the Rapper and Young Thug are huge and Childish Gambino is accepted at the top of the rap mountain. I don't know what right Sage has to be mad about anymore. I would've much rather heard him doing weird type ***** with the weird type people in the indie rap sphere than hear him do his normal "Rap Game Buddy Wakefield"
I agree, 2014 hip hop has been a joke.
No, but in all seriousness, almost nothing has come out this year. There were some Kanye snippets...that immediately disappeared off the internet. The Roots have a new album out, it's not bad I guess. Mac Miller put out his "faces," mixtape, which I have mixed feelings about, but overall it's a pretty solid listen. Oh and then there's LIL B THE BASEDGOD'S HOOP LIFE MIXTAPE for the based fam. Anybody got anything else on their radar?