It has been almost five months since I posted, during which plenty of interesting things have happened. I attended Grand Prix Portland with a close friend, and we both played deep into the night of Day One before being eliminated from Day Two Contention, however I did get paired up during my final round with somebody who would make Day Two if he beat me. As I had no chance of making Day Two, I conceded to him as soon as he promised to play a few games afterword. It felt good, and at that point I have never been more tired of Magic. Fourteen hours is a long time to do any given activity, and trying to maintain mental acuity as well as a certain element of fun becomes a chore after about six hours of continuous play.
Day Two, however, was a blast because my friend and I did nothing but enter Two Headed Giant cues and watch our friends battling on whenever we got the chance. Two of our local group had made Day Two, and a few entered in the PTQ. Sadly, none of them had a particularly good run on Sunday, though one finished just outside of the prizes in the main event. Two Headed Giant, as ridiculous as it is normally, was especially dumb for my team because we opened three Day of Judgments over the course of two drafts, winning one of them on the back of a 10/10 flying Scroll Thief that very nearly killed me because our opponents were playing a mill deck. All things considered, the experience was a lot of fun and the next chance I get to come to a large tournament I am stuffing every Magic player I know into a van and entering the lot of us. Also, the promo card happened to be Umezawa's Jitte, of which I had zero copies due to it's age, rarity, and worth. So that was really sweet.
I also took part in both of the release parties for Scars of Mirrodin, and top four-ed and top eight-ed them respectively. For various reasons, I haven't played in any tournaments since then, though I still have enough store credit from those two performances for a few "free" entries. I plan to do a few drafts in the not too distant future, so I won't wax eloquent on the format too much here, except to say that this set has caused more confusion in limited than I have seen in a long while. At first, it seemed people were taking it to be another Zendikar, full of aggressive strategies and punishing control players. However, as people learned the format, they found that there are quite a few defensive and midrange strategies with which to shore up the red zone. As such, this format is the most wide open I have seen since Alara, and drafting it seems like a blast.
Finally, my Cube has undergone some drastic changes, most of which I won't bother to explain. I expect my next post will have a lot to do concerning it, so I will just leave things as a cliffhanger on this front.
I want to take this time to explain how things are going to be done on Noggin Whack now that I am back from my Journey to Nowhere, or wherever I went when I stopped updating. Posts should be resuming on a weekly (give or take) schedule, and I will title them with the category they concern. Cube construction, theory, card lists and updates will have the post title "A Boy and His Cube". Comments on constructed decks will go under "Slinging Sixty". "Tournament Report" will encompass any competitive events I personally attend. Other categories could include limited advice and discussions of professional Magic events (such as the World Championships, which finish up this evening).
My goal is to make Noggin Whack a place where I can discuss Magic and the things about it that are important or interesting to me. I would like it if it became a place my friends could use to discuss our own Magic games and theories. It would be my dream that other people would read these posts and enjoy them. Until next time.
Babbs
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