Yo MTG fellas, it feels good to tell you after the spoiling of partial cards of Avacyn Restored, a new card will be a part of my deck. That is none other than Griselbrand the new Demon Legend which was trapped in the Helvault (refer to Innistrad storyline for that)

So what do you think? Over powered? How about using this guy as your Mono Black General in Commander (EDH). Necrotic Ooze has never felt better with this guy in the graveyard. 7 cards for 7 life is well worth it.

Right about now, your life looks bleak upon you. You felt that there are way too many oppositions, way too many problems to solve. Why do we live? Why are there so many problems, I cannot bear with it. Why are there so many challenges in life? Why can’t life be simple?

Many a times, we always ask this on our own initiative. Though we usually ask this question though perhaps, when we are facing our deepest troubles, causing us to question as to why do we have to face these kind of challenges.

One word. Life is Never Easy! (okay… make that 4 words) Being human is where we always face challenges no matter where we are. As a child, our parents sometimes put unseen pressure on us, as we need to do well in our studies so that we could be someone successful and meaningful in the future. As we grow older, we start to enrol into colleges, universities and perhaps look upon as to what our jobs might be in the future. Expectations are heavily placed upon each and everyone of us (freeloaders do not count). When we made it, people will say, “Wow!!! His life is so nice, I wished I could have one like that!” Though I foresee that it’s not always like that. People do have to work hard to achieve something they are after. Some have many challenges and while we always look at the success of some people, we never actually bothered as to how this person actually achieved the success.

Success always come after failures. As humans, we only tend to dwell on people’s successes but have we actually pondered on how many people have actually failed to become a success? Not really. Let me take a scenario.

You are in a talk. A MLM High earner is giving the talk. He talks about all the success stories from being a newspaper seller and finally after few years he became a wealthy man living his life wonderfully. Of course, we will all ponder as to this guy was able to make it, I am sure it will be good for everyone of us too. Unbeknownst to them, MLM companies has never ever told you as to how many people has failed to reach that mentioned top position. There were many who failed compared to many that seemed to be successful. Many that are failed, when asked those questions to those who are the pioneers in an MLM company, they will say that they didn’t try hard enough. Anyway the point here is, there is no easy walk in life. to reach the top you might have to do anything be it legal or illegal to be successful.

Aside from that, there are but a few challenges in life which is mainly compulsory. One of it is being able to grow up and able to live a healthy life. As human beings, some people are so not bothered with their health, they go with the saying, “We only live once, so why should I live healthily and not be able to enjoy the food I wanted to eat”.

Nice argument but then, this is what one usually says when they are still in good shape and no health problem poised before them. Until the health problem arise, this is when they start to regret and say “I want to live, please help me doctor. I do not want to die!!!!”

I do agree that we all live once. Due to that, I am doing the things I want to do as my age permits. These are the challenges and the things I can do while I am still able to.

Challenges are what make people strong. Life is not a fairy tale. It is also not as easy as it seems. We cannot just say we will exercise when the time comes when we do not even begin with any simple exercise in the beginning. We will keep saying when the time comes until maybe even to our deathbed.

As of now, I want to make sure that I am doing the right things. So what about you? Traveling used to be a challenge to me, but for now, I am going to be ready for my next challenge. Life does not just end here. So again I would like to say, WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Hi Guys, I am sorry that I have been missing for quite some time. Thought I should explain what has been happening these past few days. It looks like I have a problem with my injury. Well, just this past few days there are many other things which either bothered me or kept me thinking. Though adding on to that list is now a swollen foot that would not go down.

The mark is so bad after a few days as there are now red marks showing at the beginning of my toes. In all my past sports, I have never really gotten myself injured. Maybe I have grown old and not as sport fit as I used to. The red marks made me worried for some kind of reason as suddenly I was browsing through the Internet, some say after a few days they could not feel their toes. Then the worst condition is that the nerves have died and finally they are unable to use their toes and have to be amputated.

This is scary shit. I would not be able to join anymore marathons, running competitions, sports that I used to love, hiking and other crazy activities. Do pray for me.

On a side note, I will do another thorough checkup tomorrow at a medical clinic or a hospital to check if it is serious.

It seems 2012 is really not a good year for me when I have so many things to consider. I wonder if it will ever be a good year for me. Let’s hope for good news soon.

Ikan Bilis
Ikan Bilis
Sambal Ikan Bilis
High 5 Sambal Ikan Bilis

A bread a day
Is what I wanna say
Oh yeah I am gay
Just to rhyme with May

Going to work in the morning
Makes it so damn rushing
All because of driving
When most of the car not moving

Sienzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
But people just kacau me thenzzzzzzzzzzz
But you see I am not driving a benzzzzzzzzz
Abudenzzzzz

What a way to start my day today. Crazy to reach office at 7am. Crazy~~

Unknown to the rest of the world, my first FNM (Friday Night Magic) was on year 2000 and this time I am back for my 5^th FNM in my whole lifetime. It has been a long time since I actually wanted to play competitive magic or, rather go back to the standard scene. This deck was played before Dark Ascension came about.

The deck that I played last FNM was a Necrotic Ooze combo deck, seeing how crazy this card synergy would be. Most people who played with me that day did ask me questions about the legality of the combo that we have to call the judge to come and clarify it.

Side Note:

I know some of you guys know me for playing whacky decks that either try to do something crazy or funny to win the game. Well, one reason why I love playing rogue decks like this instead of the normal straight ahead decks is because I love to see the look on my opponent’s face when they lose to this combo. Funny isn’t it?

The testing of standard decks are usually done at my local mamak stalls (a small restaurant selling indian food) that open 24 hours daily.

Here was the decklist I was running.

LAND
2 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Drowned Catacomb
1 Darkslick Shores
10 Swamp
8 Island

CREATURE
3 Civilized Scholar
4 Bloodline Keeper
3 Trespassing Souleater
4 Necrotic Ooze
3 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

SORCERY
3 Postmortem Lunge
1 Ponder
2 Black Sun’s Zenith

PLANESWALKER
1 Liliana of the Veil

INSTANT
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Dream Twist
3 Mana Leak
1 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade

It was surprising that there were some people who were playing this deck in the States but seeing how people in Malaysia here who favors the meta decks, this deck was relatively unknown and I have seen people playing with UB Control, Solar Flare, RDW and the more dominant Wolf Run Ramp.

Let me introduce you to the hero of the deck.

I kidded you not! I pulled off the combo win three times on that day.

Match 1

GW Humans 0 – 2: Should have been a favorable matchup if I were to draw a Black Sun Zenith in my hand. Due to not drawing any of it in my hand, I basically lost to this deck as I have no answers. Mulled to 6 at game 1 and mulled to 5 at game 2 with bad hands.

Match 2

UB Control 1 – 1: One of my favorite decks to go against is the UB Control.

Game 1: Knowing well, that I have Mana Leaks or seemed to have them in my hand, the UB Control player sometimes took their time to not cast a creature while I cast a Trespassing Souleater to frustrate him. After getting the combo pieces into the graveyard, I finally decided to tap out to cast 2 more Trespassing Souleater. Seeing that I was already tapped out, the UB player decided to unleash his Grave Titan with 1 black mana open. This was something I was waiting for, so I combo-ed for the win with a Postmortem Lunge on my Necrotic Ooze.

Game 2: It was a bad draw. I had mulled to 5 cards and basically he drop more lands than me and I was unable to solve 2 resolved Wurmcoil Engines which he took time. Though I could have delayed the game longer if I had discarded my Grimgrin into the graveyard instead of, casting them out as he dissipated it from the stack. I believed I could have won this game if only I did not do a simple mistake like that.

Match 3

GR Werewolf 1 – 2: An agro based deck which I needed to answer with a fast combo or more creatures or with a Black Sun’s Zenith.

Game 1: Mulled again to 5. Surprisingly I won this game with a resolved Grimgrin and Bloodline Keeper in play. I kept killing his creatures and he could not finish me.

Game 2: I mulled to 6 and lost this due to a fast Wreckless Wraif, 2 Mayor of Avabrucks and a Moonmist.

Game 3: Mulled again to 5. I basically am disappointed with my mulligan this time around. Unable to find anything to play other than a turn 1 Ponder and a turn 2 dream twist. I basically had 2 lands in play and unable to draw my third land which basically makes me being out-tempoed by the aggressive deck. I had a Forbidden Alchemy in hand as I waited for the third land drop and finally at the forth turn, I got one and lucky for me, the opponent has little creatures due to having mana flood problems. I got a land out and was unable to survive when he dropped his Double Strike Werewolf guy and Moonmist them to hand me lethal. Now where are my Black Sun’s Zenith in the agro match-ups.

Match 4

Since my record was now a 0-1-2, I didn’t want to end my time in a FNM with no wins. I do not want a repeat of my previous FNM where I lost all my matches in a score of 0-2. This was a time where I would want to try to win.

UWB Solarflare 2 – 1

Game 1: I mulled to 5 again. I was having 2 lands, 1 ponder, 1 Forbidden Alchemy, 1 Postmortem Lunge, 1 Necrotic Ooze. The game was strange I got another land after Ponder and the rest are the combo pieces. What was funny was the opponent was playing a Liliana of the Veil and kept using the +1 ability which resulted in me having to discard a card from my hand which I gladly accepted. I was having fun. At the fifth turn, he made me discard my Necrotic Ooze, making his Lililana at 6 Loyalty Counters and it was either I win him now or never. Seemingly I had a Postmortem Lunge in hand and went for the kill. His hand was most likely a Doom Blade which was practically unusable and no counter spells in hand.

Game 2: I basically mulled again to 6 cards. I had a bad draw. He overran me with creatures casted out from his hand. I sided in Nihil Spellbomb only for it to be not usable in this game. Though it helped me drew a card which practically wasn’t anything useful. I was overran again with Wurmcoils. One thing was my sideboarding options, which I did not put in the Sever the Bloodline.

Game 3: Mulled to 5 cards again. The irony, the pain I felt. He mulled to 6 cards. I was basically playing all my Trespassing Souleaters (gotten Oblivion Ring), 2 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born(1 gotten Celestial Purge, 1 gotten Day of Judgment), 2 Bloodline Keeper (1 gotten Celestial Purge and a Day of Judgment) and a Necrotic Ooze (Day of Judgment). Unfortunately for him, I have a Nihil Spellbomb in play, basically I was milling him all the time since I could not really play with my creatures. We were both attacking each turn with him playing a Snapcaster Mage attacking me for 2 every turn and while I was at 10 and he was at 14(Me attacking with the Souleaters), I played Sever the Bloodline on his Snapcaster Mage wanting to fish out his Counterspells which to my happiness he did not have. Alright, time to set up the board. I kept playing other creatures to make him use up his removal. After that, I combo-ed for the win.

Record: 1-1-2

Conclusion

Seeing my deck play, it was inevitable that I should play test more and try to build my decks according to it. I sensed at times mistakes were made and this basically made me lose the game. Another sideboard option I could use was a Witchbane Orb which practically protects my graveyard from being touched which would have my game plan. I think that the next FNM, I would try an improved deck and do some testing with my buddies to see what should be included in the deck.

One thing I know is that this deck has the potential to destroy UB control players if you keep dropping land after land. What I do know is that instead of going full combo, I think it would be good to be more combo/control variant in order to play against the meta now. Most probably more counterspells and creature removal spells. Problem is what cards should be removed. I will update my brew once again and another new brewed deck. Of course comments and suggestions are welcomed for the Magic the Gathering players out there.