Sorin Markov has arrived...

...and I can't wait to try out the finished Vampire deck with him in it.  Well, I say "finished" but it's not. This is more like version 2.0.  I'm completely certain that it will need a lot more work in coming weeks, but for now it's looking pretty decent.  The Bloodlord of Vaasgoths arrived today as well, so they're ready to slot into the deck tomorrow.  I'm a little worried about the mana-curve in this deck, so I've broken slightly from the Vampire theme and am looking at throwing in a pair of Diregraf Ghouls to give a couple of 1-drop creaturs to help give the deck some staying power until the more powerful creatures come out to play.  I really want to take it to FNM this week, but after the truly embarrasing Innistrad celebration yesterday I kinda want to go back to the Elves to give my confidence a bit of a boost.

So yup.  Vampire deck is now Planeswalkered up and ready to go :) Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a full lunch break at work and I can test it against my trusty Elves.

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!

Evening all

Howdy folks.  Been a bit quiet on the blog front this week, to be honest I've just been feeling a bit shattered after work and haven't had the energy to waffle on about this and that.  I'm actually still feeling too shattered, but I felt compelled to make an update.

And now I've said that I really can't think of anything to talk about.  I'm sure there is stuff to talk about, but my tired brain just can't keep focused.  Epic blog fail.

Up!

I just finished watching Up! (the Pixar film).  It made me sad lots.  Very good film though.  Just too many sads.

Greetings to the UAE!

I've just been looking at the stats for my blog, and in the last month I've had just over 90 views, of which 23 were from the United Arab Emirates.  I have to admit this has taken me by surprise somewhat, so I just thought I'd extend a warm greeting to my readers from the UAE!  Hello! :)

Closure

I've just posted off a Thank You card for the folks at City Hosptial for the cracking leaving do and the awesome leaving presents they got for me :)  It feels like closure.  I mean, yes I'm still going to be seeing the games group on a regular basis - Rich in paprticular, as he's the most frequent FNMer - but this is my last communication with the hospital on the whole.  It's kind of odd, but kind of nice.

Bye bye City.