Where did it start?

Well I was thinking about the fact I keep posting about Magic the Gathering when I have not given my background into how I began to play.

Well I started playing MTG in the winter of 2002 aged 12. It was at school I noticed a friend of my friends brother was looking at his cards to which I was instantly intrigued as I was still collecting Pokémon cards. He explanded the basics to me and told me to come along to the club that happened at lunch time. This was it, I was hooked and had to play. The Teacher was given some cards by a student earlier that week which he passed on to me, there was only 10 and nothing special. He also had a couple of 7^th edition starter sets on sale. So that was my first set of cards.

The set in which was out at the time was Onslaught. I was buying tournament packs and boosters through till Dark Steel where I only got 3 packs I think. I had found skateboarding, which stopped me playing as much.

I would buy very few packs through this point; I also didn’t buy many packs from the Champions of Kamigawa as I didn’t like that expansion.

I wouldn’t buy any new cards till Coldsnap where I went mad! I loved the cards in the set. There are still cards that have got me pondering what to do to make them work in a deck.

The next time I would get on to it MTG will be with Lorwyn set. I brought all of the fat packs to this expansion. I think what got me with this set was it had the same feel to it as Onslaught, making the game feel fresh and almost new, like when I had started playing.

After that expansion I would stop buying cards as my involvement with bands would take all my time away.

After the breakup of my 1^st major band, I turned back to MTG, as I would be out of a band for a year. But now I don’t go out my way to buy boosters. I order the cards I want online.

As you can see I have left the game a lot, but always came back stronger and I feel I’m back to stay. I’ve got over 20 decks I have made myself. I have all 4 decks of both Archenemy and Planechase. I’ve got the whole set of Unhinged and I’m trying to get all three complete sets of the Vanguard cards.

Are you deaf? What?!

I went to see Black Label Society the other night with my girlfriend and friends. Now as I have mentioned in previous blogs I’m in a band and therefore around loud music a lot of the time. When around these noisy atmospheres I always have ear plugs. SO for the last 2-3 years I’ve never been fully exposed to the full volume of live music.

Well I had forgotten my ear plugs on this occasion. There are two reasons I wear ear plugs. One is the ringing in the ears after gigs, I can’t sleep with that ringing and then the only way to get rid of it is to play something louder. Two, after the last gig I didn’t have ear plugs in the next morning I had a lecture at college about ear damage which scared me.

Now it all comes down to how long your ears can cope with load sounds. Sound is measured in dB.

As you may know, the maximum exposure time for unprotected ears per day is 8 hours at 90 dB according to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines. For every 5 dB increase in volume, the maximum exposure time is cut in half.
95 dB - 4 hours
100 dB - 2 hours
110 dB - 30 minutes
120 dB 7.5 minutes
Many hearing professionals believe that these permissible levels are still too high for hearing safety.

No I have an app on my iphone which reads dB, and at the concert I measured the sound levels and it peaked at 100 dB, and I’m shore there were points where it went higher. So at a 100 dB you can stand 2 hours but the professionals believe that’s still too much, and you’ll be at a concert for 3 to 4 hours on average.

Now I get called a wimp for wearing ear plugs, but I feel if you’re a real music fan you should want to want to listen to music for the rest of your life. This will not happen if you don’t wear ear plugs at live music events. You will either lose your hearing or it will go the other way and it will become over sensitive with will leave you with painful ears even from just being in a crowded pub.

I found that night that I must be so used to ear plugs that 100dB was painful to me. I could not hear what song was actually playing at all. I had to leave the arena to the upstairs bar and get ear plugs. Even at this point I could not hear all that much over the hissing that had already formed in my ears.

I urge all you music goers, wear ear plugs, most music venues supply them for free, but you can buy re-useable ones. I use www.earplugs.co.uk.

Pokémon Cards

The other night I went round to my good friend Mark’s. Had he not been hung over from a good night before I would have started to open his mind to the wonderment that is MTG. We discussed trading card games as a whole, to which he said he had found his Pokémon cards.

I had a look through and found he’s only missing 20 cards from having the complete bass set. He very kindly asked if I wanted them. So now I have Pokémon cards.

It is now one of my missions to complete the collection. All up to the Team Rocket expansion. This is going to be expensive because he did not have Charizard which at the lowest buy, is now priced at about £25.

RIP Fluffy Friend

I would like to take the time to celebrate the life had by a hamster who went by the name of Henry.

I may not have spent much time with him as he wasn’t my pet but the time I spent with him was fun and never a burden. He did amuse me when he would stand minutes at a time just staring. He was a hamster with balls, when ever in the cage he would be dangling by a toe from the top bars.

Not only was he a Hamster, he was the 2^nd best hamster in Sittingbourne. In our hearts he will always be the No. 1 hamster.

My First Deck

Today’s blog will be looking back at my first deck. Now when I say first I mean this is the deck that I have developed since I first started playing in 2002. It has gone through various “shapes” over the years.

When it was first made, it was a red/green deck, containing my starter set of cards. As I bought more cards it slowly changed and included more complex cards. Then one day, I was looking at my cards and the deck I made, and made a very big decision... A decision to take the red cards out, and play my strength at the time. Green.

I had loads of high powered green creatures. So I piled them into the deck. The only thing was at the time I was immature when it came to making decks, I was still only 13 at this point. I had forgotten the need for mana. So over the next couple of years I would learn from my mistakes and keep building on them. Replacing cards for similar ones but still more complex, finding they didn’t work and taking them out again.

This deck has gone through many changes but has never been completely taken apart; it has always been in a gaming state. It has remained one of, if not, my favourite deck.

I will walk you through the deck as it stands and how it will probably stay. It may fail very miserably 25% of the time but I love the risk this deck brings.

Deck Name: Mana Munching Monsters

Deck Size: 75 cards

Deck Colour(s): Green

Description:

This deck has one objective... To summon the biggest creature and to crush everyone in the way. It uses a hell of a lot of mana. For example, ‘Krosan Cloudscraper’

Not only does it munch the mana as it’s put into play but it carries on needing 2 green mana every turn.

With big creatures like this in the deck it needs ways of getting mana and fast or you will be taken out before ever getting near having it. There are small mana costing ways in Green to get more land into play. My favourite beginning hand will have at least 2 Forests in it with either ‘Krosan Wayfarer’ or ‘Elvish Pioneer’.

 

 By playing these on your first go you get to lay a second land. Meaning that on your second go if you have a land to lay you’ve got three mana. You could then play ‘Fynghorn Elder’.

With his tap to get 2 green mana, by your third go if you have a land to lay, you have 6 mana. That isn’t bad for you third turn. 6 mana means big monsters. For example, ‘Silvos, Rogue Elemental’ who might I point out has a very cheap Regenerate cost.

But you could also be very cheeky and play ‘Elvish Aberration’

This would mean 9 mana by your forth go and if you had another land, TEN MANA! But of course you would have to have a very lucky draw. That’s just an example of how well the deck could work to produce mana. Of course I have small creatures, who’s only purpose in the deck is to create mana (there will be a full deck list at the bottom of the blog.).

I have very few spells as this is a very creature based deck. But the spells aid the cores well. ‘Lay of the Land’ and ‘Explosive Vegetation’ are incredibly useful if I’m having trouble finding mana.

 

I only have three power up spells as the majority of my creatures are big any way. I find I use them to boost my mana, making 1/1’s when I start to dominate with enough mana munchers. But if I’m feeling evil and have a 6/6 with trample out, I may use them to create a hurricane of power.

‘Decree of Savagery’. This powers up everything you have in play. All 1/1 mana makers are now 5/5 power drivers. All 6/6 bests are 10/10 over lords.

‘Shape of the Wiitigo’ will only power up one. If you’re quick enough to get this up you will probably be best on a small 1/1 to add to the army of big hitter. But if it’s been a slow game and you’re having a power struggle with your opponent. Slap it on the big 6/6 and watch their face drop (maybe even fall off). But you must attack every turn to keep pumping it up. If you don’t it will start to lose that power.

The last power up. Cheap compared with the other two, but the later in the game it’s played then the effect will be the same. ‘Blanchwood Armor’.

I feel at this point you can see how this deck works and you just want to look at the full list of big creatures, but there are three cards I’d just like to point out to you.

‘Kurgadon’

Every time you cast a big boy after him he’ll get bigger. And he does.

‘Kamahl, First of Krosa’

Not only does he power up all your creatures for you, but he gives them trample. He can be a game winner, especially if your opponent keeps blocking your big creatures, who happen to be lacking trample with puny 1/1’s.

And finally you’re in the prime position where you’ve got all 6/6’s and bigger out, and your opponent happens to have smaller bit parts in comparison. Great you think, but I haven’t got any with trample, what do I do?

‘Taunting Elf’

Drawing all the attention to him you can bust throw with 20+ damage... In a perfect game any way.

Mana Munching Monsters Deck List:

Green Creatures:

                                             Taunting Elf x2

                                             Wall of Roots

                                             Vine Trellis

                                             Wirewood Elf x3

                                             Fyndhorn Elder

                                             Elvish Aberration

                                             Silvos, Rogue Elemental

                                             Harvester Druid x3

                                             Llanowar Elves

                                             Elvish Pioneer x3

                                             Krosan Wayfarer x3

                                             Horned Troll x 2

                                             Living Hive x 2

                                             Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

                                             Allosaurus Rider

                                             Rhox

                                             Primeval Force

                                             Lone Wolf

                                             Penumbra Wurm

                                             Protean Hulk

                                             War Mammoth

                                             Plated Slagwurm

                                             Yavimaya Wurm

                                             Kurgadon

                                             Krosan Cloudscraper

               Artefact Creature:

                                             Copper Myr x4

                                             Steel Wall                                                        

                                            

               Green Other:

                                             Blanchwood Armor

                                             Shape of the Wiitigo x2

                                             Lay of the Land x2

                                             Explosive Vegetation

                                             Decree of Savagery

                                             Crush of Wurms

                                             One Dozen Eyes

              

Land:

                                            

                                             Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

                                             Hickory Woodlot

                                             Forest x22

Love is a Magical thing.

Well today is the four year anniversary of my girlfriend and I.

 Now for someone like me that seems to be a very good thing. I find myself falling into two different categories.

The first:  Rock Star. Being in a band puts you in this whether you’re good or not really. Typically for rock stars it’s more about groupies than Girlfriends e.g. the intolerable Motley Crue (I’m not a fan of theirs). Look up what they used to do. If I remember correctly they would fornicate with groupies then rub kebabs against their genitals to get rid of the scent and go back to their girlfriends. I think that is disgraceful.

 The second: Geek. Now typically geeks don’t have girlfriends. Not because they can’t get them but because they are a lot more focused on taking over the world of warcraft or defeating the dungeon master.

Therefore I’ve managed to cancel out the need for groupies and being too focused on game domination.

Now my girlfriend loves that I’m a rock star as she’s all into rock and she’s a band photographer; when she realised I was geeky she thought it was cute. So that went well for me.

She has started to embrace the geek life style, well she encourages mine. She wears a Star Wars t-shirt and has bought me packs of MTG cards from time to time. She has gone above and beyond this year though by actually making an account on my MTG supplier’s website (www.manaleak.com) and ordered me a card that I’ve mentioned would boost one of my decks.

Thran Dynamo.

 Bless her as she had to ask me what it was called because she didn’t know how to look at the history on my laptop. This is the best present I could get. The only thing was it hasn’t come yet so Jodie went to the shop I had mentioned in my last MTG related blog and got me two boosters of Fallen Empires. If that isn’t love I don’t know what is.

The cards I got in my boosters:

Chickens make themselves yummy

You’re probably thinking I’m crazy. Well I am. BUT am I?

I was making myself a chicken and mayonnaise sandwich earlier and this is when I thought chickens bring this upon themselves. Chicken is nice on its own. We know this through the fact we eat so much of it. Around 8 billion chickens are consumed each year.

I reckon this wouldn’t be such a big number if it weren’t for the fact they lay eggs… Again I can see your now saying ‘WHAT!?’

Think about what eggs make… Mayonnaise!

I’m a big mayonnaise fan; I have it with almost everything. The two best combinations are of course Tuna and mayo and Chicken and mayo.

So what am I getting at? Well chicken is nice on its own. But how often do we eat it on its own. Look at fast foods. There full of chicken sandwiches. All of them contain mayo. Why? Because they would by dry without it. I find chicken is a dry meat, the reason this could be a lot of the time is we’re scared of under cooking it for food poisoning. The advertising of kitchen cleaner fuels this in a big way by using children as the main target of being poisoned, so all mothers nuke the hell out of it. As such when you put this dry meat in-between two dry bits of bread you need something to moisten it… Mayonnaise.

I do not know of a chicken sandwich from fast food or supermarkets that do not have a “moist maker” in it and the majority of them are infact mayo.

Therefore, I feel if chickens were to stop laying eggs that weren’t fertilized (before you start telling me we’d run out of chickens very fast) we’d have no mayo, meaning over half the sandwiches and burgers involving chicken would disappear. As such less chicken would be being sold for consumption. Not to mention Tuna wouldn’t be very happy because I’ve never ever heard of just a “tuna sandwich” it always has mayo.

Therefore chickens are making their own demise by laying eggs to make the nations favourite condiment to eat them with.