Theres a Game for Everyone

Hello everyone! So you probably noticed I haven't posted in a week, and that's because I haven't had anything I really wanted to talk about in the past week. In case if you haven't heard, 32 copies of Jace the Mind Sculptor finished in the top 8 of this past weekend's GP, with 60 being in the top 16. 1 Boros deck piloted by PV finished 15th, as the only non-blue deck in the top 16. I had traded off 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptors for Dual Lands a while back, so I don't have a playset, and I stupidly traded off Stoneforges, so I have 0 of those too... Also, I have been having no success with Valakut, so looks like I can't play any tier 1 decks... Whine whine, complain complain.... When in doubt, play mono-red! That's what I did for this past FNM, although I foolishly didn't have any Spikeshot Elders. I promptly went 0-3 drop....

So after not doing well in Standard on Friday, there was a TCQ at Toys. I would have played to give another whack at it with my mono-red deck, but I had work. Instead, I decided to play a game I am particularly good at: the trading game. The TCQ brought in players from all over the North Shore, which created a fresh pool of people I have never traded with before. As I may have mentioned before, one of the problems with only trading with the local community is that the pool of cards you want to trade for can dry up fairly fast. With all the new people coming through, a myriad of promos and legacy cards were sought after.

I traded for a couple hours before going to work, and after work I had nothing to do but play Magic until 1 AM, which is exactly what I did. In the process, I made the biggest trade of my life:

My:
Revised NM Tropical Island (110)
Revised HP Underground Sea (90)
Revised NM Volcanic Island (77)
Mindbreak Trap (2)
279

His:
2x Grindstone (48)
2x Visions Natural Order (70)
2x Polluted Delta (54)
Time Spiral (32)
Show and Tell (30)
4x Knight of the Reliquary (40)
Foil Mindbreak Trap (5)
Ratchet Bomb (5)
284

As much as it hurts to trade out Dual Lands, the variety of Legacy staples that I got in return makes it worth it. If Legacy cards keep on rising, by splitting my 3 staples into 6 staples, I profit more if everything goes up by $5. Even if they don't keep on rising, I cna still use these cards to build cool new decks, like Painted Stone, or budget High Tide (no candelabra, replace with other untap lands spells like Snap). Finally, Sunday came around, which means Legacy came around, and I misplayed countless times to finish 1-2... It was a very saddening way to close out the weekend...

I guess one thing I have picked up from this weekend is that even if you're not succeeding in what you thought you would each week, not all hope is lost. And if for whatever reason you can't draft, Standard, Legacy, or trade, just take some time off! No one said you had to spike yourself to the point of no fun!

Speaking of spiking out, I realized that I had completely spiked out when I sat down to play some casual and I found myself calculating out potential attacks and pressing my advantage in type 4, which is the greatest format if you have never played. I think I may have to touch on that soon... ntil next time, Stay Classy!