Monthly Archives: May 2018

I’m Still Alive

May 23, 2018UncategorizedDarren

Just a quick post to let folks know I’m still alive. It’s been rather quiet on here of late. There is a good reason for that, I’ve not been gaming much. Well since when has that stopped me? When I’ve not been gaming, I’ve bored you ridged with stuff about Magic the Gathering or some other thing that I’m obsessed with at the time.

But truth be told the last week I haven’t been in the mood for much gaming. Just over a week ago Toby (one of my mums dogs) came down with the squits, which within 24 hours Strider got as well. But it hit Strider harder and he was also sick along with it. Then Ebony my mum’s other dog and Loki got it. I think Nico at the time of writing hasn’t had it. Ebony also had it similar to Strider with the extra complication.

Let’s jump back and talk about Strider. It hit him really bad. He was not moving, hardly drinking without help, definitely not eating. At the weekend it was looking bad for Strider. We thought he was on his last legs. There were more than one moment when it looked like he’d gone. My time with him was extremely precious.

Monday I was so emotional, it was hard to speak or think about Strider without that emotional side leaking out of my eyes. It felt each morning this week so far that I was potentially saying farewell to him. However yesterday Strider started to appear a bit better, he had actually moved during the day, and was drinking once more without aid. He still isn’t getting up to go out to the toilet, so we are improvising a doggy nappy for him.

Then today as I write this Wednesday evening the glimmer of hope from the previous day seems distant. We aren’t through the woods yet.

All Signed Up

May 17, 2018star realmsDarren

I wasn’t going to do it, I really wasn’t. But after trolling publishers like White Wizard Games about the US focus of events like their 2 upcoming European Legendary Series events plus an Epic Worlds Qualifying event.

It would have been a tad hypocritical of me not to take part in one of those events that are being held in the UK. Specifically they are being held at this years UKGE

The winners of the Legendary Series events will get immortalised on a card within Star Realms or Hero Realms depending on the event they win.

So I’ve signed up for the grand entry fee of £7 to the Star Realms event to see if against the odds I can join the ranks of the games elite players with my image in the game. But let’s face it the odds are going to be very remote. Luckily it’s the taking part and playing that I enjoy and not just the winning. See the mantra of the first losers club, of which I’m an honorary member.

Why did I Buy That Card? #2 Archangel of Tithes

May 16, 2018magic, MtGDarren

Not much gaming happening this week due to life events and stuff. Do you want to hear about the diarrhea bug sweeping our dogs at the moment? It has hit Strider particularly badly due to his age I think. But he has started to improve, which I’m relieved about. It means I didn’t get to see Deadpool 2 last night, but Strider comes first every time. So I’m going to fall back on the the ad hoc series I started in the last post as a content filler to at least let you know I’m still alive.

I got Archangel of Tithes the same time as I did the previous card Silverclad Ferocidons. As long suffering readers will remember (that’s assuming you read my MtG ramblings) I’m slowly getting together the cards for an Angel Tribal Commander deck. I can’t remember how I stumbled across this card, but the 4 CMC cost of the card was rather attractive. I liked the abilities as well. Taxing opponents for attacking or blocking me I like. It means they need to leave mana open to do either, and thus potentially slowing them down. If I can give Archangel of Tithes vigilance as well it basically locks things down totally. Being 3/5 means it can’t be lightning bolted away easily. I think for this to not make the Angel deck the cards are going to have to be pretty special.

Why did I Buy That Card? #1 Silverclad Ferocidons

May 14, 2018magic, MtG, MtG Deck BuildingDarren

Welcome to a brief adhoc series about recent targeted buys and why I bought them for my MtG decks.

Its a dinosaur, so that should be a big hint why? Especially if you are a long suffering reader of this blog. Yep that Dinosaur Tribal Commander deck of mine is the reason why I got this.

I don’t how I missed this card during Rivals of Ixalan. But after seeing its Enrage ability of when it takes damage each (and that’s the key word) opponent has to sacrifice a permanent. I thought that’s removal, a card that they won’t want me to block or attack with because if they do, they have to get rid of something. But I can ping it myself with some of the cards in the deck to force them into the situation.

The 7 CMC for an 8/5 isn’t that big a deal in Commander, plus with discounts it could cost me a lot less. It’s enrage ability tied in with its toughness means it can take a ping from my own cards and still be around afterwards. So I like the look of the card, it’s just which card does it replace?

Dominaria Magic League Week 2

May 13, 2018magic, Magic League, MtGDarren

Week 2 of the Dominaria Magic League means the chance to buy a Dominaria booster to strengthen the deck. Expecting enough losses to buy a loser booster, I bought 3 Dominaria boosters for the bargain price of £10. Potentially buying 2 packs during the day, this was going to save me money! Naturally playing by the rules I only opened one of them as my allowed booster for the week.

Thanks to what I consider to be an over priced event the Birmingham GP had robbed my FLGS of the majority of its Magic players this weekend. So the Standard Showdown that was also taking place was 6 players. I hadn’t realised it was on, but then again I didn’t really have the time to play in it anyway. I’d come along in the hope to get some league games in. Which was looking remote when I saw the scarcity of participating league players.

My pulls in this weeks pack that go into the sideboard.

Creatures:8

1 Skirk Prospector
1 Rat Colony
1 Serra Disciple
1 Academy Drake
1 Aesthir Glider
1 Baloth Gorger
1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight
1 Urgoros, the Empty One

Spells:6

1 Healing Grace
1 Navigator’s Compass
1 Rescue
1 Grow from the Ashes
1 Chainer’s Torment
1 In Bolas’s Clutches

I did make some adjustments to the deck, but I’ll do a deck list after the final week.

Just for the shits and giggles I threw all of my red cards, plus some artifact creatures and artifacts together added a black creature to give me a big hitter to make a second deck from my league card pool.

Creatures:12

3 Skirk Prospector
1 Bloodstone Goblin
1 Keldon Warcaller
2 Howling Golem
1 Amaranthine Wall
1 Keldon Raider
1 Rampaging Cyclops
1 Warcry Phoenix
1 Demonlord Belzenlok

Spells:6

1 Navigator’s Compass
1 Warlord’s Fury
1 Blackblade Reforged
1 Jousting Lance
1 Fight with Fire
1 Radiating Lightning

Lands:12

8 Mountain
4 Swamp

How did I do this week? Well despite the lack of participating players this week I managed to play against 2 players and get in 6 games before I had to return back to the mundane world and a Strider who has an upset tummy and all that entails coming out of one end.

After deck building and adjustments I managed to get a game in against Kar-Fai, who readers will remember as an adversary from my Netrunner days, before he took part in the Standard Showdown. I was pleasantly taken aback that there was no attempt to lure me back into the world of Android and Netrunner. I love the Android universe, and love the game of Netrunner. But it seemed to me that FFG just loved targeting the factions I loved to play for banning cards. So with the revised core set, rotation etc, the game may be in a “better” place now. But I’m still smarting from the hurt of them knee capping my decks. I then played the remaining 5 games against a new player in the league Philip.

I played the first 3 games with the new deck and it won more than it lost 2-1. I then played the remaining 3 games with my first deck and that went 3-0. So in the end I was 5-1 overall.

I’m not sure what it says or how the other players feel that my red deck is just something I threw together with very little/no thought, and still won with it. I felt a little guilty, and also very lucky that it seemed to work.

Once I got home naturally I opened up the other 2 boosters and added the cards straight into my collection ready for deck building.

Anyway a great couple of hours playing MtG. Looking forward to week 3.

An unexpected phone call

May 12, 2018game nightDarren

I’m enjoying my new Fridays. I’m home an hour earlier than I used to be. Which is real nice. But last night that extra hour was put to good use by having a bbq. Over my cheeseburger I was watching the season finale of The Big Bang Theory season 11. I was well into The Flash when Jonathan phoned asking if I wanted to meet up and try his latest arrival Azul. I jumped at the chance to try a game I was keen to try and also to be playing it with a good friend.

When Azul came out last year there was a lot of buzz around the game. So it had made the radar of both Jonathan and myself. We have been known to enjoy the odd abstract game or two. There are one or two in our collections. I had asked another friend Scott to bring his copy to the expo at the end of the month for both of us to try. However an opportunity (one that I missed) came up for Jonathan to get a copy. That copy arrived mid week, and hence the phone call last night.

As usual at The White Lion we started off having a little chat semi board game related over our pints of Thatchers, before learning how to play Azul.

I really liked the production values for the game. The plastic pieces have a nice feel to them. The player boards and factory circles are cardboard, but really great quality. Love the colourful design of the pieces. I can see why people joked online about playing the game with starbursts, they do kind of come to mind when looking at the pieces.

Like Santorini and Onitama the actual mechanics are fairly simple. But this simplicity hides what is actually a deep strategic game. There are some really nice decisions to make during the game, such as do you take a particular tile to screw over your opponent and miss a scoring opportunity for yourself? Or do you take a tile now to set up a future high scoring round or do you go for a score this round that won’t be as high.

And this played really well as a 2 player game, and is from reports also fun at its higher player counts. Which I’d like to try it at. Also the game played surprisingly quickly too. Which is nice. I find this just adds to the one more game syndrome. Before you know it you have ended up playing the game a lot more times in that session than planned.

Jonathan won our initial game. But our second game I smashed him. And it all turned on one decision that he made during the game to screw me over instead of furthering his own plans. That next turn I scored all five lines in some nice combos, while Jonathan had crippled his own scoring. Which set me up nicely to continue scoring big and get the win.

Guess what? I liked this game a lot. Yeah I’ll be picking up a copy at some point sooner than later.

After our games we finished off our beverages with more chat about life the universe and everything. It’s a shame we didn’t record these because I think especially this end one would have been interesting to folks.

BBQ, playing a a great game with a friend, great conversation, does the start to a weekend get better than this?

May 2018 Fenland Gamers Monthly Meetup

May 10, 2018Fenland Gamers, game nightDarren

Last night it was the second Wednesday of the month once again, and yes we are back to Wednesdays after that very brief dalliance with Tuesdays.

Because of the numbers that turned up we split up into 2 groups to play. Gavin, Jeff and Katie played Gavin’s recently arrived copy of Sagrada. Whilst Jonathan, Jeff’s son and myself played Majesty: For the Realm (from Jonathan’s collection).

I hadn’t played Majesty before, and after a little banter between groups directed at Gavin who also owned the game but didn’t have the nice play mat that Jonathan did, we got on building our engines in this nice little engine building game.

There are some nice little touches to this game, that although clearly a gateway game is enjoyable for more hardened gamers. The take that mechanic within the game is simple and quick, and more importantly generally doesn’t target a specific player, but all those that can’t defend against the attack. Naturally if only one player can’t defend against an attack then it might feel like they are being targeted.

The sliding trade row, with items positioned nearer the supply costing more is a nice mechanic. Similar in style to choosing a race in Small World, but instead of using coins, you use meeples from your limited supply.

You are building an engine basically with the cards you are placing in front of you. But you are also having to pay attention to the cards that other players are collecting. At the end bonuses are awarded on majority for that card type. So you are trying to maximise the coins you collect when you place a card in your tableaux, but also trying to minimise giving stuff to your opponents, while making sure you maintaining your majorities, or sneakily stealing one.

Oh the play mat was a custom one that Jonathan had made. I actually liked it, and thought apart from having a 5 value coin would be the other addition the actual game needs.

Yeah I liked this, happily play it again.

Unusually both games ended at the same time. Talk about good timing. It even meant I could get a good photo of Jeff holding the social media winners boasting card for Sagrada. Yes that means he won the game.

The groups mixed up again for the second game of the evening. This time Gavin, Jeff’s son and myself played The Flow of History, while the others played Vikings.

Let’s just say despite getting The Internet I was still first loser as Jeff calls it. But I still on a second play of this game enjoy the game. Gavin won the game, despite constant protests during the game of “I have no engine” or “I have no resources”. He did protest too much I think, and then sneakily won!

Jonathan had a few days earlier grabbed a charity shop bargain for me of this old MtG Official Encyclopedia for a whole pound of the realm. Which was very kind of him to do.

The Vikings game finished before ours, so they started playing a Rick and Morty themed game of some kind. A lucky escape for me. It’s not a game that really grabs me.

It was really great to see what for our meet ups was a very good attendance.

Jeff earns Avenger status

May 8, 2018Fenland Gamers, Game dayDarren

Yesterday nearly ended in disaster before it even started. We were meant to be playing Xia at our regular haunt. However despite numerous attempts to confirm that it would be open, the best answers I had been given were “I think so” to “don’t know”.
So I turned up early to make sure and get set up. So I was a little more than disappointed when once again it was closed. Our alternative venue wouldn’t be open until 2pm. For today that would be too late. So I tried letting the others know not to come. Then I waited. Waited in a hot car with the windows open, just in case my message hadn’t got through. During that wait the venues laundry service turned up and after a little frustration of finding out the place was closed, drove off.

Then dead on time the others turned up. My frantic messaging had been in vein. After some discussion through opened car windows, a brief phone call, Jeff offered to host the game at his along with a bbq afterwards.

Our 3 car convoy made its way to Jeff’s house picking it’s way through the Fenland country roads to his remote Fenland castle of solitude.

There was hardly any wind, so we setup Xia outside, so we could enjoy this brief glimpse of a British Summer.

Being outside, and having a game plan didn’t make any difference to the end result. Despite thinking I was going to play the game more aggressively, arming my ship, giving it armour plating, forgetting to initially give it engines before realising my mistake and swapping the missile for an engine. I still just floated around space aimlessly not doing much, somehow getting 4 game points. A point was for rolling a natural 20, I completed a mission, and I think the other 2 points were for from those tokens you can collect on the board.

So while I was executing my game plan poorly, Jeff and Chris were doing a much better job of racking up fame points, and doing stuff like trading, and completing missions. And that was despite the game smacking them in the face on their first turns by destroying their ships or inflicting lots of damage. It was brutal to watch, and yet funny.

In the end despite late pressure from Jeff, Chris reached the target 10 fame points first, and claimed victory.

Afterwards I got to enjoy a rather nice burger, and great company, before I had to head on home.

Thanks to Jeff you get to see me modelling one of his stylish sun hats, along with arms that should have taken up the earlier offer of sun lotion.

A big big thank you to Jeff and family for saving the day and feeding me.

Dominaria Magic League Week 1

May 6, 2018magic, Magic League, MtGDarren

Yesterday was the start of the Dominaria Magic League at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole.

The Magic League is a sealed event, £10, 3 boosters, 30 card deck, blah blah blah. I’ve talked about this before. If you want to know more just go read about it on the WotC website.

As I walked into the geek nirvana I saw 2 of my now ex-students playing MtG. It was good to see them. They weren’t taking part in the league. They were there to play a few games of MtG, buy some boosters, and maybe improve their decks with their pulls.

I got one or two nice pulls that once the league is over will be useful for deck building. But so far this set hasn’t been kind to me on pulls for sealed events. And yesterday was no different.

I thought I’d gone prepared but sadly after I had opened my boosters I realised I’d forgotten to bring any lands and sleeves with me. This was an excuse to throw more money at John the store owner.

I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t buy any of the Ultra-Pro Relic Tokens. Being of very little self control, as I was purchasing the sleeves I needed (Dragon Shield Matt sleeves which are my favourite) I crumbled and bought some.

Here is the deck I built and the sideboard of the remaining cards from the initial 3 boosters, and the booster I bought after 3 losses.

Deck	Sideboard
Creatures:8 1 Cabal Evangel 1 Rat Colony 1 Academy Drake 1 Llanowar Envoy 1 Baloth Gorger 1 Grunn, the Lonely King 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide 1 Primordial Wurm	2 Skirk Prospector 2 Tragic Poet 1 Bloodstone Goblin 1 Keldon Warcaller 2 Serra Disciple 1 Aesthir Glider 2 Howling Golem 1 Tolarian Scholar 1 Amaranthine Wall 1 Keldon Raider 1 Rampaging Cyclops 1 Sanctum Spirit 1 Thallid Omnivore 1 Warcry Phoenix 1 Guardians of Koilos 1 Mammoth Spider 1 Sentinel of the Pearl Trident 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid 1 Cold-Water Snapper 1 Demonlord Belzenlok 1 Evra, Halcyon Witness 1 Short Sword 2 Syncopate 1 Warlord’s Fury 1 Ancient Animus 1 Blackblade Reforged 1 Blink of an Eye 1 Jousting Lance 1 Vicious Offering 1 Fight with Fire 1 Wizard’s Retort 1 Radiating Lightning 1 Blessed Light
Spells:8 1 Demonic Vigor 1 Fungal Infection 1 Navigator’s Compass 1 Rescue 1 Saproling Migration 1 Shield of the Realm 1 Grow from the Ashes 1 Spore Swarm
Lands:14 5 Forest 3 Island 1 Memorial to Unity 4 Swamp 1 Woodland Cemetery

Deck

Sideboard