Graveyard Shenanigans with Muldrotha Early Look

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

This is an early look at some of the cards I’m putting (at the moment) into my Muldrotha graveyard shenanigans Commander deck.

Naturally considering the name of the deck, Muldrotha, the Gravetide is my Commander.

Which means this deck is all about treating the graveyard as an extension of your hand. So I actually want cards in my graveyard.

So there are cards that have me discarding or sacrificing as part of their cost. Which is fine because these are cards are not gone, I can bring them back either to my hand with spells or use my commanders ability.

I’m also using cards that make use of landfall, or lands on the battlefield and graveyard.

But what’s my win condition? How am I going to win the game? I think it’s going to have to be swing in with creatures. I know at the moment I’m light on the creature front. I think I’ll aim for 25 in total. What the remaining 12 will be I’m not sure.

I know on the spell front I need some targeted removal, especially for getting rid of potential graveyard hate. Can’t have people disrupting the game plan. Because graveyard hate is a big threat to the deck. With access to blue, I can include some counter spells, black will give me access to some board wipes.

Yes Sol Ring, Field of Ruins, Evolving Wilds, and Command Tower will be in the deck. They are a given really.

I need to do more research on the card front for sure.

Ok here are the cards so far.

Creatures:13

1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Eternal Witness
1 Isareth the Awakener
1 Gravedigger
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 World Shaper
1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
1 Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar
1 Protean Hulk
1 Torgaar, Famine Incarnate

Spells:11

1 Crop Rotation
1 Vessel of Nascency
1 Grisly Salvage
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Harrow
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sultai Charm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Scapeshift
1 The Mending of Dominaria
1 Worm Harvest

Dram the Halfling Wizard

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I thought I’d give Dram his own post. This little power house wizard deserves his own post.

The top left photo is Dram after I had done some touching up of the paint work before applying a wash.

For my wash I used a watered down black grey paint.

I’m pretty happy how it ended up looking after the wash was applied. Well except for the cloak. It looks awful really. But the rest has that dirty, been adventuring, travel along lots of dusty roads look. Obviously I have some work to do on washes.

I decided not to attempt highlights by dry brushing. I thought it didn’t need it. I didn’t want to ruin the effect I’d achieved so far. Stripping back to metal and starting again was something I wanted to avoid. Although that cloak,has me tempted to do that.

This time I finished Dram off using the correct spray can, and applied a thin layer of varnish.

So overall I’m reasonably happy with the way Dram turned out. The one look I wanted to avoid was bright, loud, just walked out of the supply store in new clothes look. I think I achieved that.

I might source some green sand/grass and glue that to the base to finish it off. I’ll look into that in the future.

So now do I attempt another mini? If so which one from the many I have? I feel like doing another.

Humble Bundle Game Design Bundle

news

I’m assuming that one or two of you suffers have heard of Humble Bundle. For those that haven’t it’s a website for raising funds for charity while giving you a great bargain. You pay what you want for the bundle, even deciding how that money is distributed amongst the charities the bundle is benefiting if you want to. Most of the content is also drm free.

They currently have a great offer on at the moment for those interested in Game Design. This is board game and video game design. So amazing value for me.

Included in this bundle are the 2 volumes of Board Games That Tell Stories by Ignacy Trzewiczek. I already had the first volume, and been waiting for the second to come out digitally. Although I hadn’t checked in recent months if it had. But no need to now.


The bundle also has 2 great books on game design. I use Level Up! By Scott Rogers with my students. His 10 page design document and beat chart are ideal for the level of students I teach. A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster is a classic. And one I’m always recommending to students to read.

This is a great offer, with some great books. If you are interested in game design you’d be silly not to get these books.

You can take up this great offer HERE.

Oh and while there have a look at the other bundles they have, and sign up for the email alerts so you don’t miss anything in the future.

WotC start more drama!

magic, MtG

What a surprise. But what have they been up to?

Well it’s Commander 2019. To start with WotC raised the rrp of each deck. This year the price of a single Commander deck is £34.99, up from £29.99 in 2017.

That’s a pretty big price hike in relative terms. Would we see the estimated value of the decks increase, or more importantly the power level to match the price increase?

After the deck lists were put up the answer was no.

And that set the internet echo chamber into an uproar. Price increase and underwhelming deck lists was all the fuel they needed. It didn’t help when you have the YouTube “shills” or chosen ones (aka bought channels either with free product or hard cold sponsorship cash) that seemed to ignore these short falls and talk about the decks as if they were the best thing since sliced bread, or the last WotC product, just adding oil to the fire.

I can see the point of view of the online lynch mob. And to some extent I agree with them.

I have to admit I was underwhelmed by the Planeswalker commanders. From the spoilers there were some cards of interest for other decks. But no high(ish) value reprints like Sensei’s Divining Top, which people were hoping for. I’m not sure I’ll be buying extra copies to break up for deck building (sometimes the cheaper way to get the cards) or to upgrade. Which is ok. I’m happy with that. I’ll buy the singles that I need.

From the other point of view I have on these decks, the most important thing for me is “are these decks fun to play?” I think I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but for Commander I like to keep a copy of the decks in pristine condition, unchanged, ready to pull out at a moments notice so my MtG playing friends and I can play a game with out worrying if they have a deck or not. Just choose a deck they like the look of and away we go. I won’t know the answer naturally to my question for this point of view until I get my grubby hands on the decks and play some games with them.

It will be interesting to see if this years decks get a second printing like last years. The deciding factor will be has the online echo chamber captured the mood and opinion of the silent majority. And it is a silent majority who vote with their wallets. If they are representative then there will be product left unsold on the shelves, and no demand.

Oh btw we haven’t seen the end of the drama. Come the next set, WotC have increased the price of booster boxes to distributors but not the rrp, so naturally we expect that increase to be passed on to the FLGS. Which means their margins either have to take a hit, or they won’t be able to discount from the rrp. So the increase gets passed on to us. Expect to see a similar online shit storm to hit depending on reprints, and the estimated value of a booster box.

There is other ongoing drama and I may comment on that at some point, but at the moment I’ll give commenting a miss. Which most of you will be glad to hear.

Conjuring New Tricks

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

Here we are with the threatened blog post from yesterday (well I wrote this a while back apparently and only just discovered the post in my drafts folder, so not quiet the next day as I say here). Where I shared with those remotely interested the current Wizard Commander deck that I am playing based on last years Arcane Wizardry precon and a $20 upgrade (as created by MTGGoldfish) that was applied to it, which I then changed by a couple of cards.

Since I did that upgrade earlier in the year new cards have come out in the form of new sets like Rivals of Ixalan, BattleBond, Dominaria, and now Core Set 2019. Plus my adventures amongst the planes of the MtG universe have bought me into contact with old cards that are new to me, or ones I knew about and hadn’t considered until now.

It’s the nature of the game, new cards come out, and often the first thought that goes through your head is “this card will go nicely into my xxxx deck”. And that may be so but then you are left with which card does it replace? Sometimes it’s really obvious because the new card is a better version of one that you currently use. But then you have to evaluate the card, does it weaken or strengthen my decks game plan?

First up for consideration and putting pressure on the existing cards are these four creature cards. Torrential Gearhulk and Vampire Charmseeker double down on the game plan of being able to use the graveyard as an extension of my hand, and play instants and sorcery spells from there. While Spellseeker allows me to go fetch a 2 CMC or less instant to sorcery from my library. That ability alone to go fetch the spell I need is powerful. I just got to make sure I have spells that I can fetch that way.

Timestream Navigator would along with two of the other cards introduce a new tactic to the deck. That being the extra turn. I’m not a fan of the infinite loop (I have built decks that have gone infinite in the past to illustrate the mechanic to my students), they are not fun to play against, and in a casual group fun format like Commander I feel they are against the experience of the format. I don’t mind an extra turn/combat phase, but not infinite. So there is nothing in here to make these extra turns infinite. I suppose Timestream Navigator has the potential to go infinite if you are down to your last card. But I’ve not seen a game of Commander go through 98 cards yet to get to that state.

These 3 enchantments are potentially evil. As Foretold the longer it stays out on the battlefield is going to give me so much value. Rhystic Study potentially going to give me insane card draw. Omniscience although expensive if I can cheat it out will like As Foretold give me such value. But for both I need lots of cards in hand, which the likes of Rhystic Study and one or two of the cards below would hopefully do.

Search for Azcanta is probably the easiest one to put in. Even though it’s a legendary enchantment it could replace a basic land. If I don’t flip it, I have a scry effect each turn, but if I do it taps for a mana or allows me to go looking for an answer in my top 4 cards. It’s the flipped side I’m more interested in.

Only 2 Sorceries, Game Plan is a chaotic card that is just a (potentially) fun card to play in a multiplayer format. While Time Warp is the second of the cards that give that extra turn.

I have 9 potential instants to include. The first is that controversial buy-a-box promo Nexus of Fate. The third and final card that gives me an extra turn. Like Timestream Navigator this one goes back into the library and not the graveyard.

Then we have card draw, that digging for the right card at the right time. Having answers when the questions are being asked. These are cards that hopefully help me get to those answers quicker. Then we have some targeted spells to control what’s going on. The fact that all these spells can be played more than once is just extra gravy.


So those are the cards pushing on the door wanting to claim a slot. What do they replace? Do they fit in with the game plan?

Remember the Alamo

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night Chris hosted a game of Mansions of Madness: Second Edition at his humble abode.

Real long time sufferers of this blog (hence known as the suffering) will remember the last time I played this game. That ending was running through my mind and bringing a smile to my face as I drove to Chris’s Pad.

I do like the game. But for me the thing that still stops me adding the game to my collection is the app. However I do appreciate the app also makes the game!

There were some nice touches to the scenario we played last night. I liked the changing board state. Rooms would disappear and get replaced by something else. Rooms would move around the board too.

That was pretty cool. And I can’t see how that could be done so seamlessly and quickly without using an app.

We ended up in a basement with a moving library room connected to it, holding a valiant last stand against wave after wave of horrors, before losing the game.

Somehow mine was the only character that didn’t go insane! Which compared to my only other play was a miracle and minor win in itself.

We had a great evening, and it was generous of Chris and his fiancé Jordan for inviting us into their home. Amazingly I didn’t steal their 2 lovely well behaved dogs.

As the following photo shows I’m getting back on track with the halfling wizard. Ok seeing as my character in our intro D&D campaign is called Dram, I might as well call the mini Dram.

Felt better doing the painting a second time. Still going for the full,worn, weathered feel to the look.

Read the feckin label

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A brief painting update.

I did some dry brushing on the mini to give it a “dirty” been living on the trail look.

I was happy with what I’d achieved. May not have been the best painting in the world. But as a first effort.

So I thought I’d finalise things by sealing it varnish.

Sadly I grabbed the wrong tin and as the photo below shows kinda ruined it with black primer!

I don’t want to add more layers of paint and lose detail. So I’ve ruled out painting over the major cockup. That leaves removing the paint and starting again.

Which after finding a UK blog post on the subject I made a trip to my local Morrison’s to get either the Dettol or own brand cleaner recommended today.

As I write this the model is in a jar of Dettol disinfectant doing its magic on the paint.

Oh well back to the drawing board.

I blame Scottish me

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Those of you that haven’t blotted out my poorly written ramblings with copious amounts of single malt (if you have good taste) or binge drinking white lightning or some other cheap alcoholic beverage (if you don’t), will remember the other day that I bought some more paints and primer ( I also had a couple of Zombicide paint kits ordered). I don’t think I mentioned that the other day I used the primer in anger on a halfling wizard.

This morning I was feeling guilty for doing absolutely nothing yesterday. So I set up a painting station (that sounds like I know what I’m doing) in my living room in front of the tv this morning.

Using my none existent painting skills I’ve applied my base colours to the mini.

The paint might be too diluted. And almost a wash (ooh another technical term) , as the staff shows.

But as a first attempt I’m happy with the way it’s looking. Painting with the magnifier to see what I’m doing is taking some getting used to.

Just need to let this dry before trying to get the motivation to do the next coat/touches.

Update Star Realms NOW! United Assault Now available

news, star realms


We have a new expansion available in Star Realms, once you update the app that is.

The following screen grab shows you what you get for your money.

According to the app notes on the App Store there are also UI updates, and support for new foil cards.

It’s not great value for me because I don’t play the campaign. But if I did. But we know i’m getting it just for the new cards to play with.

Read the full release HERE.