Quick update and some excuses

So...

You might have notice I haven't been on in a while. Sorry about that. I've been busy. Primarily with my new obsession: Chuck. The NBC show about a computer nerd who accidentally winds up working as a spy for the CIA.  It's pretty much the greatest show since Firefly... and it stars Adam Baldwin, who played Jayne in Firefly, so that's a bonus. Sara and I have been DEVOURING this show like it was crack cocaine lately, and I can't even tell you how much I wish I was watching it right this second.

Also, financial difficulties have forced me to temporarily curtail Magic spending... well, ALL spending actually, but I've barely even played Magic in the last few weeks, as I had to basically ban myself from entering any Card Store for the last few weeks. So for those of you at Castle, Top Deck, and Dragon Crown, I apologize, but I had -$1.37 in my account a couple weekends ago. Usually I can be counted on to spend money on Magic that I really shouldn't spend... but this time I literally HAD NO MONEY AT ALL!!

Fortunately Sara is now bringing home a steady check and I was able to make my first frivolous purchase in nearly a month. What did I buy? A Scars of Mirrodin fatpack, of course. And it was pretty descent, too. I pulled three Mythics - Wurmcoil Engine, Lux Cannon, and Leige of the Tangle. I also opened a Tempered Steel, the U/B dual and a couple of other playable rares. The only utterly terrible rares cracked were a Shape Anew and a Painful Quandary. So no Planeswalkers, but still not a disappointing purchase.

And then there is the fact that I took apart EVERY single deck I had, and completely sorted my whole damned collection, as part of a massive project I spontaneously undertook, wherein I am revamping my whole system for maintaining and storing my massive collection of cards. I won't bore you with the details, but I've logged nearly 80 hours in the last few weeks of nothing but sorting, sorting, sorting.

As a result of this project, though, I decided to rebuild my big Highlander. I love EDH to death, but I was really, really missing the randomness of a 250-card, 5-color monstrosity. So you have a nice, long decklist post coming real soon, I just have to work out a few kinks in the list.

I currently have one - and only one - 60-card deck built right now: Vampires. I suddenly realized how awesome this play would be:

Turn 2: Bloodthrone Vampire
Turn 3: Buried Alive (putting 3 Bloodghast in the GY)
Turn 4: Play a land, returning the Bloodghasts to play, dropping Gravepact, sacrificing the 'ghasts to make my opponents sac three guys (if they even HAVE that many yet) and swing for 9 with the Bloodthrone.

Or, on Turn 4 I could just drop a Nocturnus and have up to 19 power on the board, going into Turn 5.

So with the realization what Buried Alive could do for the deck, plus opening 2 Exsanguinates in my fatpack, I had to rebuild it. Friends are on their way over as I type this, so we shall soon see if my upgrades make a difference.

Bye for now...

UPDATE: Yeah, the Buried Alive worked wonders. It's fantastic, guys, I can't stress this enough. Last night I had a game where I killed Chad on Turn 6. I had a Bloodthrone Vampire and three Bloodghasts, with 6 mana up. I dropped a Nocturnus, leaving a Leechridden Swamp and a Swamp open. Black card on top, swing for 19 with the four Vamps, he's playing Elves - no fliers - and goes to 1 life. Leechridden Swamp finishes him off. Lucky me, because he had about 6 or 7 elves in play, the smallest of which was a 28/28. Go Vampires!