Site (mostly) back on line
I say “mostly” because I am not noticing anything missing right this moment. I took down a few links to older things that I felt were not relevant anymore and renamed the “Automator Actions” section to just “Maintenance.” I am keeping the actual link itself named automator actions so I don’t mess up SEO stuff.
I had to re upload Maintenance 3.8 due to the file still missing. I didn’t want to delay this anymore due to Apple being known for taking links down. Let me know if there are any other issues.
Jund is Dead?? (repost)
Original article by Bob Lanza, reposted due to site issues
…At least not yet. Jund is alive and well, and with the emergence of the Vengevine varieties, Jund is going to be around until most of its core cards rotate out in October. This FNM I was privileged to play not two, but three Jund decks in my escapade with an experimental Esper Conscription deck I threw together. This deck is/was favored slightly against Jund in our testing during the week—except for my teammate Jesse’s deck (which mind you I gave one hell of a run at during the tourney). I ended up going 2-2 on the night. I lost 2 games to—you guessed it; Jund. I’m here to tell you some things about Jund that you may already know, or maybe you don’t.
First, Jund is very much alive, and the main reason for it being alive has been the ever present Maelstrom Pulse. I can’t begin to tell you people how good this card is in this deck. This card is the catch all destroy-a-card. With Bloodbraid Elf, this is just beyond a sick combo. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I had a BBE cascade into a pulse and ruin my plans. I had thought I combatted this by running shrouded creatures, but every time I thought they had run out of removal and I dropped a Baneslayer Angel, bam I got hit with a pulse. Let me elaborate even more as of to why this card is so good. I have not lost one Jund GAME, not match, GAME, against a Jund deck that was budget and didn’t run pulse. This card makes this deck.
Another card that makes this deck still very dangerous despite the advent of Wall of Omens is Bloodbraid Elf—hell, Bituminous Blast has even made a return. So let’s talk about why these cards are so key in a Jund deck right now. The Vengevine varieties rely greatly on Cascade (a mechanic that I maintain has broken the game). If you aren’t running cheap creatures, Cascade can get you that Vengevine trigger far easier. This leads to MAJOR card advantage early. This is something I’m convinced even the control decks cannot do (which is why I ran Kathari Remnant in my Esper Conscription deck this weekend. I’ll tell you what is dead in this matchup—discard. I can’t begin to tell you how much Jund players will giggle when you make them pitch 2 Vengevines. Blightning needs to go bye bye in the mirror, but is still very much a strong Planeswalker removal factor along with more card advantage.
Finally, Jund is where the removal is at. With cards like Terminate, Doom Blade, Maelstrom Pulse, Consuming Vapors, Deathmark, Lightning Bolt, and Bituminous Blast, how can you go wrong?? Did I miss any? Jund runs the most removal in a creature heavy format. I think we might see a resurgence of shrouded creatures to battle Jund in the near future. But in the end, Consuming Vapors sideboarded in, can be a real hoser. I was on the receiving end of a Doom Blade on the stack as Consuming Vapors rebounded. This especially hurt because not only did I PURPOSELY play a Baneslayer because I knew vapors was going to rebound, but I lost a Wall of Denial as well. All this removal may in the end be Jund’s weakness, but at our store…not a chance. In a store filled with Aggro Naya, Vamps, and Jund, there is no such thing as too much removal.
My Esper Conscription deck did what I thought it would when I needed it to. My teammate bluffed his way into a win against me (well played sir) in a matchup that I was typically favored against. My other Jund loss was to a Hyper Aggressive build featuring 4 maindecked Siege-Gang Commanders, Broodmate Dragons, Putrid Leeches, and the coup de grace maindecked Consuming Vapors.
People say that Jund’s weakness is its manabase. My response is: “ freakin DUH!” If you can shut down a single color, Jund sits there and Twiddles its thumbs for a bit while you either set up your control, or beat it down. Seriously, if you don’t have this figured out, you need to go back and look at your blue. Why was spread em so successful months ago in a Jund heavy environment? But this still falls back to my statement about Maelstrom Pulse. Three of my lands are Seas?? Maelstrom Pulse says “hi.”
In the end, I’m going to say to you that Jund is not dead. I think Jund is far from dead and it is evolving into a new powerhouse. Jesse ran Goblin Ruinblaster main deck and totally caught people off guard. There are tons of possibilities for these combos, and we haven’t even scratched up the surface. So now you ask, “Bob, what are you sleeving up for this week’s FNM?” My answer is simple: J.U.N.—naw I’m just kidding, I’m probably going to run control.
Contact form and site Forums back up
Just a quick note, the contact form is back up and working. Please feel free to use it if you have any questions.
The site Forums are also back in full swing. There will be more things added as time goes on, mostly Magic related I assume.
FNM and Vengevine Jund
This past Friday I sleeved up my Jund deck (as always) and went to battle my fellow planeswalkers at Friday Night Magic. The big difference this week was the version of Jund I decided to run. I took one of the many Vengevine versions and tweaked the sideboard to fit my meta. Read more
Rise of the Eldrazi Pre-Release roundup
This past weekend I attended my first pre-release (and Limited) event at my local shop, Numbskullz. I am usually a Constructed player so switching gears to Limited was a challenge. No longer could I build a deck and test it for weeks before I brought it to FNM, I was on the spot and I had to get a deck together within 30 minutes. 24 players showed up and the event lasted about 5 1/2 hours. We played 5 rounds and then the top 4 decided to split because of the time. Over all I went 2-3 which I consider to be fair since I never attended a Limited event before. My deck started out as a tri color (black, blue, green) that won me round one. Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief was hands down the key card for me both of the games we played. I used her ability to kill off all the creatures my opponent had out and attacked for 10+ two turns in a row. With no creatures to block, thats game over. I only had one copy of this card, but I managed to draw it both games. Round one was the highlight of the day unfortunately, with things going downhill fast. Rounds two and three I lost 0-2, both within 15 minutes. I kept drawing single color land which totally crippled my hand. After the third round I decided to switch my deck completely. I ended up with a white green deck that was smaller (45 cards) and faster. I won round four 2-1 and lost round five 1-2. Round four was somewhat frustrating to me because the player I was facing jumped down my throat over every little thing I questioned. I have been playing for many years but I do not consider myself all knowing when it comes to the rules. Factor in the new set with new mechanics, I was questioning/reading every card in play. Just because you thought out the card and what you are going to do with it doesn’t mean I will as soon as it drops into play. Overall the event was a great learning experience and I am considering attending the release event as well.
As for the new set itself, it plays very slow in Limited. It seemed to be a race to see who can get out the first Eldrazi and attack with it. I don’t remember a player who lost a match with an Eldrazi on the table first. Ironically, I never played a single Eldrazi (I had 3 in my deck) so maybe that was a flaw in my deck building. I am looking forward to seeing what impact this set makes on Standard. I have a few ideas floating around for my Jund deck (Vengevine anyone?) and I also am thinking about changes to my Vamp/Mono White decks. Green seems to be the big gainer with ROE so I might start a Mono Green Eldrazi deck. I have most of the cards already and a deck like that is dominating FNM week in and week out. I have 2 booster boxes pre-ordered so I should get some good pulls.
I hope everyone likes the new theme and good luck with your release events this weekend!
Alive
I guess I should start by apologizing. Its been close to a year since I put up anything new here and up until recently, it didn’t concern me much. The last year of my life has been one giant roller coaster that I had a hard time dealing with. Every single aspect of my life has changed, for better or for worse, and I am finally getting to the point where I have enough sanity to write a bit.
I never liked getting into personal matters here so I will try and keep that stuff brief. That side of my life has been the hardest. I have lost a lot in the last year but I have emerged gaining more I feel. Things seem to be more stable than ever and all the pieces are falling into place. I met an amazing woman a few months ago and she is the reason things are on the upswing. I have some great friends who have also helped a lot. I don’t know where I would be without them. I am working in a new building, 40 miles south of where I live. The commute sucks ass, but I will be moving in with said woman come summertime which will be closer. I haven’t decided if I like working where I am yet. I will save that judgment till after I move.
Enough of that stuff, lets move on.
Site Related
I just renewed my hosting for the year and I plan to get this place going again. My focus will still be where it is now, but more toward Magic, music and technology. I still have a Mac and I am still an Apple fan. The fact is, I work in a Windows world. All the computers I support, all the servers I administer, they are all Windows. I do support 2 Macs, but the amount of work that requires is minimal. I plan to talk about everything technology that strikes my fancy and that will cover a very broad area. I am looking at new designs for the site to kick off the semi-transition. Right now I am looking at Joomla for the back-end, but I will still consider WordPress since I have been using it for years. I am not sure how long this will all take since my life is very busy. I seem to have very little free time to devote to the site these days.
Maintenance
Maintenance is still going strong. It still gets downloaded about 2000-3000 times a month even thou the current version is over 2 years old. I do have a lot of ideas on where to go with the program but again, finding time to research and code is an issue. I mentioned before that I wanted to bring the program over to the iPhone format and that is still an interest. I am not sure if it can be done, but with the launch of the iPad, I see more of a use for it.
Magic
Magic has become a very big focus in my life. I regularly attend Friday Night Magic at a local spot, I play Dual of the Planeswalkers on my Xbox and I play Magic Online from time to time. I currently run a variation of Jund and a buddy of mine uses my cards running either Vampires or White Weenie. I do a ton of research throughout the week before FNM so I can be prepared for what I might see. I feel I am becoming a very well rounded player even thou most people seem to think I can only run Jund. With Rise of the Eldrazi about to be unleashed on us, I am already thinking about what might replace my Jund deck come October when most the cards are rotated out of Standard. Vampires seems to be a good choice, but its very hard to know before the other sets are released. M11 and Scars of Mirrodin are still to be seen and those sets might change the face of Standard completely. I know things will be different just with the Shards block rotating out, but what else might happen is a mystery. I would love to start getting into Extended as well, but the learning curve for that would be steep and I don’t have the cards. So that might have to wait.
Music?
I haven’t talked about music that much here, but it is a huge part of my life. I have been playing guitar for about 10 years now and I consider my guitars (all 3 of them, 4 if you count my girlfriends) to be life savers. I currently own a PRS SE Custom 24, an Epiphone Black Beauty and an old Epiphone acoustic guitar. The acoustic says “Epi” on the headstock so I assume it was made before Gibson got the rights to Epiphone? I really have no idea. I currently use a Fender FM65DSP 65 Watt amp with a Danelectro Black Coffee distortion pedal. I mostly play rock and metal stuff but I tend to experiment with a variety of sounds depending on my mood. I listen to the same kind of music as I play. Rarely will you see me sitting by without some kind of music playing.
Gaming
I still play games quite a bit (when I have time). I recently purchased a nice 55 inch Samsung LCD TV and my wonderful girlfriend got me an Xbox 360 for my birthday (gamer tag Sharvan if you wish to add me). I am trying to get back into World of Warcraft, but having that big TV sitting idle in my living room seems to be a crime. Sitting down to play Fallout 3 on the 55 inch TV with surround sound is pretty damn sweet.
Well that is all I can think of right now. I can’t give any time frame for when the site will change or when I will start posting more, but I will. As always, feel free to contact me.