Recently, I decided to take a good look at the DVD burner I just purchased. It's a Pioneer DVR-109B. The bulk version of Pioneer's A09XLB. Why in the world did I buy this burner? My friend (uranium238) seemed to recommend it a lot. How is it doing? It's doing absolutely fine. I've used it to burn about 9 4x DVD-Rs. I'm pretty confident that my media is good, since it's OEM manufacturer's code shows it's from Taiyo Yuden. Not bad. I'm saving a little more money so I can get a few more DVD+RWs to burn with, but I've realised that burning DVDs it time consuming. To burn and verify a 4x disc takes roughly half an hour. The upside? I don't have to burn as often. I'm finding myself burning about 2 discs every two weeks, and to me, that's a huge time savings. What will become of my leftover CD-Rs? My CD-Rs will likely become places for small stuff like family photos, my family computer backups. (But my user is about 3GBs big, so you know what to think. ;)
Boycott U•Bowl!
Recently, my friends and I decided to make a visit to U•Bowl, which is the new bowling alley in 1 Utama. The result of my visit is my decision to boycott U•Bowl. Why do I say we should boycott this place? OK, now, people who know me, know that I have huge feet (US size 12). The biggest shoe size they have there is 12. The problem? The shoes are actually about a half size smaller than the numbers on the shoes. Therefore, I couldn't wear their shoes. They were gracious enough to refund the money for both the shoe rental and socks. The other thing was that the bowling lanes were slightly more narrow, and slightly shorter than what I thought was normal. The balls of the preferred weight of 8-10 were few are far in between. I had to search for five minutes to find a good 10 ball, and another 5 minutes to find an 8 ball. My friend appeared to like the 8 ball a lot, but then realised that he actually bowled a lot better with a 10. Despite my lack of house shoes, I decided to try bowling in my sandals anyway. I was, of course, impeded greatly by the fact that I had to evade their wardens. It was a game of hiding my sandals. My bowling was as terrible as usual, but it was still fun. I'm still working on how to get the ball to spin fast enough while sliding. Been studying the physics of the game for the two sessions that I've had lately.
The cost of games have been exorbitant - RM6 on weekends per person - per game. It's actually quite bad, but I don't care - doesn't really matter to me - I'm not going there anymore - not with my money, at least. Life is good. Boycott U•Bowl. Have a nice day.
Gotta Love the Bans
On the 1st of March, the DCI announced what would be remembered as one of the most welcomed, yet the most drastic banning ever. The bannings left 7 commons and 1 rare out of the running. They banned the six artifact lands: Vault of Whispers, Seat of the Synod, Tree of Tales, Ancient Den, Grea Furnace and Darksteel Citadel. They also banned the famed Arcbound Ravager as well as its partner in crime: Disciple of the Vault.
What happened? Too many cards turned broken. It was like the Urza block had come back to life. It was obvious that Disciple had to go. It was probably printed as an innocent opposite to the Leonin Elder, but became too broken in a world of engines, where artifacts became mana or +1/+1 counters. Imagine sacrificing a simple 10 artifacts to win the game (you must have another win condition, of course). With affinity in the game, it was obvious how the game would be won. It would not be by attacking or a Fireball, but it would probably be by a simple one black mana costing creature. To ban this card was a no-brainer. There is no need to explain anything. The card is extremely abusive - two in play would be murderous. You could just swing small 1/1 artifact creatures at your opponent - it'll be take it or take more - and it'll be endgame next turn. This banning was a no brainer.
What about the six artifact lands? They could do little harm with Ravager and Disciple out of the running. This would what you would be thinking if you were one of those players who just download decks from the net and build them. Experienced players would catch why instantly. The first thing is that artifact lands allow the other engine card to go off early. Krark-Clan Ironworks would have easily taken the cake that was left by Ravager and destroy all point of banning Disciple and Ravager. Affinity would rule. What's the next problem? 24 artifact lands in your decks would be a good combination with Myr Incubator and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Without artifacts lands, Myr Incubator would likely to produce around 20 tokens. With them, probably around 36 tokens when it goes off. We all know that seems like a small problem, but it's actually huge. On turn three, if you had 3 artifact lands and 3 affinity creatures in play and possibly a talisman and a Pentad Prism, you would be looking at a win already. All you would need is Myr Incubator and Mass Hysteria or Fireball (both red) in your hand. While the banning of artifacts lands destroyed affinity and the identity of the Mirrodin block, it was necessary to bring affinity to its knees rather than see another affinity deck like KCI take the cake with Cranial Plating.
Now, we're on to Arcbound Ravager. This seemingly innocent card got banned too. Heck, they banned the six problem commons, why ban this? The problem with Arcbound Ravager was probably that it was supremely flexible. Sacrifice it, and suddenly there is another bigger creature on the table. It also hits the table way too early than it should. Arcbound Crusher is at 4, and while Arcbound Crusher could get pretty big, it's only a turn 4 drop. Arcbound Ravager is a turn 1 or 2 drop. It's uncanny chemistry with anything in play that you could sacrifice would actually make affinity a big bomb. It could probably still go off on turn 4. It's extreme flexibility also means it's extremely difficult to terminate. Two Arcbound Ravagers could pile on an opposing player very badly. Which one to block? Doesn't matter - which ever is the bigger blocker is bound to die anyway. It's not a huge leap to see what happens after your opponent runs out of stuff to block with. Not a no brainer - but it was probably possible to keep in the game for a while longer to see if it would change then environment. I don't think it would have made a difference - banning Ravager might have been just to send a message that Affinity decks were going off too early.
Where does that leave Affinity now? Playable. Why do I say that? It's not unplayable - affinity is playable. It's not as consistent - probably only as consistent as my Mycosynth Golem deck, but it's playable. We still have Pentad Prism + 2 mana cost artifact (add anything you like here: Talismans, Frogmites, go figure) and more things to help Affinity get off its feet. I've been looking at the metagame - I don't how the new decks work because I haven't played them - but IMHO, most of them are being too complacent. All it might take if one good KCI-Affinity deck to wipe them all out as from what I've seen from the top 8 lists - the lack of artifact removal is astounding - as low as 25%. I'd say it's likely there is a KCI-Affinity build that is extremely playable in the new Standard environment - and Magic Research and Development knows what it is.
By the way, am I playing Affinity? Nope. :D I do intend to try when I do have the time to build a viable Affinity deck though. Time to get to work on my next article on some really red decks. I honestly hate the way the game is now. There are so many players who merely download decklists of the Internet and go off the tournaments without actually rebuilding it. You want to know what's funny about red? Yam actually built a deck that was more consistent and far more capable of winning Extended than the current Red Deck Wins Extended archetype, if it came to a one-on-one, it would be obvious that Yam's deck would win - and guess what, it's a pretty light deck compared to what people and maindecking. Of course, I won't be talking about his deck - that's for him to talk about and surprise people with at tournaments. I will be talking about how to build a red blaster deck. :D Come on, I know everyone wants one. :D
Disclaimer on Freakishness
End Countdown Rant #8 I'm not a freakish person who's always on the top of the class. I'm only ahead of Yam by a miserable tenth of a mark, if that's a mark at all. Sure, I'm good at economics, I'll admit to that. I'll, however, admit that what happened last semester was freakish. For the oblivious, last semester, I got full marks for my microeconomics mid-semester exam. You know what's worse? The lecturers were actually combing through the few scripts that got full marks like hell trying to take a few marks off.
This time, I thought I'd be able to lay low, since I felt my command of macroeconomics was inferior to the more nerdy people in class. (I'm talking about the true freaks that can score nearly 80-90% in midterms. For Management! We have what must be one of the worst lecturers in my course. Of course, Yam just revealed to me that the Marketing lecturer is worse. Of course, I think the Management lecturer takes the cake for being the most boring.)
Then, our Economics lecturer revealed to us in our tutorials that the top few people will have their names printed on the results list. She told us that she would arrange the results according to merit. I went "Oh, shit!" in class when she announced that. My low profile would now be absolutely at the top in her list.
For something like what would have been the whole tutorial, she kept mentioning my name. It was annoying. Then, when she realised that I was in her tutorial, she went yay, because two of the top three were in her tutorial classes. Like Yam, I prefer to remain unnoticed by my lecturers. I should be the unseen, the unknown, the invisible. Unfortunately, I can't be a retard with where I want to go. I need results good enough to make it into the University of Melbourne, Australian National University or Macquarie University to do Actuarial Science. You can't just waltz in those universities doing a supremely difficult course with substandard grades. And of course, that usually means you can't keep a low profile.
You know what the irony of the Economics marks are? The top three people for the midterms were probably the people who paid the least attention in class. The three of us generally sat down and chatted with our friends for the most part. Are we freakish? I don't know. I would have to say we aren't. I believe the true freaks are those who get those crazy 99.7s from SAM. :D
Signing out. ;)
Magic the Gathering Turbo
(This is taken from an old post from the original Random Ideas blog. It is now an archive, but will never be forgotten. This deck was the most fun deck I've ever played, and probably the most entertaining, since it usually goes from zero to total overrun in one turn. :D The Onslaught block has since been rotated out, and while this deck was never played in a tournament (due to my exams). Therefore, some comments about it being Standard-legal refer to the month of July 2004) Originally published on cfgt2001.blogspot.com on the 22nd of July, 2004. Hyperlinks updated.
One day, I saw a really fun game progression in one of Mark Gottlieb's articles. It was a Standard deck that was actually quite scary. I was laughing my head off looking at the deck. Of course, it had a serious weakness, but I could live with that. I was so enticed by the crazy idea I actually built the deck to the new Mycosynth Golem.
Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Talisman, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing Turn 4: artifact land, a 10-mana Mycosynth Golem (you have 5 artifacts, so it costs 5), Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Triskelion (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 10 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!), mana burn for 2, go.
Now, instead of doing that, because Mycosynth Golem now costs 11 mana, I did this: (I've hyperlinked the first occurence of each card.)
Turn 1: artifact land Turn 2: artifact land, Pentad Prism, Talisman of Dominance, Serum Visions Turn 3: artifact land, Fabricate for whatever is missing turn 4: artifact land, Mycosynth Golem, Composite Golem (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Rush of Knowledge for 11 cards, Composite Golem (free!), Platinum Angel (free!), Sundering Titan (free!), sac Composite Golem for 5 mana, Fabricate for Darksteel Colossus, Darksteel Colossus (free!).
(If you're wondering what happens, I literally put down about 10 HUGE creatures for free, and (thanks to Sundering Titan) remove about two to three of my opponents lands.) OK, everything looks the same for now right? Here the change I made to the deck that just made life a little more painful, and makes playing this deck a little more viable without the perfect hand.
turn 4 (continued): 2 mana left in mana pool, Mass Hysteria, mana burn for 1. Attack with: 2 Mycosynth Golem 2 Platinum Angel 2 Sundering Titan 1 Darksteel Colossus
OK, I'm actually undermining what actually happens. I played once with Yam, and I got it off only on turn 7, but with the following to attack with: 3 Mycosynth Golem 4 Platinum Angel 3 Sundering Titan 1 Composite Golem (If you're wondering, I was playing the deck without a Darksteel Colossus, it was at home. :D I deemed it too valuable. If I did, Yam would probably be screaming already :D) He blocked off 4 creatures, but the remaining 5 dealt 20 damage, killing him instantly as we both laughed at how close it was: I was at 1 life when I defeated him. Talk about close calls. Of course, I actually casted a Platinum Angel when I was at 3 life, so... not really that close. :P When I finished him off: Note this: he had no lands in play anymore. :D I destroyed every plains and island he had, and I wasn't playing basic lands.
Now, what does the game look like now? Damn freakin' ugly. Playing this deck, I realised what tourneys felt like. Solitaire games with two people playing. :D That's the story of a Ravagerless Affinity deck. I'm probably going to keep this as one of my most prized decks, being able to instill some fun into watching about 10 creatures come into play for free. I don't think I'll be able to play at the Grand Prix this weekend. If I do, I hope the deck gets some notice, because I don't think anyone is playing it, yet. The deck is worth a lot though, having a four Platinum Angels, four Fabricates, four Mycosynth Golems and four Sundering Titans. But then again, who could argue that having four Platinum Angels isn't good? No one you're against can win until they get rid of it. Hehe. Oh yeah, it doesn't work so well in multiplayer unless you have two players by your side countering everything that threatens your two key cards: Mycosynth Golem and Rush of Knowledge. Oh yeah, since you're actually playing so many spells per turn, you could add quite some pain to the deck with a certain card with Storm that costs 5 mana to play. I'm still contemplating that card as it's Standard-legal, and can make sure NOTHING blocks your way. :D