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February 8th, 2008

February 8th, 2008
09:22 am [Link]	Swinger Ads From one of the ads searching for the always-euphemistic "couples to play with": "Open to trying almost anything but do require condemns." So I sent them an email going, "I want to have anal sex with you, but you should know that your lifestyle is wrong, wrong, wrong! And your religion is blasphemous, whatever it is. Your politics are evil!" I figured that'd be a turn-on for 'em. But strangely enough, I haven't heard back from them yet. (65 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)
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12:18 pm [Link]	My Decks, Let Me Show You Them Having picked up a recent set of Ion Deck Boxes and some other assorted deck-holders at SCG, I decided to neatly put away all my multiplayer decks in official casings. I've always envied the people who had whole cases of decks to bring to them - I build decks only at gunpoint - but over the course of the past eighteen months, I have assembled fourteen decks that I've kept. (I've made some more decks which sucked, and so I dissected them.) So, of course, I will tell you about each of my decks, because they are all in pretty little boxes now. Mono-Green Stompy With Stampeding Wildebeests Rating: **** (***** in three-player games) This is my oldest deck, and it's pretty brutal, revolving mostly around the card-drawing engine of "Return a Green card to your hand during your upkeep" of Stampeding Wildebeests and the "Draw a card when it comes into play" of Wall of Blossoms and Multani's Acolyte, combined with massive, massive mana and Natural Order. This can plop down a Multani, Maro-Sorceror on turn 3, which is enough to kill a lot of decks, and four Rancors give everything trample. (Well, except for Multani, who can't be targeted, but that's what the random Green legends and Verdant Forces are for.) It dies to mono-black, of course, and isn't so good at handling decks that steal things. But it can kill astoundingly quickly, and occasionally wipes out a whole table with Vitalizing Wind. U/G Seedborn Muse Control Rating: **** This is just silly Simic stuff with Seedborn Muse, a handful of Leafdrake Roosts, and counterspells. What really saves this deck is the 4x Reins of Power, which is perhaps one of the most insane Blue multiplayer instant ever created. Plaxmata and Simic Sky Swallowers (thanks, vrax!) also help a lot. U/R Old-School Random Rating: ***** My most powerful, and perhaps iconic, deck, this is nothing but a bunch of really powerful cards (a beat-up Library of Alexandria, Stroke of Genius, Force of Will) backed with a ton of burn and a set of Stuffy Dolls and Clones, which are obscenely powerful. Throw in a couple of high-end Red threats like Avatar of Fury (not quite as potent in these days of Ravnica bouncelands) and Crater Hellions, and it has probably my best win record. It dies to quick rushes, but if left alone it can generally do quite well at the end game. U/B ??? This is my newest deck. It's completely rogue. I love it. We'll see how it actually works; I suspect it'll probably be terrible. U/W ??? Also completely spanking new. Very cheap. Either it'll win in an entirely big way, or go home slinking. But it has at least four separate cards I've wanted to play with since they were printed. B/W Clerics Rating: ** This deck should be more powerful, but despite having twenty-four lands it's more prone to mana-screw than any deck I've ever seen, stalling on two lands on at least three separate occasions. It's also one of my rare annoying decks that can go infinite with the Shaman en-Kor/Daru Spiritualist engine, wherein you target the Spiritualist with the en-Kor an arbitrary number of times (it gets +0/+2 each time) and then sacrificing it with some life-gainer like Worthy Cause or Starlit Sanctum to gain a billion life. R/W Firemane Angel Control Rating: ***-1/2 This is a bunch of random Angels thrown together with Red burn and a full set of Akroma's Vengeances. Not surprisingly, the life gain has pulled me out of a lot of games, but it also draws a lot of heat. The repeated mass destruction has come in handy, and occasionally not-so-handy; in fact, the last time I played it I specifically tanked myself because everyone else was playing control, and another Akroma's Vengeance (which I had in hand) would have been too boring. U/W Rebel Control Rating: ****-1/2 This deck has one weakness: If it gets the early rush from a bunch of players, it dies and rolls over. But if allowed to gain strength, the Rebels archetype is tremendously strong, recursing all sorts of nasty threats courtesy of Lin-Sivvi and countering the bad ones with the counterspells, then removing all the Red and Black dudes with Lightbringer and Lawbringer. If it gets to the late game, it wins. So potent is this deck that Ian Cranial Extracted the Lin-Sivvi, and it still would have won a five-man match but for a rules misunderstanding. (I thought a card was an instant, and it wasn't - and if I'd known that, I could have Dominated his guy at the end of turn and swung for the win.) R/G Kavu Predator Rating: *-1/2 This deck won. Once. And then everyone's killed it ever since. Everyone remembers the time I slammed the table with a 42/42 trampling monster, nobody remembers the seven times it's died on sight since then, or hasn't drawn the proper cards to get it working, or has had Kavu Predator stolen and then gotten killed by it. I think it may have won twice, overall, but mostly it just sits around and begs. But everyone knows what it can do, and so they stomp me like a ferret on Weasel Stomping Day. B/G Random Power Rating: **** I might as well call this deck "Pernicious Deed and Spiritmonger win games." Particularly if you throw a Loxodon Warhammer on the Spiritmonger. It's done really well, and it's full of random-ass cards so it never plays the same way twice, but I feel like I'm beating people with rares. Lifeline Rating: ***-1/2 This is a really fun deck. A really, really fun deck. It doesn't win all that much, but it affects the table in such a huge way that it either makes people happy or causes them to gang up on you in fascinating ways. It's gotten much better since I ditched three Belfry Spirits for additional Spore Frogs, which makes it a lot more potent in the long run. Mono-White Control Rating: *** Again, I put all of my best not-used White cards into a deck, and saw how it'd work. The many Wrath of Gods certainly help, but this isn't by any means a world-beater. Mono-Blue Stealy Stuff Rating: ***-1/2 It has no counterspells, except for a single Time Stop. It's just pure "I jack yo' stuff," replete with Briberies, Treacheries, Control Magics, and Vedalken Shackles, plus Clones and other crazy stuff. It's been surprisingly effective, even if it's not as focused as it could be; I'll probably write about it on the official site at some point when I dissect the Mono-Blue Stealy archetype in multiplayer. Certainly it's a testament to the power of Blue, since this is a pile of random Blue cards I threw together. B/G Thallids Rating: * Yeah, it's won.... Because it was so pathetic that people left it alone until everyone else was gone, at which point I had stocked up. Okay, Nemata, Grove Guardian is a real powerhouse, but it totally sucks otherwise. Ironically, it's won games because it's so bad that nobody ever worried about it, which may in some sort of bizarro metagame make it a strong deck, but.... No. (12 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)
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01:23 pm [Link]	Question For You Guitar Heroes In A Rock Band So I was talking to a friend, and I said that "Infected" by Bad Religion on Guitar Hero II (a downloadable track) was the perfect song to learn how to master the across-the-neck chord changes. It's a simple rhythm, and it's easy to get, leaving you just to work on fingering. But it's also the most kick-ass track on Guitar Hero II. There are better songs, maybe, but there's nothing that beats it in terms of making me feel like I am, in fact, rocking out. I thank God I got the wireless guitar, because I dance my ass around the room when I'm playing that, doing the Spinal Tap crotch-thrust and the butt-wiggle because it is just that awesome. Yet you wanna know what really drives me nuts? "Miss Murder," by AFI. That rhythm will have me stage-diving in my own living room. It's not that, again, it's the greatest song, but I feel closest to actually playing a guitar when I do it. I am rocking out to that song like no other. Oh, if you see me at Penguicon on their public, playable Guitar Hero, I will make a fool out of myself with rockness. (On Rock Band? Another downloadable track: "Move Along," by the All American Rejects.) But I know other people have other tastes. And so I ask you all: On your rhythm-based song of choice, what is the song that makes you feel as though you're truly channeling the majesty of the power of rock? I'm genuinely curious. (Damn, I want my X-Box back.) Tags: rock band (65 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)
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05:39 pm [Link]	Dear Bob Thanks for caring. (From gieves.) (18 shouts of denial | tell me I'm full of it)