This weeks favourite tokens are these awesome custom tokens for Star Wars: Destiny. You can pick up your own set HERE (sadly they had to stop using the First Order Trooper helmet for shields).
All posts by Darren
Hobbit Hole Ixalan League Night #1
Last night was the start of the MtG Ixalan League at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole (link on the right hand side of the page).
For an entry fee of £10, you get three Ixalan booster packs, a league deck box (cardboard), a tracking sheet, and the opportunity to play MtG on a regular basis.
Before I go on and talk about my experience of the nights playing MtG in this league. I should point out I have signed up to one previously, however didn’t really get any games because it clashed with game night. And that I have been running an Amonhket one for The Fenland Gamers over the last couple of months or so (it’s taken longer than four weeks due to various factors).
I think that the League format is a great way to get new and old players playing together on a more even playing field. It removes the card pool advantage a long time player has. There is also the affordability of it. You don’t have to buy lots and lots of boosters to play. It limits that to an initial three, then one a week after that, plus you may buy an additional pack for every three loses in a row you have. The fact you get a rather nice looking cardboard deck box as well for that tenner makes it that you are getting a little bit more value for your money. Remember my FLGS sells three boosters for a tenner. Plus you are getting that deck box.
Then you need to factor in that for participation (after playing 10 games) you get a promo Unclaimed Territory land card. Plus if I’m remembering right we are also going to get an additional foil card from the shops foil card folder of our choice!
That takes the vfm (value for money) by the end of the league to way over the initial tenner. I’m not counting in the extra boosters you can buy during the league to strengthen your deck. They are what they are, boosters bought at £3.50 a time.
Now we are talking about boosters how did I do with my three for the league?
Well I pulled the foil Vanquisher’s Banner below. I’m really chuffed with that. I had target bought the regular version at the weekend. But to now have the foil, super cool.
Spoiler alert but I did lose three games last night. So that will explain to the observant and those that care why there are four cards in the following photo of the rares that I pulled. I got the chance to buy an extra booster to help improve my deck (possibly, maybe).
I played John the owner of The Hobbit Hole for my first two games. Our first game was over quickly, I was not drawing well, and John just destroyed me. Our second game I lasted longer, but the end result was the same. Maybe my decision to go with a green/blue (simic) dinosuar merfolk deck was a mistake?
My third game against Mark, a player returning to Magic was just as bad as the first two. But this third loss did mean I could get another booster to try and make my deck stronger. Yay!
I tweaked my deck, added in a couple of mountains, so now the deck was going to become blue/green/red (temur). Took out a couple more lands ( I was sure I had too many lands in my deck). They were replaced by a couple of red removal cards, and a red dinosaur.
Mark and I then had a rematch. This time the deck was working better, and I got the win.
My final match was against Kath. This was a bit of a slow game, with a lot of build up, getting our forces into place. Then we started trading blows. This sort of game was ideal for me. I was able to get my dinosaurs and merfolk into place. I had been frustrating Kath with some of my blue control cards early on that stopped her using her creatures to attack.
But our game came down to one play. I was on 11 health, Kath was on 7. She swung in with everything on her battlefield. 12 points of damage coming in. A killing blow. Unless…
I played Fiery Cannonade. A card that had been sitting in my hand for most of the game, waiting for the right moment. It’s time had come. One of the cards Kath was attacking with was not a pirate. It was an unblockable merfolk (can’t remember which one), a 3/2. It was gone. Only 9 damage delivered. I was still alive just. The big play had failed, leaving me able to swing in with my dinosaurs (yeah they all had more than 2 health) and deliver my killing blow.
So for the evening my record was 2 wins, 3 losses.
Next week I get to buy another pack, and hopefully pull some great cards to make this an awesome deck.
A great evening of playing Magic at my FLGS.
Ixalan Rare, Mythics, and Foils I Pulled #5
So we are over the hump of these posts, and on the homeward stretch.
I have to say there are some cards here I do like the sound of. How playable they are in reality is another thing. There is a bit of me that says sell Hostage Taker. But then there is another bit that says keep it, you may need it. Then I go and check the price it is currently. It’s a £15 card!!! I may just take the money and run on that one.
Anyway you don’t want to hear about my MtG trading plans. You want to see more rare and mythics that I pulled. So never one to disappoint here are the next batch of nine cards.
Getting some staples for Commander
I decided that to help me build my first commander deck it was cheaper to use a precon commander deck to get some of the “basics”.
I didn’t want to cannibalise my Commander 2017 or Anthology decks. They are my let’s play magic with a group of friends go tos.
So I grabbed a 2015 precon to act as that sacrificial deck. This will be my first 2015 precon. But seeing as I haven’t any of the others (well all of them), and I won’t be in a position to get them all. It won’t become part of that “let’s play magic” thing I just mentioned for 2017 and Anthology, I don’t feel guilty using it as card fodder.
This deck gives me Sol Ring and Command Tower for starters. Plus 74 other cards (excluding basic lands).
Just to target buy these two cards would be around £6.
I loved the following card Karmic Justice when I saw it. It’s like a warning, leave me alone or something bad will happen to you. Plus with me going with Gishath, Sun’s Avatar as my commander I can play it. But Karmic Justice is a £5 card on Magic Madhouse and eBay but £1.75 from Chaos Cards. So depending on availability of the cards on the sites I would have been looking at between £8 and £11 for three cards! Obviously target buying was looking to be potentially more expensive than just getting the precon. Plus would I have even looked at or known to look at Karmic Justice without getting the precon?
For me just on a value for money exercise I think taking this approach to building my first commander deck, and getting my hands on some of the deck staples, plus expand my card pool to build from, and learning about cards to put into my deck then this was a good buy for the money.
So Karmic Justice protects, kind of, cards like Thought Vessel below.
I like not having to worry about hand size. It means you can keep answers to problems in hand ready to play at the right moment. Like the following bit of jank.
Can I find a place in the deck for this bit of jank below? But this digresses from the point of the post because neither card is in this precon deck.
I’m still looking through the cards, and trying to think if they fit in with the deck I want to build. But then again I just know the commander at the moment, with no real plan.
Maybe in my next post on this first deck I should look at this commander and try and work out a plan for the deck?
Ixalan Rare, Mythics, and Foils I Pulled #4
Just about about half way I think in this long boring series of photos of MtG rare, mythic and foil cards from the latest set Ixalan.
I will say that I’m loving the art on the merfolk and dinosaur cards. However the vampire and pirate cards I am on a whole finding have my least favourite art of the set. I don’t know if it’s because they tend to be darker, or I’m just not liking the style. Just something isn’t clicking with me.
Oh you don’t want this middle aged man’s thoughts on the card art, go make your own mind up by looking at these cards for starters…
Ixalan Rare, Mythics, and Foils I Pulled #3
Here we are with the third in this series.
Luckily I have been able to do all these in one go and schedule them for release. Sadly for you that means I have probably used my best introductions up already, and after this post it just gets worse.
I should really be saying more about these cards. But in reality I’m not a judge of what is good and what is bad. For instance Burning Sun’s Avatar, and Regisaur Alpha look good cards to me. I like both their enter battlefield effects. Alpha gives you a 3/3 green dinosaur token with trample, and other dinosaurs you control get haste! Seems sweet to me.
And Rampaging Ferocidon looks made for Commander. Switching off life gain, and dealing damage when creatures enter the battlefield to it’s controller. I’d think this would be a real pain when it is out, and force others to get rid of it.
Where as Fathom Fleet Captain doesn’t set my world on fire, and I could not see myself playing it.
But I’m sure experienced Magic and Commander players will correct me on my assessment of those cards.
See you in the fourth post in this series.
Ixalan Rare,Mythics , and Foils I pulled #2
Back for more?! Wow!!
Welcome to part two of this series where I show you the rare, mythic and foil cards I pulled recently from some MtG Ixalan boosters that I opened.
Here’s the next nine cards…
Who Should Be My First Commander?
MtG is addictive! Cracking open packs is addictive (Star Wars:Destiny has all this is spades too). Deck building is addictive. That desire to build a deck that executes your plan to perfection while crushing your opponent.
It starts with an idea. With Destiny it could be “I want to build a mini mill deck” or “I think Sabine/Rey would be a cool pairing”. For me it’s no different in MtG. I’ve never built a Commander deck before, but the itch has been eating away at me to do so. Especially ever since I saw Neheb, the Worthy in Amonkhet. Tribal (a term I only recently heard of, yes I’m still that wet behind the ears) Minotaur sounded really cool to me. Who doesn’t think minotaurs are cool?
Gishath, Sun’s Avatar is another Legendary that grabbed me as a great Commander to build a deck around. Dinosaur Tribal is probably cooler than minotaurs, just. And might even pip dragons.
So two potential deck ideas. But which to build first?
My main problem will be do I have enough minotaurs or dinosaurs to make the respective tribal decks? Or if I don’t, are there enough out there that budget allowing I can get to build the tribal deck?
Sadly at this point in time I don’t think there is. So do I kill two birds with one stone and build a deck that has both? A dinosaur/minotaur deck, with Gishath as the commander?
Having Gishath as the commander has the advantage of giving me access to white and this fun card…
I love janky stuff like this. That “wtf? Is that a legal card?” Is worth it. I might not win the game. But I’ve had fun.
Anyway I’m still pondering these options. It’s a hard decision to make.
Ixalan Rare,Mythics, and Foils I pulled #1
I threatened this series of posts at the weekend, and I’m a man of my word. Well sometimes. Sometimes I forget what I have said. I’m nearly fifty (next year). My time on this planet is very limited. Things fail me from time to time, like my memory. Plus my mouth isn’t connected to my brain, so it’s also very likely that something comes out that my brain has no record of at all.
This series of posts over the next week will concentrate on showing what rares, mythics and foils I pulled at the weekend from all those Ixalan boosters I opened. Each post in this series will show nine cards. I don’t want to over load those not interested in MtG with too much in a single post. It might send them into a coma!
Without further ado, here are the first nine cards for you…
BTN September 2017
I enjoy this monthly opportunity to look back and reflect on the previous months gaming. But when you see this months numbers, holy cow the impact of Dale and I not getting a chance to play Star Wars: Destiny is massive. It’s a very busy time of year for us, new timetables, not a lot of gaps where we are free at the same time. I think we have found a slot one lunchtime we are both able to play a couple of games. We will have to see how that goes.
Incredibly there was only one new game played this month. I don’t think that has ever happened. I’m going to have to review the stats, because if it did then it was in the early days of record keeping I’m sure.
Super happy that Scythe got to the table twice. It’s a great game, and once that new expansion hits will be hitting the table even more. Also two other big games hit the table this month. It’s kind of important to acknowledge the impact these games have on the number of plays for the month. Take Star Wars: Rebellion for instance. That game for Diego and myself on Saturday took four hours to play (including the new setup involved with the expansion). If we had been playing lighter games instead we might have got three or four games/plays in, in the same time period.
I also wasn’t able to attend a couple of gaming sessions this month due to life stuff, other commitments. So that also would impact the stats a little. But not by much.
Anyway enough waffling, here are the cold hard and fast numbers from the BG Stats app for September.
Averages time. I only beat the mode number of plays in September. The others I was not even close. And I repeat this with the number of games played also. Under on arithmetic mean and median, just over on mode.
The final section as usual presents the data graphically so we can try and see trends. After the fluctuating recent highs, September looks like a stock market crash on the plays front. Maybe I should normalise the previous months so they don’t have the Destiny numbers and see how big a drop it is if any?
My Game of the Month…
There was only one new to me game this month. But I don’t like to just give an award by default. Does Broom Service warrant being game of the month? I liked the game, it has some nice mechanics, great artwork. But still I’m not sure it makes the grade to be game of the month. So no winner this month.
Worst Game of the Month…
I’m glad to report no candidates for this award this month.
Hopefully hitting the table in October…
But going to put the ones from the last month back on for October.
- Zombicide – I want to get this to the table with the Big Bang Theory characters and see how they do in the zombie apocalypse.
- Hero Realms with the character expansions.
- Magic the Gathering Commander (with more than two players)
- The weekly Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion (or FEG@WL as I call it)
- Every second Wednesday of the month we have our monthly meet up. This month that second Wednesday is 11/10/17.
I’m hoping that if you click on the image you can see what days we have stuff planned for so far in October.
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