Not much gaming happening this week due to life events and stuff. Do you want to hear about the diarrhea bug sweeping our dogs at the moment? It has hit Strider particularly badly due to his age I think. But he has started to improve, which I’m relieved about. It means I didn’t get to see Deadpool 2 last night, but Strider comes first every time. So I’m going to fall back on the the ad hoc series I started in the last post as a content filler to at least let you know I’m still alive.

I got Archangel of Tithes the same time as I did the previous card Silverclad Ferocidons. As long suffering readers will remember (that’s assuming you read my MtG ramblings) I’m slowly getting together the cards for an Angel Tribal Commander deck. I can’t remember how I stumbled across this card, but the 4 CMC cost of the card was rather attractive. I liked the abilities as well. Taxing opponents for attacking or blocking me I like. It means they need to leave mana open to do either, and thus potentially slowing them down. If I can give Archangel of Tithes vigilance as well it basically locks things down totally. Being 3/5 means it can’t be lightning bolted away easily. I think for this to not make the Angel deck the cards are going to have to be pretty special.

There have been a couple of good suggestions on recent episodes of the Commandzone. The first suggestion was from one of their listeners/viewers that keeps deckbuilding costs down for Commander. For common cards that are used in a lot of decks the person proxies in the card, then when they need to play they pull the card out of a folder to use. I don’t use a folder, I use a deck box. But it’s a great idea that as I said helps keep costs down. The only draw back is that if I’m lending some-one a deck to play with that I’m doing this with, and I’m using a deck I’ve done this with there may be a clash over the use of a card. But that’s a very minor issue.

The other idea was for drafting amongst friends. Let’s assume that 4 friends want to draft, they also have each bought a booster box of the latest set. Instead of mass opening their boxes, for the draft session they use the box of one of the players. BUT they don’t keep the cards they draft, they go back to the owner of the box at the end of the draft session. Then next time they want to draft they use one of the boxes from one of the other players, and like wise that player gets all the cards back at the end. I like this idea. It gets away from the store drafts of trying to draft a good pool to build from and keeping high value cards. So players can just concentrate of a good draft experience. I have to admit it’s that draft value dilemma that keeps me away from playing draft in a store.

But this got me to thinking. The 2 conspiracy sets are draft sets. What if I used this idea and then put these cards into a conspiracy cube to be used again for drafting?

So my plan goes like this. Buy a booster box of conspiracy take the crown (the second set). Invite 4-6 good friends to an afternoons drafting and multiplayer Magic using that booster box. At the end get the cards back, and use them for the cube. Then repeat until the booster box no longer has enough boosters to be used for drafting. Crack open any remaining packs, add them to the cube. That gives me my final conspiracy cube to play with.

Thanks to my very generous colleague and friends at my last place, I used the money they collected to help purchase a booster box of conspiracy take the crown. Which as I write this is out for delivery according to a text I’ve just received. That text surprised me because yesterday the courier texted me and emailed me to say I would be getting it on Tuesday!

I also have a bid for an original conspiracy set on eBay at the moment too. That finishes later today. So who knows if I win that I’ll have 2 conspiracy cubes eventually.

I didn’t get into all that unstable hype and drafting before Christmas last year. But while I was brainstorming this cunning plan I thought I could do this with that as well. So I may at some point over the Summer do the same with that set. Then I’ll have an unstable cube too. This plan makes unstable more attractive to me. I won’t have some cards that I can’t play with in my decks. Instead I’ll have a whole cube I can draft and enjoy the experience of over and over. It makes me feel better about investing the money into the set.

So that’s the plan. Let’s hope I can pull it off.

Magic the Gathering Arena is many will know is the new/latest digital version of MtG. This version is being given a “modern” Hearthstone look and feel.

This should tick all my boxes so why am I not getting all excited about it?

Well at the moment it’s only PC during its beta stage. Being a Mac and iOS person it means I can take part in the beta program. My main casual gaming platform is iOS. So until it’s out on that I’m not interested.

But there are some recent announcements that are coming out that mean even if Arena came out on iOS tomorrow I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.

Firstly the redemption codes. They are currently testing them down under. In the Dominaria boosters there, they get a redemption code in each one. This code when redeemed in game gives you a booster pack or in game gold and a card. Apparently the split is 10% of the time you will get a booster pack, 90% that card gold combo. Plus I believe there will be a limit of 10 redemption codes per account. This news has put me off this feature straight off. If I buy a booster box I want to be able to use all 36 codes, not be screwed over. Plus that probability of getting a booster pack when redeemed sucks. I’d want a higher percentage of having a booster than the 10%. A fifty fifty split would be more something I’d be attracted to.

The price of boosters, drafting, etc in hard cash. Although this actually doesn’t get announced until tomorrow based on how WotC have behaved so far things are not looking good for this (see above for starters). If this is above $2 a booster, and approximately $6 for a 3 booster draft then WotC might as well forget about releasing Arena. Yes the gaming part of Hasbro was down financially in Q1 apparently. But that doesn’t mean WotC should be nickel and dimming the public. It means they should get their house in order first, stop attacking their player base because they express opinions they disagree with, improve the quality of products that they release (Iconic Masters, Masters 25, Explorers of Ixalan, the list goes on) and the card stock issue. Then maybe they might turn things round without picking the publics pockets.

I’m sure as we get closer to the release date to the general public release other developments will show that WotC are listening to the public and have ignored them. WotC need to listen, and change things big time else they can forget about attracting Hearthstone players to Arena, but also forget about moving over MtG players digitally and physically to Arena also.

Ok slowly opening the second booster box didn’t last long. All the boosters inside mysteriously burst open yesterday. I wish I knew how it happened.

I have surprised myself and actually got the first booster boxes contents scanned into the Decked app along with the foils and legendary creatures from the second.

With all this new injection of cards I have that ongoing problem of are the new cards good enough to go into the relevant deck? And if so which ones do they replace? That second question will be answered another day. At the moment I’m looking at the cards through the lens of would this card be good in one of my Commander decks. One or two cards have sparked ideas for brawl decks. Others have given me an idea for standard/modern decks (but not sure I’ll act on those for the time being).

I’m very happy with my pulls, I got 95% (a rough estimate) of the cards I was after either as singles or multiple copies. Plus one or two pleasant surprises that I wasn’t aware of mainly due to me not bothering much with the majority of spoilers.

Not sure if I’ll play Arcane Flight but I do like the art on the card. I’m not surprised it’s one of the ultra pro playmats for this set. I find the art whimsical with the expression on the cats face.

So what were the highlights of my pulls?

I’m glad I’m not playing Tron lands at the moment, Damping Sphere shuts them down. Which would slow my Angel deck down completely. I’m thinking this might find a home in my planned Death and Taxes Commander deck. Final Parting was a nice surprise and definitely is a nice tutor for a Commander deck, get the card you want and set up some graveyard shenanigans.

Gaea’s Blessing was on my list, with mill a thing with my students meta both in their modern decks and Commander this is a nice addition to fight against it. Gilded Lotus is it good enough for modern and standard? I think the 5 CMC is a bit expensive. But Brawl/Commander I’m liking the look of it. Grand Warlord Radha was a pleasant surprise, maybe not good enough to be the new commander of my Elf Tribal deck, but as a Brawl Commander?

Hallar, the Firefletcher was another surprise, definitely a Brawl Commander. Kicker isn’t a thing in my Elf Tribal deck so it wouldn’t break into that. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain was on my list so happy to get her. As was Karn, Scion of Urza.

I really want the promo for Llanowar Elves. But if I’m building a standard deck I think I’d be going green with that Llanowar Elves/ Steel Leaf Champion combo. I’m not sure the other elves are strong enough to go full elf tribal both in Brawl or standard. Lyra Dawnbringer was high on my list and straight into my list of angel includes for my in progress Angel Commander deck. Marwyn, the Nurterer was in a Planeswalker deck and a nice surprise. I’d like to try and fit it into my Elf tribal deck.

Mishra’s Self Replicator is screaming out to be abused in some infinite loop way. Mox Amber not sure I’d ever use it, but it does seem to be expensive at the moment. Muldrotha, the Gravetide was a nice surprise and will be interesting to build decks around. Graveyard shenanigans is always frustrating to play against, and this could be a way to cheat out some expensive cards. Remember Final Parting?

More graveyard shenanigans with another pleasant discovery Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth. I think having some graveyard hate in decks will be a necessity, luckily there is some out there. A rat deck of some kind is back on the books, ’nuff said. I was just thinking white needs some more cards like Seal Away.

There were 2 angels I wanted from this set and I got both. Shalai, Voice of Plenty has made the team for my planned Angel Commander deck. Blue has some really nice big monsters of the deep. They may not be that playable in most formats. But hey that OMG moment when an another player sees them hit the battlefield, worth it. Slimefoot was on my hit list. I had it in my mind to do a saproling/fungus tribal deck of some kind, and this is the commander I wanted for it.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the sagas. But Song of Freyalise with a lot of creatures out, say like elves or saprolings this could be insane. I bet Squee, the Immortal will end up being a very very annoying card. Wish I’d got more Steel Leaf Champions than I did.

These next 3 were unexpected and have potential I think.

Oh look another board wipe for white with Urza’s Ruinous Blast, just what they needed. Ok probably not that great with this big influx of legendary cards in standard and Brawl. But other formats it might be more impactful. Token decks won’t like it for sure. Oh look a dragon for my dragon tribal deck. And with the Ur-Dragon as the commander a turn 3 drop! I can see Warcry Phoenix maybe making it into a Brawl deck. But as a 4 CMC 2/2 it looks a bit weak against Glorybringer and Rekindling Phoenix.

Here are the 3 that got away!

So that’s my haul or my highlights from the Prerelease weekend.