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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Magic: The Gathering World Championship

Last few days, I worked for school, was trying to sell as much cards as I could and in between I was trying to follow what's going on at Worlds. This morning 3am it all ended and Iyanaga is the new champion. He smiled in the end^_^.

That's him after him won the last game.



And this was one of his awesome wins^_~. That's when he played Sphere of the Suns to have metalcraft. He then proceeded and played one galvanic blast after another.



Random Photo of the Day

Friday, November 18, 2011

Lion Paragon - Shamate Keep

I have Last Step Castle deck for this arc but no one wants to play against it. So it seems I won't be able to play with honor decks much. My crane dishonor did not see much play either as it met similar response. So what military I should try? Certainly something versatile and something what I like. Since the release of Shamate Keep I wanted to try it. I wrote a decklist down and it seemed playable. In the meantime our local Lion Clan player build Paragon deck and it works for him. My deck is a bit different though. My play style is different but it seems that the decks still work in similar fashion. I don't want to steal anybody's idea or anything, but unfortunately I wanted to play Paragons and I build a deck similar to well probably many Paragon decks out there^^.

The only sad thing for me is that I won't have much chances to play with it... *sniff*. I like it. But well... EE is coming and I counted 73 reprints so far. (At least 73 non-personality cards that I recognized as reprints). So maybe...similar deck will be playable later? Who knows... Fate-wise it's quite EE legal.

So here's the decklist. There are cards I'm not really sure about. Primarily fate cards.
Guided By Honor
Scouting Far Afield
Desperate Rush
Iron Will

I like Guided by Honor and it won me many battles. I would like to play the card 3 times, but well ... I would want to play it like 2.2x? That does not count as a playset though. I included Scouting Far Afield so I could return OAS primarily. But I won't probably meet much honor here so I decided to have this card instead OAS so I could bring something else back. But most of the time it ends up being used as +3F.
Desperate Rush is a card I wasn't really sure about, but with Proper Deference, Shameful and Cowardly it usually works. It is a kill action of sorts and that's why I have it there in a playset. Especially when those Lions PH is usually high. Unless I have Kasei on the table. I also have 1x Iron Will as this card sometimes can win a game but many times does not really serve me much except for another +3F. I actually would keep the card in the deck.

I think that dynasty side is pretty clear. This is the first deck that can actually use Sadahige's ability well^_^ so I included him. It never was a good personality for me but now...he's cool!

Actually I have one more slot available in my dynasty deck and I'm not really sure what to include. It should be SAMURAI and if possible Paragon. But I did not find anything worth it. So well...For the time being its Furumaro, but I don't like the card in my deck.

This deck is pretty versatile and that's what I like on decks. It's a military though...um...not my style.

Shamate Keep
Shamate Keep
1x Border Keep Exp
1x Bamboo Harvesters

Dynasty: ??
3x Copper Mine
3x Remote Village
2x Chugo Seido
3x Ageless Shrine
Traveling Peddler
2x Fortified Docks
My Father's Shrine
Kitsune Den

1x Farmlands
1x Akodo's Guidance
1x War of the Dark Fire
1x Alter History

1x Akodo Shigetoshi
3x Matsu Nishijo
3x Matsu Kinihara
3x Matsu Shunran
1x Akodo Ryozo
Akodo Tsudoken
3x Matsu Kasei
Akodo Sadahige
Akodo Kobi EXP
3x Matsu Koyama
Ikoma Hagio EXP

Fate: ??
3x Force of Spirit
3x Grateful Reward
3x Singh Remnants
3x My Life is Yours
Ring of Water
Iron Will
2x Will
3x Know No Fear
2x Proper Deference
2x Shameful and Cowardly
3x Desperate Rush
3x Sneak Attack
Creating Order
A Game of Dice
Scouting Far Afield
3x Cast Aside the Weak
Only Actions Speak
2x Guided by Honor
3x The Perfect Moment

Thursday, November 17, 2011

EDH Tourney aka I have nothing to write about...

A holiday in our country, some players actually came here to play some highlander. Six people counting me was here. EDH is being played here at least twice a week but the day of the tournament no one usually shows up. So even 4 people is a lot.

I played my Mimeoplasm deck and in the first round I encountered Scion of the Ur-Dragon. My deck is build in a way so it could possible deal with everything it can encounter. In this case I decided to keep my opponent of the remaining fifth color so I would not need to deal with the general as that card can kill me in 1-2 turns. I destroyed twice a source of black mana which gave me enough time to play Karn Liberated which won me the game.

In round 2 I played against mono-green deck (running some multicolored cards like progenitus and green/x lieges). So I knew that I wouldn't need to deal with the general as the player was unable to play it. His start was mana elf + wall of roots and later played cards like Brawn, Vigor, Omnath and some big beasts. I was playing lands. I had 2 islands, 2 colorless lands + mana stone. If this card would be destroyed I would probably lose. Anyway my back up plan was Jace TMS who would slow my opponent enough till I would get a forest, search for two swamps and then play Damnation. Anyway I managed to play Skyshroud Claim getting me the lands I needed and played Damnation. Jace followed. My opponent having only one card in his hand - I had Dissipate for that. Jace won me the game even though I had big creatures on my side and 14/14 Mimeoplasm. One more attack would suffice as well.

Round three. Hidetsugu goblins + some big creatures like Akroma and Inferno Titan. He played like 6 goblins fast and dealt me some damage. My only removal in my hand was Life's Finale. I was hoping to survive till the point I could actually play the card but still 15 was were it ended. I played Life's Finale and my opponent was also left with one card on his hand. I reanimated some creatures but later Jokulhaups restarted the game. My opponent wasn't drawing lands. I got one first after 3 turns - Creeping Tar Pit. Flooded Grove followed. I tutored the one more land so I could ramp and I even drew Sol Ring. That pretty much decided the game.

After that I handed out the prizes to other people.

3:0, one lifetime point, and hopefully few satisfied players.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Jace - Acrylics on paper

Oh well, my first attempt at painting something bigger is relatively finished..or well. I just painted something that should have been Jace Beleren from Magic: The Gathering.

What I learned? Not sure this time. I started with a base coat which was in shades of grey. Then painted outline of what it should be on the painting and then tried to refine it. I learned that...I can't draw ^_~ as usual and that I hardly orient myself on that sheet of paper. I learned that more paint actually works pretty well though and that 'erasing' with water works wonders. But one would need to know where something went wrong. I need to work on that. Anyway here's the painting. No...I'm not going to be presenting that tomorrow...no way.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Drawing cats

Fantasy artist should be able to draw plants, animals, characters and landscapes. So my next subject is ... a cat. I made few attempts and still can't figure out how to draw fur^^. But one can actually see that it is a cat. Good start^^.


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Kavárna V sedmém nebi

Nearby our store there is a café called 'In 7th heaven'. It is a nice place, many people go there, primarily students as it seems.

Apart from good coffee and tea you can order all kind of alcoholic drinks and soft drinks. They serve even some food. They do delicious toasts and quiches and you can get something sweet as well. This is also one of the few places where you can order a good carrot cake.

The prices are a bit higher than usual, but considering the place it is situated (Zborovska, Prague 5) the prices are actually ok.

There is a free wi-fi available for most of the day as well.

The place can be quite noisy when there are many people, but most of the time you can find a spot where it's a bit more quiet (either downstairs or upstairs in one of the
corners).

They are open till 1am.

Address:
Zborovska 68
Prague 5
Czech Republic (obviously)

Personal Rating: 4/5
Note: in terms of what they have there I would give them 5/5 as there is nothing missing for me. But I need to lower the score for the fact that it can be pretty noisy and the environment is not something I would actually like. But do not let this bother you, check the place out if you haven't been there and judge for yourself. It is truly a great place.

New Category and end of FB RSS

Today I went through some posts and edited them so images would be centered and of the same size (mainly concerning magic cards). When I was doing that I also assigned those posts a new category - Magic Alter.

Sooner or later I would like to create new categories and delete the old ones. This way I would like to keep TCG/CCG cards' alters in one category and everything 'artistic' by me in a different category.

The other news... if I show up on facebook this is the first thing that I see.
You currently automatically import content from your website or blog into your Facebook notes. Starting November 22nd, this feature will no longer be available, although you'll still be able to write individual notes. The best way to share content from your website is to post links on your Wall. Learn more about notes.

This means that these posts will cease to post to Facebook notes and probably the ones from WotC won't work either. If by a chance you like my blog then it is time to actually switch to reading it from the original source. (or you can go to My Feed and subscribe to it)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Vampiric Tutor

So this is the first card that does not have the borders etc. I used toothpick to get the paint from the name of the card and the type of the card. When I was trying to get paint off the 'instant' it was rather dry already so I wasn't that successful with that. I still did not manage to mix the right colors for this card...and I forgot about the blood I wanted to paint on the knife...so maybe later.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Defining Space - Polyhedra

I was wondering how I could show or define space and I remembered one post I made earlier on my blog. I was describing how to create a
Menger sponge out of cards. I know that a card is a 3d object but when we look at it we take it as something planar rather than something um... cuboid.

So I decided to do something similar. But I wanted to explore polyhedra. I like fractals, steller objects and the basic polyhedra in general so this seemed as the right thing to do. Creating this needs a good conception of space and by doing this we create an object that we really perceive as an 3d object.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Celica + Bamboo

I talked to Jeremiah on Wednesday and he suggested that I try to paint something in B/W and then shaded it. After that I should match the shades of grey with color. For that I wanted to draw something that would show me where are the shadows and were are the highlights. I drew this late this night. It's actually rather complex for the task I would like to do. But nonetheless I would like to use it for another experiment and color it somehow, no matter what I use - either felt tip pens + something or acrylic paint + something with what I would do the lineart.


When I woke up today and my left hand hurt in a way I haven't experienced in a long time. I Last time when I felt such a pain was when I was excessively playing Beatmania IIDX and this resulted in long discussion about carpal tunnel syndrome and my inability to use my hands for some time. I used a bandage to immobilize my wrist and I hope it will be alright in the near future. I have to admit that I've been drawing a lot (even though just few work made it to the internet) and that might be the reason (especially when I can hardly put any pressure on a pen/pencil without experiencing an intense pain).

I decided to draw something though today as well. My mother told me to draw something different and brought me some bamboo brenches (or how to call that..is bamboo a tree?). I used my right hand for the following drawings. The hand was quite surprised that I want to use it.

Here's last bamboo drawing...

Status report

Hello everyone,

I don't usually address anyone as my blog serves me as a journal or something. I don't attempt to write something professional or something that would inspire people around the world even though some posts actually might look that way^^. Anyway this blog is feeded to Facebook (and Wizards of the Coast community) so probably more people will read it than just those following my blog. I would like to say something.

In short, this blog might get less and less posts, might end its existence as is now or get divided into another subgroup. (Magic: The Gathering - but well I'm not the best person to be writing about that topic)

When I started a blog in 2002. I was sharing my experience from conventions, tournaments, gaming sessions and some interesting stuff I encountered in real life. First years of my blog entries are lost, the following years from 2005 are somewhere on the internet and I would rather not want them to be there^^. But well they remind me of the past, of what I went through and whom I met and so on. Great times and bad times. Many links are broken, photos and videos aren't available (thanks to AvexTrax who managed to get me banned from youtube).

Anyway what I wanted to say is...from 2002 till the 2008 more or less had actually something to say and to enrich some people. Since 2008 though the blog lost its focus and this probably won't change as my life is different from the one in the past. I simply don't have anything interesting to share and when I do I usually post with a delay.

My University Projects blog is being updated weekly and will be at least till the end of my studies at the University. If you want to know what I do you can check it out. I won't repost anything again.
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Another thing. I'll probably stop posting stuff on Facebook, meaning uploading stuff, commenting, liking etc. If by a chance anyone would want to stay in touch with me I suggest you use email to contact me.