SBOA 2026 Mittwoch

Schöner Willkommensgruß beim diesjährigen Summer Breeze: Bei der Einfahrt ins Gelände kam gerade die Blaskapelle Illenschwang mit klingendem Spiel auf dem Weg zum offiziellen Eröffnungskonzert an uns vorbei.

Für mich war heut ein Tag der Wiedersehen. Als erstes die Holländer von Neckbreakker, die wir hier unter ihrem alten Namen Nankeknaekker schonmal gesehen hatten. Sie sehen nicht mehr aus als ob sie sich für ihre Konzerttermine von der Schule freistellen lassen müssen, aber das ist schon eine verblüffend junge Death Metal Band.

Danach gings zur Hauptbühne. Airbourne hatte ich auf dem Rockharz schon gesehen, aber die machen einfach immer wieder Spaß.

Ähnlich fröhlich und spielfreudig dann In Flames als Headliner des Tages. Auch diebhatte ich vor ein paar Jahren schonmal auf dem Summer Breeze gehört, obwohl sie nicht zu dem Repertoire gehören was ich zuhause höre.

Vorher wurden die ersten Bands für 2027 angekündigt und ich war völlig von den Socken, Children of Bodom auf der Liste zu sehen, weil ich von deren Neustart und geplanter Tournee 2027 noch gar nicht gehört hatte (Kilian natürlich schon, der kennt sich ja auch aus).

Bei In Flames war auch die obere Etage mit Crowdsurfern gut besetzt

Zu guter Letzt noch ein zweites Liveerlebnis von Hatebreed nach dem Rockharz 2024. Diesmal hatten sie einen noch größeren Ball of Death dabei als sonst, und die Staubwolke aus dem Pit war wirklich beeindruckend.

Workbench Juli 2026

Die Jugend von heute hat zu viel Urlaub, daher haben wir uns im Juni nicht getroffen, aber im Juli gab's wieder eine Runde. Hier die Fortschritte.

Black Templars (ich glaub das sind die jungen Nachwuchsleute):

Noch nicht ganz fertig, aber erkennbar: Space Wolves (sorry, die kenn ich nicht gut genug um zu wissen was genau - Headtakers?)

Bei mir sind zwei Motorradfahrer (Kultisten, allerdings auf ordentliche Imperiale umgebaut mit Scions Helmen, eingen Waffen und Gepäck aus der Astra Militarum Bitsbox und die meisten Kultisten-Symbole entfernt) fertig geworden.

Ausserdem hab ich ein erstes Motorrad zusammengebaut um auch meinem Heizakult mal wieder was zu spendieren.

Und ich hab zwei Einheiten (habsburgische Grenzer und russische irreguläre Reiter) verputzt, die werden jetzt gewaschen und grundiert.

Sealed Cube S1, E1: day 1

Premier League season opener is 1a GW at 2a RB. 

Game 1, 2a RB is ahead in the race but 1a GW stabilizes with three creatures with counters from Incremental Growth and Flying / Protection from black via Concerted Effort. 2a RB then try to go wide with more creatures, or over the top with Ashling thr Pilgrim. At the end going wide is the path to victory, 1:0.

Game 2, 1a GW has the better curve and puts pressure on, sending over anall flying Concerted Effort Team and dealing the last damage by reinforcing the one unblocked weenie in the final attack. 1:1.

Game 3, 1a GW is flooded and 2a RB keeps pushing damage through. An Elvish Harbinger tries to bring out a flyer to defend against Moltensteel Dragon, but 2a RB saved a Premature Burial for it for the win, 2:1.

Nice aggro mirror.

Match twonis a zoo mirror. In game 1, 3a GWr sees all of its larger creatures removed from combat by 4a Wgr deslite a mulligan, but can tread water with life gained from Souls's Attendant until flying Weenies can decide the game, with the on-board clock reduced by one turn by Seeds of Strength.

Game 2, deck 3a GWr has to mulligan two ine-landers in a row. Nor surprize then that 4a can slowly build up some advantage, but it takes all of Scourglass killing its own Vengevine from under a Pacify effect, two creatures to return it from the graveyard and multiple repeatable tap effects to take game 2 to draw the match 1-1.

Sealed Cube S1, E0: Season 1 schedule

For the first season of Core Cube Sealed Deck play, I will run a Premier League with the primary decks built from each pool, and a Second League with the secondary decks. I will run round robin with two matches per pairing (away and home, with the home advantage giving the home team the choice to play first).

Premiere League schedule

Home/Away	1a GW	2a RB	3a GWr	4a Wgr
1a GW	x	4	2	3
2a RB	1 - 2:1	x	6	5
3a GWr	5	3	x	1
4a Wgr	6	2	4	x

Second League schedule

Home/Away	1b UBR	2b UW	3b BU	4b RBu
1B UBR	x	2	3	4
2B UW	5	x	1	6
3B BU	6	4	x	2
4b RBu	1	3	5	x

Sealed Cube S0, E4: fourth deckbuilding round

This pool has so many solid white cards, and limited numbers of very strong arguments to play anything else, that I'll go with a White deck splashing some green. For the first time I will impact the quality of any secondary deck built from the remaining cards in the pool by splashing Fireball off of two two-color lands, a spellbomb horizon and multiple mana creatures that can make red mana.

The rightmost column of cards has the realistic sideboard candidates.

The curve is relatively low, so I'll go with 16 lands plus spellbomb. One mountain for the splash leaves place for an 8/7 or 9/6 split. As I need green for my mana fixers, and have two colorless ways to access white mana (Signet and Spellbomb) I'll go for 8/7. The two color lands both don't give me white so I will count them like forests and add 8 planes and 5 forests.

The remaining cards promise an exciting ride for a deck with a very aggressive low curve, but complicated by three colors overall with several double color 4-drops. It will be interesting to see how often this attacks quickly and all-out, and how often it stutters on mana.

I have 13 red mana symbols, 12 black and 7 blue. The aggressive creatures are all black, though, so I will be greedy and play 16 lands: 7 swamps, 5 mountains, 4 islands.

A test match ran closer than expected. In game 1 on the play Angel of Mercy took the win after Bonds of Faith denied a fully paid-for Basalt Gargoyle the option to block it. Game 2 starts with a long control battle and hardly any creature sticking on either side. However, Viashino Fangtail keeps pinging from under Bound by Moonsolver, and the sideboarded Ember Gale takes it for 4b RBu. The decider again goes back and forth quite some time but Territorial Batterskull and Vengevine stick and win it for another win of the a against the b deck from the same pool.

Metal Tuesday(s)

Although work day evening gigs are not the best way to enjoy long evenings of live music, I attended nice concerts not on one, but two Tuesdays recently.

On June 9 1914 were in Die Stadtmitte Karlsruhe, and at very short notice Nocturnis from Offenburg were invited to support them as a very congenial match regarding subject matter and musical genre.

Nocturnis:

I also learned something new about 1914: the creative head and vocalist is not only a privately interested history nerd, but a professional archeologist digging up historical WW1 sites. This includes finding, identifying and reburying, sometimes even repatriating remains of fallen soldiers in southwestern Ukraine. That makes it even more remarkable to appreciate the path he took on choosing music in general, and blackened death metal in particular, to transport his findings from archive visits etc to a wider audience.

1914

Just one week later I timed a visit to my parents to attend a classic Death Metal performance at Kaminwerk Memmingen.

Support was Embryonic Autopsy. Loud, crisp, and would probably get better the morenoften you hear them (which I would consider a strength, not an issue).

Main act was Six Feet Under, where the vocalist compensates for the other band members' bald heads with dreadlocks down to his ankles. Music is more avvessible with driving rhythms and a full sound (two guitars are better than one in that sense, I guess).

Sealed Cube S0, E3: third deck building round

For the third build I'm looking at GW creatures splashing red. Rightmost column in the picture is a sideboard with situational cards (artifact/enchantment removal, Chandra's Fury) and a number of cards that didn't make the cut but might occasionally find a spot. 

With two red sources and two ways to find a mountain (plus Pale Recluse to find green or white) I feel that a single mountain is enough for 4 red mana symbols. 15 white and 9 green manq symbols with two red and one white source already in mean I should get away with 7 Plains, 6 Forests.

As in the previous builds, the primary build isn't really using much (well, maybe Moonglove Extract and Warped Landscape) that would be used for an alternative UB build, so I did that one, too. In this photo, the sideboard is top left.

This is a straightforward two color deck that mostly needs early black, so with 19 black and 15 blue mana symbols I will run 10 swamps and 7 islands and add Forbidden Orchard to the sideboard as additional option.

In a first test match,  both decks play mostly along their curve but 3a RGw keeps going while 3b BU draws more land than anything else and goes down quickly. Game 2 is won for 3b BU by Geralf's Masterpiece, recovered from Guard Duty via Unsummon, and eliminating the very powerful Scryb Ranger to free its patch. Game 3 is a closer version of game 1 for a final result of 2-1. 

At least I feel validated in my deckbuilding when my primary builds keep beating the secondary builds from the same pool...