WEEKLY ROUND-UP! 5/6-5/12/13!

WEEKLY ROUND-UP PRESENTS

"TASTE THE RAINBOW, MOTHER FUCKER!"

7. POKÉMON OF THE WEEK! #66 MACHOP, #67 MACHOKE, #68 MACHAMP

Does anybody smell body oil and shamelessness? Ew...

6. MUSICAL MON! THE MAKING OF THE FRELJORD, GRAND THEFT AUTO V TRAILER, & JON WINS!

Anybody else out there stoked for GTA V?

5. WTF WED! LoL EDITION! DARIUS HIGH-FIVES TEEMO AFTER A TAPING OF 'MY BEAR TIBBERS' !

I covered a lot of League of Legends material, last week. From the Music of the Freljord to Poros to Teemo to Tibbers, there is a lot to talk about when it comes to my favorite new PC game. I'm still learning how to play the various roles so that when I hit max level, I can hit ranked with my buddies and help net some wins.

My best champ: Probably Alistar.

4. NERDCULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKÉMON OF THE WEEK! #387 TURTWIG, #388 GROTLE, #389 TORTERRA

What is your favorite Grass starter? Mine's Turtwig.

3. WORD OF THE DAY! 5/8/13! Poro.

Speaking of the Freljord, I had a chance to play Sejuani & Trundle and, while I really wanted the Troll King to be my new main, I had better success with Sejuani. This week, Lyssandra is free, and I'm gonna see how she works.

2. TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 3 "HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 BUT..."

And so I finally finished my series of Dragon's Maze articles...

1. TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 4 "...LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES I GOLDEN!"

In which, I hope I managed to learn a few things about how to better play Pre-Release Events in the future by taking advantage of more opportunities. I wish I could invest more into the hobby.

Any of my readers still play magic?

TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 4 "HOW I COULD'VE HAD A BETTER DAY TWO."

 FOR PART 2 CLICK HERE

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

"...LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES I GOLDEN!"

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:

ALL OF MY MTG ARTICLES!

This article is all about how I could've performed better on my second day. There will be two sections in the article, each detailing a different set of edits I could've done to the deck (original article here) and my thoughts about how I will apply the methodology behind the edits in my next pre-release.

TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 3 "HOW I COULD'VE HAD A BETTER DAY ONE."

FOR PART 1 CLICK HERE!

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

"HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 BUT..."

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:

ALL OF MY MTG ARTICLES!

This article is all about how I could've performed better on my first day. There will be two sections in the article, each detailing a different set of edits I could've done to the deck (original article here) and my thoughts about how I will apply the methodology behind the edits in my next pre-release.

WEEKLY ROUND-UP! 4/29-5/5/13!

WEEKLY ROUND-UP PRESENTS

THREE WOLF MOON-MOON WEEK!

7. WORD OF THE DAY! 5/1/13! Doublethink.

Will I ever grow tired of watching Pikaclone slapping Pikachu's chubby cheeks? The answer is no. No. Never.

6. POKÉMON OF THE WEEK! #48 VENONAT & #49 VENOMOTH!

I post a lot of Pokémon stuff, but I'm thinking that I might need to lighten up a bit on it and turn to some other fandoms (except there is SO much Pokécrap!).

5. WORD OF THE DAY! 4/30/13! Mustache.

I wish I could post more Superhero stuff but a) I haven't had the money to buy any new comics lately and b) there is honestly more relateable Pokémon content. Weird, huh?

4. MUSIC MON! REMEMBER MC CHRIS'S BEAUTIFUL GRUMP SONNET?

I took a week off and came back stronger than ever with a really strong Musical Monday article, two Tabletop tales articles, some decent Word of the Days, and a super-strong WTF Wed! And yet... I considered taking this week off, as well. I need some sort of additional motivation to keep this blog a-go-go.

3. TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 2 "AMERICAN DRAGONS"

This week I hope to follow up both of Dragon's Maze articles with two articles that try to show ways I could've used my card pool to build a stronger and more competitive deck in the format, while looking forward to the next event and the future of Standard.

2. TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 1 "NAYA WAR CHANT!"

But, while I didn't find much success, I've learned some tips and lessons from this setback about how to play my events. Like playing outside of my comfort zone, looking for the combos I wouldn't think of before I had the cards before me, and following a structure like about 15 creatures, 17 lands, and 8 non-creature spells (unless I have good control for a different combination).

1. WTF WED! JAPAN #5 SWIMMING ANIME CONFIRMED, MANNEQUINS & ANGLER FISH! (+lil witches)

This article was atomic hot with awesome and funny anime goodness from the shores of Japan (and a side of weirdness too). If you haven't checked out this article yet, do yourself a favor and do so.

TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 2 "AMERICAN DRAGONS"

FOR PART 1 CLICK HERE!

MY 2ND DRAGON'S PRE-RELEASE DECK

RED-WHITE-BLUE 'MERICAN DRAGON DECK

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:

ALL OF MY MTG ARTICLES!

This deck was something of a panicky mess to throw together-- I didn't finish putting the lands together until a minute or two into the first round and didn't sleeve until the first game. I chose Gruul as my guild and got Izzet as my secret guild. The only problem? My green creature pool was pretty unplayable.

So, I made due with the excellent red, blue, and white creature pool I had at my disposal, with the few rock-solid spells I had, and tried my best. In hindsight, I think I should have tried splashing some black because my orzhov, dimir pool was pretty strong and would've probably rocked faces.

Anywho, let's get to breaking down my second event's deck...

Here are links for the following sections:

Part 3: "HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 BUT..."

Part 4: Coming Soon?

TABLETOP TALES: DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE! PT. 1 "NAYA WAR CHANT!"

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

MY DRAGON'S MAZE PRE-RELEASE PT. 1

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:

ALL OF MY MTG ARTICLES!

This article serves two purposes: To share the nerd entertainment around with anyone who might find it interesting and, in this case, to share my experiences with my fourth pre-release.

You can find Magic Cards in super stores (Ex. Walmart, Target) but the best place you can buy your cards, meet other players, and play in events is at your local comic book store or hobby shop. I buy most of my cards at The Comic Cellar. Here is a link to its Google Maps location at 3620 Austin Peay Highway #2 Memphis, TN 38128.

And here is a link to Comic Cellar's Website

I took part in my first of two Dragon's Maze pre-releases on April 27th, 2013, at The Comic Cellar. It cost me $30 ($25 if I had signed up earlier) to sign up and, for that fee, each player recieved 6 boosters packs, including a special booster pack for a chosen guild, as well as a secret guild pack that shares a color with the chosen guild from the other set. For example, if you pick Selesnya, as I did for my first event, I got a Selesnya (Green-White) Return to Ravnica guild booster and my options for a secret guild were from the second set, Gatecrash, and could have been Orzhov (Black-White), Boros (White-Red), Gruul (Red-Green), or Simic (Green-Blue). I ended up with Gruul in my pool. With these packs I had to build a forty card deck (no less than forty cards), with as many basic lands provides as I needed, and then try to win my 5 one-on-one matches, each a best of three rounds, and try to make a ranking that netted me extra packs. Players who participate to the end, even if they didn't place highly, were given a "pity" pack and other prizes. All in all, the event was well worth the admission fee for 6 hours of entertainment and yet...

Everything didn't exactly go according to plan. I am stuck in a rut and actually paid twice for this event with the same result both times-- 2 wins and 3 losses. Netting me no extra packs. As if an insult to injury, I also didn't really net any money cards. Sorry to grief, but I was a little bummed out by the end of Sunday's event. But, that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it again and don't plan on going in the future. I plan to keep on going and maybe my luck/skill will improve. I still got a Gruul and Selesnya pin...so that's something. Back to discussing the vent, sorry about the vent, but I gotta be honest-- I was disappointed in my results. Maybe looking at what I played will show the problem in the first part of my coverage of my pre-release...

On the plus side, my guild did win the maze the first day. So that's something.

Anywho, Dragon's Maze is the third and final set in the Return to Ravnica block. The machinations of the ancient dragon Niv Mizzet have been revealed-- he has discovered a maze that the solution of which will determine the future of Ravnica. In order to win, each guild has chosen a champion to complete the maze and create a new order/disorder in the City of Guilds. A fairly fun-themed small set, Dragon's Maze has all ten of the new mechanics of the set return, alongside a new mechanic that capture the flavor of the guilds and their conflicts. Let's give a short breakdown of it before we move onto talk about my deck...

FUSE- Found on split cards, cards that are technically two cards that can be cast on their own, Fuse allows them both to be cast and resolve from left to right, rather than just casting one of the spells on the card.

MY 1ST DRAGON'S PRE-RELEASE DECK

GREEN-WHITE-RED NAYA WAR CHANT DECK

This was an easy choice, but I wish I had better stuff to work with in my pool (got hosed on my creatures, both days). I chose Selesnya as my primary guild for the first day and was ecstatic to find Gruul as my secret guild. With that in mind, I hoped my non-creature spells would do enough to get my creatures through to killing blow and win me the day. I even splashed blue at one point, something I might talk about in another part of this coverage because there are some things I would've changed (could've used more creatures and less spells, I reckon).

Anywho, let's get to breaking down my first event's deck...

Here are links for the following sections:

Part 2: "AMERICAN DRAGONS"

Part 3: "HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 BUT..."

Part 4: "...LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES I GOLDEN!"