Yep, at least when I started there was a Try for Free option in MTGO client where you could play with prebuild decks against other people. A good way to learn the client.

Great job Darkness! For the Skyclops! :D

Yeah, getting those stops down the way you want them is kind of a pain at first, but then it's smooth sailing. And you have to remember to hit 'OK' for everything. But once you're used to that, it's pretty easy to play.

I believe KC said we should be playing single games because the match option doesn't let us use our sideboards correctly (some sort of bug in decks less than 60 and sideboards greater than 15). Something to remember in the future.

I agree with landgrafb and Draugo. Take a little time to play some of the free trial games and get used to the interface before your next match with Goody.

Good luck in your next match!

Okay, I skipped a lot of the video but I saw what happened. First off yes I agree that you need to practice some MTGO. There's a stop in place for everything so you have to click that little OK button waaaaayyyy more than you realize. Once you get the swing of it you'll see why they're there and it'll be a breeze.

I think in game 1 you were a little impatient, talking about weapon surge to attack with the two cyclopses and whatnot but eventually you did make the right play (maybe due to not understanding that it would skip your combat phase since you had no legal attackers?) and it all worked out. Remember no matter how much mana the opponent has there's only one big card that could possibly kill us - Debt to the Deathless - and they need 14 mana to take us from 20 to zero. Everything else is victim to Hidden Strings so patience works in our favor in a case like that.

Game 2 was just a bad hand, no way around it. I might have kept the opening hand and not mulliganed though. You had two mana sources (including our green) and if you'd drawn a mountain it would've been rolling with dual cyclops + wind drake + 2x hidden strings. Pretty much 2/3 of our combo in hand and any mana source would've been at least one flying blocker. That's why I recommended the extra mountain over the island is because hands like that happened to me often during my playtesting. But then again, in game one you had 3 mountains out so... anyway, just a bad hand and an unlucky shuffle really nothing you can do about that.

Nice game 3. Really solid play and it was obvious you were getting the hang of the interface which made it easier to watch. Also cool that the blood combo went off. He definitely did not see that coming.

Looking forward to the next one and good luck!

Hey Darkness, can we get a deck update after each match? Then we can have a fresh page to talk about how the last match went.

Also, the page is getting a little long now.

Seconded on the page reset.

Also, can we get confirmation on the schedule for round 2? I seem to recall you saying you would try to play at noon Pacific today. Is that right?

Another tip for future matches is to not overcommit to one cyclops if we have more we can play out. Spot removal is waaaaay more prevalent in this format than mass destruction, so we should make sure we don't get blown out by one Putrefy.

You did pretty well with that in the first match, but I think it was largely a result of not having much else to do. Keep on your toes, and try to think to yourself, "what card really hoses me here? Do they have the mana to cast it?"

Good job Darkness!

Deck looked good. Weapon surge really turned game one around for us. That card is precious to us.

BTW F2 in MTGO is like hitting OK. Since you're not used to MTGO I wouldn't use F4 and definitely not F6. There's no clock per se so it's not a big deal to mouse click.

Yeah, it's a bummer we only got 2 Weapon Surge s, but not a surprise. It's a good card. Everyone seems to have some black in their decks besides us which bodes well as they clearly were all fighting during the first pack and then split off into other colors. So far it looks like our streamlined constructed-quality deck vs a bunch of jank pulled from packs with no clear strategies.

I just watched Caley's stream so I could hear his comments. Dude was a little confused about how our triggers worked ;-) But it was fun to hear an outsider be impressed with how the deck worked.

Side note: game one may have been a good time to side in Awe for the Guilds at some point as the majority (all? can't remember) of our opponent's creatures were mono-colored. Didn't end up mattering, just a card to be aware of if we run into that scenario again. I wonder how well Uncovered Clues will work since we didn't get to see it... DAMN why so much time between games?!? Okay I'm going to go play something now to keep busy while I wait.

Next game still on for noon pacific today or did that fall through?

There's only one time I would really recommend siding in Awe for the Guilds , and we haven't seen it yet. But we will. I promise.

(insert suspense here)

As long as our Hands of Binding are doing their job, we won't need Awe.

...because Hand is clearly the best card in our deck. The combinations of things we can do with it are just insane.

If only we actually had Hands of Binding ... Sigh. I suppose Hidden Strings will have to do.

Landot and Trident are playing today at noon. I thought maybe Goody and I would be playing at 7pm, but he rescheduled to Sunday, same time.

7PM Pacific Sunday it is then. Looking forward to it.

I will once again be missing another live session. Oh well, I couldn't participate on your stream anyway because I watched Goody's last match. So I would be cheering for you on Caley's stream!

Good luck on Sunday!

I've been sitting in chat helping with matches even though technically I've seen most of the other decks. I feel that as long as I'm not coaching around specific aspects of the deck it should be ethically clean and clear.

Like last night the smart play in the first game was to load up on cyclopi and punch through with the few spells we had. That plan would have been the same against any deck, so that's what we went with.

It's a slippery slope, though, for sure. You have to be real careful not to give biased input. Unfair advantages are lame, even when they help us.

Gives me more time to figure out MTGO a little better. I like my stops now, its just a matter of remember to click. I knew F2 was an auto-OK, but it kept adjusting my screen brightness. Easy fix.

We have a lot of triggers to click through. The trick is clicking through them quickly enough that you don't waste time, but slowly enough so you don't skip a combat or something. It gets pretty easy fairly quickly, though.

Got back from work after being locked out of my car for 2 hours . . . but watching these games made it all worth it.

THIS THING'S OPERATIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, worked to a t. Minus that 2nd game. But 2 out of 3 is all we need since its round robin. A win is a win.

Someone who saw Friday's match e-mail me at [email protected] so we can discuss what I should or should not post here about what I saw on today's Caley stream.

Nothing specific about each deck, or their player's play-style. You can mention a certain player (non specific) will be hard to beat, but as far a discussions go, nothing with too much detail. landgrafb is pretty good at censoring himself while still being helpful, real his comments for a good example.

That was 30 damage on one turn in game three, wasn't it?

exactly 30. Like a Baus.

dusts off shoulder

Saw all of the games now

There's some nice cards we never got to see