MAGIC THE GATHERING ONLINE status at a glance: Week ending 2/28/09
Drafts and Sealed:
Drafts Played Triple Shards of Alara (4-3-2-2): 5
Drafts Played Triple Conflux (4-3-2-2):2
Drafts Played Shards shards conflux (4-3-2-2): 4
Match Record SOA(Draft): 2-5
Match Record CON (Draft):0-1
Match Record SOA/CON (Draft):5-7
Match Record SOA/CON (Sealed):1-6
Constructed:
Queues played this week: 19
4-player Constructed pauper 2player:1
4-player Constructed (Ala Block):52
4-player Constructed (Extended):14
4-player Constructed (Standard):15
100 card singleton:1
Daily events std: 2
2 player Constructed std: 8
2 player Constructed block:4
2 player Constructed extended:1
Total Queues played: 91
Overall Shards of Alara Match Record: 49-63
Conflux decks:
Match Record (extended White weenie): 1-2
Match Record (Red-White Block):0-1
Match Record (Domain Block):0-1
Match Record (BR aggro Block):3-3
Match Record (Naya ramp Block):5-3
Match Record (5 color control std):0-1
Match Record (5 color control std 2):0-1
Match Record (5 color planeswalker std):0-1
Match Record (blightning aggro std):0-1
Match Record (Dark Bant std):0-1
Match Record (esperlark std):3-1
Match Record (gw planeswalkers std):0-1
100 card singleton(white): 0-1
Overall Conflux Match Record: 9-18
Winnings:
Packs won this week: 19
Packs won total: 69
Tickets from packs this week: 47
Tickets from packs total: 250
Net ticket gain this week: -29
Net ticket gain total: +40
Money spent this week: 76
Money spent Overall (Started on 1/1/09): 210
So this week heralded the release of Conflux online. I've gotten all the Conflux cards I wanted thanks to an infusion of cash from my job giving us profit sharing(we actually made money last year). I have alot of new constructed decks to test out, but I've been mostly playing the new conflux limited format. As a rule, I am not that great of a limited player. I fully admit I need work, although I DO take pride in the fact that I have alone brought my limited rating from a 1386, it's low point during Ravnica draftr which I was utterly horrible at back up to 1600, where my current rating is. I once again demonstrated my horrible deckbuilding ability by going 1-6 in the 2 sealed tournaments I joined. The triple conflux drafts haven't gone much better. As you see, I entered 2, but only finished 1 game that I lost. That is because the Magic Online Servers were plagued with horrible lag this past weekend. The gameplay didn't suffer much, but trading, joining, and leaving games all were slow as shit. I think wizards need to put more game servers up for the next release, otherwise it's been a real blast playing magic.
In constructed, you'll see alot of 0-1 records. These are new decks that I am not familiar with, and just got stomped. Not being that familar with the deck it was hard to know what hands to keep against what decks. I will continue testing these decks in the coming weeks. The decks i did have some great luck with was the Naya ramp deck that my friend Darque built. It basically takes Noble heirarchs, Druid of the anima's, and gets to 6 mana on like turn 4 to cast Realm Razer and remove all the land. With the Noble's Exalted ability and Realm's decent stats, it is really hard for the opponent to come back. Pack in some Wooly Thoctars, a Battlegrace Angel or 4, splash removal, and you have yourself a kick ass block deck. Esperlark is the controlling version of Boat Brew, using reveillark to bring back great tempo and card advantage creatures instead of the aggro creatures Boat brew usies. Esperlark won the Richmond StarCityGames 5k, and it's proved great for me. Something that I really cannot get ahold of playing are the 5-color control decks. I know they are good, in fact the number (2) build above is the same as the one that won the recent Grand Prix. However I tend to either get horribly land flooded with these decks almost EVERY TIME. I mean I draw literally ten cards with various draw effects, and it's just land land land land land. This type of non help makes me lose whatever control I had on the game....which is really bad for a "control" deck. I'm going to try and "grow" as a player by playing these types of decks more, but just maybe in practice instead of tournament. So not off to a great start with Conflux, but it's just the beginning so stay tuned.
And until next time remember...all work and no play
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