Reviewing 2013 Part 3: GG's Picks

I'm from the United States. Not sure that is much of a spoiler. Here in the U.S. we used to have a Poet Laureate named Robert Frost. He penned a pretty popular piece about a journey through the woods on a Winter night. About not being able to rest because he still had many miles left to travel before his journey would be complete. The General Zone has reached this exact position. Here on the final Sunday of the year. I am looking back on a long and prosperous year. A drama of successes and failures. We still have a long way to go in our shared journey, but in this moment I want to reflect on the roads I have traveled here on the blog...and the ones I maybe shouldn't have. In this final installment I will be talking about my best and worst posts. If you missed the previous parts then check them out here: 1 2.

You can click the titles to be taken directly to the posts I am talking about, just to get familiar.

Favorite post on the blog: UL's Card Corner: Gemstone Caverns

Any article that begins with someone admitting that they are a scrub is going to be interesting to say the least. I don't play UL much at all these days. Not like we used to. So his losing games or die rolls doesn't have much to do with me. The point of this Card Corner is as much about learning to optimize within your own constraints as it is a persuasive argument to play Gemstone Caverns. You can't be the best..sorry if your parents lied to you as a kid. You can however make the best of your situation. This is a lesson that is just as good for the holiday season as it is for any other season. Everyone has constraints on how good their game can be. Time, skill, budget, knowledge, experience; these factors all affect your wins and losses and it is important to seek out edges in order to improve your game. Maybe you don't have the time to test out every card in the format...don't. Netdeck. Trust the collective wisdom of others to make up for some of what you lack. Maybe you don't have the actual cards that you need to improve your game. That is about 90% of the reason people play budget decks/cards. Everyone is in a slightly different spot financially and you really don't need to spend a whole lot of money expanding your collection in order to be good. I have a some members of my local playgroup that are learning to play at a high level and don't really own a thing of their own. Also, play Caverns. It isn't bad.


Favorite Post I Made: Holiday Cube w/ Landdrops

Technically, this came went up in 2012, not 2013, but it was only off by a few days so I am going to let it slide because it is my favorite post by a land slide. Ah, word play. This was a ton of fun to play. I love Cube. I love the powered holiday edition as well. It is just flat out fun. Sadly, there will be no 2013 edition of holiday cube with Landdrops. I wish there were, but we just haven't been together to do it. I hope to get back to do many more next year since it appears holiday cube on MTGO is going to be a regular thing, which is fantastic. I apologize for the quality and pace of the videos, and the ones that were missing. I don't apologize for the silliness and the horrible drafting and gameplay that is 100% of the fun. I definitely, want to do more videos in the future and will try to improve the quality of the viewing experience, but it is a learn-as-you-go process, I am no Youtuber.

Worst Post I Made: The Ten Ticket Challenge

I didn't like this one bit Sam I am. If you didn't watch this: don't. If you did watch this: I apologize. In summary, I was a jerk. I did not conduct myself with class or aplomb. I spent several hours bashing my opponents and their decks for no reason. It culminated in a junky, low quality video. There really isn't any reason for my disrespectful behavior or my socially abnormal behavior of bringing a suspiciously high quality deck to the casual commander room and just trying to rip people up. That is way less fun than high school bullies make it seem. I got extremely lucky (depending on how you look at it) to draw so well and win a bunch, although that really wasn't the point of the project. Plus, I cheated. The deck was like 16 tickets including the Commander. I am going to assume that no one bothered to watch this, which is basically true looking at the view count on Youtube, so let's just put it behind us and forget it ever happened. The next time I do a Commander game play video, I will be a kinder and more interesting human being.

Favorite Set Review: Theros Answers

Crushed it! I love Theros and my passion for this amazing set really came through in the set review. Despite the exceedingly mediocre collection of answer cards that came out in the set. This article was action packed! Humor, puns, pop culture references, Thoughtseize reprint...this one had it all. Not much else to say. Definitely check out the set reviews when they come out, the information is a bit more relevant when received at the proper time.


Worst Set Review: Gatecrash Threats

Apart from being wrong about several of the cards in this set, it just wasn't all that cool. Small sets are often given the juice to help sell booster packs, but there really weren't a whole lot of things to be excited about for Commander in this set. This only my second attempt at doing the set review for the blog and I hadn't worked out all the kinks yet. Still working on that, but things have come a long way since then.

Favorite Stack: Top 5's, Lucky 7's

This was awesome. I got to talk about Cruel Ultimatum, Eternal Dragon, Elesh Norn...that is some powerful stuff! There were video clips of great moments in Magic history. And to top it all off we went absolutely ham. The TGZ boys jumped right off the deep end; throwing out top fives, high fives, 5/5's. This one was one of the best Stacks we have ever done and my favorite...but Flavor Fouls is a close second.


Worst Stack: The One Where the Hate Flows Through Us

Despite having the best name and multiple Star Wars references, this Stack was a little bit of a mess. I remember having several discussions leading up to/after the posting about whether or not Crucible of the Worlds was, in fact, a good card. I don't mean like #1 Legacy staple, best card ever. I mean the rest of the guys on the blog were of the opinion that this just isn't a card. That it isn't worth it, whatever it may be. I don't know what I was expecting since this was the Stack where we specifically talk about cards we hate to talk about. There is no way I am alone here, right? Crucible is incredible...? Yes.

Favorite Card I Put On the Stack: Goblin Lackey, from Y U No Legendary?

I am sticking to my guns here. Everything I said about Lackey is as true as I can make it. If this card were a Legend, then mono Red would be a competitive Commander deck overnight. I hope I get to see the day where the chosen one brings balance to the force color pie. Some day, Red will return and there will be Goblins, and lightning, and fire, and fun fun fun for everyone.

Least Favorite Card I Put On the Stack: Serendib Sorcerer, from Escalating Quickly

It's cool that I have a reason to talk about how awesome Anchorman is right around the time that Anchorman 2 is coming out. I loved that movie. It just had so many great one liners. Back to the Stack though, bring Sorcerer to a bar fight might be funny, but in a world of Magic cards this is small balling pretty hard. There are surely more awesome beaters I could have chosen.

Well that's all folks. 2013 is in the books. I had a great year both on and off the blog. I look forward to more great times in 2014. If you have been here with us from the beginning, I salute you. If you are a new addition to the Zoners, I welcome you. Everyone likes to make new friends. I'll see you next week, where I will discuss my big plans for 2014.