I find Cedric Phillips calling somebody else scummy extremely ironic.

Bummer that my super evil work bosses forced me to make money rather than blow $30 to slang some cards for old time sake. Perhaps next time I will come show up for some good ol fashioned fun.

Sorry to rez this thread.

With entomb being a 4 of now have any of you tried fitting reanimate in the lists?  I had some success in tournies a few years back running 2x reanimate in my CA lists.

For reference:

Maindeck:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Goblin Welder
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Animate Dead
2 Reanimate
2 Intuition
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Buried Alive
1 Entomb
2 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Shivan Hellkite
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Echoing Truth
1 Living Wish
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Shivan Reef
1 Underground River
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring  

Sideboard:
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Sacred Ground
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Possessed Portal
1 True Believer
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Withered Wretch


keep in mind the age of the deck (2005), and the few odd choices such as living wish (hey it won a tournie give me a break ;P) and no duress or fow (for the record I loved duress builds over FoW back then, and was my first change from Eastmans origional list) But some ideas perhaps can be gained from a non-standard version of the deck.

I loved CA and any modernization attempts seem like a good thing to me.

4 rounds cut to top 4 has ALWAYS been a problem at adventures so im guessing they will not soon fix the round amounts to the proper numbers which is a total drag..but alas.

grats to web of course, he pretty much always deserves it I suppose.

 *sniff

I miss these, lol....grats to winners and rest of top 8, double grats to not letting mr national champ luis or his famed sidekick webster win the thing (hah...much respect though guys as always ;p, just me rooting for the underdogs)

Maybe next year.....*dreamily thinks of eudo again then drifts off to sleep

Oh man, E's 5 color deck, lol....its amazing though in its full beta juicyness

I dont see either of them in the pics, but last i knew at least E was still at adventures on a regular basis.

since it appears people are actually using the boards still (shows how much I pay attention) I am attempting to lift the "must log in" feature of the site so more people can view the forums of norcal.

IF the site gets spammed again please contact me at norcalmagic@hotmail.com or get ahold of LotusHead who also holds admin status now so we can delete the spam and put the log in feature back on

omg luis is so savage... national team last year and winner of nats this year...so unfair to have him roaming around the nor cal vintage meta game,, heh.

grats to the winners and really nice to see matches getting played out in the top 8 (no offense to luis and web and co)

PS: I am also attempting to re-open the norcal site by removing the must log-in feature...please contact me or LotusHead if there are any problems with the site (I wont be checking the site often, but LotusHead should be and he is admin as well)

I used to keep a daily updated site with all the info..nobody picked up the slack in my absence...somebody should step up and take care of business eh?

 @ hiryu

The nor cal boards are dead pretty much...for various reasons which include but are not limited to me no longer playing magic and the board getting decimated by spammers.

 @ T1 in sacramento

amazing..19 people only for a beta ruby but still I am uber suprized adventures still gave out the prize they are usually cheap bastards there and rarely was a T1 in the past actually run properly and to their conclusion. Its also sad that I dont see Kevin in any of those shots and I wasnt their either, at least tony and eric made it out (even if eric didnt know T1 was going on). We had tried in the past to get that shop to advertise better (and I used to post about that shop on the nor cal sites and SCG and maybe once or twice here) but there was rarely any interest in tournaments there as prize support was generally only availible if large amounts turned out which never did.

Anyways..glad to see things actually happening in Sacramento, keep it up guys.

Yeah, that picture of me in the first post went a lil something like:

Its turn 1 or turn 0 of extra turns (I forget to be honest) he dropped DSC the turn before and is yet to slap me with it. Due to this and knowing he has no cards left in hand (and also now that I look at the pic again, I realize he had needle on bazaar and needle on welder) I decide to make a play to at least try to pull out a draw here just in case hes lucky enough to top deck a force or something and hard cast it the next turn (even assuming I find bazaar to combo out with) So with dragon and platz in yard and titan in my hand I decide to play my combo to generate enough mana to hardcast the titan to shut off his mana and end up with platz in play to force a draw at time. My other play is to intuition up echoing truths to get rid of that DSC and maybe pull out a win if he goes along with my plan. In order to do this my third intuition target is Triskelion which I had used the turn beforehand to combo out with via dragon looping him. This was a sorta bluff as I figured hed just give me trike and that would be that, but he went for my bluff and gave me an echoing truth (I think the mana floating made him think I could hard cast the trike then start looping again with dragon ftw) I floated 2 more mana and bounced DSC and then finished the loop by animating the platz then hardcasted the titan. He draws into a delta or strand the next turn and I beat down for 10 putting him to 4. He top decks Chain of vapor at this point but even if he were to bounce something it would put him to 3 which lets either the remaining platz or titan to still swing for lethal. None of this would have been possible of course had not dragon combo and the worry about extirpate not had me run Necromancy to force a draw game 2 with DSC taking a walk through time to beat my brains in. Which is another cool thing because every match now ive played where ive drawn a game with dragon combo ive won in tourney play (useless fact of the day).  I would however say that I saw my one necromancy probably more often during the day than any of the 3 animates in the deck.

@ Pyro...sucks bad about your car man...hopefully the 2 shiny euro goblin welders I hooked ya up with was a good consolation prize, heh.

EDIT: Are we comparing pimped out decks? wonder what all I had left in mine, lets see

Foil German and French Goblin Welders (pyro is now proud owner of them though)
Foil French Squee goblin nabobs
Foil Chinese World Gorger Dragons
Foil Chinese Possessed Portal
Foil Signed Triple altered Duplicant
Foil Platz
Foil Thirst For Knowledges
Foil Japanese Deep Analysissesssess
Portuguese Yawg Will signed in silver
Korean Gemstone Mines (not a fan of the foils on these I guess)
Beta Animate Deads
Signed in silver Necromancy
Japanese Tolarian Academy
Chinese Strip mine
Foil Intuitions
Foil Vamp Tutor
Signed Foil Tinker
Doug Linn (Hi-Val) Sundering Titans 1xVan Gough 1xHokusai (japanese titan for the hokusai obv which makes mine better than jdizzles ;p)
Foil Eternal Witness signed in silver
Foil Echoing Truths
Foil Ray of Revelations
French bb Balance
BB german Demonic Tutor (yeah I dont have beta...meh)
ditto on the Sol Ring
portuguese Mana Crypt
Stylin Japanese old school triskelions
half-leet BB city of brassesss from Italian Chronicles (think it was their chronicles..bb italian is what I know, heh)
Alpha Red Elemental Blasts (I like these more than beta because they actually say Instant on them which makes them more correct than the beta ones which are lame-o interrupts even though the red is a bit darker on beta, the print error on the alphas makes them sexier IMO)

and some other crap I cant remember. I even ran beta basic island and swamp cause I was too lazy to look through my cards to find non basics for the tourney, lol. I did fail to bring my play mat for the tourney though as I woke up late and ran out the door with only my deck box. But my play mat pwns face via Rathi Dragon holding a black lotus drawn of course by Christopher Rush which I won for a 2nd place prize at a tourney (although I am glad I got the playmat over the first place prize of Mana Drain..because Mana Drain is a terrible terrible card which I will never play ever)

so I actually showed up and played in my first vintage tourney in a year...

I didnt have much in the way of cards so instead of trying to borrow and stuff I just tossed together my ol Cerebral Assasin list for shits and giggles. I didnt even think about what went in it really, I did no testing and only really played to have fun...soooo

R1: Ritual Gifts (mr klemic)

Game 1 we play a few turns and on I think his turn 3 he drops down an empty the warrens for 24 tokens...I cant dig into a dragon combo so its on to game 2.
Game 2 he gets out a turn 2 tinker for collosus, I play nothing but am holding what might be a win if he doesnt time walk and I can draw into a bazaar or other such cool card. He attacks and of course 2nd main phase plays time walk, so I necromancy nabbing a Dragon I had dumped and draw the game much to his dislike.
Game 3 I dont remember much of other than he doesnt get into too much (think he gets sorta mana flooded) and I eventually combo out turn 3 or 4 with Dragon combo.
Game 4 We both play some interesting turns, and I duress and extirpate something silly away from him just to see his hand..turns out the turn time ends on he has nothing to stop me from animating a dragon..unfortunatly I cant combo out so I just float enough mana to hard cast a sundering titan and get animate on a Platinum Angel, during this turn I intuition for Echoing Truth x2 and Triskelion, I nab trike because that is my win and he knows this, and im sorta half hoping he will think giving me trike will let me win. He actually plays it that way so I bounce his DSC that he tinkers up and I am able to win on turn 4 of extra turns.

Round 2 im playing against a buddy of mine who is playing Sullivan Sollution. (ryan cribbs)

Game 1 I play some stuff and end up duressing him after pitching an extirpate to bazaar...this is unfortunate since I find he is holding 3 stilfes and a Shadow of Doubt in his hand and I could have really used getting rid of the stifles...I end up blasting my way through all the stifles and get myself in position to win the game with titan and co...unfortunatly at this point (and mind you he has played nothing other than stifles and a shadow and only has 2 lands I believe) my first turn mana crypt catches up to me (turn 8....at least I won one coin flip) and I lose...I beat myself, gg.
Game 2 I play some stuff and end up getting a welder to stick...of course planar void is out and pithing needle is on bazaar so im not doing much anyways...welder turns sideways and Squee joins the party and I get him down to about 5 or 6 health before he plays a Confidant...I sweat out like 5 more turns and he eventually kills himself with me sitting at 4 or 6 health...so so far this match i beat myself once and he beat himself once...nice!!
Game 3 is a somewhat more interesting game which consists of us actually playing things...still though he cant find any creatures...time comes along and I think we are looking to draw.......he hits 2 dudes and stifles my duplicants ability and then edicts my duplicant followed up with another creature on turn 3 to seal the deal on his last turn (5) gg, but the lamest 3 games of T1 evar!

Round 3 im playing against "manaless" ichorid (dont remember your name sorry)

Game 1 im not even close really as I have nothing MD against ichorid really and my only outs (dragon combo basically) are stopped by turn 0 leyline and chalice 0. He combos me out like turn 5 or 6 or something.
Game 2 hes doing his thing and has a leyline out shutting my stuff down..he is a turn out from comboing me and I hardcast a platinum angel...he scoops..turns out ichorid doesnt like platz, heh
Game 3 is interesting sorta, he bazaars and dredges like a fiend of course, I intuition up extirpates to eat all his ichorids, but next turn he is able to get 2 shadows and gets his factory to sac the 3 creatures to make one really giant one to win...of interesting note is that I dropped tormods crypt to try out extirpate and if I had crypt I would have won game 3, but such is life and im not too worried about it. The other thing of note is that I think the match should have been much worse for me (even maybe me losing game 2) if he would have played more aggresivly and not only gone for the combo...ichorids beat down too man, and you should never really cabal therapy me by saccing before you attack, maybe it was just cause I was going old school and hes never seen CA. But game 2 I might have lost if he would have played aggro from the start, he might have had me before I could hard cast the platz.

Round 4 (woot 1-2 drop bracket..but im playing cause my buddy I played in r2 has a shot at top 8 and I want to play for tie breaks sake) is 2land belcher...ffs my worst matchup imaginable, didnt even think id have to worry about it. (nick, mr rules lawyer I play to win at all costs even if im mr scrubby mc scrub, weed)

Game 1 he plays some stuff and gets a belcher turn 2 and pings me for 14..I cant find an answer on my turn 2 and he pings me the rest of the way his turn 3.
Game 2 he attempts to tendrils me for some reason....he only gets me for 14 though. So I play lotus gemstone...duress, eternal witness nabbing back duress. He is stuck with playing out an elvish spirit guide the next turn. I duress again and get a strip mine for his land. we sit there for a few turns until I hit ancient grudge and kill his sol ring, I also cast a trike and start beating at this point. I yawg will next turn and replay ancestral I think and duress and strip on his other land and replay ancient grudge to leave him only with ESG on the board. Trike beats down for a number of turns until he loses.
Game 3 is why the matchup sucks obv...he has a made hand and tendrils me out with like 12 storm or something turn 1 before I get a turn.

so shit...im 1-3, but hell I havnt played in forever so i continue playing.

Round 5 is against DOOMSDAY!!! nice...so apparently there has been a time warp to two years+ ago...kk (dont remember your name, Jonathan I think?)

Game 1 I go pretty nutty and he cant get that 3rd black for doomsday before I titan away all his lands, I follow up with intuition for 2xSquee and Possessed portal and procede to lock him out with no mana. (basically the tourney was worth it for me because I got to get at least one portal win just like in the olden days...woot woot)
Game 2 I play some unimportant stuff kinda (get a welder but cant bazaar into anything that will win it for me) He ends up getting his doomsday turn 3 or 4 and wins with chalice out on 0 with animate/wgd/ambassador laquatus, which was a new one for me in doomsday (used to beacon) I guess he had beacon too, but couldnt win with it due to chalice 0 out. I make note of this and correct it for game 3
game 3 I duress turn 1 off a mox and bazaar or ancestral or something. he plays land go (maybe a brainstorm?) Turn two I get a lotus I think and play intuition getting titans. I also play welder and then chalice for 1 that were in my hand (chalice 1 > doomsday) he cant do much so I weld in titan next turn to kill his lands and it gets worse for him when I animate a platz too.

Round 6 is vs Bomberman (eduardo)

Game 1 he has to mull to 5 and still doesnt have much vs my pretty broken hand of turn 1 tinker (forced) turn 2 welder + bazaar and he never can catch up at that point (titan kills lands next turn..although he kinda played it odd and could have save his lands and/or bounced titan instead of welder to buy himself at least one more turn...)
Game 2 He has an okay-ish hand with like turn 1 trinket mage getting aether spellbomb and draw of some sort. I have another solid hand though end up with turn 2 titan out + welder. He blocks titan next turn and I animate the mage to nab chalice to help vs his combo if he can somehow pull it off and end up winning a turn or two later after having to weld titan for duplicant at one point.

so I end up 3-3 and actually end up one game over .500 so im actually suprised as I didnt expect much with a very outdated deck and very rusty play skill after being gone for a while...I even had a shot 2 of the 3 matches I lost as if crypt wouldnt have killed me game 1 against SS I would have won and if I had one more mana game 3 vs ichorid I would have been able to hard cast platz again ftw (not to mention I would have won if I had kept my original t. crypts and not played extirpate, heh) The belcher match was a coin flip for me and I would have been lucky to pull that match out.

If anybody actually wants a list let me know, but im not gonna bother posting it up here as its nothing new or that interesting.

All in all it was fun to play again and nice to whip out the ol' CA again heh. The deck isnt that amazing anymore, but was actually suprisingly close to being quite good somehow, heh..maybe with some though it could make for a solid casual/competitive deck heh.

My youtube profiles are leet as hell too, watch for them, hehe...

Props: umm, people in general at the tourney was good times. David and Luis for winning of course. People for buying cards off me and helping me pay rent for another month. My buddy Ryan for making it out to his first T1 and only missing top 8 on tie breaks, good work man.
Slops: umm, rules layering in the x-2 why didnt you just drop bracket. David and Luis for fricking winning again and robbing us of a final match for like the billionth time, heh (respect though, heh you guys are pretty gosh durn good maybe thats why you guys get pro tour points and luis was on the national team, heh) People for playing the same shit they always play (which I suppose includes me although im not active in the meta anymore) if you havnt beat luis and/or david for the last like 122198925 tournaments with what you are playing dont you maybe think its time to try something new?

I cant think of much else to say other than good tourney, with a pretty solid turnout for a middle of the series event for a ruby (34) getting 6 rounds instead of 5 made my money for casual T1 much more worth it, heh.

FoW was pretty much long ago abandoned in Cerebral assasin for various well documented reasons...the card disadvantage and extreem low number of blue cards in many builds was seen as too hard to reliably use. This was further complicated from my early addition of reanimate to the deck and entomb which further put the hold on FoW as the black card count went up considerably. You gotta remember we shaped the deck to put out 2nd and 3rd turn titans consistantly and duress was found to complement that plan substantially...you must also remember this was nearly 2 years ago (maybe even longer ago) and the meta was a bit slower which made this goal extreemly effective and somewhat easier to pull off IMO. Eventually I had dropped to 3 duress to allow for some MD meta sorta stuff (and went back to 4 animates) which gave more space for stuff for like 2x Echoing truth or one time i ran orims chants etc etc etc....blah blah blah...

The early/funky/actually somewhat successful answer to your swords/extirpate problem was the addition of 2x Living Wish (i know i know, lol) to the MD and the use of a tool box sort of SB to pull creatures out of. Hi-Val helped me set up the board and in the one tournament I played the wishes at (an early Eudamonia P9 event) I did hit top 8 out of 30 some players and Living Wish actually won me at least 2 games (grabbed a titan which had been stpd and hard casted it once, hehe...and the other was against CS where i nabbed a withered wretch from the SB to pwn up his welders) If you want to get even jankier try it out (its also detailed more in my Cerebral Assasin primer which MIGHT still be found on mtgsalvation and maybe even mtgnews if that site is still around)

anyways, here is some info if you are interested in CA:

http://mtgsalvation.com/177-vintage-peace-in-the-middle-east.html
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=22922.0
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=285176&highlight=cerebral+assasin

and thats about all I can track down that is outside of tourney reports atm...the primer seems to be gone off salvation, ill have to see if I have a copy anywhere

EDIT: found a link to the old primer:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=16626

Yeah, I wrote a letter to Bram about my post before you posted and if it needs to go the moderators of this board can do that job, not you. Regardless of that, taking credit for something that is not your work is pretty lame and is generally frowned upon by most people. The thing I am more concerned about is that various aspects of his posts seem almost like direct plagarism on his part, not the card choices but actual sentances he has written. (maybe we just think alike? I dunno)

Again, I reported myself to the moderators and they can do whatever they feel is proper, I apologize if I am out of place. Simply put lets all be civil from this point and end it here until mods can take a peek.

With all due respect...taking one of my lists and making the same exact changes ive tried over and over in various combinations and calling them your ideas or whatever is sorta silly IMO...not that I mind too much of course but maybe giving credit where its due would be nice. Simply put calling this your deck with your ideas is just as bad as if I would have said I was the original creator of CA and not Eastman and the Hadley kids.

If you need evidence or what not I can of course go back and detail all aspects of these things for you, but please dont try to take credit. (even if CA isnt really competitive and there isnt much to be overly proud of any longer, heh) This whole report seems strangely enough like it was purely cut and pasted from various reports and posts on the subject myself and players such as Nataz and the few others who worked with me to try and expand CA long after Eastman had given it up for other ventures. I am even willing to say that If you really wanted me to I could find a paragraph that is almost word for word your last paragraph in the post above this one...

and just because I feel like it now I can also say that my Chinese Foil Possessed Portals are much hotter than your regular Portal..gg

@ MadManiac...

If you are actually interested in how the deck progressed after Eastman, I would be happy to point you in the direction of all the various posts and even a small primer I wrote on the deck oh so long ago..In that info would be all the answers you need as to why things changed, from FoW ---> Duress to dropping squee (in fact the last lists we had actually worked on had no squee after Diceman showed me the light with his early work on WGDX) to adding dragon combo to cutting portal from MD to adding Reanimate to later dropping Reanimate to trying Living Wish even, and all the hubbub in between. (we even had a 4 waste 1 strip + Null Rod version going for a bit if youd believe it)

Rough one on giving me slops, there are numerous reasons i couldnt attend, i mean hell..i havnt gone in like a year and all of a sudden I get a slop...ah well, such is life I guess.

I promise to come to at least one this year...maybe if jorlove gets his act together and decides to come to one, ill try and hit up the same one. It will be a tough one though as I have played exactly 0 games of t1 magic in about a year now, and about 3 total games of any magic period (the 3 being 5color matches with an astounding record of 2-1 playing dragon)


I seem to remember myself losing a game on turn 3 of extra turns, which also happend to be turn 7 of the 3rd game with my opponent (playing control slaver) completely locked out to my CronStax list to this exact same occurance. A draw would have seen me go 4-1-1 and into top 8 but the loss on turn 3 to my own crypt saw me to 4-2 and into 9th or 10th place instead ftl. But playing first turn crypt into turn 7 loss solely from crypt damage (tails 7 times in a row...go figure) is bad juju.

As for the video stuff...what it really comes down to is getting an actual video type camera I think you should be able to get a lot more than 20 seconds that way even with you tube trying to limit you (i mean, people have hour+ long videos on youtube of concerts and such, i dont see why they couldnt get a match or parts of matches on there. Maybe, just maybe if I show up to one I can bring a real digital video camera..but no promises.

It should be noted that its Zac Carlow not Vac Carlow in the top 8...

it should also be noted how old that list is and the fact that he won a tourney with it almost exactly a year ago as well, heh..

"There's little more demeaning than getting your butt kicked by a bunch of bunnies."

Jackalope Herd

pointing out that Wu is there might not be the best way to gain buddies here, heh....maybe if they dont know wu by his online name we are safe.

DJ DB - Breakbeat Science Exercise four
Tool - Lateralus
Modest Mouse - Building Nothing out of Something

Hey jeff, nice report...

several of your links are broken for the you tube stuff, however people can still get to them if they want cause youtube links them for you on their site...

Wish I could have been there, but babysitting issues make card playing rough...ill try my best to show up eventually to one or two this year...beware!

I am thinking we should hold you to it this year Jacob!

I hope I can find the cards/time to attend at least one or two of these, even though I rarely play Magic any longer. Ill probably at least stop by to talk some shit and cause a general disturbance.

Good work on getting the early info Jeff!

Look, the point on the ol lettuce wedge (and doug I sent you a message about the issue which I think you handled rather rudely to me..) is that while it might be deemed acceptable in a few places, and I do mean a few places...it is certainly not something that any real chef would ever take pride in, and I am sorry if that so seems to ruffle a few feathers.

You mention steak houses...in the few I have been to (Mortons, Ruths Chris) you go for the steak...and only the steak...(although Mortons had a pretty good chocolate desert too, heh) you are going to pay a bizillion dollars for that steak and it is going to come with nothing...you want a side? oh well, $10 for a baked potato, a plain ol baked potato, they dont even do any sort of mashed potatoes or other sort of side dish that might be considered legitimate...but who are you really kidding, you arent there for the sides...in this mentality I could see a lettuce wedge existing, but I would still be turned off by the obvious lack of care put into the dish (although I would probably brush it off with a laugh as I was enjoying my steak)


Arent these Spiny Lobster? We talked about them a bit in Butchery class, and ive seen them on Food Network a few times generally referred to as Spiny Lobster, maybe they are called both though as that is common.


And doug...just so I dont seem too snobby or whatever about food and beverages...Ill see your King Cobra and raise you a Steel Reserve

Doug...lettuce wedge and classy do not belong in the same sentance...regardless of seeing something in a magazine...that dressing you mention can easily be applied to many other less hokey salads.

I am not a wine snob on any real major level I suppose...but I try to drink and know about good wines (I cant afford to be a real wine snob) But when it comes down to spending $30+ on a crappy bottle vs spending $30 on a bottle that was tasted and researched id obviously spend on the second, although id be willing to run to that winery and try the wines out as its not far from me. However, depending on where you are wine snobbery might actually be at an all time high, certainly there are more sommoliers floating around now and the average wine consumer is at a point where they demand  knowledgable staff and a decent wine list (this is overall and not aimed at this family joint) Its all a matter of where you are...and things might certainly be different out of wine country here in northern california and New York (with other large cities probably filling in as well...certainly Vegas needs to have a full range of wine and a handful of wine snobs making those lists) I base my wine snobbery more on enjoying quality wines that taste good...this unfortunatly generally falls within more expensive labels...certainly there are cheaper more bulk processed wines that taste good, but these are more of an exception than a rule. Still, a family restaurant should be running something below the $30 retail value on a bottle of cab, $10-12 a glass cab wont sell well with a $10 meatloaf. But yeah, wine snob has different levels like anything...but believe me if I could afford only drinking something like Phelps Insignia that is all that I would drink, it really is just that much better than everything else. I am just a guy that will spend $10 more a bottle for a 12 year old vintage port when up against a 10 year tawny port (unless I know for sure that the tawny happens to be really excellent)


I agree with this as well..but I have a feeling he cant expand on the drink list at this "restaurant" due to classroom limitations. You will have more people buying beer at this sort of restaurant for sure though (from my experience) and the wines need to be more easily affordable.


They are getting tougher and tougher on these things as well.."Napa" wines should get better and better as a lot of the fringe is getting eliminated from being allowed to use the appelation names improperly. Rutherford used to be amazing for cab, and was even famed for the Rutherford "Dust" that the terroir imparted in its wines, the last few years have been rough though as some of the vitners there havnt done quite as nice a job with some exceptions as well..Stags Leap as well has had ups and downs, the most famous Napa wine ever came from here, but some pretty bad stuff has come out of the appelation as well.


Oh this I know...I was making the statment to people claiming that lettuce wedges are acceptable in fine dining establishments. These restaurants you go to because you know some time and care is being put into your food...lettuce wedge does not convey time and care, it represents cheap and quick, even though it might be filling and affordable and even with a decent dressing.

This was my feeling on it as well...but he says it sells there...id be more concerned about 3xFish dishes for appetizers though really.


I kinda sorta get this feeling as well...

Example again would be the lettuce wedge thing...that would certainly NEVER fly at any restaurant out here, except possibly really crappy ones...just not something accepted in California. Maybe this works out there...I am certain that any restaurant with the wedge on the menu wouldnt be receiving very many points in the Zagat or any stars from Michelin, heh. However this is a "family style comfort restaurant" so perhaps this is acceptable out there.


The deserts seem fine to me for a comfort place...plain is usually fine for a place like this and would most likely sell better...although that creme brulee I suggested would probably go over well anyways, heh.

EDIT: heh, I checked out Amusant to read about their wines. This is what one distributor had to say about their cab.


It should be of note that none of their wines have ever received higher than an 87 from any wine rating place though, heh. The other problem I see is that according to the 3 sites I visited about the wine they price it out at $30.00 a bottle...this seems pretty high for a family restaurant with only 2 wine selections...I wouldnt buy a $50-60 bottle (restaurant price) when I am getting a $9.95 dinner

Omaka Springs describes their Sauvignon Blanc as:


which they feel is imparted by the 8% semillion and 3.8 g/l residual sugar

the $15.00 price tag they put on the SB isnt too terrible, but will still make for a somewhat expensive bottle in a family restaurant (especially for SB)

We just talked a bit about chickens in butchery class the last two days (I attend California Culinary Academy by the way...I have about 4.5 years of industry experience ranging from family style restaurants such as your fictional one and several fine dining california/pacific rim/italian fusion like places)

We priced out what we could get out of a whole chicken...from .88 per lb on a whole chicken compared to boneless skinless which can be much more expensive than the 1.25 per lb small probably random sized ones you are talking about (or maybe chicken is just cheaper b/s out there) We were able to pull around $75-90 out of a whole 3-4lb chicken. The labor really shouldnt be too high if you have somebody who knows what they are doing (especially if you did Half chickens instead of 2xChicken breasts) as all you have to do it split down the back for that. But even if you broke it up you can do all sorts of stuff with the rest...how about a chicken wing appetizer? Thighs im sure you can do something with as well (especially in the real world where you get more than 3 or 4 entrees.) Chicken Marsalla with b/s leg n thigh is excellent and at 2 different restaurants ive worked at was the #1 seller on the menu...marsala sells and is pretty cheap food cost wise. I suppose if space is a problem I can let you slide here as well ;p

Pancetta is bomb...and goes quite well in the clam chowder, heh. You can find it easy for similar prices as decent bacon, although if it is a good quality bacon id let ya slide on that one, heh.


I mentioned the fish sticks to my class mates and they laughed heh...but if you are finding it selling then go for it obv, heh. Kids menu I can definatly see (this again is something that would benefit from the ability to have a larger menu as some sort of Fish and Chips would go for adults and the kids can have their sticks, heh)

We had a BBQ sauce for our Hickory smoked ribs at one place that also doubled as Meatloaf sauce and it was excellent...just sounding better than ketchup though is a main point...people like tasty words, heh...

Wild Rice is another option for the Salmon, heh...my classmates made a comment about the salmon sounding too one dimensional. Citrus cream this, citrus cream that...I dunno, heh...just comments from the class. I remade the menu part way off memory of what you had and came up with Pan Seared King Salmon Filet w/ Pineaple Mango Chutney served with Wild Rice and Seasonal Veggies, heh...

Speaking of the seasonal veggies...that was a hot thing at some of the restaurants I worked at...this keeps you away from having to get something that isnt totally in season at odd times of the year and also is pretty desirable to find, even in family restaurants (seasonal fresh veg doesnt mean expensive)


I love hearing people not from Napa talk about Napa wines, heh...Clearly the napa wine that perhaps you have learned about or tasted is just not the good stuff. In fact the cabs from napa range all the way across the spectrum. From amazingly smooth cabs to the dusty leathery rutherford cabs to the amazing power in some of the younger designed wines. Basically if you havnt tasted it dont put it on the menu, heh...I guess this is harder for a 20 year old than a 25 year old self proclaimed wine snob.  Napa wines range from 70pt Sutter Home and Box wines all the way to 100pt best wine in world wines like Joseph Phelps Insignia (2006 wine spec, which is quite nice...got to taste some last trip to Napa, too bad they start around $140 a bottle) heh, and I dare you to call something like a phelps cab mushroomy or overly alchohaulic, heh) in fact this line made me ponder some things:


Interesting comment and ive never heard anybody mention mushrooms before...ive heard leather and olive and some other interesting terms which do fit some of the terroir in Napa, but certainly not others. Beyond that cherry might describe a handful of the wines, but lots of other fruity flavors can be found among the cabs in napa.

Same with the SB from NZ...NZ wines can be good but some can be real bad, heh.

Basically wines (as I am sure you know) vary greatly even among cost range. Especially year to year in most of the smaller labels. heh.

Anyways, I gotta run...have fun in class, keep up the good work and if you ever have any questions feel free to ask and I can run it by my class heh...we dig that kinda thing.

sweet, what culinary school are you attending? I am a culinary arts student myself, how much industry experience do you have?

My order (with notes to follow) Although to be fair I might not order an app or desert, but if I was going with everything it would be:

Clam Chowder
Meatloaf
Brownie Sunday
Long Trail Ale (although depending on what type of ale I might skip it and just get a root beer, lol)

Some notes in my head, heh.


Scallops wrapped in bacon is one of my favs...although proscuitto or pancetta usually get my nod first over "bacon". We also didnt deep fry ours, pan seared and broiled in the salamander generally did the trick nicely (we did shrimp and scallops on skewers)

Fish sticks doesnt feel much like an appetizer to me for some reason (perhaps im too used to seeing vankamps served up to kids for lunch or dinner)

I gotta question the iceberg wedge though man...the only time ive seen that before was on a trip to South Dakota...everytime I tell the story out here people laugh and laugh about how ghetto a lettuce wedge in a bowl is (or on a plate for that matter) Does that really fly back east?


For portion reasons and food cost, do you really need 2 breasts here? Could you just make it one, or, order in whole chickens and do a half roasted chicken instead...food cost on breasts is MUCH more than ordering in whole and butchering your own. On a better note though, a restaurant I used to work at ran something like this (one chicken breast butterflied open) but added mushrooms to the mix and it was pretty frickin tasty, heh...probably #1 seller on that menu (called bayou chicken, heh)


Sounds pretty good, out here we would cut the creamy parts though, heh...health craze and all...probably do this with the pilaf or maybe a polenta (maybe) and a citrus "relish" or "salsa" sounds good though.


Make this a "brown sugar, tomato glaze" instead of good ol heinz 57 and you make me a happy boy, lol.


The deserts all sound tasty...id through in a Creme Brulee in there or a Tiramisu though, heh...people cream their pants over that stuff on a desert menu for some reason, dont ask me why. Maybe that is a west coast thing though.

I wont comment on the beverage list as it seems that you were limited by some rule set down by your class...the list is too short to be fair on. Ive never heard of either of those wines though (and im sorta a wine snob I guess you could say) As I live about 30 minutes from the Napa valley id love to see something a bit more familiar. You get to a restaurant with a limited list and you want to order something that sounds familiar, maybe those labels are back east.

Anyways, out of time..gotta go meet up with some classmates to try a new restaurant! good luck man!

I apologize if this is answered elsewhere, but do we have a definition of the "split second" key word?

The Children of Korlis version of this seems better though. Fish decks of all sorts could utilize it (unless they just want to stick with mage and believer and force/misd) and it seems to work against tendrils as you can just sac it in response to the last copy of tendrils that would go lethal.

Damn, so bummed I had to miss out...but family matters and life must come before a game..

Grats to brett for the win...grunts do seem to pwn face...I had shop aggro grunts (somewhat similar to probascos list minus confidants) all lined up to go, guess they will sit on the shelf collecting dust for a while until the next tourney I can actually make.

Great turnout (although that wasnt the first over 40 Jeff...and you should know better) but very glad to see it zoom over 50 players.

But I am sure we will see a few more power events before next years series david (assuming there will be another) Tony and I along with Banks and maybe some others are in the early stages of getting a Mox tourney together and I am sure Victor will try to swing a few more small events (with good prizes!!!) in the coming months. Rumor has it a number of shops are thinking about some T1 action as well, I know Jeff from Whos on First told me that he was thinking about a tourney again, and a few shops in Sacramento have mentioned the idea...so maybe pushing a few more buttons will get the ball rolling...the best way to set things in motion is to talk/mention/push/do things yourself, heh.

But keep on the lookout...even with things winding down a bit, we will try to get things up on the norcal boards when we know more (http://norcalmagic.proboards79.com)

I personally liked this quote from kahnute


Why do you ask did I like this? Well because this "clever bit of deckbuilding" has been around for ever and a day, at least here in California, I think I (and the NorCal community) were even already calling it "dark gifts" for lack of a better name for it...in fact it has been out long enough to warrent its eventual fading from our meta and hasnt been played for some time as most of those players have "moved on" to something better (namely even more combo-ish versions of the deck based off TT Confidant sort of builds) and now to decks which hose said combo decks.

Maybe we will move back in that direction now, heh. Great sluethery (spelling?) Knut.