All posts by Darren

Bouncing deck ideas

magic, MtG

Part of the fun for me with games like MtG is the deck construction. The exploring ideas, expressing yourself through the decks you build. Some people naturally gravitate towards certain deck archetypes, such as I did in Netrunner with Anarchs and NBN on the corp side. Within MtG I don’t have an archetype that I gravitate towards. I like red, green and black. I’ve even enjoyed playing blue! I’m pretty much the same in Star Wars: Destiny. I don’t prefer villains over heroes, or one colour over the other. I just like to play characters I like irrespective of their faction.

Like other games in this field, I see a card and want to build a deck around that deck. It may not be a Tier 1 deck, or even 2 or 3. But hopefully it will be fun, and win a game or two. If it pulls off the idea that the deck is built around I call it a success. For example the recent Ixalan blue control deck I built. There was no real win condition within the deck, although it did win a couple of games. However it did meet it’s goal of frustrating the hell out of my opponents, and demonstrated to my students what it might be like to go up against a control style deck.

This morning I saw Harsh Mentor in my collection, unlike other times I’ve seen it, something in my mind made some connections and paired it with Rampaging Ferocidon.

Not only that it also connected it to the recent Rookie Red deck that I got from CardKingdom. The wheels and cogs started turning and the idea hit me, a mono red deck that punishes your opponents for their actions. So I’m naturally going to spend time now researching cards (hopefully cheap) that can go into this deck to further this game plan.

In the meantime I have an angel deck that is brewing. At the moment it’s a mono white deck, which will definitely be flying and have lifelink. But need to think about ramp for it, and early cheap creatures that can be played. How viable this deck is? Well that’s another question.

My dinosaur commander deck is on hold until after Rivals for Ixalan (the next set) is out (latter half of January). There will be more dinosaurs to chose from then, which makes sense. I have the mana base for the deck more or less worked out. There are a couple of cards (creatures) that reduce the cost of playing dinosaurs also that need including. But I’m hoping that there will be even more in the next set.

I will also over Christmas start to look at building some “tutorial” decks that will introduce the concept of going infinite.

I also want to rebuild the blue control deck so that it has a win condition and uses more than just cards from Ixalan. I am thinking about mill for this. The vampire deck (which has been rather successful against the “student meta”) also needs rebuilding and taking into account cards outside of Ixalan.

And yes I know that my local meta is against students, and that if my decks were up against a more experienced MtG player they would get trashed easily. But that’s not going to stop me exploring ideas and introducing the students to new mechanics and concepts within MtG. Mind you I am learning as I go along. It’s not as if I’m some super MtG Pro Player. I’m just a casual player sharing the love for a great, fun game.

So as you can see I have a lot of MtG deck buildings ideas and projects on the go, or planned. And that’s where a lot of the fun is for me.

Right I’m off to research some cards…

 

B/G Dino Deck (Modern?) V1.0

Deck tech, magic, MtG

After Christmas I am running a tournament for the students, and I wanted a deck to play with for that.

With Ixalan out it was only a matter of time before I built a dinosaur deck. But unlike the recent deck building challenges I wasn’t going to restrict myself to just cards in Ixalan. I was going to make it a standard deck, but the tournament is going to be modern so that a student can play their Eldrazi deck. So this deck is hopefully a modern deck.

In the version listed here I have no basic lands at all. So this has a little drag between land being played and being able to cast anything. In reality turn 3 is when things start kicking in. Turn 2 could be used to cast a commune with dinosaurs (cwd). But in reality I have to weather any storm until turn 3.

The Decked app shows the following stat analysis of the initial version of this deck:

Here is my initial version of the deck:

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:23

2 Drover of the Mighty
3 Otepec Huntmaster
3 Raptor Hatchling
3 Rampaging Ferocidon
3 Charging Monstrosaur
1 Glorybringer
2 Regisaur Alpha
3 Burning Sun’s Avatar
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Gishath, Sun’s Avatar

Spells:16

2 Commune with Dinosaurs
1 Abrade
2 Haze of Pollen
3 Lightning Strike
2 Crushing Canopy
2 Gift of Paradise
2 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
2 New Horizons

Lands:21

2 Cinder Glade
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Jungle Shrine
2 Looming Spires
3 Rootbound Crag
2 Rugged Highlands
1 Savage Lands
3 Sheltered Thicket
4 Timber Gorge
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Grove

Sideboard:15

1 Glorybringer
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Gishath, Sun’s Avatar
2 Blazing Volley
3 Abrade
2 Fling
1 Haze of Pollen
1 Crushing Canopy
2 Hazoret’s Monument

I have to admit today I have been playing the deck with Vivid Crag, Vivid Grove, and the 2 Looming Spires replaced with 4 basic lands (2 Forests and 2 Mountains) in an attempt to speed up the deck a little. It means I can technically start building up from turn 2, and potentially play a cwd turn 1.

The other deck I’m working on is an Angel deck. Who knows how that is going to shape up? Some of the pieces for that are on the way. I’m yet to start putting it together. But lifelink and flying I think will be a thing. Along with trying to ramp up quickly to get them out to play.

So what do you think of this deck? What would you swap out?

Lego Star Wars Advent Days 1 – 4 2017

lego minifigs, star wars

Slight delay to getting this years Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar (Amazon apparently think Prime means longer than next day. It arrived today.

So here are the first 4 days worth of Lego action.

I’ll post daily on Instagram the contents, and then every 3 or 4 days on here so that I’m not spamming here too much.

Have I said what a huge fan of Twin Peaks I was?

Back in the late eighties, early nineties when it first aired I was addicted. Even as I’m writing this on my iPhone the haunting theme music for the show is playing in my head.

My Christmas viewing will be rewatching the original series, and the brand new episodes that got shown earlier in the year. I might even throw in the Fire Walk With Me movie.

Anyhow Funko bought out a set of Pop Vinyl figures for the series. With the latest arrival of the Comic Con exclusive (below) I now have the set (include the chase figure for the Giant).

Big game Saturday

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday morning started out like Christmas morning come early.

It started off with the Royal Mail delivering my coffee order from Pact Coffee (more on that in a moment), an Ixalan Booster Box for next weekend (it’s already accidentally fallen open ;) ), and some MtG cards I’d ordered for a couple of decks.

My coffee order was the big surprise. I think I must be one of Pact Coffee’s unluckiest customers. They sell amazing coffee, which they grind specifically for your coffee making device (the coffee needs to be ground to a different coarseness for a pour over filter like a V60 to that of an Aeropress). They tell you about flavour notes of the coffee, give you a card with it telling you about the farm the coffee beans come from. It’s a little bit more expensive than the options at a supermarket. But the price does include postage, and the whole experience is far far superior. The reason I claim to be their unluckiest customer is because very regularly I don’t get that full experience! Very often I get the coffee but not the card. Strangely enough I do get the partner companies offers. I do raise this with them, and a few days later they do post the missing cards to me.

So we come to yesterday morning with my orders. I’d bought a sample pack of coffees as a Christmas present, that had arrived Friday but with no cards (wasn’t surprised at that). But another copy of that ordered turned up with cards yesterday morning. Then my order for myself of two additional coffees also turned up twice! One with cards the other without! Finally my monthly subscription coffee turned up also without a card. I need to contact Pact Coffee about this (I’m sending them this link). But how does this work? In the past I’ve been given the excuse they’ve run out of cards and awaiting for more. But obviously I’m not convinced about this now. And why have I got double? Have they charged me twice? I’ll be upset if they have and demanding a refund. It will be interesting to hear the explanation for this. I think there is some serious lack of quality control in their fulfilment department.

If you cast your minds back a couple of days I put Nan and Mum on BFB alert. I was expecting that BFB to arrive early next week.

However that BFB arrived yesterday, mid morning. Weighing in at 9.9kg according to the box, and rightly justifying the claim of BFB and probably Bloody Heavy Box, Gloomhaven Second Edition had arrived.

That 9.9kg weight. That’s just heavier than the pack and gear (minus food and water) that I used for hiking across Scotland for 2 weeks on the TGO Challenge!

I’m so glad it came yesterday with me around. Mum and Nan would never have been able to cope with the size and weight of this game.

I will say that the lid of the box was warped. Will need to in the next week check over the game contents before contacting the publisher so I can provide a complete list of defects.

Lunchtime saw Diego, Chris and myself exploring outer space at The White Lion. We were playing Xia: Legends of a Drift System.

I set the Fame Point total for our game at 10. This was a first time playing for Diego and Chris. Mind you it’s not as if I was a seasoned pilot, having only played it once before. But that previous time I felt that the suggested 5 Fame Points for a first game was too low. However that’s the nice thing about this game you can set the target number of Fame Points needed to win to match the desired length of game that you want.

We were also for the first time using the npc’s.

I taught the basics of the game but left out some of the rules that were tidied to specific tile types. Leaving so that we’d read up on the rules as and when those tiles appeared. I did it this way because there is a lot to go over. And we would have forgotten them by the time they were needed, and have to look them up anyway.

Diego got labelled as an outlaw early on by visiting an outlaw planet. And started living up to that reputation. Mid-game Diego attacked Chris’s ship and destroyed it. But took some damage himself. So I took advantage of that situation, flew in and blew up that outlaw Diego. Showing him the error of his ways, and giving him the opportunity to make amends and lead a lawful life from that point on. Which he did.

I want to say that Diego won when he became Elite! You just want to use terms and language from that classic video game.

I’m really enjoying the fact that opportunities to play these more complex, in-depth games are happening. Let alone love playing these games.

We had a really great afternoon gaming. Great company and facilities. As you can see from the photo, Xia isn’t a small game. So we are really grateful to The White Lion for providing a location with tables large enough to allow us to get games like this to the table.

Friday Night Dice

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

A little while ago after seeing photos of Istanbul the dice game I wasn’t sure about it. Jonathan also had doubts, not sure what sparked those. But we both agreed that we’d wait to see some reviews first before deciding whether to buy it or not.

What I hadn’t remembered at the time was I’d already pre-ordered it! So imagine my surprise when Meeples Corner told me it was ready to be sent.

The game arrived mid week. Which after messaging Jonathan was going to definitely be hitting the table on Friday. The bigger question was would the expansion for Nations the dice game arrive in time?

Come Friday the evening the answer was sadly no. Yodel tracking was not informative as to where it was. It had left the Newton Abbot depot Thursday morning , and hadn’t been tracked since!

Which brings us nicely to last night and the two games Jonathan, Diego, Edmund and myself played.

As you might have guessed from the big clue earlier our first game of the evening was Istanbul the dice game.

History and records will show that I did indeed win this game.

In the past few years there have been dice versions of more substantial, complicated games. Roll for the Galaxy (Race for the Galaxy), Nations the dice game (Nations), Biblios dice (Biblios) etc. And these lighter, streamlined games have not only captured the feel of the bigger brother, but in some cases been preferred. Or that’s how some reviewers have spoken about these games. Although I can’t really speak about this because I don’t have the big brother version of those games, and have not played them. But I do enjoy the dice versions of those bigger games. I think this will be the first time I’ve played both the big brother and the dice version.

This is a nice game. There is an engine building mechanic, buying tiles that give you a boost, such as get 3 coins at the start of your turn, or get a gem that allows you to reroll dice at the start of your turn, or get an extra die to roll each turn. Without getting the tiles you won’t stand a chance of winning.

You have a large luck element to the game with having just the single dice roll each turn (unless you have a gem to spend to allow you to reroll). But despite that you are never stuck for an action to perform on your turn. One of those actions being able to get a gem.

Does it capture the spirit of the original game? I think it does. The collecting rubies, which you get by buying them, or swapping resources for, is there.

It’s a nice, quick, light game. For me not as good as it’s big brother. But that was always going to be a hard act to follow. The price is really good at £23. I think I’d happily play this with none gamers. Something I’d not do with the big brother (especially with all its expansions added in which is my preferred way to play it).

Our second and final game of the evening was London. Which after the dust had settled, money counted, poverty adjusted, saw Diego claim the victory.

It was a great evening gaming with great friends, at a great location.

BTN November 2017

by the numbers, gaming stats, stats

Well that’s November done and dusted, we are now on the home stretch to 2018. But how did I do gaming wise in November? As you will see this was an amazing month for the number of plays. In fact a record breaking month! But the number of games I played was a new all time low. The reason for that is that there has been no Friday Night Gaming at the White Lion for most of November. I’ve more or less stopped organising these because of lack of interest. But as you will see I have played a few games of Magic the Gathering this month. Most of these games have been against my students, one or two of them seem to have become addicted to the game.

Anyhooo, here are the stats for November 2017…

Here are the different measures for the average. It’s pretty obvious that the plays smashes them all, but the plays is considerably under.

The final section as usual presents the data graphically so we can try and see trends. This big spike is going to skew things a bit I think.

My Game of the Month…

There was only one new game in November and because of the issues I reported with the size of the components and the hard to read numbers on the tiles, I can’t in all honesty make it the game of the month. So for the second time this year there is no game of the month.

My gaming moment of the month…

This will be the first of an “as and when” addition to this monthly retrospective.

Worst Game of the Month…

The board game world breathes a big sigh of relief as once again there is no new entry to the Nantucket Wing of Shame. Although the Barenpark Cellar of over hyped games does take up a lot of room in it.

Hopefully hitting the table in December…

Clans of Caledonia did make it to the table in November. So I have dropped that off the list.

  • Suburbia – I really need to get this to the table. It’s been sitting in my collection for a while now. It’s shameful I haven’t played it yet.
  • Ghost Stories – another classic that has been sitting in my collection. About time this saw the light of day also.
  • Twilight Imperium (4th Edition) – came out earlier than expected. A couple of game sessions are set up to play this, hopefully they will happen.

  • Every second Wednesday of the month we have our monthly meet up. This month that second Wednesday is 13th December. More details on the clubs Facebook page (link at the bottom of  this post).

Click on the image to get a larger view of the gaming sessions planned so far for the month of December.

If you are in the area and want to attend one of the events, please visit the Fenland Gamers Facebook page for further details about the event. Hope to see you there

Minions and minions

Fenland Gamers, Game day

If you are planning to start a day of gaming with a full English at the establishment you will be playing, you should at least make sure you know when they stop serving.

Because that was the big flaw in my plan. So before any dice were chucked or cards shuffled, Diego and I went to the local Spoons for a traditional full English (black pudding optional extra) and a coffee.

Having fed it was back to our original plan of playing games at our original planned location of The White Lion Hotel.

Our game for the day was Mechs vs Minions.

While I was refreshing my memory of the rules, Diego was learning the game for the first time. I’d forgotten there was a tutorial to learn the basics. So we were learning or trying to remember whilst playing the first scenario.

Despite that learning curve we managed to complete the first scenario without a problem.

The second scenario started off well, but soon went to pot and ended in failure. A quick beverage break, board reset, and we were back with a plan.

It took some effort, lucky rolls and card draw, flawless execution, but Diego and I managed to complete the mission.

Which was also well timed, we didn’t have enough time to attempt the third mission. But we had enough time to pack away, make plans, chat, without the pressure of being finished by 4pm.

Yep Mechs vs Minions is still my favourite programmed action game.

Yet another great day gaming with a great friend.

Dinosaur Stomps

Fenland Gamers, Game day, magic, Magic League, MtG

Yesterday was day 3, session 3, or whatever you want to call the penultimate Ixalan League afternoon for Fenland Gamers.

Ok let’s jump in with my win-loss record for the afternoon. I went 7-2 yesterday. But I didn’t get to play 3 of the people yesterday. Two of those were very strong decks indeed.

My first two games were against Lukas and his vampires. I’m not sure what the issue is here. Is it the inexperience of the player, the deck, or poor card draw? This is an easy match up for me. Lukas isn’t posing much of a threat on the battlefield. I have answers for his plan. I think reflecting on things I think the problem is a combination of all of the above. Vampires shouldn’t be this easy to defeat.

Justin played against me for my next two games. Which saw us win one each.

My fifth game was an interesting game. I managed to stabilise at 3 life to grab the win. With a built up battlefield I was able to control the game and finally after defending some attacks in which they shouldn’t really have attacked, grab the win.

My next two games were against Michael, Winner of season. He easily powered his way to victory in our first game, thanks to not drawing enough mana early on. But our second game was a different story. With Michael not getting the right mana I stomped (although I don’t play that card) to victory. Season 2 isn’t being kind to Michael. His deck just isn’t as dominating this time round. He is suffering a lot more losses.

I faced Lukas again for two more games to see how his strengthened deck was doing. But the same issues were there. I think some deck and play advice are needed. Next time it’s help Lukas time.

Justin and I had played each other twice and had both won a game. So our last game of the afternoon was a decider between us.

We were both amassing creatures on our battlefield afraid to attack. I think I had the slight edge, both in numbers and amount of damage they could dish out. Justin had one or two big hitters I wanted off the board, and I could take them out only if they were head to head with certain creatures of mine. So ideally Justin had to attack me so I could control which creature fought which. That way we’d both take heavy losses but I’d come out on top. When Justin did blink first and attack, the exchange was brutal. But when the dust cleared I had the upper hand. Which got worse for Justin when Angrath’s Marauders came out.


Double damage. With a battlefield I was rebuilding faster than Justin. I definitely had the upper hand. But the clock was ticking, I had 2 less cards in my library than Justin. I’d mill out first. With basically 4 turns left, I pumped up my Jungle Delver to a 5/5 over a couple of turns, and bought out a Ixalli’s Keeper.

With 1 card left in my library I swung in with everything but my Ixalli’s Keeper. I also made sure I had enough mana saved to pull off its ability. Justin had 14 life left. Could not block everything I had, especially my big hitters. Whichever big hitter wasn’t blocked I had plans for. That unblocked big hitter was going to get a +5/+5 boost from a sacrificed Ixalli’s Keeper as an “in response to you declaring attackers”. Which with the double damage boost would be fatal. Luckily that final all or nothing attacked played out my way. The buffed up big hitter delivering that winning blow, and winning our tie breaker game.

That was a close game. Almost milled.

Once again our hosts Fenrock were amazing. They are making some great changes to the climbing experience there. Plus you can also try out virtual reality now! Yep Fenrock now have a pc setup with an oculus rift with various games (even minecraft) for people to play using it.

There will be a gap between the end of this current league and when the next one starts. Mainly because we will be using the next set Rivals of Ixalan for it (and that isn’t out until mid January). So the plans are to organise some fun events to pass the time. Such as an Unstable draft, more Commander, maybe even a highlander or two-headed giant session. It’s a shame Iconic Masters is so expensive, would love to do a draft of that. So keep an eye out on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page for when the events are announced.