Cheating

    Well today I'm going to discuss a sad, but true reality of magic. People do tend to cheat and it annoys  the hell out of me. For example in my play group there is this kid who cheats pretty badly, but no one really wants to say anything to him. The way in which he cheats is that he always seems to have a sol ring and some form of a tutor in his opening hand. We have tried several ways to try and stop this, such as cutting decks. This works for a little bit and then we forget about him cheating. Then after we forget he goes right back to doing it.
    I think that the best thing that we can do in this situation is to confront said person on their cheating. Tell them that if they don't stop blatantly cheating that they won't be allowed to play with us anymore. Does anyone else have this problem in their play group and if so how did you deal with this problem.
 
  

Slobad in Action

     Well just thought I'd let you guys know how Slobad went as  a commander. I felt that it was a lot of fun and is completely different than my usual playstyle (no green). The deck usually goes one of two ways. It can be artifact control by abusing Spine of Ish-Sah or by making an indestructible Nevinyrral's Disk. The ability to always have a wrath on board is great. Although we can get blown out pretty bad by a Krosan Grip. The other plan that the deck goes with is goblins. Which as you might guess involves just swarming the board with goblins.
     The reason why there are so many goblins in the deck is because I ran out of good artifacts to play. I basically needed to add like fifteen cards to the deck so I went with a Goblin plan. Once I get more cards for the deck the goblins will sadly get cut. Although I may build a Krenko, Mob Boss deck with all the goblins I have laying around.
   The main cards that i still need for the deck consist of Mycosynth Lattice, Vandalblast, and Obliterate. Once i get these cars we can really start to be more of a power-house deck. Although once I do start playing these cards people will mercilessly try and kill me. People don't tend to enjoy having their mana base screwed.

             

Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer

I thought that today I would share the next deck that I am trying to make. it is going to be Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer


I decided to go with the obvious choice for this deck in mono-red artifacts. The main idea of the deck is going to be make my things indestructible, while I laugh as all of your things die. It may be seen as a bit of a scumbag move to run both Obliterate and Jokalupps, but in my play group ramp is a common strategy and no one really tries to punish it. The win con in the deck will be wrath and then still have some giant beater still in play such as a "Blightsteel Colossus". The deck looks like a lot of fun and I will post news soon about how it does.

Proxies

As many of you may or may not be aware proxies of cards do exist. Whether its a really nice one made by an artist with custom artwork or its someone writing over a card with black sharpie. In my opinion I feel that allowing proxies or not depends on the situation. For example in my play group there are some guys that have much less of a card pool than most. I would be fine with them proxying a few cards so that they can be on the power level of everyone else. Than you have people who are just assholes. These are the type of people that will proxy up power nine and then, bitch when you tell them they cant play.
   I feel as if proxying can be like most things only good in moderation. You should always check with the people that you play with before you play to see if they are okay with a proxy. Most people I've noticed don't mind for the most part. So long as your not proxying several thousands of dollars.
   One last note is that there have been a lot of fake magic cards put into circulation as well. These cards look almost identical to the originals and are very hard to tell apart. Below is a link to a starcity article that better covers the subject.

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards.html  

Fun New Way to Play

   Are you and your friends getting sick and tired of playing the same decks against each other. Do you need a new way to play the game, then boy do I have a crazy idea to try.
     What your gonna do is make a deck of about 250-300 cards and share that deck with the people that you play with. Its not that hard to do either. I'm sure that commons and uncommons would be real easy to find and everyone has  a few janky rares laying around that could get some good use. Also, it really gives your friends that have a lesser collection to have fun.
   I've played only a few times, although I will say that it is a lot of fun. For example the deck that my friend built is five colored. It has a lot of mana fixing and a lot of funny cards in it like "Door to Nothingness". I really enjoy it because even though you play with the same deck every game, you don't always have the same cards and it makes you play differently.  

Sylvan Primordial Banning

     As many of you are already probably aware, Sylvan Primordial was recently added to the commander ban list. Many people feel as if this was needed and that it was well deserved. Now i can understand where these people are coming from but personally I don 't agree with it at all.
   I feel as if there were several things that deserved to be banned before Sylvan Primordial, such as Omniscience or Consecrated Sphinx. These cards are broken entirely on their own and will win the game if left unchecked. Whereas with Sylvan you need to abuse it a little more to actually break the card. Whether its being reanimated or cloned. Although I will say that an early sylvan can really ruin the game for your opponents. It slows them down dramatically, while it accelerates you ridiculously.
   I am fully aware of how strong of a card that Sylvan is, I just feel that others things are a lot less healthy for the format. As mainly a green mage I can't help but feel like were getting screwed. First Primeval Titan gets banned and now Sylvan, while blue is still allowed to have Omniscience, its ridiculous to me.