Category Archives: Game day

WotC Ruin Saturdays

Deck tech, Game day, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building


The first Not Saturday Showdown since Core Set 2020 hit, and WotC changed how they did prize support for organised play, and killed off Standard Showdown.

A simple explanation of the new prize support is now each store gets an allocation of prize packs (the equivalent of the old Showdown packs) based on the tickets and engaged players that they have.

Each pack is made up of 4 cards. You can get the full break down HERE.These new packs replace FNM promos, Open House promos, and Standard Showdown packs, etc.

I think my FLGS gets 8 or 10 packs a week to use as prizes for all events in a week. It used to get 6 Standard Showdown packs a week, plus promos for FNM, and any event specific ones.

Just how would this new system work?

Not very well.

Basically there were 2 packs up for grabs 1 each for the top 2 spots. No door prize for last place. And no random draw for the remaining packs for the week. So there was less prizes, and less chance of getting a prize. Pretty shitty.

For me WotC have ruined our Not Standard Showdown. They spent all this time trying to build up the standard player base. Which is what they want really. It sells packs/booster boxes. Now with abandoning the Standard Showdown event, cutting down the prize support they are putting this at risk, and undermining the store and that format.

Standard Showdown was fun (still is). It was/is cheap to enter. However just getting a booster pack for participating and a greatly reduced chance of a prize is not enough to attract me. Now I ask the question do I travel the half hour to my FLGS to get just a booster pack or do I stay local and play with friends? The later option sounds a lot more attractive now. Back to kitchen table magic.

In the above equation I also need to factor in the meta. In my FLGS meta it’s getting a bit stagnant. Only two or three of us play different decks on a regular basis. The majority play the same deck week in week out, with the odd tweak when new cards come out. Some of those decks are pretty strong, and means they finish in the higher places regularly. Which reduces the chances even more of a prize in the new prize support structure. And it’s not much fun. Oh it’s your aggro dino deck again, oh cool burn. This new less generous prize support is only going to encourage more of this sort of meta. In fact it’s going to encourage more net decking for the better decks.

So reflecting on the above what WotC have decided for me is no more Not Standard Showdown. I’ll probably only attend pre-releases now. Won’t bother with booster boxes. I’d already dropped the bundle because of the change to it for Core Set 2020. I’ll target buy the cards that I need for Commander when new sets come out. Which actually hurts WotC because they don’t see any of that money. And just concentrate on playing my favourite format of Commander with friends.

It’s going to be interesting to see if my decision is reflected amongst other MtG players, and if is if the number doing so will make a difference.

So yesterday in my actual event games I did crap. No hiding from it. Being mana screwed in a few of them just didn’t help.

Now the casual games was a different story. Especially against Bob. But when it counted he won. Our casual game where I played Orzhov against his burn was funny. The games were over in seconds! First game opening hand Leyline of Sanctity. So a turn zero play. He saw that, slammed his hand on the table, put it on top,of his deck, and conceded. Game 2, I mulliganed into the Leyline again. Same result. It was funny his reaction. But we are used to that from him. Plus mono red burn typically doesn’t have any enchantment removal. Leyline of Combustion also proved affective against burn.

Let’s look at the cold hard numbers that don’t lie, but don’t tell the whole story either!

Casual Games

Bob (before): Win 2-1

Kid (before): Win 2-0

Bob (between using Orzhov deck): Win 2-0

Bob (at end): Win 1-0

Not Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 11

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Sam Loss 0-2

Round 2: Buy Win

Round 3: Dean Loss 0-2

Round 4: Bob Loss 0-2

Record: 1-3

Final Position: 9th

Prizes: 1 participation pack

So for the history books this is version 2 of the Gruul Dino deck that I used at the weekend. You can, if you are even remotely interested to see my initial version of the deck, look at the post with the deck list here.

But before I go any further it’s probably best I give my boiler plate get out of jail disclaimer for my decks.

“I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.“

Creatures:27

4 Marauding Raptor
3 Otepec Huntmaster
4 Raptor Hatchling
3 Ranging Raptors
2 Ripjaw Raptor
4 Shifting Ceratops
3 Charging Monstrosaur
2 Regisaur Alpha
2 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:12

3 Commune with Dinosaurs
2 Act of Treason
3 Rhythm of the Wild
2 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
1 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger
1 Vivien Reid

Lands:21

3 Evolving Wilds
8 Forest
7 Mountain
3 Rugged Highlands

Sideboard:15

3 Thrashing Brontodon
2 Grazing Whiptail
1 Burning Sun’s Avatar
1 Carnage Tyrant
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Savage Stomp
2 Tibalt, Rakish Instigator
2 Leyline of Combustion

And as is tradition for when I give a deck list here is the mana curve and cost of the deck.

Goatnapped!

Game day, magic, MtG

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far.

There was only one way to spend the day. Indoors playing MtG at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole’s Open House event.

The last couple of days I’ve been on a lucky streak. In the two new Planeswalker decks I bought I got a Leyline of Sanctity, in my Modern Horizons packs, a foil squirrel token, pain land and an Unbound Flourishing (recouped the cost of the packs back in that card alone), a new Karn in the War of the Spark boosters.

The Leyline is needed for my Standard deck, whilst the Unbound Flourishing is going straight into my big green stompy Commander deck.

Naturally I was wearing the coolest tee of the day at my FLGS. Yep I had the card Ferocious Pup made into a tee. I had hoped the white would have come out better. It looked distressed at best. But otherwise I was happy with the rest of it.

I went with the new Green Welcome deck. Which was fortunate because after loosing a game with it against Kar-Fai. I was able to trade the Aggressive Mammoth that is in the deck with Kar-Fai for the Reckless Air Strike he pulled from the booster in his Planeswalker deck. I wanted the card to go in my mono red goblins Commander deck that I was about to use.

Other new cards in the deck were the new Krenko, and Goatnap. The new Krenko was also being tested as the Commander.

Our four player Commander game was great fun. Naturally being goblins I was quick off the mark, and was basically the major threat. But after Elesh Norn hit the battlefield that was me scuppered. As was the Markov vampire deck. Until that card was removed it basically stopped me playing any goblins, or creating tokens. During that period of being locked down, Dean and his Atraxa super friends deck started to get really powerful with a few Planeswalkers out and firing off their abilities.

Luckily I got an Immortal Sun out, not early enough. But at the right moment to stop him ultimating them and winning the game. It then became in the interest of the other players to keep me alive and locking out those Planeswalkers.

Once Dean had been removed, ok killed. I didn’t last much longer despite firing off a board wipe.

But earlier in the game I did get to use Goatnap to steal Elesh Norn. That was pretty cool.

It was a fun Commander game. With the usual ebb and flow. We introduced a new player to the format. Got to play cool cards.

Afterwards I got to play test my not Standard deck (well not for another 2 weeks) with 2 copies of leylines in it, and a third Nissa. The decks I played against were not competitive enough for a Showdown. They were nowhere fast enough compared to say Dean’s Dino deck, or the red burn decks. So not really a test for the deck.

Naturally the FLGS sold out of all their Planeswalker decks. Mainly to existing players though. It’s that booster pack from Core Set 2020 in each Planeswalker deck. Early early access to the cards.

I had a really great day playing MtG. This was a fun Open House.

When I got home the model clippers had arrived. Which allowed me to do my least favourite part of the miniatures hobby. Cutting and gluing models together.

So I put the Viking warriors together, and not shown the Viking berserkers.

Everything was then primed ready for painting. Which I started today. But more about that in another post.

Not Standard Showdown!

Game day, magic, MtG

Yeah I know I’ve not posted for a couple of days. I hope you enjoyed the rest from my poorly written ramblings.

Having missed playing last weekend for whatever life reasons, I was back with a vengeance this week.

My plan was to play in Standard Showdown and try out my modifications to the super friends deck. Modifications I had made earlier in the morning, literally straight after I woke up. I was keen to see if they worked.

Ok what I was going to be playing in wasn’t exactly Standard Showdown. It was Not Standard Showdown, but like it. There were no Standard Showdown packs up for grabs they had all gone. Standard Showdown doesn’t exist anymore. A mistake by WotC in my opinion. But we will see.

But this wasn’t the only MtG event going on today at my FLGS. Starting off before Not Standard Showdown was a MtG European Modern Series Qualifier (Constructed).

So while waiting for my event to start I got to watch a game or two of the Modern tournament. Wow talk about fast. I was just watching and I was shell shocked when I witnessed Rob Win on turn 5 (his third turn). That’s blindingly fast. His second turn with a couple of mana was insane. How it felt to be on the receiving end I have no idea.

We had 12 players turn up for Not Standard Showdown. It was going to be cozy in the store today.

Sadly for this tournament I went mono red burn/aggro after being goaded into it by Kar-Fai after he said I never played mono red. So I went with it to surprise him!

Round 1 against Kerry both the games played saw my deck just run out of steam, and not able to get over the finish line, or deal with her drakes that just got bigger and bigger.

Round 2 was against Simon, Kerry’s partner. I did better in this match up. Game 1 saw me get kicked by Nico Bolas. My Rekindling Phoenix proved too hot to handle and got me back on level pegging. With the decider going against me.

Round 3 saw Kar-Fai and I fighting it out for the start of the battle for last place. His life gain token deck was a good match up with me. Apart from the hiccup of game 2, where I needed one more land to be able to do lethal with a banefire, and this allowed Kar-Fai a window to grab the win. I was more than able to control the game, and with the likes of Chainwhirler keep Kar-Fai from massing lots of tokens.

The final round saw me up against John. Who was back with Golgari, and an insect token spam. The game he won saw him getting 9 insect tokens out. The one time in our match up when I didn’t hit one of my cards that would have wiped them out. But otherwise the other two games went to plan.

Afterwards Kar-Fai and I played some casual games allowing me to test the superfriends deck out.

Had a great afternoon playing MtG. I think it’s Open House next weekend.

Ok here are just the raw stats for the afternoon.

Casual Game

Kar-fai : Loss 1-2

Not Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 12

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Kerry Loss 0-2

Round 2: Simon Loss 1-2

Round 3: Kar-Fai Win 2-1

Round 4: John Win 2-1

Record: 2-2

Final Position: 7th

Prizes: 1 participation pack. Plus an old promo card.

Superfriends Assemble

Deck tech, Game day, magic, MtG

Saturday was a big weekend for my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. It was Modern Horizons Pre-release Weekend draft, Standard Showdown and the 5th Anniversary of the store being open.

To celebrate the first 100 customers over the weekend got a commemorative coin. Luckily I was able to get one when I paid for the Standard Showdown.

Luckily for me and the other handful that had turned up for Standard Showdown there was room for us to play. There had been a chance that if the Modern Horizons Pre-release draft had sold out we would have not had space to play. But as you can see below although that event was well attended, it left room for us cheapskates to play Standard.

While waiting for both events to start I was able to get a quick test game in with the new Superfriends deck I built. It wasn’t really a great game to test with. My opponents deck was also a work in progress (aren’t they all?) and being tested. That deck was more of a work in progress than mine, and allowed me the time to get set up and control the game for the win. My conclusion was at least the deck could work.

I adjusted the deck quickly after getting some feedback from one of the stores ex-pro players. The new Nissa was added. Weaponising lands.

As the results below show the deck didn’t do fantastic. Ok a couple of games I got mana screwed (so for the casual games with Bob afterwards I went up to 24 lands from 22).

The one game I won against surprisingly the mono red burn deck has Saheeli out and was getting servos out on the board.

For both Standard Showdown and the casual games I was just not hitting the superfriends quick enough. Or when I did I was getting mana screwed. Nissa and the weaponised lands did help me draw things out while trying to find answers.

But the speed of the burn deck and even Dean’s dinosaur deck (he had a turn three Ghalta out on game one) was too much for me. The counter spells allowed me to delay things, but I was just not hitting my answers.

The deck has potential. Do I cut back on the counter spells? Out in some cheap creatures? Or do a put in some fog spells?

I’ll post the deck tomorrow in another post.

Casual Games

Josh: Win 1-0

Dean: Loss 0-1

Bob: Loss 0-4

Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 8

Rounds: 3

Round 1: Bob (mono red burn) Loss 1-2

Round 2: Dean (aggro) Loss 0-2

Round 3: bye Win

Record: 1-2

Final Position: 4th

Prizes: 1 participation pack. Plus Standard Showdown pack

Gods, Mines, and Magic!

Deck tech, Game day, game night, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Friday evening I got to play games with Diego and Jonathan.

This doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like. I’ll keep saying this over and over, but they are two of my favourite people to play games with (there are a handful of others on that short list, and I’m sure you can guess who they are).

Our first game of the evening was Coal Baron. Another game that Jonathan and I hadn’t played in a longtime. It was way before I started recording games using the BG Stats app. So I did a little digging on this hear ol’ blog of mine.

My searching did dig up this post. So if you go and look at the date of the post, we are going back to September 2015 when I last played this game. Even more interesting is that it was at my first Fenland Gamers meet up. Wow!

Incredibly it was the same outcome as all those years back now. I was last, with a 4 point difference! It pains me to admit Jonathan won this by a point.

Games played: Coal Baron, Santorini

Our final game of the evening was the classic “just one more game” Santorini but as 3 players.

We ended up playing 3 games of this, with Diego taking the honours in all of them.

But a fantastic evening of gaming. Great company.

Saturday was going to be an endurance test and a first for me playing MtG.

The days plan was to do Standard Showdown and then take part in the Planeswalker Weekend event straight after.

Before Standard Showdown started I managed to get a couple of casual games in with Paul. I haven’t used the mono red deck much. So I used these games as an excuse to do so. Pail was playing his dinosaur deck.

The first game was as expected and the mono red burn just flew. Our second game was a different beast altogether. For a long time I was mana screwed on 2 mountains. Luckily I was able to hold in there to start getting land. That’s when things took off for me. I’d been sitting with 3 Goblin Chainwhirlers and a Rekindling Phoenix since the start of the game. Once I was able to start playing them it was game over.


For Standard Showdown I went with the Simic deck.

Casual Game (using mono red burn)

Paul: Win 2-0

Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 9

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Dean (dino aggro) Win 2-1

Round 2: Robert (burn/aggro) Loss 0-2

Round 3: John (Simic merfolk) Win 2-1

Round 4: Michael (Rakdos) Loss 2-0

Record: 2-2

Final Position: 5th

Prizes: 1 participation pack.

Basically the Planeswalker Weekend draft event that I was taking place in was like the old Game Day or Store Championship. On the line was the following War of the Spark play mat. Which looked better in real life.


This was my first draft event. It was fun. But you are drafting for value to start with. Which for me on pack 1 worked out as a good card to build around also. I skipped the Planeswalker and took the rare card that was a 2CMC rakdos creature card. So I let that set my colours for the draft. I don’t think anyone else was really going for those colours. So I was picking up lots of cheap creatures and spells in those colours. I think it helped having decided from pack 1, card 1, what colours I was going for and the style of play.

The “hook” for this draft and Planeswalker Weekend was that Planeswalkers could be cast with any colour mana. So when it came to grabbing the Planeswalker from your packs it was irrelevant as to the colours needed to cast.

Planeswalker Weekend Stats

Participants: 14

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Young Lad Win 2-0

Round 2: Alex Loss 0-2

Round 3: Joshua Win 2-0

Round 4: Sam Win 2-0

Record: 3-1

Final Position: 5th

Prizes: 1 participation pack, 2 foil promo cards, 1 booster

There was a free for all for the sticker packs. But I wasn’t a fan of the art style. So I didn’t join in the feeding frenzy for one of them. I think this is some of the worst MtG art I’ve seen.


As you will see I didn’t stick to the 40 card deck minimum, and went 44 cards!

There is some synergy between cards here using the Amass mechanic. Whether it triggered when a creature entered the battlefield, or when it died.

The Planeswalkers worked really well. They gave an element of control that distrupted the opponent’s game.

The mana curve for the deck is exactly what I wanted for a deck that was going aggro.


Here is the deck I built from the cards drafted:

Creatures:18

1 Banehound
1 Dreadmalkin
1 Grim Initiate
1 Dreadhorde Arcanist
1 Dreadhorde Butcher
2 Duskmantle Operative
2 Goblin Assailant
2 Lazotep Reaver
2 Vampire Opportunist
1 Mayhem Devil
2 Shriekdiver
2 Herald of the Dreadhorde

Spells:12

3 Kaya’s Ghostform
1 Spark Harvest
2 Aid the Fallen
2 Sorin’s Thirst
1 The Elderspell
1 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Teyo, the Shieldmage

Lands:14

5 Mountain
9 Swamp

FNM and Saturday Standard Showdown

Game day, game night, magic, MtG

Friday saw me attend an FNM at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole after trying unsuccessful to recruit volunteers to help me test my Standard decks and the tweaks I’d made to them.

I think this was my first FNM that I’ve attended. I don’t usually go to them as they clash with the Fenland Gamers gaming sessions.

But we had no session last Friday and I really wanted to test a tweak or two before using one of the decks in anger at the Standard Showdown.

The meta at FNM is totally different to the Showdown. There are a lot more mono red or red based burn decks. Which for some reason my current Simic deck so far does well against.

I played the Simic deck for FNM, and tried out the other two decks in casual games between rounds or while waiting for the results.
FNM was fun. Interesting to see the difference in meta between the two groups of players and play against new people. I knew one or two of the FNM regulars. But everyone I played against was a new opponent that I’d never played against before.

Casual Games

William: Loss 1-2

Michael: Draw 1-1

FNM Stats

Participants: 10

Rounds: 3

Round 1: William (white/black life gain) Loss 0-2

Round 2: Jamie (mono red burn) Win 2-0

Round 3: Michael (red/? aggro/burn) Win 2-1

Record: 2-1

Final Position: 4th

Prizes: 1 participation pack

Saturday was Standard Showdown once more. This time I went with the Simic deck considering how well it did the night before.

The 2 games I lost were due more to being mana screwed and speed than anything else. That was especially true in the game with John. The number of times I was having to mulligan to get any land or more than 1 land was shocking. In one game my opening hand plus the next 6 cards that I drew for the mulligan I didn’t get a single land.

The game with Ryan was a bit unfair. He’s a new player, a youngster as well using an upgraded United Assault. Except he was playing with a 75 card deck! Plus a 15 card sideboard!!!! After our game I called over Andy (who had a buy that round) to help Ryan get back down to a 60 card deck.

John got another one over me. But I think in the long run the win/loss ratio against John is still in my favour. God I hate the sleep card he plays. Almost makes me wish I was back to the Simic control version of the deck. Sleep was enough to give John game one, basically taking my creatures out for 2 turns, and free mega swings for John. Game 2 was when my land decided to hide. If I’d hit the land drops maybe the result would have been different. It couldn’t have been any worse!

The final round against Jade started off badly, although I was close to triggering Simic Ascendancy (just needed to survive Jade’s turn, which sadly I couldn’t). But the second game, with both versions of Vivien out and being allowed to ultimate Vivien Reid with about 10 creatures on the board that were getting bigger and bigger thanks to proliferate. The result was an inevitable crushing. I think that’s the first time I’ve had both out. And the filtering for cards is amazing, you are looking at 7 cards a turn. A creature or land to hand, and a creature in exile that can be cast anytime. The deciding game, also went my way. Once again getting enough creatures out and pumping them up big enough to protect me and then swing in for the kill.

Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 9

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Nathan Hall (red/black aggro) Loss 0-2

Round 2: Ryan (upgraded! United Assault) Win 2-0

Round 3: John (Simic merfolk) Loss 0-2

Round 4: Jade (upgraded United Assault) Win 2-1

Record: 2-2

Final Position: 7th

Prizes: 1 participation pack.

Sadly there were no casual games at Standard Showdown this week. I arrived nearer the start time, and after 4 rounds I had to shoot off.

Microbrew – some initial thoughts

Game day

Sunday afternoon Jonathan kindly agreed to meet up and play a learning game of Microbrew.

Microbrew is a worker placement game that is all about brewing craft beers and gaining loyal customers, that all fits into a small tin.

A single copy of the game plays 2 players. So if you want to play 3-4 players you need a second copy.

In our game I replaced the white wooden disk used as the manager token on the brewery with the cute little elephant meeple that came with the game. Why not? I thought looks better than a white disk.

The brewery is where you select your action that you want to take. If you place a worker where an opponent’s worker is that worker returns to your opponent. Basically giving them an extra action to take. Place your worker where the manager is and your opponent gets to take an action without using a worker.

During a round players alternate placing a worker and carrying out the action selected.

At a minimum you get 2 actions a round using your 2 workers. But you can hire a third worker. Plus any bonus actions as described above.

A round ends when both players have passed, and you retrieve your workers and other upkeep stuff.

The game ends when either the last customer card comes out and a final round has been played, or immediately if there are 12 loyal customers. Person with most loyal customers wins.

That’s a very rough outline of game play there are some other bits I’ve skipped. But that gives you the general idea.

For a small game there is a lot going on.

Personally I can’t see why this game is so small, or has to be. I think it would benefit from being larger. Take it up to Tiny Epic box size, it’s still pretty portable, could support 2-4 players without having to purchase additional copies, have the beer mat copper and brewery replacements (that I think were part of the Kickstarter).

If we compare it to Mint Works, that plays 1-4 out of a tin. Admittedly it’s a lighter game. However I only need the one copy. Where as I don’t like the having to buy 2 copies to play 2-4 players. Surely having to carry 2 copies around negates that it fits in the pocket argument?

I liked the puzzle element that you have in the game. Manipulating your copper so that you can match up with the recipes as best as possible.

Jonathan didn’t like the final round once the end game trigger had happened, as it was a dead round for him. There wasn’t anything he could score, so he didn’t want to take any actions. But that is a failing of that mechanic. Other games use it as well, and I know why it’s there, that last chance to grab a final point that might give a person victory or a tie. In those other games I’ve certainly had games where that round has been pointless as there was nothing I could do to get more points. It’s just not bothered me as much. Admittedly in this case if I’d had one more action I would have grabbed one more loyal customer. If Jonathan had bounced a worker back to me I would have been able to do that extra action. He needed to avoid doing that. Which he did. But Jonathan will I’m sure explain in the comments much more eloquently than me his feelings on this.

The rule book isn’t brilliant. It’s not entirely clear in spots. I think this is a victim of trying to explain a complicated game in a small space.

As worker placement games go, it’s ok. But I’m not sure if it will get much table time.

If I want that portable scratch the worker placement itch then it has to be Mint Works, it plays more people, it’s quicker, and easier to teach. If I want something meatier which this certainly is, then I’d go for the bigger boxed worker placement games that I enjoy.

History will record Jonathan won.

Some recent gaming

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, magic, MtG

It’s been a busy week for gaming. Wednesday was the monthly meet up for Fenland Gamers. Friday was the regular fortnightly gaming session. Then Saturday was the start of the final season of Standard Showdown.

The monthly meet up was well attended. But bit of a disaster on the planning games wise.

Earlier in the day Jonathan had posted on the club Facebook page a reminder for members to let who over had set up the event that they were going. It makes planning what games to take along easier.

Sadly after that did Jonathan and I take any games? Not really I took some small games, like Love Letter, No Thanks!. Jonathan had none. Our excuse? Others had said they were bringing stuff.

In the end there were 6 of us. Sadly the games bough were max head counts of 4. We could have split into 2 groups and played. But we didn’t. After a period of chatting and indecision Jonathan nipped back to his car and got Saboteur. One of a small handful of games he still had in his car. He used to have a lot more games stored there.

So the evening was spent playing a few small games that played 6 people.

Games played: Saboteur, No Thanks!, Perudo

Friday was a gaming session Jonathan and myself had been waiting for. We were both looking forward to playing Root that another member was bringing along.

While we were waiting for that person to arrive, we played a quick game of the Archer themed Love Letter. It’d been a while since I’d played this version, and it’s still one of my favourites. I like the mechanic it uses where the card that is removed at the start is used in the game.

Root. What can I say? Did it live up to the expectations and the hype? Kinda, I’m not sure!

This was a learning game for everyone. I do like that there is a manual and sheet that is designed for new players, and takes you through your first couple of turns. I do like this trend that has emerged over the last couple of years or so, that for the more “complicated” games you get a beginners guide and reference guide.

I like the truly asymmetrical factions. It does make teaching and learning I would imagine a nightmare. I think I got lucky in getting the vagabonds. They were an easy faction to get to grasp. I liked the political element of the faction. But despite winning, I didn’t really use the faction to it’s fullest.

Root is one of those games like Cry Havoc, that I think is going to reward you for playing the game multiple times with the same faction, so you truly master the tactics and learn the cards.

I love the meeples used (photo below) they have a cute factor. As does all the art used as well. Which is an interesting design choice. The art style would be attractive to a younger age group. But it’s not a game you’d play with a younger age group.

One thing I did not like about the game was the amount of down time between turns. It’s long. I’m hoping this is explained away by the fact this was a learning game. But I can see this still being an issue once a player knows the game better.

Root is an interesting game. I didn’t dislike it. But I didn’t leave the game raving about it either, or thinking I must play another game straight away. It needs more plays for sure.

Games played: Archer: Once You Go Blackmail, Root

Saturday was the first Standard Showdown in the final season of Standard Showdown.

I managed to get some casual games in before the Showdown started, and tinker with the Simic deck. But I was undecided on which deck to play. The choice was between mono red aggro (the upgraded 2019 Challenger deck) and my Orzhov deck.

I decided to go with the Orzhov deck after seeing that a friend was going mono red aggro (with an upgraded 2019 Challenger deck). I wanted to avoid if we did end up playing against each other a mirror match up.

It was bound to happen sometime that I would face off against Andy Hall in a first round. His Selesnya token deck just walked all over mine. My deck just didn’t get set up quick enough. More annoyingly, Andy threw that deck together quickly before leaving the house to come to the Showdown.

Round 2 saw me playing John and his Simic merfolk Simic Ascendancy deck. This was a good match up for me. And it was a by the numbers game. I got Liliana out in the first game, that gave me the edge to get the win. While in game two Sorin gave me the advantage. Being able to bring back the creatures I had in my graveyard, and the lifelink very powerful.

Round 3 against Kar-Fai was draining. I took our first game. But it could have gone either way. The second game was a real back and forth. The first half of the game I had the upper hand, but ran out of juice just as Kar-Fai started to get answers. Then it was me holding on looking for answers. It was such a long game. Which saw Kar-Fai claw his way to victory just as the time buzzer went off. This was a true draw. Our decks very evenly matched.

The final round saw me up against another mono red aggro deck (another upgraded 2019 Challenger deck). So I knew what was coming. The first game was close, but the second game with Tibalt out screwed me over. As predicted it shutdown my life gain shenanigans. I destroyed one, only for it to be replaced with a second the following turn.

My casual games afterwards with my friend saw me testing the Simic deck against the dreaded mono red aggro. I was happy how it handled itself. Sadly in our third game I never drew into my solutions for the Rekindling Phoenix, and with 2 of them out I stood no chance.

Casual Games

Paul: Win 3-0

Bob: Win 2-1

Standard Showdown Stats

Participants: 13

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Andy Hall Loss 0-2

Round 2: John Win 2-0

Round 3: Kar-Fai Draw 1-1

Round 4: Simon Loss 0-2

Record: 1-1-2

Final Position: 10th

Prizes: 1 participation pack plus a Standard Showdown pack.

In the Showdown pack I pulled a foil forest basic land, a foil new Jace, and a Rekindling Phoenix. So very happy with that.

I’m now in the process of trading Jace for Orzhov check or shock lands. And I’m also doing the same with the Bolas I have. I’d like to keep Bolas. But the only way to improve the Orzhov deck is to make it faster, and that needs the lands.

Saturday evening I was listening to the Top Level mtg podcast and they were talking about how good Narset was against mono red aggro. It basically shuts down Experimental Frenzy. Luckily I have 3 of these! So I may have to adjust the sideboard once again for the Simic deck. Which at the moment is looking as being a lot of counter spells. Although I may add Carnage Tyrant back in for countrol decks.

Airlines and Sparks

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, magic, MtG

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about a Fenland Gamers gaming session. I’ve been boring you all with MtG and D&D stuff.

Last Friday was once again one of the Fenland Gamers fortnightly Friday gaming sessions.

Our first game of the evening was a game I last played with Jonathan and his Dad way back in 2016 (the BG Stats app is great for this sort of information). That game was Airlines Europe.

Like so so many games in our collections it doesn’t get nearly as much table time or love as it truly deserves. The modern gamers dilemma, too many great games, not enough time. And the problem just gets compounded as new games come out.

To be fair to Jonathan and myself the growth of our collections has dropped down to a snails pace (although I’ve never truly understood that phrase, those slimy little devils can sure shift). I know Jonathan is currently on a self imposed purchase ban. Whilst for me apart from the odd game nothing is really grabbing me, getting me excited. But I’ve felt that way for a couple of years now.

However Jonathan and I both have games in our collections that we haven’t played yet (our piles of shame as they are known), and games we want to get back to the table. So it’s not as if we need to buy any more.

Back to Airlines Europe. It does have a mechanic I love. A mechanic that adds suspense, even tension, an element of push your luck and the unknown.

Airlines Europe has 3 scoring rounds. How these are triggered is the mechanic I love. One scoring round card is shuffled in with 10 I think of the shares cards and that is the bottom of the share deck. The other 2 scoring round cards are mixed into the rest of the deck using a couple of rules.

So you have a rough idea when the scoring rounds will trigger but not exactly when. As you approach the part of the shares deck that the scoring round card could be in, the tension builds. Do you have time to get the shares out for scoring to give you that majority? Do you have time to grab that share on the trade row?

It’s a simple trick. Pandemic uses it as well to great effect. Sub Terra uses it for the exit tile. Yes it adds a little over head to the set up to a game. But I think the pay off is worth it.

Our second and final game was the classic roll and write Qwixx. Somehow Jonathan won this.

Well I know at this point Jonathan will stop reading.

Yesterday was Prerelease for War of the Spark (as was Friday and Sunday). But yesterday was the day I attended one of the 6 events my FLGS The Hobbit Hole was/is running over the weekend.

Prerelease is such good fun. It’s about opening boosters, playing with new cards early. Although technically for authorised stores it was release weekend, because they could sell everything a week early this time.

The atmosphere is also a bit different. I’d say more social, less competitive, there is an air of excitement.

It’s also the only time I get to see and play against some people. They might only do prereleases or FNM is their thing normally. So it’s a great time to catch up as well.

This Prerelease continued my run of bad results, and poor cards to build with. Well that’s the excuse I’m going with. My pulls had very few low cost creatures. I ended up with going white/blue with a couple of mountains thrown in so I could play Naheb.

I started off with 15 lands, but after getting mana screwed both games and losing in round 1. I went to 17 lands.

Round 2 I won. The deck was given a chance to hit it’s stride.

The next two rounds although losses, they were not walk overs. I was hitting land drops, once or twice mana flooded and not hitting creatures. But I was much happier with the games.

Here are the stats.

Casual Game

Simon: Draw 1-1

Prerelease Stats

Prerelease Participants: 21

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Simon Loss 2-0

Round 2: Jade Win 0-2

Round 3: unknown Loss 0-2

Round 4: unknown Loss 0-2

Record: 3-1

Final Position: 20th

Prizes: 2 participation packs

The nice thing is one of my ex-students won, going undefeated. And to top it off in his participation packs pulled a foil Liliana. So that is an amazing memory of a Prerelease for him.

But it was a great day, well attended. Maybe not as well as Guilds of Ravnica. But still for a FLGS in a middle of nowhere Fenland town, with MagicFest London doing it’s best to steal away it’s players.

Commander and Challenger Decks

Game day, magic, MtG

I was able to attend another Commander Monday at my FLGS.

This time I took my 3 decks in one box mono red box. Which is a mono red aggro deck with Etali as the commander, a mass land hate deck (that shares some common cards with the aggro deck) and a goblin deck with Krenko as the commander (which also has common cards with the other two decks). These three in one decks were joined by the Atraxa and Horrors from the Deep decks.

Etali and Krenko were victorious in the games played. Whilst Atraxa and the Horrors liked participating.

Krenko was helped when another player played Blood Moon. All of sudden in that game my goblins couldn’t be blocked! Yep I had Goblin King our giving all my goblins mountain walk. Each combat phase I was getting a 1/1 goblin token. That was a 2/2 with the buff, and finally with an artifacts out becoming 4/4. Krenko allowed me to get a few more buffed up tokens out to be able to swing in for lethal.

Etali and multiple combat phases got me the win. Blue has extra turns, red has extra combat. And this version of the deck has that as a main tactic. And it worked this time.

I did get to see a ninja deck with Yuriko as the commander. It was pretty cool, and in the two games nearly won both times. It was lethal. I should have looked through the deck. But the use of cheap unblockable creatures that you ninjutsu out was genius. Something I will be implementing as a tactic in my own deck once I get round to building it.

Last Friday saw the release of the 2019 Challenger decks. Which are a great product for noobs and returning players to get. Out of the box you get a ready to play MtG Standard deck that will do ok (be competitive) at a FNM. By that I mean you will win some games and lose some games, unlike previous products or the Planeswalker decks which have been uncompetitive decks for FNM (although fine for kitchen table games with friends).

For existing players Challenger decks are, depending on the decks, usually a cost effective way to get some cards for their own decks. For me and it may also be true for others I use them as a way to try different deck ideas/archetypes that I don’t normally play.

Take for example the Golgari deck Deadly Discovery in this new batch of Challenger decks. I’ve built a Golgari deck that I played at Standard Showdown. It was an aggro/mid range deck. Whilst John the owner of my FLGS also played a Golgari deck. One that used the undergrowth mechanic.

While John and myself were exploring our versions of Golgari, over on the pro tour circuit they were exploring another version/tactic. One that used the explore mechanic. And that’s why I got this deck, so that I too could try this version of the deck. It also has three dual lands (one shock land, and two check lands) in the build. They alone at the time of writing cover the cost of the deck. Plus once the deck or a version of it is no longer Standard legal those dual lands are real handy to have for Commander decks.

I did play the deck yesterday against the Lightning Aggro deck. And it was fun to play. These two decks played two games against each other and shared the honours. The game it lost wasn’t helped by the poor shuffling I’d done! I did like how the explore mechanic pumped Wildgrowth Walker and gained life.

The other Challenger deck I got to play was the United Assault. A mono white aggro deck. I’ve played against a similar deck in our Standard Showdown meta. It’s a fast deck. And I’ve not played a mono white aggro. So it was interesting and fun to play this deck. It is blindingly fast. Easily dealing with a red burn deck. Using the life gain to pump Pridemate is cool. Although annoying when on the receiving end.

Like last years initial Challenger decks WotC failed to provide the required tokens and emblems for the decks. Would it hurt them to do so? It’d add no noticeable extra cost to the product. These are fractions of a penny to produce and add. It baffles me why they still fail to do this.

What needs remembering that come September when the next block comes out the decks will not be legal in Standard. However I think that most players will have started making these decks their own, and started replacing the Ixalan cards in the decks by then.

I like these decks. They are fun to play, and can easily be upgraded to make the decks more personal. They are a great starting point for new players and returning ones. Fun to play against each other for casual game nights round the kitchen table.

You can read the thinking behind the Challenger decks and the deck lists here.