Top 8 at Eternal Euphoria (Manila) with Elves!

       I was on a trip to Manila recently, and it just happened to fall on the Legacy day of Eternal Euphoria - a set of tournaments in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. I missed the Vintage tournament, and I really wanted to join the Legacy tournament because I thought it would surely be larger than the 8-mans I usually join in Cebu. I picked my Elves deck for this tourney, mostly because the players at Kick Engines (the card shop that hosted the tournament) liked to pimp their decks, and I thought I'd bring my best pimp deck so far. The deck is mostly Japanese non-foil except for 5 cards in the maindeck and a few in the sideboard. I also thought it would do well in the expected metagame of MUD, Eldrazi, and midrange decks.

GP Chiba Side Event - Top 4 in the Asia Vintage Championship Winter 2016!

      Even before I went to Grand Prix Chiba, I told myself I would be fine with not making Day 2 of the Main Event because there was a Vintage tournament that was likely to be fairly large. Vintage is extremely rare in Manila, and completely non-existent in Cebu, so I knew I didn't want to miss this chance to play with some Power cards!

Release the ANT

After a long while, I'm back with another tournament report from Cebu's Legacy scene! It's been some time since my first post here, and we've managed to launch quite a few Legacy tournaments since then. After winning with Elves, I've gone 2-2, 3-1, and 4-0 with Elves, 3-1 with Grixis Delver, 2-2 and 4-0 with Lands, and now 4-0 with my actual favorite deck: ANT. I can't remember the details of most of those tournaments anymore, but I will be writing about the last tournament I joined with Lands. I had some spicy tech that I'm sure my opponents didn't enjoy. I'm very, very happy that we've been getting our Legacy events to fire now. I believe we've now run more tournaments in 2016 than the whole of 2015. The relatively consistent events have generated some interest from new players who want to try Legacy.

I have a thing for complicated decks with multiple paths to victory, so I always have loads of fun whenever I play ANT. A perfect example of this is the recent Grand Prix Prague finals. That match was just an incredible showcase of Legacy as a format, and of both Miracles and Storm as two of the most powerful decks. I've played Rodrigo Togores' lists since last year, and I have had no reason to doubt it, especially after the GP finals. I played his list as-is, but changed my sideboard for my local metagame.

All-In Manaless Dredge

All-in Manaless Dredge by Bryan Inno Wong 

Creatures: 4 Ichorid 4 Nether Shadow 4 Narcomoeba 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Golgari Thug 3 Shambling Shell 4 Street Wraith 4 Phantasmagorian 3 Balustrade Spy 2 Flayer of the Hatebound 4 Chancellor of the Annex 1 Serra Avatar Sorceries: 3 Gitaxian Probe 4 Dread Return 4 Cabal Therapy Enchantments: 4 Bridge From Below

Sideboard: 4 Mindbreak Trap 4 Contagion 3 Faerie Macabre 2 Ashen Rider 2 Noxious Revival

Manaless Dredging Folds to One Card

Hello everybody. It's been a while since I have written an article and the truth is - magic itself. I have been on a 2 month hiatus and with roughly 6 months to go, Grand Prix Chiba is fast approaching and it's now time to get back into playing Legacy. Let me be clear about some things - yes, this is an article about Manaless Dredge. Say what??! Is that even a tier 1 or 1.5 deck? Well, it's actually not, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun deck to play. Another thing is no - this is not a primer about Manaless Dredge - but maybe I will do that in another article.

But one this is for sure, as the title says, I think there is an important rule in playing legacy that we should remember when selecting a deck and that is "to NEVER choose a deck that folds to one card". Rest in Peace. Leyline of the Void. Grafdigger's Cage. Deathrite Shaman. BOOM! Those are 4 cards, and yet Manaless Dredge may fold to each of those cards - "You are not making a lot of sense Mr Bryan Wong!". Maybe or maybe not but let's get to Dredging anyway!

All Those Faces Under The Hoof

Hello everyone! I’m Jun Mendero, and I have been playing Magic: The Gathering on and off since 1997. I’ve sold out of and bought into the game several times, but I’ve been playing Legacy, Vintage, and (reluctantly testing) Modern since 2010 and I don’t think I’ll quit anytime soon.

The Legacy scene in Cebu is quite small at the moment, which is understandable considering the prices of Legacy decks. It’s so small that when two players stopped playing, we could not fire a tournament for two months. Fortunately, we managed to get our tournaments running again, with a major milestone of running two in the same week! We are hoping to run weekly Legacy tournaments after this.

I could only join one of the two tournaments, and I won it with Elves. It’s the first deck I bought into when I started playing Magic again, so I can say I've had some practice with it. Elves used to be just a cute and terrible deck that could only really win through insane Glimpse chains, but with several fantastic printings, it slowly turned into the powerhouse it is today.

Planeswalkers of Shadows Over Innistrad

Innistrad has been and will always be an important block in my Magic the Gathering life and it has been my favorite block flavor-wise and story-wise. The first Innistrad block gave us a lot of cards that are even continuously being used in a lot of eternal formats - personally, my Modern and Legacy lists include Liliana of the Veil, Geist of Saint Traft, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets.

Shadows Over Innistrad visits the horror-themed plane again and hopefully this will not disappoint us. Before we proceed to the planeswalkers in this block, let us appreciate this very cool playmat for the Shadows Over Innistrad Gameday champion.

Tetsu Tsukemen

If you are in Shibuya abnd you are craving for some Tsukemen, then I got the place for you -- Tetsu Tsukemen.

The shop is conveniently located near the Hachiko Exit of Shibuya Station in Tokyo.

However, The shop is not located in the main road so you need to go into the smaller alleys of Shibuya to get there.

Upon entering the shop, there is a machine where you can select your order and will receive your payment. The price is also displayed in the buttons of the machine. Ordering is easy but not all orders have pictures but some helpful common terms will help.

Snowboarding Time in Iiyama Nagano

With the cold winter going away soon and Spring slowly warming things up, I did not let an opportunity to go snowboarding pass. Experiencing this adventure filled me up with mixed emotions - ranging from heart-stopping majestic scenery to painful buttocks from constant falling. But once you learn how to do it properly, it sure is great! Some of my friends here tell me that Filipino and Snowboarding is a bit unusual for them since the Philippines is relatively a warm/hot country, but if there's one thing that Filipinos do is that we love to try things out - especially things we cannot experience in our daily lives living in a warm region.

Playing with Modern Affinity Once Again

Affinity or Robots is one of the pure aggro decks in the modern format that is very fast and resilient. A deck so focused in strategy that it is very difficult to deal with in game 1. However, it is also a deck that is very easy to hate with multiple cards in the modern environment post sideboard. I will discuss my current deck list for Affinity / Robots and what I want to change in the deck after playing modern for the first time here in Japan.

November 2014 FNM Card - Brain Maggot with Picture

No doubt about it, Brain Maggot is a great card and an FNM promo version of the card is pretty sweet. The art is eerily good. It gives me goosebumps but it is a masterpiece and I love it! I might need to go to FNMs every week for November for this promo.

October 2014 FNM Card - Fanatic of Xenagos with Picture

The FNM Promo for October is a party goer and a devotee to the Revel God Xenagos. Compared to last month's FNM promo, Fanatic of Xenagos didn't really have much appearance in the competitive Standard picture, even though it has one of the best or better Tribute effects in my opinion. If you think Red-Green Aggro will be a thing for the future, aim for this FNM promo for October besides, the art is cool.

September 2014 FNM Card - Banishing Light with Picture

The FNM Promo in September is a Standard staple after the rotation. A good promo at the right time. Banishing Light is the functional reprint of the good old Oblivion Ring and it surely gets the job done.

July 2014 FNM Card - Magma Spray with Picture

Friday Night Magic in July will be red hot with a foil Magma Spray as the FNM Promo Card. Wow, this  is the first promo card to feature the new M15 border and it definitely looks great in this promo along with a very nice artwork with Koth in it.

A closer look at the superb artwork on this promo card.

This is the recent version of Magma Spray in Journey into Nyx.

Devotion in Nagano Championship Trials 2014 Saku City

MonoRed Devotion by Bryan Inno Wong - Semifinalist

Lands: 21 Mountain Creatures: 4 Rakdos Cackler 4 Firedrinker Satyr 4 Burning-Tree Emissary 2 Ash Zealot 2 Rakdos Shred-Freak 3 Firefist Striker 4 Boros Reckoner 4 Chandra's Phoenix 4 Fanatic of Mogis Instants: 4 Lightning Strike 2 Magma Jet 2 Shock

Sideboard: 3 Searing Blood 4 Mizzium Mortars 2 Magma Spray 2 Harness by Force 4 Skullcrack

Matchups:

Round 1  vs MonoBlue Devotion (L 1-2)

Round 2 vs Naya Midrange (W 2-0)

Round 3 vs GW Beatdown (W 2-0)

Round 4 vs Esper Control (W 2-1)

Top 4:
Semifinals vs Naya Beatdown (L 0-2)

Magic101: Maximizing Budget

When it comes to almost everything in life - may it be doing the things we want, travelling, hobbies, eating outside or even buying groceries - everything falls under a budget. This becomes the upper bound, a limit. Without this limit, we can go bankrupt and not save anything for our future. This is not about lessons in life and economics, this is about enjoying things even on a budget. Hobbies are just one aspect in life and putting everything you've got in your hobby is, for me, pretty much plain stupid and unreasonable. Savings and investment is still the way to live life to assure ourselves of a future (+1 Win in Life's game). I will talk about Magic: the Gathering but I think the concept is applicable to other things in life.

Playing with Fire - Journey Into Nyx

More than two weeks after the release of Journey Into Nyx, Standard opens up new brews that can potentially change the tournament scenes in the next months. People will continue to brew with the new Gods, Black receives Temple of Malady to splash for green and Esper receives even more tools to stamp their existence in the coming tournament pictures. Today I wanted to write about the deck that doesn't receive much love lately - Mono Red and I wanted to look at the new tools in Journey Into Nyx that can help Red in the coming months.

Magic101 - Playing Mini Masters

When you experienced playing Magic: the Gathering or any other card game, you would know that opening booster packs is one of the most exciting and thrilling aspect of the game. But if you can also play a game in addition to the thrill of opening packs, now that would be so much better.

This game is called Mini-Masters, or others call it "Pack Wars", and it's really quite simple to play. Your deck will be comprised of the pack contents and you just need to add basic lands to your deck and you're set! Here are the details on how to play:

Gyu Karubi Don

The Japanese word Karubi means Sesame Seeds. And this beef bowl with sesame seeds is different from the regular Gyudon. This Sesame Seed Beef Bowl comes with a thicker beef that is grill-cooked. For someone who likes grilled food so much, I could say that this is my favorite dish in Yoshinoya. However, this dish is a bit more expensive than your regular gyudon dishes but for the additional price, it's definitely worth it. Gyu Karubi don comes with a special barbecue sauce that you will put on top of your beef before you attack. ^_^

June 2014 FNM Card - Dissolve with Picture

June 2014's Friday Night Magic Promo Card is Dissolve.