Geeks, Games and Greatness Podcast - Episode 17

A little delayed (because of my laziness) but here is episode 17. We are joined once again by the ever entertaining Nick and we chat about the Return to Ravnica prerelease, Borderlands 2, warp drives and the best way to save humanity.

I think this might be one of my favourites.

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Odd's Twitter: @OddModlin
Ian's Twitter: @i4n0fd00m
Email: oddcastblog@gmail.com 

MtG FNM Report - RB Vampires

If you've been listening to the podcast at all you know that I've been playing a lot of Magic: the Gathering and especially a lot of Friday Night Magic, so I thought I'd give a report on how I'm doing. Here's what happened last week Friday at Outer Limits in Melville:

My Deck: 

Mainboard	Sideboard
4x Stromkirk Noble	2x Explosive Impact
4x Falkenrath Exterminator	1x Olivia Voldaren
4x Vampire Nighthawk	4x Smelt
4x Stromkirk Captain	4x Murder
3x Bloodline Keeper	4x Flames of the Firebrand
3x Olivia Voldaren
4x Pillar of Flame
4x Brimstone Volley
4x Mizzium Mortars
3x Searing Spear
9x Mountain
7x Swamp
4x Dragonskull Summit
3x Blood Crypt

So this deck is a fairly straightforward Vampire tribal deck. I'm a big fan of stupid tribal decks and the synergy that is offered by the Vampires is really good. Two sets of lords, one of which makes all my creatures first strike, just seems like value to me.

This particular build is also quite burn heavy for two reasons:
1. Burn is awesome. It's always been one of my favorite mechanics in MtG, so ya.
2. The previous week I saw a lot of control decks that my creature-kill based deck could just not compete with. So the mainboard and sideboard burn gives me the options to just burn them out.

Round 1: 2-0 vs Selesna Midrange

I was really happy with how this game turned out. The opponent had some quite scary stuff going on, but a first striking nighthawk in the first game kept him at a distance until I could overload mizzium mortars for the win. In the second game I sideboarded in the Flames of the Firebrand which did great work slowing down his ramp and I just steam-rolled over him. 

Round 2: 0-2 vs URW control

I played this game so poorly. This build is really, really, really strong. Plays a lot of board-sweep and Planeswalkers. I think I probably would have won the second game if I had just sent all my burn to his face (as was my plan) instead of messing around with his Planeswalkers. I'm disappointed in my play, but this is the deck that won the FNM that night... so I'm not completely shattered. 

Round 3: 2-0 vs BW exalted

I won this for obvious reasons. Exalted isn't really all that competitive in constructed play and I was able to outclass him creature for creature both games. I was lucky to be able to kill his Sublime Archangels as soon as they dropped and Flames of the Firebrand does wonders against the little exalted creatures. 

Round 4: 2-1 vs Rakdos 

This was quite a difficult game. The Vampires are scary once they get rolling but are a little weak in the early game. His haste creatures caused me problems but unleashed creatures can't block which lets the Vampires get out of hand and Olivia Voldaren came in to devastate his small creatures. The third game was really interesting with both of us playing "red control" just killing every creature that came out, but again Olivia swooped in for the win. 

Cards of the Night:

This card is absolutely insane. This is the first tournament that I've played four of them in the deck and it really paid off. The combination of early game cheap kill and a late game one-sided board-sweep is so versatile.

This definitely won at least one game for me, and contributed hugely to a number of others.

Olivia is certainly the trump card in my deck. If you can't kill her the turn she comes down then you've pretty much lost. I even stole a creature this time where mostly I just kill things.

Giant flying, weenie killing, giant stealing threat? What's not to like? 

This is (in my humble opinion) the best value magic creature ever printed. It's got evasion, the life gain is very useful (especially against Rakdos) and the deathtouch means it can trade up against anything my opponent could send my way.

Especially when paired with the Stromkirk Captain this card is a devastating creature. On turn three it is also a big psychological blow to the opponent. 

Learning Points:

Overall I'm quite happy with the deck and how I played it. My loss against the URW control deck should cement in my brain that I need to concentrate on my game plan and push it through. Planeswalkers are scary and can certainly do nasty things, but wasting burn spells to delay them is not as good as just turning your opponent into a pile of ash. 

So that's what happened: I went 3-1 for the evening and came in 3rd, cool stuff. 

-Odd

"Finding themselves in a new and unexplored world, they immediately set it on fire" 

- Goblin Razerunners

Geeks, Games and Greatness Podcast - Episode 16

Episode 16 of the Geeks, Games and Greatness podcast. Thanks to Ian for editing this weeks episode.

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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GeekGamesGreatness
Odd's Twitter: @OddModlin
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Email: oddcastblog@gmail.com 

Goodbye Nostalgia Critic

You might know that I like web series. What you might not know is that one of my favourites has been The Nostalgia Critic on www.thatguywiththeglasses.com.

In The Nostalgia Critic, Doug Walker plays the Critic and reviews nostalgic movies and TV shows. This is done in a very Angry Video Game Nerd sort of style, but the writing is spectacular and the acting truly inspired. There are very few series (either online or mainstream) that can genuinely make me laugh out loud, but The Nostalgia Critic manages it with a regularity and precision that brings German engineering to mind.

Doug recently announced that the series is dead. No more nostalgia critic. *sob*

However sad I am that I will not be getting any new NC, I cannot help but applaud the artistic integrity behind the decision. According to the announcement on the site, they decided that everything good that could be done with the NC setup and character had already been done, so it should be killed instead of producing second rate content just for the sake of keeping a popular series going.

This is why I love watching shows from the internet. There is no other channel that would support that decision, and I have watched many very good shows just keep going until the horse is far past beating.

Well done Doug Walker and everyone from ThatGuyWithTheGlasses. You guys rock and I am looking forward to seeing what you have coming up next.

EDIT: I don't really mean much by the AVGN reference here. It's just that I assume that more people might know about AVGN and in any case his name is more descriptive of the shared shtick these two have. There was a brilliant crossover series between these two shows that you can find here.

-Odd
"Doing things the way you see it, going by your own heart and soul, that is pure artistic integrity. Whatever the hair is six or sixty inches long, the eyes have make-up or not, the riffs are in 'E' or 'F' sharp, the amps are Marshall or not, all those things don't matter if you are doing it for the right reason, which to me means doing it for yourself!" -Lars Ulrich

Living in the Product Age

The society we live in strange: skewed towards material possessions, consumerism and one-upmanship. We are surrounded by smartphones, tablets and gadgets. We are bombarded by adverts for cars, clothes and consumables; each one "better" than the one before. We are offered a hundred products a day and we're told that if we don't have the latest one, we will fall behind the curve.

Even industries that previously didn't feel the need to push sales like that have jumped on the bandwagon. Microsoft have recently gotten into the gadget game with their Surface Tablets and Windows Phone 8 platform. Banks no longer look after our money, they sell us "investment products". Travel agents sell the idea of a perfect moment in some far off locale as a product.

Our society appears to package everything as product. Even us. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and G+ don't make their money by charging you and as the quote goes: If you're not paying for it; you're the product. Our ideas have, likewise, been turned into products. There are many companies who's sole purpose is to take advantage of the convoluted international patent system by buying up ideas and then charging people for their use.

Reality TV shows like Big Brother and Fear Factor have taught us that even human dignity has a price tag.

Perhaps it is indicative of a society that has trouble dealing with abstract concepts. Perhaps we need to package, label and price everything so that we can have a frame of reference in a world that is moving more and more into the non-physical realm of the information age.

Whatever the reasons or justification, I cannot help but wonder what damage we are doing to our collective psyche. I don't like the idea of living in a world where every possible concept has been nailed down and given a price tag. But hey... maybe that's just me.

-Odd

"Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they'll have jobs and get enough money to buy things." -Philip Elliot Slater

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I'm not entirely happy with how this post turned out. It feels a little stuttering and unfocused. Oh well... I guess that's what you get when you stop writing for a month and I'm far too lazy to rewrite it. 

The Geeks Games and Greatness: Episode 15 - Stuff

You may have noticed a scarcity of updates.... Well spotted.

Here be the 15th Episode of the Geeks, Games and Greatness Podcast in which we discuss stuff... and... things... I'm pretty sure we cover things too.

I have fallen a bit out of the habit of updating the blog and a trifle behind in editing the podcast. I do, however, have two episodes already recorded, so we will be back to our regular schedule from this week.

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Don't forget to check us out in our various online forms:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GeekGamesGreatness
Odd's Twitter: @OddModlin
Ian's Twitter: @i4n0fd00m
Email: oddcastblog@gmail.com 

-Odd