tourney report from last wednesday

slight intro. im playing this list with a couple of small changes

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=12897&d=275028&f=MO

-1x ancestral visions
+1x cryptic command

mainly because i only have 1x ancestral visions from my edh pile. and this mana base

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=12423&d=271445&f=MO

-1 glacial fortress
-1 sulfur falls
+1 mystic gate
+1 clifftop retreat

i wanted mystic gate so that i can cast wrath of god, cryptic command and counterflux more easier if this deck gets more popular. clifftop retreat is just to complment what im short of.

lets go!

round1 - nahiri chord
game1 what a grind. he had nahiri and began ticking her up but couldnt finish me cause i kept her down with snapcaster mage. it ended when i had my own nahiri and was ticking faster than my opponent. my opp still have to cast kikijiki to block my emrakul. i had a bolt for that and emmy got me there.

game2 i mulled to 5. opponent's nahiri was ticking but then when i tried to bolt his nahiri and he has a mana leak (!) nahiri ultimates and emmy got him there

game3 not enough time therefore ended in a draw

this matchup is such a grind. somemore is a pinoy pilot ><

round2 - faeries (apparently he is also another pinoy. also drew with a jund in round1)
game1 i had a timely reinforcement and his bitterblossom couldnt keep up.i had 3x 1/1 and was beating him and had more life than him. he then casted another bitterblossom but was bitterblossom locked. burn closed him out.

game2 early tasigur and ancestral vision got him there. too much pressure...

game3 not enought time therefore ended in a draw

this matchup is such a grind. somemore is a pinoy pilot ><

round3 - nahiri chord
game1 trading removals until theres a nahiri and then when i tried to hit his nahiri with my celestial colonnade and it got hit by a path to exile. nahiri ultimates and emmy got him there.

game2 tradin removals until i had a nahiri and multiple boardwipes (anger of gods and supreme verdicts) and nahiri ultimate and emmy got me there

game3 trading removals until i had a nahiri and then my flurry of serum visions and nahiri ticks pulled me so far ahead and then emmy got me there.

this match up is definitely a grind.

round4 infect (i lost to this matchup that day at the other GPT so i told myself not to make such mistakes again)
game1 i didnt bolt opponent's opening of breeding pool and noble hierarch cause i sensed infect. true enough. i killed 3x inkmoth and other infecr crits. traded 1 bolt for a mutagenic growth. end up kena beaten by a rancored noble hierarch.

game2 traded removals unitl i had a nahiri and nahiri ultimates and emmy got me there

game3 traded removals but then couldnt afford to tap out for threats because of an unanimated inkmoth nexus. expended my celestial colonnades to block but wasnt able to get enough mana to attack and block. therefore decided to play around dismember and drew.

round5 junk by pinoy champ
game1 tempo him out with vclique and snapcaster mage and won with burn.

game2 quite exciting. he gained quite a lot of life and at 24 and several souls tokens he is able to survive an emmy attack after blocking with a lingering souls token. colonnade beats went on until he topdecked a pithing needle on celestial colonnade. then kitchen finks and siege rhino got him there :(

game3 tempo him all the way until the final few turns when we were both out of cards. during last 4/5 turn i lightning helix his crit and snapcaster mage the lightning helix to his face. then during my turn i topdeck lightning bolt... :)

round6 krark clan ironworks combo by my friend
game1 tempo him out with vclique and snapcaster mage and won with burn

game2 brutal... serum visions into stony silence and geist of saint traft got me there.

so there you have it. 3-3-0. unbeaten. but somehow still ended up top16. this deck is good. more practise will prolly do me good

shadow over innistrad, banned/restricted list updates

its the pre release of the new set! shadows over innistrad! i went to play with my cck team mates while theres a whole bunch of players cracking their prerelease packs! i saw people opening arlinn kord and the new sorin. damn OP that prerelease pack. but myself didnt play in any.

this week im going to share some of the newest techs that my team is testing with.

to the slaughter. qssss says delirium is easy to achieve in modern. definite 2 for 1 in my opinion when theres a creature and a planeswalker in play. gets you back from behind. got potential.

pulse of murasa. graveyard shenanigans. worth testing. 6 life is nothing to sneeze at. at worst is a 6 life for 3mana. you can treat it as it reads "3mana:counter 2 lightning bolts" if bolts either go to your face or your creatures.

thing in the ice. as of now is overrated. either need a new shell or is just purely good on paper card.

as with any new release there are bound to have banned/restricted list updates. this time round we had:
modern
eye of ugin banned
sword of the meek unbanned
ancestral visions unbanned

vintage
lodestone golem restricted

this month i told myself to focus and try to at least finish a deck. so therefore i blew my budget to get pieces for grixis stuffs. here are what i got

damnation 2x
creeping tarpit 4x
darkslick shores 4x
rise//fall 4x

see myself next week as more testings continue and discuss about the prices movements with regards to the unbannings

hello everyone. this week damn busy. been meeting up with interior designers aka IDs, going to recce for wedding venues as well as trying to sell my cards on singapore MTG Auctions. but sadly i only managed to sell off my english kalitas, traitor of ghet for 20sgd. quite little for a card that is going for near 30sgd on online shops.

also something to note is that i have finally gotten the account for lim&tan securities. so i can start buying and selling like how my friend eric and jinhua does. all the best to the few of us. and also special shout out to ah pek to intro me to this awesome brokerage which have awesome rewards thats linked to your NTUC link card if you have one. i encourage people to go check it out. also if i make 3 trades within 1 month or so, ah pek gets referral rewards. thats great right? provided i do buy. hahaz

personally i would have to sort out the guest lists so that i know how many tables my wife and i should be looking at before going out to recce the venues. no point not knowing whether we can satisfy the minimum tables or not right?

anyways the full spoilers for shadows over innistrad is up. prerelease is next week, just got a contract to fix some mac harddisks. those harddisks from mac are not straight forward to recover the data thats inside so it will take a while. my good friends have been referring contracts to me but then i dont know whether i can swallow them or not so we will have to see. looking on the bright side at least our my company has been expanding right? hahaz. budget16 is just out so there're many things to look forward to. lastly also looking forward to what my playtest groups are going to buy and therefore share with the readers of my blog.

see you all.

restart

short update as i attempt to reblog my recent happenings

i just came out of ict. in between the ict i attended a wedding and met up with my old friends. talk about life and then about investing. piqued me since i actually had an account from way back. book in and read a bit about investing. now im sitting in front of a computer and try to work on it.

during the recent IT show i went to help my friend get the referral bonus and sign up with another brokerage. lim&tan. i also planning to open a CPF investment account to invest. anything that gives more interest than what CPF gives is better right? instead of parking the money inside where i cant use, why not use it to work harder?

as for magic, nothing much happens as eldrazi continue to dominate. won 2 of 3 grand prix on the same weekend. out of the 6 final decks, 5 were flavors of eldrazi.

i didnt get any cards as nothing is safe. buy legacy cards while eternal masters are on the way? no way. buy modern cards while eldrazi is ruling modern and pending to be banned and unstable? no way. the only safe purchases are stuffs that are on the reserved list and EDH playables.

i got grim monolith as its on the reserved list, serum visions jap foil. its highly likely gh staffs made an error but who cares? you open a shop and you got to be responsible for yourself, ajani vengeant prerelease jap foil for speculation as prices are not corrected.

i sold some stuffs in my collection that are playable in chord decks. think now is the best time to sell. remember the recent modern gp final decks where 5 decks were eldrazi? the last one is a company deck. therefore i will continue to sell chord company pieces before the next set arrives. i also sold the normal english fifth dawn serum visions to my close friend kelvin.

here are the earnings i had this month so far
3x collected company $54
4x chord of calling $52
4x sreum visions $36
plaworks earning $1230
total $1372

spoilers for shadows over innistrad came this week and i am really interested in some of the cards. particulary "thing in the ice" this card is too hyped. its preorder price keep going up and up. whether its the real deal or just hype well have to test it out.

quite a lot of updates for yet a restart post. if you cannot find the older posts dont be alarmed. i just hid them so that only i can see them. i will try to update at least once a week. with things like what i bought, what i sold, investment chats, stuffs i played, my own business performances. readers of my older posts should not find anymore emo posts. unless really emo.

storm

so i am supposed to write about storm. my playtest mate recently brought a modern pyromancer ascension deck to our playtest night but nobody want to play with him. little update about myself. i been busy flying around and busying myself with my grandpa's passing. i be flying off to australia in 2 weeks time. i missed one of my best friend's jason lau's wedding while i am in brunei and i am going to miss my good sis's wedding while i am in australia. i also missed my taxi-mate and good friend, fish ceyi's wedding due to it being too close to my grandpa's passing. today one of my mac friends,ziwei and his wife to be, qiuru, whom i knew for very long invited me to his wedding. i guess i am going to miss that too because i am going to my playtest mate and good bro jasonnnnnn's wedding. apparently i agreed to be one of his brother but i was caught up with my my grandpa's funeral that i forgot all about it. too busy already. what to do? i always get in this kind of situation, sandwiched.

ok now back to storm. just like my life i been through quite a number of storm. now just let me go through some of the storm deck ive played. firstly i want to put it clear here. STORM IS A DECK NOBODY WANT TO PLAY AGAINST. ITS A SELF MASTURBATE DECK. THE ONLY TESTING YOU NEED TO DO IS WITH YOURSELF. ok now i said this i am going to be under quite a lot of fire, but thats ok i guess... for someone whos played with the ultimate version of the original storm cards. its like im saying i played with the purest most powerful version of jund with punishing fire and bloodbraid elf. for testing purposes if you think you need to play with an opponent to test your deck then you have failed. the objective of this kind of decks is to eliminate interactions. the little the better. so that you can sculpt your hands, charge some mana, draw some cards and cast your spells. theres a term called "goldfishing" coined just for this kind of decks. it means you playing in front of your goldfish at home, against your opponent, the goldfish. because no matter what you do it wont do anything other than passing the turn back to you. LOLX

most of the storm decks play stuffs like tutors, cantrips, rituals, mana rocks, protections such as counterspells/discards and the defining kill spells. so lets jump into my time machine

UW desire, UB desire
back in 2004 my first gp singapore that year i played astral slide but the desire decks were up there in tier 1 so much so that i played trinisphere and gilded light in my sideboard. desire refers to mind's desire a 4UU storm card that sort of says "i win" unless you flip like 6 lands. sapphire medallion, nightscape familiar(UB) and sunscape familiar(UW) makes your blue spells cost 1 less. then you pay U to play things like snap and cloud of faeries. pay 1 to untap 2 lands. snap cloud of faeries and generate some storm and mana to mind desire to draw brain freeze(UW)/tendrils of agony(UB)

intuition tendrils/long/The Perfect Storm(TPS) father of The Extended Perfect Storm
yay vintage. the land of power and dark ritual and ultra powerful tutors. in year 2006 portal, three kingdoms, starter was being made legal to eternal formats. then people broke grim tutor. heehee then i joined vintage, buying into duals and forces. and i joined ns and met my future playtest partners. when playing this deck, the only objective is just to play 9 spells and have 4 mana and tendrils of agony in hand. plays like intuition for 3x dark rituals, or 2x dark rituals and black lotus, or hurkyl's recall all your moxes, lotus and sol ring and mana crypt and mana vault while floating mana and replay all your 0 mana cost artifacts. my favorite is play demonic tutor, sacrifice lion's eye diamond in response to pay for yawgmoth's will, the most powerful card i have ever held in my hands. all of these protected by free counterspells like force of will and the most powerful discard of its time, duress.

dragonstorm
my playtest partner played this. cantrip to sculpt a good hand then rite of flame and seething song to generate mana to cast dragonstorm with 3 storm look for 4x bogardan hellkites to deal 20damage. or just plain old casting a dragon on the end of your opponent's turn and swing for 5. thats a 10 damage swing! remember kids! lotus bloom or ancestral visions cast off suspend is counted as a spell! later technologies include spinerock knoll, a land which lets you cast a card for free when you deal 7 or more damage that same turn. most of the time a dragonstorm, bogardan hellkite or a lethal grapeshot.

arcane storm
basically just keep casting things like fertile ground, wild growth and stuffs like that on forest and then using arcane spells to splice psychic puppetry to generate lots of mana by using 3 mana to untap a forest which taps for 5+ mana. this allows you to draw your deck and play all your spells and kill your opponent with a lethal grapeshot. nothing much after 5 games with my team i dismantled that deck and left it at home. favorite play is to remand my own grapeshot, leaving the stormed copies of grapeshot and cast grapeshot again for lethal

pyromancer ascension
play pyromancer ascension, get it online by playing spells that are already in the graveyard. it sculpts the hand by using spells to draw and discard into the graveyard, things like izzet charm and desperate ravings and/or mill like thought scour.then once online, any sorcery or instant will be copied. more mana will be generated and more cards drawn and more spells played and eventually getting there with a lethal grapeshot. occasionally also getting there with goblin electromancer.

all these decks require lots of practice to pilot well. but they do not require a living player to sit in front of you. once your opponent is tapped out you are free to do whatever thing you want because there isnt any countermagic that cost nothing other than pact of negation and disrupting shoal which are not regularly played in most lists.

finally it is torturous for them to look at you while you go through the motions and combo off. worse still is you spent 10mins to go through a couple of loops and fizzle. fizzle means you failed to get your combo going and lie flat on the beach. with the sun baking you most of the time you wont make it back alive. some decks dont get fizzled easily, some decks fizzle easily but can still make it back alive while some decks wont ever make it back.

well thats all. good luck for everyone not to get paired with a combo deck. continue to struggle!

lingo team infinity style

hi people. today we have another guest post from one of our top players. it is a brief introduction to the lingos used in our playgroups and perhaps in singapore as well. without further ado, here goes

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Hi everyone. Today I will be compiling a list of commonly used lingo in this Team Infinity Glossary. Team Infinity is a Modern playgroup comprising of Wengggg (podmaster), Medic (young pyromancer), Cwwwww (tiago lau), Pssssss (modern newbie) and myself Qsssss (greatness at no cost). Without further ado, let’s move on to the glossary. For every lingo, I will provide an instance where the word/phrase is used.

Grind/Night of the Long Knives
The way most modern matches pan out these days. To grind means to take the game long and hope to win through incremental advantage over your opponent. Most midrange decks today such as Jund, UWR, Tarmo-Twin, Pod are designed to take the game long if need be and such matchups are said to be grindy.

Value
Value refers to the additional benefit one gets out of the card. 4 life from Finks? Value check. 2 life 2/2 wolf, 2 dmg to player and creature from Huntmaster? Extra value check. Snapcaster electrolyze to off 2 mana dorks? Ultimate value. Value cards offer incremental advantage to the player that wields them.

Over the top
Refers to cards that pushes existing cards/decks straight to top tier status. Bloodbraid Elf and Deathrite pushed Jund over the top in modern, which is why they are banned. Ponder and Preordain push storm over the top, which is why they are banned.
Can also refer to cards that make an otherwise stalemate game into an easy win such as SplinterTwin/Exarch combo.

Unmolested
Refers to creatures which are able to stick without being killed. Note that these creatures are usually killed in most circumstances. If creatures such as Dark Confidant, turn 1 birds/hierarch are unmolested, it usually spells bad news for the opponent.

editor's note: also normally means those creatures or permanents that shouldnt see another turn of play. things like deathrite shaman comes into mind.

Whiff
Inquisition or Thoughtseize that fail to make opponents discard a card from their hand. Not a good feeling to whiff.

editor's note: also means if you +1 liliana of the veil and opponents puts an obstinate baloth, loxodon smiter or wiltleaf liege into play

Snap keep
Opening hand that is playable without having second thoughts. Note this could be destroyed with a timely pinpoint discard though.

Trade 1/2/3 for 1
To trade means to use 1 of your card in exchange for 1 or more of your opponent’s resources. The best example of trading 1 for 1 is rock style decks where discard trades for opponent’s threats.

Scoop
Simply means concede. Refers to the action in which a player picks up his card when defeat is imminent.

Struggle
Characterised by one of our team members. Struggle means to hang on to the game even though one might be way behind your opponent in terms of board state, resources etc. Struggling may or may not be futile as the player might be able to eke out a win at times.

Mistake
Another word for misplay.

Under costed
Check Tarmogoyf under Gatherer to find out what this means.

Fatty/fats
Big monsters that can swing the game to your favour. The baseline for fatty has to be x/4 or otherwise bolt proof.

Redundancy
Multiple copies of the same card in your hand. Especially useful when facing pinpoint discard. Especially bad when you do not want the same card in your hand, for e.g. legendary creatures.

Bait
To bait means to lure your opponent to do something prematurely or an act that does not yield him or her any benefits. Throwing out a creature to bait removal, keeping a redundant card in hand to
bait discard are all examples of bait.

editor's note: often accompanied by facial/body expressions. best used with struggling expressions to play dead. professionally its done with tapping your lands. different ways of tapping and untapping your lands could means different things to your opponents so please take note.

Wipe
Short for board wipe. Refers to cards such as Wrath of God, Engineered Explosives and the likes that clear the board of pesky permanents.

Exile
New way of saying remove from game. Immortalised by the namesake card Path to Exile.

editor's note: apparently wizards thinks this will save space on the cardboard itself

Bob/snap
Used as verb, which means to fulfil the ability of Dark Confidant and Snapcaster Mage. These cards are so ubiquitous to our game that we simply use triggered actions as verb.

editor's note: should have separated this two. to bob means to reveal a card and lose life equal to the converted mana cost of the revealed card. to snap means to cast a instant/sorcery card in the graveyard with flashback granted by snapcaster mage

Mull
Short for mulligan.

Mana dorks
Creatures that produce mana and best played on turn 1. Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch are the 2 key mana dorks in the format. Goodbye Deathrite Shaman. You had to go because you are more than a mana dork.

Cantrip
Refers to card that replaces itself. Serum Visions, Wall of Omens are some of the commonly played cantrips in the format.

Thalia
One of our member’s girlfriend is referred to as Thalia because of the “tax” he has to pay in order to play a game of magic with his friends. Taxes vary depending on girlfriend. The word tax refers to the deck Death and Taxes

editor's note: some people have to complete their homework before they can play, some people have to change their schedule here and there in order to play etc etc.

DIAM DIAM la
Created by Eng Giap of GH, now more commonly used by one of our members when he is provoked by taunts from other members. It is a friendly way of saying shut up. Best effect achieved when said with gusto.

Free wins
Kiki and Resto, Twin and ExarchMite when all seem lost equal free win.

editor's note: doesnt feel good on the receiving end. often accompanied by "why you topdeck that kind of b*ll$hit?" after someone pulled a free win

Clog the board
To clog the board or the ground means to have so many creatures that opponent cannot attack profitably. The best answer would be a board wipe.

FUG OFF, FUG OFF NOW!
What a particular cardshop owner will say when it is closing time and players are still playing. Also used when one wishes to emphasize overreaction.

Alright that’s all from me for now. Do add on to the list where necessary. Till next time!
Qs

gbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgb arbeit macht frei

this week i was running something that is said to give jund a hard time. first off i would like to share a link my playtest mate QS shared with me

so yeah if tl:dr then the main point of that article is jund get beaten by spirit jund, spirit jund get beaten by thundermaw hellkite jund. then deathrite shaman got banned and people thought jund is dead and played twin. and now jund is back.

seriously... jund is just a goodstuff midrange deck. even if you ban this ban that, ultimately something is going to take its place. the GB shell is just too good. QS played pure GB for a while and he said he didnt even miss lightning bolt. i wonder does he miss terminate and anger of the gods against pod. is scavenging ooze really enough?

speaking of GB, recently i lent out my whole(!) uwr kiki control deck to CW because he was bored of regular uwr midrange. therefore i built a gbw junk with whatever i have left. here's what i played these 2 weeks

4x verdant catacombs
3x misty rainforest
4x marsh flats
2x overgrown tomb
1x temple garden
1x godless shrine
2x ghost quarters
1x twilight mire
1x stirring wildwood
2x forest
1x swamp
1x plains

4x knight of the reliquary
4x tarmogoyf
4x birds of paradise
4x scavenging ooze
3x courser of kruphix

4x liliana of the veil
1x garruk relentless
4x lingering souls
2x thoughtseize
2x inquisition of kozilek
2x abrupt decay
2x golgari charm
1x dismember

basically a gb deck without dark confidant. god i hate that card. oh well at least its good removal bait. i know it is a good card. but it just doesnt work well for me. it always kills me! therefore i decided to try white, knight of the reliquary and lingering souls for a change since jund is on the uprise again. sort of not like what willy edel suggested. but what am i trying to do is to go over the top. most of the time whenever i played it its at least a 5/5. whenever i untap with it i usually win... baring some disgusting topdeck from the opponent. then at that point onwards it becomes something opponent must answer. i also feel he dig as hard as, if not harder than courser of kruphix. they kind of ensure you draw spells after spells. he feels like... psychatog. lol

garruk relentless have to go. its neither a removal when i need it nor ramp when i need it. i also wanted more removals. i only have 5 removals... not very good for a midrange deck. at some point of the games i felt like i was playing mono green stompy. hilarious. i feel this deck has more potential that it looks. perhaps more testing and tuning will tell. sideboard is also very rough now therefore i didnt want to put up here. i definitely like what willy edel has done. he has like at least 7 cards to bring in for each tier 1 decks. gut gemacht!

last night QS brought RUG twin. to me it feels like RUG good stuffs with twin combo built in. usual goyfs, oozes, snapcaster mages and pestermite/deceiver exarch. he told me he is trying to play it like tempo. but most of the time i feel like he have to keep answering my threats. i dont feel any pressure at all. he keep countering my threats. when he lands something it got eaten by liliana of the veil or being forced into a bad block. typical turns goes like this. i played goyf he spell snare. i play ooze he remands. he play goyf i play liliana of the veil. he snap bolt to my liliana of the veil and i abrupt decay on snapcaster mage etc. the RUG twin aint tempoing me out. if he run out of answers i win. if i run out of answers he win. if hes trying to 1for1 me then most likely gbx or any other midrange will pull up ahead.

RUG twin is like a tempo deck with a midrange plan. late game reach is difficult unless you already have some board presence. drawing a cryptic command without anything on the board is nothing but a fog. RUG twin doesnt have a liliana of the veil or knight of the reliquary to take over the game. things like liliana of the veil, tarmogoyf, scavenging ooze and knight of the reliquary are things that take over the game.

last night was a game of topdecks. 1 game he topdecks a spellsnare. the other game was cryptic command. some games was some swords, splinter twins and KERANOS!!! and nice nonland rips from the top of the deck to burn me off. keranos isnt bad is it? nevertheless i had some godly draws of my own too. multiple goyfs, oozes and lilianas. liliana is disgusting when shes a 2for1.


all in all i think in this turn4 format, gbx is still the king. snapcaster mage and restoration angel are still a far second. its really hard for tempo to survive and prosper in this format even with the unbanning of the most powerful tempo card, bitterblossom. although the loss of deathrite shaman is tragic but gbx decks are defintely still playable just that it is not very forgiving as before. over time i think more anti jund decks will pop out. things like tron and death and taxes and stuffs like that. but one is for sure. jund will not die off.