It’s obviously my first time recording anything so this was just a test but here it is:

EDIT: The second draft video is up here. You can always find them on my Youtube page!

Any constructive comments would be good!

Thanks for reading,
Sean aka enemyzero

TROGDOR WAS A MAN...HE WAS A...DRAGON MAN...

I just got back from the M11 pre-release here in Daytona and I must say that I’m very happy about the way that M11 drafts. Wizards really did a good job of evening things out and taking away some of the complexity that Zendikar-Rise drafting created. I’m sure that was their goal and it worked out really well. I personally really like how the set is a little slower than most which leads to more engaging games.

My Limited rating is pretty terrible which is why I knew that I wanted to play today for the practice and because Magic is sometimes fun to me. Freaky, I know. I’ve been on such a torrid losing streak lately though that I really didn’t expect much, just to have some fun.

I opened my packs and it was off to deck building. My Red and Blue cardpool was horrible and I knew I had to play Black due to having all of my removal. I was going to go BW but then I realized that all the Black cards I really needed could just be splashed as a 3rd color and I had some killer Green creatures to compliment the White flyers I had. I did decide to go with 42 cards which is against everything I stand for but it was fine, I figured it was going to be a slow format and I really didn’t want to get land screwed with 3 colors. This is what I finally decided on:

M11 pre-release deck

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Lands (17) 7 Forest 6 Plains 4 Swamp Creatures (15) 3 Assault Griffin 1 Blinding Mage 1 Brindle Boar 2 Garruk 2 Giant Spider 1 Llanowar Elves 1 Juggernaut 1 Obstinate Baloth 1 Serra Angel 1 War Priest of Thune 1 Yavimaya Wurm Spells (9) 1 Assassinate 2 Doom Blade 1 Excommunicate 1 Giant Growth 1 Nature 1 Solemn Offering 2 Stabbing Pain Colorless (1) 1 Brittle Effigy

I’m not going to do a game-by-game report as I’m too tired and I didn’t take very good notes. I did finish 4-1 and we all split the pack prize for the Top 8 which put me in 3rd place overall, by far my highest Limited finish ever. A lot of the games were nail-biters and I just want to say that Serra Angel (if you don’t get a Baneslayer Angel obviously) is a stone-cold beast. And removal. A lot of people might underestimate Stabbing Pain also but it doubles as removal for small dudes and as a way to tap a blocker they have so you can swing through. I was never sad to have it in my hand.

In the booster draft afterwards I went 3-0 with the GWr deck below, my first ever booster draft win. My first few picks were good Green cards so I tried to pick a splash color which ended up being Red. I changed that when I stopped getting good Red cards so I drafted as many of the white flyers that I could and it worked out pretty good. In drafting sometimes you have to adapt rather then try and force something which something I’m working on. It was basiclly GW like my sealed deck but Red splashed for removal instead of Black.

booster draft deck

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Lands (18) 8 Forest 5 Plains 4 Mountain 1 Mystifying Maze Creatures (17) 3 Assault Griffin 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Brindle Boar 2 Cloud Crusader 1 Garruk 1 Giant Spider 2 Greater Basilisk 1 Juggernaut 2 Sacred Wolf 1 Sylvan Ranger 1 Wild Griffin 1 Yavimaya Wurm Spells (7) 2 Chandras Outrage 1 Combust 1 Cultivate 1 Fling 1 Giant Growth 1 Hornet Sting

I ended the night with about 22 new M11 rares including a Baneslayer Angel, Sword of Vengeance, 2 Fauna Shaman and a Time Reversal from my prize packs. Pics coming soon.

Thanks for reading,

Sean Roden aka enemyzero // Team Birds with Rancors
ata gaming

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Changed a couple things!

Drink to the Dead

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creatures (14) 4 Abyssal Persecutor 4 Phylactery Lich 4 Nantuko Shade 2 Grave Titan spells (17) 1 Sorin Markov 2 Sarhkon the Mad 3 Blightning 3 Terminate 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Fling artifacts (7) 4 Everflowing Chalice 2 Veinfire Borderpost 1 Basilisk Collar lands (22) 1 Scalding Tarn 3 Marsh Flats 2 Lavaclaw Reaches 4 Dragonskull Summit 9 Swamp 3 Mountain sideboard (15) 1 Terminate 2 Consuming Vapors 1 Blightning 4 Duress 1 Liliana Vess 2 Earthquake 2 Suffer the Past 2 Doomblade

It’s summertime here and I’ve been working a lot, usually only getting 1-2 days off a week so my time has been pretty limited. I did manage to go to a PTQ last week and I went 4-4, I’m working on a tournament report for it like my FNM reports but from a slightly different angle so hopefully I’ll have time to finish it soon.

I take pics of my trades sometimes and put them up at my Picasa account, if you want to see the album for fun it’s here.

Also, just a heads up, SCG has a full set of Planechase planes for only $9.99 which is a pretty damn good deal.

It feels weird to blog here since I usually just say stuff on Twitter.

Lands are something every Magic deck needs. You can’t play anything without mana right? Well some lands go above and beyond, doing extraordinary things and breaking your wallet at the same time. Let’s have a look at some of the best of all time!

Staff: Please keep in mind these articles are for entertainment only and are only an opinion. If you have a different opinion please share it but be polite and respectful about it.

#5 // Man lands

Man Lands changed the game forever when they were introduced and are currently wreaking havoc in standard once again thanks to the nasties in Worldwake, most notably Celestial Collandade and Lavaclaw Reaches. Man lands are a big factor in nearly all formats and are still underrated by a lot of players that don’t realize just what they add to the game. Back in its heyday, Treetop Village would simply win tournaments and Mutavault is still a base card in Tribal decks of all types.

Jim right before he lost his hands.

Some of the jewels in the Man Land tiara are Treetop Village, Mutavault, Mishra’s Factory, Blinkmoth Nexus, and the current Worldwake quintuplets.
Man lands give lands a chance to break away from the mundane and actually have a hand in killing someone. No longer do they just have to sit there tapping and untapping, some of them can hit someone in the face. If we were a piece of dirt that could slap people in the face when they walked by, well, just sign us up.

They add a whole new dynamic to the game as most wrath effects won’t kill them and they add a layer of strategy that wasn’t there before, changing the way people play the game. Killing lands is much harder than killing creatures and that’s where their strength lies.

Coolest thing to do with: Attacking Jace the Funslayer.

#4 // Dual lands

These are the original lands that go both ways. What they do is allow a player to fix their mana easily and the kicker is that they count as both land types. That means you can fetch these babies up with sac lands to have an easier time fixing your mana or sac your two Taiga’s for a Fireblast which you can’t do with nearly any other non-basic land (with the exception of the Shock Lands from Ravnica).

But obviously the reason they’re on the list is because there is absolutely no drawback to using them. Weaker versions either come into play tapped or don’t untap your next turn or do 2 damage to your face or even bounce other lands back to your hand.

Soon only Bill Gates will be able to afford Dual Lands.

The only drawback is how much they cost nowadays. You could feed starving children in China for a year for what some of you people spend on Underground Seas. Is it worth it? Star City Games says so.

Coolest thing to do with: Make newer players feel inadequate.

#3 // Tolarian Academy

If there was ever a totally broken land, this is it. I mean seriously with all the cheap or zero cost artifacts in the game you can collect blue mana like the Gulf of Mexico is collecting oil. Affinity anyone?

Tolarian Academy’s step brother Gaea’s Cradle could have been on the list but the power level on the Academy is just so much higher with what you can do (ei because it gives you blue mana) with it. Creatures are so easy to kill which can hamstring the Cradle while artifacts aren’t, which means you’ll probably get a lot more longevity out of the Academy.

You can play this guy turn 1 with an Academy!

The Academy was the format defining land during the Urza’s block and launched the ever popular “combo winter” that everyone loved. You would have decks with nearly 30 artifacts, Academys and Stroke of Genius. Yahtzee!

Coolest thing to do with: Tap. The only thing better then a blue mana is a shit-load of blue mana.

#2 // Strip Mine

What’s better than playing a land that does something amazing like Tolarian Academy? Playing a land that can destroy it. Obviously Strip Mine is more powerful then Wasteland or Tectonic Edge which is very evident by the fact that it has been banned or restricted in every format that it has ever been in because it’s just that powerful. It can answer pretty much every other card on this list and your opponent can’t do jack about it.

Strip mine can change games almost single-handedly. You can tap it for mana when you need to so it doesn’t slow you down and, even though you lose a land to destroy a land, it can swing the tempo in your favor whenever you want by destroying something that is special to your opponent like his $200 Tabernacle.

A Tabernacle costs more then my rent.

Really the only thing in the game that stops Strip Mine is a card that only costs one blue mana which leads us to the best land of all time…

Coolest thing to do with: Destroying an opponent’s $200 land with a two dollar uncommon.

#1 // Island

The Island is the single card that changed the face of Magic forever. When everyone else was wanting to play Savannah Lions or Llanowar Elves you could play cards that would prevent them from doing anything, especially have fun.

Preventing people from doing anything while playing a game for fun seems like a non-douche move to us. What’s more fun than not doing anything and just sitting there with your thumb up your butt while your opponent pings you to death with a Prodigal Sorcerer? Dental surgery? Let’s not do anything for 15 turns until I finally drop a Baneslayer or a Sphinx when you have finally given up on life. Good gameplan!

Kinda like playing against a blue deck.

You can do so much crazy shit with an Island it’ll blow your mind, especially if you HAVE MORE THEN ONE! You can end a turn at any time, reset the game at any time, draw handfuls of cards, take an extra turn, take control of nearly any permanent that you “allow” your opponent to play, oh you just paid 27 mana for something? I’ll counter it AND add the mana to my mana pool next turn. Stifle, Daze, counter a spell without even TAPPING an Island ala Force of Will? HOLY SHIT.

In all honesty, when an Island hits the table you should probably just scoop and do something fun like mailing all your Magic cards to us.

Coolest thing to do with: Make the game not fun.

Honorable Mention: Cabbal Coffers, Maze of Ith, Academy Ruins

Got a new digital camera today so have been taking pictures like mad, not a DSLR yet but that is next in line in a couple of years.

Everyone likes a good RPG once and awhile right? The sexually unidentifiable main characters, the badly written dialog, the mindless boredom of 30 minute cinemas. There are a lot of bad RPGs out there but there are also many good ones that break the mold from the normal and excel. Here are our picks for some of the best of all time. Also, SPOILERS.

Staff: Please keep in mind these articles are for entertainment only and are only an opinion. If you have a different opinion please share it but be polite and respectful about it.

5 // Chrono trigger

We seriously had a hard time thinking of anything that we didn’t like about Chrono Trigger. It’s one of the games that Squaresoft laid its foundation on to become one of the most preeminent role playing makers in the business (which apparently gives them a free pass today to make garbage games like Final Fantasy 13 and get away with it).

No caption.

The game itself did a lot of things that not many games did before. It had a very likable cast of characters and they had combo magic attacks depending on which 3 party members you had. It added a little bit of strategy to choosing your party members aside from the normal choice in Squaresoft games…the characters which are the least annoying.

Another big thing we loved was the time travel aspect. Things you did in the past really did affect things in the future. If you left a treasure chest intact in the past and traveled to the far future the item would be upgraded, it was hard skipping over some stuff but it was worth the wait. Quests in the past would change big things in the future and you could see it change right before your eyes, which was awesome.

And they say I'M a nerd?

Replayability isn’t a quality normally associated with RPGs but Chrono Trigger also sported around 15 endings making it one of the most replayable RPGs ever. We can’t help but feel that if they released Chrono Trigger nowadays each ending would be paid DLC…

Coolest moment: When Chrono “dies” halfway through the game.
Lamest moment: That motorcycle minigame.

4 // Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is the only newer game on the list but it definitely earned the spot. It’s Bioware’s finest game and a perfect hybrid between standard roleplaying aspects and shooter aspects. Bioware really outdid itself with ME2…the story, the graphics, the dialog, the characters, the music and sounds…everything they have done before ME2 just seems like it was practice and ME2 was the magnum opus. Until their next game that is…

Real men don't look at explosions.

The characters and dialog are the best features again, although the totally redone combat system is close behind. The shooting aspect feels extremely visceral this time around and not “tacked on” like the first Mass Effect’s did at times. All of the characters are fleshed out so well with good backstories and world-class voice acting, it’s really hard to not get attached to them. Our Mordin died in the last scene…it was so sad.

Purely her combat skills are the only reason she didn't die.

They added tons of new stuff and just flat out got rid of the stupid crap in the first game like the vehicle areas and the HORRID inventory system. Hopefully they fired the guy that made the first’s inventory system because it was just that bad. Seriously, if we were members of the group from Hostel we would chain someone in a room and make them manage our ME inventory for hours. Sadistic I know.

Coolest moment: Greatly improved combat system.
Lamest moment: My head hitting the keyboard after falling asleep while planet scanning.

Obviously the main point of it is getting Crab Umbra on a Harabaz Druid with other Allies out or a Training Grounds and a single other Ally for instant infinite mana. Use it to Mind Spring for a lot to draw a Spawnsire of Ulamog or Banefire. I know there is a lot of creature removal nowadays and having a combo deck based around creatures is probably an awful idea but it seems fun. I can see it beating a lot of people game 1 as they won’t know what to expect but will be hard after sideboarding. All they have to do is get rid of the Druid and your deck sucks. But that’s what Negates are for right? I would think it needs more defensive cards but I’m no deck building expert.

Help would be greatly appreciated.

My Druids got Crabs

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creatures (11) 4 Harabaz Druid 2 Spawnsire of Ulamog 4 Hada Freeblade 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria spells (16) 1 Banefire 4 Negate 2 Mind Spring 4 Ponder 2 Join the Ranks 3 See Beyond enchantments (8) 4 Training Grounds 4 Crab Umbra lands (25) 2 Forest 4 Plains 5 Island 4 Halimar Depths 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Glacial Fortress 2 Sunpetal Grove sideboard (8) 1 All is Dust 1 It That Betrays 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth 1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn 4 Vines of Vastwood

I love the Gears series. A lot of the Sony fanboys don’t seem to give it very much credit but the Gears games, to me at least, are some of the best shooters of all time. The first one was ground breaking and the second improved on everything in the first just like Mass Effect 2 did to Mass Effect. I hate Unreal Tournament so I’m glad Epic has been working really hard on the new Gears and not another Tournament rehash.

The song in the trailer is Heron Blue, by Sun Kil Moon by the way, it’s pretty catchy.

Edit: Here’s a better version of just the trailer.