by john | Dec 30, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s been a little quiet lately on the release front, since Paint it Black dropped in October, so I thought I’d give you a little idea of what’s going on at the keyboard around here. Just to remind folks that I do a little more than play Magic and go to my day job.
1) The dragon book is percolating. I’ll dust it off in a couple months and see what I think of it. I already know it’s choppy and the ending is rushed, so there’s probably a good 10,000 words to be added in to make the resolution make sense and not make people feel like I just threw them off a cliff. I’ll pick that up after I finish this next little gem.
2) I’m working on Black Knight 5 – In the Still of the Knight. This is the first of a major two-part arc that the whole series has been building up to. I’m doing lots of nasty things to the boys and everyone around them, so I fully expect some hate mail. But I think it’s going to be a helluva story, so that should outweigh the pain in the end. I really need to write 5 & 6 together, because there is a little bit of a cliffhanger between them. Not sure how that’s going to work out, because I’ve never written that way before. That’s why I have a brilliant editor – to get me through the crap I don’t know how to do. I hope to be finished with book 5 by the end of winter and book 6 sometime later in the year. Book 6 will not release in 2014, no matter when I finish it.
3) I’m also working on a traditional fantasy thing based off an old D&D character I used to play. He was the world’s most impulsive thief, and his favorite phrase was “What’s the worst that could happen?” Then he found out. It feels like a trilogy, but I gotta write the first one first. So far I like the characters, just gotta figure out the plot and build the world. I’m starting to understand why traditional fantasy novels are so friggin’ long – you gotta explain a lot more shit than when you’re writing in the same world your readers live in. World-building is hard, y’all.
4) I haven’t forgotten Bubba, but it’ll probably be March before a new Bubba story hits the street, thanks to my other commitments. But in the meantime, there’ll be another Steampunk story featuring Bubba’s great-grandpappy Beauregard out in a couple weeks. It’s in the anthology Capes & Clockwork, coming soon from Dark Oak.
5) And speaking of Dark Oak, the submission period for Big Bad 2 – an Eviller Anthology (not the real title) is almost over, and I’ve started picking through some of the subs. There are very few open slots this time, so the competition is going to be fierce. But we’ve also received submissions from some invited writers that are just absolutely goddam amazing, so I think this anthology will be killer. Assuming I ever get around to writing my story for it, that is!
6) And then there are incorporation documents and paperwork for getting the Second Star Foundation started. Every time I turn around it feels like another friend of mine is diagnosed with another life-threatening illness that keeps them unable to work and earn, so creating the safety net of a charity designed for writers that are struck down by disease is a huge priority for me. I’ll give you more details as they arise, but you can read all about the beginnings of it over at Magical Words.
And I play Magic a couple times a week and I have a full-time job. Not to mention the fact that I still pick up theatre gigs for extra cash. So that’s what’s going on in my world. What of those projects, if any, excites you the most?
by john | Dec 27, 2013 | Magic:the Gathering
So I think of myself a something of a Limited specialist. At my local game shop (Get Some Game) we draft every Friday night, and there are a fair number of really solid players there. I’m not the best in the store, but I’m usually in the top 5-6. But Theros drafting has completely dumbfounded me. I have had only limited success in the format since the set came out (get it, limited success in Limited? See what I did there? It’s gonna get worse, I promise), winning very few of the drafts that I’ve played and rarely coming in Top 4 in our weekly drafts.
So there are few things that I wanted to talk about as my failures have continued to pile up, all of these being things that have kicked my ass over the months that we’ve been drafting this set.
1) Green/Red Monsters is pretty good, and often pretty open. I actually went against type last weekend and won a three-round draft going with Green/Red Monsters. I started out trying to be Blue/Red, but moved into Green after a Nemesis of Mortals wheeled. That means it went all the way around the table and made it back to me. When a really strong card like Nemesis of Mortals does this it typically means that no one is playing that color, so you can take anything you want in that color with impunity. From there I started picking up Satyrs. Not the piping one, I think Satyr Piper sucks ass, but all the others. Voyaging Satyr is an incredible two-drop in Green, giving a body and ramp. Satyr Hedonist has an awesome sac effect that lets you drop a monster really fast, and Satyr Rambler is just solid, a 2/1 body with trample for two mana. Slap a Dragon Mantle on him and you’re golden. So I rode the back of my Nessian Asps and my Nemesisesisesis to victory. And a Mistcutter Hydra, which is just really bad news for your opponent who is playing almost mono-blue.
2) Green heroic guys are trap cards. I have been such a sucker for Staunch-Hearted Warriors that I must have lost half a dozen matches because of them. The initial cost is too high, and they fall prey to Voyage’s End or Griptide just as easily as a more reasonably costed card. And don’t get me started on the Battlemaster. So Green heroic guys are to be avoided.
3) Minotaurs are fun. There are a fair number of minotaurs in the set, more than enough to draft a tribal minotaur deck, and the Kragma Warcaller often gets passed around the table, so he can be a fairly late pick. Grab all of those guys you can and just curve out perfectly from Deathbellow Raider to Minotaur Skullcleaver to Borderland Minotaur to Kragma Warcaller and smash face. Supplement with Harpies for flyer defense and it’s a thing.
4) Flyers are tough. Blue/White flyers is totally a thing, and when you add in that white has the best heroic guys, and blue has the best bestow creature, you can make an unstoppable air force pretty easily. Wingsteed Rider, Phalanx Leader, Nimbus Nyad, Fabled Hero, Akroan Hoplite, Battlewise Hoplite, Triton Fortune Hunter are all valid cards, and then at the top of the curve you have all the sphinxes for beatdown. Definitely a solid strategy, but a popular one, so you’re gonna have to fight for your cards and get a little lucky to get enough stuff to make it work. But one Phalanx Leader and a couple of Chosen of Heliod makes for a decent little army.
5) Pay attention to what’s open. I have such a problem with this, because I’ll try to lock in a strategy based on one rare, and I do better when I pay attention to the signals and just take what the table gives me. I have to pay more attention to taking early removal and bombs, then worrying about solidifying a strategy in packs 2-3.
So there are a few tips based off my mistakes in Theros drafting. If you’ve got anything to share, leave it in the comments!
by john | Dec 23, 2013 | Magic:the Gathering
So folks who sometimes stop by this little corner of the interwebs may have seen that over the past year and change I’ve gone back to an old pasttime – Magic:The Gathering (or Magic:The Addiction). I started playing again at LibertyCon because Brandon Sanderson invited me to a draft with him, and I had a blast, remembering how much I enjoyed the game all those years ago. That was the first step. Then I found a local game shop that I really like, and it was all downhill from there. I’ve spent a piece of almost every week since slinging cards, trading cards, and generally nerding out over chunks of cardboard.
For those that have never played, Magic is kinda like a blend of poker, chess and Dungeons & Dragons. It’s a collectible strategic card game set in a fantasy environment with awesome art and lots of smart marketing. And I’m totally hooked. I’ve primarily focused on my Limited play since coming back to the game (Limited is when you take a set of new packs of cards, open them and build a deck from what you find there). I enjoy Limited because the playing field is pretty level, and I can fall back on my game theory and understanding to lead me to some modicum of success. I’m a decent Limited player, but most of the major tournaments are Constructed format (Constructed is when you build a competitive deck from all the cards you own or can borrow and bring that to the tournament), so I decided about a month ago that it was time to step up my Constructed game.
In Magic there are two main ways to build a deck – homebrew something that you think will be awesome, or go on the internet and get the deck list from last week’s major tournament winner. After a year and change of homebrewing without real success, I moved on to Plan B and built a Mono-Black (with a splash of white) deck. I splashed white for Blood Baron of Vizkopa, because it has protection from white and black, which makes it very difficult for many decks to deal with. Once it resolves, it’s going to give a lot of people a lot of problems.
Last weekend was a Star City Games Super Invitational Qualifier tournament at Be There Games in Indian Trail. It’s not far from my house, and I’d heard good things about their events, and a bunch of my friends were going, so I decided to give it a shot. I got there and started to register my deck (bigger tournaments have you list the cards in your deck and then do random deck checks to fight cheating) and took a little advice from my friend Joe. Joe has had a lot of tournament success recently, winning two major events this year, so I listen to his advice. I was running one Prophetic Prism so that when I stole a card with my Nightveil Specter I could cast it no matter what. Joe suggested I cut that, because I’ll often pull land with the Specter and be able to cast the card anyway. That allowed me to add one more Blood Baron, upping the threat level of the deck considerably.
Unfortunately I had no answer for the other glaring error Joe pointed out in my deck. When I was tweaking things I cut back on my white mana sources from eight to four. I cut the Godless Shrines and kept the Temples of Silence, which meant that there could be times I was going to have mana troubles. I took a live and learn attitude to this mistake and hoped it wouldn’t screw me too badly. It didn’t crush me, but definitely ended up being relevant.
Round 1 – I played against a very nice guy from Atlanta (which set my tone for the whole day – all my opponents were very cool, which made the day way better) who was playing a Mono-red aggro deck. This deck feels on the surface like a terrible matchup for me, and in fact I had play-tested with Taco in a small tournament the week before and got my ass kicked by his mono-red deck. My Round 1 opponent had a couple of rough draws, but was still able to get some early threats on board, but I managed to push through his pile of early attackers and bad draws and beat him down 2-0 (Magic tournament matches are best of three).
Round 2 – Another nice dude, one of the other oldest guys in the room (he even had a few years on me). His name was Stephen, and he was playing a white weenie deck (lots of small creatures that kill with a swarming strategy). He couldn’t get anything going and once I resolved a Blood Baron (which has protection from white so he had no answers for it) it was pretty much game over. Game 2 I think I killed him with a swarm of Pack Rats. 2-0 and I was feeling pretty good about my deck and myself.
Then I got to Round 3, and found out what a problem my deck could be when I played a mirror match (a mirror match is what happens when two players piloting the same deck get matched up against each other). And my opponent had a lot more tournament experience than me, and more experience with the deck, and had better draws to boot. So a better player with more experience and better draws beat me in less than fifteen minutes out of the fifty-minute round. I was still in the running at 2-1, but couldn’t afford to lose another match.
Round 4 I clashed with Chris, another nice dude from Augusta. I don’t remember what his deck was, but I remember they were very good matches. Beating him was far from easy, with back-and-forth matches and the first time all day I went to Game 3. We were 1-1 going into Game 3 and it was going to come down to who got their deck going first. I got the advantage and took down the match, but don’t remember any of the details of the match.
Round 5 should have been better than it was, but I got stuck in the mirror match again, against a better player again, with more experience again, and got my ass kicked again.
Since I was eliminated from contention for Top 8 and major prizes (major for Magic, but first place was $400, which is a good day no matter how you look at it) I went ahead and dropped out of the tournament and entered a booster draft. Back in my Limited comfort zone I went 3-0 to win the booster draft and redeem myself a little for the day.
by john | Nov 14, 2013 | Uncategorized
There’s a lot going on right now about poverty, and welfare, and Obamacare, and insurance, and all sorts of other “are”s, and some of the current discourse makes me want to puke.
For example, there’s a post out there about how people on welfare shouldn’t have a cell phone or an iPad, and that’s an incontrovertible fact. Well, lemme lay this out there for you – there are no incontrovertible facts about poverty, and until you’ve lived in somebody’s house, you should probably keep your damn mouth shut about them. If you live in your car, you might be better off paying a cell phone bill than a rent bill to actually get a job. And if you’ve recently gone from not-broke to broke as hell, you might still have a few nice things left over that were worth more to you either functionally or sentimentally than they were to pawn or sell on Craigslist.
Look, I get it. We’re all raised to believe that you work hard and good things happen, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes you make one bad decision and it screws you financially for years, or maybe even generations. Sometimes you’re just unlucky, or you didn’t do well in school, or something outside your control screwed you, and you need a hand getting back on your feet. I’ve certainly had my fair share of times over the years when I’ve had it rough and had to beg and borrow to make ends meet, and without help of friends and family I wouldn’t have made it through.
So if you’ve got enough to get by, good on you. If you can reach down and help someone out, please do so. You never know who you’re helping get out of a tight spot. And someday it might be you.
And if you want to be judgmental and not share any drop of the milk of human kindness, then go fuck yourself.
by john | Nov 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
We’ve gotten some great submissions for The Big Bad 2, but I want more! To that end, we have extended the submission deadline until January 1, 2014. So if you didn’t have time to put something together before now, well, now you do! After all, you didn’t want to do NaNoWriMo or spend holiday time with your family, did you?
Hell no! Get to work, penmonkey!
