Weekend Update…

I started the morning with some play testing of decks. I felt the decks were showing some progress. I also stared testing a new mono-black infect deck. Unfortunately, I do not have all the cards I needed to build it quite yet.

I’ll need a few more budget cards. After watching Brian Kibler play MTGO on the livestream yesterday, I decided to pick up Arms Dealer as well. They were only 3 cents. I’ve also been watching South Florida Magic webcasts on Saturday night. Watching the live play events is a nice way to spend some time. Once in a while, I learn about a decent budget card. The broadcasts run pretty late on east coast time, so I never know who eventually wins.

Tonight I managed to make it over to Cool Stuff Games for their Open play day. In Orlando, gaming seems to be everywhere and there always seems to be an opportunity somewhere. Orlando shows signs of the weak national economic conditions. There are plenty of empty retail spaces and houses in the neighborhoods. Despite the economic realities, the people I meet are upbeat and friendly.

The store is admittedly a bit hard to find.

When I stepped inside I was struck by the great play area. It was very busy with people buying MTG intro packs and playing a lot of different games. There were people shopping at computer terminals connected to the website. I am seeing this more and more in stores.

Looking for a game, I spoke to some people who had picked up some intro packs and were very excited about building their decks. Eventually, I was able to get a game going. It was a casual match and my opponent was playing a proxy deck. It is not a Delver deck at all- it looked like a U/B Tezzeret build. I ran Red Faction 2 side-boarded. It was competitive for a while, but ultimately collapsed and went down in defeat. The deck could not overcome the Act of Treason that fizzled when the targeted Wurmcoil was sacrificed by the Phyrexia’s Core in response. Next I tried my undeveloped mono-black infect deck. When a deck is not done, it just is not done. I had some fun with the Ichor Rats, but my infect stalled and I lost another round. The third round I ran my more tested and developed Demonic Seclusion deck and won. The deck is enjoyable to play and seems to perform alright in casual play. I may get rid of the Grave Exchange for a lower mana cost alternative.

Most players I interact with seem to be adjusting their decks in anticipation of the rotation. There is as much discussion about the impact of the cards that will be rotating out as there is about the impact of the new cards in M13.

A casual Monday night game of Magic is a nice kick start to the week. Hopefully, I can follow it up with some more deck building and a few games tomorrow. I plan on going over to Magic Inferno and collect my Arms Dealers.

As the community pool will be open, I also plan on enjoying some sun and fun as well.

Missing the Magic

I did not make it to FNM last night. I am not sure I missed much. It is unlikely my decks would have been competitive and I was able to purchase a few budget singles at Magic Inferno today by not spending the money at the FNM. I opted to pick up a full set of Rings for very little money. Aside from Ring of Evos, most of the other Rings seem a bit vulnerable to Delver deck style Vapor Snag.

I also picked up quite a few other very interesting budget cards to build some new decks and to complete some other budget deck ideas. All in all, I spent around $6.

I played three friendly rounds (and lost 3 rounds), but still had a great conversation about possible reprints in RTR and mana curves. Later, I discovered one of my opponent’s cards in my collection. I pacified a Boneyard Wurm and apparently picked it up without noticing. I returned to the shop and left it with the owner who knows the player and will return it to him. I’ve been on the other end of that as well and I know it’s nice to get your cards back quickly and safely.

Speaking of Delver, I took a look at some of the new Drake/Delver decks using Talrand and tried to construct a few budget decks which might be able to defeat Delver. None of the decks always worked, but let’s talk about some common Delver attributes. Obviously, each Delver deck is different and poses different threats, but some commons elements remain.

Delver decks like to unsummon. They are very good at targeting your creatures. I feel having an extremely low mana curve is critical when playing against Delver. Delver likes to Vapor Snag/Unsummon your creatures. Delver likes to use Mana Leaks. Low cost cards allow you to recast creatures affordably or pay the Mana Leak cost. It would seem having a hexproof or shrouded creature would help a lot, but playing budget decks built with a lot of hexproof creatures did not seem to work out. Only Invisible Stalker had a low enough casting cost to really justify the approach.

Delver decks should be leary of bouncing creatures that trigger abilities. For example, creatures like Fiend Hunter, Skinrender, Acidic Slime, or Aether Adept simply require recasting and trigger horrible abilities. Essence Scatter or another counterspell will simply cancel the recasting. Mana Leak might subsequently counter the recasting so it is important to choose low mana creatures in anticipation of a Mana Leak.

Delver does not like artifacts/enchantments nearly as much. Although a Delver deck often has Mana Leak or Negate, low cost artifacts and enchantments can bypass the Mana Leaks. Artifacts or Enchantments like Chalice of Life/Death or Curse of the Pierced Heart might get by a Mana Leak, for example.

Many of Delver’s creatures are vulnerable to Rolling Temblor. Rolling Temblor can kill hexproof creatures like Invisible Stalker, Talrand, or Geist of Saint Traft or an unflipped Delver. Still, you need to use Temblor with care. It is helpful to have creatures that will survive the use of Temblor like a bloodthirsted Stormblood Besereker, a Dragon Hatchling, or an Heir of Stromkirk with one counter. For casting purposes, I would stick with a Dragon Hatchling over Heir of Stromkirk. Likewise Temblor can be cast again paying a high Flashback cost. Other creatures are vulnerable to common burn spells like Pillar of Flame, Incinerate/Searing Spear, or Shock. Obviously, red has a lot of removal that can effectively reduce Delver’s attacks.

Delver decks usually have some kind of equipment that makes a small threat a serious one. Runechanter’s Pike or other artifacts need to be confronted with counters like Smelt or Oblivion Ring.

Overall, my tests in trying to counter Delver style decks using budget decks have resulted in mixed experiences. Delver remains fairly competitive. Also, a deck designed to beat Delver is ill-suited for dealing with many other threats and is of limited utility in other circumstances.

Here is Anti-D, a budget red deck I’ve been proto-typing to try to understand Delver better. It is a tool for trying to figure out what makes Delver tick.

Instant (12)

4x Incinerate
4x Shock
4x Smelt

Sorcery (8)

4x Pillar of Flame
4x Rolling Temblor

Enchantment (2)

2x Curse of the Pierced Heart

Artifact (6)

3x Elixir of Immortality
3x Pristine Talisman

Creature (8)

4x Dragon Hatchling
4x Stormblood Berserker

Land (24)

24x Mountain

The deck does have a rather useless sideboard. I have not tried the side deck for anything and I won’t include the list here.

This is still very much a test deck and not very practical in any case. It might beat Delver sometimes, but it probably won’t be effective at anything else.

Let’s see if we can put something together that resembles a more balanced deck while incorporating some of the earlier ideas.

Red Faction 2

Creature (22)

2x Blisterstick Shaman
4x Dragon Hatchling
4x Goblin Tunneler
4x Manic Vandal
4x Razor Swine
4x Stormblood Berserker

Sorcery (6)

4x Pillar of Flame
2x Rolling Temblor

Artifact (4)

3x Elixir of Immortality
1x Pristine Talisman

Instant (4)

4x Shock

Land (24)

24x Mountain

Blisterstick Shaman can kill an unturned Delver or cause damage to a player to bloodthirst a Stormblood Beserker. It’s not something Delver decks are going to want to Vapor Snag. Manic Vandal can remove a piece of equipment each time it enters the battlefield, so again, this is not something that a Delver deck will necessarily want to Vapor Snag. The main deck has a pretty low mana curve. The most expensive card is Rolling Temblor. Given the strengths of our own creatures, a Rolling Temblor could be fatal to most of our own board, but we have 3 Elixirs of Immortalities to pull everything back. Still, it is a bad option and I’ve limited the Rolling Temblors to 2 in the main deck, though I can’t help but feel 3 might be better. Time will tell.

Goblin Tunneler makes almost every creature in the deck unblockable (except for a bloodthirsty Stormblood Beserker). The interaction between Goblin Tunneler and Razor Swine sets up a quick win. The interaction between Goblin Tunneler and Dragon Hatchling should also prove very good. You can make the Dragon Hatchling unblockable and then inflate.

One of the things that is missing are 4 removal spells- the incinerates. That could prove a problem. Incinerate or Searing Spear can also get passed the mental misstep. Blasphemous Act is usually not a good choice unless you are running Vulshock Refugee and some indestructibles.

Now let’s put together some possible side decks and go over each one.

Sideboard (15)

3x Incinerate
3x Act of Treason
2x Rolling Temblor
3x Traitorous Blood
2x Conjurer’s Closet
2x Demonmail Hauberk

The sideboard introduces a lot of high cost mana cards but creates a deck that goes in a very different direction. (Mental Misstep will probably make the side in a Delver deck anyway). In this deck you would make the following substitutes:

Substitute three Incinerate for two Blisterstick Shaman and one Dragon Hatchling. Substitute Conjurer’s Closet/Demonmail Hauberk for Stormblood Beserker. Substitute Act of Treason for Elixir of Immortality. Remove 1 Goblin Tunneler, 1 Razor Swine, 1 Manic Vandal and replace with Traitorous blood.

(You can side out the Razor Swines instead of the Stormblood Beserkers and side in the other Rolling Temblors instead of the Incinerates.)

This deck works a bit like my previous red deck without the heavy hitters. On the other hand, the deck does not have the same Mana ramp either. The idea would be to use Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood to steal the opponents creatures and keep them using Conjurer’s Closet.

Demonmails can sacrifice stolen creatures to equip. A common tactic is to use a Goblin Tunneler to make a Razor Swine unblockable. Use an Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood on the opponent’s creature, sacrifice it, and then equip the Demonmail to Razor Swine. You will swing for an unblockable 6 infect.

I explored using a Mindclaw Shaman instead of incinerate. A Mindclaw Shaman would allow me to tap into the opponent’s spell base. Mindclaw Shaman might also have some interesting interactions with Conjurer’s Closet. The card is still new to me, so the inclusion on the list was a bit experimental. It is a lot to add to the mana curve though. I think it might be better to substitute Incinerate or Searing Spear for the Mindclaw Shamans. This would give me much more removal options in the main deck if we needed it and reduce the strain on the mana curve.

I don’t know if it would work competitively, but this budget deck is certainly more rounded than the test deck and might be able to focus on something other than Delver. The only way to find out will be some extensive play testing. Undoubtedly, the deck will change with further play testing.

It is certainly never easy building a deck on a budget.

One final note, some of the cards will be cycling out of rotation soon so I’ll have to find alternatives for them. Certainly, Stormblood Beserker will be missed.

Voter Drive

I recently completed my move to Florida. One of the things I needed was my Florida driver’s license. With the passage of the Federal Real ID act, proof of identity required proof from two different sources.

At the library in Casselberry, I registered to vote. I tried to get a library card, but they refused to give me one without some kind of mail that established my residency. I gave them a letter complaining about their internet policies and was hoping to get a letter from them. This never came. However, I received a mailing from Organizing for America thanking me for registering to vote.

Using my mailing from Organizing for America, I was able to return to the library and obtain a library card.

Today, I ended up at the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office at 384 Wilshire Boulevevard in Casselberry. According to their literature, “The Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office is NOT directly affiliated with the local State Driver License Office in Winter Springs and is not a full service Florida driver license office.”

I stood in line and was eventually greeted by a worker.

I showed her I had one piece of mail from Organizing For America.
I asked them for a letter so I would have my second piece of proof. (Letters from the Florida Division of Driver License will not suffice.) The worker refused my request.

Eventually, a supervisor, Amy Tyler, an assistant manger at the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office, intervened. She reiterated her position that they did not send letters.

I explained that I was trying to comply with the government’s laws and that I felt the government should help me comply with its laws and send me a letter. The need to obtain these letters may be an unfunded mandate, but I still felt the government should meet me halfway. The question was raised what a letter would be about. I suggested the letter acknowledge my complaint. Eventually, the option of sending me a list of the driver license document requirements was explored. A phone call to someone else at the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office was made and a solution was arrived at. They simply found my voter identification information on the internet and printed a copy for me.

My next stop was the very hard to find and equally busy driver’s license office at 290 SR-434 in Winter Springs. Once there, I had the necessary materials to obtain my license. It was about an hour and half from start to finish, but after taking a vision test I received my license.

It is nice to finally have a license to prove my Florida residency. The first step in the entire process was simply registering to vote.

Of course, registering for the vote won’t get someone to the polls. I have mentioned local bus transportation issues in Orlando and the difficulty of getting from point A to point B. Having worked on campaign mobilizations, I am certainly aware of the transportation barriers that can keep people from getting to the polls. The campaigns should have rented the busses they will need to get to people to the polls.

The Modern Zombie and More…

Is this truly a modern Zombie deck? Not really. It’s actually a standard deck in which I added modern land to make it work better. The price of standard dual lands is so high, I’d rather just make a modern build of the deck.

Cheap Braaaiiinsss…

4 Jwar Isle Refuge
4 Salt Marsh
10 Island
4 Terramorphic Expanse
10 Swamp
1 Death Wind
2 Elixir of Immortality
3 Black Cat
2 Butcher Ghoul
1 Peel from Reality
4 Diregraf Captain
3 Trepanation Blade
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Gravedigger
4 Skinrender
4 Undead Alchemist
2 Call to the Grave
1 Leaden Myr
2 Rotcrown Ghoul
4 Geralf’s Mindcrusher
2 Rooftop Storm
3 Toxic Nim

Meanwhile, I’m working on a Standard plains-based mono white infect deck. Check out the pricing at the bottom. How can the pricing range be so wide?

Finally, for people who are interested in sacrifice plays, check the most recent Standard build of my Demonic Seclusion deck.

Is LGS MTGO’s BFF?

Dear LGS,

MTGO is now available online. The software has some advantages over pure paper: 1. Your cards are never damaged 2. There is always someone to play against- any time. 3. It is cheaper. You do not need to buy sleeves, a playmat, dice, tokens, or more than 4 of any card. While it is much less social and dynamic than real space, the online version provides a lot of cheap playing opportunities.

I hope in the future, WOTC (or Hasbro) will begin to market boosters that come with online unlock codes so players can go to a store and buy physical cards which can also be unlocked online, thus allowing players to build both physical and online collections with one purchase. Until then, MTGO is just one more form of competition for an LGS to deal with.

One of the reasons Time feels Borders failed as a bookstore was that it outsourced its online sales to Amazon. Another reason Time cited was their delayed entry into the e-book market.

In many respects, the failure of LGS to demand a dual purpose product that sells paper and digital cards has put them in uneven competition with MTGO.

From Wikipedia,“According to Wizards of the Coast, Magic Online is “somewhere between 30% to 50% of the total Magic business.” Of course, that was back in 2007. I don’t have the latest numbers.

While I still prefer paper gaming for social reasons, obviously MTGO is a compelling economic alternative for many players. High priced cards make it harder for me to support the people who make card sleeves, deckboxes, playmats, lifecounters, dice, and other gaming supplies. As a result of the pricing, I’m spending less on MTG.

Sincerely,

MM

P.S. In case you missed it.

Some Basic Tips for Building a Deck.

1.Don’t overspend on your deck. If you buy budget cards, the card rotations are not disasters. Many new cards drop in price after a few months, so maybe wait a while to buy the newer sets.

2.Be creative with your brewing. Brewing is fun.

3.Don’t expect your idea to work right away. It may take many iterations of a deck before it becomes reasonably successful. At the same time, not every card and idea will work out. Be willing to accept that failures will occur and be willing to correct those mistakes.

4.Watch the mana curve carefully. As a general rule, lower mana cost is better. Too many high cost cards will kill any deck. Some decks will require cards that accelerate the mana growth to help them. While powerful, cards that cost five or more mana are very hard to get into play.

5.The standard legal dual lands are expensive. Getting some good artifacts can help build another “color” into the deck without expensive dual color lands. While ideally one wants to play a few colors, it is better to have an effective mono-deck than an ineffective multicolor deck. Hopefully, the lands become cheaper and this will not be an issue.

6.Check a lot of different online sources to learn what other people are doing. Reddit has some good deckbuilding combo tips. Keep an inventory on Deckbox.org to look at all cards without sorting through the physical collection. Write down the cards needed for the build and then put the first build together. MTGvault has a good deckbuilding tool. MTGVault also has a decent online tool for fishbowling. Always do some paper draws. Fish-bowling a deck over and over again is a great way to see what works and what does not before using the deck in a duel. Tappedout.net will allow you to playtest decks.

7.Ask for suggestions. People will offer many useful tips.

8.With each new release, carefully study commons and uncommons. Look for cards that do something current cards do not already do- unless it is necessary to replace something because of rotation. Obviously add new cards that support existing decks and the overall collection.

9.Take a lot of time when building a new deck. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to take a break from working on a deck and come back to building later. It is not uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night with inspiration.

10.Incorporate a few attacks that cannot be stopped and always consider alternative win conditions including poison.

11.Don’t rely too heavily on one powerful “win” card.

12.Always make sure a deck has plenty of land. I usually go with 24 for 60 or around 40%.

13.Play a lot of Magic. Playing Magic is the best way to learn from others and to test and improve decks.

Magic Wildlife

Taking a break from the more serious posts, I ran into someone on the walking path by the house. Forgot to get the deck (Modern format) in the picture though. I was a bit rushed to snap the shot.

Some take issue with my use of “Forest” deck rather than Mono-Green. In my own life, I have bigger things to worry about.

I also took another picture of the dog in an MTG setting. This one, which I dubbed “Advice Animal”, is a subtle commentary on giving deck advice- some of which, even when solicited, seems unwelcome. I also used some “bling” cards rather than my usual budget cards which seems a common practice in deck advice requests.

See the Peacock? 🙂

All joking aside, I do enjoy sharing any insights I can offer to others and certainly enjoy learning from others about ways to improve my decks.

A Friday in the Life…

I attended the Dark Knight Rises yesterday. In order to make it to the FNM, I saw an afternoon showing in Imax. I took the bus to the mall. Despite the tragic events in Colorado, movie-goers packed the theater even for afternoon showings. I was not happy about having to take my MTG decks with me, but in order to make FNM in time, I had to have my chrome bag with Magic cards at the theater. The IMAX ticket was $13 and it was much more than I planned to spend. Just before the film started, someone behind me spilled a soda. I moved over one seat to make sure my bag did not get wet, although it did not look like the soda had spread that far.

The film was an incredible and fitting end to the Dark Knight trilogy. All of the acting was A-list. This film featured a lot of major characters and provided each one with excellent story lines and plot twists. The real beauty of the film did not hit me until much later in the night.

After the movie, I stopped by the Games Workshop. On my way to catch the bus to the movie, I stopped at a garage sale and picked up a creature model. I wanted to see if it was a Warhammer model, but it was not.

I ended up taking a bus back to FNM at Gathering Place Games. The Lynx bus system is fairly poor. The time between buses can take a while. In the Twin Cities, the wait was 15 or 20 minutes and the transfers were good for 2 1/2 hours in any direction. Here the wait is half an hour to an hour. The transfers are only good for an hour and a half and can only be used in some directions. In a prior experience, I could not make the transfer in time. The connecting bus arrived a few minutes after my ticket expired, but an understanding bus driver allowed me to use the transfer anyway. I’m glad I left when I did. I arrived about an hour before the scheduled event. I checked in at the store and then left to find some food. I found some extremely low cost snack foods to eat. I returned to the store. Unfortunately, only one other MTG player showed up. We played casually for several matches.

My opponent described himself as a new player and only had one deck which was a budget build using cards pulled from M13 and Innistrad. I had a chance to test many of my budget builds. At one point, I asked him if he would test play my blue deck so I could play my red deck and he agreed. The red deck won and exposed some of the weakenesses in my blue deck. It’s always hard to play a deck you are unfamiliar with and I feel that my red deck had the best draw it could have and the blue deck seemed to have the worst. Later, he showed me some of the cards in his emerging collection and we talked about which cards we thought might be worth getting. For some reason, Roaring Primadox catches my imagination. I think it might be good with budget cards like Acidic Slime, Elvish Visionary, Bond Beetle, Vital Splicer, Viridian Corrupter, or Borderland Ranger. Of course, for one more mana, Conjurer’s Closet is very useful, but with a four card limit in effect, it is sometimes good to have additional options.

After the matches and the conversation, we shook hands and I thanked him for the games and especially for play-testing my blue deck against me.

I spoke with the owner about the chances of an FNM happening and it was clear that the event would not happen because not enough players were going to show up. We had a brief discussion about card pricing and I suggested low pricing would increase the player base by making the game affordable and accessible. The owner seemed to disagree preferring mid.

Personally, I tend to look for value in my purchases and given the format life cycle of cards. I wonder what the value of a large inventory is versus simply moving product? In Elko, I played casual anything goes decks and purchased cards from across the spectrum. Here in Florida, most opportunities seem to be Standard format, so I’m mostly limiting my purchases to standard legal cards.

It must also be very hard to run a store when the digital pricing plans in MTGO are more competitive than paper for the most part. It was not supposed to be like that. Nevertheless, many structural changes do not, in my opinion, favor business as usual.

Still, the social aspects of paper remain compelling to me. Even tonight, I met someone who was willing to help me test my own decks against me.

As I left, the owner suggested that because the events were just beginning again at that location, it might be a while before they get enough regulars to get started.

I decided to leave and took the long walk back to the house. I use the word house because home doesn’t fit.

Red Pill or Blue Pill?

I am gearing up towards FNM tomorrow. Will it be another series of losses? I guess I’ll find out tommorow after watching the new Dark Knight movie.

I picked up some last minute cards over at Magic Inferno, but will be playing elsewhere owing to my transportation problems. I used to order from them by mail, but now they are in the same area as I am. It is hard for me to get over there as my bicycle has not arrived. The moving company has delayed the delivery for a while now.

I’ve been working on some budget decks. A few decks I really like right now are my blue Unreal TE and my Red Faction. Red Faction grew out of the ideas that went into Overdue as well as another artifact based deck. Unreal TE is a product of some of my recent trades that I made for Invisible Stalker.

Let’s begin with the blue deck.

Unreal TE

23 Island
2 Elixir of Immortality
2 Phantasmal Bear
2 Ponder
3 Silent Departure
4 Blighted Agent
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Lord of the Unreal
4 Spectral Flight
3 Aether Adept
3 Elgaud Shieldmate
4 Phantasmal Dragon
4 Viral Drake

Sideboard:
2 Phantasmal Bear
1 Vapor Snag
1 Disperse
2 Turn to Frog
1 Aether Adept
1 Encrust
4 Niblis of the Breath
1 Elgaud Shieldmate
2 Corrupted Conscience

The deck is based upon illusions. This keeps many of the casting costs down. Illusions can be fairly fragile though, so I’ve put in staples like Elixir of Immortality. I also have two Ponders which will soon be unplayable in most formats. I picked up each of my Ponders for a nickle! Some shops apparently understand Ponder’s looming fate. I opted to go with Silent Departure because of the Flashback ability over both Unsummon and Vapor Snag. Next we have the unblockables. Blighted Agent is a real threat early on, but is fairly vulnerable to spells. Invisible Stalker is not so vulnerable. Both can benefit from the Spectral Flights included. Aether Adept is a great way to bounce an opponent’s creature cards and makes an okay chump blocker. Viral Drake offers a decent flying blocker and has a proliferate ability. The illusion creatures should work well with Lord of the Unreal. Lord of the Unreal, however, is vulnerable and I’ve included Elguad Shieldmate to help provide LOTU some protection.

The side deck is pretty straightforward. Only disperse is really worth mentioning as it allows me to bounce planeswalkers if need be. Niblis would probably substitute for Aether Adept. Corrupted Conscience can work well, but the high casting costs relegated it to the side-deck and it would be difficult to integrate for that reason. It would probably be necessary to replace Viral Drake with them.

While I feel the deck is fairly well thought out and designed from a budget perspective, I am not sure how this would work at an FNM against the current established decks, like Delver.

The next deck is Red and understandably seems to go in the exact opposite direction of the blue deck.

Red Faction

24 Mountain
2 Elixir of Immortality
2 Pillar of Flame
4 Iron Myr
4 Act of Treason
3 Pristine Talisman
3 Rakish Heir
2 Traitorous Blood
1 Demonmail Hauberk
4 Heirs of Stromkirk
3 Conjurer’s Closet
3 Charmbreaker Devils
4 Steel Hellkite
3 Thopter Assembly

Sideboard:
1 Rakish Heir
2 Act of Aggression
3 Creepy Doll
2 Invader Parasite
3 Darksteel Sentinel
4 Blasphemous Act

Red Faction has a very high mana curve. I’ve tried to include some cards, like Iron Myr and Pristine Talisman to help compensate for the mana demands of the deck.

Rakish Heir should work well with the Heirs of Stromkirk and they provide some of the earliest offense.

The overall idea is fairly simple- use Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood to steal the opponent’s creatures and either sacrifice them with Demonmail Hauberk or keep them with Conjurer’s Closet. (The artwork for both cards is by Jason Felix who I met at the SLC GP). Charmbreaker Devils should be able to call back the spells. Initially, I did not want to use any spells other than Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood, but eventually I concluded I needed some removal spells. I opted for Pillar of Flame over Incinerate and I’ll just have to see how that works out. The deck includes a lot of heavy hitters like Steel Hellkite and Thopter Assembly.

Remember when I made my own Thopter tokens? I do. 🙂

The side deck is mainly designed to substitute board wiping cards like Blasphemous Act with indestructible cards- Creepy Doll and Darksteel Sentinel. The possible interaction between Invader Parasite and Conjurer’s closet was enough for me to consider the inclusion of those cards, though that seems to take everything in a very different direction. Perhaps that combination is best left to another deck.

So those are two budget decks I am working on right now. One emphasizes speed and the other power, leaving me to wonder which one should I try first?

Update: Preliminary testing shows that the red deck is better than the blue.

Competition

Before discussing MTG, I would just like to say that I’ve been watching the Wolverine anime over at Crackle. Owing to some rain yesterday, I found myself house-bound and in the evening I started a marathon session of watching the episodes. After I fell asleep, I ended up dreaming I went from New York to Tokyo where I ended up in jail, released, and on the run from the Tokyo police.

Now on to the subject at hand. I walked down to the Gathering Place in Casselberry. I found the store through the Wizards locator. It is in walking distance- about 2.2 miles from me. Road construction in the area means many sidewalks are closed as you get closer to the store, but until I get my bicycle, I’ll just have to hoof it.

The shop focuses mostly on Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but does have a decent inventory of Magic cards. Unfortunately, the FB page said the store opened at 1 pm on Monday, but when I got there it was not open until 2 pm. I killed about thirty minutes waiting for the store to open.

The owner, Jose, explained to me that he moved away from Magic over player disputes and personal issues. He boasted his store produced an MTG state champion. His inventory is a bit high right now and he’s looking at seriously reducing his stock.

In any event, I purchased some cheap commons/uncommons from the shop- including a few which are non-standard.

Most of the stuff I purchased was in the bulk bin and I haggled a bit over prices. I had a buy-list with the prices already on it so I could negotiate from an informed position. This kept prices reasonable and helped seriously reduce, but not entirely eliminate, impulse purchases. (Yeah, I picked up some Prized Unicorns, and I’m still not sure exactly why, but at least I let go of the Relentless Rats when the time came). I could not, however, resist picking up three more Elixir of Immortality cards bringing my total to thirty-three.

Overall, I think I did okay. I paid 5 cents to 10 cents for each card basically with a few cards hitting about 25 cents. If you price the cards low, then I overpaid a little bit, but if you price mid, I got my money’s worth. I have never been able to get every card at low anyway.

With Magic Inferno just around the corner selling bulk commons and uncommons for 5 to 10 cents, it helps a lot. In most other towns I played in there was little to no market competition.

The owner at the Gathering Place in Casselberry intends to host an FNM this Friday. Wizards event locater indicates it is standard format and starts at 6:30 pm. The cover is $6 and includes a pack.

I think it will be worth attending. For me, it is the only shop in walking distance and the bus system is not workable in any case.

Now I have some cards to inventory and some decks to build.