Movin'

So I'm in the process of moving from my current house to my new apartment less than a mile away. I will be posting a new deck soon, though. It's a merfolk deck which was inspired by the Lorwyn theme deck Merrow Riverways.

I'm also kind of excited about Masters Edition III. I have yet to play MtG Online, but this might get me to try it out. Legends looked like a lot of fun, and the chance to use the Homelands faeries may be too good to pass up. I also have always been intrigued by The Dark.

Anyway, more soon.

Homelands Update

I am back home for the weekend which means I had the opportunity to fill out my Homelands collection a bit. I've updated the comprehensive list here, but I figured I'd make a new post to list the cards that have been added. Besides, I didn't get a chance to talk about them when I made the list the first time, so why not?
Without further procrastination, here are the cards:

Artifacts & Lands: 3
Clockwork Gnomes
Koskun Keep
Roterothopter

Red: 6
Aliban's Tower (both versions)
Ambush Party (Joskun flavor text)
Dwarven Trader (Reveka flavor text)
Dwarven Sea Clan
Orcish Mine

Blue: 4
AEther Storm
Giant Albatross (art featuring no ship)
Labyrinth Minotaur (Zeki flavor text)
Sea Troll

Green: 2
Folk of An-Havva (Reyhan flavor text)
Leaping Lizard

Black: 1
Feast of the Unicorn (Baron Sengir flavor text)

White: 3
Aysen Highway
Rashka the Slayer
Samite Alchemist (Taysir flavor text)

Total: 19

I was happy to see a lot of new red, since I barely had any before. I also managed to get my first white non-creature spell in Aysen Highway! I think I will build a deck around that card one of these days, just to see if I can. Also, as happy as I usually am to see a white legend, Rashka just sucks. She couldn't even take on Baron Sengir or Veldrane! Anyway, that's all for now. I am tired.

Baby's First Draft

So as I mentioned previously, on the 17th me and five others did a (slightly strange) booster draft. First, there were six of us. Second, we each had 4 packs instead of 3 (all M10, though). I think it was good, though, since it was the first draft for everyone there.
I had a good time, and learned a lot (which is the most important thing). I ended up with some great cards, too.
We played one game against each other person (best of 3 would've taken too long), and I ended up going 4-1. Anyway, I'll just post the deck I ended up playing, an aggressive green deck with a splash of white:

Land (16)
3x Plains
13x Forest

Creatures (15)
1x Blinding Mage
1x Silvercoat Lion
1x Kalonian Behemoth
1x Ant Queen
1x Deadly Recluse
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Craw Wurm
1x Cudgel Troll
1x Giant Spider
2x Stampeding Rhino
2x Elvish Visionary
2x Runeclaw Bear

Other (9)
2x Divine Verdict
1x Overrun
1x Howl of the Night Pack
1x Entangling Vines
2x Giant Growth
2x Rampant Growth

My first pack had Ant Queen in it, so from the start I assumed I'd be playing green. I also grabbed a Divine Verdict and Blinding Mage early on, so white seemed to be good too. I guess I didn't follow through on it, though, since I ended up with only 4 white cards total (all 4 of which you see in my deck list). There was a lot of blue and red floating around, and I actually took some blue on purpose, such as Polymorph, Merfolk Sovereign, two Flashfreezes (both to keep others from having them and to add to WU Flyers) and a near-playset of Merfolk Looters.
I picked up both the Kalonian Behemoth and Overrun later in the rounds both times (i.e. I didn't open either of them), and was quite pleasantly surprised to see them. I later found out that the guy who opened the Overrun also opened a Garruk, and the people between us weren't playing green (it was rather late in the draft). I think that's also how I got the Behemoth.

A quick aside: In my first game, I managed to both play and lose my Behemoth. Let's just say my opponent had a Righteousness in his hand and a Rhox Pikemaster on the battlefield. I didn't even get the satisfaction of the Pikemaster dying!

Now we come to my favorite part, where I talk about all the mistakes I know I made. First of all, I didn't pick up nearly enough white. I feel better knowing that it was a popular color, but I know I could've picked it more than blue and done alright. I was surprised at how well Entangling Vines worked, and if I had known it would do that well, I would've taken more than just the one. I also wish I had taken the first Deadly Recluse I saw, and I wish I had taken that Acidic Slime. There was an early Howl of the Night Pack that I missed out on because it was early and I wasn't sure if green would be my main color.

Well, that's all for now I think. I had a lot of fun, and I hope to do this drafting thing again sometime!

Esper Aggro

This is one of my better decks, I think. Have a look:

Lands (17)
4x Arcane Sanctum
3x Swamp
4x Plains
6x Island

Creatures (23)
2x Ethersworn Shieldmage
2x Glassdust Hulk
4x Tidehollow Strix
1x Sen Triplets
1x Sphinx Sovereign
3x Tower Gargoyle
4x Court Homunculus
2x Master of Etherium
4x Etherium Sculptor

Other (20)
2x Fieldmist Borderpost
2x Mistvein Borderpost
2x Soul Manipulation
2x Executioner's Capsule
2x Scourglass
2x Courier's Capsule
4x Cancel

I like the interaction between Etherium Sculptor and the borderposts. I'm not sure about the number of lands in the deck. The borderposts are as good as lands, but even then I'm sitting at 21. We will have to see how things go.

Homelands

Okay, for this second post I have decided I'll let everyone (no one?) in on a little pet project of mine. For a very long time now (since 2000 or so, I think) I've been collecting bits and pieces of the oft-ridiculed Homelands set. Now, I have a reason for this. You see, the hobby shop near my house from which I bought MtG back in the day has a booster box of Homelands that has been around for ages. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who has bought anything out of it in recent years (or maybe ever). They're also pretty cheap considering the fact that they only have 8 cards in them, so when I was younger I would buy a pack or two since they were so inexpensive. This turned into a kind of tradition, I suppose. Whenever I go home for a weekend, I invariably end up heading over to Creative Corner (the store mentioned above) and picking up some cards, and more often than not, I purchase a booster of Homelands or two. Thus my collection has grown, and with it my desire to one day own the entire set.
Of course, that's not the ONLY reason I started buying up Homelands cards. I also have a very soft spot for old cards that has to do with my own personal experience with Magic (probably a topic for another post), and Homelands was really the only "old" (in my mind, pre-Tempest) expansion I could get my hands on without buying cards online. I think I saw some Fallen Empires boosters once, but that's it.
Anyway, below I will list everything I own from the Homelands expansion, including instances of multiple art where applicable (I would link to each one individually, but gatherer doesn't have both versions of the cards for some reason). Should be fun, right?

Land & Artifacts: 10/15
Aysen Abbey
Clockwork Gnomes
Clockwork Steed
Clockwork Swarm
Ebony Rhino
Feroz's Ban
Joven's Tools
Koskun Keep
Roterothopter
Serrated Arrows

Red: 16/25
Aliban's Tower (both versions)
Ambush Party (both versions)
Anaba Bodyguard (both versions)
Anaba Shaman (both versions)
Dwarven Sea Clan
Dwarven Trader (both versions)

Eron the Relentless
Evaporate
Joven
Orcish Mine

Winter Sky

Blue: 17/25
AEther Storm
Baki's Curse
Dark Maze (both versions)
Giant Albatross (both versions)
Giant Oyster
Labyrinth Minotaur (both versions)
Memory Lapse (both versions)
Merchant Scroll
Narwhal
Reef Pirates (both versions)
Sea Sprite
Sea Troll

Green: 14/25

An-Havva Inn

Autumn Willow
Daughter of Autumn
Carapace (both versions)
Folk of An-Havva (both versions)
Hungry Mist (Gemma flavor text)
Joven's Ferrets
Leaping Lizard
Rysorian Badger
Roots
Shrink (Gemma flavor text)
Willow Faerie (Gulsen flavor text)

Black: 20/25
Baron Sengir

Black Carriage
Broken Visage
Cemetery Gate (both versions)
Dry Spell (both versions)
Feast of the Unicorn (both versions)

Funeral March
Ghost Hounds

Grandmother Sengir
Greater Werewolf
Ihsan's Shade
Irini Sengir

Koskun Falls
Sengir Bats (both versions)
Torture (both versions)

White: 17/25
Abbey Gargoyles
Abbey Matron (both versions)
Aysen Bureaucrats (both versions)
Aysen Highway
Beast Walkers
Hazduhr the Abbot
Mesa Falcon (both versions)
Rashka the Slayer
Samite Alchemist (both versions)

Serra Aviary
Serra Paladin
Trade Caravan (both versions)

Total: 94/140

A few thoughts:
First, the mana fixers in Homelands are just terrible. Even when I was younger I knew they were terrible. The whole cycle was just useless.
Some of these are very off-color, which shouldn't be surprising since it was an early set. In particular, I'm thinking of Willow Faerie and Ghost Hounds. Ghost Hounds in particular is the only mono-black card ever printed with vigilance (Cairn Wanderer doesn't count).
Some of these really aren't that bad, though. Joven's Ferrets is a pretty respectable 1-drop, and I've always liked Giant Oyster. Cemetery Gate is a personal favorite of mine, and has a permanent home in any Pestilence deck I make. Ihsan's Shade isn't bad, either. It's a little pricy at 6, but a black 5/5 with protection from white is nothing to scoff at. Speaking of black legends, Baron Sengir is such a cool card. He's like a white Mr. T, if Mr. T were a MtG card.

Well, that's all I have for now. New cards will be added as I get them.

W/U Flyers

I guess I should mention that I'm not really too interested in any particular competitive format, so pretty much all of my decks will be intended for casual play. Also, I try not to spend too much money on cards, so I tend to use whatever I have lying around instead of buying something that would be slightly better (you'll see what I mean). That being said, let's get to the deck.

Land (23)
1x Coastal Tower
2x Boreal Shelf
12x Plains
8x Island

Creatures (23)
2x Wall of Denial
2x Isperia the Inscrutable
2x Fleeting Image
2x Air Elemental
1x Archon of Justice
2x Goldenglow Moth
2x Angelic Wall
2x Mistral Charger
2x Stormfront Pegasus
2x Soulsworn Jury
4x Suntail Hawk

Other (14)
4x Hindering Light
2x Battle Screech
2x Wing Shards
2x Holy Day
2x Momentary Blink
2x Reprisal

So this is basically just a W/U aggro deck, with a whole lot of flying. I really wish I owned a Flashfreeze or two, because that would suit this deck very well. That and Negate. Then I could probably dump two Hindering Lights and the Momentary Blinks for those. I've been looking at a few other additions as well, such as Sprite Noble or Magus of the Moat.
I could try to trade out the Air Elementals and Fleeting Images for something like Sky Hussar and...I don't know what else so I could include Honor of the Pure and have it be more effective, although it probably would be pretty effective regardless of whether or not I have all white creatures.

ALSO!
I'm very much looking forward to this 17th, when my local MtG group will be getting together for a M10 Booster Draft! It will be the first draft for all of us, so we're making things a little easier on everyone by using 4 boosters instead of 3. If I am still interested in this thing once the 17th rolls around, I'll be sure to take notes on the draft and post about what went on.

First Post

We will see how long this whole blog thing lasts. I'm not exactly the kind of person who follows through with such things, but we'll see.

Anyway, I'm thinking I want this to be primarily a Magic: the Gathering blog. It seems like one of the few interests I have that is blog-worthy, but I'm sure other things will make it on here.
I'll likely be posting decks along with recaps of events I attend, as well as pretty much anything else Magic-related that springs to mind.

Well, I figure it's about time to get started, so I will end this intro post and start a new one!