Core Set 2020 Draft Weekend

magic, MtG

For your FLGS the cash injection that is a MtG release continues. There was Pre-release last weekend, and then this weekend it was the actual release and all product could be sold, and draft events.

While waiting for the draft to start I got to play some games of Standard against Sam and his deck. He was playing a deck built around Arclight Phoenix and Crackling Drake. It’s a strong deck. I didn’t sideboard anything. I think I’ll need some plummets in the sideboard to take this deck on. Plus some graveyard hate.

We started the draft and I pulled a Leyline of Sanctity in my opening pack. Sweet. I now had a playset of them. I’m very happy with that. It also set the colour I started drafting. That first pack I drafted only white cards. I knew I’d need a second colour, and decided to go blue.

I think I’m getting worse at this MtG thing. I managed to scrape a win against an ex-student. But otherwise things didn’t go exactly to plan. Against Sam I got mana screwed in our first game. Which never helps. But was the opposite to one of the losses I suffered against Andy in the first round when I flooded out! There was a little laugh with John when he beat me. When he was delivering his killing blow there was a misplay when he tried to do 2 direct damage to me from an ability. Only for me to point out to him that he was unable to target me, I was hexproof. It was a minor moral victory. Poor compensation for losing.

ok here are the cold hard stats.

Casual Games

Dean: Loss 0-1

Sam: Loss 0-3

Draft Stats

Participants: 10

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Andy Loss 0-2

Round 2: Tom Win 2-1

Round 3: Sam Loss 0-2

Round 4: John Loss 0-2

Record: 1-3

Final Position: 8th

Prizes: 1 participation pack

I have to say that I think with the changes to the prize support for events that WotC have made, things are definitely more stingy. If Not Standard Showdown plays our the way I think it will, then next week will be my last one. But we will discuss this in more detail next week. But the spoiler and headline for my theory that will be tested is that WotC are slowly killing off and discouraging these sort of events.

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

Gruul Dino’s and Big Green Stompy Things

magic, MtG

After spending a lot of the weekend playing MtG at Pre-Release events, there was only one way to spend the Monday afternoon (considering it’s the end of the academic year and I have no classes) playing MtG and particularly because it was…

Before we got into playing Commander I was lucky enough to get some test games of my new Gruul Dino Standard deck in with Andy. This was the deck I mentioned I ended up building real early Saturday.

We played 3 games, lost all 3 but they were not walk overs. Plus I didn’t side board any cards in that may have made a difference. I wanted to get a feel for the deck and how it played. What cards did I think I needed whilst playing? Had I got the mix right?

Overall I was happy with the way the deck worked.

Ok here is the deck tech bit for those interested.

But before I go any further it’s probably best I give my boiler plate get out of jail disclaimer for my decks.

“I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.“

Creatures:29

4 Marauding Raptor
3 Otepec Huntmaster
4 Raptor Hatchling
3 Ranging Raptors
3 Ripjaw Raptor
4 Shifting Ceratops
3 Charging Monstrosaur
3 Regisaur Alpha
2 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:10

4 Commune with Dinosaurs
2 Rhythm of the Wild
1 Savage Stomp
2 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
1 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger

Lands:21

2 Evolving Wilds
8 Forest
1 Lotus Field
7 Mountain
3 Rugged Highlands

Sideboard:15

3 Thrashing Brontodon
3 Grazing Whiptail
3 Adventurous Impulse
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Hijack
1 Savage Stomp
2 Leyline of Combustion

Even though the AMC is 3.49, which is high for me, that’s not really an issue with this deck. Or it’s less than an issue than it could be. With the discount given by huntmaster and marauding I’m playing those more expensive dinos 1 or 2 turns early.

I’m also loving the cost of the deck, which because the app couldn’t price 3 cards is actually slightly more expensive. But still the cost of those cards will be minimal. For me I had the cards already, plus the new ones I pulled or traded on Friday/Saturday. So it’s a free deck for me. Which is nice. Come rotation this deck gets gutted. But in the meantime I think it’s going to be a fun one to play.

I might play around with the Planeswalkers. Vivien Reid for starters should be in this deck. But my only copy was sitting in my Big Green Stompy Commander deck. I’ve always needed a second, but been too tight to splash out the cash for one. The mythic Chandra would be cool to try out. Although thematically she doesn’t fit in with the deck. But I’m getting the impression that if you splash red in a deck she will be an auto include.

The sideboard does need tweaking. The new Tibalt needs adding for those matchups against lifegain decks.

I’m half tempted to try a game or two with leylines not in my colours! Void and Sanctity are powerful cards. It’s not as if you need the mana to play them if they are in the opening hands!

We were down for 6 player Commander. I was playing big green stompy, that had the new hydras added to it, Vivien Reid and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, Unbound Flourishing and Wilderness Reclamation.

With Doubling Season out I did ultimate Vivien when she was played. That was fun. But one of us was playing a deck way up on the power scale compared to the rest of us. A bit of a dick thing to do really.

But still I did some stuff. Had a good time. Despite the dick stuff from that player. A great relaxed Monday afternoon. A glimpse of retired life. Sadly for now these are few and far apart.

Core Set 2020 Pre-Release Weekend

magic, MtG

Sometimes WotC actually make changes that are for the better. Allowing your FLGS to start running Pre-Release events from 3pm on the Friday instead of having to wait until midnight is one of those better ones. Tie this in with a previous change from a couple of months ago of being able to sell booster boxes (along with the buy-a-box promo) a week early makes for a fun cardtastic weekend for players and a more profitable weekend for the FLGS.

It’s a shame they didn’t allow the FLGS to sell everything a week early like they did for the War of the Spark Pre-Release. However we know the reason for that decision was to allow the vendors at the London MagicFest to sell the new stuff over the Pre-Release weekend to those visiting. So they had to open it up to stores as well to avoid a mass riot from store owners. Who lets face it were not entirely happy that they were losing business to the MagicFest on a major weekend for sales.

Another change (and unpopular at the very least with those players who like to express their opinions online) for this weekend was the London Mulligan became official.

I’d signed up for the very first 3pm Pre-Release. Which considering it was starting whilst the majority of people were still at work, and my FLGS is located in a small rural Fenland market town, was pretty well attended.

Before the Pre-Release kicked off some of us were opening booster packs from our pre-ordered booster boxes. I was very happy with my pulls. I was even able to trade my mythic Chandra and some other cards for cards I wanted for decks. I ended up with playsets of some cards I wanted to build around, or close with 3 copies. Which sometimes I prefer to play with instead of the full 4.

New standard deck ideas are buzzing.

I definitely want to build a wolf deck to play just for fun. Ferocious Pup has to be played and is a key card for the deck, because reasons!

Golgari will see me returning to it, and the Rotting Regisaur is going to be a key card. It’s going to be an aggro deck.

But the main deck until rotation will be the green/red Dino deck. It will be built around Marauding Raptor and the enrage mechanic. I might add Polyraptor to the deck just for that infinite loop combo and the lol’s. I’d need to add some way to escape the loop so I’d win instead of drawing. Playing that version will have to be done once.

I was happy with my Pre-Release kit, and the cards I got. I went green/black with my cards. Leyline of the Void was fun to play and effective in my games. There seems to be some nice graveyard hate in this set.

3pm Pre-Release Stats

Participants: 12

Rounds: 3

Round 1: Noob to store Win 2-0

Round 2: Jonathan Loss 0-2

Round 3: Josh Win 2-1

Record: 2-1

Final Position: 3rd

Prizes: 2 participation packs.

Saturday’s Pre-Release

The dogs had me up early to answer the call of nature. Unwisely I decided to look for some cards whilst they were out side demonstrating just how effective their scorched earth policy is in the backyard.

I ended up building the Marauding Raptor deck. Without that infinite combo.

Originally I’d only planned to do the one Pre-Release. However I’d sold my booster box of Conspiracy Take the Crown, and Battlebond. So I had to meet the buyer outside Ely.

With the Wisbech Rose Fair on, I didn’t fancy hitting that, closed roads, and traffic delays. So I decided to hide at my FLGS instead and do the first of the days 2 Pre-Release events.


For this Pre-Release I ended up going Red/White. I had too. I’d pulled a mythic Chandra and baby Chandra as I’m calling her. Plus I had the 7/7 7 CMC dragon. It’s a game winner in this sort of format. Baby Chandra is great for cheating it out early, and her mythic self.

11am Pre-Release Stats

Participants: 20

Rounds: 4

Round 1: Macauley Loss 0-2

Round 2: Grant Win 2-0

Round 3: Kar-Fai Win 2-1

Round 4: Thomas Loss 2-0

Record: 2-2

Final Position: 11th

Prizes: 2 participation packs.


The evening Pre-Release was something I talked myself into during the afternoon.

I went Black/Red for this, and had the leylines for each colour in the deck. I also was playing my promo card which was the black 8/8 8 CMC demon.

4pm Pre-Release Stats

Participants: 8

Rounds: 3

Round 1: Simon Loss 0-2

Round 2: Andy Loss 0-2

Round 3: Kristaps Win 2-0

Record: 1-2

Final Position: 6th

Prizes: 2 participation packs.

I hadn’t started the weekend with the intention of playing so many Pre-Release events. The original plan was to do my usual single event. But in the end I ended up attending 3. The most I’ve ever done.

The London Mulligan was ok. It’s great for hitting those leylines and combos.

I had a super fun time. Apart from seeing my friends from the Standard Showdown. I also got to see others that I normally only get to see at these sort of events. It’s great to catch up, have a laugh, trade banter.

Core Set 2020 Pre-Release Weekend Starts This Afternoon

magic, MtG

As of 3pm today your local FLGS (mines The Hobbit Hole) will be running pre-release events for the Core Set 2020. Or they are allowed to run them I should say.

It also means your FLGS is able to sell booster boxes with the buy-a-box promo.

Don’t forget to take some sleeves with you to the pre-release and some lands. Although your FLGS will provide lands for you to use. Which means I most likely will forget both.

I hope you get a great promo card and some great pulls in your pre-release kit, and have a great time playing MtG with the new cards.

Update on planning session 1 #10

D&D, RPG, session planning


SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

You know when you get something like an ear worm or an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about?

That’s how it’s been for me the last couple of days over the distances my players will be travelling in session 1. Just how long will it take for them to sail from Saltmarsh and the Angrath’s pirate island base?

I kept thinking that it would take about 14 days or more. Once I remembered that the map had a scale on it. Yeah I know I’m slow and old. I dug out my physical copy of the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide turned to the area map and roughly measured the distance. They were closer than I thought. I estimated 350 – 400 miles.

Referring to the Ghosts of Saltmarsh appendix A the stats block for a keelboat says it travels at 3mph or 72 miles per day.

With some quick simple maths I put the travel time to 5-6 days. Considerably quicker than I had initially thought.

I then looked at Mintarn and the islands around it, which is where session 2 and potentially session 3 are taking place. It looks like a days travel at most from Mintarn to any of the islands (that isn’t the northern 2 islands the players ended up on, they are about a day and a half away).

The upshot now is that when I look at the map I can make a rough estimate of the distance between places.

I started listening to Rising Tide by Mel Odom, which is the first volume in the The Threat From the Sea trilogy. It’s got me thinking that the party will be bumping in to sahuagin early on.

I have one or two options or adventure ideas. The first is a D&D Beyond Encounter Of The Week. Which is “a combat encounter in which the characters must prove themselves as worthy gladiators to escape the clutches of a ruthless sahuagin baron.” This encounter acts as a follow up to the encounter I’m borrowing for my session 1, the group skill challenge. However this could be dropped anywhere in the campaign.

I also like the idea of the sahuagin attacking the party while at sea. Similar to the attack described in Rising Tide. This would see the sahuagin using a manta. Which is an oblong barge made up from wood salvaged from shipwrecks. This would be a ship to ship combat. In fact this idea could lead into that encounter of the week.

I also like the idea of malenti. Which are mutated sahuagin that look like sea elves. The malenti are often used to spy on said sea elves. I want the party to have dealings with sea elves, and having them stumble upon a malenti spy, and a sahuagin plot of some sort would be a cool thing to explore.

The idea of having the sahuagin, or a group of them terrorising towns and communities along a stretch of coast line, and having the party sort it out also seems a good idea.

Also inspired by Rising Tide and the attack on Waterdeep the party might feel the wrath of a dragon turtle.

Which once again could lead into the encounter of the week. Or have different repercussions for the party. Seeing the party shipwrecked and leading into another adventure idea, say The Jurassic Park/Ixalan based island.

In the photo above I decided to recreate the opening of the campaign and session 1. Naturally the miniatures will be different. But it gives an idea.

I pre-calculated the passive perception for my players, and with the exception of one, the values are either 11 or 12. I just have the image of the party wandering around oblivious to what’s going on around them. While that one player with a value of 16 is saying “did you see that?” Or “how did you miss that?”

I’m so glad I brain dump in these posts. It might be boring for everyone else. Plus maybe some-one might find it interesting.

Second best

Uncategorized

I’m starting this post off with a photo or two of Attack Chihuahua number two Loki snuggled up on my lap as he patiently waits for mum to wake up next door and let her dogs out. As soon as the backdoor opens he will be round there, and snuggled up with Nan quicker than a Tory MP pocketing the cash from their banker overlords.

So what is this post about?

That was it, just sharing a doggy picture today.

Update on planning session 1 #9

D&D, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

So I have painted the well that was printed off for me. I had run out of primer which put a stop on doing the boat tiles themselves.

But once finished I decided to knock up another part of the dungeon. Which is the photo below.

I did eventually get my hands on more primer (probably not nearly enough) and have sprayed an initial batch of boat tiles.

It was annoying me that I had enough pirate figures, or ones that can be used as pirates, but they needed trimming and gluing. So I finally caved and ordered a cheap model builders kit off Amazon that got me the needed clippers. It also got me a mini self healing mat for cutting stuff on, a scalpel with spare blades and a file.

So Saturday evening I spent clipping and gluing to make the pirates/vikings. This really is my least favourite part of the hobby. How anyone gets enjoyment from this I don’t know.

However Sunday was spent painting the miniatures. I only finished 2 completely because they were the least complicated. The others are in various stages of painting.

I had decided early on whilst I was painting I would concentrate on the models I needed for the first session, and leave the ones that appear much later to last. However as I painted the models in the stages, ie applied the Viking blue to all those that were going to have that colour, or apply the barbarian flesh colour to the models all of a sudden apart from some hair Angrath is almost complete and just needs washes and dry brushing.

It appears that the players have a date for our first session now. Boy has that been like extracting teeth. I’m glad I put the onus on them to make the decision. It was painful to watch them discussing it. I would have been infuriated if I had been trying to arrange it. The whole “I’m thinking of a number, can you guess it?” part of the process I find so frustrating.

I have shared a copy of an excel spreadsheet with the players that summarises the players characters stats.

I have asked them to check the information and let me know of any corrections. One or two of them the hand writing is hard to decipher.

While I was in excel I decided to start to populate the encounters with creatures. I just need to copy the stats across, pre-roll the initiative (to speed combat up a little) and work out the passive perception.

I’ve also been doing minor updates to the other planning notes, like finally setting a DC level for the locked doors. I added a couple of items to the treasure room, one of which is cursed!

I’m also getting inspiration for one or two of the adventure hooks. There was a recent Encounter of the Week on D&D Beyond that uses a skill challenge to navigate successfully through a wilderness. This would be a great way for the party to navigate through the wood covered part (which is most of it) of Mintarn to locate the secret cave of the Ironstar Dwarves.

On the model front I will try and get some viking villagers, put an order in with my guy for the 3D stuff for some 3D trees, and some viking huts. I might try and get some generic figures that can be used as ship crew and townsfolk.

That’s the thing about this part of the Forgotten Realm. There is two real distinct groups of humans. One is viking influenced, whilst the other is more medieval European. There are definitely elven and dwarven communities as well in the area. And they will break down into at least a couple of sub races, like sea elves for example.

Other races will be present but as enclaves within the major settlements.

So when it comes to models to get, I know that I have a focus on the prominent races of the area.

That’s the progress I’ve made on planning and prep since the last update.

Goatnapped!

Game day, magic, MtG

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far.

There was only one way to spend the day. Indoors playing MtG at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole’s Open House event.

The last couple of days I’ve been on a lucky streak. In the two new Planeswalker decks I bought I got a Leyline of Sanctity, in my Modern Horizons packs, a foil squirrel token, pain land and an Unbound Flourishing (recouped the cost of the packs back in that card alone), a new Karn in the War of the Spark boosters.

The Leyline is needed for my Standard deck, whilst the Unbound Flourishing is going straight into my big green stompy Commander deck.

Naturally I was wearing the coolest tee of the day at my FLGS. Yep I had the card Ferocious Pup made into a tee. I had hoped the white would have come out better. It looked distressed at best. But otherwise I was happy with the rest of it.

I went with the new Green Welcome deck. Which was fortunate because after loosing a game with it against Kar-Fai. I was able to trade the Aggressive Mammoth that is in the deck with Kar-Fai for the Reckless Air Strike he pulled from the booster in his Planeswalker deck. I wanted the card to go in my mono red goblins Commander deck that I was about to use.

Other new cards in the deck were the new Krenko, and Goatnap. The new Krenko was also being tested as the Commander.

Our four player Commander game was great fun. Naturally being goblins I was quick off the mark, and was basically the major threat. But after Elesh Norn hit the battlefield that was me scuppered. As was the Markov vampire deck. Until that card was removed it basically stopped me playing any goblins, or creating tokens. During that period of being locked down, Dean and his Atraxa super friends deck started to get really powerful with a few Planeswalkers out and firing off their abilities.

Luckily I got an Immortal Sun out, not early enough. But at the right moment to stop him ultimating them and winning the game. It then became in the interest of the other players to keep me alive and locking out those Planeswalkers.

Once Dean had been removed, ok killed. I didn’t last much longer despite firing off a board wipe.

But earlier in the game I did get to use Goatnap to steal Elesh Norn. That was pretty cool.

It was a fun Commander game. With the usual ebb and flow. We introduced a new player to the format. Got to play cool cards.

Afterwards I got to play test my not Standard deck (well not for another 2 weeks) with 2 copies of leylines in it, and a third Nissa. The decks I played against were not competitive enough for a Showdown. They were nowhere fast enough compared to say Dean’s Dino deck, or the red burn decks. So not really a test for the deck.

Naturally the FLGS sold out of all their Planeswalker decks. Mainly to existing players though. It’s that booster pack from Core Set 2020 in each Planeswalker deck. Early early access to the cards.

I had a really great day playing MtG. This was a fun Open House.

When I got home the model clippers had arrived. Which allowed me to do my least favourite part of the miniatures hobby. Cutting and gluing models together.

So I put the Viking warriors together, and not shown the Viking berserkers.

Everything was then primed ready for painting. Which I started today. But more about that in another post.

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