iPod Phone, 7/4 FNM, and random stuff...

Just another "random notes" day for posting...

[ iPhone - phone = what I have; what I have + phone = ?)

I bought a little thing which is basically a microphone you can plug into the dock connector of an iPod. The one thing left from that I've done, and I now have a SIP/VoIP phone on my iPod Touch. I've been showing it off simply by dialing my cell from my iPod, and it's getting some pretty amazed looks, especially from the tech people who understand just what this is.

In short, I have a phone for Japan.


[ 7/4 FNM ]

3rd FNM I've actually played in this summer, and I still hate this draft format, almost more so because I won the pod today. My first 4 picks: Armored Ascension, Grim Poppet, Shield of the Godhead, Shield of the Godhead. I proceed to find 2 more Ascensions and build just an OK creature base. The one game I lose is to a turn-5 win on the opponent, where I still ended the game with a 12/12 flying Scuttlemutt and drop the opponent to 2.

I still hate the format because I didn't win for having skill or anything; pack 1, pick 1 I took a Ascension over Godhead of Awe and Ballynock Cohort in a bad pack, pretty much signaling white to the left, there is NO pack-2 white (or much at all), and I can still scrounge a G-base deck, run lands 11 Plains, 6 Forest, and still just plain own the matches with powerful, difficult-to-defeat enchantments.

Seems like Mirrodin and Warhammer, except there's like 8 different forms of it and there is much less defence against it.


[ Japan update ]

Got mail from Kansai, pretty much giving me everything I need left to get to Japan; sending that out next week.

Still need to get some travel arrangements finished, though I've got till the 10th on that, and it's just an email.

EDH Play of the [insert random time period]

This is why I play EDH:

I was playing Merieke Ri Berit vs. an Arcanis deck, which was a very competitive chess-match that included dueling capsizes, the opponent running a recurring counterspell chain for a while, and Urza's Factory tokens dealing almost all the damage in the game.

The game ended the opponent playing, of all the odd cards to see in EDH, Eye of the Storm. I knew his hand was Scrivener + 2 unknown cards, I have Capsize (public) + Arcanis (opp. didn't know, useless against his deck with Arcanis as general) in hand. I draw and play Trinket Mage, getting and playing SDT underneath the powers of EotS. End of my turn, my opp reveals his unknown card, putting a Mystical Tutor onto EotS and getting a Time Warp; there was a Reito Lantern in play, so this could go infinite.

So, the turn begins with (we both have "sufficent" mana available):
Opp - Reito Lantern, Scrivener, hand of 1 unknown card (drawing into Time Warp)
Me - SDT + 1 Urza's Factory token in play, Capsize + Arcanis in-hand.

He tries to play his hidden card, which is Turnabout (targeting my lands, tapping). I respond by spinning SDT, thinking if it would work, then drawing off of top and windmill-slamming...

Teferi.

With that, my opponent is locked out of playing instants and sorceries (can only play at sorcery-speed, and all of those would be only playable as part of the resolution of EotS), and I have an Eye of the Storm to use openly with a Turnabout + Mystical Tutor already on it.

He scoops after realizing the situation.

What people have told me about Japan, part 1

This is something I've been meaning to do, but there are some people which, when I say I'm going to Japan, have been giving some interesting advice. I really thought I should document some of these odd ones...

- Someone told me that because I have long hair, some people will want to see me head-bang, assuming that I do it.

- My favorite so far went something like this: "You'll get people that want to ask you and have you play American rock music, but don't play anything like death-metal."

I know there are more, but now I know I have places to put things like this...

$japan_cost = $japan_cost - $1500;

Chicago -> Osaka. Under $250. Enough said :)

Small program for some people

Well, last FNM I finally decided to do a little program that I've seen a need for, so I built a program for DCI Reporter that gives you the final standings sorted by pod.

[ link ]

It's not done, any bit simplified in-code, or overly functional, but right now it does exactly what it says: input a file from a tournament and output a sorted list of the pod's standings. It also gives tiebreakers, since I needed to calculate those anyways... (they're a good bit more confusing than I thought when I started this)


This weekend's mostly been a bunch of "I was bored..." moments; I also whipped up a quick program so that I could do rating adjustments quickly on my own. Nothing too special.

Wasn't bored enough to start work on a macro-ing program that I've been thinking about...