Solar Flare 2.0 post Dark Ascension

For several months now I have been using Black-Blue Control since I have become more accustomed to how the deck operates and personally, I thought UB's ability to catch up with UW spirit decks, Delver of Secrets and Moorland Haunt made it a viable option for me in FNMs where I finished top 3 in several occasions. However, I always had deck pieces for Solar Flare and I have watched the deck rise into popularity and now see it disappearing in standard.

I was quite sad that it was removed from the Competitive decks list and that nobody were running them (in my local store, only my friend Irvin runs the deck) anymore. You barely even see the deck perform in the recent top 8s in magic online. What drove it into extinction? Many say that the current meta game made it impossible for flare to catch up. Its relatively slow nature and late game strategy became overrun by fast Delver decks, Humans and now Spirits that are emerging into the action with the recent Pro Tour Dark Ascension's top 8 decks featuring mostly UW variants and Kessig decks. But for me, Solar Flare is still a very strong deck; it's just that we need to give it the right weapons to compete in the current meta game. I will discuss my takes on the deck techs of the Solar Flare deck that I will run in this week's FNM.

Ratchet Bomb:

Most of us already know the power of ratchet bomb. It can kill tokens, flipped cards and effectively kills Hexproof creatures and other nonland permanents. Usually, it is just how we use Ratchet Bomb that dictates how effective it is in giving us a victory. Currently, we usually end up popping the Ratchet Bomb to deal with multiple tokens. But I say, just if we have the luxury to do so, given the matchup with UW or BW tokens, we wait for the charge counter to be 2 and destroy Honor of the Pure and Intangible Virtue instead. Why? Because solar flare has other cards to deal with the tokens like Elesh Norn, Day of Judgement or Black Suns's Zenith.

Massacre Wurm:

Grave Titan is really far more better than this but given the current meta game, grave titan can just be bounced or removed (although the zombies it leaves behind it still great). When you need to deal with tokens and other aggro decks, Massacre Wurm is a great choice since it actually gets the job done once it enters the battlefield.

Sideboard: Revoke Existence over Curse of Death's Hold

Indeed Curse of Death's Hold is a very strong card in the format, no doubt about it, I used that card in the main deck in my UB deck for so long. But in my battles with UW, once your opponent plays honor of the pure or intangible virtue, your Curse pretty much lost its value. And white decks pretty much expect all black decks to run curse, so you are pretty sure that they will board in oblivion rings and enchantment destroyers to deal with it and usually, you are forced to tap out in the fifth turn anyway to drop this card early. With enchantment removals like Revoke Existence, you can deal with the enchantments that pump up creatures and , again, the creatures are not a porblem for flare. Just let your other cards deal with them if you have the luxury to do so.

Sideboard: Surgical Extraction over Nihil Spellbomb

Although Nihil Spellbomb works better with Sun TItan, this is just my opinion and my personal preference, Surgical Extraction gives you the advantage to look at the hand and library of your opponent to check what he/she sided in from the sideboard to deal with your deck. 2nd reason is, both of them can deal with the Snapcaster Mage target or flashback cards but Extraction prevents the opponents from using that card that you hate very much again by removing the extra copies in the deck and hand. Of course, the drawing ability of spellbomb is definitely card advantage but in recent decks, only a few cards have graveyard interaction and those are the cards you want to remove, not the entire graveyard except of course if you are fighting against Solar Flare, but then again, oops, nobody runs Solar Flare anymore :D

Hmm, I think the article is very long already, I will just give you my full list and let us discuss and learn from the experiences that we gather while using Solar Flare.

Mainboard:
Lands:
3 DarkSlick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Isolated Chapel
3 Swamp
4 Plains
2 Island
1 Evolving Wilds
2 Ghost Quarter

Creatures:
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Massacre Wurm

Others:
2 Tragic Slip
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
2 Day of Judgement
1 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Think Twice
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Unburial Rites
4 Mana Leak
1 Dissipate
2 Oblivion Ring

Sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Revoke Existence
2 Negate
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Tragic Slip

Enjoy! Thank you for your time reading my entry.

Update: Solar Flare FNM Results Feb 2012

The 7.5 Php Minimum Fare

Unlike in Davao City wherein the Jeepney fare is different for Normal passengers (8 Php) with students, disabled and elderly citizens (6.xx Php), in Cebu there is only one fare price and it is 7.50 Php at the moment.

I understand that because of lack of 50 centavos, people sometimes tend to pay 7 Php only. Most of the time drivers get 8 Php when you pay 10 pesos or any bill. Okay, I understand that they may not have 50 cents and that it would compensate for the people who paid only 7 Php as jeepney fare. Other people pay the exact amount of 7.50 Php and this is when the jeepneys have 50 centavos and they give you your exact change.

What somehow made me unhappy the other day was when I paid 20 pesos, I received 12 pesos of change. Sure, nothing wrong about that because I understand the 50 centavos may be negligible or the "conduktor" might not have 50 cents. But what I received was 2 pesos worth of 25 centavos and a ten-peso coin. And so I asked myself, what is the reason they put a "Minimum Fare is 7.50" inside the jeepney? Just so that people will pay 7.50 and when they have the exact change, conduktors will still get 8 pesos?? BTW, I checked the hand of the conduktor afterwards, and I definitely saw a lot of 1 peso coins there. Tsk tsk. O_o

Sm 2 Sm Run 2012

I participated in the 12 Kilometer run earlier this morning for the Sm 2 Sm Run 2012. It was actually my first time to participate in any marathon or run and so I was kind of doubtful if I can make the 12 K. The thought of deciding just 3 days ago gave me very little to no preparation for this event. Before the start of the event, I kind of wished that I registered to 6K, but with the basketball and volleyball that I was doing in the last few months, I thought I can do better than 6.

When the run started for the 21K, there was a fireworks display in the SM Northwing parking lot. And so, 15 minutes later, the 12 kilometer run had to start. It rained during the whole event, I thought about not running because I might get sick but since everybody pushed through the run, so did I. I prepared myself mentally for this event and it would be a disappointment for me that the effort of waking up early and looking forward for this event would all thrown down the bin with a sheer rain :D. And so we went on. In the 12K and 21K categories, I had several officemates who participated, namely: Jervis, Raissa, Jufni, Darlene, Naomi and Kristy , and a friend Ian.

What followed was a very fun experience for me. I would like to do 12K again but this time improve on my finish time. At least I knew what to expect in these kinds of run events. When I get used to it, I might try 21K in the next events.

FNM and Xbox Kinect

Yesterday was a great day for me. I didn't have to alarm my phone at 6:30 am and so I had a very nice and long sleep. I woke up at about 9 am and began to take a bath and wash some clothes. Then I prepared my mtg deck for the Magic standard tournament for the afternoon.

Then I brought my other clothes to the laundry shop and bought one of my favorite food. Fried chicken! oh yeah! I ate lunch with raissa and watched part of an episode of a JDrama and I noticed that the "bida" was the same as my favorite JDrama Buzzer beat, and so I will definitely watch that soon, but then I had to leave for the tournament.

I played great in the tournament and finished 2nd place, but was a bit sad since the boosters packs that we opened did not have good cards and so the 1st place winner came home with an expensive card and me, as the 2nd did not get a money rare (yep! we openened 8 Dark Ascension packs and we had no mythics and just 1 money rare). Then I realized that I was pretty happy that I did not get the chance to buy a booster box this set.


Then, the highlight of the day came. Raissa, Citadel, Amiel, Cathy and other officemates went to a former officemate's birthday party (Jartman!!). The food was great! We had lechon, fish, chicken, spag and a lot more. The cakes were great too. But it also was the first time that I got to Play Xbox Kinect! I heard about it yes, but it was the first time to actually play it. The technology was really marvelous! people got used to playing the games consoles with hand controllers. Then I got to play Wii and got amused by the motion sensors in it. But Kinect is different. It detects your whole body's movement! It was a good thing that I brought an extra shirt because at the end of the night, we were all very tired and were all sweaty hehe.

My child-side aside, Kinect can detect the whole body's movement but still not the movement of detailed parts of the body like the fingers. Imagine what we can do in the technology's perspective when this technology delves into specific movements, and I know engineers are researching and developing that technology as we speak. Imagine what it can do to computing, research, medical and all aspects of our lives. Absolutely brillant!

Dark Ascension Video

Hi! I just want to share this dark ascension video. All credits goes to wizards and magic:the gathering. :D

#24 Wong sidelined to rehabilitate injury.

For the first time in the last 2 seasons of the AWS Basketball Association, Defending Champions for last year's sportsfest Googs guard #24 Bryan Inno Wong has been sidelined last night for a sore heel and is expected to not play for 2 weeks.

"I plan to rest my heel at the moment. I was able to run on the court a little bit yesterday but the heel started to feel sore so I continued to rest it and just became the referee for our Thursday night basketball." Wong said after thursday's game.

"I have felt the pain in my heel for several years now but usually, it only hurts after a game, then the pain goes away after a day. I feel great before every game but midway, the heel starts to sore.". One positive note though, MRI results were negative and Wong will be expected to do light exercises after a week.