The Beginning Of My Ascendance - April 13th, 2007
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06:43 pm
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Best In The World?
I'm back at the draft table. An 8-4 draft again, looking forward to a weekend of online Magic fun and no bathing.
In my draft is Gainsay, who I believe is former pro Andrew Cuneo and won the invite to the World Champs a few years ago. Also in the draft is Finkel. The Finkel. I get all giggly inside - as Krakower says, I have a non-sexual crush on Finkel. I admire success and good looks, and he's got both! I suspect he doesn't feel the same about me, especially after a certain sea-sickness incident on a South African shark-viewing boat with an open bar that I took full advantage of, but that's a story for another day.
The draft opens with Soot and Stuffy Doll. I go with the removal and follow it up with Careful Consideration over Fathom Seer. No blue or black (or anything else for that matter) seems to be coming through (third-pick Lens) and I'm passing up Mindstabs because there's nothing else to see. After pack one I have a Trespasser to go with the Soot, and a bunch of mediocre blue cards (blue is always hotly contested at the 8-4 table).
Pack two doesn't help me out - the Seer put someone close to me in blue downstream, and I think they're taking the black as well. I first-pick Dark Withering to go with all my madness outlets and see no other madness cards though I do snag a second-pick Expanse...sigh. My top unmentioned picks after two packs are a two Stormcloud Djinns, Spiketail Hatchling, Snapback and a late Phthisis. Then it's down to gray ogres and Mystical Teaching type picks.
I'm set for a third colour (probably red to go with the Soot) in pack three and I'm gifted with the UWR Dragon! Which I can't play. Despite a U/W storage land, the double splash is a mistake. I get tormented a bit more 5-6 packs later with the BGW Dragon. Bastard dragons and their haughty reptilian smirks.
I do pick up Jodah's Avenger which I've played against but never with, as well as 3 Erratic Mutation. I'm not sure if I'm over-estimating it or not, but I didn't think I'd get that many. Aeon Chronicler is another rare I've had disputes over so I'm looking forward to seeing it in action.
By the end I've got 10-12 creatures and 12-14 spells. My creatures are all pretty mediocre, but with all my card-drawing and removal I'm hopeful I can get to the second round and then, who knows?
Round 1:
My opponent has never played MTGO before. He mulligans to 6, misses his second, third and 4th turn land drop, and then discards Halberdier. I win this one, despite having a bit of land trouble in game 2.
Round 2:
The Legendary Jon Finkel. One of the most feared players of the game. Someone you never want to sit across when facing elimination from prizes. I believe I've only played Jon once in Sanctioned Magic, and he beat me around at PT Chicago in the final rounds. He's also pretty good lifetime against me in money drafting. He might just be better than me.
I whip him in under 30 seconds.
Don't ask me - for some reason he dropped from the draft after winning the first round. Probably had millions to win in a sports betting emergency - perhaps the last minute odds on the NHL playoffs?
Round 3:
Not sure yet, I'm still waiting out my bye. But I thought I'd get this written before the draft ends so I can spend more time with the Armoire afterwards. While she enjoyed watching "300" last night, she's starting to give the computer quite the evil glare for all the time it takes from her. I've begun to worry that my power bar may go missing...
So should I play it out? Mediocre deck (as always), finals of an 8-4? Or take the 6 packs and live to fight another day, perhaps the 4X Sealed on Sunday?
EDIT: Cuneo draws with me in the Finals. The Armoire has arrived and I must be off to greet her!
Current Mood:  confused
Current Music: Linkin' Park - "One Step Closer"
Tags: magic online
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10:05 pm
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The Pain Returns
First pick Castle Raptor over Ixidron because there are other blue cards in the pack and I feel like playing solid cards that will always do me well. Other choices are Sol'Kanar and Spiketail. Second pick is Might Sliver over 2/2 white flanker. I never get Might Slivers, so I figure maybe now is my chance. But I hate drafting slivers over better cards. I take Watcher Sliver over Looter, then get a Spinneret Sliver, then take Gemhide Sliver over Fathom Seer (argh!) but can't resist taking Chromatic Star over Venser Sliver.
A second Gemhide says I can do as many colours as I want, but I don't get to long range the 5-colour 4/4 Ur-Dragon. I end up in GWr with two Bonesplitters, Lightning Axe and Rift Bolt maindeck (4/4 Trampling sliver and red Prodigal in the side). Every card is good - Penumbra Spider, Stonecloaker, Saltfield Recluse, Poultice Sliver, Cloudchaser, two Citanul Woodreaders, 2 Amrou Seekers, Mire Boa, Errant Doomsayers and Sunlance.
My first round opponent is Japanese with an 1846 ranking, "kajikaji". Perhaps a Japanese pro?
I miss my 4th land drop but know to play the Seeker before the regenerating sliver and start hitting for 2. But with no 4th land in side, I trade the Poultice for Flowstone Channeler so my Boa can hit play because I need to stay high in life for when the Halbedier un-suspends. Unfortunately, he has Prodigal so the trade isn't worth it, and I draw the 4th land so I could have hit with the Bonesplitter'd 4/2 regenerator. My inexperience with (and lack of faith in) slivers is showing.
Watcher followed by Might followed by Bonesplitter would seem to be good times, but Temporal Isolation and Fortify on the 4/1 takes down the Watcher and the Might sliver. Again, my error entirely - I knew I passed two Fortify and should have taken the hit and waited until I had mana open for Lightning Axe. Luckily Orcish Cannonade took out the Seeker so we're still close on life at 14 to 13 for me.
The Lightning Axe turns out handy on the Pardic Dragon next turn, and Saltfield Recluse says I'll win the race if he doesn't have anything. Unfortunately he does and Skirk Shaman makes the board more complicated. I top-deck a 4/4 Spinneret Sliver and I'm feeling a lot better at 4 life facing a pinger, 4/1 and 2/2 red fear guy. He does nothing and I draw a second seeker. This allows me to attack with the 4/4 green sliver, keep the 4/4 red sliver back, and still have extra creatures and tricks so he concedes.
Game two has me open weakly with two Forests, two Plains, Poultice and Bonesplitter Sliver and Saltfield Recluse. Not aggressive unless he has no blockers and I draw a Mountain. Again I make the grievous error of trading Poultice Sliver for Mogg War Marshall and a token. A ridiculously bad trade given that I drew the mountain and would have two 4/2 regenerating slivers the following turn. Skirk Shaman laughs at the Spider I play instead, and despite stalling at three lands, he continues to play spells with Flowstone Channeler. I again get foolishly aggressive and attack with the spider into Red-White leaving only a 4/2 to block. It's sometimes tough to watch these games afterwards when I can see just how stupid I'm playing. He takes the two to 18 and Sudden Shocks my guy (so losing the Poultice earlier wasn't so bad) to hit me for 5 down to 11.
I'm up to 6 mana now with two more in hand. I play out the Recluse and keep Stonecloaker back. My problem with Stonecloaker is that I want to be aggressive with it, I don't want to sit around. But finally I'm in a position to sit around as the board is at parity.
Pardic Dragon
Did I say parity? I meant...parity. A suspended Pardic Dragon (he's still at 3 mana) is very ineffective against gating creatures and I begin the Stonecloaker dance to put on those time counters.
He attacks with everything and I know I'm screwed - he's holding Fortify. Why am I screwed? Because I foolishly attacked with the Spider again thinking the Stonecloaker provided defence! The Stonecloaker trades with a 4/2 Channeler and I take 5 down to 4 because I'm stupid.
Might Sliver comes into play only to face Aether Membrane (not a combo with a suspended Pardic Dragon) so I lay an 8th land and follow up with Watcher Sliver and the Spider that came to hide for the Stonecloaker. This is where my earlier Chromatic Star pick comes to haunt me as he plays a 5/7 Venser sliver that I can only glare at with frustration. I hated 9 other slivers (some in my colours), but not the one that was most important.
He plays Eron the Relentless while I draw my 10th and 11th lands. Suddenly his 5/7, 5/2 and 2/2 attack into my two 4/6s and a 2/4. What's up with this? Apparently nothing - he loses the Venser and I turn a Spider into a token and take no damage. I draw Rift Bolt for Eron and now I can attack back with everything to apply pressure!
Except, of course, that I'm a frickin' idiot. Those of you who are shaking your head at how stupid I must be to attack into a Membrane with a token creature deserve to be winning more 8-4 drafts. Or perhaps FNM and pre-releases. I lose the 2/4 spider, kill a goblin token, and hit him to 12. He slaps down a Basalt Gargoyle that I can no longer block while I draw land #12. I continue to attack into the Membrane and deal 4 a turn while making sure the Dragon will never see play, but as I draw the 13th land in 21 cards, I am forced to concede because of my own idiocy. The top two cards are Chromatic Star and land, but this game was mine for the taking if I had played it properly at all.
Game 3 has the usual "mulligan or not?" question:
Castle Raptors, Lightning Axe, Bonesplitter Sliver, Citanul Woodreader, Mountain, Plains, Plains.
I think this is a keeper even though I can't play any spells. I have 9 green sources that get the Woodreaders out, and any land gets a Bonesplitter while two lands gets me the Raptor, all the while having Lightning Axe back-up.
By turn four I haven't draw another land but I have drawn a Cloudchaser for turn three and Chromatic Star for turn 4. I decide to hold the Star and pop it for green and the Woodreader on turn 5 as I still haven't draw a 4th land and I'm now facing two 1/1 goblins and a Basalt Gargoyle.
I did, however, draw Stonecloaker, but I still don't know how to use it properly. I finally draw the Forest so with a 2/2 flier and 1/4 guy in play, I can Axe, play any of two Bonesplitters and a Watcher, or hold back on Stonecloaker.
I decide to hit with the Cloudchaser to make it a bit of a race, and play the Watcher to hold the ground hoping that my sliver combos will overwhelm the losing race in the air. He hits six mana and the Dragon comes to play once again. This necessitates a Lava Axe (discarding a just-drawn Woodreader) and I attack with the 2/2 and 2/4, this time intelligently leaving the 1/4 back in case of shenanigans. Perhaps I should have attacked with the 1/4 and attempted to lure a goblin in for Stonecloaker beatings?
A moot point as he plays Venser Sliver and Sudden Shocks my Stonecloaker when I exchange it for the Woodreaders. It's turn 8, I'm at 9 life, and I'm agonizing for a land so I can play the Raptor and solidify the board. Can "agonizing" even be used that way?
I attack for 2 knocking him to 12 and play a Bonesplitter so I have two 4/4s in play. Only when he attacks with everything do I realize what a stupid thing I've done - the man has two Fortify! Had I kept the Cloudchaser back, then I get another turn and maybe the Castle Raptor, or the other Bonesplitter, or anything that isn't being dead!
Grr.
But as usual, I can't really complain - it was my own fault. Exactly how many times do you hear that from someone whining about their Magic loss?
[EDIT: I forgot to mention that for game 3 I put in an 18th land to go with the Star and the two Gemhide Slivers because I was worried his multiple pingers would batter my mana base. 20 sources and still no 5th land!]
Current Mood:  ruefull
Current Music: Beck - "Loser"
Tags: magic online bad plays
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10:46 pm
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Those Who Can't...
I want to rant about education.
This has been building up in me for years (as many English teachers at parties I've attended have discovered), but ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) juggernt's recent rhetorical comment brought it to the surface. I haven't done a non-Magic rant in a while, so why not give it a go and see if my muscles are soft?
His point was the oft-mentioned cliche that, "wouldn't it be nice if teachers were paid as much as celebrities and athletes".
As a person whose family and friends are filled with teachers, I have one thing to say to that, Puh-lease. Is 10-16 weeks of vacation not enough?
Have you seen what they teach in school these days? When we start finding teachers who know how to really teach, and realize what should be taught versus rote learning and archaic literature (Shakespeare, I'm looking at you), *then* maybe they'll start earning a bit more coin.
Our school systems are based on 19th century "what a gentleman should know" type of learning versus things that are useful for improving your life and improving society. Schools rush computers into the classrooms even though they've been repeatedly proven not to improve (and potentially hurt) learning or grades (duh!). Schools teach Latin and Shakespeare and 2-dimensional Geometry while ignoring basic economics and politics that might help students become productive and contribute to the society around them (or at least improve the quality of their voting). Where's the critical thought? Where's the ability to see biased writing, understand statistics and be skeptical of government and advertising? People and team skills? Anyone? Anyone?
You know what was, by far, the most valuable class for me in high school? Typing. It got me high paying jobs all through high school and university, and had me working with computers all the time learning word processing and spreadsheet skills. It is closely followed by Computer Science and Economics where I learned coding and decision-making skills as simple as opportunity cost. None of those courses are mandatory.
You know what was easily the most useless set of courses? English. That's a course you have to take throughout high school up here in Canada. I love reading and writing and in the appropriate situation, I'm not a bad speaker. But none of that is due to what I learned in English where my marks fluctuated wildly depending on my relationship with the teacher. What about French? Most of English Canada needs to take French and yet very few of us can actually understand a native speaker. Give us a red octagonal sign with "Arrêt" though, and we can both tell you what it means and conjugate it! Math? Why not un-inspire generations of children by making it boring and seemingly inapplicable?
That leads me to the worst crime - the methods of teaching. Teachers and textbooks make it look like everything is already known. I read Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and afterwards I wanted to jump up and start taking a degree in both paleontology and biology because I never realized how much is still waiting to be discovered. But all through school there was a feeling of nothing new to be explored and all the big problems had been solved. There are millions of kids out there who have memorized hundreds, if not thousands, of Magic cards and song lyrics and television shows (or improved their language skills with roleplaying games) because they're fun, but they can't figure out how to get kids learning the basics of primary subjects or inspire them to go into the sciences. We can't even get them to read!
Where are the goals? Some kids will want to make lots of money, show them how! Others will want to help people or learn about the world around them, still others will want to teach or lead or build or drive subways (though I can't possibly imagine anyone who really wants to do that - they deserve the big money). What do we do about that? Nothing! We teach them all the same subjects, the same way they were taught to us and to our parents before us. The theory is that if you teach the basics, the rest can be figured out, but we seem to have forgotten how to teach application.
I realize that this is somewhat similar to blaming government workers for the sorry state of the government. It's not entirely the fault of the educator, but they're hardly guilt-free, especially as many of them go on to help design curriculums and policy. There are lots of bad teachers out there, and there are lots of mediocre teachers out there. But similarly, there are lots of not-so-good actors and athletes and they're not making a lot of money either.
Where are the great teachers? The ones that inspire students, that challenge them? That make students better people for having attended the class, not just a bigger bucket of facts? Get them together and I assure you that within a generation, they'll be living in big houses and attending the best parties.
Granted there are different levels of education. It's been a while since I've attended primary schooling, but seeing how it turns out later, I suspect the beginnings aren't so different. And university education is just as bad - everything I learned from university was by accident!
The education system is a massive failure, and the teachers are its guardians and propagators. They don't deserve to be paid more until they start producing a better product. Unfortunately, I don't see the people demanding such an improvement until they become better educated!
Current Mood:  rejuvenated
Current Music: Alice Cooper - "School's Out"
Tags: education systems teachers
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