1.16 General Mob farm

General Mob farm for 1.16 bedrock.


Start, up in the air at least 60 blocks, this will make sure that nothing on the ground or in caves will spawn.  That is where I set up my collection.

About 28 blocks below my water funnel platform I set up an array of hoppers to catch the falling mobs.  I recommend a 6x6 platform to catch the mobs falling from the funnel.  I added campfires to clean up zombies or Skeletons if they ware wearing feather falling boots.  The campfires being half blocks the hoppers can collect thru them.  Also, the fire from them will not destroy items.

Moving up to the AFK room close to the water funnel, it just needs to be at least 24 blocks below the spawning platform and not too far above your collection area so that mods don't despawn during the fall.  

The middle of the collection drop needs to be a 5x5 hole because I did not limit spider spawning in the farm and a 3x3 will not drop spiders reliably.  

I did not take notes on the water funnel.  If you need me to help with it let me know.


Moving on the spawning platforms.

Starting from the center of the platform every 3 blocks I went out in ascending grid.  2 blank spaces and out until I hit 24 blocks.  The second layer was out to 21 blocks and the final layer was out to 18.  Every block had a button placed on inside row and all but the last row has buttons on the outside.  Trap doors were placed on the bottoms of the top 2 layers to stop spawns of Skeletons and zombies.  The top layer is out of grass to allow for passive mob spawns because I am over a plains biome I get cows, sheep, etc.  

Because I was having some weird falling physics and mobs catching fire from sunlight I added this cap that is the same size as the funnel to prevent falling mobs from catching fire.  I don't know if capping the whole thing and giving up one the passive mobs would work in 1.16, I know with the 1.14 spawning putting a roof over it almost completely stopped mobs from spawning.  This is something I want to test in creative but I have not got around to it.  

Watch a night's production in action.  Shameless Youtube Link

Rw Best of 1 Arena ladder list.

  I was browsing through twitter, and I came across this image of a decklist that took it's pilot to Mythic Tier in Magic the Gathering Arena.  I had most of the cards and decided to give it a try. 

Link to tweet.  

The list was fast and powerful getting me from Gold tier 4 up to tier 1 in about 2 hours of gameplay.  I did modify the list, not wanting to burn wild cards on 2 more Goblin Chainwhirler I slotted in 2 copies of Legion War boss.  The change gave the deck an extra avenue of attack and 2 bodies for 3 mana that can snowball into more bodies is just a good time.

Matchup breakdowns: (The ones I have played)

Playing vs mono-white and White Green variants:
  The deck feels favorable, trying to ignore threats that don't gain life and trade when they offer it.  Settle the Wreckage is not usually played in these type of lists so feel free to get in the red zone with any creatures that can attack.

Mono Red, (the mirror)
  Don't get bogged down in wasting removal on your opponent's threats unless it is an opposing Chainwhilrer just ignore it and attack.  Keeping there board clear only matters if you have creatures on board.  If your board is empty, save the burn for the opponent's end step.

Black Green explore.
  Basically, nothing matters except being able to answer the Wildgrowth Walker when it comes down.  Save a lighting strike or wizards lighting to be able to blast it in response to the life gain trigger if they have the mana for a creature, or just kill on sight.  Sure they still gain the 3 life, but if it gets above 4 toughness you have no way of getting it off the board.  Sticking a frenzy is the main way to come out ahead in this matchup, but never cast it in the face of a Walker.

Dimir and Grixis control
Stay disciplined.  Overextending into a Ritual of Soot will mean your opponent can clean you up after the sweeper.  4 damage a turn from creatures on board is enough, with some burn to keep a good amount of pressure on to finish off a game.  Their counters don't matter as much, but if you can stick an Experimental Frenzy the game becomes hard for them.  Savy player will only counter a spell if they have to and save 1 for the frenzy.

UW, Bant and Jeski Control
  The Teferi decks that rely on long games and few win cons to get buy.  They use Counters bounce and fogs to slow down your aggression.  They also rely on Settle the Wreckage to clean up creature decks.  My advice on this matchup is to get into the red zone with as many creatures as possible.  They usually will start protecting themselves at about 8 life, 1 good settle with 4 creatures can give you enough gas to be able to Banefire them for uncounterable lethal damage.  Play around life gain and add in a few extra damage if you have it.  No style points are awarded for exactly lethal damage and the first time someone cast Revitalize to stay off losing to your lethal spell, you might be shopping for a new mouse.

Finally, we have Izzet Drake and Izzet Phoenix.
  The stock list of this deck is weak to 4 toughness creatures.  You end up having to 2 for 1 just to get a drake off the board.  This matchup was a roadblock to me sticking me half way between Platinum 4 and Gold 1.  The matchup feels fine until they go Enigma Drake on 3 or Crackling Drake on 4.  Then it is just concede, and move on to the next game.  So I did some slight modifications to the list to try and give me a punchers chance.  Still not great but serviceable.

My current list that got me to break into Platinum. 
I trimmed
1 Steam-kin, It is slow and dies before it does anything most of the time.
1 Shock,  Good but wanted something with more upside
2 Wizards Lighting With only 8 wizards in the deck it might as well be open fire when you need a 1 mana removal
1 Experimental Frenzy.  Really awkward when you are trying to frenzy off and hit another one.

Adding in:
1  Captian Lannery Storm  3 mana slot is heavier then I want in this list, but as a 1 of to help hit a frenzy on time comes in handy.
2 lava coil (Now drakes are not an auto 2 for 1)
2 Integrity // Intervention Having a 1 mana pump spell in basically mono-red with the upside of an expensive lighting helix as a good aggro mirror breaker.
I also swapped out 6 basic Mountains for 2 Clifftop Retreat and 4 Sacred Foundry I would not go up any more retreats and definitely would not add in even a single basic Plains you need to always have access to untapped Red mana after turn 1.... even if it hurts.

With these changes, the drakes matchup does not feel unwinnable and the other matchups did not lose to much pop.  This is just my experience, your mileage may vary.

Shaking up the Gatewatch

  For those people fallowing along on the Magic the Gathering story arch going through Amonkhet into Hour of Devastation know that a big confrontation with Nicol Bolas is looming.  And the big consistence is one of the Gatewatch, probably Gideon, will die before a hasty retreat and regroup.  This outcome would change the makeup of the Gatewatch little and would be predictable.  So I am purposing an alternate outcome that could leave the Gatewatch drastically changed and spice up the offerings from our ragtag group of ancient god killers.  Chandra dies!


  Let me set the scene:
  Gideon steps up to make the big dumb hero sacrifice, Chandra, with the memories of her fathers death refreshed in her mind does not want to see another protector die, goes full bonfire using all of her essence to blast Bolas wounding him and causing him to retreat, Chandra after a few parting words literally turns into energy that is absorbed by mana starved plane.  Being the heart and passion of the group this would leave the Gatewatch lost.

  Gideon blaming Bolas for her death, after some brooding goes Ronin, making a vow to stop Bolas at all cost.  Leaves the Gatewatch and recruits others to join in his reckless crusade.  A Black Red Gideon or even a Black Red White, a more self damaging Gideon instead of a protection spec would be insanely awesome and a lot more interesting then Little Gideon, Gideon, and Big Gideon tribal in modern.  (I may make a proxy card to flesh out this idea more.)

  Liliana, not being content of just raising a shell of what has become annoyingly her closest friend starts studying actual resurrection, and reincarnation can color shift to a more Black Green, less zombie more Druid / life based.

  Nissa, being one of natural order would have a period of mourning but would move on and stay with her Gatewatch duties, Witch one assumes is mostly gardening, tending to the animals, Hydras exc...

  Jace will collapse even further into his bubble over the loss of Chandra trying to convince himself that he is not bothered, burying himself into his Ravnica study.  It is only after the departure of Gideon and another looming threat that he emerges and takes charge!  We maybe can get a Blue White law and order type Jace.

  And of course there is Chandra.  In a few years the Gatewatch will return to the thriving plane of Amonkhet (because we secretly love return sets ;), where the streets filled with little Red haired impulsive kids, everyone pursues there passions, and wears there hearts on there sleeves.

  Just a alternate reality that popped into my head, if you got this far, thanks for reading.  (grammar and spelling are not my strong suits, so if the writing bothers you I apologize)
  You can follow me on Twitter @geeklukeg

Challenge Accepted.

On MTG Goldfish playing Pauper on 09/07/2016  Video, article and Decklist Here. Jake did a Simic Emerge deck.  In the conclusion of the article, he said if anyone had a key for solving this deck let him know.  Challenge accepted!  So I started brewing.  After a few iterations, I fell on this configuration.

Link to my modified decklist.


 I started first by upping the land count for a few reasons.

Cutting down some of the emerge cards counting the Fierce Empath as extra copies because they tutor the Wretched Gryff or It of the Horrid Swarm when you need them instead of having a hand of 2 - 3 and not having anything to sack.
  Having extra lands makes Coiling Oracle more likely to be a ramp spell instead of a two-color Elvish Visionary.

  The next challenge was removal.  When you face down a turn 4 Gurmag angler or a turn 3 Ulamaug's Crusher you need quick clean removal that does not take away from your board.  No matter how epic the confrontation no Civic Wayfinder is going to kill a Crusher.  Early flyers can also be a nasty issue.  My solution for both scenarios came in the form of Thornweild Archer.  2/1 Deathtouch Reach can keep anything at bay.  Swapping out the Epic Confrontations for Ferocious Bite making a 1 sided removal spell.

  The Final challenge is what to do early game to make my finishers not the only show in town.  Mana dorks Oracles and Visionaries to rifle through the deck to try and find a tutor or finisher is fine in a Tron type deck when you're sticking it on turn 4, but I like to pressure EARLY.  I am already adding some lands, so why not add some more.
  Let's see if Green Blue Landfall can be a thing in Pauper.
So I went all in upping the land count to 26, removing the bounce lands adding in Evolving wilds, Lonely Sandbar and Tranquil thicket to make sure if I do flood I can still cash in some cards for value and double up on landfall.  A pair of Khalni Heart Expeditions to Push even more land drops.  Explorers Scopes to go with the Coiling oracles to push ramp even further.  Snapping Gnarlids and Windrider Eels with Adventuring Gear to make sure the Gryff does not feel left out of the land falling fun.  The deck is capable of making 3-5 land drops in a single turn when it goes off.  After that point, you just end up casting the gryffs instead of emerging them.

Here is a link to some Gameplay.  It is in the for fun area.  Before I started recording I ran up VS big decks like Tron and UB Delver and it did great.  The decks when I start recording, of course, are not so well known.  Just started recording/uploading videos recently.  I hope to continue making videos.

*Note after more testing, I am considering taking out the expeditions for 2 more scopes.  The deck gets seriously out of hand when I stick a scope early.*

Fealing anxious.

                 On April 11, 2015 will be hosting an International Table Top day at my Millgrove Brewing Company, in Allegan Michigan.  It will be 2 to 10 pm.  It will be open format, meaning that playing any game available at any time, I will bring my library, and some of my friends will bring theirs. 

                I find myself worrying about 2 linked but very different things:

  1:  What if no one shows up?  Of course that is something that everyone hosting an event worries about.  I will have humiliated myself and wasted a day I could have done something more productive like rake a yard clean a bar or even better brewed up some beer.  Ironically this scenario is my preferred of the two worries.  At least it will be semiprivate. 

  2:  What if, to the surprise of everyone it becomes packed at the bar.  We get so many people that show up that we have to turn people away because of fire code.  I know this event is very unlikely but it is not impossible.  It would be a disaster.  Not for my event that day, but for my goal for the event. 

What is my goal?

  My goal is to showcase board games and card games both old and new, to people of my small town.  To bring together people to play games in person, to look someone in the eye, not in the video screen.  To build a base of people that can get together and play games at public or private events later.  To build an email list, use my group page for a place to organize events. 

               

                Time will tell what will happen, even if it is just me paying Zombie Dice with myself at that bar, so be it, at least I tried.  Can’t wait until the 11^th!

  Here is the link to my event page.  

https://www.facebook.com/events/379774538881721/

Answering brewing questions.

  Recently a friend asked me some questions about home brewing in a Facebook message, not having a short quick answer I decided to make a blog for my response.

Question 1:  How big of a stock pot is recommended for 5 gallon batches of all grain brews?
Answer:  Well that depends on a couple of things.  Are you looking for doing a Brew In a Bag set up or are you looking for a more traditional, multi-vessel setup?  Doing a all grain batch you will want to go for a full wort boil, meaning you need a pot of at least 8.5 gallons to have enough to boil for 60 minutes and have about 5 gallons left.  If you are in fact doing a single vessel BIaB setup at least a 10 gallon pot would be my minimum so you have enough space to mash the grains to get mid ranged gravity.  Now if you’re going for big gravity brews +7.5% abv then maybe up to a 15 gallon pot would be good for you.  Personally I am looking into getting this new 16 gallon pot with all of the toys for doing a single vessel setup http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0082X3D06/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687662&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B007V493PG&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0F1ZCRKSSB3J2CN2EDFF  giving me the versatility of doing either a full boil high gravity beer (5 gallons) or a mid range 10 gallon batch.  If I was starting over again I would get a 10 gallon pot with a spigot. 

Question 2:  What additional equipment would I need for doing all grain brewing? And what equipment would you suggest to just make things a little easier?

Answers:
  For all grain brewing if you have a good stockpot and don’t want to invest a lot of money in new equipment all you would need is a mesh bag for the BIaB method.  http://www.morebeer.com/products/bag-29-brew-biab.html  All you do is mash in the brew kettle and after the mash lift out the bag.  It’s just like making a big batch of tea.
  Or if you don’t mind the dishes, modified Igloo cooler mash tun makes single step mashing like a Ronco infomercial, just set it and forget it!  Once I hit my strike temp stir in the grains and put the lid on it will under normal situations only loose about a degree and a half an hour!  Mash starts at 156F 2 hours later, with no work, it still at 153F!   http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/fermenters-favorites-all-grain-brewing-cooler.html
  If you are looking to cut time on a brew day, one of the best investments you can make is in a serious beer burner.  The turkey fryer is great for getting started but at 30,000 BTU’s it is going to take a long time to get that water up to temp.  A good burner can cut hours off from your brew days!  http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/burners-1/edelmetall-bru-burner.html
  And finally my last suggestion for easier (quicker) brew day is a wort chiller.  Not only will this help reduce the time you are waiting before you pitch you yeast it will reduce infection chance at the most vulnerable time in the brewing process.  http://www.homebrewing.org/50-Wort-Chiller-with-12-tubing-and-garden-hose-fittings-_p_859.html


The links used are just for examples. 
Hope that answers your questions, let me know if you have more.

Luke G