Thoughts on Innistrad Drafting

I was talking with Will Bax last Friday about Innistrad drafting on MTGO, and he seemed to insinuate that us London drafters kinda sucked.

“Are you losing all of your Innistrad drafts like the rest of us?” he asked.

“Actually, I’m doing pretty good!” was my reply.

… Then I proceeded to 1-2 my next draft. :S

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I’ve drafted 3x times now and gone 2-1 / 3-0 / 1-2 in that order.

What has been working out and what hasn’t? Let’s take a look at the builds that I played:

1)      2-1 = White / Blue Flyers

I tried to pick as many flying creatures as I could that had a decent CC and P/T. Highlights from the deck included cards like:

2x Abbey Griffin

2x Chapel Geist

Avacynian Priest

Doomed Traveller

2x Voiceless Spirit

Claustrophobia

Lantern Spirit

This deck was pretty good! Most of the flyers are in U/B/W so by cutting most of the flyers out of U/W that meant that the only “air force” I should really be expecting would come out of a B player. My loss was, indeed, to a Black deck… my opponent ended up having too much zombie recursion for me to deal with :(. This deck was pretty fast and had a good curve, which was what I think helped me win quite a few of my matches. My first impression of the format was that it is slower than the past few, so if you’re playing a fast deck against their fatties, you’re going to win.  I was often so ahead that even once my opponent DID start dropping bombs, they were already in the red so far that they couldn’t recover. Either that, or they started dropping big monsters that had to walk the earth and couldn’t interact with my flyers as they closed in for the kill.

2)      3-0 = Blue / Black Humans

I REALLY think a fast aggressive deck is the way to go in Innistrad. Pump out quality creatures on a consistent basis and overrun them! In this build I was lucky enough to score some REALLY good human equipment in the form of Silver Inlaid Dagger AND Butchers Cleaver! Not only that, but my deck was like, ½ creatures, all of which were pretty decent! Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the stuff that made the cut:

Invisible Stalker

3x Delver of Secrets / Insectile Aberration

Diregraf Ghoul

Disciple of Griselbrand

Falkenrath Noble

Manor Skeleton

Morkrut Banshee

Screeching Bat

Lost in the Mist

Murder of Crows

Silent Departure

3x Stitched Drake

Spectral Flight

This deck was incredible! Lots of T1 plays, lots of humans to equip. I even managed a T1 Delver into T2 flip! Once again I am convinced that speed > fatties in this format, and that having good reusable tools will win you the game every time! Oh yea! T1 Delver into T2 flip and drop Silver Inlaid Dagger is REALLY good and had someone scoop on their T3 to it. The Delvers did not flip often, but they were there mostly as an early threat AND because they’re humans to weild my weapons of war.

3)      1-2 = Black / Green Fatties

I should have seen the signals and switched to red, but I got greedy when I saw some late removal in B and some decent big green creatures surfing the tables. I thought to myself: “Don’t do this… don’t get into the fat stuff… you KNOW they’re too slow and that the morbid becomes too hard to activate!” But I did it anyways. I won my first match (barely) then proceeded to get crushed in 2 straight twice in a row. My deck looked something like this:

Bloodgift Demon

Corpse Lunge

Curse of Death’s Hold

Markov Patrician

Morkrut Banshee

Skirsdag High Priest

Stromkirk Patrol

2x Festerhide Boar

Grizzled Outcasts

2x Villagers of Estewald

Spider Spawning

Yea… you can see how a deck like this one may as well scoop to the 2 decks I played above. IF I was able to make it to T3-4 without them dropping a creature, or doing ANYTHING AT ALL, I was golden… but if they had a play on T1-2 there was no way I was able to recover. Especially since by the time I had a creature in play, they had 2x and would just “remove” my blocker to keep pressure on me until I died. I had a HUGE problem activating morbid since my guys were beef and tended not to die when it would be beneficial to me…. No one wanted to chump block me into morbid :(.

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So I guess my experience with Innistrad has been that it’s a FASTER format than I’d originally thought. Unless you draft a fairly aggressive deck with multiple points along the mana curve, don’t expect to win with fatties. Ramping to fat is fine, but just piling them all in there and expecting to win will result in disappointment.

I’ve also found that unless you’re an aggressive deck, you will have a problem activating morbid. Smaller creatures = good for morbid. Bigger creatures w / high CC = bad. People can see your “swing into bad trade so that I can activate morbid” tech from a mile away… you’re not fooling anyone! The only GOOD thing about this was that I was able to play mind games w / 1 opponent and swing in for a couple points of damage w / a 1/1 he wouldn’t block in the fear of a Banshee… the joke was on him because all I had in my hand was land (5 of them)!

I hope this helps some of you with your drafting experience. I’d love to hear what YOU’VE had success with so that we can share notes and improve our game as a community.

Cheers!

Carl Szalich

(NOTE: My 2^nd article for www.quietspeculation.com went live today! YAY!! :))

FNM: 12-0 With U/W Aggro-Control!

Last week I had the pleasure of playing at Imperial Hobbies for FNM. It was an intense and grueling 5 rounds of battle, and I was pleased with my 4-0-1 which was really a 5-0 since we played out the last match (we’d drawn to ensure we got foil GftT). I then had the opportunity to square off against Eric’s Tempered Steel deck (which had gone 4-1) to see if I could beat the monstrosity that has a 40-0 record vs. my terrible G/U self-mill deck and took that one in 2 as well… 12-0 for the night!! ;)

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I played a list similar to this one with a few updates:

"Ponder"ing the Aggro Solution

Here is the new list:

Removal Spells:

3x Oblivion Ring

2x Dismember

3x Day of Judgment

8

Control Spells:

4x Mana Leak

3x Dissipate

2x Timely Reinforcements

9

Card Advantage:

4x Ponder

4

Creatures:

4x Snapcaster Mage

2x Sun Titan

2x Consecrated Sphinx

2x Phantasmal Image

3x Hero of Bladehome

13

Lands:

26x Of Them!

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Since I was finally able to pick up my 4^th Snappy (thanks Jeremy!) I had no choice but to play him and make room for the 4^th ponder and another dissipate. I’d found that the Sun Titans weren’t making as big an impact as I’d hoped, so cut them to 2. Same with phantasmal image, he was ending up dead a lot of times, so he became the 4^th Snapcaster.

There were some good lolz while playing Brandon. Quotes!

Brandon: “What the hell! You’re gonna mana leak it AGAIN, right?”

Me: “Yep! Mana leak #3… put that Mirran Crusader in the Grave!”

Brandon: “Cast Hero… mana leak #4?”

Me: “Nope! Mana leak #3… again. I cast Snapper and flash it back!”

Brandon: “That’s 4 mana leaks! Dude, I hate your deck! Crusader?”

Me: “No again… I cast another Snappy and flash another Mana Leak.”

Brandon: “5 LEAKS??? I HATE THIS GAME AND I HATE COUNTERSPELLS!!”

Me: “LOL!!”

Yea, take that aggro players!

MORE NOTES ON SNAPCASTER…

Snappy enables so many awesome plays! I was down to 1 life, played a Timely Reinforcements to go to 7, played another to go to 13, flashed it back with a Snapper to go to 19 (He was still @ 20 at the time)!

I find it interesting that Snapcaster seems to have had more success in Modern than Standard! It could simply be because the 4x Tempered Steel decks that made it to the T8 strangled out any other archetypes, but there was not a single control deck to be seen…

Meanwhile, Snappy has been showing up in a SLEW of great modern builds! Whether it be U/W/R control, Tempo-Zoo, Red-Bant, U/W Control or any number of other impressive decks. When ZOO is rockin’ him to double up on Lightning Helix, you KNOW the card has got to be good! :)

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On another note, my first article finally went live for www.quietspeculation.com! Whether fortunate or unfortunate, it’s an “insider” article, so you won’t be able to read it unless you subscribe… sorry! :*(. I’ll still be sharing stock tips with you when able though, so no worries!

BUT if you were interested in taking a look at my premium articles, I can honestly say that if your interests are more related to FINANCE, that it’s an EXCELLENT site to sign up for! If you’re more interested in decklists and strategy, it has a few articles on that as well, but it is primarily a financial website designed to help you trade, buy / sell, and profit.

I’ve been a site member there for almost a year now and can honestly say that it’s been paramount to stepping up my game and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to price changes and stock tips. Again, if you are interested in Financial tips and tricks, this is the place to be!

// END ADVERTISEMENT! (lol)

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THE OLIVIA VOLDAREN EXPLOSION!

How many of you had been heeding my words and have invested in a few Olivia when they were $5? Anybody?? Well you all know that your hero (me) did! Up to at least a dozen copies around $4-5 each that are now worth $12+… good times! Had you been speculating like I was, you’d have made some good coin on this one! J

12 (Quantity Owned) x $5 (Value upon Purchase) = $60 (Original Investment)

12 (Quantity Owned) x  $12 (Present Value) = $144 (Current Value)

$144 (Current Value) - $60 (Original Investment) = $84 (Profit)… it was that easy!

So how should I ensure that I end up covering my Original Investment ($60), make a tidy profit, and still have some Olivia? My plan is to sell 8x of my copies and keep the other 4. This will leave me with the following calculation:

8 (Quantity Sold) x $12 (Present Value) = $96 (Total Sale)

$96 (Total Sale) - $60 (Original Investment) = $36 (Profit) + 4 Olivia in Hand

I want to sell 8x of them now while they’re hot in case they slide a little, but I want to keep at LEAST 4x for myself to play with / continue to speculate on. As I keep saying over and over again, there are still 2x more sets to go that will have a strong Vampire theme and could make her even BETTER.

^^^ Look at all of the above a second time and begin to familiarize yourself with doing little calculations like these. They are VERY important if you plan on speculating, as you always want to have a “plan” in mind so that you can avoid possibly taking a loss, and plan out what your cash flow will look like for your NEXT investment.

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I’ll be playing FNM @ L.A. Mood this weekend and may even have a new deck… Prepare yourself foolish mortals! :P

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

Return of the Jundi! (And Trade or NO Trade)

Hello all! I’ve been busy brewing up a few lists as you;ve probably noticed, as now that there are a lot of deck lists and results out using Innistrad we should be able to see where the state of the game is going and prepare for it.

We’ve already looked at:

1)      Control -> "Ponder"ing the Aggro Solution

2)      Aggro -> The Last... I Knew You Were The Last!

The 3^rd archetype is of course MIDRANGE, which (as the name implies) falls somewhere between Aggro and Control. Some people even call this “aggro-control” since it’s a hybrid of both. Last season a perfect example of this was the old Jund deck which used powerful spells and creatures to generate card advantage vs control, and had better creatures than aggro. Is there a deck we can build today that can grind us CA and deal with the fast threats presented in Tokens / Aggro-Geist?

Here’s a proposal!

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MIDRANGE JUND (R/B/G)

4x Birds of Paradise

3x Skinshifter

3x Mayor of Avabruck

4x Daybreak Ranger

2x Solemn Simulacrum

2x Olivia Voldaron

2x Bloodgift Demon

1x Inferno Titan

1x Wurmcoil Engine

1x Grave Titan

23

3x Doomblade

3x Incinerate

3x Rampant Growth

2x Garruk Relentless

2x Garruk, Primal Hunter

13

2x Kessig Wolf Run

2x Inkmoth Nexus

4x Copperline Gorge

4x Blackcleave Cliffs

3x Swamp

3x Mountain

6x Forest

24

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Look at this curve!

CC1 = 4

CC2 = 15 (<- UGLY!!!)

CC3 = 4

CC4 = 6

CC5 = 4

CC6 = 3

AGAINST AGGRO?

Aggro has a hard time with Skinshifter and Doomblade / Incinerate keep it in check until we’re able to roll out our “bigger guys” who will trump all of theirs (except that accursed Hero of Bladeholme… damn she’s annoying! Save a doom blade for her! Haha). Daybreak Ranger is insane and will act as removal every turn until killed. If you can untap w / Olivia Voldaron in play, you’re probably going to win as well since she’ll either kill all their guys OR just get so big that she’ll trump everything else on the field, titans included. We round out the package with Inferno / Grave Titan and a Wurmcoil engine, all of which eat little bears all day long.

AGAINST CONTROL?

The Mayor is an excellent tool vs Control. If you can slip one under a counterspell and they don’t deal with it immediately, it can win the game all on its own. A T2 Skinshifter swinging for 4 a turn is also pretty good because of the trample and the fact that it can kill a Spellskite. Solemn is CA, Bloodgift is CA, the Garruks are CA and CA is really good vs control. Our creatures are so quality that any one of them can end the game on their own, so control has to make 1-for-1 trades which it really hates to do. The Kessig Wolf Runs makes ANY threat lethal, so it’s a nice bonus!

There you go! 3 decks within a week, one for each play style.

What’s YOUR favorite style? Aggro, Control, or Midrange?

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Here’s a quick Trade or NO Trade for you as well! This trade went down about 2 weeks ago… let’s look at this one from what prices were back then VS. what they are today to see if we can learn anything about how values are shifting, and if a trade from then is still be a good deal if we did it THIS week instead!

<< TRADE 1 >>
PILE 1	PILE 2
3x Stromkirk Noble 1x Angelic Destiny	1x Scaab Ruinator 1x Batterskull 2x Blackcleave Cliffs

So what do you think? Pile 1 or 2 or are they even?

What about 3 weeks ago… were they even THEN?

Think about it before you scroll down…

<< TRADE 1 – TODAYS VALUES >>
PILE 1	PILE 2
3x Stromkirk Noble ($5x3 = $15) 1x Angelic Destiny ($16)	1x Scaab Ruinator ($4) 1x Batterskull ($12) 2x Blackcleave Cliffs ($4x2 = $8)
Total = $31	Total = $24

Oh no! It looks like by TODAYS values pile 1 is waaayyy ahead! Someone got a great deal on an Angelic Destiny is what REALLY happened here, as it was on the rise when traded and Skaab was falling. Batterskull has been stagnant at $12 for a while now, and Blackcleave Cliffs don’t have a home yet, so I think they’re undervalued right now. All in all, today, this would be a VERY bad trade. Let’s see how things looked 3 weeks ago when the trade actually happened!

<< TRADE 1 – NOV 6TH VALUES >>
PILE 1	PILE 2
3x Stromkirk Noble ($6.5x3 = $19.5) 1x Angelic Destiny ($11)	1x Scaab Ruinator ($6) 1x Batterskull ($12) 2x Blackcleave Cliffs ($4x2 = $8)
Total = $30.50	Total = $26

Still a bad deal L, just not AS bad. I’m pile 1 and was dealing with a super-aggressive value trader. I’m normally pretty calm / rational when I’m trading so don’t know why I did this one. I knew Angelic Destiny was on the rise and that Skaab was on the fall, but still did the trade because of pressure, and the fact that he wanted us both to use SCG values, so it should have been on a level playing field. HOWEVER, Starcity had NOT updated their prices on either Destiny OR Skaab, and while I had a bad feeling about the trade, and SCGs values seemed off, I did it anyways. I still think Skaab and Blackcleave are poised to go up, but that shouldn’t have changed the fact that AT THE TIME, they were low, so I should have traded for them as such.

I’m going to take a few things about this trade away with me, as I think I learned something!

a)      If you don’t feel comfortable with a trade, don’t do it!

b)      SCG is NOT the be-all-and-end-all (That’s what eBay completed listings is for).

c)      Don’t let yourself get “hussled” or intimidated.

d)      If you KNOW something is gaining, ask for more than its current value.

e)      Trade for cards at CURRENT value, not possible future values.

Learn from my mistakes!!! Hahaha…

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

The Last… I knew You Were the Last! (Troll, that is)

PLEASE tell me that you’ve seen the movie: “The Last Unicorn”! Back in the day, this used to be one of my favorites… I had SUCH a crush on the “unicorn-girl” (Amalthea)… what a hottie!! <3

While she may have been the last Unicorn, our good buddy Thrun is the last Troll. He may not be giving little 6 year old girls giddy dreams about horsies and lollipops, but he’s def giving blue / black mages nightmares about hexproof and un-counterability (<- new word! Score!). He’s so popular right now, that I wanted to find a way to mix him in with the other “cool kids” so they can have a play along to taunt and tease all the less fortunate chumps who shop at Giant Tiger instead of The Gap.

There is a Jumanji style deck going around which accomplishes this, and I like it! Here’s my take on the deck:

4x Birds of Paradise

3x Avacyn’s Pilgrim

4x Mirran Crusader

3x Blade Splicer

4x Hero of Bladehome

2x Thrun, the Last Troll

20

3x Oblivion Ring

3

3x Garruk Relentless

2x Elspeth OR Gideon OR Garruk?

5

3x Sword of Feast and Famine

1x Sword of War and Peace

2x Angelic Destiny

2x Mortarpod

8

9x Forest

4x Plains

3x Gavony Township

4x Razorverge Thicket

4x Sunpetal Grove

24

It’s up in the air as to which planeswalker would best fit my 5cc slot, so I’ll have to debate it a little more before finalizing the deck. I’m leaning towards Elspeth as she plays nice with Mortarpod in a pinch! Two of the BEST creatures right now are Hero & Crusader, so mixing them up with Thrun seems like a good plan! Being able to spit out T2 crusaders and T3 Hero’s seems insane, and when you give them swords they’re even better. This list uses the Blade Splicers (which have been falling out of favor it seems) to ensure we’ll always have something kicking around to equip a sword to since it makes 2x bodies.

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Another note on our favorite subject: PLANESWALKER POINTS!

How have they been treating you? Are you still impressed with the program and how Wizards / Hasbro has been handling things?

I had a nice discussion with Chris Tomelin about this on Friday when I once again went to trade, but not play at my LGS. Chris was there and he ALSO was not playing. I asked him why he wasn’t slinging spells and he informed me that he’d lost a lot of interest in the game because of PWP’s and the fact that now he will have almost NO shot to qualify for anything, so why should he? I feel the same way, and haven’t been playing very much recently either as a result. So is the PWP system REALLY getting more people to play, or is it just getting certain people who WERE playing to play MORE?

As a member of society who has to WORK for a living, I know it’s impossible for ME to have any success in the game without quitting my job and breaking up w / my Girlfriend… Two things that just aren’t gonna happen!

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Things with www.quietspeculation.com are moving quite a bit slower than I’d originally anticipated. I think there may be a lot of red tape or something? As such while they’ve had my article for a while, it still hasn’t been published… which is a shame as it’s an article on the potential sleepers in Innistrad and every day that goes by is another day of speculating lost! Lol

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And a few quick stock tips:

1)      Hero of Bladehome is the card that has the MOST demand right now! I had 18 of them on Friday, and am down to only 10 remaining! They were trading at > $15 each, and I think a lot of people who got them out of me for $16-17 were probably “laughing all the way to the bank”.

2)      W/U and U/B lands are HOT right now! I can’t keep any in my trade stock, whether they’re Drowned Catacombs, Glacial Fortresses, Shores or Cliffs, everyone wants them and no one seems to have them.

3)      Wurmcoil Engine is worth $20 at the trading tables. People want him. It was pure luck that I was able to inform Dobbs that “no, they aren’t worth $8 anymore” before he traded them away at a loss! (I stole a Visions of Beyond off his kitchen table as payment for my knowledge! :P)

4)      Champion of the Parish / Stromkirk Noble BOTH trade for MUCH more than they sell for. Peeps are valuing them AT $6 / $8 respectively and they SELL for $3 / $5. Good potential to profit here!

That’s it for today! I’m hoping to have a “trade or no trade” up later this week!

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

“Ponder”ing the Aggro Solution…

I think I’ve played the U/G monstrosity to death for the moment, and my magic pallet is demanding I try out something new and exciting! Yes, I’m going to love testing out U/W Aggro-Geist, as well as Tokens and Wolf Run, but there has to be another few decks out there that don’t fall into such a common mold.

So what do we know about the metagame right now? What can we build to fight against what we expect to see most? Let’s build a deck that will combat aggro strategies since they seem to be all the rage lately, and who doesn’t hate getting attacked for 10 on T4 by a Geist who has a Destiny with Angels?

So I guess the question for today is: What beats aggro?

Answer: Our good buddy control, of course!

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This happens when you have 2WW open...

U/W/b CONTROL

Removal Spells:

3x Oblivion Ring

3x Dismember

2x Day of Judgment

8

Control Spells:

4x Mana Leak

2x Dissipate

3x Timely Reinforcements

9

Card Advantage:

3x Ponder

3

Creatures:

3x Snapcaster Mage

3x Sun Titan

2x Consecrated Sphinx

3x Phantasmal Image

3x Hero of Bladehome

14

Lands:

26x Of Them!

CARD EVALUATIONS!

Oblivion / Dismember / DoJ

Classic creature removal elements. The O-Ring takes care of everything, while the Dismember / DoJ clean up the creatures left behind. Snapcaster brings back Dismember to serve double duty in the removal suite, and Sun Titan is more than happy to bring back an O-Ring should it somehow end up in the graveyard.

Mana Leak / Dissipate / Timely Reinforcements

Once you start setting up your counterspells, you don’t really need to stop! T2 Mana Leak, T3 Dissipate, T4 Snapcaster into a flashbacked Mana Leak. But what if they start getting out their cretures before you’re able to get your control plan online? Oh yea, Timely Reinforcements! And believe me, there is NO better feeling than using Snapcaster on a timely reinforcements! LOL

Ponder

Made the cut because it is a 1cc spell that plays nice with Snapcaster. I’m not unhappy playing a T3 Snapcaster into ponder, and ponder is our only T1 play to get a nice setup for our future draws!

The Creature Suite

Snapcaster should go up to 4x, but I only own 3x right now L. I’ve been waiting for them to go down in price and am happy that they’re down to $20 already. Sun Titan has a large emphasis in this list so that we can re-use Snappy and the Image, and P-Image itself is very important since it can copy-kill a Geist of St Traft. Hero of Bladehome is just soooo strong that I want to squeeze it into every list that runs W that I can! Consecrated Sphinx is amazing, as always.

THE VERDICT?

Take THAT aggro! Looks like this deck should be able to lay some beatdown on most aggressive decks because of the huge removal suite, counter backup for their late game, and my bigger fat guys to seal the deal once they’ve run out of dudes. This style of deck should perform well in any aggro-Heavy environment… I may even give her a play at my next local FNM!

So if Aggro has got you down, and you spend your nights in a cold sweat dreaming about being attacked by sword wielding Myr Crusaders, put down your Rootboung Craigs and pick up your Glacial Fortresses!

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CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED!!

There were a meager 9 ballots in the pool this time, and most of them were for people who had subscribed to follow this blog. The lucky winner of a Maelstom Pulse (Out of Stock in NM on SGC @ $9.99!) is:

…

…

… JOHN WRIGHT!!

Congratz Johnny! Looks like you’ll have a Pulse from your Commander deck afterall!! J

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I hope this article has helped you identify how to build a deck based on your metagame and will lead you to much success and victory! I’ll leave off today with a quote from the ultimate movie. I’m sure many games of MTG have happened at kitchen tables everywhere to the backdrop of this epic… CONAN: THE BARBARIAN!

Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

Cheers!

Carl Szalich