Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

This beautiful lady from Kamigawa came to Innistrad to study the Moon and the first time I saw her I thought that she would end up being the new Jace. But well in what deck I'd like to play her?

When thinking with what cards she's good the first that came in mind was Gideon. Also playing her early with swept board can mean GG. But well, what walkers can protect Tamiyo if she can't do it herself? We have Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Garruk Relentless. These walkers are good enough to protect our lady. This probably shows what colors I'd like to try either Esper (UW/UB) or Bant (UGx).

Esper version has access to Forbidden Alchemy flashback and Lingering souls flashback and instant removal in black color.
Go For the Throat/Doom Blade for the most annoying creatures, Tragic Slip (cool with Snappy^^) and occassional Tribute to Hunger that hopefully hits Thrun but still Phantasmal Image is better for this. Curse of Death's hold can be a choice as well and if the little critters from AVR will be played this card will still be viable.

If people will like Cavern of Souls and more 'tribaly' decks will be around it's of no use to play counterspells like mana leak. I expect more walkers to be played and I would definately find use for 1 negate main deck either way. But we will see, for the time being Oblivion Ring will be the card I want till the field kind of settles down. (Probably Terminus can deal with the threats as well)

Esper Superfriends

2 Gideon Jura
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
3 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

3 Day of Judgment
1 Doom Blade
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Go for the Throat
4 Lingering Souls
2 Think Twice
2 Thought Scour
3 Tragic Slip
3 Oblivion Ring

Green has access primarily to Garruk and acceleration (Mana Dorks or ramp) come to mind as well. With bit of green we can play our new time walk for its normal cost or prepare for it with Ponder for example. I've been experimenting with Wolf Run for quite some time and I wonder what Tamiyo could do in such a deck but I'm not convinced that she would be that good in it. The following list seems completely crazy. Of course this list would run Kessig Wolf Run + 2 sources of red (and Inkmoth Nexi).

URr Wolf Run

2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Frost Titan
4 Primeval Titan
3 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2 Garruk, Relentless

4 Ponder
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
3 Vapor Snag
3 Temporal Mastery

Ascension the Game port for iOS

My post about the game - if you don't know it already

I read on Facebook that I can get this game for 0.99USD so I grabbed an iPad and tried to buy it via the Apple Store. I have to admit that there was a slight problem with getting it. I don't know why but it was always redirecting me to itunes instead of being downloaded right away. After few minutes of trying to download (as it was already payed for) it I was finally rewarded with 'Ascension Downloaded' message.

I played a game and tried to see how it works. I was difficult for me at first to see and realize what my opponent bought as the animation was too fast for me. When it was my turn I played my cards and bought a card. I wanted to beat cultist, but I wasn't awarded a VP. Later I found out that I have to either drag the card to Void or tap on 'defeat'.

The interface is nice, but it took me a while to figure out that I have to activate my constructs and that I need to be dragging cards to the right places (my deck, discard and void). But I guess Apple product users are used to this. I'm not. Anyway it looks awesome and Round counter is good.

I encountered one problem though. Sometimes I got a wrong number of Honor points when there were two sources giving you VPs (I had Voidthirster in play). Also when leaving the game all the settings you set are reset for some reason. Online play is more like playing by mail, so I discarded this idea at all. I think that the game could use some chat window. It's at least something I miss and talking to my opponents is something I usually need. It happened to me many times while playing Magic that I needed to say something.

On game screen there is 'play all' button which will put all the cards 'on stack' and resolve them. It's good when your hand looks like 'mystic, apprentice, apprentice, militia, militia'. It just counts the runes and power for you and you can see what you can buy - it is highlighted in green. When there is something you have to do or choose a target it will let you go through it step by step (if you are banishing from two different areas for example) which is nice, but well in such games it is necessary. What is not mandatory and has the 'may' in its wording you have to do yourself and it won't be reminding you. ^^

Rating: 4.5/5

Avacyn Restored Prerelease

I started writing an article about Avacyn Restored and limited but I was unable to finish it as I had so much work because of the prerelease and school. So my first post about Avacyn Restored will be from the tournament.

We had 40 people who registered and only one person from those registered couldn't come. We started the tournament with 39 people or at least that's what I and reporter thought.

After I managed to tell people to sit down and calm down I distributed boosters, checklists and the achievement cards. The 'High-five someone who controls a legendary peranent' was soon the most favorite achievement. Those who high-fived got the chance to get this achievement because of Sigarda - that's also a card I opened. Lukas Sevcik was the one who received my pool.

When I got my pool I was convinced that the upcoming 6 rounds will be a torture. It seems that the set is proaggro and that there's not so many tricks and funny cards to play. The Soulbond mechanic is nice for sure...but hey why does it seem to me that Naya Humans is the best you can get?

I went through my cards and saw few flyers in white and the 'hexproof' and 'ophidian' humans. But when I put that together I got 10 cards and no bomb in it. So I continued going through black and red. Black had twice Death Wind, Soul Cage and Maalfeld Twins but that wasn't convincing. Red on the other hand had Havengul Vampire, Thunderbolt and some lancers. Nothing awesome but 5 humans and soulbond abilities. In green I had Craterhoof Behemoth and Champion of Lambholt. Another creature with similar ability was Howlgeist. I hoped for some borderland rangers and some cheap creatures like Timberland Guide. There was nothing that would help me look for and ramp for (my mythic) but Timberland Guide was good anyway, especially with Champion of Lambhold. In artifacts I got Moonsilver Spear and I was ready to play it even though I still think that there could be better cards than that.

Round 1
In round one I was surprised by Taskmaster on T3 and was convinced that this 4/3 flyer would kil me. But I top decked Moonsilver Spear and actually had a creature I could equip it to. So I attacked died, but produced a 4/4 Angel. Yay, my first achievement. I continued attacking and kept always an angel and some other blocker so I wouldn't die. In the second game I had to deal with Lifelink 2/4 angel and Slayer's Stronghold. My creatures except few weren't big enough to be able to damage race 4/4 Lifelink creature. In the end though I was able to win (my moonsilver spear was destroyed).

Round 2
White/Red humans with black this time. In the first game it was Moonsilver Spear that shined as my opponent did not have an answer to that main deck and messed up a part of the game where he could get two extra rounds to be able to deal with the equipment. In the second game I had to deal with lifelink. But still I got Champion of Lambhold early and I still had hand full of creatures. So it was a quick game. I realized that my deck does not like lifelink at all. One creature with power 2 and lifelink was a limit. Three creatures with lifelink, that was way too much.

Round 3
Petr Kaminek and his UW flyers, 3/1 unblockable, some card draw, bounce and white decree (um entreat the angels I mean). Lifelink once again and I was really fed up with that. In the second game what really ruined my game was Stolen Goods. The card hit Havengul Vampire. The vampire became too big for my creatures and I couldn't deal with it.

Round 4
Black/Red were the colors. Early Exterminator that I couldn't block with my lovely recluse. The vampire was big enough to kill any creature I would play so I couldn't do much with that. One of my games was really fast though. One pair of creatures dealt some damage as they were quite small, but then they managed to hit for 8 and the turn for 8 as well as I had twice Joint Assault in my hand. I was hoping that my opponent wouldn't expect that (I mulled to fived in that game). In the last game my opponent kept a hand with 2 black sources and no red one. He was unable to play anything and was beaten by my creatures.
During this round the last seal on Helvault was broken.

Round 5
UWR. It was nice to see blue once again. This was the first player that played 1/4 and 0/4 creatures against me. I was quite taken aback and my litlle creatures could just watch the wall. When I finally managed to get enough power to beat through I was shown Peel From Reality. Anyway I was drawing lands (and cards that were put on top of my library) all the time and I was beginning to feel the possibility of me playing my mythic rare - Craterhoof Behemoth. After drawing seven lands straight my opponent finally tapped out and I played this big creature and attacking for 29. It did not kill him that turn, but few turns later bounced Howlgeist did the job. Actually he needed a bit of help from Timberland Guide so I would deal remaining 5 damage instead of 4.

Round 6
This was more or less mirror. He played Naya humans and had Bonfire of the Damned which swept the bord on T3 or so. My little creatures were dead I had no other creature to which I could equip Moonsilver Spear. In the second game we played creatures and more creatures, dealing some damage and forcing opponent to block but in the end I miscalculated (twice) and lost (due to missed trigger and whatnot). As there was no 6:0 record and I was the only one playing against all those who ended up 1,2 and 3 I could have won the whole event.^_^. Everyone wanted something from me and was asking me questions and I couldn't concentrate on the game - and this kind of game is hard for me even if I actually can concentrate. I can't play a creature deck against another heavy creature deck, I just get lost.

After last table finished playing I said to the winner that he can and should open the Helvault so we can share what's inside. He opened it and took out oversized legendary creature cards, Angel/Demon tokens and dice. I then gave out the prized and let everyone take something from the vault.

In overall the tournament was a success. We had a full store, people were happy, calm and enjoying themselves. The games I played were friendly and I'm thankful for that as I have to admit ... I don't like Avacyn Restored. It's yet another ISD. Afterall it wasn't so bad for me but still I don't like the format.

RG aggro

2 Timberland Guide
1 Druid's Familiar
1 Gloomwidow
2 Hanweir Lancer
1 Somberwald Vigilante
2 Joint Assault
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Thunderbolt
1 Havengul Vampire
1 Moonsilver Spear
1 Wandering Wolf
2 Howlgeist
1 Diregraf Escort
1 Stonewright
1 Nightshade Peddler
1 Nettle Swine
1 Riot Ringleader
1 Craterhoof Behemoth

(I'll add some photos when I download them)

I broke one of the seals on our Helvault. All my achievements I managed were:

• Destroy a Demon an opponent controls
  
• Put an Angel or Demon creature token on to the battlefield
  
• Control three or more creatures with flying (yay 4/4 tokens^^)
  
• High-five someone who controls a legendary permanent (Sigarda)
  
• Cast a mythic rare card (I thought I wouldn't be able to achieve this, but well 29 damage via it was quite impressive)
  
• Win a match
  
• Quote the flavor text of a card while playing it ('So the vampires like hot blood, do they? Let's see how they handle ours.')
  
• Force an opponent to sacrifice a creature
  
• Control three or more humans
  
• Control four or more paired creatures using soulbond - sometimes I did not even have any targets left!
  
• Attack with five or more creatures in one turn - yay my army of 1/1 creatures attacking! (unblockable from the Champion)

But to be honest my biggest achievemet of the day was - staying awake. Now I need to tidy up and clean the store...*yawn*. Next madness begins in 10 hours.

Thanks for reading!

Second Chance Prague 2011

On the date which was bad for many reasons we played in Kotei and Second Chance Event in Prague 2011. The first day was the worst tournament ever in my life and a post about cheating followed later (Cheating Some General Rant). Cheating wasn't the only issue. It seems that I did not write a report from the tournament and that's a good thing or at least I thought it better. For the tournament I chose LSC Honor deck which wasn't that good anymore, especially when the filed was full of Dishonor decks and out of those 6 or how many I encountered 5 and the last was a mirror match that I managed to lose even though I win the dice roll and was on the play (kinda does not apply in this game, but well I was the starting player). There were several players that were intentionally cheating and calling a judge was of no use to me either. Judge was giving out wrong rulings and did not care about stalling or missed triggers. I lost a game because of this and I was seriously angry. I was enraged when I played against another player who can't play anything well. But as it was a bad match up I lost and he was commenting my plays and was trying to tell me that doing that or that won't help even though his thoughts were completely wrong and I was thinking about something completely else. I knew I could hardly win. I managed not to kill him, left Cerny Rytir and kicked the outside wall several times surprising nearby smokers. Cool with the record of 0:4 at that time because of twice idiot judge and once because of bad matchup I just couldn't be calm. It was no fun. I did not check 'drop' so I continued. I played against a friend of mine who let me win a game. I was gaining honor fast but I was unable to deal with all Jutsushis and one single Ambush. In the last round I played against another LSC player who was kind, nice and played well. A pity that his record was 1:5, he struggled with the same problem as me.

The second day started much better. I decided to play DGC and hoped to win at least one game. Everything was going ok. I played with the players from Top 8 of the main event and the games were tense and fun. On the photo above you can see that I truly played Mantis. I was playing at the top tables and was enjoying the tournament but then something unexpected happened. There were new pairings. And then... there were once again new pairings but these this time sent me across the room, I was like WTF? More people were trying to figure out what happened. We were told to wait and not start to play. Few moments later we were allowed to play - something was seriously wrong.

I lost the game and everything went downhill for me.

That's about it. Remembering the event is hard. Wish I could forget it - but a year later photos from the event are up. And few photos actually have me in them. I thought that I would never write about these events but I had to at least like this. It was too much. The organizator does not deserve anything. All those people who made the event possible should be at least thanked or mentioned. But neither happened. Due to several lucky coincidences the tournament was actually started and finished.

Never again. (This wasn't the only issue that bothered me, there were many other that preceded and that followed)

Grixis Control

Today it was time to test my new deck - Grixis Control. I wasn't sure if I want to try it and was considering sleeving Wolf Run once again but then I just let it go. I grabbed some cards that could come handy and put them into my side board, registered all the people and printed pairings for the first round. In the first game I played I had the chance to play against monored goblins. I wanted to know how my deck would fare against something like that.

Round 0 - Goblins
Goblin Fireslinger, followed by Berserker. I killed Berserker and waited for something else. I played Liliana of the Veil and let us discard a card. Hellrider came and hit me Liliana for 4, the remaining damage was dealt to me. I killed Hellrider with Incinerate next turn and left the Goblin there. I played Grave Titan afterwards. More creatures on the other side -> whipflare -> win. Second game was similar to the previous one. Liliana of the Veil and one sweeper was enough. Grave Titan did the job once again.

Round 1 - BR Aggro
In the first game Grim Lavamancer and one more 1/1 creature was dealing some damage. On T4 Falkenrath Aristocrat resolved and I was unable to deal with her. I tried playing Galvanic Blast turn later, but was hit with Brimstone Volley. Turn later I tried Geistflame which killed her and I was once again hit hard with another burn spell. I was at 4 at that time and I tried to kill my opponent with a Grave Titan. My opponent had 1 card in hand (Shock) and drew a second one, beating me in the first game.

+1 Whipflare
+1 Batterskull
+1 Negate
+1 Flashfreeze
+1 Wurmcoil Engine

In the second game it was once again 'Lavamancer aggro' instead of Noble thus giving me some time. I was beaten down to 3 life though anyway. I tried Grave Titan once again. Two turns from a win but one card from a lost game. I won^_^

Third game was dominated by my Batterskull and Wurmcoil Engine.

Round 2 - RDW
In the first game I was lucky because my opponent decided to deal with Liliana of the Veil killing her with two cards. This was crucial for me as he did not manage to deal the remaining four damages to me. He knew this was a mistake and was aware of that but still did it. This was good for me as I could hope for a win. I won the first game. After sideboarding (more or less the same as for previous round) I mulled to 2 red sources and Slagstorm. My ratched bombs were destroyed, but I also had Ancient Grudge in my hand and destroyed the two Shrines with it. Liliana of the Veil got me again rid of 3 cards and won me the game. Who would expect that?

Round 3 - Monowhite Humans
I feared this match up as I knew Angelic Destiny and Hero of Bladehold are cards I get hardly rid of. I miracolously managed to win the first game as I was able to deal with Crusaders but I wasn't looking forward to the second game.

+1 Doom Blade
+1 Whipflare
+2 Curse of Death's Hold
+1 Negate

I wanted some removal for the creature that would get Angelic Destiny on and was wondering if a Sword wouldn't hit me instead of Angelic Destiny. I played Ratchet Bomb trying to get it to 4, but it was sent to oblivion and Hero of Bladehold followed. I had no counterspell nor removal but I could possible block Hero with Snapcaster and flashback Galvanic blast. Too bad though that my opponent played Angelic Destiny. I tried playing Forbidden Alchemy which was my only hope but there was nothing that could solve the problem. I died two turns later.

In the third game I did not drew source of blue once again and wasn't able to get more than 4 lands. I managed to stay alive for a long time and got rid of Doomed Travelers, Champion of the Parish and one Mirran Crusader. In order to do that I played 2 Olivia Voldaren and 1 Ratchet Bomb. I could let the bomb go to 3 though and had to destroy it with 2 counters taking down two Honor of the Pures and giving me the chance of killing all the other creatures except Mirran Crusader. I blasted the crusader but another one followed.

Round 4 - RDW
I started by mulling to 5 or something as I did not have lands nor a sweeper (or removal whatsoever). I expected T1 Noble and turn two Berserker. But in the end it was T2 Shrine and another Shrine followed later. I was unable to counter that as I did not have any source of blue. My only chance of getting rid of this was playing Ratchet bomb and hoping that I would destroy it earlier than my opponent manages to kill me with it. I drew the bomb but when I destroyed it the Shrine was at 8 counters. Koth came afterwards and I was unable to deal with him as I still did not have a source of blue (actually I had but it just came into play tapped)

Game 2 I sided in

+1 Whipflare
+1 Batterskull
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Negate
+1 Flashfreeze
+1 Copperline Gorge
+1 Wurmcoil Engine

In the second turn I was overwhelmed by little creatures and this time it wasn't Grim Lavamancer but Stromkirk Noble on T1 followed by other one drops creatures. I played Whipflare getting rid of them. That slowed my opponent a lot and I could develop my mana base. In between he played red shrine and I destroyed it with Ancient Grudge (having already Copperline Gorge in play for flashback). Koth came and tried his best with +1 ability. I then played Batterskull but my opponent did not have a response to that and I killed Koth with it. Later the germ died and I played Wurmcoil Engine having counterspell to back it up (I did not want any Act of Treason or Act of Aggression). This was too much for my opponent and he gave up. In game three I was unable to get second red for a while but when I got it I could sweep the board and be alive. Koth came. Mountains started to attack me, I killed each of them and my opponent was at 2 lands while I had 6. I played two snapcaster mages in order to at least have one that could attack Koth and hopefully kill him. One Snapcaster Mage died but the other one was capable of killing the red 'walker. Later in the game I had all I needed and won.

Grixis Control

Type II

Main Deck:
2 Grave Titan
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Olivia Voldaren
4 Snapcaster Mage

1 Batterskull
3 Desperate Ravings
1 Doom Blade
3 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Galvanic Blast
1 Geistflame
2 Go for the Throat
1 Incinerate
3 Mana Leak
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Slagstorm
1 Whipflare

3 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Island
4 Mountain
1 Shimmering Grotto
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Swamp

Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Batterskull
1 Copperline Gorge
2 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Doom Blade
1 Flashfreeze
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Negate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Whipflare
1 Wurmcoil Engine

After this tournament I would do slight changes.

-1 Mana Leak
-1 Olivia Voldaren
-1 Slagstorm


I'm not really sure what I would put in though (probably +1 Forbidden Alchemy). I'll give the mana base another chance next week. I was mulliganing quite a lot but majority of the games I won were when I mulled to 5. Desperate Ravings was working wonders and after this tournament I wouldn't put it away. Hopefully next time I'll play against other decks than monored or primarily red decks. I wanted to test my deck against different types of deck but unfortunately I wasn't given the chance - blame the Wizards Event Reporter^_^