Good Gamery

Month: October 2009

  • Lighthouse Scientists Prepare Large Hedron Collider

    TAZEEM, ZENDIKAR — The Large Hedron Collider was successfully loaded yesterday with a second White Mana Octahedron, say Lighthouse scientists.

    The Octahedron, a whopping 5 zendi-meters in length, was placed in the hammer of the device located on the foothills of East Ulzhet. Its twin, installed last zendi-January, rests upon the woodlands of Hul’Morag.

    The successful installation of the second hedron comes after the “Doom Quench” earlier this year, where a Black Mana Spheroid was loaded into the Collider with catastrophic results.

    “Rather than smashing open the target hedron, the spheroid just exploded with swamp goo,” said Mituantir the Knowledgeable, project coordinator at Lighthouse. The spheroid was, it turned out, an ancient prison for a dark vampire lord prophesied to unite the vampire tribes in an apocalyptic conquest of the whole of Zendikar.

    The stench of the goo lent weight the hypotheses of other merfolk scientists: that Black Mana Spheroids are the droppings of ancient, colossal zendi-bunnies.

    “We’re past that now,” said Mituantir. “We’ve cleaned up the goo, and we hear there’s a prophecy about a destined Promised One who’ll take care of the dark vampire lord we unleashed.”

    The goal of the Large Hedron Collider project is to smash open the target hedron and expose the contents within. Said Mituantir, “It’ll probably be the massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Zendard Model of particle physics: a Planeswalker spark.”

    “The idea is to force a severe landfall using what amounts to an oversized zendi-mouse-trap,” said the goblin artificer Dromms, head engineer, who has allied with the merfolk for the duration of the project. “Hopefully we’ll progress enough on this quest to enable some beneficial effects.”

    “Kicker,” he added.


    The Large Hedron Collider is set to activate on zendi-November 1st, the day after thousands of little Korlings dress up in costumes and quest for zendikandy.

  • Tournament Report: Spirit Mountain Vintage Open – *Winner*

    Last month, a local Indian school held a Vintage tournament with an interesting twist. They decided to take advantage of their status on the reservation and allow Ante cards, since gambling is perfectly legal there. I brewed up the following list:

    [deck title=Gamblin Drains]
    [Spells]
    3 Timmerian Fiends
    4 Bronze Tablet
    2 March of the Machines
    4 Dance of Many
    2 Rite of Replication
    2 Pernicious Deed
    4 Boomerang
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Contract From Below
    4 Dark Ritual
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    1 Timetwister
    1 Time Spiral
    1 Tinker
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Gifts Ungiven
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Mycosynth Lattice
    [/Spells]

    [Mana]
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Emerald
    4 Underground Sea
    1 Tropical Island
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Island
    3 Swamp
    [/Mana]

    [Sideboard]
    4 Smallpox
    4 Blanket Of Night
    4 Massacre
    3 Bottle Gnomes
    [/Sideboard]
    [/deck]

    It’s a typical Mana Drain control shell, but with an Ante package added in. The suite of Fiends and [card]Bronze Tablet[/card] combine with [card]Dance of Many[/card] (animating Tablet via [card]March of the Machines[/card]) to break the symmetry, allowing you to exchange a token copy instead of the original. [card]Timetwister[/card] effects allow you to reuse the combo, eventually exchanging tokens for every card in their deck, assuming they don’t scoop before then. I used glass beads for tokens, but really, you can use anything.

    Round 1

    Facing a total scrub playing affinity. I get Dance of Many going on Timmerian Fiends, and I can basically take his deck at will. Amazingly he plays it out, and finishes game 2 with 14 cards left in his library. Good luck next round, champ.

    Round 2

    Dude playing a Parfait variant. [card]Land Tax[/card] presented a bit of a problem, until I could steal it with Tablet and Tax the living shit out of him. Notable sideboard included [card]Peace Talks[/card], which held off some activations of Tablet. It wasn’t hard to wait out the Peace Talks, and then ambush him for everything. So long, chief.

    Round 3

    Zoo. Dropped game 1 to a fast start, but I brought in [card]Massacre[/card], and really, what can you do when your whole race gets Massacred? Nothing, that’s what!

    Round 4

    Mana Drain mirror. I came prepared with Smallpox+Blankets out of the sideboard, and he can never build up his manabase enough to gain control. Nice try, kemosabe. Have a handful of glass beads, and I’ll enjoy keeping your lands.

    Round 5

    Dredge. I’ve never seen anyone splashing red for [card]Gamble[/card] before. He must reeeeeaaaallly like Gambling. Anyway, Dredge doesn’t have much in the way of permanents anyway, and I make short work of him.

    5-0, and in the top 8!

    Round 6

    Oath. I don’t play a creature until I can simply steal his Oath, and that is. Nice Oath, dude. Here’s a hint: any deck based on keeping a promise probably isn’t going to get you far.

    Round 7

    I don’t even know what he was playing, because he scooped as soon as he saw me. Funny, cause he had a date with some Bottle Gnomes.

    Finals

    It’s the Zoo guy from round 3! His deck is pretty sparse at this point, and he doesn’t put up much of a struggle. Matter of fact I think he will fight no more forever.

    So that’s that, and I take home a couple boxes for my trouble. More importantly, I stuff my trade binder with a couple hundred Vintage cards that I scalped from my opponents along the way. (The one scrub from round 1 asked if I’d do trade-backs. I said yes, but as if!)

    In the unlikely event that you find yourself with the opportunity to play in this sort of tournament, I highly recommend the deck. It’s good enough that I found myself banned from the tourney venue. I can only assume it was due to the overwhelming performance of the deck.

  • Ancestor

  • Dominion Comix #16

    Crime doesn’t pay.

    Mouse over the image or click here to view the comic in full size.

    Good, I didn’t want that copper anyhow. They only accept Rupees at the corner store.

    Here is the card in question:

  • Dominion Comix #15

    Ghost Ship is a card that makes your opponents re-live their most terrible hands, over and over again.

    There are some ways to work around it, though.

    Mouse over the image or click here to view it in full.

    Here are the cards in question:

  • Announcing: Magic: The Gathering: Dice Game

    WIZARDS OF THE COAST PRESS RELEASE

    October 24, 2009 -– Renton, Wash. — Wizards of the Coast today announced a new game product
    just in time for the holidays — Magic: The Gathering: Dice Game.

    “Wizards of the Coast is committed to supporting all sorts of gamers, not just those who play games with cards, or those who have friends with which to play,” said Scott Knoblich, VP of Sales for Wizards of the Coast. “The result of that commitment is this dice game.”

    “Like the Catan dice game, the Magic: The Gathering: Dice Game will capture every ounce of the flavor, nuance and strategy of the original, but deliver it in a compact, elegant form,” he continued.

    Players will be delighted to play Magic: The Gathering without the need for cards or even opponents! Game progress will be tracked on game sheets like the following, which is oddly included in this press release:



    Magic: The Gathering: Dice Game will be easy to learn but tough to master. Strangely, this press release contains a copy of the rules:

    1) YOUR MAGIC PERSONALITY

    First, roll the MAGIC PERSONALITY DIE to find out what kind of player you are: a “Timmy,” a “Johnny” or a “Spike.”


    2) BEST DECK

    Roll the COLOR DIE repeatedly until you get a MaRo symbol. If you rolled each color, start this section over. Otherwise, note each color you did NOT roll by circling those colors in the “BEST DECK” section.


    3) YOUR DECK

    Roll the COLOR DIE repeatedly until you get a MaRo symbol. Note each color you DID roll by circling those colors in the “YOUR DECK” section.

    • If you are a Timmy, you may stop rolling after any Red roll, because all that matters is having some dragons in there.
    • If you are a Johnny, you may stop rolling after any roll that does NOT match a BEST DECK color, because as long as you’re different, you’re satisfied.
    • If you are a Spike, you may stop rolling after any roll that matches a BEST DECK color, because duh.

    4) METASCORE

    Subtract the number of colors that do NOT match between YOUR DECK and the BEST DECK from the number of colors that DO match. Write this result or zero, whichever is greater, in the METASCORE box.

    5) PLAY!

    Roll the PSYCHE OUT DIE until you get “YOU WIN!” Every time you are affected by a PSYCHE OUT EVENT, cross out a PSYCHE OUT BOX on your current round. If the round becomes filled with PSYCHE OUTS, mark the FROWNY FACE box instead of the HAPPY FACE box and move on to the next round.

    Each round, you may reroll X times, where X is your METASCORE.


    • If you are a Timmy, you are not affected by HOT CHICK, because you have not reached adolescence, and not affected by ROGUE DECK, because your questionable deckmaking defies expectations.
    • If you are a Johnny, you are not affected by ROGUE DECK, because everyone knows that Johnnies share a bond of kinship with one another, and not affected by TOP TIER DECK, because you’re here to stick it to those conformist netdeckers!
    • If you are a Spike, you are not affected by TOP TIER DECK, because you’ve played against it like a billion times on MODO, and not affected by HOSTILE JERK, because everyone knows that jerkwads share a bond of kinship with one another.

    After playing all of the rounds, mark the appropriate EVENT RESULT. Your result is a victory if you have max 1 FROWNY FACE. If you won, move on to the next event!

    Magic: The Gathering: The Dice Game will be available at retailers November 20, 2009 for $19.99 (MSRP). The purchase includes a storage box and small piece of paper, on which will be written the URL of a page on MagictheGathering.com containing sheets and dice images to print out, and instructions for how to cut out, fold, and glue the dice images into usable dice.


  • PTQ San Diego Tournament Report

    10/17/2009 – PTQ for San Diego in Rockville, MD

    First, let’s start off with the sealed pool I received.

    [deck title=Sealed Pool by llarack]
    [Lands]
    1 Misty Rainforest
    1 Graypelt Refuge
    1 Teetering Peaks
    1 Turntimber Grove
    1 Crypt of Agadeem
    1 Magosi, the Waterveil
    [/Lands]

    [Artifacts]
    1 Grappling Hook
    1 Carnage Altar
    1 Spidersilk Net
    [/Artifacts]

    [Black]
    1 Grim Discovery
    1 Hagra Diabolist
    1 Crypt Ripper
    1 Desecrated Earth
    1 Mindless Null
    2 Mire Blight
    1 Ravenous Trap
    1 Bog Tatters
    2 Hideous End
    1 Heartstabber Mosquito
    1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
    1 Vampire Nighthawk
    1 Quest for the Gravelord
    1 Marsh Casualties
    1 Vampire Hexmage
    1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
    [/Black]

    [Blue]
    1 Trapfinder’s Trick
    2 Caller of Gales
    2 Ior Ruin Expedition
    1 Shoal Serpent
    1 Merfolk Seastalkers
    2 Windrider Eel
    2 Whiplash Trap
    2 Cancel
    1 Into the Roil
    1 Umara Raptor
    1 Reckless Scholar
    1 Welkin Tern
    1 Gomazoa
    [/Blue]

    [Red]
    2 Bladetusk Boar
    2 Geyser Glider
    1 Demolish
    1 Goblin War Paint
    2 Shatterskull Giant
    2 Slaughter Cry
    1 Hellfire Mongrel
    1 Magma Rift
    1 Mark of Mutiny
    1 Punishing Fire
    1 QUest for Pure Flame
    1 Spire Barrage
    1 Tuktuk Grunts
    1 Zektar Shrine Expedition
    [/Red]

    [White]
    1 Luminarch Ascension
    1 Journey to Nowhere
    2 Sunspring Expedition
    1 Shieldmate’s Blessing
    1 Noble Vestige
    1 Narrow Escape
    2 Kor Skyfisher
    1 Kor Cartographer
    1 Caravan Hurda
    [/White]

    [Green]
    1 Vastwood Gorger
    1 Grazing Gladehart
    1 Predatory Urge
    1 Savage Silhouette
    2 Scythe Tiger
    3 Joraga Bard
    1 Frontier Guide
    [/Green]
    [/deck]

    A few lines borrowed from the Chat Dump while you think about how to build this pool:

    13:54    iConn   how does your sweet pearl trident deck beat
                 a pyroclasm
13:54    Seeker_ counterspell
13:55   Seeker_ memory lapse
13:55   Seeker_ ...mana leak?
13:55  Seeker_ force spike!
13:55   iConn   also
13:55   iConn   more importantly
13:55   iConn   how do you cast coral merfolk with a straight face

[19:09] [wcb] or encyclopedia brown
[19:09] [wcb]
[19:09] [RHat] encyclopedia brown was fucken badass
[19:36] [prolep] hey rhat
[19:36] [prolep] and whoever else is around
[19:36] [prolep] [RHat] [19:09]  encyclopedia brown was
                 fucken badass
[19:36] [prolep] I have concrete proof of this fact
[19:37] [theStu]  present it
[19:37] [RHat] i am around
[19:37] [prolep] what is encyclopedia brown's first name
[19:37] [RHat] i forget
[19:37] [prolep] you are allowed to wiki it
[19:37] [RHat] leroy!
[19:37] [prolep] BADDEST MAN IN THE WHOLE DAMN TOWN

[crickets]

[19:38] [prolep] god
[19:38] [prolep] i just realized you guys might too young

[Peebles1] man selling all these pokemon cards is going
           to be ANNOYING

mary: i wrote a song
reuben: what is it
mary: it's called the people you work with
      are stupid douchebags
reuben:
reuben: how does it go?
mary: "the people you work with are stupid douchebags.
       the people you work with are stuuuuuupid douuuuuuuchebags"

    A quick analysis shows that the correct build of this pool is probably blue and black, since they have removal, bombs and evasion.

    The first runthrough gives the following cards for a deck:

    [deck title=The Rise of the Seastalkers]
    [Blue]
    1 Gomazoa
    1 Welkin Tern
    1 Reckless Scholar
    1 Umara Raptor
    1 Into the Roil
    2 Whiplash Trap
    2 Windrider Eel
    1 Merfolk Seastalkers
    [/Blue]

    [Black]
    2 Hideous End
    1 Heartstabber Mosquito
    1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
    1 Vampire Nighthawk
    1 Quest for the Gravelord
    1 Marsh Casualties
    1 Vampire Hexmage
    1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
    [/Black]
    [/deck]

    I would prefer to play 18 lands in this type of deck (with [card]Ob Nixilis, the Fallen[/card], double [card]Whiplash Trap[/card], [card]Merfolk Seastalkers[/card] and double [card]Windrider Eel[/card], getting flooded isn’t a huge issue).

    I filled out the last three slots with [card]Ior Ruin Expedition[/card], [card]Shoal Serpent[/card] and [card]Bog Tatters[/card].

    My reasoning on the Serpent was that I wanted a big fat wall to block while attacking with evasion guys, or building up Ob, Nixilis to lethal them.

    Tatters seemed better than the alternatives ([card]Crypt Ripper[/card] and [card]Hagra Diabolist[/card]) since it will usually have evasion vs the best sealed decks (which tend to be black).

    Ior Ruin Expedition was extremely sketchy, and probably should have been [card]Cancel[/card] in the maindeck.

    As for the swiss rounds:

    I went 6-1-1 (loss in round 4, drew in round 8). I believe it is correct to draw in this sealed format. The games themselves weren’t very interesting, since they all played out in the same sort of way: I would stabilize the board with my removal / bounce and kill them with a evasive guy or Ob Nixilis.

    So I’ll fast forward to the deck I drafted in the top 8.

    [deck title=Seastalker Delight]
    [A Splash of Red]
    1 Punishing Fire
    [/A Splash of Red]

    [Garnish with Green]
    1 Lotus Cobra
    2 Vastwood Gorger
    2 Greenweaver Druid
    2 Nissa’s Chosen
    1 Baloth Cage Trap
    1 Grazing Gladehart
    1 Frontier Guide
    1 Oran-Rief Recluse
    [/Garnish with Green]

    [Merfolk Cordon Bleu]
    1 Aether Figment
    1 Reckless Scholar
    1 Merfolk Seastalkers
    1 Umara Raptor
    1 Welkin Tern
    1 Gomazoa
    1 Living Tsunami
    2 Sky Ruin Drake
    2 Whiplash Trap
    [/Merfolk Cordon Bleu]

    [Mana Providers]
    7 Island
    8 Forest
    1 Kazandu Refuge
    1 Soaring Seacliff
    [/Mana Providers]

    [Relevant Side-Dishes]
    1 Spell Pierce
    1 Hedron Crab
    1 Lethargy Trap
    [/Relevant Side-Dishes]
    [/deck]

    Round 1, I played vs the only other UG drafter at the table. Game 1, I set up a board state where Seastalkers locks down his guys and lethal him over the span of 2 turns. For the record, I almost died to quadrupule Scholar targetting me, but the Seastalkers let me kill him before this happened.

    I board out Gomazoa and Gladeheart for Hedron Crab and 1 Mountain (since he had mold shamblered my only red source in game 1).

    Game 2, his deck did nothing, and I took over quite easily.

    Round 2, I played vs RW with bombs (such as Hellkite Charger and Felidar Sovereign). Game 1, he gets manascrewed and double Whiplash Trap + fatties finish him off.

    I board in 1 Lethargy Trap for Frontier Guide, because his deck seemed to be a bunch of small guys + Teteering Peaks.

    Game 2, I get him to 3 life, but his Sovereign arrives to stabilize him completely because I had already spent both Traps trying to kill him. Game 3, he smashes me easily with Hellkite Charger.

    I am only slightly upset, because his deck was pretty good, and my deck didn’t have many ways to beat his.

    However, I am more upset that he conceded to the other guy in the finals after losing game 1.

    I will probably not be PTQing again this season, but here are a few notes:

    I believe the best sealed decks are B/x, and that you should draw.

    18 lands is correct for most of the sealed decks, but I can see a case for 19 if you have a TON of landfall guys.

    This is a much more sane draft format than the previous two, so I recommend sticking to two colors with possibly a splash in draft.

    Good luck in your sealed and drafts in the land of Zendikards! (couldn’t resist it).

    –llarack

  • Dominion: Seaside Spoiler

    Dominion: Seaside is the latest set released for Donald X. Vaccarino’s award-winning card game, Dominion.

    After you look at the cards, you should also check out this preview article about Dominion: Seaside.

    Hover your mouse over the cards to see their full size.







  • New Set Continues Alarming Rare Trend

    Early reports from Zendikar PTQs confirm analysts’ worst fears that rares are now more important than ever for sealed deck play.

    Rares, or “sick variance” as they are sometimes called, appear less frequently in packs compared to other cards. Additionally, there are mythic rares that appear less frequently than other rares.

    “I mean, it’s just a bomb-heavy format,” local player Matt Kim said. Matt has been playing since Prophecy and has noticed a trend towards more powerful rares that have fewer effective counters.

    “They have this one card, it lets you set your life to 20. EVERY TURN. And it’s an artifact too, I can’t play a bunch of shatters maindeck.”

    Meanwhile, the spells to stop those threats have not scaled accordingly.

    “They started the burn out at three damage, and over 15 years later now they only do four damage, and for way too much mana.”

    Matt finished with a 4-3 record at his PTQ, in 35th in the standings. He attributed his losses to “too many bombs”.

    “I’m amazed I won even as much as I did,” Matt said. “It’s lucky I notice the synergy between [card]Ob Nixilis, the Fallen[/card] and [card]Emeria Angel[/card].”

    Even players that had done well agreed with Matt’s sentiment. Derrick Scordia advanced to the top 8 playoffs before losing, but still griped about the epidemic.

    “With these rares, any old player can win. Before you needed skill, now they just pass out golden tickets in these packs,” said Derrick.

    “It’s like, no one plays this game to get randomly rewarded. If that’s what I wanted I’d just play poker.”

    Also like Matt, Derrick had a complaint about a particular card, in this case the green rare [card]Predatory Urge[/card].

    “Like this card. It’s soooo broken,” Derrick said as he held it up. “Before they would never have made a card this card.

    Asked if he was aware of [card]Contested Cliffs[/card], a functionally similar card from Onslaught, Derrick replied, “I don’t play EDH”.

    Developers from Wizards of the Coast were unavailable for comment, but did issue a terse prepared statement regarding the situation.

    “You people are vultures. If you must open your mouths, at least fill them with Jones Soda, now available in five Magical flavors.”

  • Rise from your Grave