i work for the state of WV as a rehabilitation counselor. basically what i do is help disabled people find employment, and if that means i pay for their school or whatever to get them a job, so be it.

right now my board is this
4 gemstone mine
2 riftstone portal
4 emerald charm
3 ancient grudge
2 whatever else.
i would rather have chain of vapor, but i really like ancient grudge too. that would mean i would have to run gemstone caverns instead or city of brass but i am trying to avoid those.
with using all green spells i can utilize portal, which i have always liked for the deck.
the 2 spots really can be anything and with some working with the main deck etc, i might be able to find room for 4 leyline.

well right now i have cut chalice out of the deck to keep in a few fields plus all the other goodies too.
here is my list as of today.
4 bazaar
4 powder
3 field
4 troll
4 imp
4 thug
2 shell
4 ichorid
4 moeba
3 shadow
4 bridge
4 wraith
4 therapy
4 unmask
4 return
2 zealot
2 sage
what i have found out is against fish the games were a bit slower and i really wanted a field to keep a bazaar in play. if i can get 2 bazaar dredges off in the game i can usually win against them.
also keep in mind that fish runs daze and without a field you cant pay the cost.
sure you can just fire off another therapy but its not cool to waste.
now one thing i found out is that spiketail hatchling is awesome against the deck, basically cutting you off from bridge tokens and stopping a return or therapy.
in fact r/u fish probably has an awesome game against the deck, and could be even better than the version i have to test against.
with fire/ice, hatchling, daze, lavamancer, it really makes the match harder if you plan to win via zealot.

edit: by the time i posted this 2 other replies had already addressed this
sure it "can" remove them, but i think the point is that with 4 factories as well it becomes very difficult to remove all of the necessary creatures in time before the deck goes off and has 4 creatures in play. even with dredging, strict bazaar dredging is such a superior way to find what you need in this deck, so your chances of finding those last few shadows or factories is really easy for this deck.
on another point i thought i would see if i could fit 2 lands in the main so that 2 duress could go in the board.
currently my board is
4 chain of vapor
4 underground sea
4 pithing needle
1 gemstone mine
2 duress
my thought was that if i could somehow get the 2 mines in the main right away that meant i could board in less stuff which is always great.
one thing that i will have to do is cut a thug for my sundering titan giving me 3 thugs, 3 shells.
the other option of course would be cut something like a field or factory but i seriously dont feel like doing that.
one nice thing about those 2 mines main is the fact that it becomes that much easier to cast the needles game 2.

just to let people know, it was mentioned
 how noone still played LoA, then this was
 posted on the SCG forums
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=vin&start_date=2006-11-12&end_date=2007-02-04&simple_card_name%5B1%5D=library+of+alexandria

when reading the article, i had one question that i couldn't figure out how it happened. It was from the side tournament, game two. It seems that on your turn two you brought back an ichorid and a nether shadow. Now i know the one shadow was played off the lotus on turn 1 but how did you manage to have another one in play.
Maybe I am mistaken and that is turn 3 not 2, or it doesn't read how i am reading it.
overall a great article, this is the deck i'm trying out now and love it.
I was never entirely sold on the caverns but I wanted to try them, but sort of felt the way you did after the 3 matches.
One thing I would like you to comment on the way the deck seems to be going over on SCG boards. Personally I found the prospect of turn 2 win less appealing than sealing the game with a more secure turn 3 or 4 win.

okay so i had to look at my list from last year cause i couldnt remember what i had played.
so this was it from 3-19-06
4 City of Brass
4 Duress
1 Underground River
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Strip Mine
2 Triskelion
2 Sundering Titan
1 Eternal Witness
1 Possessed Portal
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Vault of Whispers
2 Darkblast
2 Life from the Loam
4 Intuition
1 Wasteland
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Animate Dead
1 Black Lotus
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Crop Rotation
4 Goblin Welder
1 Tinker
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Gemstone Mine


now what i remember and what i felt at the time that life from the loam was so insane in this deck and it replaced the squees as did the darkblast.
with two loams thats why i ran the 1 strip and 1 wasteland. same for the crop rotation.
as for lotus petal vs sol ring i dont like the idea of having another source of mana that doesnt last very long. i never really seemed to not be able to get the color i wanted and red was usually there when i needed it. though as you see i felt having super early black was more important than red, hence my decision to go with vault and underground river.
i remember testing tendo and hated it but that was just me.
now i dont know how ol bob has been going for you but i would be so scared hitting all of those large cost permanents. hopefullly though you would just win before that would happen.
what i like about triskelion over helkite is that in the instance you might not have red in play to use its ability. thats just my thought.

chuck norris killed an owl once. it was giving him a huge glaring stare, so he ate it. really, he told me himself.

i have a book by shiraev and levy entitled introduction to cross cultural psychology. im not sure if you would be interested in it, but you could have it. let me know if you want it.
its an old text book of mine, but its not very old, 2001. anything i can do to help

here ephraim, this is the section in one of my japanese cookbooks about it.

thats everything... guess you will have to try it, me too

 no no kowal , i saw it before he took sandpaper to it then burned a hole through it he lives near me....he is just crazy.

well i would have thought so too, if i hadnt seen it in person. see this guy likes destroying things, and he started doing it to a mox pearl, but quit.
makes me mad, i wish i had the money to do that with. i remember he was playing fcg and kept drawing siege gang, he got mad and ripped it up so he wouldnt draw it anymore....he is crazy

its actually a vegetable that is rather rare around here, so i never see it. I know that i usually see it in cans or in the refrig section at the asian market, but never fresh. if you live in a big area you might see it fresh though. also you will see it fresh during the winter most of the time.
its japanese name is also rennkon and has had a long association with buddhism.

ive never tasted it, just know a lot about it.
oh almost forgot... here is another kind of lotus that appears someone has ate 

dude its a republic now...newb

anyway that was hilarious, great read

im in graduate school right now, getting my ma in psychology. for this field its necessary but its not very hard, actually easier than undergrad. its only 3 yrs for me.
if you need to get as me, go for it, but as someone said, it may not be necessary

i gave travis his 50 cause he has been cool to me at the richmond tournaments, and i gave vroman 50 as well cause he does cool custom cards.

i only post here, though i will read the stuff over there. one thing though is that i had been playing ca and no discussion as appearing here, but was one over there, but since i only read and didnt post there, I didnt make any contributions.
mainly though i read for funny topics, like most pimp deck ever and stuff like that...speaking of SCG forums im gonna go checkhem out now

its the second part that amazes me, you got a steal it seems. you must have bought from a blind guy or something 
seriously i wish i knew where i could get deals like that

it appears that chuck norris did in fact beat buhler day 1. actually in an amazing turn of events buhler was paired against norris for both rounds and lost turn 1 both times(norris plays stasis...yeah he is that good). however norris' beard was so neatly trimmed and amazing looking that it prompted buhler to win his next six rounds...i should know i saw it with my own eyes. simply amazing is all i can say

well for me, this sort of happened. my school loan always leaves me with extra and this year it was alot, the most it has ever been...2400
so i bought tons of foils like welder, intuition, plus beta stuff. and i got 3 beat moxen, and 2 shops. all of those cards were around that much.
then in january i got another refund but had to use it to live on as i was unemployed at the time.

in that situation i would probably rebuy drains, and more shops, as i dont have them anymore. or get the other 2 beta moxen i need for the deck

i would post this on scg forums but i rarely do there and post here a lot more.
it iis amazing that ben was so defensive on this topic. and while i dont think that you can get a lotus for 500 regularly at all, i will agree with you that starcity is way high on many cards that are used in vintage. for instance underground seas. i really have not seen very many sets going for 160 on ebay. and i have a strong feeling that stax cards are considerly higher on the site as well.
i have a personal experience with this. i just sold some stuff on ebay and while i have no where near the same experience as scg, i do have a perfect rating and sell quite often and list my auctions well. if i were selling based on scg prices i should have gotten about 70 for my polluted deltas. but i dont think anyone really expects them to sell for anything near that on ebay, in fact they went for 45.
the only time i have ever bought from starcity was when i was foiling out my deck and welders just werent on ebay at that time. so i bought most of the stuff there, but i realized it was considerly more than ebay.  i just wanted the cards fast so i spent more for that.

i really hope it is big too. i have been at the past 2 richmonds the the one in sept was pathetic. i believe it was 56 players or something like that. 2 days really helps out a lot. i know because of that a few people where i live in WV will be going. usually i am left by myself and go with a friend that lives close to richmond but it will be a nice change to see more familiar faces.
what i would really like though is to meet and talk to some people that post on here all the time. hopefully that will happen. i somewhat agree with travis about wanting more rounds, but 9? i don't even want to think about playing 9 rounds then possibly more hopefully.

wow that thing looks insane. now im goning to definitely have to try something like that out. the only thing that really worries me is tendo. obviously you played them at waterbury and so you know their limits but what concerns me of course is that they come out too early in multiples and you have to break them for color but have no other source and are stuck. i realize with moxen and cities and mines that probably isnt an issue but something i would wonder about.
with my sqee spots right now i have made them darkblast and life from the loam. in this case im not sure what you would want more, but they would allow you to dig super deep getting that slaver in the yard fast and help protect the bazaars from getting wasted. just a thought.

though im not sure about this, i think that it may be. i posted a link to his feedback received from bidders and the first 4 are from a seller that bought all these items, though they are being listed again. its pretty crazy. i really hope that the person just returned the items and the seller has relisted them 

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedbackFromBuyers&userid=kudzu_magic&items=-1&item=-1&de=off

zappa did stairway to heaven...very nice. actually zappa has so many covers, many good that its hard to remember all of them
i remember when napster was free, thats all i would do, find cool covers not generally available

while he doesnt post on here much, ask michael in osaka(thats his name on here i believe) for some help. he is a huge dealer in japan and would have the best information for you.
oh and if you cant get him here try magictraders

chuck norris will beat randy buhler and win 12 packs of russian...both days.

a lot of  people on here seem to really like the later stuff, which is great as I do as well. But if you were to ask me what "earlier" album I like, it would be rubber soul. its really not that bad at all. as for later albums, i like white album, though to listen to one all the way through, abbey road.

these remind me of that feinstein stuff that goes on here, but instead i actually know who chuck norris is.
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
some are actually pretty funny while others are a stretch.

that payout system only happens if the seller does not meet all of the requirements. I know about what you are saying. once i bought a mox pearl from someone with 30 feedback and paid 220 for it. i didnt receive it and when i filed a claim with paypal i got back 175 just like you. but another time i bought 2 boxes of champions of kamigawa from someone with around 200 feedback and did not get them. however because of his feedback and other criteria i got all of my money back, because the transaction was covered completely under paypal's buyer protection.
as long as it is under $1000 and the seller meets all of the criteria listed on that page, you WILL get all of the money back.
I know from experience.
most of the time though many sellers do not meet all of those conditions which is why the scam works in their favor.