State Champs

Just a random thought that I've been thinking about...

If I ever played Standard, and I was thinking of playing in States this year, I'd be thinking about playing this kind of deck:

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03 Jund Panorama
03 Mutavault
04 Graven Cairns
02 Twilight Mire
01 Fire-Lit Thicket
02 Vivid Marsh
03 Vivid Crag
02 Swamp
02 Mountain
01 Forest

04 Figure of Destiny
04 Fulminator Mage
03 Demigod of Revenge

03 Sarkhan Vol

04 Bitterblossom
03 Everlasting Torment
03 Firespout
04 Goblin Assault
02 Incendiary Command
02 Poison the Well
03 Profane Command
04 Rain of Tears

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Untested and not really thought through too much, but the basics is an LD deck to go after the complicated manabases inevitably at this event; the deck would basically work like a deck that tries to disrupt the overall progress of the game long enough to have cards like Sarkhan Vol, Bitterblossom, Goblin Assault, and Everlasting Torment in play with the disruption, where this deck will rebuild without wasting mana like the opponent.

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.

Weekend notes...

- I'm finally getting a break after 4 days of work + umpiring, and I'm just bored.

- I got a quick question from someone yesterday asking me about how their rating would be affected in a MTG event after a match, his was nearly 2000 and his opponent was (approx.) 1600. I got bored and just built a quickie program to handle something like that, but I answered him using my "in-head" method of guesstimating point swings:
> Take K-value * 50 (or K / 2 * 100 if you want something easier to do in-head). In this case, it was 400 (8 / 2 * 100). If you are ahead by more points than that, you won't gain anything by winning. (conversely, if you're more than 400 under, you won't lose anything by losing)
> If you're both even, then a win/loss will bring your rating up/down by 1/2 the K-value. If you add the above to that, you can just cut the remaining ratings into sections. i.e...
> > You are +100 rating = a win brings you + 3 points
> > You are +200 rating = a win brings you + 2 points

Yeah, it's a little complicated.

- I've been getting questions from family about if I've gotten a Wii yet; I've been looking for one pretty much continuously since last October.

Well, for me the reason was simply because of Smash Bros. Brawl. I always knew that I would love the console, and I still feel that I would. The issue now is that I also knew that I'd eventually also get a PS3 for some games, specifically FFXIII, GTA4, and LittleBigPlanet. Now I've hit a 4th game in a little game called Mirror's Edge. Seriously, watch this trailer.

I don't play FPS games, and I really don't like anything that's a Halo derivative, but I do have some games that I like from branches of the genre. (Portal, enough said) There's something about a game like that that is about technique as much as any combat that just makes me want it. It's like watching the LittleBigPlanet debut again for me, as it just has that "charm" as something different, but just something that seems so fun. I think I'll be describing it as "GTA if instead of running on the ground you needed to jump from rooftops".


- Still nothing on Japan, and I hear enough about it. I've gotten to the point where I start conversations asking if they know that I'm going, just so I can get it out of the way. I'm still not thinking about it that much, as I still have better things to do.

- Random trivia, just because I really am that bored right now. If you've heard of "Caramelldansen" or "the U-U-Uwa-Uwa Dance" (this thing), there's an interesting story as to the origin of that dance. It comes from a Eroge ("dating sim" is the easiest, though mild, way to sum that genre up) video game called "Popotan". It has an anime based on the game that I heard is very good, and I may look at it in the future. From what I've looked at in reviews, it's like Elfen Lied to Americans in that the series is actually pretty good, but because there are things in it unacceptable by american standards, you'd never see it here. If you want to see the origin of the dance, it's here; NSFW warning: It's got a lot of stuff in it against US "standards".