Mike Flores, myself and about two dozen other Magic players descended on a previously Magic friendly deli in midtown Manhattan this week to put the new Standard format through its paces. The goal was to run a four round Mock Standard tournament dubbed The Mother Lovin’ Cup (think Lord Stanley’s Cup or the World Cup) and inscribe/sharpie the winner’s name onto a foil Everflowing Chalice. We barely got through two rounds before we were politely — then much less politely — asked to leave. The group broke up and went its different ways but I found myself in a Penn Station coffee shop with Mike Flores, Lauren “Mulldrifting” Lee, Sean McKeown, Morgan Chang and a podcaster.

MisMocking Through Standard Part 4

We discussed the new format, the decks everyone played, and Mike and Lauren even battled for a few games with Mike’s All-American take on the popular blue-white control decks against Mulldrifting’s old-school Jund.

MisMocking Through Standard Part 3

Mike Flores, myself and about two dozen other Magic players descended on a previously Magic friendly deli in midtown Manhattan this week to put the new Standard format through its paces. The goal was to run a four round Mock Standard tournament dubbed The Mother Lovin’ Cup (think Lord Stanley’s Cup or the World Cup) and inscribe/sharpie the winner’s name onto a foil Everflowing Chalice. We barely got through two rounds before we were politely — then much less politely — asked to leave. The group broke up and went its different ways but I found myself in a Penn Station coffee shop with Mike Flores, Lauren “Mulldrifting” Lee, Sean McKeown, Morgan Chang and a podcaster.

We discussed the new format, the decks everyone played, and Mike and Lauren even battled for a few games with Mike’s All-American take on the popular blue-white control decks against Mulldrifting’s old-school Jund.

Mike Flores, myself and about two dozen other Magic players descended on a previously Magic friendly deli in midtown Manhattan this week to put the new Standard format through its paces. The goal was to run a four round Mock Standard tournament dubbed The Mother Lovin’ Cup (think Lord Stanley’s Cup or the World Cup) and inscribe/sharpie the winner’s name onto a foil Everflowing Chalice. We barely got through two rounds before we were politely — then much less politely — asked to leave. The group broke up and went its different ways but I found myself in a Penn Station coffee shop with Mike Flores, Lauren “Mulldrifting” Lee, Sean McKeown, Morgan Chang and a podcaster.

MisMocking Through Standard Part 2

We discussed the new format, the decks everyone played, and Mike and Lauren even battled for a few games with Mike’s All-American take on the popular blue-white control decks against Mulldrifting’s old-school Jund.

Mike Flores, myself and about two dozen other Magic players descended on a previously Magic friendly deli in midtown Manhattan this week to put the new Standard format through its paces. The goal was to run a four round Mock Standard tournament dubbed The Mother Lovin’ Cup (think Lord Stanley’s Cup or the World Cup) and inscribe/sharpie the winner’s name onto a foil Everflowing Chalice. We barely got through two rounds before we were politely — then much less politely — asked to leave. The group broke up and went its different ways but I found myself in a Penn Station coffee shop with Mike Flores, Lauren “Mulldrifting” Lee, Sean McKeown, Morgan Chang and a podcaster.

MisMocking Through Standard Part 1

We discussed the new format, the decks everyone played, and Mike and Lauren even battled for a few games with Mike’s All-American take on the popular blue-white control decks against Mulldrifting’s old-school Jund.

Charles “Tuna” Hwa is a long-time Magic player, one-time Editor-in-Chief of The Magic Dojo, and reoccurring character throughout the pages of Michael J. Flores’ Deckade. He has written the following tournament report about his experience at the Rise of Eldrazi Prerelease, his adventures as an ex-pat in China, and his rekindled fire to play Magic. It is an awesome, old-school, kick-ass of a tournament report. Enjoy!

Call me Umbrakul

For those who may worry, there is no white whale in this article- at least, not literally. And anyway, even if there was a white whale named “emteegee”, I’m hugging the lovable white cetacean (once again). This is the story of why I am back into Magic after ten years, a quick recounting of my Prerelease experience, and it ends with some RoE thoughts. Our story begins in August 2009, by way of February 2000.

***
“Nature’s first green is gold…”

There used to be this great place where tons of fun people would post articles and share ideas about this wonderful game called Magic. There were lots of decklists, a whole pile of humor, and the very beginnings of strategy for this addictive card game (channel plus fireball is really good). It featured Rob Hahn and other early Magic thinkers. This place was called Usenet, and life was good.

Soon thereafter, a man emerged from the electronic wilds carrying with him something he termed “a tournament report”. (This timeline may not be accurate, but it’s my story, etc.) Though containing both truth and anecdote, the book of Wakefield provided an interesting glimpse into competitive Magic. Jamie advocated 62 cards in his deck, 26 of which were lands. “Preposterous!” one (such as me) might have said at the time, wondering how to fit Palladia Mors and Nicol Bolas into a deck with so few cards. But so it came to pass that Jamie was right (and wrong), and life was great.

Then after a while, a man named Frank Kusumoto came along and said, “This World Wide Web thing seems like a better way to organize Magic thought than Usenet posts. Also, man alive I shouldn’t have eaten all that sushi yesterday with Rob while watching that Twin Peaks rerun.” (this might not be an exact quote) And thus the Magic Dojo came to be. And life was freaking grand.

By 1999, I was working with Mike Flores and Al Tran at the Magic Dojo. By February 2000, we found out that the Magic Dojo couldn’t really support 25 employees (who knew?). But life was still pretty good. Magic thought kept flourishing, and new players just played decks and strategies that they learned from other, newer websites. I had changed though, and I faded from Magic, becoming a “casual competitive” player (translation: I wanted to win, but primarily at Prereleases).

***
“These are the days when birds come back…”

In August of 2009, I moved back to Beijing, China. Looking for something to do my third weekend here, I checked the Wizards website for giggles, checking if there were any Limited events in Beijing (Great Wall? Check. Forbidden Palace? Seen it. Tiananmen Square? I made a dust Angel in Tiananmen at dawn the day after I graduated from high school). I found out that there was a PTQ nearby in a little card shop called “Ka Dou”; literally, “Card Fight”. Fighting some cards in a Limited PTQ? What’s not to love! I mean, sure I’d never seen Zendikar, and sure it was a PTQ and not a pre-release, but it’s China, not Japan. How hard could it be to Q?

It’s harder than you think. The cards are in Chinese, and I have the Chinese literacy of a second grader (since upgraded to perhaps sixth grade). My spoiler didn’t have card numbers. Good Game. The judge took pity on me after I had spent 40 minutes registering the deck I opened, and stood by to help me decipher cards during deckbuilding. Even with his help, it still took 35-plus minutes to register my red-white deck, and my deck was only red and white because I didn’t know what my blue, black and green cards did.

I started 2-0, finished 0-4, and loved (almost) every minute of it. I throw in almost because unwashed-gamer-smell made the jump over the Pacific, sadly, and proved to be a little overpowering at times. Anyhow, I lost via bad play, I lost via bad deck construction, and I lost because of a little bit of bad luck, but I rediscovered a love for shuffling cards and casting spells. I left “Card Fight” wanting to be competitive again, at least at a PTQ level; I mean, it’s fun casting spells… but it’s way more fun to cast spells AND win. So I played a lot of Magic Online, practicing Zendikar Limited and familiarizing myself with Zendikar pictures. I also studied a bunch of Chinese characters that were directly relevant to magic (quick lesson: 目标生物 is “target creature”; it’s pronounced roughly as MOO-byao-shung-WOO). After a slew of drafts and some studying, I felt that I was ready to win some games.

***
“Surely some revealation is at hand…”

And then I didn’t play any Magic from December to March. I didn’t plan for that to happen- sometimes, life just gets in the way of casting spells. This tends to happen more often as you get a little older. Between applying to schools, going to Chinese language classes, taking finals for those classes, as well as travelling in Asia to visit long neglected branches of the family tree, there just wasn’t a whole lot of time left. So when the RoE Prerelease happened last week, I didn’t really spend a lot of time preparing, figuring with only a couple of days to prepare, I might as well just go and lose again (though hopefully less badly than at the PTQ). I also had this brief conversation with Jon Becker on Facebook (blocked by Chinese censors, but VPN for the win):

Me: “Hey Becker, I think I’m going to play in the Prerelease.”
Becker: “Mise win the pre-release amirite? Chinese players etc. kekeke.” (this might not be an exact quote)
Me: “I can’t read Chinese cards yet.”
Becker: “Spoiler, etc.”

I Becker* almost every Limited deck- who am I to argue against Jon Becker?! (*Becker: to play a 41st card in Limited) So the morning of the tournament, I print out a spoiler, with card numbers this time, and mosey my way over to the basement of E-world. E-world is a giant 6 story Best Buy like store that has anything you could ever want to buy relating to computers, plus lots of stuff that you’d never want to accidentally waste your money on although you wish others would spend their money and get it for you, like green and blue lasers (they are pretty cool, if you are a giant geek like me, but cost too much money and are pretty useless except for being distracting). Read the rest of this entry »

Seth is an old time NYC player, who sent this into us on Friday. We hope you enjoy it. - Matt

Black:

Arrogant Bloodlord:

He dies because he was so offended that he was blocked by a powerless wall? Lighten up Francis. Addendum: Still playable. Black has plenty of removal to clear his path.

Bala Ged Scorpion:

Nice combo with the Bloodlord but too weak on its own to be playable.

Consume the Meek:

1. Instant speed mass removal.
2. Demolishes token and weenie strategies.
3. Kills manlands.
4. Allows your edict effects to kill their best creatures.

Yeah, this card is good. Addendum: Five is a lot of mana. I still like Consume the Meek, but I’m willing to admit to its faults.

Consuming Vapors:

Consuming Vapors combos well with Consume the Meek. I expect the two of them together will help revitalize Black control. I don’t feel Vapors is a great card, but it is a pretty good one. Most importantly it has pretty good synergy with the other Black control cards we have at our disposable. Each edict effect makes the next one even better. As creatures improve, so does the value of creature removal. Addendum: It is hard to lose if you resolve Consuming Vapors plus rebound twice. Four creatures gone, some nice lifegain, etc. Black has plenty of cheap removal spells to make sure you haven’t fallen too far behind for Vapors not to matter. As I noted earlier, it is getting harder to be a weenie.

Contaminated Ground:

Well, you don’t get to draw a card, and you probably don’t have any Swampwalk creatures. Still, for two mana you get to turn a manland or an Eldrazi land into an awful land. Might be worth sideboarding.

Corpsehatch:

Good effort, but this costs too much and is a bit too slow compared to our other options. Read the rest of this entry »

An old time NYC-based Magic player, Seth Burn, sent this in to us on Friday. We hope you enjoy it!

Hello there. If you remember who I am The Sunset Squad will be arriving soon to take you away to the Near-Death Star. I feel like writing a set review of Rise of the Eldrazi, so please enjoy. I won’t be reviewing all the cards because I don’t have to, I’ll just be commenting on cards I feel are worth noting. Shall we (I) begin?

Colorless Eldrazi (AKA, not artifacts):

All Is Dust:

This card is exceedingly strong. It kills planeswalkers, enchantments, creatures, and some artifacts. All is Dust can cost as little as five mana with Eye of Ugin. I could see running this in a Green ramp deck, or a White based control deck, possibly splashing Blue or Black. It doesn’t win the game by itself (which is something you can reasonably ask of a seven mana spell), but it should put you in a good position to take control. Addendum: This card is nuts. Add Black control to the decks that can use this. Oblivion Ring just got worse, as has Journey to Nowhere. I know it costs seven, but we can painlessly play five lands main thateither make this two mana cheaper, or tap for two mana to cast it.

Emrakul, The Aeons Torn:

You get what you pay for. Possibly the best Summoning Trap target in both Type II and block. The immunity to spells isn’t quite all it appears to be as Day of Judgement and Journey to Nowhere can deal with Emrakul. I can’t imagine I’ll pay 15 for it too often, but I am excited to pay 4GG during my opponent’s end step for it. Polymorph is a cheaper option, and given the amount of token generators available it should be fairly consistent. Addendum: I’m glad this guy is the prerelease card, I have a lot of decklists right now with four Emrakuls.

The Prerelease Card

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth:

Am I the only person waiting for Blarthmein Dragon, Accountant of Truth? Anyway, Kozilek is the one Eldrazi creature I am planning on casting as well as trapping. Between Eye of Ugin, Eldrazi Temple, and our ramping options I’m fairly confident Kozilek’s casting cost is reasonable. Unfortunately Kozilek doesn’t have any defenses against removal, but for only costing ten mana (only ten mana!), I’ll let that slide. Addendum: 10 mana is a lot less than it used to be. Green decks can have him online consistently on turn 6, and occasionally on turn 5.

It That Betrays:

Not that All Is Dust needed any help, but the combo is pretty sweet. Addendum: Which is not to say that It That Betrays is any good.

Not Of This World:

Pretty narrow but I could see sideboarding this. It can’t protect Emrakul, but Ulamog and Kozilek are both vulnerable to targeted spells.

Read the rest of this entry »