The days haul…

Oh middle right is Elite Dangerous Battle Cards, bottom right is the Heroes of Dominaria board game set in the Magic the Gathering universe.

This Friday sees the start of 3 days of tabletop geekery at the NEC Birmingham in the form of the UK Games Expo.

Naturally I’m attending all 3 days, but what am I going to be doing there?

Well I have very little I’m looking to get or try out. I want to get the new Imperial Settlers expansion We Didn’t Start The Fire, the new Viticulture expansion Visit from the Rhine Valley and that’s about it on the purchases front. I want to get a demo of the new Magic the Gathering boardgame Heroes of Dominaria, grab some promos from the White Wizard Games stand, try against the odds to win the Star Realms tournament, and hand over the games that I’ve sold recently for pick up at the show. These sales are funding any other purchases at the show, and the following weekend the purchase of the Commander Anthology 2.

As usual I will be incognito, proving that I am truly the master of disguise. If by some remote chance you do recognise me say hi and how much you think my writing is atrocious.

Strider has decided to go off and reform the original line up of The Wolf Pack. He will be touring with Bud and Barney, hunting rabbits, stealing food from unsuspecting fisherman and hikers all over heaven.

If ever a person was owned by a dog, it was me by Strider. He would appear uninterested and more into his own space. But if anything or one had my attention then they had better watch out, because he would be right there pushing his way in-between whoever and making sure he was the centre of attention. Unlike his partners in crime Strider could be trusted with food left on the side.

I’m going to miss Strider a lot.

Happy hunting Strider.

Just a quick post to let folks know I’m still alive. It’s been rather quiet on here of late. There is a good reason for that, I’ve not been gaming much. Well since when has that stopped me? When I’ve not been gaming, I’ve bored you ridged with stuff about Magic the Gathering or some other thing that I’m obsessed with at the time.

But truth be told the last week I haven’t been in the mood for much gaming. Just over a week ago Toby (one of my mums dogs) came down with the squits, which within 24 hours Strider got as well. But it hit Strider harder and he was also sick along with it. Then Ebony my mum’s other dog and Loki got it. I think Nico at the time of writing hasn’t had it. Ebony also had it similar to Strider with the extra complication.

Let’s jump back and talk about Strider. It hit him really bad. He was not moving, hardly drinking without help, definitely not eating. At the weekend it was looking bad for Strider. We thought he was on his last legs. There were more than one moment when it looked like he’d gone. My time with him was extremely precious.

Monday I was so emotional, it was hard to speak or think about Strider without that emotional side leaking out of my eyes. It felt each morning this week so far that I was potentially saying farewell to him. However yesterday Strider started to appear a bit better, he had actually moved during the day, and was drinking once more without aid. He still isn’t getting up to go out to the toilet, so we are improvising a doggy nappy for him.

Then today as I write this Wednesday evening the glimmer of hope from the previous day seems distant. We aren’t through the woods yet.

As final days at a place goes this was a pretty good one, if not on the expensive side.

I’d ordered a cake for the staff room, along with 24 cup cakes for my level 3 students that were in today.

After the cup cakes had been wolfed down, my Dragon Tribal deck swooped from the sky reigning fire on the other players. It helped that 2 of my opponents were mana screwed, they were just not getting any.

Between the fiery destruction in Commander and lunch there was time to do a quick run to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole to pick up a bundle for Dominaria and another Prerelease kit. I’ll go over the pulls in another post.

Lunchtime a massive abuse of the Two for One Tuesday deal at the local Dominos meant there was pizza in the staff room and for my students. The pizza for my students didn’t last long at all. A plague of locusts take longer to strip a field of crops, and that’s fast.

I suppose I was feeling a little extra generous with it being my 50th yesterday and all. In a way this was a kind of me celebrating yesterday but doing it today, along side saying farewell.

My year 1 Level 3 students got me a play mat that some of them had signed. Which is pretty cool, and a nice thing to remember them by. Going to miss them, they were a great bunch on the whole.

Although I’m leaving these students, I hope I made the last day an enjoyable one for them. They have a lot of work ahead of them to complete the year. But I know they will do it.

For now I’m going to rest on my laurels for the evening. Tomorrow is a new start for me, and the work starts all over again.

Considering how annoying I can be I’m surprised I’ve made it to this age. Sadly I’ve not aged as well as Kylie who is the same age.

I’m not a big one on celebrations. It’s been a normal day. I sent a pizza to Nath down in Portsmouth so that he can have a mini celebration on me. And that is about the extent of my celebrations.

Tomorrow is another big day, it’s my last day at my current employer before moving onto a new employer nearer to home.

Here is another infrequent post of recommendations of stuff to watch on Netflix. Two new series have recently hit it that I am currently really enjoying.

The first I had dismissed when I read a description of it when first aired on the SyFy channel. But when I saw the teaser trailer on Netflix it appeared a lot more appealing.

Happy is a based on a graphic novel by Grant Morrison. The opening scene violently visceral and surreal sets the tone for whole series.

And I love it. A combination of live action and animation. It has some dark themes, it’s violent, it’s funny, the performances are fantastic. I’m a big fan of this show. I’ll be getting the graphic novel now to read for sure.

Friday evenings as a kid/teenager were along with Saturday mornings some of my favourite tv. 6pm Fridays if I remember correctly I’d be spoiled with classics of the time like The Water Margins and Monkey. Although I seem to remember them running for longer than they actually did apparently. I’ve looked at dvds of the complete series for both and there are far far fewer episodes than I remember.

Monkey had a light hearted approach to its material. But it was fun. Now Netflix has produced an updated version of the series. It’s struck an interesting route for an update. A lot these days go for the dark gritty reimagining. But this one has not gone that route, but it hasn’t also gone for copying the original either, they have hit a nice mid point. I actually like the route they have gone, and the choices they have made. I particularly like the actor who plays monkey and his portrayal. Casting Sandy as a female character an interesting choice, that works. The rest of the main casting choices and their performances are solid.

Don’t forget that this weekend is Prerelease weekend for Magic the Gathering Dominaria. I would imagine all FLGS that sell MtG and do FNM will be running Prerelease events this weekend. I know my FLGS The Hobbit Hole are running some. They still have places on some of them, except the Saturday 11am one that is sold out (luckily I have my ticket for that already).

The Prerelease kits are good value and even more so this time because there is going to be 2 promo cards in the kits this time. Plus stores can also sell booster boxes a week early thanks to WotC. Which I suspect is them trying to get in the good graces of the FLGS again after dropping the ball on one or two recent releases (Iconic Masters, Masters 25, Explorers of Ixalan come to mind). Each booster box while stocks last comes with the sweet promo legendary creature Firesong and Sunspeaker.

Plus I think the 2 Planeswalker decks will also be available this weekend too. And if I’m not mistaken these too come with a couple of booster packs.

So if you have no plans for the weekend I’d highly recommend attending a Prerelease event.

Math Trade Update

Well the algorithm did its job and none of my offers were taken, I was offered nothing. So it was a kind of a non-event, and a bit of a let down. Will I try again? Not sure, it’s rare that I get rid of a game from my collection. And when I do it’s usually in the run up to UKGE that I do it, with collection at the expo. That way I don’t have the hassle of postage etc. So those 3 items I put in the math trade will probably go up the week before UKGE along with my Star Wars: Destiny collection. But I’ll worry about all that nearer the time.

As the observant will have noticed first versions of the dragons tribal, mono red and elves tribal Commander decks have been created and the deck lists shared on here. Plus if I remember correctly a deck list for a dinosaur tribal brawl deck has also been shared.

As a disclaimer this post and all my others are really my notes for me to refer back to. I’m nearly 50, my memory ain’t that great at this most ancient of ages and this is where I record things I want to remember. Having said that here are the things I want to remember about decks I’m building.

In very early planning stages, which basically means I have a handful at most of possible cards to use put to one side, no commander decided yet:

• Death and Taxes deck
• Angel deck

I’m also rebuilding the Scarab God deck. But not really spent much time on that.

Ideas I’ve had for decks include the following:

• Wither/infect
• Carebear
• Abuse etb triggers
• Saproling and fungus

Depending on how the mood takes me, one or two of the ideas could jump ahead of those that I mentioned above.

I’m not sure when I will finish those decks. I suppose it depends on how much MtG and particularly Commander I get to play after I move jobs. The two MtG Leagues I ran were well attended, and 2 Commander sessions were fairly successful around the same time. However since then I’ve tried to get a couple of sessions of Commander running but the lack of response has been disappointing. I’ve had to cancel them. Commander is my favourite format for the game. Obviously within Fenland Gamers not so much. I have a Brawl event set up for next Sunday. So that’s (and it’s not as if Magic players need it) an excuse to play with the new cards that they have just got at the Prerelease events. At the moment it’s looking like it too will be cancelled. Which is a bit disappointing. Will this push me into MtG: Arena?

I’d love to see WotC reprint in some way the Vanguard cards, and the Archenemy scheme cards. Ideally the Conspiracy conspiracies cards would also be nice (but a set of these can still be picked up easily and cheaply so less pressure on these). If WotC were clever they would do a box set that gathers these multiplayer formats altogether, print a nice little rules booklet, add in one or two multiplayer formats (see that Commandzone podcast on spicing up Commander for some of those) with some tokens to support them, like role cards for the one based on Bang!