Sealed / Draft decks! (From DKA Pre-Re)

I was “trying to clean” up my “magic card room” and stumbled upon my draft deck as well as the constructed portion of my sealed pool. I figure I will post them here to show that even the WORST deck can still have a chance at winning (in the case of my sealed pool) and that it’s OK to switch colors when drafting (as illustrated in my draft deck).

SEALED POOL (3x INN / 3x DKA)

I don’t have the cards that I decided NOT to use in my pool, only the deck that I ended up with. I think one of the best things I ended up doing was taking out a Geistcatchers Rig and replacing it with an 18^th land because my curve was so high.

Here is what I ended up playing:

1x Burden of Guilt

1x Silent Departure

1x Doomed Traveler

1x Tragic Slip

1x Bonds of Faith

1x Midnight Haunting

1x Niblis of the Mist

1x Reap the Seagraf

1x Thraben Doomsayer

1x Niblis of the Breath

1x Wakedancer

1x Thraben Sentry

1x Havengul Runebinder

1x Abbey Griffin

1x Griptide

1x Falkenrath Noble

1x Farbog Boneflinger

2x Silverclaw Griffin

1x Death’s Caress

1x Soul Seizer

1x Vengeful Vampire

1x Shimmering Grotto

1x Evolving Wilds

1x Haunted Fengraf

1x Ghost Quarter

5x Plains

5x Swamp

4x Island

I guess in retrospect it wasn’t as bad as I originally thought, but still not stellar. The fliers are obv what were winning me games!

Drafting Loup-Garou!

I’ll start by showing you the cards that I DIDN’T end up using in my draft deck. I’ll omit any OBVIOUSLY terrible cards and just list those that COULD have had potential:

Victim of Night

Tribute to Hunger

Ghoulcaller

Markov Patrician

2x Falkenrath Torturer

2x Corpse Lunge

Sightless Ghoul

Death’s Caress

Ravenous Demon

Full Moon’s Rise

Tower Geist

Thraben Purebloods

Feeling of Dread

So the first thing I notice is the 5x Removal spells and the Ravenous Demon on the black side of thinks, as that was where it appeared the original direction of the deck was going. Let’s see if I made a mistake with the white splash instead of the black?

Here’s what I built to a (tied for) FIRST PLACE finish:

1x Avacyn’s Pilgrim

1x Full Moon’s Rise

1x Moonmist

1x Lambholt Elder

1x Villagers of Estwald

1x Grave Bramble (<- Pro-Zombie Relevant!)

1x Grizzled Outcasts

1x Hollowhenge Scavenger

1x Stromkirk Noble

2x Village Ironsmith

1x Fling

1x Hinterland Hermit

1x Ancient Grudge (<- Main Deck!)

1x Kessig Wolf

1x Thraben Heretic

1x Hollowhenge Spirit

1x Divine Reckoning

1x Angel of Flight Alabaster

1x Requiem Angel

1x Immerwolf

1x Sharpened Pitchfork (<- 8 Humans in Deck)

Evaluating the Draft Deck… Did I do it Right?

Looking back on this, I could have taken out the white altogether, along with the Ancient Grudge to make room for the 6x Black Cards I’d mentioned above. But what would that do to the deck if I did?

The deck I played had 16 creatures.

Had I made the 6 card change I would have had only 13.

Creatures are what will win these types of games, and although having access to more removal would have helped, keeping the Divine Reckoning and 4/4 & 5/5 flyers seems like it’s still the right way to go. I could have also cut the Pitchfork for a Markov Patrician, which would have upped my creature count to 14, which is acceptable. Grave Bramble would also become Sightless Ghoul to add more aggro. Also being able to play with 7 (-1 w/o the white) humans and Ravenous Demon seems strong, but risky.

What do you think? Did I misbuild?

Should I have gone R/G/W or R/G/B?

I may even play in the Release event this Sunday!

Will I see you there? :P

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

THE RETURN & DKA Pre-Re!!!

So I’ve been dealing with an increasingly disabling illness that really made me reevaluate a few of my priorities. I had to stop writing for Quiet Speculation (for the time being) because I wanted to reduce my stresses, and as a result, this blog also went on hiatus. I am starting to feel quite a bit better, so no worries about your hero, but am not yet 100%. Looks like it was a medication mix-up that actually made me WORSE instead of better, so I’m back to square one. I’m going to try and get a few updates going again, but bear with me as I try to get back to how things were.

LA Mood Pre-Release Jan 29/2011

When you have a GF, it’s sometimes hard to balance “magic time” with “girlfriend time”. BUT after much begging & pleading, I was “allowed” go attend the Sunday Pre-Release at LA Mood. Granted, after reminding her about it for two weeks straight she STILL gave me heat for “abandoning” her on the weekend :S. Oh well, she’ll have to get used to disappointment… or WILL she?

On to the 46 person tournament!

The WORST Pool EVER?

I’m used to opening horrible, HORRIBLE pools, so this one was no exception. I had a couple of “good cards”, but I can’t call them “bombs”…

1)      Soul Seizer

2)      Havengul Runebinder

3)      Thraben Doomsayer

… With the exception of A Grasp of Phantasms and a Silent Departure, the rest of my pool was unexceptional. I had 2x of the 3/2 first strike flyer for 5 and a couple 2/1 flyers for W2 and U2, so I guess evasion was my deck. I DID have 17 creatures, so that was something.

Oh yea, did I mention that I was playing a three color monstrosity yet because I wasn’t deep enough in any 2 colors to go with a duo? Yep, I was rocking the faithful U/W/B with no “real” mana fixing! It was an 18 land smorgasbord with such classics as: Shimmering Grotto, Evolving Wilds and Ghost Quarter (to target my own lands with, obv :S)! My buddy Jeff Olsen joked to me: “Dude, no bombs and you’re playing 18 lands w / no fix? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!”.

Bah! He should have had faith!?

Pppllllaayyyyy!!! (Ye-ye-ye-yes sir!)

Round 1 had my suspicions verified… my deck was TERRIBLE. I managed to grind out a win based on morbid triggers and generating card advantage with Zombie makers. Highlight was when he sacrificed his final team member to make his Aristocrat indestructible and block my 3/2 flyer.

“Thank you for activating Morbid, good sir. Cast Tragic Slip and give him -13/-13 until EoT?”

… SCOOP MODE!!!! J

Going Downhill in a Hand Basket

I was on a high roll… I managed to win a match! Yessss…

Game 2 was going pretty nice as well. I made a few calculations and swing in with my team. I have a Falkenrath Noble, so whether he blocks my team or not, he’s set up to die to the Midnight Haunting that I will be casting on his EoT… except I forget to play it, and he equips an Invisible Stalker with a Butchers Cleaver and I can’t recover.

Game 2 he plays a T2 Invisible Stalker into a T3 Butchers Cleaver and begins the pain on T4. I wasn;t just sitting there waiting to be pounded, and he did literally NOTHING for the rest of the game except swing and gain life but it was too much. So I lost AGAIN to same “combo”. *sigh*

At this point, I was super tired, disappointed with my deck, and just didn’t really want to be there anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be, and the packed venue and constant action was wearing me down. My buddies who I normally play with (Dobbs / Eric) couldn’t make it, so I was all by my lonesome without my crew.

“Well, I guess I may as well stay until I lose my next round. Shouldn’t be long. Maybe I can even make it home before the GF goes to sleep!”

Let the Good Times Roll!

As always seems the case when you’re dying of hunger but too lazy to leave, I start winning. So much for leaving early, as I win my next 4 in a row, even managing to beat out the fabled Will Bax in 3 hard matches of a game I like to call: “Mull to 5 & get destroyed”. We had a tight second game, but the first and third were basically draw, miss a land drop, say go…

So round 6 I draw with Mark Wells and cross fingers that I don’t get bumped into 9^th. With my belly rumbling and my eyes bleeding, I make the cut in 7^th.

I’M TOTALLY READY TO SPLIT PRIZES!

Sheesh, it’s 9pm already and I’ve been here since 1030… 11 ½ hrs is enough for me!

“So are we going to T8 split?”

“NOOOO???”

“And on top of that we have to DRAFT??”

I wake up for work @ 6:30 tomorrow, so this little turn of events was the WORST thing that could have happened!

LOUP-GAROU!!!

The top 8 draft… so much pressure!

I started off heavy in white, scooping up some nice fat 4/4 and 5/5 flyers. I branched out into black because there was really nice removal coming around. Then it was time to flip into green, because I kept getting passed really good 3cc werewolves, then I saw my Rosetta Stone and I knew what I had to do. It was IMMERWOLF, and he proved to be the bait I needed to switch to R/G w / a W splash.

After collecting all the werewolves I could (as well as a Moonmist and Full Moons Rise) and smashing it together with my white, I ended up with a pretty decent deck! It had a TON of low CC creatures to shore the board while I develop mana to play my high CC white cards.

I won game one 2-0… onto the semi-finals!

My play of the day came during this match. I had 4 werewolves on board along w / a Stromkirm Noble. He had 4 guys equal to my Werewolves, and had just spider spawned for 6. (Fortunately, he could not pay the flashback next turn, as he was not running any B mana). I played Full Moons Rise, then DIVINE RECKONING. I sack my Full Moons Rise to regenerate all my werewolves and chose my Stromkirk Noble to “survive the reckoning”. He scooped!

Won game two 2-0… onto the finals!!!

… And we finally split @ 11pm! I got to go home to my sleeping GF with 15 packs in hand for my victory. Got to sleep myself around 3am, and had to wake up for work @ 630am.

The next day at work I WAS THE ZOMBIE. L

Interesting Observation…

You know how we were supposed to have a few people be monsters (Zombie, Werewolf, Spirit, etc…) and that if you LOSE to those monsters, you become one? WELLLL… our entire T8 were all HUMANS! We survive and thrive! There should have been an award for just SURVIVING as a human!

“Just say NO to a Zombie Apocalypse!”

Cheers!

Carl Szalich

Skinshifter and Friends (16-5 FNM Record)

Jund is back with a vengeance!

As I ‘ve been doing for the past few months, I’ll build a deck and play it for 2x weeks at 2x stores and see how it fares. I wasn’t able to win BOTH of the tournaments these past two weeks (Darn it! My 3 win in a row streak is broken!), but I won the LA Mood battle 10-1 (5-0) and only went 6-4 (2-2) at Imperial. I had to face BOTH of my playtest partners at Imperial, and lost to Eric playing WW Humans and Dobbs playing Bant Pod.

Congrats to Dobbs BTW! He not only won the tournament ON HIS BIRTHDAY but we went to the casino after and each won $17! WE’RE RICH, BITCHES!! Hahaha. HBD again Mr.D! :)

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Here is the deck list!

Creatures

4x Birds of Paradise

4x Skinshifter

4x Daybreak Ranger

3x Bloodline Keeper

2x Oliva Voldaren

2x Wurmcoil Engine

2x Inferno Titan

21

Spells

3x Arc Trail

4x Rampant Growth

3x Garruk Relentless

1x Batterskull

11

Lands

2x Kessig Wolf Run

23x Other Lands that make colors!

25

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Every single card aside from Rampant Growth is Card Advantage and has the potential to run a 2-for-1 on your opponent OR even more!

Daybreak Ranger is insane if he resolves on Turn 2. Versus control he’s a healthy 4/4 for 3 and against aggro he’s an unstoppable machine gun. I played 1x of him against a tempered steel opponent and that’s all I had to do to win! He stayed active and picked off a guy every turn… even through a resolved tempered steel!

BoP and Rampant Growth are there to set up a T3 4 drop… of which I found there to be waaayyyy too many! Sometimes you’d get stuck if you didn’t draw that 4^th land, which was what happened to me when I lost VS. both Dobbs AND Eric. Even w / 25 lands and 8 accelerators you still run that risk, but I feel that the land base and accelerator choices are correct for the time being.

Olivia / Bloodline Keeper were impressive to say the least! If I was untapping w / Olivia, I was going to win. At one point I had 2x Active Bloodline Keepers with 4 other Vampires on the board… one of which was Olivia! I still lost that game to a pro-almost-my-entire-deck Mirran Crusader that I couldn’t block, but if I’d had one more turn…

I was originally trying a mix of different finishers in the 6 drop spot, but found that Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil tended to work out the best. Both are great vs. Control, but they are superior vs. Aggro. Either of them could have blocked that pesky Crusader had they been in hand! I was demating the merits of Grave Titan, but then if he gets DoJ’d, you don’t get anything out of him. With I-Titan and Wurm, at least you’ve either dealt 3 damage, or you end up w / 2x 3/3 wurms. STRONG.

I think the cards that were missing from the deck were 2-3x swords. Skinshifter + Sword = GG, and I never got to do it since I had none main. Batterskull never lets me down, and I actually had 2x kills w / Batterskull equipped birds! For as long as it’s in standard, I’m pretty sure BSkull will be run in all my midrange decks. Lol.

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I hope you enjoyed this most recent Deck Tech article!

Have a safe and happy Christmas season (or holiday season, whichever you prefer)! Best wishes to all of you and your families!

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

It’s GREEN STEEL, baby! (16-3 FNM Record)

Time for another deck tech article!

First, sorry that I haven’t been as active as normal lately. My “real” job has been really busy, and I still need to get a professional looking article submitted to www.quietspeculation.com to go live for next week. BUT I wanted to hook you up with a really cool deck I’ve been playing for the past 2 weeks (1 at LA Mood and 1 at Imperial Hobbies) to a 13-3 game record.

Traditionally, Puresteel Paladins decks tended to wilt if they didn’t draw the namesake card in the deck. Sure, I guess living weapons on their own are “OK”, but they really shine when you’re drawing a card whenever you play one a la Paladin style. So sometimes you end up with a hand full of mediocre equipment and nothing else.

When I designed this build I wanted it as threat heavy as possible so that if I DIDN’T manage to draw a Paladin I could still win. When we lost Basilisk Collar it really hurt the deck, but as a fellow QS writer (Josh Justice) suggested, we can get the same effect by sacking deathtouch wolves to Mortarpod… and thus was born the green splash!

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Here is the deck list!

Creatures

4x Vault Skirge

4x Puresteel Paladin

3x Mirran Crusader

3x Etched Champion

3x Hero of Bladehold

17

Equipment

3x Flayer Husk

4x Mortarpod

2x Sword of War and Peace

2x Sword of Feast and Famine

1x Batterskull

12

Spells

4x Oblivion Ring

3x Garruk Relentless

1x Mox Opal

7

Lands

2x Inkmoth Nexus

1x Gavony Township

4x Razorverge Thicket

4x Sunpetal Grove

1x Forest

12x Plains

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As you can see, this deck is creature heavy. Some of my opponents incorrectly assumed I was playing W/G tokens as there are many of the same cards cross deck, and G/W Puresteel is not an established archetype yet so it’s a good assumption, albeit incorrect.

In this deck Puresteel Paladin acts more like a “Trump Card” in the fact that you can play out a bunch of dudes, achieve metalcraft, then drop paladin to form Voltron and swing. It doesn’t matter if you have a Puresteel for this to still be an effective strategy as (most of) the equipment itself helps our team regardless. Equipping Mirran Crusader with ANY equipment is dangerous… but giving him a sword or 3 ends games right away!

Believe it or not, Gavony Township actually won me a few games! It really plays nice with Hero of Bladehold, making the team he creates 3/2’s on the swing instead. It also gets Paladin / Crusader out of “shock” range, and since people seem to have eschewed incinerate in favor of the faster spell it = win.

Garruk is amazing, as he is both removal and creates bodies to equip to! As stated above, when he’s making deathtouch wolves and throwing them with a Mortarpod he is insane.

O-Ring is the best piece of removal in the format right now IMHO. It deals with EVERYTHING except for an Inkmoth

In the 19 games (over 8 rounds) I played with this deck I won 16 of them (only dropping 1 match), so it has some great potential! Pick this up if you want to try something powerful, yet different that can attack from a lot of different angles J.

Cheers!

Carl Szalich

Christmas Shopping: London Gaming Deals!!

Hey guys! With Christmas just around the corner, I figure it would be a great idea to get all of the store sales / specials for the holiday season on one easy to use directory!

Since I try and keep this site as impartial as I can I’ve got all of the comic / gaming stores as well as their sale description here for your viewing pleasures J.

I WILL BE UPDATING THIS LIST AS MORE INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE AND MORE SALES ARE ANNOUNCED SO PLESE KEEP CHECKING BACK!

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WORLDS AWAY

666 Dundas St

London, Ontario

N5W 2Y8

(519) 433-1267

www.worldsawaylondon.com/

Sale Details!

Starts on Dec 04 / 2011

Magic Card Singles: Spend $50, get 20% off. Spend $100, get 30%. Spend $150, get 40% off!

Magic Packs: $3.75 ($0.50 off!)

Backstock Comics: 40% off!

TPB’s and Hardcovers: 30% off!

Action Figures: 20% off!

Comments:

This is THE BEST MAGIC CARD DEAL around! Sure, some stores have a higher discount all the time, but NO ONE has this kind of discount on the AMAZING card selection Brad (the owner of Worlds Away) has. This discount isn’t just for dollar rares… it’s for EVERYTHING HE’S GOT!! You need dual lands? I just bought 2x Underground Sea in ex- for $109! No, that was NOT a mistype… It’s true! Get there right away before everything is gone!!

L.A. MOOD COMICS AND GAMES

350 Richmond St

London, Ontario

N6A 3C3

(888) 621-7018

www.lamoodcomics.com/

Sale Details!

Dec 1st Pre-Christmas sales!

"Super" Deals Abound!

25% off Premium Back issues
50% off regular back issues
Selected 3 for a dollar in the bargain basement!
25% off T-Shirts!
25% off Toys!
20% off statues!

Dec 10-24

25% off Graphic Novels & Trade Paperbacks
(This is in ADDITION to the previous sales!!)

Saturday Dec 10th

X-Mas Open House - Drop in for some holiday cheer!

ALSO! “Kill Shakespear” Signing between 11am -> 1pm!

Comments:

Gord, Carol, and the rest of the LA Mood Crew have some great deals going on this year! Huge discount on comic back issues @ 50%, and every year I always have fun during their Christmas Open House. They have an amazing selection of premium back issues, so if you’re hunting gold / silver age, at 25% off, everyone is going to “win”. J

HEROES COMICS AND COLLECTIBLES

186 Dundas St

London, Ontario

N6A 1G7

(519) 439-4955

http://heroescomics.ca/

Twitter = @heroeslondon

COMING SOON!

NOTE: LOTS of unadvertised specials so you may want to give them a call if you need something specific!

COMIC BOOK COLLECTOR

779 Dundas St

London, Ontario

N5W 2Z6

(519) 433-6004

www.comic-book-collector.com/

HUGE SALE STARTING IN JANUARY… STAY TUNED!!

FRESHERS SPORTS CARDS

639 Southdale Rd E

London, Ontario

N6E 3M2

(519) 649-6116

COMING SOON... BOXING WEEK SALES!

BA’S COMICS

426 Hamilton Rd E

London, Ontario

N5Z 1R9

(519) 439-9636

December Storewide Sale!!
Sale runs until closing for Christmas break!!

Back Issues 50% off!
40% off Hardcover / Sofcovers!
Willing to negotiate Premium Wall books 20% -> 40% off!

(NOTE: Please be sure to mention "DontTrainMyOrgg" to get the deals! :P)

Comments:
Bruno has an AMAZING selection of hard to find gold / silver age comics, and specializes in older comics with a keen eye for grading. A cozy little shop just outside of the main comic book "district", which make it a hidden gem both in location AND in their back issue bins! 

NEO TOKYO: THE ANIME STORE

787 Dundas St

London, Ontario

N5W 2Z6

(519) 642-7862

http://www.neotokyo.ca/

Sale Details!

20% -> 50% off various selected Anime Titles!
Coming Soon! Boxing Week Specials...

Comments:
Have you got an Otaku (Fan of Animation) in your family? Neo Tokyo is THE premier Anime store in London and surrounding area. A huge selection of both video rentals and sales as well as anything you can think of Anime related! If they don't have what you're looking for, they're more than happy to look it up for you and try and get it ordered in.


I hope this little article helps you and have a safe and happy holiday season!

Merry Christmas!
Carl Szalich

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