Videos, constantly.

G'day all! Here's my first video, so let me know what you think. All feed back is good, the sound as well as the play mistakes blah blah blah.


Hint: press Full screen.

Assuming I get the hang of Camtasia, I'll post more videos and if I can a whole draft from draft to end of game 3. Cheers for stopping by.

M12, constantly.

Hello gamers, how are you? I'm writing here again, after a lot of time has passed. M12 is out and I've been playing most of it online lately. I won a draft in reallife the other day, and went 2-1-1 at the PR, but the format is a lot of fun. Also I've bought a new headset/mic lately, so I'm going to start producing videos of drafts and hopefully you Good Game fellas will enjoy!

In Magic news the Innistrad card mechanics were spoiled here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/157a so check them out. Isn't that weird? Flip cards again! Only not.

And for the Innistrad PR I'm heading to Lismore to help out a mate, so I'm running the event as Head judge. I've done this before, it's a good place and fun but I'm not going to have long to check out Lismore. Partly because of uni, and partly because the nicest thing about it is the surroundings. Oh, and the people.

I also really need to change the pic at the front of this blog, seeing triple Som is a thing of the past, man, you're living like 211 years ago!

And apart from that uni is going fine but I'm still late on my August article. Thanks to uni. Wish I had more time.

What are you, slow? Constantly...

Hello anyone reading, this is the first post I've made in ages. I blame uni. It takes up so much time, I haven't had time to write! For example, I'm only just submitting my articles for April May and June. July will likely be an M12 set review, so keep your eyes peeled.

I might also get around to a new graphic, seeing the Mirrodin cards are now "old hat", with M12 kinda already half revealed.

Hi, how've you been?

Triple MBS MBS MBS, constantly.

Well not really MBSx3 constantly, but just the other day. I have work on the weekends now, so needed to organise someone to cover me for a GP Trial that was happening at Megagames in Penrith. When asked when it was, I looked it up and realised it was tomorrow. When I work.

I finished at 11 however, so I was able to head straight there and take over during round 1. I had a good mate of mine cover for me, LH, so that was good.

The Trial went for 4 rounds before cutting to top 4, then there was some lovely confusion when we got to top 2. "Winners get the Byes, the end."

"Oh I don't like that," said the store runner CS. "We'll find some boosters for them too."

So knowing there was Byes and boosters for the winner but not how many, before the top 2 started playing I said "OK we don't need to play this out: does one of you actually want the Byes and the other not?" They looked at each unsure. This wasn't really planned for, right? You just win all day long and then get goodies and go home with bragging rights and points!

TB said he had a party to drive people to, and why didn't they ID. His opponent said that he didn't mind either way, so TB offered the hand after some further consideration. This is the elimination part of the tournament, so I assumed he was joking when he said "Let's ID," and that he'd conceeded the match when he offered the handshake. Still, being a very good communicator I say out loud "So opponent X has won the whole thing with blah blah blah."

TB asks me what I mean, they just agreed to ID. I explained how IDs aren't possible in elimination and they instead played off. TB came second, while the winner won.

After that we usually have a draft, but unfortunately there isn't a large number of people interested in drafting these days. We'll get a 4/5ish easy, but the 6/7th we had have moved to England. One was a funny little girl who ALWAYS drafted white, so much so the other fellas were scared to draft it and this created such a vacuum of power that I just had to take advantage of it when I drafted. Now that she and her brother are gone, drafting is a concentrated effort, meaning any player really needs to bring along 3/4 other players to make numbers.

We used my packs seeing it wasn't for points, triple SOM. I knew there'd be plenty of Leonin Skyhunters so went straight in to WU skies. I got 4 of them so my deck looked good to me, only in round 1 it had a complex case of dislexia, throwing me blue cards but the mana for white ones.

By game 2 match 2 it had started working better, and I got a good mix to bash in the sky and steal anyone with Corrupted Conscience after that.

Round 3 I get the bye (only 5 players) and come second after we figure out resistance via who beat who. No one was on zero points, so that's atleast good to know, and the newest Magic player I know actually won the whole thing, Ammy. Double M, yes.

At uni right now, with a draft set waiting for me online at home.

Murdoch Monthly February went up, but it's very long as it's the second half of a set review, and a draft walkthrough. Truly, both are articles on their own!

More drafting/articles Constantly.

So up goes Murdoch Monthly 2. Though it's just now March, and in two short weeks April. I need content, and have wanted to write about collecting a set for a while, so I'm going to base my next article on that.

I drafted online today and went 3-0. The best advice to hear on Magic is "stop trying not to lose and just win." works really well when it's said to someone else, but you overhear it. Overhear it today, it'll help your game.

Also, think REAL hard about how much life you'll "pay" to get a better set of beats next turn.

I can be found on twitter under "Fox Murdoch"

Bad internet, constantly.

Just wrote a post. Retarded internet chewed it up and spat it out.

I won a draft.
I plan to win a PTQ and GP trial.
Newest article needs final brush then to be submitted.

There.

Go for the Throat, Constantly.

I've uploaded a set review of Mirrodin Besieged lately and everyone's buzzing with convo, which is good. Better than articles that garner 0% response, but I'm paid my $20 credit either way. The biggest comment is why should Go for the Throat get an A+, followed after by why do people say poison creatures with only 2 power have "4" power. And that's with only white blue black and red reviewed, the next article is green/artifacts.

The biggest bite of contention was that Go for the Throat (GFT) wasn't as good or better than Spread the Sickness (SS). I can see the value of SS over GFT, one targets everything, infect, normal, weenies, giants, tokens, but costs give mana. The other hits everything that has normal skin, but not those Wurmcoils, Steel Hellkite, Masticores etc. Eitherway none hit ol' Thrun.

I've been an advocate of hitting everything over a subset ever since Mirrodin original had Betrayal of Flesh (Destroy target creature, reanimate one, entwine) as opposed to cheaper removal, but in this case it's speed and cost, versus potential range. I always windmilled Terror in original Mirrodin, and in Scars block it's now the same. I love Terror, Doomblade was a very cute younger cousin and now GFT is the sexy, classy wife of Terror. Everyone body sees it and thinks Ohh, yes please! Not that you suddenly forget your old friend Terror.

Killing their beasty and playing their own is good, especially considering the white and red bomby flyers, like Hoard-Smelter Dragon or Indomitable Archangel. Tapping out five, on your own turn, is a lot slower and riskier than just 2 mana at the end of their turn/combat step. Ease of casting seems to win over here.

I'll admit that there's plenty of sitautions where you want one spell over the other, but NOT knowing what the opponent has, say game 1 of any Limited/Sealed game, I want the cheaper option and can bring in the big guns next round.

Also compared to all the "low costed" red removal, we get simple straight forward elimination. Arc Trail may 2 for 1, but it can't kill anything with a sizeable rump. Sure there's plenty of bad players still touting Scoria Elemental's, and Arc Trail against a slew of them is funny, but any 1/1 will deal just as well.

Both are strong, but being a writer I need to make a statement and give my articles some punch, as well as get my own opinion across. To do this, I need to stick to what I say, or have good reason behind. Then, my readers read it and respond, take sides and comment further on their own. It's good for every part of Magic, but moreso because it has forced me to rethink: which IS better? and write this response further.

Constantly.

Set reviews, constantly.

So I've just finished my set review for Besieged, for White Blue and Black. I'm going to watch some teve, come back and reread it before I add a section about travelling to Lismore for Magic, and then submit it for January's late article.

I might fool around with some simple deck ideas for Febrarys, or write about a draft with Besieged I'll do this weekend.

Where's Murdoch Monthly at!?

Well it's a busy new year, and I'm still behind on Decembers issue. And January's. After I promised "front of month" issuings. Oh well, I found the main body of work again so am working on it now to print out to the masses.

For february I'm planning a full set review, which is fun to write, fun to rewrite later [after I've played the game I feel that X was right...] and opens the vault for more discussion.

also gonna plug this blog, though I don't know how many ppl will read it, or bookmark. Actually, do that now! If there's new about Murdoch Monthly at all, it'll be posted here, as well as "mini issues" for things like a draft I did which wasn't enough meat for a full article.

Good to be back.