At some point, you’ve probably been at a Magic tournament staring at a list of standings: Maybe you’ve won all your games, but for some reason you’re not number one. You ask around and a helpful soul takes a look:”Your tiebreakers are awful!” You’re left staring at rows and rows of decimals; somehow they determine your position… But how?
Down the road, when great asshammerings are talked about, in hushed tones, over stout mahogany tables littered with historical documents detailing the asshammerings of old, when venerable breath pushes the word”asshammering” past aged lips, this is the asshammering that will outshine them all; the asshammering by which all other prior and subsequent asshammerings will be judged.
I found so many Judgment flavor texts that stated nearly blatant falsehoods, at least according to the book Judgment (upon which we can only rely for the”truth” about the storyline). Similarly, there are some incongruities in Onslaught.
It’s over. OBC, thank God in heavens, is dead and finished. So why are we publishing this report? Well, for two reasons: One, SHELDON’S BACK FROM SAUDI ARABIA AND WRITING! Secondly, not only is it a report, but it’s also a handy primer on the cards that Sheldon played with! So how’d he do?
After creating last week’s baked tourney experiment, what can Ted do when he’s straight? The usual bouillabaise of strange observations, plus a look at Hot Tog and how it will (or won’t) survive the rotation…
Okay, it’s a little early for Halloween – but let me tell you, I’m all excited about the graveyard recursion that Onslaught opens up. I’m diggin’ Onslaught’s graveyard cards… And is that a deck I smell a’brewing? By the pricking of my thumbs…
Notice anything different? Yeah, I thought you might. Why don’t you step over here for a second and let me show you around?
Are your creatures about to eat a Mutilate? Read the Runes! Drawing too many land? Read the Runes and clear out that deadwood! Is someone casting Armageddon? Read the Runes, you won’t need the land anyway! Did you draw a redundant copy of some card? Read the Runes, and cycle it along! Wife sleeping with the mailman? Read the Runes can’t help you there…. Unless you’re Gambit from the X-Men, and then you can use your powers to imbue the card with kinetic force!
“Well,” he said with the air of a man giving change to a particularly leprous beggar,”You should run twenty lands, like I do. That’s enough land for – *snif* – your sort of deck.” The immediate temptation was to grab a chair and embed a seat cushion ten inches into his medulla oblongata… But he was closer to right than I had been at seventeen. Does Onslaught break the land count?
If I can give you guys something fun to read for fifteen minutes, it’s worth it. I like Magic. I like to write. You think something as piddling as a complete lack of an entertaining premise is going to stop the likes of me? Nah. Now grab me a cold one and let’s do Blue before I lose my nerve.
I wish Aphetto Vulture cost one less. But it doesn’t. So, I’ll have to live with it? Will this be one of the secondary themes for this block:”Good but too costly”? I hope not.
Bruce Richard invites you into his basement, taking there VIA THE MAGIC OF FIRST-PERSON CONVERSATION, to see exactly what his little group is up to. Who does Bruce think is an utter B@stard?
One of the most overlooked aspects of the Sideboard coverage for any given event is the”Photo Coverage”. In an effort to draw greater attention to the fine work of the Sideboard team, I figured I’d better put new captions on these things.
Playing Onslaught sealed is like dialing a phone, while drunk, with heavy gloves on. Big, exaggerated motions that mash multiple buttons at once, with random results. Who can mash harder?
