Last week I was informed that my services were no longer desired at the Factory of Death, which drew the loudest”woo hoo!” that any of all y’all have ever heard. I lasted six whole days. To celebrate, I accidentally watched the second part of”The Deer Hunter” first. That was weird.
Oh, and I’m moving to Portland, Maine. On purpose. More details on this developing story as they become available! But it is Upheaval! on a semi-grand scale for such an old, decrepit and cantankerous fellow.
Ponder Squee’s Revenge, while considering that many of the PTQs I’ll be playing in will now be in Boston. Hey, don’t a lot of the YMG guys come from/hang around Boston? This is what we call”just desserts.” You know that bed I made by ripping on Darwin and, by association, YMG? Well, pull down the covers, yo, for I’m crawling in.
Neat.
I’m convinced that Mirari and Haunting Echoes will not be very good in Constructed, and here’s my conspiracy theory:
Star City has priced those cards as the highest in all of Odyssey, at $12 and $10 respectively, and other sites have set those bad boys up in the first tier of desirable cards. (If I have to hear about Haunting Echoes/Traumatize one more time, I think I’ll vomit all over myself. I guess that combo must have eluded the playtesters! More than likely, they tested the hell out of it, and probably found it to be devastating – the one time out of twenty that it actually goes off.)
Quick, name a card that was hyped right out of the box that actually earned it’s keep…
Apocalypse told us to get as many Phyrexian Arenas, Desolation Angels – and would you believe Wild Research? – as we could get our grubby hands on. The Angel did eventually see a little love, but Arena proved in a hurry that it was not the new Necro, and Research proved, well, it proved nothing, since it appears that no one actually ever put it in a real deck.
Okay, I guess you could say that the painlands were a can’t miss that didn’t.
Planeshift offered up Orim’s Chant, Doomsday Specter, and Phyrexian Scuta as the”must have as soon as friggin’ possible” rares, of which only Scuta really cold kicked it over here baby pop, and seemingly only in AndyJ.dec. It seems that no one except me and The Bag could see that Chanting before playing an Angel with kicker was just plain wrong, so no one ever tried it. Did anyone ever play Doomsday Specter in a sanctioned Constructed tournament? And did it ever live to actually deal damage?
By the way, Eladamri’s Call was to be the new dawn of Survival in Type 2 and IBC. Um, heh.
Invasion told us to snatch up Absorb and Undermine, Yawgmoth’s Agenda, the Dragons, the tappy duals, Kavu Titan, Void, Blazing Specter, Skizzik, and Fact or Fiction. Well, what can I say? Invasion was so damned good that no one could go wrong in buying boxes upon boxes of that bad boy. Although, I did hear the following more than a few times….
“Urza’s Rage costs twelve with the kicker! That’s retarded – who ever gets to twelve mana?”
“Ghitu Fire? Ah, Fireball is a rare now? Whatever!”
Although, Shadowmage Infiltrator is also at $10, and that card is your first girlfriend and a beanbag chair and a promise of some nookie after your parents go to bed. Of course, it’s not like the card is actually new; it’s been what, four years or so since someone figured out that Ophidian is, like, really friggin’ good? Perhaps this one will live up to the hype, or at least be in five million decklists at States.
Finkel alert: After four boxes, I have seen a total of zero Infiltrators. Much like Invasion’s hard-for-me-to-pull rare, Blazing Specter, I am starting to think that Wizards short prints some of the rares. How else can you explain that I now have in my possession seven Chance Encounters? Might as well make that eight, since I’m fairly certain that I’ll open another one on Sunday.
But you know what they say about digressions; those that digress on a regular basis are ass. Well, I always say that… While I’m digressing, of course.
As practice and preparation for the October 7th P to the T to the someone has to Q, I acquired a box of Odyssey starters and boosters and brought said treasures to The O on Tuesday. That was some weird.
Seven guys cracked and built decks, and in the middle of deck construction, a few more guys would come in, grab a set, and commence to building. It was very much a free for all, with a round-robin type of feel. Cuneo, The Lord of the Walls and Spikey Mikey waged battle in their own little corner; Bag and I did as well, and everyone else just sat down and, well, brought it. It was a most casual yet serious night of Magic in which I learned one thing that I think might be correct: Blue/Green is a very damned good combination. And adding a little red is a bowl full of icing that moms says you can lick.
“You nerve wracking sons-a-bitches – it’s like I’m playing cards with my brother’s kids.”
-Billy Bob Thornton, Tombstone
The above quote has no relevance to anything, but I’ve always wanted to use it at a tourney, but can never remember to do so. Hence, perhaps one of you will take those words and apply them at your next tourney so that Billy Bob’s words will never die.
White/Anything is annoying, especially since it has no way to win short of decking or hoping that your opponent dies of sheer boredom. Well, it has that friggin’ Iridescent Angel, which is very, very, very fair in Limited. Black ain’t too shabby, but it is kind of shabby, and red has a ton of burn and, well, a freakin’ Mogg Flunkie and a bunch of dudes that can be”squeezed” into your deck without much sorrow. However, Acceptable Losses still seems quite unacceptable to me. But hey, I think Chimeric Idol is ass, so what do I know?
Blue/Green has too many goods: Fatties comin’ out yer ass, and more fatties comin’ back again and again, what with all those”here’s another friggin’ token dude for you,” ridiculous pumpers and”Threshold makes me absolutely insane” guys. And then you add blue, which has a retarded amount of (good) card drawing, with Think Tank and Cephalid Broker being about as nutty as nutty can be in Limited, super-nutty bounce (Repel, Dematerialize, Aether Burst), and more quality flyers than you can shake a 0/4 flying wall at.
Don’t mention that there are counters too, because no one seems to think they’re any good except me, especially Rites of Refusal, which I like way too much.
If you want that”Hi, I’m almost a Constructed deck” feel, play Blue/Green with a dollop of red. It’s Liquid Tempo all over again, but this time without the Liquid nor the Tempo.
I’m almost ready to say that it’s the Odyssey Limited replacement of Invasion Limited’s U/B/R. Give me a week or so, and I think I’ll be able to say it with more conviction. Until then, I will remain open to the other colors (not really), and hope that I can go Blue/Green/just a pinch of red between your cheek and gum.
“Dodecapod could be too much of a liability against weaker players who might have brought red-green or other aggressive decks to the table.”
Alex Shvartsman, Sideboard
I think I find that funny.
The Auction of The People received over 3,000 entries, which is just a few less than Alongitog gets for his”Break This Card” contests.
And did you see the battery of rules that Alongitog hands down for his contest? Um, wow! Entering his contest seems like it could be harder than doing Chinese Arithmetic on a rusty abacus! It’s easier to adopt children than to try to Break Alongitogs card! It’s easier to get on the space shuttle! Of course, this is coming from Johnny Spur-of-the-moment, who runs contests on an impulse, and ends up sending a billion rares to a billion guys in a billion countries because he doesn’t like rules, or at least taking the five minutes to type them out.
There is a great big”Heh!” in there somewhere, but not quite a”LOL!”
Speaking of Da’ Invitational, and judging by the participants decklists, it appears that Type 2 (or at least States) can be condensed into one phrase:”Mage or Rage?”
Do you play Shadowmage Infiltrator, or the best darned way to get rid of him (sans Divert): Urza’s Rage?
Personally, I think 4x Mage, 3x Thieving Mike Magby, and 3x Thought Devourer sounds damned sexy. Thought Devourer… In Constructed!? Chiefs, it’s a 4/4 flyer for 2UU… But how could I possibly advocate having a maximum hand size of three – or zero with two Devourers out?
Maybe Agenda? Or maybe you smash face with a 4/4 fattie, keep protection in hand, and just friggin’ win. Add a Mage and/or Magby to the equation, and let’s examine what we really have:
1) A 4/4 fattie.
2) A 1/3 FearPhid and/or FlyingPhid that draws us a card (or two) each turn.
3) No more than three cards in hand at end of turn.
Um, do you think that you could live with dealing five or six points a turn, while still being able to keep three answers in hand? Especially when you consider that you can rip through your deck to find the freshest produce available?
Skies is back, but this time it’s pissed. Really pissed. And it don’t need no stinkin’ hand!
Peep this:
//NAME: I Suck At States.dec
26x Regular U/B Stuff That You Know By Rote
4x Shadowmage Infiltrator
3x Thought Devourer
3x Thieving Magpie
11x Island
9x Swamp
4x Salt Marsh
Board:
A whole buncha Cremates
I just can’t think that the above decklist is ass; potential good times may lie somewhere between the Devourer (yeah, yeah, Flametongue Kavu – whatever), and the seven ‘Phids.
Preliminary testing says”don’t give up on us baby.” And that is what they call”food for thought.” Heh, a pun with the Devourer. I am clever.
—feel free to ignore this line, for it really means nothing at all—
But enough with the pleasantries, let’s get down with the sickness…
…A Sunday PTQ… Because Mikey Mike Guptil and his Funky Bunch would have to charge each player like four hundred beans to play if he wanted to rent a place downtown on a Saturday. I’ve gone on record as saying that I would pay no more than two hundred, so Sundays it is! Something about women being all goofy and wanting to be married on Saturdays or some other suck nonsense. What’s the friggin’ point? You’re just gonna get divorced anyway, and half of them are on their second marriage already.
…At the Westin William Penn, downtown Pittsburgh. Doesn’t that sound like a really ritzy hotel? Alas, it’s fairly ass, even though the whole building is done in marble.
Oh, yeah, Magic.
I played Magic in a Sealed deck kind of way. Here’s what happened to me and my monkey, but much like Warren Zevon suggested, you should leave my monkey alone.
Tbag found out on Sunday at 8:20 that I would be at his cribbo on Sunday at 8:30. And Dhuse Dhuse had even less time to get ready. Plans are ass – spontaneity is reverse ass. And”spontaneity” is difficult to spell.
These CMU Hookas were here:
Chiggitty Chas
Dhuse Dhuse Revolver
Scotty Bag Man
Fran The Wandering Mage Fletcher
Bryan Band-Ass
Dahntahn Andrew Freakin’ Brown
Andrew Cuneo, Lord of the Walls
Nick Eisel Eisel Baby, Too Cold Too Cold
Jeremy Oooh, Dropped Right Open Darling
Spikey Mikey Pat-Ass
Paul Sotto Voce Sottosanti
And these guys who have played Magic before were too:
Dennis Friggin’ Bentley, former World Champion
edt, former shiny shirt wearin’ strategy writer and stuff
Jason Means Greens
Randy If Lovin’ You Is Wrong I Don’t Wanna Be Wright
These guys showed up as Ambassador Clams, as contractually obligated by Wizards:
Mike The Baked Potato Turian
Eugreen Eubroken Harvey
All in all, there was much love in the room, and some skillz as well. Of course, it’s nowhere near the level of competition that you would find in a Portland, Maine PTQ – those guys are the best in the world and I love them all, biblically.
Man, Foily Five is just plain neato, and shiny as all hell too. It is fun to the FUNth power, even when your teammate is Dhuse Dhuse, the worst drawer of mana sources in the short, yet storied history of Foily Five.
Dear Pete,
How’d you like to sponsor a Foily Five format at the next Invitational? You’d only need, um, like three thousand foils.
Love,
Johnny Hahnny, creator of Foily Five, or more accurately, the only guy stupid enough to actually build a Foily Five
The Bag and I faced off against Sotto Voce and Dhuse Dhuse, with The Bag sucking so much at drawing mana that I had to be the flagbearer for the team and beat down the world with my Goblin Trenches tokens, which held off Dhuse Dhuse’s Shivan Zombie, even though it has pro:white. And that’s all I’m saying.
Later, I was unfortunately paired with Dhuse Dhuse, who proceeded to draw two Mountains in his opening hand, mulligan to six, and keep a one Swamp, Chromatic Sphere hand, which became so much ass when he drew a total of zero lands for the next five turns whilst The Bag sent Treva, The Sucky Dragon at our collective beans. Bags always gets the Sucky Dragon, which does not suck in Foily Five. Hey, that’s strategy!
Even though my teammates always suck at drawing mana sources, Foily Five is such an amazing format because no one plays it – probably because no one else is idiotic enough to build a three hundred card foil deck. Or maybe only drunks, degenerates, and utter losers have that many foils in the first place. And six hundred more in reserve, just to keep the format”fresh.”
November 1 Errata:
All non-foil cards are hereby banned in Foily Five.
Look at me, I’m my own little DCI… Or My Own Private Idaho.
Oh, and if you happen to bump into me at the next event, I’d certainly take any unwanted, non-sucky foils that you wish to donate to the Foily Five (and I must thank David The Earl of Bruce for the idea, since he gave me a foil Flame rift way back when that got me started on this wacky idear), but you have to sign them first. Don’t worry, I have enough Sharpies for everyone. And try not to bump into me too violently, for I’m gentle and sensitive and otherwise frail and fragile (it must be Italian!), but I’m not allergic to penicillin. So there.
Here’s what a brother made:
Diligent Farmhand
Chatter of the Squirrel
Nimble Mongoose
Muscle Burst
Krosan Archer
Rabid Elephant
Elephant Ambush
O-ver-friggin’-run
Yes, I said O-ver-friggin’-run
Really, I did
It deserves some white space of its own
This would not be enough white space
to justify just how stupidly
good that bad boy is
especially in Sealed Deck
which is what we were playing
coincidentally
Syncopate
Repel
Aether Burst
Concentrate
Treetop Sentinel
Scrivener
Aven Fisher
Firebolt
Barbarian Lunatic
Ember Beast
Chainflinger
Halberdier
Anarchist
Ashen Firebeast
Steamclaw
6x Forest
5x Island
5x Mountain
1x Seafloor Debris
1x Ravaged Highlands
Well, I got what I wanted, dammit: Blue/Green, with a little Red Lovin’.
For those keeping score, that’s eighteen lands and forty-one cards, just like at the Prerelease. Eighteen lands seems so damned perfect for Odyssey Limited, but perhaps it’s just me. The forty-one, on the other hand, could really stand to be forty, although decking is a legitimate concern, that one should be concerned with, a little, sort of, well, maybe a teensy weensy bit.
Incidentally, no one told me that there was a Nice Ass Convention at the Westin William Penn.
“Nobody has a bad ass anymore!”
-Michael McKean, Flashback
“They have machines now.”
-Richard Masur, in response to the above declaration
I think I used those quotes before, but damn, they’re just that good. Although, the movie sucked something fierce, except for the following quote:
“What’s with this”Sir” [edit]?”
-Dennis Hopper, a big fan of keeping it real
Where was I? Oh, yeah, nice asses and the proliferation of such. Man. And I thought it was tough to play at CMU, where one of the requirements to enroll is having a nice ass. And The O has windows that allow full viewing of the Olympic-sized pool.
The only thing that saved me from combustion was the fact that many of said nice asses were wearing Steeler jerseys. That’ll calm a brother down quicker than an ice cold shower, which doesn’t really work anyway.
Pardon me while I think about asses some more…
My eyes are now rolling up in the back of my head like Linda Blair in”The Exorcist.”
Round 1: Brian Karrigan
If you can not think of”We love you, Miss Harrigan,” then you have never had a fetish for the cast of Little Orphan Annie – Andrea McCardle and Danielle Brisbois were the shizzou when I was ten and very, very prepubescent, but still drawn to them like the animal (pig) that all men really are.
Game 1: B mulligans and takes forever to find his third color, or his second color, or whatever color was in his hand that he couldn’t cast. However, he did manage to beat a brother down with 1/1s and the like until said brother was able to bounce stuff and send in the clowns, which, contrary to everything that clowns stand for, were not the least bit funny.
Game 2: After fifteen turns of us going”play a dude, go,” B’s life goes like this: 19, 7, 4, die, although it took a very, very, very long time. O-ver-friggin’-run is fair.
1-0 Number of matches that went to time: 1
(They call me”Johnny Coffin’ puppet.” Get it? Coughin’? Sometimes I try too hard to be witty. This has been one of those times.)
All I’m saying is this:
Lucas Joy owns four foil Nightscape Familiars. I know this because he told me. He also told me that he forgot to bring them for my perusal and general ogling. Chiefs, if I was ever to spy four foil Sexual Chocolate King Dons, I think I’d be the big picture on Consumption Junction – my reaction would be so disgusting that it would border on erotic, a la Anais Nin.
Lucas was also trying to obtain Shadowmage Infiltrators. He eventually gave up when he finally found one guy who had three in his trade binder, but, Heh! They’re not for trade! While I haven’t traded online for over a year, I feel like I’m about to get all Deranged Daddish on all y’all. But I won’t, ’cause I have no reason to hate MOTL. But I’ll try for no reason whatsoever.
Tip: Reading Anais Nin when you’re twelve will give you a lifetime of issues and turn you into a hella pervert. Trust me on that one.
Round 2: Owen Stupka, Esquire (as the DCI software says)
e to the d to the t becomes a spider who sat down beside her and started to watch our match. It was in conversing (and other past conversations and mail and love fests) with said e to the d to the lower-case t, that I realized that there is no man on Earth that has more spunk.
edt is the Katie Couric of Magic, but with smaller teeth and shinier shirts.
Game 1: O drops a Wayward Angel, much to my chagrin, on turn six. On turn nine, I begin to realize that she’s friggin’ good. Not that she’s crappy without Threshold, but you know what I mean, don’t you?
“Do you know what I mean?”
-Lee Michaels, in his 1971 Top Forty hit”Do You Know What I Mean?”
Game 2: This game lasts for about forty minutes, with Esquire O keeping his guys at bay whilst I played out as many as he did just to maintain parity. On about turn twenty, I tap 2GGG and send in my clowns. Nyah, nyah – I got my cool card before you got yours!
Game 3: There’s about four minutes left to play, when I feel The Bag sneak up behind me to observe the inner working of technology. My opening hand is a little iffy: Farmhand, Ravaged Highlands, Barbarian, Island, Mountain, Repel, Archer.
That’s what we call a”speculative hand.” Sometimes it works out well. This was not one of those times. It wasn’t a Bruce hand, for I was very aware to consult with Bruce when I felt the”ah, whatever” urge. I contend that the above hand was a hand that didn’t need much help, but the help it did need did not arrive, which is not all Bruce up in here, but simply a retarded cousin of Bruce deciding to not spread the love my way.
Of course, O gets sligh on me with Mongoose, Mystic Visionary, Ember Beast, and Pardic Firecat on turns one through four. Oh, how I tried to compete… But alas, ’twas not meant to be. And I blame The Bag, for he is bad karma for Rizzo all up in here, but only when he’s watching during game three, and from the opening draw.
1-1 Number of matches that went to time: 2
(Owen is like eighteen or something, but the DCI database still maintains that he’s a lawyer. Go figure it out. I am now 0-2 lifetime vs. eighteen year-old lawyers.)
Round 3: Matt Davacangelo
Matt’s one of those guys that looks like he could actually make it in the real world. Ya’ know, a cool lookin’ guy, much like Adrian Sullivan, who I bet has gotten more than a brother could ever want simply because he has the”intellectual, understanding, yet could be dangerous and that turns me on” look that drives da’ wimmins wild. Or so Comso and Teen always say.
Game 1: All I’m saying is this: me with lots of dudes casting O-ver-friggin’-run and then Anarchist and then lather, rinse, repeat. And that’s all I’m saying, for I can say no more.
Game 2: Matt chooses to play and begins with the best first turn play in Odyssey: Diligent Farmhand. It only got worse for me: Chatter x2, Beast Attack x2, Rabid Elephant, Morbid Hunger at your dome x2, and Zombie Assassin. Um, wow?
Game 3: Yeah, like we have a prayer at finishing this game in five minutes. The last extra turn comes down to me needing to draw one of two things: O-ver-friggin’-run and swarm for the glory, or Firebolt and hope a brother blocks all stupid. I peel the Firebolt, but Matt decides to block correctly, which is ass – bad blocks are what life is all about.
1-1-1 Number of matches that went to time: 3
(Who bothers to look at the camera anyway?)
Round 4: Fenix, a.k.a. Matt Something, who sometimes plays at CMU
I was fully expecting this match to go to time as well, since Fenix has had more than a few epic hour-and-a-half battles with The Bag, Rating Point Ronnie, and Eugreen Eubroken Euharvery at The O.
Game 1: Fenix is playing mono red – at least it appears so since the first six lands he dropped were Rui’s 18 Montanhas. His Magma Vein was amazingly annoying, and he sacced lands like they were going out of style – which of course, they soon did, since he stopped drawing them eventually, and was left with Sandstone Deadfall, a pitiful rookerful of lands, and a Pardic Firecat to my fatties, mo’ fatties, and um, two flyers.
‘Twas close, but remember what they said about the cigar? The F to the Enix up and ran out of gas.
Game 2: Can you say”Hi, my name is…Slim Shady?” I am sligh: Farmhand, double Chatter, Ember Beast, Halberdier, Ambush x2, Aven Fisher, and drumroll please…O-ver-friggin’-run. Plus three/plus three, um, and trample.
And we had like fifteen minutes left.
2-1-1 Number of matches that went to time: 3
(No, the pic isn’t blurry, you are coming down with a mean case of glaucoma – and dude, hold the friggin’ camera still next time!)
Round 5: Derek McClasky
Derek has much in common with Andrew Cuneo – they both never, ever, ever, ever, ever get riled up during a match. Most players emotions during the course of a match could be charted to look like a Bell Curve, but these guys’ emotions would be a straight-ass line.
Other guys emotions:
V
Derek and Cuneo:
_
I think they just may be Vulcans.
Game 1: My turn four Archer is met with his turn four Archer – and that, ladies and gentlemen, is one hella fast start. However, soon after, I manage to drop Rabid Elephant, Chatter x3 (ah, Anarchist, we love ya), Repel x2 (ah, Scrivener, we love ya), and Elephant Ambush x2 (ah, Flashback, we love ya) on his dome, with additional love from Firebolt and Chainflinger with Threshold. It was quite enjoyable fighting through Angelic Wall and Embolden – no, really it was. O-ver-friggin’-run, when D was at five, was times that Embolden can’t hang with.
Game 2: I dropped O-ver-friggin’-run, on his dome twice… And lost. Let’s just say that Embolden, a Metamorphic Wurm that got some instant and amazing speed Threshold, and Blessed Orator were involved. White cards – it’s just doesn’t get any better than this. Well, yeah, it does.
Game 3: Ah, five minutes to go in the round, and who do you think sneaks up behind me? Yes, everyone’s favorite Bag, which means that when I look at my seven card”speculative hand” and decide to keep, bad times will ensue. Just as Owen Esquire did in round two, D drops dudes on turns one through four, and for fun, on turns five and six, while I’m twiddling my thumbs thinking that if I can just draw two Plains and Wrath of God during my next draw step, I can come baby come baby baby come come. Heh, when’s the last time you heard that song?
2-2-1 Number of matches that went to time: 4
(This pic was taken seconds before I started to cry, or, as others have so eloquently stated:”I put crying on the stack.”)
Round 6: Johnny Adkins
After our match, Johnny mentioned that he was going to lose a ton of points. I asked him what his rating was, and he replied with”1880.” If I would have known that, I would’ve tried oh so much harder; chiefs, that’s like a 24/8 match for me!
Hmm, if I win, I gain six points, and if I lose, I drop twenty-six. That seems to mean that if you are an 1880 and go 5-1, you could conceivably lose points.
That seems fair to me – the once in a while that I beat a guy in the high 1800s makes up for a month of my 3-5 finishes. Cool.
Game 1: I play a dude, Johnny does as well. Repeat the previous sentence for eight or nine turns, until The Original Johnny Mintbox draws O-ver-friggin’-run. I think I cast O-ver-friggin’-run, added up the damage, and said”attack for forty-eight.” In Sealed.
Game 2: Whilst I am Johnny Mintbox, Adkins is Johnny Good Cards. And hell, does he have a lot of them, and Words of Wisdom and Looter x2 to find them. However, we eventually found ourselves at an impasse, with both of us running out of cards. Johnny counted my library and then his, and decided that it would be best if I was the one who benefitted from the happy little Looter ability of”target player draws a card then discards a card from his or her hand.”
Ashen Firebeast put a stop to that nonsense in a hurry, but did he ever get to attack? Did I ever get to draw my O-ver-friggin’-run? I am ass when I don’t get my O-ver-friggin’-run, which means something, but I’m not sure what.
Game 3: You know the drill: He is sligh, while I am ass. But this time I can’t blame it on The Bag. Or Bruce. It just happened.
2-3-1 Number of matches that went to time: 4
(Johnny Good Cards puts the moves on Johnny Mint Box, on a PG-13 site no less.)
Round 7: Jim Plance
As much as I would like to pronounce Jim’s last name”Plawn-Say,” it’s just plain ol'”Plants,” which is good, since the French pronunciation would require the use of a tilde, or whatever those things are called that my computer can’t produce anyway.
Game 1: A double mulligan is not very easy for Jim to O-ver-friggin’-come.
Game 2: While Jim didn’t mulligan this game, he didn’t seem to like the idea of playing anything other than Chainflinger. He liked it so much that he cast two of those bad boys. However, Steamclaw kept his boyz as regulation-sized Tims, and four tokens, topped off with an O-ver-friggin’-run did the rest.
3-3-1 Number of matches that went to time: 4
I went to time in four of my seven matches. I think that means that I may be a slow player. But I doubt it, although the evidence seems to suggest that I am, which may or may not be correct, even if it does seem to indicate that I should begin to get a move on, although, I think that I do indeed get my moves on, which seems very odd, since I went to time in four of my seven matches.
The above paragraph was brought to you by The Jim Rome Foundation, which specializes in saying the same thing about a hundred friggin’ times. But he makes six figures to do so, while I, um, don’t. But I should. But then I’d be the dead. I am so torn!
(Jim said,”sit on this chair, and I’ll stick my hand in your back and pretend that I’m a ventriloquist and you are my dummy.” While he was talented at throwing his voice, he didn’t have the balls to try to make me talk while he was drinking a glass of water.)
After Da’ Swiss, only one CMU fellow was left to represent…
6- Paul”Sotto Voce” Sottosanti
While the rest were content to be pathetic…
18 – Chiggitty Chas
20- Dhuse Dhuse Revolver
24- Your Humble Narrator
27- Scotty Bag Man
28- Fran The Wandering Mage Fletcher
30- Band-Ass
36- Dahntahn Andrew Freakin’ Brown
40- Cuneo, Lord of the Walls
46- Nick You’re As Cold As Eisel You’re Willing To Sacrifice Our Love
50- Jeremy Oooh, Dropped Right Open Darling
72- Pat-Ass
Another bad day for the good guys, except for Sotto Voce. Lemme go out on a limb here: Remember when I told you all that Eugreen was broken and would be breaking things in the near future? Well, Sotto Voce is broken and will be breaking things in the near future as well.
“He got mad weapons too? Ain’t tryin’ to hear dat,” said Will Smith. Alas, Mr. Prince, ’tis true indeed.
Buehler Block Limited is slowly reminding me of IBC. While tempo is not yet the buzz word that describes the format, it sure seems like it would be more than a little relevant if someone would mention that word in relation to BBL. However, it’s not as obvious as IBC was, but it’s there for all to see. Sort of.
In looking forward to using Odyssey at States, I finally realized that I don’t even know which state I’ll be playing in, although it looks like it’ll be Maine, which of course is the best darned state in the Union.
If anyone reading this is a current resident of Maine, the best state in the Union, drop me a line with info you may have on where the local store is, where the PTQs are held, and assorted tips you may have for a Pittsburgh Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Pardon me whilst I stick out my tongue and tell you a little story of the lonely guy in the corner who didn’t know anyone. All right, I’ll skip it, even though I get to be him again. But this time, with enemies. Maybe.
But the bright side is that I can look forward to spreading my love even further. Or at least my bacterial meningitis.
John Friggin’ Rizzo
0-3 lifetime Apprentice record vs. Team Academy’s September Babe of the Month
“Sotto Voce” means”in a soft voice” or something in Italian. I know this because I bought the full score for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and tried to learn how to play it on guitar. Heh, that was a realistic expectation.