Category Archives: game night

game night

Grifting in the foothills!

Game day, game night

So last week I did get to play some games.

Last Tuesday I finally got Grifters:Nexus to the table. With my friend Nathan being the unfortunate individual coerced into playing.

Grifters: Nexus is the stand alone follow up to the original Grifters. Although they can be combined, and they rule book explains how to do this.

So what does Grifters:Nexus bring to the table? For starters “15 new specialist cards, new mechanisms and a new job card system.”

Naturally the theme remains the same, you are still running a criminal gang in the Dystopian Universe (also shared with Coup and The Resistance) pulling off jobs. The cool down mechanic is still there (which I really like) as is the handbuilding and set collection.

The art is fantastic. I love the art, the characters feel gritty and dystopian.

The job cards are now organised as an inverted pyramid. Which takes up a bit more table space. You can only complete jobs that are completely uncovered. I prefer this to the original piles of jobs. Not all the jobs get put out each game. So this impacts the number of cards that can be collected in a set, and the sets available. It gives a bit of variety.

If I had one complaint it’s that the rule book needs a keyword/mechanic section that explains how that keyword/mechanic works. It wasn’t exactly clear how the abduct mechanic worked from the card itself. But I did manage to work out what was meant (take a random card from an opponent’s hand).

You now have the option when stealing to take the money from either the opponents stash or if they have a specialist with money on them in the hideout from that specialist.

Grifters: Nexus is an enjoyable game. If you liked the original you’ll like this.

I narrowly got the win. Nathan liked the game also. So much I believe he might of added the game to his wish list.

Friday saw Jonathan and me at The Luxe for some gaming. After getting a sneak peek at a game prototype he’s working on, we played Foothills.

Foothills is all about building railways in Wales. Oh and getting the most victory points!

Each player has 5 double sided action cards. On your turn you select a face up action and do that action. You then flip the card, which makes a different action available to you. The nice thing about this is that the mix of actions are not the same for each player. The actions you can take allow you to gain resources, clear subtle, build tracks or stations, use unlocked action spaces or put an action card in front of you in a scoring pile.

Apart from scoring points for clearing a space with rubble on it, or building tracks and stations the end of game bonuses you score are taken from your personal scoring pile. No cards in the pile, no bonuses. So you have to time when to add an action card to the pile. It does get replaced by an action card from a generic supply. But the two sides may not be as sweet as the card you just replaced. Or the scoring bonus might not be as much use.

As a two player game I liked this a lot. It does need space to play. Which we nearly didn’t have enough for on the table we were using.

Ours was a close game, with John winning by a single point, after he got his maths right that is. Otherwise the gap would have been bigger!

Games Played: Grifters:Nexus, Foothills

Fenland Gamers August Monthly Meet-up 2019

Fenland Gamers, game night

“Do we have a venue this month?” asked adult man child Gavin (he will give me grief for that. Oh wait he already gave me grief on the Wednesday).

Such an innocent question. But relevant.

The “refit” at The Luxe has been a tad longer than the estimated 1 week when it was started at what now seems an eon ago. So we have been improvising with using a local school on an adhoc basis. But it’s use is reliant on a club founder/member.

It also helped remind me if we had a positive answer to the question that an event needed setting up pretty quickly.

After a group messenger chat between Gavin, myself and Jonathan we had a venue for the Monthly meet-up. It was time to get the word out to club members.

Wednesday evening, Jonathan had unlocked, and was ready for members to arrive. But he’d forgotten one important thing on Monday when he answered in the positive. No kids at home, meant his partner was expecting to go out. You know, be adults for a rare occasion. Apparently playing board games isn’t on the radar for going out. Hopefully Jonathan wouldn’t be residing in the metaphorical dog house too long.

Not long after my arrival. Katie and the usual suspect arrived.

Whilst waiting for their other members to arrive we started a game of No Thanks! I made a major boob at the start of the game, I hadn’t realised Katie hadn’t played before! The number of games we have played and with who, I had just assumed we had played the game with her before. So after a quick run through of the rules play started.

While we were playing the other members arrived. One of whom bought a very pleasant surprise with them. That surprise being in the form of Ice Blasts, packets of sweets, tea bags and coffee for those that wanted a hot beverage. Wow! Colour me grateful and impressed. So I think a big big thank you is in order for Nathan and The Luxe Cinema for their generosity.

The new arrivals formed a second play group and after some chat and a sushi supper for a couple of them , started playing some games (and you can see which ones at the end of this post along with some photos).

After 2 games of No Thanks! the honours where shared between The Usual Suspect and myself.

Our groups second game of the evening was Men at Work. Which Jonathan had tried at UKGE and liked so much he bought a copy.

Jonathan and I disagree about this game. But there is also some common ground. Which is we both think that the game is fun. Where we disagree is that I prefer Tokyo Highway. I think Tokyo Highway is more tactical. And I enjoy that element more.

Don’t get me wrong there are some nice extra elements to this game. Such as the deck of cards that control what action you have to do on your go. Some of the actions can be quite fiddly. Basically you are either placing a worker or a girder on your go. But placing that worker could be made more complicated by the fact you have to also balance a brick and/or a steal bar on that worker. The cards also tell you the colour of girder(s) that you have to use as well. So the worker may have to be placed on only a white girder on your turn.

I like how you have 3 lives, that you track using little card board contract tokens. You lose a life if anything touches/falls to the ground on your turn or you control the building site. As soon as something falls off, control passes to the next player, you lose a life, and the next player has to clear up the debris before they can take their turn.

Not sure how I feel about the bonus point mechanic, that kicks in once a particular card appears in the deck. You earn these points for adding a new highest point to the structure.

The records show that Katie won this without losing a life. She was the last one standing.

Our next game was a blast from the past, a game that hadn’t seen the table for 3 years. That game was Traders of Osaka. It’s still a good game. I still think that the payday scoring is over complicated. But from last place The Usual Suspect managed to grab the win with a couple of really well times paydays that saw him grab lots of victory points.

Whilst the others played Throw Throw Burrito (it looks a very exhausting game, and not my cup of tea), Katie and I played Penny Lane. For much of our game Katie had the lead on victory points and I thought I was going to lose the game. But I did manage to catch up and trigger the end of the game. My last action was the top decking of a building that allowed me to complete a victory point icon, taking me to 11 points. Katie sitting on 8 points at that moment, managed to then grab a final 2 points taking her to 10. Talk about lucky. I basically top decked the win with my last action.

Thanks to Nathan I can share some of his photos that he took from the evening as well.


A great evening, I think everyone had a good time. Once again a big thanks to The Luxe for their generosity for providing the refreshments for the evening.

Games Played: No Thanks!, Men at Work, Traders Of Osaka, Penny Lane

Games Played by others: Get Bit!, Dead and Breakfast, Throw Throw Burrito

Conquering Galaxies

game night

The draw back of gaming at Spoons on a Friday evening is not only is it busy, but also noisy. However that is the situation Jonathan and I found ourselves in for a bit of light two player gaming.

Naturally the tables at Spoons are suitable for drinking, but not really for gaming. So our gaming options were limited. Which isn’t a problem we have plenty of two player games that don’t require lots of table space in our collections.

Our first game amongst the Friday evening drinking community was Tiny Epic Galaxies. Records show I hadn’t played the game for 2 years.

After refreshing our memories, play commenced. Earlier in the week Gamelyn Games announced there will be a week long Kickstarter soon for Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies. The second Ultra Tiny game they will have produced.

Where as I could see Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms being suitable for the further miniaturisation. I’m not convinced that is the case for Galaxies. And my main reason for this is the dice. I just can’t imagine rolling little wooden cubes as dice being a pleasant experience. I tried rolling the cubes in the game and it was horrid.

I think Tiny Epic is the smallest this game can and should go. And it’s why I won’t be buying backing or later buying the Ultra Tiny version.

However I still really enjoy this game. It was nice getting it back to the table. Made even more sweet with getting the win.

Our next game of the evening was Hanamikoji. This really is such a nice game. It’s a favourite of both of us.

This game is so underrated. And is so simple and fast to play. We knocked out 3 games in a row. Which were 3 wins for me.

Jonathan and I had chatted, enjoyed some games. But after about an hour of gaming we called it a night. Jonathan hadn’t been feeling great for a large chunk of the day. So I was fortunate that he felt able to come along in the first place. The less than ideal environment didn’t help.

I’m definitely getting old, because some of the young ladies did not look old enough to be in an establishment that sold alcoholic beverages. But it’s so hard to tell the age of some-one these days.

But despite that realisation and feeling my age. I had a brief but great time with a great friend.

Games Played: Tiny Epic Galaxies, Hanamikoji

Building streets and trading goods

game night

Earlier in the week, might have been Monday actually, Penny Lane drop through my letter box.

I had asked Jonathan if he was free to get a learning game in. But events at work mean that was not going to happen. So yesterday afternoon I was pleasantly surprised to get a call asking if I wanted to meet up in the evening for a drink and play a game.

So we both met up at Spoons to play some games and enjoy a beverage or two. First up on the table was, you guessed it Penny Lane.

Penny Lane is designed by Justin Blaske (creator of Mint Works) and Mel Primus. I don’t usually mention the game designer in these little “five minute” reviews. But it’s kinda relevant really when we look at Penny Lane.

When I was looking at the rules initially after it arrived my first thought was this sounds a lot like Mint Works. Which when I checked can be easily explained. As I pointed out above one half of the design team for this game was responsible for Mint Works. So that would explain it.

But Penny Lane isn’t just a larger, prettier Mint Works.

Although the game plays the same. There are a couple of additional mechanics that expand the game and tactics.

So the theme is you are trying to build the most prosperous city avenue.

There are two phases to a round. The action phase and the upkeep phase. In the action phase players take actions until all players have passed consecutively. Then in the upkeep you check for the end of game conditions, tidy up, and gather resources.

The actions you can do are determined by the 8 cards that make up the Main Street. The majority of the actions require coins to activate the action, whilst a couple of them require a worker to be placed there.

The new parts that lift this game above Mint Works are to do with the worker meeples and the tableau building.

Some of the buildings you can buy come with workers, and some buildings need workers on them to activate the buildings abilities. Those that come with workers once the worker has been moved to another building to activate its ability reveal a victory point. But you can’t just move workers willy nilly. You need to spend 2 coins on selecting the appropriate action on the Main Street.

Buildings also have links on them. There are two types of links. Money and victory points.

As you can see in the photo above the links on the building are only half of the icon. If when you place the building complete an icon you get what it represents during upkeep.

If your lane has 10 victory point icons in it, made up from completed links, revealed worker spaces or building abilities, or buildings that just have victory points on them the end of the game will trigger at the start of the upkeep.

Otherwise during upkeep you get a coin for each completed coin link, card ability that generates them.

So you are having to not only think about what the building does, but also what links it has and where you will place it in your lane.

The additions are nice and add a little more depth to the game. But not so much that it slows the game down. Penny Lane still plays quickly.

So what are the bad points of the game? Well they are production,graphic design ones that are minor in the grand scheme of things.

For instance some of the Main Street cards have a little top hat symbol on them which indicates which side is used based on the number of players. The size of this makes the number unreadable! Why they just didn’t just make it a bit larger and more readable I don’t know. Or just put the icon on the side that is used in a 2/3 player game I don’t know.

The none standard card size used for the Main Street cards is annoying. I was able to sleeve the building cards no problem. But the Main Street cards are approx 10mm too tall to fit in 70mm by 110mm sleeves that I had on hand. Why not just go with the “standard” digit card size? The player boards only thing I can think for them is to laminate them.

I’d also liked to have seen the Main Street cards thicker, or even cardboard. I did notice one or two of the cards warp on the table. So they will have to be sleeved. I’d have liked to seen the player boards use thicker card stock too.

If you like Mint Works you will love Penny Lane. Jonathan and I both really liked this. I’m going to go as far as to say it replaces Mint Works for me. Ok the box is larger. Not by a great deal. Still very portable. But I like the little extra it brings to the table. It’s fun. Quick. And scratches that worker placement itch when you don’t have that much time. Hopefully this will get a bit of buzz when it hits. It deserves it.

The history books will record that I won both of our games.

Our final game of the evening was the classic two player Jaipur. That after a very close first round where a point separated us. Jonathan widened the gap he had and won.

A great unexpected evening gaming. A fantastic way to end the week.

Games Played: Penny Lane, Jaipur

Visitors from the Rhine

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

Yep it’s been one of those weeks with not much on the gaming front going on. Which explains the lack of posts this week. Think of it as having a much needed holiday from my ramblings.

Earlier in the week Jonathan set up the Facebook event for the evenings gaming session. I posted a suggestion on the comment section for the event of playing Viticulture again but with the Visit from the Rhine Valley expansion.

Visit from the Rhine Valley was a small expansion that both Jonathan and I had picked up at the UK Games Expo over a year ago. Which as you can guess from the previous post we had not played. In fact my copy until Wednesday was still sealed.

Visit from the Rhine Valley is an alternate set of visitor cards for Viticulture. However these cards focus more on wine production than producing victory points. Setup is dead easy. You use these visitor cards instead of the ones in the core game.

I enjoyed these new cards, and their focus. They did seem very combo like. Earlier on I was able to play 2 Summer visitor cards that would unknowingly payoff and get me the (spoiler) win. Using the Vine Trader I was able to discard 2 cards to get €6 to take my coins up to the required €9 that I needed for the Premium Wine Dealer. Which in a single play gave me 7 champagne without the large cellar.

That would turn out to be a great play for later.

I love cards like the Skeptic where you could age something and fill an order. That card was a life saver. I was short by one for an order and would have had to wait until the next year before filling. But this card let me fill the order and get that all,important residual payment. But that card would easily combo with others that would allow you to make wine to use for using the Skeptic.

I was in the lead in our game, but Jonathan wasn’t far behind. I needed one more contract to complete to trigger the end of the game. Sadly I didn’t have the wine to complete any of the ones I had in hand. So I took the draw contract action, got to draw 2 cards. One of the two needed 9 champagne to complete. Wait I had 9 sitting in my cellar. That 7 I’d initially got had now aged into 9 bottles. I could complete an order. What a fortuitous top deck. And seeing that earlier play pay off. Wow. Until that point I hadn’t seen any contracts that needed champagne to complete.

It was enough to trigger the end of the game, and give me the win.

If I had one complaint about this expansion it’s the wording on some of the cards could be clearer.

One or two of the cards were worded like the example above. It wasn’t really clear was it pick just one, or could you do the first and one of the last two? We house ruled it was the former.

But this was a fun expansion. Loved the focus on wine production. Definitely a must buy for fans of Viticulture. Especially if the game has been played a lot, and you want to spice things up a little.

Our last game of the evening was Love Letter: Batman. It’s still a great game. Definitely a group favourite as a way to unwind at the end of an evening of gaming. Sadly Jonathan was able to grab the win.

A great evenings gaming.

Games Played: Viticulture, Love Letter: Batman

Wine and Cities

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night at the Fenland Gamers temporary home for gaming we held a Friday evening gaming session.

Our main game of the evening was a long over due to the table favourite of both Jonathan and myself, Viticulture.

Checking with my game stats this hasn’t hit the table for 14 months. I like that the app I use allows me to check this sort of thing out (I have about 4 years worth of data now). However in situations like this you can’t help feeling guilty when you see just how long it is between plays of games you really like.

We played just the basic essentials version (without any Tuscany stuff other than that included in this edition already) plus the Moorland Visitors shuffled in. Although funny story Jonathan asked about that whilst we were playing and I had no idea. But Jonathan recognised one or two of the cards. So they must have been shuffled in!

Jonathan won with a no wine production strategy. Gaining that victory point each turn from the turn order track, and various visitor cards. I think he completed a single order. I finished a whole 4 points behind him, which an extra couple of actions would have been closed and forcing the tie breakers. I’m not sure the usual suspect really got the harvest/wine/order side of the game. He came in a far and distant last.

Such a great, great game.

Our second and last game of the evening was Citadels.

Now I won this. But an interesting question happened at the end. I triggered the end of the game with 7 buildings. However on the final turn of the round Jonathan was the warlord and destroyed one of my buildings. It wasn’t clear whether Jonathan destroying my building stopped the end of the game or we finished and scored.

I ruled the game ended, because it had been triggered on my turn. And there wasn’t anything that said otherwise. And that Jonathan was only denying me points in the end scoring.

A great evening gaming, with classics hitting the table, one long overdue. And thanks to Jonathan for the photos above.

Games Played: Viticulture, Citadels

Rivers, Empires and Heroes

Fenland Gamers, game night

Friday evening saw Jonathan, Diego, myself and the usual suspect meet up at a temporary gaming space to have a club gaming session.

Yes our regular hosts The Luxe are still going through the drawn out pains of their refit. So have no seated area for us to play in. I had during the afternoon, and on the way to the gaming session tried to get my gaming table from them, but they were shut. Which was a bit odd, because they were still showing films. It was also damn inconvenient. Although on my way home I did see a member of staff in the reception area.

Our first game of the evening was The River. A new game to me. Last September at the damp squib Tabletop Gaming Live I was able to get a play of it on one of the demo tables.

Jonathan picked this up second hand at the expo. I think it was even sealed! I’m glad he did.

So what do we have here with The River? Basically it boils down to two mechanics worker placement and engine building. Both mechanics I love.

Naturally the point of the game is to score the most points. And you do this by constructing buildings (that have a resource cost to build, and have a point value that’s scored at the end), which gives you a bonus token (worth points, unless you get a zero value one), have matching terrain tiles in a column, and the good ol’ swap resources for points. Some of the terrain tiles also give bonuses at the end, such as points for certain types of terrain. Or the one that helped me out, that made all bonus tokens worth one extra point (yep I didn’t mind zero point bonus tokens).

Those bonus tokens, are interesting as a mechanic. Only about half are worth any points, with half worth zero. The top of the pile is worth the most (6 points, and only one of those) then they decrease in value, until they are value less. Construct a building and take the top most token. So it pays to construct quickly to maximise the points you get for doing it. I had a really explosive first round and built a building and grabbed the 6 value token way before the rest were ready. I don’t think they built until round two.

The game also plays fairly quickly. Which is nice.

As your engine gets stronger I like how you lose workers at certain points. So like Wingspan, as certain actions get more powerful you get less of them to do.

This is a fun, solid intro style worker placement/engine building game.

For the record and the history books I won.

Our second game of the evening was Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write. Diego chose this one because he wanted to try it. Since I shared my thoughts about the game Portal Games have released rules so that the Adventure mode pads can be used in multiplayer games. You can read those rules here. It was kind of fitting that the history books will sing about Diego’s glorious empire. Yep he won.

We finished off the evening with another new game for me, Rhino Hero.

Mash UNO with a dexterity game and you have Rhino Hero. I think that says all you need to know about the game.

I enjoyed the game. Just as I did years ago my game of Exploding Kittens. I’d play it again. But it won’t find a home in my collection or list of games to add to the collection.

After going to extra time, and then penalties, Diego won.

It was a fun evening, great company. Great to try some new games. I think next time to balance things out, we should try and get games not played for a while to the table or something from our piles of shame.

Games Played: The River, Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write, Rhino Hero

Rolling and Writing

first look, game night

Yesterday Jonathan very kindly met up with me to try out some of the new additions to our collections.

Sadly our regular hosts were not available due to the refit taking longer than we expected. We are now having to cancel club meet ups. Which is seeing a first in the four year history of the club, a cancelled monthly meet up.

So Jonathan and I met up at the local Spoons. It’s been a while since we have done any gaming here. It far more busier and noisier. But on the plus side I can get unlimited coffee for £1.30. On the downside it’s just about drinkable coffee. So for me on the beverage side a very very cheap night out.

The first game to hit the table was the latest game from Portal Games Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write.

I like roll and writes, or the ones that are in my collection. They do seem to be this years must have for a publisher to be putting out (just like legacy games and escape rooms before that).

Naturally we played a 2 player game, and the basic version of the game. There is an advanced variant, and a solo variant too.

The game plays quickly, each game is 10 rounds, and we found a round was very quick.

I liked that the dice are used by everyone playing each round. So everyone gets the same number of basic actions each round, plus any bonus actions from buildings or tiles. And also get the same basic resources plus any bonus resources from buildings, tiles or harvesting.

I like the use of two sheets one for the village, which when the buildings are built give bonuses each turn, and an empire that is where you can harvest resources and score victory points. Neither felt overwhelming individually or together. Which the Ganz Schon Clever sheets do.

The empire sheet allows you to track rounds, and gives a very small area on that tracking for notes. Which we both found you needed. I was using it to note how many actions I had each round, and resources used.

One thing I like about the Portal Games rule books is the little touches of humour. But the one in this rule book has to be my favourite of all time (see below)


I love the graphic design and look. Naturally it matches up art wise with its inspiration thematically Imperial Settlers. But there is also this kind of pastel, sketch note feel to it as well. I point to exhibit a above for the house rules, and exhibit b below with the tile photo below. I really like the feel it gives to the whole game.

Let’s talk about the dice. There is a great design, game play choice made here with the worker die being not only a different colour to the resource dice. But also larger. It really hammers home this die is not a resource die, it’s use is different.

But wood?!!! Couldn’t we have better quality dice? These really are the weakest part of the game. You get 4 pencils included (very nice touch). But you scrimp on the dice?

I’m waiting to here back from Portal Games about why the adventure mode pad (used for solo games, each sheet is a unique village) can’t be used in a multiplayer game.

I can’t wait to try the advanced mode. But it’s cool that the game has this, plus the solo mode.

I like this game a lot. It’s not as light as say Qwixx or Qwinto. But less complicated than Ganz Schon Clever or the really over complicated and awful Welcome to Dino World. It’s hit the sweet spot.

I suppose I better admit Jonathan won by a single point.

Jonathan and I did start to set up Caverna: Cave vs Cave – Era II. Wow with the base game and this new expansion boy does it take up a lot of table space. Looking at the new rule book you play the base game first then move onto the expansion! We did the maths based on the game play times on the boxes. With having to refresh our memories on how to play as well this would take more time than we had. Our calculations put it at over an hour to play.

So we moved onto a game of Citadels. A classic for sure. I love the 2 player drafting of characters. It’s very similar to dark draft in Epic. You have an idea of what the other player may have taken but not exactly.

I will need to sleeve my copy before using it at club nights.

I managed to get the win of our play of this.

Jonathan did give me a game last night. They were being given out free at the expo. Apparently this is a worker placement style game. But looking at the box you’d have no idea what type of game it is. The description on the box gives no clue. The publisher is doing themselves no favours.


I’d like to thank Jonathan for being so kind for taking the time to meet up and play games last night. It was really appreciated.

Games played: Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write, Citadels

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.