Deathcab and Elliott Smith lightened the journey to Houston. A three hour-trip to use up my flier miles at the H-town airport. The trees and fields collapsed, uprooted into a bright rosemary purple, and all the trees shook off their drenched branches as the sky unleashed a torrential downpour. The fierce wind animated the different shades of green as they danced underneath the turbulent black clouds. They were playing games with my eyes, moving left, then going right, shaking, and then not moving at all. In the midst of a motor crash, I sat opposite a fine feathered beauty in a white tank top, with hair held up with an ebony bow. She peeked over when traffic picked up, and she became smaller and smaller as I let loose the engine and doubled the speed limit.
A stop at a Shell station provided me with sustinence in the form of Puffy Cheetoes and some sour Skittles. with a pair of Dasani’s finest to wash it all down in a bizarre combination of flavors. My red eyes did nothing to hide my enlightened state, and I took a whiz that lasted an hour. The store clerk looked at me strangely as he scanned my items and smiled in pity.
Passing downtown Houston was like walking among giants. The buildings created an overshadow that provided a brief relief from the scorching Texas sun. It was 7:32pm when panic started to set in. My flight was scheduled for 8:05pm, and I hadn’t even parked yet. Two wrong exits later I found myself at a cheap $6 a day lot parked in the back row. It was 7:43pm before I set foot on Houston Hobby. I figured I needed to get lucky to make the flight, so I didn’t check my bags full of laptops and hair products that exceeded the allowable limit.
My flip flops fell to the ground with a resounding thud as airport security tore through my bag and cursed me for breaking several of the cardinal rules. A shaver, three large bottles of hair product, a laptop that I failed to pull out before it entered the X-ray, toe nail clippers, a poster of Alf, items that gave my terrorist acts away.
At this point I had two options.
1) Throw away my hair products. This way I can take my suitcase with me on the plane and not have to worry about getting it in Baltimore since I’m very late for my flight. This is also the final flight of the day, so if I don’t get my bag on this flight I would have to pick it up next Tuesday, when I’m on my way out of the east coast.
2) Keep the hair products, and by doing such risking losing all of the contents of my suitcase.
After taking an additional ten minutes to check the bag and go back through the maze of ropes, I found gate B47 located at the very end of the hall, calling for final boarding. All hope of having my bag when I touched down in Baltimore was gone, especially after a little speech that the lady checking my bag gave me about “how to file a missing bag report.”
Whatever. Good thing I was passing through New York. I could at least buy some suitable clothing there.
A moist seat sandwiched in between two large fellows was my home for the next three hours. Apparently, all the moist seats sandwiched between two randy hotties were already taken. I’m not sure if I used “randy” correctly in the last sentence, I just saw a guy who looked sort of like Michael Myers a few seats up and wanted to pay tribute. Again, Elliott Smith was my savior, as he lulled me off to sleep with his eloquent verses. My face was wet and cocked back when I wiped some very sticky drool from my left cheek. I found a water, two baguettes of peanuts, and some crackers on the tray in front of me that I didn’t order.
The depressing baggage claim area was next up, which found me reunited with my bag, the one redeeming part of the trip up to this point. I have no clue what I would do with my time if I didn’t have my lappy to keep me sane. Even now, as I’m on the train to Montreal, I can just picture the delightful girls sitting one row back looking over my shoulder to see what important words I’m writing down on this battered keyboard. The truth is that a laptop makes you an elite member of society that everyone looks up to. At least I’d like to think so… maybe they are just looking at the various stick figures that populate my desktop.
It was 12:30am now ,and I felt the pressures of anxiety again, as I had a 1:15am bus to New York I had to catch. A $40 cab ride to the wrong bus station, and a lap around downtown Baltimore in another $20 cab found me at the right station at 1:05am. Whew, just in time. I bought my ticket as KFC’s popcorn chicken danced around in the back of my mouth, providing possibly the last meal this writer will ever eat.
When 1:40am rolled around, the anxiety from before came rushing back.
2:15am and I pulled my laptop out to vent on how stupid the bus system is.
2:40am was when I talked to the station head, at which time she said that the 1:15 bus was full and it had to skip this station… She did inform me that a replacement bus to pick up the 15 stranded New York bound customers would be arriving around 3am.
Root beer and vanilla ice cream swirled around, providing a small treat to reward my patience. It was difficult to eat properly since the A&W people only put one lump of ice cream in the tall Styrofoam cup of root beer. Not quite the floats I remember from my childhood, that had ice cream overflowing around the sides, with root beer creating a volcano-like structure.
3:50am, and the bus finally arrived. The fifteen angry New York bound passengers cried out to the heavens, and gave a round of applause while boarding the bus. I dozed off with the seat fully reclined, looking forward to meeting Billy in the morning for breakfast.
I awoke in a groggy state, engulfed by a monstrous tunnel filled with bright blinking beams, accompanied by red lights braking every so often. The bus weaved in and out of traffic as the sound of honks resonated off the curved walls of the underground road. Daylight peeked into my eyes for the first time since I left Houston, and I felt as though this trip might be shaping up. The New York skyline put everything in slow motion as we approached. Then Billy sent me this:
“Seemrs l.ikean awful day. Coulgnt get a ticket. Riding w steve”
“I feel terrible”
“Very sorry”
Not only did he break my heart, but he also sent it in three separate text messages, adding to my list of expenses for this disastrous weekend. It all broke down, and the floodgate to all my deepest insecurities flowed throughout my body. I wanted to vomit. My stomach was doing circles, and I hadn’t eaten in hours. Not only would I not be able to playtest at all on the ten-hour trip to Montreal, but now I also would have to spend another ten silent hours trapped inside the deepest corridors of my mind with no one to talk to. Another disturbing fact about this turn of events is that Billy was the one who insisted I buy my ticket before he buy his, that way he doesn’t end up riding up there alone if I decided to ride with Fabiano or Sadin.
The bus made made a curve, and the skyline of New York was spread out before me. Everything up to that point didn’t matter anymore. The baggage problems, the stupid cab drivers, the late bus, Billy ditching me. A wind came and swept away all of my worries and troubles away.
An epiphany of sorts came rushing into my lonely mind. There is beauty everywhere, and I was inspired.
I got off the bus and walked around the streets of New York with a new sense of being and self assurance. I gave a beggar a five dollar bill and bought a grande frapachino from Starbucks. The weather was refreshing, the women were pretty, the buildings towered over me, the beggar shot me a grateful crooked smile, and I was walking with giants again.
The walk sign started flashing, and the little white man was staring me down, but I decided to cross anyway. Then the orange hand popped up, and I knew I was screwed as I crossed the large 6th avenue. Three taxi cabs rushed at me with horns blazing. I panicked and made a dash for the sidewalk, just then the handle on my roller suitcase broke and parts scattered everywhere. I lifted the suitcase up over my head and ran for safety with cabi’s yelling obscenities at me as they screeched off. I could feel a thousand glares staring me down, and the insecurities from before came rushing back.
Gone was my sense of beauty and inspiration. I retreated back into my lonely mind and walked silently to Grand Central Station, one block over and eight blocks down, carrying my suitcase the entire distance. I missed out on the grandeur of Times Square, and the lights and buzz of the city in the early morning. I just wanted to crawl up in a large train chair and drift to sleep.
I arrived at Grand Central fifteen before the train departed, and managed to down another coffee to pass the time. I still couldn’t eat, as everything I tried to put in felt like it wanted to come back out. I wasn’t sick, but traveling had turned my stomach upside down.
The train ride has been equally depressing up to this point. I miss the wide open feeling of Texas. I always feel so cramped while I’m in New York. All the houses are old and worn down, looking like something from the latest horror film. One thing I really miss about Japan is their train service. Here in the States you have to find the snack room, at which point they will toss a sandwich in the microwave and throw it back at you all in one motion. In Japan however, they come to you, and there’s also two of them, which makes the service much much better. One takes the money and hands back change, one gets the food and or drink. The food is also much better on the trains there. I nearly gagged when I ate one-third of a ham and cheese sandwich. I actually bought two, one breakfast sandwich and one ham and cheese. I took one whiff of the melted egg joined with a soggy, bun and I threw it away without a second glance.
While in the mess hall, I met two aspiring Magicians whose names I cannot remember for the life of me, even if it was only a few hours ago. We tested Block and I taught them how to play one-on-one draft with goofy packs. I really have no clue what to call the format, so if anyone has any ideas feel free.
The Rules:
Take six random packs. In our case I had Guildpact, 8th, and Coldsnap while he had Betrayers of Kamigawa, Scourge, and Time Spiral. Then you draft them one at a time. I started off my opening Guildpact and took a Streetbreaker Wurm, since it is both very hard to kill and provides both Red and Green mana [Yeah, this confused me too, until I read the next paragraph… — Craig, amused]. After the first picked is selected, continue on by rotchestering the rest of the pack. He takes one, you take one, he takes one, you take one, etc etc.
After you do that with all six packs you gather your 45 cards and proceed to cut five of them. Then you play Magic as you normally would, with the exception that you may play any of your colored spells down as basic land according to color. You could choose to play Fathom Seer as an Island, or choose to cast it normally. For gold spells it gets a bit trickier. All of the gold spells count as the dual land of whatever colors it is, with the exception that they come into play tapped. For instance, I could choose to cast Streetbreaker Wurm, or I could choose to play it as a Stomping Ground that always comes into play tapped.
Easy… now go try it. It’s a lot of fun.
…
Second YouTube Video of the Week
I was on a bit of a Britney rush this week, recounting my childhood memories of the pop-star diva. I watched all of her music videos from her first album and looked back to the turbulent times. Crazy in particular meant a lot to me when I was going through my awkward stage in 6th grade. I remember getting my first CD player and falling asleep listening to “Crazy” on repeat, and using it to wake myself up at 5:30am to watch Pokemon and that old Spiderman cartoon. When I went back to watch the video it brought back a lot of memories until :46 hit and I saw ADRIAN GRENIER making a mix drink! I mean really WTF! I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it. My jaw dropped. Then at :55 I got a really good close up of ADRIAN GRENIER checking out Britney. How awesome is that? Before Medeian, before Aquaman, before The Devil Wears Prada, he was in the “Crazy” music video. I wonder how much Ari pulled off from that cameo!?
Crazy indeed.
One of the stipulations of me becoming a weekly writer has been that I have to include something relatively constructive in each of my articles, because if I had my choice I would drift off each article talking about the latest Magical Martha happenings and random inebriated blurbs. So here’s the deck I’ll be playing (played by the time your read this) at GP: Montreal. I had planned on doing some matchup analysis on all the different decks with Billy on the train, but, yah know, he kinda, uhh… DITCHED ME!
Creatures (14)
- 2 Brine Elemental
- 4 Riftwing Cloudskate
- 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
- 4 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
- 3 Venser, Shaper Savant
Lands (26)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
U/W PICKLES!
I have been testing Mono Blue for the past month or so, with some great success, but I always felt like I was missing a card. Momentary Blink was that card, as it enables you get a face-up Brine Elemental much quicker, to lock the opponent out of nowhere. Generally, the strategy when playing against Pickles is to let them play a Brine, and then kill it. They don’t have to worry about tapping out each turn since it takes an absurd amount of mana to go through the motions. Now you have an excellent answer to Tendrils decks, along with a temporary lock with Venser and Blink. Everything “good” in the format costs 4+ mana, which means with Venser and Blink you will basically turn them into three Time Walks.
Another exciting feature is Aven Riftwatcher and Teferi’s Moat in the sideboard. With them, it is almost impossible to lose to any of the aggro matchups. As it stands right now, I want to squeeze one more land into the deck, and possibly another Spell Burst. But hopefully, if everything goes according to plan I will have won this stupid GP and you will all salute me in the forums. [Sorry Kyle… no salutes for you. — Craig.]
I don’t want to go too deep into detail about how insane this deck is, but just know that you should probably be playing it at the upcoming PTQs. Especially if the format shifts to Korlash and G/W based decks. I also like the Dodecapods in the sideboard. I had a dream last night of someone casting Stupor on me, and I discarded two of the pods.
Here are some of the more popular matchups in a nutshell.
Mono Red
This is the bar standard for aggro decks nowadays. You either have to beat it, or play it. It really seems like all of the decks are pretty well set up to deal with the Red decks, so I’m not sure how much longer the deck will be in existence. If you suspend Riftwing Cloudskate on turn 2 they really have no answer to it, since it will provide both a quick clock, and will set them way behind on tempo if you draw a Blink, another Cloudskate, or a Vesuvan Shapeshifter to copy it. After board you have Teferi’s Moat and Aven Riftwatcher to blow them out of the water.
U/B Korlash
U/B Korlash is nearly a bye. Shadowmage Infiltrator is the only card you really need to worry about, since its the only way they can draw enough cards to over power all of the U/W decks counters. Haunting Hymm and Extripate are also very good against U/W, but they only have one of each, and after sideboarding you have Extripate to take away their Mystical Teachings engine.
Pickles Variants
Blink gives you an automatic edge in this matchup since your combo takes much less mana than theirs. If they are playing U/G or Mono-Blue they will have the same amount of counters as you, but a Blink plus Venser is essentially three Time Walks here. Their Shapeshifters can be troubling, but you can usually play around it fairly easily by bouncing their morphs before you go off.
Big Mana Green
This includes the Big Mana G/R, U/G/r, and all the different ones in between. That deck is nearly drawing dead when they sit down. All their cards cost four-plus mana, and all don’t have a profound effect on the game the same turn they come into play, except for Hellkite. They will be tapping out each turn, which gives you free reign to land the Pickles lock at any time… just beware of Vesuvan Shapeshifter.
G/W and G/W/r
These are the new decks in the block that seem to be quite popular. I haven’t really played against either of them yet, but I got a few lists through the grapevine and they seem very finely tuned, especially the G/W lists. Both of them use Chromatic Star, Edge of Autumn, and Flagstones of Trokair to form a strange type of engine that also fuels Tarmogoyf. The main difference is the inclusion of Kavu Predator in the G/W/r lists. They play both Fiery Justice and Grove of the Burnwillows in their deck, so he can become pretty sizeable in a short amount of time. If either of these have Riftsweeper things can get pretty hairy, but if they don’t the U/W deck looks like it would blow them out of the water. Mystic Enforcer seems to be growing in popularity in that deck, and if you bounce it more than once there is no way your can lose.
…
The Sanchez Gallery
The pale light penetrates my iris and stings the back of my mind as I slam each letter on this battered keyboard. It’s the middle of the morning, and I haven’t slept for days. My eyes hang like a puppet being pulled about by a skilled puppet master whose nose is gushing blood, forming a glorious red river flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, from snorting seventeen lines of cocaine in seventeen separate seconds. His mind explodes across the mountains that become splattered with sticky tissue from a mind not deserving and a soul long forgotten. Seventeen pianos play in the background to the tune of “The Scientis,t” and a pretty girl sticks her leg out to tempt a lonely trucker, like a spider spinning a web for a helpless fly. The trucker pulls over to the side of the road, and the fly has its blood sucked from every last meaningless pore of its insignificant being.
The room is dark, and my leg itches worse than a tubby kid wrapped in seventeen layers of thick wool sweaters. My head spins once, twice, thrice, and the bright light brings me back down to reality, where I still have only seventeen words scrambled about on seventeen blank text documents. A bloody tear rolls down my cheek and collides with my parched lips, quenching my thirst for another seventeen seconds. I cover one eye to see clearly, only to see a grinning heifer staring back at me, cursing me for my screaming infidelities and damning me for my seventeen seconds of solitude.
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!”
“Murder of the mind!” the jester cried passionately seventeen times!
A bloody nose drips on the keyboard, turning the letters into a thick flavor of ambrosia. All seventeen keys taste the same. Words invoke feeling, feelings invoke words, words invoke feeling which invoke words. Seventeen sailors sailed smoothly through seventeen separate seas. Seventeen Smurfs succumbed to seventeen solemn sensations. Seventeen special smiles soothed seventeen sacrilegious souls.
Seventeen…
Such a succulent psalm.
…
Now with added bom chicka wah wah,
snchz
Top 5 Picks
1) A Martyr For My Love For You by The White Stripes
2) Slow Show by The National
3) Everytime by Britney Spears
4) Teenagers by My Chemical Romance
5) Method Man by Wu-Tang Clan
5.5) A Comet Appears by The Shins