Second Draft- Second Place

MAGIC THE GATHERING

Well well well . . .
After missing like 4 drafts i finally managed to sign up for my 2nd draft ever. Before that i was scouting the deck lists at wizards.com and decided to build myself a valakut deck because i always liked that nasty mountain. The deck costed me 147$ with 2 missing cards. Actually 6. . . because there were no overgrown battlements but i replaced those with rampant growth. And now im thinking of switching the growth for a Llonawar Elves because i kinda like having the option of blocking if the early pressure becomes problematic. The deck is fun still have to do some practice and figure out which hands are good to start with and which i should mulligan. On 2v2 however the deck performs really well. When you can afford to take some extra damage at the start of a match it becomes very easy to ramp up the mana and start dropping Primeval Titans like crazy + theres the insane Avenger of Zendikar that late game becomes just mindblowingly strong. I like this deck and i think its much better suited to compete at FNM than my current vampires. + Valakut i am given to understand has been one of the top decks for awhile so its a tested strategy and hopefully ill get some wins this friday.

Now lets talk about the draft.
First of all the draft was really rich on rares. We had a Chandra and 3 Sorin Markovs (1 of which was FOIL) + a whole bunch of other cute cards. One guy said during the end pickings that 7th pick Inferno Titan will never ever happen again in a draft. Not sure how good the Inferno is but ill take his word for it, Couple of the guys even took picture of the cards before we started picking.

So we cracked open the boosters and on my first one i had a Gideon Lawkeeper and i have already experienced the awesomeness of that card and since there were no other cards that i really liked in the pack i passed it. Then i got passed another white card Gideons Avenger so i thought hey this is a good white card. . . and in the next few passes i kept getting alot of nice white cards. I took a couple of Griffins and Stonehorn Dignitary and it was like everything was arranged for me to get the white cards. Then during the 2nd pack i kept getting more and more cards. I got a Pacifism another Lawkeeper and Oblivion Ring and until the end of the 3rd pack i had 3x Stonehorns also drew a Day of Judgement, Timely Reinforcements and couple of other cute cards. I had to put couple of black ards to fill the last spots of the deck and since i got a Sengir Vampire which is a great bomb for drafting i put him and a Doomblade + 2x Consume Spirits which . . .turns out is not that good of a card in a 2 color deck. I never had too much black mana to spend on the spell so its efficiency was reduced for me. And for a good measure i dropped 2 Emperor Scepters which proved to be a very very good choice as that card pretty much helped alot in winning my games later.

So Round 1 Me (2) vs (0) Jeremy

He was playing a black deck i think he had some white cards but he never really got the chance to use them. At the start of our first game i managed to drop a lawkeeper and 2 defenders with 0/3 stats that kept his creatures at bay because everytime they block id get 3 life. He dropped down a Blood Seeker vampire and for a moment i was worried that this might bite me in the ass but next turn i drew my Personal Sanctuary and totally nullified the vampire`s effect. After that i was slowly chipping away his HP with 3 griffin an kept tapping his one flying insect so he cant atk me. He managed to drop a nasty blue creature that for 1 mana put the top 2 cards of my deck in my graveyard. And even tho he removed some lands for me which was cool later on as the turns kept rolling i lost some good creatures. Eventually i drew my 2nd lawkeeper and then started tapping that remover too. Chipping away with a scepter and a griffin until i finally got my sengir vampire and it was pretty much GG so he surrendered.
Second game went alot faster as i got better draws. I dont remember exactly how that played out but i got him early on again and this time i had more creatures to use. In retrospect beyond my Sengir i didnt really have a bomb creature in my deck. Tho i had alot of good defenses and a bunch of flyers i guess i was kinda betting on the flying damage to win me my games.

Round 2 Me (2) vs (1) Francis

This baby won me the match against Francis

Now Francis beat a guy that ive seen win alot of drafts and alot of my decisions in the deck were made with the idea of defending against Kam`s aggresive black-red bloodthirst builds. But he got eliminated by Francis in the 1st round so  i was like yay great...maybe i have a chance now.
The 1st game went really bad for me. I was trying to hold on and i managed to draw my creature control spells but everytime i took care of one of his bombs he just summoned another one. He had fat green creatures a big fat vampire, he had the Inferno Titan and even Chandra was in his deck. So the first game he completely smashed me and i was kind of losing faith. I got intimidated by his big bombs and saw no real way to handle him.
2nd game however he had to mulligan so he had a smaller starting hand. It was very close and i barely stole that game. The Emperor Scepters were a big part of my vinctory and i even forgot to hit him couple of times.  But eventually i won.
3rd game was rather epic. First turns it was going slow and i even managed to do some damage. And then he started unloading his big bombs again. But i had a doomblade, pacifism and oblivion ring in my hand i was confident ill hold the line. I killed one of his fatties with the doomblade  and then i drew my day of judgment and the very next turn he dropped his big vampire and i cleared the board with a big smile on my face. But he had put the inferno titan in his hand with the ability from the vampire and summoned him the very next turn. I dropped my pacifism on that i had countered pretty much all his finisher now. I was getting the upper hand and i was trying to do some damage with the scepters. He got his chandra X_X But again my oblivion Ring came to save the day. There was some punching between us and then a lucky timely reinforcements and one consume spirits won me the game. I was very excited and happy. Only my second draft and i was going to face Byron to fight it off for the first place!

Round 3 Me (0) vs (2) Byron
Well i knew i had a pretty good deck and i was hoping to give Byron a run for his money but i couldnt handle him. He even made me an offer to draw and just play for fun to see who gets first pick because sometimes one of us might end up in 3rd place instead of 2nd which i think has something to do with % win rates and whatnot during the report. But i wanted to fight it off and just have fun with it. I lost but it was all good. It would not have felt right to just get that draw and try to secure a card pick. At the end i still got my 2nd place and i got the foil Sorin Markov as my first pick so i was pretty happy. I also drew the day of judgment and 1 land that i was missing from my collection of M12 and then the personal sanctuary enchant simply because there were not any other good cards to pick up. All in all it was a great event i had fun and i got better and hopefully ill keep improving and one of these days ill get to be the winner and get the first pick :D

Well thats it for today.
Keep it real and ill see you guys next time.

Booster Boxes

Magic The Gathering

+240 AU$
Wah okay so after the M12 booster box i got a new phyrexia and i got to say that + the fat pack i got 2 weeks ago it almost got me the whole set. Which is really cool. On one hand if i just ordered 1 card of each i would have probably saved some cash BUT considering i already got all the top and expensive rares its not much of a deal. And by cracking boosters i get to keep alot of cards including rares  for trade. Im sorry i didnt post the booster list but it does take time and i was lazy.

All lands in the set are gorgeous.

Yesterday i spent the entire day with my gf driving around Sydney and chilling out on the beach and eating sushi. Then later that night i made a very quick stop to the store and shocked Norman with 2 boosoter boxes from Zendikar. I was really itchy to get my hands on that set because he found me the Rise of the Eldrazi expansion but not the core set from the block. So now from my last count i need 12 cards from Zendikar which i think again is pretty good. I got 3 foil rares!!! Uber lucky :D Overall the set doesnt have that many expensive or good cards. But it does have shit loads of strong lands which are used in pretty much all competitive decks. Wherever its standard, extended or legacy we are talking about. So yeah that was cool and also Zendikar has those super pretty full sized basic land cards which are kinda hard to get. Couldnt draw a single foil tho :(

I think i kinda rushed this month with my Magic purchases and i think ill lay back a lil bit. Do some more drafts when i can and plan out my artifact deck. I know im close to collecting the entire standard but there is no real rush and i still got to send some extra $ to my mother in order for her to finish the kitchen in the unit.

Got a GPS too because recently i am having alot of trips to places i dont know so i decided now is a good time to get one. The brand name is Garmin and is really an amazing toy. Shiny and sleeck. . . . reminds me of an iPhone lolz. The navigation is amazing tons of info on the display including speed limits and camera locations + on tricky roads it actually shows me an image of the road and points to me which street to take. And in the city has a 3D map with buildings and stuff. And the best part is that its a national gps so i can use it all over Oz. AAAAND it even has a map of New Zealand for a good measure. It will come in handy when i go to visit Peter Jackson for coffee one day :D

So thats it for todays post. Keep it real and ill see you guys next time!
Yours Azzy

Drafting and Zombies

Lal the new season of Die2Nite has finally started. The update got delayed for 24 hours but its now here. There is obviously a huge public outrage because of the meta  cap. Even tho we had weeks of whining on the world forums. Still the cap is 20 instead of the french 15 so hey...cheers for the small victories eh?
On the other hand the construction tab is not working so now new towns cant build. However Epoq posted that the issue has been fixed and should be ok tommorow morning. There alot of new features and i think the game will become very dynamic this way. I made a quick jump even tho there only 3 hours before argh because i want to try some stuff and i need 7 more days to unlock another rucksack slot which is probably the best skill in the game.
We have a new hero power called architect but i have no idea when that will get unlocked. I think the new blueprint mechanic will be awesome and will really push players to go out and take advantage of auto-searching. Rulesy`s map app is being taken down not sure why but i wont be surprised if he got upset with the update.
There is some kind of unique special power called "Pre-war camera" which you only get if you subscribe for 6 months of hero time.....i want it but i will hold onto my money for now until somebody else gets it and says what the bloody hell does it do.


Also in the Magic world i did my first draft today which was super fun. I made a green/white deck with enchants as some kind of a semi-winning combo. I had a draw on my first game but i was winning the 3rd match so i was very upset we didnt have the time to finish :(
I won my 2nd round rather easily and then got my ass whooped by the eventual winner and his damn agro bloodthirst deck X_X
Drafting proved a very interesting and fun format. The challange of making deck by being passed cards from other players is exciting indeed. I think i did fairly good but more practice is needed. I wanted to do a 2nd draft but i was just soo hungry so i went out to buy myself some food and because of that my spot got taken by another player. I did however get a New Phyrexia booster box and with the draft and 100 basic sleeves for the deck i spent another 180$ on MtG. So i think ive reached my cap for the next 30 days. Maybe 100$ more for some cards for my standard deck or something but yeah...ill try to avoid spending alot of cash on the collection.
Considering how much i enjoyed the draft today i really hope i can attend the FNM event tommorow. Who knows what kind of crazy decks people will bring on the battlefield. xD

Also went to my GFs place and watched a new movie by Donnie Yen. But it turned out it was 2nd part and she had seen the first one so it was i who was left in the dark wondering exactly what was going on. The movie was pretty good the fighting sequences were great but the story was a bit hard for me to understand. Too many historical movies in chinese cinema lately. I guess its a big thing right now but for outsiders like me it makes relating to the characters a bit hard. On the other hand i got 2 other movies. 1 from singapore and 1 japanese both seem promising. Maybe ill post reviews after i see them.

Yours Azzy

MtG Collection Vol. 1

1,830.80 AU$ laying on my bed :D

Hehe here`s the pic of my whole collection :D I reckon its pretty impressive for under 1 month :P
Im planning to attend my first FNM event tommorow night. Lets hope nothing unexpected happens at work. And also doing some research for my next deck. Im going to GGS today too to do some practice with my vampires and test some of the new card ideas i have.
And to brag about my foil Jace hehe ^_^

Since i was sick i decided to skip training this week and relax and get my strenght back. Next week im hitting the gym hardcore again and will go to check out the Gracie academy that is much closer to me and will be a better place to train BJJ. Also going to get some new weights for home so when im busy i can still do workouts.
And i should probably try and go to the bookstore to see if there some new releases. Im hoping for some Gantz and if im lucky maybe the missing Berserk volumes that prevent me from continuing my collection.

Keep It Real Guys and ill see you next time :)

Rise of the Eldrazi

MAGIC THE GATHERING

Cast Emrakul and its a GG baby!

Yay what a wild weekend i had. Every now and then i got overwhelmed by the amount of work i have. Sometimes things overlap and i have couple of days in a roll where i got to take care of tons of shit. Im pretty much used to this kind of thing now but this time i also managed to get a bit sick due to the unfriendly to astma weather. I missed the M12 release and i made up my mind that as soon as i find the time ill make a quick jump down to the store and try to get a booster box. Well i couldnt do that on monday as i had to write some reports and etc. But Today i checked what time the store will open and i was there like 10 minutes later. My homeboy Norman was on shift which was great and he also had a very very very pleasant surprise for me. A full Rise Of The Eldrazi set. And even tho that it is actually the 2nd expansion in the Eldrazi block it has whooping 248 cards in it! So i decided to  break tradition and buy it right away (even tho he could have saved it for me) and just get the Worldwake and Zendikar later. BUT i also wanted to go tru with my own plan to get a booster box from M12. . . .so that ment that ill have to cough up alot more $ than i originally anticipated.
So yeah.... X_X menu update on money spent: +503AU$     sigh . . . i think ill hold a bit on the collectors side and try to get some cards for another deck to play with. Im considering some new cards for my vampire deck aswell.

Also it appears that people can redeem cards from Magic Online and get a full set (1 card each) when they get enough cards or pts (i didnt ask for details). So that got me thinking on the way home....if i get a super old set in the game would they print a set and mail it to me aswell? Ill have to ask in the store next time i go. Because that might be one of the ways to obtain some of the tricky old cards. Oh boy i bet that will cost a fortune to do.

I also took some pictures of my MtG collection before putting the set into the folder pages or opening the boosters. Actually ill open the boosters now and will put a list of each rare i draw lets hope for some cool stuff and maybe 1-2 planeswalkers ^_^ (I mean google up the prices of Chandra and Jace. . . JEEEZUS!)
M12 BOOSTER BOX
1)  Birds Of Paradise
2)  Cemetery Reaper   (FOIL: Garruk`s Companion)
3)  Angelic Destiny 
4)  Phantasmal Image 
5)  Sundial of the Infinite 
6)  Reverberate 
7)  Solemn Simulacrum 
8)  Gideon Jura 
9)  Rites of Flourishing  (FOIL: Fireball)
10) Saturated Ghoul       (FOIL: Swamp)
11) Mind Unbound         (FOIL: !!! JACE, MEMORY ADEPT !!!) EPIC WIN
12) Warstorm Surge
13) Arachnus Spinner
14) Garruk`s Horde
15) Garruk, Primal Hunter
16) Cemetery Reaper
17) Adaptive Automaton
18) Skinshifter
19) Quicksilver Amulet
20) Throne of Empires
21) Dragonskull Summit (LAND)
22) Grand Abolisher
23) Dungrove Elder
24) Worldslayer
25) Visions of Beyond       (FOIL: Zombie Goliath)
26) Chandra`s Phoenix
27) Flameblast Dragon
28) Personal Sanctuary
29) Jace`s Archivist
30) Sunpetal Grove (LAND)   (FOIL: Azure Mage)
31) Rootbound Crag (LAND)
32) Day of Judgement
33) Time Reversal
34) Sun Titan                           (FOIL: Ice Cage)
35) Sphinx of Uthuun
36) Archon of Justice

There we go.....maaan that was alot of opening and alot of praying to the gods for cards :D Obviously everybodys eyes have already fallen on that mind blowing foil Jace. I mean shit Jace is already worth 40$ and even a foil one :D :D Garruk is 45$ and most of the rares are pretty good and valuable. Sadly this aint for sale or trade because most of the cards i dont have yet in my M12 collection. I mean until now the only cards i hard were from the pre-release events. I was planning after opening the packs to check out their prices and see what value i got out of the box. But unfortunately i do not have the time right now. Maybe ill do it later tonight at the office. And out of 36  rares i got only 1 twice. But then i got the foil Jace so its like i got a full set of 36 witheout repetition. Pretty cool huh :P
Buuut now im stuck with an awful lot of commons and ill have to sort them out at some point to figure out which one of them i need in the collection...sigh....that will be a bit frustrating.

Oh and i got 4 copies of manic vandal :D exactly what i needed. 1 for the collection and 3 for the vampire deck cant wait to test them and see how they work.

And thats about it. Going to replace March of the Machines with a new card on the sidebar menu and then im off to work (and eat).

The Fall Of Troy

Remember, Remember the 24th of April! 

The war originated from a quarrel between the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, after Eris, the goddess of strife and discord, gave them a golden apple, sometimes known as the Apple of Discord, marked "for the fairest". Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the "fairest", should receive the apple. In exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Helen's husband Menelaus, led an expedition of Achaean troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris' insult. After the deaths of many heroes, including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse

One of the greatest stories ever told. I love the War of Troy. As a kid this was one of my favorite myths and to this day it remains. I have always loved Greek Mythology so rich so colorfull so AWESOME. They say Tolkien invented the fantasy genre maybe in a way he did. But most of the creatures we now know and love in our fantasy books were already invented by the greeks. And their stories are so amazing and alive. Truly a masterpiece never to be matched.  
Odysseus and Achilles  two of the greatest heroes ever. As a kid i was so inspired by Odysseus`s adventures after the war of Troy. The smartest of them all the guy who won the war and then had to suffer for 10 more years before finally returning home to his family and his wife (that remained faithful for 20 years!!! id like a wife like that lol). And sadly in the end perished by the hand of one of his own sons! 


So yeah this post is just a reminder for all of you guys:
NEVER FORGET THE TROJAN HORSE!

M12 Pre-Release

Yay its finally here! Magic The Gathering Core Edition M12. That means M11 now goes away and M12 is put in its place in standard. The prelease event runs 1 week before the actual release so we still cant buy boxes or boosters. Still with the cards we get from the event we get a nice glimpse of things to come. Altho i have no doubt alot of players have already found out the entire list of the cards in the set. The Planeswalkers are super awesome especially Jace and Chandra. Ofc...i couldnt draw any X_X

Friday July 8 Midnight Event

So my gf was working Friday night so i decided to attend the midnight pre-release because i knew i wouldnt be able to go to the saturday events and i wasnt sure for today (Sunday). So first pre-release for me. I knew the basics of the format but i had no actual experiance so i was very excited about it. I arrived early - around 7 o`clock and had bunch of games with my vampire deck. I must say blade of the bloodchief is performing very well. Not to mention the deck overall gets more wins than loses. Im very eager to do so research later and build a strong legacy deck. Altho that might be very expensive to achieve.
So about 30 minutes before the event started i stopped playing and was just chilling on my laptop and actually managed to get 1 player to sign up as my sponsor in D2N :)- So now i got another Golden Boy distinction and i am the current N:1 on the oval office ranks.

Anyway i went to register and i was kinda worried how would i play because i used to have a DCI number like 8 years ago back in the old country. But i was not sure if it will be still active after all these years. But it was it took about 2 minutes for one of the Good Games employes to find it for me. So everything was well i was signed and i took my seat on 1 of the tables. Everybody got their 6 booster packs and the premium foil M12 card (Bloodlord of Vaasgoth).

I opened my boosters as quickly as possible and started checking out my cards. Almost from the start i realised i was drawing too many red spells so i knew my main color would be red for sure. I got couple of good green,black and white spells but not enough to really want to put them in my deck. The blue i got some decent drops in terms of : Mana Leak, Ponder and 2 other draw card spells. I had also Sphinx of Uthuun which i put in the deck as a nice end game finisher (tho i never got to play him).

I love dragons. And i got this one twice!

I had 21 red spells in my deck with my badass Flameblast Dragon and i also got Grim Lavamancer, Circle of Flames (that card was almost all the time in play for me hah) , Volcanic Dragon i had also some good removal in the face of incinerate, fling, shock, art trail and couple of other cards.
So yeah i went with a 43 card deck with 18 mana. Which now i know was a bad decision. Later i found out i didnt really need couple of spells and that it was much better to have a 40 cards deck to play with.
My first game i dominated and won 2-0 with big game finishes. First one my flame blast dragon smacked my oponent for 11. And 2nd game i dropped him with 10 but with other cards.
The 2nd round one of the guys who i played earlier with my vampire cards dropped out of the tournament so 1 player got to get a "BY" which means a free win. And by chance i got it. ^_^
3rd round i faced a green/white deck and this is where my mana problems started. Still it was a pretty close fight 2-1 loss. He managed to drop alot of his creatures and the big ones were a lil bit hard to burn with my limited removal. I needed a bit more luck to take that game.
4th I dont remember exactly how that played out. I remember i played against Alex but what exactly went down is a blur. I believe he had some very small creatures and was chipping me away and i had a bad draw or something....i cant recall.
Anyway at the end of the day i got a 2W-2L rating and turned out for each win you get you receive 2 free boosters. Something i was not aware of so it was a very pleasant surprise for me. So i got 4 boosters but didnt draw any super rares. I did get 2 mythical rares in the face of Sun Titan and Frost Titan but they are not that powerfull. Still nice addition for my collection :P

I learned alot and it was extreamly fun. Met alot of great players and generally everybody is sooooo friendly. I loved the athmosphere. Its interesting to note that most people use an app for their phones that keeps track of our lifes. And whats even more interesting is that everybody has a different version of it :D I find that very amusing.
During the event btw when i was not playing i was texting my gf alot and told her what i was doing. So she was kinda curious what exactly im playing and said she wants to see sometime. So today i called her and i gave her 2 choices:
-She comes with me to another pre-release event to see what im playing.
-Go chill in the park.
She picked the game even tho i warned her it might take 2+ hours. But on the other hand im so tired of separating my life because of others. If a girl cant handle my gaming side then she isnt exactly cut out to be my girlfriend in the first place. So i was like sweet lets see how she will react to the whole MtG thing :D And lets face it MtG is alot more geeky than PC gaming so if she didnt mind that ill be ok. And yeah she was okay with it. It was funny to her (obviously) but she was also kinda curious. She said i looked very happy while i was playing and i was so excited that she got hyped too, but she couldnt understand what we were doing. Still after 1 hour of watching she whipped out the iPhone and went to facebook. kewl i dont blame her. Anyway it was very cool of her to join me.

So for today`s report:
I opened my 6 boosters and again i had a very established set of cards. This time green was the main color and red the secondary. I got 3 green rares, 2 red an 1 artefact. Thinkin about the other people`s decks i got to say they seem more complex with just 1-2 small combos and stuff. But alot faster aswell. I decided to go with awhole lot of heavy creatures. Bucause on friday it was that fat monster on the field that got me killed.
So here my rares:

Adaptive Automaton

Flameblast Dragon (Yes AGAIN), Warstorm Surge (this is super strong :O)

Never got the chance to play this :(

Skinshifter and Primordial Hydra (Two of the best green cards i have ever seen and i never drew the Hydra to try it :X ), Doubling Chant (at first i thought this was a good idea but later i removed this from my deck).
So as you can see i got to use all my rares in the deck.
I also had 2x Volcanic Dragons and 2x Vastwoof Gorger and a Cudge Troll and 2x Act of Treason. And couple of other good cards. I made a mistake in putting too many fat creatures so i had almost nothing for early in the game and i payed for it.
1st Round vs Moon (or Mon)
A Korean guy beat me 2-1. I fucked up in the 3rd game when i started with 1 mana in my hand and thought ill be lucky enough to draw some more.
2nd Round vs Simon (very cheerfull fella btw)
Dominated him 2-0 . He got mana blocked at the first game and the second i just had a very strong starting hand and once we got to the mid game i unloaded alot of my heavy creatures.
3rd Round vs Mathew (He did something very interesting, he put his deck in Pokemon Sleeves X_X)
I lost 2-1 again. First game i smashed him witheout giving him any chance. 2nd one i could have won if not for 1 stupid flying creature that had hexproof. I actually needed just one of my dragons to stop it and turn the game around but alas fate decided to put the dragon 1 turn away from me and i lost.
the final game i had my mana and my big finishers but by the time i got to my 6th mana he had me dropped to 8 and after that it didnt matter his rush was too hard to handle. He had like 5 creatures on the board.
4th Round vs Anthony (The Pacifism guy X_X)
1st game he had no chance. Mana block at 2 the entire time he did manage to hold on for a bit because he had that tap knight that kept my attackers at bay for a bit but in the end there was no way for him to win after i had unloaded my mana and he discarded an awful lot of cards. The third game was super bitchy i had a decent draw but he just had all his best cards to counter mine and at the final turns he put the big Sphinx of Uthuun and killed me. Those pacifisms were just unbelievably well timed for him. Luck was on his side. So i lost again 2-1.
Total: 1W 3L

So to sum it all up i had a worse record than friday but on the other hand i never lost by 2 and all my 3rd games were pretty close. And all my wins were total domination. My decks were strong everybody said so but still could have been planned a little bit better. Switch couple of cards and put more lands. I learned alot. The best way to get better is practice so ill just keep playing. Ill do some drafts whenever available and hone my skills on limited formats. Friday i went with a very quick burn deck with unsufficient mana. And Today i went exactly 40 cards with enough mana but too many fat creatures. Even after replacing the wurms and removing the Chant i still didnt manage to squuze a victory but the fights were close. Next time hopefully ill do better. Ill have to pay more attention to what my oponents are playing and try to see what is the thinking behind their tactics.
I got 2 boosters from todays event and got:
Grand Abolisher and Goblin Chieftan both of which seem like very solid and good cards. Not sure if they are expensive tho.

It was very, very, very fun and if i was having any doubts (wherever ill be playing magic again or it was just another short lived whim of mine) they are all gone now. Azzy is back and will be kicking ass!!!! I even saw that there is a Grand Prix in Brisbane later this year. And if i have the cards and experiance ill probably team up with some players from the store and go there and give it a shot. Its still months away so ill have plenty of time to practice.

Rise of the Vampires

Magic The Gathering

So collecting the Scars of Mirrodin set was fun! But i still needed a deck to get back into the game with. I mean sure i got that infect pre-made deck and it was so lame that even i knew it sucked and i havent played the game in 8 years or so. Ya i`ve clocked some 30 hours on Duels Of PLaneswalkers but that dont count. + they only use cards from the D12.  So i got my boy Norman (who`s my personal assigned card dealer) to start gathering me the Mirrodin Besieged   set and on the pick up day after some pretty extensive research of the mtg site i sat down with my laptop and picked up a deck i liked and told him "i want this deck...NAY".

And what deck i chose u ask? VAMPIRES!
First of all i love me the vampire tribal theme. Also on Duels the vampires are my favorite deck and maybe the strongest. At least ive clocked most of my wins with it. So i kinda knew some of the cards from the deck i decided to pick up from the "Top Decks" coloumn. I was checking it out. . . . not really getting it. All creatures were 1-2 mana dwarfs so i wasnt sure how the deck works. But hell that deck one some big tournament recently so cant argue with the pro players right :D
So here it is:

Matthew Landstrom's Vampires

Standard – StarCityGames.com Open in Indianapolis, IN

Main Deck

Vampire Royalties are powerfull

60 cards 

4  Blackcleave Cliffs                                            3  Dismember

4  Dragonskull Summit                                        4  Go for the Throat

4  Lavaclaw Reaches                                            4  Lightning Bolt
3  Marsh Flats                                                       ____________________
6  Swamp                                                              11 other spells
2  Verdant Catacombs

---

23 lands                                                                 Sideboard

4  Bloodghast                                                        2  Act of Aggression
4  Gatekeeper of Malakir                                      4  Arc Trail
4  Kalastria Highborn                                           2  Batterskull
3  Manic Vandal                                                    2  Crush
4  Pulse Tracker                                                    2  Dark Tutelage
4  Vampire Lacerator                                            1  Doom Blade
3  Viscera Seer                                                      2  Skinrender

---

26 creatures                                                          15 sideboard cards

  

Actually some of the cards were missing so ill have to wait until Norman can find them for me:

3x Manic Vandal, 3x Dismember, 1x Arc Trail and 1x Batterskull. But even with those missing and with me adding 3x Blade of the Bloodchief (3$ each) the deck ended up costing a whooping 281.80 AU$ i still dont entirely understand the reasons behind the rare lands especially since they can easily be replaced by basic ones. But hell the guy won the tournament with this right. . . might aswell take his word for it. Besides most of them will probably end up in my future decks so its not that bad of an investement. Still god damn rare lands cost a ton. Not to mention batterskull X_X and i still need to get the 2nd one. So yeah if i had assembled the deck as listed it would have passed the 300AU$ mark easily. It costed me more to make this than for me to get a full set of besieged. . . .

I played some games against 2 guys and their standard decks and actually my vampire babies did really well. Obviosuly it would have been better if i had the full set but still the deck works great. And i need more practice because i was pointed out couple of mistakes and opportunities that i missed in my games. Ill be going to the store after i finish this post. . .and after i have some breakfast. Actually i have to pick up some shirts from the dry-cleaner aswell X_X sigh

So yeah. Im very excited to be back in magic and hopefully ill have more fun with it than i did as a kid. Not to mention that now i can afford to get cards and build decks i want. :) 

I intend to attend the pre-release of D12 and try my luck at the FNM this week. :D I dont think ill win but hey practice makes perfect.

Took a relationship advice from Shinji recently. Because i wasnt sure if i was in one but on the other hand i didnt know how exactly to initiate "the talk". Jeez its alot easier to sweet talk a girl to sleep with you than to talk relationship and stuff o.O Not to mention i`ve never been with a girl longer than a month or so. But yeah i didnt manage to go as smooth as Shin adviced but on the other hand it ended up with a win. I guess i knew and me and pakki were already a couple but just had to seal the deal with a verbal acknowledgement. She actually has seen my MtG cards because i had one of my folders in my backpack but i dont think she is put off by that part of me. I think she finds my geek side kinda cute haha. Which is truthfully told very good. Because i am a big gamer and pretty nerdy since im into comics and manga and as of now TCG again so it is important to have a girl that wont bitch about that. But then again i dont think any girl would mind a geeky guy who can fuck her the way i fuck haha :D

Blogger

Okay so i tinkered a bit with my menu. The followers sidebar got pushed down a bit. Because lets face it anybody who spends time reading my blog will scout the menu at some point and random people wont follow. Altho its been hard to even get ppl i know to follow me. Not to mention noone knows his google account password because they are auto-logging in to YouTube. Well to be fair im auto-logging aswell and the only reason i remember my password in google is because of this blog.

I also removed the "Im reading. . ." sidebar. Its been awhile since i red a book and im not reading anything and i dont think ill be reading that much anytime soon. So no more of that for now. Instead im placing a Magic card im thinking of changing it everytime i post or maybe once a week not sure how that will play out. But the true reason behind that is that i intend to keep track of the amount of $ ive invested in Magic and my cards. Im counting card sleeves and deck boxes and folders because lets face it. . . nobody will buy those unless he collects and plays Magic.

Thats it for today and ill see you guys next time.

UFC 132

UFC 132 CRUZ vs FABER
 Oh my god that was one hell of a card!!!!



It was a spectacle full of submissions and knockouts and major upsets! This just has to be one of the greatest UFC cards to date. Absolutely awesome. Everybody who didnt buy this totally missed out on an amazing show.
I didnt watch all the prelims so ill review what i saw:

Sotiropoulos (L) vs (W) Dos Anjos
The Aussie George had a bad beating in his last fight from Denis Siver who is also fighting at UFC 132 and needed a win to get back on track. But a quick shocking knockout by Dos Anjos screwed his plans. 2 Loses in a row is not a nice place to be and especially when you lose so badly. Hope he recovers and gets back stronger. After all we got to support our fighters no? :P

Guillard: Let me introduce you to my knee

Guillard (W) vs (L) Roller
That was a one sided fight. The Young assassin Guillard dominated the fight. Controlled the pace and felt very confident and relaxed. And obviously when Roller opened his guard Guillard punished him with 2 brutal punches and then a flying knee that took him out....the final couple of punches were just for a good measure. It was a great knockout cant wait to see Melvin again.

Siver (W) vs (L) Wiman
This fight was good. But the win decision of the judges is very questionable. Honestly maybe Wiman didnt do that much during the fight and a loss on points seems plausable BUT! Wiman did win the 2nd round there was just no doubt about that. So then how did the judges manage to score the fight unanimously? X_X Win by split decision would`ve made more sense. But this . . . i dont know. Even Siver didnt look very convincing in his post fight interview with Joe Rogan. Im pretty sure he wasnt expecting a win. He totally got dominated on the ground by Wiman. And i think Siver would do well to improve his ground skills because next time the judges might not be on his side.

Carlos Condit (W) vs (L) Dong Hyun Kim

I dont know these 2 guys. But apperantly Kim was on an unbeaten 16-0 record and was expected to win the fight. Well Carlos had something to say about that when midway in the 1st round he dropped the South Korean with a flying knee to the face. I mean that was just a devastating knee. Kim dropped instantly and was probably half way into the other world dreaming about ice-cream when Condit dropped couple of extra punches to seal the deal. As i said alot of spectacular knockouts that night.

Tito Ortiz (W) vs (L) Ryan Bader
If you guys remember i attended ufc 127 in Sydney and i was sitting ring side with Ryan Bader himself and he was such a great guy so naturally im kind of a big fan of "Darth" Bader. So after the shocking knockout by Tito i was obviously upset. I mean Ryan`s only loss was to Jon Jones who after that went on to beat Shogun and become the new LHW champion. So that was bearable but losing like this by Tito that must have devastated him. Tito has no wins for like 5 years or something . . . and then in his what was supposed to be his last fight in the UFC he knocks Ryan out. Jeezus talk about upsets. Im sure Dana White`s jaw dropped after that KO. Because we know that he and Tito are not vest friends and he was eager to get rid of him. I wonder how many more fights will Tito receive after this.
But honestly i just hope he gets his ass beaten badly by whoever is his next opponent.

Wanderlei Silva (L) vs (W) Chris Leben   *Co-Main Event*
The Axe Murderer vs the Crippler that fight was always going to be awesome. Both fighters have crazy fighting styles and are extreamly agressive. And they delivered. Silva went in berserk with a wild barrage of punches but obviously witheout any defense up. Chris shook him with a powerfull left hook and after Silva tried to hold him with a Muai Thai clinch the "crippler" just started loading left uppercuts in his face until the axe fell down and gave a kiss to the ground. After that it was just a matter of couple more punches to make sure silva stays down and the fight got stopped by the judge.
It was another amazing KO and honestly i think this fight should have gotten the KO of the night award. Not only because it was a big upset but also because it was such a great way to finish the Murderer. Instead they gave the honor to Tito Fucking Ortiz X_X

Dominick Cruz (W) vs (L) Urijah Faber  *MAIN EVENT*

Cruz celebrates his victory and receives his blue belt

The bantamweight kind defends his title for the 1st time since joining the UFC. Not only that but Cruz gets to fight Urijah Faber the only person to have ever defeated him. Cruz and Faber are famous rivals from the WEC and the champion was very eager to clean his name and get revenge. Tensions were up and during the entire 5 rounds you could see both were very eager to KO the other one. Cruz was dominating the entire fight. His crazy style and unorthodox movement and combos kept Faber most of the time at bay. The california kid dropped some pretty big shots couple of times and even managed to drop Cruz on the ground (altho i believe he just went off balance) but was unable to finish him. Cruz was punching and kicking more. Controlling the octagon and just being everywhere and doing everything. There were couple of scraps on the ground but both of them very very quick to get up on their feet. in the 4th round it appeared that Cruz might be getting a bit tired since he was taking very deep breaths and kinda slowed down. But in the 5th round he exploded and really pushed Urijah wanting desperately to finish his nemesis. He couldnt do it but he got a decisive win, got his revenge and proved he deserves to be the champion. Honestly tho the way the fight went. I wont be surprised if there is a rematch soon. Because if there is one i dont believe it will go the distance as both fighters now have 25 minutes worth of fighting experience against each other.


All in all that was one of the BEST UFC events to date and if you got some extra $ instead of buying a dvd just go to UFC.TV and watch this event its worth every cent!!!
p.p: Justin Bieber and Rihanna were attending the event :D :D I thought that was kinda funny :D I mean Lil Jon was no surprise and Kevin James is a known long time fan. But Bieber and Ri? O.o LMAO Is the bieber even old enough to attend such things X_X Altho ive never seen any age restriction.

Steam Summer Sale:
Got myself some cheap games :D
Hoard, Bioshock and Titan Quest (+expansion)