Boxing with Khan(s)

So I purchased my first ever booster box recently, of the newly released Khans or Tarkir set. Up until now I have purchased boosters, Fat Packs and even gone halves on a booster box but this was my first ever solo purchase of a box, and I did it with great excitement. This would be my first chance to keep all the mythics and rares myself, and there would be 36 fresh boosters to crack... what's not to like???

I hadn't really read up much on the Khans set before I got the box, mainly to preserve the sense of mystery in the new cards when I opened them, but I had read about Wizards of the Coast changing how Standard was going to work with fair warning before Khans was released so I knew what to expect there. As I play a mixture of different formats, the changes to Standard didn't seem so bad to me, and keeping it fresh every 18 months seems like a step in the right direction. It's not like I lose the use of the cards when they rotate out, I have other formats I can play them in.

I collected the box from Nebula Custom Gaming and sat down for a while to start cracking boosters, as I had a little time to kill, and was too excited to wait (despite being a grown man I retain my childlike excitement at new toys it seems). My excitement was sustained by opening my first two packs and pulling a foil rare and then a foil mythic (for a total of 4 rares and mythics from 2 packs).
Narset, Enlightened Master in foil rather complemented Jeskai Ascendancy in foil rather well I thought, and certainly made me want to crack more open. After cracking a few more open, and discussing with Lee the prospect of some swaps (I would have loved to have gotten hold of Sorin, Solemn Visitor off of him but it was promised to someone else) I had gotten a couple of rare fetchlands (which are very much this set's cash cards) but needed to go and collect my brother, so had to delay opening the rest.

Later on, as I was opening the remaining two thirds of the box, I was a little disappointed. I had gotten a mythic and a foil rare in the opening two but with 8 packs left to go had failed to open any other mythics. Sure I had grabbed a total of 5 fetchlands, and had gotten some really interesting looking cards, but come on, everyone loves a mythic! I need not have worried it seems, the last 8 packs yielded 5 more mythics rares, including a Sorin, Solemn Visitor of my own to my great pleasure. I also grabbed a Wingmate Roc, a very strong looking Mythic that looks like it will be good fun to play.

With all of my boosters opened and with some cards already earmarked for resale (read: fetchlands) I set about considering the set as a whole. It has a strong 3 colour scheme and this was something I hadn't come across before. I had invested quite heavily in the Return to Ravnica block, especially Dragon's Maze so had experienced a multi-colour focused block before but three colours was a new thing. I have been considering what i should play and what I should build from these cards, and was immediately drawn towards Abzan based on a number of the cards I had pulled (including Sorin). Also there were some really fun looking cards that were Blue/Green (not colours I normally play) so there may well be something for Sultai and Temur brewing away in the back of my mind. The fact that I then acquired a playset of Sagu Mauler may also have boosted these colours for me too ;)

All in all I am looking forward to getting my teeth into building a new Standard deck focusing on Khans or Tarkir. I certainly have some cards that I am not using from the Theros block that could slip nicely into an Abzan deck, and I am very much looking forward to brewing something up and seeing how it does. I'll hopefully get a decklist up in the next week or so.

Second Taste of the Tournament Cherry

Its been a couple of weeks since I last wrote again and lots has been going on gaming wise. I hope to get a couple more posts written this week detailing what I have been up to, and what with, but for this post I want to talk about my second experience of playing in a Magic:the Gathering tournament. It has been over a week since the tournament, so the experience isn't as fresh in my mind as I would have liked it to be, so please forgive the lack of detail on some of the matches.

This tournament once again took place at Nebula Custom gaming in Walsall, on Saturday the 27th of September, and was a casual tournament, meaning that the metagame would be wide open to all sorts of different decks, both in power level and in style. I wracked my brains for a week or so before the tournament wondering what deck to play in this event, and even had a stab at building a new Soldier deck in White/Red but did not get enough chance to play test it before the day of the tournament. In the end I decided to go with what I know was decent and reasonably fast (learning from my last experience) and went with my Hellcow's Hammer deck.

My first round match up was against Kate, who was playing an Elf deck. this was the first time I had met Kate and so I didn't know what to expect from her deck. The first game got underway and I got very lucky on my draw, with a great hand coming together in my first seven. We both played lands for a our first turn and second turn. This allowed me to start getting minotaurs out early on and they started to swing for damage straight away. Kate was playing a deck which allowed for a decent amount of lifegain, so whilst I kept on swinging in for damage, she was able to bring her total back up some to mitigate this effect. However, her elves were unable to put much of a dent in the minotaurs that were building on my side of the board, and once I hate got a pair of Rageblood Shamans and a Kragma Warcaller out to boost my creatures I was able to swing in for 21 damage in one attack ending this game.

The second game was much closer than the first, with the minotaurs not coming out as quickly as the first hand, and the elves getting off to a better start. However, the stronger minotaur creatures, and the judicious use of Doomblade, were able to swing things in my favour and I finished up the match 2-0.

The second round brought me up against Rich, one of Nebula's Co-owners. He was playing an Izzet-based Red/Blue deck with a lot of Instants and Sorceries which inspired his Nivix Cyclops' to fly (yep) over and hit hard. The first hand got of to a great start for me and a bad one for Rich, as I got a minotaur out on turn 2 and was able to start causing damage from turn three. Rich however, was stuck mana-screwed and unable to do anything, discarding cards for the 2nd and 3rd turns. By the time he got anything out is was pretty much over and I won the first game. The second match was a whole other story. This time I struggled for mana, and when I did get creatures out they fell foul of Rich's spells, which in turn powered up his Cyclops. This one was a short, brutal and in my case lethal game, tying it at 1-1 going into a decider.

The deciding round was the best game I played in the whole tournament, with blows being traded on both sides, and the pendulum swinging back and fourth several times, before I  was lucky enough to get a Kragma Warcaller out and keep him out, whilst using two minotaur tokens from Flurry of Horns to swing in for enough damage to seal the game and the match. I was left on 2 life in this game and it was a real close call, but I had really enjoyed it.

This brought up the third and final round. I was one of two players who had won their opening 2 matches, and this brought me face to face with Duncan and his mono-black Vampires deck. I had seen how he had chewed through his other opponents and I knew I needed to be very fast to beat him. the first game didn't bode well as he managed to get vampires out quickly, and I was stuck with my ground pounding and somewhat slower to cast minotaurs. What is worse is that as the Vampires were mono-black, my Doomblades were worthless in this game. We both swung in aggressively, with Duncan knowing I couldn't block his fliers and me knowing that there was little point holding my forces back. However, his vampires were also providing him with copious amounts of Lifegain, meaning all I was really doing was stopping his life from building up too fast! The inevitable happened and I lost the opening game.

The second game brought my sideboard into play, and out went the Doomblades, to be replaced by Dark Betrayal, and Drown in Sorrow came in for Sinister Possession. I was determined to try and give a better showing formyself this hand... However my opening hand really let me down and I had to mulligan down to 6 cards. This gave me a mono-red hand with a decent amount of burn and mana. Hoping this would prove enough to keep me in it until my minotaurs came out of the deck I went with it. Duncan's vampires quickly established a decent board presence (although my Searing Bloods proved useful at removing one or two of his really big threats), and I traded burn spells to his creature damage, reducing his life total as he hit mine. Unfortunately, I quickly ran out of spells and was reliant on topdecking creatures... and the only ones I was able to pull was the ever reliant Kragma Warcaller, who proved too expensive to cast. Duncan quickly finished me off and left me defeated 0-2.

With this defeat in the final round I ended up placing 3rd overall: not too bad considering my 7th place in the last tournament, and also left me with a healthy respect for Vampire decks!

At the end of the afternoon I placed an order with Nebula for a booster box of the new Khans of Tarkir set.This is my first ever time buying a booster box just for myself, and I am looking forward to what I get from it (more on that in the next post!).

My First Tournament Experience

So I finally played in my first Magic: the Gathering tournament this past weekend (12th of September) over at Nebula Custom Gaming. It was a Pauper tournament and had a pretty decent turnout as there were 10 other players and me. I didn't have long to prepare for the tournament itself, as I didn't have a pauper deck and had never built one before so I went into it a little blind. I managed to rebuild one of my current decks to Pauper by simply replacing much of the nifty Rare based tactics and keeping it about one core card. The deck was a variation on Mono-Black Devotion, using Gray Merchant of Asphodel as its core, and then built around cheap but hopefully effective creatures that had 2 Black Mana in their summoning costs, and some cheap Enchantments to help out on the Devotion front too. As something of a finisher, and to take advantage of the high devotion going on, I included a playset of Marshmist Titan too. The decklist is as follows:

Land
24 x Swamp

Creatures
3 x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2 x Faerie Macabre
4 x Severed Legion
4 x Marshmist Titan
2 x Disciple of Phenax
1 x Ghoulraiser
1 x Wicked Akuba

Enchantments
4 x Sinister Possession
2 x Unholy Strength
2 x Eternal Thirst
2 x Claim of Erebos
2 x Font of Return

Spells
2 x Victim of Night
2 x Vendetta
1 x Disentomb
1 x Raise Dead
1 x Ghoulcaller's Chant

Sideboard
4 x Pharika's Chosen
2 x Claim of Erebos
2 x Font of Return
2 x Renegade Demon
2 x Death's Approach
3 x Cast into Darkness

With the tournament played out in the Swiss format, I got seated in the first round and met my opponent (Oli).

Round One
In the opening round my deck performed reasonably well, giving me plenty of land to play and allowing me to start getting creatures out as fast as I could, with a Wicked Akuba on turn two, and a Severed Legion turns three and four. What I hadn't really noticed in all the excitement was that my opponent was struggling for mana. We traded a few blows but he only had one creature and I hadn't really notcied what his creature was doing, concentrating on my own deck (big mistake...). I won the first game and felt confident that my deck would perform ok.
In the second game, I again got a decent starting hand with 4 land (perhaps a little high but no bad thing) and a Severed Legion. However it started to go wrong quite quickly as all I drew was more land. Meanwhile, Oli had started to get his Infect deck going, hitting the required 2 mana he struggled to get last game. By the time I got creatures down (turn 3) I was already in a spot of bother, with 7 infect counters already clocked up. The Severed Legion delayed things for a round before I was dispatched.
The deciding game was even more painful than the second game. Oli had now got his deck into its stride and I was struggling to keep up the pace. It was a pretty one-sided affair and by turn 4 I had lost the match entirely. Not a great opener to the tournament, but at least I had managed to win one game!

Round Two
The second round saw me get a bye, due to their being 11 players. Handily this goes down as a win in the stats, meaning I wasn't looking too bad in the standings by the start of the 3rd round.

Round Three
Having sat out the second round I was eager to dive back in on round three and play smarter than I had in the first round. I had realised at this point that there were a fair number of mono-black decks at the tournament (I counted 4 including my own), and none of them had fared too well in the first or second rounds. I hoped I could change that!
I sat down to meet my second opponent, Fish. I hadn't seen what he had played in the first two rounds, and so was unprepared for what he would play. He got the roll, and started on the play, with both of us playing lands in the first turn and nothing else. His second turn saw his first creature, a Kiln Fiend and that's when I realised what he was playing: Red-Blue. This match turned into a massacre very quickly at this point. The Kiln Fiend was followed by a second next round, and that's when things got rough. First Fish bounced my Severed Legion, removing my only blocker. Then, as a Sorcery has been cast, the Kiln Fiend got stronger and swung in. This tactic was repeated for the next 3 turns before I was done. I realised at the end of this game I was sorely miss matched in this round.
The second game started much like the first except that I got out my Pharika's Chosen early (sideboarded in) and hoped to even things up. However, this simply meant that I had given Fish targets for his Instant and Sorcery spells and he proceeded to beat me down with Kiln Fiends pretty quickly. By turn 4 I was destroyed and the whole match had taken less than 12 minutes, the quickest in the round!
This left me floundering down at the bottom of the rankings, and looking at a pretty humiliating start to tournament gaming. However there was one round left.

Round Four
In the final round I was drawn against Vince, Nebula's Co-Owner, who was also playing a mono-black deck. We sat down and he started on the play, both of us getting into the swing of things and managing to play our decks. It was clear straight away that this was a much more even macth-up than my last match, both taking lives off each other and both being able to play. However I was ebbing lives more quickly than Vince and in fact he got me down to one life by turn 6. However at this point I had an Eternal Thirst on a Marshmist Titan and had managed to add two +1/+1 counters to it. This swung in and gave me vital life back, but I also had creatures left to block. This stabilised the board for a couple of turns, with the addition of a second Marshmist Titan. With the game evenly poised around turn 9, I finally saw a Gray Merchant arrive in my hand! This was the first time in the whole tournament my key card had arrived, and I played it as soon as I could. With  a Devotion of 10 and Vince only having 10 lives left, I played Gray Merchant and claimed the game. This swingy, close game had been the best of the tournament for me, very enjoyable and fun.
The second game was a straightforward affair: I had little in the way of creatures to summon (save one lone Severed Legion, which was quickly dispatched) and lost in short order, putting the match at 1-1.
The deciding game was all set to be a tense affair between two evenly matched decks. Alas, poor Vince never managed to get going, with  his deck not coming out quite right. I was able to build my board presence (once again with the Severed Legions, but also the Wicked Akuba), and once I had was able to go to town, swinging in and dealing damage with Vince only able to block one creature. The final blow came when the Wicked Akuba and the zombies swung in for 6, leaving Vince on 4 lives. I had 4 open mana and the Wicked Akuba had dealt damage, so I pumped its ability and dealt the final 4 points of damage to seal the game and the match, and end my involvement in the tournament.

All in all the tournament was great fun, and certainly thought me some valuable lessons about playing MtG in a tournament (namely, build faster decks!). The last match against Vince was really good fun and I am looking forward to playing regularly at Nebula again now I am back in the Midlands.

And my final tournament position? 7th. It could have been better, but also, could have been much, much worse!

P.S. Nebula now have a new website, as well as their Facebook page. Well worth checking out!

A Deck in Progress

Its been a little while since I have posted about Magic: the Gathering, so I thought I would share a deck that I have in progress currently. Unfortunately, my opportunities to play have somewhat dried up of late. My workmate has drifted out of playing, and the last few weekends have been rather busy so have not had chance to drop in to Nebula Custom Gaming to get a game in. Hopefully I can rectify this at the weekend, and soon I will be moving back to the Midlands so that I can get down and game in the evenings.

Centaur Healer: this deck's work-horse (pun intended).

Anyway, on to the deck. This deck is a green-white deck, built in response to the increasingly poor win ratio I was having against my work mate's Red Deck Wins deck. I simply couldn't out-damage that deck with my Minotaurs, so I decided to change tack and go for something that would slow him down so much that he would run out of steam. For this I decided to use a tactic that is seen as somewhat sub-optimal in MtG: gaining life. Normally it's not great, but against a deck expending large numbers of cards for direct damage it can really mess up their flow, and if played right can give you serious card advantage. The deck list looks like this:

Lands (x23)
------
4 x Selesnya Guildgate
10 x Forest
9 x Plains

Creatures (x22)
---------
4 x Centaur Healer
4 x Kalonian Tusker
4 x Lagonna-Band Trailblazer
2 x Hundred-Handed One
2 x Crocanura
3 x Briarpack Alpha
2 x Renowned Weaver
1 x Karametra's Acolyte

Planeswalkers (x1)
--------------
1 x Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Spells (x12)
------
2 x Alive//Well
3 x Giant Growth
2 x Unflinching Courage
2 x Heroes Reunion
3 x Feral Invocation

Artifacts (x3)
---------

2 x Selesnya Keyrune
1 x Godsend

Sideboard
----------
2 x Oblivion Ring
2 x Call of the Conclave
3 x Hopeful Eidolon
2 x Guardian of the Gateless
4 x Plummet
1 x Archetype of Endurance
1 x Nyx-Fleece Ram

Before opportunities to play dried up at work, this list was holding it's own against the Red Deck Wins, sucking the speed out of the game and allowing enough blocking both in the air and on the ground (thanks to creatures with Reach like Crocanura and Hundred-Handed One). The Sideboard was developed to increase the deck's potency against aerial threats with Plummet & Guardian of the Gateless, and it has more Lifegain in the form of Nyx-Fleece Ram and Hopeful Eidolon.

The Nyx-Fleece Ram: who doesn't need a sideboarded sheep?

The deck looks (so far) like it has enough creatures to form a decent attack, and the curve works well enough that I usually get something defensive (like Lagonna-Band Trailblazer) out early enough to keep myself alive and then build up a respectable force before sweeping in and causing damage (at least, that's the theory). However, without more play testing this is still very much in the development stage. Hopefully, getting down to Nebula more, and also being closer to my brothers will mean I get more chance to test this out soon.

A mixed blogging week

So whilst I was away on holiday I had all sorts of productive plans for things I would plan and write for this blog. However it looks like events conspired against me! I had planned to write up my plans for a Sliver EDH deck, but alas I had the cards I wanted delivered to the incorrect address so didn't receive them in time to take them away with me. However it does mean I should get to collect them this evening from my post box.

Since I could not work on my Sliver deck, I decided to try and do a write up about my work in progress decks. I sat down at the table, with the sun shining and a cool drink, only to find that there power cable for my laptop was irreparably damaged! This meant that I couldn't write up what I had intended to write, due to the lack of power. I only managed to replace the cable yesterday upon my return from Wales. Once again, at least this gives me some ammunition for things to write this week and next!

I did get to do two relevant things on my week vacation though: first off I spent some of the time writing up ideas for my ongoing Numenera game. The location where we based proved quite inspiring for game writing, as did the amount of reading for leisure that I did through out the week. This means I have a (hopefully) fun location for my players to explore in the Ninth World for the coming sessions. I hope that I can get a rough copy of the location drawn up and some description posted for a future article. The second thing I managed this week was to find the only shop in Pembrokeshire that is in the Wizards of the Coast Magic: the Gathering network. This proved useful as it was my brother's 31st birthday this past weekend (Happy birthday Ian :D )and it meant I could get him a present on time, selecting one of the Magic 2015 Intro Packs, Hit the Ground Running. So far we haven;t had chance for a game with this Blue-Green deck but I am looking forward to playing against it, and I am glad to have given Ian something new to build against (his Depths of Power based deck from M13 was devastating). The new deck included a Stormtide Leviathan, so he was happy, as this was used to such good effect in Depths of Power.

Stormtide Leviathan: horrible blue so and so!

There was one new(ish) thing that I started on whilst I was away. Back in 2004 when Vampire the Requiem was released by White Wolf as a replacement for Vampire: the Masquerade, I acquired a copy of the core rulebook along with the World of Darkness book required to run the game. Over the years I have slowly gotten my hands on a few more of the books, but have not once in 10 years ever run the game (although I have played a couple of one offs using the system). Last year, on a whim, I got New Orleans: City of the Damned second hand, but hadn't gotten round to reading it. With my laptop out of action, and needing my RPG fix, I started reading this whilst I was away, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. In a discussion with my player group we came to the conclusion that it might not be a bad idea to try Requiem finally. This means that I have added it to the roster of stuff I want to run in the future, and when we finish/pause the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, I might look at running Requiem. For now I have added it to my list of topics in the tags, and hope I can get more written about the game soon.

My latest read and a new (old) topic for the blog.

Bolt Action & bargaining

Unfortunately, I didn't get to run the next session of my Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign this weekend due to a busy schedule, but I am hoping to get the next session run this weekend coming. however, this weekend certainly wasn't a loss gaming-wise, thanks once again to the great folk at Nebula Custom Gaming.I spent my Saturday afternoon holed up in the store and managed to get quite a bit of gaming in.

For the first hour or so that i was there I got to try something new (thanks in the main due to one of Nebula's co-owners, Vince and his patience!), which was the table top war game Bolt Action. This is the first time I have ventured outside of anything Warhammer 40k related for wargaming, and the first war game I have played for at least 3 years, so I was really keen to give it a go.

The game is played out over 6 turns between 2  opposing armies, trying to achieve an objective, which is all very standard for a table top war game. What is different about Bolt Action is that instead of each player taking it in turn to play out moves for their whole army, a bag of custom dice are used to decide which unit takes the next action, until every unit has had an action, then the turn advances.

Order dice: one of the ways Bolt Action keeps things interesting.

Vince kindly agreed to demo the game for me and so we set up our opposing armies (he played as the Americans, I chose the Germans). The objective was focused on the German half-track, which I had to preserve and Vince had to destroy. Early on it looked as though the Germans were doing rather well: the American Bazooka kept on missing the half-track and my machine gunners and rifle-men were picking off a good number of G.Is (shame my sniper appeared to be blind). However, due to the unpredictable nature of how the order dice come out, this can change very quickly and on turn three the half-track took an immobilising hit from the Americans: not so bad I thought, as long as I take out the Bazooka team. However, this didn't happen and on turn 4 the Americans once again got the first order, hit the half-track and got an immobilised result again, resulting in its destruction and an American victory. We played out the remaining 2 turns but this just resulted in my infantry squad FUBARing and shooting their commanding officer in the confusion!

As a first taste of Bolt Action, I have to say I loved it! It's been a long time since I really enjoyed table top war gaming, with Warhammer 40k having lost my interest, so it was really great to find one I enjoyed. It certainly shares many things in common with Warhammer (no shock when you realise Rick Priestly is one of the designers for it), but it felt different enough to be interesting. Thanks Vince for running me through it, I really appreciated it.

After I had finished my demo game of Bolt Action I managed to get down to a few games of Magic: the Gathering. I played one of my in progress decks, a green-white Selesyna inspired deck, in a 4 player game and did respectably although not spectacularly. Thanks to one of the regulars at Nebula, Lee, I acquired an Ajani, Mentor of Heroes which should help this deck out quite a lot.

Ajani: my new planeswalker to add into my work in progress G/W deck.

Along with playing regular Magic, I also got to try my hand at multiplayer Commander. This was a really interesting game, as its slower than standard Magic and has a lot of politics to it. I recently acquired the Commander 2013 Nature of the Beast deck, and did consider running that out, but instead I plumped for my home-brewed Goblin commander deck led by Wort, Boggart Auntie. It proved to be a really enjoyable game despite losing heavily to Lee's Vampire deck, which managed to take out both myself and the third player in the game, Jake in one turn. I am now thinking of ways to improve the goblins, and I hope to get some more Commander in soon. All in all it was a fun filled Saturday afternoon of gaming, and I can't wait until I get to do it again.

Weekend Gaming

So its been a bit of a busy weekend that has just passed, but I did manage to get an afternoon in, on Friday, of playing MtG down at Nebula Gaming again. I got some games in with my own decks, and I also managed some pretty decent trades, acquiring Ashiok Nightmare Weaver in exchange for an old Champions of Kamigawa deck I have had kicking around for 10 years. I once again got to try out the Minotaurs in a few games and the deck has really come along nicely, winning most of the hands it played. It isn't having quite the same effect on my regular, break-time gaming at work, however. My workmate has improved his deck (a Red Deck Wins archetype deck) once again and last week it proved remarkably difficult to beat. The introduction of Boros Reckoner and Chandra's Phoenix have made meant that the deck is now fast, lethal, filled with evasion and has a creature with cheap recursion. It is clear that Hellcow's Hammer isn't going to out-aggro it, so I have spent some time this weekend considering ways I can compete with this deck, without spending a large amount of money (preferably by using cards from my collection).

The two new cards that are causing me such pain

 So far my ideas for working around RDW are as follows: a return to a mono-blue deck, but this time make it much more creature heavy. This deck would use a playset of return-to-hand effects (Voyage's End, Aetherize) coupled with some cheap, tough creatures to stabilise the board state (in this case Sigiled Starfish and Frostburn Weird). To aid in attack there are creatures with evasion (Phantom Warrior, Cloudfin Raptor) and then there are some big finishers that benefit from protection of one kind or another (Benthic Giant, Tromokratis). This might work, but it might be too slow, and I think it might still be vulnerable to direct burn. With that point in mind I came up with a second idea: a Green-White deck centred around the idea of efficient creatures that also allow for lifegain. Now lifegain is usually a sub-optimal idea as it does nothing to alter the board state. However against burn it allows me to stay alive long enough to see my endgame through. A card I long ago dismissed as useful, Heroe's Reunion, is what I am looking at, along with others that add life when they come in (Centaur Healer, Alive//Well). The other creatures allow for some nice blocking early on, and there are again some big finishers (Hundred-Handed One). Godsend adds some handy removal and a nifty power boost too, plus its difficult to get rid of it. Both of these decks are with me this week and I intend to give them a go, see how they do. I'm not expecting them to be brilliant, just be the basis of something I can build on. I'll be writing about the results later in the week.

Godsend: a nasty little surprise, and one of my key hopes for this deck.

One other thing I have been doing at the weekend that is gaming related is preparing for a short campaign to be run on Wednesday nights with some friends of mine over Roll20. This will be a Numenera campaign, the new(ish) game written by Monte Cook and released last August after a very successful Kickstart campaign. I backed it at the Kickstart but have only had chance to run a very brief one off so far. This new game will give me chance to try it out some more and get a good feel for the system and the setting. It's something I have been itching to give a go to, and something that should give me some more topics to write about.

The Ninth World should give some fun stuff to write about!

Gaming in Walsall

Back in my first post about MtG I mentioned that i wanted to build up to playing at a Friday Night Magic event. One of the problems I have is that I have never played Magic in any other setting than a casual, kitchen table type of game, so I have been looking for a way to rectify this. In to this breach steps my  lovely wife, who pointed out a store to me right here in Walsall that actually has games running in store, every day that it's open. Step forward Nebula Custom Gaming! I popped into the store a couple of weeks back and had a nosey round, liking what I saw and the interaction I had with the staff there. I would come back I promised myself.

However there is one problem in this: I actually find socialising in settings where I know no one really very difficult. I find myself getting nervous and physically clumsy, and it's a great source of anxiety and embarrassment to me. To mask this I normally go in tandem with my brother, but this wasn't really going to be an option if I wanted to get down and game regularly in public. So, I bit the bullet and went ahead and turned up on my own. I needn't have worried! The staff and fellow gamers in the store were fantastic: first time I went I had a couple of great games and spent a good deal of time talking to Lee (one of the regulars there) about ways to improve one of my decks (Mirkov Miller, something i plan to write about in an upcoming post).

I went along again this past weekend, and spent a good couple of hours playing MtG and trying to get to know people. I managed to get involved in a four player game straight off, and my aforementioned deck managed to look just powerful enough to get smacked down pretty quickly! After that I played three more games using my modified Voracious Rage in a three player game (me and two friendly chaps both called Mat). These were pretty good games, in which I managed to carve out two victories before coming a cropper in the third hand (although my good record may have had more to do with misfortune on my opponents part than skill on mine!)  It was a pretty good way to pass a Saturday afternoon, and as my first experience of playing Magic in public, it was great! I am looking forward to getting down to Nebula more regularly in the future, and if they start to run Friday Night Magic, it will be my port of call to get involved in that too.

Thanks very much to he guys and girls and Nebula, and keep up the good work!