Tron Angels – mono white deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

I had to build this deck, angels are cool. Especially Archangel Avacyn and the Felicia Day look a like Archangel of Thune (wish I could take credit for that one, but that goes to Day 9 and the MtG show that they used to produce for the Geek and Sundry YouTube channel).

Naturally I would like Archangel Avacyn to transform into Avacyn, the Purifier. Sometimes I will throw a wall or Honour Guard under the bus, after I have flashed her out in the combat stage to get her to transform straight away.

But the transformation I really am after is from Gisela and Bruna to get Brisela, Voice of Nightmares out. I’ll happily play Gisela as early as possible, chump block with her, whatever. I’m not really worried if she gets to the graveyard. Playing Bruna allows me to fetch Gisela from the graveyard and instantly get Brisela at the end of that turn. The double card creature truly is an amazing thing to see on the battlefield.

The main thing I needed to solve for this deck was surviving long enough to play all these beautiful costly angels. The solution I game up with was 10 walls, 2 Tocatli Honor Guards. I’m basically using Winged Shepherd for it’s cycle ability, but can also be pulled back from the graveyard using Bruna if need be. Authority of the Consuls puts an end to haste and flash causing creatures to etb tapped, and gives me a life. Cast Out gives me that bit of getting removal of big threats. And Rout is just a good ol’ board wipe. Although Overwhelming Splendor is a funny card to play.

This deck also needs some serious ramp. That’s where the Tron Lands come into play. All three out they tap for 7 mana. I also get a little discount with The Immortal Sun, and creature buff. And with the Tron lands it’s 6 cost is nothing. I’ve had this out turn 4!!

So here is the all important deck list that I know you are dying to look at and pick holes in.

Creatures:29

4 Wall of Hope
2 Angelic Wall
2 Tocatli Honor Guard
4 Wall of Omens
2 Gisela, the Broken Blade
2 Angel of Invention
1 Angel of Sanctions
3 Archangel Avacyn
2 Archangel of Thune
2 Linvala, the Preserver
2 Winged Shepherd
3 Bruna, the Fading Light

Spells:9

1 Authority of the Consuls
2 The Immortal Sun
2 Cast Out
2 Rout
2 Overwhelming Splendor

Lands:22

2 Evolving Wilds
8 Plains
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower

Sideboard:15

2 Angelic Wall
1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Bruna, the Fading Light
1 Authority of the Consuls
2 Demystify
2 Searing Light
1 Ashes of the Abhorrent
1 Dazzling Reflection
1 Cast Out
2 Rout

For fun I did play a version of this deck with a couple of Approach of the Second Sun slotted in. That was fun, and an easy card to cast with the Tron lands.

Commander Decks Update

So that is the deck, it’s now going to be broken up and used to form the basis of an Angels Commander deck.

If I haven’t forgotten anything then I think this is the list of my planned Commander decks that I want to build.

  • The just mentioned Angel deck
  • A Death and Taxes deck
  • Elves

I currently have 3 Commander decks in progress.

  • A dinosaur commander deck
  • A mono red deck with land hate in it
  • Upgrading the Arcane Wizardry Precon.

The dinosaur deck is nearly if not there. You have seen the deck list already for the initial effort. When you see the “final” deck list I don’t think that you will see much difference.

Mono red is also close to being there I think. I’m waiting for a couple of cards to arrive that need fitting in. Then I need to come up with a version without the land hate.

I have a Wizards deck with some changes made to it. But there are a few more to do to this one. I have those changes on the way.

It’s Clobbering Time

Fenland Gamers, Game day, magic, MtG

I know it’s been rather quiet on here lately. Well I am a firm believer of if you haven’t got anything to say then don’t say anything. Which really will surprise friends, family and work colleagues, because I talk a lot of crap. However you already know about the man flu, and life events that took out a couple of weeks of play. Then as everyone knows the weather last week kind of killed things off.

Surprisingly I did play some Magic last week.

As the photo above shows although not perfect we have at least enough room in my classroom to play Magic during breaks.

Sunday saw our party of brave adventurers return once more to the world of Gloomhaven. Oh SPOILER ALERT!!

The plan from our previous time in the Gloomhaven universe was to help out the local law enforcement and bring down a local crime lord. A local crime lord that we had already done the bidding of, by murdering some Inox caravan raiders. Just to teach them a lesson on behalf of the crime lord. Yeah our hands were dirty from that. Reflecting back on it, that mission if you remember didn’t sit well with me. Our mission was to infiltrate a warehouse in Gloomhaven owned by the crime lord. Sadly this mission was denied to us. Between our times in the Gloomhaven universe, Justin had visited his brother and they had started a new campaign, with new characters. Although they hadn’t started off with the intent of doing our planned mission. They ended up doing it anyway. I was a bit salty about this.

I have to admit I’m not a big fan of this mechanic that the designer built in to Gloomhaven. I think almost to a point that it may actually ruin the game for me. Or more specifically this play of the game. I still enjoy the game, and the mechanics. But I don’t like that missions etc can be denied from me. We had decided we were going to do the warehouse mission, but we can’t now. We won’t get to see the end of that story arc, or experience that mission and atone for our acts of murder. I know there is the argument, that “oh, we went along to the warehouse and found that it had been already raided”. But I don’t like that.

After a little debate and ruling out some watery options because we didn’t meet the mission requirement, our party settled on visiting the Windswept Highlands.

This new mission was heavily pushed by Charlie. Possibly because it offered the chance for him to make inroads on his characters objective for the campaign. We were on look out for some ingredients for an alchemist. All we had to do was visit the plateaus of the windswept highlands, fight against strong winds battering us around those plateaus. Oh and the small matter of defeating the indigenous monsters, such as sleeping spitting drakes, and the sun and wind demons. The spitting drakes would wake up if attacked or we were next to them.

There were also 3 treasure tokens we had to get to to open up 3 doors. The third and final treasure token when collected would open the door that would allow us to get to the exit point and victory. Naturally opening a door would not reveal anything good. My suspicion was more monsters.

If that wasn’t hard enough if one of us ended up exhausted then that was it mission over. The only plus point was if we got exhausted on the exit point we were ok.

My mission objective was to be the first person to kill a monster. Sadly this was not going to happen. Because of a road event, and not being able to clear a blocked path of a rock fall we started off this mission with 2 cards in our discard pile. Obviously this was to show how exhausting clearing heavy boulders away was. Not exactly a good way to encourage us to do the right thing in the future, putting us at a disadvantage before we even start killing stuff.

I got separated from the others when I opened the first door and then had a battle with two wind demons. Whilst the others went off to try and open the other 2 doors. Sadly the overwhelming odds of lots of sun and wind demons, plus the sleeping spitting drakes proved too much for the party. Despite the others in the party achieving their individual mission goals, it was all to no avail. Despite being a big bruising brute that likes to rush in and clobber things, Edmunds character took too much damage from the superior numbers. His character became exhausted and that was all she wrote. The mission was over and we had failed. None of the completed personal mission objectives mattered.

The wind mechanic introduced was interesting. At the end of each round our characters if able to would move 1 hex on the board left, up, right and down depending on the turn. It meant you had to think about where you finished your turn, because if you finish in the wrong place you could end up blown into a trap or worse blown into a space next to a sleeping spitting drake. I felt it did capture that being battered by gusts of strong wind.

Our first defeat. I’m sure that we will experience many more throughout the campaign. But still I was hoping we would of had a longer winning streak before suffering our first loss. I know how an Arsenal fan feels now.

Also over the weekend I was looking at some mono red land hate cards to put into this mono red Commander deck I am building. That Boiling Seas is awfully lonely at the moment and needs some friends. The nice thing about this land hate is that it slows and cripples my opponents, while leaving me mana rich. I’m waiting for Blood Moon to hopefully drop a little in price once Masters 25 hits FLGS this month. I’m not sure really who my Commander for the deck will be. I may play it with a different Commander each time to see which one is best.

Right hopefully now all the other events are out of the way and normal service has been resolved.

Dinosaur Tribal Commander Deck List

Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG

Well this should be no surprise, my commander is Zacama, Primal Calamity. 6 R/G/W for a 9/9 with Vigilance, reach and trample. Plus look at the etb. Wow! You can start using his abilities straight away, or cast some other shenanigans from your hand.

With the dinosaurs selected from the ones available from Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan I’ve tried to go with ones that I can get some sort of secondary benefit from, whether that is from an enrage ability or etb. The non-dinosaur creatures that I have gone for are there for ramp. They either allow me to tap them for mana or give me a discount on casting dinosaurs. Naturally having the two Hautli Planeswalkers is a given to. Although I haven’t actually managed to draw one yet in the 4 games I have played with this deck.

I do have a few mana ramp spells, which I think are needed big time in this deck considering the cost of those dinosaurs to cast.

Here is the graphical stuff that the Decked app produces.


I’m pretty surprised you that AMC. Thought it might be a little higher than that.

Here is my initial deck list for this commander deck.

Creatures:37

1 Kinjalli’s Caller
1 Drover of the Mighty
1 Otepec Huntmaster
1 Raptor Hatchling
1 Atzocan Seer
1 Deathgorge Scavenger
1 Frilled Deathspitter
1 Kinjalli’s Sunwing
1 Rampaging Ferocidon
1 Ranging Raptors
1 Ravenous Daggertooth
1 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Wayward Swordtooth
1 Forerunner of the Empire
1 Grazing Whiptail
1 Imperial Aerosaur
1 Knight of the Stampede
1 Raging Regisaur
1 Ripjaw Raptor
1 Charging Monstrosaur
1 Charging Tuskodon
1 Crested Herdcaller
1 Imperial Ceratops
1 Raging Swordtooth
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Snapping Sailback
1 Bellowing Aegisaur
1 Burning Sun’s Avatar
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Etali, Primal Storm
1 Sun-Crowned Hunters
1 Thundering Spineback
1 Gishath, Sun’s Avatar
1 Wakening Sun’s Avatar
1 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
1 Zacama, Primal Calamity
1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Spells:32

1 Blazing Volley
1 By Force
1 Commune with Dinosaurs
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Sol Ring
1 Abrade
1 Ashes of the Abhorrent
1 Path of Mettle
1 Blood Sun
1 Commander’s Sphere
1 Crushing Canopy
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Gift of Paradise
1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
1 Harvest Season
1 Herald’s Horn
1 Karmic Justice
1 New Horizons
1 Sweltering Suns
1 Teferi’s Protection
1 Huatli, Radiant Champion
1 Return to Dust
1 Fumigate
1 Huatli, Warrior Poet
1 Vanquisher’s Banner
1 Kindred Charge
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Rain of Thorns
1 The Immortal Sun
1 Star of Extinction
1 Zendikar Resurgent

Lands:31

1 Blighted Steppe
1 Blighted Woodland
1 Blossoming Sands
1 Boros Garrison
1 Command Tower
1 Fertile Thicket
5 Forest
1 Jungle Shrine
5 Mountain
1 Opal Palace
1 Path of Ancestry
5 Plains
1 Ramunap Ruins
1 Rugged Highlands
1 Scattered Groves
1 Stone Quarry
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
1 Windswept Heath

Going Jurassic in Commander!

Commander, magic, MtG

After spending an hour or more getting the cards together, I now have a dinosaur tribal commander deck. Sadly it does not have the two Elder dinosaurs in it for black and blue. My commander Zacama, Primal Calamity is red, green and white. So the deck has four out of the six, which ain’t bad.

It’s been hard getting down to the one hundred cards that make a commander deck. But I’ve managed to do it, just.

I’m glad that itch has been scratched and it’s now in a play and tweak stage. I enjoyed my regular MtG dinosaur deck. So I’m hoping this commander deck is as much fun to play.

In the meantime I’ve come up with other deck themes I’d like to do. These are basically commander versions of my angel deck, and the death and taxes deck. But I also have a second Arcane Wizardry commander deck on the way. I’ve really enjoyed playing that deck, and I want to change it a little to make it “mine”. There are three cards that I don’t like in that deck that need to go straight away.

I’ll put up my initial deck list later in the week.

Some viewing recommendations for the weekend

Uncategorized

Seeing as illness put a stopper on me seeing the new Black Panther movie until this coming weekend. Thought I’d give a couple of viewing recommendations on Amazon Prime. The first is the complete, all episodes of every season of Scrubs.

I really like Scrubs. Unlike Friends this series still holds up really well. There is a heart to this series that shines through the moments of comedy. That’s a really hard thing to pull off. Like all really popular series during their lifetime they are packed full of guest appearances from celebrities.

Also recently added to Prime is the movie The Big Sick. This movie is apparently a biopic, a true life story of how the comedian Kumail Nanjiani met his wife.

Yeah I like a romcom, because this is basically what the movie is. I like the stand up element of the story, it’s a side that appeals to me, and that I have an interest in. Just get the popcorn and watch.

This looks like I’m jumping on a bandwagon especially after Sunday and the 5 BAFTA wins, but I had seen this movie well before that (just saying). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, is an awesome movie. Great performances from the main cast.

This is a powerful movie, I’d even say there is a bit of an emotional roller coaster element to the movie. The fact characters shift between likeable and sympathetic, to unlikeable, and back, or vice versa, gives the story a depth missing from so many movies these days. It’s refreshing to see such a compelling movie doing well. Tonally I think the movie is similar to the likes of No Country for Old Men. And easily stands shoulder to shoulder with it also. Just go and see it, you won’t regret it.

Much ado about nothing, an uneventful week of gaming

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night, magic, MtG

Well the week has been spent coughing, and generally feeling crap and sorry for myself. There has been no gaming during the week apart from games of MtG with Dale and the students. Which meant I got the chance to play the latest Strictly Better MtG deck I bought (and had arrived during half term) Blue’s Clues. It was kinda funny to start with because I’d forgotten the aim of the deck. I looked through the cards that made up the deck. Wait, no creatures! Then I read the text on Sphinx’s Tutelage, Fleeting Memories and Startled Awake. Oh it’s mill. But no creatures! Although it does generate an 8/8 Octopus token when Crush of Tentacles is cast for its surge cost. Which did come out in two or three games. It even won a game for me. Which did feel odd winning a game by inflicting damage with a creature in a deck with no creatures!

The deck or more specifically Sphinx’s Tutelage love mono colour decks. The milling damage can easily be 6 or more cards each time you draw a card. I love the combo of Sphinx’s Tutelage and Fleeting Memories. Sacrifice a clue, mill 3 cards, then as you draw the card mill again.

This blue mill deck continues the run of fun decks to play from Dev. Although my students and Dale seem to hate it. I am finding I’m learning a lot about deckbuilding from Dev and his decks. Plus I’m getting to experience different styles of deck.

Yesterday WotC put up for the world to see the deck lists that make up the soon (April) to be released Challenger decks. I have to admit I like the look of them. I do like the look of the HAZORET AGGRO deck. With the Chandra, Torch of Defiance in the deck you are getting some value in the deck. I think currently that’s like a £25 – £30 card. Ok that price is likely to drop once the deck hits the street. But still that’s the cost of deck in the one card, everything else is gravy. So yeah I’ll be buying this and the other 3 Challenger decks. Will I keep them whole or break them up? I’m not sure yet. I’d definitely like a second Chandra in my red aggro deck. I do think by publishing the deck lists WotC have shown that in this case that they have listened, and shown this “new” product the respect it needed.

Last night was the weekly Friday Night Gaming for Fenland Gamers, and the first I’ve attended in about a month. We started off playing Mint Delivery.

I started off so well in the game with a massive misplay. That put me a turn behind. Still I did manage to get a nice little scoring route going that in the end didn’t win me the game, but did mean I shared second place with Edmund. Jonathan drove away with first place. It’s still a nice little pick up and deliver game. Maybe next time we’ll play with one of the advanced variants.

Our second game of the evening was London (Second Edition). I do like this card engine builder. So far in the games I’ve played I’ve managed to grab Westminster so I get to control the end of the game. Not sure how I’d get on if I didn’t get that borough. I hope I don’t ever get to find out. I just love having control over my card draw and not having to waste a turn drawing 3 cards. Edmund won our game, and once again I came in second place.

Earlier in the day I set up some future gaming events. It started off with wanting to organise a Twilight Imperium session so I could play the game with the new 25th Anniversary playmat that I had just taken delivery of at lunchtime. The Open Gaming on the 28/4 is the weekend before I turn 50 (yeah I’m ancient) and also International Tabletop Day. So is a double celebration. Which means there will be cake at this session. Now I just need to set up something to get Kemet and Cry Havoc back to the table so I can play them with the expansions I got for them recently.

Here are the sessions I’ve setup. You can find out more details on the events section of the Fenland Gamers Facebook page.

  • 13/3 – Monthly Meetup
  • 17/3 – An Afternoon of Gaming
  • 24/3 – MtG Commander
  • 14/4 – Twilight Imperium 4
  • 28/4 – Open Gaming

A Black Aggro Deck

Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

I enjoyed the pauper black aggro deck that Strictly Better MtG did. So once again I felt inspired, and decided to build a black aggro deck.

For my deck I wanted to make use of some of the cards I thought were cool in Rivals of Ixalan. I love Ravenous Chupacabra, a 4 cost 2/2 that removes an opponents creature also when it enters the battlefield, I’ll take that. Especially when I can get it back from the graveyard to my hand easily. Tetzimoc is my big hitter, and also with his ability removal. When you start putting out those pray counters it’s putting a timer on your opponent. Do something about this fast or you are stuffed. I love Mastermind’s Acquisition, being able to go and get the exact card you need is awesome.

Naturally I have removal in my spells, but I also have a little graveyard hate available to me just to make sure some stuff stays dead! The nice thing about Scarab Feast and Wander in Death is they can also cycle. So I have that option there depending on the game of going searching for the card I want.

Ok here is a look at the mana curve for the deck. I’m pretty happy with that and having the AMC under 3.

So here is my black aggro deck list…

Creatures:20

4 Skittering Heartstopper
4 Vicious Conquistador
3 Dinosaur Hunter
4 Gifted Aetherborn
3 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Tetzimoc, Primal Death

Spells:16

2 Duress
2 Fatal Push
2 Scarab Feast
2 Walk the Plank
2 Never // Return
2 Recover
2 Wander in Death
2 Mastermind’s Acquisition

Lands:24

24 Swamp

Sadly there is no sideboard at the moment. But when I do come up with one I think it will have the other two copies of Fatal Push and Never//Return. I’ll probably look at Gonti and Dire Fleet Poisoner also. After that I don’t know.

What would you have in the sideboard? What would you replace in the main deck?

On the road to recovery

new arrivals

This flu thing has ruined half term for me. Today is the first day I’ve felt remotely human, and not one of the living dead. Unfortunately my Mum and Nan who live next door have now got it too. Which is the last thing I wanted to happen. Nan is 91 as of the start of the month. She takes much longer to get over these things than younger people do. Yes both of them have had the yearly flu shot, but it’s done little to protect them from this evil thing.

So with illness curtailing my half term gaming, it is going to impact into next week as well. Luckily my suffering from physical ails timed with life events affecting others in my gaming group meant very little gaming was going to happen anyway.

With the Ta Seti expansion for Kemet on its way from the publisher Matagot, a couple of other expansions landed on the door mat today. Which I think is going to sum up my gaming year for me. There is still no game I’m thinking “yeah I can’t wait for that to come out” (although I’m thinking that about one game hitting Kickstarter hopefully soon). I’m more concerned about making sure that when expansions drop for games I have and enjoy, that I get them. Maybe 2018 will be a year of old favourites getting new fresh leases of life.

BTN January 2018

by the numbers, gaming stats, stats

Wow am I late in getting this post out. Better get on with it…

January is that one month of the year that seems to drag on. I think the blindingly obvious thing from last month is I played a lot of Magic the Gathering. This won’t be the case for much longer. From May onwards it will drop considerably, I’ll still be playing it. Just not as often because the opportunities to play won’t be there.

Two legacy games (Gloomhaven and Charterstone) started last month. I enjoy that style of game, I like the way actions have an impact on future plays. It gives them extra meaning.

Three new games got to the table. One of them a legacy game.

Sadly I only played seven games all month. I think due to scarcity of funds, the start of the legacy games, being able to afford the other meet ups has been hard. So it’s meant I’ve not attended those and thus the opportunity to play more games has been less.

Anyway here are the stats…

Here are the updated measurements of my averages.

The final section as usual presents the data graphically so we can try and see trends. As you can see MtG has been distorting things a lot recently.

My Game of the Month…

This can only be Charterstone. Lovely art work (which I will go into a bit more in my next game report for it), worker placement (a mechanic I really like), legacy element, great components, once finished as a legacy game can still be played, a recharge pack allows the legacy side to be played a second time using the flip side of the board. Yeah delightful legacy game, and well deserved winner of game of the month.

Worst Game of the Month…

Yep there is a “winner” of this infamous award this month, and it’s down to its butt ugly awful artwork. Yep Escape the Dark Castle despite being an ok game, has dire art that puts me off wanting to play it. So for the art alone it’s getting this award.

Hopefully hitting the table in February…

I failed miserably last month to get these two classics to the table. So let’s see if I have better luck in February with them.

  • Suburbia – I really need to get this to the table. It’s been sitting in my collection for a while now. It’s shameful I haven’t played it yet.
  • Ghost Stories – another classic that has been sitting in my collection. About time this saw the light of day also.
  • Tao Long – I like abstract games, and I really need to get this Kickstarter to the table.

  • The weekly Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion (or FEG@WL as I call it)
  • Every second Wednesday of the month we have our monthly meet up. This month that second Wednesday is next week. Which I’m not sure will be well attended by people in relationships. Their partners might get upset.

If you are in the area and want to attend one of the events, please visit the Fenland Gamers Facebook page for further details about the event. Hope to see you there