Man, I’ve been out of it. I fucked up and set this to post Jan 19 at midnight. Dummy. Oh well. Let’s get going, now that it’s Monday, Jan 20, at Midnight, AKA the correct time for Power and Toughness.
Doesn’t a game of Vintage look cool?
All those weird lands and moxes (I’ve always disliked “moxen” as the plural). If only Magic: The Vintage had a lower buy in. Then everyone’d be playing it and it probably wouldn’t be as much fun, you know? Exclusivity makes things fun. The less undeserving people we can have in any given community the better, right? And I’ll totally be the judge of what “deserving” is.
Wait, no, that’s all wrong. Proxy up ya cards and play some Vintage. Mike “One Tone” Simpson will love you forever cuz that dude can’t get enough of the format. Fuck elitism.
Anyway, Mono Black and I walked into The Store with Twenty Sides on my Tuesday off night from group therapy. (I go to group every other Tuesday.) If you don’t go to therapy you should, it’s amazing and fun and, I mean, you get to dump all your shit onto another person and they’re paid to receive it and help you with it. It’s very German.
Mono Black looked something like this time around:
Mono Black Obliterator
Round One vs. Pete’s Twins
Great way to start a match, Pete. Thanks for flipping me off totally unprompted. What the hell?
Peter mulls to five game one and I don’t kill his combo piece with Liliana and lose on turn 1000. Rookie mistake.
Game two I was very much ahead when Peter, in top deck mode, top decks a combo piece he needed to win. GREAT! No big deal.
Oh, I sideboarded in two Torpor Orbs and got rid of something, I have no idea what. Maybe a Gatekeeper or Obliterators.
It’s disappointing to play this badly, but the rust must come off and I’ve gotta play for that to happen. Shit ain’t gonna unrust itself. It’s like shooting jumpers when you’re out of rhythm. There’s only one way to get back into rhythm. Keep shooting.
Round Two vs. James’ Blue Tron Deck
James and I had fun, aside from the beginning of our match when he, too, flipped me the double deuce. What the hell is going on? Totally unprovoked, twice in one night. People are getting ruder.
The only thing I remember about playing against him was when he Condescended something of mine for three when I had a fetch, swamp, and Deathrite in play. (This meant I could pay the Condescend cost.) I probably had him anyway, but man, that’s the kind of mistakes I usually reserve for myself and rarely luck into my opponents making.
Round Three vs. “Erik” the Dimetrodon’s UWR Deck
*illustration from http://junballoon.blogspot.com/2011/05/62.html
“Erik” didn’t want his very searchable name posted nor did he wish to have his image plastered on this site.
I said “OK, how about Erik, and I make you a dinosaur?”
“OK”
“What kinda dinosaur do you want to be?”
“A t-rex.”
“What’s that? A dimetrodon? Totally.” Turns out dimetrodons may not even be dinosaurs. I’ll tell you one thing, no one gets to be a t-rex. No one.
Game one I crushed. His cards meant nothing to me. My Obliterators obliterated. I seized Erik’s thoughts. It was awesome.
Game two I kept a one lander with the following other cards: 2x Thoughtseize, 1x Inquisition of Kozilek, 1x Liliana, 1x Phyrexian Arena, 1x Bloodghast. I thought about it for a long long time. I kept cuz I had early hand eating and figured in a few turns I’d have three mana no sweat. I was wrong. I got beaten by a Snapcaster after five or six turns without mana.
Game three I get Erik pretty low in life then he rolls me after we begin topdecking (and I top deck six straight lands). What can you do? It happens sometimes (a lot of the times.)
With only the chance of going 2-2 and it already being 10pm I dropped from the tournament to put some resin on these new ghost paintings I’m working on. They’re incredible. After the show is up and the secret “don’t show anyone” time is lifted by the curator I’ll post them in an article. Sharing things I’m jazzed about, even my own work, is, like, the best thing ever.
Thursday night was TEAM DRAFT NIGHT at Forker’s.
A pretty sweet crew of nerds assembled for TDL Night. Hugh, Forker, Kadar, Hunter, Dave, Carrie, Sean, and me.
It came down to the absolute last game of the last match. Someone vs. someone. My team lost. I didn’t win a single match due to combinations of no removal, flood, and screw. What can you do? One thing I can do in the future is not draft a deck with no removal again (though I definitely didn’t do this on purpose).
Round One vs. Hugh’s GB Ordeals
Hugh kept a one-lander and beat me with a Dryad and two ordeals, removing my hand, leaving me with fuck all, and a pile of sadness. That was game one. Game two I beat him to death. Game three he went all ordeals on me and I drew bullshit.
Round Two vs. Sean’s Sit-back-and-wait-til-you-don’t-want-to-play-anymore-then-beat-you Deck
This round’s heading says it all. Sean’s evil. In his match with Kadar, KB (the good guy) had Sean at two life when Sean milled KB with a Returned Centaur, getting a Magma Jet and (I think) a Lightning Strike. Returned Centaur is the best card in Theros Limited.
Round Three vs. Hunter’s … I don’t remember what he was playing
Hunter crushed me game one, I crushed him game two, and he got a flying Daxos to steal my Grey Merchant (from the top of my library), which I ripped up when I conceded.
It’s fun to play Magic.
Last but not least I would like to give a shout out and say so long for now to our friend Jason Chan. He’s one strange dude and we’ll all miss him while he’s living in Hong Kong. I hope the Chinese are all weak Magic card traders and that you get every ounce of value out of every transaction. I’ll miss your large head, unforgiving pronunciations of English words, and excellent sense of humor. May fate treat you well.
Thanks for reading.
Love to all,
Matt Jones
MTGO: The_Obliterator
Twitter: Die_Obliterator
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.