All posts by Darren

Why did I Buy That Card? #5 Iona, Shield of Emeria

magic, MtG

Wow what an expensive card to cast, 9 CMC for a 7/7 flyer! But there must be another reason why this angel is so expensive?

Well there is, and the reason Iona is going in my “still a work in progress” Angel Tribal Commander deck. It’s her ability.

When Iona enters the battlefield, I choose a colour. Seems innocent enough. However my opponents then can’t cast spells of that colour. That’s crippling, and funny. Well funny if you aren’t on the receiving end of it. This ability takes out a mono deck, cripples most decks, or at least cuts down on the cards they can play.

Ok in EDH this might just put a great big target on you. But then again a lot of cards will be doing that.

The nice thing is that despite my opening comment about being expensive, I should hopefully be able to cast her for less. In an ideal world I should be getting at least 2 mana discount on all my Angels. But that is a side of things I need to investigate more. Plus any ramp I have out, it really shouldn’t be that hard to cast.

R.I.P. Strider 2005 – 2018

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Strider has decided to go off and reform the original line up of The Wolf Pack. He will be touring with Bud and Barney, hunting rabbits, stealing food from unsuspecting fisherman and hikers all over heaven.

If ever a person was owned by a dog, it was me by Strider. He would appear uninterested and more into his own space. But if anything or one had my attention then they had better watch out, because he would be right there pushing his way in-between whoever and making sure he was the centre of attention. Unlike his partners in crime Strider could be trusted with food left on the side.


I’m going to miss Strider a lot.

Happy hunting Strider.

Jonathan thinks like me

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers, Game day

This afternoon was spent at the local Costa in the company of Jonathan enjoying a game or two of Azul. Which Jonathan edged a win over of 3-2. We still haven’t played the game with more than 2 players, but we both love it as a 2 player game. Hence why we rattled off 5 games in a row.


After the enjoyable games of Azul. I got to try The Mind. Wow. This game is probably unlike any other game you have played before. It’s so simple, yet so complex. It worked well with 2 players, and will be interesting to see how it plays at the higher counts. I can see the game being heavily dependent on the people you play it with. Particularly I’m not sure I’d play it with none gamers who may not get it. If the box was a bit deeper you could sleeve the cards. Which if I owned the game I’d want to do. However it will only fit the cards without sleeves. A little oversight, but the publisher isn’t the first or last to do this.

Oh for the record the Costa cold brew isn’t as good as mine.

Why did I Buy That Card? #4 Entreat the Angels

magic, MtG


The thing about Commander, unless your group is hyper competitive you get to play the more costly cards that usually in other formats you don’t get to cast or play with. So this minimum of 3 but more likely 5 CMC Sorcery is totally playable.

I saw this card in a folder at my FLGS, and thought “mmmm, this might be nice in my Angel deck”. The plan isn’t to go wide with the Angel deck but being able to put a handful of 4/4 Angel tokens out to buy me time is a handy trick to have up my sleeve.

Worst case with this card I’m paying the X X and 3 white, which isn’t the end of the world especially in the mid to late game. Ideally I’m casting it for the miracle cost and getting 3 or more of the tokens out. To help with this I may put Sensei’s Divining Top in the deck. The managing the top 3 cards of the deck and controlling the order means I’m more likely to meet that miracle condition.

So there we have it another piece in the work in progress Angel Tribal Commander deck.

MtG Arena Twitter Rant

lakes, magic, MtG

I did some rare tweets on Twitter this morning criticising WotC, yeah I know dancing with danger. We all know they can’t handle criticism, and are too busy chasing shadows and policing the thoughts of players not on their approved double standards list.

But at least White Wizard Games get it. As this liked tweet by them shows.


It is frustrating to see such a great opportunity being squandered by WotC. Although having said that from what I’ve seen so far they still have a lot to alter to make the economy attractive to me.

Why did I Buy That Card? #3 Helm of the Host

magic, MtG


This is not a nice card. I was on the receiving end of one of these at the pre-release. It was attached to a Verix Bladewing (a 4/4 legendary dragon) that I couldn’t do anything about. I just had to sit there and take a beating as it was joined by more and more copies.

I already had one copy of the card that I pulled in my booster boxes. And it had been slotted into my Dragon Tribal Commander deck as a replacement for Coat of Arms. Why? Well at the time my ex-students had also started to play tribal decks, so they were also getting a benefit from Coat of Arms. I couldn’t have that. So this was the natural card to replace it.

This card unless banned, is an instant include for a lot of decks. A new Commander staple. So I got 5 more of these before the price skyrocketed. So at some point I’m going to have to put one in my common box and proxy it in, because I don’t have enough copies. Using a proxy and bringing out the original to use when needed is a great way to save money in a casual format.

The thing about this card is it triggers every turn, you don’t need to attack for it to trigger. So more copies of your Commander, no problem. Just more copies of whatever nasty creature you have on the battlefield, no problem. Plus they have haste so you can instantly attack with that copy too.

Oh this will be so funny in my Scarab God zombie deck. Multiple Scarab Gods on the battlefield that’s going to hurt so much. Get some zombies out, multiple beginning of turn triggers. Ouch! Zombie apocalypse!!!

A Handful of Cards I’m Excited About in BattleBond

magic, MtG

Just after UKGE next weekend we get the latest MtG set BattleBond hitting the shelves.

This new set is a stand-alone set aimed at specifically Two-Headed Giant. Which is a team based multiplayer format for MtG. Luckily the cards also look like they will be pretty good in other multiplayer formats also, like Commander.

Sadly MtG by the looks of it haven’t done a huge print run of this set. Already my FLGS won’t take pre-orders because they are only at the moment going to have enough to cover pre-release and release events, and not sure if they will have enough to cover pre-orders.

To be fair I wasn’t much interested in the set until the spoilers started to hit. Up until that point my plans were to eventually pick a booster box up, play some Two-Headed Giant draft with my friends and turn the cards into a cube. A bit like my Conspiracy plans.

But then it dropped that in BattleBond we will be seeing a reprint of Doubling Season. Then more spoilers came out and more reprints that people wanted appeared. Plus some of the new cards looked interesting. Ok the new art wasn’t up to the standard I’ve enjoyed in recent sets. But that wasn’t enough to put people off. People are starting to get excited in this set. Will WotC have enough product out there to met demand? It’s not looking good.

So below are a handful of cards from the spoilers that I like the look of, and dare I say it getting excited over.

Naturally I’m looking at cards that would up the game of my Commander decks. Which is why Doubling Season and Generous Patron took me as instant additions to my Elf Tribal deck. With the potential for having a place in an Atraxa deck.

Land Tax, Swords to Plowshares and Play of the Game look good cards for that work in progress of mine the Angel Tribal deck. I particularly like the political element of Play of the Game, and getting help from another player to cast it. The teaming up to remove a common threat with a board wipe. The other two are reprints I believe. That are staples of white I believe.

Lastly I chose a Land to represent all of the dual coloured lands in the set, which are only of use in multiplayer formats like Commander or Two-Headed Giant. Unless you have Blood Sun out I suppose, or you don’t mind them coming in tapped.

If I get the above cards, then I’m going to be happy. I’m sure there are others that will catch my eye. But I’ll worry about that nearer the time.

Unexpected win

game night

With all the Strider worry I have at the moment I needed a couple of hours distraction. So I put a shout out to some friends to join me at The White Lion to get Eminent Domain back to the table. I had only played it once previously nearly 3 years ago with Nath. Back then we both had enjoyed this sci-fi themed deck builder, so it was way way over due a return to the table. The observant amongst you will have noticed the theme and mechanic are Jonathan’s top hated themes and mechanics. Which is why I didn’t ask him to join me in playing the game. Jonathan is a good friend, and probably if I’d said why would have come along and played. But I’m not into using guilt trips with friends to get them to play stuff they wouldn’t enjoy. It wasn’t until Jeff arrived with his son that he knew what was going on with Strider.

Eminent Domain is a nice deck builder. I’d say that the theme is a bit weak, and could easily be say a trading in the Mediterranean, or some other suitable one. With the promo cards from the Microcasm version of the game, we used the scenario cards to give each of us a unique starting deck, and a suggested game plan based on that starting deck.

I liked the use of these scenario cards. Anything that makes you feel a bit unique is always a nice touch. I had no research in my deck, Jeff did. Jeff’s son had no Politics cards, but was being pushed towards trade and production. And he managed to get an impressive amount of influence tokens that way. Jeff went the war/research route, while I initially went war/colonise, I ended up just colonising. On reflection at the end I probably could have thinned out the warfare cards in my deck.

However I did near the end follow Jeff on a research role that grabbed me 2 points that would during the end scoring tie me with him. During most of the game I felt I was behind on points, Jeff was matching me on flipping planets, plus he had who knew how many points from his many research cards. His son had a pile of influence tokens. But I’d been grabbing and colonising highish point planets. Had I grabbed enough?

For some reason I grabbed 4 ships with warfare, I had no plans for them. They were there just in case I could flip a planet with them. I knew I had to trigger the end of the game. Yeah I could have done with a few more turns to score more. But Jeff had 2 planets he was about to conquer if given a couple more turns. With a final turn I was gambling he would only be able to get one of them. A gamble that payed off. More than I expected.

After totting up our final scores, Jeff and I were level for first place. The tie breaker was the most resources and ships. Neither of us had any resources but I had more ships! I had won on the tie breaker.

I had a great evening playing a game that really needs more table time (don’t they all?) with a good friend and his pretty amazing son. It was just what I needed.

I’m Still Alive

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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

star realms

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.