Elf Deck List

Yes, I'm posting a third blog entry for this evening.  Just before I head off to bed I wanted to finally post my Elf deck list from Magic The Gathering.  There's another mini tournament tomorrow, so it's got my MTG brain working away, and as a result I feel compelled to do this.

To be honest I'd rather be giving my new Vampires another test run, but seeing as my sister's going to be using them then I shall stick with my tried, tested, and much-loved Elves.  I have spent months working at this deck and am happy with it, but the Vampires are new and in need of as much playtesting as possible!

I have been on eBay this morning and purchased the only Elf this deck was missing :) I have to admit I didn't even know about her until this morning, but was so good that I quite simply HAD to get her and slot her into my deck.  Character-wise she's a bit of a mis-match, but ability-wise she melds nicely and will be a very welcome addition.  So the following list is not actually the one I'll use tomorrow, but in about a week it will be the final (probably) version of my first-choice deck... I rather think I'll be heartbroken when the Scars block rolls out of Standard Legal!

Main deck (yes it's 68 cards! *gasp* sue me.)

• 4x Llanowar Elves
• 4xCopperhorn Scout
• 4x Ezuri's Archers
• 4x Ezuri's Brigade
• 4x Elvish Archdruid
• 4x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 2x Glissa, The Traitor
• 4x Platinum Emperion
• 4x Swiftfoot Boots
• 4x Darksteel Plate
• 4x Naturalize
• 2x Titanic Growth
• 19x Forest
• 5x Swamp

Sideboard:

• 4x Gladecover Scout
• 2x Titanic Growth
• 2x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 2x Trepanation Blade
• 2x Phyrexian Metamorph

Innistrad celebration

It's 6:45pm on Sunday evening, and for the first time in a week I finally have some time to just sit back and chill.  Sure I've been doing things like Magic tournaments, but this is the first time that I've been able to stop, put my feet up, and just know that I don't have to be rushing out of the door for this, that, or the other.  It's quite nice.

Well the Innistrad celebration event was an absolute dismal failure.  I hurriedly put together a zombie token deck before leaving the house, and it proceeded to get annihilated in every single game.  I can't even give a result breakdown, because the games were over so fast that I didn't even get time to tell what decks my opponents were using.  The biggest annoyance was the fact that I lent my Elves to someone else to use, and he actually ended up placing 6th out of 12, whereas I came in rock bottom.

I have learned two valuable lessons though.  Firstly, that swiftly made decks quite simply don't work in MTG.  They need time and refinement to be able to do anything.  And secondly, that my Elves have been shaped and honed into a good deck at last.  I still like my vampire backup deck (and will like it even more so when Sorin Markov arrives), but Elves are definitely the way forward for me.  I'm looking forward to FNM this Friday to give my vampires a test run, but next Sunday it'll definitely be Elves which get my full attention again.  Saying that, I might even forego the vampires this Friday and go Elvish again.  Even Rich said today that the latest version of my Elf deck is pretty kickass, so I think it's time to start unleashing it.

On the plus side today, I did get two more promos (one shiney, one full-art), and another booster pack.  So it wasn't a total loss.

FNM Result 28th October

Wow, what a manic day it was yesterday!  Work was truly ridiculously busy, which meant that I didn't get any breaks at all and still finished 15 minutes late, so that put me struggling for time right from the offset.  So I had to scoot back from Lichfield to Sutton like a bat out of hell in order to pick up my sister, who was attending her first Friday Night Magic :) Then she hopped on the back of the bike, we scooted into Birmingham, and just made it in time for registration.  It's cool that she's getting into the game, at the moment she's using the vampire deck which I threw together for her, but she's started to buy a few of her own cards and is looking at getting a starter deck as well which she can chop and change.

The vampire deck's actually working pretty well.  I've ordered a set of 4 Bloodlord of Vaasgoths (which I plan to put 2 of into the deck), and a pair of Sorin Markovs to make it a bit tougher, so I'm looking forward to seeing those arrive.  I'm hoping that my sister gets her deck sorted soon, as I'm quite looking forward to trying this deck out myself at FNM!

So in the meantime I'm sticking with my elves.  It's been heavily overhauled since I last used it.  It used to be a pure elf deck, but now I've taken out a load of low-cost elves in order to put in 4 Darksteel Plates, 4 Platinum Emperions, and 4 Swiftfoot Boots.  After last night I've got to say the Plate and the Boots pulled their weight, but the Emperions didn't really do too much.  So I'm going to tweak it a little more today and take it in with me to the Innistrad celebration event this Sunday.

All in all, it was another average performance for the Elves, finishing 12th out of 19, and here was the breakdown:

Game 1 - Lost 2-0 vs White Creature Tokens

Game 2 - Won 2-1 vs Blue/White Control & Artifacts

Game 3 - Lost 2-0 vs Elves

Game 4 - Won 2-0 vs Red/Blue Flashback

Game 5 - Lost 2-1 vs Black/Red Vampires

My sister also won 2 and lost 3, so that was a good performance for a first FNM :) So, time to go Elf-adjusting, and I'll let you all know how they get on on Sunday!  ...unless my sister can't make it on Sunday, in which case I'll be playing vamps!

A Strange New World

It's been a quiet couple of days on the blogging front, so I thought I might as well do a quick entry before it's time to turn in for the night.

Well I'm past the half way point in the first week of my new job.  So far it's been pretty mind-fragging.  I may have worked at this place before, but I'm having to learn a whole new side of the job and it's a lot to take in.  On the plus side I feel like I'm picking it up quite quickly, I'm just going slowly when it comes to carrying out all of the new stuff.  Obviously I know that I'm going to be slow - everyone's always slow when they start a new job, speed comes with time - but I've always hated feeling like I'm holding everyone else up, and that's kind of how I've felt so far this week.

One thing which has been good is having a full lunch hour in which to play Magic :-D  I've been teaching my sister to play lately and she's been enjoying it, so I told her I'd put together a vampire deck for her to use.  It's not a refined deck in the slightest, but I just put together creatures and spells that felt right, and lo and behold!  I made a deck which I can't frikkin' beat lol  Even though she's just a beginner, nothing I do with my Elves seems to be able to beat these vapires!  There wasn't time for a lunch break today, but hopefully there will be tomorrow.  So I'm going to try my Illusions against the vampires, and if I still can't beat the damned things then I think I might have to take them to Friday Night Magic this week ;)

So yep, that's been about the extent of my week so far.  Lots of work, lots of brain-overload, and lots of Magic.  And now it's time for lots of sleep!