Drafted!

I know - 2 blogs in 2 days what the hell?  Due to a slight communication problem yesterday the plans for Saturday's drafts have had to be changed.  On Saturday there will be "draft packs" available from Patriot Games for £10 which will consist of;

• 2 x Dragon's Maze Boosters.
  
  
• 1 x Gatecrash Booster.
  
  
• 1 x Return to Ravnica Booster.
  
  
• 1 x Random Promo (Maze's End or Foil Plain or Breaking//Entering.
  
  

1 of the Dragon's Maze boosters is prize support and will either go into a pool or remain as a flat 1 per player depending on the nature of the draft you are in.  

Having purchased your draft pack(s) from Patriot Games you will then follow this map to a local pub!

The drafts themselves will be in the Old Queens Head which is next to the bus station in Sheffield and is an amazing pub with a strong history of gaming who have been kind enough to let us draft there.  Details of the pub can be found here.  They are open from 10 am have a wide range of drinks including Tea and Coffee and do really nice food at a reasonable price.  The place has just undergone a full internal refurbishment and is very comfortable inside with superb Magic playing tables!  If there are a lot of us they have said we can use the function room upstairs which comfortably seats 30.

To help gauge numbers for the pub I will put a "are you coming" thing in the Sheffield MTG Facebook group here.  Obviously you will not be able to eat or drink anything in the Queens Head that was not bought there.

Any questions PM me on Facebook...

Stylin', Profilin', Limousine Riding, Jet Flying, Kiss-Stealing, Wheelin' n' Dealin' Son of a Gun!

Well that was quite a weekend.  We ran the maze and got lots of shiny land - somewhere I have some achievement cards that do stuff to my planeswalker points bits - I should probably get round to doing something about those at some time this week.  Congratulations to Rob Tinsley for dominating the whole thing on Saturday and going undefeated on the day.  Also congratulations to Adam Pollard who was "officially" the winner of the pre-release on Saturday daytime after an ID in the final saw him top of the board on count back.  Congratulations also got to Henry Hart for winning the Sunday pre-release, its great to see someone who has learnt to play through relax develop into such a strong player.

My apologies to my opponents over the weekend - I seemed to be suffering from an inability to play any spells due to a lack of land most of the time and was not much opposition.  We had 139 players participate in the pre-release over the weekend at patriot Game Sheffield.  I think the whole guild booster thing is a great idea, but it does massively skew the actual sealed format with the guild boosters dictating rather than helping you with your card and deck choices.  Having said that top marks go to Wizards of the Coast for the attention to detail in the packaging and little extras for the events giving something for almost everyone to get excited about.

This all leads me into today's blog and it's ridiculous title.  As you may well know if you read this on a regular basis I have a love of professional wrestling and the weird and wacky characters that inhabit that world.  I am in fact going to see Mick Foley (Cactus Jack/Mankind/Dude Love) today who is doing a talk about his experiences in the WWE and WCW at the City Hall in Sheffield.  The full quote for the title goes:

"I'm Ric Flair! The Stylin', profilin', limousine riding, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin' n' dealin' son of a gun!"

Slick Ric - not known for his subtlety... 

These characters are developed to help the wrestlers "get over" with the audience weather this is as a heel (bad guy) or a face (good guy).  Over the weekend a number of people have commented on both mine and Rob's play style and the fact that Rob can particularly put people off and make them screw up just by talking to them.  This is a left over from our years of playing Raw Deal, where trash talking your opponents into a loss was almost as legitimate a win condition as actually playing cards against them.

It is part of our play style and that is what I really wanted to talk about today.  Everybody has a play style and this is reflected in the way they play cards and their deck choices.  Certain elements of your play style are fixed because they are part of your personality but many change as you play more and try out new tactics and ideas.

Many players, when they begin playing competitive magic, will opt for an aggressive deck with lots of fast little creatures and direct burn to face spells.  Some find that this does exactly what they want to do in Magic while others develop into different strategies.

Knowing and developing your play style is an essential part of getting better at playing magic.  Your personal play style is something which you need to discover for yourself and will change to a certain degree over time as your experience grows.  I like what I call "toolbox" decks which have multiple answers to different things based on the meta game at the time.  I tend to shy away from decks that go all in on one particular plan as should your opponent have an answer to it you just lose if you do not have the flexibility to go somewhere else with your deck.

Lightning Cow - a popular "answer" at the moment.

So next time you are building a deck or even playing with one think about what your deck choice says about your personal play style and look to do things that enhance it.  Eventually you will find that knowing how you want your deck to play will greatly inform your card choices and help in all aspects of your game.

Apparently this is MY card for this set as I already opened a play set...

This Friday is the official release of Dragon's Maze and it is legal to play in tournaments from then.  FNM Relax has pauper as the format and competitive are playing Block Constructed.  there will also be a draft with DGM-GTC-RTR as the boosters and everyone who participates at  any of these events will get the release promo of Breaking//Entering;

As it is release weekend we will have draft pods all day Saturday and Sunday but there are a number of events on so come down early to get a place, from 10 am Saturday and 11 am Sunday.

Entering the Maze

I was quite concerned about Dragon's Maze after Gatecrash.  Gatecrash was a substandard set in comparison to Return to Ravnica and had few cards outside of the shock lands that you really wanted to own.  Then we were treated to the description of Maze's End:

I think the artwork is stunning, but that is the only good thing about this!

I know lots of you think it will be really great fun to build a deck with this as your win condition, but for the sake of your own sanity please don't do it.  With the perfect hand etc the earliest you could actually manage to pull this off is turn 8.  If you had just played normal land and 1/1 guys each turn by turn 8 you would have done your opponent 33 damage by the end of turn 8...

Fortunately Maze's End was not a fair representation of the cards in the set, adding in the consideration that we get "bonus" shock lands in the set (all be it at about 1 a box) and suddenly the worst thing about Dragon's Maze is the name.  So now that the whole set has been spoilt here, I thought I would look at some of my personal favourite cards from Dragon's Maze.

I think this should have a stylised S on its back.

I really hated the Delver of secrets decks of last year.  They were miserable to play against and all about flipping delver on turn two and ridding it to victory.  Wizards of the Coast obviously hate Delver too but I feel that this card in Dark Ascension would have made the whole Innistrad era a better play experience for constructed.  Expect this to see play in Legacy until people stop playing Delver of Secrets.

You can't touch this...

So a 3/2 flyer for 4 mana - seems ok in limited.  Oh but wait it has hexproof?  Now that is a bit different.  For those of you that didn't play M12 limited Aven Fleetwing was a 2/2 flyer with hexproof for U3 which with the help of the odd enchantment frequently won games.  Playing white in a deck with flyers is almost a given so the extra white mana in the casting cost is negligible.  Sticking a Holy Mantle on this gives you a 5/4 flyer with protection from creatures and players (technically).  Alternatively just add;

Haven't I seen this before?

Creature enchantment don't see much play.  The chance to being two for oned is usually too much of a risk, however occasionally a creature enchantment is worth the risk.  In Invasion 13 years ago we got just such an enchantment in Armadillo Cloak - for WG1 your creature got +2/+2 Trample and you gain life for the damage it does.  Now Unflinching Courage which does almost exactly the same thing...  I have no idea why Wizards didn't just reprint Armadillo Cloak, maybe they thought we needed something extra for Uril the Mistwalker EDH decks?  Speaking of reprints;

Killing is my business...

Kill spells, we love them and they are a major part of MTG.  This baby has always been popular when in standard and now makes a welcome return with very cool art work.  Better in Jund than Murder because you don't need to hit double black, it also has the fringe benefit of destroying key runes, Door to Nothingness and Gilded Lotus as well.

Whatever it was, no.

Ok so your opponent has a whole bunch of mana and look like they are working up to that combo to kill you  - not anymore!  Also you have to love a spell which is basically Counter Spell and Silence put together for the same cost as Counter Spell and Silence!

I'm not a big fan of split cards they tend to either be over costed copies of existent spells or only have one half you would ever actually play.  I really like this as a utility card though; been taking a beating?  Then a bit of willing kills their guys if they attack/block and gains you life.  Are you the Beats?   Well lets see how they feel about blocking your indestructible vigilant hordes, or vise versa.  The Fuse mechanic is a great addition to the split card format and seems to work well with the cards in this set.

Combo!

Dimir had by far the best mechanic in Gatecrash and then had a terrible selection of cards with which to use it.  For 2 mana this seems to be full of possibilities to me.  Sticking this on Invisible Stalker opens up a whole bunch of broken things to do each turn.

I just love me a good mutant frog...

This may not seem like an obvious pick especially as I am going to suggest this as playable in standard.  "What? - but it is just a big derpy man that does nothing when it comes in!"  This is true but bouncing a creature every turn seems good when you are a Frog Beast as Cavern of Souls naming Beast gives you uncounterable Thragtusks every turn and Kermit here bounces Thragy back to your hand or a 3/3 beast token and 5 life every turn, and I still have a 5 mana Frog titan :-)

Trolling Legacy players just got even more fun.

I really like the creature cycles in this set, they seem to contain a fair amount of solid limited cards without having them at Rare.  The rare cycle is of course the Legendary Guild Champions who are running the Dragon's Maze.  I like nearly all of these champions although few of them will see play in constructed.  two of the exceptions to this are Ruric Thar, The Unbowed (great you don't dare kill it) and this guy.  So I sacrifice my Thragtusk (or Species Gorger) to regenerate Varolz and then pay UG3 next turn and Varolz is a 8/8...  I have also noticed that he is a Troll whose name ends in ROLZ, hmmmm.

There are actually a whole bunch of other cards I could mention here - I've not even really looked at the mythics and as we all get copies of Maze's End at the pre-release it hardly counts.  Don't forget that this Saturday and Sunday is pre-release, it is always a good idea to pre-reg for this and that can be done here.

I hope to be back with another blog on Friday - see you then.

A road less travelled

I have a bad history with Pro Tour Qualifiers.  It was following a PTQ that I quit Magic for good and didn't actually play any games for 8 years.  I have had some bad experiences in recent years at PTQs, the details of which I won't go into, which have led me to be less than keen at participating at times.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed the last Sheffield PTQ and was really looking forward to this one.  I wasn't disappointed.  The venue was fantastic and the staff helpful and friendly.  An amazing turnout of 198 people (the biggest ever UK PTQ) made the day into a joy, capped off with a superb judge team led by Ed.

It is at this point that I need to offer some congratulations to some of the local and not so local players.  Congratulations to Luke Southworth for winning and Paul Calver for a close second.  Paul beat me in the third round and this is his second top 8 at a PTQ in the last 2 weeks so I am sure it is just a matter of time before he wins.  Both Paul and Luke earn themselves a spot at the invitational in October and we look forward to welcoming them for the weekend.  A massive well done to Fabian Quinn, Steve McAleer and of course Robert Tinsley for making the top 8.  Last, but by no means least is a well done to Abbey Moore who managed to 4 - 0 in her first ever PTQ before finishing at 5 - 3 at what is not only her first PTQ but first real taste of competitive play.

Highly honourable mentions need to go to Richard Fuller and Jimmy Wild for excellent showings again and being just outside that mystical top 8.

The top eight deck lists can be found here thanks to Mana leak and can I personally apologise to the Meta Game guys who did the coverage and got my deck list instead of Rob's.  The fact I had given it the name "Great White Hunter" as the creatures in it had a Zoo kind of value feel to them (Restoration Angel, Thragtusk, Loxodon Smiter etc) and that I always had to go and hunt for the white mana to cast my spells.  Yet again a bad pun that only I would ever understand, or possibly you would understand if you could look into my mind for a second.  However, most people in that category are under some form of 24 hour a day psychiatric observation.

I wanted to do something other than the standard review of - this is how the tourney went type of article, so I am going to use something we do in education called reflective practice.  This is where you analyse what went wrong (and right) in a teaching situation and learn from it to develop your skills/delivery.  Firstly lets look at my match ups:

Round 1 Keith Owens (Bant Control - Win)
Round 2 Thomas Morrissey (Esper Control - Win)
Round 3 Paul Calver (Primespeaker Bant - Loss)
Round 4 Matt Trindall (Aristocrats Act II - Win) 
Round 5 Ross Silcock (Turbo Fog Planeswalker control - Loss)
Round 6 Jordan Woodward (Aristocrats Act II - Win)
Round 7 Robert Young (Jund Midrange - Win)
Round 8 Thomas  Davies (4 Colour Control? - Loss)

The decks listed may not be quite right but they are close enough, ironically I was quite ready for a lot of aggro match-ups and in fact saw none.  I was also determined not to lose to Re-animator and ran main deck Rest in Peace after Ground Seal was just not cutting the mustard.  I'd like to thank all of my opponents as they were all great and good people to play against.  So what did I learn from these matches?  Firstly lets look at what went right:

• My deck is really good against Aristocrats.
• I have the edge in the "mirror" match (Jund Midrange) after side boarding.
• Rest in Peace is not a terrible card to run main deck.
• The fact my deck is not instantly recognisable makes my opponents play round a whole heap of stuff I don't have.

Not just effective against re-animator.

On the flip side of reflective practise is working out what didn't work:

• I struggled to deal with Planeswalkers.
• Prime Speaker Zegana is a card...
• I didn't face re-animator or Blitz.
• Liliana is not great in this format.

I turned 2 Liliana on Tom Davies from Harlequin and even after using her ultimate to remove his drown yards (and half his lands) from play he still managed to beat me.  This could just mean I'm terrible at Magic but I don't think so.  Tom is a really good player but I had him down to 1 life and just could not finish him.  I feel I need to look at some of the cards that I played and consider what would work better in the difficult match ups, always remembering the golden rule of "What would LSV do?"  

Not feeling the love this past weekend.

Lets start with Liliana.  Loxodon Smiter just makes her way worse than she should be, don't get me wrong Liliana is still a great card but I think she becomes a side board option in my deck rather than a main board one.

Say hello to my little friend...

Thundermaw Hellkite is a pretty cool card to have against Aristocrats it can be a board wipe and always seems to have extra value in the match up.  However, it seems to be just another 5/5 against a lot of the decks and does nothing in the face of Ultimate Price.  taking it out will make my deck worse against Aristocrats and I really don't want to send it any further than the sideboard but I am torn over this little fella for sure.

Raskdos' Return has been indefinitely delayed.

Witchbane Orb was a real MVP in a couple of match ups, especially in the Jund mirror.  A big thank you to Fabian for lending me 1.  I Will be keeping 2 of these in my sideboard for some time to come.  A number of cards did nothing or were less impressive than I hoped and there are a few others that I think need a place in the side or main.

That's mine, that's mine too, that's got to be mine, and that...

Zealous Conscripts to steal Planeswalkers and prime speakers seems like a good plan.  A couple of times I wish I had access to this card and I think I could have significantly changed my results with it.

Could actually just win you the game.

Boros charm seems like a great card to have in my deck where all of the options are going to be of use at various times.  Wolf run up your Smiter and give him double strike!  You killed all my guys and you are on 4 life - BOOM, kill you.  You want to kill everything or blow up my Rest in Peace or Kessig Wolf Run?  Just no.

 

Men, men, men mendy men...

I run a lot of removal in this deck and not that many men.  Having assemble the legion as a side board option gives me guys every turn and all you do is wolf run the guy that survives to get through!

I hope this look at my thought processes following the weekend is of some use to you and is more entertaining that the usual, "and then I played this, so he did this...".  This Friday at FNM it is Modern - I will be back on Monday to look at the cards in the new set ready for a weekend of pre-release on the 27th + 28th April.  See you then.

PTQ Countdown

I hope everyone had a great Easter.  I spent mine in Hull with my son and his friends and played a whole lot of Magic, oh and there may have been an outbreak of Nerf guns too.  Thank you to all the guys in Hull for making me so welcome and treating me so well.  Had great fun playing the "real" cube - even if it was totally busted with the things you could do - I got to make a cube deck with all of my favourite cards in it:

As I'm sure you are aware it is now less than 2 weeks till the second ever Sheffield PTQ and our first constructed PTQ.  I have a couple of announcements with regards to this - there will be a second team of people running video coverage at the event allowing us to have 2 feature matches being videoed each round.  the second lot of video will not be a live feed over the Internet but will be uploaded after the event.  Also, Paul Moore at Sheffield Patriot has managed to come by some Dragon Shield sleeves and play-mats and these will be available for purchase at the PTQ.

It seems like a good time to be looking at the Standard meta game and try to work out what is the best thing to play on the 13th April?

I wish there were an easy answer to this question but there isn't.  We had a slightly helpful article from Patrick Chapin last week which basically said "the bottom level play is to jump on the re-animator band waggon.  The smart guys will all play the deck which beats re-animator, but the pros will play the deck that beats the deck that beats re-animator."

Hard to stop in the re-animator decks.

So what are we talking about deck wise here?  Firstly we need to look at the re-animator decks; here is the winning deck list from Sunday's SCG Open:


Creatures (22)

3 Angel of Serenity
2 Arbor Elf
2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Centaur Healer
2 Craterhoof Behemoth
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Lotleth Troll
2 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Lands (23)

2 Forest
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Gavony Township
2 Godless Shrine
1 Isolated Chapel
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Woodland Cemetery

Spells (15)

1 Abrupt Decay
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Lingering Souls
3 Mulch
4 Unburial Rites

Sideboard

3 Acidic Slime
2 Centaur Healer
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Rhox Faithmender
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Cavern of Souls

Little guys backed up by a huge re-animated Craterhoof and swing for the win.  There is also a human version which combos out with Angel of Glory's Rise and Undercity Informer to mill you to death, although this has not seen any top 8 finishes in the lat week or so. 

Psst!  I'm gonna mill you!

We then have the second place Jund deck which is playing main deck Ground Seal to the massive number of reanimator decks there are around:

Creatures (15)

3 Arbor Elf

4 Huntmaster of the Fells

3 Thragtusk

2 Thundermaw Hellkite

3 Olivia Voldaren

Planeswalkers (3)

1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (25)

2 Forest

4 Blood Crypt

3 Dragonskull Summit

2 Kessig Wolf Run

4 Overgrown Tomb

2 Rootbound Crag

4 Stomping Ground

4 Woodland Cemetery

Spells (17)

2 Ground Seal

2 Abrupt Decay

1 Murder

2 Tragic Slip

2 Bonfire of the Damned

1 Dreadbore

4 Farseek

1 Mizzium Mortars

2 Rakdos's Return

Sideboard

2 Acidic Slime

1 Ground Seal

2 Tragic Slip

1 Liliana of the Veil

2 Bonfire of the Damned

2 Duress

1 Mizzium Mortars

1 Pillar of Flame

1 Rakdos's Return

2 Slaughter Games

the problem seems to be that as is often the case with mid-range decks they can die to early mega aggro or just have the wrong answers at the wrong time.  Jund still seems good as an all round performer though.  

No Unburial Rites for you...

Also in the reckoning is Esper Control cause counter spells are still a thing it would seem:

Creatures (7)

3 Augur of Bolas
3 Restoration Angel
1 Snapcaster Mage

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Jace, Memory Adept

Lands (27)

1 Island
1 Plains
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Godless Shrine
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Isolated Chapel
4 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Watery Grave

Spells (25)

4 Azorius Charm
2 Devour Flesh
2 Dissipate
4 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Syncopate
2 Think Twice
2 Tribute to Hunger
1 Ultimate Price
2 Planar Cleansing
4 Supreme Verdict

Sideboard

2 Witchbane Orb
2 Evil Twin
2 Blind Obedience
3 Rest in Peace
2 Negate
2 Tragic Slip
2 Duress

Blink my Augur - get more spells.

Not to forget the other variant of Jund which is Jund aggro.  Smashing people with very angry men:


Creatures (28)

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Experiment One
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
3 Flinthoof Boar
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 Thundermaw Hellkite

Lands (24)

3 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Blood Crypt
2 Dragonskull Summit
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
2 Woodland Cemetery

Spells (8)

2 Abrupt Decay
3 Searing Spear
1 Tragic Slip
2 Appetite for Brains

Sideboard

2 Stromkirk Noble
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Ground Seal
2 Volcanic Strength
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm
2 Rakdos Charm
1 Skullcrack
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Dreadbore

AC/DC would be proud of this Highway to Hell.

There are many other decks of note too.  Wolf Run and Prime Speaker Bant, Naya Blitz and not to forget the Pro Tour winning The Aristocrats.  Now is the time to choose your weapon with only a week left till the big tournament.  Will you try your luck on the Reanimator band waggon and hope you don't run into a wall of hate?

Tomorrow at FNM we are all coming together to play 2 Headed Giant.  If you don't have a partner just come along a bit earlier and we will see who we can find for you to join up with.  It will also be the first time you have to win the Call of the Conclave promo for April, as seen below.

See you all tomorrow...

Invitational Update

Well we had us some weather on Friday and Saturday gave us - Sheffield twinned with Narnia! However, this did not blunt the enthusiasm of the participants for the invitation qualifier, 19 players for the standard portion and 12 for the modern gave us 8 new qualified competitors for the Invitational in October.  Before I put up the new revised list of those qualified I feel we should give a big virtual round of applause for the standard winner - Quinton Lip.  Quinton was unable to take part in last years invitational as he was not allowed to play magic at the time.  To see him back and come first was appreciated by all those present.  Congratulations to Ollie Frith for  coming second and earning himself a spot at the invitational.

I have no idea if they played this I just like the picture.

Before we look at the Modern section I need to mention the people in fifth, sixth and seventh place.  There were only 2 out of the 19 players who were already qualified so there was everything to play for.  However, this also meant that you needed to top 4 to earn the slot (unlike the modern but we will get to that in a bit).  Just outside the top 4 we had the following:

5) Lee Parker

6) Richard Fuller

7) Jimmy Wild

That's a pretty impressive line up there.  having played against Jimmy during the week I was pretty confident that he would top 4.  I expect to see these 3 names joining the list after the next qualifier in June.

4 of those playing in the Modern half of the tournament were already qualified which left the other 8 to battle it out for the 4 qualifying slots.  Following on from last weeks GP San Diego the first and second place went to Robert and myself playing Brian Kibler's Naya Aggro - such a sweet deck I just love it and so much fun to play, and thank you to Brian for tweeting Rob back to explain why we run Sword of Light and Shadow in the side board.  we both decided to include copies of blind obedience in the side board for Eggs and other aggro decks and the card was worth its weight in gold.  A special mention needs to go to Sean Crowley, who not only got mana flooded then mana screwed against me but just missed out of the qualifying slots by one place.  I am sure he will be there in June when we hold the next qualifier.

Apparently a really good sideboard card in Modern...

Speaking of the next qualifier I can now tell you that it will be on Saturday 22nd June 2013 with the same Standard/Modern mix of tournaments.  So here is the list of qualified participants:

Robert Tinsley
Andrew Mather
Daniel Cocking
Andy Sims
Mike Boon
Patrick Bateman
John Roberts
James Brook
Diarmuid Verrier
Grzegorz Flis
Fabian Quinn
Stephen Kay
Richard Tinsley
Adam Pollard
Matt Cooper
Owen Debenham 
Matteo Orsini Jones
Steve McAleer
Joe Alexander
John Kay
Chris Parks
Michael Shillitoe
Alistair Kennedy
Andrew Munro
Quinton Lip
Oliver Frith
Ben Pearson
Jordan Woodward
Declan Jones
Lai Chi Yin
Dom Parker
Sam-Luca Rolf

With over half the places gone the next 2 slots will be awarded at the PTQ in just under 3 weeks as the winner and runner up also receive invites.

I'm going to be on a bit of a break as I am off to HUll on Wednesday and Mark Smith will be running Standard this Friday.  See you all after Easter.

Mastering Modern

Before I launch into today's blog at full force I wanted to remind everyone that this coming Saturday is the second invitational qualifier.  There are 2 tournaments - Standard at 10:30 and Modern at 12:30, £5 entry with 2 boosters in the prize pool per person.  The top 4 from each event will earn themselves an Invite to the invitational in October 2013 and the chance to become members of the Steel City Patriots Team 2014.  

Invites will cascade down if those already qualified are in the top 4, and qualified players can be found here.  With a fantastic weekend of Magic at GP San Diego just gone I am expecting some great decks in the Modern portion.  If you missed the coverage you missed some outstanding play by some of the top pros in the game including Brian Kibler, Melissa DeTora, Owen Turtenwald and Eric Froelich.

So, this card is just really good, who knew?

Its not usually I write one of these things expected lots of people to disagree with me, it actually just happens quite organically without me meaning it to.   Today is different, today is just not the same, today I am actively encouraging people to disagree with me!  

Let me explain; when they announced Modern Masters way back in October last year they told us the set break down with regards to what mix of cards would be in  it.  This is what we know will be in Modern Masters:

• 229 Reprint set.
• 101 Commons.
• 60 Uncommons.
• 53 Rares.
• 15 Mythics.
• All cards will be from sets between 8th Edition and Alara Reborn.
• Some cards will change their rarity in order to fit the constraints of the set.

Since hearing this I have been wondering what exactly will be in Modern Masters, and trying to come up with a list of cards which I think should make it into the set.  I have not been able to come up with all 229 cards but have given it a good try - the commons are the hardest!  I would like you to take a look at these cards and see if you agree with my choices, disagree for some reason and laugh hysterically as you notice I have forgotten something obvious.  Here are my lists by rarity:

Common (49/101)

Boomerang

Chromatic Sphere

Conjurer's Bauble

Cranial Plating

Darksteel Citadel

Darksteel Ingot

Desperate Ritual

Disenchant

Disciple of the Vault

Echoing Truth

Elsewhere Flask

Empty the Warrens

Faerie Macabre

Flame Jab

Frogmite

Grapeshot

Lava Spike

Machinate

Might of Alara

Molten Rain

Myr Enforcer

Peer through Depths

Pestermite

Putrid Leach

Pyrite Spellbomb

Qasali Pridemage

Rampant Growth

Reach through mists

Relic of Progenitus

Rift Bolt

Sakura Tribe Elder

Seal of Fire

Search for Tomorrow

Serum Visions

Shard Volley

Shattering Spree

Shrapnel Blast

Slieght of hand

Spellstutter Sprite

Spring Leaf Drum

Stone Rain

Terminate

Thoughtcast

Tribal Flames

Volcanic Hammer

Vulshock Gauntlets

Wall of roots

Welding Jar

Wood Elves

I am confident there is a whole bunch of creatures that will be in the other 52 slots but Ihave no idea what they may be.

Uncommon (46/60)

Aven Mindcensor

Bant Charm

Chromatic Star

City of Brass

Cursecatcher

Darkblast

Electrolyse

Esper Charm

Eternal Witness

Firespout

Gemstone Mine

Ghostly Prison

Grixis Charm

Intervention Pact

Isochron Sceptre

Jund Charm

Kird Ape

Kitchen Finks

Krosan Grip

Lightning Helix

Martyr of Sands

Merchant Scroll

Merrow Reejerey

Might of old Krosa

Murderous Redcap

Naya Charm

Ornithopter

Pact of Negation

Pact of the Titan

Path to Exile

Remand

Rule of Law

Shatterstorm

Silvergill Adept

Slaughter Pact

Sowing Salt

Spectral Procession

Spell Snare

Steelshaper's Gift

Summoner's Pact

Sylvan Scrying

Tidehollow Sculler

Undead Warchief

Urza's Mine

Urza's Power Plant

Urza's Tower

Volcanic Fallout

I thought that they may well reprint the Pact cycle but in order to fit it in with the set they might downgrade them to uncommon.

Rare (53/53)

Academy Ruins

Aether Vial

Angel of Despair

Arcbound Ravager

Banefire

Blinkmoth Nexus

Blood Moon

Bribery

Bridge from Below

Call of the herd

Cascade Bluffs

Child of Alara

Chord of Calling

Crucible of Worlds

Cryptic Command

Damnation

Darksteel Colossus

Death Baron

Deathbringer Liege

Doubling Season

Engineered Explosives

Ethersworn Cannonist

Fetid Heath

Figure of Destiny

Fire Lit Thicket

Flagstones of Trokair

Flooded Grove

Fulminator Mage

Gaddock Teeg

Gifts Ungiven

Glen Elendra Archmage

Glimmervoid

Graven Cairns

Hell's Thunder

Horizon Canopy

Hurkyl's Recall

Life from the Loam

Lotus Bloom

Maelstrom Pulse

Master of Ethirum

Meddling Mage

Mystic Gate

Noble Hierach

Ranger of Eos

Reshape

Scapeshift

Second Sunrise

Thoughtsieze

Threads of Disloyalty

Through the breach

Twilight Mire

Vedalkan Shackles

Wrath of God

Although I have all of these I am sure there will be strong feelings as to what should and should not be in there.  I think that they will put the filter land cycle in as the rare land cycle for the set.

Mythic (14/15)

Bogarden Hellkite

Dark Confident

Doran the Siege tower

Elspeth, Knight Errant

Kiki - Jiki Mirror Breaker

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Knight of the Reliquary

Mutavault

Progenitus

Sarkan Vol

Sword of Fire and Ice

Sword of Light and Shadow

Tarmogoyf

Vendilion Clique

A number of these cards have already been made up to mythic status.  Sadly I think Thoughtsieze could easily be the 15th Mythic I am just hoping that it is not the case.

I look forward to your comments, please stick them below or on the Facebook group, either is cool.  

This Friday it will be pauper in Relax.  I will be back with another blog on Friday.  See you then.