Black Lotus on eBay

I was showing Magic the Gathering to a friend of mine and then I started to wonder how much some of the cards cost nowadays. So I wanted to check how much Black Lotus card costs. I tried abugames and one Czech shop selling Magic cards but I couldn't get the price. So I tried ebay. I typed in "Black Lotus" and it found one auction ending in 4 minutes time.

Starting price was 0.99USD and the very first bid was 100USD. When we first clicked on it the current bid was 707.77USD. In the last few minutes several bids were placed. In the end the Black Lotus card was sold for 775USD.

Magic Alter - Akroma, Angel of Wrath

I wanted to draw some angel being and well...I ended up drawing something that resembled Akroma (Angel of Wrath). So I tried my best on her but to no avail. I did not manage to make the drawing look balanced and the wings are just terrible. I still want to continue on them and try to figure out how to draw a feather ... but I'm afraid I won't find any motivation. Maybe ten more hours spent on the wings could do wonders, but I'm afraid that even if I manage to draw something that looks like wings the picture won't look much better.

So I present to you Akroma, Angel of Wrath...but I couldn't do her justice. -_-

EDIT 3-OCT-09: I discarded the digital version of Akroma, hope no one actually finds it^^ This is a 63 x 88 mm painting done with Acrylics. There's not enough details for the painting to look good. But I tried my best.

MtG - Fungi deck (not really tested yet - still in theory)

Today I spent some time thinking about a Fungi deck. Yesterday I realized that the Fungi I have are quite slow. I needed to be fast for certain type of decks and just couldn't be. So I was wondering what I need. With fungi what can I do? I can double my number of saprolings or I can make HUGE saprolings (other creatures, for sure there is saproling avatar right? I had a goblin deck with Avatars which was usually a big surprise. Most of the time goblins won without needing a HUGE X/X monster so when it ended up on table people were like WTF? - but that was like 10 years ago). But I did not like the idea of both of them. I want my creatures to be annoying but as well have at least some power over my life total, cards I can get and such. Either of these colors is not for that...so I could have G/U fungi but for that I would have to give up Black and have less fungi and more blue spells (I have these as I used to play blue/black control decks..but I don't want to play that anymore). So I was thinking what I could do with Green and Black cards. Probably G/U combination would be better working but I don't feel like playing that...for some reason.

I updated Magic Workstation to be able to browse cards from Ravnica to Conflux and went through time spiral cards and Ravnica cards mostly.

Yesterday and today I realized that many times having Pendelhaven land and Pendelhaven Elder was something that helped a lot. I fell in love with Deathspore Thallid. I used his ability a lot (against control decks with not really that much creatures but when they came I could easily kill them hopefully this does not get countered). But well, yeah this needs time or a lot of saprolings. I decided to keep a high number of fungi generating saprolings but not really care much about doubling them. Instead I would like to keep the possibility of having "bigger" creatures and saprolings that can still be a bit more powerful than 1/1 creatures. For that I have Thelon of Havenwood and Pendelhaven stuff. But I'm a bit afraid that it is not enough so maybe something like Sprout could be in the deck...

Vinelasher Kudzu is there for well something like Kird Ape replacement^_~ But I don't play R/G so... It gets bigger with each land which is handy and I just count on with this creature being on my hand from start of the game. Shell Dweller is a blocker that can take care of some bigger monsters and can actually become something that can even kill in defense.

As for killing nasty creatures and damage...I have here some weird black and green cards that I don't really like much. Like destroying tapped creatures in my own turn and having to pay a lot is not really what I like. I need some instant killing and for that I decided to use Putrefy. Not only it can destroy a creature but it can destroy an artifact as well. Destroying artifacts comes handy^_~ as I learned a hard lesson yesterday. I would probably put some Naturalizes to my sideboard as well but well...Enchantments did not really bother me lately.

And now the most important card. Well, there's Dark Confidant. I put it there because I'm in need of getting more cards. Losing life is not that good so for that I have some Spike Feeders there. They can be used for lives or +1/+1s or as a creature itself. So I found it as a good choice. I can search for them when I need them so that could work? Anyway Dark Confidant showed to be a savior of several last plays so getting him is kind of must I guess. But that card is expensive-_- *sniff*

Chord of Calling is in the decklist as well...but I'm not probably willing of buying them. I want to test the deck without this and think about some other alternatives. This card can get me either card advantage or boosting my monsters or life. I was thinking about something else as well with what I could use this calling card but nothing comes to my mind (especially as all those cards are new to me and I don't even know what Convoke is - Ok I know what it is but it's not like burned in my brain as Trample for example). I considered other cards that can get me creatures from the library but couldn't come up except cards that get me beasts or elves. There are cards that can get me creatures from the graveyard but I don't count putting any of these cards in the graveyard first...so Chord of Calling. Seems that's the reason why this card is so damn expensive as well. -_-.

Also probably I don't want to play Llanowar Dead/Elves ... I know that there are some weird signet cards in Ravnica that can give me for 1 mana BG. Just to find a name of the card. I have Llanowar elves though so I can use these for now...and they are creatures as well. I have to think about this a bit. Because having additional creatures might be good and might not need them at all...so?

I have to test the deck. Next time I venture to Games Workshop or well Outpost in this case I will buy the cards and try it out.

Still thinking of something like ... a way how to generate spore counters...hm.
Found the card I was looking for Fungal Bloom. ^_^

1 Pendelhaven
10 Swamp
13 Forest

3 Pendelhaven Elder
2 Spike Feeder
2 Thallid Shell Dweller
2 Thallid
2 Thallid Germinator
2 Thorn Thallid
4 Deathspore Thallid
4 Dark Confidant
2 Thelon of Havenwood
3 Vinelasher Kudzu

4 Chord of Calling
4 Putrefy
2 Fungal Bloom
-------------------------
EDIT: Decklist changed....because I've been thinking about Thorn Thallids and Fungal Boom lately (this with well both Thorn/DeathSpore Thallids and Thelon hmhmhm).

Outpost - MtG

For the last few days I'm thinking about Magic The Gathering more and more. Ok, this game has always worked as a link between me and some people in a foreign place or at events etc. It's something that gave me reason to start speaking French when I was in Belgium, it is something that found me friends in the Czech Republic, it's something that taught me English....it's something that got me friends in the USA and made me speak English....etc. There's more to it ... But this is already enough. Maybe that's why I started thinking about the game once again? Yesterday (the day before yesterday) I spent ten hours working on two images - Toxic Sliver (not a typo) and my version of a Swamp. Today (yesterday) I decided to go to Outpost. The place I always used to go to play MtG, buy my cards and meet others. I was afraid of coming there after so long...but everything went really well.

I entered, went down the stairs and was greeted. We talked for a while, I was asked what am I doing there and so I replied..."I wanted to check what is being played now...". Someone came there at that time and asked if there would be someone he could play Magic with so I volunteered.

I have to say that this guy surprised me. First cards on the table were Island followed by Ornithopter (from 10th edition so I was like - whoa that's colorful). I have to say that seeing this on the table from someone saying that he never played magic made something inside me jump... I was afraid to find a forest card the next round. Instead I got some 1/5 creatures and nasty artefacts. The control deck was in my opinion "over-comboed" but it was nice to see all those new cards. One mill card was really nasty even though I did not lose because of running out of cards. Um I wanted to say more about this control deck but well...In the end it was something new, I've seen many new cards in action and that was good. Also it's been ages that I played mono-blue control deck. I won all the following rounds as I was prepared for playing fast and not wonder what card does what (in combination with).

Next I played with some Funghi from Time Spiral against some Black/White creatures from Guildpack. The funghi making saprolings were cool^_^. Even though in the GP deck there was one Enchantment card that wasn't nice at all. "Whenever a creature attacks you, it's controller loses 1 life". I have to say that this is EVIL. Ok, I did not really need to care about it as I could choose between HUGE monsters or hell a lot of saprolings (or sac saprolings and bye bye whatever creature on the other side of the table). But playing with a different deck ... ummmm. I guess next time I'll try to think of a way how to destroy artefacts and enchantments...

Another player who came there played with Treefolk deck for fun and was killed by me. I liked the Treefolk deck though and was a bit sad that they lost...

And then...I tried playing against um something from Alara?? Ok, I haven't played MtG for a long time so this was a shock. Not that big as restarting to play Magic at times of Mirrodin block. I met a Planeswalker, hihi and I had to kill her otherwise I'm not sure what I would have to do to survive. My concentration was almost gone at this time and I was freezing to death. So I don't remember much except that I don't like some new abilities like Shroud and Exalted^_^. Some cards seemed overpowered (I just went through the Alara cards ... to see what it is about).

After that we played Stone Age tabletop game I did not really enjoy. But I see a potential in the game and I see why this game can be a good and enjoyable. Gotta play it at least once more^_^.

Wonderful day...really.
note to self: pay for the zombies you bought!

Status Report - February

What's been going on with my life? Well, the person who thought that I'm his girlfriend decided to leave me and probably hate me. The other person I love has his own life and probably I won't be a part of his life much and well just to say that I'm alone once again. Other people I would be interested are taken or living too far away. ^_~

I spent last two weeks taking care of the cats in my parents house where I want to move as soon as possible but there are few things keeping me away from it. Not having my cell phone charged was one thing, other was not being able to contact the person who's supposed to move my stuff and third is just lack of motivation, fourth might be fear of what will happen.

I'm lonely. Really lonely...I wanted to revive some of the connections and relationships but probably what happened to me stopped this kind of motivation I found inside me... I managed to contact two people, but I would like to continue in contacting others as well. But I'm afraid of the outcome.

I got fired from work to add the good things^_~ to all this. I would like to go study Interactive Media at Prague College (University of Teesside) and today (yesterday) I was accepted as a student. (note to self, gotta pay the tuition). So this is the first BIG NEWS that is actually POSITIVE!!!