Gathering 21/02/2012

The gathering happened at Carey’s this week as he has a bigger table. With our ever expanding army this is a wise move for us.

The gathering was down two players this night; Mark and Kevin. However, the numbers were made up by Carey’s Son, Christopher and partner Sadie. So with Bernard, Lee, Carey himself and me, we had six players for the first time.

We started with a 5 player “all vs. All” as Sadie was out. It was a slow starting game as in his second go Christopher had dealt 2 damage to every creature on the battlefield, meaning we were all without creatures at this point. Also, through this game both Lee and Christopher were safer with drawing either no land or nothing at all, but this inevitably made them small players in the game.

I was playing my Boggart feast deck; the last time I played with it I had two ‘Door of Destinies’ cards out,

one with eleven counters on it and the other with three counters on it. It’s an unpredictable deck to play but I thought I was quid’s in. In my opening hand I had two ‘Stenchskipper’ cards in my hand.

But one got destroyed then the other was enchanted with ‘pacifism’.

I was first taken out by Carey’s flying creatures, then a sorcery that deals 1 damage from Christopher. Bernard was next to follow, then Christopher and finally Lee.

Our first empire match was formed of Lee and Sadie having Christopher as there emperor. Carey and I had Bernard as our emperor. Lee was using his Golem deck, Christopher a red Deck and Sadie a Red and Black Vampire deck. I was using my ‘Mana Munchers’ Deck, Bernard his Blue deck and Carey a Spirit Deck.

The game started with Christopher having a card that activates for free, if in your opening hand it deals three damage to all opponents, and you consequently gain life from the damage dealt. So Carey, Bernard and I lost 3 each before doing anything and Christopher was sat with 29 life to start the game.

Carey and I didn’t waste any time in getting to work on our opponents. Carey more so as if left unchecked Lee’s deck can be sat on 6 or more 6/6’s. His spirit flyers made quick work on Lee’s life count.

I had a very good opening hand; ‘Wirewood Elf’, ‘Explosive Vegetation’ and three forests to get my mana up quickly.

With my third turn I had ‘Allosaurus Rider’ out and waiting to be cast on it ‘Shape of the Wiitigo’ and ‘Blanchwood Armor’; at the end of the day it was a 21/21.

Sadie was defenceless against me simply through bad draws, only making one move in which to use ‘Traitorous Blood’ on my ‘Wirewood Elf’ as that’s all I had out at that point.

If only she had waited. 

Christopher had also suffered the effect of a mana clump which made him draw a land every turn, with no useful cards. It didn’t take me and Carey long to deal with him.

The second game was not destined to go as well. I used my blue deck, which would prove to be too slow and Bernard was using a deck he had never used before, and because the deck was unknown to him he did not play it in the way it was intended. I was unable to stay alive long enough to pass him my 13/13 which would have bought him some time.

Carey had put up a good fight, but once your emperor is taken down your team loses. For our first empire match it all went well with the least amount of confusion as possible.

Weird Dream

I always have outrageous dreams when I do dream, but I feel the need to share this one as I had one of my most bizarre dreams to date the other night.

It started out that I was in a college situation with the radio station from my work being played; the radio plays songs which no one has heard of before, and we’ve had the songs looped 24/7 for over a year now, so when I heard The Calling’s “Wherever you will go” I gave the biggest cheer I could manage.

I went over to a bed – I’m not sure where it came from – and found a penguin egg which I had to look after until it hatched as it had no parents; well I hatched it, but it turned out to be a polar bear, which had such a tight grip around my hand. I had to talk to an expert because I couldn’t look after a polar bear, so it was decided it had to be put down. I cried my heart out.

I then find Luke Skywalker so badly beaten up that there was no hope for him... So I put an ice block on him so he would go easily.



I then entered a blocked-in showroom in which I learnt Skywalker was ok. I felt I needed to hide from him but some teenagers had broken in, compromising my cover. As the Skywalker part of the dream dissolved, I shouted and got rid of the teenagers. I then laughed rather hard about something and wet myself (but only in the dream!). After a while I met up with my old manager from work but I kept telling him I couldn’t stay long as I had wet myself.

I ended up at a Velvet Revolver gig; Slash ended up choosing a young lady and I to take part in a competition. We had to go to a bedroom and find clues, but before getting there I had a chat with my Dad about biting toe nails (I’d like to point out, I don’t bite nails).

So we went to the room and started following the clues which finished with me having my head out of the window...

I was woken up after that, but I think that’s a bloody random dream.

Gathering: 25/1/2012

Another week where I didn’t really document the game; I know this is getting rather lazy of me but with working through a promotion at work, things do have to take a side step unfortunately.

This week I got stuck in with a Planechase game, using the planner deck from Elemental Thunder, which proves popular if you’re playing with green and red. I was not, nor was Lee or Carey for that matter. SO we were quite played down on that game.

The next game we played was with the planner deck, Zombie Empire. This didn’t work in anyone’s favour and was quite hated. “Pools of Becoming” was the first Planner card to be set, which stopped any early strategy plans, and it was set to stay for so many turns.

Nobody could plan their next move - which when you’re playing a five player game you would like to really. The next card to be set into play was “The Fourth Sphere”,

which just stunted game play altogether as nobody was playing a black deck; this game was destined to be a long and dragging process. Also, this was only the second time Bernard was introduced to Planechase. With his inexperience, he was more set on rolling the die to change the planner card, then playing the cards in his deck. As the first two cards had been against the wishes of all the players he had the mindset that all the cards would do the same; this led him to try and get rid of the plane without working out that all of this was actually in his favour.

It wasn’t his fault, maybe we as a group forced it upon him too soon, but it did bring the whole game down and this made him lose interest in playing that night. The next game was a normal “all against all” format because Bernard had dropped out for the rest of the night.

Mark played his Sliver deck in the hope I was going to play mine; we could have then fed off of one and others powers. This would have been bad news for Lee and Carey. However, I did not do this which meant the three of us would make quick work to rid the game of Slivers. Carey was the next to go, but only just. Lee was the one to finish him off by taking advantage of my “Wound Reflection”. I had already taken much damage that game so it didn’t take long for my demise to come round to me.

Gathering: 11/01/2012

The first Gathering of the year, and we had 5 out of 6 of the usual players so still no empire match, but still, fun was had.

We started with an “all on all”; we started the game as a 4 player, but then Lee turned up and we let him take his first 3 goes all at once to catch up. In hindsight this might not have been the best thing to do as he became the dominating force very quickly.

I had chosen one of my favourite decks to play, but I was mana screwed and wouldn’t do anything till near the end of the match; where I would take up one of the big players on Lee’s side then power up me “Chameleon Colossus” with “Garruk Wildspeaker” using his main ability. This made my Chameleon an impressive 14/14 with trample.

What bugged me in this game though was that I had 2 “Skarrgan Skybreaker” and “Borboygmos’” in my hand for the whole game.

We then moved onto an Archenemy game, but instead of using a pre-made Archenemy themed deck, I used one of my own; “Gods Galore”, with a quickly thrown together scheme deck. We played twice, and I was defeated both times (deck list to come soon as I am considering making it a permanent Archenemy deck). 

Soon after, Lee and Kev called it a night; Mark, Bernard and I went on to play a Planechase game. This proved a bit of a challenge as Bernard hadn’t played this format before, and would forget to pay attention to the Plane card. 

Overall it was a very fun night in which I forgot to take my usual notes to aid writing a properly laid out blog; so next time normality will return with photos as well.

Grave-Born

Grave-Born is the third in the Premium Deck series. It is a Re-animator deck, meaning it plays the majority of creature cards from the graveyard, rather than from your hand. You make ask, what is the point? Well, when it comes to playing cards from your graveyard, it means using spells rather than the creatures casting cost; which may be a lot cheaper.

I have played this deck about 5 times, and it has pulled through each time so far. Upon my first time of playing the deck, I had the best starting hand I have ever hand in my years of playing Magic: The Gathering. I was unable to use it though as I was playing against my cousin who had only been playing a week or so, and at this point it would have been completely unfair. This did sadden me, but life goes on.

So what makes this deck so good?

It is such a cheap deck to play! The spells required only cost the converted max of 4 to play. Being mana screwed shouldn’t be a problem, as I find pre-made decks are already mana heavy. 

My friend Kev likes to put a lot of cards from your library into your graveyard; well thanks mate, you’ve done  half of the work for me as that’s where I want to play my creatures from.

And if all goes to plan... you can dominate a game in your second go.

You also don’t have to rely purely on your own cards, if an opponent has something you like the look of in their graveyard, you have the option to “re-animate”, to steal it with. As such, there are many ways to get what you want into your graveyard with this deck.

“Buried Alive” and “Entomb” let you choose from your library and then put them into your graveyard, ready for your re-animate spells.

“Zombie Infestation”, “Last Rites”, “Sickening Dreams” and “Cabal Therapy” let you discard cards, so if you have a creature in your hand, it isn’t too late! You can still get it into the graveyard; “Sickening Dreams” can help you clear the battlefield before getting something nasty into play. 

To get your creatures onto the battlefield from the graveyard you must:

“Animate Dead”: this does get your creature a -1/-0, but if this is your second go it isn’t a problem. Trust me.

“Exhume”: Each player gets to put a creature into play from the graveyard, but if you play it early enough then they may not have anything to play.

“Diabolic Servitude”: now as long as this enchantment doesn’t get destroyed if your creature dies, “Diabolic Servitude” goes back to your hand to be played again.

“Dread Return”:

Creatures to re-animate: 

“Blazing Archon” - If you can get this out in your second go then you are dominating. 

“Inkwell Leviathan” - Good against Blue players and heavy spell users. 

“Sphinx of the Steel Wind” - Good if played later when you’ve already had a beating. Get some life back with its Life-link ability. 

“Crosis, the Purger” - Everyone loves a Dragon. 

“Terastodon” - If you have the right cards, a 9/9 on your second go, not bad. 

“Verdant Force” - Feel the need to up your defence with a 1/1 each turn? This is your guy. 

“Avatar of Woe” - Now if there are 10 creatures in total in ALL graveyards, it only costs 2 to get out, so you may be able to play from your hand. Tap, destroy target creature... Handy if something big is in the way.

Of course there are smaller creatures to keep you going if you aren’t drawing the right cards with handy discard abilities too.

A 10/10 deck design if you ask me, and I’d recommend anyone to give it a go. 

Deck List: 

Black Creatures 

Putrid Imp x2 

Hidden Horror x2 

Faceless Butcher 

Twisted Abomination 

Avatar of Woe 

Green Creatures 

Terastodon 

Verdant Force 

Blue Creatures

 

Inkwell Leviathan 

White Creatures 

Blazing Archon 

Multi Coloured Creatures 

Crosis, the Purger 

Sphinx of the Steel Wind 

Black Other 

Cabal Therapy 

Duress x3 

Entomb 

Reanimate 

Animate Dead x3 

Exhume x3 

Sickening Dreams x2 

Zombie Infestation 

Buried Alive x2 

Last Rites x2 

Diabolic Servitude x2 

Dread Return x2 

Land: 

Crystal Vein 

Ebon Stronghold 

Polluted Mire 

Swamp x21 

Christmas catch up!

As you may have noticed I haven’t blogged for a little while, so here’s a quick catch up on what is going on!

We now have a new player in our gathering; my uncle’s son is now living with him so this meant I got on the case of training him up. As luck would have it he took to it like a duck takes to water. We have yet to have a night with all 6 of us, but as soon as we do I will be introducing the umpire format.

On another note Christmas is Magic; my wonderful girlfriend bought me 15 booster packs from Fallen Empires, The Premium Deck Series: Slivers and a book which I have lost the bid on Ebay countless times now; The Art of Magic the Gathering The Rath Cycle and she didn’t even know that!  

I will go in more depth in my coming blogs this was just to let you know I’m still alive, just work has had me busy and Christmas takes up a lot of time. 

Upcoming blogs: Review on The Art of Magic the Gathering, Review on The Premium Deck Series: Slivers, Review on The Premium Deck Series: Gravesboren and many more.

Merry Christmas! 

Innistrad pre-release 24/09/2011

Today I went to my first tournament event; the Innistrad pre-release.

The format:

You get given 6 booster packs and a promo card (this is while stocks last and you can’t use it at this event); from the 6 booster packs you must make a deck. The minimum deck size is 40 cards, and the advised maximum is a standard 75 cards. You are also allowed a sideboard of 15 cards. You then play 6 rounds of “best of 3” matches; your score is determined from your points.

Being my first MTG event, I didn’t know what to expect so inevitably I was very excited! What I didn’t account for was being late.

My sat-nav thought it would a good idea to take me through the outskirts of London, and as you might expect the traffic was slow. I managed to get to the event within 5minutes of the door closing on guests being allowed to participate. This was a huge relief as I had paid in advance! However it did mean that I only had 15minutes to build my deck; take into account the time it takes to open and read every card, which only really gives you 7minutes at most, of weighing up where the strength lies in the cards you have.

I went for a safe red/green deck. Having said that, I didn’t have too many good cards that worked well with each other; in the end I went with Werewolves. There are plenty of “pump-up” spells and equipment to power up the werewolves before they transform, to keep them happily in play. A creature stealing spell – with this you can take the biggest “blocker” out of the way and use it to attack its owner, in conjunction with the full whack of my werewolves.

On another note, my sideboard simply consisted of the cards with the colours I had used previously but were now left over.

Deck List:

            Red Creatures:

                                   

                                    Ashmouth Hound

                                    Scourge of Geier Reach

                                    Tormented Pariah - (Transformed: Rampaging Werewolf)

            Green Creatures:

                                    Woodland Sleuth x2

                                    Orchard Spirit

                                    Somberwald Spider

                                    Darkthickect Wolf

                                    Hamlet Captain

                                    Kindercatch

                                    Gatstaf Shepherd – (Transformed: Gatstaf Howler)

                                    Ulvenwald Mystics – (Transformed: Ulven Primordials)

                                    Grizzled Outcasts - (Transformed: Krallenhorde Wantons)

            Other Red:

                                    Geistflame

                                    Traitorous Blood

                                    Furor of the Bitten x2

            Other Green:

                                    Full Moon’s Rise

                                    Spidery Grasp

                                    Ranger’s Guile x3

            Artefacts:

                                    Cobbled Wings

                                    Wooden Stake

                                    Runechanter’s Pike

Sideboard list:

                        Red Creatures:

                                    Rakish Heir

                                    Bloodcrazed Neonate

                        Green Creatures:

                                    Darkthicket Wolf

                        Artefact Creatures:

                                    One-Eyed Scarecrow

                                    Creepy Doll

                        Other Red:

                                    Ancient Grudge

                                    Harvest Pyre

                                    Burning Vengeance

                                    Infernal Plunge

                        Other Green:

                                    Parallel Lives

                                    Wreath of Geists

                        Other Artefacts:

                                    Graveyard Shovel

                                    Demonmail Hauberk

During the first round, I went in with very little hope as I hadn’t had time to read my cards in depth, atleast not to an extent where I knew if I had made the best deck I could. However, my opponent said he expected to lose badly, so I felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only person thinking this wasn’t going to go as well as previously imagined. Without further adieu we got down to business. In the first game we were on a even life count from the beginning of the attacks, but I controlled my werewolf to transform and strike him down.

The second game had a similar situation to before, but my opponent was trying to hex my creatures to which my “Ranger’s Guile” worked a treat.

Hex-proofing any plan he had; and when it came to combat, I was pumping up with them to clear my path for the next attack.

I won this game with hard hitting creatures and by hex-proofing my cards. I instantly felt more confident.

Score: 2/0 to me.

Second round. My opponent was playing with a deck set in which he would continuously try to hex my cards, to which I just simply carried on playing my “Ranger’s Guile”, this inevitably stopped him, and in a big way. Though he did work me down to a life count of 5 when I had done nothing to him, I was impressed with myself that I had managed to pull myself back into form.

In the second game he couldn’t draw any creatures which meant that I just walked through and took him out.

Score: 2/0 to me.

The third round didn’t go as well. During the first game I should have declared a mulligan as I had no creatures, only land and spells that would help my creatures (had I had any); therefore he walked straight over me. I did try to play “Scourge of Geier Reach” but it was taken out almost immediately.

During the second game I did mulligan, and ended up with a worse hand than before, naturally I didn’t want to risk another. In hindsight I should have because I sat there like a lemon and died.

Score: 2/0 to opponent.

Fourth round I went up against someone who played a vampire deck... with a flying ability. It was a given really that I had nothing to deal with this flying ability; so he just flew over-head in both games. At the end of this game I switched a “Woodland Sleuth” for a “One-Eyed Scarecrow”.

During the second game he ruined me a lot faster as he played his “Bloodline Keeper”

and thus producing more 1/1 flyers each turn, this left me without defence and even if I could have got my “Cobbled Wings” into play,

I was hoping to get my “One-Eyed Scarecrow” out so his flying would decrease to -1/-0. This would slow him down but then “Bloodline Keeper” transformed into “Lord of Lineage” giving his vampires +2/+2, which kicked my hard.

Score: 2/0 to opponent.

Before the round started I gave my deck a good shuffle to separate the cards out a bit more, this proved to be a good idea as during this round I was given good draws, which led to an early lead and ultimate victory.

In both games I drew my favourite combo – “Darkthicket Wolf”

 – you can get him out in your second turn, and by the third he has increased to a 4/4, but if you wait another turn to do that and use this turn “Furor of the Bitten”

he is now a 4/4 on the third turn. It does mean he has to attack every turn, but by the next go you can pump him up to a 6/6 nice and early, destroying and defence in your way, or dealing damage that has a big impact.

My victory was a lucky one when it came to it, as my opponent had some white flyers but they didn’t come into play – this was lucky for me. He also had “Liliana of the Veil”.

Also, in the first game I had a mountain in my hand for a couple of turns to make him think I had an instant, which helped keep him from attacking when he actually could of. This is something I very rarely do, but I felt that he wasn’t someone to go into something unless he was 90% certain he could.

Score: 2/0 to me.

Last round; I wanted for us to both win a game in the round so we could have the last game where we would both be at war.

In the first game, I lacked both mana and small creatures, and he was making me discard cards from my library, “Ghoulcaller’s Bell”

and “Trepanation Blade”,

this meant I could never draw the card I wanted. As a result my defence lacked and I died. I had one game to bring me back.

During the second game I got my favourite combo out very quickly, so I worked him down almost instantly. Just as I thought, I had him; he wasn’t getting any mana out and he only laid some small flyers and “Typhoid Rats”.

I was two attacks away from winning but with that 1/1 death-touch in play, I couldn’t launch my hard-hitting creatures without sacrificing them... this would lose me the game.

I had “Traitorous Blood” in my hand which I was going to use to stop a flyer, so when I attacked with it he would have to use his other cards to block with, keeping me safe for the rest of the match, but not I had to use it on his “Rats” if I wanted my big creatures to survive.

As a result of this, it cost me the game; but I wasn’t upset by this as it was a good game.

Score: 2/0 to opponent.

At the end of it I won 3 rounds, and lost 3. I came 23^rd out of 50.

As a final note, there were some cards in my deck that I’d like to mention and show off about having; “Creepy Doll” for example.

I wanted to put it in my deck but I thought for a mana count of 5 it would be a little too late in the game, and my deck already had the big creatures to deal with everything without this addition.

“Parallel Lives”

– now it was in my sideboard, but only because it was green, as nothing in my deck made tokens. (I would look into putting this card into a token making elf deck).

“Strumgeist”

– this is a good card if you hold onto cards.

“Endless Ranks on the Dead”

– I wanted to make a black deck for this event, but none of the cards I got worked well with another colour to justify doing so. I also only had two Zombies so this card would not have helped in the way it was intended.

“Angel of Flight Alabaster”

– again I was looking to white for the flying creatures, but I just didn’t have enough flying creatures to make it worth it, and again nothing that worked well together. I did consider adding white to my deck, but I didn’t want a third colour as it simply wasn’t strong enough, and would have slowed me down.

At the end of it all, we all got a booster pack, and I received “Rooftop Storm”.

Nice!

Finally, here’s a photo of someone using skittles as +1/+1 counters.