3 Bits Post PAX

First: I played a very small Legacy event at PAX; 6 players. When we were told that the prize for that event-an uncut foil common sheet from M14-wouldn't be given to us for such a small pool, we'd be given packs instead, OH THE WHINING.

It wasn't many people-two, really-but holy shit were they upset. One person didn't finish his match, simply dropping to get his entry fee ($10) back. There were a couple guys who came in late and tried to register but were denied and again OH THE WHINING. The people who wanted in made it sound like we were suckers for wanting to play. I'm glad they didn't get in, now: they didn't seem like fun people to play against.

The hell with that, man. I just wanted to play some games. I didn't prepare though and it cost me. I was playing an unmodified version of All Nightmare Long, which means it was underpowered and not nearly powered up enough for what I was going to deal with.

My first match was against a Glimpse/Kobolds deck that the pilot admitted was janky. However, I lost the critical game 2 when he stalled out in his combo and had to attack with Signal Pest....and 16 other creatures.Which was fine, except that on my turn, instead of killing Signal Pest, I went for an Ornithopter, so I could get in...4 more damage.

In my defense, the Signal Pest was buried under many kobolds and I could not easily make out what my possible targets were. However, that's the only excuse: I wasn't paying enough attention to the life totals, (I thought his was lower) and I certainly could have paused to really take stock of the board before making my decision. This might have given me time to see what the best play was. 

My final matchup (I got a bye round 2) was against a mono-U wizard tribal deck that existed to counter everything and then watch you commit suicide from sheer frustration. In the 3rd game, I thought I had a decent start with my opening hand having a turn 2 and turn 3 Tidehollow Sculler to play...and his turn 2 went: Island, Chrome Mox removing blue card, Patron Wizard.

And that was that.

Next year, remember cards with Split Second.

Second: remember those two guys who bailed on the Legacy event? Well, with just four of us left and in our final round, the judge said that the prize could be split evenly amongst the four of us, if we agreed to it. We did and I pulled this. So that doesn't suck!

Third: the Theros previews. I am not a fan, so far. Man, every time they decide to emphasize flavor over function, I seem to have issues. Kamigawa, Innistrad, and now Theros. But I'll talk about that next time.

Oh yes: I decided to replace the Still Life in Hexagram for Energy Field. I don't know that it's a good idea, but it certainly seems like a not bad one!

Also

I'm going to PAX this week, so I have no idea what kind of time I'm going to have to play Magic or talk about anything. If there's a Legacy event, I certainly hope to do that, even if I'm just going in without a sideboard and hoping for the best.

But I don't think there will be a post on Thursday, however I hope I'll have something for Tuesday, September 3rd.

The challenge

I'm going to PAX tomorrow, leaving early to meet some friends. Friday I'll probably trip about and Saturday I hope I can find some people to play Magic with but if not, no worries. Something will come up.

The bigger challenge is actually the day before, when I meet up with Jason. Jason continually builds solid decks that approach the game from very different angles, which for years left me flummoxed. Part of it was that I built decks poorly, always hoping that I could throw a kitchen sink into a deck and make it work, no matter what strange ideas were in there.

Now I know better. That doesn't mean I get it perfect; I still like weird ideas. Clearly. Hopefully I execute them better but they frequently need work. It's also a nice bar to work from: Can this weird deck manage to take on his weird deck? If yes, then I should explore the idea. If not, then I may need to scrap it or just get some help.

Which is the flip side: Jason and I worked on a lot of decks together and we frequently sharpened them up as a result of the other's advice. His focus frequently beat out my kitchen sink approach but both of us benefited from the perspective of the other.

Now that he's not around to help out as much...I want to show off a little and bring some cool things. It's fun to try and come up with situations that he hasn't seen or thought about--and I'll admit there's a tiny rivalry on my part to come up with things that pants him.

At the same time, I expect to learn a whole lot about what is and isn't working. I will lose and that's ok. The bummer? That I won't have access to my card library so I can make changes as they come up!

The other part of this is: No more posting until next week. Lots of games, not a lot of writing.

The Waiting Game

On September 30th  the next standalone set for Magic comes out; Innistrad,. Very little is known at this time, of course, since previews are always kept under wraps in order to generate as much hype as possible. The first big sightings of cards will probably be at PAX. Which I'm going to!

But I probably won't bother with much. Here's why: you have to play a game to get a ticket to the event where the new cards will be on display. That's cool, right? A fun way to generate some excitement, since everyone is at a gaming convention anyway and yeah, I tend to like this.

What I don't like is being packed into a tiny, labyrinthine club designed by the architects from Hell and Florence, with sweating, hyper excited people trying to vie for space to see cards and being told I have to play another game. Just give me my free drink, let me see the cards and talk to people and relax. If you want another game, have a lottery! Something where I don't have to pay attention to win, I can just look around and enjoy. There isn't space to play a game of the nature WotC wants to run and I wish they'd just stop it.

That tiny rant aside, what I do know about Innistrad are two things: First, that the set will have a lot of classic horror themes: vampires, werewolves, zombies and ghosts. Humans are included but humans are always horrible and boring to boot. Going to magical planes where fantastical creatures exist to find white guys is not what I'd call rating high on the excite-o-meter.

Second; the set will have a graveyard-based mechanics, including the return of a classic, Flashback. Which is just fine, since I have decks that use the graveyard as a resource. I can solidify decks that were shaky or modify concepts that were good but needed help.

It also means that suddenly, decks that I might want to talk about or have had inspirations on, have to be put into a holding pattern around my brain. In some cases, as with my Children of the Grave deck (coming soon to this blog!) I want to wait to see if any of the new cards help me with the strategy of that deck (in this case a reanimation deck) or if the mechanics help other decks, including one I have that uses Flashback specifically. At the same time, there are other decks, such as Frenzy-also soon to appear at this blog-where I'm waiting for a card to rotate out, to see if I can pick it up for cheaper. Though with the creation of the Modern format, that day may not come so I'll just have to suck it up. Maybe.

Through all that, of course, I wait. There's nothing for me to get excited or despair about so it's better to just focus on what matters; the now.

No post on Thursday though, as I'll be in Seattle preparing for the insanity that is PAX.