tigertoy

Rather than sit at home and feel sorry for myself for New Years, I decided to drive up to Milwaukee for the party at Lytheria. If I'd known what the weather was going to do, I might have stayed home. The drive up was only somewhat bad; it started snowing lightly north of Kankakee. The biggest problem was the salty goop on the road constantly being sprayed on my windshield. Fortunately, the windshield washer was working. There was enough gunk on the roads to merit slowing down in a few places, and a lot of people on the road who slowed down more than necessary. I never had any close calls, but the drive was perhaps half an hour longer than expected and more stressful. I was pretty frazzled by the time I got to filkart and ithiriel's place. filkart got off work a little early and we went to a Thai place that has just opened near them, Pattaya. The Tom Kha was outstanding, I think the best I've ever had. A cute appetizer called Money Bags, won-ton skin type things tied up into little bags around some minced meat and vegetables, the filled part was quite tasty, the decorative part a bit meh, but certainly a decent appetizer. For an entree I had a red curry with a very nice sauce, especially thick and creamy and a nice level of spice. The dinner did quite a lot to perk me up and feel that the universe wasn't a complete mistake. ithiriel then bailed out on us, since she'd been busy rushing around all holiday season and really needed a break; filkart and I picked up Jim and went on to Lytheria, where we had a very nice little filk, and I got to see the last half of Despicable Me 2 which was more entertaining than I had expected. We made it home despite the combined efforts of nature (it snowed lightly the whole evening) and the other drivers. I was very tired, but still had trouble falling asleep. Got up in the morning to discover that it had snowed another couple of inches overnight. We went to lunch at Athens, a slightly Greek but mostly "family restaurant" place not too far away that is open on New Year's. Had a decent lunch, and then I hit the road, since I wanted to have as much daylight as I could and hopefully get home before the white stuff started here. Unfortunately, it was snowing enough to make travel quite slow and tedious. Fortunately rather little terror involved; I didn't lose traction or see anyone lose it near me. But between conditions actually requiring slow travel (I never exceeded the speed limit the whole trip and only got close to it in a few rare relatively clear bits) and other drivers going even slower than necessary, iit took a full 6 hours to make the trip.

I finally got to FNM and played Standard -- my first Standard FNM since Theros came out. I had a deck that I thought was OK, but I got crushed horribly, and to top it off I was feeling like I might be starting to get sick, so I couldn't stay for afterdraft -- which I haven't been able to do for like 2 months.

( my deck and results )

The only positive thing about the whole night was that I won the Commander deck in the door prize lottery.

Safely home from OVFF. I've been very depressed lately, so I came in not really emotionally ready for a con (to say nothing of musically). It helped to spend the weekend with friends. It didn't help to get the news on Saturday that my uncle passed away suddenly.

I'm not going to write a long post, because if I try to do that, I'll never post anything at all.

Again this year, I have EFRC calendars. You can get them at the center, or you can get them by mail, but if you happen to be going someplace where I'll be, I can have one for you. If you ask, I'll make sure I have one for you.

The usual deal -- I'm not making any money on these; the money all goes to support the cats. $15 for a nicely produced calendar with some lovely photos by Stephen McCloud. (None of my photos, but they're very nice.)

I'll be at OVFF, Windycon, MFF, Chambanacon, GAFilk, and maybe some other places you might see me.

I had a mission for FNM: to make a deck which used Angelic Accord to good effect. This is the last Standard FNM before rotation. I knew this deck wouldn't be able to actually come in first, but I hoped to finish top half. ( deck and details )

For the record, I'll record the awful pile I played last week in Modern. I threw the thing together slightly after the last minute -- I wasn't done until about 6:40, but it started late. ( badness within )

After my work day at EFRC, I showered and changed clothes and headed to the Gopher for FNM. The formats were Modern and DGR draft; I'm still trying to work with my Twin deck so I was playing Modern. I did a big trade just before the event started, and pulled some cards sitting in one of my half-made Legacy decks, along with a couple of other changes, so there are a number of changes since last time, but it didn't do all that well. ( deck and details )

Despite having been up since 6 and just having my ass kicked, I wanted to play more magic, so I stayed for afterdraft. No Modern Masters this week. I started off drafting my dragon's maze Golgari pack, from which I took an Abrupt Decay. Pick 2, I was handed the one MMA pack at the table, and I was pleased to take the Path to Exile that was still in it. In I think the very next pack I got an Ultimate Price. By the end of pack 1, I had like 6 removal spells ranging from decent to excellent and a bit of fixing for a junk colors deck. The next two packs weren't as amazing, but I was getting a lot of decent picks for the deck. I ended up with a pile that looked really good, which I assumed meant I was doomed because whenever I draft a deck I think is good, I draw horribly and lose. Match 1, I one game 1 in a half hour long grind, and then game 2 I mana flooded horribly. We went to time, and he dropped a Tricks of the Trade on a bear; I was at 9 life. I failed to draw any of my removal and lost on his final turn. Match 2, I got paired with James Manrique which I assumed was an auto loss -- James is a very good drafter. But he had a weaker deck than usual this time, mainly depending on putting a strong aura on a small creature. Both games, he made a Rakdos Drake really big with an aura, and then I hit it with Ultimate Price, and he never really had anything else. Match 3, I was playing a fairly interesting game, it seemed like I was winning, and my opponent said that he was too tired to keep playing so he conceded, and I ended up 1st on tiebreaks, so I got AVR, M13, M14 as my packs. Possibly my best afterdraft performance ever. I was pretty tired by the time I got to bed at 3:30 but it was fun.

I have failed to update about my magic results for a few weeks. If I tell myself I'm supposed to catch up, the job will be far too big and I'll just blow it off. So I'll just talk about the two events in the last 25 hours.

For FNM, the format was Modern. This is my second outing with this deck idea; I've started to learn a little more about playing the deck and tuned it a bit, and I did well. ( deck and details )

Today, I played in the M14 Game Day event. ( deck and details )

I missed a week of FNM going to DucKon, but I was back this week. The format was Standard, and we have a new set releasing in two weeks, so this is the last time I'll play in the current Standard before new cards hit. (Armored Gopher alternates weeks between Modern and Standard. (Standard is a tournament format that allows only cards from the most recent few sets. Modern allows (almost) all cards from the last ten years. (And I am getting caught up in my terrible addiction to parenthetical expressions.))) I have two decks that probably won't be viable after the new set comes out, because one of the new cards will completely wreck them; I chose to play the one I thought was the better deck, rather than the more fun one. It didn't go very well.

( Selesnya Tokens falls flat )

( afterdraft, not so great )

I haven't been writing about it, but since someone actually mentioned that they paid attention, I'll try to mention my weekly exploits.

I've been drafting more often at FNM, since my store is running Modern every other week, and I just don't have the cards to be able to have a satisfactory experience. Friday, I drafted Dragon's Maze-Gatecrash-Return to Ravnica, quite successfully. First picked Armed/Dangerous, which I think is one of the best cards for limited in the set, and certainly the best that's not rare. Then I got passed another one, sixth pick. With two copies of a card that wins pretty much every game where you get to cast it, I was well set, and I went 3-0, winning 3 packs, one of which was Modern Masters because Dave loves to give out great prizes. I stayed for afterdraft, and got another Armed/Dangerous in my DGM pack, but the rest of my deck wasn't quite as good as my FNM deck. I still went 2-1 and took one game from Mark Fredricksen, always an achievement.

The week before I got to draft Modern Masters, the limited edition set that just came out. This set is nominally supposed to make Modern more accessible by increasing the supply of a lot of the cards that are good in the format; unfortunately, they printed such a small run that it won't have that much effect on prices. They also designed it to be super fun in limited, which makes it doubly sucky that they printed so little, because those of us who aren't on the pro tour will get so few chances to actually play it in limited. I got a couple of high value rares in my pulls and actually had a solid deck, I won my first two matches and then got mana screwed in the third.

My power went out a few minutes ago. Will my creaking old XP box finish installing the F***ING updates that it decided it should install instead of doing what I F***ING TOLD IT TO DO and SHUT DOWN NOW? Oh, there, it finished. I don't know how long the batteries in my UPS will last; it's not as creaky and old as the computer, but it's not exactly new. Now it's really spooky quiet in here, without any fans. Well, except for the UPS, which is still beeping because the answering machine is still plugged into it. I could sit here on the laptop while it has power, but it's time I should be in bed anyway. Sure hope the power comes back on before morning.