Someone posted to Facebook that they’re listening to Sterolab. It’s great.
Honestly, I want to get through this as fast as possible so the three hours I have this weekend to play Elder Scrolls Online Beta can be spent doing so. Mash play on the embedded Spotify code, open your ear holes to Sterolab, and breeze through this week’s Power and Toughness with me.
The Scryducks
Played the Abeysitters.
Kadar was unhappy with his deck in a pretty big way. Nick brought me some Runts sans bananas (amazing). My deck was alright. UW flyers/beats/tempo/kitchen sink. Kadar went 1-2, Nick, 0-3, and I only lost two games (my final two games vs. Abe). Nick was one of three GB decks at the table. My wins were because of shitty keeps or mana flood/screw or because of mulligans. I didn’t play exceptionally well. It all just kinda came together (that is: my opponents’ bad luck).
This is one happy winning team.
We got our asses handed to us and I still had a great time. Why is this? Dylan, Jon, and Abe were so freaking chipper the whole time. They didn’t have wonky egos and winning seemed to be something that would happen as the result of them having a good time together. It was really great to be a part of the matches. I think I had such a good time with them because I didn’t really care about winning either. I just took Forker’s weekly advice of playing the best I can and learning. It probably helped that I didn’t have a fucking GoPro strapped to my chest.
Anyway, it’s really nice to see a team get along so well and have such a positive attitude towards playing Magic. I’m not saying my team doesn’t have this, but we definitely think about winning a lot (I’m probably the biggest must-win guy on the team) and I think we’d have more fun if we let go of the need to win and truly listened to Forker’s advice on playing well and learning.
You guys ever listen to Scott Walker? It’s really insane stuff. Erin turned me onto his work this weekend. It’s all worth checking out. Here’s another Spotify embedding:
I’ve resigned to playing Bogle at GP Richmond. I can’t deal with any other deck for eight plus hours of Magic while in the South (though probably anywhere, really).
It’s the deck I like the best. It requires the least thought. It involves a really cute monster. The inclusion of Spirit Mantle is fantastic. It really helps when decks just buy time with shitty blockers so they can combo off or do whatever bullshit their deck does to hurt our little beastie or elf.
The potential for life-gain really helps against burn decks. First strike, too. Slowing them down with a Hyena’d up Bogle is awesome.
Multiple Paths are now required due to all the Twins out there … and game two there are usually Spellskites all over the place, too. PATH!
Keep in mind you can still target your Bogle with Daybreak if your opponent doesn’t have an enchantment on his Spellskite already. NOT A LEGAL TARGET for Spellskite. So, there’s that.
Spirit Bogle
If you’re at GP Richmond and you see me wearing either a Scry Ducks or Hipsters t-shirt please say hello!
I’ll leave you now with portions of a proposal I wrote for an art exhibition that may be coming up in the Summer. Does one capitalize “summer” when speaking of it with excitement bordering on religious fanaticism? Probably not. I did anyway because, shit, it’s been SO COLD here in Brooklyn for what seems like over a year.
This is one of the two scientists that fly the ship we’ll be building out on the second floor (see the featured image of this article). She paints miniatures in her “free time”, you know, when she’s not searching the universe for lifeforms and civilizations. She’s the more spiritual of the two scientists and is always looking for deeper meaning in things. She’s constantly searching for “presence” in objects (the thing that makes them seem conscious & alive; the thing that gives them power & energy).
Hopefully I’ll have more drawings to you tomorrow. The general idea is that these two space archaeologist-scientist people are on a mission of an in-determinant length of time. They’re exploring the galaxy/universe. They are tens of thousands of years into our future. We’ll never see them without their helmets on (like Dredd, mystery is important) but we can reasonably assume they’re human or very close to humans on the evolutionary scale.
On our second floor we’ll build a captain’s chair-platform where the female and male space-people share control equally. There will be science stations (sort of like interactive desks, like on Star Trek) that will include imaginary technology (that is: painted technology that does nothing without the aid of an imagination and positive mental attitude; the imaginary technology will be for sale).
The walls are lined with space paintings that are both objects of contemplation and port holes on the ship (showing stills of the stars they’ve passed).
In front of the captain’s chair is the view-screen aimed in the direction the ship is traveling. It will be a video of an infinite loop of stars as we fly through them.
The space-people are on the hunt for artifacts, kinda like Indiana Jones. Around the bridge (deck) of the ship will be various fossilized objects from their efforts. These are bio-mechanical remains from past technologies, usually weapons and power sources. Presently the two space-people are fascinated with their early human ancestors. The male is obsessed with the 19th and 20th century earth idea of “art” and has discovered Manet, his greatest influence. The male spends most of his “free time” painting abstractions that’re somewhat inspired by Impressionism and Expressionism. His studio (and easel and table with paints on it, and several canvases) are to the middle/right of the second floor. He has recently been working on a new series.
The female is more interested in painting three dimensional objects. On one of their stops on a planet filled with the refuse of human life and culture she was able to pick up several toy-like figures, perhaps used as positives for molds to mass-produce the toys. She spends her “free time” relaxing and painting the details on these objects, ignoring the potential cultural significance of these finds in order to suit her taste, desire, and will. She speculates as to how they would look if she were one of the original creators of the objects she paints. She wonders what these creators thought and how they felt.
The two space-people are probably some kind of bio-mechanical beings (like most things in the reboot of Prophet by Image comics), their machine parts have added many years to their lives. They’re thousands of years old by now, or so they imagine, they stopped counting. They vaguely remember their home world and something about their nationality. Perhaps, they think, they’re German.
Thanks for reading! I’m gonna nuke some popcorn and play Elder Scrolls Online now.
Love to all,
Matt Jones
MTGO: The_Obliterator
Twitter: Die_Obliterator
Twitch: twitch.tv/mattjonesrules
Matt Jones is a sometimes PWP grinder, all the time spell slinger, and one passionate dude. He started playing at the end of Revised and quit at Exodus. Upon sobriety and running out of self-help groups to join, Jones picked Magic back up at New Phyrexia, found his favorite non-Necropotence card, Phyrexian Obliterator, and earned himself a nickname. He loves Constructed and tolerates Limited.