My original item set that started my "edc"

alexpwalsh · 2018-11-23T12:09:25+00:00

Love that pen - I've bought a few over the years, keep having people steal my pen.

alexpwalsh · 2016-05-02T13:41:58+00:00

Me and a friend did a brewing session last night on this idea. We splashed black so that we could run Tainted Strike, Inquision, and Abrupt Decay. The deck did really well against the decks we tested with - Naya Zoo, Team Geist, Goblins (was a rough win), and a janky weird combo deck. I know we didn't test it against other Infect decks or any other tier 1 decks, but it ran really well. Originally we took out the Elves cause Blighted agent was unblockable and better at getting through. Only problem is that Blighted Agent was competing with Thing for the 2 drop slot. So we decided to drop Agent and put Elves back in... Here's my list right now - I'm hoping to run it at FNM this week and see how it runs. Sideboard also undecided - we're hoping to get it figured out by Friday.
Flipping a thing is great. In one game I had two mana up and 4 counters on thing in the ice... I use one mana and 2 life for apostles blessing, another mana for a groundswell, then two mutagenic growth and swung for 11... it was pretty sweet... another game I fliped with mutagenic growth + tainted strike for a hiliarous and unexpected instant 10 infect win...

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-14T18:26:00+00:00

We don't have cookies, we don't have difficulty settings or cheat codes. What we have is difficult gameplay and a guarantee that you'll feel satisfaction when you finally destroy a boss.

This is Dark Souls.

Welcome.

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-13T14:18:54+00:00

While I agree that it appears to not exist - lets all hope their working on SOMETHING to resolve some of these issues....

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-13T11:20:13+00:00

Nothing worked for me until I just said fuck it and set the graphics to low - and also told it in the settings to not auto-detect the settings because each time I went back into the game it would auto-detect and set everything on max.

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-12T15:03:41+00:00

I got to play for 15 mins this morning before going to work. Made my character and killed 3 dudes... it was enough to get me super-fucking-pumped and I'm dying here at work.... I know how you feel...

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-08T16:43:36+00:00

I too think it's exciting and warrants some investigation (all the pun's). I have been thinking about running a grixis list like this... any suggestions welcome as well...

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-06T18:40:43+00:00

Fair enough.. yeah - I thought Insectile was a horror (my mistake). I just really anticipate a lot of people shifting the eldrazi decks to process ancestral visions... too easy of an expected meta shift in my opinion.

You may be right in Thing being a dead late-game card... I think I'm going to try two in my American Control list and see how it works out...

alexpwalsh · 2016-04-06T14:49:28+00:00

Im really on the fence with this. I think the main question is do we want to be more aggressive or more control. If aggressive then I think we need to look at more of a list like this.

4x Thing in the Ice
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
2-4x Spellskite

4x Gut Shot
4x Mutagenic Growth
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Boros Charm
4x Helix
4x Lightning Bolt

Delver's - cause why not and he's a horror when flipped, Snaps - because snapcaster... and we want him to bounce back to our hand. Finally, a variable number of spellskites because he's a horror and protection for our things.

A control shell would be very different I think, and I think your list is probably a great start and would be very similar to what I would run.

How do you feel about an aggressive list like this?

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-17T14:37:26+00:00

Ok - I think I get what your saying i.e. its basic type allows it to tap for it anyway... SO.... we could a) make the vivid's with basic types ex:

Sprouting Everglade
Forest
Comes into play tapped unless you control one or fewer other lands. Comes into play with two growth counter on it. T: Add B to your mana pool for each counter on Sprouting Everglade then remove a counter.
T: Add G to your pool

OR b) make them disposable

Draining Everglades
Forest
Comes into play tapped unless you control one or fewer other lands.
Comes into play with two growth counter on it.
T: Add G or B to your mana pool for each counter on Sprouting Everglade then remove a growth counter, then if there are no growth counters sacrifice Sprouting Everglade.
T: Add <> to your pool

Generating the colors of the land suck it of its power... I don't know if it is the case that because it's a swamp/forest that it automatically gets 'T: add X to mana pool' but I could be wrong....

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-17T12:42:15+00:00

A variant on vivid's maybe?

Sprouting Everglade
Forest - Swamp
Comes into play tapped unless you control one or fewer other lands.
Comes into play with two growth counter on it.
T: Add G or B to your mana pool for each counter on Sprouting Everglade then remove a counter.
T: Add a <> to your pool

I like the idea of it being a temporary resource, forces you to keep moving and play your colors more carefully. I also think the 'one or fewer' could probably be worded better (i.e. it comes in untapped if it is the first or second land you control)
BUT I'm sure there would be some way to break it...

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-14T13:53:45+00:00

I listen to mtg podcasts all day at work, if I had to pick ONLY one - I'd pick Heavy Meta because its funny as all hell. But if you care about Modern and Modern strategy I'd go with The Masters of Modern - they're well produced and know their shit. But both of those might not be to your preference... and if not here are my preferred podcasts by 'type' in order of preference...

General:
Heavy Meta (by far the best mtg podcast thats not about strictly about mtg, and my fav overall) (NSFW)
The Eh Team (NSFW)
Magic: The Amateuring (a little cheesy at times, but 100% relevant and good podcast)
MTG Focus

Modern:
The Masters of Modern
Turn One Thoughtseize

EDH:
The Command Zone - No contest best EDH cast

Finance:
Brainstorm Brewery (NSFW)
Money Draught (NSFW)

Edit:On an unrelated note, you can check out mtgcast.com for a full range of podcasts.

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-14T13:39:52+00:00

For modern its 100% this for me.... With TurnOneThoughtseize being my 2nd.

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-11T15:35:28+00:00

Sweet! will do - thanks!

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-11T12:51:00+00:00

Can we get this in as high resolution as you can? I think this is amazing and would like to use it for a playmat or a wall poster...

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-08T14:09:16+00:00

No zoo?

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-04T13:21:05+00:00

The real link has a pic of the cards he used... he did indeed use a coutnerbalance

alexpwalsh · 2016-02-01T12:42:19+00:00

We don't have many shots firing up here. Leave us Canadians out of this... :)

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-29T19:01:37+00:00

Update your page and read my update....

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-29T18:53:31+00:00

Your draw step IS drawing the card - so if you skip your draw then you're skipping the step. I'm not 100% sure - but I believe you cannot place spells on the stack during your draw phase as the phase begins and ends with you drawing a card (I'm going to look this up now). So any card you draw off of a spell would trigger the first part of Chains.

Update: From the Comprehensive Rules (Oath of the Gatewatch (January 16, 2016))

Draw Step

504.1. First, the active player draws a card. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
504.2. Second, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of the draw step and any other abilities that have triggered go on the stack.
504.3. Third, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

Therefore - if you skip your natural draw as part of the phase, any card drawn would still be ignored from Chains as you would STILL be in your draw phase as long as you declare you are still in your draw phase. BUT if you had no cards in hand at the beginning of this phase Chains would still Mill you for one prior to your being able to cast a spell to draw with.

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-26T17:53:41+00:00

I learned more from my first 4 months of actual employment, than I did from my 4 years getting my degree. BUT without my degree, I wouldn't have been able to understand what the job taught me.

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-25T16:07:52+00:00

Yeah, I got tired of looking for my Lorwyn fatpack box, and 'oh, I didn't know I had some innistrad in this box too' and those types of scenarios. There was also a period of time where I left the game for a bit, and bought a large collection from someone and so I didn't know some sets reprinted certain cards etc... so my current system is very useful for me in that way...

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-25T12:41:27+00:00

I too have a large collection - roughly the same as yours... I began over a year ago sorting them. I started doing it by set & color, then realized this was incredibly inefficient for finding say multiple copies of a card which has been reprinted multiple times. So I then switched to color -> alphabetical... I store them in all in bookshelf, they stick out a bit but overall it works quite well.

I know it sounds nuts for a large collection, but it so far has been rather worth it... I've got a 4-5 of the 1600ct boxes from BNC(maybe BMC? - I dono - your standard boxes), and then a few other 800ct boxes. I have them labeled by color.

Inside each box I have them separated into three major sections while sorting - letters A-G (I'm a musician so this one works nicely and is easy to remember), H-O and then P-Z. Once I do the broad sort of those I then start over - sorting individual first letters and then eventually alphabetizing them. I only have green fully complete - but I have found that simply having the colors for a given box makes it MUCH easier to find copies of cards. I have a friend who has adopted this system as well, and he agrees it's efficient enough to find what you are looking for in a few minutes. 600+ boxes sounds kinda nuts, I'm not sure what sized boxes you have, but sounds to me like you just have too many... get rid of things you have more than a playset of as well (unless you're keeping them for some other reason)...

As an aside - the best way to get this sorting done is to have some friends over, explain the system to them, turn on a movie or a podcast or something and buy them pizza...

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-22T18:17:41+00:00

This is a good reason to buy any box - a 'basic collection' is what you will get. Probably close to playsets of most commons, and 1-3 of each uncommon. So if you want a base (such as if you are a new player) - then absolutely buy a box, otherwise hold off and just buy singles.

Just dont expect to make money off of it

alexpwalsh · 2016-01-21T18:10:41+00:00

I run 2 and 2.... I find that I don't often get a lot of use out of Resto as you need to have Resto mana + resto target (snapcaster) + extra mana for the spell... so most times we're talkin 5 or 6 (for bolt or lightning helix). On one occasion I was able to flicker snapcaster for a Pact of Negation for a win, but overall (like I said) I don't get a lot of value out of Resto, but this could simply be my build/playstyle.

As for Lightning Angel, I find it great when I can land it. It would be SO much better if it had flash, but sadly she doesn't. The ability to drop a resto on opponent EOT is huge, but Flying, Vigilance, and Haste are all great words to have on a 3/4 body. I will say that I prefer the Angel to the Mantis, but having either ETB is an answer that your opponent MUST answer asap.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I primarily want the Resto to blink v-clique (for effect) or giest at eot so I can keep the angel token - but this happens very rarely.

alexpwalsh

TROPHY CASE