Islandhome #17

==ISLANDHOME #17==

June 25th 2008

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Eventide: A sneak preview at July's new set!
Chaos Draft Report: And another this Sunday!
The Madonia Minute
EDH League: More details and sign-ups!

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: Grim Draft @ 7 PM
Saturday: FNC Standard @ 1 PM
Sunday: Chaos Draft at Brothers Grim @ 2 PM

==EVENTIDE==

Here we are, a little over two weeks until Eventide's prerelease on July 12th! I hope to see everyone at the prerelease, it could be the last big Gray Matter prerelease, since Wizards decided that they'd rather have prereleases held in stores starting with Shards of Alara. I'll have more on that topic in the coming weeks as the ramifications of big TOs losing their prereleases come to light. It won't be good, and could mean less big events for everyone; big TOs like Gray Matter rely on prereleases to make them money and keep them in business. But enough doom and gloom for now, on to... well, Eventide's as much about doom and gloom as Shadowmoor it seems, so....

There's been a handful of officially spoiled cards released so far, most of them today, and all of them can be found at Wizard's official Eventide mini-site on the spoiler page. Two mechanics are spoiled so far - Chroma, which isn't really an ability, just a bunch of cards that count up the total number of mana symbols in a particular game zone and use that to determine how strong their effect is - like Phosphorescent Feast from Future Sight. Then there's Retrace, an excellent limited mechanic. Everyone has experienced those draft games where you topdeck three or four lands in a row, but Retrace turns mana floods into a benefit. Just discard those extra lands and replay your retrace spells over and over. Unlike flashback, retrace doesn't seem to have a "remove this from the game" clause, so it's very possible you'll be seeing retrace cards played over and over. Better pick up those Faerie Macabres in the first two packs!

Like with most sets, Wizards has released the Orb of Insight, a neat little application that lets you type in any word and see how many times it appears in the rules text of cards in Eventide. (Phosphorescent appears one time, and Feast appears one time. Hmm...)

Here's some hits from the Orb you might be interested in. Some of these I found by digging myself, some I found on various internet forums including MTGSalvation.com's forums.

- There are no planeswalkers, Duos, "can't be blocked by shared enemy" creatures, scarecrows that get benefits from certain colors, or Tarmogoyfs in Eventide.
- Likely returning cycles: Avatars, Avatar Auras, Lieges, "Do both if both colors were paid" hybrid spells, three-hybrid-mana spells, and filter-lands.
- Ashing, The Extinguisher is confirmed as a card name (and her art is featured on one of the UltraPro products!)
- "Colfenor" and "Sapling" appear three times each. In the books, Colfenor's Sapling plays a major part in the story.
- There's one card that has something to do with indestructability.
- Eleven hits for "Persist".
- Ten hits for "Q", which is the untap symbol.
- Thirteen hits for "Wither"
- Twenty-two hits for "Hatchling", which could be a creature type and/or mechanic.
- A card that costs six hybrid red/white mana, probably the least splashable spell in Magic.
- And finally, there is a card with the number "100" in its rules text.

Eventide's prerelease will be on July 12th, FNC's Launch Party will be on July 26th, and Grim's Launch Party will be on July 27th!

==CHAOS DRAFT REPORT==

Our first Chaos Draft at Grim got off without a hitch - ten players, including myself. We stuck 27 different packs in a bag (and three random packs that were doubles, to accomodate the extra player) and each "round" of packs everyone pulled a random pack out of the bag. Unfortunately for Mike Schade, he pulled, in order: Homelands(x2), Saviors of Kamigawa, and 8th Edition. Ouch! My packs were Dissension, Time Spiral, and Judgment. No one actually pulled anything worth a lot of money, despite the huge potential to open lots of cash in any set except Homelands. Maybe this Sunday we'll see someone slam down a foil Chrome Mox, Vindicate, or even a (non-foil, but worth enough as is) Force of Will!

After passing around thirty of the strangest packs I've ever seen, here's what my deck ended up looking like at the end of the event:

8 Forest
6 Swamp
3 Island

Anaconda
Berserk Murlodont
Cremate
Darksteel Ingot
Death's-Head Buzzard
Deepcavern Imp
Elf Replica
Giant Dustwasp
Gorgon Recluse
Gravegouger
Greater Mossdog
Gruul Nodorog
Kami of the Hunt
Krovikan Whispers
Merrow Grimeblotter
Phantom Centaur (foily!)
Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
Seal of Doom (first pick!)
Silkbind Faerie
Skyshroud Claim
Stonybrook Angler
Tyrranax
Urza's Factory
Wild Elephant

SIDEBOARD:
Cabal Trainee
Dark Maze
Frentic Efreet (No one wanted the phasing card I guess.)
Gaea's Skyfolk
Goblin Clearcutter
Goblin Gardener
Iizuka the Ruthless
Lys Alana Scarblade
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Overgrowth
Ray of Revelation
Rancid Earth
Ribbons of the Reikai
Shinen of Fear's Chill
Shivan Oasis
Skirk Commando
Spitebellows
Synchronous Sliver
Uba Mask
Unforge
Wipe Clean

I ended up going 3-1 in the swiss, then dropping so the 5th place player could get into top 4. Everyone had so much fun, I figured we should try it again this Sunday, and I'll be picking up some more packs so we have an even greater variety this time!

==ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER LEAGUE==

I've got the skinny on how this EDH league thing will work. To sign up, email me or contact me some other way, and give me the details on your general.

- Entry fee is $5, which will all be put into the prize pool that will be divided among the top two players.

- Every Wednesday, the next round's pairings will be put up. You'll have a week to play your next match; the best days of course are Friday night at Grim, Saturday afternoon at FNC, or Sunday afternoon at Grim. So every week is a round.

- At the end of the week (Tuesday, since a "league week" starts on Wednesday with the latest release of Islandhome), if two players haven't played their match, the winner will be the player who showed up at Grim or FNC that week. If neither player showed up, or both players made an effort to show up, just on different days, the match will be a draw.

- The league will start in July. July is perfect because there are no PTQs in our area that month, so everyone should be available every week barring any personal reasons. It also gives everyone over two weeks to prepare their decks.

- No proxies allowed; EDH cards are easy to find (most of them are dollar-bin rares).

- You will be allowed to tune up your deck between rounds, as long as you keep your general the same.

- The Elder Dragon Highlander rules (and banned list) can be found here.

- General reservation will be on a first come, first served basis.

- Matches will be best 2-of-3, though if both players want to play one game because it takes a long time, you can report it 2-0 if you want. (I had a match with Matt Brocking that lasted about two hours, finally losing to a Serra Avatar with a Flickerform on it.)

- If there's not enough interest, then, well, we'll play it by ear!

==THE MADONIA MINUTE==

I thought long and hard about what on earth I was going to write about this week. This week was an enjoyable one on a personal level for me. I've lost 20 pounds since I've started my diet around seven months ago. I'm still far away from where I need to be weight wise, but the growing confidence in myself and the looser fitting clothes have done a lot for me. I've also come to appreciate my friends more and how respect and friendship mean a lot more to me than I've ever imagined.

Everyone knows that I'm planning (this time for real) on attending the next Pro Tour in Germany. I've paid my trip off already and recently went to apply for a passport, I am truly looking forward to my first ever real vacation. I was also fortunate to get a small window in my work schedule that would enable me to attend the US National tournament in early August. Unfortunately, I needed a combination of two points in order to make the tournament on rating. This is quite difficult to do when your trying to not only qualify but stay qualified for the Pro Tour. One loss could be catastrophic and on Saturday that loss came for me.

I decided about 10 minutes before the tournament to play Faeries, a safe deck that I know in and out. I won my 1st round with little resistance and waited patiently for the round two pairing to post. As the pairing go up an immediate sense of trepidation and fear cripples me, my opponent was none other than Mike Innace, whom for whatever reason owns me in competitive magic tournaments. This might be because he is a lot better then me, even though his multitude of big time mistakes at inopportune times have hindered any real successes for him. Mike was playing Elves, a notably difficult to near impossible matchup for the faerie deck. I honestly had no chance either game, his man-land cleaned up game 1 and his trip Vaniquisher hand with double Nameless Inversion hand game two left me on the short end of a 2-0 drubbing. Mike is someone I would call a friend, even though we might not 'get along'. He is someone I could go to, if I needed something. I told him straight up that I wouldn't bribe or pay him off for the win, that if he wanted to concede so I would be able to play at nationals that would be great, if he didn't then I would also be ok with that as well. Mike decided to allow me my chance at nationals knowing full well that if there's a situation in a future event that would warrant a similar result, I would without a shadow of a doubt, reciprocate the favor. Always respect your opponent when you play them, you might need a favor down the road and if they feel like you'd do the same for them, you never know what could happen.

Don't berate your opponent for lucky topdecks or talk about your opponent being a scrub, just take the loss with tact and realize that its a game first. The friendships I've made playing magic are worth a lot more to me then a silly Pro Tour invite. To think that I thought Brian Paskoff was incredibly weird when I first met him at FNC a little over 18 months ago. To think that Pat Albergo was that jerk that called the judge on me in the 3-4 bracket at a Kamigawa Block PTQ. To think that I've met such people as Dan Gould, Mark Baron, Jeff Cooper, Jim Chianese, Dean Duprez, Chris Nielsen, Matt Brocking, Mike Innace, Rob Grippa, Mike Evans, Mike Bauer and the countless other players I've formed a bond with over the years. I've met all these people I call friends by making sure that I was a human being first and a competitor second. Value what you have, I know I do.

I will conclude my article with the deck I'm working on for block constructed

Madonia Toast v3
3x Cloudthresher
4x Mulldrifter
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Oona
1x Reveillark
3x Shrikemaw
4x Cryptic Command
4x Broken Ambitions
4x Makeshift Mannequin
4x Firespout
2x Nameless Inversion

3x Fire-Lit Thicket
4x Island
4x Reflecting Pool
4x Sunken Ruins
4x Vivid Creek
3x Vivid Grove
3x Vivid Marsh
1x Vivid Meadow

Board
1x Cloudthresher
4x Plumeveil
3x Wispermare
3x Mindshatter
2x Jace Beleren
2x Gaddock Teeg

==RULES CORNER==

Q. Can I target a Vexing Shusher with a Sage's Dousing just so I can draw a card?
A. Sure! Vexing Shusher is a legal target for any counterspell. So long as you can legally follow all the steps required for playing a spell, there's nothing stopping you from playing a spell that won't do everything it's usually able to when it resolves. As long as you control a wizard when the Sage's Dousing resolves, you'll draw a card.

Q. I control a City of Brass from Arabian Nights, Chronicles, and Sixth Edition. What happens if someone plays a City in a Bottle?
A. Ryan Baldwin actually asked me this at the Chaos Draft on Sunday. There weren't any Arabian Nights packs, but it was possible that someone would crack an Apocalypse Chime and some Homelands card reprinted in a Core Set. Anyway, the game of Magic has no way of tracking which cards are "from" an older set if they've been reprinted with another expansion symbol. It wouldn't be fair to have players memorize which cards were originally from which set, even as rare as it is for expansion-symbol-matters cards to be played. Luckily, "expansion symbol" is a copiable value (a Spawnwrithe token even has a rare Shadowmoor expansion symbol!), so the game can track it that way. If a City in a Bottle is in play, your Arabian Nights and Chronicles City of Brasses will be destroyed, but your Sixth Edition one will be safe.

Q. I Mirrorweave....
A. Hold on, let me stop you there! Tom Fowler over at MTGSalvation.com has already written an excellent rules column dedicated to fully explaining almost every imaginable rules interaction with Mirrorweave in Standard, so hop on over there and read it, there's no point in me answering questions that are already well-covered!

Have a rules question you want answered? Send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, and Shadowmoor. Eventide won't be available during the beginning of the PTQ season, but will be legal before it ends.

July 12th-13th: Eventide Prerelease
I'll be head judging the prerelease on Long Island again, so come see what all the fuss with enemy-colored hybrids is about! Also, Gray Matter will be holding Two-Headed Giant events instead of Team Sealed!

July 26th: Eventide Launch Party at FNC
Details coming soon!

July 27th: Eventide Launch Party at Brothers Grim
Details coming soon!

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 6/21 - Philadelphia, PA
• 6/28 - Edison, NJ
• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #16

==ISLANDHOME #16==

June 18th 2008

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Chaos Draft: A random draft format, this Sunday at Grim!
EDH: It's league time!
The Madonia Minute: An article by John Madonia.

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: Grim Draft @ 7 PM
Saturday: FNC Standard @ 1 PM
Sunday: Chaos Draft at Brothers Grim @ 2 PM

==CHAOS DRAFT!==

You might have noticed that bright red new entry up in this week's schedule and wondered what exactly I'm on about. Chaos Draft is an exciting and fun format (we're quite big fans of those types of things at Islandhome if you haven't noticed) where your only clue about what your opponent has in their deck comes from the expansion symbol on their cards. When you first sit down, it'll all seem like a normal every day draft... until you get your packs. Everyone will get three random packs of different sets, and drafts with those packs.

A Chaos Draft can't be sanctioned, since everyone would need to receive the same packs for it to be "official" (yes, you can sanction things like triple Mirage, or Lorwyn-Morningtide-Shadowmoor, or even Alpha-Fifth Dawn-Tempest-Chronicles if you want), but like a sanctioned draft, everyone will keep the cards they draft at the end.

The Chaos Draft will cost $14 (to balance out the cost of the different packs). Prize will be in store credit, which can be used to buy lots of different packs from different sets! Make sure you come down to Grim this Sunday and have some fun!

Apocalypse
Betrayers of Kamigawa
Champions of Kamigawa
Coldsnap
Darksteel
Dissension
Fifth Dawn
Future Sight
Guildpact
Homelands*
Judgment
Legions
Lorwyn
Mirage
Mirrodin
Nemesis
Onslaught
Planar Chaos
Ravnica
Saviors of Kamigawa
Scourge
Shadowmoor
Time Spiral
Torment
7th Edition
8th Edition
10th Edition
And possibly more!

* Two packs of these sets equals one pack for the purposes of drafting.

==ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER LEAGUE==

Well everyone's been asking for details on the EDH league I'm planning, and I finally have them! It'll work like any other tournament really: pay to enter, play random opponents, etc. These rules aren't written in stone yet, so if you like them/don't like them and have any suggestions, let me know before next Wednesday!

- Entry fee is $5, which will all be put into the prize pool that will be divided among the top two players.

- Every Wednesday, the next round's pairings will be put up. You'll have a week to play your next match; the best days of course are Friday night at Grim, Saturday afternoon at FNC, or Sunday afternoon at Grim. So every week is a round.

- At the end of the week (Tuesday, since a "league week" starts on Wednesday with the latest release of Islandhome), if two players haven't played their match, the winner will be the player who showed up at Grim or FNC that week. If neither player showed up, or both players made an effort to show up, just on different days, the match will be a draw.

- The league will start in July. July is perfect because there are no PTQs in our area that month, so everyone should be available every week barring any personal reasons. It also gives everyone over two weeks to prepare their decks.

- No proxies allowed; EDH cards are easy to find (most of them are dollar-bin rares).

- The Elder Dragon Highlander rules (and banned list) can be found here.

==THE MADONIA MINUTE==

This will be my first article for Islandome. For anyone who doesn't know me, my name is John Madonia. I've played for years on and off, with my proudest moments, in no particular order: winning a PTQ, top 16-ing countless others, and currently having one of the top constructed ratings in New York State. At the moment I'm not playing any sanctioned events, but if you're looking for a competitive edge in your next event, then listen to some of what I have to say.

The first format I'd like to tackle is Type 2. The format is very healthy at the moment, with greedy landbases and powerful spells a plenty. I've been having a lot of fun designing and tweaking new lists.
Upstart Dean Duprez won last week's installment of FNC Saturday with a powerful 5-color concoction using such gems as Cryptic Command, Doran and Zur the Enchanter. The deck had a mana base similar to the French Pro Tour deck, but didn't drub up the mid-game with five mana 2/2 flyers, instead playing cards that have an immediate impact on the game (Teferi, Collosus, Doran, etc.). I don't want to post my list in this article because I'm hoping for it to catch players off-guard this week yet again. A list that has spread that I had a hand in creating for the current format is Mono Blue. As the format shifts to beat the tribal decks, the mid-range decks have issues dealing with counters. Your worst counterspells are better then their five or six drop.

My current mono blue:

3x Patinum Angel
2x Venser, Shaper Savant
3x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1x Oona, Queen of the Fae
3x Vedalken Aethermage
1x Arcanis the Omnipotent

4x Cryptic Command
4x Rune Snag
3x Remove Soul
1x Commandeer
3x Pact of Negation
4x Ancestral Visions
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Damnation
1x Thoughtseize

3x Tolaria West
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Desert
1x Urza's Factory
3x River of Tears
12x Island
2x Dreadship Reef
1x Academy Ruins

Board
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Damnation
4x Flashfreeze
3x Plumeveil
4x Bottle Gnomes

The list has evolved, most people play around Plumveil, so Vedalken Aethermage takes its spot. He not only grabs any creature in your deck (sans-Platty), he bounces Collosus and Time Walks a turn for you. Your plan is to Stay Alive, counter relevant threats and control the late game, where your deck shines.

Favorable Matchups - Reveillark, Juniper, RG Ramp, Mono Black, RB Tokens, French Decks, Zur Decks.
Average Matchups - RG NY, Elves, Faeries without turn 2 Bitterblosom start, Kithkin, Storm, Burn, Dralnu, Pickles.
Bad Matchups - Merfolk, Faeries with turn 2 Bitterblossom start.

I recommend playing this deck if you practice with it exclusively. Don't build it and sign up for a tournament, you will be disappointed. It rewards consistent play and carefully thought out play. its not a powerful deck, its doesn't have a oops I win game in its arson, its a consistent deck that has strong matchups against the evolving field.

Block Constructed, I haven't delved to far into. I think the control route is the way to go, and if you are serious about winning a ptq, mutavaults have to be in your deck it seems. Id play a deck with a board sweeper and big creatures. I hope to get a little more block testing done this week and next week ill have a primer on a deck I think is viable for the upcoming season.

I do have to vent for a moment. Can people just pay their Pacts? It's not the Future Sight Prerelease, we are almost to Eventide and people at an alarming rate have lost games in which they just forget to pay. Two players on Saturday had commanding board position and lost because they weren't in the moment. If you want to win a tournament you need to be 100 percent devoted to it, you can't have mental errors that can be easily negated by a simple dice or a bird dropping. Pact the spell and put a dice on your deck, it's that simple. Also if your opponent forgets don't tell him until the card is in their hand, as supposedly if the card is off your deck near the cards in your hand, its not considered 'drawing'.

Whether you agree with everything I've said or nothing I've said, just know when you lose to a Madonia deck, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Thanks for Watching

- John Madonia

==RULES CORNER==

Q. My opponent has a Lurebound Scarecrow in play with green chosen, and has two green creatures. If I Mirrorweave everything into that Lurebound Scarecrow, will everything die?
A. There will be a lot of 4/4 scarecrows in play, but none of them will die. Choices that have been made by a permanent's ability aren't copiable, so it's undefined (rule 503.7). The original Lurebound Scarecrow will still die if its controller doesn't control any green permanents after his creatures become colorless Scarecrows.

Q. I have an animated Mutavault in play and my opponent Mirrorweaves everything into an Axegrinder Giant. What does my Mutavault look like?
A. Your Mutavault is a 2/2 red creature with all creature types named Axegrinder Giant. So why isn't it a 6/4? It's because of those confusing layers again. Layer 1 is the "copy" layer, where Mirrorweave applies. At this layer, your Mutavault is an exact copy of Axegrinder Giant. But Mutavault's activated ability applies in layers 4 (type) and 6b (other power/toughness effects), later than the copy layer. Basically, your ex-Mutavault is an Axegrinder Giant that has Mutavault's activated ability applied to it. It's not a land though, since the phrase "it's still a land" just means Mutavault's activated ability makes the object it applies to keep its existing supertypes/subtypes/types when it changes any of those.

Q. I play a Slaughter Pact, targeting my opponent's Teferi. Then he plays Venser, bouncing Teferi back to his hand. Do I need to pay for Slaughter Pact next turn?
A. Slaughter Pact's "pay or lose the game" is part of its effect that happens when it resolves. Since Teferi is no longer a legal target, the Pact fizzles and you don't need to pay it next turn.

Have a rules question you want answered? Send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, and Shadowmoor. Eventide won't be available during the beginning of the PTQ season, but will be legal before it ends.

July 12th-13th: Eventide Prerelease
I'll be head judging the prerelease on Long Island again, so come see what all the fuss with enemy-colored hybrids is about! Also, Gray Matter will be holding Two-Headed Giant events instead of Team Sealed!

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 6/21 - Philadelphia, PA
• 6/28 - Edison, NJ
• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #15

==ISLANDHOME #15==

June 11th 2008

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

NJ Regionals: How it all went down.
EDH: New rules, including additons to the banned and restricted list!
Interview: Michael A. Bauer, one of four winners of Connecticut's Regionals!

Interview: Brian J. Paskoff, on Becoming a Judge.
Upcoming Events: A bit of details on the Eventide prerelease!

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: Grim Draft @ 7 PM
Saturday: FNC Standard @ 1 PM
Sunday: Casual Magic at Brothers Grim @ 2 PM

==ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER==

There's some new rules updates to EDH, with more on the way from what I've heard:

• Off-color hybrid cards aren't allowed. They never were, but there was discussion on whether they should be - but there won't be any change. You still can't play Vexing Shusher in your red/white EDH deck.
• Limited Resources is banned, and I'm surprised it wasn't earlier. Just read what it does and think of the havoc it can wreak in multiplayer games!

I'm also working on putting together an Elder Dragon Highlander league with fabulous prizes, so stay tuned to Islandhome for news about that!

==NJ REGIONALS==

Well, the first major tournament of the season is over, and it was a big one. With 225 players in New Jersey, just two players short of being nine rounds, the race for a top 8 spot was even harder than usual, tiebreakers playing a major factor. The event went well; almost TOO well if you ask me, with very few rules calls, major penalties, or anything like that. Although no one from our area made it into the coveted top 4 spots that gave invites to Nationals, in Connecticut, Michael Bauer nabbed himself an invite with his 420.5n deck. So he'll be flying his Reveillark to Chicago in August. Even though Matt Brocking, Mike Evans, Mike Innace, Rob Grippa, The Wurm, The Roach, and The... uh... Jaroslav didn't make it into the finals, we're all still proud of them. Good hustle.

Well, mostly. In last week's newsletter I talked about a few things that were important to remember for major tournaments, and two of the big rules were unfortunately broken. First up, playing a deck you're familiar with. Not surprisingly, the more people practiced with their respective decks, the better they did. Jaroslav has been playing Merfolk for a long time, and made it into the top 16, earning himself half a box. The Roach followed my advice and played his Kithkin deck, dropping out of the tournament but winning three packs of Planar Chaos in a dice-rolling game a dealer had and pulling a Damnation. (If you're not sure what that has to do with playing a deck he was familiar with, I have one word for you: karma. And not the card.) And Mike Evans built his deck in the car ride on the way over, and went 1-5 drop, winning only his first round. So maybe there is something to this "practice" thing!

I also wrote about the importance of not rushing to fill out a decklist. Sadly, I had to give Matt Brocking a Game Loss penalty for filling out his decklist incorrectly when he forgot to list two Garruks. A Game Loss penalty given before the round starts like a Deck/Decklist Mismatch infraction gives means you lose the first game of that match. Since neither player has seen the other's deck, sideboarding isn't allowed, but just like if you lost the first game normally, it's your choice whether to play or draw in the second game. Not being able to sideboard is a pretty big disadvantage; Matt had the tools in his sideboard to beat Reveillark, but unfortunately he couldn't use them and lost the second game as well.

Everyone I talked to had a good time though, so it's all good!

==INTERVIEW: MICHAEL A. BAUER==

Even though he didn't go to NJ Regionals, Mike Bauer travelled all the way to Connecticut for their regionals... and wound up in the top 4 to get an invite to US Nationals! Bauer, a veteran of many stores on the Island, is known for playing his crazy deck ideas built from decklists which must appear in his alphabet soup or something. I talked to him over AIM about his victory in Connecticut.

Q. What deck did you wind up playing?
A.The wild 5 Color Juniper Order Ranger Combo Deck

Q. How much practice did you get with 420.5n before the Big Day?
A. I ran about 4 tournaments for 3 weeks prior. Had two loses to Jim Chianese the first tourney I Played and Two loses to one player in the last tourney I played. The main goal for me was to get the sideboard ready and just make sure I knew every way to combo off.

Q. How different is Regionals compared to a local tournament?
A. The biggest is simply the sheer number of players and judges. Conneticut had 202 players and I think 8 judges who's main job is keeping everything running smoothly. It definitly wasn't easy for them at times. Also, you need to know your rules and triggers alot more. That stuff won't hurt you at FNC or Grim, but it can at Regionals, especially the higher and further you move along.

Q. Any interesting plays, memorable games, etc. at Regionals?
A.There were several. It almost seemed like every round had a wierd play. The best had to be in round 8, comboing off against Elves on Turn 5 when I ripped a Juniper off the top after being Thoughtseized the turn before. Also, beating down mono black rouge with their own creatures was fun.

Q. Combo decks have to have a good sideboard to fight off all the hate. What was in your board and how'd it help against your tough matchups?
A. I had 3 Extripate against Lark decks, but never faced it. 2 Crovax and 3 Wispmare against Faeries, but never faced it. Pull from Eternity never got used either. So it left me using Teferi's Moat and a 3rd Pact of Negation alot. Moat had to be my MVP against R/G and Elf decks, especially when they never think about it. And that 3rd Pact I think won me a round or two.

Q. How many points did your rating go up?
A. Honestly, I haven't seen the results on my rating yet as it only got received today, but I was at 1778 before hand, so I wouldn't be surprised to go near 1900.

Q. Nationals is a big event, how are you preparing for battle?
A. Besides making my deck very, very shiny my main goal is to work on drafting, as I very weak in that area by comparison. With the new set coming out next month, that becomes very difficult at the moment.

Q. Any closing remarks?
A. Just to everyone you looks to be more in Magic. Always give it a shot, you never know when it will be your day to shine.

Michael Bauer can usually be found at FNC on Saturdays and Brothers Grim on Sundays. Be sure to congradulate him if you see him, and wish him good luck!

==INTERVIEW: BRIAN J. PASKOFF==
(On Becoming a Judge)

Over the past few weeks, as players realized a big tournament season is coming up, many of you have asked me what it takes to become a judge. So I've decided to "interview" myself, because the best way to learn how to do something is to know how someone else did it. Now that big tournaments are just on the horizon and everyone will have the opportunity to interact with the level 3 judge in our area, Eric Smith. If you have any serious interest in becoming a judge in New York, he's the guy to talk to. I'll point him out to anyone who asks (no, he's not the tall judge that usually judges Long Island prereleases, that's Hayden, a L2 judge.) I feel like the best way to teach people what the becoming-a-judge process is like is to talk about my experiences, so without further ado, these are actual questions I've gotten:

Q. How did you get involved in judging?
A. Well I was a judge back in the 4th-5th Edition days. I used to carry around the entire Oracle text with me to tournaments. I wasn't a certified judge or anything, but I was the go-to-guy for rules questions. Today the DCI has a title and test for those kinds of people: Rules Advisors. Being a Rules Advisor means you know the rules well enough to answer most questions that come up between you and your friends when you're playing, even if you're not a certified judge. Eric Smith, or any L3 you want to test under, will be much more likely to take you under their wing if you've passed the Rules Advisor test.

Anyway, so I quit playing Magic for a while and when I got back into it, the rules had changed a lot. I started playing on a Magic Workstation league for a forum I visit, and one of my opponents turned out to be a judge from Canada - Vic Naqvi, who wrote the guest article about EDH last week. He put me in touch with Eric Smith, and Eric interviewed me a little, then got me to work judging my first big tournament at Neutral Ground. As a "Level 0" judge, I basically shadowed other judges and watched how they interacted with players, which is probably the most important part of judging.

I printed out and put all the big rules documents in a binder and read them cover to cover, over and over. (I don't recommend doing that until you're familiar enough with the rules, otherwise you could go into what the experts call "too much stuff for your brain to digest" shock.) Then I got in touch with Eli Shiffrin (L2 from Arizona), one of the writers of Cranial Insertion, the weekly rules article on mtgsalvation.com which I learned a lot from. He quickly taught me a lot of the harder-to-understand rules. The first rule of becoming a judge is to find yourself a mentor who can help you understand the tough stuff - I was lucky enough to have two early on.

After that, Eric gave me the L1 test at my next tournament, which I passed. Normally Eric likes to see people judge at more events before testing, but at the time I was planning to move to North Carolina.

The chatroom #mtgjudge on the EFNet IRC server is very helpful. There's lots of judges in there who answer rules questions and discuss policy, rules, and so on. It can be good just to go on there to idle and listen to what people are discussing. You can get there through any IRC program, or web interfaces are available at http://webchat.xs4all.nl/ and http://chat.efnet.org/. You can also ask rules questions in there too.

Q. What's judging a big tournament like?
A. Well, the first rule of judging is to expect a lot of work! The usual day of a big event starts by waking up when it's still dark out and heading to the venue. Then there's a judge meeting - the head judge tells all his judgelings the goals and expectations for that day. At bigger events where there's a large judge staff, this is where team assignments are handed out. Usually there's paper (handing out/sometimes collecting match slips, putting up/taking down pairings and standings), logistics (cleaning up after players, setting up chairs, tables, and table numbers), and deck check (counting and checking decklists). All judges go out on the floor to judge after doing what they need to. The first round of "medium" size tournaments such as PTQs are tough because almost everyone is on deck check due to the small number of judges available. Actually, even at large events, people not on deck check team will be helping out counting decklists.

So from there on every round's the same thing - new pairings go up, deck check teams check decks, etc. There aren't as many rules questions as you might think - most of them are simple to answer and can be answered with a simple yes or no, with a bit of explanation if necessary. The hardest judge calls come from player disputes, kind of "he said, she said" kind of things where both players have their own view of what happened.

You have to figure each round is about an hour (50 minutes on the clock plus ~10 minutes for new pairings, getting players seated, fixing problems, etc.), and add onto that total about an hour or two for problem solving, starting everything up, and cleaning up after the event.

Q. What are the basic things you need to know to become a judge?
A. There's some fundemental rules you need to know, such as the phases of a turn, steps to playing a spell or ability, state-based effects, and the hardest to understand: layers. But being a judge isn't just about rules knowledge; there's lots of policy stuff you need to know and keep up to date with, since policy changes rapidly while the rules of the game really only get added to with every new set.

You also need a healthy supply of good judgment and common sense. You might know that a Mirrorweave targeting an animated Mutavault will turn all other creatures into unanimated Mutavaults because copy effects only copy printed characteristics as modified by other copy effects, but what do you do if a player suddenly discovers they've shuffled tokens into their library when they draw one? There's no written rules for those kinds of things, so you have to use your judgment. You could even say that the first rule of judging is to have good judgment! (HAH!)

You'll also need to know that your play skills will rapidly degrade once you become a judge. Why this happens is one of the greatest mysteries known to man.

Q. Are you ever wrong?

A. Of course! Judges aren't perfect, and even high level judges get answers wrong now and again. At my first big tournament, a card interaction was ruled incorrectly by the head judge for day one, then ruled correctly day two after he did some further research. It takes a long time to figure out how to learn from your mistakes instead of beating yourself up over them. The first rule of judging is that you will make mistakes.

Q. What do you get for judging?
A. When you consider the huge amount of hours a big tournament takes, not much, but the no one should become a judge just for the pay. With that out of the way, judges usually get at least a box for each day of a major event. At GPs and above, we get judge foils from Wizards, which are alternate-art, foil versions of popular rare cards such as Sol Ring, Grim Lavamancer, Yawgmoth's Will, etc. At local events like FNMs, most judges I've talked to get a little bit of store credit and/or cash and/or product; but the number one rule of judging is to that you're not doing it for the money, fame, or women (or men).

Q. Sounds good! So how do I get started?

A. Well I'm always available for mentoring anyone who's serious about wanting to become a judge. The way I learned was both Vic and Eli asking me random rules/policy questions, so reading starcitygames.com's and mtgsalvation.com's rules articles and trying to answer those questions yourself without looking at the answers is a good start. Taking some practice exams on exams.wizards.com is great if you want to test your rules knowledge too. Watching judges at tournaments is the best way to learn policy stuff and how to interact with players.

In order to judge a tournament as a level 0, you'll have to contact the head judge of that event ahead of time and ask; don't just show up, because they'll probably say no. It's hard to dedicate resources to training a new judge on the fly like that, after all.

Being a judge is a lot of fun, and a lot of fun work. If you think you're up for it, I'm always ready to help out!

==RULES CORNER==

Q. If I see something illegal in a game I'm watching, can I call a judge?
A. Yes, please do! In fact, it's one of your responsibilities as a spectator to tell a judge about any illegal things you see. Don't stop or interfere with the game, just find the nearest judge and tell them what's up. At Regionals I had two instances of a spectator coming up to me and telling me about a problem. One turned out to be nothing, just the spectator's concern that the players didn't know Crovax was pumping some Soldier tokens (they did), but one turned out to be serious - two players not realizing one of them had animated a Treetop Village and activated a Pendelhaven with Magus of the Moon in play. Section 14 of the Universal Tournament Rules actually says: "Spectators and members of the press who believe they have observed rules violations should inform a judge, but must not interfere with the match."

Q. My opponent plays an Eternal Witness and chooses to return a Damnation from his graveyard to his hand. In response, I play Memory Plunder, targeting the Damnation and playing it. Once everything resolves, does he get the Damnation back?
A. Damnation has changed zones; from the graveyard, to the stack, and back to the graveyard upon resolution. So, it's a new object and Eternal Witness's triggered ability has lost track of it and won't be able to bring it back.

Q. My Dusk Urchins blocks a Sickle Ripper that has eight +1/+1 counters on it, making it a 10/9 with wither. How many cards do I draw?
A. Assuming the Urchins had no -1/-1 counters on it before it blocked, you'll draw eleven cards - one from the counter it gets when it blocked, and ten more from the counters it had on it when it died. All the counters from wither damage go on at the same time, so it can actually have way more -1/-1 counters on it than its toughness would seem to "allow".

Q. Can I put a Pact of Negation on top of my library to remind myself to pay it next turn?
A. You're allowed to put something on top of your library to remind you to pay for something during your upkeep (doesn't need to be a Pact), but it has to be smaller than your library, and it can't be a card. Putting the card you're reminding yourself about on top of your library is doubly-wrong, because a resolved spell belongs in your graveyard, not on top of your library.

Have a rules question you want answered? Send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, and Shadowmoor. Eventide won't be available during the beginning of the PTQ season, but will be legal before it ends.

July 12th-13th: Eventide Prerelease
I'll be head judging the prerelease on Long Island again, so come see what all the fuss with enemy-colored hybrids is about! Also, Gray Matter will be holding Two-Headed Giant events instead of Team Sealed!

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 6/21 - Philadelphia, PA
• 6/28 - Edison, NJ
• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #14

==ISLANDHOME #14==

June 4th 2008

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

NJ Regionals: Where you should be this weekend!
Elder Dragon Highlander Tips: Deckbuilding tips, with guest contributor Vic Naqvi.
Magic's Big Changes: Mythic rares, smaller sets, precon-replacements, and planeswalkers in Alara!
The Islandhome Blog: Archives of all your favorite past issues! Relive all your favorite articles!

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Saturday: FNC Standard @ 1 PM
Saturday: NJ Regionals

==LAST WEEK==

We had a strange week tournament-wise: Friday night, Grim's usual 14-16 player draft didn't get off, but an 8-man unsanctioned Standard event did. And Sunday, instead of Block, we had an unsanctioned booster draft. Friday was due to people wanting to test their Standard decks for Regionals, though I can't say for sure why Block didn't get off the ground on Sunday. I'm sure we'll get plenty more players a week or two leading up to the first PTQ in our area when people want to test!

==ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER TIPS==

So last week I had an article on Elder Dragon Highlander (click here to see last issue which had the EDH rules in it) which drew a lot of interest, much more than I was expecting! It turns out, Magic players like to have fun and try new things. Who knew? Well I've gotten a lot of questions about EDH deckbuilding and strategies, and I figured the best thing to do was to address those questions here.

One of the biggest myths about EDH is that you need every dual land under the sun in order to play. True, in a four or five color deck, you'll need a lot of mana fixing, and the best fixing will come from old-school and Ravnica dual lands. However, since EDH is a slower format and all nonbasic lands are restricted by default, dual lands aren't as important. Basic lands should actually take up a good portion of your manabase anyway, and any land that fixes mana will do. There's the comes-into-play-tapped duals from Invasion/8th Edition and Coldsnap, the tribal duals from Lorwyn, the bouncelands from Ravnica block, the Future Sight duals, the Shadowmoor filter-lands, and so on, all of which cost under $10!

Now for the fun stuff: Namely, the unfun stuff. You see, EDH is a format that's primarily about having fun. With the entire Vintage cardpool at your disposal, it's easy to build an abusive deck, even when every card is restricted. So there are some "rules of conduct" that all good EDH players follow. One of the biggest ones is "no mass land destruction". EDH is a format all about big spells with big effects, and it's also a much slower format than any other, so building up a board for ten turns only to lose everything to something like an Obliterate isn't fun. Mass LD spells aren't banned because it's hard to quantify what exactly is a "mass LD spell". Crucible of Worlds is banned in EDH specifically to discourage land destruction. Abusing Sundering Titan with things like Kiki-Jiki or Momentary Blink is frowned upon as well.

There are four cards that go in almost every EDH deck without question, no matter what the colors: Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Oblivion Stone, and Nevinyrral's Disk. I happen to know that Brothers Grim has a whole stack of Disks and Oblivion Stones for around $5 each (give or take), certainly a worthwhile investment to pick up one or two if you plan on playing EDH!

Infinite combos are another thing most players don't like. Painter's Servant and Grindstone is a fun combo that's bound to win a few Legacy and Vintage tournaments, but in EDH... not so fun. You want to show off your deck and your play skills, not win as quickly as possible. That's not to say all combos are bad! Remember at Worlds when Mark Rosewater smashed some kid for thousands of damage with a Chameleon Colossus? That's the kind of wacky "infinite" combos that are fun, and encouraged!

And here's a special treat for readers of Islandhome - our first guest article! Vic Naqvi is a L1 judge from Canada who introduced me to Elder Dragon Highlander, and like I mentioned last week, is always talking about his latest decks and giving me recaps of games he's played. I asked him to write something about deckbuilding tips for EDH newbies.

So you've been exposed to EDH and you're dying to make a deck. But before you go ahead and start doing something you've never done – going to the game store and BUYING junk rares, here's a few tips from a veteran EDH player on some things you should think about before building your deck.

What's my theme?

There's a huge impulse to just throw every fun/good card you have into your collection but sometimes you will find that it just doesn't work – your deck doesn't seem to have the 'glue' to hold it together.

Writers, and other creative types, often comment that having restrictions/guidelines placed on them serves to increase their creativity. EDH certainly lends to that- you're already restricted by the color(s) of your general- but figuring out what sort of theme/function your deck wants to do goes a long way towards putting together cards that work in harmony. One of the most popular themes in EDH is 'recursion' – it's also an important component of EDH deckbuilding, which I'll touch on later. Other themes could be 'enchantments', 'tokens', 'lots of comes into play effects', et cetera. Sometimes your general will point you in the right direction – Captain Sisay and Stonebrow are some of the most obvious examples.

Card advantage, card advantage, card advantage

EDH games tend to go long. Even those decks that specialize on beatdown (and yes it can be done) still have to take a single opponent to 0 from 40 life. Because of this, it simply isn't enough to be able to rely on the first 10-15 cards off your deck. You'll need a way to ensure that you're seeing and utilizing more of your cards as EDH games tend to turn into wars of attrition. Cards you thought you dealt with will somehow find their way back to play and terrorize you again.

It's not just card draw that you need to concern yourself with; even the monored decks that have to rely on a single Skullclamp and Jayemdae Tomes can find other avenues towards squeezing out the most from your cards. Comes-into-play effects like Flametongue Kavu, Duplicant, and Indrik Stomphowler give you a threat and an answer all in one package. Board sweepers like Oblivion Stone, Damnnation (or the infinitely better Decree of Pain) run rampant over the table, so you'll need to pack ways of refilling your hand or emptying your graveyard!

Recursion

That lynchpin enchantment or artifact that's holding your deck together will most likely be marked for death. Even if you do throw up a field of protection effects, an Oblivion Stone will undo all your hard work. You'll need ways of getting your stuff back.

Green has it the easiest with the must-include Eternal Witness, along with Genesis, Regrowth, Restock, Recollect, and other Re-cards. Recurring Nightmare in Black has been banned but by no means are you left wanting for reanimation, as Phyrexian Reclamation, Corpse Dance, Coffin Queen, Doomed Necromancer and Oversold Cemetery are all excellent picks. White's no slouch in the recursion department either, with Karmic Guide a perennial favorite, along with the new kid on the block Reveillark. Treasure Hunter and Auramancer let you get back the non-creature stuff.

Blue and Red, well you'll have to dig a little deeper to find recursion but it's hiding in there somewhere. Half the fun of EDH deckbuilding is the discovery of new niche cards.

Interactivity

Putting in those powerful creatures, sorceries and artifacts are all good and well, but when the last piece of your opponent's infinite life/damage/creature combo clicks into place and you're staring at your fist full of Wraths and Fireballs you'll wish you had some instants.

Don't skimp on this. Putting Vedalken Orrery in your deck is a good start, but it's only 1 card, and it helps to be able to Sudden Death an opponent's Kiki-Jiki before it gets to go off with a Pestermite in play.

DO NOT ignore the graveyard either. As mentioned before, recursion is a big stategy in this format, and you will get Yosei or Mindslaver locked out of the blue. Stonecloaker, Withered Wretch, and Nezumi Graverobber are all excellent utility cards. Loaming Shaman and Primal Command get the job done in green. Again, red and blue will have to look towards artifacts like Phyrexian Furnace and Scrabbling Claws for their graveyard control.

Mana is not an afterthought

There's a huge impulse when your deck is near completion to 'just squeeze in one more card' and cut an extra two or three land. Don't do this. Your manabase is very important in EDH, more so than in 60 card constructed. You will get left behind very quickly especially with the popularity of green in this format. To that end, try to have at least 45 mana sources in your deck. 38 lands and 7 pieces of acceleration is a fine way to break it down, but it all depends on when your deck is doing what – do you want to accelerate to from 2 to 4 or 3 to 5? The casting cost of your general and its importance in your deck's strategy is a big contributing factor towards this. Since EDH is top-heavy you'll also want to ensure that you're hitting your first 5 land drops at the least.

==NJ REGIONALS==

Finally, a major tournament! There's been a huge break in the big tournament schedule due to the loss of a Pro Tour (one less PTQ season) and the loss of States, but starting this weekend, tournament season is in full swing! Ironically, the tournament that kicks off Block Season is a Standard tournament - NJ Regionals. Every major region in the US has Regionals this Saturday, and New Jersey and Connecticut are your two choices for Regionals in our area. Since Jersey is a Gray Matter event, that's where I'll be judging. Click here for details, directions (do NOT use Google Maps, Mapquest, etc.), etc. on how to get there.

So what's the metagame going to be like at Regionals? Elves, Faeries, Merfolk, and Reveillark will certainly be the most popular choices, probably in close to that order as well. The five-color "Quick N' Toast" deck will be popular too, since it's new and exciting... but like most new and exciting decks, half the people who bring it to Regionals won't know how to play it. My advice would be to stick with a deck, or at least an archetype, you know well. Have you been performing well with a deck at local standard tournaments? Well then there's no reason to change it, except for a few metagame choices, especially in the sideboard. Big tournaments are the wrong time to start playing a new deck!

I'll be judging Regionals, not playing in it (not that it'll make any less people ask me what deck I'm playing) so most of my Regionals advice is judge-related stuff.

1. Get there early so you can fill out a decklist without rushing. Filling out a decklist incorrectly such as forgetting a card carries a game loss penalty, so you don't want to be scrambling to do it last minute!
2. Have all the cards for your deck with you! I see lots of players showing up at big events missing vital cards for their deck, and then buying them from vendors or trading for them from other players at way too high prices. Don't get ripped off, bring your cards with you!
3. Play smart - don't forget you're playing in "the big leagues", not a local tournament. While most things these days are Cautions at Regular REL, Regionals is a Competitive level event. Drawing Extra Cards is the big one, and it's a Game Loss at Regionals.
4. Check your sleeves! At a big tournament, especially in the NY/NJ area, having any kind of art on your sleeves is a bad idea. Head judges are allowed to disallow sleeves at their discretion, and I happen to know that the L3 judge who will most likely be the HJ of the NJ Regionals doesn't like sleeves with any markings on the back. Plain-colored sleeves are the best bet; I recommend either KMCs (which should be purchasable from vendors at the event) or Dragonshields (ditto, and are also available at Brothers Grim). Buying new sleeves to play in a big tournament is always a good idea, and when you do buy them, make sure they don't have any defects or anything that would make them marked.
   
5. Keep your belongings with you at all times! Looking away from your trade binder, even for a few seconds, can be disasterous. Sadly card theft at big tournaments is an issue, but if you keep your bags and such in your sight at all times, you'll be safe.

P.S. - If anyone wants to go to Regionals and doesn't have a ride, I'm looking for one or two more people to carpool with! We'll be leaving from FNC at about 6:30 AM, so you'll have to wake up early on a Saturday, but the intensity will be worth it! You will have to pay for part of the gas and tolls, of course.

==MAGIC'S BIG CHANGES==

Starting with the release of Shards of Alara in October, Magic's doing a lot of things differently. In case you don't read magicthegathering.com, I'll talk about them here.

The first big change is that there's a new level of rarity called "Mythic". Those of you playing back in Time Spiral might remember the "Timeshifted" rarity which included cards from older sets, reprinted so they were Standard legal again. Mythic rares won't be in every pack like Timeshifted cards were, though - they'll be in approximately one out of every eight packs. Wizards has promised these mythic rares won't be "staple" rares like duals or powerful tournament-worthy cards though, for the most part. Instead they'll be things like planeswalkers (yes, Shards of Alara is confirmed to have at least one planeswalker), legendary creatures, and so on. Regular rares are going to be more common than they used to be, and mythic rares probably won't be as hard to find as they sound.

Sets are going to be smaller too. Shards of Alara is a big set, but it'll only have 229 cards. Lorwyn had 281! Wizards wants fewer cards so that players aren't overwhelmed by a massive cardpool in Standard, especially with four sets being released every year. Even 11th Edition will only have about 229 cards in it, the smallest of any core set ever!

Finally, preconstructed decks aren't going to be the same anymore. Instead of the usual 60-card deck and a foil basic land, they'll have 40 cards, a foil rare, and a booster pack. The idea is that new players will buy one of these and use it as a basis for building their own deck instead of playing with what they're given. The hilarity of buying a precon and playing with it in a tournament won't be there anymore, but it'll get new players used to building a deck instead of playing with a premade list... and that can only be a good thing.

==RULES CORNER==

Q. I ask my opponent if I can declare my attackers, and he responds by tapping my creatures with a Cryptic Command. Once the Command resolves, can I then activate my Treetop Village and attack?
A. Yes you can. Understanding priority is tricky, but the key is that both players have to pass priority without taking any action for a step to end. Saying "Declare attackers?" means "I'm moving to my Beginning of Combat Step and passing priority to you." If your opponent takes no action, you move to your Declare Attackers step, where you immediately declare and tap your attacking creatures before you get priority again. But your opponent did take an action - he played a Cryptic Command! He passes priority, you pass priority, and the Command resolves, tapping your creatures, and then you (being the active player) get priority. You can then activate your Treetop Villages and attack with them.

Q. There's an instant and a land (not the same card) in each graveyard, so my opponent's Tarmogoyf is a 2/3. If I hit it with a Nameless Inversion, why doesn't it die?
A. It's difficult to understand why a 2/3 creature that gets +3/-3 doesn't die unless you know when exactly state-based effects are checked. Once Nameless Inversion starts resolving, the Goyf gets +3/-3 and becomes a 5/0. However, state-based effects - for example the one that says a creature with less than 1 toughness is put into its owner's graveyard - don't check until a player would get priority. But no one has priority, since the Nameless Inversion is still resolving. So as the last part of the spell resolving, Nameless Inversion is put into its owner's graveyard. Tarmogoyf now sees a Tribal spell in the graveyard and has its power and toughness increased by 1, so it's a 6/1. Then state-based effects are checked, and since the Goyf has more than 0 toughness, it sticks around to beat face. Interestingly, the only time a Nameless Inversion will kill a Tarmogoyf is when nothing else is in a graveyard.

Q. Can I do anything on my turn before I untap?
A. Questions regarding doing things during the untap step have been trickling in more than usual. The answer to all of them is that players can't play anything during the untap step; the only things that happens during that step are things phasing in and out and untapping permanents. Even if an ability were to trigger during the untap step (such as Hollowsage), those triggered abilities wait until the next time a player would get priority - usually the upkeep step - to be put onto the stack.

Have a rules question you want answered? Send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th: NJ Regionals
Gray Matter is hosting the regionals for our area in the basement of St. Matthew the Apostle church in Edison, NJ. The format is Standard constructed, and I'll have more details as I hear about them. I'll be judging it, so I'll find out ahead of time what's going to happen with Grim and FNC that weekend. Directions can be found here, but don't use Google Maps - you WILL get lost.

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, and Shadowmoor. Eventide won't be available during the beginning of the PTQ season, but will be legal before it ends.

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 6/21 - Philadelphia, PA
• 6/28 - Edison, NJ
• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==NEXT ISSUE...==

A Post-Regionals Report
More EDH stuff!
Another interview (probably).

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #13

==ISLANDHOME #13==

May 28th 2008 ---- FREE

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Pro Tour Hollywood: Results and what it means for you!
Elder Dragon Highlander: The most interesting format you've never played.
Interview: John "Metagame" Madonia

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: Brothers Grim Draft @ 7 PM
Saturday: FNC Standard @ 1 PM
Sunday: Brothers Grim Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Block Constructed @ 2 PM

==PRO TOUR HOLLYWOOD==

Pro Tour Hollywood is over, and the results are going to change the Standard metagame for months to come. Surprisingly, even with it taking up over 25% of the metagame, Faeries didn't make first place - only one Faerie deck made it into the top 8, and it wound up in eighth place! Charles Gindy ended up winning the whole thing with his Elf deck, taking home a $40,000 check which should just about cover the cost of his deck. Check his decklist out in the link below to see what I mean.

So what do the results of the PT mean for Regionals next week, and the metagame in general? Well for one thing, Faeries has been knocked out of the "best deck" spot. It'll still be played of course, but in lesser numbers. At Regionals and at stores where lots of netdecking takes place, Elves will probably be the most popular deck; I've already noticed Imperious Perfects and other Elf-specific cards start to sell out of binders at FNC and Grim, and I'm sure it's like that all over the country. Merfolk and Reveillark will also be popular choices, as both of them made it far on day two of the Pro Tour.

There was also a strange deck from the French players called "Quick n' Toast" - basically, it's a five-color control deck that uses Oona as its finisher, and Vivid lands and Reflecting Pools to build a stable five-color manabase. Guillaume Wafo-Tapa made it the furthest, all the way to 11th place, just barely missing out on top 8 action. His list can be found here. It looks like a difficult deck to play, so don't expect to see it in the winner's bracket at Regionals unless someone really good is piloting it.

While I don't condone netdecking, it's a good idea to look at the top decks from Hollywood so you know what you're going to be up against in post-Hollywood Standard! Taking one of these lists to playtest it is fine, but adding your own twists to them is what makes a good deckbuilder instead of someone who just hopes to win a local event with a Pro Tour decklist and winds up getting their Mudbutt handed to them.

Day 2 Decklists
Top 8 Decklists

Congradulations to Grim veteran Michael Catapano, who made it to day two of the Pro Tour with his BR Goblin/Husk deck!

==ELDER DRAGON HIGHLANDER==

Almost anything's possible in Elder Dragon Highlander. How often do you hear "End of turn, I'll flash in Nevinyrral's Disk"? It's possible thanks to Vedalken Orrery! Or how about playing Tooth and Nail, entwined and conspired with Wort, the Raidmother to fetch out four creatures: Hostility, Siege-Gang Commander, Furystoke Giant, and an Anarchist, setting up a combo next turn with Flametongue Kavu hitting Furystoke Giant, which would let almost my entire board ping for 2?

There's been a lot of discussion on standard, extended, draft, and sealed deck in Islandhome, but there's one format I haven't touched on - Elder Dragon Highlander (or EDH to its friends). What is EDH? It's a format designed to push fun, casual play and deckbuilding skills, while not requiring a huge investment. It also showcases weird card interactions that aren't found anywhere else in Magic, and is bound to bring up some of the most interesting rules questions that have ever been asked in the history of Magic. I'm trying to get more people interested in the format, so here's how it works:

To start building a deck, you'll need a General. Your General can be any legendary creature that's legal in Vintage, with the exception of Kokusho and Rofellos, who are banned for power reasons. Once you've picked a General, you can start building your deck with an interesting restriction: You can't use a card in your deck if any of the mana symbols on it don't show up in your General's mana cost. For example, if you were using Chromium as your General, you couldn't play Void in your deck, because Void has a red mana symbol on it and Chromium doesn't. You also couldn't play Thornscape Battlemage in your Doran EDH deck, because it has a red mana symbol in its text. Hybrid cards such as the ones from Shadowmoor are currently under discussion, but are banned right now if one of their halves is off-color. You'll also need to build your deck with exactly 100 cards (rule of thumb is about 60 spells and 40 lands), including your General. Also - and this is where the "highlander" part of the name comes from - every card in the format is restricted. You can only play one of each card, with the exception of basic lands.

Building an EDH deck is just as fun as playing it, because you have access to almost the entire Vintage card pool (there's a banned list, which is below), and can build around any theme you want. My friend Vic Naqvi, an L1 judge from Canada who introduced me to EDH (and judging, as a matter of fact), is always talking to me about the different deck ideas he has - a Maga, Traitor to Mortals mono-black ramp deck, a Reaper King deck using Changelings and Scarecrows, etc. My most recent deck is a Wort, the Raidmother deck that uses mana acceleration and powerful instants and sorceries that can be conspired for devastating effects. Matt Brocking's been telling me about his Zur the Enchanter deck, and Michael Evans has been raving about his Captain Sisay deck.

Even playing EDH has some interesting rules:

- Your General begins the game removed from the game. You can play it at any time you could play it as though it were in your hand, but as an additional cost to play it, it costs 2 more to play for each previous time you played it from the removed-from-game zone.
- If a player is dealt 21 damage by a single General, they lose the game. If, for example, my General is Chromium and I've dealt 21 damage to you with him over the course of the game, you lose, even if you've gained the life back from when Chromium dealt you damage. This damage stays on the record even if Chromium leaves play and returns later.
- As a replacement effect, if a General would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner may choose to remove it from the game instead. It never hits the graveyard if it's replaced this way.
- Players begin the game at 40 life.
- If something would add mana to your mana pool that's not in your general's mana cost, it adds that much colorless mana instead.

There's a few card-specific rules too: Generals can't be bounced with Karakas, they can't be shuffled in with Riftsweeper, and Wishes can only be used to fetch either your General or cards that started the game in your deck but were then removed from the game (there's no sideboards). Rune Tail, Kitsune flips when its controller has 60 or more life, too.

Here's the deckbuilding rules in handy bullet-list form as well:

- All cards are restricted, except basic lands.
- You can only use cards if they don't have mana symbols that aren't in your General's mana cost.
- 100 cards exactly, including your General.
- Uses the Vintage card pool (see banned list below), and cards are legal as of the set's prerelease.
- Rofellos is banned as a General, but can still be used in your deck. Kokusho is banned as a General too, as well as banned in decks.

The best part about EDH is that you get to use cards that don't ever see play. My Wort deck plays Mirri's Guile, Scroll Rack, Restock, Sprout Swarm, and Candles of Leng, just to name a few! I'd love to see more people get interested in this unique format, so if anyone wants to build a deck and play against me, I'm always up for a game! If it gets enough interest, I might even start up a league! With prizes! Fabulous prizes!

Banned Cards:

Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus
Balance
Biorhythm
Coalition Victory
Crucible of Worlds
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Library of Alexandria
Moxen
Panoptic Mirror
Recurring Nightmare
Sway of the Stars
Test of Endurance
Time Walk
Upheaval
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Bargain

The official Elder Dragon Highlander rules are located here, where they're maintained by L3 judge Gavin Duggan. I'll have more on EDH in future issues of Islandhome, including some staple cards, deckbuilding tips, and game recaps!

==INTERVIEW: JOHN "METAGAME" MADONIA==

John Madonia is a self-proclaimed "metagame genius", and as of this writing, the third-highest ranked constructed player in New York State, having qualified for the Pro Tour strictly by playing and winning at FNC for months on end; an act which both proved an exacerbated the depths of his insanity. After contacting his press agent for weeks, I finally got into contact with the reclusive metagamer. And, after convincing him I wasn't "from the government", I managed to ask him a few questions about his Magic career over instant messenger. (So I apologize for the spelling mistakes.)

BJPaskoff: When did you start playing Magic and what got you into it?
Madonia: I started when I was 12, a bunch of people at school played wvyern and graduated to magic, my 1st pack was ice age and I got a general jarkeld as my rare

BJPaskoff: Tell me about the best game of Magic you've ever played.
Madonia: Hmm...
Madonia: Top 2 of a ptq
Madonia: Game 1 I beat my opponent turn 4 after drawing sucessful early harvests off the top
Madonia: Game 2 I lost, game 3 I had to win dead on the board the next turn. I played heartbeat floated 9 for harvest which allowed me uuuggg played cunning wish,for gu for another harvest played a chrome mox and a couple of draw spells to desire for 11
Madonia: I desire 8 land a mox and a medalion sapphire. Last card got me a cunning wish, and with ggggg floating I hunted pack for 16 token and won after his final draw yielded a skirk prospector

BJPaskoff: So you've qualified for two Pro Tours in your life - why haven't you gone to either of them?
Madonia: The pro tour to me, is for players that feel that in a way, magic is a way of life for them. I have a decent job at the moment that I enjoy, I also have a independent contracting job with one of the top sports networking companies in the world. I view myself as a competent player that can win my fair share of tournaments, but I don't think at that level I could succeed. I don't have a strong enough grasp on the rulings of the game. I usually play control decks because they, for the most part, use the least amount of rules interactions.

BJPaskoff: Everyone's had the match they'll always regret. What's yours?
Madonia: I only regret some girls [...], I don't regret anything in magic, its a card game. Never take your opponent for granted that's the only thing I never do.

BJPaskoff: Do you have any advice for players who want to improve their skills?
Madonia: Don't be a serial deckbuilder. Stick with a deck and test it. Focus on your weakness as a player and improve each week. Also don't think because of the name on the paper you lose before the match begins. Travis, a prime example of this, beat two good players on Saturday with a deck he had no business playing or winning with, but he won the games. Also take pride in what you do, don't listen to the haters let em hate. Magic players are demeaning by nature, find a core group of friends that you can test with, take their opinions to heart, not some wanna-be pro that thinks because he has starcitygames.com on his homepage he's gods gift to the game.

BJPaskoff: Will you ever play in another constructed event?
Madonia: Pro tour berlin seems like the next event for me, as far as sanctioned it takes place during oktoberfest and ill have ample vacation time to use for it. I figure it'll be my one and only hurrah so I might as well so half way across the world for it.

BJPaskoff: You've said before you hate drafting. Why is that?
Madonia: I don't feel like I have any control of the outcome. I enjoy playing in a constructed format where I can build to a certain metagame and play accordingly. I lose to people in drafts that id never lose to in constructed. it hasn't helped me improve in any facet of play, I also tend to draw 190 land in my 40 card deck.

BJPaskoff: Everyone who's seen you play has commented on your "pile o' permanents" style of playing, with upside down cards all over the place in an unorganized mess. Why do you play like that?
Madonia: Im disorganized by nature. Also, it gives my opponent something to focus on instead of focusing on playing me.
Madonia: They're more apt to misplays and useless banter, which I love

BJPaskoff: Any closing remarks for your interview?
Madonia: Don't go to jail
Madonia: And don't do drugs
Madonia: Eeee

John Madonia can sometimes be found at either Brothers Grim or FNC on a Friday or Saturday. If you see him, be sure to congradulate him on his Pro Tour Hollywood results.

==RULES CORNER==

Q. If I have Runed Halo out on Assembly-Worker, will it protect me from Mirror Entity?
A. Runed Halo gives you protection from sources with the chosen name, not the chosen word. So while damage dealt to you by Assembly-Workers who happen to be named Assembly-Worker is prevented, damage dealt to you by Assembly-Workers named Mirror Entity isn't.

Q. I attack with a Treetop Village, and my opponent blocks with a 6/6 Korlash. With damage on the stack, I Incinerate the Korlash, but my opponent regenerates him in response. Since the regeneration ability resolves before Incinerate, will Korlash be saved?
A. Like has been said before in this rules column, "regenerate this creature" abilities don't precisely mean just that - they'd more accurately read "put a regeneration shield on this creature". The "can't be regenerated" clause means that the creature can't use a regeneration shield to save itself. So Korlash's regeneration ability resolves, putting a regeneration shield on itself, and then Incinerate resolves, dealing three damage to it and preventing it from regenerating this turn. Then combat damage resolves, and Korlash has lethal damage on it, but can't use up its regeneration shield since Incinerate prevents it from doing so.

Q. My opponent has a Rule of Law in play and I have one counter left on both my Lotus Bloom and my Greater Gargadon. What happens to my spells?
A. When you remove the last time counter from a spell, you have to play it - you have no choice. Since you control both suspend triggers, you choose which one resolves first. However, once you play the first spell from suspend-land, you won't be able to play any other spells. Your other suspend card will stay removed from the game forever. Also, you can't play any other spells that turn. Fun times!

Have a rules question you want answered? Send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

June 7th: NJ Regionals
Gray Matter is hosting the regionals for our area in the basement of St. Matthew the Apostle church in Edison, NJ. The format is Standard constructed, and I'll have more details as I hear about them. I'll be judging it, so I'll find out ahead of time what's going to happen with Grim and FNC that weekend. Directions can be found here, but don't use Google Maps - you WILL get lost.

June 7th - August 31st: PTQ Season for PT Berlin
The next PTQ season starts this summer, and it's going to be Lorwyn Block Constructed! Lorwyn block will consist of Lorwyn, Morningtide, and Shadowmoor. Eventide won't be available during the beginning of the PTQ season, but will be legal before it ends.

PTQs in our general area this season:

• 6/21 - Philadelphia, PA
• 6/28 - Edison, NJ
• 8/9 - Philadelphia, PA
• 8/16 - New York, NY
• 8/30 - Edison, NJ
• 8/30 - Hartford, CT
• 8/31 - Rochester, NY

==NEXT ISSUE...==

The Metagame: NJ Regionals!
A draft report! Possibly, if I don't get distracted by DCI Reporter freaking out again during the Grim draft.
EDH deckbuilding tips, staple cards to consider, and game reports!
Another interview with a metagamer or two!
More rules questions!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 698-2805
Website: www.brgim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
3 Grant Avenue, Suite 2
Islip, NY 11751
Phone: 470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY