Rashad Evans vs Phil Davis
Rashad Evans by Judges’ Decision
Sure Evans isn’t the most popular fighter in the world but I can’t recall another fighter getting pass over for a title shots so many times (for whatever reason). I guess it is mixture of bad luck and politics. Anyways he has to earn his number one contendership yet again and he should be heavily favored to do so. Phil Davis is an exciting up and comer but other than the Machida fight (his only loss in his career) Evans has done nothing but proved he is one of the best in the Light Heavyweight division.

Chael Sonnen vs Michael Bisping
Chael Sonnen by Judges’ Decision
I can’t say I am a fan of Chael Sonnen and in fact you can say I am rooting for him to lose. But Chael Sonnen’s biggest weakness is a submission artist and Michael Bisping’s biggest weakness is a great wrestler. Sonnen is a great wrestler and Bisping is not really a submission artist so this isn’t a great matchup for Bisping at all.

Demian Maia vs Chris Weidman
Chris Weidman by Judges’ Decision
Not to long ago Maia was considered one of the elite in the middleweight division and he has since fell to mid tier. He definitely has been working to shore up his weaknesses. For example his striking looking much improve against Mark Munoz but it just wasn’t enough. I am going with the up and comer here. Weidman is underdefeated and he has two insane submissions in his last two fights. Against the submission wizard, this fight has the potential to be a great chess match.

I got Evan Dunham, John-Olav Einemo, Cub Swanson, Charles Oliveira, Michael Johnson, Joey Beltran and Chris Camozzi for the undercard fights.

Do you notice anything rather weird in my Legacy burn deck that I will probably run?

Creatures: 10
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Keldon Marauders
2 Figure of Destiny

Spells: 30
4 Lightning Bolts
4 Lave Spike
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Flame Rift
4 Fireblast
4 Chain Lightning
3 Price of Progress
3 Browbeat

Lands: 20
16 Mountains
4 Mishra’s Factory

Sideboard:
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus (may change this to 4 Faerie Macabre or Grafdigger’s Cage of my own)
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Blood Moon
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Cave- in

Sure I don’t have Goblin Guides in the deck (yet) but Gitaxian Probe might be a rather odd inclusion to some. I was actually playtesting that slot with 3 different cards, Magma Jet (which most play), the new Dark Ascension card Faithless Looting and much later Gitaxian Probe.

Basically I wanted this slot to make the deck even more consist and to draw higher quality of spells while still dishing out a lot of pain each turn. I am not a fan of Magma Jet since in the second turn I much rather play a Flame Rift, Keldon Marauder or 2 one mana burn spells. Faithless Looting is going to have a huge impact across several format but this isn’t great in this deck. The net loss of one card (Faithless Looting itself and the two cards you discard) hurts in deck which burns his or her hand very quickly. So I did a little brainstorming I settle with Gitaxian Probe. It helps with quality since it practically narrows your deck down to 56 cards. It is basically free (your life doesn’t matter when playing a burn deck) so it doesn’t slow the deck down at all. Plus a look at a players hand is very useful even for a burn deck since there are so many decks an opponent can play in Legacy and it will help you sideboard for games 2 and 3.

Burn decks are as straight forward as they come but there is always room for a little tweak or two.

Here is some of the base

and some of the random inserts.

The sketch cards

I looked up some of the sketches from the product and to be honest some have been lackluster but both of mines are fully colored & top notch. One is by ATC which I think is Adam Cleveland and it is of Marvelo and the other one has no identifying marks which is a shame since I would love to give props to him (or her) on a job well done. It could be Mel Jay San Juan and it is definitely of Mr Face. It is interesting that Marvelo and Mr. Face makes up two thirds of the Big Shots. Skyman is the third.

Overall I am very happy with my pulls and I probably going to reread some of my Project Superpowers comics sooner or later (probably later).

They have at their disposal:
Beast Within
Bramblecrush
Acidic Slime
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

They are all very flexible unlike their counterparts in red and black.

It is easy to splash another color but I think green has enough control spells to keep it mono- green (maybe not)
Prey Upon
Plummet
Wing Puncture
Ambush Viper
Naturalize
Creeping Corrosion
Big creatures with regenerate like Cudgel Troll
Jade Mage
Skinshifter
and believe it or not Leeching Bite

You really need to deal with one toughness creatures at instant speed at the current metagame and Leeching Bite does the job. You can probably use Gut Shot but I really want to pull off killing two illusions with one Leeching Bite!

Maybe throw in a Garruk, Dismember, Rachet Bombs and a couple of Green Sun Zeniths and I might be on to something (again maybe not). I probably would draft a deck and see how it does in FNM next week.

We got to start with the base cards, right?

I am kind of torn about the design and the style of the cards Topps chose but it is growing on me. Most of the cards look great and it really brings out the grittier side of MMA, especially in the action shots but in some shots the Photoshop effect looks weird. But I do admit it makes the cards stand out. It is also cool women’s MMA fighters are finally getting cards.

For the parallels…

It is interesting that my black parallels /88 are A)- both chipped and B) of GSP and Carlos Condit who were supposed to fight for the belt but everything got jumbled around due to politics, injuries etc. I actually prefer the black border to the white border and wouldn’t mind if Topps switch it around. The gold parallels is another story.

The inserts

I am never too crazy about inserts. The fight poster, UFC Locked, Heavy Hitters, Collision Course and Grappling Gurus inserts all feel familiar. The insert parallels /88 are really easy to miss. The only difference is black print rather than silver foil in some of the words. The staredown during the weight ins and before fights is a big part of MMA but there is nothing exciting about Showdown Shots and they get pretty random. Brandon Schaub vs Chris Tuchscherer? Really? I think Topps should tinkering with it a bit to figure out a way to emphasis MMA rivalries.

Now for the main event the hits!

Jon Jones Relic Card. With Brock Lesnar retiring, Anderson Silva getting older, GSP injured, Jon Bones Jones can potentially be UFC’s biggest star in 2012. But I don’t know. I think as a collector I have been conditioned to think plain single color swatches to be eh. At least it isn’t a mat card.

For my auto I got The Skyscraper Stefan Struve. Struve has crazy long lanky build like Jon Jones and I was really high on him but he has been inconsistent. With the Strikeforce Heavyweight division merging with UFC’s, his time to make an impression may have passed.

Now for the hit I am really excited about! For my dual, I got a Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen fighter worn gear card. Anderson Silva is still the pound for pound best fighter in the world and Chael Sonnen is the ultimate heel. They have perhaps the biggest rivalry in MMA today. When Sonnen finally gets his rematch, it is going to be crazy.

All in all, I think UFC has another winner in their hands.

I surprisingly love, love these cards. I love that the cards focuses on just an action shot. No borders, no distracting text. Topps did a great job with their photography (or maybe it is their selections of shots since it is more than likely that the WWE photographers took these shots). Sometimes you don’t need hits to sell a product, just a solid base set to collect. But FYI, foil cards come out of 1 in 3 packs and autos come out of 1 in 150 packs.

All in all, these cards really capture the energy of the WWE. I actually wish Topps did something similar with the UFC.

Jose Aldo vs Chad Mendes
Jose Aldo by Knockout in the Third
Some may point to the Mark Hominick fight and say that a stronger wrestler would have won that fight. I am not so sure. I really believe that Aldo was just having an off night. It happens to all of us. Chad Mendes is perhaps one of the top wrestlers in the division so I guess it put that theory to the ultimate test. Aldo obviously has the advantage in the striking department but he better work on his takedown defense. Even if it does go to the ground though, Jose Aldo has great BJJ that he rarely gets to showcase.

Vitor Belfort vs Anthony Johnson
Vitor Belfort by Knockout in the First
Anthony Johnson seems to have all the tools but he can’t seem to string a bunch of wins together to really be considered a contender at any point of his career. He is making his middleweight debut here which should help since he cuts a ton of weight to make it to the welterweight. But man Belfort is tough first fight. He may be slowing down a bit but he is still very dangerous, knocking out Akiyama in his last fight. I say Belfort gets the edge here.

Rousimar Palhares vs Mike Massenzio
Rousimar Palhares by Submission in the First
I hate to say this but this seems like a gimme fight for Rousimar Palhares. Mike Massenzio struggles against the low end of the UFC middleweight division while Palhares stagnates somewhere in the middle. Perhaps this is a great opportunity for Palhares to pull out one of his signature leg locks. Palhares is not getting any younger so he really needs to start building up momentum in his career to realize his full potential.

Erick Silva vs Carlo Prater
Erick Silva by Submission in the Second
Silva and Prater both don’t ring a bell but with a quick Google research, it seems that Prater is a somewhat a journeyman while Silva is the young up and comer which makes this a must win for him.

Edson Barboza vs Terry Etim
Edson Barboza by Judges’ Decision
I don’t think Terry Etim is the man to ruin Edson Barboza perfect record. This could be a really good fight.

I may not be the first one who taught of this idea but for my first crazy brew I have a deck that totally takes advantage of the EDH aka Commander format rules. So basically in EDH, you need 99 cards and a commander that you cast from the commander zone instead of your deck so you are guaranteed to have access to it at all times. Also you can have only one copy of each card of the color of your commander (or colorless) other than basic lands and you start with 40 life. In this brew, you just need Maralen of the Mornsong (commander), Ad Nauseam, Dark Sphere, Sickening Dreams, Elixir of Immortality.

The Deck:

Commander: Maralen of the Mornsong
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Dark Sphere
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Elixir of Immortality
95 Swamps

(I am too lazy to look for my cards so I used the scans from Star City Games.)

Basically, Maralen of the Mornsong searches for Ad Nauseam. Use Ad Nauseam to draw your whole deck. With your massive hand, you cast Dark Sphere and and Sickening Dreams for about 40. Dark Sphere keeps you alive and if your opponents didn’t gain a ton of life they should all lose in one swoop. If your combo gets disrupted in any way, you can use the Elixir of Immortality to restart everything. Maralen costs 3 life to fetch Ad Nauseam and Ad Nauseam would cost 3 life to get Dark Sphere, Sickening Dreams and Elixir of Immorality. The Elixir of Immorality gains you 5 life so you lose only 1 life every time you attempt the combo. If they kill your commander, it goes back to the commander zone and you just have to wait to cast it again (cost 2 more every time your commander dies). Also note that you can’t lose to decking when Maralen is on the board since you can’t draw cards.

The beauty of this deck is that it may be the cheapest EDH deck you probably can build. Maralen costs $.75, Ad Nauseam $1, Dark Sphere $1 and Sickening Dreams $.50. You can possibly find the cards even cheaper elsewhere if you look.

As for some tips, you should play weak for most of the game (maybe complain that you are flooding with lands) and you should only cast Maralen the turn before you have access to seven mana. One weakness of this deck you you can’t do anything until that turn. So if you want to spruce it up you can add anything that speeds up you mana with the casting cost of zero (so do don’t take too much damage from Ad Nauseam). So I am thinking of Peat Bog, Crystal Vein, Ebon Stronghold, City of Traitors, Lotus Petal, Lotus Bloom etc.

I got to warn you. You really can’t play this deck more than once with the same group of people. They are going to hate you for this deck. But haters gonng a hate. Let me know what you think!

Anyways I am not sure I busted any 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball packs before but I have three packs to open now.

Didn’t really pull anyone I collect but it is shiny! And boy do Topps have a lot of crazy parallels. What can they come up with next?

I am going to start with a TCG I actually played (a long, long time ago), the Harry Potter TCG and this is the promo card I pulled by the way.

So in four packs, I pulled a foil card! Maybe it is worth a quarter. I can’t say I remember too much about his game. I vaguely remember playing some sort of Hermione Granger deck and there were some owls in there some how. Wikied Harry Potter TCG and at one point it was the second best selling toy in the United States but of course now it is out of print. The fact is it is very difficult for any TCG to have any staying power. It seems that the only ones to beat this trend is Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh and of course Magic: The Gathering. Speaking of Magic, in the card store I play Friday Night Magic, The Stand in Gravesend, people are playing some serious tournament quality decks and I think it is time to pull out the big guns this week…