"Midweek Magic 2018 #35: Tooth and Nailing to Victory!"

"Midweek Magic 2018 #35: Tooth and Nailing to Victory!"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

I rarely get sick but when I do I am absolutely miserable. It was a rainy Thursday night and it was our EDH magic time. It was Jus , Janry and me. It was Ydris vs. Horobi vs. Omnath , Locus of Rage who I have summoned back after a couple of weeks of hibernation. 

I was feeling the effects of my medications and despite having 2 cups of coffee and more amounts of sleep than I usually have in a weeks time my eyes were still closing and the game was going nowhere in my favor. Janry had established a board presence and was taking care of anything that Jus would land on the floor. They were cancelling each other out as I was not able to do anything at all but ramp. 

I was able to get Omnath Out and protect him with a Lightning Greaves. I was able to produce 2 5/5 Elementals and that was it. Janry was down to 16 and Jus was down to 26. Jus was able to plop down the dreaded Omniscience and was going off with Ydris but oddly was unable to finish us off. 

When he dropped a lot of creatures and passed the turn to me I was thinking of how to finish the game. I had Zealous Conscripts in my hand so my Kiki-Jiki combo was impossible. I did have enough mana to to cast my Tooth and Nail with Entwine though. So looking at the 4 cards that Jus has , I took the chance. I knew he had limited counters in that Ydris deck so I took a chance. Still not knowing what I was doing. Mostly sick , mostly drowsy but still wanting to play with my friends.

Then the answer came to me when I realized that my Avenger of Zendikar was in this deck along with the Craterhoof Behemoth that I considered a gift from a fellow Doctor ( Salamat Dr. Rey Ame!). I was able to play them , triggering the Avenger of Zendikar with the 10 lands I had in play , creating 10 tokens and then the Craterhoof Behemoth who looked at all the creatures in play and added them all up.

There was now a total number of 15 creatures in play and Omnath,Locus of Rage +2 5/5 Elemental tokens + Craterhoof Behemoth all became 20/20 creatures that attacked and finished the game! 

It was a much needed victory. I never thought I would be able to win since Jus and Janry already had better set ups than me. It was a pleasant surprise.

"Lost in Duality"

"Lost in Duality"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

I

I am lost in this duality

The one were you are innocent and soft

then in a blink

turn into something chic and hardcore

II

You dance with grace

then with such power

I know you dont mean it

To overwhelm us with wonder

III

Physically you push us back

and all with just a smile

You are in a screen

and we still feel the full effect

IV

I end up watching you all day

I don't think it is healthy

I just cant help it

Being lost in this duality.

Sykes Centrum , Shaw Blvd. 09/07/18 11:05

"LoonA YYxY : Love4eva MV Reaction: Sad Sad Olivia Hye"

"LoonA YYxY : Love4eva MV Reaction: Sad Sad Olivia Hye"

by:

The Vole

I must admit that after Yves Debuted I kind of lost interest with the last 3 members of LoonA. I was undergoing a personal tragedy and stuck to my favorites like all the members of Odd Eye Circle.

Now that LoonA has debuted as a whole group I have been doing some back tracking and have found Gowon and Olivia Hye to be really good. Chuu and her debut was cool but still not enough for me. I think they underused her vocals there but enough of the other members. I want to focus on Love4eva for a bit as this particular MV also relates to things that I noticed in Egoist and Hi High.

So the MV for Love4eva is set in a European boarding school. It starts and ends with scenes of Olivia Hye in a forest looking for the other 3 girls of her sub unit.

This is actually a love song and a quite funny one since there is a mention of "Even my kidneys are pounding." You probably heard of chests pounding so hard but Kidneys? yeah. That surely is a strong feeling.

The MV features all 4 girls being tutored and disciplined by a lone teacher. Scenes where Yves is scolded and them lining up for inspection for example. At first it seems like the 3 other girls (Yves , Chuu and Gowon) are ostracizing Olivia Hye.They do not invite her to join or stop talking when she is around.

There are scenes where they dance in front of their tutor and in the end you realize how sad Olivia Hye really is here as it is revealed she created the other girls in her own mind to be her companions in this lonely place. A coping mechanism. So when you see the 3 others running away from the place and not even calling her to join them the reason is simple. She is them and they are her. She wishes to escape but cannot and so she lets her own thoughts run.

This ties in to Egoist. Where there is a part where Olivia Hye hugs herself to sleep with a mirror image of herself! She got better at creating other girls in her mind and made 3 others in this MV. 

This also ties into Hi High and explains the presence of Jinsoul in the Egoist MV. You see Jinsoul and the other members of the Odd Eye Circle transport the sad Olivia Hye to the other girls. This completes her and you can see that utter joy when she smiles at Yves for the first time in the Hi High MV.

I hope my fellow Orbits See's this particular theory of mine.I really like how all of these videos fit.

On my last notes here I would like to point out that there is only one scene where you see apples. Around 2:40 of the MV. And Olivia is all alone , not even eating one. This is in sharp contrast to the abundance of apples in the last 4 MVs of this sub unit.

Also. I do find the delicate biting of Roses in this MV quite sexy. I have an idea of what it is trying to imply but since I heard that I have some very young audiences I am going to make this reaction PG13. 

So I guess this is it for now. There are still a lot of things to see and a lot of things talk about with regards to LoonA in the future. Let's root for their first win.

"Conclave Tribunal:The Conclave has spoken."

"Conclave Tribunal:The Conclave has spoken."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

white has traditionally been the color of detainment spells and well it still pretty much retains all of those detain spells in this return to return to Ravnica as well.

Conclave Tribunal is a 3 colorless 1 White mana enchantment that allows you to exile a target non-land permanent an opponent controls until it leaves the battlefield. This card will be used in a lot of speedy creature decks 4 guilds  , The Orzhov , Azorius , Boros and Selesnya will be sure to abuse this deck especially the latter two who just have more creatures at their disposal to use the Convoke ability on this card.

While the art of Conclave Tribunal shows a goblin that is bowed and receiving sentencing , I am guessing that this might be a Legion Warboss , creatures are not the only non-land permanents you can exile with this. Pesky planeswalkers , controlling enchantments and combo pieces for artifact decks are also a great target.

I see Conclave Tribunal as a great removal spell in decks that run lots of creatures. This would be another weapon in my latest Estrid the Masked deck where enchantments matter. This would be included in many sideboard running white for it's sheer versatility.

I am sure I will be stocking up on this one.

"Legion Warboss: The New Rabblemaster"

"Legion Warboss: The New Rabblemaster"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

Well hello there Rabble Master! Oh wait that isn't the Rabble Master , he is the newly appointed Legion Wasboss. So this is basically a goblin with the same mana cost(3) and same triggered ability of creating a 1/1 token with haste and attacks each turn when able at the beginning of combat.

But wait of course they won't just reprint the guy , what exactly does the Legion Warboss have to offer? He carries the new Boros Mechanic of Mentor. Mentoring means you give a creature a +1/+1 counter when this creature attacks. The catch is that it has to be a creature of lower power.

So if the Legion Warboss attacks with the Goblin token he created , it is that token that receives the mentoring. On the next attack you just need  to choose.

There is a Krenko deck waiting for a card like Legion Warboss. Joining the ranks of Rabble Master and Goblin Assault that also produces goblins on the beginning of your combat step. 3 Goblin producers that Krenko can surely exploit. 

I got me another goblin for my wish list.What do you think of the Mentor mechanic? What version of Rabble Master will we get next time? This is it for today. Thanks for reading. Keep on brewing.

"Oh My Girl - Remember Me MV reaction:Yes I remember."

"Oh My Girl - Remember Me MV reaction:Yes I remember."

by:

The Vole

Oh My Girl is finally back this September with their brand new single Remember Me and they are bringing a more powerful image with them aside from their usual girlish charms.

I have often speculated that this will be Binnie's turn to be pushed to the public after the success of Banana Allergy Monkey. Right from the opening lines you can see the Binnie centric MV and it is about time that she took this spotlight.

This MV also features the maximum utilization of Mimi as a rapper. There have been a lot of Miracles requesting lines for her in the past comeback, Well WM listened and if you look at the distribution of lines you can see that Mimi has about the same lines as rapper Le in EXID songs. A great improvement and her involvement in writing the rap parts of their songs shows her off maturity as well.

The song Remember Me has a different structure than previous OMG songs because of Mimi's utilization and it shows another side of OMG as well as their secondary voices in YooA , Binnie and Jiho all leap to the front. It is not saying that Hyojung and Seunghee don't have killing parts here. What is an OMG song without these two right? Seunghee and her killing parts are still there  and form such a wonderful melodic back bone.

The MV starts with a Satellite beaming a stream to a spot on earth.Like an Oh My Girl activation.  I wonder if the OMG Satellite is actually triggering Miracles to remember them? Well Miracles should come out droves to stream and vote now. Also the beam might be several things that point to past OMG MV's.   Here are the scenes that follow after that 

1) Binnie as a game show contestant , Jiho as host and some of the girls as other contestants? And if there was any doubt that this was not a Binnie Era type of comeback just look at the amount of scenes involving her and the game show set. Her and her fiery hair dominate. Binnie represent!

2) Mimi Driving a car , the same car that was in Closer , only cleaned up and going into hyper speeds.Some of the members also join for the drive. A wish that Arin made before. Miracles have not seen them go altogether on some sort of driving trip but maybe a reality show down the line can spotlight that.  Watch the Sliding Choreo when OMG responds with Oh! during Mimi's rap parts!

3) YooA running a refreshment hut in a small sand speck in the middle of nowhere. Where she waits for a ride on a cloud and  gets a ride on a balloon instead. The stop looks like a scene in Secret Garden and the balloon ride where she is riding a swing looks like it came from  Coloring Book. YooA and her brain her look so elegant in that Balloon ride which might make a record for prettiest rider in most unsafe Swing Balloon ride ever. Who cares about reality? This is YooA looking elegant among pink clouds!

4) An astronaut claiming what looks like the moon and is later to be revealed Seunghee. A funny scene with Arin and Jiho. It seems that even if Seunghee is conquering other areas the girls are there as well. More like a statement that the more Seunghee conquers so too does OMG conquer with her. 

5) Hyojung celebrating something alone until Arin serves her a lot of Fireworks and the other members surprise her with her appearance. Arin is trying a no bangs look in this comeback and some are commenting that she looks a little bit like AOA's Seoulhyun.

If you notice the 7 Million cash price in the game show. I guess it represents each of the 7 members.

Also there are scenes where they are looking up , I wonder if they are looking at YooA in her dangerous Swing Balloon ride or Mimi in her Hyper drive Closer Car?

I was watching the Choreo version of Remember and there were a lot of fresh dance steps here as well as a well balanced formation. I was afraid that with all the sexiness that was abounding in Kpop OMG will take already take this route and I am glad to have my fears allayed.  OMG stays true to their fresh and girlish charms even if they are going for a more girl crush concept in this comeback.

The ending of the choreo points back to Closer. In Reverse. Both formations have YooA in the middle linking the two differing songs. The opening of Closer points to a flower blossoming with it's petals delicately unfolding. While the closing of Remember Me offers a Flower now in bloom with all it's petal spread out and beautiful to see.

Hooboy. I just really enjoyed delving into this MV so much. I might have missed a few things but just the fact that I was able to see all of these makes me happy. 

I wish that Oh My Girl remains healthy this comeback and none of them get injured like Jiho has these past few months. I look forward to their wins and in the future where they take their rightful place in the Kpop Pantheon of Goddess level girl groups.

"I will be."

"I will be."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

I

I am tired of being sorry

for things that I should not be.

I thought about your judgements

but guess what? I am free.

II

I don't give a damn about what you think

and I can't wait for you to grow up.

You can't go wallowing like a child

In the times that you need to man up.

III

I will not be sorry

for the things that I needed to do.

Times were impossible and destiny ,

well she wasn't calling you.

IV

So I took all the hits

lost sleep , lost money , lost time

You said I had a choice

but that was never ever mine.

V

And I am still here

Unbowed by that idiotic gaze

Angry , Doubt and Fear

That was never ever my place.

VI

So I will not be tired

and I will be who I have always been.

The Champion chosen

long before you were even here.

Notre Dame , Malate Manila, 09/07/18 2:37pm