Monday 29 April 2013

Dear UltraPro

Dear UltraPro,


I feel our little love affair has been on the rocks. I as always came to you first when I had the need to sleeve, but when I finished doing the dirty I looked upon the unholy thing I’d bedded and was disgusted.

What manner of abomination is this? The sleeves aren’t even close!

Huge difference in size, what happened?
Are these even the same brand?
Obvious when on top of each other.
And is this a magic deck or a piano?


And this wasn’t the first time; it’s just the first time I’m bringing it up. If we’re going to stay in this relationship, we need to be able to be honest with each other, hence this note.

I feel there’s been a slow but steady decline in your product, baby. I used to split a sleeve a month, but now it’s a couple a week. I don’t think I’m being too rough with you… I’m a lover not a fighter, you know that. But really, what is happing down in that quality control room of yours to even think I’d be ok with the size differences between every pack of 100? You know I’ll end up disqualified for having marked cards were I to play them that way? I mean damn baby, I know they’re big, but you barely cover them entirely anymore! I’ll bet little flakes of skin and table excrement are getting all up into my cards with their tops exposed like that!

Seriously though honey, something’s got to change or I don’t know if we’re going to make it.

First, you may want to talk with your boss and let him know that I’m not the only one who’s noticed you’ve lost that swagger in your step, that twinkle in your eye. Others are telling me that “Dragon Shields are more durable and stylish”. I think people who like Dragon Shields are all anarchists, hipsters, or Macintosh users so you can’t trust ‘em anyways.

Secondly, I’d appreciate the actual serviceable product that I’m used to receiving from you like when we first started dating. Remember back when you used to wear makeup and do your hair to impress me? You’re obviously the one I want to be with, but there’s no ring on my finger,  I’m still a free man to choose the sleeves I feel will fit best... but I hope that’s with you.

I think back to all the good times we’ve had, and I don’t want them to end…

* Navigating through mountains of Ultra Pro 9 Page Pocket Protectors!

* Protecting the endangered Warlord Saga of the Storms Decks!

* Sleeving decks so expensive you don't even want to play with them!

 
* And THE CUBE! Containing the full Power 9 + others of repute!


Requested: Black Deck Protector Sleeves in Standard Size OR something incredibly awesome a geek would like from the dark catacombs of your UltraPro Vaults. This would hopefully allow me enough card sleeves of the same size to re-sleeve my magic decks, as they’re the ones most impacted by the recent size inconsistencies. If I wanted to un-sleeve cards to shift them between decks, I wouldn’t have been buying all of the same color (black) and size (standard) for years.


We’ve built some great memories, let’s keep building more (and more decks!) together.

Please send any product to:

Carl Szalich
XXX
London, Ontario
XXX
Canada
cszalich at hotmail dot com
Tel: XXX


(PS: I took out the ingredients for meatloaf tonight and I’m hoping you could make it the way your mom does? It was really good last time we had it. I don’t know what spices she used but I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now…)

Friday 5 April 2013

WMCQ (World Magic Cup Qualifier) Info!

Yea yea, we’ll get down to business and discuss the WMCQs (World Magic Cup Qualifiers) in a bit, but first you have to deal with some babbling!

************

As I write this I'm at home, sick, missing my second straight FNM in a row. I can't even remember the last time that's happened. I don’t play often throughout the week, so it's really the only chance I get to try out my new decks. Not that I’ve been brewing anything insanely innovative lately, but I definitely miss hanging with my homies and slingin’ some cardboard.

I’m on my third “Hot Toddy” of the day and think I may be becoming slightly inebriated, but they are the only things that seem to really help me fight the seemingly never-ending battle vs. this cold. If you’ve never tried the cure all remedy that is a “Hot Toddy”, you should brew one up the next time you’re feeling sick!


HOT TODDY RECIPE

Lemon Juice
Honey
Whiskey
Boiling Water

… That’s it! Even if you’re the worst cook in the world you can easily cast (for W, obv!) one of these healing potions on yourself. If you’re under-age, then just exclude the whiskey and it will still work just fine.


RUMOR MILL: YES, I’M ENGAGED!

(Warning: There is some profanity in this link!)
“Game over man, GAME OVER!!”

Well I finally asked my girlfriend of over 2 years, Amanda Provily, to marry me. I dressed in an awesome Green Lantern cosplay outfit and used lines like:

“You’re the Lois Lane to my Superman. The Mary-Jane Watson to my Spider-man.”

And this little golden nugget I’m especially proud of:

“Will you help me defend Space Sector 2814? Will you marry me?”

Despite the icing that was originally proposing with a Pink Lantern Ring… she said yes!!

BOOM!!! I got to propose the way every fanboy ever dreamed and instead of her slapping a tooth out of my face she said yes! I’m a lucky man… it remains to be seen if she’ll consider herself “lucky” with my strange tendencies and penchant for the dramatic in a few years :P.

Fine, I’ll post a pic of her REAL ring because I know you’re all dying to see what I had to pawn my future for. (#humblebrags)


… In related news I’ll be selling another chunk of my magic card collection to help pay this bad-boy down, so stay tuned for a list! Lol


FINALLY. LET’S DISCUSS WMCQs… DID I QUALIFY?

To be honest, I had no idea what they were before I found out I’d qualified. The name sounds so fancy that I just figured I didn’t. BUT those useless PlanesWalker Points finally had some relevance, and my sordid history of magic playing extravagance finally paid dividends!

Did you qualify? Maybe, like me, you did and had no idea! Here’s a link to WotCs qualification list: http://www.wizards.com/wpn/News/Article.aspx?x=2013_03_01_WMCQ

Basically, if you’re Canadian, you needed to accrue 500 PlanesWalker points this season to qualify. It may be easier to just punch in your DCI number here to see how many you’ve got because following those links literally leads to a huge wall of text and it hurt my fragile and delicate fingers to scroll down all the way: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/PlaneswalkerPoints.

I had 633 points and my buddy Paul Dobbs just squeeked in there with 501 points! That’s right… had he lost 1 more game instead of winning, he’d only have had 498 points! Just goes to show you that every tournament counts if you’re actually aiming to qualify for these things… so missing 2x in a row like I just did would be very bad if you had big dreams of crushing opponents on a world stage.


WHAT IS IT? WHAT ARE THESE FABLED WMCQs?

Here’s a nice little clip direct from the WotC website:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtg/event/worldmagiccup/qualifiers

“If you dream of playing in the international World Magic Cup, you'll want to start here. Each selected country will run three World Magic Cup Qualifiers, with the winner of each earning an invitation to the World Magic Cup.”

So there are three tournaments, and the winner of each moves on to represent their country at the “World Magic Cup”. These qualifiers are all “Standard Constructed Format” with a cut to top 8.


WHAT’S THE WHERE / WHEN?

Here’s a link to where all the WMCQs will be held:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtg/event/worldmagiccup/qualifierlist

For us Canadians, the relevant info is:

April 06, 2013
Magic Stronghold Games
5558 Lane St
Burnaby, BC
sales@magicstronghold.com

That’s tomorrow! I hope you BC peeps are ready!

April 20, 2013
Western Primrose Hotel
111 Carleton St.
Toronto, ON
401games@bellnet.ca

This is the one that I may be able to attend :).

June 01, 2013
Hotel Espresso
1005 Rue Guy
Montreal, QC
gamekeeperverdun@gmail.com

And the final date goes to Quebec.


LET’S SAY I GO… WHAT CAN I WIN?

And what do we have for them Vanna? A BRAND NEW CAR!!
… Kidding! But even if I wasn’t, you know you’d get stuck with a Prius :P

All participants get a pretty savage looking Foil Vengevine:


If you TOP 8 you get a placemat:


And if you win the whole thing you get (drumroll please):

An invitation and AIRFARE to compete on your national team at the 2013 World Cup!

There are also prizes determined by the organizer of each event. So you’ll probably also end up with a couple packs or booster boxes if you do well.

(Geez, it’s almost impossible to rephrase their wording off the website. Lucky my old geography teacher Mr. Roy isn’t going to fail me for plagiarism!)


GOOD LUCK – HIGH 5!

And that’s really all there is to it!

The key points being:

1)      Did I qualify?
2)      Where / when am I going to play?

And I guess we can’t forget #3

3)      … What deck will I bring?

Hopefully the results of this weekend’s set of tournaments and this blog will help you decide!


Cheers,

Carl Szalich
@psilence6k on Twitter