Trouble like this hasn’t appeared at the beginning of an article in a while. I just don’t know the purpose of this writing. Another week spent in Rochester and only a few MTGO games ate up my time. All MTGO time was given up to Holiday Cube, a format I’ve never been interested in before. I had a blast and am 4-4 in matches after three drafts. At 0-2 I dropped from one draft. My parents or their dogs had interrupted me a few times, I made some misplays and misclicks, and I just didn’t wanna keep going with it. The only proof of cube drafts I have are these two screenshots in which my mono black deck was kicking ass.

holidaycube3-r1

holidaycube3-r2

Click on the images, I think, and you’ll get them in a larger scale.

I recorded all of the drafts and matches but they’re soooooooo boring. They’ll be added to the archive and hopefully never see the light of day.

Cube is ridiculous. It’s fun. There’s been a shift in my attitude towards playing MTG lately, less worry about victory and more worry about enjoying myself (which leads to more victories).

My buddy Rob crushed me at Jess’s Reject Rares Draft party. I thought I had this dope GBw deck and it couldn’t get its footing against Rob’s bounce and burn. He took down the whole damn thing until he faced Jesse, which is a shocker, ‘cuz Jesse couldn’t say enough about how bad he is at Magic and how lousy his deck is. I beat Dana, though. YEAH!

As a format, Reject Rare Draft is super fun, too. It’s like Cube in that it takes advantage of a number of cards you’re unlikely to play (ever) and definitely not likely to play with the other cards you end up drafting. Decks and strategies are all over the place. Blah blah blah, I suggest putting together some packs of fun to play with rares outside the normal boundaries of playable and see what kind of fun you and your friends can come up with.

My deck’s all-star was Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. Holy cow, this card.

I played real life Cube draft, too. The white weenies kept coming at me and who’m I to say no to a good thing? I took’em all, all the anthems, all the double strikers, first strkers, pro-whatevers, token makers, Sublime Archangels, everything. I went 2-1 against some damn good players and immediately instant messaged Carrie that we needed to make a Cube of some sort ASAP. Kadar’s onboard with the new Cube plan. We have a massive collection of cards from over the years that sits in boxes at his apartment totally unused unless we need some rando Modern common. PUT OLD CARDS TO GOOD USE. BUILD A CUBE.

We’ll see if we ever get around to it.

Tali and I went to see The Hunger Games today. We sat in the theater, watched all the trailers, and watched the first two minutes of August: Osage County before Tali leaned over and said, “This isn’t the Hunger Games.” I asked her if she wanted to stay and watch this, and she said sure. We both loved it and I’d almost never see a movie like August: Osage County on purpose.

Jeez. Sorry for phoning this one in, guys. WTF? I’ve spent most of my evening texting and chatting on Facebook instead of writing this article. Almost the entire time I’ve wished I had been playing Assassin’s Creed-Black Flag on my shiny new PS4. Speaking of which …

Thanks for reading.

Much love to all,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator
Twitter: @Die_Obliterator

Artist, cheerleader. Matt started playing at the end of The Dark, hit his stride during Mirage block, and quit Magic after finding booze, drugs, and sex during freshman year of art school. In 2011 or 2012 Twenty Sided Store opened eight blocks from Matt’s apartment in Williamburg, Brooklyn. He kept his distance for a few months due to fear of the game’s power over him but eventually caved. Matt’s main MTG interests are Unhinged lands and constructed formats. Power and Toughness is his weekly summation/journal article and he writes an Arting Around article now and then.

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