The Doors Nightclub: The End of the Edenvale Era

This week, a post was made on The Doors Nightclub's Facebook page to announce that the club is moving. They were adamant that it is not closing down, merely going dark while they move to an (as yet) unannounced location. Even so, I cannot help but feel a pang of loss at the news.

The Doors in Edenvale was a huge part of my life for many years. During my student years I spent 3 or 4 nights a week there. It was my Cheers. I remember nights where it took an hour to walk from the door to the roof because I had to stop to greet everyone. I (mostly) remember tequila nights, drinking Tequila and lime.

I have never before, nor have I since had the privilege of meeting such an abundance of fantastic people. I met my gorgeous girlfriend at the doors, and most of the friends I have to this day are from those long nights.

Tonight (Friday 31st July) will be the last night that The Doors Nightclub will be open in Edenvale, and I'm going to be there to give the venue a last party. If you're in the area and the club has meant something to you, I would encourage you to do the same.

-Odd
"When one Doors closes, another opens..." - Alexander Graham Bell (Sort of)

Another milestone passed for Artificial Intelligence - Self Awareness

Today, in New York city, a robot was observed to show self awareness for the first time. Scientists at the Rensselaer AI and Reasoning (RAIR) lab performed an experiment called The King's Wise Men, which is supposed to be a test of self awareness.

There will no doubt be a lot of debate about whether or not this result actually proves that the robot is self aware, and it if it does it's only in a very small and specific band, but it does highlight a few important things for me.

The first one is that breakthroughs in the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are accelerating remarkably. This is off of the back of maturity in the coding environments and the availability of cheap hardware like the French made Nao Robot used in the RAIR experiment.


It also makes me think that we can't be all that far off from an Artificial Intelligence that is truly self aware. That is exciting and frightening as we cannot predict what I world will look like after that happens, it's a Technological Singularity that I've written about before on this blog.

I feel privileged that such a momentous event, written about in hundreds of Science Fiction stories, will (in all probability) happen in my lifetime. 

-Odd
"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted." - Alan Turing, Computing machinery and intelligence

MtG Origins Prerelease Report - Saturday

After a decent run in the midnight prerelease, I stole a couple hours sleep and headed back to Outer Limits for the Saturday prerelease. I was much happier with my pool this time, though I didn't open any money.

Here's what I built:

Click to Enlarge

2-1 vs GB

I loved the deck I was playing, lots of burn and some fantastic bombs late. My opponent could control my early red aggression but then was out of resources when I started dropping fatties late.

2-0 vs RW

I managed to out race the aggressive deck with my red. The Scab-Clan Beserkers were a little awkward to get renowned, but once they were they were great against all my opponent's combat tricks. The Mage-Ring Bully was sweet with Titanic Growth and got my multiple 2-for-1s in this match.

2-0 vs Mono White

My opponent was playing the life gain artifact and multiple tappers, which I think is sub-optimal. Titanic Growth did a great job trumping other combat tricks and was lots of fun with the Menace on the Boggart Brute.

1-2 vs RW

This time I got out aggro'd by the other red deck. In game two I did manage to search with Woodland Bellower twice after he got exiled with Hixus, Prison Warden, which was sweet. Overall I played to my outs and was happy with my performance. 

2-1 vs UR Thopter Tempo

The Scab-Clan Beserkers were great against my opponent's multiple tempo spells and Chandra's Fury out of the board was fantastic. 

I went 4-1 on the day and came second. This format is tons of fun. From my two prereleases I have determined that red fantastic with lots of aggressive creatures and enough efficient burn to really push the damage. The Skysnare Spider did major work... I was super impressed with that card.

I will still be posting my results from FNM later in the week, so you can check back for that.

-Odd

"The only thing more ill-tempered than a griffin in a web is the spider that must subdue it." - Skynare Spider, flavour text

MtG Origins Prerelease Report - Midnight

As usual, I played in the midnight prerelease at Outer Limits in Melville. There were already four red players by the time I registered, so I went with green. The pool I opened was ok, though not hugely exciting. I did open a Nissa, which is value but not spectacular for limited play.

Here's what I ended up running:

Click to enlarge

My green was by far the best colour I opened, and I chose to pair it with blue as it gave me the most interaction. It also provided me with some flyers which I find are very important in sealed as a lot of games end up in a board stall. 

2-1 vs Mono-White Artifacts

I managed to curve out and use the blue disruption to push through the last few points of damage. The Managorger Hydra was terrific in both game that I won and the Whirler Rogue was brilliant too. I lost the second game to Sentinel of the Eternal Watch... holy crap, that card is horrifying. I was in total control of that game until it came down and then it just took over. 

1-2 vs RW Agro

Turns out the red/white deck is super aggressive. He curved out in all three games and my under powered four drops were not enough to stabalise. I managed to steal the second game with Bounding Krasis, but got taken out in the third. Menace seems to be a relevant ability, especially when my three drop is a Scrapskin Drake that can't block. 

2-0 vs Mono-Black 

Game one went according to plan as I managed to curve out and use the blue spells to tempo my opponent out. Game two he got stuck on two land... but hey, I'll take whatever win is available.

2-0 vs GB and UW Skies

I managed to out value my opponent's mediocre GB deck in game one and outraced his UW flyers deck in game two with bigger creatures. 

I had great fun with this format and had a good enough record to come third. My big takeaways from this event were that I really enjoyed Whirler Rogue every time I played it, Red and White are frighteningly aggressive and Nissa was actually quite easy to flip but didn't have much impact when she did. 

I'll be posting my reports from my Saturday prerelease and from my FNM later in the week, so check back for that. 

-Odd

"Nissa had only the space of a heartbeat to react, her instincts steering her blade." 

    -Wild Instincts, flavour text

MtG FNM Report - Mardu Dragons

Every since Dragons of Tarkir was released, I've been playing either 5 Colour Dragons or Temur agro and neither of those decks have a lot of space left for removal. So this week I decided to play Mardu Dragons, as the deck looked like fun and plays tons and tons of the a fore mentioned removal. Here's what I ran: 

Mainboard

Sideboard

3x Thoughtseize 2x Valorous Stance 2x Ultimate Price 2x Draconic Roar 1x Lightning Strike 3x Hero's Downfall 3x Crackling Doom 1x Kolaghan's Command 3x Seeker of the Way 4x Goblin Rabblemaster 2x Butcher of the Horde 4x Thunderbreak Regent 3x Stormbreath Dragon 1x Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury 2x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker 2x Haven of the Spirit Dragon 3x Mana Confluence 4x Nomad Outpost 1x Bloodstained Mire 1x Temple of Silence 1x Temple of Malice 1x Temple of Triumph 2x Caves of Koilos 2x Battlefield Forge 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yorgmoth 4x Mountain 2x Swamp

1x Thoughtseize 1x Self-Inflicted Wound 1x Crackling Doom 2x Crux of Fate 2x Utter End 2x Mastery of the Unseen 2x Drown in Sorrow 2x Anger of the Gods 2x Lightning Strike

This list is based off of the popular Pro Tour build with some concessions made to what cards I have or could borrow, especially in the mana base. The plan is fairly simple: disrupt the opponent with discard and removal and then beat them to death with dragons (have I mentioned I love dragons?).

Round 1: 2-0 vs BW Warriors

After getting thumped by this deck last week, it was hugely satisfying to take it down so handily this week. Game one felt quite tense, but my spot removal lined up when I needed it to and the six sweepers out of the sideboard were great in game two. 

Round 2: 2-0 vs GB Heroic

I love seeing strange builds at FNM and this one was great. It was basically a combo deck that pointed a bunch of pump spells at green heroic creatures to attack for massive chunks of damage. Unfortunately for him I was able to thoughseize out his creatures in game one and had all the removal for them in game two. 

Round 3: 0-2 vs Mono-Red

This round saw me paired up against Aiden who was piloting a borrowed Mono-Red deck after a few months out of the game. He played it really well and I just couldn't stay alive long enough to stabilise. I felt like I had the removal in game 2 but still lost as he would get small value or damage out of every turn. I'm not really sure what I could have done differently and I think the match up is ok as long as I can land a lifelink creature... I will have to think hard about this one.

Round 4: 2-0 vs Grixis Minotaurs 

This was also a slightly strange deck, it seemed to be a normal BR minotaurs deck but splashing blue for Anticipate. Valorous Stance was handy to protect Rabblemaster in both games, through I should probably have 'boarded them out for game two. Once more the removal suite let me keep the creature deck under control long enough for my dragons to eat them.

So I went 3-1 this week, came in fourth and got myself two boosters and the promo Swords to Plowshares. I had lots of fun with all my games and felt the deck was good in all my match ups. It did feel quite tense in game ones, but it seemed like I could sideboard into the best suited removal for whatever the situation was. All in all it performed well and even the mana base was solid (I never had major issues). I think I'll just run it back again next week. 

-Odd

"Do not fear the lightning. Fear the one it obeys." 

  - Crackling Doom, flavour text