Thanks Steven for the clarification on the “precon” thing. I had written the same thing just before, but the gerbils decided that y’all didn’t need to hear it
As for milling, if you would just like to work it in you can add an Alter of Dementia to your decks. They are a good addition to any creature deck, especially if you have a generator like a Living Hive or Soul Foundry or Verdant Force. I always used them in my old sliver decks with the sliver queen and Heart Stones. With the right slivers out you can create 3/3 or bigger fliver tokens for 1 mana and sacrifice them to kill the oponent’s library. Good times.
I’m catching up with Max, finally; I would have been at New Orleans this weekend gone if I could have afforded to go. Since I knew I couldn’t go at the time of the PTQ and my final opponent knew he couldn’t beat me, he offered me the full travel award for the slot and I accepted. This worked out nicely for everyone except Kai Budde, as the guy I deferred to beat him in round 16 on his way to 32nd place.
By the way, Dave(Evil Death), what happened to that Foil Stroke of Genius? Did you sell it? Keep it? Trade it? Tear it up in frustration during the days of Tide and Academy?
I sold the foil Stroke for £60. Sold a foil Serra for £100 later, too.
Snake Legs: if you need to ask the question, you wouldn’t understand the answer. I normally post as “Jedit”, but I joined SDMB before I standardised my online identity.
Ok, sorry about that Mike, but that little bit was priceless. If you know who he is, then you should probably know that he has never, in his life, let things like reasonable provocation stand in the way of gratituous rudeness. He and I go way back and he knows I speak nothing but simple truth and he’ll probably cheerfully(as cheerful as he gets at least) admit to it.
Who said it’s gratuitous, Steven? Most of them are guilty of Being Stupid in a Public Place at the very least.
Snake Legs: I wasn’t being rude, I was stating a fact. Fame isn’t exactly mine; if you didn’t know who I was before, me telling you wouldn’t leave you any wiser.
I started playing during Revised, quit for a long time, started again around Urza’s Destiny. My first tournament was a Nemesis prerelease. I became a judge around 7th Edition. I play weekly drafts at my place, Friday Night Magic, PTQs, prereleases and anything else I get away with (including Grand Prix Göteborg in two weeks). I judge rarely these days but arranged and judged some pretty big tournaments a few months ago. I’ve written some articles too, but I stopped doing that. For some reason it stopped being fun.
Mirrodin sucks for Limited play, in my opinion. The format is immensely boring. I’m withholding judgment on Constructed, but my hopes are low.
Not a fact, a guess. If you had given me a name, I would have recognized it straight away. However, I respect your wish for privacy. Enough on that topic.
I’ve been on again and off again for a while. On from Fallen Empires to Tempest, off until the tail end of Prophecy, then On through Invasion and Oddyssey blocks. Started to zone out again during onslaught block. Haven’t even seen Mirrodin yet.
Draft is by far my fave tournament format. Can’t aford type 1, and by the time I get a good type 2 together the format shifts out from under me.
When I build decks for fun, I love it when a good combo comes together. I don’t care how unlikely it is, or if it wins, if I can get it to happen, I’m happy.
Stuff like: Ana,Dega,Necra,Raka, and Ceta sanctuary on the table, obliterate, birds of paradise. Or aluren, quirion dryad(? the one that gets counters when a blue spell is played), cavern harpy, repeat. Or squirrel’s nest, intruder alarm, life/death…
I think “No need to be rude” is practically reflexive on the part of those new to David. The rest of us can just about sing along. To be fair, there is a considerable difference between reading his articles on…7towers, wasn’t it?..and conversing directly in usenet or the like.
When I sid “serious player,” I didn’t mean he was a Pro Tour winner. Just that he plays competitively at the PTQ level, at least. I don’t recall whether he’s actually played on the Pro Tour or not.
(I suppose I should throw in a gratuitous “Dip” here as well, just for good measure.)
7Towers, StarCity, the infamous “All Englishmen Living South of Manchester Are Bastards” PTQ report on the Dojo [1], a bunch of stuff for two UK trading sites who wanted articles, and I was a regular on the MTG Paradise review team. I get around.
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Not yet, though as I said upthread I know I’ve got the toolbox to get there now.
[1] I played three players who’d travelled north that day. The first accused me of cheating over a curved foil in my sealed deck; I’d asked to be allowed to proxy it before the event and was refused - foils were new back then. The second accused me of cheating because he didn’t understand 6th Edition rules, and the third refused to shake my hand after the match. My response may have been a touch extreme and all-inclusive, but my irritation was not unjustified.
And on Usenet. I got lots of great advice from you a few years ago.
Those three players are the kind of no-talent losers that really piss me off. I have stopped playing at a couple of stores because they are populated by these morons.
Really? Who you? E-mail me if you want, I have a reply addy in my profile.
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With the exception of #2, they weren’t no-talent losers - both of those guys appeared several times on the Tour, and #1 is a name you’d recognise; he’s best known for creating Fruity Pebbles.
The situation with #1 was that I’d opened a foil Yavimaya Elder and was playing it, but my deck was unsleeved - sleeves weren’t so common then - and so you could tell where it was. I’d informed the judge of this during deck construction and asked for a proxy, and been refused. When shuffling up for our round 1 match, #1 also commented on it, called the judge and said the card was marked. Again, the judge refused a proxy.
Now, both of us could tell exactly where the Elder was in my deck. After #1 shuffled, it was in the middle. I made my statutory cut below the Elder, about 3/4 of the way down the deck. I always make this cut, to ensure no dodgy shuffling has put 7 land/spells on the top, but if I cut above the Elder he’d have a case for saying I was trying to put it in my hand. I apologised, and said it was the best I could do. That’s when he said it was still cheating because I was manipulating my deck.
Now, while he did have a minor point, he knew I agreed with him and he also knew I was manipulating my deck in his favour because the Elder is a superb early-game card and a poor late game card. It’s pretty unsportsmanlike to call your opponent a cheat when he’s doing what is required to make his draw as random as possible IMHO.
Cheating doesn’t seem that prevalent in Magic as far as I have seen. Unless some guy is stacking his deck or slipping cards out of his sleeve I don’t think that it is much of an issue.
I probably shouldn’t have said “no-talent,” but man do I hate it when people call cheating when there is none present. Fruity pebbles was never my style and I would have expected better of that player. Lost some respect there…
Wakefield was one of my favorite players with Secret Force back in the day. Does he still play?
I don’t remember what name I used back then. It was freshman year…or when I was in highschool. Probably an AOL name or and earthlink address…too long ago to remember. I just kinda file away deck ideas. I think you gave me some advice on an instant-speed creature deck back in mirage or visions. Like I said, it was a while ago.
I’m going to a draft tourny tonight, so I’ll try to give a report tommorow
I started playing right aftert The Dark… I think I got into it most heavily around Ice Age but then stopped collecting after Visions. I never played in tournaments, I always had a large group of friends that played and I enjoyed theme/quirky decks (I love my Sengir Family deck roughly based on the Adams Family). My all time absolute favorite way to win is through poison… LOVE the poison counters. I dug out my old poison deck a few weeks ago and played it against some younger guys that play with the more recent expansions and they were shocked SHOCKED to see poison counters. ;>
