AiriZel: Thoughts

Homelessness is like Jund. It seems like it might work out, but it really doesn’t.

I told myself that I’d keep a blog starting this past year with all my thoughts. And well, I’ve done it! And although this post was originally supposed to have been posted a week ago, Strep throat and New Years activities disagreed with that time table.

So here are some statistics. I have 88 posted blog posts with 15 additional blog posts saved on an external from South Kore (they’ll be posted eventually). This blog is now over a year old.

Things that have happened since I started this blog:

Obama became president, I graduated high school, I got into Yale College, I went to Korea, I started playing poker, the PureMTGO Freed from the Real podcast was started (and is still going strong), Haruhi season 2 started and ended (I’m currently on episode 12. Started yesterday haha), I moved my reachable address to Yale, Facebook had privacy issues, Twitter still has no business model (and may never), with Avatar, the 3D medium of watching movies has become more readily accepted, and I turned 18.

These are a variety of things that happened and honestly, there are more things that happened than that even. Anthony Platon got a girlfriend for example. I severed ties with some of my high school friends (tis the college process I suppose). Taylor Swift became really big. So much happened this past year and more the past decade.

So now, what’s on my mind going forward? Well, I’ve been watching hours of Haruhi on the plane back to Yale so my one resolution is to for as much as possible follow this:

“Feelings of love are just a temporary lapse in judgment. Like a kind of mental illness.”

That’s forefront in my mind right now. I feel like my search for happiness and love is getting in the way of progress. So enough of that. Back to the hard rigor of life.

Not sure if there’s anything else really. One change I’d like to announce is that my hosting has changed from Vlexo to VlexoFree. These guys have always been amazing to me and continue to be.

I’d really like to send a New Years thanks to my good friend Erik Friborg. Without him, the Freed from the Real podcast would not be in existence right now. I’m really glad that he agreed to do the podcast with me because as a result I not only saw the creation of a podcast, I also gained an invaluable friend in him.

Also shoutouts to AJ (the necessary British character), Mike Janssen (thanks for all the technical help and filling in time to time. Also congrats on your marriage man), and Joshua Claytor (who despite having yet been on the podcast, continues to give his full support).

I’ll have a thank you post soon (I think).

Happy New Year

-Sebastian

I was going through my (now expansive) magic online collection and noticed just how much more meaning the cards from old have to me. And by old I mean Ravnica. That’s when I started getting into competitive magic. That’s when I had no money and no way to generate cards. So as a result, I strictly played constructed back then. For the past 4 sets, I’ve been playing strictly limited. This goes back to my return to magic after my 4 month departure. I’m now positioned to be playing all of those constructed matches (namely standard, but also Zendikar block, extended, and to a far lesser degree Classic) that I want to. I definitely feel a disconnect with M10, most of Alara and Eventide as I just didn’t play constructed when those sets were in play. Now hopefully, with my constructed mind back in full gear, I’ll be good to go.

Got a deck? Send it to me!

-Sebastian

Elves beats it. Even without Maelstrom pulse. It’s sort of sad.

I don’t remember exactly since I saw it as I was speeding past the church to go eat dinner with Christine Seo, but it went something like this.

“Wealth should not be measured by the amount of things one has, but rather by the amount of things a person has that money can’t buy”

I thought that was pretty deep.

In other news, I’m getting into magic form, winning the majority of events I enter (getting QPs on the way from limited haha). Good stuff. Poker play is still very strong as is (fundamentals anyway).

-Sebastian

So I was reading The Justice League – A Cascade of Standard Events, by James Elliott (which I recommend everyone to read. It’s some good stuff) and I read a really interesting rule detail.

To take an excerpt…

Dauntless Escort.
…The sac ability does not ‘lock in’ to a set of creatures on resolution, since indestructibility is not technically an ability and is therefore not changing the characteristics of the creatures. Therefore a creature that comes under your control later in the turn will be indestructible too. If one of your creatures changes control to an opponent, it ceases to be indestructible.

That’s freaking amazing. This is going to be a minor but important rules detail for the Austin PTQ season. Note that indestructible targets are still legal for removal spells. So therefore in a competitive REL environment, you can still target a creature that came into play and is indestructible, but you’ll just be wasting a card.

This also makes a fine detail about possibly sacrificing the Dauntless Escort prior to playing

Lastly for those of you who don’t know what Dauntless Effort is… here’s a picture:

-Sebastian

With the 12th edition of Freed from the Real now available on PureMTGO, I’ve finally reached the 25 article landmark.

Just an interesting tidbit!

Also another interesting tidbit is that I calculated the estimated worth of each of the QPs earned by Jyalt (by dividing the amount of money he’s lost by the number of points he has).

The worth? Approximately $18.41 per point. That’s a lot.

-Sebastian

PS. I’m deciding on colleges still. The post will be up later.

This post is mostly about updates to what’s available on this blog, so if you’re not interested, then don’t mind this post.

First and foremost, you’ll notice that there are two twitter feeds on the right side of the blog now. The first one continues to be the twitter feed that I personally use (twitter username: runeliger). The second one however, is a twitter feed for the PureMTGO staff (twitter username: puremtgodotcom). I got an e-mail earlier today to twitter my magic happenings in that twitter when I can, so I guess I will. Anyway, both feeds are awesome and everyone should follow them!

The Anime/Manga list that I’m putting up (the first installment is going up as I type this up) looks to take a bit longer to compile than I originally anticipated. I’ve just read a lot more manga and watched a lot more anime than previously thought. I’m currently writing them down as I remember them in my moleskine, so progress is slow… but occuring!

That’s this update. Freed from the Real #10 is up on pureMTGO.com if you want to check it out, and there’s a special treat for all those listeners out there if they tune in on Friday… *hint hint*

-Sebastian

Ah. The first serious post on this blog in the last couple of weeks. They’ve been pretty busy and I feel I’ve been neglecting this blog a tad. But fear not, my little blackbook has been very apt in the “oh my god I have a thoguht I need to write it down so I don’t forget” department. So I do have thoughts written down on paper somewhere. I guess if I’m bored I can post some of them onto this blog.

Anyway, the podcast has been doing really well lately. The number of hits the podcast is getting is up and I feel that the content of the podcast is getting better and more streamlined. Originally my brainchild, I feel the best idea I had was to bring Erik into the fold. That guy is a beast! He keeps up with everything and makes podcasting so much easier with his awesome host abilities. Cannot thank him enough. He was and continues to be an essential part of the podcast development, as we bounce ideas off of each other and figure out what should go in and what should go out (case in point: this week’s podcast may have a section where I talk about the decks I’m playing. It won’t have a section of me talking about how I got into the University of Chicago).

So everyone should definitely go listen to Freed from the Real. It goes up either Monday or Tuesday night, depending on how Joshua is feeling (and how fast I finish editing).

As for prom, I figured I’d answer a few questions. Yes I am going to prom. Yes I do have a date. Yes this may be unexpected, but I expect to have a lot of fun. As for the details, I’m still looking for a group of people to go in a limo with and I’m still trying to figure out how I can make it a more special day for my date (and by default for myself).Prom is the pinnacle of a lot of people’s lives and I’m 100% sure it won’t be the pinnacle of mine. That said, I want to make sure that it works out for my date ^_^.

Lastly, I must talk about pokemon. Yes Pokemon. For some reason (IE Leo Simkin) a good number of my close friends have become serious pokemon TCG players.

Seriously. No joke.

Considering how much work and play I do with Magic the Gathering, I feel inclined to let them have their fun with the game. The game itself isn’t that bad, although I feel there are inherent problems with the mechanics. I’ve mentioned that I’d be very willing to teach them how to play magic (and in fact built two beginner type decks for two of them), but my collection compared to others is really small (I only opened 3 boxes so far and the rest of my cards are from drafts and trades). If anyone has any suggestions about turning these Pokemon players into magic players (because we all know which one is a better game), do tell! I’m definitely interested in hearing about it.

College decisions continue through next week. Once everything is done I’ll definitely have a comprehensive post about what the hell I did these past 6 months in my quest to get into a great college.

-Sebastian

So I top 4ed a PE today in Extended. First time I’ve done that in months. It’s good to be winning at magic again.

Ironically, a certain Technical Institute is releasing its decision on March 14th at 1:59 PM.

3.14159 Need I say more?

-Sebastian