Zoo experiment (highlander)

I was wondering how much damage could some kind of a zoo deck deal. I think that 20 life is relatively ok even though I can't imagine this deck get through a Primeval Titan or something similarly big that's played early (2nd-4th round). But well I haven't really played against any real aggro deck in highlander so I have no idea what such game would look like. (except goblins that were faster than me erm than my naya zoo)

There was a proposition that we could do a 60-card highlander tournament and that's where my zoo highlander was created. It was a deck with giant growth effects (not that I would play this card) and some burn. The weird cards were something like symbiosis, thrill of the hunt, reckless charge etc. In a way it was a card advantage^^ But as you suspect it did not work well (ok it was beating local players fine). So now here's 100 card list. (now I need to sort the cards)

I tried this decklist. It's fast. It can deal more or less 18-24 dmg before it dies. Needs relatively a lot of mulligans and hands like 'oh 1 fetchland that's fine' don't work much. It runs a lot of fetch lands and shuffling the whole deck is not that fun either.

The deck is not fun (oh yeah, probably because it's not aggro-control/control). But it deals sufficient amount damage in timely manner to be good at highlander constructed.

(I might bother bother submitting this to tcgplayer later.
EDIT: I typed it in...)

Zoo experiment^^

Creatures [36]
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Blitz Hellion
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Boggart Ram-Gang
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Eternal Witness
1 Figure of Destiny
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Goblin Guide
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Jungle Lion
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Kird Ape
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Kor Skyfisher
1 Loam Lion
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Rip-Clan Crasher
1 River Boa
1 Savannah Lions
1 Scab-Clan Mauler
1 Skyshroud Elite
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Watchwolf
1 Wild Nacatl
1 Woolly Thoctar

Planeswalkers [3]
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Garruk Wildspeaker

Spells [25]
1 AEther Vial
1 Armageddon
1 Burst Lightning
1 Chain Lightning
1 Char
1 Firebolt
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Incinerate
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Krosan Grip
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Lightning Helix
1 Magma Jet
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
1 Rancor
1 Staggershock
1 Sudden Shock
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sylvan Library
1 Vines of Vastwood
1 Volcanic Hammer

Lands [35]
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Raging Ravine
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Rugged Prairie
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Savannah
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Stomping Ground
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Taiga
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Wooded Foothills

Elesh Norn - colored sketch

Space Walk

This is repost from my University blog

We got a task which consist of a walk. During that walk we should at given intervals capture somehow what is there. I decided to take 1 minute intervals and to take photos.

My starting point was Prague College and my ending point my game store. The distance covered was 3.5 km.

At the beginning of the walk I was taking photos of buildings and what was on them. My very first photo was of a statue. I wasn't really sure what it was till I processed the photo at the game store.

Still walking the main street - Vinohradska - my hourglass ran out and it was again up to me to take a photo. This time it wasn't a photo of a building but a photo of an advertisement of a bank. It caught my eye already when seeing this at Andel.

Next I came by the main train station. I took a quick photo and crossed the street.

After this I knew that I would end up at Wenceslaw Square where are obvious 'items' to take a photo of. My hourglass was stopping me at different places and not even the best places to be taking photos. So I decided to improvise. I was choosing objects that pleased my eye and seemed interesting enough to be put to memory.



Few more flowers and a statue followed. After a while I ended up a bridge. Two stops at the bridge. I couldn't help and do the obvious photo. The second photo was rather different^^



Some photos have really beautiful or really bizarre colors. The green, red and yellows are really beautiful nowadays and the sky was changing color when I was arriving to my destination. At one part of the sky it seemed that a storm was coming. On the other side it was light blue with beautiful white clouds.



To view all the photos in chronological order go to my Google Gallery.

Random Photo of the Day

MTGBook.com

MTGBook is an web application in which you can create your own decks, follow decklists from major events (or any group you follow), share decks, export decks or print decks etc. I came across the site pretty early but was unwilling to try it out. It was too flashy for me, too many things going on there (animations, graphics change, image view that irritated me the most). But well I'm someone who likes text and the simplest design possible. Hopefully the Image view of everything can be switched to List that solves my problem at least partly.

The site is actually a huge project. It's colorful with a LOT of graphics and a lot of features. The whole site is divided in several sections.

Decks

This section contains decks from players and tournaments all around the world. You can filter them by format, paper MTG or MTGO or search by cards included, player's name, deck type etc. - all you can imagine.

When you view a deck you can view sample hand, see more draws or mulligan. To get a new hand you have to click on 'New Hand' though which quite annoyed me but after you notice this you won't have problems with it anymore.

You can export the deck into MWS or MTGO format (it does not work on my mother's computer for some reason - I get some extra characters in the downloaded file that should not be there, have to try it on my own computer).

For each deck you can view more details - total score, price etc. You can also rate the deck. But well what does that rating mean? Originality vs playability combined? I actually quite like the tcgplayer ratings that divide this in two.

When you click on a card you can view all the card information (looks like magiccards.info database copy) + average price in the USA (and buying price if available).

Deckbox

This looks like a mailbox and actually works like one. It stores decks though. You can create your own decks here or add decks from other places (groups/deck search etc).

Here you can also label decks. This I find good as this allows you to label the decks properly. If you add a deck that was t2 legal in the past you can write it there. This at many other servers is not possible.

From here you can also send your deck to certain group or friend.

Creating a deck
You can either import a deck from MWS or MTGO. Or you can type your deck there manually

[number of cards] [name of card]

Or you can search the cards and somehow add them to the deck (more precisely after you find a card, double click on it to add one copy to the decklist).

You can also use existing decklist as a template. This will create a copy of a decklist that you can later edit yourself.

Groups

There are groups that already collect decklists from major tournaments, PTQs, MTGO Daily and such. You can join these groups. By doing this so the decklists from the group will end up in your deckbox.

You can also create your own groups (for example if you have a local group or you run a tournament series). They can be either private (only your friends can 'post' in it) or public. Both of these can be either moderated or not. You can also set the rights to the members (moderator, administrator etc).

A group can also be hidden.

(I did not find if there is a possibility to make a private group public and vise-versa)

Cards

In this section you can search and view all the card data. This works pretty well at any other server.

Here you can create your own collection and see how much it costs. Argh something I DON'T want to know. But sure a handy feature. Anyway it is here for a different reason. When creating a deck, you can see if you own the cards or not. It will show you which cards you don't own yet.

Friends

Contains user list. Here you can befriend the users so you can send each other decks etc. This section also contains your profile.

So I guess this pretty much sums mtgbook up. So now you can check it if interested.

http://mtgbook.com