Playing in a expensive format on a budget

After a couple of facebook messages with a buddy who plays MTG in Santa Cruz, he said after a extensive hospital stay (feel better Stephan!) he was able to do a lot more studying of the meta than I could and said that the infect deck won't be as potent as...

Goblins A Standard Magic deck, by David Kilhefner 2nd place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Fort Worth, Texas, United States on 2011-03-20 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com/open_series Click here to see a summary of all decks from StarCityGames.com Invitational
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Ember Hauler 4 Goblin Bushwhacker 4 Goblin Chieftain 4 Goblin Guide 4 Goblin Wardriver 4 Spikeshot Elder Instants 4 Burst Lightning 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Staggershock Sorceries 1 Arc Trail Basic Lands 17 Mountain Lands 2 Tectonic Edge 4 Teetering Peaks Sideboard: 4 Ratchet Bomb 4 Manic Vandal 3 Arc Trail 4 Mark of Mutiny Legality:  This deck is Standard-legal. Check the legality of this deck in: ExtendedLegacyVintageCommanderScars of Mirrodin Block ConstructedKamigawa BlockRavnica BlockTime Spiral BlockLorwyn/Shadowmoor BlockShards of Alara BlockZendikar/Rise Block Constructed		Apprentice Format: Click here to download this deck in Apprentice .dec format! Magic Online Format:  Click here to download this deck in Magic Online Text format! Stats: Average mana: 1.17 Average creature mana: 2.00 Average creature power: 1.67 Average creature toughness: 1.67 Deck Composition: Red percentage: 100.00% Green percentage: 0.00% Black percentage: 0.00% Blue percentage: 0.00% White percentage: 0.00% Colorless percentage: 0.00% Basic Lands: 28.33% Creatures: 40.00% Instants: 20.00% Lands: 10.00% Sorceries: 1.67%

I must say, I like where this is heading. You get the burn, the face beaters, and red just means that any of the swords can't touch you. I looked at a couple other decks that were like this and some of the run Koth of the Hammer, some run Devastating Summons. I really like the idea of a Devastating Summons/Goblin Bushwhacker after a Day of Judgment and just coming in for 10....Yeah. 10.

The thing about getting a deck like this built is that it doesn't take a whole lot of that money thing. Goblin Guide's are going to be the biggest thing that will set you back (Well, maybe the Koth if you play that) and the rest are just a hearty stack of Goblins and Mountains. The big problem with standard right now is that if you don't want to shell out the big bucks for Jace the Mind Sculptor  and Gideon "The Big Spoon" Jura (which are just going UP in price), the it is really hard to hold your own in a standard environment . The next best thing to Goblins and Infect is playing something that Ali Aintrazi cooked up a while ago.

Architect Control A Standard Magic deck, by Ali Aintrazi 8th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Washington on 2011-02-27 As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com/openseries Click here to see a summary of all decks from StarCityGames.com Invitational
Maindeck: Artifacts 1 Contagion Engine 4 Everflowing Chalice 2 Ratchet Bomb 3 Tumble Magnet Artifact Creatures 1 Steel Hellkite 2 Wurmcoil Engine Creatures 4 Enclave Cryptologist 4 Grand Architect 4 Thrummingbird 3 Treasure Mage Instants 1 Stoic Rebuttal Legendary Artifacts 2 Mindslaver Planeswalkers 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Sorceries 4 Preordain Basic Lands 17 Island Lands 4 Inkmoth Nexus 2 Mystifying Maze Sideboard: 2 Ratchet Bomb 1 Tumble Magnet 1 Blightsteel Colossus 4 Perilous Myr 1 Platinum Emperion 4 Flashfreeze 2 Negate Legality:  This deck is Standard-legal. Check the legality of this deck in: ExtendedLegacyVintageCommanderScars of Mirrodin Block ConstructedKamigawa BlockRavnica BlockTime Spiral BlockLorwyn/Shadowmoor BlockShards of Alara BlockZendikar/Rise Block Constructed		Apprentice Format: Click here to download this deck in Apprentice .dec format! Magic Online Format:  Click here to download this deck in Magic Online Text format! Stats: Average mana: 1.62 Average creature mana: 2.83 Average creature power: 1.72 Average creature toughness: 2.39 Deck Composition: Red percentage: 0.00% Green percentage: 0.00% Black percentage: 0.00% Blue percentage: 59.46% White percentage: 0.00% Colorless percentage: 40.54% Artifacts: 16.67% Artifact Creatures: 5.00% Basic Lands: 28.33% Creatures: 25.00% Instants: 1.67% Lands: 10.00% Legendary Artifacts: 3.33% Planeswalkers: 3.33% Sorceries: 6.67%

While this deck is pretty cool, it still runs Jace the Wallet Sculptor and, being a guy who like to spend money on things like....rent, I cannot afford this dude and I will just bide my time until he rotates out and something else becomes duper expensive.

My point is, seeing decks that are potent and don't cost me a small fortune make me interested in the format.  Drafting still is my favorite format and trust me, I'm working on a big post that talks about cube drafting and getting people involved in that.

Still, watch me dominate at the starcitygames.com standard open this Saturday!

Oh, also, as a non-magic side note, watch this video. Then go watch the rest of the things this guy has done. Every single one of them is brilliant.

Infectious love

"How did we meet? Well, I'll be honest, we met on the internet."

That's how I fell in love over the past week. I fell in love with this:

Mono Green Infect Featured by Tommy Brown on 2011-03-13 () As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/21340.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Contagion Clasp 1 Piston Sledge 2 Tumble Magnet Artifact Creatures 4 Necropede 4 Plague Myr Creatures 4 Blight Mamba 3 Putrefax	Instants 4 Giant Growth 4 Groundswell 4 Vines of Vastwood Basic Lands 22 Forest Lands 4 Inkmoth Nexus	Sideboard: 1 Sword of Body and Mind 1 Corpse Cur 2 Obstinate Baloth 4 Viridian Corrupter 4 Pistus Strike 3 Creeping Corrosion Stats: Average mana: 1.13 Average creature mana cost: 2.60 Average creature power: 1.80 Average creature toughness: 1.40 Deck Composition: Artifacts: 11.67% Artifact Creatures: 13.33% Basic Lands: 36.67% Creatures: 11.67% Instants: 20.00% Lands: 6.67%

I'm going to Burbank next weekend and I am planning on playing in the StarCityGames standard open where I plan on winning huge amounts of cash money with this deck.

What's that reader? You want a video of how I really feel like this deck performs? Ask and you shall receive.

There are a couple of things about the deck I have been thinking about. Like why Creeping Corrosion when Nature's Claim is just more awesome-er....er....

The interesting thing about Blight Mamba is

Here is another little doozy: Teetering Peeks. Before you call shotgun on the "Wilson is one of dem retards because he wants to play something that makes that there fire mana in one of dem plant mana decks" well reader who speaks like a hick, let me free your mind. Think of Teetering Peaks not as a land, but as a spell that costs zero. There you go. Your mind is free. You're welcome.

.....

I think I may put Mold Shambler into the sideboard to deal with Gideon Jura....

......

......Whoa, what just happened? I blacked out for a second and had a crazy dream that I actually thought Mold Shambler was good. Oh well, thank goodness that was only a dream. 

Well, watch my progress at Starcitygames.com. I'll be the guy infecting people with love....and POISON...but mostly love.

Until next time

Rest for the Wary and Burgeoning

I feel it is time to put Angus MacKenzie to rest. He was a good deck, but I think it's time to move onto more winning pastures. So here is my eulogy:


General: (1)
Angus MacKenzie


Creatures: (14)
Birds of Paradise
Noble Hierarch
Ethersworn Canonist
Kami of the Crescent Moon
Stonecloaker
Wall of Denial
Walking Archive
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Solemn Simulacrum
Sphinx of Jwar Isle
Sun Titan
Ith, High Arcanist
Empyrial Archangel
Blazing Archon


Plainswalker: (6)
Garruk Wildspeaker
Venser, the Sojourner
Tezzeret, the Seeker
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Ajani Goldmane
Gideon Jura


Artifacts: (16)
Sensei's Diving Top
Expedition Map
Voltaic Key
Sol Ring
Lightning Greaves
Howling Mine
Grim Monolith
Horn of Greed
Crucible of Worlds
Crystal Ball
Whispersilk Cloak
Font of Mythos
Gilded Lotus
Eternity Vessel
Obelisk of Alara
Mindslaver


Enchantments: (8)
Meishin, the Mind Cage
Teferi's Moat
Rule of Law (I'm going to talk about this card at some point)
Leyline of Anticipation
Elephant Grass
Oblivion Ring
Ghostly Prison
Rites of Flourishing


Sorceries (9)
Hallowed Burial
Time Warp
Armageddon (Cool, Gather brings up the Portal version. Keen!)
Austere Command
Regrowth
Wrath of God
Akroma's Vengence
Chronomantic Escape
Final Judgment


Instants: (8)
Return to Dust
Tangle
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Capsize
Cryptic Command
Pollen Lullaby
Fact or Fiction


Lands: (38)
Tundra
Savannah
Temple Garden
Hallowed Fountain
Marsh Flats
Arid Mesa
Scalding Tarn
Wooded Foothill
Verdant Catacombs
Misty Rainforest
Seaside Citadel
Vivid Meadow (DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!)
Vivid Grove
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Reliquary Tower
Sunpetal Grove
Glacial Fortress
Selesnya Sanctuary
Azorius Chancery
Reflecting Pool
Maze of Ith
Stirring Wildwood
Celestial Colonnade
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Academy Ruins
Darksteel Citadel
Forest x4
Plains x4
Island x4


Angus is a really fun deck to play because there are just certain cards that make your opponents stop attacking you and start attacking each other. Rule of Law/Ethersworn Canonist are by far the MVP's of the deck. It slows down the game to your pace and with all the card draw, their hands just get clogged with junk. Players then start to play around what you have and start playing a different kind of game. That is one thing that I learned about chess is that the way to win the game is not how you position your pieces, but how your pieces dictate what your opponents do, getting your opponent into a situation that they have limited ways of getting out of </wisdom>.


There are certain cards that I would love to put into this deck, like.....Moat? But there simply isn't enough change in the couch to make that work. RIght now I am toying around with a Sen Triplets but I am told over and over again that they just get targeted. So we will see about that. 


In one of my last games though, it is worth mentioning this play:
My opponent plays Bribery grabbing Solemn Simulacrum out of my deck. I could see this play here (this is a lie) as a good play because he was short on lands (I wonder if he just didn't see the Blazing Archon in the deck. I mean, he looked through it twice...I'm not going to make up excuses). I then played Venser, blinking the Simulacrum from his side to my side, fetching a land in the process. Maze, Gideon and Elephant Grass kept my opponents at bay while I continued to blink the Simulacrum. I then used Vensers -8 ability and...let me tell you folks, if you ever have the chance to do this, I highly recommend it. It is so choice.


Oh and here is how the second game went:


Burgeoning


ntr.v. bur·geoned also bour·geoned, bur·geon·ing also bour·geon·ing, bur·geons also bour·geons

1.

a. To put forth new buds, leaves, or greenery; sprout.

b. To begin to grow or blossom.

2. To grow or develop rapidly.

3. To use to beat your opponents faces in in any kind of multi-player game.

Until next time!

Holding grudges and Karma (not the card)

Multi-Player type matches are a completely different animal than any other format in Magic. There are lots of little nuances about the format that makes me believe that it can be viewed as one of the purest forms of Magic, along with being one of the most diluted.

The reason why I can believe that it's the former is that you get to social the most. Now, as a human being who likes to talk to people, this makes me happy. Let's get a little more to the point of this article and a bit more down and dirty.

In tonight's gaming session, we played 2 EDH matches, both of which were both frustrating, in my opinion. A lot of decisions are based decisions from the heart and not the state of the game. At one point in the evening I was at 36 life. I had Horn of Greed, Rites of Flourishing, and some other stuff. Sitting in a more defensive position. Another player was at 40 with not much on the board and another player at 29(ish). My opponent is playing Zur and in a intriguing turn of events, uses Zur to grab Unspeakable Symbol and then swings into a different opponent, he pumps Zur the Enchanter into the sky and goes down to 3 life....this is where is gets weird, he then plays Reverse the Sands.....Yeah, I had to read it too. While a applaud my opponent for a deck design you would not normally see (spending life then switching life totals), he did change my life total to 3, essentially ending my game (my opponent to my left kept flashing me burn spells to keep me in check).

This is where I think that a multi-player format is bad for Magic. You don't get the calculated plays you might get in a one on one match up. Instead, you have players thinking "Golly gee, he beat me with this deck 3 weeks ago, so I have to take him out" or a favorite one of our gamers: "He swung at me last time (even if that meant 3 games ago) so I'm coming in at him again."

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

So here I am, sitting with a few losses under my belt and this causes me to pull out some more powerful decks in the next couple of matches because, hey, I feel picked on. This then prompts one of our gamers to whine about how we always pull out these decks that are insanely hard to beat, and the cycle continues.

By the way, Time Sieve is an awesome way to show players how dumb Magic can be.

Until next time!

The first.

While sitting and thinking about my life, sobbing softly, I thought about how I needed a way to get some of my creative ideas about Magic the Gathering on paper. So, in my infinite nerdiness, The Howling Mine was born. This blog is for ideas about decks, tournaments that I would participate in, cube drafts, booster drafts, EDH matches and other fun thoughts that I can write down.

So, now that we have that established, let me introduce myself: My name is Wilson Fisher. I live in Oakland and work as a tournament director at the Berkeley Chess School. I moved to the bay area in the summer of 2010. I had a pretty strong group of gamers back in my hometown and I would play in weekly tournaments (be it draft, FNM or cube drafts) but then when I moved to the bay area, I didn't have much of a gaming group. I would try to get in a tournament here and there, but it was pretty fruitless. I found a group of players through a co-worker and from there, I have made different connections with other players in the area. These days, it's pretty hard to get in a casual night of gaming without 6-10 gamers showing up.

We have a gaming session tonight, so I will be posting again later on tonight with some of the results.