Igniting the Spark

I'm a semi-competitive magic player in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. I post primarily about tournaments and thoughts on current limited formats.

[ignitingthespark]

Well, I didn't do as well in the main event as I would have liked, but came home from GP Cleveland with a Tarmogoyf so I will call the trip a success :)

[magicjudge]

Could you go more into depth on why pile shuffling isn't shuffling?

Let’s assume we know the exact location of a card in our deck, and it’s 10th from the top when we go to start pile shuffling. We do a five pile shuffle. The card will end up as the 2nd card from the bottom in the 5th pile. We then pick up the piles and pile shuffle again, and finally present. With only pile “shuffling”, we’ll know where that card is in our deck. Our deck hasn’t been randomized at all. Therefore no actual shuffling has occurred.

So why pile shuffle at all? To break up clumps of lands and spells? Well if we’re shuffling sufficiently to not know where any card’s relative location is in the deck, then the starting state of the deck shouldn’t matter. If you’re not shuffling enough and it does make a difference, then it’s no different from stacking your deck as land spell spell, land spell spell after a game.

Ideally, players should use a mix of overhand shuffling and interlaced/riffle shuffling when shuffling their deck.

Long story short, using piles is a great way to count your deck to make sure you’ll be presenting a legal 60 or 40 card deck, but it’s not shuffling. If you do it more than once, you’re not advancing the game state and are instead just playing slowly, or even possibly stalling, which is cheating.

[ignitingthespark]

I'm likely going to start streaming again soon. I've just had a lot of free time open up, so I want to start doing it regularly. I'm preparing for GP Cleveland (FRF/KTK limited), so I'll be doing drafts and sealeds soon. I'll make another post when I get it all set up so if any of my follower want to check it out I would really appreciate it.

[ignitingthespark]

Looking at the full spoiler, there are sure a lot of clunkers this time around. Hopefully it doesn't diminish what is one my favorite limited formats ever.

And hey, I've been wrong before. I just want to have fun drafting.

[ignitingthespark]

If I had the knowledge/skill I do know plus the time I had 3 years ago I feel like I would really enjoy this standard format.

As it is, I don't have the time to test and keep up with the format shifting all the time. I'm on the list wrapter and Ochoa played in Denver right now but I don't even know how it will match up in the local meta. It looks fun though, and I just want a short break from drafting every week. 

[ignitingthespark]

Where's a good place to play in the Knoxville area?

CM Games is the big store in the general Knoxville area. They've got 4 or 5 stores now (I've lost track, they keep expanding), but the ones I know best are locally known as CM East and CM West.

East is at Knoxville Center Mall (formerly East Town Mall, hence the name), and the one I play at the most. The store isn't as nice as the West, and the mall is much emptier (and has a reputation for being rougher), but I play here 9 times out of 10. It's where I met all my friends, and I tend to like the players more.

West is at West Town Mall. I go there on Tuesdays and Thursdays for drafts, and those are usually run well. The store is very nice, and the general manager is Mat Mansoor is a really nice guy and treats the players great. This store is further from my house, though, so I only tend to play here during the school year when I'm in Knoxville proper everyday, so I can't speak as much to the FNM regulars anymore. 

There is also a store called Level Up that is near Turkey Creek (a big shopping center, if you don't know the area) that I have heard good things about, but I haven't made it out there to check it out myself.

And like I said earlier, CM has a ton of stores these days, so there are a lot of options. The Magic community in Knoxville is fairly large and active (something I didn't expect when I started), and you can reliably find somewhere to play just about every day of the week.

Hope this helps!

[ignitingthespark]

Khans is really one of the most complex blocks we've seen in awhile. I'm curious how much that trend continues in the final set. 

And maybe they won't make all of the mythics the Standard cards next time around either. 

[ignitingthespark]

Somehow managed to scrape two match wins out of this deck. I'm as surprised as you.

The red splash was admittedly aggressive, but my thinking at the time was that I would need to get lucky as it was to win at all, so I may as well try to push my luck for a small boost in power. I ended up sideboarding out either Mind Swipe or Master the Way in most matches for Waterwhirl. The two Scion of Glacier are really what let the deck function at all, as they could race fairly effectively with enough of disruption.

I'm going to try to not do this "archetype" again, though, haha.

[ignitingthespark]

I don't want to work

I want to draft Khans all day

I don't want to play

I just want to draft Khans all day

[ignitingthespark]

Now this was a fun deck. Went 3-0. I tried 17 lands in this deck, and ended up boarding in an 18th after every game 1. I’ve been very happy starting with 18 in Khans, but I wanted to see if perhaps I was too quick to go to 18. Missing your fifth land drop to flip a morph is pretty rough.

God, I love this format.

[ignitingthespark]

I've recorded my drafts in the past as a means to review them, debating just streaming since I use OBS to record anyway. It seems like it could either be really fun or really terrible, haha. I did do it in the past a couple times but never stuck with it. Maybe over Christmas break.

[ignitingthespark]

Going to be making my first solo trip to a PTQ this weekend. Not something I would have done in the past, but I'm feeling really motivated to compete right now, enough that I'll travel alone. Really hoping to put up at least another top 8.

[ignitingthespark]

Drafted another two color deck to a 2-1 finish. My loss was due to losing internet connection for a few minutes, and being unable to log back in within 10 minutes (I think kicking previously active players after 10 minutes is dumb, but that's a whole other conversation). I think I could have one that match, but it happens.

This deck was very fun to play. I managed to take down a 5-color deck in the second round by just jamming big dudes over and over, and some smart sideboarding decisions (got to kill ~3 creatures with the Windstorm I brought in). I've definitely started to come around on drafting a straight two color deck with a possible splash, as my past two drafts have been plenty powerful in just two colors. You can see some of the blue cards I hedged on in my sideboard, but ended up not playing since I couldn't find any duals (the five color player had them all, the jerk)

This format is so much fun to play. I can't wait for the GP this weekend.

[ignitingthespark]

Has anyone else had problems with MODO bots recently? The ones I use keep picking a few cards, and then canceling the trade, and I can't figure out why.

Its possible its just yet another V4 bug that just sprung up, but I hope I can figure it out soon.

[ignitingthespark]

This was a fun deck (and opening money doesn't hurt). Went 2-1, losing in the finals to an Abzan deck (I was jealous, it's my favorite deck in the format).

My only real regret is that I only got to cast Dig Through Time once.

[ignitingthespark]

Scheduling time to practice for Nashville has been pretty difficult, unfortunately. That's what I get for teaming up with two old guys with real jobs, haha.

[ignitingthespark]

Well, It's Been Awhile

It's been over a year since I posted anything on this blog, which is a little unfortunate. After hating M14 limited, Theros didn't do much to keep me playing, and I've been on and off since then.

However, Khans has, in my opinion, really knocked it out of the park. I've really enjoyed the limited environment, and I'm going way out of my way to fire drafts of it. I'm actually even planning to come back to Standard, since it looks so much better than what it was last season. I'm currently prepping for GP Nashville, which should be a ton of fun. Team tournaments are some of my favorite magic events to play in.

Additionally, I wanted to share my excitement at making the top 8 of a PTQ in Knoxville last night. It's my first PTQ Top 8, and I've been putting up better and better finishes lately. Hopefully next time I'll be taking one down.

Anyway, it's good to be back, and I hope to be posting about Magic a lot more on here again. I'll probably post draft decks/picks and discuss them, as that usually helps me process lessons learned more quickly.