by Guess Who!
“[Giger] mandated that the creature have no eyes, because he felt that it made them much more frightening if you could not tell they were looking at you.“ - Alien Evolution, Alien Quadrilogy Box Set
“The Newborn’s eyes and nose were added to improve its expressions to make it a character, rather than just a “killing machine”, and give it depth as a character.” - Unnatural Mutation – Creature Design, Alien Quadrilogy, 2003, 20th Century Fox
So, now this is happening.
I was chatting this morning with Worth Wollpert, Supreme Chancellor of Magic Online about how I feel the price of Force of Will is a serious limiting factor to the popularity of Legacy on Magic Online. Worth doesn’t necessarily agree with this (and he’s perfectly reasonable about it), so we had some back and forth about the topic. Obviously, it’s difficult to have a fully-realized conversation in 140 character snippets, so I figured it would be useful to collect these thoughts (and some numbers) into a larger format so that everyone can at least see my reasons for believing what I do.
First, some disclosure. I applauded Worth and Wizards of the Coast for running the Masters Edition events over Thanksgiving. I did this, despite the fact that it probably cost me $2000-3000 on my dual lands portfolio, and I did it for one reason: There need to be dramatically more Forces of Will on Magic Online. I mention this lest some idiots think that I am a) unwilling to take the pain a devaluation in the price of Force of Will would cause, or b) that I can’t afford to buy them myself at 100-120 tickets a piece. The current method of increasing copies of Force 0f Will is as painful as it gets for me. I still think they should do even more to get copies of this card into the system.
Anyway, here goes…
As I noted on Twitter, PinnacleSports.com has posted their expected Season Points totals for all EPL teams next season. They also have Who Will Win the Title outright listed and some Head to Head matchups like Spurs v. Arsenal and Liverpool v. Everton as well. Obviously new signings and injury news will change these expectations, but we usually try to get them up at the start of July. For those who want to see them in non-alphabetical order, here is the table:
| 87.5 | Man City |
| 86.5 | Man United |
| 80.5 | Chelsea |
| 69.5 | Arsenal |
| 63.5 | Spurs |
| 57.5 | Liverpool |
| 57.5 | Newcastle |
| 55.5 | Everton |
| 52.5 | Sunderland |
| 47.5 | Stoke |
| 47.5 | Fulham |
| 43.5 | QPR |
| 42.5 | Villa |
| 41.5 | West Ham |
| 39.5 | Swansea |
| 38.5 | WBA |
| 35.5 | Reading |
| 33.5 | Norwich |
| 31.5 | Wigan |
| 28.5 | Southampton |
It’s been a while since my last Next Level Spec column on Star City, but the battle between the neophyte speculators is still going. (Well, for most of them. Kevin dropped out due to time commitments, but I’m lining up a replacement for him.) Anyway, as promised, here are some updates detailing what the contestants have been looking at in recent months.
I love Barcelona, which is why I was gutted to find out the Pro Tour was scheduled on the last weekend of the English Premier League (which made it impossible to get time off). Most of my time there has been spent on weekend breaks, so we never have time to get bored, but we always make time to eat awesome food. There are beaches, outstanding shopping (Americans will probably think it’s too expensive), and the city itself somehow manages to be historic and incredibly hip at the same time.
As requested, here are some recommendations and thoughts about the city in general. (For those who don’t care about my opinions and prefer something written by actual experts, here’s a link to Guardian’s Barcelona City Guide. If you want a second opinion, here’s a link to the free Frommer’s Guide for Barcelona to boot.)
