Snack, Play, Love

Why are we playing bad iPhone & FaceBook games and not Magic?

2013-05-18T06:55:00.002-07:00

The WOTC Head Designer Mark Rosewater is on Tumblr and mentioned the fact that MTGO is not available on Macs (although I have Windows 7 on mine so I can use it if I really wanted), and this reminded me of a more fundamental question - so I asked it:

"Why can't I play Magic in more social ways digitally? Paper MTG is the market leader, but all digital versions a generational step behind competitors. I too have a Mac, Family & iPhone and basic Magic available during my down-time would be perfect. The question is - why no FaceBook playable sociable MTG based on precon sample decks? The same as LGS get to give out free, but as free to play iPhone/FaceBook app. It's the next logical step after Duels in acquisitions. Is there a Digital 7 yr plan?"

I realise this is a little mixed up due to the character limit so I figured I'd vent here to avoid submitting further embarrassing questions.

Why can't I play Magic in more social ways digitally?

I have Go, Ascension, various drawing and word games on my phone. I can play them against friends as live. We take it in turns as and when we have a sec. It's fun as the games are more frequent than I can manage face-to-face. We'd love to play MTG like this (it's the main game in our social circles) - we'd love it so much we would pay money. Plug in daily MTG and MTG related adverts for new sets and events into the app and you have an acquisition & retention strategy that makes Duels of the Planeswalkers look like nothing.

Paper MTG is the market leader, but all digital versions a generational step behind competitors.

Forget the fact that MTGO looks a bit dated and only works on one platform. The interface itself is very dated and based on past assumptions about interface design that have been superseded (see Interface Culture by Steven Johnson - which is itself now out of date...), but more importantly it has a massive barrier to entry. It's not free to sign-up. It contains no tutorials to my knowledge (personally I'd put them on YouTube so the Tutorials act as an advert for the product). An experienced MTG paper player is easily put off and confused by the way it unfolds. It took me several attempts to make a deck and to jump into even the beginner rooms.

Compare this to a new player experience for League of Legends, or Happy Wars. I have no doubt the product suits the existing players (so much so that they will struggle to drag people onto the new client even though it's technically better), but I love MTG and have no desire to play.

Duels is great - it's what got me playing - but it's also one of my biggest concerns. It's a lovely sealed style environment - playing set restricted card pools against each other is what I love most in paper - but each year it gets dumped and you start again. Also the cards (older versions anyway) were so badly explained in terms of their real world legality that when I transitioned to paper I bought things that were not 'standard legal' and thus had to scrap a lot of ideas once I made it to FNM. Now I Tournament Organise at a small store the main question from Duels players is where they can buy that deck they love. And we have to break their hearts. Stick Duels to standard base decks, with Modern as the unlocks or bought decks and this problem vanishes and you get new players that PREFER Modern coming in. Bonus!

I too have a Mac, Family & iPhone and basic Magic available during my down-time would be perfect.

Why are we playing bad iPhone & FaceBook games and not Magic?

I know GP winners who play terrible, grindy card games on their phones - those ones where the cards are just a means to an end with no real mechanics or structure. They have pretty art and the more time you put in the better you are due to the time based advancement mechanics. The thing is they are available on our phones and iPads and we can play them with our friends asychnronously. MTG didn't even keep their iPhone card gatherer application up to date and deleted it within a few months. This was a YEAR ago. I can't build decks on my phone officially. I have to use 3rd party apps (some of which WOTC tried to remove or change when theirs came out) to look up prices or store collections.

Playdek have been brought in to do a D&D game. Their Ascension game is the most use thing on my phone next to texting. Something basic like that would be fine - something free and accessible to those who watch Day9 on the ProTour and want to figure out the basics.

The question is - why no FaceBook playable sociable MTG based on precon sample decks? The same as LGS get to give out free, but as free to play iPhone/FaceBook app. It's the next logical step after Duels in acquisitions.

If I had an MTG app on FaceBook I could go ahead and delete most of the other games. All it would need to be is the preconstructed single colour basic decks that we get given to hand to new players. They ask how to play, we break out two of these decks and they get to take them home. Do that digitally. Allow us to play our friends using it and record our win losses. Allow us to combine these to make 2 colour 60 card decks and there are 20 different decks to be played - 25 if you can double colours up. That is more than enough content to keep people interested and again - you link to Duels from this (The Next Step...) and DailyMTG and Twitch Coverage and so on. To me this would be a nightmare to program, but FaceBook isn't going anywhere (and you could probably do it on the actual MTG site using Forum ID as a log in too for those that fear it) so it'd be worth the investment.

Is there a Digital 7 yr plan?

Mark talks about the 7 year plan for paper Magic. I don't think digital has one. Tablet DOTP is a nice step, but it should be Tablet MTGO & iPhone links (build decks on phone - play on tablet or Computer). I realise this is all things that would take a lot of investment, but I can't see how it wouldn't be worth it in the long run.

Complexity creep is frequently cited as the number 1 thing most likely to 'kill Magic', I think that the new wave of Digital products outclassing MTG from every angle is more probable and by the end of this year the blue ocean of digital TCGs will be a hotly fought arena. I do hope paper Magic survives.

Combo season

2013-03-14T10:49:00.001-07:00

Seeing as I have the wireless keyboard/iPhone set up on the bus for the main Blog I figured I might as well add a few words here.

Gatecrash has gone well, the front loaded costs mean that I've spent much less on extra cards (I bought 4 Zegana for $26 and a week later the price doubled) and I've traded aggressively for things I need for decks only.

Unexpected Results into Boborygmous is a lot of fun, and can do well at FNM. It can also go 1-X...

Probably taking Burn At The Stake combo deck tomorrow if I go. I have the latest version of 'counters matter' and haven't got round to sleeving the almost mono Black gu that is the denial ramp deck. That looks to be the most fun of all, but the hardest to tune.

Solforge promises to be around the corner, and I have two new Ascension expansions (one in hand, one on way) to contend with too. As new players get into it I find myself playing the original more and more - is the new stuff just too complicated?

It's looking good for gaming, and MTG has a combo viable standard environment. Things are good.

New Set Blues - GateCrash

2013-02-02T15:48:00.003-08:00

Oh hello there - long time no see! Do I have you in round 1? A preview of the finals already then! What have I been up to? Well mostly GateCrash these past few weeks.

We've had...

£157 worth of Devak0rp pre-orders
1 £25 Birmingham Simic pre-release
1 £33 Stafford Orzhov Pre-release (travel costs)
1 £52 Birmingham launch Draft (!! - i'll explain)
1 £12 Birmingham launch Draft (more affordable) (& 30p on a card)

That makes £279 on Magic in two weekends. ouch! That said - with the £60 of eBay things that have gone it's a reduced £219 - and I plan to make it go down further. To explain what I have I guess I should go through in order - more for my own sanity than anything.

Preorders I - the bulk.

I decided that buying a box was fun fairly early on, but then always wanted to play that box. At £90 I figured that if I did a similar amount of drafts and sealed and averaged at £2.50 a pack then I'd be fairly sorted. I also realised I'd be missing all the neat tricks commons and uncommons. 1 £25.14 preorder later and those were all booked - 4 of each uncommon, and around 6 of each common. I may need to trade for a few that I get 3 ofs but it should be OK. These are 'incoming'.

Preorders II - the junk

I like gadget rares, and with pre-odrering the lower cards I had spare funds to cherry pick a few. I think I got maybe (redoes maths - oh!) £50 of those, which does sound quite a lot now. The plan was to spend less on events though.

Preorders III - the shock

12 cards, shocklands, 84.51 or £7 each. This is scary & ouch territory except they are currently £10 each in the stores and any spare ones I pull can now be back converted to pay off the main bill. Also these are stable cards so where as the others will go up and down these will settle around £6-£8 so can be treated as fluid assets in MTG terms.

First event - ManaGeek Birmingham pre-release.

Having been undefeated in prereleases since 1 loss in AVR block I've gotten quite good at extracting value from these. My unremarkable Simic pool 5-1 losing to the winner's fast Boros meant 5 packs (plus the 6 'entry packs). Fab but tiring day.

11 packs - £25 - £2.27 per pack

Second Event - ManaGeek Stafford Pre-release

Tired at the start, fever rose through the event and I was misplaying like a trooper by the end. 2-4 to scrape 1 pack and throw away the extra £10 of travel costs from playing the much easier Birmingham event (that actually gave correct prizes this time!) meant that I was heavily overtaxed by playing Orzhov.

7 packs - £33 - £4.71 per pack (OUCH!! should have got a fatpack and stayed in bed!) for event
18 packs - £58 - £3.22 per pack so far

Also - my pulls were rubbish. Having planned to draft these packs with the semi-pros on the Tuesday I instead spent three days in bed sulking due to some insane fever I still haven't quite shaken. Massive missing out of EV there as I'd have got at least a few things I wanted as it wasn't even the good junk rares.

Third event - Waylands Launch Draft

I'd been looking forwards to this quite a bit. The hazy, crazy part of my brain had been mentally preparing myself for Tuesday's draft, and then carried on til Friday as I didn't get it out of my system. All of the talk from the 30 players in the room was how bad Dimir was in sealed, I guessed it'd be pretty swift in draft so in my 10 person pool tried it out. being the only person in an archetype gets you a few interesting cards, three unblockable rogues, three mill guys, one intimidate 1 drop & two cloudfin raptors. 3-0. I came 2nd due to a player who had an amazingly fast Gruul deck. As again Boros threatened me most I figured Gruul may be next. 3 packs played and 4 prize ones plus promo.

Why was this £52? I paid for 4 people to enter as my cousins came to stay. I can't really factor those in to the packs can I? Especially when they got to keep their mythics... :(

7 packs - £13 - £1.85 per pack (I must be better now!)
25 packs - £71 - £2.84 (more economical)

Fourth event - Global Gaming Launch Draft

We like Global Gaming, it's small and local and full of people like me - only younger! They out play us easily, and often have better decks due to being focused, but they lack limited experience so can be interesting to draft against. I got a first pick bulk mythic dragon which I can NEVER resist in limited, so built Gruul around that - it was pretty cool and only lost to one guy. Once in rounds, and again in the final. Oh well - another second place! As we'd agreed to split the packs evenly instead of 5 I got 7, hooray! He got a shock and a guild leader, I got the black mythic that is another bulk one. Such is life. Maybe I should have kept ALL these packs sealed...

10 packs - £12 - £1.20 per pack (now we are talking!)
35 packs - £83 - £2.37 per pack and only one short of making a box across all events!

Not only did I play the box instead of sitting at home trying to stop the cats from attacking my foils I also played in events I may not have and got a few sneaky trades in. Sure I spent an extra £39 on funding the cousins, but I'm sure I can trade that back off them as they get bored of the shiny mythics (although they have discovered eBay too - curses!)

So that is
£83 - packs/events
£39 - Youth contributions
£157 of pre-orders/speculation
so £240 on me, minus the £60 from eBaying 4 mythics that I'd never once sleeved to play (2 sorin, 2 Thundermaw) so £180 down so far.

Not a bad way to buy and play a box, and in theory I think some events I could have done better in by chosing more carefully and not playing sick! I have three of the shock lands I'd already pre-ordered so that's £30 back at some point (probably in trades) and other interesting things like the Ghost Council which are money rares that I'll never likely play.

Another draft Tuesday too, better get cataloguing and eBaying some more to pay for this...

Deck Builder's Toolkit 2012 (M13 Edition)

2012-07-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

Well - as with last years edition it seems no-one has collected all the card lists for this. Unlike last year I'm join to put them all in one post. As with last year this set is for starting out pliers with small collections. it comprises ENTIRELY of commons and uncommons (and not many uncommons - 2 per colour and then 4 per deck fragment - 26 in total) but the cards contained would be more expensive to buy outside of this pack purely because of the boosters. The boosters give you another 12+ uncommons and 4+ rares (due to flip cards and foils you can get more than this) and basically make up 80% of the cost of the box. For me - even if I give most of the cards away this year (which I will likely do) I get the boosters, the cool box and the joy of all this typing again...

See you next year.

The Boosters are Innistrad Block:

Innistrad
Dark Ascension
Avacyn Restored
M13

This makes sense as now the product is perfectly positioned to last a whole standard season - kudos WOTC!

The Semi Random packs (gold dashed section) are:

Blue Black Evasion:
Curiosity
Talrand's Invocation
Welkin Tern
Faerie Invaders
2x Searchlight Geist
Invisible Stalker
Harbor Bandit
Gryff Vanguard
Bloodhunter Bat

Humans:
Fiend Hunter
Crusader of Odric
Gather the Townsfolk
Bonds of Faith
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Commander's Authority
Hamlet Captain
Bonds of Faith
Heavy Mattock
Timberland Guide

Library Depletion:
Jace's Phantasm
Stern Mentor
2x Mind Sculpt
Curse of the Bloody Tome
Dreadwaters
Fog Bank
Cellar Door
Vedalken Entrancer
Dream Twist

Tokens:
Intangible Virtue
Moan of the Unhallowed
Captain's Call
Gather the Townsfolk
2x Vile Rebirth
Lingering Souls
Goldnight Redeemer
Attended Knight
Glorious Charge

Midrange Green:
Roaring Primadox
Acidic Slime
2x Borderland Ranger
Elvish Visionary
Yeva's Forcemage
Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
Bond Beetle
Timberland Guide

Exalted:
Knight of Glory
Angelic Benediction
2x Guardians of Akrasa
Aven Squire
Duty-Bound Dead
Knight of Infamy
Duskmantle Prowler
Servant of Nefarox
Cobbled Wings

Spirits:
Gallows Warder
Drogskol Captain
Geist Snatch
Voiceless Spirit
Ghostly Possession
Battleground Geist
Midnight Haunting
Voiceless Spirit
Feeling of Dread
Spectral Prison

Angels:
Defy death
Emancipation angel
Seraph of dwn
2x scroll of Avacyn
Serra sanctuary
Serra angel
Archangel
Angelic wall
Bladed bracers

Vampires:
Vampire nighthawk
Rakish heir
Vampiric fury
Stormkirk captain
2x crossway vampire
Vampire interloper
Falkenrath noble
Bloodcrazed neonate
Victim of the night

Zombies: (from poster - may be elsewhere in kit)

Diregraf Captain

Armoured Skaab

Thought Scour

Abattoir Ghoul

Red Burn: (from poster - may be elsewhere in kit)

Volcanic Geyser

Thunderous Wrath

Pitchburn Devils

Rummaging Goblin

You also always get 4 Evolving Wilds

Credit for the typing up of these goes to the posters in the message board thread below:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=432032

I added my own semi-random decks and checked the ones I had.

As you can see of the 11 deck fragments, you have the 5 tribal themes from Innistrad block (vampires, spirits, humans, angels, zombies) - notable for the absence of Werewolves which has been worked into the Midrange Green cards but without any DFC (but you get one in the INN & DKA packs so I'm not sure why this was excluded). We have the returning mechanic deck in Exalted, the Library Depletion (Mill) and Burn. The most interesting are the Evasion & Tokens which were not in last years selection but are thematically from the recent block.

Non Random Cards.

White Banded Pack - commons

Ghoulcaller's Bell

Elgaud Inquisitor
Voice of the Provinces
Attended Knight
Cathedral Sanctifier
Chapel Geist
Niblis of the Mist
Seraph of Dawn
Griffin Protector
Glorious Charge
Safe Passage
2x Pacifism
Cloudshift
Urgent Exorcism

Mist Raven
Gryff Vangard
Archaeomancer
Stormbound Geist
Deranged Assistant
2x Welkin Tern
Scroll theif
Thought Scour
Essence Scatter
Negate
Divination
Curse of the Bloody Tome
Encrust

Vampire Interloper
Liliana's Shade
Ravenous Rats
Bloodhunter Bat
Tormented Soul
Driver of the Dead
Markov Patrician
Ghoulcaller's Chant
Sign in blood
2x Murder
Duress
Dead weight
Victim of Night

Pitchburn Devils
Torch Fiend
Bladetusk Boar
Forge Devil
Heirs of Stromkirk
Rummaging Goblin
Fire Elemental
Searing Spear
Traitorous Blood
Brimstone Volley
Demolish
Krenko's Command
Pillar of Flame

Borderland Ranger
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Elvish visionary

Red banded pack - green commons + uncommons + start of lands

2x Arbor Elf
Ambush Viper
Geist Trappers
Pathbreaker Wurm
Wildwood Geist
Titanic Growth
Farseek
Ranger's Path
Natural End
Prey Upon

Crusader of Odric
Oblivion Ring

Talrand's Invocation
Niblis of the Breath

Vampire Nighthawk
Abattoir Ghoul

Falkenrath Exterminator
Gang of Devils

Roaring Primadox
Hollowhenge Scavenger

M13 land (Two copies of all 4 M13 designs) so:
8 Plains
8 Island
8 Swamp
8 Mountain
8 Forest

Gold banded pack: remaining lands

M13 land (Three copies of all 4 M13 designs) so:

12 Plains

12 Island

12 Swamp

12 Mountain

12 Forest

Hope this helps someone!

M13 Pre release Write Up

2012-07-08T08:05:00.001-07:00

I don't really get around to writing up that many events these days, except for the Digital Dragons ones as they are more relaxed and about fun more than winning. I thought I'd make an exception for this one, even though I only managed to take one picture all day. This is the picture.

That's 8 boosters, one Xathrid Gorgon Promo and a BIG Planeswalkers mug - and it comprises the winners prize that I got to take home with me! No one was more surprised than me, as I didn't originally think my card selection was that exciting. I had a big Green Mythic & Jace Planeswalker card in my pool so people were telling me that I had a good pool, but the fact is I played neither for the majority of the day.

Here is the deck that played Round 5:

Land:
Sunpetal Grove (rare 1)
9 Forest
7 Plains

Creatures
2 x Bond Beetle

Flinthoof Boar (u)
Timberpack Wolf (which I never drew in the tournament!)
Aven Squire

Attended Knight
Crusader of Odric (u)
Centaur Courser

2x Roaring Primadox (2u)
Primal Huntbeast
Griffin Protector
Healer of the Pride (u)

Silklash Spider (my other rare)
Serra Angel (u)

Other Spells
Prey Upon

Pacifism
Giant Growth

Oblivion Ring (u)
2x Safe Passage

2x Captains Call
Divine verdict

Thats a main deck with 16 basic lands, 2 rares (one of which is a dual land), 7 uncommons and 15 commons. Hardly a bomb filled deck!

Sideboard cards over the matches included:

2x Ring of Thune (started round 1 with one in the deck - after game 1 round 2 I never played them again)
Erase
Naturalize
Glorious Charge (flirted with this one - I never drew it so was hard to evaluate)
Plummet (goodbye nighthawk!)
and my other Mythic Elderscale Worm (I planned to put him in for long matches, after siding in and casting him in game 2 round 1 he never found my hand again. He didn't really combo with much in my deck really).

Round 1

This was against our buddy Phil who was playing Black and Red and I think Blue too. Game 1 he overwhelmed me with nighthawk so I sided in all the killing it tools meaning he never found nighthawk in game 2. He got out his Xathrid Gorgon and began to destroy me - and if he had the day would have been very different, but I pacified and then Oblivion ringed it. Unfortunately I blocked something I didn't need to and lost my Primadox so couldn't slow flicker the Mythic that had turned to stone. Luckily I just kept hitting him with other things so got my first win to take it to 1-1. Game 3 was all about playing too many colours and I won with a combination of my 3/3 and 4/4 buddies.

Round 2

This was against my friend Rob who I really respect as a player and have lost to in constructed a very large number of times. Fortunately I seem to have the edge in limited. Round 1 I found myself with gear and no creatures and a lack of answers to a flyer with enchantments and artefacts on it. As my sideboard shows I was ready for this and switched gears to punish the single creature focused strategies. Combo decks can play control pretty easily and then flick back to aggro as needed. This worked pretty well although mainly because he didn't find his Hydra to stomp me with. I won 2-1 and pointed out that the Rancor in his sideboard was worth playing. He still played a big fat deck full of all the fun spells, which I think cost him wins but won him friends and a little cheer when he got the random prize of the Primeval Titan Playmat at the end of the night.

Round 3

This was played against Don - one of the talented Magic playing students. This is the match I remember least about - I do remember a sleeping dragon that I had to keep an eye on and strategically timed my attacks so I could blow it up on the first turn it was useful to him. I'm evil like that. I do think the card is important in limited as most people played a lot less answers than I did. This was the first point at which I felt my deck was truly working. No 7 cost creatures, no clunky equipment that is only useful to half my deck, and only siding in and out things that influenced the battle. It was at this point I settled on 41 cards too - frankly the two bond beetles meant that the chances of getting land screwed were minimal, and the extra removal spell helped a lot.

I'd built a blue black control mill deck out of the remaining cards, mainly to relax me. I played this against Don and lost in short order - one card away from finding Jace. I'd managed to unsummon his sleeping dragon at a couple of perfect opportunities but he had tokens and pressure which I lost to. I really want to fix this deck and play it again though.

Round 4

This was against one of the best regular players that the store Jamie, who played a similar deck to the one in the last round. There were lots of mana problems and inconsistencies here too, and I think I was the only person to beat all three of the players I played in the last three rounds. He seemed to have mana problems round 2 I think and I got my slow-flicker the bond beetle combo going making Crusader of Odric something like an 11/11 taking out a creature per attack. I was also gaining at least 2 life per turn due to this. I think that a different draw on his part would have made this a much harder game. The luck was with me.

Round 5

This round I faced down Alex, probably the best of the local student players. I'd beaten him at the last pre-release 2-1 and was convinced he'd get his revenge on me but it wasn't to be. Game 1 was fairly fast and I didn't really know how to sideboard. Game 2 I thought I had him on a couple of occasions and I just had to keep attacking all out as I had both of my Safe Passage in hand meaning if the blocks turned out bad for me I could prevent them. In the end after two of them he conceded having just drawn three blank turns.

I was a bit emotional at this point and had to go outside...

Aftterwards I looked at Alex's deck and he had a couple of massive cards like Krenko, Mob boss that could have easily swung either game. His deck was also as consistent as mine and as we both table shuffled it was just pure random unluckiness of the draws that saw me getting my first Pre-release victory and not him. He's the kind of player I expect to see doing well at the PTQs pretty soon and I felt honoured to have beaten such worthy players on the way to my win. My overall game win percentage was in the 86% region which is amazing for me.

I had to check the stats page - 34 players, only one was undefeated.

I haven't opened my 8 prize packs yet - yesterday was also my 33rd birthday so was rather busy. Pretty memorable though - I think you'll agree!

Digital Dragons M13 League

2012-07-08T06:00:00.003-07:00

Digital Dragons M13 League

Digital Dragons Lichfield is running it's first ever Magic The Gathering League for the new M13 set starting on Friday 13th July and Saturday 14th July. Store owner Paul is in charge, but local Magic player Rich will be helping out with organisation & rules as Tournament Organiser.

Full details are below, but this is the store's first ever weekly Magic: The Gathering event and depending on how popular this is we may be able to increase the events we can run. The top finishers at the end of the league will get a Nichol Bolas - Planeswalker poster with all entrants receiving an alternate art Goblin token! There will also be a grand prize for the player who comes top of the league of a Planeswalker shoulder bag. Each player that pays the week 2 league fee will receive two booster packs as part of their prizes on the final week.

When you join the Magic 2013 League, you will be given the opportunity to play with the newest cards in an on-going, five-week league. There will be prizes, and special rules for the league that change weekly. The format for the Magic 2013 league is Sealed Deck— with three options on how to build your deck (see below).

Over the course of the league, you will be able to add more boosters to your league deck, but you cannot add cards from your collection or trade the cards from the league until it is over.

If you miss a week or need start late and to catch up then you can do this too - just talk to the store owner Paul.

Simply turn up on the dates below, choose and pay for one of the deck options below and build and play away. If you can bring your own basic land cards then do so, and if you want to protect your cards then you can bring or buy sleeves.

M13 League - Wizard's Official Overview

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtgcom%2Fevents%2Fleague-facts&fb_source=message

Dates:

Week 1 - Friday 13th July & Saturday 14th July

Week 2 - Saturday 21st July (also a Standard Monthly Magic Tournament at 12:30 on this day!)

Week 3 - Saturday 28th July

Week 4 - Saturday 4th August

Week 5 - Saturday 11th August (also a Standard Monthly Magic Tournament day at 12:30 on this day!)

The league matches can be played in store at any point during these days and in the following week. All results should be reported directly to Paul.

Rules Overview

Sealed decks...

● must contain a minimum of 40 cards.

● have no maximum deck size (but you must be able to shuffle your deck with no assistance)● have no maximum number of duplicate cards allowed in the deck. (e.g. if you open 5 of the
same card in your Booster Packs, you can play with all five in your deck).
● can be built using your own Basic Lands, or you may borrow from the store stock,
provided you return them at the end of the League.

Matches

● League games should be played in the Store if possible, but if Paul or Rich are Ok with it then the local cafe's and similar local venues can be used if the store is not available. It is up to Paul if the result of a match not played in store counts.

● A match consists of the best of 3 games between two players; matches are not timed.
● As with other Sealed Deck events, you may make adjustments to your deck from your sideboard between games. You may construct an entirely new deck between matches.
● Each player can play no more than 25 League matches during each 5-Week League and cannot play more than 5 matches per Week. The only players allowed to play more than 5 scoring matches per Week will be those that join the League late. Catch up matches for players already in the League will NOT be allowed. A player that has already played 5 scoring matches in a Week may, however, play additional non-scoring matches against players that still need scoring matches for that Week.

● In a single week (Wednesday – Tuesday) each player may not play an opponent more than once (with the exception of
players joining late: see below).
● Matches may be continued over more than one day if there is not enough time to complete all the games at once,
though an incomplete game is considered a draw game (it can be played over if both players choose). A match must be
completed within the same League Week, however.
● When each match is completed, you and your opponent will inform Paul of the result. If the match is not played in store then let Digital Dragons know the result as soon as possible via either FaceBook group or popping into the store.
● Sportsmanship is a must for League. We encourage everyone to have fun! If someone is looking for a match and you are too, and they ask you to play, you cannot deny them a game just because you don’t like them, or because you are looking for an easier opponent.

Joining Late

● Players who sign up for the League late will be allowed to purchase all the Booster Packs at once to catch them up with everyone else (the original 6, plus 1 per Week for Weeks 2 through 5). Please note: Additional Booster Pack purchases can ONLY occur once the Week has officially ended and the results for that Week have been tallied. In other words, after Tuesday.

● Players joining late can play extra matches in the Weeks they play to catch up with everyone else. (e.g. a player joining in Week 3 could play 15 scoring matches that week, or 10 scoring matches each in Week 3 and Week 4).

● Players trying to make up matches may play the same opponent more than once in a Week; however, not more times than the number of Weeks late they are joining (e.g. if a player joins in Week 2, they could play the same opponent twice (but not more than) during Week 2 to catch up).

Scoring

● Each player in a match gets 1 point just for playing, and the winner gets 2 bonus points in addition for a total of 3.

● As long as one game is completed, both players will get the minimum 1 point.

● League results will be tallied up every Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

● The League Standings will be posted online and in-store.

There are also rules players use during their matches. These rules change every week.

Week 1: No effect.
Week 2: Whenever a creature attacks alone, that creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Week 3: Creatures have ": Add to your mana pool."
Week 4: Creatures have vigilance.
Week 5: Instant and sorcery spells cost less to cast.

-----------

Standard Entry - Total cost - £40 (minimum cost £26)

This is how a Standard sealed deck / MTG league normally works. It's designed for players that are experienced with building Magic: The Gathering decks in short spaces of time and want a completely custom made deck. You receive random cards and build a deck of your choosing and modify it as the weeks go on.

Week 1 - Pay £20 to receive 6 M13 boosters and build a 40 card deck of your choosing - Play 5 league matches!

Week 2 - Pay league fee for prize pool. Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 3 - Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 4 - Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 5 - Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches! Collect prizes!!

Intro Level Entry - Total cost £25 (Minimum cost £18)

This introductory version of the league deck means that you get a fully formed deck from the below 5 of your choosing to play with over the weeks.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1007

This removes the building process in week one and makes decisions about cards to add simpler as you only have two colours. You will also be starting with a 60 card deck which means that it's the same as standard constructed Magic. It does mean that any great cards you open in the future packs in the other three colours may be harder to use, but the more experienced players in the store will be able to advise on this. It's also the cheapest option.

Week 1 - Buy an M13 Intro deck of your choosing (keeping the two included boosters sealed) and Play! It really is that simple, you enter the league with a pre-made 60 card deck that is based around two colours. Play 5 league matches!

Week 2 - Pay league fee for prize pool. Use the first M13 booster from your Intro Deck box to change the cards in your deck if you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 3 - Use the second M13 booster pack from your Intro Deck to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 4 - Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 5 - Buy one optional M13 booster pack at the discounted league price of £3.50 to change the cards in your deck as you wish. Play 5 league matches!

If you miss any weeks you can catch up the matches (max 5 per week) as mentioned, or purchase the boosters you missed out on. Play 5 league matches! Collect prizes!!

Collector's Edition Entry - The 'Fat Pack' - Total cost £43.50 (Minimum cost £40)

This has been requested by some of the players who were already planning to pick up a Fat Pack. This is a box that contains everything you need for the new set - 9 boosters, a spindown counter (life die), a book listing all the cards, some land, and two small cardboard boxes. As this is almost perfect for a league (all you need to add are optional protective sleeves) we are allowing players to pick one up and use it for the league - and it covers everything except for that 10th and final booster (which is optional) and the league fee for the prize pool. Supplies of Fat Packs are limited so make sure you book in advance if you plan to take advantage of this option!

Week 1 - Buy a Fat Pack in store and select 6 boosters to use for the League. Build a 40 card deck of your choosing. Play 5 league matches!

Week 2 - Pay league fee for prize pool. Use 1 of your fat Pack boosters to change the cards in your deck if you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 3 - Use 1 of your fat Pack boosters to change the cards in your deck if you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 4 - Use 1 of your fat Pack boosters to change the cards in your deck if you wish. Play 5 league matches!

Week 5 - Use 1 of your fat Pack boosters to change the cards in your deck if you wish. Play 5 league matches! Collect Prizes!!

Rainbow Angels Attack!

2012-05-21T12:15:00.001-07:00

OK - a very short write up of our latest casual games day at Digital Dragons in Lichfield. Only 6 players, which was less than I'd hoped for and kept us at three rounds plus possible play off action (which was cancelled - see later).

Round 1 was me Vs Paul the shop owner and was a fairly lacklustre affair seeing me loose out as I didn't really see the right parts of the angel deck. Playing the shop owner while customers are about is always dangerous (but means we have a 'floater' that can jump in to make even numbers and is better than a bye). We mostly talked toot about the events and the cards we had. Due to retail happenings I conceded as time was called. Then I spent a good 30 mins hovering over the one remaining game that was still on it's game 1. It seems the elves had spawned all their mana producers and Birthing Pod couldn't break through! Eventually (ironically as I put them on turns) Pod missed a combat trick and Elves found their Ezuri to break through for the win.

Round 2 saw me against the Birthing Pod. I expected to loose badly to this Event Deck++ after stalling in round 1, but I seemed to nail the starting hand with a mix of lands and a few angels for when I got there. And then I got to reveal the secret reason for wanting to play my Angels - the oversized promo cards!

Hooray - Sigarda, Host of Herons hits the board and grows too! As the keen player may have spotted my opponent is a little mana screwed here. Infact the only play he did have was a turn 4 Skinrender whose only legal target was itself! (oops) This was a far cry from both of our last games and didn't really show off the cards I'd suggested for the pod deck so we rushed to game two.

This happened in game two - double mythic promo angelic action! I started with Giesela in hand and Double Abundant growth followed by Scroll of Avacyn was ripping through my deck to find what I needed to get her into play. The pod was racing me handily, but doom-bladed my life linker angel on the turn before I dropped the Blade of Goldenight teaching the important lesson to wait with your instants! My pod buddy was very nice about the 20 in the air that ensued, but we didn't get chance for a game 3 as the Elves had caused a massive rout on the other table lining them up to fight the mono white humans deck that one of the local players had got.

My game 3 was another slow affair against the other local player with his white Angels & Humans deck - we were both grinding out and playing similar cards (I did loose my Bruna, Light of Alabaster a little too hastily to try to trade) until the White Mikeaus started to get going. This caused me to loose very slowly indeed as I found all my mana guys and BOTH birds of Paradise that I put in to ease the lack of white that side-boarding all the dual lands caused. After many turns of not doing much he finally got big enough to be close -then silent departured all my guys - nooooo! That was a 1-0 loss that put me at the bottom of the standings, but with a big smile on my face.

During the last round a family came in with two small boys and after sheepishly watching a few games decided to make their first ever Magic purchase in the Venser Vs Koth Duel decks (that I'd been tempted to pick up earlier but resisted due to all the Planechase goodies). This was during my match so out of respect I didn't leave it to go and advise. They did pop back in later to complete the purchase and pick up boxes and sleeves too - so I rushed over and found them some of the promo cards from the Gateway things we had so they had a Gather The Townsfolk and a Nearheath Stalker to add to their collections. I had a flick through my trades folder to see if there was anything else suitable (idiotically forgetting about all the Avacyn commons I'd dumped in the store collection earlier) but decided not to confuse things. While the Duel Deck would not have been my choice for two young players I think that the balance and flashiness of it all was what attracted them to it. I offered to help them if they ever came to one of the store events in future.

Elves smashed the humans in the last round, and in the standings this meant that Elves were top just above the Humans so it seemed silly to have a play off and we moved all the tables and had a massive 6 player game of Zombie Fluxx instead with some of the YuGiOh Players joining in while the shop was cashed up.

Another great day had by all with more to come soon in June!

Playing Fair

2012-05-14T13:44:00.001-07:00

Sometimes in Magic: The Gathering (as well as in real life) it's hard to play fair. This isn't due to pre-ordained cheating strategies or even 'forgetting' to activate triggers but due to things that occur outside the game.

This realisation came after organising the first real sanctioned tournament at Digital Dragons in Lichfield and coming away the winner - with a deck I'd designed to either win fast or loose fast. It turns out that just having a good card pool to pull from and throwing together a green and white humans deck made almost entirely out of promotional rares can do quite a lot! The deck was essentially Fateful hour based which meant that it punished the other player a little too much and wasn't all that fun.

In the run up to the second 'big' tournament (we schedule casual events frequently when there happen to be games in store) I decided to make a deck that was competitive but would be fun to loose to, and hopefully fun to beat.

Here is my basic mana curve:

As you can see (if you tilt your head) this is all the Angel creature cards from Innistrad block. And the 1 M12 Angel too. And Angelic Wall as I figured it was lonely. There are some very overpowered (in terms of the players that may turn up's collections) cards here in the 5 AVR Mythic Rares, but this time they are singletons. No more will they have to battle through multiple copies of the same depressing Humans - now there are Singleton Angels to have to read - if I can race up the mana curve. I figured that this strategy will give me a lot of variability, while also allowing me to try out the new cards in a fun setting.

Last time I put up all the prizes and intend to do the same again - I skipped myself and started the prizes at 2nd and 3rd place. This means I'm not too worried if I do happen to win, but I am worried that the less experienced players won't have as much fun. This is reflected in my support cards.

I've put in Borderland Ranger instead of Scorned Villager, but kept the Avacyn's Pilgrims.

I've dropped Ponder entirely and reduced Gitaxian Probe to a two of in favour of Fleeting Distraction (it has little fairies in the art to help with the theme).

I am playing 4 Seraph's Sanctuary and 4 Scroll of Avacyn. I'm also starting with all basic lands, with the 9 dual lands hiding in my sideboard for when I face the couple of experienced players that will be going.

I also have a few more tricks that should help the deck plough through it's cards in search of it's 18 Angels and help with the multicolour deck. I will post back a report next week.

TO be...

2012-05-05T01:32:00.001-07:00

I am now officially a Tournament Organiser for Digital Dragons (and have figured out phone blogging)!

This means I can set up events and keep an eye on things from home which will be a lot more convenient , if less sociable.

Yesterday we did a mini casual event of mini masters using my boosters I'd just bought. Good fun all round. I now have three Moonsilver Spears which I think will turn out I be much more
Important than people currently realise...

Off to a launch event this morning, but the store seems to be closed still. We will see...

#ccLich - Our Casual Magic day at Digital Dragons

2012-04-21T16:35:00.001-07:00

Today was the first, real, proper Magic event with outside players at Digital Dragons in Lichfield as organised by me, Paul the shop owner and a mutual friend Tom who hooked us up. We'd done a little bit of promotion and ended up having two spontaneous practice days (where I was in store and so we did mini events) so knew what we were in for.

I got there a bit early to teach Tom how to play his new event deck, and got chatting to a few of the local players. When it came time to start we had 7 people present so the store owner Paul agreed to play single round games and to join in - I lent him a Standard legal zombie deck that was a bit basic but fun. After poking about at the odd Wizards tool for starting games we were ready a bit later than planned.

As I was the most experienced player I'd built a white + green splash humans & angels deck out of all the White promo cards I'd collected but never even played. I expected it to be solid and easy to play against, and this turned out to be true but it was better than I'd predicted.

Round one seemed to pit experience against rookies in every pairing so almost became a teaching round where people were figuring out their cards. Round two I got paired against Tom as we'd both won in Round 1 and we played a massive long drawn out single game that went on for about an hour due to my lack of lands which kept getting blown up (we decided timers would be a bad idea as we had plenty of time for the 3 rounds) and was only won by me as he didn't spot he could have used birthing pod to fetch a blocker. As he'd already fetched out most of his creatures there were only a few mana point values he could hit!

Best interaction saw me with Gideon PW (a singleton - forces his guys to attack), Gideon's Avenger (he taps, I get +1/+1) and Norn's Annex (he has to pay 2 life for each attacking creature). This would have been a game ender after only 15 or so mins, but in our practice game I taught him to pod a 2 drop into the corrupter to destroy the Annex. The Avenger got huge and was what won the game, but my unexpected combo would have seen him loose 12 life per turn so was neatly avoided.

Final round saw me play local player Vicky with her so far undefeated monsters deck. Having both Vampires and Zombies and a few black spirits I wasn't sure what to expect. Game 1 had me being beaten down in the air by the Aristocrat over two turns while I had 5 human tokens and 1 Avacyn's Pilgrim and the Doomsayer (tap to get a human). She took me to three life and would kill me in the next turn. My human deck was built around fateful hour mechanics and luckily the Doomsayer added +2/+2 to all creatures on my team giving me an attack of 20 against a fully tapped out opponent. It was a quick and sneaky win which I felt a bit bad for.

Game 2 was more even until I hit my 6 drop - an enchantment that gave all creatures double strike and lifelink. I'd not expected to manage to get to 6 so this was a cool bonus. Two turns later it was all over and as we were not doing playoffs I'd won the tournament!

I took a comfort break, and played another of the local players Chris with my back-up deck (was 1-1) while the 3rd 4th place match was finished and won by Vicky's brother Rob (also a friend of mine) and had the idea to buy a booster for the top three players out of my own funds to reward their turnout (the tournament was free entry to encourage more players which almost didn't work!). All packs had good card in and karma rewarded me with my 2nd Drogskol Reaver which will be fun to build around.

As every player bought at least one booster I think an entry fee + prize pack would be a safe option for the next event (last Sat of every month until we get tired of it is the plan!). Hopefully we can mimic The Road To WPN and get Core status just like internet hero and general nice guy Don did!

Afterwards some of us went back to Robs to gaze at his fish and talk toot and play a 3 player card game that was more about the tea and chat than the game. A pretty good Saturday all in all!

Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 Downloadable Deck Packs Deck Lists

2012-01-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx?x=mtg/digital/d12/decks

Wizards have quietly been releasing two decks every two months for Planeswalkers while I've been busy with FNM and real life and I thought it may be useful to share the links to the full deck lists here.

They are theme decks and seem to be quite popular (especially the Knights one which currently seems a little more powerful than the rest). The names are March to War (White Red), Ghoulkeeper (Black grave returns), Forest's Fury (Treefolk tribal in Green), Dark Heavens (Black & White and similar to a DKA intro deck), Beknighted (White Knights), and Trinity of Elements (Riku of Two Reflections Blue Green Red).

Hopefully DLC 2 for the Dark Ascension paper block will be announced this week - i'm expecting it to come out after the launch of the block but to contain more cards from it because of this. I don't think Wizards were keen that we knew a bunch of cards before they released the info due to people peeking into the game files!

Speaking of Ascension we've been playing that in the house almost as much as Magic: The Gathering so I may do a quick write up of that one of the days...

Innistrad Prerelease, Launch and Launch

2011-10-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note about these! I went to the £25 66 person Pre-release, an 17 person draft (my first ever) launch in which I only had to pay £10 entry to get the promo (which is pretty good) and then the £25 launch in Stafford where there were about 28 people.

I didn't do amazingly in any of them (in fact I did best in the draft, but still wasn't top half) but I did have a lot of fun and got some great cards. Thinking of scaling back for the next set - but I still got a booster box to crack. I am in possession of 67 unopened booster packs counting the 2012 ones we haven't played with yet!

Friday Night Magic 6 - Leaving Zendikar

2011-10-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

Pre-release, launch & life have all been busy.

Almost 2 weeks ago I took my favourite deck The Black Deck in it's newly streamlined form as Phyrexian Suicide Cult out to FNM to see if it could do better than in my very first FNM now I knew what was going on. Essentially it did really well - I came 2nd, but lost to the same guy I lost to in round 3. Black sacrifice decks don't do well against decks full of cheap creatures, and certainly not one full of exile enchantments! The player was easily the most experienced person there and while it was a borrowed deck he'd made it a lot more consistant than the owner had & didn't drop a game all night.

The 'quarter finals' against my friends illusions deck was very close - I'm not sure what happened int he end, but I think I utility milled him by surgically extracting Ponder and then removing all his decent sized creatures with Life's Finale straight from the deck. This may be a direction to move in now that there won't be as many double use creatures around. I chose Pathrazer of Ulamog DCI promo as my free card to celebrate rotation.

I was happy with the decks performance and it could retire in style and I could potter off to the following day's Pre-release happy.

Birmingham - City of Magic

2011-09-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

When we started playing on March 11th 2011 by buying the Deck Builder's Toolkit 2011 we found few Magic The Gathering events happening in our local town (Birmingham, UK). Now it requires two blog posts. One with the list - and one to explain what I think happened (I am an Analyst after-all).

This is the second post with what I feel caused this shift, and my tiny part in it:

On March 11th 2011 three guys with disposable income walked into a games store and paid £15 for a box of cards. Each. Then one of them bought a second box (this was me). This simple action was part of a chain of events that led to a town with only one Wizards Play Network (WPN) event per quarter (Magic Geek's Pre Releases) getting more than any one person could attend, or even easily count. While I am personally responsible for these three poor souls (and a 4th who tried his best to resist the call of the Elves) I'm not responsible for the amazing amount of events that are scheduled for the next two weekends, but I thought it'd be interesting to see exactly what was. But I'm getting ahead of myself - the real story starts during the Xbox December online sales.

I was working away over the pre-Xmas period and spotted on my Xbox that the Magic The Gathering game had dropped in price from 800 points (£6.40) to 400 points (£3.20) and while I'd enjoyed the trial it's safe to say I didn't really get the game so I deleted it. I figured it'd be some cheap fun and good for short breaks in work and so I bought it after redownloading and re-trialing it. I played it an awful lot over the next few months - encouraging friends to get it too. I also renamed the blog and re-purposed it from Pokemon to general games (as was always planned in my 'write every day' strategy for essay improvement). Shortly after this promotion the game hit half a million copies sold and the sequel was announced. I looked into buying cards and found that a beginners box of cards was about £17 but that if we waited a month then the new version was out. I mentioned it to people at work and we decided to all jump in. Note in that last story that my total cards budget was £25 and I'd said I'd sell any I found worth over £10.

Some opened all their boxes and put into piles. I catalogued all three sections here, and looking back it's amazing to see that some of the cards from those first 8 boosters are still ones I play. This section still gets a huge chunk of the site visits so this is an amazingly popular product and loads of the people at Friday Night Magic (FNM) have the boxes from this for cards, but again this is yet to come.

Over the next few weeks I raised my spending limit to £100 and then broke it all without getting anywhere near a win, even casually. I like to think of this as the Schumacher effect (after the F1 driver). He tended to go off a lot in practice sessions and the UK commentators would get happy that he was vulnerable. Truth is the only way to find out the absolute fastest speed you can take a corner at is to go over it and then do just a bit less in the actual race. This effect stood me in good stead as a month and a half after buying the cards I'd actually won some crucial big games within our casual circle - go me! Uni was busy and so was work so MTG had taken a back seat.

I did some Googling about the new set and found that they were running an event 20 min walk from my house for it's release! I had to go - even if it was £25 and only 8 weeks after we started playing. Mentally i was drained before I'd turned up, but I did OK and found Karn & a Mox Opal which have since traded places on the value scales. I was surprised to find the event was relaxed and full of people just like me who played for fun (at the bottom tables at least!) and I honestly think that if this first experience wasn't so great that I'd have never gone to another event. I was also surprised to find out that it wasn't some official organiser and just run by the shop Magic Geek. I now understand how it all works, but do feel sorry for the tournament organisers like Steve that don't get all the bonuses the physical shops get just because he runs online & events only (especially when so many people seem to be new players that turn up to his events - new DCI cards are always being given out).

Karn took a trip to e-bay, didn't sell and then I went and bought a box of boosters which was rapidly shredded and then ignored due to work. A month passed. All was quiet on the MTG front and then something happened. The new version of the Xbox game launched. This simple pebble into the placid lake of nerddom is the start of why we have the massive amount of events. Suddenly the people who missed out on the game and the related promotions had an excuse to join us in our addiction. The promo cards were dished out giving the site a confusing story (as I got the old promo decks by mistake) but one that still gets the most hits. The promo cards were only in proper game stores, and the online tool (when it was playing ball) directed you to these shops. Our local store Wayland's Forge practically sold out of sealed Magic decks and boosters when this happened - all their lapsed players returned at once. This amazing act of acquisition convinced a lot of other stores that they should also register to give out the promotional cards - other stores pinged up on the WPN radar as places to not only buy cards, but to get the special shiny giants.

As the actual launch for Magic 2012 came and went the stores seemed to realise that they'd missed out on a pay day. Customers like me were talking about their competitors and travelling a few miles to the events. It's still a big job to put on a full Magic event so most waited until the Magic Celebration (a free event for both stores and consumers which I couldn't attend) to get started. A few started a little earlier such as the fabulous Road to WPN Blog details where a guy with no stores ends up running two lots of events and Game UK who runs the FNM that I've been to 5 of so far - even though it's only just become official and only gets the Promo cards from October. A store needs to run events before it becomes a CORE store and gets full access to the promo program and Game UK has just hit that one week too late to run a pre-release. I guess many are in a similar position as most Birmingham stores are only running a launch (or an unofficial event on launch day in a few cases!). This suggests that Magic Celebration needs to be about a month earlier so that stores can get 3 more events in within the time needed to pre-release the first set in the new block.

As an aside you may have noticed from the pics I got 4 titans - I bought 4 copies of the game! While the Steam & XBL versions were for myself the two spare XBL versions were for younger relatives. Since I paid for their games I got their promo, but since then both have expressed an interest in the paper product too... This was a risk I was willing to take as frankly there are far more damaging activities for teenagers than a card game that teaches important lessons about budgeting, winning and loosing and encourages critical thought. Long story short both are turning up to the last Zendikar FNM as their first full FNM (one made it to half of one a week ago...). More player acquisitions due to the value and desirability of the promos. I'm guessing a similar story has been told in many households and across many formats.

This mass of events is great for semi-players like our group. We aren't too bothered about winning the whole thing, we are just happy to participate. I got 2nd at one of these Friday tournaments but was lucky that no-one expected infect (cheers MaRo!) and may not get away with that again. This mass of events is basically the market's response to the new player base, and the response by us the player will determine how many survive. I suspect the Sat pre-release will fill up so am going to pre-book my place just in case.

As every store in town creeps towards Core status together in the next three months it will be very interesting. Cards will get cheaper for stores and maybe players, players will get better due to practice and events will either become larger or forced out by the competition. Those attached to shops may not care once they get the bonuses that Core status brings (lower priced stock and more freebies) but some may push for ADVANCED status for running 32+ player events.

Magic is poised to become bigger than it's ever been. I've played with people from work as a pretence to invite people over for an evening of fun. My fiance has even invited her work friends over and joined in with the fun (although Commander probably wasn't the best place to start). And over the next few months I'll play a lot less - these things always cycle, but a few good friends have expressed an interest in being shown how to turn creatures sideways and 'Despise' people with a smile on their face. And who am I to deny them that pleasure.

TL;DR?
Planeswalkers 09 dropped in price & reached a broader section of marketplace
Cheap beginner card sets got the early adopters in
Planeswalkers 2012 restarted everyone at the same point with desirable shiny cards
Magic Celebration got people out into the shops proving that there was an audience
Stores responded and scheduled events - if unsupported they may be one offs.

Innistrad Schedule

2011-09-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Magic 5 - Compare the Myr Deck

2011-09-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

As Steel Overseer is about to drop out of standard I felt compelled to play my multiplayer Myr deck build for the pre-FNM games nights we had at my house. I miss these, but we may restart them on a Wed.

Basically the idea is you throw out a load of little Myr then boost and tap/untap them with trinkets and then hope to find my one copy of Tempered Steel or Jor Kadeen to make you win faster. I have 1 voltaic key to reuse the overseers as needed too which adds to the chaos. In theory it works. Not against the FNM field though...

Round one was a 2-0 loss against burn & bloodthirst which was interesting, but I couldn't keep anything on the board long enough to get boosting.

Round 2 was the White Ally deck and while I started big in game 2 I got DOJ'd off the board and couldn't rebuild fast enough to get my items powered up. 2-0 again

Round 3 was more promising as this Diabolic Tutor deck was good, but I had essentially 4 turns to ramp up. I kept drawing into my high cost Scrapyard Salvo and Relentless Assault 'end game' cards and couldn't outpace him. 2-0. I took these out at the end of the game and won 4 straight side games over the rest of the evening! Such is Magic.

I did a write up of this with the LSV energy drink for FSF.

Round 4? Bye. This gave me the extra 2 PWP I needed to hit Level 10! With the FNM/Pre-release next weekend giving me a pretty much guaranteed 5 base participant points I could be sitting pretty for the start of the Oct FNM proper.

Next week Phyrexian Suicide Cult 1.5 takes it's final bow prior to rotation. And I have a few extra surprises slotted in...

Friday Night Magic 4 - Beware the Trees...

2011-09-18T06:09:00.000-07:00

Bit belated this one. Couldn't Tweet due to balancing the arrival of a friend to his first ever FNM (and getting on the right bus int he wrong direction to miss two rounds), and forgot to write up.

I thought that this one was a bit of a bust - the deck seemed to take ages to get anywhere and struggled to find answers to other people's win conditions. I was playing Blue Green Landfall and had up to 30 mana on some turns due to 2x Vorinclex but failed to put enough X cost cards in to utilise it.

Round 1 was against good friend @Disknoir 's Blue 'stall then play Stormtide' deck which would be fantastic if everyone wasn't playing burn and removal spells. I cocked up my landfall and lost my only decent flier by adding +2/+2 instead of +4/+4 and couldn't fly over the stormtide after this. Due to time this was a draw in the end, but I bet I could have won game 3 due to knowing what I needed to keep back to beat the stormtide.

Round 2 was against a BladeHold deck I really couldn't beat once it got going. I had to go collect my visitor during this game too so was a bit distracted - 2-0 to him.

Round 3 was against elves, and while game 1 took ages due to me not finding good damage producers game 2 was a walkover with the fab Hydra getting into 3 digit tokens again (it had in round 1 but been unable to attack).

Round 4 was unfortunately against my invited friend! It was fun to play, but as we'd been playing this same match-up the night before it felt like we'd been robbed of another contest. i won 2-1 due to a slip up in round 2 on my part where I hadn't taken the lifelink into account.

I came top half and gave my friend the promo card - he'd earned it!

If I'd conceded faster in Round 1 game 1 we might have made it to the 3rd game and I could have come top 4. As my Rd 2 opponed pointed out I needed to put BEast within in the deck and I realised after that adding 4 cards for red X cost spells would make the deck much more powerful. After rotation I will run this deck again - but without landfall can a landfetch deck really be that good? It'll be fun to find out.

Also - here is my Planeswalker Points link!

Friday Night Magic 3 - Loss Adjustment

2011-09-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

This week's was a four round affair where I took a Red/Black/Blue deck manipulation 75 card affair that I'd built the previous week while quite ill. It didn't do very well. The theme was 'make Time Reversal playable' This card is a Mythic Rare from the Magic 2012 set that is lower in value than most of the normal Rares. Ponder - a common card - tends to sell for more. I figured a way that you could kill people with it and went to work.

Round 1 - Red/Black Burn & vampires beat me 2:0

Round 2 - Elves beat me 2:0 (I think this was the same borrowed elves as a previous week being played by a different person)

Round 3 - Illusions beat me 2:0

Round 4 - A different Elves beat me 2:1. Yes - I won the penultimate game of the night.

After the Illusions battle I spread out my cards and found I'd only left 4 Red spells in and still got lots of mana (basic and non basic) for them. I took those out and fixed the lands and it ran a lot more smoothly. Still very clunky and requiring longer games to win with not much in the way of stalling tactics (Spellskite as a star blocker?!) I managed to sneak out a Psychosis Crawler with a Time reversal in hand and played it for the win (when I draw a card Psychosis Crawler does one damage to target player - Time Reversal makes us both dump hands and draw 7) - goal!!achieved!!

Sure I had to loose 8 (plus two extra matches I played to see what happened) to get 1 win, but I've figured out the key parts of the process now. I loved having Psychic surgery in the deck, but exiling cards only gets you so far - and the idea isn't really to let the opponent live to use their 7 cards.

On to next week where I'm looking after new players so will play a more traditional deck.

Friday Night Magic 2: The Infect Deck

2011-08-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

So - Two friday night Magic's down.

Game 1: Played a 17 year old lady who had only bought her deck that day and hadn't really had chance to play with it (it was the empires Intro deck). I won 2:0 but spent lots of time on education.

Game 2: Won the first round, but lost twice to terrible short mana. The deck was mostly the bloodthirst Intro deck with some cool twists - this guy came 3rd/4th.

Game 3: This was Vs the combo deck from last week & I lost the first one then won a turn 2 super infect and drawn out regular infect. 2:1 and 2:1 overall.

Game 4: Played against the same deck as game 1 but with massive modification. I won a fast game 1, lost to empires in 2 and won on turn 3 in the final game. 3:1 and into the top 4 (woo!)

I chose Auramancer foil as my promo and gave it imediadly to a friend.

Game 5: Against the organiser again!! To revenge last weeks loss I won two straight games with infect to grab a Tormented Soul promo for myself. Super Woo!

Game 6 - the Final. We relaly only had time to play one fast game and after Mulliganing to 5 I still had nothing and had elected to play. CAW living weapon made short work of me. 2nd is still amazing though.

Deck was
4x Titanic Growth
4x Giant Growth
4x Groundswell
4x Mutagenic Growth
as the engine

4x Glistner Elves
4x Phyrexian Myr

as the courier

with plenty of other evil tech to help such as the infect spider and corpse cur to pull it back.

Next week I'm thinking blue. Maybe...

I got another Pharoh in the booster which is amazing for the black deck.

My First Friday Night Magic

2011-08-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Wasn't expecting much in the way of victories expecting all to be running tournament level stuff. Turns out it was all friendly and similar to our own little game group. I'll happily go again next week. Here are the Tweets from the evening.

I'm at my first #fnm about to get my ass handed to me by teenagers.

most have yugi out which is apparently sick... Not sure on numbers yet.

I see two black and red, and one illusions and lots of yugi. Nothing happening yet. Not sure what's happening!

Not sure what the kids in this internet cafe are playing but I want a go. (Turns out it was League of Legends - looks good).

If you rush down you'd be top 8 and fifty fifty on a promo card. Thinking max 9 players. Non of the yugi lot are playing!

Game 1 against organiser. Close loss, fast win, close loss. Really fun final game, many creatures eaten. #fnm (I think I should have actually won the last game as I forgot to resurrect Vengeful Pharoh for free - killing his creature in process - winning this would have changed the whole evening :( )

Game 2, good player with odd, borrowed elves. Won two. Once I had control it was straight forward. #fnm (Turns out this guy had 4 Planeswalkers which never saw the board!)

Game 3: Red black burn. Obliterator won game 1, almost won a close game 2 which I'm not sure how I lost. And game 3 I was toast from opening (Think i messed up my creature attacks game 2 - could have got the extra damage. G3 was a quick and messy affair...)

Game 4: guy hating his blue black deck from the start but it did lots but nothing deadly. 2 nil. #fnm (Opponent hadn't won all night and the deck seemed OK, but pushing in too many areas).

Overall I was joint third, but on opponents win percentages I was 7th! Still top 8 tho. ;) (yes - there were 8 players)

Booster Box Madness: M12 Edition (Pt1)

2011-07-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Being fairly new to Magic cards (4 months now I guess) I’d never appreciated the distribution of cards in a booster box. I understood that (excluding foils) you couldn’t get two of the same card in a booster pack. I understood that each back consisted of 10 common, 3 uncommon & 1 rare card – and that there was a 1 in 8 chance the rare would be replaced with a mythic rare. Also there is a 1 in 68 chance that one of the common cards is replaced by a foil (and that foil card has an equal chance of being any of the 249 cards in M12 – including lands). This is where I thought it ended – but it seems it does not.

You see like all trading card games MTG cards are cut from a large sheet. This enables them to cut the cards in such a way that you don’t get repeats in a pack. I didn’t think about this too much, but it seems that the sheets thing goes further. The number of repeats of a card you will get in a box is also limited (excluding foils). If you open the packs int he order they were in the box you even get a pattern of the lands that come out so that you get an even number of each type! Now I’m basing this on the incredibly small sample size of my first M12 box (the second is still sealed ready for a games night in a month or so), but looking back at the New Phyrexia stats I kept (which was one sealed box with an added 8 more boosters from sealed deck events) it holds true.

From the opening of 36 packs from the same M12 box I have:

Common – 352 (not incl. 3 foil cards)

4x 52

3x 46

2x 3

Uncommon – 110 (not incl. 2 foil)

2x 49

1x 10

0x 1 (Cudgel Troll)

Rare – 32 (not incl. 2 foil)

2x 1 (Bird of Paradise)

1x 30

Mythic – 4 (no foil)

1x 4

Foil – 8

3 Common

2 Uncommon

2 Rare (Monomania & Redirect)

1 Swamp

As anyone who has even walked past a probability distribution this is unnatural. It’s like the random sampling has happened to set rules that are hiding in the background – the sheets are probably large and with a non repeated pattern and the start point for a box probably varies dependant on where they come in the run. This leaves me with the rather odd position of having bought a box of cards and having no real ‘swaps’. It also means I can guarantee what I’m going to see in box two – 3/4 of every common, 1 or 2 of every common, mostly singletons of rares and some random mythics.

This means if we play sealed deck with the other box and I have 3 copies of a certain common spell (say ‘cancel’) then I know that the rest of the group only has access to a maximum of one copy of that spell. At large public tournaments I’m guessing this doesn’t matter at all, but in single store events playing from one box it may distort things a little.

Either way, I’m going to either have to sell the box without having the fun of the sealed/packwars/draft night (unlikely) or end up with a spare of all the commons and a full playset of the uncommons (likely – afterall 4 more mythics may await!). I don’t mind the predictability of the contents of a booster box – in fact it means I can budget better around and know that any extra packs added on afterwards as impulse buys are far more likely to cause repeat cards. It does make it far less likely that i’ll buy a 2^nd box in future, but I had my own reasons for not wanting to ‘play as you open’ on the first box this time so in future it’ll be less of an issue.

The mythics I pulled were Gideon, Primevel Titan, Time Reversal & Primordial Hydra. 3 out of 4 are ones I’d play so not bad.

Oops - 3 M12 Booster Boxes and 3 Chandra's Phoenix!

2011-07-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

Not all mine. We went to Superdrome Worcester for the prices and snacks.

Ed:

Home now - a spot of relaxed and annotated booster ripping is in order. One box is getting squirrelled away for multiplayer at a later date.

I do like Superdrome - it's essentially the kind of shop that every high-street should have so I have no qualms about choosing them over the more MTG Pro style store just up the road. Anywhere that has 4 kinds of Risk and more plastic tat than I did as a teenager must be encouraged and supported.

Will probably post up the results - i'm due a run of underwealming cards, but as I've already found an Adaptive Automaton I'm not going to be too disappointed whatever happens.

Plus I have some amazing stuff from Yum Yum including a tea drink that looks like infected frogspawn and some new Meiji goodies that will get written up at FoodStuff Finds (eventually).

Just two M12 Boosters 0_0

2011-07-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

With the Intro packs I got at the Pre-Release detailed below I got two boosters - one in each pack. Initially I thought I'd let the recipients of the Intro packs open them themselves as it's good fun to do so. Over the next few days I realised that firstly I wouldn't see the guys until I actually have boxes of boosters to play with, and secondly that getting them 'into' boosters would be a Very Bad Thing which would not enhance their play experience at all. Me making them decks is far more cost effective and gives me something to do with those commons I have floating around. They get their moments of discovery from opening & playing the decks so I resolved to open the boosters one a night.

Last night I cracked open the first one. It was going pretty well - first card Ponder which is the most sought after common card, then a Mage and part of the Empires cycle and then. A mythic rare dragon! Not only that, but Furyborn Hellkite is playable in the intro deck that I got them (Blood & Fire) and is only 1 mana above the Face card for the pack. A great pull and as it's the second cheapest M card in the set at the moment not one I'd mind passing on if needed. Certainly got my value from the £12 Into pack with this lot!

Cut to day two. It's getting late and I've caught up on all the usual internet stuff so I decide to open the second booster as planned. Commons are nothing special - even have a duplicate of two or three cards already just from the two boosters I have. Uncommons are more interesting as there is an O Ring to pop in the Blue deck and a nice fire card and then I get to the card at the back.

And then I do a double take and have a second look.

Two boosters - two Mythics - and probably the most desirable card in the set at this early stage. This is Planeswalker number 3 I've found with Vess & Karn also coming in boosters, but probably the most surprising. The probability of this is only 1 in 64 occasions so if I were to open 2 packs every day I'd get double Mythic once every two months (and I'd probably be poor from buying 128 boosters).

It's amazing luck though and I am certainly keeping both Mythics until after I get the box(es) on Friday so will give them a good amount of replacement loot instead of Chandra, the Firebrand. Heck - I might even buy more Intro packs and slide the lucky boosters out into my pile just to be on the safe side...

M12 Pre Release Promo Loot

2011-07-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

As part of the promo event run by Magic Geek .co.uk I picked up two of the new M12 Intro Decks, Mystical Might and Blood & Fire, along with two Promotional Bloodlord of Vaasgoth.

First up the Blue White Illusions deck Mystical Might. This is pretty fast and can cause some trouble for beat down decks as by the time they are playing threats this deck has counter magic up and running. I managed to hand the first loss to a high ranking agro goblin deck that was playing in the sealed deck, and beat some constructed decks with it too. It'd be fairly easy to upgrade (there are a lot of non illusion creatures).

The rare card Lord of The Unreal is the star and the deck only lost once when I'd got that out. Extra copies would make this more consistent.

The other deck is slightly different - it's a balanced Red Black deck that focuses on the Bloodthirst mechanic so has burn and direct damage as it's theme. It's also good but seemed less able to beat the decks on offer. I ran out of time so only played the six necessary games to earn the promo, but never got to play either of the high cost mythics - M12 is just that fast.

The mythic vampire promo would slot right into this deck and boost a good few of the cards. It'd be harder to supplement the bloodthirst mechanic as M12 is the only standard legal set featuring the keyword. Haste creatures would be a great way to get first turn damage to start the chain though.

There are some great uncommons in these packs - O ring in Blue White & Swiftfoot Boots in the Red Black so if you aren't looking to get too many boosters it may be a cheaper way to get the star cards of the set in workable decks without breaking the bank.

I didn't open the boosters.

M12 pre release

2011-07-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

I completely forgot to live blog the pre release. Things got a bit hectic! I got two intro decks and played around 15 games to earn my promo cards. Pics another day.
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