This time three of us could make it, so the plan was to have a game of Commander.
Dave was playing his Doctor Who deck. I played my Ninja deck. While Marcin played my Atraxa precon.
It really was Dave and Marcin vs me. I needed every trick in my deck to try and hold in and get to a winning position.
A position that never arrived.
Was I close? I don’t think so. I tried politicking to try and help me out. But the butt hurt Marcin still had from the weekend made that very hard.
Obviously I knew the main tactic of the Atraxa deck, and the proliferate was useful in delaying Dave getting his cards out for free using his time warp/suspend ability. I think the Doctors deck Dave was using had potential. With some suitable additions could be pretty good and fun.
That’s what I like about my ninja deck is it is a fun deck to play. Maybe not be on the receiving end of.
Marcin managed to get the win.
Next week the plan is to do a Dice Masters draft using draft packs from Tomb of Annihilation. A booster box had arrived earlier that day along with two campaign boxes. Recently Wizkids had a 50% off sale on Dice Masters stuff. So I took advantage of that sale to pick up a couple of things.
Diego, Marcin, and myself did multiplayer combat using the mono colour decks from the MtG Game Night kit. This was going to be an evening of casual kitchen table MtG with a group of friends. Exactly what this product was designed for.
Marcin played the mono white deck for both games. Diego played mono black in game one, and mono green in game two. I went true to form starting with mono blue, followed by mono red.
In the first game as the blue player I just had to try and weather the storm of the other two until I was able to get to a win condition of some sort.
Part of that delaying tactic was equipping a creature of Marcin’s that was getting very scary with the cards it had been equipped with. Luckily my contribution goaded that creature. So it had to attack Diego.
But once Diego was out of the picture it was coming for me, and I wasn’t able to draw into a solution. So the inevitable happened with Marcin getting the win.
Game two as mono red I needed to hang around long enough to get the decks dragons out. Sadly I didn’t draw any of the cards that allowed me to reduce the cost of playing a dragon.
Marcin had some annoying life gain going on. My only hope was to once again get the other two fighting it out between themselves.
At one point I came to a deal with Diego that he wouldn’t attack me for three turns to try and buy me enough time to get something going on the dragon front.
But in the end politicing only gets you so far. This time not far enough, and I was soon taken out by Diego and his green horde.
It was a fun evening.
Tuesday night is fastly becoming my fav game night at the moment. And that’s not because it’s my only game night at the moment.
The evening of gaming usually ends between 9pm and 9:30pm. Mainly because there is no other business at the social club. And we are not drinking enough to justify being open any later. Which is fine. After a long day at work that’s about the right time to call it a night for me anyway.
Plus the evening although competitive also has a friendly, relaxed atmosphere to it.
This weekend has been a busy weekend for your FLGS. It’s been yet another MtG prerelease weekend. These are happening a lot more often these days as WotC push out more and more product in their blatant attempt to lighten your pockets and bank accounts.
But it doesn’t take away from the fact that a MtG prerelease is a valuable source of income for the LGS.
There has been a lot of buzz and online chatter about this latest set The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth for one reason or the other.
The main one that affects this weekend and sales of the very expensive Collectors Boosters is the one of one card The One Ring hidden in one of them. In the run up to this weekend various individuals and businesses put a “bounty” on the card. Last I heard before Friday was one MtG retailer offering over one million dollars to the lucky individual who pulled it (within one month of the prerelease).
Guess what’s been selling like hot cakes this weekend?
My local FLGS sold out of their stock of the Collectors Boosters, and barely sold any draft boosters.
I don’t know if other stores had the same. But it’d sure be interesting to find out.
I wasn’t going to attend any prerelease events. But I did manage to score a couple of prerelease kits and the new starter kit, and held my own prerelease event this afternoon with Dave.
I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan.
Funny enough it was my other passion in the early Eighties and the home computer boom that introduced me to Tolkien and Middle-Earth.
Thanks to the software house Melbourne House who did The Hobbit adventure game, and it’s follow up The Lord of the Rings Part 1. Both coming with copies of their respective books. I was introduced to hobbits, elves, and dwarves.
I ended up reading the books to help me solve the many puzzles and situations I would come across.
During this time I got to see The Lord of the Rings animated movie on vhs. Yes the video revolution was great for geeks like me. The animated movie was only part one. Part two was never made. The movie ended just after Helms Deep if I remember correctly. It’s also of interested that during its making they started running out of money, so they used an animation technique called rotoscoping. Which was basically filming actors in orc outfits and colouring over them! It does give the movie a unique look and feel.
I have such fond memories in the mid Eighties sitting in a large beanbag in my spare room rays of light coming through the window, reading my leather bound, gold leaf lettering on the cover edition of The Lord of Rings.
My first RPG that I played was the Middle-Earth Role Playing game whilst I was studying for my HND down in Brighton.
Then whilst married getting the thirteen cd edition of the BBC radio play production of the book. Wow such an amazing production. Apart from Tom Bombadil they got the book captured perfectly. I soon added the BBCs production of The Hobbit. You can just close your eyes and imagine you are there. I even have both on Audible.
I could go on. But that’d bore you. I think you could say I’m a big fan just not one that can quote chapter and verse from the books or lore.
Dave and I had a blast building our decks to play after cracking open our prerelease kit boosters and participation packs. This was a first for Dave as he was getting to experience his first sealed game.
I love that excitement, anticipation of cracking open a booster. Nothing quite like it in gaming. It’s so addictive.
I went green/white aka Selesnya, whilst Dave went Red/Black with a splash of blue aka Grixis.
I went with cards that generated food tokens and did things with them. I surprised myself with the synergy. If this had been a proper prerelease I’d have never been that lucky with my cards.
There is some amazing art on these cards. I dare to say WotC and the artists they used have taken things to another level.
And it felt so thematic playing the cards. I’ve not felt that with MtG in a long time. Granted I’ve not played a set since that awful Strixhaven set. But playing the cards was such a joy.
The Starter Kit decks also got a couple of plays. They too were fun. There was a nice balance to them.
I had a great afternoon playing some MtG with a friend. As a Fathers Day goes the only way I could top this if I had spent the time with Nathan. But he called me which is all I need.
It’s been a couple of days since I last posted, and I know how folks hope that the drivel has finally stopped if I haven’t posted for a day or two. And I so like to disappoint.
Even with a bank holiday on Monday, and turning 55 last Sunday. This shorter week has felt so long. Which I think is due to how hectic it is at work at the moment.
But gaming has been happening. Well last night it did with a second session of the Shadowdark rpg. But there will be a post mortem post about that in a day or so.
The cards needed for the Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage combo deck have started to arrive. There were three envelopes waiting for me when I got home yesterday. With more on the way.
This deck is a different build to the one I had a few years back now. That was fun to play. So I’m expecting this to be just as fun.
I like experimenting with different deck archetypes, and I definitely have my favourites. But the experimentation does help in becoming a better MtG player. Even at a casual level. It allows you to assess the opponents deck, make inferences about possible cards, or type of card, and allow you to adjust your tactics based on that information.
For example if I was up against an elf deck or something that has splashed green, I would do my damn best to disrupt that early ramp from those Llanowar elves.
Those two new poison decks from Card Kingdom have given me the urge to revisit my Atraxa Commander deck and look at what new cards I should be considering to add to it. Although playing Atraxa as a Commander does put a pretty big target on the back.
Tuesday I got an email from Chaos Cards saying that they had the A Game of Thrones Mother of Dragons playmat back in stock. Something I had given up hope of ever owning.
Until that email landed in my inbox the price of the playmat was easily over double retail plus a hefty shipping cost on top. Assuming there was one for sale.
So I didn’t even hesitate in clicking the link and ordering one. Nothing like getting something you really wanted for slightly less than rrp and with free postage.
The playmat should be with me next week. With hopefully enough people willing to play the following Saturday.
So that’s my game related stuff this week during a very very hectic week.
The two new Battle Decks from CardKingdom arrived.
They both have the infect deal poison mechanic. Which is why I got them.
I just love the whole Battle Deck idea.
They are cheap ($11.99) decks, designed around a theme to be played against each other.
At the price you ain’t getting any expensive cards. These are almost pauper decks!
However I do know one thing. They are damn fun to play.
This morning I thought I’d check out a couple of deck boxes whilst I was waiting for my coffee to brew. And colour me pleasantly surprised when I came across a Battle Deck I’d forgotten all about plus an elf deck.
The battle deck is a blue/black dimir deck that abuses the on enter battlefield mechanic. Memory serves me right it’s a bloody fun deck to play.
I’m not sure of the origin of the elf deck. I don’t think it was a Battle Deck. It might have been a list that I got online and then just ordered the cards for. It’s a fun deck to play either way. Iirc it only had nine basic lands.
I did have a Mindcrank and Duskmantle Guildmage combo deck that I also net decked. But that got stripped for other stuff. It was a cool go infinite mill/damage combo deck. So this morning after finding the other two decks I once more found a deck list for the combo and ordered the cards to build it. Another birthday treat for myself.
I may have to get myself a storage solution for these decks like my gaming pick up and go bag. So I can just grab and go.
Whilst I’m talking MtG we had a bloody cool three player game of Commander last Sunday.
Dave played my Simic Horrors from the Deep Commander deck for both the games we played. Archie (Charlene’s son) played an official pregen Commander deck for both games. Whilst I played my Dinosaur Tribal deck for the first game, and my Elf Tribal deck for the second.
Sadly for Archie he was mana screwed early on for the first game. Which made him an easy target especially when I had Gishath, Sun’s Avatar out. I was building up an impressive battlefield of dinosaurs. Unluckily for me my Horrors from the Deep deck has answers in it. Answers that bounced my dinos back to hand, and allowed Dave to get the win.
Our second game saw my elves doing elf stuff, despite a slow start due to lack of mana or elves that tapped for mana. But once I got off the starting block it quickly became oppressive, tapping for mana and life.
Again my Horrors from the Deep had answers and once again I had a hand full of cards. Twenty seven to be exact. Luckily on my next turn I had an opportunity to get an unlimited hand size so I didn’t need to discard. I was soon back to the very scary looking board state.
Just as I was going to one shot kill Dave and Archie with twelve flying buffed up elves, Dave pulls out another answer to bounce everything back to my hand.
That was the last chance I got before Dave managed to kill me before taking out Archie.
Both fun games. Looking forward to playing Commander again soon.
“People Keep Asking If I’m Back, And I Haven’t Really Had An Answer. But Now, Yeah! I’m Thinking I’m Back!” John Wick
I think that quote kinda sums up where I am about MtG at the moment.
Well not exactly.
I’m only playing casual or kitchen table MtG.
No prerelease, no FNM, no store tournament, just games with friends and family.
The games with friends and family will be using precon decks, such as the challenger decks, game night kits, and starter kits.
All decks I can just throw in a bag and take to a game night, or planned MtG session. Where we grab a deck that grabs us and play.
That’s basically been the three times I’ve played MtG in the last couple of weeks.
It all started off teaching Dave and Clack MtG, then some games with Nath when I visited him, followed by an evening this week playing with Dave.
I had a blast playing again. I was reminded of what I love about playing the game besides the deckbuilding.
I love those moments the game gives where it all looks lost but somehow you hold in there, and manage to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. Dave had one of those in our last game on Wednesday.
Sometimes the cards hate you and you get mana screwed (or the opposite mana flooded). It happens. You shrug it off. Shuffle and start the next game.
I love the complexity. The incomplete information you play with. Not knowing what cards your opponent has, you have an idea the sort of cards they might have, but you don’t know for sure. Why have they left mana untapped? What do they have in their hand? Is it a counter spell or removal? Dare I play the card? The bluffing can be delicious.
Oh and that feeling of satisfaction when you pull off something cool.
As for the precons I’m enjoying playing the ones I have. The Game Night Kit is designed for this sort of play. It’s been great fun both times I used it with Nath and Dave. The one I got was the 2022 version. There is a 2019 edition to. It’s also designed as a multiplayer game, but I’ve not used it that way yet.
The challenger decks have been fun too. I have 3 pioneer decks (using archetypes I enjoy), plus a couple of the standard ones.
Plus the starter kits have been useful in this casual play. I have a couple of these. These decks I use like the old duel decks. They have been fun to play also.
I still have a couple of the CardKingdom battle decks. Which are great value. But may not be after shipping has been added on (just ordered a couple of decks, the shipping was ok). These are great fun to play also.
This casual approach to MtG is a lot lighter on the pocket, and just as much fun.
I’ve not talked about or played MtG for a long time now. Which should worry WotC. Some-one who loves the game, loves playing it. Not playing it,buying product, or talking about it.
But that changed Friday evening when I taught Dave and Clack how to play.
On the way home I had popped in to my FLGS to try and pick up a copy of the game night kit free for all kit (a box of five standard decks that can be opened up and played by a group of friends). Sadly they did not have one.
They had also sold out of jump start decks.
I needed something I could use with new players. That was new player friendly.
So I ended up with a Starter Kit, plus a Pioneer Challenger deck (I already had two others I could use).
A mad dash back home in record time (all the traffic lights en route were in my favour) to pick up what I needed for the evening. Saw me arrive 10 minutes later than we had arranged.
I started off teaching MtG using the Starter Kit decks for Dave and Clack, whilst I used an old Card Kingdom battle deck I had.
This was a fun first game. They both attacked me a lot declaring me as the main threat because I knew how to play the game!
I managed to stabilise at 4 health before being able to hit back and grab a victory.
Next I gave out a random 2021 D&D Commander deck (not the current set) and went over the brief changes to the format.
Our commanders
I need to look into the themes of these decks. Mine was obviously a dragon deck and all about getting them out. Clack’s deck was possibly a voltron style deck. Dave’s was the confusing one, and seemed all about venturing through dungeons and getting those benefits and graveyard shenanigans?
This game Clack got mana screwed. It happens. As a MtG player you just accept it happens, and hope you live long enough to try and mount some sort of comeback once the lands start showing up.
In a game of Commander being mana screwed might be an advantage early on as other players don’t see you as a threat, and leave you alone as they beat up on each other.
I was ramping up nicely in this game, got my commander out. Was the monarch (a great mechanic for Commander) spamming out tokens. Life was good for the dragons.
Unchecked I was just able to swing in and single shot both Dave and Clack for the victory.
Our second game it was my turn to get mana screwed. It happens. See previous comments above about it.
Eventually I was able to start playing cards and building up a presence on the battlefield.
Clack’s voltron deck was firing off, and some rather threatening creatures were being equipped and made nastier. Dave and I were at risk of dying from Commander damage by Clack.
Dave made it hard for Clack and I to block his attacks, as we were for large chunks of the game only able to block with legendary creatures.
He was also venturing through those dungeons a lot and pulling creatures back from the graveyard.
Our decks were doing stuff.
I think this game felt more commandery than our previous one. There was more politic stuff going on. More “don’t attack me I’m not a threat, look at that big creature they have. Now that’s a threat!”
Despite that distinct lack of mana for what felt like an eternity I managed to hold on in their and win.
It was a fun evening of MtG.
Not only did I get to introduce new players to the game. But I was reminded what I like so much about the game.
Plus the Starter Kit and Pioneer decks I can play with Nath when I visit him next week.
Friday evening saw some Commander action taking place. This time it was against some ex-students.
The first game we played saw me take my Eldrazi deck out for a spin. But it was too slow, and none of us could stop Bob doing the inevitable and defeat us all. Once he had his Emrakul, The Aeons Torn out it was game over. I wasn’t finding any answers. I definitely wasn’t getting to my big Eldrazi hitters. All we could do was say “gg” through gritted teeth.
Our second game saw my Ur-dragon deck hit the table. Two cool things happened in this game. Firstly I got to play Tiamat. Which is an obnoxious card to play. Being able to get from your deck your five most nastiest dragons is obscene. It puts a big target on you as your opponents know what you just got.
Secondly despite having over 100 life I was still able to have my dragon horde swoop in and kill Bob. Giving double strike to them all really helped. Sadly only 20 points of that damage was Commander damage. Despite me trying to find a way to get that final single point of damage.
Taking Bob out meant I was also dead. But there was nothing I could do to stop the silly number of hydra tokens that were coming my way.
It was a fun evening of Commander. But my losing streak was continuing.
Saturday saw not only Diego playing Tapestry but Jonathan joined us as well.
Both had not played before. But that didn’t scare me off from teaching the game with Plans and Ploys (P&P), and the Arts and Architecture (A&A) expansions thrown in to the mix.
I had rigged the tech and tapestry decks so that we got to see the new cards from the newest expansion A&A. Plus we only chose civilisations from the two expansions. I also didn’t use the advanced capital city mats from A&A. However I did shuffle up both sets of landmark cards from the expansions before drawing four of them.
Even taking into account the above setting up, plus the addition of the fifth track and masterpiece cards. I don’t think with the expansions added into the mix there was too much additional stuff, or over complication to the game to make it too much for new players to take in.
I specifically advanced on the new Arts track because I wanted to see it in use, and try the new masterpiece cards.
Tapestry
I have to say I liked the new masterpiece cards. But not the card size! Can’t sleeve them unless I cut some sleeves down.
Loved being able to use the inspiration tiles to upgrade one of the resource tracks.
I was already a fan of the landmark cards after they were introduced in P&P. So having more of them is just great.
Another thing I like about the arts track is that you choose which type of income building you move to your capital city. It made hitting the landmark card trigger I had very easy.
I need to sleep on the above and get some more games in so I can expand on those very basic initial thoughts above. At the moment there is a germ of a thought that the above is too powerful. But is it? Does it balance out if others are also doing it?
I think this was the most I’d done completing rows and columns in my capital city. It felt pretty cool. It certainly looked pretty cool.
I knew Diego would like the game. But would Jonathan?
He did indeed like it. And that’s despite getting salty over the dystopia tapestry card I played allowing me to grab any landmark on the landmark board. Naturally I went with the tallest (on the off chance there was a tie for first place).
Plus the end of turn trigger for one of his landmark cards was an issue. Jonathan will explain better than me in the comments his issue with this. For me it was not an issue.
Anyway here are the final scores showing I had indeed broken the week long losing streak I’d been on.
Last night saw a Commander session at The Luxe with myself, Diego and new member Sam battling it.
Whilst Diego was playing with some of Sam’s decks. I played my Ur-Dragon deck that I hadn’t played in a long long time.
Some new cards had been added during that time, such as Tiamat, and one or two Nicol Bolas cards. So the deck was long overdue an outing.
The first game of the evening was over pretty quickly. I hadn’t hit my land drops, didn’t get to any of the mana rocks or ramp. Diego was doing much better with the enchantments deck he was playing, however neither of us had any answers to the problems Sam was presenting on the battle field. Especially when damage was getting doubled.
I stuck with the dragons for game two. Sam went to a new deck, and Diego stuck with the enchantments (I really should have made a note of the Commanders, next time).
By all rights I should have lost this game. However thanks to mercy or pity (take your pick which) from Sam I didn’t. I was down to 8 life. Sam needed help taking on Diego. So a deal was made. I wouldn’t attack him if he let me live.
That bought me time to get pieces into place and get dragons on the battlefield. My dragons would be coming in with haste and dealing damage based on the number of dragons I controlled to a player or Planeswalker. So when Sam finished off Diego I was able to play some dragons and chip away at his life, and then swing in for lethal and victory.
The final game of the evening I broke out the new Eldrazi deck. Sam and Diego swapped decks also. They both had life gain decks. Both adding counters to creatures. But the one Diego was playing was generating counters and tokens like crazy. On top of all that life gain.
I was going under the radar for much of the early game. I had plenty of land but no cheap creatures to get out. Rounds 6 and 7 were the earliest I was going to get anything out. Field of the Dead was going to help me get some 2/2 zombie blockers out.
Despite drawing Helm of the Host turn 2 I sat on it for most of the game. It might have given a big hint to my game plan and put a target on my back.
I was forced to play my Commander so that I could trash my land that enabled me to fetch a colourless creature. This deck isn’t built around playing the Commander. It’s a nice +1/+1 effect if out. But not a crucial part of the plan. However as I said I was forced into this because Diego was getting out of hand, and his flyer with 19 counters on could kill me his next turn. So I went and got Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and took it out. Diego swore he wasn’t going to do that, but attack Sam with it. But previous turns that creature had been used to attack me. I wasn’t convinced.
Some how I got another turn and that’s when I played Helm of the Host and attached it to Ulamog. The token then swung at Diego. It was pretty much my last act of the game. Diego crushed me on his turn.
It was then a battle of the life gain decks. Both Diego and Sam broke the 100 health barrier. Neither were showing signs of getting the killing blow. The film for the evening had ended and the poor staff of The Luxe were cleaning up. A draw was called.
It was a fun evening. Sam’s decks were awesome and scary at the same time. Especially the one Diego was playing at the end. Can’t wait to play some more Commander.
This morning three people gathered to duke it out on the battlefield with their chosen commanders.
It was a casual smack down using WotC Commander precon decks. I had all the precon decks from 2017 to now with me (except the anthology decks) for us to play with.
Gavin was using his own precon, while Diego and myself chose from the recent D&D ones. My precons were “naked”! I have 3 years worth of precons to sleeve. Which is a lot of decks, and I need to find the funds to purchase the Dragon Shields to do the job.
Here are the commanders we played.
Me – Vrondriss, Rage of Ancients (D&D precon)
Diego – Galea, Kindler of Hope (D&D precon)
Gavin – Adrix and Nev, Twincasters (Strixhaven precon)
Early on Diego established himself as a big threat. His Commander with a couple of nasty bits of equipment that gave it +10/+10 and double strike was scary. One hit death to Commander damage if it landed. Thank god there was no trample added to it.
I was way behind both of them on the land drops. So I was happy for Diego to be the big distraction as I tried to catch up and build up a winning board state (see the photo above). All I needed was to be able to chump block if attacked by him.
Luckily there were very few answers for them both to stop my flyers chipping away at them or stop me using direct damage to control their board state (ie remove potential blockers or sending Diego’s Commander to hell). It was also lucky that Diego wasn’t able to give his equipped Commander hexproof. That would have made life extremely difficult.
But in the end the dragon horde prevailed and won the game.
Next up was a learning game of Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals.
We played using the pre-constructed decks. I gave Gavin and Diego first choice and I played what was left. Below is who played what.
Brujah – me (rival was Gavin)
Toreador – Gavin (rival was Diego)
Ventrue – Diego (rival was me)
After a poor explanation of the rules and picking our rival we started playing.
Our first play was definitely a game of two conflicting experiences.
Gavin didn’t enjoy the game at all. He was polite and put it down to the cards he drew, and there being little he could do to make use of his clans abilities. I don’t think the poor rules explanation helped either.
I’m sure there were more rule misplays than the one we had. Well technically it wasn’t a misplay more missed rule! We missed that you could discard cards during the torpor/mend stage to heal vampires. Which would have kept Gavin in the game instead of seeing me win it. Thanks Diego for spotting that after the fact and casting a shadow over my glorious victory.
The Brujah deck I was playing was probably the simpler deck to play compared to the Toreador deck Gavin was trying to play. It is the Rivals version of a MtG aggro deck. Which is definitely one of the deck archetypes I like to play.
When Diego played Long-Term Investment I got a distinct Netrunner vibe and reminded of cards like Kati Jones.
Like Netrunner there is a lot of jargon to get used to, especially if you are not into the whole Worlds of Darkness thing. Which can add to the confusion and make the learning curve a bit more steeper than it already is.
So while Gavin won’t be playing Rivals again Diego and myself will be. I need to play the other decks. And then want to get into deck building.
But once again it was great to be playing in real life again. Especially when I win. Plus there is more gaming to look forward to at the end of the week.
