MTG Stats!

So recently a website called Kavu.ru has put up a program that you can use to generate your lifetime stats for sanctioned play at MTG and I thought it would be fun to break mine down some.

Overall Stats:

Overall record: 993-539-62

Win percentage ignoring draws: 64.817232
Win percentage including draws: 62.296110

A nearly 65% is pretty solid. I'm a little sad that I haven't gotten 1000 match wins yet. I might have to keep track of the next event I play in so that I can know when match 1000 is.

Booster Draft:

Overall record: 461-235-17

Win percentage ignoring draws: 66.235632
Win percentage including draws: 64.656381

Hey, I'm slightly stronger in booster draft that I am overall. That's a bit of a surprise as I've never considered myself much of a limited player. Of course part of this is mitigated by most of my drafts being played at the local FNM level. The competition isn't as fierce as GPs or PTQs. But these are just raw numbers, not the whole story.

Modern:

Overall record: 25-16-2

Win percentage ignoring draws: 60.975610

Win percentage including draws: 58.139535

Well this is disappointing. I really enjoy Modern as a format. I think that part of this is because I rarely play any of the tier one decks in older formats, preferring to rock cards that I love over the pure strongest strategy. Lets see if I can't get this stat up some if I get to go to GP Detroit next month.

Casual - Limited:

Overall record: 5-4-0

Win percentage ignoring draws: 55.555556

Win percentage including draws: 55.555556

I have no idea what this was. At all. Nothing to see here folks, move on...

Casual - Magic League:

Overall record: 6-1-1

Win percentage ignoring draws: 85.714286

Win percentage including draws: 75.000000

When was I in a Magic League? I guess I did pretty well in it.

Legacy:

Overall record: 28-23-1

Win percentage ignoring draws: 54.901961

Win percentage including draws: 53.846154

This is even more disappointing than Modern. I don't remember ever really tanking out of a bunch of Legacy Tournaments. In fact one of my Day Two appearances at a GP was in Legacy. Maybe events I played in were sanctioned as Legacy as a catchall and I sucked at them? I dunno man.

Extended:

Overall record: 33-13-8

Win percentage ignoring draws: 71.739130

Win percentage including draws: 61.111111

I was clearly the end boss of Extended when it was a format. Thank you Scepter Chant. Thank you Chase Rare Control.

2 HG Sealed:

Overall record: 4-1-0

Win percentage ignoring draws: 80.000000

Win percentage including draws: 80.000000

I remember this one! That was a Pre-Release back when they still did big events for them instead of in store. We lost round one to mana screw then wrecked the rest of the day. As a side note my buddy Pete was in that event with a random partner, got at least two unintentional draws and still made prize.

Trios - Constructed:

Overall record: 0-3-0

Win percentage ignoring draws: 0.000000

Win percentage including draws: 0.000000

I remember this one too. That day was terrible.

Standard:

Overall record: 247-136-14

Win percentage ignoring draws: 64.490862

Win percentage including draws: 62.216625

The main event. Standard. over 64%, but like draft I think that a lot of that is down to mainly playing locally. I've never made top 8 of a PTQ in standard.

Sealed:

Overall record: 179-100-16

Win percentage ignoring draws: 64.157706

Win percentage including draws: 60.677966

I only play sealed when I have to so this is 100% made up of PTQs, GPs and Pre-Releases. Hoenstly, I'm glad that the release event is gone because its one less time I have to play sealed.

Block Constructed:

Overall record: 4-5-3

Win percentage ignoring draws: 44.444444

Win percentage including draws: 33.333333

I hated Block Constructed back when it was regularly ran as a PTQ season. Hated it. My record shows it too.

Trios - Limited:

Overall record: 1-2-0

Win percentage ignoring draws: 33.333333

Win percentage including draws: 33.333333

I think that this was a PTQ in Columbus... which makes me wonder where my GP Pittsburgh event is. It was team sealed and I remember doing fairly well, even with one teammate passing out after every round. Maybe I've got another DCI number out there that I need to get merged.

So what did I learn from this? Not much actually, but I do think its sweet that we can check this now. Especially since the ELO rating is gone. Lifetime win percentage seems like a good way to rank players. Or possibly seasonal win percentage. But right now players can only check their own stats so whoever compiled that would be unable to update the data themselves. Sounds like a mess

I didn't like Gone Baby Gone.

When Marvel started making their movies they didn't rely on star power. I know its hard to remember but before Iron Man Robert Downy Jr was doing supporting roles in movies like Charlie Bartlet and leading Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Did you remember that he was in Gothika? I didn't. But he was a known talent. And a perfect Tony Stark thanks to his own struggles with addiction. And we can see Marvel make the same choices over and over. Chris Evans, aside from being part of the utterly forgettable Fantastic Four movies had done charming work in a variety of movies that he wasn't the star of. Chris Hemsworth’s biggest role before Thor was playing Captain Kirk's dad in the Star Trek Reboot. The only time they deviated from finding a known actor who is about to break out was their casting of Edward Norton as the Hulk and he fits with their behind the camera approach: Get talented people and let them do their work. Make good movies. And of course when they recast The Hulk after finding Norton difficult to work with they went with excellent indy actor Mark Ruffalo, someone I’ve been waiting to start showing up in bigger movies ever since The Brothers Bloom.

Then there’s DC and Ben Affleck. And before I start in I want to say that I’ve got all the respect in the world for Ben Affleck the Director. He does damn good work. But that’s not who they hired. They hired Ben Affleck the Actor. An actor who’s overly goofy and was taken far, far too seriously a decade ago. An actor whose career tanked so hard that when The Town was released they advertised it as “From the Director of Gone Baby Gone” without ever using his name. And he’s built up a lot of good will since then. But I think that the main reason he was cast was because people know who he is. They think that name recognition will help drive this movie to be a success.

That's extremely flawed, and Marvel has shown us why. These movies aren't a success because of the big stars in them. THESE MOVIES MAKE THESE PEOPLE INTO STARS. If you cast a good actor as Batman, say Christian Bale right off of the moody action flick Equilibrium, and add a Director who fits the material, like say Christopher Nolan, who was just coming off of a mature but ultimately gimmicky Memento, you get a good movie that people will flock to. If you continue like Time Warner/DC is you’ll keep casting once hot lead Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern. You’ll get a director known for his dark and gritty realism for your space opera. Or in the case of Man of Steel you’ll get a director who’s known for his highly stylized approach and lack of depth.

And in the end it's why the Batman/Superman movie is likely going to both be huge and fail. Time Warner/DC is trying to put in pieces without looking at the puzzle. An actor here, a director we know here, Batman and Superman. Fanboys will love it! And if they don’t fuck em. We’ll make enough in the first weekend to cover it.

But we know how that approach ends up. Ask Joel Schumacher about it.

Advanced Review The Bunker #1 *Light Spoilers*

What would you do if you knew the future? Not specific, but the broad strokes of what's coming, and more importantly that it's going to be pretty terrible for everyone involved? That's the question posed in the new digital first series by writer Joshua Hale Fialkov (I Vampire, The Ultimates) and Joe Infurnari (Ultraboy)

It's starts with five friends looking to bury a time capsule. They're all about to start their respective lives and they want something to come back to later in life. Instead they find the titular bunker, filled with files and a hand written letter from 4 of them.

The fifth isn't so lucky.

This is my first comic by Fialkov, who I've heard consistently good things about his cult I, Vampire book from the New 52. Here he shows good pacing, well defined characters that have a realistic dynamic about them. One is clearly marginalized by the rest of the group which is pretty common is the real world and fairly uncommon in fiction. There are a lot of balls in motion here as well for the plot. We've got the future, what everyone knows is coming, the characters unease at the letters, and a character based twist in the final page that could play out a hundred different ways.

The art is black and white and fairly scratchy, with lots of ink and shadows. It fits the bleak tone of the comic perfectly, but I could easily see it not being to everyone's preference. Each of the characters are clearly recognizable in both there present and future incarnations. Future and past sequences are shaded differently to provide a nice visual cue to when we are. Its little things like that which are often overlooked that help pull this book together.

This series is digital only at the moment. It's releasing similarly to BKV's The Private Eye as a direct, drm free download from the creators website for $1.99 US. It will also be available on Comixology in the future. My only complaint with this release is that the pages were clearly sized for tablets in the 10" range and since I read on a first gen Nexus 7 right now I had to scroll a bit. 

If you're a fan of time travel stories and want to support creator owned releases outside of the print system you should really check out The Bunker when it releases on August 4th.

www.thebunkercomic.com

The Holes in my Game, On and Off the Table

Week before last I went to a TCG Player Platinum Qualifier at the Empire Game Center. I did... poorly. But since then I've been thinking about why and what I need to do to improve as a player.

1. I can't play aggro. At all.

People talk about how much they hate skill-less aggro decks. One drop two drop three drop burn spell burn spell! Fun game! Derdeeder! And when you get steamrolled by one it looks like it was the simplest thing in the world. If that's the case then why can't I buy a win with a deck that's dedicated to attacking in a tournament? Probably because I don't have the skill-set to play the deck. I don't know when to hold back my guys, I don't know when the right time to burn a removal spell or to let my guy trade. I sure as hell don't know what to do against an opposing Boros Reckoner. Its something that I need to work on.

2. I get bored with a deck easily.

I've been on junk since Ravnica came out, but I've play a donze different versions of it. I started by just trying to build a midrange deck, then i went to tokens, then I went to reanimator, then to Aristocrats, then to BG control. And those are just the decks that I can remember. And whenever I sweet brew shows up in top eights, like that Zvi Mowshowitz built GW Elf/Ramp deck I want to build it. I want to play it. Instead of thinking about how I can adapt what I'm playing against it I get infatuated. Its not good for my results in tournaments and its not good for my collection.

3. I won't play the best deck.

The only time in the last five years that I can remember playing the defualt vest deck was UB Fairies. And I didn't want to play it then, I had RG Snow Ramp built too and jammed that whenever there wasn't something extremely serious on the line. Let me tell you how good RG Snow Ramp was then. It wasn't. But I had to be different and not in a good way.

4. I don't listen to Pros

I played Naya at the TCG Player. I looked up a bunch of different decklists before I built mine. Then I ignored common threads and did what I wanted to. Some of what I did, like maindeck Domri Rade has, been adopted by most players as seen at the StarCity Invitational. Some of what I did was fucking stupid. When I'm working with an established deck like Naya I need to trust the collective instead of being convinced tat I know better.

5. I don't playtest properly.

When I playtest, which is rare enough, its an unorganized affair against my roomate where we jam untuned lists against each other. No gauntlet. No records. And never any mirror testing. They're just bad brews being slammed with most of the players involved knowing that they're not playing what they've got infront of them. This plays a big part in the next point.

6. My sideboards are normally terrible.

This is mainly an extension of the lack of playtesting. If I don't know my deck well enough how will I sideboard properly? Even when I know what cards are supposed to come in I rarely know what to take out. I need to make sure I have a plan for common matches going into the tournament.

7. I play too fast.

I missed an Obzedat trigger today. I pass turn after attacking without dropping the elf that will let me play Angel of Serenity next turn. I say OK with a counterspell in hand to something I NEED to stop. I just act without thinking. I need to slow down and make sure I do what I need to so that I don't loose games to stupid mistakes.

So I have some work to do, don't I?

M14 Standard: The First Weekend

On the first weekend of M14 Standard I went out to Empire Games and played in a TCG Player Platinum. I did...poorly. Which I can attribute to having both a less than stellar sideboard and to generally being unfamiliar with playing an aggressive deck. I played a Naya aggro deck that topped out at 5 with Thundermaw Hellkite. I also made some mistakes building it, like putting Domri Rade in the maindeck. Not everyone I knew at the tournament did poorly as Mike Lannigan managed to take second with what looked like an ugly BW Humans deck. The other big event this weekend was the StarCity open in Richmond where BW Humans took down the room, beating Jund in the finals.

I don't think it should have won.

This is the type of deck that Jund is supposed to prey on, especially staring in Game 1. Instead we saw the match go to three with the final game being decided on a risky keep. even with that a green mana or a bonfire miricled within the first 4 turns still would have turned things around for the Jund deck. I think that if they played that match out ten more times then Jund would come out on top at least 6 or 7 times. It just doesn't look favorable at all to me.

But we did get some really sweet decks in the top 8. Like Mono-Green Ooze! More imporantly we had Bant Hexproof taking 10th, 11th and 12th. And finishing just outside the top 8 of the TCG player event. This is a deck we should sideboard for. It does exist. It is angry. And it might not be top eighting but if you ignore it you will loose to it. Pay the tax people.

The deck I like the looks of the most is the Naya aggro, although its more of a big naya deck. Unfortunatly for me to play it I'd need to get Bonfires, Thundermaws, and huntmasters, all of which are nearing the end of thier time in Standard. I'm just not willing to do that. I mean we've gotten some Theros information!

Dibs for Commander!

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M14 Pre-Release and Post Standard Thoughts

We did a few M14 pre-releases here this weekend. I played in two of them, the midnight and the 1 pm and in an impressive display of unevenness I went undefeated in the midnight and couldn't buy a win in the 1 pm. My deck at Midnight had everything you could want. spot removal in the form of 2 Liturgy of Blood, Quag Sickness, Corrupt and a Plummet, solid creatures including double of the new Muscle Sliver, Megantic Sliver, Syphon Sliver, Mutavault, Scavenging Ooze and of course good old Sengir Vampire. My 1 pm had... nothing. I mean nothing. the only pieced of removal I had in the entire pool was a Claustrophobia and a Plummet. My white had almost no actual cards, instead it was primarily Suntail Hawks. My red was full of Wild Guess and Dragon Hatchlings. my green was deceptively playable. I ran it in addition to my black in round one and got demolished by Blue White flyers. Seraph of the Sword into Serra Angel into Charging Griffin into Jace's Mindsheeker is pretty good against my one plummet. Which the Mindseeker hit and killed my blocker with. So After that beating I took a look at what I had and rebuilt into Black Blue hoping that limited all stars like Cancel and Negate would be better than double Elvish Mystic into nothing. So of course my next opponent was in a blue white flyer deck, chock full of cards I can't beat like Serra Angel, Charging Griffon, Air Servent, and for extra style Fireshrieker. Then, at the end of game three he conceded to me because he accidentally mulled to seven. Which we caught before the game started. So he beat the hell out of me on a mull to 6. So going into round 3 I'm 1-1 when I should be 0-2. What do I play against? UB flyers! With Jace! Because if you're going to get your ass kicked then at least do it consistently. Mark of the Vampire on Sengir Vampire when I can't get to a second blue for Claustrophobia is pretty good.

So what did I take away from this? Honestly, not a whole lot. Its core set sealed, and while its noce about... once a year as a bit of a pallet cleanse after a year of shenanigans I;m certainly not about to do it all the time. I do think that Draft will be better because I can see archetypes forming already. I'm eager to see how crazy the Naya or 4 color sliver deck can be/ RG beasts is always a favorite to draft for me and Advocate of the Beast is amazing. And if I don't get to open the Witch at least once and dive in as deep as I can go there I'll be extremely disappointed.

So as far as new Standard, I think its might rotate around how much play one card is seeing. 

If Burning Earth is a card everything changes. Right now we have some INSANELY powerful manabases in Standard. Insanely powerful and extreme lazy. 4x of each dual in a three color combination, maybe shaving one or two for an appropriate utility land. Shuffle up and go! Except if Burning Earth is a one sided Manabarbs then pretty much every deck in Standard that isn't RG Aggro looses. Right now I've been kicking around the idea of GW Little Kid aggro for week one. Rancor, disruptive guys like Imposing Sovereign and Thalia, and resiliant creatures like Voice of Resurgence and Strangleroot Geist all seem like they're well positioned in a Burning Earth heavy world.

But if its not a card... Then nothing changes. We keep the same decks but Jund gets Scavenging Ooze and Junk Aristocrats likely runs some number of Archangel of Thune. Bant hexproof gets more guys. 

I really hope its a card. I want to see a big shakeup in Standard. I want to see something change. And I want to see people put some thought into their lands instead of just jamming as many duals as possible.