Preview Alara Reborn

Alara Reborn feels quite well. It seems like that there are no mono color cards. There are few hybrid multicolor cards each with funny abilities. The expansion is strong on big creatures and there are many ways of playing the cards which is really nice. Cycling is used widely and there is a new ability - Cascade (When you play this spell, remove cards from the top of your library from the game until you remove a nonland card that costs less. You may play it without paying its mana cost. Put the removed cards on the bottom in a random order.).

I have to say that cascade was quite fun and few times people got exactly what they needed (that goddamn terminate I did not even get a hold on!!) This happened to me few times. Me almost winning the game and preparing for the final attack and bam! Terminate.

Anyway I got some really nice cards for an Esper deck and I will probably use them (along with Meddling Mage in my esper deck). But I did not get enough cards for esper deck today and I did not really feel like splashing green. (I would have to add red as well as I had nothing useful in green...and if it was of any use it was RG ... I really did not like the idea of 5 color deck) so I decided to build a dragon deck as I got three dragons - Predator and Broodmate Dragon and Dragon Broodmother.

First match was nice except that I lost because of well 3 removal spells in one turn and ending up facing Hellkite Overlord. And I don't speak about that hammer +2/+2 lifelink, trample. That's just an overkill.

Second match was not fun at all as I got mana screwed pretty badly. I changed the numbers of particular lands after this so it was much better later, still I should have added more mountains.

The tournament went on, me not really having luck and I was in a pretty bad shape as well. But after I got past the really bad headache I actually started winning and won the rest of the games. Maybe my rating won't go down for this tourney^^.
Quite fun was when I really managed to get the brooding dragon in play and was brooding 'little' dragons each turn. Even all those lives my opponent gained weren't enough against my 4/4, 4/4, 7/7, 5/5, 1/1 dragons^_^.

It was nice to play (even though it could have been better in terms of me feeling better and getting some more reasonable 1-5cc cards, heh). It was WAY better than the last preview I played - Planar Chaos.

Mana symbol tattoo

Self-explanatory I think.

Gift^2

Well, today I received a gift from Squop - Esper Intro Pack to Shards of Alara. It contains Master of Etherium (being sold for 320CZK here, the pack itself costs like 200CZK or something - maybe more but still a good deal already isn't it?)

Anyway these packs always contain a booster. I was asked to open it so I did - after few minutes of trying to get inside it. I checked the before last card and what awaited me?

... a shock indeed.

My dexterity is getting worse...and patience gone as well

Today I woke up at like 5 am but fell asleep almost immediately once again. I woke up several more times (4 times in total). This is a bad sign. Usually it means I won't be able to stay up for the whole day. I managed to get out from the house few minutes earlier than usual but I knew that I won't be able to run today. I woke up feeling pretty sick, my stomach was complaining and I had really NO will to run today.

I arrived at the bus station at x.38 and you know what? The bus that is supposed to be leaving at x.46 just decided to come 8 minutes earlier. Anyway glad that I got on it. Today I sat down on the ground because I did not feel good at all. In Prague I got up and realized that I have cramps all over my body^_^. Next time I might try to stand as usual.

At school we were supposed to show our paper on Paul Rand. Mine is catastrophic I would say. I need to finish it today as tomorrow I won't have any time to do it.

After school I went to the bus station, managed to miss the bus so I continued reading Reaper's Gale.

At home I went to sleep. I woke up few hours later with some crazy ideas about Phage, Gerrard, Akroma and Squee. I also dreamed about making castles out of magic the gathering cards. I got up ... ate something and then fell asleep once again. When I woke up probably for the 8th time today I decided to STAY awake. I drank bit of jasmin tea.

Later I grabbed my 8th edition demo cards and tried to build a castle out of them.

I failed.

I tried few more times, but to no avail. Mint and near mint cards are just not good for this. I tried with some 4th edition cards as well but I did not get past the 3rd floor.

I decided to try building that castle of cards in protector sleeves (the ones that are not slippery). I took my demonic deck and tried my luck...I rather not comment on what happened. Base was fine. First floor as well. Third floor - I managed it, yay! Fourth floor. Corrupt in one hand and dark banishing in the other => FAIL.
I tried once again. Once again castle destroyed when I was trying to place corrupt. Same thing happened to me one more time. Next time I try I will just leave this card aside I guess. Maybe I'm just superstitious.

Now, it's time for some work...*yawn*

Vector art - tattoo designs

Yesterday, I was messing up with Illustrator ...and well here are the results.
The first I've done were the mana symbols. The white one was impossible to do...I did not manage to make it right but well. Even the red mana symbol was easy compared to it^_^.
The dragon was quite easy to do, but the the faerie took me ages to do. Anyway leave comments if you feel like to.