New section to the site!

As you might have guessed, from time to time I tend to play other games besides Magic the Gathering and as much as I enjoy playing Magic I enjoy other games just as much. They can range from Video Games to Tabletop Games. I also really enjoy writing! 

Starting today I am starting a new section called Gaming with Zuby! In this section I will talk about a variety of games that I tend to play! I do particularly enjoy Blizzard games such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, as well as Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm. Maybe I'll write up some Hearthstone deck techs? Maybe about some of my experiences and memories of WoW and Starcraft? Who knows what!

I will also be talking about a tabletop game that I have been developing off and on for over 12 years now. It's been shelved for about 3 years now but maybe now is the time to pick it back up and dust it off and finally finish it? Actually, now that I think about it I have two tabletop games I've been developing, one has only been around for 4-5 years though. We shall see!

Just wanted to bring this up as I am excited to start this! This does not mean I will be forgetting about Magic, I just have been wanting to write about other stuff besides Magic as well! 

Weekly Modern Update - March 15th, 2016

Another week, another Modern Monday under my belt. I decided to take Elves for a spin again only because I felt like playing a little bit of a simpler and quicker deck. I was pretty tired and a deck like Grixis Delver can be pretty involved and some games can take awhile as well.

So I took Elves for a spin and I feel like I know the deck pretty well by now. As usual, I normally come mentally prepared on Monday's and Friday's with the thought of wanting to play better and winning comes as a by product. I have not made any changes to my sideboard yet. I plan on too eventually. Adding in maybe a Spellskite or two. Possibly Dismember as well. We shall see. Let's get to it though, how did I do? As usual my decklist is below:

 

Round 1: Elves vs. Affinity

Ah, good ol' Affinity. Let's just say I managed to lose Game 1 extremely quickly. I lost via poison counters by turn 4. A 5/5 Inkmoth Nexus is nothing to scoff at. I had no answers in hand and we quickly went to Game 2.

Game 2 was much the same as Game 1, I got over zealous and he wiped my board and then I drew nothing but land. It was over quickly.

Results: 0-2 LOST

Round 2: Elves vs. Esper Control

So this was a homebrew deck and it was a fairly good one. The guy I played against had been working on this for awhile and it's pretty good. He locked me out very well game 1 and I lost. I couldn't play any spells and he continually killed my creatures.

Game 2 however I sided in Choke and Beast Within and Aven Mindcensor and locked him out instead. After flooding the board with Elves he had no answers and I won quickly.

Game 3 was a bit trickier. He countered a few of my collected companies, and even one of the companies I managed only to draw one creature, a Mystic, and it was looking grim. He went down to 1 life but couldn't kill me and I managed to play Shaman of the Pack ending it all for him.

Results: 2-1 WON

Round 3: Elves vs. Goryo's Vengeance

This was the first time I played against this deck so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was familiar with what it could potentially do so I thought this may have been a blow out for me. Game 1 went extremely quickly for me as by Turn 4 my opponent scooped as he had no answers for the throng of elves awaiting to attack him.

Game 2 my opponent managed to combo off pretty quickly and I let him go off on the combo, mainly because I wanted to watch him and also partly to see if he would screw up to my favor.

Game 3 was very similar to Game 1. I managed to get a very quick board and it was over fast.

Results: 2-1 WON

Round 4: Elves vs. Green Devotion

Another homebrew deck to end the night. I wasn't sure what to expect but the list seemed to be a very similar Theros Green devotion standard deck with some older green cards to help speed up the mana ramp. Unfortunately for him Elves is a bit faster though. Game 1 was over by Turn 4 and Game 2 I managed to get Elvish Champion out very early and he had no answers whatsoever.

Results: 2-0 WON

Final Results: 3-1 (5th Place)

So this was the first time in Monday night Modern I managed to break my 2-2 curse and go 3-1. I managed to get 5th place, I didn't get in Top 4 but oh well, it happens. I feel like since I am getting more familiar with the match ups and general overall knowing of my deck I am smarter about what hands to keep and which ones to mulligan. I also need to learn not to get overzealous and overextend myself when I don't need to. If I have the advantage I need to hold back and keep the board state unless something changes and react accordingly. Easier said than done but I'm getting there.

Magic with Zuby Episode 011 - Is Shadows over Innistrad worth it?

On Today's episode we have another guest, Alec! He is here to convince me whether or not it is worth it to buy Shadows over Innistrad! If you wish to get a hold of me, email me at mtgzuby@gmail.com or on Twitter @Zubatron or @Magicwithzuby.

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Modern - Elves

When I first decided to jump into the format of Modern, I had a hard time choosing what deck I wanted to build and stick with. I spent a lot of time researching and watching Modern games to see what sort of deck fits best without completely breaking my wallet. This was also around the time when Dragons of Tarkir first released that I started to get interested in Modern. Elves for me, was a good choice as I had a lot of the cards at the time in Elves but what really pushed it over the edge for me was when Magic Origins came out that cemented my choice for Elves. With cards such as Shaman of the Pack and Dwynen's Elite being spoiled I knew I wanted to play this deck.

So I begun my slow acquirement of building Elves. It wasn't until about December 2015 I just took the plunge and bought the expensive pieces that I needed, namely Cavern of Souls. It was Christmas Time, so what the heck right? My sideboard is still not perfect, I think I can do with getting 1-2 Spellskites and then it would be fine. For now what I have will have to do with the deck tech explanation.

Just a note, I will not be going into different match ups, that's best left for my Weekly Modern updates when I bring Elves with me. Reason being there are so many different types of decks you can and will go up against it's hard to write about them all. So here's the decklist and let's go!

Creatures:

Dwynen's Elite- A 2 CMC Elf that gives you a 1/1 Elf Warrior Token Creature if there is another Elf on the battlefield. One of the newer elves to join the throng in the tribe. I feel he is a great addition especially on turn 2 if you managed to have a turn 1 Heritage Druid. Having 3 Elves right away on Turn 2 can be very rewarding for you.

Elvish Archdruid- Our 3 CMC Elf lord that also acts as a mana dork. When you see me mention the term lord, it usually refers to jargon or slang that usually buffs your creatures +1/+1. If your Archdruid manages to survive the next turn and you happen to have a lot of Elves out, welcome to endless mana for you to play with at this!

Elvish Champion- Our other 3 CMC Elf lord that gives our elves forestwalk. Now you have a chance of making your elves unblockable as well! This lord has served me well in the deck but sometimes he can be sideboarded out if your opponent is not playing green.

Elvish Mystic- Llanowar Elf of another name. He is functionally the same as Llanowar Elf and he is a perfectly capable turn 1 play.

Elvish Visionary- A 2 CMC Elf that lets you draw a card. Drawing cards is never bad. Other than that, Visionary makes a good chump blocker.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader- It's always sweet to drop him from Collected Company and proceed to pump up your elves and just manage to squeak by enough damage to kill your opponent. The bad thing about Ezuri is he will become a major target if he resolves. Keep him safe if you can.

Heritage Druid- This is the most expensive creature in the main board (If you don't main Spellskite) and for good reason. With her ability to tap 3 untapped elves immediately as she resolves gives you the ability to do a lot more on your turn. Imagine you have 3 Nettle Sentinels and a Heritage Druid, you have potential access to a crap ton of mana at that point. Living the elf dream!

Llanowar Elves- The classic mana dork of Magic the Gathering. What more can be said about him?

Nettle Sentinel- At first glance Nettle Sentinel may not seem that good. He doesn't untap normally? Paired with Heritage Druid is where Nettle's power is truly seen. Since the majority of our spells are green, Nettle Sentinel will be untapping a lot and potentially tapping for a lot of mana.

Shaman of the Pack- Probably the best Elf card to come out of Magic Origins. This card wins games just by entering the battlefield. It's always a pleasure CoCo'ing into a Shaman and proceeding to win the game.


Spells:

Collected Company- Or CoCo for short. This card not only allows for us to  potentially build up our board presence after a wipe it also helps out by triggering Shaman of the Pack, Dwynen's Elite and so on. This card has become a must in this deck now.

Lead the Stampede- Or what I like to refer to as CoCo's little brother. I've tried both the Chord of Calling variation and Lead variation of Elves and I have to say, I prefer Lead the Stampede over Chord of Calling. It acts very similarly to CoCo but they do not go onto the battlefield. It allows you to fill up your hand again though.


Normally I would go over the Sideboard but my sideboard is mainly tuned for my local meta and I change it up from time to time if I were to take this to a Comp REL event. My local meta is sort of devoid of the Eldrazi Menace right now but it has a lot of Affinity and Abzan and Jund so it's more tuned to that. What I recommend to others is study their local meta and adapt your sideboard to that. Fracturing Gust is a perfectly good card as a sideboard and I highly recommend Spellskite.

How do you play this deck then? I feel this deck can be very similar to affinity in a sense. You want to swarm the board with these little elves and kill as quickly as possible. If you know your opponent has board wipes be wary of how many elves you play and which ones and be sure to try and keep your hand as much as you can. Affinity is normally faster than Elves so try to swarm them before they swarm you.

Also, knowing which elves to play and when. Typically by turn 2 you'll want to have 3 Elves out by then so maybe by Turn 3 you have twice that many and so on. Having a Heritage Druid in your opening hand is always good as long as you have the other cards to support it, such as Dwynen's Elite or some Mana Dorks. As far as land is concerned you can get away with having 2-3 land. You're only playing with 18 land so if you get land flooded then I apologize as the gods of MTG have declared their hatred upon you.

So why play Elves? As far as Modern Decks go, it is relatively inexpensive to play. Your most expensive card will most likely be the Cavern of Souls. I see it being relatively safe from any sort of banning from Wizards as Elves is not a top tier deck in the meta of Modern. So if it's not top tier why play it? Uhm, maybe because it's fun? Also, maybe because I'm afraid of investing into the top tier decks in Modern right now because Wizards likes to ban fun? So yea, that explains it pretty well. Who doesn't like to have a board full of creatures and you play a Shaman and go, you're dead!

That about covers my Elves deck. Next i'll be going into my Grixis Delver list and more! Thanks for reading!

Magic with Zuby Episode 010 - What is a Magic Judge?

Today we are interviewing David Wiggs, a Level 1 Judge in MTG! Come hear what a Judge is and what they do and how to become one! Be sure to check us out on Twitter @Magicwithzuby as well as magicwithzuby.com! You can email me with any questions at mtgzuby@gmail.com!



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Weekly Modern Update - March 8th, 2016

Another week has gone by and another Modern Monday has passed at my LGS. I once again brought my Grixis Delver deck and I was very surprised at how many people showed up to the event. We had over 20 people! It's appearing like Modern is becoming more popular than Standard right now at my LGS! I'm happy about that but at the same time I don't want Standard to disappear entirely. I hope with the upcoming rotation it will bring people back to the Standard foray and have more people play in FNM.

So how did I do this week? I unfortunately had to leave early due to it getting late and I was honestly just exhausted but I feel like I am understanding the Grixis Delver deck a bit better. I'm getting excited to play it more since the deck can feel so diverse and very reactive. I didn't make any changes to my list as I haven't had the time to devote to MTG lately. So here is the deck list again below:

 

Round 1: Grixis Delver vs. Burn

When I first saw the deck was burn I thought my opponent had it in the bag. Delver is not fast enough to deal with all that damage and plus with all the fetches and shocks I have, I run into the problem of helping my opponent reduce my life even further. Game 1 was a clutch win as I was able to keep plenty of counters in hand and slowly reduce his life with a single snapcaster mage.

Game 2 went rather fast as my opponent just had a really good hand while I didn't have enough disruption or counters. Even after thought scouring myself 2 times I couldn't find what I needed. Game 3 was another clutch win because at the end he got me down to 1 life and he was at 9. I had a Gurumag Angler, snapcaster mage and a 1/1 elemental token so I dealt 8 damage and managed to kill him with a Forked Bolt in hand that I had been keeping since the start of the game.

Results: 2-1 WIN

Round 2: Grixis Delver vs. Slivers

Ahh, good ol' Slivers. Slivers can be a scary deck for me as it can go wide and fast. Game 1 was over quickly as he flooded the board and I couldn't do much to stop since he had a Cavern of Souls out and I had no way to stop it.

I sided out some counters and put in an Izzet Staticaster as well as Anger of the Gods, a Terminate and Rakdos Charm (I still plan on taking this card out eventually). Game 2 went better as I was able to consistently wipe his board and get Izzet out and kill everything he had coming out and wittle him down. Game 3 went much the same as Game 2.

Results: 2-1 WIN

I wish I had more to talk about and more games to talk about but alas I had to leave early even on a winning streak. I'm planning on still building an Ensoul Artifact deck along with budget Goblins. I'll write up some deck techs soon hopefully (Just need to find the time!). Thanks for reading!

Weekly Standard Update - March 6th, 2016

So it's been awhile since I've done an article and I wanted to do a quick Standard Update. This past friday I did not go to FNM so why bother doing a Standard update then?

Not sure but I feel like writing one anyway. Standard has been as fun as ever, that is if you like playing 4 color rally or Bant CoCo. Collected Company will become the new Siege Rhino come rotation, as in it will be in every deck. The card is just too good to pass up.

So what am I itching to play? I've seen some Jeskai Dragons flying around so I've built that. I plan on doing a deck tech about it soon. There are two PPTQ's coming up that I'm hoping to participate in as well. March 26th and April 23rd. We shall see though!

So that's about it for me. I know, not much of an update. In my personal life I have been busy buying a house so that has been taking up a lot of my time! See ya guys soon!