Good Gamery

Month: August 2008

  • Mad Libs: Choosing a New Magic Set!

    The newest set in the Magic the Gathering Universe is called the

    of

    . It will debut in October 2008. This set will be the first in a series of three that makes up a new block. It will be aimed at

    as all Magic the Gathering sets generally are — we need the money. Inevitably, the theme of this new set will leave many players with the urge to voice their displeasure on


    . We have decided based on previous research that the most
    set theme is


    . Regardless, we hope to circle back to the

    theme in the near future, so don’t worry! Another exciting development in this new set is the introduction of

    rares that we hope will increase everyone’s

    in the game.

    Probably the most fun part of

    Magic set is picking the codename for that set and block. For the next set, we have decided that the codename will be

    . I bet you can’t guess why! Okay we’ll tell you: we love watching funny shows!!!

    As with any new Magic set comes the job of integrating it into Magic the Gathering online. We know that players will be excited to see and play with the newest cards. We assure them that server overload

    be a problem during that week. We ask them to be patient (but not to give up

    cards) and remember that it’s just a game. If you experience any problems, please don’t hesitate to call us (note that offer of help is merely a kind gesture of appeasement on our part, no help is actually available; for rules and limitations contact our lawyers).

  • Sarah Palin




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  • Dog Eats Magic: The Gathering Deck, Dies

    In a stunning development yesterday, Antoine Ruel’s dog “Mountain” ate almost an entire 75 card Quick N’Toast deck and promptly died. The coroner determined that the dog had swallowed the deck, and died as a result of the deck not being food. “It’s something that we see all of the time. A dog, or a person for that matter, eats a large amount of non-food and dies because you’re not supposed to eat things that aren’t food,” he said before rolling up his window and doing a sweet-ass burnout.

    Ruel was naturally quite upset. “I guess that’s what happens when you don’t feed your dog for a week,” he mused. “It’s going to eat your magic cards.”

    Among the casualties were three Chameleon Colossi, four Kitchen Finks and two Cloudthreshers, all foil. Only one card, a single Shriekmaw, managed to avoid being devoured, but when asked to comment, it simply sat on the table motionless, because it is a card.

    This isn’t the first time that an animal under Ruel’s care has died. In 2006, Ruel’s parrot Giant Turtle was euthanized by vets because it had learned and continually repeated the words “Lightning Helix.” His cat Kird Ape was recently humanely slain because it peed on his collection of Tarmogoyfs.

    “These animals think they’re so smart, but they’re not as smart as me,” Ruel said with a chuckle as he wistfully stared at the newly minted portait of himself.

    “See if that dog with the armor faceplate, or that bird on my arm ever crossed me, they would find out pretty quickly that I have the vet on speed dial.”

    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • Wizards Cuts Numerous Magic: The Gathering Tournaments



    In what Wizards has deemed “nothing short of the best for the future of Magic,” a plethora of tournaments have been cut. Popular events such as Regionals, Nationals, Grand Prix, and Pro Tours have been discontinued. This announcement continues the trend set by Wizards last year when they ended the long-running Invitational, Junior Super Series, and States/Regionals/Provinces/Islands/Archipelagos/Space Stations tournaments.

    Says Mark Rosewater, a highly acclaimed Magic flavor author who does some other stuff too, “We cut back on these tournaments because we f*cked up some miniatures game and lost a shitload of money.” When asked why Wizards continues to press forward on a complete and utter debacle, he told reporters that, while it may have seemed impossible ten years ago, the possibility of Shock appearing in a non-red color is very real in the modern age of Magic flavor.

    This would, at first sight, leave Magic players with only Friday Night Magic and City Championships, but Wizards says Magic players have nothing to fear. They are introducing what Randy Buehler deems a “super ultimate tournament” called Super Ultimate Tournament. The tournament will be the Two-Headed Giant format, and to qualify, one must win “lots of FNMs and stuff.” Buehler says, “I chose Two-Headed Giant because I knew the format was in extremely high demand amongst the Magic community.”

    But this is not all, says Scott Johns. “We have exciting news: we will now be releasing twelve sets a year, instead of four. This will give us the opportunity to make more money to satisfy the Magic community. In the end, the true winners are the Magic players.”

    The announcement ending these popular tournaments was considered by Wizards to be important information, but clearly not important enough to warrant it a place outside of one paragraph in Brian David-Marshall’s column, The Week that Was.

    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • GP Denver Report – Kithkin Yu

    After doing virtually no playtesting the week before, and playing in 2 GPTS with Faeries going 0-1 and 1-1, I decided it was time to switch decks. Looking at the Kobe coverage, the kithkin deck seemed to be a very solid beatdown deck with its only fault being a lack of reach.

    The Japanese kithkin deck’s maindeck seemed fine, but the sideboard seemed to be suspect (with my 0 playtesting, of course).

    So I decided to change the deck to the following list:

    Rounds 1-2: Byes (or rather, me walking around watching Imnion, Falco, and various other people battal)



    Round 3: Clifton H. Hinton, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Game 1: We both clog up the board pretty well, but I eventually bite it to a Mirrorweave on my Cenn when he gets ahead by 2 creatures.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    During game 2, I call a judge to watch him for slow play, because game 1 ate a lot of time, and he seemed to be taking 1-2 minutes for turns 1-4, and the judge gives him a slowplay warning. Eventually he gets to a point where he makes an attack that is not lethal even with Mirrorweave, but my crackback is.



    Game 3, he mulligans to 6, but accidentally draws 7. The judge is still sitting nearby watching him for slowplay and so forces him to mulligan to 5. Then he mulligans to 4. He goes Plains, Plains, Plains, Stillmoon, Stillmoon. I go, Plains, Heights, Plains, Spectral, activate Heights for Cloudgoat, Cenn, Cenn. He really doesn’t have a shot after that.


    Round 4: Nathan J. Bertelsen, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Also of note, this guy top 8ed the PTQ the very next day, which Falco top 4ed. He had maindeck Barkshell Blessing, and a much lower curve.



    Game 1: I’m pretty sure I get Spectral/Heights into Cloudgoat, so he’s behind the whole game.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    Game 2: He gets Thistledown Liege when I wasn’t expecting it, so I lose most of my team while he’s way ahead on board and eventually succumb.



    Game 3: I have an insane draw with Stalwart into Cenn into Procession into Ajani.



    Round 5: Jeremy W. Manthei, Unknown, (2-0)
    I don’t remember what this guy was playing, I just remember mauling him with insane draws. Sorry.




    Round 6: Josh C. Wludyka, Red Deck, (2-1)



    Game 1: I mulligan to 5 on the play, but lead with Figure, Procession, then Cloudgoat. He still loses because of all of the tokens just swarming him.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: I throw this game by attacking Forge-tender into Soul Snuffers, and so his 8/8 Figure kills me when I’m at 8, and my top card is Unmake.



    Game 3: I drop turn 1 Stalwart, turn 2 Cenn, then turn 5 and 6 Oversoul of Dusk, which barely manage to outrace Demigod + burn.



    Round 7: Michael Jacob, Red Deck, (2-0)


    Game 1: He’s making snide comments about my topdecks during this whole game, but eventually he dies to my massive amount of token makers when I am at 5 life, and I suspect he was holding a Flame Javelin, but did not have enough time to deploy his burn.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier, -1 Goldmeadow Stalwart, +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Ajani Goldmane, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: We get into a board state where he can’t kill my Reveillark because it will regrow 2 Forge-Tenders, so I just start swinging with Reveillark into his face, and I Unmake his Demigods that he plays as blockers.



    Oh and yeah, this guy won US Nationals the weekend before. So beating him felt good.



    Round 8: Conley L. Woods, Kelpie, (2-0)



    Game 1: He leads with Secluded Glen and a bunch of lands, so I think he is playing Faeries, but by turn 6, he hasn’t done anything except play a Soul Snuffers, I suspect he is playing River Kelpie which I had tested with a lot on MWS. He eventually dies to more token makers, because apparently all he has drawn were a bunch of maindeck Snakeforms.



    Sideboard: -3 Stillmoon Cavalier (seems very poor vs Soul Snuffers), +2 Oversoul of Dusk, +1 Reveillark



    Game 2: I get stuck on 2 lands, but keep playing guys so I can attack. Eventually we get to a point where if I topdeck a 3rd land for my Unmake, he loses, because he is playing extremely aggressively, and I do finally topdeck the plains.




    Round 9: Mark S. Hendrickson, Kithkin, (2-1)



    Game 1: Don’t recall what happens here, I think I just get ahead with a bunch of token makers and Ajani Goldmane.



    Sideboarding: -3 Goldmeadow Stalwart, -2 Unmake, +1 Mirrorweave, +3 Moonglove Extract, +1 Ajani Goldmane



    Game 2: He gets ahead with token makers and Ajani Goldmane.



    Game 3: We both clog the board up, but eventually I just attack him with Stillmoon Cavalier for 5 damage 4 times in a row.



    Round 10: Walter Shatford, Kithkin, (2-1)


    Honestly, Bill Stark does a pretty good job of writing about it here.



    Round 11: Scott D. Barrentine, Merfolk, (1-2)



    Game 1: He plays a turn 3 Plumeveil after I attack with a stalwart into it, so I play a Stillmoon Cavalier, which eventually gains flying and attacks him a bunch of times.



    Sideboarding: -1 Mirrorweave, -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: It’s a very close race, but his Sygg + Mutavault hold off my Oversoul of Dusk with a +1/+1 counter long enough so that I die to his other guys.



    Game 3: He has Stonybrook Banneret into Sower of Temptation into Sower of Temptation into Merrow Rejereey.



    This match left a bad taste in my mouth, because I’m pretty sure my deck is a heavy favorite vs him.




    Round 12: Paulo Vitor D. da Rosa, Faeries, (2-0)



    This match was in the Feature Match area, but the games were very uneventful.



    Game 1: He gets stuck on Swamp + Mutavault + Bitterblossom while I curve out with Stalwart, Cenn, Procession and just beat him down.



    Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: He only has 1 blue source for most of the game, so I run my unimportant spells into Spellstutter Sprites and resolve my Cenns and Figures and crush him.



    Round 13: AJ Sacher, Faeries, (0-2)


    Game 1: I remember getting crushed by Bitterblossom, Scion of Oona into Mistbind Clique in game 1. Nothing I can really say about this, except I did attack a 4/4 Knight of Meadowgrain into his 5/5 Mistbind Clique.



    Sideboarding: -4 Knight of Meadowgrain, -1 Unmake, +3 Moonglove Extract, +2 Oversoul of Dusk



    Game 2: I think he has Scion into Sower this game which is very difficult for me to beat :(



    Round 14: Antonino De Rosa, 5 Color Control, (0-2)



    I’ll go out on an limb and say that this matchup is basically the worst possible for Kithkin, and your oppt needs to mulligan a lot for you to have a shot. The games were uninteresting, since he would just play a sweeper and reload with Mulldrifter :(



    Round 15: Gerry Thompson, 5 Color Control, (0-2)
    http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/gpden08/welcome#16




    I guess it was a decent tournament for me, but it just feels so disappointing to miss Top 8 when all I had to do was go 3-3 on Day 2.



    I am pretty sure that my sideboard was incorrect.



    In the future, if you want to run Kithkin, Falco’s list from the PTQ the next day seems more correct to me.



    However, I would modify the decklist slightly to be:

  • Shards Preview Month Contest


    What’s this “Alara” business I keep hearing about? “Alara?” What is that, some fantasy mumbo-jumbo? I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the next set “Shards,” the newest set with the one word name.

    “Alara was whole once. But that was milennia ago. Where once there was a plane, now there are five: the Shards. The plane of Alara was a world rich with mana, a world in balance… until the Sundering. In a cataclysm of unimaginable proportions, Alara was rent asunder into five saparate worlds, each a refraction of the others.” – Nizzerds of the Coast

    Ugh! What can we do in order to fix this trainwreck of nerdiness and transform it into a train-creation of awesomeness? The only sufficient response is an AMAZING HUMOROUS CONTENT SUBMISSION CONTEST.

    I literally hear you asking, “How will this contest work?” Every piece of Officially Acknowledged Content you create during August and September counts toward your standing in the contest, as long as at least one of those pieces of content is a Shards-related humor article. When this time period ends, everyone will vote for which person deserves to win the contest based on the quantity and/or quality of his or her submissions over the course of the submission period. One fantastic article could win it. A dozen “pretty funny” items could win it. Even non-funny content, like tournament reports and strategy articles, can contribute to your victory. It’s up to the plebes!

    The person who wins first place in the vote wins an 18 Shards booster packs, which constitutes 0.5 times (!!) a box! Second place wins 9 Shards booster packs. Third place wins 6 Shards booster packs. Fourth place wins 3 Shards booster packs. These prizes have been made possible by donations from our benefactors, an elite group, but not elite to the point of exclusivity!

    So what’s the hold-up, jabroni? I’ve called your boss — he/she says you can put off your tasks for as long as it takes.

    (“How do I submit articles?”)

    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • Social Empathy and the Magic Condition

    As Magic players, there’s a certain stigma attached to us. Sad but true, the standard mental picture of a “Magic player” to those unfamiliar with the community (at least, in America – talk to Richie Hagon about the fabulous life of European GP competitors), is somewhat of a “basement dweller”. Because I have no interest in being more negative than that term already is, I won’t expound more than that, but you get the idea.

    The problem with this so-called Plutonic ideal of a Magic player is that it’s completely inaccurate. Though this disparaging image of Magic players proves somewhat true at the PTQ level — at large-scale tournaments (like, for example, Nationals) nary a smelly dude can be found. But why is that? Why the stark dichotomy between the top-level players and those below that? How can it be that the better players are consistently better kept? This is the exact issue some of us were discussing last weekend. A very smart person attributed it to a theory of “social empathy”. I’m going to talk a little about my thoughts on that theory and how it might even help you to become a better Magic player in the process.

    *I’m leaving the name of the theory’s owner out of this article, not because I’m an egomaniacal jerk, but because some could view this theory as negative towards certain people and I don’t want to incriminate anyone other than myself. Though this idea is not meant negatively at all, I do see how it could be taken that way.*

    Our group discussed the idea that all decent-to-good Magic players share at least one common characteristic; they are smart. Just like any decent basketball player is going to be athletic, Magic players have to be able to exercise their brain muscle more often than they’d like to admit. But brains doesn’t really mean much else. So although your average PTQ-er is going to be alright with the brain mechanics, they might not be the physical pillar of respectability (look at me, I’m slipping into the negative already). So it’s not just an IQ difference. There must be some other reason to why these players don’t they have what it takes to compete at the Pro Tour level?

    Someone suggested Social Empathy. The ability to relate and commiserate with the people around you. The people who tend not to take good care of their bodies, or who can’t carry on a conversation without being judgmental, arrogant or just plain old rude, as a general rule, have a lower level of social empathy than those who can carry conversations better. And having this empathy isn’t just for your dueling partner, but also the people at your drafting table (to better define the correct picks), or the people who you playtest with (the better your social interactions the more you can play against the people it’s beneficial to play against–because they’ll want to play against you in the first place). Now, social empathy is far from a strictly positive attribute. Too much social empathy and you can become paranoid or an inactive over-thinker. But for the purposes of this article assume when I say “social empathy” I mean “a healthy and positive level of social empathy.”

    How empathy can divide the decent players from the good players is very simple; if you are able to get into the minds of your opponents, it will be easier to deduce why they made the decisions they did, and thus making it much easier to play against them. Mike Flores talks all the time about this issue. When you’re getting ready to make a play, he says, ask yourself what your opponent would want you to do. Though this play doesn’t always differ from the play you eventually make, it will always help to figure out what your opponent is thinking. And if you’re in their head, you’ll be able to pull out that grinding, off-the-top game more often than not.

    Sadly, For the most part, the people who decide it’s not in their best interest to appear kind, or presentable, either don’t have a great grasp on social empathy or choose to not care about it. And mastering this trait is a great way to master Magic. Because there are always three games going on at any given time in Magic: the game your deck is playing, the game your opponent’s deck is playing, and the game in which those two games overlap. Decent players can see two of those games, but good players always see the third: the game their opponents’ decks are playing. This idea extends further than, “He left three mana up; does he have Broken Ambitions?” But instead leads somewhere else: “If he’s got the Broken Ambitions, what is he expecting to counter? What would he let through? Why?” These are the type of questions that aim to get into that elusive third game, that, although they won’t always translate to wins, they will put you in a much better position to figure what your opponent is holding, what they are afraid of, and how you can take advantage of that information.

    This is not to say, “If your opponent smells, you’re better than him.” This theory is merely a sociological idea attempting to get to the heart of why there is consistently a physical and social difference between people playing the Pro Tour and those that aren’t. This of course doesn’t mean that if you have social empathy you are a good player. As a PTQ scrub and someone who thinks about everybody else before me, I can tell you, all those strategy and skill articles are pretty damn important too as is practicing like hell.

    But what the social empathy theory does mean, is if you constantly scour those strategy articles, always practice the right match-ups in a good way, and play the best decks for the given tournament, and you still don’t perform the level you want to, perhaps your level of social empathy is what’s keeping you down. Next time, when you’re testing all night, try to “put the read” on your opponent deeper than, “Is that a Flame Javelin, or an Incinerate?” Think about what he’d be saving such burn for in the first place. Think about what he’s hoping to top-deck, and how cool could he play it if he did draw the spell he’s hoping for. Oh, also this theory means take a shower before you get in the car.

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  • Alaran Villain ‘Chops Sworn Enemy


    Grebredos Cire, archvillain of Alara, modified a digital image of his sworn enemy, the hero Laenaellis, a ranger of Eos. Mr. Cire practiced using Adobe Photoshop for several hours before finally making the modification.

    According to witnesses, he removed Laenaellis’s head and replaced it with a geek’s head.

    “Not so beautiful now, are you Laenaellis!” Mr. Cire cried triumphantly to the final image on his MacBook monitor as if it could respond. “Where once was a magnificent golden beard, there now remains only adolescent stubble. Hair that was once full and flowing now appears oily and unkempt. And for good measure, I scaled the entire head downward… tenfold!”

    Laenaellis is renowned across Alara for his ability to utilize a dog and falcon. It is unlikely that this digitally modified version of Laenaellis could do anything of the sort.

    (Discuss this item in the forum!)