Combustion

1R
Instant

Combustion cannot be countered by a spell or an ability. Combustion deals 5 damage to target white or blue creature. The damage can't be prevented.

I'm not going to lie, I don't know the red equivalent to deathmark/celestial purge/flashfreeze/the awful green one. It's probably bad, but not enough to try to
make an acceptable equivalent for m10. It kills baneslayer, but so did any 2 common burn spells/plated geopedes. Maybe if all the playable white and blue creatures didn't have protection from red or shroud this could be a playable card. Unfortunately no one plays instant prevention, and no waste counters to protect wall of omens.

Maybe next time they will give red an edict like spell, or stop making a splash-able hoser that shuts down a deck in the first 2 turns.

Bursting the format bubble.

Extended has changed, sets are rotating, fire and brimstone, lions and tigers and bears, cats and dogs? Pros are being "innovative" by copy/pasting last years standard. And most randoms still are holding onto the overextended rumor.

Inserting stereotypical "if you haven't seen it yet check this out".
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/95b
But more so this:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/twtw/95

Overextended is a truthiness rumor, and shame on Firefox for not updating their spell check. There really was another format being discussed while the rest of us were having nostalgic extended memories and in some cases narrowed legacy thoughts. The "real" format the FFL were testing was nicknamed double standard, which is quite literally what it sounds like, standard, encompassing the past 2 years of magic, times 2. A sort of transition format to transition standard players into extended, sound familiar?

Whether or not you agree with the extended isn't as popular as legacy argument, the numbers speak for themselves. So instead of making another format, forcing players into a position to try and build a third (technically fourth) competitive deck, it was decided to try and re-enforce the one that was struggling.

If this isn't enough to sway you from hording your collection and all that depleting value Linus then wait as long as you like. Maybe the great pumpkin overextended is real.

Blogger lessons relearned and GP part final of final.

I have been writing journals as long as I can remember. I did it not only because I felt the need to manifest my thoughts into a large physical pile of paper that could be revisited, but I did it because it was enjoyable.

I am writing this as an end to my overly postponed GP report.

This is not saying that I didn't enjoy it, far form it, but taking the time to compile old information was tedious, a lot of notes (my notes), I had trouble comprehending. I believe that I waited to long and forced myself to set a pace for subsections for a non existent audience. Not that the practice wasn't a bad thing, unfortunately the writing experiment made the writing process feel more of a job than something I enjoy.

And I should get paid to do a job.

Just to sum up the event, I went 5-3-1. Going round 1 against faeries forced me to tie and paired against a lot of control match ups. I punted round 2 really badly against the mirror, so bad that my friends will probably never let me live down. Round 3 I beat what look to be a rav block pre-con. Round 4, I kept dredge at bay with thopter combo even tho he had zealot on board with two dredge returns in his yard. Round 5, fae, lost again. Round 6, scapeshift w/o cryptic command, he tried comboing a turn early. Round 7, zoo, thopter combo is awesome. Round 8 my buddy Dustin playing elves, taps out ghost quarters trying to combo faster than me, I top deck pieces both times. Round 8, fae with lolgoyf, I miss played thirst and he went anal retentive on me after calling a judge, I had to remind him that he was x-2-1 but missing day 2 by one round is serious business. I didn't take the match up serious enough and should of mulligan game 3, oh well.

Props to Charly and Danny for making day 2. Ben Rubin for smashing Charly with my token cards. And all my friends for almost getting us kicked out of our hotel room.

Slops: our gauntlet, for not being a legitimate gauntlet for the meta. A sloppy zoo build and no faeries deck. PTR, who received a perma-ban for shoving some kid. Pizza hut, for taking an hour and a half to deliver a block away. Alan Comer, for trying to get me DQ'd at the trial, paused my game state bc my opponent, who beat him, and myself didn't properly keep track of the damage that my dark confidant did while Doran was on the board. I saw him playing at tables 200+ the main event.

The extended meta has changed quite a bit since GP Oakland, if I were to try to replay the deck I would definitely send the Repeal to the board, as it was a dead card all but one round.

I hope to do more posts that feel less stale in the future.