Pukkelpop

Bonus: Fried's guide to Pukkelpop
This is how I'd spend my time at Pukkelpop if it was just up to me!

Thursday
15.15 - 15.55 Santogold: not my usual cup of tea, but kinda like it
15.55 - 17.00 Uffie & Feadz: No SebastiAn or Justice, but still Ed Banger and I'm curious...
17.00 - 18.30: DJ Mehdi : Ed Banger
18.30 - 20.00: Switch: got to know him this year, and apparantly he was responsible for some tracks I already knew
20.00 - 22.00: SebastiAn: unlike Uffie & Feadz, SebastiAn is SebastiAn (and his capital A in the middle of his name, is so badass)
22.45 - 23.45: Roisin Murphy: I was a Moloko fan, and Roisin on her own is still good. Although I have to be in the mood for it.

23.45 - 00.15: De jeugd van Tegenwoordig
00.45 - 2.00: The Subs of The Killers
2.00 - 4.00: Mish Mash Soundsystem

Friday
13.45 - 14.25: The Count & Sinden
16.00 - 17.30: Brodinski
17.30 - 19.00: Surkin
19.00 - 20.30: Diplo
20.30 - 22.00: Erol Alkan
23.00 - 01.00: Boys Noize

Saturday
13.00 - 14.30 : The Bloody Beetroots
14.30 - 16.00 : Crookers
En met pijn in het hart ga ik waarschijnlijk Kid Sister missen:
18.00 - 19.30 : A-Trak: zou geniaal moeten zijn, scratcht nog wat en laat eens zien wat hij allemaal kan in zen sets en heeft ook een hoop eigen remixes
Hij mag ook Kid Sister binnendoen.
20.05 - 21.05 : Bloc Party of Simian Mobile Disco, met een heel mooie clip
21.30 - 23.00 : 2manydjs
0.00 - 1.00 : Soulwax

GP Madrid, part 1

The only reason I play Magic is to ctrl+f my name in Rich Hagon's latest Starcity article. The one about Hollywood was titled "Yet More Disappointments", I was sure on of his disappointments was that I wasn't there. When in fact the search result in the article turned up to be "fried chicken", I knew it was time for action.

Madrid would be the big comeback. Summer Series, mo' money, mo' pro points. I practiced with daily modo drafts, went to pre-releases and even got together in Ghent for a whole day of drafting.

That doesn't mean I/we had a clue though. I "kinda liked" monored, but had no idea it was going to turn out to be everyone's pick for "best draft archetype" I read about in the coverage of various events on magicthegathering.com.
I also knew I'd like to draft a deck that was able to cast Unmake.
That's about it.

I somehow tricked StanV into buying a ticket to Madrid. His sudden rise in spellslingin' appetite quickly switched to

Man,
I hate

Spain
GPs
Spaniards
Magic
Spain

You can still be a racist when you're black, Stan!

But it was too late, he bought his ticket, so he was going. Only the legendary Gert Coeckelbergh had the balls to buy a ticket and then not go because "he didn't feel like it".

(true story)


Saturday
I absolutely hate it when people talk about the 'broken sealed deck they openened & registered, but then had to give away', so I'm not going to do that.

What I am going to do is list my card pool and try to go through my deck building process. But doing so in real life is hard enough, I have no idea how much you can learn from the textual approach. I think it's pretty hard to build a deck when you can't pick up the cards...

The Pool
Artifacts
1 Cauldron of Souls
1 Thornwatch Scarecrow
2 Shell Skulkin
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow

Lands
1 Sapseep Forest

White
1 Strip Bare
1 Pale Wayfarer
1 Barrenton Medic
1 Rune-Cervin Rider
1 Armored Ascension
2 Recumbent Bliss

Blue
1 Deepchannel Mentor
1 Put Away
1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Ghastly Discovery
1 Whimwader
1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief

Black
1 Ashenmoor Cohort
1 Blowly Infestation
1 Disturbing Plot
2 Meroow Bonegnawer
1 Gloomlance
1 Syphon Life

Red
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Power of Fire
1 Boggart Arsonists
1 Knollspine Dragon

Green
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Monstrify
1 Flourishing Defenses
1 Viridiscent Wisps
1 Hungry Spriggan
1 Aerie Ouphes

UW
1 Worldpurge

GW
1 Medicine Runner
1 Shield of the Oversoul
1 Raven's Run Dragoon

UB
1 Gravegill Duo
1 Helm of the Ghastlord
1 River's Grasp
1 Wasp Lancer

BR
1 Emberstrike Duo
1 Fists of the Demigod
1 Manaforge Cinder
1 Murderous Redcap

GR
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Morselhoarder
1 Manamorphose
1 Giantbaiting
1 Runes of the Deus

RW
1 Fire at Will

UR
2 Inside Out
1 Clout of the Dominus
1 Noggle Ransacker
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker

UG
1 Fable of Wolf and Owl
1 Favor of the Overbeing
1 Spitting Image
1 Shorecrasher Mimic
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
2 Sturdy Hatchling

BW
1 Restless Apparation
1 Nip Gwyllion
1 Beckon Apparition
2 Nightsky Mimic

Should be 75 cards, if it isn't, an irrelevant card is probably missing.

I'll go through the steps I took to build me deck. Maybe you can learn something that way. Or maybe you can teach me something, if you point out my mistakes!

1) I sort my cards by colors because the dumbass who registered my pool didn't. I think he gets a warning or whatever if I call a judge and I might get some extra time. But I'm not sure about this, so I just quickly sort the cards...

2) I cut the crap.
I make one 'if I really have to' pile, which contains crap that might make the deck if certain conditions are met (eg. I want to make a 2 color deck and need an extra 'playable': cards like Pale Wayfarer, ...). The hybrid aura's without enough ways the get there also find their way quickly in this pile.
I sort my other cards by color, and thanks to the hybrid card this means a lot of piles. I seperate the really good cards, cards that draw my attention, from the other playables in that pile.

3) I try recognize the most powerful cards in my pool. I'll be trying to play as many of these as possible, as long as they are supported by a solid base of other playables.

4) I eliminate at least 1 color, but I keep in mind possible splash options (for example, if your red is clearly not going to make the deck as a main color, you might still want to play that Puncture Blast).
This step reduces the number of piles, since you will also rebuild your hybrid piles (say you remove red, you can put you can merge your UR pile with the blue cards, etc...).

5) I stare at the cards still on the table for 10 minutes, until I can 'see the matrix'.
Well maybe not for the whole 10 minutes, but I see the people around me already building, when I'm still sitting there, staring. I try to see which colors are deep enough to be a base color of the deck, I keep in mind the cards that 'excite me' and keep in mind possible options for splashing.
Obviously removal is crucial, but also some plan, the way your deck will be winning.

6)I iterate through a couple of builds and hope I made the right decisions when I start writing down my deck with 5 minutes left on the clock.

In practice, for this pool, it means something like this:
(exciting cards get tagged with a *)
The Pool, filtered

if I really have to
2 Shell Skulkin
1 Thornwatch Scarecrow
1 Pale Wayfarer
1 Put Away
1 Ghastly Discovery
1 Blowly Infestation (might be good in the right deck, not a bad per se, more kind of a possible flagship -to use the Floresian term)
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Flourishing Defenses (again, possible flagship. I underrated this card, and it seems to have gotten better with Eventide).
1 Gravegill Duo
1 Helm of the Ghastlord
1 Manaforge Cinder
1 Manamorphose
1 Giantbaiting
1 Runes of the Deus
1 Noggle Ransacker

White
1 Barrenton Medic
1 Rune-Cervin Rider
*1 Armored Ascension
*2 Recumbent Bliss

Blue
1 Cerulean Wisps
1 Whimwader
1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief

Black
*1 Gloomlance
1 Syphon Life

Red
*1 Power of Fire
1 Boggart Arsonists
*1 Knollspine Dragon

Green
1 Viridiscent Wisps
1 Hungry Spriggan
*1 Aerie Ouphes


GW
1 Medicine Runner
1 Shield of the Oversoul
1 Raven's Run Dragoon

UB
*1 River's Grasp
1 Wasp Lancer
1 Wingrattle Scarecrow

BR
*1 Murderous Redcap

GR
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Morselhoarder

RW
1 Fire at Will

UR
2 Inside Out
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Noggle Bridgebreaker

UG
*1 Spitting Image
1 Shorecrasher Mimic
*1 Selkie Hedge-Mage (only when you play enough Islands)
*2 Sturdy Hatchling

BW
*1 Restless Apparation
1 Beckon Apparition
2 Nightsky Mimic

So now the pool is somewhat filtered and easier to grasp.

The UG package was a clear standout, I would be trying to play at least one of those colors.
White has 2 Recumbent Blisses, Armored Ascension + Restless Apparation. The latter two require a heavy white commitment though, and it's clear that this pool coudln't really pull that off.
Red has Power of Fire, Murderous Redcap, Scuzzback Marauders and a Dragon. But pretty shallow and no real splashing options, except for maybe Power of Fire.
Blue is pretty deep and a fine candidate for a base color.
Green has the UG cards and a couple of really solid guys.
Black has Murdurous Redcap and Gloomlance, but again, pretty shallow.

So I started with a Blue base. The easiest next step, was adding green. Splashing 2 Recumbant Bliss was kind of a no brainer for me. That was the deck I had when 15-20 minutes of the 30 we had for deck building, had passed.
The deck looked ok, but didn't have a lot of removal. And I still had a couple of good cards in my sideboard, which I'd love to play: River's Grasp, Gloomlance and Murderous Redcap.
I looked at the green cards I was about to play, and noticed that they were mostly 'just guys', except for Aerie Ouphes, which is way more.

So I tried UBw. I wasn't really satisfied, but it seemed better than the UGw deck.
Here it is:



The Deck
1 Beckon Apparition

2 Nightsky Mimic
1 Shorecrasher Mimic

1 Wingrattle Scarecrow
1 Parapet Watchers
1 Dream Thief
1 Noggle Bandit
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Wasp Lancer
1 Syphon Life
2 Recumbent Bliss

1 Noggle Bridgebreaker
1 Murdurous Redcap
2 Sturdy Hatchling
1 River's Grasp

1 Merrow Wavebreakers
1 Whimwader
1 Gloomlance

1 Spitting Image

The mana is a little icky, and I'm not really sure what the optimal configuration is. 3 lands for 2 splashed cards has always been my rule of thumb, so 3 Plains. I chose for 9 Islands and 6 Swamps instead of 8/7, because I although I don't need a lot of blue, I'll need at least one every time. 6 Swamps for a couple of BB cards, seemed reasonable to me, since they're still good late game (although Redcap is a much bigger beating on turn 4).

Another thing I wasn't sure of, is Syphon Life. It seemed decent in testing, but this isn't an aggro deck that needs somethign to deal the last points. Also, I already had something to do with my spare lands. This should probably have been a Cerulean Wisps or Inside Out, and I boarded it out most of the time. When Peter Vieren pointed out that 'it's just an Urborg Syphon-Mage without the body', I felt pretty awkward. I hadn't thought of it that way.

That's it for part 1...

Daily drafts

I'll be doing a daily draft on magic online to get back into shape. I've been playing a little better compared to a week ago. But I still can't get past round 2 of a 4322 queue :) My opponent's decks always seem bad/worse then mine. But I still manage to lose to a couple of gamebreaking cards every time (Incremental Blight, Howl of the Night Pack...). I'm not going to blame those cards, I just have some more learning to do.

Draftcap doesn't work for Magic Online 3, but when I think I have kind of a clue, I'll probably do a draft with my old friend PrtSc.

PT Kuala Lumpur, part II

So, I guess I'll pick up where I left off. I wonder if anyone still cares, but hey, I promised a second part... However, due to the x month span of procrastination, my memory is a little fuzzy (I have some notes though).

I was busy feeling pretty 8 Mile. The fact that my first draft got covered, confirmed that this PT was going to be epic.

The first draft

You can find the coverage here , but it's down while I'm writing this...

EDIT: It's up and when I look back at the draft 6 months later, I think I drafted like shit.

The draft left me pretty confused. The Guile in the first pack especially. In the end, I was pretty pleased with the deck nonetheless. Crib Swap is godawful in WG beats though.

Round 1
Taru, Genki [JPN] UW Merfolk
I lost a first to the synergy of infinite merfolks and Fallowsage made sure no comeback was possible. The other 2 were a different story. One I can't remember.

1-0

Round 2
Nakano, Yoshitaka [JPN], UB Rogues
In the first game, he had rogue nuts, prowling a Latchkey Faerie on turn 3. And 4.
In the second, his start was a bit slower. And it appeared like I was going to take that one down, but I was lacking more gas. Yoshitaka found Latchkey Faerie again, and combined with an evoked Aethersnipe and 2 Disperses, he won an extremely close race.

1-1

Round 3
Tsumura, Kenji [JPN] BG
A covered draft, but this wasn't even a feature match!
I started off by being the aggressor, but Kenji stabilized and began 2-for-1'ing me with his Dreamspoiler Witches. But I managed to keep drawing spells and eventually overwhelmed him. In the second he mulliganned and was mana screwed.

2-1

The second draft
I ended up with a GB deck. During the draft, I felt like I was really going with the flow, and drafted what I should have drafted. Also, 4th pick Oblivion Ring in pack 1, really?

Although I thought I had a good read, I didn't end up with a real tribal focus that is characteristic for the really broken decks of LLM. The morningtide part of the draft was also kind of unfortunate. I had some shallow packs which made me doubt that I was in the right colors, followed up by some really deep packs with 4 picks for my deck! But ok, I'm sure we've all been there.

Of particular interest was Obsidian Battle-Axe. I think this card is sick. But obviously you need to have enough Warriors. I picked the first Axe pretty early (1-3th pick). I got another one soon after that (4th?), and after a long time I chose to pick it instead of Elvish Warrior. Sixth pick, I received another Axe... This time I had no other options. It made me regret met Axe > Elvish Warrior pick, but I can't predict which exact cards will be passed to me. I figured it was more likely to receive Elvish Warrior, Treefolk Ambassador, Winnower Patrol or Game-Trail Changeling. All warriors, and the way the draft was going, I seemed like I was in a good position to get green.

But the packs weren't cooperating the way I wanted. Here's what I ended up with:

1 Vivid March
1 Vivid Grove
5 Swamp
10 Forest

2 Elvish Warrior
2 Blightspoil Druid
1 Leaf Gilder
1 Wren's Run Vanquisher
1 Wolf-Skull Shaman

2 Fistful of Force
1 Fertile Ground
1 Nameless Inversion

1 Elvish Branchbender
1 Battlewand Oak

2 Obsidian Battle-Axe
1 Moonglove Extract
1 Oblivion Ring

1 Moonglove Winnower
1 Leaf-Crown Elder
1 Cloudcrown Oak

1 Warren Pilferers
1 Orchard Warden
1 Oakgnarl Warrior

(with Axe #3 in the SB).

Round 4
Nassif, Gabriel [FRA] UB Rogues

He kept a 2 lander and missed land drops on turn 3 and 4. I guess he had a really good rogue start, if he'd draw a land. But he didn't and I won an easy first game. The second was a lot closer. Warren Pilferers was crucial here, being a 2 for 1 and blocking creatures with fear. Orchard Warden put the game out of Nassif's reach.

3-1

Lookin' good.

Round 5,
Lombardi, Paolo [ITA] UW Merfolk
I won the first versus a couple of mediocre Merfolks. I was also winning the second, versus a couple of better Merfolks (Judge of Currents, Stonybrook Schoolmaster), but Paolo didn't have a way to tap them. Until in one of his last drawsteps of the match, he mised Summon the School. Gaining like a gazillion life & tokens every turn made it hard for him too lose at that point. In the final game, I was battling versus Jace Beleren, and it seemed like I was winning an uphill battle. Sower of Temptation put a halt to that, and when I couldn't draw one of my outs in time...

3-2

Time for the bubble match...

Round 6
Barra, Giulio [ITA] BR
Giulio had himself a weird looking deck, part Elemental/part Goblin, with mediocre cards in both tribes. Both unfortunately he also had some good ones. Both games were pretty much the same: turn 3 Tauren Mauler, turn 5 Shriekmaw, and that was the end of my PT.

3-3

I was very disappointed, since I came pretty prepared to the PT, but it wasn't meant to be.
Kuala Lumpur was an awesome experience though (see pics in part 1 of the report). And that's what it's all about.

Although winning some $$$ at a PT adds a lot to the fun. I can't even remember the last time I cashed a PT...

Blogging

Blogs are hip.
I am hip.

A perfect match.

No seriously, the point of this blog is to make it easy for me and a couple of other writers to post some magic related ramblings. New entries should be linked to on mtgbelgium.be

I have been slacking a lot lately, magicwise. Haven't written an article in a long time. Haven't played a lot either. GP Brussels was kind of a disaster, partially because I almost hadn't played since Kuala Lumpur (aside from GP Vienna -66th).
I was busy with univ and oher things, and I slightly started losing my magical appetite. But skipping a PT and Marijn top8ing again, made it clear to me that I loved the travelling to big tourneys. And guess what. These tournaments are even more fun when you win.

I'm not a 'natural'. I need to play a lot to stay in/on top/somewhere in the middle of the game. That's why I'm getting used to the new Magic Online and I'll be trying to do a draft every day to get to know the cards again. I swallowed my pride and it'll be 4322's to begin with.

Yesterday was the first draft. I drafted some kind of monoish white deck with Pili-Pala and Power of Fire. Nice combo apparently.
Here's today's draft. Where I lost round 1:



I was about to disconnect. I mean, 'gg?'. COME ON!
But then I realized the world would be a happier place if we all just got along. So I just conceded.

It's funny how awful the plays I make during these drafts, are. I'm not blaming misclicks. I just miss some obvious plays. And I make assumptions about shadowmoor cards instead of reading them. Yesterday I played Niveous Wisps on my 2/2 to take down a 3 thoughness guy.

Huh? what?
Modo bugged again? Man, always the same...

Oh wait, Niveous Wisps doesn't make a guy white and give it +1/+0.
Awkward.
Concede in disgust.
/w


I don't know how much & what I'll be posting here on this blog.
I kinda like the possibilities though. You'll be able to search for certain posts & comment directly beneath the article/report.

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