UKGE 2018 in Pictures Day 2
An audio account of my UKGE 2018 Day 1
UKGE 2018 in Pictures Day 1
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.
Below Average
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to read possible spoilers for game 6 of Charterstone then look away now, and come back for the next post.
I’m going to be honest, it was hard for me emotionally to take part in anything yesterday.
During the day, holding in the emotions was a real battle. Arriving home was not good. I struggled to hold it in, and was very short with mum when she was trying to tell me what she had done for me. I just wanted her to go, so I could have leaky eyes. Selfish I know. I know mum is hurting as well. But I find it hard to talk about Strider without the emotion coming out of my eyes.
Despite being a mess, I managed to pull myself together for our irregular campaign game of Charterstone.
It was game 6 for us last night. The half way point of the campaign. The guidepost had us competing to get top spot on the quota track, with a temporary rule that when you visited another persons charter to use one of their buildings you rolled the charter die, and if it match either your own or the other persons charter symbol you both got a vp point. We were also using the peril tokens for the first time, that actually did something this game also. One of the objectives required you to have 4 different coloured peril tokens, and there was also a quota track for them too.
I was out of the starting blocks on the vp track quickly. Probably a big surprise for the others. But my lead didn’t last for long before Diego steamed off into the lead. But I did manage to hold second place until the end scoring. Not getting on the prestige track does let me down. But still I’m racking up the glory points, and building buildings.
At the game end Diego, Jeff and myself shared the honours for winning the guidepost. So we let Jeff do the honours of revealing the game end surprise. This time we had to go off to a url, enter in the combined score for the game, and get ranked. If we were above average we opened one box, and if below average we opened a different one.
I liked the novelty of this. However I’m not sure what you would do in the future if you were playing Charterstone and the site wasn’t available anymore. I suppose you could house rule it at that point, or flip a coin.
As you can see from above we were as this blog posts title told you, below average. So we got to open the appropriate box, which was funny because Jonathan lost his big meeple and had it replaced with a spectral worker instead. There is a catch to having this, I think unless he removes the spectral worker by paying I want to say 9 coins he can’t claim something. My memory isn’t with me as I write this the day after, and I don’t have the rule book to hand, as that is in Wisbech and I am at the hotel the night before UKGE kicks off.
It was good getting out, and taking my mind off things. It was still hard walking into the house and not to be greeted by Strider when I got back.
UK Games Expo 2018 Plans
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.
Why did I Buy That Card? #5 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Wow what an expensive card to cast, 9 CMC for a 7/7 flyer! But there must be another reason why this angel is so expensive?
Well there is, and the reason Iona is going in my “still a work in progress” Angel Tribal Commander deck. It’s her ability.
When Iona enters the battlefield, I choose a colour. Seems innocent enough. However my opponents then can’t cast spells of that colour. That’s crippling, and funny. Well funny if you aren’t on the receiving end of it. This ability takes out a mono deck, cripples most decks, or at least cuts down on the cards they can play.
Ok in EDH this might just put a great big target on you. But then again a lot of cards will be doing that.
The nice thing is that despite my opening comment about being expensive, I should hopefully be able to cast her for less. In an ideal world I should be getting at least 2 mana discount on all my Angels. But that is a side of things I need to investigate more. Plus any ramp I have out, it really shouldn’t be that hard to cast.
R.I.P. Strider 2005 – 2018
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.
Jonathan thinks like me
This afternoon was spent at the local Costa in the company of Jonathan enjoying a game or two of Azul. Which Jonathan edged a win over of 3-2. We still haven’t played the game with more than 2 players, but we both love it as a 2 player game. Hence why we rattled off 5 games in a row.
After the enjoyable games of Azul. I got to try The Mind. Wow. This game is probably unlike any other game you have played before. It’s so simple, yet so complex. It worked well with 2 players, and will be interesting to see how it plays at the higher counts. I can see the game being heavily dependent on the people you play it with. Particularly I’m not sure I’d play it with none gamers who may not get it. If the box was a bit deeper you could sleeve the cards. Which if I owned the game I’d want to do. However it will only fit the cards without sleeves. A little oversight, but the publisher isn’t the first or last to do this.
Oh for the record the Costa cold brew isn’t as good as mine.
Why did I Buy That Card? #4 Entreat the Angels
The thing about Commander, unless your group is hyper competitive you get to play the more costly cards that usually in other formats you don’t get to cast or play with. So this minimum of 3 but more likely 5 CMC Sorcery is totally playable.
I saw this card in a folder at my FLGS, and thought “mmmm, this might be nice in my Angel deck”. The plan isn’t to go wide with the Angel deck but being able to put a handful of 4/4 Angel tokens out to buy me time is a handy trick to have up my sleeve.
Worst case with this card I’m paying the X X and 3 white, which isn’t the end of the world especially in the mid to late game. Ideally I’m casting it for the miracle cost and getting 3 or more of the tokens out. To help with this I may put Sensei’s Divining Top in the deck. The managing the top 3 cards of the deck and controlling the order means I’m more likely to meet that miracle condition.
So there we have it another piece in the work in progress Angel Tribal Commander deck.
MtG Arena Twitter Rant
I did some rare tweets on Twitter this morning criticising WotC, yeah I know dancing with danger. We all know they can’t handle criticism, and are too busy chasing shadows and policing the thoughts of players not on their approved double standards list.
But at least White Wizard Games get it. As this liked tweet by them shows.
It is frustrating to see such a great opportunity being squandered by WotC. Although having said that from what I’ve seen so far they still have a lot to alter to make the economy attractive to me.