Following are more-or-less my five favorite songs. One of them isn’t even sung by a chick!
My daughter has a playlist on my YouTube Channel. If you want to watch it, it’s called Bella’s Superheroes. It’s basically Spider-Man fighting Ryu and so on… screen captures of guys playing Street Fighter.
But I have another playlist of awesome songs that I often watch / listen to at work. My daughter really likes music and has eerily superb taste for a four-year-old. She was rocking out to Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley and my wife happened by while Bella was strumming air guitar and leaping from this huge wooden stool onto the living room carpet.
“You know, Mommy think’s that’s Mommy’s favorite song,” she said.
Bella just kept bopping air guitar (she says her favorite song is Into the Groove by Madonna, but I think she likes So What by P!nk the best).
You know… Even the best, closest, couples have rough patches once in a while. But overhearing that thing about Portions for Foxes being K’s favorite song… it was just one of the infinite tiny things that occur, unheralded, in a marriage that remind you you’re connected to the right person.
#1 Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley
This song has the absolute best opening line of any song, ever:
“There’s blood in my mouth / ’cause I’ve been biting my tounge all week…”
So good.
#2 Special by Garbage
This is a song that reminds me of my first summer in New York City. We only had like three MP3s back then… This was one of them. Shirley Manson is so hot.
#3 The Touch by Stan Bush
If you don’t know how I feel about this song, I suggest you read this. At the very least it’s the only blog post I’ve ever written whereby my readers have stated that I 1) I restored his faith in humanity, or 2) made a grown man cry tears of joy… Plus you should probably shotgun a tee shirt (I got two for Christmas! Go me!).
#4 As Cool As I Am by Dar Williams
I have only ever bought the album they were playing in the record store two times. The first time they were playing this song. I later remembered that I had heard it before, road tripping up and down New Jersey for a week in-between a family vacation and Pro Tour New York 1997. Dar Williams eventually grew into my favorite solo artist. I still feel like she is the finest songwriter to use the English language. I don’t know if this is my absolute favorite Dar song (probably not, actually)… but it is the one that made me fall in love with her.
I opened that PT with wins over Aaron Muranaka (Top 8 at PT Atlanta earlier that year) and Rob Dougherty (Hall of Fame)… and then didn’t make day two. Typical.
#5 He’s Gone by Leona Naess
I dunno if this one will stick forever, but right now I find myself playing this video over and over and over (just ask anyone walking past my office). I take a fair number of musical cues from Josh Ravitz… He was the one who introduced me to Rilo Kiley (my favorite band), for instance. A few weeks ago at the office he asked me if I knew this song, and… Well one thing led to another and I just run Leona at least four times a day.
You Make the Play returns! This time it is Fae v. ‘Tron in Extended… So are you a metagamer or a savage miser?
It is Game Three.
Your opponent is on the play on account of you savagely destroyed him with Negate and so on in Game Two.
It is game three because even though you savagely destroyed him in game two, he made you look like a child — a child smaller than your Spellstutter Sprites — in Game One, exposing the severe inability of the Herberholz / Nassif-style Faeries / Wizards deck to deal with certain kinds of expensive threats.
Namely Mindslaver.
You conceded to Mindslaver but of course filled your deck with Negate, Annul, and Glen Elendra Archmage for Vedalken Shackles, Threads of Disloyalty, &c.
If you haven’t seen the deck (you have probably seen it because all the guys who have soap boxes to stand on have been saying it’s the bee’s knees, plus you are playing it so how could you not have seen it), here it is:
4 Mana Leak
3 Repeal
4 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Stifle
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Threads of Disloyalty
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Academy Ruins
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Riptide Laboratory
1 River of Tears
1 Steam Vents
sideboard:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Annul
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Flashfreeze
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Negate
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Academy Ruins
Okay, back to Game Three:
It is your opponent’s turn seven. He only has six lands in play even though he has been a savage miser this game because one of his lands — a Ghost Quarter — is in the bin. He plugged your Academy Ruins (not realizing you are also a savage miser and are palming the other Ruins). He has just attacked your face with his Platinum Angel, so life totals are 20-16 in favor of the degenerate mana deck..
This is his board:
This is his graveyard:
(Simic Signet, Ghost Quarter, and Gifts Ungiven)
On turn two you sent Annul at his Simic Signet, his Ghost Quarter “traded” for your Academy Ruins, and his Gifts Ungiven was successfully stifled (not Stifled) by a Mana Leak last turn after he played his Platinum Angel.
Which means, yes. Savage. Miser. He has almost a double ‘Tron, a handy dandy Island, hasn’t missed a land drop, all-natural.
This is your board:
Not too shabby. You even have mana open for your Glen Elendra Archmage… twice if necessary.
Your graveyard is seven cards:
(Annul, Chrome Mox, Chrome Mox, Thirst for Knowledge, Thirst for Knowledge, Academy Ruins, and Mana Leak)
This is your hand:
Mana Leak
Spellstutter Sprite
Spellstutter Sprite
Riptide Laboratory
Riptide Laboratory
Academy Ruins
Tormod’s Crypt is on the stack.
I would do images to show your hand and to indicated Tormod’s Crypt being on the stack but I am tired of looking up hideous background images.
Anyway, the bad guy has two mystery cards in hand.
If I had to draw a picture of this game, in total, it would look, um, EXACTLY like this:
Okay You Make the Play-ers…
He is playing Tormod’s Crypt. Ye olde zero mana spell is on the stack.
This is actually Game Two of the previous post’s brawl between Zoo and the Lightning Bolt Deck.
… But this time, we are examining the game from the perspective of the enemy!
Why is Spark Elemental worth playing in a world full of Mind’s Desires and Death Clouds? Why would the greatest player of all time have chosen this deck, let alone posted a top finish with it at the World Champsionships?
Check out the SWOT on the Lightning Bolt Deck to find out!
LOVE
MIKE
P.S. Here is Jon Finkel’s Lightning Bolt Deck from the 2008 World Championships:
3 Flames of the Blood Hand
4 Incinerate
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Lava Spike
4 Magma Jet
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Rift Bolt
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Spark Elemental
4 Sulfuric Vortex
I have been calling this deck the Lightning Bolt Deck largely for want of a better name.
Basically the deck has every “bad” Lightning Bolt reprint from Spark Elemental and Lava Spike on one (Lightning Bolts that can’t kill Hypnotic Specters) to Incinerate on two (Lightning Bolt for twice the cost).
In all seriousness, the critical mass of burn in the Lightning Bolt Deck can help win the game very quickly (as in the video itself). This deck is definitely on my short list.
Sideboard
1 Deathmark
4 Thoughtseize
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Sundering Vitae
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ethersworn Canonist
Thaler’s deck does a lot of things differently than you might consider doing them. For starters he has all of his Jittes — three total Jittes — in the main deck. We would not have seen that a year ago.
Secondly, he mixes up his one mana removal spells and creatures. Thaler plays with a full set of Mogg Fanatics, and before any one mana burn spells, he stocks the one with almost the maximum number of Shadow Guildmages (killers who can also carry a Jitte)… Once he got there, Thaler mixed up Seal of Fire and Tarfire (one of each) to maximize the potential boost on Tarmogoyf, part tribal, part aura.
Two updated Extended decks, plus about eight matches of additional Extended testing. Enjoy!
I started out playing the Mono-White Control deck from last night again. For those of you who got the wrong deck list looking at it (which is everyone… it wasn’t even sixty cards*), here is the proper deck list:
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
2 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
2 Decree of Justice
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Mana Tithe
4 Martyr of Sands
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Wrath of GodÂ
20 Snow-Covered Plains
4 Temple of the False God
2 Urza’s Factory
sb:
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Unmake
1 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
4 Kataki, War’s Wage
4 Condemn
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Urza’s Factory is new, obviously. I have to admit I didn’t actually produce any tokens with those tonight… But I’m sure something like those might come up someday… And the deck doesn’t need 22 Plains.
I also swapped in the fourth Kataki, War’s Wage over the solo Ethersworn Canonist; the deck is super good against Affinity already, but the Time Walk aspect against Lightning Bolt Red has just been so good. Plus, it gives you a body that they almost have to answer, which doubles up as life gain, kind of.
Mono-White testing was pretty unspectacular tonight. I broke even in four matches. Ironically the first three were against various Lightning Bolt Red… a nigh bye.
I lost the first match L-W-L… I randomly Condemned a Mogg Fanatic in Game three not realizing his Morph was, um, not a Gathan Raiders. I was planning to kind of ignore it and jump around with chumps and whatnot, but it was a Blistering Firecat! Then he paid retail for another one and I took a million… I really wish I had not blown that Condemn.
I played against the same player later, and played around his Morphs and easily won.
Next match was against another Lightning Bolt Red; Game One he ripped a second Sulfuric Vortex right before I found my first Martyr of Ashes and he got me for just enough, even though I actually had two Eternal Dragons and the Martyr on board. Only Flames of the Blood Hand or Shrapnel Blast would have been relevant in that spot (I had the Proclamation). Game Two I drew four spells, eleven lands. Shrug. I was able to fight off two Sulfurics with Oblivion Rings (obviously not profitable) but with almost no spells otherwise, I couldn’t race or gain life effectively.
The last match was against a kind of poor Black deck… So 2-2 almost doesn’t even count.
In the interim I worked on a Beasts deck. Michael Le (won with my Beasts two Extended PTQ seasons ago) told me to work on it, pointing out Mutavault + Contested Cliffs is a combo against a 1/1… But I realized the strategy is probably not good enough against the metagame. So I scrapped the Boreal Druids to work on a Mono-Blue deck (that turned into a U/R deck).
I started with the Spire Golem deck I made with Andre Coimbra and ended up with this, which is part way between my deck, Tezzerator, and Gabriel Nassif’s deck:
1 Aether Spellbomb
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Chrome Mox
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Vedalken Shackles
I beat regular Faeries, earning a quick concession in Game Two after showing a couple of Ancestral Visions (Osyp mentioned sideboarding these to me).
After that the Tournament Practice metagame switched from Red Decks to Rock decks. I beat The Rock / Death Cloud and Storm combo; got crushed by Slide. I actually shouldn’t have lost to the Slide deck. He gave me a wide open turn by not flipping his Exalted Angel that I had bounced three times, but then he played a second Angel and there was no way to get around both with my Trinket Mage, Riptide Laboratory, and choice of Spellbombs (I was at one). Game Two I mulled to four and saw a total of two lands in the four hands I looked at and bowed out.
The Rock deck was another super easy victory thanks to siding in Ancestral Visions. The Rock works so hard to get an advantage with Raven’s Crime and so on and I just managed time and drew a bunch, then started dancing around his Worm Harvests with Relic of Progenitus and Tormod’s Crypt. I actually forgot there is a free ability on Relic of Progenitus for about three turns. Embarassing. But I had so many cards it didn’t matter.
Glen Elendra Archmage was pretty good against The Rock.
Storm combo he had such enormous Storm in Game One! He showed his whole hand, made a giant Mind’s Desire, showed so many Goblins that they didn’t fit on the board… I was ready to spoil his fun with the Trinket Mage I had in hand… But he had also ye olde Tendrils. No fun! Games Two and Three I made Chalice of the Void for one about as quickly as I could (Ponder, Rite of Flame, etc.) and just got some light countering going. Ho hum.
This seems like it could be a good deck for a few weeks into the PTQ season, as it seems to have the advantage versus some combo, The Rock, and other Blue decks. Then again the advantage-getting strategies can probably be spliced onto other Blue decks successfully.
I just realize there are 61 cards in the second deck. I’ll fix this if we decide to move forward with the deck list (which, again, seems reasonable for a few weeks into the season).
Just a quick request to anyone who plays Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures.
This has bothered me for some time, but now that I am — sorry “was” as of yesterday — one of the three #1 rated players in the world, it really hits home.
The Leaderboards on Tiny Adventures were originally intended to measure players who made it to Level 11. However for whatever reason, failed Ironman players (players who die permanently before getting to 11th level) get put on the same Leaderboards as players who actually retire at 11th level.
So there is one guy who suicides a ton so as to muck up the Leaderboards. It took him about a week and a half but he suicided enough to displace my #1 rated character down to #2. He basically picked the character with the fewest hit points and set himself up to die in one hit after winning a few Encounters.
So what I am asking is, if you agree (I’m sure most of you who play agree with me that the Leaderboards should reflect only Level 11 players and not pointless suicides), please comment here and on the Tiny Adventures Forum under the thread Who else thinks they should remove Ironman failures from the Leaderboards?.
Thanks in advance for tolerating this ranting post and thanks to everyone who will raise their voices in righteous anger in order to, you know, keep the game worth playing for everyone and giving dedicated players something to reach for.
LOVE
MIKE
PS By the way I wrote a similarly whining post over at Top8Magic. Gotta get all my peeps lined up!
PPS They should also change the Day: Hour: Minute to three digits. Right now the Leaderboard Top 2 are 00:00:00 by waiting until 100 days (which is clever, admittedly, but again ruins the user experience).
