Places to Play - The Rak (Naksungdae)

It's been a long time between drinks as the last tournament I played in was the Innistrad pre release 12 months ago.

The shop is located on the basement level and is very much like the dungeons that pass for card shops in Australia. It does have better lighting though but more photos of Anime girls. Which I guess might be a positive for some.
The customer service was excellent.
I did a major trade with the store owner (over $100 worth on each side) and he pointed out when I undervalued my Sensei's diving tops. I couldn't imagine that happening back in Brisbane!
Coincidently I have spent this week catching up on card prices. EDH was becoming a thing when I last paid attention but it has really taken off now which has revitalised a lot of the cards in my binder.
Looking forward to visiting Oz in Gangnam next for the Return to Ravnica league starting on October the 14th.This pretty poor map probably isn't enough to help you find it but it's the best I have for now.


The TO posted information about the tournament on the Seoul Magic Facebook page and went to the effort to make and print off English Spoilers for us to use.

How to get there:

Contact Details

Phone number: 010-2361-9739

Email address: donfight502@naver.com

Korean Street address: 서울특별시 관악구 인헌동 1632 - 4 번지 지하 1층

Magic the Gathering Toolbox

Earlier this month Wizards of the coast released "MTG Toolbox" for IOS and have promised an Android version soon.

I like it a lot more than the other free applications for deck building and it also has some other features like news, store locater and life counter.
It's not quite compelling enough yet for me to really use it much but there are promised features like deck registration support coming in the future which sound cool.

The other Magic application that lasted on my Iphone more than a couple of weeks is the SCGMobile app but with a long ago lapsed subscription to their premium service I don't find it very exciting.


Update December 2012: Despite all the promise MTG Toolbox seems pretty much dead and it's been a loooong time since an update.
I have also deleted the SCG Mobile App from my phone as well after the latest update ramped up the advertising while decreasing the utility.

Places to Play #3 Michaels

Unfortunately I didn't get to play here as I arrived late to the tournament due to being stuck at a wedding (drinking free beer).

Place was packed with players for a different tournament so I didn't hang around. I plan to go back for another proper look later on.

It's quite small but it felt welcoming.

It's close to Gangbyeon subway stop (green line) and Techno mart. The closest franchise store is Paris Bagguette.
Like quite a few magic shops it is located in the basement level which is populated by quite a few different shops including a bar....how convenient.

Their cafe web site is http://yumazzang.cafe24.com/

Contact Details
Phone number: 010-2722-5050
Email address: michaelssh@hanmail.net
Korean Street address: 서울특별시 광진구 구의동 631-1 프라임상가 지하 1층 11.112호

And here is the map they provide which I am sure will make everything clear :)

Places to Play #2 Tic Toc

Update: This store is now closed.


The following directions probably aren't good enough to find it but I went to this store a while ago and so my memory is a bit fuzzy.


You get off the Subway at Childrens Grand park station and walk out exit 3 (Konkuk).

The shop front is very small and it's in a side street so a little bit tricky to spot. It's just a door which leads to the basement level which is where the store is.
The store interior is cafe style and they seem much more of a cafe than Dive Dice.
They had a decent range of items and have an online store called Blue Mtg which I have ordered from and was really happy with.

The store owner speaks English but the shop layout is less open and more private than Dive Dice so it's better to go as a group rather than solo.

I had no problems there but to be honest for reasons that are hard to describe in print I felt more comfortable at Dive Dice. 

Korean M12

Korean M12 arrived on the weekend but I didn't get to see the cards first hand until yesterday.

People have complained about the translations and it does effect flavor but they are playable.
The only thing that bothers me is that remainder and rules text is very similar to the important game text and the text inside the text box is a bit small.

They could do with bumping up the size of the game text a little in the next printing.

Oppened a foil ponder so I was really interested what it was worth. I couldn't find people selling them anywhere on English sites so I fired up Ebay and have put mine up to see if there is much interest.

Was a little tricky working out how to list a South Korean Item located in Korea under my Australian account but hopefully it works.

M12 Korea arrives

Korean magic cards are here!

The Korean version of M12 has arrived.

So far it’s garnering mixed reviews from Korean players because some of the translations are sub par and the font used is pretty simple. Cooler heads in the community are more forgiving given it’s the first effort at Korean cards in modern times.

I haven’t had a chance to see the cards first hand as I couldn’t make it to the pre release but will hopefully have some in my hand later this week.

The Korean distributor has also used the release of Korean cards as a chance to up the price. A box has gone from W140,400 to W158,400; a pretty substantial bump. The excuse banded around is currency changes.

In Australia the dollar went from 1 AUD = 0.80 US Cents to parity and we didn’t see prices drop. Seems in every country currency changes can only increase prices and the consumer never wins.

You can still get the English version of M12 at the old prices but Innistrad (English) and M12 (Korean) look to be W158,400 everywhere.

If you are going to raise prices doing so when you’re improving the product (Korean cards are certainly better for Korean players) is good timing but I think it’s a shame that it makes the game very expensive and limits growth. You only have to look at Japan to see the potential for Magic in Korea, now that they have cards in their own language.

Korean players are also well aware that their foils should be in demand overseas, though traditionally foils aren't so popular domestically because they are not very suitable for tournaments. Well that's according to my wife but she is a spike so perhaps casual players would disagree.

Tourney report 25th September 2011

Tourney report

Location: DiveDice Seoul

Event: Innistrad pre release

Sealed deck 25^th September 2011

I made it to DiveDice with plenty of time to spare for a 10:00 am start. Player count was 34 players, 6 waygooks, 3 guys in suits and one female.

Deck registration was required and I opened a Garruk that I would have to pass. It could have been much worse, and it was for the guy next to me who cracked Liliana and Snapcaster mage.

There was a tiny amount of intriguing green but red white was a fairly obvious combination and resulted in a really strong and fairly broken deck. I made a few deck construction errors. The main one being that I main decked Bloodcrazed Neonate which is a mistake I wouldn’t have made if I wasn’t so rusty. Attacks each turn if possible is a huge red flag and anything with that drawback and lacking ridiculous stats is unplayable in sealed.

I sided out Bloodcrazed Neonate in favor of Blazing Torch for game 2 every time.

Final deck list:

8 Mountains

8 Plains

1 Shimmering Grotto

White

2 x Bonds of Faith

Silverchase fox

Avacynian Priest

Chapel Geist

Fiend Hunter

Elder Cathar

Gallows Warden

Slayer of the Wicked

Abbey Griffin

Smite the Monstrous

Red

Kruin Outlaw // Terror of Kruin Pass

Village Ironsmith // Ironfang

Reckless Waif // Merciless Predator

Bloodcrazed Neonate

Rakish Heir

Devils Play

Skirsdag Cultist

Charmbreaker Devils

Into the Maw of Hell

Artifacts

Manor Gargoyle

Butcher’s Cleaver

Trepanation Blade

Sideboard

Harvest Pyre

Blazing Torch (should have been main)

One eyed scarecrow (brought in against blue white to great effect)

Round 1 Chang Myoung Soo with green/white

He had the Garruk that I had opened during deck registration. I know this because he showed it to me as he was using a checklist card. When he did so I assumed he was just volunteering this info and was a bit of a scrub. I wasn’t going to be revealing my 3 cards that’s for sure.

Turns out I was being a massive cheater and that if you use a checklist it is an actual rule that you have to reveal your double sided cards before the match starts. The high ground was lost but I managed to win a tight mach 2-1

Round 2 Jung-suk Goh with blue/white

I could tell he was a very strong player and his deck was quite tricky and produced a lot of tokens. I sided in One Eyed Scarecrow for games 2 and 3 and it bought me enough time to kill him with Devils Play in game 3.

Round 3 Jungmin Lee with green/white

His deck was based around a lot of very strong creatures but he didn’t have removal for my Charmbreaker Devils and I lived the dream of getting back devils play 3 turns in a row to wipe his board.

In game 2 I had a Reckless Waif on turn one which flipped and did 6 damage before he summoned some defence. I felt like a luck sack both games and they ended up being the easiest I had all day.

Round 4 Jon Queiros With blue/black

Jon offered the split before playing which I accepted. That took a lot of pressure off our match which was lucky because he had a very strong pool. I managed to come back from an early Liliana to win game 1 but was crushed in game two. In game 3 he was a little late to find enough creatures and my removal kept him from coming back into it.

A fun day but I did not have enough time to draft which was a shame as Innistrad looks a really fun set. Oh well I am undefeated on Korean Soil...... which won’t last long so I should enjoy it while it lasts.