So I've just come off the back of another day at work. Crazy ideas were born to fruition in my mind's nest, feeding off of each other until only one bloated idea remained. I quickly passed this idea onto my associate Martin Clement, but we both agreed it was promising and worth looking into.

Most people I talked to after Element's release agreed that there was very little in its crinkled foil boosters that would impact Core, at least not whilst the power house of Drums was still beating through the tournament scene. As such most of the guys I test with were caught completely off guard by the Egg deck, and now we know there won't be changes made prior to EUCC we're rushing for answers.

We don't really think many good players will turn up with it, even with the short hand code for the graph paper. Those that do we'll be ready for, so we're just finding a deck that suits our playstyles rather than hard card tech.

My favourite decks always draw lots of cards and/or create obscure card advantage (see...

Don't worry folks, this is not another post about some honky tonk come deck that demonises the game. I've got nothing more to say on the subject until Patrick Sullivan of GGSLive fame gives us the official CZE opinion.

No no, instead I'm going to talk about my upcoming PPV event, the EUCC in Rimini. Having been forced to skip the World Cup due to store shenanigans I'm really looking forward to flopping some cards with the best Europe has to offer.

I've completely forgone testing anything until now because I like to have a meta to play with, and I was slightly worried that with the Totem changes and a whole new set that I'd miss something fundamental whilst I was busy putting 4 [Dimzer the Prestidigitator] into [Searing Light] and Everlasting Barrage.

I've spent today at work, but i've been busy grinding the idea gears none the less. The first thing I noticed was that players are really trying to stay off of Tuskarr Kite if they can, or if they're on it having other draw options. It's pretty sage...

With NACC finished...

Somehow managed to lose this entry to the nether twice. On tilt. Very short update. Apologies.

        I finished finals last week and have been able to play test ever since. Luckily my grades were pretty sweet, 2 As and a C in a graduate level math class.         The important thing is I've been able to play between 200 and 250 games of the Core format. Some of these games were pleasant, and some not (Workstation is always a struggle). I've played with and against dozens of different decks and have learned a lot from my friends.       One thing that is important to finding a good deck to play is having a good network; fortunately for me I have quite a few people I can talk to about what's good and what isn't.       One thing that I have learned for sure is that Vorix Zorbuzz is the deck to beat. It's got solid match-ups for the most part and is definitely capable of winning against nearly every other deck. It's a little late for advice about this, but you need to be able to at least compete with Zorbuzz.       Another important thing is to have some sort of card advantage outside of Tuskarr Kite....

Now a short distance away from my home island and very high over the Pacific Ocean en route to Las Vegas, I am unable to return my tray table to its original position, tucked away in a compartment under my armrest, as the gentleman next to me was gracious enough to show me. "No matter, I'll work around it," I said to myself. As a bonus, there's not much work to be done on an airplane alone, aside from your too-close neighbors and, in this case, my wonderful girlfriend who is a flight attendant for this very airline (Hawaiian, naturally), on this very flight (#18). That said, this stupid table is making me look--or at least feel--like one of those buffoons who has never traveled before and approaches every otherwise natural occurrence with clumsy suspicion. Thankfully I still remember how to use the seat belt and lavatory from my jet-setting days that were recent enough to still feel fresh in my mind. Another somewhat tilting thing is that I am seated in the bulkhead, directly behind the back wall of first...

poot!

Video supplements for "We Talkin' 'Bout Cactus!"

While play testing on Saturday I stumbled into a humorous situation.  We had a deck laid out, but we just wanted to fit one more card in, but couldn't figure out what to take out.  After top minds came together...we couldn't figure out what to take out.  Then someone asked how many cards were in the deck, which was 60.  He said just go 61, it won't hurt.  Top minds agreed, 61 is fine. But then there was an pause, and I asked the question no WoW player ever dares asks.  "If 61 cards is acceptable for a deck, is a 62 card deck acceptable?"  Top minds went into overdrive.  "62 is too much!  The math gets worse at 62!  62 will cause you to get bad draws!  62 cards will ruin your credit score!"  (ok, maybe I made that last one up.) I just found it funny that 61 seems to be an acceptable but for some reason you go 62 and you just might as well throw the deck in the garbage, you just entered some strange zone where you aren't ever going to draw the cards you need.  I am no math major, numbers do tend to give me...