Dave’s Personal Blog

This book gets better & better… and harder & harder to put down.

srsly

Where will you be attending the Conflux prerelease this weekend?

If you’ll be at the regional one in Santa Clara or the local one at Superstars, you might run into me.

Wherever you go.. Have a blast!

Hot of the virtual presses:

Wizards of the Coast launched their latest Magic the Gathering novel today: Agents of Artifice.

I picked up an advance copy at Worlds, and am about half way through.

I’ve read a lot of the Magic novels. Some I’ve really enjoyed, a couple I’ve struggled to make it through. Agents of Artifice is easily among the best. It’s about planeswalkers. Who doesn’t love planeswalkers? From the back cover, you know it’s about Jace Beleren, Tezzeret, and Liliana Vess. These are great characters. And there’s even more waiting inside. I won’t do spoilers here, and as I said I’m only halfway through.

So far, I’m impressed. I can’t wait to pick it up and continue reading.

Wait… there’s more! Today’s Arcana announces the book along with the fact that there is yet another (that makes 3 total) alternate art version of the Jace Beleren card, using the art from the novel’s cover. I’ll be looking for a set of those!

I took my TPS deck to a Vintage $1K tourney yesterday. I went 0-3-2. Not bad considering I’m still learning the ins & outs of the deck. One game was pretty cool. It was one of the cases of game 3 going to time and resulting in a draw.

I tendrilsed (Tendrils of Agony), stormed to 5 for 10 life drain. A while later he played Tendrils stormed to 7. A few turns later, compliments of Yawgmoth’s Will, I did the same. What fun!

I in either game 2 or 3 of the same match I played Gifts Ungiven. I pulled out 3 things I could use, and Tinker. Now, I’d won game one by Tinkering into Darksteel Colossus. What he didn’t know was that I had the Colossus stuck in my hand, making Tinker pretty much useless… at least compared to the others I’d picked out. As hoped, he chose the Tinker and another card to bury. Heh. Psych. Great games though. Nicely played on both sides.

I took a couple weeks off of playing Magic to focus on some book writing. I spent a few hours at Superstars today (missing GP:LA ), playing some T2 (Asahara’s Fae build), extended (a Ravager Affinity build), and a draft. I went 2-1 in the draft … with serious mana-screw in the match I lost.

I really missed playing. I’m looking forward to the vintage event next weekend.. and Conflux prerelease in two weeks. I know where I’ll be all weekend.

The trip home from Halifax after the holidays was a bit interesting. My 6:45am flight ended up being canceled… but not before I had settled into the airport hotel so we could avoid the potentially messy early morning drive.

I eventually made it out on a 4:00pm flight… I think it was the second flight to leave that day… and only becasue our plane had come in the day before… no planes had made it in yet that day.

Here are a couple pics from my seat as we waited to push back from the gate.

Over the holidays 3 of us did some old school drafting. A 3-man draft was somewhat odd, but great fun. Following the draft we played a few multiplayer games.

We drafted Onslaught, Tempest, and Ravnica blocks. Through Onslaught & Tempest things went back & forth between us.

What I remember most is the Ravnica draft. We all got some nice cards. I ended up playing 4 color.. having picked most of the signets and a shock land. Jerry had to go so we only had time for one game. Things went into a stalemate early on and stayed that way for some time. Early on I milled Jerry for a few cards with Psychic Drain. Late in the game, with all 3 of our life totals close to 20, I played a Kill-Suit Cultist and enchanted it with Ocular Halo to let me draw an extra card in my upkeep. This let me dig for something to turn the game in my favor. And that’s exactly what happened. My turn… draw in my upkeep thanks to the Cultist… Izzet Guildmage… draw for my turn… Glimpse the Unthinkable… and that was the game. I played the Guildmage. Then I played Glimpse, targeting Jerry (who had 6 cards in in library), and copied it twice with the Guildmage, targeting Thomas (who had 20 cards in his library) with the two copies. Pass turn… GG.