Category Archives: magic

magic

From the depths

magic, MtG

It’s obvious I think that my next Commander brew is not going to be the infect/wither one that was hinted at in a previous post. The lure of big green stompy things was too compelling.

But as I was going through my disorganised filing system (I really must get better organised) looking for cards that would be good or cool in the new deck I came across one or two other cards in other colours that I thought I must build a deck with them in.

Particularly those cards seemed to belong to a single colour and have a common theme. The colour is blue, and they all seemed to be big monsters. With the likes of Fleet Swallower, Stormtide Leviathan, Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep and the Rivals of Ixalan…


Elder Dinosaur Nezahal, Primal Tide. These are all cards that are hard to play in other formats, not impossible. Let’s face it unless you have some way to cheat them out earlier, usually by turn 7 or 8 the game can be pretty much over.

But that’s the beauty of Commander. Big creatures that are fun to play, in this casual format are playable (unless you are playing competitive Commander, but where is the fun in that?)

I’ve played Thing in the Ice before, it’s such a fun card (unless you are on the receiving end of it). It comes in all innocent then four instant or sorcery spells later, BAM! It’s transformed into Awoken Horror a 7/8 Kraken Horror that clears the board for it to swing in unopposed. Nice thing is Arcane Adaption allows me to make all my creatures Horrors if this happens late game. Early on I may not even bother, and use Arcane Adaption to make everything of mine a Kraken.

At the moment this “from the depths” (seems a cool name to give this future deck) is looking like a mono blue deck. Which I’m not opposed to. But I’m not sure who to have as the commander. I suppose I could have one of the legendary creatures from above. But do I want a commander that is expensive? I’ll have to research potential commanders that fit in with this big stompy plan. It may open up more cards that fit in with the plan.

I’m not sure what ramp cards I have access to in blue, if any. It may have to rely on the staples like soul ring to get there quicker. Naturally being blue I have access to the full control suite to help keep me alive, interrupt the plans of others, bounce creatures back to the owners hands etc etc.

Plus the above cards may be giving you a certain image of me. I like playing big stompy creatures. The current brew is mono green big stompy creatures. I have dinosaurs and dragons as other decks that have big stompy creatures. I don’t know why, but there is something satisfying swinging in with a big creature and doing lots of damage. I think the only thing that tops it is killing said big creature with a 1/1 deathtouch creature.

So that’s my initial thoughts on a future big blue stompy deck. Or cards that I want to build the deck around. Oh wait I’ve just thought when I play this deck once built, I can say “I’m about to slap you with a big wet fish” as I swing in.

Timeless Legends

magic, MtG

If you are a MtG player/fan and just so happen to be going to this years Comic Con, and if you are fast enough (as I’m sure these will fly off the shelf) you can for the bargain price of $99 buy from Hasbro this limited edition Timeless Legends box set.

This box is 5 classic Planeswalker cards of the usual suspects featuring new art. And I have to say that under sells the art. Because the art is unbelievably awesome. The artist Terese Nielsen has really knocked it out of the park. I think this is some, nah is the best art on a MtG card to date. And there has been some pretty amazing art on the cards over the year.

Does anyone else think that the ex-magic cosplayer Christine Sprankle may have been the inspiration for the Chandra card?

The sad thing is I think the secondary market for this product is going to be hundreds of pounds. Every MtG player will want these versions of the cards. I know if I had the disposable income I’d be splashing the cash for them.

These cards really should have a wider distribution, and even then I think these would be going for more than rrp or msrp as the yanks call it.

I hope the art from these becomes available as prints to buy. That will be the closest I will come to having these cards.

In the meantime if you are lucky enough to get this sdcc exclusive, well done you lucky so and so. Wish I knew some-one well enough who was going to get me one. Draw back of being an anti-social me.

Hail Hydra!

magic, MtG

As a comic book fan would I call this post anything else to show off some of the new arrivals and cards I already had that make sense going into a big green stompy deck?

I have chosen a few hydra for the deck. I particularly like the way that some of them I can sink as much mana into them as I can at the time of casting to make them pretty big. Especially if I have Doubling Season out.

Oh there are a couple more hydra in the postal system. Hydra are almost a sub tribe within this deck. It’s not quite hydra tribal. Naturally there will be one or two dinosaurs in the deck. Ghalta and Carnage Tyrant for starters. But there are one or two others that deserve a slot. I’m thinking for this deck around 30 creatures in total, some of them will like Llanowar Elves allow me to ramp. Sadly I won’t be able to get away with using some of the great tribal cards to pump things up, but I’m sure I can find alternatives that boost all my creatures. It’s mass board wipes that I’m going to be short of.

While I’m talking about cards that may or may not be going into big green stompy here are some more recent arrivals.

Naturally with the clue I gave the other day one of my possible commanders is in the photo above. Ugin is definitely going into my Dragon deck, but does he go in this new deck? I’m not sure. Elvish Piper, not big, but allows me to cheat out creatures that are.

I wonder which of my remaining cards will arrive before the weekend?

Thud! Thud! Thud!

magic, MtG


In my post Saturday about the Open House at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole I wrote that one or two cards that I got had me inspired to brew a big green stompy deck for Commander at some point. This post is the story of the start of that brewing.

Sunday started off early with an experiment. Using the best cold brew in town (my own, not that awful brown sludge Costa passes off as cold brew), some milk, a dash of vanilla syrup and ice, I blended the lot together and created my initial version of a cooler or whatever they call them at these franchised coffee chains. In this current damn awful heatwave it was a refreshing chilled way to start the day.

Earlier, before doing the coffee experiment I had shared with the world via Radio 5 Live how absolutely lazy my planned Sunday was going to be, and deciding when to have a bath was my big decision for the day. I know you are dying to know what the answer to the big question was. 11:30am was when I decided to impersonate a beached whale trapped in a confined space, and enjoyed a relaxing soak and read a chapter from the book Cyber War by Charles Arthur.

Somehow I ended up having a nap yesterday afternoon. After I woke up I was compelled to find the full art promo from the Game Day the previous weekend. If I didn’t I knew not knowing where I’d placed it would eat away at me. The not knowing would just consume my every thought until I found them. So it was in my best interests to find them fast.

From locating the promos and filing them away in the folder, it was easy to jump to seeing if I had any suitable commanders for a big green stompy deck. My legendary creatures are in a folder too. There were a couple of potential commanders, plus I had a couple of Nissa Planeswalkers that might also be good in the deck.

But what did the internet think? I was pretty sure some-one must have asked the question I was thinking. Naturally they had. In one particular thread on reddit I think it was, there was a discussion with suggestions being offered to the original poster. There were a couple of possible commanders I really liked the look of. Somehow those 2 cards ended up in an eBay basket and now on the way to me.

But that was the slippery slope, a handful of hydras accidentally decided they needed to be in this deck. As did a rare green board wipe, and a couple of cards for the mono red deck.

I’m hoping that the majority of these cards will be with me before next Saturdays Commander game. Although I know a couple are unlikely to be because they have to navigate the choppy waters of international postal services. But at least I should have the skeleton of the deck ready to play.

Oh which Commander am I going with? Well there will be a choice of 2 for me in the deck. I’ll chose which to go with based on the other Commanders on the table. But the image above does give a clue to one of them.

Next Weekends Plans – More Magic!

magic, MtG

This weekend isn’t over yet, but today will as my text (that got read out) to Radio 5 Live said be doing absolutely nothing. My biggest decision of the day will be when to have a bath. Other than that it’s watching Netflix, experimenting with my cold brew and blending it it with ice to get the ratio right.

But because we are fastly approaching the release of Core Set 2019, it means next weekend is Prerelease weekend. So basically a chance for players to get their filthy grubby hands on cards from the new set a week early.

Thanks to a decision made by WotC for Dominaria stores like my FLGS The Hobbit Hole are able to sell booster boxes a week early. So instead of just a handful of packs early from the Prerelease kit and from participation prizes, we can get boxes of boosters with the buy a box promo (while supplies last).

It’s a rather sweet promo, that has caused some heated debate because it is only available as the promo and no other way. There are plenty of places online where you can find the rants and ramblings on this so I won’t go into any more here.

So you may have guessed correctly I’m going to a Prerelease event next weekend. I’m looking forward to it. Not only because I get to play some MtG with the new cards, but also I get to play Commander with some of my ex-students who also are going.

Is it next weekend yet?

Against the odds

Game day, magic, MtG

On a hot day like today there is only one thing to do. Yep spend the day indoors playing MtG. Not only was it Open House at my FLGS, but it was also holding a PPTQ or Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier for the more serious and competitive MtG player (hence why I wasn’t taking part, I’m rarely serious about anything).

I hit Chatteris just about the right time. Any later and I’d have been caught up in the town fete/parade that sees the high street closed and makes getting to the car park at the back of the store impossible until it’s over. I must remember it’s Wisbech’s turn next week to be this annoying.

In side the buzzing FLGS I quickly grabbed some of my favourite card sleeves (Dragon Shields Matt) to sleeve up the remaining 3 decks in the Second Commander Anthology. I also succumbed to buying 3 boosters from Conspiracy 2. They would have been from BattleBond if there had been any left. But apparently they sold out at FNM.

The hardest choice at an Open House for me is which pack to go for. In an ideal greedy world I’d have one each of the red, black and green decks. But we don’t live in that world, so I had to make a choice. So I decided to go big green stompy.

I think with the 2 new how to play cards in the Welcome packs, WotC have knocked it out of the park. I think these are a big improvement over the folding leaflet that was in the old ones.

I’m really glad I went with green. Look at these 2 lovely big green creatures plus there was a Colossal Dreadmaw. I just want to start building a big green stompy Commander deck. I love the art on Loxodon Line Breaker. The flavour text is so me too.

The white side of the Welcome deck really made me happy, 2 new angels that could be used in my Angel Tribal Commander deck. Which I happened to have with me. Plus Take Vengeance whose art is graphically thematic for the deck.

My first couple of games with my Welcome deck were against an ex-student. It was my green/white deck against his blue/red deck. Both games that we played I felt that I made a good flying start, but ran out of steam. Unable to make the allusive killing blow to get a win.

My third game was against the nephew of a store regular. I thought it was going to be a mirror match up. But it wasn’t he had green but instead of white had red. It was a match up that once again saw me get close but unable to get over the finishing line. We traded blows, except my opponent was able to land more of them than I was.

My final game to qualify for the promo was against the uncle who had blue/white. This time it wasn’t my deck that was misfiring. But unlike the previous 3 games I was able to deliver the finishing blow and grab that all important win to avoid a complete whitewash.

After claiming our reward for having a good time playing MtG, my ex-student and I caught up, and talked decks.

We took part in a 5 player game of Commander. One of the 5 was Mr McSalty from last week. He started to get a bit salty again when I destroyed his artifact that gave him unlimited hand size. Couldn’t have that, even if the nephew (playing a super powered up version of the Dragon 2017 Commander Deck) did have some also attractive targets.

The uncle then played an enchantment that was a slow painful death for us all. Basically on our end step we drew a card, and took 2 damage. Then with his consecrated Sphinx started to mill me. Well I was mono white. Out came a creature that every time we drew a card we lost a life. Yeah the uncle was developing a board state that didn’t require him to attack, just sit back and let us die playing the game. It hurt even more when I had to discard my hand with a Fumigate and another board wipe in it, to then draw 7 new cards. Oh and take 7 damage. But this was hitting all of us.

Dragons were getting out of control. And single shot killed McSalty. My and my ex-students health was getting low. But we were hanging in there.

After the uncle reset the nephews board state to zero creatures, my ex-student swung in and killed the uncle. Lifelink was starting to push my health back up. The nephew swung in at me, but I chump blocked with some angels, got more health back. Then I hit back, more health. I was out of single hit range. My ex-student took out the nephew, leaving me the chance to swing in and kill him for the really unexpected win.

How I won this I don’t know. It was a shocking victory.

Naturally I picked up my order of the 5 Planeswalker decks. So along with the cards from the welcome deck, I have also opened my first packs from Core Set 19.

These are the pulls from the booster that came with the Sarkhan Planeswalker deck.

It even had a foil basic land.

I’ll share the other pull highlights in another post.

I had a great time at the Open House. Really enjoyed myself. Looking forward to next weekends pre-release event.

This is my Saturday

magic, MtG

Yeah not an official advert from either my FLGS or WotC. Just a little fan art I did for this post to remind people that tomorrow is Open House at the majority of LGS or FLGS (Depending on how you feel about your LGS).

It’s a great event if you have wanted to learn or try the game. Free welcome deck, promo card, taught how to play the game, play some games with your new deck. All in a friendly, welcoming environment (unless your store is just a LGS, that I can’t help with).

Naturally I’m going to be found at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. I’m going to be playing some MtG, collecting the new Planeswalker decks, opening the five Core 2019 boosters that gives me (and continuing my run of not opening anything of value).

Elder Dragon Playmat – NOT a store champ

magic, MtG

This is the main prize from the weekends Store Championships. Which as those that struggled through Saturdays post will know I didn’t win. I think this is the first play mat for one of the few Store Championships I’ve attended that I like the art of.

My rewards for 6th, were a booster pack of my choice, and the following promos and top 8 deck box.


Luckily because outside of work I have no life, and while binging on Luke Cage Season 2 (which seems very marmite like for those that have seen it so far, I fall in the love it camp) I live online. When some-one had a spare (yeah I know) from the weekend and wanted a reasonable amount for it including postage, I was fortunate enough to be on the right Facebook page at the right time to claim it first.

Yeah I know how many play mats does a person need? For someone like me who obviously has a problem I don’t think there is an answer, except one more than I currently have.

I’m looking forward to playing my Dragon Tribal Commander deck and using the above play mat with it (once it arrives in a day or two).

Surviving, bluffing and big stompy creatures

Fenland Gamers, game night, magic, MtG

Fenland Gamers Friday Night Gaming

Last night saw the Fenland Gamers meet up at it’s usual haunt The White Lion to play some games. While Charlie, Diego and myself were struggling for survival in a post apocalyptic future once more in Outlive. Jonathan, Jess and Nathanial were subsistence farming in Agricola Family Edition.

The postal gods had been really kind to me, and the Kickstarter exclusives for Outlive had arrived the previous day. So we were using the new recessed player boards, first player marker and event. The other bits like the mini expansions, rooms, leaders I saved for another day.

I’d been doing really well for the first 5 rounds of the game. But the final round was a disaster for me. I went from being in with a shot at winning to not even being in the same country as winning. Failing to be able to scavenge or hunt enough food to feed my survivors meant I had to lose survivors when it came to the night phase. And that hit my scoring big time. I crashed to the ground hard.

Charlie had thought he was out of the running for most of the game, did not score any events, yet when we were totally things up made a late surge to come in a comfortable second place. Leaving the run away victor Diego and his survivors being saved.


While we finished off our game, the others played a quick game of The Mind. After which we all played a couple of games of Perudo. Component wise it doesn’t get much simpler than those in Perudo. Plastic cups and dice. Yet this simple bluffing game is such fun. I lost the first game, which Diego went on to win after being left to just him and Jess as the last 2. Naturally being out first, meant the friendly banter was aimed at me. I believe Jonathan’s words were “put that in your blog”. I did better in the second game, but sadly to rub salt in the wound Jonathan won.

This was Charlie’s last time at the group. He has had to move away for work. So it was great to have had this opportunity to play some games with him. Good luck Charlie with your year of living in Preston. We hope to see you at the end of September when we attend Tabletop Gaming Living.

We really are grateful to our hosts The White Lion for providing the facilities for us to game.

Dominaria Store Championship

Yesterday I’d finally got my act together and built a standard deck ready for the Dominaria Store Championship at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. I went with big green stompy.

My first game was almost a mirror match up. The main difference was they were playing more artifacts than me. Our 2 games were quick games. Both saw me mulligan to get the right cards that I was looking for. Which was basically to have Llanowar Elves, Steal leaf Champion, a couple of forests in my hand. Everything else in my hand is gravy. Both games saw me get Ghalta out cheaply. The second game I had him buffed up to a 16/16.

I knew my next match wouldn’t be as easy or quick. This win was going to put me in with the big boys.

Despite losing the next round 2-0. It doesn’t show how despite the losses, my deck did ok against the knights deck. The first game was not a complete walk over and saw me frustrating my opponent at almost every turn. Our second game saw an early Silent Grave at least stop some of my opponents graveyard shenanigans that allows him to recur cards. So yeah I lost, but I felt good about it. My deck had put up a good show for itself.

The third and final round saw me up against a blue/white Teferi deck. This was not a fun match up. Our first game saw me mana screwed, then when I tried to get something out it was countered, bounced back to my hand. The usual blue control shenanigans. In the meantime Teferi was out, and able to ultimate. I couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Every time my opponent now drew a card he could destroy one of my permanents, which was at that point 4 lands. The writing was on the wall, I conceded. Our second game was a better start for me, but still unable to keep any creatures out long enough to do any damage. I had lots of mana, but still Teferi kicked in again. So I conceded, no point going through the motions. I lost 2-0, and unlike the previous game, didn’t really enjoy the experience.

My final win loss ratio was 2-4 for the tournament, which was enough to bring me in 6th place, out of 8. So I walked away with 2 copies of the promo for the competition, a cool top 8 deck box, and a participation booster of my choice.

Afterwards we had a casual game of Commander. I played my Elf deck with Doubling Season added. Two of my opponents at the table were the players I lost against in the tournament. Now if allowed elves goes crazy. And they allowed my elves to go crazy. I did take some early hate when there was an artefact out that caused me to take a hit every time a creature came out instead of gaining a life. But my Commander allowed me to shut that off.

Funny enough the Teferi player from the tournament got salty when I killed him off, claiming he was not a threat. And at that point he wasn’t. But I didn’t like the Planeswalker that he had out. Plus before the game started there was a hint from one of the others he could go infinite. I thought he had a bit of a nerve being salty, considering his Teferi deck, and just because his deck hadn’t managed to get going. “This is the reason I don’t play Commander often” were his words to one of the others. I had no guilt. Revenge is a dish best served up in Commander.

To be fair if I had lost the game, I would have been happy it had started to do its thing. And Commander games one moment you are top dog, then something happens (usually a board wipe of some kind) levels the playing field, and then some one else gets the ascendancy. Then the cycle repeats. But I managed to stop a board wipe before it could happen. Got a Doubling Season out, had unlimited hand size, and a lot of cards in hand. So I would have recovered quickly from a wipe. But still I was able to swing in and get lots of damage in. I think at the end, all my elves were +5,+5 from artifacts and an elf played. Then I played an elf that because of Doubling Season came in with 20 +1/+1 tokens on it, which meant all my elves got also +20/+20. It was game over.

An unchecked Elf deck is a dangerous thing.

Afterwards I asked if the others could recommend cards they thought I was missing. I got a couple of good recommendations that I will track down to add to the deck. Which I know now one of my ex-students will be cursing and saying “hell no”.

Next Saturday is Open House weekend. So head down to your local FLGS, get a free Welcome deck, learn to play Magic. Play some games with your new deck. Then get the

full art Guttersnipe promo card. Which is a pretty sweat card in a red burn deck.

If the Magic bug hits you, you can also buy one (or more) of the 5 new Planeswalker decks that stores with a WPN are allowed to sell early at the Open House. The new Planeswalker decks are cheaper now at £10 approximately, but only come with a single booster pack now instead of 2. I don’t mind this, but some players are complaining.

So in a way this is going to be like a pre-pre-release. I like this bit from WotC allowing the FLGS to sell product early.

With all this goodness going on next week you know I’ll be there.