Tournament Report: Zendikar Game Day

Posted by gatch | | Posted On Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM

I brought the Naya Ascension deck discussed in an older post, with some changes to it. I added black for access to Maelstrom Pulse , Blightning, and Bituminous Blast.

Here's the list:

Naya Ascension v2.0
Lands:
4 jungle shrine
4 savage lands
4 sunpetal grove
4 arid mesa
2 rupture spire
2 exotic orchard
3 plains
1 mountain

Spells:
4 lightning bolt
4 pyromancer ascension
3 celestial purge
4 naya charm
4 blightning
3 maelstrom pulse
4 captured sunlight
4 day of judgment
4 ajani vengeant
2 bituminous blast

Sideboard:
4 bloodbraid elf
4 goblin ruinblaster
3 devout lightcaster
2 luminarch ascension
1 maelstrom pulse
1 celestial purge

Round 1 vs. Mono Red (0-0-0)

Game 1: I lose the dice roll and he goes first. Goblin guide and Hellspark Elemental are fast out of the gates, followed by hell's thunder. Fortunately the guide lets me draw into my lands and I play a turn 4 Captured Sunlight into a celestial purge. I stabilize and play my pyromancer ascension. Captured sunlight while the ascension is active gives me +8 life, and i cascade into blightning this time. Naya charms tapping his unearth dudes down while redrawing my graveyard win me this one.

Game 2: I side out slow removal for more cascade. I get two lands, one of which is Ruinblasted. We go to game 3.

Game 3: I get four lands, but no Captured Sunlight or Ajani Vengeant meant my life went from 20 to 0 faster than I could say 'where the effing eff are my life gain cards?!'

Round 2 vs. Jund (0-1-0)

Game 1: My maindeck purges pay off. I get hit by a blightning, but his Thrinaxes were exiled and double blightning on him sent him to topdeck mode while I Naya charm a Naya charm in my graveyard at EOT to get my pyromancer online. I recur my blightning for the win.

Game 2: I side in my anti-jund package of 4 bloodbraid, 4 ruinblaster, 3 devout lightcaster. Too bad for him, he sided out a lot of his removal seeing my creatureless game 1. Double ruinblaster on Savage lands messed with his curve. I lost my hand to a pair of blightnings, but maintained board position with bloodbraid into devout lightcaster. I win.

Round 3 vs. Mono-White (1-1-0)

Game 1: The celestial purges maindeck hurt me bad, drawing two of them in the course of the game. Fortunately I was able to get pyromancer online easily with captured sunlights. I'm able to clear his board just in time, and blightning him to death.

Game 2: I side out the purges in favor of more Maelstrom Pulse, luminarch ascension and some ruinblasters for Emeria the sky ruin, just in case the game goes that long. It did, but i didn't draw the goblins.

Game 3: I play a turn two Luminarch ascension that gets up to 3 tokens. I have two naya charms in hand to tap his guys out and activate the ascension, but I have no green mana sources in play (damn Exotic orchards). 14 green sources in the deck and I have none in play by turn 6...just awful. I lose this one due to Elspeth going ultimate before I draw my day of judgement.

Round 4 vs. Mono-White (1-2-0)

Game 1: Celestial purge bites me again, but my opponent gets mana flooded. Well he was, until Ajani went ultimate on him, twice.

Game 2: Same sideboard as the last matchup. Pyromancer was online by turn 5, and I had way too much removal for him to maintain a formidable board. Ajani goes ultimate again and I win.

Round 5 vs. Bant Midrange (2-2-0)

Game 1: What were those maindeck purges for again? Anyway this game was close, due to Rafiq smacking me a good ten damage on turn 4 with the help of noble heirarch. He gets a total of 3 lands though, and Day of Judgement takes out his fighters and mana dorks. I activate my combo for the win. He reveals a hand full of Baneslayers that he couldn't cast.

Game 2: I didn't playtest this matchup so I had no idea what to bring in from the benches. I decided he would take out his removal so bloodbraids should go in as well as the ruinblasters to blow up duals and tri-lands. Maelstrom pulse go in for big bad angel removal and a singleton luminarch ascension would do me well as an alternate win-con in case my pyromancers get purged. I draw luminarch in my opening hand and play it asap. He drops a pair of rhox war monks that I kill with a pulse. I get luminarch active. He drops qasali pridemage and I thought he'd blow my enchantment up right then and there. He didn't, so I EOT make an angel..still no activation on pridemage..I make another angel...this goes on until I have 4 angels in play..wierd. I play nothing from my hand the next few turns worried about what he's got up his sleeve, relying solely on my luminarch ascension. 7 angels take him out a turn or two later. I asked him what he was planning to do with his pridemage sitting pretty and he goes..'oh yeah, forgot he could do that..' and we both laugh it off.

Final standing: 3-2-0

Not bad in my opinion, but I would have liked to make it into top 8 so my deck would be recognized as legit..then again, it's nice being under the radar going to events like that. I got my pyromancer ascension online more than a RGWU version did at the tournament. Cascade really works well, maybe even better than card draw in this deck. It allows you to be a bit more threatening and proactive rather than reactive like most control decks are. Captured sunlight is great vs Boros too (though I was lucky not to get paired up with it), and theres nothing like cascading into Devout lightcaster or Goblin Ruinblaster + kicker. Overall the deck performed well despite the numerous manascrews and celestial purge showing up in my hand in matches where it was a dead draw. If I would have made changes it would be to the manabase:

-2 exotic orchard, -2 sunpetal grove, +2 swamp, +2 marsh flats

since the black density is quite heavy I need more sources of black mana. Exotic orchard can be horrible and can be great..but for the sake of consistency I'm playing swamps over it next time. My brothers also attended the even, piloting Vampires (3-2-0) and our mono-white Anti-Jund deck that went 4-1-0 making it into the top eight. Unfortunately it got paired up against Boros, and with our deck sporting all the Jund hate main board it was bound to lose. All in all it was good times. Can't wait for the Worldwake game day!
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"It"-That-Should-Not-Be-Named

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On at 10:43 AM


The flavor text says it all. You shell out for the most absurdly expensive manabases. You playtest till your hands are all blistered from shuffling. You and your dedicated team tweak and tune the deck to perform like an F1 race car. On tournament day, you get to the tables, draw your opening seven, keep a great hand with two lands.. and draw no more for the next five turns. You're manascrewed. It has happened to us all, and it's the most frustrating thing ever. Having your arms tied behind your back while your balls are itchy as hell is heaven compared to the manascrew. I define manascrew as pure evil. It is the mold that grows on the scab, that dried up from the pus, that erupted from a pimple on satan's left-side butt-cheek. The gamers at Hogwarts refer to manascrew as 'It'-That-Should-Not-Be-Named. Know what happened on the 7th day? god farted- and there was Manascrew. I could go on and on telling you how bad it is, but until you've played the game and experienced it for yourself you would not understand. Even winning on account of manascrew is awful. Taking a game because your opponent didn't get his lands is never as satisfying as beating him fair and square, and I'm always hesitant to extend a handshake after winning that way, for fear of getting my hand smacked away, or viciously bitten off. Funny thing is, it never seems to happen during playtesting...or maybe I just don't notice because of the absence of tournament level pressure. I don't know if its bad shuffling, destiny or just plain rotten luck. I do know however, that luck is part of the game, and the probability of drawing god-hands is the same as drawing crap hands. You can control it to some extent (read Jay Salazar's article on starcity games:http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/890.html) but even applying the fundamentals of manabase building will not guarantee a perfect draw.
Manascrew is a variable of the game that you cannot control, and will happen more often than you expect. The reason behind all this ranting is because I had just been to a tournament and got manascrewed five times. Needless to say I had the living daylights Magicked out of me. My $300 deck lost to budget builds that weren't even optimal. That's not counting the long nights of playtesting always accompanied by a grande caramel machiato (they're not cheap either). I felt like a passionate athlete losing at my beloved sport to a chump who only learned how to play yesterday. I don't mean to brag, but I think I deserve to beat decks like that for sheer dedication to the game! Well, there's no point in bitching like a princess over what happened realy. I'm sure the best players have been in the same situation more often than I have, I just needed to vent my frustration out into the world. Sorry if you got nothing helpful from this post. Until next time, I hope the magic gods smile upon you and your draws.
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Post Rotation Decks #3: Naya Ascension v1.0

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1:46 PM

After the Philly 5k decklists were published everyone craved for dragonskull summits and verdant catacombs. Unfortunately unlike the current reality of things, real estate is hard to come by in the Magic world. I had searched through every binder I could get my hands on, posted on every local website..but I could not find the lands. I was one click away from paying nearly double the regular price online and wait two weeks for cards that may never reach my mailbox. It was then that I realized...everyone will be playing Jund. I started digging for cards in my collection. The objective - build a deck that crushes Jund. The idea was to build a deck that Jund had a bad matchup against. I had been running Jund before the rotation so I'm pretty familiar with what makes it tick. Jund works because it puts a lot of pressure on the board without over commiting and gains card advantage through cascade. I wanted to beat it at it's own game, so i drafted up this list.

For your consideration...Naya Ascension v1.0:
 I've seen a number of Pyromancer Ascension decks online, but I haven't found one that runs only Naya colors and Naya Charm. Most use blue for Time Warp but I find them a bit slow. Dare I say that this is the first? Well, I'm sure some Pro somewhere in the world has thought about it, but at least in my local shop it's the first one of it's kind... and I cooked it up myself. Naya charm combos with itself in this deck to activate Pyromancer ascension at instant speed. Once you've ascended, naya charm now can effectively let you return two cards from your graveyard to your hand. The trick is, to always return the second naya charm. What you'll have is an infinite source of card advantage. With the ascension online you can bolt your opponent to the head and grab the bolt back with naya charm- Repeat until opponent's head is crispy on the outside, but moist and tender on the inside. Good thing we're running 8 cascade spells that help you play copies of spells already in your graveyard. Another trick is when you cascade into a 2nd naya charm, return the 1st one to your hand and you have the combo ready. The deck is white red heavy, which means you have the tools to deal with jund's permanents, but blightning hurts it bad just like any other control deck. Captured sunlight is also intended to regain that lost card and life from Blightning. Ajani vengeant does a pretty good job of stalling, and left unchecked can win you the game...playing him main deck is bad news for opposing control builds. I've yet to test baneslayers in this deck, but so far the pair of Enlisted Wurms have been doing well and have even helped get the ascension in play and online. The deck has enough removal to handle an initial Boros rush, and then recover to take the game later. It feels lacking in bomb spells though so Baneslayer might still be decent here. Right now the sideboard is loaded with Jund hate, Devout lightcaster is a house vs Jund, either exiling the thrinax or blocking it all day without triggering it's effect. At one point an opponent had to Bituminous blast his own thrinax to get his tokens, only to meet a Day of Judgement from my side the next turn. Blightning still hurts like hell, but without it the Jund player will be in trouble. Maelstrom pulse kills pyromancer ascension, but you have 4 copies plus recursion from naya charm to help it get back in play. I need to playtest the jund matchup some more to see how well it does, but on paper it seems legit. Vampires and soldiers have a hard time keeping pyromancer ascension in check, so those are generally good matchups. I'll playtest it a bit more, but for now this is what I'm piloting to local events.
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Cards, coffee, and cocky spectators

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On at 12:00 PM

After a four hour tournament a bunch of us decided to test our decks a bit more at the local coffee shop. Playing with brand new decks is so exciting that none of us felt tired at all and everyone wanted to run their homebrews through the gauntlet of meta decks that was Jund, Boros and Vampires. After placing our orders we dragged a couple of tables together and went on to playtest.
It's always interesting to play somewhere other than the hobby shop. The reactions from bystanders and spectators never get old. "Ano yan sugal?" (is that gambling?) and "parang mga bata naglalaro pa.." (they're like kids, still playing games.) are the most frequent comments you would overhear, and some people would go so far as to condemn the game saying it's the devil's work. Ignorance is bliss, and a lot of these bystanders looked pretty happy to me as they made these comments. Not many people understand the game and why we play it. For those who think its child's play, well, its not. Sure a 9 year old can learn the basic rules and play and have fun with the game, but can the kid be competitive? Competitive magic is an entirely different animal. It requires a level of IQ, comprehension and reasoning, similar to chess, except that in chess the smart player that makes no play errors will always win. Magic still incorporates luck, and thus your decision making is not fool proof. You cannot read through your opponent's next moves completely because you only see a portion of his cards at any given time. In chess, you play with the same pieces every game whereas in Magic, its up to the player what 75 cards he will run out of the thousands of unique cards to choose from. Just building an efficient deck is an intellectual feat in itself. I have nothing against chess, its a great game and I play chess every once in a while... but nothing trumps taking your home brew and beating the bejesus out of a well established Magic deck. One thing chess does lack is flavor...I mean a king, a queen and their medieval army just don't stack up against planeswalkers, wizards, dragons, artifacts and fungi of all shapes and sizes. So you, yes I'm talking to you, you innocent bystander dissing my game..the next time you want to act all cool in front of your friends, don't pretend you know what I'm doing while i tap my lands for mana, otherwise I might be tempted to use that mana and Banefire your ass. You can't counter it punk, and the damage cant be prevented.
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Zendikar Top 5

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Monday, October 19, 2009 at 1:52 PM

A couple of weeks after the global release of Zendikar, Magic players all over the world are scrambling to get their hands on the hottest rares, full art lands, and the sleeper cards that lie dormant, waiting to be broken. Right after a rotation it is vital for a competitive player to know what cards to grab now and what to trade away while they still have some value, and with the shortage in printed product we can expect the prices to skyrocket once the metagame is established.

So without further ado, here's what I think will be solid gold.


My Top Five Money Cards:

#5 : Mindbreak Trap - This actually has more value outside of standard, but value it does have nonetheless. No more uncounterable nonsense says the blue mage.

#4 : Ob Nixilis the Fallen - Not often does a legend work as a four-of in the combo deck where it belongs. Best played turn 6 followed by a fetch land drop. BOOM.

#3 : Day of Judgment - Its not Wrath, but its what we have. Get four.

#2 : Lotus Cobra - The "Lotus" in the name is indicative of high value. Seriously, this will be awesome.

#1 : Fetch Lands - No surprise here. Used in every format. You want playsets of these..and you want them yesterday.

My Top Five Uncommons:

#5 : Quest for the Gravelord - I expect this to be in every black based aggro deck as an answer to board sweepers.

#4 : Unstable Footing - 5 mana for 5 damage to the face that can't be prevented. at instant speed. What banefire?

#3 : Gatekeeper of Malakir - Board advantage anyone? Who says black cant handle Great Sable Stag?

#2 : Vampire Nighthawk - 3 mana for a 2/3 flyer with lifelink & deathtouch? Any deck with a hint of black will want this.

#1 : Brave the Elements - This is Burrenton Forge-Tender 2.0. It also lets you get a free swing that can end the game.

My Top Five Sleeper Cards
(these are cards I think are undervalued at the moment, and getting them now will be a good investment)

#5 : Nissa Revane - I like Nissa, even though a lot of people think running her in a deck would be like marrying a single mom with four kids. Nissa and her chosen may be narrow, but so was ajani goldmane, and he saw play with the little white men. There are already a number of elves that work great with her ultimate: Bloodbraid elf and ElvishArchdruid to name a few. I'll get a playset of her now while she's dirt cheap, just in case the next expansion carriesanother bomb of the elven kind.

#4 : Chandra Ablaze - This planeswalker is just waiting for the right deck, but I think people are seeing it already.Both + and - abilities work great for a burn heavy deck. Big red should want at least one copy for her game endingultimate.

#3 : Bloodchief Ascension - I watched this card jump from a crap rare to a chase rare in a span of one week. I mean come on, like getting 2 damage in a turn would be difficult for an aggro/burn heavy deck? Once online, sit back and watch your opponent take it from his own spells. Or end his agony with a couple of blightnings, or an Archive trap for the win.

#2 : Luminarch Ascension - This will eat control decks for breakfast. Drop this on turn two and watch your opponent make bad plays and over commit to the board trying to stop the inevitable from happening. In a deck that limits your opponents creatures from getting in for damage, Luminarch Ascension will be as threatening as Bitterblossom was in the last standard. But since it's white and will only fit into a few decks, I have to award number one sleeper to...

#1 : Eldrazi Monument - It makes your guys bigger, gives them wings, and renders them indestructible the turn it comes into play. This will pull wins out of nowhere! Iv'e been running one in my soldier control deck and it has yet to disappoint. In fact I don't remember ever losing a test game after landing this on the board. Being colorless and costed below 6 mana means it should fit into almost any aggressive deck in the format. I wouldn't run 4 though, maybe somewhere around 2-3 is the right number. Simply put, in an aggro vs aggro matchup (which I predict will be 80% of the metagame), the player who runs Eldrazi Monument will have an edge. Trade away an ajani goldmane for a couple of these now and your soldier tokens will never be happier.

Next time i'll be featuring a Planeswalker control deck that I managed to pilot to 1st place at a local standard event.
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Post Rotation Decks #2: White-Green Soldier Control

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 1:22 PM

Here's my attempt at a White based control deck that uses a ton of board sweepers and a swarm of soldiers to end the game in 1-2 swings. Let's start with the decklist: Now why didn't I just do what everyone else is doing and build an aggressive White soldier/Kor deck instead? -because from what I can see in the standard cardpool, soldiers just aren't kithkin. They're way too slow to be explosive in the first five turns,unlike Vampires that can drop a Vampire Nocturnus, reveal a black card from the top of the deck and win the game just like that. Straight up Soldiers and Kor seem lacking in power right now unless somebody finds a way to break Armament master. Looks like white based aggro will have to wait for the next set to be really competitive. They did get a great card though, in Conqueror's Pledge. For 2WWW you get Six, count 'em, SIX kor soldier creatures. Awesome. Goodluck pulling of that kicker, but even without it, a 6-for-1 is very VERY effective. The deck will be running 3 copies, as I feel resolving one should be enough. A full set of Honor of the Pure and some Garruk should pump your end-game army to game ending proportions. You have your 4 Martial Coup that could be played early for some warm bodies or late to just break the board and win the next turn. If you get swarmed early on, no need to panic. Fire off a Day of Judgement to reset the battlefield. For really pesky creatures you can use Path to Exile. Now for the really fun part, the green splash. Green was splashed here so we can include Dauntless Escort. This guy doesn't pose much of a threat on his own, but his ability to make your guys immune to even your own board sweepers is priceless. Imagine playing a one sided Day of Judgement. It goes perfectly with the design of the deck. So does an Eldrazi Monument, for a bit of flying action and a little more indestructibility. To help make sure you have enough mana to cast those late game bombs you have a set of Kor Cartographers. They will also contribute to getting your Emeria, the Sky Ruin online...a Dauntless escort or Captain of the Watch coming back every turn is very much welcome in this deck. Emeria should also offset creature loss from Eldrazi monument, if the game goes long enough that you have both in play at the same time. The numbers for each card can still be adjusted as the meta is shaped, but for now I think this is a pretty good starting list. I'll be taking this to a few local tourneys to see how it does against Vampires and other up and coming killer decks. You can expect tournament reports soon with me behind the wheel of this monster. Next time i'll be featuring a Vampire deck that my brothers and I cooked up just in time for Halloween. Until then, remember to shuffle well and call your phases!
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Post-rotation decks #1: Jund Ramp

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:56 AM

With Lorwyn's rotation out of Standard just around the corner Iv'e been busy cooking up new decklists that I believe would be competitve in the new standard metagame. Lowryn block takes along with it many of the most powerful decks currently dominating the format, such as Faeries, Kithkin, Reveillark, Elfball and 5 Color Control. Left almost unscathed is the TimeSeive combo deck, and to some extent Jund and Naya were able to keep their key cards for another year. Esper Aggro lost nothing at all being a viable deck in Block, but gained little as well in the Zendikar cardpool. Mill decks got quite a boost on the other hand, and the strategy might actually be competitive in the fresh meta. As for brand new decks, Black Vampires are looking good with the wide array of utility creatures and spells in it's arsenal, followed closely by White based Soldier/Kor decks attempting to be this season's Kithkin counterpart. The Landfall, Trap, Kicker, and Ally mechanics look promising as well, though out of the lot I believe Landfall will be the most relevant, as it tends to generate card advantage. Ally decks are being dubbed as the new Slivers, but I doubt if the mass of 2/2 creatures with 4+ converted casting costs will be much of a threat, especially with the psuedo-Wrath Day of Judgement in the picture. Taking all of this into consideration, Iv'e decided that I would build 3 decks: Mono-Black Vampires, Mono-White or Green-White Soldiers, and Jund Ramp. For today I'll be discussing the Jund Ramp decklist I drafted up.


 I actually didn't use a lot of Zendikar cards, except for the Black/Green fetch lands (getting a playset of these will be as easy as walking into Mordor with intentions of throwing the One Ring into the fires of mount doom...), the reprinted Harrow and the cool new legend Ob Nixilis the Fallen. Zendikar provided Lotus Cobra, but I don't think I should rely too much on creature-based ramp effects with Lightning bolt, Path to Exile, and Doomblade in the meta. I wouldn't mind opening one in a pack though. I decided to go with the traditional ramp effects and Garruk Wildspeaker. The thing about Garruk is he can protect himself and me with a beast token, then help with the mana ramping the next turn. With an open board he can even win the game on his own. I also kept the Cascade effects in the deck. Having no overly conditional spells in the lower curve of the deck, I should always get good cascades. That..and I love the look on my opponent's face when I turn up exactly what I need to win the game. Iv'e done this a couple of times in the past, and each time I topdecked that golden card it was met with a "Wow!", "Oh..", "Great play!", and more often "WTF!? LUCKY BASTARD!". I hit blanks too, but thats whats great about Cascade. You're in control of whats in your deck, so you can actually minimize if not eliminate blank cascades. In this deck the only blank I would hit would be a Garruk with one already in play, or Maelstrom pulse vs. a clean board..in which case it wouldn't have been that bad anyway as getting a 2 for 1 in that situation wasn't even necessary. Maelstrom pulses are a must, with all the crazy "quest" and "ascencion" enchantments being abused, not to mention hard to kill planeswalkers. I'm playing 4 maindeck just because they're the most versatile form of hard removal I've ever seen in the game. Ob Nixilis is plain good when you keep topdecking lands, and can end the game right there with a late Harrow. One copy is enough for an end-game legendary creature I think. The dragons are my lategame (or in a ramp deck's case, Midgame) bombs, all intended to turn the board around. Dropping one of them earlier than the turn they were intended for is the whole point of this deck. Violent ultimatum is there as a way out of a really bad board position (think Baneslayer and Broodmate + Buddy on the wrong side of the table), or if I get a good ramp progression it could lock the game in my favor. Iv'e actually never built a deck in this style before, so I might have gotten the design wrong, but only live playtesting in an actual tournament environment will prove anything. I just hope I get the pieces (especially the lands) by the first Zendikar-legal standard tourney. I'm still waiting on my set of textless bolts (wish ther were pulses though). They would look pimpin in the deck, but I'm afraid they might end up as trade fodder for the new lands. More deck ideas again soon!
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Tournament Report #1

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:39 AM

I went to a small 8-man tourney recently, piloting Kithkin. It was a last minute decision, as I had been planning on running the Jund cascade deck to counter the sudden increase in 5 color control players in my area. I scouted three out of the seven players would be running white, placing my Jund build at a disadvantage - so I ran back to the car to change decks. One of the players at the tournament was Zax Ozaki, a high rated player who placed 3rd at the recent Philippine Nationals. He was running about the same Kithkin build that he did then. I wanted to get paired against him, as I had beaten him only once before (with the Jund deck even..i just got lucky topdecks). Before I get into the details of the matchups, here's the deck: Round 1 vs. RW Tokens (0-0-0)
Game 1: I started off with FOD into turn two swing-pump, + Windbrisk heights hiding a Cloudgoat. He responded with his own FOD and a turn two Honor of the Pure. We went back and forth until I activated my Windbrisk, outnumbering him 2-1. An unchecked Ajani boosted my army twice, winning me the game.
Game 2: I keep a hand with no one drops, two lands and a whole bunch of two drops. He opens with FOD, swing-pump + Windbrisk. I drop Meadowgrain. He drops Spectral. The next few turns he swings with his spirits and reveals Honor of the Pure from windbrisk. I respond with two Wizened cenns and an Honor of my own. Meadowgrain keeps our life totals about the same, until the valiant knight on his chicken-legged sheep mount called a Springjack takes the Path to Exile like a man. I get to five mana too late, only via another Path and my sided Knight of the White Orchids. I get run over.

Game 3: I draw a god hand and keep but he gets his sideboard cards - Ajani Vengeant and Stillmon Cavalier. I have no answers and he takes the match pumping Stillmoon to lethal.

Round 2 vs. 5 Color Control (0-1-0)
Game 1: Ah the dreaded 5CC matchup. An early FOD deals significant damage, getting to 4/4. A Spectral procession eats Maelstrom Pulse, another eats Hallowed Burial, also taking out FOD. I somehow resolve a Cloudoat and get my opponent to 0 life with it.
Game 2: I side in my counter magic (4 Lapse of Certainty). I get him down to the red zone, but he resolves 2 Cruel Ultimatums, one of which I already delayed via Lapse. I die.
Game 3: Two Kitchen finks hold the fort for him until he has control. He plays Ajani Vengeant, I counter it. He plays it again next turn and I let it resolve, saving my second Lapse for a bomb or to force in lethal damage later. Big mistake. It taps down my lone FOD until Baneslayer angel hits the table. I can't race a 5/5 flying first-strike lifelinker. I lose due to the misplay.

Round 3 vs. Esper Mill (0-2-0)
Game 1: Upon seeing my matchup I was glad I hadn't dropped from the tournament, I shuffle up the deck and draw. Now I get my god hands (sigh) . I win by turn 4.

Game 2: I side in Lapse again, taking out the useless BFTs and the Rangers of Eos. I beat him down again. He resolves a Scourglass but the match ends that turn.

Final standing: 6th place (1-2-0)

Well it's nothing to be ashamed of, I've lost terribly before. I felt like I wasn't on my game the whole time. That and I don't think I'm a very good Kithkin pilot. I over-strategize sometimes despite the deck being so simple and straightforward. That's what I got for tweaking a deck for a week then deciding to play a different one at the last minute. Then again, metagaming has rewarded me before - I played Jund and went up against Fae 3 times in a row, went ahead and won that tournament without even breaking a sweat.
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Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On at 10:03 AM

I found my Hadrurus Arizonensis "Tiamat" doing a battle pose last night and thought she looked really cool, so I took this pic. She loves climbing up and down the egyptian tomb hide I made for her. I know she's from Arizona, not Egypt...but I'm not that experienced when it comes to scorpions yet to justify getting an actual Egyptian Deathstalker. Tiamat plays the part very well though, with her yellowinsh coloration and imposing telson size. I used beach sand for her enclosure to go along with the desert "scorpion king" theme instead of the regular coco-peat I use for my inverts. I hate to brag but her tank looks really cool. So much so that Iv'e already sold a couple of my egyptian hide set-ups by showing off her pics on exotic pet forums. One of these days I might post a step by step guide to making these custom hides. I didn't actually invent the process, I just just tweaked it a bit to match the needs of small invertebrates. I've always enjoyed making these miniature buildings. I used to play Mageknight - a table top miniature fantasy game, and I made little houses and castles that we used as terrain. Sadly the game died off and I was left with about $300 worth of plastic figures. I was able to sell some of them to get back into Magic. Anyway, when i got into inverts I learned that most species were nocturnal and they all needed some sort of refuge they could hide under whenever they felt threatened. I started off with terra cotta pots and half coconut shells like everyone else, but the geek in me wanted something unique and aesthetically pleasing in addition to being functional - so I came up with these designs and scoured the net for ways to build them that were non-toxic to my beloved pets.

I've made about seven custom designs to date, ranging from rock backdrops to skull caves. Aldous (owner of the shop where I play Magic at) contracted me to make a hide for his Brachypelma Smithi based off of the Howling Mine card. I agreed to take the order for a couple of Alara Reborn packs. I figured I wouldn't charge the regular price as I would also benefit from having my work displayed at his shop. A week later his smithi was happily webbing up her new home. Players immediately recognized the design and their praises were well worth the time and effort I put into it.

Recently i picked up this idea of using miniature model car casings turned upside down as enclosures for smaller specimens. They're about 1.5 inches high, 1.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches long. They're the perfect size for slings (spiderlings/scorplings) that have outgrown their initial film canister homes. The pic above is the one I keep at work, currently housing a 1.25 inch Curly Hair tarantula.
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A sad day for Magic...

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 4:19 PM


Well this is disappointing...Lightning Bolt is the new MPR textless foil reward. I was expecting something along the lines of Maelstrom Pulse or Baneslayer Angel...but lightning bolt? It's a common for cryin' out loud! The art is awesome sauce, i'll give em that... but I don't really care if the art was a picture of an old man's wrinkled ass cutting a fart whose gasses reflected the camera flash, resulting in a lightning-ey effect. It still does the same thing. Oh well, I guess I'm just going to keep a playset of these and sell the rest to the Vintage players who like blinging out their decks. They better be valued at around 15-20$ though. Oh and after reprinting Cancel for the third time, they decide it should go textless? Epic fail WotC..Epic fail. Cancel only ever saw play in limited, why make a textless version?
Earth to WotC:
"WE DO NOT WANT CANCEL. STOP PRINTING IT."
(image taken from MTGsalvation)
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Feeding time...

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On at 12:53 PM


Fed my pets today. The Smithi still isn't feeding, I think she's in pre-molt stage, i just misted her enclosure to make sure she doesn't get dehydrated. She really enjoys the setup I made for her. I know its common for this species to sit still all day but my specimen really likes to explore. When she gets startled she retreats into the cave i built into the backdrop. I had to take out a darkling beetle from her tank because it kept crawling around and bumping into her. She just pushed it away when it got too close. I guess that's just another sign that she isn't going to eat anytime soon. Can't wait for her to molt.

Chancho the Mexican Fireleg on the other hand, found his meal right away. I dropped the Lateralis roach quite a distance from where he was sitting, and after the roach ran around a bit he was on its trail. Milliseconds later the roach was fastened to his fangs. I sometimes feel remorse for throwing perfectly innocent cockroaches into my pet's enclosures...but then I remember that burger I had for lunch, and i figure Cattle is to Man as Roach is to Tarantula. Logic, like the now dead cockroach swimming through Chancho's digestive tract, is devoid of all emotion.

I still don't have a name for my new female Cobalt Blue, a gift from my girlfriend..(she actually hates my spiders, but loves me enough to buy me one for my birthday). I'm thinking of a name that has something to do with lightning, since this species is also referred to as "blue lightning". But it has to be feminine as well..."Electra" maybe...i'll have a name for her by my next post. She made a deep burrow in her enclosure, which she webbed up quite a bit. Haven't seen her for a couple of days now, but I dropped a roach in there and if it disappears then I'll know she ate it. Cobalt blues are notorious "pet-holes"...gotta love their metallic blue color though.

The rest of the gang are all healthy and well fed. The Chaco Golden knee sling molted to about 1.5 inches in legspan the other day. The gold bands around the knees and the gold patch on its abdomen are signs of what a beautiful spider "she" (i hope) would grow up to be. It would take patience though, as they're relatively slow-growers, but definitelly worth the wait.
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Sic Infit...

Posted by gatch | Labels: | Posted On at 11:43 AM

And so it begins...like so many other random blogs began. A free background template off of the internet and a nonsensical first post, attempting to justify the need to take up cyber-space. For some reason I woke up this morning and decided that I would try blogging, see what the hype is all about. I'm a programmer right? I should be keeping up with internet based fads and such. I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from here but from what I gather an introduction is required, as some readers might not take the time to check my profile..so here you go. My stat sheet..feel free to use it in your campaigns and whatnot....

  • Name: Paulo Gatchalian
  • Aliases: Gatch,Paw
  • Type: Level 7 Programmer
  • Gender: Male
  • Race: Filipino
  • Age: 26
  • Status: In a relationship
  • Alignment: Chaotic Good
  • Proficiencies:
  • -Magic:the Gathering
  • -Exotic pet keeping: Tarantulas and Scorpions
  • -Bass guitar
  • Strength: 10
  • Intelligence: 100
  • Agility: 10
  • Dexterity: 80
  • Stamina: 20
  • Luck: 0
  • Charisma: 50

...if you figured I'm a nerd you're wrong. I'm a geek. There's a huge difference. As you can tell by my stats I'm a semi-charismatic unlucky wimp with dextrous hands and a decent brain. I have a DCI constructed rating of 1690, which is nothing to brag about, but given that I only started playing competitiveley about 5 months ago i'd say its ok. I keep tarantulas and scorpions for pets, and I play bass guitar solo (used to be in a band but I quit...had to get a steady job). I've got a girlfriend and we've been together since highschool and I'm hoping to tie the knot soon. I'm currently working as a programmer for Toyota Motor Philippines. That pretty much sums it up. I guess you can already decipher what to expect in future posts.. so if you're Arachnophobic, not into Magic tournament reports and deck ideas, and you hate music I suggest you don't come back. Otherwise drop by daily and see what I'm up to. Congarulations to me, for finally joining the Emo bandwagon and starting a blog!
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