About
Hey guys, Mark Ian here. First of all, thank you very much for visiting my blog. For just a little background of what I do, I’m an agent, particularly a Webmaster, of an outsourcing company here in Iloilo City. Things I do during my spare time are sleeping, playing DoTA and mixing house music. Yep, I’m also an aspiring DJ.
Magic the Gathering History
Regarding my Magic history, I started playing in Urza’s Destiny expansion. I think that was way back in 1999 during my fourth year in high school. A classmate introduced me to it. My first deck was a Red Green Aggro deck with Viashinos, Goblins, Simian Apes, Giant Growths, Rancors and a few burns like Shock and Arc Lightning. I also bought a Preconstructed deck to do some upgrades.
My first preconstructed deck
My first Regionals tournament was 2002 at Bacolod. I piloted a Black White midrange deck with random creatures such as Sengir Vampire and Cloudchaser Eagle (which was for Pernicious Deed that time). It was fun beating down your opponent with those cards. The deck got me on 7th place and I was able to qualify for the Nationals. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money to go to Manila so I had to pass the opportunity.
I started joining the Regionals again in 2007, this time in Cebu, piloting the famous Gruul aggro deck. We came back again last year and were more successful as two of my teammates qualified. This year we are planning earlier and hope to do much better than the previous years.
Team Iloilo at Cebu Regionals 2008
Team Iloilo at Grand Prix Singapore 2011
Me in the middle during the preliminary rounds of Phil Nationals 2011 last August.
What I liked about Magic is that it’s like a career. If you don’t practice well or tune up the deck you’re piloting, I bet you won’t succeed. It will get your mind thinking of card ideas and strategies, even when you’re asleep. Also, you get to meet a lot of different people and become friends with them. Most of my friends today if asked how I met them, they would say Magic or because of Magic cards.
About the Site
Deathmarked was put up to have my place on the web to burst out my musings about Magic: the Gathering (deck strategies, card analysis, tournament reports and all of that), and also blog about me, things I do, my rants and other stuff on the Internet that gets my interest.
So that’s about it. I hope you enjoy your stay.