Any good ideas?

So I am pruning my collection and eliminating commons in excess of eight from sets that are not in extended or standard at the moment.  This has left me with a large stack of bulk :)

Your mission... give me ideas what to do with it....  Ready, Set, GO!

Example Ideas:
Pauper Cube
Magic Paper Mache Art
Firewood?
Iron Man Magic

Alpha Strike-ish deck

So when Scars of Mirrodin came out I was immidiately was drawn to Precursor Golem.  I am a Johnny at heart and this card begged to be built around.  So I have been working on a build.  The mothership had a building on a budget article on it the other day that took the same route I was in a since... *shrug*  They had 2 good ideas for the deck I was not using... So I will have to try and incorporate those... At any rate here is the list I am currently running. 
11  Island
9  Mountain
4  Terramorphic Expanse
24 lands

4  Kiln Fiend
4  Precursor Golem4  Trinket Mage
4  Sea Gate Oracle

12 Creatures

4  Everflowing Chalice 

4  Distortion Strike 

4  Preordain 

4  Staggershock
4  Lightning Bolt
4  Treasure Hunt 

24 Spells

Basic Premise, get a Kiln fiend or Precursor golem out... and make them big enough to get through.  Use the burn to remove/keep pace with opponent.

No sideboard yet.. I usually don't do sideboards anyway... I'm slightly lazy and that is a part of my game that needs the second most work.. (see Shuffing for #1)

In testing it did ok... Nothing spectacular, of course this is not a deck for FNM it is casual... But it does have the nice ability to "win" out of nowhere :)  I'll update it later this week, but for now it is in the casual testing catagory.

Sleeves

So yesterday I placed my large sleeve order for the year.  I usually have to do this as a result of the fact that sleeves just become kind of useless after some time.. This is probably due to my large stature and the presence of food while playing the game :)

I have asked around and gotten some good information on the types of supplies most people are using, and even some nifty products (Looking at you Medina) I will have to ask/beg for for Christmas. 

Myself I have my cube in Purple Dragon Shield sleeves.

Most of my decks are in Ultra Pro Sleeves. (Powder White/Candy Orange/Tsunami Blue)

My EDH decks will be in Black sleeves.

Some things I have noticed and I would like to gripe a bit about. 

I'll never use an Art sleeve :) They scratch and mark too easy...

I'll never use those Shiny Ultra pro ones again (I think they stopped selling them).. you could literally pick off the shine/color film and have a clear sleeve... This happened alot as a result of rifle shuffling.

Why are the colors not consistent? Ultra Pro sells Powder White sleeves in packs of 50.  They sell a "white" sleeve in packs of 100.  These sleeves are not the same colors for some reason...  A good percentage of my sanity is lost to the fact that all my powder white sleeves mixed in with this rogue 100 pack.  If I mix the sleeves the cards are marked.. GRRRRRRR.

Another interesting factoid about the 100 packs.  The overall sleeve quality is less.  I don't know why, but when I buy the 100 pack I split them about 3 times as often as the sleeves I buy in the 50 packs.  Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me.

Ultra Pro seems to be the only company who also makes the oversize sleeve for Planes and Schemes.  Thank you for this, however WHY did you make them side load and not top load?  I cannot rifle shuffle these side loaders.. :(

Ok.. I feel better having gotten that off my chest.

At any rate, man.. I wish I could trade cards for sleeves... No one around here will seem to jump on that... 

Thank you MTG Podcasters

So one of the things I have been doing while I code is listening to more MTG podcasts.  I can't decide if this is good or bad.

Good:

• Makes the day go by faster
• Prevents my brain from melting when I am following pointers around

Bad:

• Makes me want to play magic when I can't
• Makes me snicker a lot in my cube

I still think my favorite podcast remains The Mana Pool, but now that I have caught up with Chewie and the other dorks, I have been able to start listening to others.  I should probably write about which ones I listen to and what my general opinions of them are.  Maybe some other time.

Anyway.. Back to work... 

Simple Changes

So I have been slowly adding better management to my card inventory.

I don't know exactly what my goal is other than... 

"Man.. I have all these boxes that are driving my wife nuts, and I REALLY need to thin my collection down to something manageable." 

The main people I have been reading for methods to thin my collection intelligently have been Jonathan Medina (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/archive.php?Article=Jonathan%20Medina) and Kelly Reid (http://www.quietspeculation.com/).

This last week I added one item I read in an article from Kelly Reid. 

He suggested a relatively simple change.  Put 4x of uncommon in a penny sleeve.  It helps you trade them faster and/or grab them out of a box, and it is an instant visual cue that you have 4 of them.

Well I did this for all my current standard boxes....  so far I am liking the results.

I think the next small change I am going to make is one from Jonathan Medina where he suggests the concept of a "lead" binder... Read his article on this http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/19865_Going_Infinite_Building_a_Better_Binder.html

He has a great idea on just placing 1 of the card you have multiples to trade in your binder and keep the excess sleeved in a box.  This does one great thing.. If someone takes your binder... you cut your losses.  

I think I am a magic card hoarder... Strike that.. I know I am.

Yes Sir, Mister Rosewater Sir!

Mark Rosewater is a master of subtle manipulation.

He has convinced me that I need to make a poison deck again.   I don't know exactly how, although I am somewhat convinced he puts subliminal messages in tweets, but the man he has managed to get me interested in poison again.

Much like when you finally learn how to manage your life as a resource when you are playing black, poison just adds another dimension to the game.  It sure does seem a lot simpler on paper to just do 10 poison damage as opposed to 20 regular damage.. Guess I will test that theory...

The last time I had a poison deck I was abusing Fire Whip and Marsh Viper :)  Now I have a whole bunch of new cards to try out and whole new effects, rules, and even card types :)

I saw a couple interesting takes on it at the SOM pre-release and release events... But I didn't lose to them... I think that strategy isn't very effective in limited... but it screams try it in constructed..

Now If I just had some time to build decks :) 

Quicksilver Gargantuan

This card makes me laugh.

Something about the wording just makes me laugh... It should really read..

"Hey buddy, I'm a copy of the best creature on the battlefield, but ya... I'm 7/7... "

I like this card... A Lot... It's like everything I love in blue.. but in a nice tidy, mess with you opponent's mind package.

And of course you noticed that it is bigger than the titan cycle in M11 right?

Today's taste of Magic

Did you know that I was mentioned in an article on the mothership yesterday?  Yep! Little ol' me got mentioned for commenting on how much I liked Neurok Invisimancer.  I find that really cool.  Almost as cool as the story I will be sharing in a week or two.

I opened a Scars Fat Pack tonight... It was sad.  My mythic was the Wurmcoil Engine, which yes is a good card, but I already had 2 from the Pre-release .... Oh well... 

My buddy SJ found a Mox Opal in his.. I am jealous.  Guess I will be trading for one somehow...