Months ago, I decided to attend GP Ghent. Durdling as usual, I asked around who would want to come along. Naturally, everyone wanted to go at first, then the group of commited legacy amateurs shrank. If you live in a rural area like I do, bi-monthly draft FNM is all you got, and it’s hard to get used to go to tournaments. So, if we finally know who’s coming and if we can go at all, booking usually takes place a mere month in advance.

Yes, that pretty late. It worked for GP Milan, though. It usually works if you put in some effort to look around for accomodation on the internet. Sadly, GP Ghent seems to make things difficult. To quote the GP Ghent event information:

During summer, Ghent hosts one of the biggest cultural festivities in Europe, the Ghent Festivities (Gentse Feesten). The city centre is one big festival with concerts and markets on every square, fireworks, artists, etc. It also covers the Gent Jazz Festival, World Youth Circus Festival, Polé Polé (world music), Ten Days Off (electronic dance music), and many more festivals.

Grand Prix Ghent takes place during the last weekend of these festivities. This means a great experience, but also means you’ll have to book your hotel as fast as you can!

Well, it’s nice if you are able to plan *that* far ahead. I have only myself to blame for not knowing to book freakin’ early, but seriously – If the festival is as awesome as described, the cheaper hostels and B&Bs are probably fully booked for months in advance. Wikipedia claims that 2 million people go to the festival each year, while the population in the Ghent area clocks in at about 500.000.

And that’s where you host an European Legacy Grand Prix.

Legacy GPs in Europe tend to get pretty large since the format is very well loved here. A quick reminder:
GP Amsterdam 2011: 1878 players.
GP Madrid 2010: 2227 players.

Both cities have a much larger population, and hence, more hotels, hostels and B&Bs. And as far as I can recall, there were no super-attractive festivals jamming the cities with tourists, making it impossible to find a room. I can see that it adds to the experience – bomb out of Day 1, go to the city for something different. But let’s face it, the majority of the players will be in the hall most of the time.They want to play a Legacy GP and according sideevents.

I want to go to Ghent, I really do. However, it seems impossible to find a place to sleep other than the car we’ll be driving. Even the campsites are fully booked.

I think the location is awesome, the festival is almost assuredly good times. Heck, I will almost assuredly be exploring it when I’m not Day 2′ing. – for a Legacy GP though, this has to be the worst location one could find. I wonder how many players are in the exact same situation I’m in, staring at 100€+ /night luxury hotel rooms, since these are the only ones available.

And I didn’t even get into *getting there* yet. Due to the fact that there is a popular festival, cheap trains or plain tickets are a pipe dream. You *need* to go by car as soon as you are traveling with 2+ people. That’s less than ideal.

“Yay, life’s a bitch, just sell some cards, yo.”

No, I won’t. I want an accessible, large city with available rooms which are not crazy expensive and to which I can travel by public transport. Is that too much to ask?

/rant.

If I ever quit Magic and decide to sell my stuff, there is one thing I will most assuredly keep, and that’s my cube. I always viewed the cube as “Magic out of the box”, and – while missing the special flair of 4of constructed – it’s pretty close to being a Rosetta stone of play possibilities. Excluding the possible necessity to sell my cube cards due to monetary needs, I believe that I won’t sell my cube ever. Magic is a huge part of my life, and my cube is the integral centerpiece of my collection. It is fully powered, no proxies. So, if I won’t sell my cube anyway…

What if I add some sort of information very visibly to each of my cube cards? I could write a web adress on the bottom or left black border in bright white acrylic ink (to make it extra hard to remove). The web page would state that the card is part of my cube and that I’d never sell a card from my cube. The idea is to make the cards basically un-sellable. A dealer would probably check the url if he reasonably wants to sell the card again, and so are traders. I mean, everyone has a smartphone, right?

Would this measure be an appropriate means to prevent theft?
Do I render my cards worthless, since I can’t sell them anymore?
What do you think?

The list you have all been waiting for! Hereby I present your noncompetitive Legacy deck of choice, Vial Pod:

3 Island
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Windswept Heath
2 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest

2 Dismember
4 Birthing Pod
4 Aether Vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Eladamri’s Call

2 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch

2 Phantasmal Image
1 Scavenging Ooze

1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Eternal Witness

1 Vengevine
1 Phyrexian Metamorph

1 Karmic Guide
1 Acidic Slime
1 Reveillark

1 Sun Titan
1 Consecrated Sphinx

This is the current list, although Alex ended up not being able to play it in Lille.  The core is basically all Mana Dudes and a little necessary permission (mostly to have more time). The creature base is very flexible.

CMC 1
Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch: This is a mana hungry deck, and you want to be able to hardcast stuff. These also Pod into Phantasmal Images in no time.

CMC 2
Phantasmal Image, Scavenging Ooze: Images are central to the deck and there should possibly 3. Sometimes, you even want one to die. Ooze is a Catchall against Reanimator. It beats down nicely and even gains life.

CMC 3
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Kitchen Finks, Eternal Witness: Kira is exceptionally good against spot removal and annoying as hell. Finks are basically made for this deck. Witness is pure value in this deck.

CMC 4
Vengevine, Phyrexian Metamorph: Vine can often be podded and then rebought with Mana Dudes. It’s Hastiness is also surprisingly relevant. Don’t forget that you can cast Vine, and if they counter it, just cast a Mana Dude and get it back from the Graveyard. Metamorph is great for copying Swords and hitting them with a bird.

CMC 5
Karmic Guide, Acidic Slime, Reveillark: Vialing Karmic Guide, then podding it to get a Sun Titan is just soooo filthy. Slime is another Catchall answer and can be very surprising when Vial’d in to block something big. Reveillark gets back basically everything short of a Titan or Sphinx or Vine.

CMC 6
Sun Titan, Consecrated Sphinx: Titan gets back Images, yadda yadda. Sphinx refills your hand if they can’t handle it immediately. That’s what Vials on six counters are for.
For the sideboard, you can go wild and think about stuff like Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Trygon Predator, Snapcaster Mage, Xantid Swarm or Dosan the Falling Leaf, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Harmonic Sliver, Yixlid Jailer, Kataki, War’s Wage, Thrun, the Last Troll, Sower of Temptation, Peacekeeper, Mulldrifter, The Mimeoplasm… the possibilities are endless, as long as you do not want to play a competitive Legacy deck.

It’s somewhere around 22:00, Saturday night and the three of us just arrived at our hotel after getting stomped at GP Milan. I probably had the best pool, with Geist of St. Traft and Garruk, but my Limited Skills at GPs are usually 2-3 drop (while someone always points out the many mistakes I made when building my deck.)

I had been determined to play Legacy on Sunday, but wasn’t sure what I was going to play (except the ubiquitous Lotus Cobra, obv.), so I brought a host of Legacy cards with me. While I assembled a Jund deck (with Bloodbraid Elf and our freshly acquired GP promo Maelstrom Pulses), one of my two companions suddenly asked if he could borrow a Legacy deck, too – he had never played the format, but was intrigued. I had a half-built Affinity deck and gave it to him. Suddenly, Alex, my second roommate, wanted to play Legacy too, but there was no deck left – only the rest of the Legacy cards I brought with me. He flipped through my binder while I jammed games against affinity.

That’s when the hilarity began – He pulled out my blue-based duals (since I wasn’t using them), and then my Aether Vials, Force of Will, and Brainstorms. Half-jokingly, I suggested Birthing Pods. He looked at me. “I will play Vial Pod in Legacy, and nothing can stop me!”

Let me tell you something about Alex. He’s six years younger than me and one of the craziest players I’ve ever met. He can talk non-stop. He likes bragging. Half the people we both know can’t stand him. He always gets 9th, 17th or 33rd. And he kicked Brian Kibler out of GP Bochum. When we drove to GP Bochum on a Friday and every Autobahn had a 20+ kilometer long traffic jam, I was several times on the verge of killing him (and when I asked him to take over so I could rest a little, he stated that he actually didn’t have a driver’s licence.) That said, he’s a very good player, easily better than me.

So, the ‘leftover list’ was basically:

• 4 Aether Vial
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Birthing Pod
• Assorted Duals and Fetches, filled up with lots of basic land
• Phantasmal Images, Sun Titans, Japanese FOIL* Consecrated Sphinx, The Mimeoplasm (!), Vengevines, Umezawa’s Jitte, Deceiver Exarch, Kira, Great Glass Spinner, Phyrexian Metamorph, Acidic Slime…

*yes, this is important. Read on.

…which equals a horrible pile of random cards, basically. Still, Alex was determined to play it. And BOY did he play it.

Another aside: When Alex plays, he can be so serious it’s intimidating. You never know if he shuffles a hand of five blanks or the exact cards he needs to kill you. The poor Maverick player in the first round won the match, but only in the extra turns did his Knight of the Reliquary get there – there was even a Judge Call involved: Can a The Mimeoplasm copying a Phyrexian Metamorph copy something different? There was no premature scooping. Even with a deck ridiculous as VialPod, Alex was all business.

News of the crazy Birthing Pod deck spread soon enough. The deck wasn’t exactly good, but it was hella fun to watch Alex – being dead serious – ticking up his Aether Vials to six counters or Birthing Pod into Acidic Slimes and then vialing Phantasmal Images in.

Things that happened:

Alex is basically dead when he plays his Japanese FOIL Consecrated Sphinx with basically only blanks in his hand. His opponent, playing Zoo, had just played a Sylvan Library last turn. He nods, looking only briefly at the foreign mythic. “Go,” says Alex. His opponent proceeds to untap and draw 3 cards due to the Library trigger. “I draw six”, announces Alex. His opponent looks up in disbelief, calls a Judge only to get confirmed that drawing six was actually correct. That look: priceless.

Alex’s board was just wrecked by the UW Blade player’s Wrath of God. The opponent plays Stoneforge Mystic, fetching Batterskull, and sitting comfortably at something around 17 life. “Go.” In the end step, Alex casually taps his Aether Vial with 6 (!) counters, flashes in Sun Titan, targeting Phantasmal Image, which becomes a Sun Titan, targeting another Phantasmal Image, which becomes another Sun Titan, targeting Eternal Witness, which gets back something like Brainstorm. 20 power, ready to attack.

People died to Pod and Vial activations with artifact removal in hand – “I didn’t think it would be necessary to destroy it.”

Between rounds, a judge approached Alex. “You are the guy with the Birthing Pod deck?”
“Yes?”
“That’s the most beautiful deck I’ve ever seen in Legacy.”

Right now, Alex is on his way to Lille, and if he unexpectedly doesn’t Day 2, he’ll have a certain legacy deck ready and sleeved up with him…

I did not go to Game Day, despite having Bu Zombies ready and sleeved up. Four of us wanted to go, but at 20 minutes past 0:00 I got a text stating that I would have to go alone. Well, no – that’s definitely not fun. So, instead of playing, I went to brewing.

I always wanted to play Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in Standard. (Aside: I want to play him in every format, but oh well.) I know that a lot of people like playing aggro and ramp decks here, so I went with something like this (using cards I actually have – that should explain the single Slagstorm)

9 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Buried Ruin
3 Phyrexia’s Core
4 Evolving Wilds

4 Desperate Ravings
4 Volt Charge
1 Slagstorm
2 Whipflare
2 Mox Opal
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Sphere of the Suns
1 Contagion Clasp
4 Perilous Myr
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spine of Ish Sah

A rough sideboard could be:

4 Galvanic Blast
4 Invisible Stalker
4 Talons of Falkenrath
3 Nihil Spellbomb

Obviously, people will take out mass removal / edict effects, and then Stalker will kill them from nowhere. Just kiddin’

I jammed some games against Delver / Spirits and Zombies and basically stomped them. The deck is a blast to play and gives Tezzeret room to shine. The sweetest plays are accelerating into Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas + Volt Charge into Ultimate.
Perilous Myr does a LOT of work in this deck. It buys you time, but together with Phyrexia’s Core it even becomes spot removal. Desperate Ravings keeps the deck together and is the main reason I went with two Buried Ruins. Overall, the numbers may not work out yet, but if you love Tezzie and burn, give it a try. You’ll fold to Ancient Grudge, but every deck has it’s weaknesses. If you have recommendations or advice on the deck, you are more than welcome to comment.

“Dear Martin, I’m sorry but the Prerelease is already at capacity.”

I had a feeling when I sent the email to preregister my CubeDraft Team for the local prerelease. There were 20 spots available, and I sent the mail 6 days prior. So, now I knew – I should’ve sent it right when they announced the date.The TO said that they had received well over 20 emails. Even if some people would not show up, they would very likely have to turn away everyone who just showed up without a preregistration.

But why don’t they just run several flights? Why don’t they just rent a bigger space?Why don’t you go to another store if your LGS is so terrible?

There are a few factors at work here. I’m not sure if every one of them is actually true, but as far as I know, they are.

• I live in a relatively small town. In the old town, where most of the shops are located, the streets are ridiculously narrow, the houses are small, and the rents are pretty steep. Also, tourism is big business here. Therefore, it’s quite impossible to find gaming space near the city centre for an acceptable price.
• My LGS doesn’t live off selling M:tG, but mainly board games, comics and presents. I know the owner for over a decade now, and he worked hard to establish and sustain his little store. He’s an avid gamer himself and not a greedy person. He said that he basically doesn’t make much money with M:tG, due to the relatively low amount of product he’s selling (which he has to buy from intermediaries). The shop is basically run by 3 people, and a good friend of him keeps the shop safe during friday nights. That’s right, we play FNM with no employee present.
• The prerelease is tomorow (Sunday!), and it seems that it isn’t feasible for him to run more than the single 20 ppl flight. I assume that if the shop would actually make enough money off the Prerelease, he’d gladly run more flights. As I understand it, the Prereleases are not worth it, but he runs them for us anyway.

The next store would be an hour drive away in Switzerland. I could go there, but I’d need to organise a car, and both the prerelease and the local food would be much more expensive: In Germany, the prerelease is 25€ (~33$), in Switzerland it’s 40CHF (~43$).

So, I’ll just wait for my booster box and bust that, Winston Draft style.

Still here? Waiting for the happy end? Well, okay. I’ll leave you with my 3-0 draft deck from yesterday’s last #mtgfnm:

When @wortwelt enters the battlefield, choose one -

let him ramble about: life and how it’s like to be a student of Philosophy at the University of Constance, a small city in Germany OR anything M:tG-related popping up on twitter OR sneaky ways to get over the is-ought gap in moral philosophy.

@wortwelt criticizes/ridicules/admires the German translation of target M:tG card, trying to figure out how to explain the oddity in question to non-German speakers while being a non-native English speaker  himself.

let him recount the latest Cube shenanigans, EDH Commander games, decklists, and whatever comes to his mind to eventually (hopefully!) entertain you, dear reader.

Expect real content at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep.