Monthly Archives: June 2018

Is Goblin Chainwhirler Good Enough To Make My Mono Red Commander Deck?

magic, MtG

A couple of weekends back now (I think that’s right) was Pro Tour Dominaria. For me with a playset of Goblin Chainwhirler already in my possession from when I was cracking boosters, the news coming out of the event was good. 7 of the top 8 decks had him in. That’s seen his cost shoot up from around $5 to $7 something. Plus there is speculation that WotC may have to ban the card sooner than later from standard.

But the burning question of the day is, “is Goblin Chainwhirler good enough to make my mono red Commander deck?” Followed by “if so which card does it replace?”

Ok before I ramble on about Goblin Chainwhirler, here is a LINK for those that want to refresh their minds of what cards are in my mono red deck.

So Goblin Chainwhirler is a 3 CMC for a 3/3 that has first strike, and an etb that does 1 damage to each opponent, Planeswalker and creature they control.

For my deck the reason this would be added is that etb. It’s a way to clear the board of 1/1 tokens. A second more expensive Blazing Volley. Ok not quiet because after playing I also have a 3/3 creature on the battlefield, but it achieves the same. It’s also been compared in podcasts I’v listened to, to Rampaging Ferocidon. Which is currently banned in Standard. I don’t see this as powerful as Ferocidon that had menace, stopped life gain, and every time a creature entered the battlefield the owner lost a life. Same CMC. However Ferocidon could be discounted, because it cost 2 any mana, and 1 mountain. Compared to Chainwhirler needing 3 mountains.

I think I do currently have a slot for this in the deck. I like Narnam Cobra, a 2 CMC 2/1 colourless artifact creature. But Chainwhirler is the ideal replacement for it. So that was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

My harder decisions I think will be how to fit the following 2 cards into the Scarab God deck and the mono red respectively.

But I’ll talk more about these in a future why did I buy these post. So letting you off the hook there.

Sunday Commanderin

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG

Sunday saw some 40k players taking part in a tournament over at Chatteris.

Luckily there was enough space for not only these miniature gamers but also other gaming like MtG and board games. So an invite was issued for others to come and make use of it.

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole was holding a MtG Standard Showdown, some of us had turned up to play Commander, other general board gaming.

With a failed attempt (once again) to organise a Commander session the previous day to play the new Anthology. I had decided to use the opportunity to play on Sunday to pick up my 2 copies.

When I arrived there was already a Commander game running using a couple of the new reprinted decks. The Atraxa deck being played had a Doubling Season added to it. So while that was going on I picked up my order and opened one up. I then immediately started sleeving the Atraxa deck. This is a deck I really wanted to play. For me it was almost at a mythic/legendary status because of its high cost to buy since coming out in 2016.

In the game currently running, the Atraxa deck was doing it’s thing. However I wish I was paying attention to what the other deck was from the Anthology being played was, because that was the one that ended up victorious.

I really like the presentation of the Anthology set. The only drawback I can think off is instead of the little included leaflet that is more flavour text for the deck than helpful, is a little bit about the tactics, how to play the deck for newer players. A “it would be nice to have” for these anthologies (this includes both sets) is the giant version of the Commander cards that come with the Commander decks when they were sold separately (I’m assuming that the older decks had these).

While the Standard Showdown was going on, 3 of us played Commander. I played my Dinosaur Tribal deck that now had Helm of the Host in it. Sam, John’s daughter played my Atraxa deck, and our third player was playing a Meren deck and all that graveyard shenanigans.

Sadly for the Meren player they were not really allowed to get the graveyard shenanigans going. I was forced by them to do an earlier than planned exiling of graveyards when they went to destroy my Silent Gravestone. But after that the Atraxa deck was exiling cards at will with one of their cards where they spend a swamp to exile a card from a graveyard, and if it’s a creature get a +1/+1 counter. Both our graveyards were hit that way.

I was starting to get a commanding board state, Rampaging Fericidon, and Gishath were out amongst others. Then bam, board wipe. But I was able to rebuild. Bought out my Commander, then Etali came out. I drew into Helm of the Hosts, and after my thinking, equipped Etali with it. Which with a kindred charge played, meant for one turn I was attacking with 3 Etali. Yes just think about that. That turn I killed the Meren player. Next turn Atraxa went down.

My deck had clicked. The Atraxa deck looks a lot of fun and I can’t wait to play it, both the standard unchanged deck, and a modified one. Yes I’m going to do the $20 budget upgrade from mtggoldfish as my starting point.

Sadly I wasn’t able to stick around for a second game of Commander, I made a poor judgement call earlier in the day. If I’d picked up the cat litter on my way out of town I’d have been able to play on. Sadly I didn’t think of that at the time, or I did and was too lazy. But the end result was I needed to hit the pet shop before it shut.

A big thanks to the 40K players for opening up the event to none players to use as well. Had a great afternoon.

Star Realms: Shock and awe – another nearly perfect game aka how I passed luck off as skill

star realms

As you may have guessed after the previous game I followed it up with an even better game. This hardly ever happens, usually I manage to grab defeat from victory. But as this Facebook message from Scott shows after one turn, the cards aligned for me.

So here is this miracle game…

You can follow Scott on his YouTube channel Scott Plays here.

A Rare Friday Night Gaming

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

Wednesday was a bit emotional again because Striders ashes were ready for picking up. Once Nath can get up for a visit we will put his ashes where Bud and Barney are buried. Hopefully this will happen over the Summer.

After a post on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page to gauge interest Jonathan setup a Friday evening gaming session to play some of the games that folks purchased at the very recent UKGE.

For this session I didn’t take any games with me. Forgetting I’d bought a couple at the expo other then The Lost Expedition. But I knew that Jonathan had bought some, and looking forward to trying My Village (bargain of the expo). However that wasn’t on the cards this evening.

Our first game of the evening was Small Detectives, a game Jonathan bought to play with his eldest daughter who is a big Cluedo fan.

I was pleasantly surprised by this game, and that was not influenced by the fact I won. It’s a fun, deduction game. Super light, but that benefits the game because it plays quickly. Your movement around the board is determined by a card from your hand that you play. Which ever tile you end up on, as long as you are the only player on that tile, you get to investigate it. Which means you look at it secretly. However this means you can block others from looking at a tile, by ending up on the same tile. You also have to remember that the card you play will be passed on to the person next to you. So a nice little choice to make there when playing a card.

Yeah a nice little game that delivers that Cluedo experience.

Our second game of the evening was Finca. I liked this the first time I played the game, and this second play was no different. History books and my bgg logged plays will show I was first loser this time.

Our final game of the evening was Azul. Jonathan and I have now both played this at 2, 3 and 4 player counts. We both really like the game as a 2 player game, and is probably our preferred player count for the game. But it’s still an enjoyable game at the higher player counts also. History will also note I won this game.

It was a great evening gaming. But records will show that only one of the games played was purchased at the expo.

Netrunner Apocalypse

netrunner, news

Sad news for Netrunner players. FFG announced today that from 22nd October 2018 they will no longer be selling any Netrunner related products. So that’s the game itself, card sleeves, mats etc. It would appear that WotC have decided to not renew the licence with FFG.

I know it’s been over a year since I last played the game. But it still holds a fond place in my heart. It is a really nice game. According to friends who still played it, it was also in a good place game play/meta wise. Especially after the second edition core set.

Some of my favourite art in any game is in Netrunner, for example the card Day Job. The cards were super thematic, especially some of the flavour text. And I love the Android universe that it had been set in.

It’s a shame to see the game come to an end. The Netrunner podcasts, Facebook groups and reddit will be in uproar at the news, and shell shocked.

Read the full release here.

Revisiting my first built Commander deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building


I finally got round to revisiting my first ever Commander deck that I built (which was only last year). I never posted that deck list, I just never got round to it.

The deck was a bit unfocused. I described it as having a plan a, plan b, plan c, and if none of them worked a plan d. The deck could make zombies, or play them. But it also had the ability to punish other players for playing the game. So they could lose life for drawing a card, or lose life for discarding one (which I could then force them to do).

I had fun playing the deck. But I just felt it needed a bit of direction.


I decided to stay with the Scarab God as my Commander, and be a bit more focused in the deck to utilising his ability.

So I’m doubling down on zombies. My creatures are zombies, or if they are not I can make them zombies! There are spells in to generate zombie tokens (lots of them). Naturally there are the classic black cards for tutoring and board wipes.

I think I’ve played the deck 3 or 4 times, and it did it’s thing, or tried to. So I’m pretty happy that it is now going in the right direction.

Too many plans Zombie Focused

Creatures:24

1 Proven Combatant

1 Dire Fleet Hoarder

1 Doomed Dissenter

1 Khenra Eternal

1 Miasmic Mummy

1 Tattered Mummy

1 Burnished Hart

1 Desiccated Naga

1 Eternal of Harsh Truths

1 Liliana’s Specter

1 Liliana, Heretical Healer

1 Lord of the Accursed

1 Moaning Wall

1 Plague Belcher

1 Bloodhunter Bat

1 Carrion Screecher

1 Fate Unraveler

1 Gavony Unhallowed

1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury

1 Liliana’s Reaver

1 Liliana’s Shade

1 Vizier of Many Faces

1 The Scarab God

1 Fleet Swallower

Creatures:22

1 Proven Combatant

1 Doomed Dissenter

1 Khenra Eternal

1 Miasmic Mummy

1 Tattered Mummy

1 Desiccated Naga

1 Eternal of Harsh Truths

1 Liliana, Heretical Healer

1 Lord of the Accursed

1 Moaning Wall

1 Plague Belcher

1 Carrion Screecher

1 Gavony Unhallowed

1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight

1 Liliana’s Reaver

1 Vizier of Many Faces

1 Archfiend of Depravity

1 The Scarab God

1 Archetype of Imagination

1 Soul of New Phyrexia

1 Overseer of the Damned

1 Distended Mindbender

Spells:36

1 Dark Salvation

1 Liliana’s Indignation

1 Sentinel Totem

1 Sol Ring

1 Traveler’s Amulet

1 Consign // Oblivion

1 Crook of Condemnation

1 Essence Scatter

1 Liliana’s Caress

1 Throne of the God-Pharaoh

1 Torment of Hailfire

1 Arcane Adaptation

1 Bontu’s Monument

1 Depths of Desire

1 Heartless Pillage

1 Liliana, the Last Hope

1 Never // Return

1 Oath of Liliana

1 Commit // Memory

1 Damnation

1 Diabolic Tutor

1 Liliana of the Dark Realms

1 Mastermind’s Acquisition

1 Raiders’ Wake

1 Contract Killing

1 Dark Petition

1 Increasing Ambition

1 Liliana Vess

1 Liliana’s Mastery

1 Liliana, Death’s Majesty

1 Painful Quandary

1 Revel in Riches

1 Spell Swindle

1 Deadly Tempest

1 Liliana’s Influence

1 Liliana, Death Wielder

Spells:39

1 Dark Salvation

1 Raise Dead

1 Sol Ring

1 Crook of Condemnation

1 Damping Sphere

1 Lightning Greaves

1 Torment of Hailfire

1 Trespasser’s Curse

1 Arcane Adaptation

1 Fortuitous Find

1 Golden Demise

1 Gruesome Fate

1 Infest

1 Liliana, the Last Hope

1 Never // Return

1 Recover

1 Soul Salvage

1 Sudden Spoiling

1 Wander in Death

1 Damnation

1 Dark Bargain

1 Diabolic Tutor

1 Endless Ranks of the Dead

1 Icy Manipulator

1 Mastermind’s Acquisition

1 Settle the Score

1 Torment of Scarabs

1 Dark Petition

1 Final Parting

1 From Under the Floorboards

1 Increasing Ambition

1 Liliana’s Mastery

1 Liliana, Death’s Majesty

1 The Eldest Reborn

1 Vanquisher’s Banner

1 Deadly Tempest

1 Stir the Sands

1 The Immortal Sun

1 Army of the Damned

Lands:40

1 Barren Moor

1 Blighted Cataract

1 Cascading Cataracts

1 Command Tower

1 Cradle of the Accursed

1 Crumbling Vestige

1 Desert of the Glorified

1 Desert of the Mindful

1 Dismal Backwater

1 Dunes of the Dead

1 Evolving Wilds

1 Fetid Pools

1 Ipnu Rivulet

4 Island

1 Mortuary Mire

1 Nephalia Academy

1 Reliquary Tower

1 Rogue’s Passage

1 Skyline Cascade

1 Submerged Boneyard

1 Sunscorched Desert

13 Swamp

1 Temple of the False God

1 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Vivid Marsh

Lands:39

1 Barren Moor

1 Blighted Cataract

1 Cascading Cataracts

1 Command Tower

1 Cradle of the Accursed

1 Crumbling Vestige

1 Desert of the Glorified

1 Desert of the Mindful

1 Dismal Backwater

1 Dunes of the Dead

1 Evolving Wilds

1 Fetid Pools

1 Ipnu Rivulet

4 Island

1 Mortuary Mire

1 Nephalia Academy

1 Reliquary Tower

1 Rogue’s Passage

1 Skyline Cascade

1 Submerged Boneyard

1 Sunscorched Desert

12 Swamp

1 Temple of the False God

1 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Vivid Marsh

That’s my Scarab God Zombie Deck. What cards would you replace?

New Games I Played at UKGE 2018

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Those that made it through Mondays post will know I did play some games at the expo. Three of those games were new to me. So I thought I’d share my brief thoughts on those games considering I didn’t do that in the other post.

Ominoes

This game was bought by Jonathan’s daughter after trying it out on one of the stands at the expo.

Ominoes is a light abstract game, with a fair bit of luck involved.


Despite that luck element to the game, it is still a nice enjoyable game. There is a little take that, blocking your opponents plans by moving their dice away from a scoring opportunity, or even stealing a scoring opportunity for yourself. The later is possible if there are enough wild sides showing.
A good intro abstract game, and great buy by Jonathan’s daughter.

The Lost Expedition

Next year a Judge Dredd game based on this is coming out. Osprey when asked assured me that the Dredd game is not just a reskinning of this game, but will have extra stuff (although to be fair I didn’t press them on this bit, and just accepted their word for it), and would be out February 2019.

The Dredd version is why I’d been holding off buying The Lost Expedition. But hearing it was still a ways off from coming out, I decided to take the plunge and finally buy this game. The added bonus for me buying the game from the publisher at the expo was that I got not one but both of the promos for the game. I managed both because I had bought up while buying it the card quality issue for London. Something that they had rectified and were offering replacement cards to those affected. I said I’d already sleeved mine, so had no need of the replacements. So the Osprey member of staff gave me both promos instead.

But that’s the boring stuff of how I got the game and the promos. What did I think of the game after playing it?

We played this as a 3 player co-op, which is one of the cool things about this game. It can be played as a solo game, co-op or finally as a competitive team v team game.
I thought as a co-op the game worked really well. The co-op part really only came into play once the cards for the day phase had been played. Then you are discussing which option on the cards to take as a group. I suppose this phase could be open to alpha gamer abuse, but that kind of gets balanced out by the leader having the final say on decisions.
I like that you have to make some hard decisions with the cards you are dealt with at the start of each round. Do you play the cards during the day stage or night stage? This is particularly hard to decide when you have all bad cards. The fact that during the day phase the cards played before executing them, ordered in ascending numeric order. Then in the night phase the cards are executed in the order they are played. Is a nice touch and adds to the decision process of when to play the cards.
I like the resource management side of the game.
Once again like The Mind, this is a game that if you decided to sleeve it will not fit the box. Heck even unsleeved you can’t add the promos and have it fit nicely.
Yeah I enjoyed this a lot, and want to try the other 2 modes of play now. Plus I can’t wait to see how this is with Judge Dredd.

Ganz schon clever

This game started getting some buzz after it was nominated for this years Kennerspiel des Jahres.
The English version of this game comes out later in the year, so for now unless you can read German, you have to download the rules translation from bgg.
I’ve played this as a 2 player and 3 player game.
During our first play we were learning the rules, and I was a little unsure about the game. Then I started comboing off. At that point there was a total swing in how I was feeling about the game. Suddenly I was thinking “Wow!” that was cool.
There are some nice tactical decisions to make in this roll and write. Mainly to do with which dice you want and which ones you will be making available to the other players.

I love the fact you can as you complete lines, or advance past certain points on a single line get bonuses such as a reroll or +1 to a die. Or even combo off by being able to put a cross somewhere else on the sheet.
This just might have become my favourite roll and write.

Why did I Buy That Card? #6 Emrakul, the Promised End

magic, MtG

Why I bought this card I have no idea. 13 CMC is expensive, but depending on your graveyard could be reduced by a maximum of 8. Being 13/13 is cool but worth the cost? Flying, trample, and protection from instants, does that make it worth the cost? I’m not sure those alone make this card worth it. But the fun factor of casting it and taking over an opponents next turn before returning control to them could be funny. Forcing them to attack another player, cast a spell that could hurt you against another player, the options are limited. But worth the cost? Potentially for the lol’s.

But still I come back to why did I buy this?

Post UKGE 2018 Thoughts

Uncategorized

I think I had a good time!

Let’s rewind a bit, I wasn’t exactly in the best place before attending the expo. I think that came through a bit in the audio I did at the end of day 1. Which was amplified a million times with me also being tired and a little pee’d off. And it was looking for most of the Saturday as more of the same, but really pee’d off.

The sale of my Star Wars: Destiny collection was not as smooth as I had hoped. It was looking like the person had got cold feet and didn’t want to tell me. The lack of communication from the buyer was poor. It eventually came to light that on Saturday I was being used to look after the stuff because the person didn’t want to cart everything around with them all day. I pointed out that there was a shop and drop service, and I was using that to store the stuff, and would happily hand over my ticket to them. Which was enough of a push to close the deal and allow me to head back to the hotel around 3pm time. I was extremely drained at this point, waiting around, and getting frustrated aren’t exactly conducive to a great expo experience. Yes I know I am in control of my feelings, and should not let the actions of other effect them. But I wasn’t exactly in the greatest of minds to be that resilient to external factors.

There wasn’t a lot there that really grabbed me. I’m pretty sure others got much more out of this years expo than I did. The place was busy, especially on Saturday. But still felt that you could get around without fighting people in the aisles, or push through the hordes to get to see stuff.

This year seemed even more so the year of the super minor inter web celeb. Everyone including their dog seemed to be videoing for their YouTube channel. But apart from the UK super minor celebs we had even more of the international ones in attendance. There was “where’s Rahdo?” As he roamed the aisles of the expo halls, doing more Blair Witch Project footage. The Dice Tower crew were there for the third year(?), sadly no Sam this time. I failed in my attempt to show them the error of their ways and that Barenpark is indeed not a game. Plus I trolled Zee by saying Sam was the funny one. For some reason I do find that the Dice Tower guys seem the more approachable of the Youtubers there. The Shut Up Sit Down guys could be seen I think. I get confused as I often mistake their clones No Pun Intended for them. Oh and I will give a shout out to Toucan Play That Game, Michael is super friendly, sadly also under the impression Barenpark is a game. Scott of Scott Plays sadly couldn’t be persuaded to start an internet grudge with some of the other channels. I tried my best to lead him astray but to no avail.

Ignacy was seen wandering around the show floor on Friday after he got in from a delayed flight. But the small Portal Booth did see a bit of my money in the form of expansions, promos and a mug. Sadly I wouldn’t be around for the Ignacy demo of his latest game from Portal Detective on the Sunday.

I think the Shop and Drop once again was a god send, otherwise I would have been really really pee’d having to lug around the Destiny stuff for 2 days. This is a great service. It was a good idea having the chill out zone next to it. It made meet ups for trades, etc very easy to arrange. However I think next year the chill out zone needs to be bigger. It was not easy getting a spot to sit down most of the time.

My gaming was mainly in the evening with Jonathan and his daughter in the hotels restaurant area.

Games Played Friday:

Azul, Bohemian Villages, Ganz schon clever, The Mind

Games Played Saturday:

The Lost Expedition, Ominoes, Ganz schon clever

It may not appear so on here, but I’m not the most social of persons at the best of times. If I hadn’t gamed with Jonathan in the evening I don’t think I would have done any gaming outside of the odd demo at all during the expo.

Once the attendance figures have been released I will be very surprised if these are lower than last year. Will they have jumped up enough to secure the title of the third largest board gaming expo in the world for longe than Origins to be held? I hope so. It was evident that more publishers are starting to take the expo more seriously. However the lack of presence of the the likes of Wizards of the Coast, Stronghold Games etc shows that we are not there yet.

So that was my expo experience for 2018.