Good Gamery

Author: ein

  • Metrognomes

  • Encrypted Command



    It’s just sitting there, begging to be solved. Will you accept the challenge?

  • Oil // Emulsion // Water

    OEW

    It’s sideways, but if you click the discuss link, it will be readable!

  • Wizards Legal Brief: Land and Ownership Laws


    A ruling by a level 2 judge at a recent Extended tournament in Lincoln, Nebraska has caused considerable consternation thanks to its far-reaching effect on land ownership rules. During the second round of the tournament a question arose when, between games one and two, Jackson Redding shuffled a land of his opponents (that had been enchanted with Annex at some point during the previous game) into the deck he presented back to his opponent, Richard “Rick Roll” Deece. When Richard noticed this error, he called the judge over, who read Annex and then determined that Jackson retained control of the land, saying, “the card in question is in Mr. Redding’s deck, isn’t it? Seems pretty clear to me”. This resulted in Richard presenting an illegal 59 card deck, for which he was given a game loss.

    Once this ruling hit the internet, Wizards was forced to issue a statement saying it would reluctantly abide by the judge’s decision, citing the DCI Universal Tournament Rules (“the Head Judge is the final authority regarding card interpretations”).

    Significant errata has now been issued for what used to be Annex, and players should be aware that it takes effect immediately (rollover for change):


    Eminent Domain



    Some of the other cards that are likely to be affected, but for which errata has not yet been released, include (though not limited to):

    Control Magic

    Steal Artifact

    Threaten – potentially only a problem if opponent dies during (but before the end of) turn creature was taken

    Aladdin

    Preacher

    Mindslaver – the Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments on whether or not this card, under the new ownership rules, violates the 13th Amendment.

  • Lack of Bannings Upsets Villain

    The DCI Banned and Restricted List announcement was released today. To the relief of many Magic players, particularly fans of Standard Faeries and Extended Elves, there were no changes. But to one man, Monsieur Le Chiffre, it was the worst news imaginable.

    “I was counting on Bitterblossom getting banned, and at the very least Glimpse of Nature,” said Le Chiffre, known as Magic card banker to terrorist organizations. Whenever terrorists would need some cards to complete a deck, Le Chiffre’s contacts would hook them up in time for upcoming Pro Tours and Grand Prixs all around the world. Le Chiffre had promised his clients that there would be no risk, but the reality was quite the opposite.

    Only days ago, Le Chiffre’s bedroom in the basement of his mother’s house was littered with tall stacks of Blossoms and Glimpses on loan from clients. But he sold them all on eBay expecting them to be banned and to rebuy them at a discount. Now they may jump even higher in price. “It’s just not fair!” Le Chiffre wailed as he dabbed his scarred eye with a hankerchief, his face all scrunched up like an upset baby.

    Le Chiffre has reason to be upset. He had paid off Carlos Adrone, one of the Grand Wizards of the Wizards of the Coast High Council, to ensure the desired bannings. Mere hours before the final decision, Adrone was assassinated by British secret service agent Mark Rosewater.




    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • Good Gamery News – November 2008

    Casual Player Sick of Playing Against Elves

    When asked about his Casual Extended Game message “No Elves, No Dragons; Only Discard, LD, Counters or other interesting decks pls”, Magic Online User darkraistlin13 was unrepentant.

    “I just find it stupid and pointless to play against the same deck over and over again” he said. “Don’t these players have any sense of fun or originality? I play Magic for fun, and getting killed on the second turn every game before I’ve had a chance to use my Cancels and Stone Rains isn’t fun. I mean, who finds playing with Elves and Dragons enjoyable anyway?”

    “It’s getting to the point where I will concede if my opponent plays a basic Forest on the first turn.”

    Secret Magic Online Programming Credits List Found

    As first reported by ModoSharks, the programming credits list is stored on every computer on which Magic Online is installed. For many, the contents of the list were mostly expected.

    “I’ve suspected for a while that a motherfucker, a shithead, and a sonofabitch have had a hand in programming v3,” noted online magician Aziridine said. “It’s no surprise to me that cannabis was involved either.”

    When asked if there were any surprises on the list, he responded affirmatively.

    “Surprises? Yeah, there were a few,” Aziridine said. “For instance, I would have bet like 5tix that there would be at least one retard credited in there. Most shocking to me was that something as wonderful as boobies could have had anything to do with writing this program.”

    “Planeswalker Deck” Tears Up States, Old-School Player Rolls Eyes

    News of a new “Planeswalker Deck” similar to the one piloted by Themistoklis Panagiotaras to victory at Missouri Champs has changed the way many are thinking about the standard metagame. At least one player, however, is unimpressed.

    Rick Dustington of Seattle, upon hearing news of this exciting new deck, visibly scoffed. “A what deck? Shit, in my day something like that wouldn’t have gotten past the second round. First of all no one played Plains. Sure, Islandwalkers were a good choice if they were efficient enough. But Plainswalkers? Sheesh.”

    “And even if someone was dumb enough to play Plains, they had tons of ways to deal with Plainswalkers” he continued. “Heck, they had Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, and if things got really hairy, Great Wall. Players these days must be really unresourceful to let something like that get the better of them.”




    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • MTGcom’s Daily Deck: ‘Nova Scotia Blue-White’

    MagicTheGathering.com today announced its daily deck, which happened to win Nova Scotia’s state championships.

    “I call it ‘Nova Scotia Blue-White,’” said the deck’s designer and Nova Scotian champion, Brett Ripley. “I told Wizards that they could alternately entitle it ‘Brett Ripley’s Blue-White Control.’”

    Two weeks ago, Mr. Ripley had noticed a U/W Reveillark deck on Star City Games Premium, designed by Benjamin Peebles-Mundy.

    “Sure I saw that Reveillark deck, but I assure you, Nova Scotia Blue-White is entirely different from that list in multiple different ways,” Mr. Ripley explained.

    “For one, it’s got Cryptic Commands. For another… well anyway, you get the idea.”

    “Nova Scotian pride,” concluded Mr. Ripley, thumping his chest before returning to the pages of Anne of Green Gables.




    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • How to Be an Awesome Magic the Gathering Player



    1. If you don’t have cards, find a way to get some. Unsuspecting players at Friday Night Magic events, for instance, might be too busy having fun with their friends between rounds to notice the dark stranger subtly slipping decks into a satchel by his side.

    2. Continually overvalue your cards and undervalue their cards when trading. They’ll eventually submit to a pity trade out of politeness. Profit.

    3. When you play in tournaments, wear an iPod. Obtain a girlfriend in order to bring her along to stand behind you and rub your shoulders.

    4. At high level tournaments, count to 60 in your head before making a decision on anything.

    5. Enjoy the degree to which your life improves as you continue to dump more and more time and money into Magic cards.



    1. If you make a mistake, intimidate the player into letting you take it back. If he does not, grumble at him under your breath for the rest of the match.

    2. Tap your lands and creatures at a slight 25 degree angle. This puts them into a “half-tapped” state that could go either way with the simple brush of a sleeve.

    3. Stack lands into perfect piles so that your opponent doesn’t know how many lands you have. If he complains, stare at him as you loudly read off slam each card in the pile onto the table. Then restack.

    4. Join MTGSalvation.com and visit the competitive subforums for sound advice from skilled players.

    5. While posting on MTGSalvation, change fonts in the middle of curse words to avoid the profanity filter. This tip also applies to the obscenity filter and vulgarity filter.



    1. Magic players are like that one girl you have a crush on: They only want to hang out with giant assholes. Becoming a giant asshole might make the friends you have that are worthless and pathetic like you less.

    2. Obtaining a girlfriend might hurt the amount of time you spend on MODO. Make sure to let her know early on that you do not intend to make her feel desired above computer games. Being out and open with your selfishness gives her no excuse to complain.



    1. Magic cards

    2. An iPod

    3. A girlfriend to exploit and ignore

    4. An internet connection (56k or higher recommended)

    5. A terrible attitude




    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • Shards Contest Endgame


    Everyone’s been talking about the most important election the world has ever known. And now it’s here. It is your duty as a Good Gamery member to vote for the best contributor to the Shards of Good Gamery Preview Month Contest! Here’s how it went down:

    llarack

    To Mulligan or Not to Mulligan

    GP Denver Report – Kithkin Yu

    Dr. Magic Cards

    Chandra Nalaar for Planeswalker

    Vandermonde

    It’s Been a Shard Day’s Night

    Jumping Through ‘Hoops’

    slugworm

    Wizards Cuts Numerous Magic: The Gathering Tournaments

    alfred

    Dog Eats Magic: The Gathering Deck, Dies

    xepel

    Rogue Band of Planeswalkers Destroys Plane for Fun and Profit

    ‘Chop: Hell’s Angel

    New Website Design a ‘Great Success’

    Pterrus

    ‘Chop: Sarah Palin

    slearch

    Boy’s Suicide Possibly Caused by Game; Manufacturer Denies Responsibility

    ‘Chop: Blarbed Blightning

    ein

    Mad Libs: Choosing a New Magic Set!

    Some of the contributors didn’t necessarily qualify but I said, “eh, mise.” The time has come for VOTE #1. Vote for the four people you think should be in the top 4. You must be a registered and non-bot member of the forum to vote.




    (Discuss this item in the forum!)

  • To Mulligan or Not to Mulligan


    One topic that is not often covered in articles about constructed is how
    to properly mulligan with decks, and what factors to consider while
    mulliganing. However, I feel the best way to approach a discussion of this
    is through examples.

    Example 1: B/W Control, (just after Time Spiral was released for
    States ’06):

    Now, keep in mind, the major decks back then (or the well known ones) were Solar Flare, Solar Pox, Zoo, R/G aggro, Dragonstorm.

    You were favored vs most of those decks with tight play. (In fact, my only loss in States ’06 was to dragonstorm who drew 3 ignorant bliss and 1 remand in game 2, in running turns).

    However, one of the most important things to consider is how your path to victory looked vs those decks. The games vs control basically degenerated into attrition wars, so Wayfarer and Arena are the best cards, with Nightmare Void (a tutorable target) being a softlock with Arena. The only difference between the hands vs aggro and vs control is that Wayfarer is slightly worse vs them, because it tends to die very easily, and you lean much more heavily on your removal spells.

    Let us consider the following hands, that I randomly generated from this link:
    BW Control.

    Hand #1: Swamp, Caves of Koilos, Ghost Quarter, Weathered Wayfarer, Faith’s Fetters, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Phyrexian Arena.

    This hand is basically the best opening hand you could draw. Since it has 2 sources of card advantage (wayfarer and arena), fetters to help you stabilize, and a lategame finisher that you can probably play on turn 8 or 9. In every matchup, I would keep this hand.

    Hand #2: Plains, Orzhov Basilica, Wrath of God, Condemn, Phyrexian Arena * 2, Mortify.

    This hand is also a keeper, even though it is slightly marginal, seeing as how you need a second black source for your Arenas, and the 2nd Arena is much worse than the first. Condemn, Mortify, and Wrath help you survive vs aggressive decks, and Arena is trump vs control.

    Hand #3: Plains, Swamp, Castigate, Weathered Wayfarer, Mortify*2, Faith’s Fetters.

    I guess the hand generator just likes me today, because this hand is very good as well, containing a source of card advantage, some disruption, and 3 removal spells.

    One point, in games 2 and 3 (where you know what your oppt is playing), you should try to mulligan into a hand with Castigate or Phyrexian Arena vs combo or control, and a hand with removal spells vs Aggro.

    Let me take another example (from Ravnica 2006, States Limited, top 8 Draft)

    U/R/W Ravnica Draft    :

    Several things first: Yes, this deck is misbuilt, if you look at the
    sideboard. However, that does not mean we can’t learn things from looking at sample hands from this deck.

    Hand 1: Island, Island, Island, Barbarian Riftcutter, Hypervolt Grasp, Cackling Flames, Faith’s Fetters.

    Clearly a mulligan, with only 7 red sources, and 6 white sources in the deck (counting Azorius Signet).

    Hand 2: Island, Boros Garrison, Faith’s Fetters, Helium Squirter, Ogre Savant, Barbarian Riftcutter.

    I would probably keep this hand on the draw, and consider mulliganing it on the play.

    Hand 3: Island, Mountain, Mountain, Mountain, Plains, Three Dreams, Helium Squirter.

    If I had any sort of knowledge that my opponent was playing an aggressive deck, I would probably mulligan this hand on the draw. Otherwise, I would keep it.

    To quickly summarize, you have to keep suboptimal hands much more often in limited, simply because of the higher variance in hands because of the lack of focus of limited decks.

    Example 3: B/G Elves from Richmond 5k

    A few key things about this deck. The sideboard was built anticipating a lot of Faeries (like 40-50% of the metagame, which turned out to be nearly correct), a decent amount of Elves (in which case, you want the 4th Profane Command, 2x Primal Command, and 1 Shriekmaw), a smattering of Reveillark, and a bunch of other random decks which you don’t really care about.

    I wrote a round by round report about this deck at the following link Elves. But I did not really discuss how/why I would mulligan certain hands.

    Hand #1: Imperious Perfect * 2, Garruk Wildspeaker, Swamp, Treetop Village, Llanowar Elves, Mutvault.

    This hand is great in every matchup except vs Faeries. I would 100% mulligan vs Faeries on the play or draw, and keep everywhere else. This in particular emphasizes the point that in certain matchups with certain decks, you want to mulligan aggressively.

    Hand #2: Llanowar Wastes, Swamp, Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Imperious Perfect, Profane Command, 2 * Nameless Inversion.

    This hand is pretty good, even if you miss your first land drop (you just play Vanquisher on turn 2, and kill their first 2 guys, hopefully forcing through 9 points of damage.

    Hand #3: Treetop Village, Gilt-leaf Palace, Mutavault, Forest, Terror, Nameless Inversion, Llanowar Elves

    This hand is actually fairly good vs Faeries and Reveillark simply because there are 2 manlands in it, but kind of mediocre vs other decks. However, I probably would never mulligan this hand.

    My last example is probably one of the most degenerate decks ever (last season’s extended dredge), which can be found at the following link:
    Saito Dredge from GP Vienna

    Hand #1: Watery Grave, Careful Study, Tolarian Winds, Golgari Thug, Bridge from Below, Golgari-Grave Troll, Narcomoeba.

    I think you keep this hand, even though you are not happy about it, because bridge and narcomoeba are kind of dead, and your deck only has 14 other mana sources, so it is not that likely you will hit a land off careful study.

    Hand #2: Island, Cephalid Coliseum, Stinkweed Imp, Ichorid, Breakthrough, Breakthrough, Breakthrough.

    This hand is very good, and will most likely win on turn 3.

    Hand #3: Watery Grave, Watery Grave, Polluted Delta, Polluted Delta, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Grave-Troll, Breakthrough

    This hand is a tiny bit slow, and I might consider mulliganing it if you know your oppt is playing Doran (because of thoughtseize/duress) or vs a deck with counters that can stop your first Breakthrough. Otherwise, you just therapy yourself, breakthrough (hopefully hitting another dredge card).

    Hand #4: Careful Study, Flame-kin Zealot, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough, Cephalid Coliseum, Cephalid COliseum, Flooded Strand.

    Looking at this hand, it is relatively good, although slightly risky due to the lack of a dredge card (and there are only 11 in the deck). I would still keep it, simply because you will see about 9 cards over the next few turns from Careful Study into BT for 1, into Coliseum.

    Hand #5: Polluted Delta*2, Watery Grave, Cabal Therapy, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough, Bridge from Below.

    This hand is BARELY keepable, due to a lack of a dredge card, and holding Bridge from Below (which is basically a blank). If you are playing vs storm, or Zoo, I would consider mulliganing this hand, because there are certainly better 6 card hands with Dredge.

    To sum it all up, most limited decks should not mulligan as often as constructed decks, simply because of the lack of focus, and the higher variance inherent in the format. This is not quite as true if you know your opponent’s deck is very very good, because you will need a better hand in order to compete.

    In certain matchups, do not be afraid to aggressively mulligan, especially if it is a bad matchup for you. One example from this last extended season was Goblins vs Storm or Ideal. You could never keep a slow ringleader hand, simply because it did not put enough pressure on them to force them to waste resources and also because it let them draw 1-2 more cards to go off with. Another example was, Domain Zoo vs Storm or Ideal, in which case, you had to mulligan into a 1 drop/2 drop hand, or risk not having enough pressure to beat them.

    I welcome criticisms and/or PMs on this topic.

    –llarack