It has been awhile since I featured a guest piece on the blog — or anything for that matter, sorry — but Mitch Okun’s Facebook note about synchronicity and nostalgia at the recent Star City Games Standard Open in Edison, NJ brought a smile to my face and was something I wanted to share. Mitch was among those players who came to the very first tournaments run by what would eventually become Gray Matter Conventions — he even met his eventual wife through those events — and was a Neutral Ground regular from the day we opened the doors at the old location at 291 7th Avenue. — Brian David-Marshall

For the 1% of the human population out there who isn’t aware, I consider myself an extremely unlucky person.  It’s magnified by the fact that I play two card based games that are definitely more skill based than luck based (Magic and Poker), but for some reason the proportion of games played in the online settings of both just inevitably causes me to fall into the statistical black hole time and time again.  I stopped playing Magic for a while over it, I essentially gave up on poker to the financial swings, and I’ve stopped Magic Online for long stretches of time because of it.  However, inevitably I go back.  I *LIKE* the games.  I consider myself decently good.  And yet, as I sit here tonight, frustrated by a seemingly inhuman proportion of little bad luck swings that affect my Magic Online matches over and over and over again, I waited between rounds by reading online articles.  I went over the Wizards of the Coast’s site and found an article by Brian David-Marshall, an old friend, about the large Magic event that happened this weekend in Edison NJ.

I don’t play major events any more, but knew this thing was happening and took the opportunity to trek down with a pile of cards I wanted to consider selling.  I made pretty good money selling a lot of stuff to the online store who ran the event, but I can’t be in a room of 700+ players and not want to get involved a little, or at least watch .. and I quickly found Brian (or BDM, as he’s famously known to the Magic community) playing his 2nd round opponent.  I watched quietly and waited until between games to comment. Read the rest of this entry »

Carmelo Cast

Anyone who follows me (@Top8Games) or Steve Sadin (@stevesadin) on Twitter is probably aware of how excited we were about the Carmelo Anthony trade that has brought him to the New York Knicks. Anyone who follows Mike (@fivewithflores) knows what a basketball fan he is and it was impossible for us to not get together and chat about the trade, argue about the merits of various players, and — once the dust settled — talk plenty about Magic as well.

The original plan for the podcast was to talk while Mike’s daughter Bella took her karate class. The class got canceled and Bella was available to set us straight on what cards Steve should have played in his deck for Magic Weekend in Paris, who wins in a fight between Jace and Great Sable Stag, and what the best Planeswalker actually is. Here is a hint:

This should have been posted sooner but circumstances entirely within my control conspired to delay it. Shortly after this goes up I will be headed over to Katz’s Delicatessen for what will hopefully become Katz Kast with several dozen Magic players including the likes of out-of-towners Gerry Thompson, Megan Holland, and Gavin Verhey who are all visiting for the SCG Open Series in Edison, New Jersey this weekend.