Part of my weeks long frustrations with Magic has been the amount of travel I’ve been doing whilst needing time to prepare for my solo exhibition at Bleecker Street Arts Club (this Tuesday night is the opening – be there!). See, I thought I had a week between GP Vegas and visiting my family for the Independence Holiday weekend to complete the resin layers on new paintings, make some space paintings, and fully realize some cut-outs from nothing. A business trip to Milan got in the way and I had a brilliant time visiting some of the greatest works of art on our planet. But, still, it ate up the week of working in my studio I thought I needed.
Anyway, I got the show works done. I finish installing it tonight. Here’s the invite, I’d love to see you there:
Monday Night Magic – Co-Hosting by the Seat of my Pants
The show was dope. Chewie and Jeremey are really great guys. They manage to somehow talk about Magic whilst bustin’ balls and hilariously smart. We chatted pretty effortlessly and had a blast. We announced our first ever crossover contest. We laughed for an hour or so. I have been inspired to start a Hipsters of the Coast podcast (which we’ll probably just call a “show”) and hopefully list it with www.mtgcast.com. Anyway, the guys were great and I’ll co-host again any time they ask (duh).
The show also has lead to some t-shirts for Hipsters of the Coast being made. We’ll get back to you soon on this. They’re gonna be awesome.
Tuesday Night Magic – Modern and Quelling Rage
Reinvigorated after co-hosting MNM I put my Domain Geist deck back together and voyaged to the store, took some hits to my pride (“I thought you quit?” “You’re the next Derek Heaton,” etc.), and thew down. Boom, 2-2 end result.
Domain Geist
| Creatures (17) 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Noble Hierarch 2 Snapcaster Mage Spells (20) 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix 4 Tribal Flames 4 Lingering Souls 2 Might of Alara 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant | Lands (23) 4 Arid Mesa 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Marsh Flats 2 Stomping Ground 1 Temple Garden 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Steam Vents 1 Breeding Pool 1 Blood Crypt 1 Godless Shrine 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Mountain 1 Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Thoughtseize 2 Inquisition of Kozilek 3 Path to Exile 3 Aven Mindcensor 2 Thundermaw Hellkite 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Snapcaster Mage |
I played four guys and had a good time. I loved reading Monique’s “have fun challenge” blog post. I’d be lying to you if I said I was OK with losing. Losing fucking sucks. Still, the dudes I played were swell fellas and I did beat Li and tried to convince him to write for Hipsters again. It didn’t work. Oh wait, that was during FNM. I went 2-2 then, too. Both TNM and FNM I earned two packs for my two wins. I didn’t tilt outwardly but my insides were raging.
All of my photos from my phone were deleted somehow so here’s a picture of Garruk (from MTG) and another of Garak from Deep Space 9. Think about it.
.jpg)
Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, Dragon’s Maze Draft—Limited Sux
I can’t be happier that I don’t have to draft RGD again. Actually, if I never drafted again I’d probably be ok. Missing out on Modern or Standard would make me cry, but Limited can kiss my ass. I did an RGD draft on MTGO, thought I put together a reasonably good deck, and got bombed out of the draft. So, uh, in order to make my life nicer I googled for images of Rob “Birdlaw” Kofsky’s favorite sleeves. I found them.
They’re available for $3.99 on the internet. I doubt Rolex would ever use them, though. Even if they’re a great bargain. Rolex and Birdlaw continue their imaginary feud. Hugh and I continue to egg them on.
Rise of the Eldrazi Draft—No, Really, It’s Fun!
Hugh and others won’t shut up about ROE draft. It’s the best format ever, they say. After the shitty DGM draft I read a ROE primer and put this together:
My round one opponent didn’t show.
My round two opponent tapped the shit out of my Eldrazi and I lost.
I’m pretty sure there’s cereal in the ice cream I’m eating.
Friday Afternoon Sealed
I built a mediocre deck. Well, Hugh fixed my mediocre deck and made it into a less mediocre deck. I won the first two rounds and lost the next two. The thing that stands out the most is smashing John in round four after a really grindy game and then losing to very early Shadowborn Demon the following two. Fuck that. Nice guy though. Here’s what all of my opponents looked like (of note: Forker looks like Ral Zarek).
Forker’s deck failed him so I won. It was a better deck than mine.
I don’t think I’ll ever beat Zach Barash in a match of Limited Magic.
John’s deck won each time he played the Demon. I had no answers to the Demon.
Limited is a piece of shit.
FNM Standard—Going 2-2 Never Felt So Good
Junk 'Crats
| Creatures (22) 4 Voice of Resurgence 3 Varolz, the Scar-Striped 1 Obzedat, Ghost Council 4 Cartel Aristocrat 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Blood Artist 2 Young Wolf Spells (13) 3 Skirsdag High Priest 4 Lingering Souls 4 Tragic Slip 2 Garruk Relentless | Lands (25) 2 Gavony Township 4 Isolated Chapel 4 Woodland Cemetery 2 Sunpetal Grove 4 Godless Shrine 4 Temple Garden 4 Overgrown Tomb 1 Swamp Sideboard (15) 1 Obzedat, Ghost Council 1 Deathrite Shaman 2 Appetite for Brains 1 Ray of Revelation 3 Scavenging Ooze 2 Smite 3 Abrupt Decay 2 Duress |
So I played Dan. He was on Junk Reanimator I drew perfectly and it worked out great. Dan’s always a pleasure to play. He loves his Junk Reanimator.
I played Li next, as I spoiled earlier in the article, and beat John Fung’s deck (Li was playing John Fung’s deck). It maindecked 100 Scoozes, Deathrite Shamen, and Duskmantle Seers. Maybe not Duskmantle Seers. Those two dudes are up to something. My deck drew well and I won the match 2-1 (though I tried hard to lose the match by tossing game two away).
I lost all of the photos of the next two peeps I played. I remember one was Marcos, oh! and the other was Jim. I probably could’ve won either match if I didn’t slightly or majorly flood. That’s the rub with this deck. If it floods, and it does, you lose. Oh well! I still like the braintree of thought required to play the deck and I got to to thinking that I should play Melira Pod in Modern. I built a version from 100 years ago without Voice. It still had Rule of Law in the board. John Fung and I played 10,000 games with it against his Junk Mid-Range deck. I’m not sure who won more but I think Melira has the edge.
Kadar and I tested today (he runs a deck similar to John’s) after a few hours of basketball and studio time. I took the match-up 3-2. Kadar, I think, kept some questionable hands. When he had hand disruption he slaughtered me. If not, I think I had the edge. I updated the list and it looks like this:
Junk 'Crats
I can’t wait to try Rain of Tears out of the sideboard. Also, three Melira is the right amount of Melira. John Fung managed to kill two of mine and I think tapped out because he knew I couldn’t win. But I could, so I podded my Birds away, got my third Melira, and combo killed him. “You run three?!” John exclaim asked. “Yeah man, of course!”
Saturday night Twenty Sided regular Brook Li and I took in my girlfriend’s burlesque show, The Champagne Riot. I mentioned it casually at FNM and asked if anyone wanted to go and he said “Hell yes!” Maybe I asked if anyone wanted to go with me and see my girlfriend and other girls dance around naked with some 20s-30s jazz as accompaniment and he was the only one interested. We had a blast though the tuna I ordered was a little over cooked and salty. Free Diet Cokes usually make up for this. Their show is a lot of fun and I highly recommend you attend next month!
I hope to see you at my exhibition Tuesday night, if you’re in the city. These are the best paintings I’ve ever made and I’m super stoked to share them with you all.
Friday Jen and I head to Cape Cod to relax, something I’m lousy at most of the time and incredibly successful at only on the Cape. It’s likely I’ll play some Modern while I’m there (on MTGO). If I do that’ll be my report for next week.
All the best,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator