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By: BlippyTheSlug, Volker Kirstein
Jul 31 2014 12:00pm
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So here it is, Friday night, and I thought I'd actually get this one started for a change, instead of waiting until the last minute and rushing something out that neither of us are happy with. Although for a hasty piece of scribbled together drivel, it got more commentary than most of my so called articles. I don't think of these as articles, really. More of a "color commentary" about Magic, Modern, MTGO, and my life in general, where I can just bleah! onto the page. Within reason. Which is apparently fine with y'all. You're reading this, aintcha?

Anyway...

As thunder booms across the rolling plains of Saskatchewan, it rumbles through the soles of my feet, via the floor, and my thoughts turn to GP Boston tomorrow. I've had a bad case of ennui towards Magic over the past few days, I don't know why. Also, I really haven't been paying as much attention to Modern as I should have, being distracted by other factors, which are not within the realms of this venue to discuss. *waggles eyebrows*

Anyway, one thing I have noticed is Pack Rat in Fae decks, and doing quite well. I may get into that later. I may not. I don't know yet. It depends on whether this particular Rat Fairy build shows up at the GP or not. If it does, I guess I'll be writing more.

As you can see, I even have artwork picked out for it. 

In the meanwhile, Friday Night Standard has finished up, the results sent in, and I'm winding down for the evening. Hooligans have invaded my living space once again, and are plying me with amber liquids in glass bottles. I'm actually rather pleased that FNS fired today, in the midst of the MTGO Magic 2015 pre-release frenzy. The Euro event didn't fire.

I plan on doing it (the pre-release) tomorrow morning. So many people are writing up Magic 2015, you won't find my voice adding to it. Again, I may be singing a different tune in just a few paragraphs if M15 cards start showing up on the GP Boston stream often. Either way, I plan on using up my freebies on all three of my accounts. (Do I really have 3? Yes. I had plans at one point that never bore fruit. But that's another story.)

What else is going on? Oh yeah! The MTG Community Cup team was announced! Woo hoo! Congrats to all involved! I'm happy that The Hammy is still a thing.

It saddens me, though, that the focus has shifted away from the online community. The "online" part of the Community Cup name used to mean something; now it just means it's played on Magic Online. That may have something to do with the ennui I've been feeling towards Magic; that us online people, over the years, while the rest of the interwebz moved forward, have had features and functionality removed from MTGO, the mothership, the forums and replaced with drearier and drearier [REDACTED], with a promise of a brighter future.

This could all be sour grapes, too. After all, I'm still playing. Yes, I'll take another beer. Thank you.

Mario Kart is happening on the big screen as I type away into this aging chunk of plastic. I can feel the heat from the fan blowing onto my thigh. Sips of Maple Crown evaporate on my tongue, the vapors washed down with chilled mass produced swill that barely qualifies for the appellation of beer. I'd call it horse... uhh... yeah. I still drink it. I'm not going to tell Mr. Free Beer "Your beer tastes like [REDACTED]!", especially if he's bringing Maple Crown, as well. Right? I'll grin and bear it. You betcha.

The rest of the evening got rather incoherent, and I shan't bore you with details of drinking the kids under the table. If you saw my feed that evening, you know.

Saturday afternoon, and I'm watching the coverage. Burn vs Tron, and coverage asks "what's he splashing for?" Hello? Boros Charm? Do you guys even play Modern? Blarg. There I go being a cynical old [REDACTED] again. I gotta stop that.

We interrupt your GP Boston coverage to bring you this breaking news,
on camera, live, right off a cell phone, direct from the twitterverse!

From the San Diego ComicCon Magic: the Gathering Panel
In the upcoming Commander decks (November):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll just let this sink in for a moment.

Take your time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Granted that this is a Commander product, therefore only legal in Commander, Vintage, and Legacy, I believe a great many people are wetting themselves right now.  Since it's not legal in Modern, and people better qualified than I will have have already gone over just broken this card may turn out to be, I'll just plop it up there and say Ooooo!

Meanwhile, GP Boston churns onward as 2460 2394 players get whittled down to however many make Day Two. Nothing really exciting. Maybe it's because I've seen so much Modern being played over the years, as a spectator. Let's be real; I've been looking in on competitive Modern decks, matches, and results every day since Modern began. If you're a regular reader, you've see the lengths I go through to dig up this shi.. uhh... stuff. So pardon me if some of the Usual Suspects showing up in the coverage over and over gets old. I can usually tell by Turn Three which was a game is going to go. I'm pretty sure a lot of you can do the same. I don't consider this any kind of special skill or prognostication; after watching almost three years of Modern...

Has it been three years? I guess it's time to start the ball rolling on Moderns Third (1v1 Modern, X Rounds Swiss/T8). That'll be coming up 1600 UTC August 24th. And Bad Moon Rising #2 (1v1 Vintage, X Rounds Swiss, Double Elimination) is coming up 1600 UTC August 10th. I'd better get busy.

Hooligans have arrived (arriven?) in the meantime, again, so there go any thoughts of continuing. Onward, through the fog!

I didn't watch GP Boston on Sunday.

I found this trailer from San Diego ComicCon for the new Mad Max movie, and that was all he wrote.

 

Medieval History

In running an event, one of the main things I look for in the Play Lobbies is what tables are still running. I track this via table labels. There's a routine I go through at the start of every event: the player meeting. This is where I go over the rules. This is where I say "table must be labeled Yadda Yadda Round X."  Every event. I don't say these things to hear myself speak.

There has been a noticable lack of table labels of late. Me bursting into games and warning players hasn't been enough.

I am going to respond to this the exact same way I responded when this same scenario happened a few years back, by issuing match (not game) losses for unlabeled tables. I don't care if it's swiss or single elimination. Perhaps once I start lopping off a few heads, players'll get the message. 

This will be mentioned in the player meeting, too. Don't say I didn't warn you.

 

 

Meta Madness
and
MTG TwitList News

What's Wrong With This Picture?

This is the chart I was talking a few weeks back, where I'm tracking the T8 results from the PEs over time. I put null events between the weekends emphasize the timeframe. To view the complete interactive chart, simply click on this one.

You'll notice a disturbing pattern here.

Until very recently, we were getting the results from all of the Premiere Events. The weekend before last, we only got three. (none in Standard?!?!) I mentioned this as soon as it happened. This past weekend, we got one. Period. It looks like no PEs fired. At all. Except a solitary Modern event.

Granted, this may be because of the free pre-release going on. I have to take this into account.

Then I think back to CCC 2012, when there was a similar lack of results, with a similar lack of response. I look at the recent hamfisted handling of the mothership reboot, and the forum reboot before that. I look at Dr. Cat's post. (which I had to be tricked into reading, because it was at the place that shall not be named), and I cannot help but think they're doing it again. 

Maybe it really is all just bad timing, and I'm barking at things that aren't really there. I may be crying wolf. But I'm afraid, very afraid.

 

 

Random Gibberish

I guess the Spank The Slug segment went over like a lead balloon. I mean the common concept thereof, not the actual lead balloon made by Mythbusters. So I'm going to use this space to throw random gibberish at you. Be it in the form of poetry (most likely), video composition (maybe), rambling pointless stories (also likely). If you want to see something else, ask me. So there. Here we go...

Videos from Pwn The Poobah/CCC 2012

Game 2: slug360 (Community) vs Monty Ashley (WotC)
Soundtrack: Kid Rock/Cowboy

Game 3: LeviatanCL (Community) vs Willard Pierce (WotC)
Soundtrack: Primus/Tommy The Cat
(Due to music content, video is blocked in Germany)

 

 

Overdrive!, which started on July 4th, 2011, is the original Modern format Player-Run Event! In fact, Overdrive! is even older than Modern, having started out as an event in the Overextended format. Overdrive! is a single elimination event: two men enter, one man leaves. Registration is done via Gatherling. You can find more information at the main event thread here.

 

 

Overdrive! #142
Players: 16
Champion: m4vis / 8Rack
Runner up: ChineseNotebook / Melira Pod
Decklists and results from all Overdrive! events can be found here.  

 

8Rack
m4vis, Overdrive! #142 champion
Creatures
3 Augur of Skulls
3 cards

Other Spells
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Funeral Charm
2 Haunting Echoes
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Raven's Crime
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Smallpox
1 Smother
4 The Rack
4 Thoughtseize
4 Victim of Night
4 Wrench Mind
37 cards
Lands
1 Bojuka Bog
19 Swamp
20 cards

m4vis brought this very spicy tamale to the pot luck, and proceeded to give the hot squats to a NOSHOW, Soul Sisters, UWR, and Melira Pod to emerge as Overdrive! #142 champion.

In the meantime, the Hat Trick Bounty remains unclaimed.
* A Hat Trick is three consecutive Overdrive! championships.

ChineseNotebook called to the Pod People, and rolled his way through Goblins, Soul Sisters, and Tokens before being taken down by 8Rack in the finals.

 

 


BlippyTheSlug on MTGO
Blog: Read At Your Peril (NSFW!)

 

1 Comments

Table comments don't always work by longtimegone at Fri, 08/01/2014 - 05:07
longtimegone's picture

In v4, the match comments area does not always actually work. For reasons I have not yet determined, sometimes it will "stick" and just ignore the comment you type in, instead using whatever comment(or blank) you used last in a match before it stuck. The only fix I've found for this is a client restart.

I semi regularly get players who simply don't get any comments even if they type them in, and I've seen it now and then on my own computer.