Happy New Year

Happy New year everyone!

It was a fruitful and busy year last 2011. Although when the year ended, my blog layout was a mess for reasons that I didn't know. I took the time to fix the layout tonight and finally I fixed it.

For year 2012, I hope to have a more fruitful year and I would like to think of this year as self-improvement year. I have several new year's resolutions but all of them are leaning towards self-improvement.

I would like to improve in my work ethics, improve my programming skills, and improve my overall skills as a Research and Development Engineer in the company that I work for. I want to improve my basketball skills and improve physical fitness by doing a lot of exercises when I have the free time and work on my game everytime we have a basketball game in our company. I would also like to improve my skills in MTG since I have less time to play last year. I would like to participate in National events this year including Grand Prix tournaments. Lastly, I want to improve myself in my relationship and my friends and everyone close to me. Will also improve how I handle my finances and help my family with what we need.

Happy New Year Everyone! May we all have a great 2012!!!

...

... it's going to be a silent christmas, a silent new year and a silent blank year.

My Take in Standard Solar Flare

Amidst the long absence in blogging and MTG due to a very tight schedule in my work in the recent weeks, I slowly tested and revised my Solar Flare deck. As much as I liked Vengeance and Snapcaster Mage combo, I needed to cut the Sorin's Vengeance to put cards against aggro decks.


I played in the FNM last week but I finished the day terribly as my deck didn't expect too much aggro in the meta. I moved some of my counterspells into the sideboard. And these are my other changes:

My deck techs:

To have deal with early threats, I tried to put Dead Weight. This card is a good card but not as effective as Disfigure. However, in a Sun Titan Solar Flare Deck, Dead Weight can be a good card that you can reanimate with Sun Titan in the mid-game.


My second tech is Gideon Jura. I tell you, Gideon is still a beast in a deck like Solar Flare. While Gideon's specialty is against aggro, Gideon can put a great deal of pressure against control decks too with it's ability to control the board or clearing your way into an alpha strike the next turn.


Third, I played Massacre Wurm over Elesh Norn. This is because Massacre Wurm comes into the battlefield 1 turn earlier that the preator and I find the "target opponent loses 2 life for every creature you control that dies" ability of the wurm very good since it can basically win you the game against token decks. And it makes your removal a little bit better.

Lastly, Manabase! The manabase for solar flare is quite a problem right now but thanks to an article I read in magicthegathering, that in every deck that you build, you gotta have an outlook of what you want to do, and what I wanted to do is to leave 2 mana open in 2nd turn for a possible think twice, doom blade, or mana leak. And that I can basically have a turn 4 Day of Judgement to wipe the board before I can start claiming the board. I did this by maximizing the Darkslick Shores but minimizing the Seachrome coasts while removing the Nephalia Drownyard and adding Plains and Isolated Chapels. After several playtesting, I am quite happy with my manabase right now.

So this is my final list:

Lands: (26)
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Seachrome Coast
3 Isolated Chapel
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Swamp
3 Island
3 Plains

Creatures: (8)
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Sun Titan
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Grave Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Planeswalkers: (2)
1 Gideon jura
1 Karn Liberated

Other Spells: (24)
2 Dead Weight
3 Doom Blade
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Day of Judgement
4 Mana Leak
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
2 Unburial Rites
1 White Sun's Zenith

Sidebaord: (15) (again, this depends on your meta)
1 Batterskull
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Divine Offering
2 Negate
2 Dissipate
2 Celestial Purge
1 Wurmcoil Engine

View my latest version of Solar Flare here.

California King Bed by Rihanna

Finally! The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is finally over! But I will not talk about it because the exam was more difficult that what I expected hehe. But anyway, I heard this particular song a few months ago but I did not know the title, lyrics or message of the song until this morning. I was in Jollibee across the University of San Carlos (testing site for this year's exam) eating breakfast and doing my last minute preparations for the test when the song played. I recalled that the melody was familiar and this was the song that I heard way before. Funny though, because my friend kuya Pebbles (name will be disclosed ^_^) knew the title of the song (although when you see the guy, you will not have the guts to call him Pebbles - sounds so tiny, girly or gayish) but this guy is the opposite! Anyway, I knew this morning that the song was California King Bed. I cannot believe at first that this was by Rihanna since I thought her music was different, but I guess I got too busy in my life that I didn't have updates for music anymore.

Newei, I would like to share the video. And I have attached the lyrics.



Lyrics:

Chest to chest
Nose to nose
Palm to palm
We were always just that close
Wrist to wrist
Toe to toe
Lips that felt just like the inside of a rose
So how come when I reach out my finger
It feels like more than distance between us

In this California king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My Californa king

Eye to eye
Cheek to cheek
Side by side
You were sleeping next to me oohhh next to me
Arm in arm
Dusk to dawn
With the curtains drawn
And a little last night on these sheets
So how come when I reach out my fingers
It seems like more than distance between us

In this California king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My Californa King

Just when I felt like giving up on us
You turned around and gave me one last touch
That made everything feel better
And even then my eyes got wetter
So confused, when I asked you if you love me
But I don't wanna seem so weak
Maybe I've been California dreaming

In this california king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My California King
My California King

In this california king bed
We're ten thousand miles apart
I've been california wishing on these stars
For your heart on me
My California King

December 2011 FNM Card - Savage Lands with Picture

This card reminds me of the good old Jund days... That was the time when I was very active in MTG wherein I tried to participate in every FNM tournament as much as I can. I played this game for 14 years, but I was in the middle of being casual and competitive. For 2012, I will try to be competitive, to participate in a National-level tournament and a world-wide tournament (Grand Prix) and experience the greatest game experience for MTG. That way, I will be contented with what I accomplished in this game.

Here it is, December 2011's Premium Friday Night Magic Card : Savage Lands.

2011 MTG Premium Happy Holidays Card - Yule Ooze

We always want our family during the holidays.

Yes! It is now December and what other good way to start the month of Christmas than to introduce this year's Holiday card. Indeed, Christmas and New Year are for families, Yule Ooze also thinks so as written in its flavor text "It loves having family for dinner." - though in a different kind of way. ^_^


Magic:the Gathering Premium Happy Holidays Cards are silver-bordered cards, so they are not tournament legal cards. These special cards started back in 2006 as promo cards in the Holiday season. Although another interesting fact about these cards is that they are actually pricey! Just click the link for the prices and pictures. ^_^

2006 - Fruitcake Elemental
2007 - Gifts Given
2008 - Evil Presents
2009 - Season's Beatings
2010 - Snow Mercy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!