The holidays make the flow of content a little slow as do finals for half our writers, so if you’ve got a good article idea you’ve been working on and haven’t shipped it yet, please do so. And tell your friends – you guys are a big part of why we continue to be the best Magic website on the planet. (What? Me? Biased?) Now it’s time to dig into the mail bag and answer some more of your questions:
Will my 3 foil Broodstars I have had sitting around since Mirrodin came out actually be worth something again? I desperately would like to know. Thanks,
Tad
Tad,
Sadly, I think your Broodstars will never see play again in Standard. The only possible way I could see that changing is if that bastard Aaron “Coach” Forsythe (who is now too good to answer my e-mails it seems) and the rest of R&D wiped bits and pieces of Affinity without taking out the whole (namely the artifact lands). Even then, Qumulox may be better…
Random aside on Aaron Forsythe – I never told the stories from San Francisco, but Aaron and BDM are two of the best guys of all time to go drinking with, even if their collective age is approaching the century mark. There was one night where BDM, Aaron, Mike Turian, Justin Gary and myself all decided to go drinking at a little bar around the corner. At first we all ordered a beer and shot the sh**, enjoying the company. Then I (innocently) decided to order shots for the whole crew, starting off relatively mild with Kamikazes. At that point somebody decided to make a game of it (shocking, I’m sure) and the next thing I know it had become a challenge to scale up the shots so that each one was worse than the one before. Jaegermeister made an appearance, followed by tequila, and *cringe* vodka (how very appropriate that the Potato orders vodka shots for the crew. Damn you Turian!).
Just after we finish the vodka shot, four pudgy latina girls come in and start macking on Justin Gary, gradually spreading out to the rest of the crew. I quickly decide that wingman is the best role to play here, and deflect the ladies from the three married guys onto the two single, swinging gentlemen (which Justin Gary swore was bad strategy on my part, but whatever). Justin declares that it’s now his turn to buy a shot for the group, and consults the ladies for advice. Just as the bar is closing, we all end up doing a round of Hornitos, which I understand is rather expensive even though it tastes not unlike gasoline mixed with transmission fluid plus a small side of bleach for flavor. The most amusing part of all this is that when we settled up our tabs, the last shot somehow ended up on Coach’s bill, earning a raucous round of applause from the whole crew.
From the bar, the five of us stumbled over to Dennys to find something to soak up the alcohol in our stomachs. I ordered french toast and bacon and ended up wasting three of my four pieces of bacon just trying to get the damned things from my plate to my mouth, so that should give you some idea of the condition we were in. Eventually breakfast was over and we made our way back to the hotel to pass out…
Only to have our alarm clocks awaken each of us to go do coverage for Day 5 of Worlds. The event staff that saw us though we were all going to die, but we persevered and even managed to turn out some pretty good work on Sunday. (I was fine as soon as I ate a bagel and drank some water, which unfortunately did not happen until Nassif’s match finished.) BDM says he still gets a big smile at how green Justin Gary looks doing the video coverage from Sunday. No that’s not a color problem with the download – he just had a rough night. Feel free to check it out in the Worlds coverage yourself if you don’t believe me…
Sadly, the gravitational pull of babyville has kept Aaron away from most Pro Tour stops lately, making the opportunity to experience his company a rare and splendid occasion. Hanging out with Coach, Randy, Sotto, Potato, and the rest of R&D is one of the best perks possible about the coverage job, but they are having so many friggin’ babies out in Renton that who knows when you’ll get to see most of them next.
So uh, yeah. Aaron Forsythe – great guy, former Star City writer… won’t answer my damned e-mails.
Mr. Knuts,
Come on man. When do you think Starcitygames.com readers were born? You can’t have the name “Knuts” AND be a quality writer/editor/metagame predictor/website administrator/tournament reporter/deck builder/card evaluator.
And damn it, your “Ask the editor” column trick to get material actually worked I never write people e-mails… NEVER
WHO’S DOING YOUR WRITING? ITS TIME TO COME CLEAN!
Mr. Duderson,
Ah, if only it were that simple. If I just had a million monkeys in a room banging away at typewriters and I could choose the cream of their literary crop, my life would be… actually it would be just like editing this website. Go figure.
To answer your questions: I think most Star City readers were probably born after 1980, which further chills my cold, dead heart.
As for who is doing my writing, I would normally point the finger at Pugg Fuggly or Shawn Fullerton, but nobody ever believes me, so I’ll confess that I’m doing all my writing (but none of theirs… who has the time for that?).
Think about it for a second – who else would be capable of churning out such a regular flow of goofy, useless inanity?
Honestly it’s not that much work, provided you don’t mind putting in 10 to 12-hour days during weeks you have events, then taking a travel day and working three more 12-hour days on the weekend. The money is decent, but as I’ve said before, it’s the people that keep me coming back for more. I don’t watch much TV these days, so that frees up extra hours to pursue whatever I’m interested in, including writing. On the flip side, these Ask the Editor columns are really tough to churn out on a daily basis, which is why you’ll occasionally see me skip a day or put something up at 12:30am instead of the normal midnight deadline I work with here at SCG.
That said, I’ve grown busy enough with everything else that I’ll probably cut back my travel a bit starting in February to one foreign trip or two domestics a month. Doing a ton of traveling plus editing SCG full time is a one-way trip to burn out, and I’d like to keep my health and the jobs. Most of the people who’ve done regular event reporting in the past were either students or freelance writers who didn’t have to worry about meeting daily deadlines when they came back home. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep a good level of quality on both ends and it will open the door for future editors of this here site here to do the same, but only time will tell.
Hey,
I was wondering, What is the absolute worst food u’ve ever had on a Magic-al road trip?
Joe Hurley
Bell Island, NL Canada
Dear Joe,
They served us raw horse meat and thinly sliced (grilled) garlic cow tongue in Japan. I also had a seafood salad that was rife with whole mini-squids, which wasn’t going anywhere near my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried squid before so I’m not just rejecting it because the little buggers are ugly – I just don’t like the texture. I try to avoid foods that bounce back at me, though I’m a little more tolerant of tofu than I used to be. To be honest, the tongue wasn’t half-bad though I was too tired when we were served horse to brave that one. My wife grew up with horses, so telling my wife I ate Mr. Ed would have ensured a few sleepless nights in the barn for yours truly.
None of that quite answers your question though, because it was more weird than flat-out bad. Instead let me say that the event food you are stuck eating while doing coverage is almost universally awful. If I never had to eat another McDonald’s burger/chicken nugget or some craptastic concession stand hotdog, I would be a happier person. As it is, you just don’t have the time to grab reasonable food at most events, so you go with what’s available.
It’s date night with the wife, so that’s all for today. If things go as planned, I’ll deliver the last part of my Japan report tomorrow and then the rest of the month with be more Q&A.
Cheers,
Ted Knutson
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