It’s time to show you some bird cards!

news

Ok Jamey Stegmaier has been releasing more info on the Facebook group about the up and coming release of his game, Wingspan. So without permission, because I’m an unscrupulous rebel like that, let’s look at the information released and the photos.

So what is the theme of the game exactly? Well from what we have seen so far, you wouldn’t be far wrong deducing it had something to do with birds. However Jamey has given us the overall theme now, “In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts who are populating your aviary with birds.” Naturally looking at the info below about the cards the person with the most victory points will win.

“Wingspan includes 170 uniquely illustrated bird cards, each with a different ability.” Which according to Jamey from the times he’s played the game led to “very different strategies and engines each time” due the variety in the cards. I like the sound of that, adds to replay ability, and having to adapt strategies. Plus it means you have to play the game a few times to truly learn what all the cards do (unless you sit down and read each card). Plus there will be that element of discovery as you come across combos etc. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest these bird cards for the basis of your engine. So I’m willing to bet that at least one of any possible future expansions will be just more bird cards.

The art on these cards (see below – once again I’ve “borrowed” these photos from the Facebook page and the copyright is all Stonemaier Games) looks amazingly realistic and wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Observer pocket guides.

But what exactly are we looking at on these cards? Use the close up of the Peregrine Falcon card and this description by Jamey explains it all. “In the upper left of each bird card is the habitat(s) it can be played into, as well as the food cost to play it. End-game VP is the number near the feather, followed by the nest type and the number of eggs the bird can hold. The bird’s wingspan is noted on the right, and finally there is the bird’s core ability.” It also looks like we get the latin name of the bird plus an interesting fact about it also on the card. Will we be learning stuff as we play? Will the game be fun and educational?

Mechs vs Minions was not only a great game. But it had a great insert also. It’s a nice trend that some publishers have picked the mantel up and continued. A recent example I can think of illustrating this is Wildlands by Martin Wallace and published by Osprey Games. The only draw back of some of these inserts is they don’t work with sleeved cards. Which is disappointing when that happens.

“…we partnered with Game Trayz… I had a very specific vision for a two-part tray: The tray itself would hold cards (yes, sleeved or unsleeved) for storage purposes, and the lid of the tray would serve as a card mat during the game.”

“Pictured here is the tray included in every copy of Wingspan.”

Yep every copy of the game will have this insert. I’m assuming cards will be standard MtG size so I can use my favourite clear sleeves, Mayday Premium. It’s nice to see that sleeved cards have been taken into account. I remain to be convinced the depth is deep enough on the insert. But width looks fine.

Well that’s all the new stuff I’ve seen, if anything else gets released I’ll save it up and do a combined post. I hope that this is proving of interest to folks. It certainly is for me.

A new combatant in the crucible

Game day, keyforge

Friday evening some plans were made (in pencil) to possibly play some Keyforge Saturday afternoon. However those plans fell through. Well they were in pencil so not guaranteed. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed that the plans had fallen through. I’d been looking forward to it, especially since my mood had been a bit on the low side for a day or two. I was needing some gaming in my life to distract and attempt to change things.

Out of the blue Justin called saying that a couple of Keyforge decks had arrived and he fancied playing some Keyforge. Naturally I jumped at the chance to play me some Keyforge.

Once at Justin’s and setup. I ran through the basic rules of the game, and the turn structure. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming when rules are being explained and it’s easier to just jump in and ask questions along the way. Justin felt this way.

For our first game I used my Blindingly Fanatical Erkki deck (Brobnar, Dis, Logos). Now you folks will hate me but I forgot to make a note of the decks I played against. But Justin’s deck took off and before I knew it he’d forged two keys, and done a damn fine job of denying me ember, and from forging a key myself.

For some reason I thought this was my four horsemen deck. And for a while thought I’d be drawing one of them any minute, it’s why I didn’t play a particular brobnar card that dumped cards from the deck into the discard pile until you ran out of deck or drew a brobnar creature. I hadn’t wanted to miss those cards. I was down to the last four cards in the deck when it clicked the horsemen deck was one of the other decks.

It was looking like this game was going to be a whitewash, I needed to at least get a key forged to prevent that. And that was the only real thought going through my head.

I was using the ability to archive cards to set up one or two big turns with my logos cards.

Eventually I broke through and forged my first key. Phew the pressure was off. I was expecting Justin to forge his third and final key imminently. But I was frustrating his ember production.

Then a fatal mistake was made by Justin. He allowed me to get a board state of mostly Dis cards in place. Suddenly I was able to exhaust two creatures to reap and get Justin to discard two random cards from hand. Plus I could steal ember from him. I also continued to put logos cards into the archive setting up that mega turn. Waiting for my battlefield to destroyed and replaced by logos cards.

But that moment never came. I was controlling the game. All of a sudden I had my second key forged, and in a turns time the ability to win the game. Justin was not able to stop the inevitable.

Somehow I had gone from trying not to get whitewashed to winning. This had been a long game 40-50 minutes I think. But it was intense, with ups and downs. A great game.


Our second game saw me try The Underhanded Captain (Dis, Brobnar, Sanctum). This was my four horsemen deck. Justin played his other new deck.

This was a very one sided game and much quicker.

It was interesting to play, and went off to a flying start. Although Justin’s deck did well keeping the number of big creatures down on my side.

I’m not taking this game as any indication of how good this horsemen deck is. Justin’s new deck had archiving and the potential to get some power turns played.

This game had more going on that affected the other players turn, like not being able to play a house, or having to play a chosen house. Justin chose Sanctum for my turn at one point which totally screwed me over because I had no Sanctum cards in hand. But my only creature out was a Sanctum one so all I could do was reap.

Justin enjoyed his first experience of Keyforge. I had a great afternoon playing. The socialising had had the desired affect. I was certainly feeling better than I was before going out.

We now have four Keyforge players in town now that I know of. Is this a Keyforge community forming?

NEWS: Yesterday also saw FFG announce that in the Master Vault it has hit over 200k decks registered. That’s phenomenal. Naturally it doesn’t give us any clue to the actual number of players of the game or actual number of decks sold. Mainly because a lot of players have multiple decks, not all decks bought have been registered (for whatever reason), and some of those decks will be from the starter set. But still I don’t think FFG will be unhappy with the numbers they are seeing for the game. What we need to see now is more organised play events being held at more stores, and the nurturing and growth of a community. But I’ll expand on that idea in another post (if I remember too, I am old and forgetful don’t forget, you may have to remind me in the comments).

If you want to see my decks etc, you should be able to scan the QR code below or search for my unoriginal account name.

By royal decree

D&D, game night, RPG


Somehow I missed being in the crowd for the royal visit to Wisbech on Tuesday. Despite having a holiday home not an hour away in Sandringham, we rarely see them or get invites. But us serfs of Wisbech on Tuesday were spoilt by having Charles and Camilla visiting.

Frankly I wish they would visit more often. Since the announcement last week of the impending visit the town has actually seen a police presence on the streets. The teen cycle gang that has been terrorising the centre of the town the last few weeks has been finally tackled by the folks in blue at the weekend. The stone steps and path by St Peters Church and the museum has been cleaned. Coincidence? Apparently the homeless in Wisbech had disappeared for the day. Large sections of the town centre (including car parks) were restricted access. Wisbech for a day only, had become some sort of utopia. Just once I wish the royals got to see the real town, and not some sanitised version that papers over the cracks and flaws.

For weeks (at least a couple) locals have been terrorised by that teen gang. Complaints seemingly falling on the deaf ears of the police. And now as I pointed out all of a sudden the man power has been found to do something about the gang! Let’s see if this high police presence and conviction to tackle the gang continues after the visit.

Wow where did that soap box rant come from? Not exactly the best start to a blog post about D&D.

Ok, time for the dramatic retelling of the latest adventures of Dram and that motley crew. Who if you remember were just about to fight 12 zombies after the necromancer Ace was talking to just disappeared. Shit was about to get real…
Grull rushed in swinging axe at the nearest zombies, that little gnome managed to take out a zombie all by himself. So while the others were going hand to hand with the undead, Dram started firing off one of his cantrips, Ray of Frost at the zombies.

All of a sudden a skeletal hand appears from nowhere and grabs Dram. It squeezes hard around Dram’s chest, getting ever tighter and pushing the air out of his lungs. As suddenly as it appears, the skeletal hand disappeared. Severely winded, it took a moment or two for Dram to get his breathe back. Then realising he was vulnerable Dram decided he needed to relocate quickly. So he quickly cast Misty Step.

One moment Dram was near Sarmyar and Nick who were fighting zombies the next he was gone. The others didn’t see Dram reappear out of sight at the side of the tent. Before he could decide what to do next, black magic missiles hit the others.

“Lay prone, weapons down, and we can talk”, boomed a voice.

Still reeling from that skeletal hand attack, and the casting of his own spell, Dram decided to crawl into the tent and hide. Inside the tent Dram saw a wooden chest. “Look at the craftsmanship on that chest. Like wow.” Thought Dram.

Once again the voice boomed it’s command.

Deciding the only way to appreciate such fine wood work was to sit on it and rest, Dram sat on the chest.

“Can I get up yet?” Shouted Dram.

The next thing Dram heard was Ace’s voice “drop your weapons and give up.”

Suddenly two zombies appeared in the door way and just stood there. Followed by that booming voice once again issuing a command, “leave or he dies”.

“That doesn’t sound good” thought Dram, followed by “I wonder who will die?”

The zombies moved aside and let Dram out of the tent as he made his way to leave. Right next to the necromancer was Ace just standing there not moving. As Dram went passed the necromancer he tipped his hat and complimented him on his magical skills. Dram could have learnt a lot from him he thought.

After joining the others of the group outside the walls of the ruined tower, Dram noticed Grull was missing. ‘Oh well he’ll turn up, something that big never stays lost for long.” thought Dram.

As if from nowhere the necromancer appeared next to Dram and says “if you ever want to join the dark side” and handed Dram a small bone tube.

Before anyone notices Ace also disappears. Maybe Ace and Grull have gone ahead. So Dram and the rest of the group head off back to Phandalin. The depleted group decide to make camp at a previous camping spot.

After setting up camp Dram and Sarmyar took the first watch. This gave Dram the opportunity to examine that small bone tube he’d been given. Wow it was a scroll of Darkness. Dram couldn’t wait to copy that spell into his spellbook back in Phandalin.

The rest of the watch went relatively quietly. That is until Grull suddenly appeared and ran up and grabbed Dram. Sweeping him off his feet, and in a vice like grip, Dram’s natural instinct was to grab Grull and cast Shocking Grasp.

The electric shock got Grull to let go of Dram.

Grull angrily asked “Why did you not fight?” Dram then spent the next few minutes explaining to Grull in little words what happened to him during the recent battle with the necromancer and his zombies. Grull seemed happy with the events and reason it appeared Dram had done nothing in the skirmish.

Nick and the gnome were still sleeping through all of this. They must have been really tired from the days excitement. They even missed Ace trying to convince Grull to drink perfume! Which he goes and does anyway, well a watered down perfume.

Once the hilarity was over. The rest of the night passed away without any incidents. After breakfast the group continued their journey to Phandalin. The following two days of traveling were pretty uneventful, and saw everyone arrive back in good time for the evening meal.

Dram was feeling particularly generous and bought a meal for himself, Grull and the gnome. Do you know how the gnome repaid that act of kindness? By boring Dram to death with a story of how he had come to meet up with this rag tag band of adventurers. Talk about snooze fest. Dram was gobsmacked that Grull was finding the story interesting. Dram was struggling to stay awake. This gnome just didn’t know how to tell a story. ‘Blah blah, betrayed, blah, blah killed son”. So Dram made an excuse needing go to the toilet, and disappeared up to his room.

Back in the room, Dram copied the Darkness spell from the scroll to his spellbook. Dram had only just finished this intricate activity there was a knock on the door. When Dram answered, there was Ace who handed him a healing potion. It was the potion that Dram had paid for before their little visit to see the banshee, and get their butt kicked.

And so dear reader, well done for making it through that dramatic retelling of Dram’s latest escapades. Join us next time when Dram will once more astound you with his magical powers, and reviews of the funniest eating establishments.

Wingspan – the next Stonemaier Games game!

news

It isn’t a state secret I’m a fan of the games by Jamey Stegmaier (Scythe is my favourite game of all time) and his game company Stonemaier Games (although I’m not a fan of Between Two Cities – it just didn’t click with our game group). So when they announce a new game I’m all over it. Well unless it’s that Between Two Cities tie in with the Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Jamey is starting to drop information about their next game Wingspan.

So far we know it’s “a bird-themed, medium-weight, engine-building game.” I like engine builders. London, Imperial Settlers are great games. The theme sounds interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing more about it.

Jamey has shared these photos below on the Wingspan Facebook group that I have “borrowed” for this post. (Copyright of these images is all with Stonemaier Games)

Wingspan is designed by Elizabeth Hargrave (I’m not familiar with her work). Art for the game is by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, and Beth Sobel. Going by the box art I think we will be in for a visual feast. I really love that box art. And graphic design was by Christina Santana.

From posts and comments there is an Automa for the game, so that would be solo play taken care of.

So apart from Jamey and David Studley who developed and did the Automa respectively. This was an all female designed game.

We also can see from the box art that Wingspan plays 1 – 5 players, with a playtime of between 40 – 70 minutes. That’s if my reading of the side of the box is correct.

This info was being released later today. But I’m jumping the gun after it was pointed out on Facebook my prediction of 1 – 4 players, and 60 – 90 minutes was wrong, and the info is on the image above.

I think that sums up everything we know currently. But there may have been a nugget or two I’ve missed.

Oh and you can pre-order Wingspan from Stonemaier Games from the 9th December 2nd January 2019 I believe.

Dilemma solved

keyforge

Well it was made easier with the arrival at the start of the week of a second 4 horsemen deck.

Yesterday on the UK Keyforge Trading and Selling page some-one posted a bunch of decks they were looking to trade. I thought why not? I liked the look of the new 4 horse men deck more, so if I could get a two or three decks for it I’d be happy.

While waiting for a response I received a private message asking if I was selling or trading. After a brief exchange of messages, and links to decks. We came to an agreement, and I’m getting two decks for my 4 horsemen deck. The two decks are Bellandini, the Ranger of Whistlecorner and HRH Threeteen, the Bizzarre Distiller. They looked interesting decks, Bellandini had archives stuff going on and I liked the idea of playing around with that mechanic. The other deck had board wipes and stuff so that looked like it will disrupt the opponents board state and steal amber.

What amazed me was I actually did the trade. I usually can’t be bothered to do all this sort of stuff, like going to the post office etc. It’s too much hassle.

I’m looking forward to trying these decks out.

I’m a frickin’ T-Rex!

nintendo, switch

The only Black Friday/Cyber Monday thing that tempted me in all that consumerism feeding frenzy that has spread from the US to the rest of the world was a Nintendo eshop offer on Super Mario Odyssey.

I’ve only played a couple of levels. I should get back to one of the other games I’ve started but not finished.

But like Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, or Mario Kart 8, this game is a delight. You can’t help but play it with a smile on your face.

There is just something about Nintendo’s own titles that (most of the time) pay attention to the little things. Those little details that delight and surprise.

Odyssey continues that expectation and delivers in spades. The level design (so far in my very limited play) has been sublime. The game looks gorgeous. The hat as the new mechanic is great fun. Throwing it to attack, break stuff is fun. But even cooler, allows you to take over creatures like a frickin’ T-Rex on the second level. That was so much fun, and handled just like you’d expect the T-Rex to handle. It was slow(ish) and lumbering.

I’m looking forward to exploring and discovering the worlds Nintendo have created in Odyssey.

Monday Afternoon Commanderin’

Game day, magic, MtG

Yesterday I found myself playing Commander with a couple of friends at the Huntingdon Library.

For me it was a chance to try out the new death and taxes deck I’d thrown together that morning. It needs a bit of work, but the basic framework is there I think. The land base definitely needs working on. At the moment it’s mainly basics, with less than a handful of dual lands. It was ok for a rush job. But considering it’s a four colour deck with the partner commanders it needs a bit of work. The deck also needs a couple more board wipes.

I also gave the Trostani token spam a run. I had one new card Gaddock Teeg to put in it. A card that wasn’t cheap. Could I find it Sunday evening? Not a blooming chance. Like every other time I can’t find something, it just ate away at me. I knew I’d seen it. But I was beginning to doubt myself. Had I hallucinated that it had arrived? Where was that card? I searched and searched. Going through piles of cards over and over again, just in case I’d missed it. Yes I really should be better organised but I’m not. There was only one answer for it, eBay. I hit a bit of really good luck looking for the card on eBay. There was a copy going for half what I paid for the copy that I must have dreamt had arrived. I made a mental note to chase up the “missing” card, but in the meantime snapped at the bargain and purchased another copy. The mental torture had been stopped. Although I was feeling a little disappointed it would not be with me to use in the deck the next day.

Guess what turned up yesterday morning? Yep Gaddock Teeg. Like every other time this has happened. It’s a pattern that looks like it will forever plague me, even in my later years. I really don’t know how to describe it when this happens. I think the nearest I can get is having an itch that you just can’t scratch. It’s all consuming.

So Gaddock Teeg was in the deck. But as fate would have it, I would not draw the card in either of the games that the Trostani deck was used.

Big green stompy got another outing. But I never drew into the the ramp stuff. So it never really got to do it’s thing. Although it did get to frustrate my friends plans for a while.

One of my friends is going to the final PPTQ (a WotC event for wannabe pro players, and it’s final because WotC are rebranding/relaunching/changing the big event stuff for 2019 onwards) at The Hobbit Hole on Saturday. So while our other friend was off getting some food, we played some friendly Standard to test out his deck for the weekend. I lost that 2-1. Red aggro/burn. Such a nuisance. Considering one of these decks won Saturday it should do reasonably well. But I’m not sure what the field will be like. Will this PPTQ draw out the stores big time players? Very possible considering the following weekend Liverpool hosts a Grand Prix. So I’m pretty sure they may make an appearance to get those all important points that they need to qualify for events.

I have to admit my friends goblin commander deck was pretty effective, spamming out goblin tokens at great speed. I think I have his commander in my goblin deck. The other friends rat commander deck was also interesting.

Overall a great afternoons commanderin’.

Decks 6 and 7

keyforge

What a way to start the week, the arrival of 300 Mayday Premium clear sleeves (my sleeve of choice for this type of sleeve, it’s why I get through so many of them) and 2 Keyforge decks.

So over my rather nice cup of coffee and with the latest NCIS Los Angeles on I opened the decks up to see what I’d got.

I absolutely love these 2 deck names.

It was too early to focus on the small print on the deck list card, and the eco light bulb hadn’t powered up to full luminance, so I scanned in the decks to the app.

Bloody hell The Underhanded Captain is a 4 Horseman deck!

Yeah remember that dilemma yesterday? It just got easier and harder!

Yeah after waking up with no hot water (the fuse for the economy 7 heating/water tripped in the night), this kind of makes up for it.

A Keyforge Dilemma

keyforge

Have I worn you down yet with all these Keyforge posts?

Anyway I have a dilemma. I caved and looked at the deck lists for the decks I’ve opened up. And one of the decks is a Four Horsemen deck.

What’s a Four Horsemen deck? It’s a deck that contains the following four cards.

As the summary shows they are either at a special or rare rarity within decks. I believe they only come as a group. I’ve not heard of anyone just having one or two of the four.

What’s the dilemma? Well I’d like to keep it and play the deck. But on the other hand if I leave it sealed and sell it I could probably get a bit more than I payed for it.

Wait? What? Some of these £9 decks are going for more than they cost? Yeah, especially these Four Horsemen decks.

Depending on the supporting cards in the rest of the deck these can go for up to £200.

The only draw back selling is the deck is registered. So whoever bought it wouldn’t get the ember for it when they registered it.

It’s not as if I’m going to play the deck competitively. So no real advantage keeping it for that.

Still I’m undecided. Keep flipping on what to do. But leaning towards selling.

Midday Showdown At The Hobbit Hole

Game day, magic, MtG

Another Saturday and another (my fourth) Standard Showdown. These are getting addictive!

Naturally I tweaked the deck a little this week. There were some cards I wanted to give a try. But more on that later.

Once again this Standard Showdown was an 8 man field.

Round 1 – Charlie (red aggro)

I’d never played against Charlie before, he’d been looking at his deck with Ben when I arrived at the store. I’d overheard Goblin Chainwhirler being mentioned so I knew at least this deck had red.

Game 1 started off to plan, but I was undone by Experimental Frenzy with no way to remove it while it was out. Experimental Frenzy just allowed Charlie to flood out an overwhelming board state that I was unable to stop.

Game 2 was more like it. Things clicked, creatures came out, I controlled the board. That annoying card didn’t come out.

Game 3 for me was a complete disaster. I was mana screwed, so it was just turn by turn chipping away at me until I was dead.


Definitely my undoing against this deck was the combination of Experimental Frenzy, lots of cheap cards, and plenty of lands. Once that combination is in place, unless you can disrupt it, you have lost.

Result: Loss 2-1

Our games were pretty quick. So we played a couple of friendly games to fill the time. Our first game was a first for me too. I had the perfect start with the perfect hand. It had the mana, Llanowar Elf and Steel Leaf Champion. So I was attacking with with Steel Leaf Champion turn 3. The deck just went through the gears as intended and won before Charlie got started.

The second friendly game was more of the earlier Experimental Frenzy b.s., while I struggled for mana. Naturally I finished on another loss.

Round 2 – Paul

Another new opponent, this time Paul who had thrown together a Boros deck.

This was an easy match up for my deck. Especially when in the first game Paul had to mulligan down to 4 cards, and ended up mana screwed. I had some sympathy, as MtG players we have all been there. You just have to sit there hoping against odds that you draw into mana before it’s too late. Sadly for Paul that moment never came. Remember I’d been in a similar situation in the first round.

The second game Paul just never had a board presence. So once again despite him having mana this time, he was unable to stop me swinging in.

Afterwards I had a look at Paul’s deck. He was going Boros dinosaurs. But was missing the copies of the obvious ramp cards, and a few dinosaurs. I like the idea behind the deck, and I think it could be a fun deck to play.

Result: Win 2-0

Round 3 – John Golgari v Golgari

We’ve seen this match up a couple times since I built this deck. Both times my deck has been victorious. Naturally in that time tweaks have been made by both of us. John is still chasing that graveyard boosting his creatures tactic.

However as in the previous games my deck was victorious. Being able to remove any of these big threats John could create because of his graveyard and swing in unimpeded worked for me. It’s a simple tactic, and has been successful for me in the past.

Result: Win 2-0

Overall Record: 3rd Place 2-1

Prize support was down this week. Third place only got me a participation booster and after a roll off a Showdown booster.

So how does the WotC system determine that I come third, whilst another player with the same match ratio comes second?

After a bit of internet research, and downloading the official WotC tournament rules, I looked at page 17.

“The following tiebreakers are used to determine how a player ranks in a tournament:

1. Match points

2. Opponents’ match-win percentage

3. Game-win percentage

4. Opponents’ game-win percentage”

So basically one of those tiebreakers didn’t go in my favour. I know the Opponents’ game-win percentage I had would have been worse. My route to two and one was easier, with opponents that had a worse track record than those faced by second place. So basically you not only have to win, but you want you opponents to do well also.

If you want to go into specifics and the math behind those tiebreakers look at Appendix C of the tournament rules.

6 Player Commander

After battling it out with our standard decks a 6 person Commander game started. I was playing my mono green big stompy deck. Dean was playing some partner Commander deck. Michael was playing an Edgar Markov vampire deck, Charlie had borrowed the b.s. dragon deck from Dean, can’t remember Andy’s deck, and Ben was back with the b.s. no fun Estrid deck.

Luckily for the rest of us the Estrid deck never got to hit its stride, although it did have a white enchantment out that meant Ben tapped a creature at the start of each players combat phase. Very annoying if you only had one creature out.

I was ramping nicely, getting stuff out. The others were targeting the two b.s. decks (dragons and Estrid). I played Praetor’s Council, so I had an unlimited handsize. Which was handy for when Dean was bouncing creatures back to hand on mass. I wasn’t having to discard cards because of it like the others.

Andy hit everyone for 8 life each, and gained that much life. He was looking good on 80 odd life, it would have to be commander damage to take him out.

Eventually plays started dropping out. I was in a reasonable position on 30 health and creatures out on the battlefield. I was a threat, but not acting in a threatening way by attacking. If anyone thought of attacking me I’d remind them “do you really want to upset the big nasty green creatures?”

Dean and Ben were under 10 health, so I killed them both off. Leaving just Andy and me.

So how do you win against a player on 86 life? My 2/2 Commander wasn’t going to be doing much Commander damage, even if it had been out on the battlefield.

Thanks to Zendikar Resurgent (ZR) I was getting basically double mana, and card draw. Which was handy because I drew into Primordial Hydra (PH). Primal Vigor (PV) was already out also and going to play an important part in the plan.

I played PH which entered the battlefield as a 52/52 (X was 26 thanks to ZR and PV did the rest) with trample. I thought as a matter of honour I better let Andy know what would happen at the start of my next turn.

Andy decided to swing in with everything. The total damage would be short by 4 points of killing me. He had no cards in hand. But I suspected shenanigans. So I held PH back, and blocked with my other creatures. The last thing I needed was a creature being given deathtouch and killing PH.

We resolved the combat. I went down to 13 life.

Next turn 52 more +1/+1 tokens went onto PH due to its ability. Thanks to PV it then got 52 more and PH was now a 156/156 with trample if I did my maths right.

I could now one shot kill Andy with a really big fecking hydra. Forget Godzilla. King Kong who? Primordial Hydra was the man!

I swung in with everything. There was a massive over kill. And a bloody big crater/footprint with Andy’s corpse at the bottom.

I’d won!

Ok here is the bit some of you have been very patient and waited for.

I’ve been wanting to try these 2 cards in the deck for a while now. But couldn’t really decide what I would swap out. But after Andy looked at my deck the last time he commented about how he couldn’t see why Dire Fleet Poisoner fitted in. Ok I don’t get any benefit from its etb effect. But I really liked the flash and deathtouch. I still do.


I really like the art on Pitiless Gorgan. It’s why I got a playset in foil. The card is very cheap too, even as a foil. Or was when I got them.

Now Pitiless Gorgan isn’t as good as Dire Fleet Poisoner in my opinion. Costs more and doesn’t have flash. But I can use just forests to cast, which is a benefit if I haven’t hit any swamps or dual lands.

I like that ability of Pilfering Imp. It adds another control element to the deck, and getting rid of potential threats from an opponents hand. Plus a flying chump blocker if needed and a cheap bit of damage.

Here’s the deck list…

Creatures:28

4 Llanowar Elves
3 Pilfering Imp
2 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
2 Pitiless Gorgon
4 Steel Leaf Champion
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Nullhide Ferox
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:11

4 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Find // Finality
4 Vraska’s Contempt
1 Vivien Reid

Lands:21

6 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
4 Golgari Guildgate (a)
1 Overgrown Tomb
7 Swamp
2 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:15

1 Pilfering Imp
2 Skittering Heartstopper
2 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Demon of Catastrophes
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger
2 Find // Finality
2 Never Happened
2 Ritual of Soot
1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

Oh before I forget here’s the mana curve and amc for the deck.