All posts by Darren

Farming and Forging

game night

Yesterday saw some gaming taking place.

It started off with a lunchtime game of Keyforge with the two decks I traded for (Bellandini, the Ranger of Whistlecorner and HRH Threeteen, the Bizzarre Distiller). The honours were shared one game each. And we did the whole swap decks after the first game thing. So we both got to play both decks. They actually felt pretty balanced against each other. I liked the archive mechanic one of the decks had.

Like all good tcg/lcg games there has to the odd card that it’s not entirely clear how to interrupt it’s text. One such card is Bait and Switch. It’s ambiguous text can be interrupted as meaning you steal 1 ember, then if they still have more steal another. Or it can be read that you keep stealing ember until your opponent no longer has more ember than you.

After some investigation while I wrote this post, the intent is it keeps repeating, so it’s the later interruption that is correct.

But despite that uncertainty about the cards text, I like this card a lot. It’s one of those cards you’d like a couple more of in your deck. It’s a control card that’s ideal to stop that key being forged, and give you a boost to your own ember production, possibly into a forging opportunity yourself. It’s why shadows and dis are fastly becoming my favourite houses in Keyforge. I must keep an eye out for a deck that has both plus maybe brobnar or logos. I’m probably leaning more to logos as the third house in hopes of getting my favourite art on the cards at the moment Wild Wormhole (I’d love the playmat of this art, sadly it’s only available as the top prize in the current organised play kits).

In the evening Jonathan and I met up to surprisingly to play some games.

Our first game of the evening was Reykholt, which was the latest addition to Jonathan’s collection of Uwe Rosenberg games. I think, and I may be wrong on this (I’m sure Jonathan will correct me in the comments if I am), Rosenberg’s latest game, and an early copy thanks to one or two retailers bringing copies over from Essen.

So Reykholt boils down to being a fun light worker placement game that takes place over seven rounds.

Each round you get 3 actions to select, which range from building greenhouses to grow crops, seeding a crop, harvesting crops, getting certain veg types (which can be used for seeding or in the tourism stage to advance) or even destroying greenhouses to advance on the tourism track. The tourism track is how you determine the winner of the game. The player who is furthest along it wins.

So during your turn you are having to balance between getting the veg required to enable you to advance along the tourism track, growing more veg for current and future rounds, and getting greenhouses to enable you to grow more.

Despite being a light worker placement game, there are still interesting decisions to make. The round counter and limited number of actions keep the pressure on, and make you focused. I also like that you can always advance at least one position on the tourism track and gain the resources that new position has. These resources under normal circumstances for that position are the cost to move onto that space. You are also limited to doing this once per turn. But used wisely it can be used to give you the resources to advance on maybe even during the current turn, but most likely on a future one.

I did use the greenhouse destruction to great affect in the later rounds to advance me along the tourism track, to spots where I had the required resources to advance. Plus I had a blindingly good first turn that advanced me 4 or more places on the tourism track.

The history books will show that I beat Jonathan. But despite that I did enjoy the game, and would like to try it at the higher player counts.


Our second game of the evening was Keyforge.

This was Jonathan suffering a style of game he doesn’t enjoy as a way of making up for me having to play a game of his! Which wasn’t really necessary because I’m happy playing most games (except dire Rick and Morty themed games which is all of them).

This was a learning game, so after the earlier experience I used the same decks again. Yes they are a bit more advanced than the starter learning decks. But as I pointed out earlier in this post I thought they were pretty well balanced against each other.

I actually lost this game down to a massive mistake by me. We were both at two forged keys, I had six ember and ready to forge on my turn. Jonathan played a card that stopped me forging a key, by basically making me skip the forge key step. Jonathan then got to six ember himself. I just needed to name the right house, capture an ember from Jonathan, and then forge the key on my next turn. But I called the wrong house, l played two cards from hand, went to activate the creature to capture the ember, and I couldn’t. It was the wrong house. I couldn’t stop Jonathan from winning. It was such a doh! moment.

So history will record that as a win for Jonathan.

I had a great evening gaming. And a great lunchtime session too.

Birdfeeder Dice Tower and more

news

So I’m continuing my posts about Wingspan based on the drip drip of information that is slowly being released.

Somehow I missed the first bit of information, because it should have been in the previous post. But I’m making up for it now. Once again before I start the photos used in this post are copyright Stonemaier Games, I’m using them without permission because I’m a rebel.

“We’ve never designed a cardboard dice tower, so I reached out to the experts at TowerRex. They designed the template, and Beth Sobel illustrated it. It’s a 2-piece component, and it’s designed for easy storage–simply lay the tower horizontally into the tray and place it in the box according to the storage guide on the side of the box.(I’ve exploded out that part of the image Jamey provided.) ”

First wow. Love the fact a dice tower is included, and it looks cool. Looking at the storage guide I’m not going to be too worried about wear and tear on the cardboard. And it’s great that they have actually designed the contents of the game to take into account storing of the dice tower.

But let’s look at the rest of the photo as well. The eggs look to be in the same storage containers used for the resources in Scythe. I actually like those a lot. So much so I bought a pack of ten to use with other games. I hope an extra two are included to store the cardboard tokens. The storage guide hints at there will be two provided containers of some sort.

Looking at the storage guide we can see there will be goal tiles, so I’m jumping to the conclusion that these will be randomly selected at the start of each game. And naturally there appears to be a mat for these goals to go on. Will we see players claim goals as they achieve them, and new ones get revealed. Or will they be goals that are there for the whole of the game, and can be claimed by whoever completes them? Or a combination of the two?

There will also be player mats, a score pad, and action cubes (if I’ve read the blurry text correctly). So will we be selecting actions on a turn based on our player mats and birds that make up our engine? I’m whistling in the wind here really, as I don’t have any insight into what is actually going to happen. But I’m guessing that the player mats will be basic actions you can take.

There was a bit more information given about the dice in the game and how they are used.

“The food dice in Wingspan are an example of input randomness (the randomness happens first, and then you make a choice–the randomness doesn’t make the choice for you). Basically, whenever you gather food from the birdfeeder, you remove a die from the tray and gain the corresponding food token. If the tray is empty (or if all dice show the same face and you don’t want that food), you toss all of the dice back into the tower. And if you still really aren’t getting the food you want, when playing bird cards, any 2 food tokens always equals any 1 food token.”

What I like about this bit of information is that firstly Jamey explains what the technical design term is that he uses. We then get told how the dice are used. But what I like from this snippet is that there is a mechanic to mitigate bad dice rolls. That’s important. You don’t want to keep having to reroll to try and get the resource you are after. Two for one seems a pretty standard conversion rate.

Then hot off the presses yesterday some photos of the Automa – solo play side of things were released.

“The Automa system uses cards to simulate an intelligent opponent (without requiring all the upkeep of actually taking turns for a player who isn’t there). Wingspan’s Automa includes a separate rulebook and a total of 16 cards, my favorite of which is the cleverly named “Automubon expert-level” card.”


As you can see it follows the same format as the other Stonemaier Games. It’s nice that it is there, but it’s not a side I’ve ever used with any of the games (so far). But these posts have peaked the interest of my friend Jonathan who does play much more solo games than me. So he will like this option for sure.

Ok that’s it for this post.

Competitive crushes casual

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole has started a Monday afternoon Commander club. It’s aimed at those at a lose end basically, like those between jobs, students, the retired, on holiday or some other reason.

I found myself at a lose end after taking mum shopping in the morning. So I thought why not?

Three decks found their way into my bag, Trostani, my mono red goblins, and the new death and taxes deck.

Once at The Hobbit Hole 3 other people for whatever reason found themselves at a lose end also, and decided to do some Commanderin’.

The good news from the afternoon of playing luxury cardboard rectangles was I got to play all 3 decks, and long story short they at least got to do their thing (to some extent) but didn’t come close to winning.

My decks weren’t bad decks in my opinion. Well I’ve admitted my death and taxes is a work in progress and needs at least it’s mana base revisiting. But they were out classed. As were the decks of 2 of the other players.

If we use the Command Zone podcasts power rating for decks (see graphic below, and a whole podcast here) which runs on a scale of 1 to 10 for the rest of this post it will help give a point of reference.

So the graphic they did maps like this. It should be noted for reference purposes the precons that WotC sell each year come in on this scale as casual decks and a power ranking of about 4 (in the opinion of The Command Zone presenters, and I wouldn’t disagree with that).


So where do my decks fall on this scale? I would rate my decks between 4 and 6 depending on the deck, so either casual/focused decks.

In yesterday’s 3 games two of us where definitely playing decks between 4 and 6 on the power scale. While one was boarderline between 6/7, and the archenemy player was definitely 8/9 on the power scale with his decks. I’m calling the player with the over powered decks the archenemy because that’s the way the games ended up. One against many.

It should be a testament to the archenemy player that despite the three of us trying to gang up and take him out, he still wiped the floor with us. His decks were way to powerful.

I did try Krenko, Mob Boss as my commander with the goblins. Partly inspired by seeing him used in Bob’s goblin deck as the commander the previous week. I hadn’t really settled on the commander for the deck. So having the chance to try this card out was good. I liked it as the commander. Much better than Squee. Although I do like the idea of using Zo-Zu as the commander also.

Funny enough Treasure Nabber came out in my death and taxes deck but not my goblin deck. Which is when I’d have loved to have used it, as the goblins were up against an artifacts deck. Apparently whispering subliminal messages of “use your sol ring” or “use your artifacts” while Treasure Nabber is out doesn’t brainwash them into using their artifacts. It did slow down the others though because they refused to use their sol rings, or other mana generating artifacts. Sadly it didn’t affect the archenemy.

Island Sanctuary did get a chance to hit the table, sadly not with the other half of the combo. It gave me a couple of turns protection, and was useless once the archenemy got a steel hellkite out.

At the end of the session thinking aloud the archenemy player suggested he might build his next deck and not optimise it as much as he normally does. Luckily I don’t play commander against this player normally. I think this was the first time I had. But to be honest I don’t think I’d play with this guy again, unless he did turn down the level of his decks. It might be “fun” for him. But for me, and I suspect the others it wasn’t much fun for us. The little fun I did get was from my decks getting to do a little of what they were meant to do. Like generate goblin tokens or lots of tokens in general.

I suppose to some extent we didn’t fully establish the social contract and the power levels of decks that everyone was going to be playing. We ruled out mass land destruction, and going infinite. But the power level got missed. So a little blame does rest on the rest of us for the way this session turned out.

I know on a Friday evening the commander sessions are promoted as mildly competitive. That’s fine. I don’t play there on a Friday. For me Commander is a casual game that is meant to be fun.

If the game is with similar powered decks, or one or two are slightly higher on the power level, then the game is going to ebb and flow. And in general the majority will be having fun. But when there is such a big gap between power levels of decks. Then we get something like this session.

It’s time to show you some bird cards!

news

Ok Jamey Stegmaier has been releasing more info on the Facebook group about the up and coming release of his game, Wingspan. So without permission, because I’m an unscrupulous rebel like that, let’s look at the information released and the photos.

So what is the theme of the game exactly? Well from what we have seen so far, you wouldn’t be far wrong deducing it had something to do with birds. However Jamey has given us the overall theme now, “In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts who are populating your aviary with birds.” Naturally looking at the info below about the cards the person with the most victory points will win.

“Wingspan includes 170 uniquely illustrated bird cards, each with a different ability.” Which according to Jamey from the times he’s played the game led to “very different strategies and engines each time” due the variety in the cards. I like the sound of that, adds to replay ability, and having to adapt strategies. Plus it means you have to play the game a few times to truly learn what all the cards do (unless you sit down and read each card). Plus there will be that element of discovery as you come across combos etc. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest these bird cards for the basis of your engine. So I’m willing to bet that at least one of any possible future expansions will be just more bird cards.

The art on these cards (see below – once again I’ve “borrowed” these photos from the Facebook page and the copyright is all Stonemaier Games) looks amazingly realistic and wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Observer pocket guides.

But what exactly are we looking at on these cards? Use the close up of the Peregrine Falcon card and this description by Jamey explains it all. “In the upper left of each bird card is the habitat(s) it can be played into, as well as the food cost to play it. End-game VP is the number near the feather, followed by the nest type and the number of eggs the bird can hold. The bird’s wingspan is noted on the right, and finally there is the bird’s core ability.” It also looks like we get the latin name of the bird plus an interesting fact about it also on the card. Will we be learning stuff as we play? Will the game be fun and educational?

Mechs vs Minions was not only a great game. But it had a great insert also. It’s a nice trend that some publishers have picked the mantel up and continued. A recent example I can think of illustrating this is Wildlands by Martin Wallace and published by Osprey Games. The only draw back of some of these inserts is they don’t work with sleeved cards. Which is disappointing when that happens.

“…we partnered with Game Trayz… I had a very specific vision for a two-part tray: The tray itself would hold cards (yes, sleeved or unsleeved) for storage purposes, and the lid of the tray would serve as a card mat during the game.”

“Pictured here is the tray included in every copy of Wingspan.”

Yep every copy of the game will have this insert. I’m assuming cards will be standard MtG size so I can use my favourite clear sleeves, Mayday Premium. It’s nice to see that sleeved cards have been taken into account. I remain to be convinced the depth is deep enough on the insert. But width looks fine.

Well that’s all the new stuff I’ve seen, if anything else gets released I’ll save it up and do a combined post. I hope that this is proving of interest to folks. It certainly is for me.

A new combatant in the crucible

Game day, keyforge

Friday evening some plans were made (in pencil) to possibly play some Keyforge Saturday afternoon. However those plans fell through. Well they were in pencil so not guaranteed. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed that the plans had fallen through. I’d been looking forward to it, especially since my mood had been a bit on the low side for a day or two. I was needing some gaming in my life to distract and attempt to change things.

Out of the blue Justin called saying that a couple of Keyforge decks had arrived and he fancied playing some Keyforge. Naturally I jumped at the chance to play me some Keyforge.

Once at Justin’s and setup. I ran through the basic rules of the game, and the turn structure. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming when rules are being explained and it’s easier to just jump in and ask questions along the way. Justin felt this way.

For our first game I used my Blindingly Fanatical Erkki deck (Brobnar, Dis, Logos). Now you folks will hate me but I forgot to make a note of the decks I played against. But Justin’s deck took off and before I knew it he’d forged two keys, and done a damn fine job of denying me ember, and from forging a key myself.

For some reason I thought this was my four horsemen deck. And for a while thought I’d be drawing one of them any minute, it’s why I didn’t play a particular brobnar card that dumped cards from the deck into the discard pile until you ran out of deck or drew a brobnar creature. I hadn’t wanted to miss those cards. I was down to the last four cards in the deck when it clicked the horsemen deck was one of the other decks.

It was looking like this game was going to be a whitewash, I needed to at least get a key forged to prevent that. And that was the only real thought going through my head.

I was using the ability to archive cards to set up one or two big turns with my logos cards.

Eventually I broke through and forged my first key. Phew the pressure was off. I was expecting Justin to forge his third and final key imminently. But I was frustrating his ember production.

Then a fatal mistake was made by Justin. He allowed me to get a board state of mostly Dis cards in place. Suddenly I was able to exhaust two creatures to reap and get Justin to discard two random cards from hand. Plus I could steal ember from him. I also continued to put logos cards into the archive setting up that mega turn. Waiting for my battlefield to destroyed and replaced by logos cards.

But that moment never came. I was controlling the game. All of a sudden I had my second key forged, and in a turns time the ability to win the game. Justin was not able to stop the inevitable.

Somehow I had gone from trying not to get whitewashed to winning. This had been a long game 40-50 minutes I think. But it was intense, with ups and downs. A great game.


Our second game saw me try The Underhanded Captain (Dis, Brobnar, Sanctum). This was my four horsemen deck. Justin played his other new deck.

This was a very one sided game and much quicker.

It was interesting to play, and went off to a flying start. Although Justin’s deck did well keeping the number of big creatures down on my side.

I’m not taking this game as any indication of how good this horsemen deck is. Justin’s new deck had archiving and the potential to get some power turns played.

This game had more going on that affected the other players turn, like not being able to play a house, or having to play a chosen house. Justin chose Sanctum for my turn at one point which totally screwed me over because I had no Sanctum cards in hand. But my only creature out was a Sanctum one so all I could do was reap.

Justin enjoyed his first experience of Keyforge. I had a great afternoon playing. The socialising had had the desired affect. I was certainly feeling better than I was before going out.

We now have four Keyforge players in town now that I know of. Is this a Keyforge community forming?

NEWS: Yesterday also saw FFG announce that in the Master Vault it has hit over 200k decks registered. That’s phenomenal. Naturally it doesn’t give us any clue to the actual number of players of the game or actual number of decks sold. Mainly because a lot of players have multiple decks, not all decks bought have been registered (for whatever reason), and some of those decks will be from the starter set. But still I don’t think FFG will be unhappy with the numbers they are seeing for the game. What we need to see now is more organised play events being held at more stores, and the nurturing and growth of a community. But I’ll expand on that idea in another post (if I remember too, I am old and forgetful don’t forget, you may have to remind me in the comments).

If you want to see my decks etc, you should be able to scan the QR code below or search for my unoriginal account name.

By royal decree

D&D, game night, RPG


Somehow I missed being in the crowd for the royal visit to Wisbech on Tuesday. Despite having a holiday home not an hour away in Sandringham, we rarely see them or get invites. But us serfs of Wisbech on Tuesday were spoilt by having Charles and Camilla visiting.

Frankly I wish they would visit more often. Since the announcement last week of the impending visit the town has actually seen a police presence on the streets. The teen cycle gang that has been terrorising the centre of the town the last few weeks has been finally tackled by the folks in blue at the weekend. The stone steps and path by St Peters Church and the museum has been cleaned. Coincidence? Apparently the homeless in Wisbech had disappeared for the day. Large sections of the town centre (including car parks) were restricted access. Wisbech for a day only, had become some sort of utopia. Just once I wish the royals got to see the real town, and not some sanitised version that papers over the cracks and flaws.

For weeks (at least a couple) locals have been terrorised by that teen gang. Complaints seemingly falling on the deaf ears of the police. And now as I pointed out all of a sudden the man power has been found to do something about the gang! Let’s see if this high police presence and conviction to tackle the gang continues after the visit.

Wow where did that soap box rant come from? Not exactly the best start to a blog post about D&D.

Ok, time for the dramatic retelling of the latest adventures of Dram and that motley crew. Who if you remember were just about to fight 12 zombies after the necromancer Ace was talking to just disappeared. Shit was about to get real…
Grull rushed in swinging axe at the nearest zombies, that little gnome managed to take out a zombie all by himself. So while the others were going hand to hand with the undead, Dram started firing off one of his cantrips, Ray of Frost at the zombies.

All of a sudden a skeletal hand appears from nowhere and grabs Dram. It squeezes hard around Dram’s chest, getting ever tighter and pushing the air out of his lungs. As suddenly as it appears, the skeletal hand disappeared. Severely winded, it took a moment or two for Dram to get his breathe back. Then realising he was vulnerable Dram decided he needed to relocate quickly. So he quickly cast Misty Step.

One moment Dram was near Sarmyar and Nick who were fighting zombies the next he was gone. The others didn’t see Dram reappear out of sight at the side of the tent. Before he could decide what to do next, black magic missiles hit the others.

“Lay prone, weapons down, and we can talk”, boomed a voice.

Still reeling from that skeletal hand attack, and the casting of his own spell, Dram decided to crawl into the tent and hide. Inside the tent Dram saw a wooden chest. “Look at the craftsmanship on that chest. Like wow.” Thought Dram.

Once again the voice boomed it’s command.

Deciding the only way to appreciate such fine wood work was to sit on it and rest, Dram sat on the chest.

“Can I get up yet?” Shouted Dram.

The next thing Dram heard was Ace’s voice “drop your weapons and give up.”

Suddenly two zombies appeared in the door way and just stood there. Followed by that booming voice once again issuing a command, “leave or he dies”.

“That doesn’t sound good” thought Dram, followed by “I wonder who will die?”

The zombies moved aside and let Dram out of the tent as he made his way to leave. Right next to the necromancer was Ace just standing there not moving. As Dram went passed the necromancer he tipped his hat and complimented him on his magical skills. Dram could have learnt a lot from him he thought.

After joining the others of the group outside the walls of the ruined tower, Dram noticed Grull was missing. ‘Oh well he’ll turn up, something that big never stays lost for long.” thought Dram.

As if from nowhere the necromancer appeared next to Dram and says “if you ever want to join the dark side” and handed Dram a small bone tube.

Before anyone notices Ace also disappears. Maybe Ace and Grull have gone ahead. So Dram and the rest of the group head off back to Phandalin. The depleted group decide to make camp at a previous camping spot.

After setting up camp Dram and Sarmyar took the first watch. This gave Dram the opportunity to examine that small bone tube he’d been given. Wow it was a scroll of Darkness. Dram couldn’t wait to copy that spell into his spellbook back in Phandalin.

The rest of the watch went relatively quietly. That is until Grull suddenly appeared and ran up and grabbed Dram. Sweeping him off his feet, and in a vice like grip, Dram’s natural instinct was to grab Grull and cast Shocking Grasp.

The electric shock got Grull to let go of Dram.

Grull angrily asked “Why did you not fight?” Dram then spent the next few minutes explaining to Grull in little words what happened to him during the recent battle with the necromancer and his zombies. Grull seemed happy with the events and reason it appeared Dram had done nothing in the skirmish.

Nick and the gnome were still sleeping through all of this. They must have been really tired from the days excitement. They even missed Ace trying to convince Grull to drink perfume! Which he goes and does anyway, well a watered down perfume.

Once the hilarity was over. The rest of the night passed away without any incidents. After breakfast the group continued their journey to Phandalin. The following two days of traveling were pretty uneventful, and saw everyone arrive back in good time for the evening meal.

Dram was feeling particularly generous and bought a meal for himself, Grull and the gnome. Do you know how the gnome repaid that act of kindness? By boring Dram to death with a story of how he had come to meet up with this rag tag band of adventurers. Talk about snooze fest. Dram was gobsmacked that Grull was finding the story interesting. Dram was struggling to stay awake. This gnome just didn’t know how to tell a story. ‘Blah blah, betrayed, blah, blah killed son”. So Dram made an excuse needing go to the toilet, and disappeared up to his room.

Back in the room, Dram copied the Darkness spell from the scroll to his spellbook. Dram had only just finished this intricate activity there was a knock on the door. When Dram answered, there was Ace who handed him a healing potion. It was the potion that Dram had paid for before their little visit to see the banshee, and get their butt kicked.

And so dear reader, well done for making it through that dramatic retelling of Dram’s latest escapades. Join us next time when Dram will once more astound you with his magical powers, and reviews of the funniest eating establishments.

Wingspan – the next Stonemaier Games game!

news

It isn’t a state secret I’m a fan of the games by Jamey Stegmaier (Scythe is my favourite game of all time) and his game company Stonemaier Games (although I’m not a fan of Between Two Cities – it just didn’t click with our game group). So when they announce a new game I’m all over it. Well unless it’s that Between Two Cities tie in with the Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Jamey is starting to drop information about their next game Wingspan.

So far we know it’s “a bird-themed, medium-weight, engine-building game.” I like engine builders. London, Imperial Settlers are great games. The theme sounds interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing more about it.

Jamey has shared these photos below on the Wingspan Facebook group that I have “borrowed” for this post. (Copyright of these images is all with Stonemaier Games)

Wingspan is designed by Elizabeth Hargrave (I’m not familiar with her work). Art for the game is by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, and Beth Sobel. Going by the box art I think we will be in for a visual feast. I really love that box art. And graphic design was by Christina Santana.

From posts and comments there is an Automa for the game, so that would be solo play taken care of.

So apart from Jamey and David Studley who developed and did the Automa respectively. This was an all female designed game.

We also can see from the box art that Wingspan plays 1 – 5 players, with a playtime of between 40 – 70 minutes. That’s if my reading of the side of the box is correct.

This info was being released later today. But I’m jumping the gun after it was pointed out on Facebook my prediction of 1 – 4 players, and 60 – 90 minutes was wrong, and the info is on the image above.

I think that sums up everything we know currently. But there may have been a nugget or two I’ve missed.

Oh and you can pre-order Wingspan from Stonemaier Games from the 9th December 2nd January 2019 I believe.

Dilemma solved

keyforge

Well it was made easier with the arrival at the start of the week of a second 4 horsemen deck.

Yesterday on the UK Keyforge Trading and Selling page some-one posted a bunch of decks they were looking to trade. I thought why not? I liked the look of the new 4 horse men deck more, so if I could get a two or three decks for it I’d be happy.

While waiting for a response I received a private message asking if I was selling or trading. After a brief exchange of messages, and links to decks. We came to an agreement, and I’m getting two decks for my 4 horsemen deck. The two decks are Bellandini, the Ranger of Whistlecorner and HRH Threeteen, the Bizzarre Distiller. They looked interesting decks, Bellandini had archives stuff going on and I liked the idea of playing around with that mechanic. The other deck had board wipes and stuff so that looked like it will disrupt the opponents board state and steal amber.

What amazed me was I actually did the trade. I usually can’t be bothered to do all this sort of stuff, like going to the post office etc. It’s too much hassle.

I’m looking forward to trying these decks out.

I’m a frickin’ T-Rex!

nintendo, switch

The only Black Friday/Cyber Monday thing that tempted me in all that consumerism feeding frenzy that has spread from the US to the rest of the world was a Nintendo eshop offer on Super Mario Odyssey.

I’ve only played a couple of levels. I should get back to one of the other games I’ve started but not finished.

But like Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, or Mario Kart 8, this game is a delight. You can’t help but play it with a smile on your face.

There is just something about Nintendo’s own titles that (most of the time) pay attention to the little things. Those little details that delight and surprise.

Odyssey continues that expectation and delivers in spades. The level design (so far in my very limited play) has been sublime. The game looks gorgeous. The hat as the new mechanic is great fun. Throwing it to attack, break stuff is fun. But even cooler, allows you to take over creatures like a frickin’ T-Rex on the second level. That was so much fun, and handled just like you’d expect the T-Rex to handle. It was slow(ish) and lumbering.

I’m looking forward to exploring and discovering the worlds Nintendo have created in Odyssey.

Monday Afternoon Commanderin’

Game day, magic, MtG

Yesterday I found myself playing Commander with a couple of friends at the Huntingdon Library.

For me it was a chance to try out the new death and taxes deck I’d thrown together that morning. It needs a bit of work, but the basic framework is there I think. The land base definitely needs working on. At the moment it’s mainly basics, with less than a handful of dual lands. It was ok for a rush job. But considering it’s a four colour deck with the partner commanders it needs a bit of work. The deck also needs a couple more board wipes.

I also gave the Trostani token spam a run. I had one new card Gaddock Teeg to put in it. A card that wasn’t cheap. Could I find it Sunday evening? Not a blooming chance. Like every other time I can’t find something, it just ate away at me. I knew I’d seen it. But I was beginning to doubt myself. Had I hallucinated that it had arrived? Where was that card? I searched and searched. Going through piles of cards over and over again, just in case I’d missed it. Yes I really should be better organised but I’m not. There was only one answer for it, eBay. I hit a bit of really good luck looking for the card on eBay. There was a copy going for half what I paid for the copy that I must have dreamt had arrived. I made a mental note to chase up the “missing” card, but in the meantime snapped at the bargain and purchased another copy. The mental torture had been stopped. Although I was feeling a little disappointed it would not be with me to use in the deck the next day.

Guess what turned up yesterday morning? Yep Gaddock Teeg. Like every other time this has happened. It’s a pattern that looks like it will forever plague me, even in my later years. I really don’t know how to describe it when this happens. I think the nearest I can get is having an itch that you just can’t scratch. It’s all consuming.

So Gaddock Teeg was in the deck. But as fate would have it, I would not draw the card in either of the games that the Trostani deck was used.

Big green stompy got another outing. But I never drew into the the ramp stuff. So it never really got to do it’s thing. Although it did get to frustrate my friends plans for a while.

One of my friends is going to the final PPTQ (a WotC event for wannabe pro players, and it’s final because WotC are rebranding/relaunching/changing the big event stuff for 2019 onwards) at The Hobbit Hole on Saturday. So while our other friend was off getting some food, we played some friendly Standard to test out his deck for the weekend. I lost that 2-1. Red aggro/burn. Such a nuisance. Considering one of these decks won Saturday it should do reasonably well. But I’m not sure what the field will be like. Will this PPTQ draw out the stores big time players? Very possible considering the following weekend Liverpool hosts a Grand Prix. So I’m pretty sure they may make an appearance to get those all important points that they need to qualify for events.

I have to admit my friends goblin commander deck was pretty effective, spamming out goblin tokens at great speed. I think I have his commander in my goblin deck. The other friends rat commander deck was also interesting.

Overall a great afternoons commanderin’.