That first game was awesome. The second game less so, but still awesome. Curved out pretty much perfectly both games!

Just watched the matches.

Nice job playing smart in game 2. I know if I were playing I would have probably gotten blown out by those 2 magma jets lol.

The only thing I might mention that ...well isn't necessarily better, but different at least... was in game 1 where you saw goody miss a land drop and then magma jet you in the face to scry 2 if I were playing I would have been VERY tempted to end step griptide that akroan crusader since that would have pretty much guaranteed him to miss a second land drop in a row, and against someone who already had to mulligan to 6 and so far showing that the akroan crusader was the only thing he could play to the point of doming a magam jet to mainly scry would have pretty much put him at a huge tempo deficit. Sure, that Griptide saved you at the end, but griptiding earlier probably would have pretty much put you up an additional turn over Goody to where that turn probably wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Game 2, well, as much as Goody did get hit with some bad luck you also did end the game on turn 7 which is about as fast as a red/white deck like his would end the game at even with stronger then normal draws.

Yeah I would probably also have Griptided after the Magma Jet. I think that wouldve put him on the defensive a lot earlier which would've likely led to steamrolling him pretty much. Most of the lifegaining shenanigans would've probably not happened too.

Wow, I totally missed an awesome opportunity to be cruel. I'll have to pay more attention to similar situations in the future.

Yeah, people tend to forget that Griptide can also essentially act as a Time Seal.

When someone is missing land drops and all they have on the field is a 1 drop, Time Seal away.

Time Seal?

I was confused too. Did a little research and apparently, It's a card from a game called Yu-Gi-Oh! that skips your opponent's next draw step.

Yeah...it's a banned card too lol.
(I figured that someone would google it. I mean it's the first response)

Essentially making your opponent skip his next draw step is a VERY powerful effect that is overlooked way too often.

In a position for game and your opponent needs to top deck an answer? Nope! Akroan Crusader to the top! No Gray Merchant top decks for you today! Hope you have Scry.

But yeah, in a situation where someone is screwed and looking for that land it can essentially act as an instant speed Demolish attached to our removal. While I would never maindeck a demolish by itself it's still one of the best cards for screwing over the mana screwed, and can very easily seal up the game.

Now I'm not saying that not Griptiding was a misplay or anything. It's still a risky play that gives you a massive tempo boost at the expense of lategame power, and should only be considered if you have the means of closing out the match quickly after it's done. At the time a play like that would mainly be a judgment call and a gamble. Your hand currently didn't have the cards to finish the match in within 3 turns or so after the play, but your hand wasn't so bad that you couldn't draw into it either. It would mainly depend what you thought the odds were of drawing into cards that would help you close out the match (which in that scenario pretty much anything non-land would have worked).

Well, I usually check Gatherer if I don't know the card. I searched for Time, and searched for Seal. Both searches didn't turned up any card that would fit (except Time Ebb, which is a sorcery Griptide). :P

Any word about when the next match is?

Hi. Because of the general business of the Holidays, we decided to wait until after new year. The next match against Gurei will commence around 3rd of January.

The match against GureiSeion is today at 5pm PST (1am GMT). See you there.

Hi guys. KrazyCaley didn't respond to my and Gurei's scheduling announcements, so we're not sure whether he's going to be online (the match should start in 15 minutes and his stream is still offline). We'll wait until the scheduled time and if he does not appear, we'll reschedule.

Caley didn't show up last night, so the match didn't happen. Right now, I'm trying to get in touch with Caley to reschedule.

Alright, I was waiting for the Notification for Caley's stream, so now I know why :p

We've managed to get hold of Caley. Me and Gurei have been suppressed by his spam filters for some obscure reason. I'm going out of town for the weekend and currently I'm trying to schedule the match on Sunday 5pm PST (I'll be at home by then). I should have mobile connection available while I'm away, so I'll let you know if the date and time are final during the course of the weekend.

What's up dudes. Greetings from countryside. Sunday 5pm PST is final. See you there.

The match will start at 5pm PST as planned. However, Caley will most likely not be here to stream it. He told us to proceed without him. You can watch my side of the match on twitch.com/absinthman. Low quality, but watchable.

Sorry, guys, I'm too tired after the weekend, so I decided to shift the today's match to tomorrow.

Sadly reporting a loss agains GureiSeion. His deck seemed pretty damn similar to Wodar's. Damn Garys again. They are our nemesis. Overall, I feel like this round was pretty unlucky. I kept a reasonable starter in round 1, but never drew more gas and eventually ran out of it, while Gurei sucked life out of me. Round 2 had better draws, but this time Gurei had all the answers to them.

Did you record it from your end?

I was recording in the beginning but it was slowing my system down too much, so I shut it down after few minutes.

In the first game, I kept 2 mountains, amulet, flamespeaker, spark jolt, 2 leonin snarecaster. I was drawing nothing but lands (and 1 triton tactics) even though I scried two of them to the bottom. I must admit that I was tired as hell and not feeling particularly well, that while thinking about what to do, I forgot to play a land on turn 4. That was a huge misplay of course, but it eventually proved to be irrelevant, since I never drew anything and lost the game with bunch of lands in my hand. As for game 2, I kept temple of triumph, 3 basics including an island, satyr rambler, haste minotaur, hyppocamp. I feel that the point at which Gurei secured his victory was his lucky mill with Returned Centaur. He hit our Cyclops and Stoneshock which deprived me of some of our greatest threats. Also, he had answers to everything: Viper's kiss to my turn 2 Satyr, Hero's Downfall for the 4/3 minotaur, pharika's cure for the haste minotaur when I was bestowing the red emissary onto it, then destroy target enchantment for my white emissary bestowed on the red emissary.

Based on this experience, I decided to only schedule games for the morning (late night PST). I fell much better playing at that time.

Just to make things clear, I'm not entirely blaming bad luck here. The fault was totally on my side because I decided to play the match while not being 100% able to. I made questionable decisions, but all in all, as I look back, I don't think I would have won even if I made all the right calls.

Our next match is agains so far undefeated Deco_y. I hope to put an end to his rampage. Currently scheduling.

Hello guys, the match against Deco_y is scheduled for tonight (Thursday 16) at 10pm PST (6am GMT). See you online.