Sorry I haven't been posting lately, but there isn't much to report Magic-wise.  I took a ten-week break from competitive play to study for the California Bar exam, so I just haven't been playing much. Furthermore, even though I can now play Magic again, I haven't really been interested in the game. This is partly due to the game itself: Standard is an extremely dull format at the moment, and partly due to where I am at in life. There isn't really a Standard deck that I like or have played consistently, and my results have been poor in the few Standard tournaments I've played in.

I generally consider myself heading towards Magic "retirement".  The big rotation is coming this month and I don't feel like spending any money on the game to stay competitive. I'm not sure what that means for the future of this blog.

For now, however, there is still some good news to report, at least from the perspective of a proud collector. In the months since my last blog entry, I have added some badass cards to my collection, and I wanted to share them here.

The first addition is a promotional Jace Beleren. This card went instantly into my mono-blue EDH deck, and it's currently considered the "crown jewel" of that deck:

The art on this card is just crazy gorgeous and its definitely one of my favorite cards I own. Nick Rennard prefers the original Jace Beleren art, but I think he's just nuts (the original art can be found here). I won this card several months ago by placing first in the weekly Saturday Modern tournament at Ancient Wonders (a $150 value!). For that tournament, I ran the UWR list that Nick Rennard worked so hard on for the Portland Grand Prix. Thanks Nick!

The next two cards I added to my collection are a foil "Emrakul, the Aeons Torn" and a foil "Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre" (from Rise of the Eldrazi).

The acquisition of these two cards completes my foil collection of all of the original Eldrazi. The Emrakul is especially cool because that card sees play in several formats.

The last card I added to my collection is probably the best: "The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale".

 

I wanted this card since I was a child and now I finally own it. Unfortunately, the card is pretty pricey so I had to trade in my entire trade binder to get it (about $400 of cards, for which I received about $300 in trade). Liquidating my trade binder fits nicely into my "retirement" plan---there's no use keeping cards I don't need. The Tabernacle is on Wizards' reserved list, so it shouldn't be reprinted any time soon, which makes me feel better about losing value on the trade-in; most of the cards I traded in were not on the list and might be reprinted one day.

That's all I have to report for now.