http://blog.daveastels.com Life, Magic the Gathering, and Everything Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:36:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I made it to draft at work this week. Good thing too, as I had the packs ;). I drafted a sick deck... totally sick... and proceeded to go 3-1 with it. Here it is: 17 Land: 15 Creatures: 8 Other Spells: 8 Islands 1 Sphinx's Herald 1 Call to Heel 2 Mountain 1 Etherium Sculpter 1 Courier's Capsule 4 Swamp 2 ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/11/11/111008-draft/ I'm on my way home as I write this. Today was States in the US (Champs in Canada) and I was at Superstars for it. I got to Starbucks (a couple doors down from the shop) at 9:00 for coffee and breakfast. There was already a group waiting for the ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/11/08/states/ Just a quick update: 26.5 hours of playing Magic this week. That's not counting time reading about Magic or listening to Magic podcasts, or working on decks ideas. Since I've started tracking it (on Oct. 12), I've played 165 hours of Magic... that's 23.6 hrs/week on average. This week the guys ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/11/02/another-week-of-magic/ I was listening to a recent episode of the Monday Night Magic podcast on the way to work this morning. They discussed the question of Core Sets... whether they should change, be gotten rid of, or what. I figured I'd recap their comments and add my own. Ben from ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/29/mtg-core-sets/ Saturday saw me at Superstars (where else) playing in my very first PTQ. It was a blast. 185 players in total. Everything seemed to run smoothly. My first match was with Lokman... one of the better players in the area... certainly well placed among the Superstars regulars. ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/27/ptq-kyoto/ We drafted last night, and I ended up with a nice enough deck... Jund... heavy red. It wasn't overly consistent, but when it worked it was great. Here's the deck: 17 Land: 18 Creatures: 5 Other Spells: 5 Forest 1 Blood Cultist 1 Dragon Fodder 7 Mountain 1 Dregscape Zombie 1 Jund Charm 5 Swamp 1 Elvish Visionary 1 Magma Spray 1 Goblin Deathraiders 1 ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/22/death-by-a-thousand-stings/ I was at Superstars for this morning's draft. It went pretty well. I drafted an Esper theme... artifacts. The packs were good, and other than a Tower Gargoyle that Josh hate drafted from me, I had good options. Here's the build I went with: 17 Land: 12 Creatures: 11 ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/19/oct-19s-draft/ Yesterday I took Pat Chapin's "Reflecting Cruel" 5 colour control control deck to Superstars' $1000 tournament. (You need a premium StarCity membership to access that link... if you're serious about Magic, it's worth it) After 5 rounds I was 3-2 and in 12th place. I lost round 1 to an expertly played ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/19/superstars-1000-tournament/ A few weeks ago I commented here that I was going to aim for 16+ hours of magic per week. Since that weekend (Sept 22) I've been averaging about 22 hours per week of time playing. The practice already seems to be showing in the decks I'm drafting, and my ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/12/playing-more-magic/ Today was (once again) spent at Superstars drafting. It got off to a slow start, with the store opening an hour late. It was cool though.. there was a group of us waiting so we had a good talk.. comparing Shards drafting strategies and such. Eric came by near ... http://blog.daveastels.com/2008/10/12/getting-better-at-drafting/