Why did I Buy That Card? #6 Emrakul, the Promised End

magic, MtG

Why I bought this card I have no idea. 13 CMC is expensive, but depending on your graveyard could be reduced by a maximum of 8. Being 13/13 is cool but worth the cost? Flying, trample, and protection from instants, does that make it worth the cost? I’m not sure those alone make this card worth it. But the fun factor of casting it and taking over an opponents next turn before returning control to them could be funny. Forcing them to attack another player, cast a spell that could hurt you against another player, the options are limited. But worth the cost? Potentially for the lol’s.

But still I come back to why did I buy this?

Post UKGE 2018 Thoughts

Uncategorized

I think I had a good time!

Let’s rewind a bit, I wasn’t exactly in the best place before attending the expo. I think that came through a bit in the audio I did at the end of day 1. Which was amplified a million times with me also being tired and a little pee’d off. And it was looking for most of the Saturday as more of the same, but really pee’d off.

The sale of my Star Wars: Destiny collection was not as smooth as I had hoped. It was looking like the person had got cold feet and didn’t want to tell me. The lack of communication from the buyer was poor. It eventually came to light that on Saturday I was being used to look after the stuff because the person didn’t want to cart everything around with them all day. I pointed out that there was a shop and drop service, and I was using that to store the stuff, and would happily hand over my ticket to them. Which was enough of a push to close the deal and allow me to head back to the hotel around 3pm time. I was extremely drained at this point, waiting around, and getting frustrated aren’t exactly conducive to a great expo experience. Yes I know I am in control of my feelings, and should not let the actions of other effect them. But I wasn’t exactly in the greatest of minds to be that resilient to external factors.

There wasn’t a lot there that really grabbed me. I’m pretty sure others got much more out of this years expo than I did. The place was busy, especially on Saturday. But still felt that you could get around without fighting people in the aisles, or push through the hordes to get to see stuff.

This year seemed even more so the year of the super minor inter web celeb. Everyone including their dog seemed to be videoing for their YouTube channel. But apart from the UK super minor celebs we had even more of the international ones in attendance. There was “where’s Rahdo?” As he roamed the aisles of the expo halls, doing more Blair Witch Project footage. The Dice Tower crew were there for the third year(?), sadly no Sam this time. I failed in my attempt to show them the error of their ways and that Barenpark is indeed not a game. Plus I trolled Zee by saying Sam was the funny one. For some reason I do find that the Dice Tower guys seem the more approachable of the Youtubers there. The Shut Up Sit Down guys could be seen I think. I get confused as I often mistake their clones No Pun Intended for them. Oh and I will give a shout out to Toucan Play That Game, Michael is super friendly, sadly also under the impression Barenpark is a game. Scott of Scott Plays sadly couldn’t be persuaded to start an internet grudge with some of the other channels. I tried my best to lead him astray but to no avail.

Ignacy was seen wandering around the show floor on Friday after he got in from a delayed flight. But the small Portal Booth did see a bit of my money in the form of expansions, promos and a mug. Sadly I wouldn’t be around for the Ignacy demo of his latest game from Portal Detective on the Sunday.

I think the Shop and Drop once again was a god send, otherwise I would have been really really pee’d having to lug around the Destiny stuff for 2 days. This is a great service. It was a good idea having the chill out zone next to it. It made meet ups for trades, etc very easy to arrange. However I think next year the chill out zone needs to be bigger. It was not easy getting a spot to sit down most of the time.

My gaming was mainly in the evening with Jonathan and his daughter in the hotels restaurant area.

Games Played Friday:

Azul, Bohemian Villages, Ganz schon clever, The Mind

Games Played Saturday:

The Lost Expedition, Ominoes, Ganz schon clever

It may not appear so on here, but I’m not the most social of persons at the best of times. If I hadn’t gamed with Jonathan in the evening I don’t think I would have done any gaming outside of the odd demo at all during the expo.

Once the attendance figures have been released I will be very surprised if these are lower than last year. Will they have jumped up enough to secure the title of the third largest board gaming expo in the world for longe than Origins to be held? I hope so. It was evident that more publishers are starting to take the expo more seriously. However the lack of presence of the the likes of Wizards of the Coast, Stronghold Games etc shows that we are not there yet.

So that was my expo experience for 2018.

Below Average

Fenland Gamers, game night

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

Uncategorized

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

magic, MtG

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.