I still need to foil out/japanese out my Thraximundar EDH and Karrthus EDH. It's a slow process...
In other news, looks like Roger is finally having some character development. Plus, second semester has begun and I'm looking forward to all of my classes.
I'm so excited for gameday, I really want one of those Black Sun's Zenith.
Something at the back of Roger's mind told him what he was doing was impossible. But the void, which held firmly in his mind, prevented such thoughts from becoming cognizant. The control was building. Purple fire danced around them, a tango of light and darkness sending unnatural shadows across the walls of the dark alleyway. Roger could feel the energy building around him; mana was building up and drawing into him, it seemed to ignite. The Maelstrom felt close. Like he could reach out and take it.
The control raged around him as the sky-rupture seethed. It was as if, for the first time in his life, he could really feel the world around him. He reached out and could touch something new. It was life and growth, love and peace, but most importantly it was salvation. As the control surged around him he felt himself become weightless. His consciousness suddenly became aware of another place; one full of life. He felt drawn to it and his consciousness moved toward it. After a short time the control began to get heavy and he was losing it. Pain began to build up inside him and he began spiraling out, losing his orientation. He reached out for the closest thing he could get and pulled. His vision stretched out before him and pain exploded out of him as the control escaped. He could feel the earth around him, the ground was wet and there was rain above him. The air was different. He recognized the smell of death, but it was mixed with something new, something alive. The smell of it, let alone the sight and touch, nearly caused Roger to collapse. Roger took hold of a tree, pulling himself out of the bog and onto dryer land. He could see the an enormous light in the distance. It was warm and full of life. He almost reached out to it before he finally fell unconscious from exhaustion.
As Roger relived his memories he could feel the Maelstrom again. It was a far of beacon, pulsing through the chaos, he thought he could sense other beacons, but they did not resonate like this one did. As the control raged around him Roger began to pull again, this time lighter than before. He was "testing the waters" and trying to get a feel for it. It was like remembering a dance after years of unuse. After a short while he could feel it, if he wanted he could simply take it. For some reason he paused.
His thoughts were scattered, furious, and confused. He suddenly remembered a trick he learned... somewhere, that was used to calm himself. As he went through the motions, bringing up a void and plunging all his fear, hatrid, sorrow, and anger into the void, he began to realize exactly where he first did this. In the darkness of that place Roger occasionally encountered others, people who were trying to survive, just like him. There was one man he encountered, a man who must have been 40 or more years old, who astounded Roger. The man, who referred to himself as "The Monk," was an impossibility. He claimed to have been 46 years old. Roger didn't believe him, but he still listened to what he had to say and committed to memory the things he taught him. The man claimed to have lived so long by knowing how to control his emotions, keeping the panic away and allowing him to act and think clearly.
Finally, Grol's words settled in and Roger could think about them clearly. The darkness of his mind fell away, the fog parted, and everything was clearer. "Survive, yes I did that. I did much more than that. There was a man I encountered as a child who taught me, over a few days, what it took to overcome the dread. Fear became a weapon just as much as my dagger and spells. I was no longer a slave to emotions and could think without trouble. That was a turning point for survival, just as the castle was a turning point for my life. I became so good at pushing my fear aside that it became second nature. But that night, in the darkness of the castle, my fear finally broke free. There was a hoard after me, and... something else was hunting me. I had evaded them successfully for several days, but was running out of options and time. The castle, once the last place I had ever wanted to enter, was the only "safe" place I knew of anymore. Yet this time, the hoard didn't stop. The castle was wrong, as if something had broken it or corrupted it. I could feel it everywhere inside. The walls felt dead, more dead than usual. It was as if a Maelstrom was brewing with the castle as a focal point. But I didn't dare leave, not with half of Grixis on my tail."
Roger had another flash of incite. Rumors. Why where there rumors about HIM floating around? Roger knew he wasn't anything special, he was a survivor. He was just like everyone else who wasn't a rotter. Yet the rumors persisted.
"It really was half of Grixis too. At least half of the Grixis that I knew. A few days before the chase began I started to pick up the rumors. People wanted me, and they didn't care if I was alive or dead. So I packed up stores for a long journey and tried to get as far away from "civilization" as possible. Someone must have betrayed me because it wasn't long before I was dodging spells and running from the undead. So I planned my retreat to my sanctuary." Roger began pondering why there would be rumors about him floating about, but pushed that thought into the void.
For Roger, Surviving the hoard was easy. All you had to do was have distractions ready, have good athletics, and something tall to climb or made of stone to hide inside. They were not intelligent. Even when they were driven by a demon or slaver they lacked basic problem solving skills. But there were times when running and distractions were futile, that was when Roger had to take control the the situation by force.
Control. Was the only word Roger could think of to describe how it worked. He simply took control. It was hard for Roger to describe exactly how it worked, but in the few situations where it happened the zombies would start to fall apart, or attack one another, or flee, or a myriad of other strange reactions. The event always left Roger with a hole in his memory and a feeling of accomplishment. He would also feel drained, like he had overchanneled.
In the castle, however, when he was overwhelmed by the oncoming hoards, climbing higher and higher to the the top. The control wouldn't come. He reached the rooftops and sealed the gates behind him. This is the closest Roger has come to realizing his true memories of the event. It was at the top of the castle, with the hoard driven to chase him, that he saw it. It was a hole, of sorts, but it was also a hurricane of nightmarish reality. It was unnervingly peaceful, yet furious as berserker demon. That hole stretched above the castle and seemed be pulling something out of grixis, like a sieve or drain. Now that Roger could think about it coherently and knew more of the multiverse, he realized that it was pulling white and green mana out of grixis into the blind eternities.
So, Roger and Roger fought one another, one embodying the void, and one an avatar of fear. Each of them struggled to take the control. The hoard was approaching and there wasn't much time. The struggle grew in Roger's head, he knew that he NEEDED to act now or he was going to die here and now. Each side was siezing for control grasping around it, trying to get a strong hand hold. Then, finally, each had a firm grip on it. The Malestrom shuddered and the drain's spiral accelerated. The control was no longer being directed at the hoard, but it was being pulled into the maelstrom. The wasn't anything for Roger to do but hold on, and brace for the fall.
Roger snapped back to reality. The Ogre stood in front of him, waiting. Roger took a moment to rethink events, then finally said, "I remember." A dark purple aura began to dance of his back like flames.
I would consider dropping the following cards, because of your tendency to play multi-player (and in many cases, because there are simply better cards):
Kor Firewalker
Ingot Chewer
Hateflayer
Greater Gargadon
Dawn Charm
lightning helix
maybe catagory:
Cradle of Vitality
Gratuitous violence
Koth of the Hammer
My suggestions: Mimic Vat, this card will give you the wonderful ability to re-fling your guys. Which seems like a pretty good idea. Plus, you can fling your guy at another and then steal it with the vat
I'll be fine with whoever.
However, school is killer at the moment so I can't really say when I'll be able to post. Especially since I've been refusing to post unless I can make it, in my eyes, a quality post.
In that case this really does seem like a move to promote b'n'm store TO over those who just run tourneys. WotC apparently feels it's core business needs some support and that support will be leeched from non-store TOs.
But this doesn't justify killing prereleases and FNMs in locations nowhere near a store. Take the London example earlier in this thread, how are they going to play consistent competitive magic now that they don't have a store to go play at?
But, hey. Apparently whining enough will convince Wizards to do anything. Maybe it'll work to change the policy in the RIGHT direction.
I have no idea ho the system works as I'm not a TO, but can't you affiliate yourself with a store and just rent space for FNMs and/or Pre through the store? Like, you do all the work, they just sign here and here? Or does the rules stipulate the event has to be held in store (as in, on the premises) ?
In theory, yes. But what store is going to do this when they can do it themselves (you know, make money and gain customers)? To them, you are just competition and a leech of their players. Trust me, I've tried to do this before and the answer is always the same.
I dont want to seem like i agree with this idea but WotC is doin this to protect themselves and the integrity of Premier Events and FNM. Many People obtain the rights to hold these events illegally by making up players and running events that dont happen to sell the items on ebay.
This does suck for a lot of people. But they arent doin this to screw the people that do this legit. They just want to cut out the people abusing the system. There are probably more TOs that just sell the items other than use this for promoting the game like they should.
But this is unbelievably easy to track down and stop. It seems like it would be easier for them to force TOs to sign a contract about this (rather than terms of service) to keep the baddies from abusing the system. What they are doing is playground logic.
i live just outside of london and as far as i know, none of the clubs in and around london take place in retail locations. does that mean all the clubs in town are now boned?
where does that leave the games club? they arent a store but run massive pre-releases
Where does this leave a lot of us? What if you were trying to make a business out of being a tournament organizer, but don't have a store? Is this sounding similar to "Games club?" I imagine that this is VERY bad news for them.
Is magic now only for people who live in big cities or are fortunate enough to live near a card shop? I sure hope not.
The main reason I have so many players right now is because of the FNM foils and the Prerelease foils (and the prerelease itself). If it weren't for the giveaways (I get gateways as well) and the freebies from the tournaments I don't think I would have successful events. Now that these are gone I stand to lose many (if not all) of my players.
And this is not because they are going to go somewhere else, but because they'll either have "something better" to do on Friday nights or don't want to participate because they can't win anything special.
Basically those of us who worked hard over the months and years just had the rug pulled out from under us. we down here in the middle of nowhere new mexico will now have to drive 3 to 4 hours (depending on fast you drive etc..) to go an FNM,instead of just heading over to peter pipers pizza.
However we'll still be do a basic event,jsut not FNM, pre-release or gamedays.
And if you noticed they will also be only sending one promo kit a year instead of with each new set to those without stores.
I don't have it quite as bad, being about 40 minutes away from the nearest store with an FNM, however, I don't have a car on campus, and neither do most of my players. And I DID notice that we only get one kit a year, which is killer for me and for wizards because it's really hard to push magic onto new players if you can't give them incentive to keep playing (God I sound like a drug dealer).
In Wizards of the Coast's continuing global efforts to build strong Magic and D&D player communities in hobby stores, WPN levels and benefits will apply solely to stores as of the December Friday Night Magic solicitation round starting October 15th. This change will also appear in the Mirrodin Besieged Prerelease solicitation round starting October 18th. This change allows Wizards to better leverage the strengths of the WPN and our programs, maximizing their impact for stores and promoting the formation of vibrant player communities.
Stores will earn WPN levels based on all sanctioned OP activity that they sponsor. All WPN programs, including Prereleases, D&D Encounters and FNM, will be given exclusively to store locations.
Most stores and organizers will notice no change with this shift. The vast majority of Organized Play already happens in retail locations. However, we do have individual organizers who are not associated with specific stores. We encourage these organizers to team up with a local retailer so their players can enjoy the great programs at the store's WPN level!
For those organizers unable to associate with a store, we will offer an Event Support Kit starting with Mirrodin Besieged. This kit will be identical to the Gateway Support Kit for the most recent Core set (Magic 2011 in this case), and will refresh with each new Core set. Organizers not associated with a store will also have access to rated and casual sanctioned events.
For more information please refer to the detailed FAQ, or contact your dedicated Wizards of the Coast support team at 800.324.6496 or online at www.wizards.com/customerservice.
tl;dr version:
Any Tournament Organizers, like myself, who run events outside of stores will no longer be able to hold FNMs and Prereleases.
Well, there goes 2 years of work, building up a tournament base and gaining prereleases at my college. We went from having 5-10 players (if we were lucky) to having 30+ people in attendance over just this last year. Now I'm going to have to explain to them how we will no longer have FNM or Prereleases here.
I'm so angry right now, but more than that, I'm sad that this good thing I built up from the ground is going away over one email.
"I do not, but if I were to guess I would say that he took it for himself." There was still something about the image that bothered him. It likely had to do with his form. His deformed, skeletal, rotting body seemed an amalgamation of creatures and humans, wanting the strongest body for himself. As though he were living necromantic power.
Perhaps, as long as the quality stays up, I don't care how long this takes.
Roger instantly recognized the creature who stood before him. His name, escaping Roger currently, was one that would strike fear into the people of Grixis sane enough to still possess it. This man held the magic Roger had, conscience or no, been searching for for a large part of his life. Absolute power over dead, the life blood (or death blood) of Roger's home. There was something else about this man Roger couldn't quite remember, something he thought was important. But, for lack of memory, Roger ignored this fact. He, instead, focused on the rising tide of undead. Everything seemed to bend to the Traitor King's will. This force, so prevailing in Grixis, was the type of force that could bury planes; a relentless onslaught of death and redeath, all at the hands of the Traitor King. However, Roger knew that the Traitor King was trapped on Grixis, if he was still around, so there was little to worry about in the present.
"I know this man." Roger paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, "some call him "Traitor King." He holds much of the power of Grixis in his hands."
In other news, looks like Roger is finally having some character development. Plus, second semester has begun and I'm looking forward to all of my classes.
I'm so excited for gameday, I really want one of those Black Sun's Zenith.
The control raged around him as the sky-rupture seethed. It was as if, for the first time in his life, he could really feel the world around him. He reached out and could touch something new. It was life and growth, love and peace, but most importantly it was salvation. As the control surged around him he felt himself become weightless. His consciousness suddenly became aware of another place; one full of life. He felt drawn to it and his consciousness moved toward it. After a short time the control began to get heavy and he was losing it. Pain began to build up inside him and he began spiraling out, losing his orientation. He reached out for the closest thing he could get and pulled. His vision stretched out before him and pain exploded out of him as the control escaped. He could feel the earth around him, the ground was wet and there was rain above him. The air was different. He recognized the smell of death, but it was mixed with something new, something alive. The smell of it, let alone the sight and touch, nearly caused Roger to collapse. Roger took hold of a tree, pulling himself out of the bog and onto dryer land. He could see the an enormous light in the distance. It was warm and full of life. He almost reached out to it before he finally fell unconscious from exhaustion.
As Roger relived his memories he could feel the Maelstrom again. It was a far of beacon, pulsing through the chaos, he thought he could sense other beacons, but they did not resonate like this one did. As the control raged around him Roger began to pull again, this time lighter than before. He was "testing the waters" and trying to get a feel for it. It was like remembering a dance after years of unuse. After a short while he could feel it, if he wanted he could simply take it. For some reason he paused.
"I believe I have found what we are looking for."
His thoughts were scattered, furious, and confused. He suddenly remembered a trick he learned... somewhere, that was used to calm himself. As he went through the motions, bringing up a void and plunging all his fear, hatrid, sorrow, and anger into the void, he began to realize exactly where he first did this. In the darkness of that place Roger occasionally encountered others, people who were trying to survive, just like him. There was one man he encountered, a man who must have been 40 or more years old, who astounded Roger. The man, who referred to himself as "The Monk," was an impossibility. He claimed to have been 46 years old. Roger didn't believe him, but he still listened to what he had to say and committed to memory the things he taught him. The man claimed to have lived so long by knowing how to control his emotions, keeping the panic away and allowing him to act and think clearly.
Finally, Grol's words settled in and Roger could think about them clearly. The darkness of his mind fell away, the fog parted, and everything was clearer. "Survive, yes I did that. I did much more than that. There was a man I encountered as a child who taught me, over a few days, what it took to overcome the dread. Fear became a weapon just as much as my dagger and spells. I was no longer a slave to emotions and could think without trouble. That was a turning point for survival, just as the castle was a turning point for my life. I became so good at pushing my fear aside that it became second nature. But that night, in the darkness of the castle, my fear finally broke free. There was a hoard after me, and... something else was hunting me. I had evaded them successfully for several days, but was running out of options and time. The castle, once the last place I had ever wanted to enter, was the only "safe" place I knew of anymore. Yet this time, the hoard didn't stop. The castle was wrong, as if something had broken it or corrupted it. I could feel it everywhere inside. The walls felt dead, more dead than usual. It was as if a Maelstrom was brewing with the castle as a focal point. But I didn't dare leave, not with half of Grixis on my tail."
Roger had another flash of incite. Rumors. Why where there rumors about HIM floating around? Roger knew he wasn't anything special, he was a survivor. He was just like everyone else who wasn't a rotter. Yet the rumors persisted.
"It really was half of Grixis too. At least half of the Grixis that I knew. A few days before the chase began I started to pick up the rumors. People wanted me, and they didn't care if I was alive or dead. So I packed up stores for a long journey and tried to get as far away from "civilization" as possible. Someone must have betrayed me because it wasn't long before I was dodging spells and running from the undead. So I planned my retreat to my sanctuary." Roger began pondering why there would be rumors about him floating about, but pushed that thought into the void.
For Roger, Surviving the hoard was easy. All you had to do was have distractions ready, have good athletics, and something tall to climb or made of stone to hide inside. They were not intelligent. Even when they were driven by a demon or slaver they lacked basic problem solving skills. But there were times when running and distractions were futile, that was when Roger had to take control the the situation by force.
Control. Was the only word Roger could think of to describe how it worked. He simply took control. It was hard for Roger to describe exactly how it worked, but in the few situations where it happened the zombies would start to fall apart, or attack one another, or flee, or a myriad of other strange reactions. The event always left Roger with a hole in his memory and a feeling of accomplishment. He would also feel drained, like he had overchanneled.
In the castle, however, when he was overwhelmed by the oncoming hoards, climbing higher and higher to the the top. The control wouldn't come. He reached the rooftops and sealed the gates behind him. This is the closest Roger has come to realizing his true memories of the event. It was at the top of the castle, with the hoard driven to chase him, that he saw it. It was a hole, of sorts, but it was also a hurricane of nightmarish reality. It was unnervingly peaceful, yet furious as berserker demon. That hole stretched above the castle and seemed be pulling something out of grixis, like a sieve or drain. Now that Roger could think about it coherently and knew more of the multiverse, he realized that it was pulling white and green mana out of grixis into the blind eternities.
So, Roger and Roger fought one another, one embodying the void, and one an avatar of fear. Each of them struggled to take the control. The hoard was approaching and there wasn't much time. The struggle grew in Roger's head, he knew that he NEEDED to act now or he was going to die here and now. Each side was siezing for control grasping around it, trying to get a strong hand hold. Then, finally, each had a firm grip on it. The Malestrom shuddered and the drain's spiral accelerated. The control was no longer being directed at the hoard, but it was being pulled into the maelstrom. The wasn't anything for Roger to do but hold on, and brace for the fall.
Roger snapped back to reality. The Ogre stood in front of him, waiting. Roger took a moment to rethink events, then finally said, "I remember." A dark purple aura began to dance of his back like flames.
I just thought I would herald my own return. I will return to being an activish member of the clan and the RPG in about 10 days!
This whole past month has been much more busy than I had anticipated. BUT, I'll be back once I return from Florida.
I hope those of you who can go to the prerelease (unfortunately I cannot...) have a good time and pull some great stuff.
-Cya in a week or so.
Kor Firewalker
Ingot Chewer
Hateflayer
Greater Gargadon
Dawn Charm
lightning helix
maybe catagory:
Cradle of Vitality
Gratuitous violence
Koth of the Hammer
My suggestions:
Mimic Vat, this card will give you the wonderful ability to re-fling your guys. Which seems like a pretty good idea. Plus, you can fling your guy at another and then steal it with the vat
Insurrection. Really. Just use this card.
An Eldrazi Titan (or both of them).
Earthquake.
Viashino Heretic. Read this card, then read it again, then be happy I showed it to you.
Luminarch Ascension. This card gets really really dumb in multiplayer.
Kor Haven. Another maze won't hurt...
Mystifying Maze same reason.
Elspeth, Knight Errant. Most planeswalkers are good.
Gideon Jura One of the most annoying cards to deal with. Plus, you can fling him.
Magus if the tabernacle. Combos with War's Toll
Hope these help
I dunno, mono-black EDH is limited, and poison is VERY narrow.
As for something chaotic? It might work to use one of the PC dragons, I've always liked Teneb and Intet.
Otherwise I could post up my Thraximundar or Rith, the Awakener lists, they've never steered me wrong.
However, school is killer at the moment so I can't really say when I'll be able to post. Especially since I've been refusing to post unless I can make it, in my eyes, a quality post.
But this doesn't justify killing prereleases and FNMs in locations nowhere near a store. Take the London example earlier in this thread, how are they going to play consistent competitive magic now that they don't have a store to go play at?
But, hey. Apparently whining enough will convince Wizards to do anything. Maybe it'll work to change the policy in the RIGHT direction.
In theory, yes. But what store is going to do this when they can do it themselves (you know, make money and gain customers)? To them, you are just competition and a leech of their players. Trust me, I've tried to do this before and the answer is always the same.
But this is unbelievably easy to track down and stop. It seems like it would be easier for them to force TOs to sign a contract about this (rather than terms of service) to keep the baddies from abusing the system. What they are doing is playground logic.
Where does this leave a lot of us? What if you were trying to make a business out of being a tournament organizer, but don't have a store? Is this sounding similar to "Games club?" I imagine that this is VERY bad news for them.
Is magic now only for people who live in big cities or are fortunate enough to live near a card shop? I sure hope not.
And this is not because they are going to go somewhere else, but because they'll either have "something better" to do on Friday nights or don't want to participate because they can't win anything special.
I don't have it quite as bad, being about 40 minutes away from the nearest store with an FNM, however, I don't have a car on campus, and neither do most of my players. And I DID notice that we only get one kit a year, which is killer for me and for wizards because it's really hard to push magic onto new players if you can't give them incentive to keep playing (God I sound like a drug dealer).
tl;dr version:
Any Tournament Organizers, like myself, who run events outside of stores will no longer be able to hold FNMs and Prereleases.
Well, there goes 2 years of work, building up a tournament base and gaining prereleases at my college. We went from having 5-10 players (if we were lucky) to having 30+ people in attendance over just this last year. Now I'm going to have to explain to them how we will no longer have FNM or Prereleases here.
I'm so angry right now, but more than that, I'm sad that this good thing I built up from the ground is going away over one email.
Roger instantly recognized the creature who stood before him. His name, escaping Roger currently, was one that would strike fear into the people of Grixis sane enough to still possess it. This man held the magic Roger had, conscience or no, been searching for for a large part of his life. Absolute power over dead, the life blood (or death blood) of Roger's home. There was something else about this man Roger couldn't quite remember, something he thought was important. But, for lack of memory, Roger ignored this fact. He, instead, focused on the rising tide of undead. Everything seemed to bend to the Traitor King's will. This force, so prevailing in Grixis, was the type of force that could bury planes; a relentless onslaught of death and redeath, all at the hands of the Traitor King. However, Roger knew that the Traitor King was trapped on Grixis, if he was still around, so there was little to worry about in the present.
"I know this man." Roger paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, "some call him "Traitor King." He holds much of the power of Grixis in his hands."