lol. I think I get to lose by server crash in one of my 'tiebreaker' games (not that it matters with 8 pts)

Oh yeah, the block was explained to me better. Once it's declared, you can't 'negate' the block. You can remove damage that would be done by removing the creature, but your attack is stopped. So while I killed him with First strike, the block was still declared so my attack didn't hit him.

Draft is single-elimination, so three rounds at the most. Rounds last up to 1 hour each time, but will end early if everyone's matches are done. I've had drafts go the entire 3.5 hours or so, and I've had drafts where I won all 3 rounds and it took 1.5 hours.

In general, you should have at least 2 hours available if you want to be able to play into the semi's.

Ah okay, cool.

I'm hoping they get the v3 beta server up and open again as I would like to cut my teeth on some free drafts. I'm looking forward to getting into mtgo and just pray that hasbro doesn't screw things up. Not a good sign when they are planning on taking the whole system offline for a week+ when v3 comes out -- that spells downie devs. Any competent team would get 90% of the work done on the beta server (or dev server) and take like 2 days to migrate and do some QA.

Where are you getting your info about 3.0?

the magic online forums

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=984938

This is a post from like jan before some delays but AFAIK this is pretty much the plan. The week+ downtime has been mentioned in numerous posts.

edit -- oh yeah this is great too. Seriously these people are short bussers

qfdownie

I suck, 0-2 in my second league. I may have to quit on the account that I can't even be competitive.

Any recommendations? I just went with it. It's a Lorwyn tournie/2xMorningtide booster league. I haven't played since Ice Age and things seem to have gotten a bit more complex.

Are you limited in the number of games you can play? I was under the impression that leagues were play as much as you want, so going 0-2 your first couple of matches wouldn't be 'that' big a deal.

First 5 count as my score rest are tie breakers so going 0-2 reduces my chances of actually earning a prize to about 2 percent.

Ahhh I see.

You can still win 2 of the next 3 matches and have a decent chance at getting a pack if you win some tiebreakers too. My first league is about to end and I'm currently 107th which is good enough for 2 packs since it's double prizes in the release leagues. There's a bunch of people who haven't even played their 5 matches which doesn't make sense to me, but hopefully I can hold my ranking till it ends.

Wow, that is kind of a shafted pool. Tarfire and Necksnap as the only 2 removal spells? You have some decent creatures, but they seem to be spread out across all colors. Your green dudes are pretty damn good. I'm thinking green and.. I guess blue? Not a common combination, but it isn't like you really have any removal in the other colors anyway. Perhaps you could splash for tarfire with the vivid land and the twig.

Here is what I came up with, green/blue splashing one red card and one white card:

Non-creatures(6):
Wanderer's twig - for splashing, or getting the right mana for cloudthresher etc
Wings of Velis Vel
Whielpool Whelm
Faerie Trickery
Scattering Stroke
Tarfire

Creatures (17):
Leaf-glider
Wolf-skull shaman
Wren's run vanquisher
Silvergill Adept
Silvergill Douser
Mothdust Changling
Fertilid
Lys Alana Bowmaster
Rhys the Exiled
Sage of Fables
Pestermite
Avian Changeling
Cloudcrown Oak
Bog-strider ash
Game-trail changeling
Aethersnipe
Cloudthresher

Land (17):
1 Vivid creek
1 plains
1 mountain
7 forest
7 island

Relevant Sideboard:
Neck Snap - if your opponent has some bombs (that attack) that you can't deal with.
Burrenton Bombardiers - To replace Bog-strider ash if your opponent has no swamps (or goblins). Might just maindeck this anyway, and sideboard in the Bog-strider when needed.
Ego Erasure - Good against cards like Thundercloud shaman, anything that relies on tribal stuff.

You might could make this deck work. It is obviously short on removal, but you have 2 counters and a bounce spell to go with your one removal spell.

You have good cheap creatures in the Wolf-skull, Wren's Run, Adept, Douser, Bowmaster, Rhys, Sage, Pestermite, Avian Changling, and a good finisher in Cloudthresher.

You have some pretty good tribal interaction. This is why I splashed the Avian Changeling rather than Burrenton Bombardier, which is usually better. In this case, though, the Changeling interacts with wolf-skull, wren's run, adept, douser, bowmaster, rhys and sage of fables. Worth it IMO. I'd be tempted to actually splash both and lose one of the counters or a creature (mothdust or bog-strider, maybe), but I was trying to minimize the splash cards.

Fertilid will be a surprise MVP in this deck, enabling the splash cards or early castings of your bombs. Fertilid on turn 3, search 2 lands on turn 4 leaves you the possibility of playing a turn 5 cloudthresher, heh. That is usually after attacking with him or blocking someone and stacking damage as well.

Sweet, looks like I run as hot in magic as I do in poker.

I'm outta touch with the game so I'm gonna set that deck up verbatim and try out some practice games with it.

One question, why leave out the thousand year elixir? Seemed like a useful artifact to help with blocking and could mix with leaf gilder if I'm running into mana troubles with something like the cloudthresher.

In any case, thanks alot! I'm anxious to go give this a try now.

Splashing avian changeling is bad idea, you want to drop it turn 3, not wait till turn 6 or whatever.

I think GW splash red for tarfire is infinite better. The blue is pretty poopy, just bounce and counters w/ 2 good creatures and a lot of mediocre ones.