one week late is better than nothing?

Last weekend I went to the Guildpact prerelease. I even managed to get up pretty early to get down there in time for the big seven-round flight. Seven rounds is a bit much, it turns out.

While I was waiting for the flight to start, the fire alarm went off and everybody had to be evacuated outside for a while. I took this as a signal to go into red.

The flight finally got underway and everybody opened their packs. Mine contained Birds of Paradise and Temple Garden, which pretty much means that I win the tournament right there. The guy across from me opened another Birds, and the guy next to him opened another one, foil this time. Good times.

Oh, and apparently there were a number of missorted tournament packs being opened with more than the usual number of rares. Like about 10 more than the usual number. This seemed to be an auspicious omen.

My cardpool, sadly, didn't really have anything that looked excellent in one color or another. I decided red/green/blue would be nice, since I had Gruul beatdown creatures that I could back up with some blue control and Leap of Flame for the win. Actually, I could Leap of Flame for the win quite a bit. I even swung for 17 damage in one game, with two 6/4s Leaping along with a 3/5 flyer. Pain!

Unfortunately, my deck would often fold to removal spells and had no draw and no burn. That plus a few silly play errors like attacking with my wurm instead of saving it to win me the game on the next fucking turn meant that I only went 3-4. That only got me four packs, which was kind of too bad, since I was hoping to bring something back to draft with at my cluster.

I moved on to the draft. It seemed like nobody next to me was in green/red, and I was able to build a damned aggressive Gruul deck with only about two spells, a metric fuck-ton of creatures, and two copies of SKARRG, THE RAGE PITS!

Sadly, I got eliminated in the first round by an equally competent Izzet deck that could keep laying out bounce with replicate and picking me off with Wee Dragonauts (easily the cutesiest name in the new set). I didn't lose by much, though, since I went 1-2 and got him down to 1 life in the deciding match. Curse my lack of burn spells.

So I basically managed to lose the tournament and still come out even. I even picked up a bunch of green/red cards I wanted, including probably the most underrated cards thus far: the 4/1 Solifuge and Killer Instinct, the second card to be named after a fighting game.

Oh yeah, plus Birds of Paradise and Temple Garden. Suckas.

SIDENOTE

Since I got my clustermates back into Magic, one of them decided to find decks online and print them out. He found one that he liked a lot, and I asked what was in it.

"It's got those artifact lands," he said, "and a whole bunch more artifacts."

"Is it Affinity?"

"I don't know. It's got a bunch of artifacts, and a black guy that makes you lose life."

"Does it have Arcbound Ravager?"

So I am playing against Ravager Affinity after Skullclamp, but before the lands/Disciple bannings. I try out most of my decent decks against it. I lose quite a bit, as is to be expected, but my broken red deck can handle him nicely. My Golgari deck also does surprisingly well. It heartens me to see Sisters of Stone Death playing against one of the most broken decks in a long time and formally handing it its ass on a silver platter.

the gates have opened

World of Warcraft seems to have undergone the first of many epic battles yesterday. Kind of makes me wish that my server would get off its ass and donate some linen bandages. Not that I'd be high-level enough to enjoy it.

a philosophical truism

Nothing validates your existence like a girl giving you stars and then asking if you are a tree.

BONUS EXCITING ENGINEERING SPECIAL REPORT!

The right leg of my glasses is currently attached with nothing more than Scotch tape and a sewing needle.

anno domini two thousand six

Yesterday I made a pilgrimage to this distant building that could be seen from my dorm's stairwell. It caught my eye because it was significantly taller than the surrounding buildings. It turned out to be two separate buildings entirely.

I went down to the beach nearby and there, surrounded by the wall of lights on the other side, the dim twilight, and the hush of the surf, I made by new years' resolutions:

Complete a major art project, find a girlfriend, and do my laundry.

I have done one of those.

On the way back, it briefly rained.

dear diary

Today I was playing Ravnica draft. I was on two life, staring down three fliers with no fliers of my own. I have no cards that can take out multiple creatures, so I am formally screwed.

Unless I can find a way to get a 5/5, a pair of 2/2s, and a 1/1 past three blockers to deal 10 damage.

I draw Bathe in Light. All his blockers are blue. I can use Radiance to give all my creatures protection from blue. If one of them wasn't green, that is.

I have a green/white creature in my hand. I can play it and target it with the Bathe in Light to make all my creatures unblockable.

I swing for 10.

Me and my opponent are both rendered speechless. Then we start to crack up. The general air of disbelief continues for a couple minutes.

are you a unicorn?

How can you tell? What is the mission of unicorns? What does the Bible say about them? Is Jesus really a unicorn? Can only a virgin capture a unicorn? What is the relation of the unicorn, the lion, and the dragon? Should unicorns fall in love, get married, have children? Whom should they marry? All of these questions and more are answered inside the book.

japan: always with the war metaphors

From a report on the Japanese Xbox 360 launch:

Following the light-hearted ceremony, the two Microsoft execs got serious, issuing some stern comments about their company's competitors. "History tells us that no great empire lasts forever," said Moore. "In the case of the Sony PlayStation, obviously it has been a great empire. But when a superior culture comes along, typically, it means the end of that empire. We believe that the superior culture is the Xbox 360 games experience, particularly the Xbox Live experience, which will bring communities from around the world together through gaming."

Just replace "Sony PlayStation," with "all other Asian cultures," consider that the Japanese have been thinking about getting rid of Article 9, and I think it's pretty clear that the only thing standing between us and total nuclear war with the DPRK is, well, Sam Fisher.

Extra credit: The DPRK's website has a .com address. Would a .org address have been more appropriate, or can we assume that .com stands for .communism? Discuss.