Booster Box Madness! New Phyrexia Edition

Karn didn't sell.  One sold for more than mine, but I'm guessing they bought other cards from the same guy. It's tempting to re-list, but...


I bought a full New Phyrexia Booster Box (with promo card thanks to @J_A_May)!  This works out at £2.28 a pack instead of £3.59 local price so is a reasonable saving IF I pull some decent cards.

So far (16 packs) I have got:
Mythic
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Sword of War and Peace (pack 15!)

Rare
Spellskite
Invader Parasite (x2)
Chancellor of the Tangle
Phyrexian Swarmlord
Birthing Pod
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer
Lifes Finale
Moltensteel Dragon
Bludgeon Brawl
Myr Superion
Soul Conduit
Puresteel Paladin

Foil
Furnace Scamp
Beast Within
Mycosynth Wellspring
Rotted Hystrix

Promo
Surgical Extraction from the box topper

With the stated 1/8 Mythic rare and 1/4 Foils I should have got 2 Mythic and 4 Foil so far so I'm ahead of the curve again.  Not quite as good as the 3 mythic from 7 packs at the pre release (4.5% chance of that or better happening according to the binomial distribution) but increasing n smooths out the probabilities.

Wanna buy a Karn?

Decided to pop Karn on ebay & see what happens.

http://bit.ly/l7zQYo if you want to have a look.

New Phyrexia Pre-Release Write Up - May 7th 2011

Three of us went to the NPH launch in Birmingham Yesterday and it was interesting and fairly relaxed.

My brain was already tired from a hectic week so I really wasn't at my best, but from my 6 booster packs for the sealed deck thing I got Karn Liberated & a Mox Opal so within a few minutes of the start I'd got my entrance fee sorted.  Karn is a decent card, but doesn't really suit my play style so I may pop him up on ebay this evening so that someone can trasure him more than I do and I effectively get free entry to the NPH Launch next Sun.

Play wise I went White Blue Red but mostly in artefacts and thinking like a regular deck I went with lots of cheap cards (& Karn).

My first opponent beat me quite easily (he ended up top 8) and we had a good long chat about games afterwards.
My Second also beat me (mostly by stealing my Karn & other top cards) and then gave me a few hints on my deck based on my other cards.
This trend continued with the third opponent who beat me (closer due to some of the tweaks) and then helped rebuild my deck. I found I'd left out some good synergy cards that worked together with the other artefact creatures.  Effectively this turned my defensive artefact pile into a Tempered Steel deck.

I then proceeded to win the remaining 7 games, to get a lovely 50% win rate (the extra game was due to a speedy turn 5 win that meant we had time to try again).  The last 3 opponents were all good sports and we swapped card tips and strategy advice and generally had a good time.

The NPH set changes things a lot as I often did more damage to myself than my opponent did to get things like Slash Panther out faster, but it turns out that this is a pretty effective way to control the board. Phyrexian metamorph is 3 mana and 2 life to copy that amazing high mana creature your opponent played in their last turn, or to duplicate your Slash Panther for 8 damage that turn.  And the launch promo is a foil copy of this card so I may just have to pop along to that too.

Games night & actually winning

I've been busy so not really bothering with this, but I guess a few words can't hurt.

I've actually won some friendlies now.  Whether was as a result of me inviting everyone round to my house to play and giving them snacks, or my constant shouts of "don't attack me, I've got nothing!" but I won our first (and only) 4 player match.

Was a fairly standard resurrection deck really, but with black, white & blue it had a lot of counter too. Mana was so plentiful by the end and due to my getting 7 cards a turn from the Sphinx and draw I could pick & choose my hand.  Took two players out in one turn and then over-run the remaining guy with my big beasties.  I've changed most of the creatures in the deck now for the ones I actually wanted that were still in the post, so it'll probably never win another game.

The Artifacts/red mana Firin' Squad deck got a win that day too by out competing a valakut deck which isn't too bad.


I also knocked up an infect deck to see what cards I had that fitted and ended up winning three games out of 4 with that.  It's an interesting mechanic if the opponent isn't expecting it especially as it's not too hard to put 5 on someone with that first mad hit.

My Blue Draw=damage deck was quite fun too and while it's only ever won one game I think it could nest nicely into a control deck if I could be bothered to figure it all out.

The Red/Blue I'm looking at currently hasn't won yet, but I'm still refining the balance between control & destroy while keeping it cheap in both senses. As I only have 4 non common cards in it (and neither are essential) I might strip it back to Standard Pauper just for kicks & see how many mythics it can destroy.

Of course I could always go look up some deck-lists but that feels like cheating.

MTG on hiatus now until after exams & NPH launch. It's only a week I guess, but it's going to be a long one...

One for the real world

Cards I've ended up with greater than 4 of for people in my game group. 2 x DBC + a few boosters means I have a reasonable amount already!

Spares	Card	Colour	Clear	Colour	Total Mana	Rarity
3	Rise From The Grave	BK	4	1	5	U
2	Sign In Blood	BK	0	2	2	C
1	Aether Adept	BL	1	2	3	C
1	Guard Gomazoa	BL	2	1	3	U
2	Into the Roil	BL	1	1	2	C
2	Mind Control	BL	3	2	5	U
1	Steady Progress	BL	2	1	3	C
1	Unsummon	BL	0	1	1	C
1	Wind Zendikon	BL		1	1	C
2	Brass Squire	CL	3	0	3	U
1	Perilous Myr	CL	2		2	C
1	Plague Myr	CL	2	0	2	C
1	Psychosis Crawler	CL	5	0	5	R
1	Stone Golem	CL	5	0	5	C
1	Triskelion	CL	6		6	R
2	Garruk's Companion	GR	0	2	2	C
2	Garruk's Packleader	GR	4	1	5	U
1	Llanowar Elves	GR		1	1	C
5	Terramorphic Expanse	LD			0	c
1	Earth Servant	RD	5	1	6	U
1	Ogre Resister	RD	2	2	4	C
2	Anjani's Mantra	WH	1	1	2	U
1	Ghalma's Warden	WH	3	1	4	C
2	Kor Skyfisher	WH	1	1	2	C
2	Pacifism	WH	1	1	2	C
2	Souls Attendant	WH	0	1	1	C

First trial decks - report

So I'm currently something like 0 wins 10 losses in our casual Magic circle, and with my working burden still being high it's unlikely to change. Here's what I've tried so far:

Black Vamps & Blue Splash – decent set up but played a Legacy deck that's pretty well refined. Deck is mostly black singles in original form to see what works but one match isn't going to tell you that!

Blue Green Landfall – this is essentially Mysterious Realms updated with more uncommon and some excellent M11 and later cards and some great WW booster drops. This has been consistently good, but I seem to end up with more mana (due to action cards) than creatures. Lost a 3 player due to not realising I could counter a mass removal spell when I had way more creatures than opponents. Learning curve.

Blue Insanity deck – a gimmick deck that is purely for fun and focuses on getting lots of cards into my hand. Got mana screwed by drawing 16 lands in 18 cards when I only have 24 in the deck, otherwise shows potential.

White NHS deck – this is all about lifegain, but I'd misunderstood the ally clause on cards and included 8 useless cards, will remove these and repeat

Firing Squad – Red & art deck. Drew my two 8 mana joke creatures in my starting hand, didn't think to mulligan and still didn't loose too badly. Have put the cards I had in reserve in instead.

 

Pretty sure I tried another Magic The Gathering Planeswalkers style deck at one point, and I have an unused Worldwake 'Flyover' pre-made I got using store credit to play with.

 

Need to keep revising these (and revising for exams) and stop buying cards too. I estimate £120 total now – spreadsheet not up to date with prices.

Why this place has ‘Snack’ in the title

Seeing as this is only the Gaiden or side story blog I feel that I should explain what it is.

I write twice weekly for www.foodstufffinds.co.uk on snackfood and convenience food (on a good day they get 1,000 hits!) and gradually my reviews were becoming more and more self indulgent. I was shoehorning which ever game I was most obsessed by into the reviews such as:

 

Nintendo 3DS Launch - Amsterdam [by @NLi10]

Halo Reach - Mana Potion Vs Sleep [feat. Halo Reach] [by @NLi10] (CyberCandy Birmingham)

The Overlong MW2 rant - Health Potion, www.manapotions.com by @nli10 (via Cyber Candy, Birmingham UK)

Blood, Blood & True Blood [by @NLi10] (Various Victims)

And THREE for the Indiegame Uprising:

Cake & Biscuits - Various small enterprises [By @NLi10] , 19 Gales Fresh Hand Made Blueberry & Apple Turnover {by @NLi10} (19 Gales Farm Shop - Birmingham University Campus) , 19 Gales Fresh Hand Made Pork Pie [by @NLi10] (19 Gales Farm Shop - Birmingham University Campus)

Etc.

I think that FSF should stay more about the snacks so I've moved the long game rants here and started fresh. It means that @Cinabar doesn't have to proofread 1,000 word articles on Magic Cards, obscure ikkitosen games and I get to rant somewhere (and have card lists available when I need them in one place).

I'm hoping that the next time I don't turn down an invite to a games event (supposed to be going to London for the 3DS again, staying in bed instead) I can write it up long here, and then just talk about the consumables on www.foodstufffinds.co.uk

Anyway – feel free to pester me on Twitter or on either blog. @NLi10

And just because I'm having fun with these things (both writing & gaming) it doesn't mean I claim to be any good.

 

Just my reviews.

http://foodstufffinds.blogspot.com/search?q=NLi10