Trust no one

magic, MtG


There have been a couple of good suggestions on recent episodes of the Commandzone. The first suggestion was from one of their listeners/viewers that keeps deckbuilding costs down for Commander. For common cards that are used in a lot of decks the person proxies in the card, then when they need to play they pull the card out of a folder to use. I don’t use a folder, I use a deck box. But it’s a great idea that as I said helps keep costs down. The only draw back is that if I’m lending some-one a deck to play with that I’m doing this with, and I’m using a deck I’ve done this with there may be a clash over the use of a card. But that’s a very minor issue.

The other idea was for drafting amongst friends. Let’s assume that 4 friends want to draft, they also have each bought a booster box of the latest set. Instead of mass opening their boxes, for the draft session they use the box of one of the players. BUT they don’t keep the cards they draft, they go back to the owner of the box at the end of the draft session. Then next time they want to draft they use one of the boxes from one of the other players, and like wise that player gets all the cards back at the end. I like this idea. It gets away from the store drafts of trying to draft a good pool to build from and keeping high value cards. So players can just concentrate of a good draft experience. I have to admit it’s that draft value dilemma that keeps me away from playing draft in a store.

But this got me to thinking. The 2 conspiracy sets are draft sets. What if I used this idea and then put these cards into a conspiracy cube to be used again for drafting?

So my plan goes like this. Buy a booster box of conspiracy take the crown (the second set). Invite 4-6 good friends to an afternoons drafting and multiplayer Magic using that booster box. At the end get the cards back, and use them for the cube. Then repeat until the booster box no longer has enough boosters to be used for drafting. Crack open any remaining packs, add them to the cube. That gives me my final conspiracy cube to play with.

Thanks to my very generous colleague and friends at my last place, I used the money they collected to help purchase a booster box of conspiracy take the crown. Which as I write this is out for delivery according to a text I’ve just received. That text surprised me because yesterday the courier texted me and emailed me to say I would be getting it on Tuesday!

I also have a bid for an original conspiracy set on eBay at the moment too. That finishes later today. So who knows if I win that I’ll have 2 conspiracy cubes eventually.

I didn’t get into all that unstable hype and drafting before Christmas last year. But while I was brainstorming this cunning plan I thought I could do this with that as well. So I may at some point over the Summer do the same with that set. Then I’ll have an unstable cube too. This plan makes unstable more attractive to me. I won’t have some cards that I can’t play with in my decks. Instead I’ll have a whole cube I can draft and enjoy the experience of over and over. It makes me feel better about investing the money into the set.

So that’s the plan. Let’s hope I can pull it off.

Star Realms Scott’s Revenge

star realms

Continuing my recent series of boring Star Realms games, this one has Scott returning to form and annihilate me.


If that didn’t put you off the game the latest update adds another expansion. I’m not too bothered with the campaign side, I don’t play it. But the extra cards I’ll gladly take.


WWG added in-app tournaments which is going to be interesting to see how this develops, and what sort of costs are involved.

The initial tournament is 20 units of the in game currency an attempt, which is approximately 25 cents if my calculations are correct.

Looking at the prices below depending on the cost of other events I’m reasonably happy with the charges being made to buy the in game currency.


Considering I have won one game and got a reward of 3 credits, the temptation to keep playing to get those foils is tempting. It helps that the cost to enter is low. But is that because WWG want to draw people in to get them used to paying to play? If WWG keep the prices low, then I can see this taking off. But if they get the pricing wrong, and try to milk the players I won’t be using this.

Magic League This Weekend At The Hobbit Hole.

magic, Magic League, MtG

This Saturday my FLGS The Hobbit Hole kicks off at 11am the Magic League for Dominaria.
“Players start with 3 boosters and may purchase another each week, plus another after any set of three losses.” From that initial 3 booster packs you build a 30 card deck with which to play against other players participating in the league.

When you buy that initial 3 packs you get a “collection box”, which is basically a cardboard box to store you deck and unused cards in. Plus after you have played 10 games you get a promo card. Which for the League games is Zhalfirin Void I believe.


Naturally it will be rather nifty to get a copy of this, so I’m going along to take part. I’m hoping that I will be a bit luckier in my pulls for this. I haven’t been overly lucky so far with this set.

So long and thanks for all the fish

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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.

50 Years on this Earth

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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.

What would you buy? A Star Realms Question

star realms

Scott does this sort of post on the Star Realms Facebook from time to time. So I thought I’d copy him.

In the discard and draw piles you have the usual scouts and vipers, plus a Cutter and Mech World.

So what would you buy?

I went for the Embassy Yacht, and hit Scott for 6 damage. Was that the right thing to do this early on in the game?

Scott Schools me in Star Realms

star realms

In an ever escalating war of friendly banter I just put up the last 2 games of Star Realms Scott and I played. Sadly the Star Realms app didn’t have the game available that started this off from the start of the week. So no seeing me get my butt handed to me by Scott. But don’t worry I’m sure there will be an opportunity for me to put one of those games up soon enough. After all our stats against each other show that Scott is the better player.

You can visit Scott on his YouTube channel Scott Plays HERE.

A couple of late April 2018 Netflix recommendations

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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.

International Tabletop Day 2018

Fenland Gamers, Game day


It’s the weekend before I turn 50. And for the last couple of years it’s fallen that close to my birthday, so I treat it like part of my birthday celebrations. This year I also get to see the latest Avengers movie too (which I haven’t at the time of writing, but I’ve still got time to do so).

We started off our International Tabletop Day gaming session with the deluxified version of The Flow of History that I’d backed on a Kickstarter last year.

How to describe the game, it’s a civilisation style card game with that’s bit of an engine builder with a kind of auction mechanic.

The auction like mechanic is used to purchase cards to go in your civilisation (read engine). On your go you get to take one of about 4 actions. One of which is to put a bid on a card that has not been bid on yet in the market place. You can only have one bid active at a time. If on your next turn your bid hasn’t been sniped, then you are able to claim/complete that bid. You don’t have to, you can leave the bid there and do one of the other 3 actions available. One of them is sniping another players bid. That’s basically where if you have the resources you can match another players bid and take the card for yourself. The draw back is that player you are sniping the card from gets the money back plus half of the supply of resources rounded down. Which could be giving them lots of resources to snipe back with, or secure a card with so no one else can get it. It’s a rather nifty mechanic that can be quiet tactical, because you could put a bid in hoping to be sniped because you know another player needs the card.

There is some combat but it’s a very easy system to follow, quick, and doesn’t slow down game play at all. Plus it takes away the “so and so is just targeting me” because it relies on players building up defences and trying not to be the weakest. Being the weakest is the main criteria for selecting who to target in a combat, unless there is a draw for that honour. Then the attacking player gets to decide.

There is a hint of variable powers with the initial government card you get during setup. It kind of directs the direction you will take your civilisation. Mine had the military/combat symbol so that hinted I should be utilising this in the cards I selected.

I love the quality of the components of this deluxified version that TMG produced, especially the lovely metal resource coins. Metal coins are always cool.

I really liked the game, definitely a good decision to back this. Can’t wait to play again. Oh yeah, Jeff won this one with Diego and myself tying for first loser.

Our second and final game of the day was Anno 1701: Das Brettspiel. This is a German language only game I believe, which is a shame as I really like the game.

If you like Catan I don’t see how you wouldn’t like this game. It shares a lot of similar mechanics of Catan with some extras. Extras like unique player boards that you will develop, and depending on dice rolls get resources from. Plus you also have an exploration element where you are trying to explore islands to get bonuses and possibly extra resource opportunities. Then you have a too and fro for victory points on 4 tracks represent fire power, trading, happy populace and one other. Basically the leader on each track gets to claim a victory point, lose the lead and that point goes to the new leader instead. So until a player gets to the max position on the track that victory point isn’t safe.

Yeah a fun take on the Catan style of games. I might even have to track down a copy and print out the translated rules. It’s fairly language independent, with minimal text on game components.

It’s these extras that I really like. I enjoy Catan, but this for me is a better experience for a gamer. History will show that Diego managed to snatch victory away from Jeff, scoring a massive 3 victory points in his final turn. Well if he hadn’t Jeff would have won.

A great afternoon gaming, and some great first plays. How do you top that? Visit the local pet store to get some stuff for my mums cats litter tray. How life in the fast lane.