Psuedo-New and preparation

So this weird thing has been happening where I really, really want to play standard or at least practice moving the cards around but I'm either not feeling well or fall asleep before I can get a game going - so I'm heading into FNM tonight not having played regular standard in about 4 weeks.

I think I'm going to play white tonight- there seems to be a flood of articles on the various Delvers and I have no idea what the metagame at the store is right now. My Delver build is sort of "not really Finkle's" but I'm expecting a lot of mirror or hate anyway. I'm amused by this since I was the first person running Delvers at the store about a week before I saw my first article on it. ( This isn't because I'm all special or anything, it's just because I was trying to find something to help me since I didn't have snapcasters and they looked like strategic advantage)

I might modify my sideboard to use Darwin Kastle's I don't have the shrine's of loyal legions though.

While his strategy looks like fun if I'm not brewing on my own for learning purposes I really really would like to take a shot at running one of the successful UB Zombies builds that have been floating around. There is one problem with not running my current Delver Build though. In casual and teaching games I realized that my big problem was hesitant mulliganing and working on that is done best with a deck where I'm very secure in how it works. The other thing is that sideboarding works better for me with that Delver build and that's another skill I need to work on.

But I'm not going in attempting to place today. I'm really just checking out the current meta to figure out how to prep for the Avacyn Restored season. It seems like I've missed most of the Dark Ascension period other than a few drafts and the GP. Part of it is timing: Holidays, midterms and being involved in costuming for Hairspray on super-short notice ( Hey Drinne we have 47 cast members and 6 costume changes for each, oh and 3 weeks; You're coming over now right? Yes, yes I am.) But the other thing that I can't seem t shake is this, FNM became much less like "appointment viewing" and more like "eh, whatever if I'm free" when the PWP value went down. For me anyway, I'm curious about the LGS attendance records. Part of it of course is that when I draft I'm building skills AND getting cards no matter what. Part of it is that since I realized that too little sleep affects both my gameplay and my attitude as a competitor it wasn't worth straining to get to it with no guaranteed return. It's shabbat so even though I do go, I try not to write which means my strategy has to be stuff that I am not likely to need to take notes.

I've been thinking a lot about notetaking. There's a good reference about the new tournament rules here . Working with the symbol processing disorder and recognizing that the learning curve is too high for me to deal with board states that are predominantly Scars block ( the artwork is too homogenous for associative recall to help me evaluate which cards do which ridiculous combat tricks) I've been thinking about the idea of taking reminder process notes on MY OWN BOARDSTATE when I play trigger effects, just like I teach tech workers to develop process reminders for tactile learners. But FNM doesn't really help me with that it just kind of would add a layer of guilt for being there in the first place with more writing. So between the disincentives and the other commitments I think I've been avoiding FNM since it moved down to "just another low level event". I don't know if this is just a "me" issue and avoiding social encounters or if it's really just happenstance. I'm coming out of a bunch of commitments so I'm going to make more of an effort to get to some before the pre-releases so I can evaluate it.

Bottom line though is that I'm going in unprepped for the metagame. My LGS seems to be more influenced by decklists on Wizards DailyMTG than Starcity, and our high level players when they are there are usually testing out homebrews.

What I have been doing:

I learned how to play EDH with the Heavenly Inferno precon. I picked it because I would be the most comfortable with the color combinations and Serra and the original Fallen Angel were two of my aboslute favorite cards on my first time at the rodeo. I was able to play relatively well against my friend who is literally the mythical casual gamer I didn't believe existed.

Hmmn he needs a nickname for the site, as he is easily identifiable and therefore I would be. Almost any relevant nickname I give him might actually still let people know, so maybe I'm in the rare situation where I just use his given name? Erg. No then friends who do know him will know all his deck strategies if I keep writing here. Oh I've got it. Mr. Pointy. ( ahhh the sweet, sweet irony),

Ok Mr. Pointy has a real life runs a regular and profitable business and LOVES magic especially EDH. He didn't realize that I played and some of my Facebook geekery tipped him off. I have been avoiding Commander like the plauge, I'm not really fond of multiplayer because I feel like I don't want to mess with it until I have a basic mastery of the head to head rules. Of course I'd already compromised on two-headed giant and Mr. Pointy said if I'd play with him we could play commander in a head to head style. He and I had been trying to get together for hanging out purposes for a while. So this seemed like a perfect yes. Let me tell you he has a full office with shelves dedicated to Magic, a worktable with sorted stacks, every precon deck ever and accessories. He does not however, read any of the online articles or follow the protour at all.

So apparently according to Mr. Pointy I had chosen my pre-con wisely since it was the only one out of the box that made him nervous.

Newb Note: Quick things about Commander

• you start with 40 life
• you pick one card to be your commander and it hangs out in the commander zone
• you can cast if from the commander zone whenever you have the casting cost
• when it dies you put it back in the commander zone and it just costs one more to cast next time moving cumulatively.
• You can only have 1 of each card in your deck
• there are about 100 cards.

Play Magic as normal - Glory in your Timmyflavored Timmy, Johnny or Spikiness cause you do get to play BIG cool cards.

I like angels and demons. I always have. Heck I played In Nomine. ( I miss In Nomine . . .).

It did not suck.

Rules Thing I learned:

The Phyrexian Metamorph actually changes color at the base card level so that if you have to declare "protection from" you can't use "blue" if the PM changed int a red card. I still do not know for sure if this is only with the Phyrexian Metamorph or if it is true for all clone effect cards.

It overwrites on Metamorphing. Mr. Pointy also played an odd infinite life combo that I should have written about here as soon as I learned about it because now I've forgotten how it worked.

Magic/Life Balance

I've also been playing with someone who started playing about two months ago. So the cool thing about that is that I can teach her the stuff that flummoxed me and explain why it was so hard to find out and she can learn the game on her own knowing about the scattered data sources and inconsistencies. It's very sweet of her to agree to be a case study in addition to a new friend.

The changes to OP and my reaction to them also helped my regular playgroup and I sort of work out where magic fits in our friendships and lives (we like it, we don't want it to be ALL the things because we loved ALL the things we were before we all played Magic.) And so I'll be working more on learning EDH because I think it might work better for my circle of friends and they'll put up with my obsessing about things in OP and tournaments that they are interested in but don't care about. The most important thing is that any of us will be able to say to any other one of us that we'd like to do something other than Magic right now and we'll go pick something else to do that minute or later. This is another reason that I'm going to have to break down the tiny avoidance and anxiety issues for FNM. Standard is too time-consuming and requires a constant influx of cards and secondary market expenses. My friends who came in with me when I came back now have a healthy library of cards as a base, we've really not gotten a chance to work with the ones we've got "for fun" so if we just build decks and have fun we'll take a bunch of the obsession out of it.

And I'm cool with that and switching competitive gears and "mastery" gears as long as it doesn't get too spikey. But honestly I think we're all good. We all like pre-releases : ).

Ok so I'm spending all day just working on Magic. I'll check in on Mark Rosewater's Reddit AMA, I'll design a new visual learning aid for Drafts based on Melissa Del Torro's really useful article. I will avoid political news coverage, play some Duels of the Planeswalkers on Steam and head to FNM. I have no idea what will happen there, but I've put it here so I'm not gonna chicken out and stay home.

Pseudo Newb and the Important thing about the "Legendary Rule"

I'm reading an e-book that's almost exactly what I was looking for by a group called "the Casual Planeswalker"

It's a basic deckbuilding and strategy guide - with actually usefull things including this lovely chart about mana based on deck archetype - which it breaks down in a better and more complete way than Chapins book

Land

aggro = 18-22

control = 24-28

combo = 14-19

And then it also does this radical thing and tells you why, and then it tells you when you might not want to follow that guideline and what the other cards are supposed to be doing.

I like this book but . . . .

Sigh. It was written in 2009. So they have a section on the legendary rule for Planeswalkers which is no longer true. The legendary rule gets tinkered with alot it seems.

In the Ultimate Guide to Strategic Deckbuilding it seems planeswalkers did not yet have the supertype/subtype rule that means when Jace the Invincible is out on the board and your opponent puts down Jace the Less Invincible both Jaces go into the graveyard because like all good time travellers you can't exist in two places at once without things going BOo0m.

But if you have Glissa the I'm on YOUR side legendary creature and Glissa the I Can't Believe You Fell For That legendary creature comes out on the opponents side they do actually need the full name to match so both Glissa's get to stay.

This is apparently called the Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule

• 306.3. Planeswalker subtypes are always a single word and are listed after a long dash: "Planeswalker — Jace." Each word after the dash is a separate subtype. Planeswalker subtypes are also called planeswalker types. Planeswalkers may have multiple subtypes. See rule 205.3j for the complete list of planeswalker types.
• 306.4. If two or more planeswalkers that share a planeswalker type are on the battlefield, all are put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. This is called the "planeswalker uniqueness rule." See rule 704.

Yep, that's a real thing. The there's what it means to be legendary which invokes "the Legend Rule":

• 205.4c Any permanent with the supertype “legendary” is subject to the state-based effect for legendary permanents, also called the "Legend rule" (see rule 420.5e).
• 420.5e If two or more legendary permanents with the same name are in play, all are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.” If only one of those permanents is legendary, this rule doesn’t apply

So this is the kind of thing when I finally find some kind of useful text there is a possibility of being led astray. I understand why it discourages this kind of writing but the overall fact of it existing makes it worth it for me to double check specific texts.

I'd also like to say how nice it was that they decided not to use cards when giving the examples - they use scroll-like blocks with just the card text on them which actually makes it easier to understand the point being made instead of all the visual noise of the card itself. The strategies and tactics are clearer without the art as a learning tool. I love the art and all but not when I'm studying.

I just wish they had updated - the book is better than the free sample they provided. If they decide to update for 5.00 like Chapin just has I would pay it. I also like the way they continue to show what you would do differently if you were going to slant competitve.

Their website hasn't been updated since September but someone had a link in a response thread on something at Star City Games. http://casualplaneswalker.com/category/blog/ I hope that they're just having an overwhelming semester like I have and that they'll update soon, but they are exactly that kind of missing midstep I was looking for - not perfect, but very helpful. Perhaps after completing their book I'll appreciate aspects of Chapin's better.

Psuedo Newb and the Anti Infect Deck

I hate poison. It used to be an OK mechanic that had a little flavor to it but in the post Phyrexian victory it's a mechanic that now runs rampantly across the colors and takes a 20 point game and makes it a 10 point game.

My first standard deck tournament was two weeks ago, I was playing a slightly modified Innistrad event deck and the first round was against a very nice young man and his mono-black infect deck.

*Newb Note - mono black means it's all black cards and mono-black infect means that it tries to win through making sure the opponent dies from 10 poison counters instead the loss of 20 life points. It might have more ways to win than that.


It was my only shut out of that event. I had nothing to stop the swarm of tiny infect creatures and land and by the time I could do anything I was dead by round 4. I'm sure I could have delayed things a bit if I'd known how to play better but it was no fun to play against and the Steampunk Marchioness (My friend who started playing recently) tells me that it's not really fun to actually play the infect deck and win. It feels like cheating.

So I realize I still haven't explained my "Geek Origin Story" but I am a returning player but with a very different kind of appreciation and focus for the game than when I danced here the first time. There are two things that made me kind of dislike "new" magic; Planeswalkers and infect.

I dislike Planeswalkers on flavor grounds.

Planeswalkers are the designated hitters of Magic. The kind of cool thing before was you ARE the planeswalker, you're pitting your magic skills against your opponent who is also a planeswalker - you are not a glorified "character" coming in to "help" in someone else's novel nor are some fictional characters making guest appearances in your story like some sort of officially sanctioned Mary Sue Fanfic.

On a mechanic level the "loyalty counters" thing took me a long time to even begin to understand - they came in for free with X counters on them, they got additional counters out of thin air for doing things to you and when they spent the counters they could make just doing what they wanted to do they could cost you the game. Then on top of that they weren't creatures so most of your removal spells don't work on them. Combine this with the fact that acquiring any of the suckers was either near impossible or costly on the secondary market and it became pretty clear - the one who got the planeswalker out wins. Or if you're playing casual the one who owns a planes walker wins. In limited sealed deck set ups finding any of the two Innistrad planeswalkers is a win.

So it's not surprising that they were ripe for abuse. The first psuedo newb that played one against me ( whom I assumed knew the rules better than I did) used more than one ability in a turn making a card I was already biased against look worse. It took playing against one in a tournament for me to find out some of the limitations and a trip to the third floor to find out the rest.

Here are the limitations:

• They still count as a permanent - anything that affects permanants on the board affects planeswalkers.
• The are affected by the "legendary rule" you can't have more than one out at a time - if two show up they both go to the graveyard and they go by "subtype" not full name so Jace takes out Jace no matter which two Jaces are facing each other.
• They can only be activated once per turn on the main phase when you would cast a sorcerey and on the second main phase when you can also cast a sorcery. (I'm definately still working on learning how to use second main phases properly. )
• You can declare attackers directly even though the player with the planeswalker can use it's creatures to block
• The best way to fight a planeswalker it to get it out of the game as quickly as possible - Oblivion ring, bramblebush, blue counterspells so far are what I've used to make them go away. I hate the critters the way some women hate mice.

After some practice and the subsequent successful destruction of planeswalkers in FNM (Friday Night Magic Tournament) and casual games I now realize that they aren't unaswerable but I also realize that you have to take up at least 4 - 8 cardslots of removal to make sure you get rid of them - at least at my current level of play. If I hadn't been playing the event decks I might never have learned how to get rid of them.

I also notice that I have over 800 cards that I've been collecting since I started at the beginning of February and I have not opened a single planeswalker. I find it difficult to justify spending a bunch of money on a single card when as a newb building up a card collection I could by several boosters instead. On the other hand when I played constructed there wasn't a single matchup where I didn't have to answer a planeswalker. It might not be a "broken" mechanic, but it is a something.

They are banned at the kitchen table because it's really not fair until more than one person has a planeswalker and a player who's name on the blog shall now be Deputy Dog keeps playing his anyway. The other thing we all hate at the kitchen table is infect. I actually wouldn't mind it if there were a way to remove poison counters but you can't - and that's by design. You can't heal up from them you can only stop acquiring them. They get to float around in the ethersphere because they weren't doing much harn in the competitive tournament scene. The reason for that is everyone there tries to kill each other in 4 rounds or less - so in tournament trying to cut the game in half still makes it a "long-term" kind of strategy. But in multi-player infect still kills you in 10, in casual because there are no answers other than quickly killing your opponent or a swarm of creatures including flying to block them infect always wins. Always, always always. Unless you have the one card that stops poison - Melira the Outcast. There might be one or two other answers in everything else but anything that "removes counters" in legacy or vintage got rewritten to make sure it specifically excludes poison counters.

Needless to say that mono-black infect is currently the poor man's choice to win quickly in the metagame of standard right now. I knew as soon as I saw the article on Wizards that there would be more. I figured I'm not good enough to outpace a competitive mono-black infect deck - I need to understand Melira and if she would work.

So she's also a legendary creature which would give me practice for the day I'm deep enough into the dark side that I might have multiple designated hitters . . . . I mean planeswalkers of my own. I took apart my two white sealed deck Innistrad creations - neither of which performed well but both of which taught me something and tried to combine them with green to see if I could make an anti -infect deck.

The result ended up being something that might be the beginning of understanding how things work but I'm pretty sure isn't competitive

Creatures

4 Melira, Sylvok Outcast

4 Avacyn's Pilgrim

2 Doomed Traveler

2 Selfless Cathar

1 Champion of the Parish

1 Gideon's Lawkeeper

1 Grand Abolisher

1 Mayor of Avabruck

2 Geist-Honored Monk

1 Garruk's Horde

2 Unruly Mob

Spells & Artifacts

2 Sharpened Pitchfork

1 Doubling Chant

2 Oblivion Ring

1 Midnight Haunting

1 Demonmail Hauberk

1 Tower of Calamities

1 Accorder's Shield

2 Caravan Vigil

1 Angel of Flight Alabaster

2 Remember the Fallen

2 Mulch

1 Parallel Lives

1 Elixir of Immortality

Land

1 Sunpetal Grove

4 Gavony Township

9 Forest

9 Plains

Last night while keeping the Marchioness company because she needed help staying awake we tested it against the phyrexian Rot from Within event deck. The art of mulliganing became terribly important - even though it was kitchen table ( literally for a change!) we used the tournament mulligan rules. The first time we both mulliganed and went down to 6. I stayed put but shouldn't have, she stayed put and was sitting pretty. With a 2/2 infect creature and a removal card for the first thing I could put out she killed in in four turns with poison. My own management of my manna burned hand ( Newb Note* Mana burn is when you have to much land and not very much to do with it - thats because you used to take direct damage from untapped land on your own turn)

I was able to get Melira out in turn 3 and she hadn't managed to get a single creature that did damage out. Once Melira was in play the game went on for a really long time and I learned how to use a whole bunch of cards. I only had one plains and no white manna generators otherwise so the game went on for a really long time until the swarn strategy really won after the poison creatures either didn't show up or couldn't do anything.

I'll break down what I learned on the next entry. I also played the dragon deck from duel decks for the first time and played Knights for the first time since May and found out that there were cards I had never drawn in that deck!

Pseudo Newb and the Third Floor

Just the second I catch up with myself I will explain why I am on the Third Floor. Its where a couple of pro players hang out at my college and a collection of various tech and music geeks. They have taken it over as a hang out and bring in their own equipment, computers, televisions to game.

I am not traditionally college age. They do not usually know that until they realize it later. That's not really bragging. Average looking women who are not ugly enough to be noticed for that reason or pretty enough for everyone to be looking for the first signs of "work was done" tend to surprise simply by not being someone who looks like their mom or a movie star. It's an odd kind of fountain of youth - when you are average looking people assume you would age into their stereotype of whatever that average age is. I still look like me. I look roughly the same as when I was college age, and I figure that in a about 5 or 6 years it will all catch up with me and I'll look in the mirror and see someone who suddenly doesn't look like me.

So when I started gaming with the Third Floor they sort of knew I was older than them but it wasn't as much of a barrier to entry as if they had really known. Once they did, it was cool I'd developed my own credibility, I wasn't a special case or a girlfriend gamer so without a social slot they just kind of took me as another player who was interested in the game. The pros were just looking to encourage people to play magic as much as they could.

I have a pretty strict no real names on the internet policy because I work in a field where I would like to leave a light footprint - I will probably start mentioning my specific local gaming shop shortly when I've figured out how to balance my desire for privacy for my professional and personal life will balance out with my desire to promote my local bricks and mortar businesses.

Newb Note* on the various internet forums the short way they refer to local gaming shop is LGS - I will be starting an acronym list as I learn these things as a resource for other newbs and a way to figure out how long the lingo learning curve is.

So the way I handle the "no real names" on my primary blog is by using quaint 17th century influenced titles. But that might get long here in magic land. So for the moment I will call my oppenent on yesterday's Third Floor match Ginger K. because there is also a Dark Haired K of the same K name that plays. That will be the system for the moment.

Type of Game - a casual pickup game. I came up to the Third Floor to report that I'd played a draft and ask for some advice on both the etiquette when you act like a jerk the way I did and the problem if you are actually right but you still acted like a jerk.

Ginger K is trying out deck concepts and he wanted to playtest. I only brought duelist decks with me. When he asked I offered to play one of his own decks against him if he was looking for mechanics testing that way he would get better knowledge and I would get more practice with different cards.

Preparation - none.

Ginger K is a competitive player so his decks move at quick speed. He's not a pro, but playing me lets him try out his most complex combo concepts without being rushed. ( For other newbs you should know the guy who like to make decks out of complex combinations is called a "Johnny" type of player. Just because someone is a Johnny doesn't mean they are an expert - there are newb Johnny's just like there are every other kind of newb it's just what they like to play.) So Ginger K wanted to Johnny out.

He went to his car and brought back six decks. He offered whatever I would like but I asked him what he wanted to test against. He had a fast burn ( burn means the cards deal direct damage instead of fight with creature cards) mono-red deck. This is pretty much the dominant kind of deck in my current group of local players so I thought it would be good for me to play it and get familiar with it.

Comfort Level - pretty good.

This is where the pseudo part of the pseudo-newb name comes in. I played a lot many, many years ago but very differently than now. Of all the mechanics, burn deck mechanics changed the least. It's suggested that when you teach brand new players using red is a good way to keep the complexity down at first ( although there's still lots of complexity in an all red deck, you can give a first timer a good chance of winning) and I'm actually starting to get good at coldreading card mechanics in my hand. My understanding of deck building is improving so even if I don't know the deck, I can make some assumptions and play strategically. It's a little like being thrown in at the deep end but on the Third Floor I'd even chance this kind of cold reading of a friend's deck with blue - but I'd have a comfort level that would be a little more like "nervous WTF am I doing?"

Results 2-0 me

The games were competitive. They were about 9-12 turns

Take Aways

There were a number of specialized lands and self risking strategies in the Red deck. I learned how to use War Contested Land ( where if a creature gets direct damage on me as a player my opponent gets control of the land and it's benefits which include a buff ( a buff is something that improves the performance of other cards in play). I didn't lose control of the land and I did successfully use the land buff as a win condition on the second game.

I was able to strategically use instants to finish off opponent creatures that only took some damage from a blocker and was getting a little better with tempo.

The most advantageous thing in the deck that put the games in my favor was the presence of one or two zero cost artifact creatures in my first hand. I blew the opportunity to use a manna triggered buff when I was attacking allowing the game to continue two rounds longer. Even though I won that could easily have turned around since my opponent had many ways to suddenly gain life. He was playing artifact/green (which on the forums would look like this UG)

End result - at least I feel better about being shut out yesterday. And I know I can pilot a competitive red burn deck. Ginger K. knows that he has strong combos and an early game but he doesn't have enough early removal in his deck to deal with three creatures making it out on one manna in turn one.

I was also told that not everyone thinks you have to announce "moving into attacking phase" and that I play slowly enough that when I tapped the Voiceless Spirit at the draft it would have been considered an attacking creature at that point and he shouldn't have been able to use the Fear of Dread. However they also agreed with me that it was more important to get myself back to a point of good sportsmanship than resolve the argument because A. That's what I need to work on as a player and B. by the time you call a judge over that kind of thing is he said/she said. However I was advised that if I were ever in serious tournament contention not to be shy about calling the judge and taking the answer. Serious contention looks like it's still a bit away.