The Blog of Sam Craven

Circle City Con 2020 CTF Writeup

My writeup on my successes and, uh, learning opportunities from the 2020 Circle City Con CTF.

How my /r/Houston Headline Bot Works

A while back, the mods of /r/Houston implemented a rule prohibiting "poor headlines" on post submissions. While what exactly this means isn't defined, I decided to build a bot to call it out when it happens.

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Photodump: Magicfest Austin Offsite (Vintage and Old School)

Photodump of pictures taken at the offsite Vintage/Old School event during Magicfest Austin 2020

Nineteen Pictures from 2019

Nineteen pictures from my 2019

2019 New Year's Resolutions: Q3 Check-in

Posting this on the first day of the quarter, so I'm already off to a better start than last quarter! So here's how I did on my 2019 resolutions in

2019 New Year's Resolutions: Q2 Check-in

Well this certainly isn't starting well. It's the eighth of July and I'm just now getting to writing this up. See Q1's check-in here. Let's jump right into how I've

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Photodump: Austin Old School 2019-07-06

tech

Using Bash and grep to scrape the AP Poll

In a previous post, I disussed how I love using the Unix pipeline to combine the small tools readily available on most *nix systems. Sometimes I need just a bit

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Griselbranding for Good

With a charity Legacy tournament coming up, Sam wants you to pledge to make a small donation for each time he activates Griselbrand during the tournament.

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Photodump: MTG Vintage 2019-06-08

Photodump from Vintage at PJ's 2019-06-08

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Learning Legacy ANT 2019-04-28

Day two of my attempt to learn to play Legacy ANT! Join me for lots of mistakes and lots of learning!

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Learning Legacy ANT 2019-04-26

My attempt to learn to play Legacy ANT begins here! I play two practice matches then a full league. Join me for lots of mistakes and lots of learning!

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MagicFest Niagara 2019 Photodump

Photodump from MagicFest Niagara Falls 2019

April 6, 2019 Ride - Dunlavy to Downtown

2019 New Year's Resolutions: Q1 Check-in

Looking back at my 2019 New Year's Resolution - How I'm doing, how things will go for the rest of the year.

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Tin Fins Texans 2018-12-10 Bizzaro Stormy with Kai

Streamed six matches with Kai on acclimation's most recent Bizzaro list on Monday. As always, had a ton of fun.

tech

Disregard Python; Use Pipelines!

Your terminal gives you access to tons of small, powerful tools. These can easily be chained together, allowing you to write short programs very quickly. Use them!

Photodump: 18th First Annual Montrose Beer and Gun Club Fundraiser (2018)

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SCG Comments on the Reserved List Again

travel

Sam's Recommendations for a Weekend in Dallas

A friend recently asked me for advice on what to do with her parents on a weekend in Dallas. Here's my recommendations.

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Quick Thoughts from GP Houston Side Events

This past weekend, I attended the Grand Prix here in my hometown of Houston. This was my first Grand Prix since Channel Fireball took full control over the Grand Prix

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17 August 2017 Single Match Report

I had a funny match yesterday. Here's the story.

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My Best Judge Call Ever

You see, back in the days before "Miracle" meant anything more than, "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs**," we had to earn our Counterbalance-Top wins. This was a day before Mentors. Before Miracles. Before the facists in Seattle took our Tops away***.

Eternal Weekend 2016 [Partial] Report

I text Ben. The tournament starts in less than 48 hours and I’m going to audible both of my decks. I ask him if he can lend me Shops.

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Thoughts on Changes to the Tin Fins Sideboard Post-Top Ban

How does the Tin Fins sideboard change in the couple of months post-Miracles banning? My thoughts