Sunday 22 April 2018

Magic Pre-Release: Dominaria

By: Dozer

So along with five other friends, I ended up at Wizards Tower to play at the late night two-headed giant pre-release. I was partnered with Luke while Wolf and Forgotten were paired up, and Linna and Molotov were partners. I was leaving the next morning for Toronto for work but I was alone and I needed to get my nerd on after a intense two weeks in St Jean, QC.

I was only in town for less then an hour before I sped down the highway and traveled from the east of Ottawa to pick up Luke. This was also his first pre-release event.

Man did I ever need this.

Nerding it up with my mates after two weeks of intense training... all I needed was my wife with me but she was already in Toronto and I'd be seeing her the next day to play some Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 with our friends from the area. I had just driven for three stressed filled hours, gotten home long enough to snag a snack and refuel my car before, ignore my four hours of sleep to go play Magic the Gathering.

All images are owned by Wizards of the Coast and used without permission

Saturday 14 April 2018

Magic Set Preview: Dominaria

By: Dozer

Dominaria is 25 years of Magic the Gathering history returning, or in some cases haunting, to the long time players of the game. I've been playing since September 1994 when I was 14 years old and just entering into high school and the 9th grade. After a few years I lost touch with Magic the Gathering and fell behind in my lore as the crew of the Weatherlight had their most epic of adventures.

I've not been so excited to see a set since the last Innistrad sets.
So on the day of the pre-release I will go over some of the cards I am most looking forward to play and add to my current decks.

To start off I want to talk about this card first. The amount of flavour found in the sub text is awesome. "A new gathering for a new age." After 25 years the great ship the Weatherlight is back just in time to introduce another generation of players.


See you after the break.

Note that all images are owned by Wizards of the Coast and are used without permission. 

Friday 13 April 2018

One Year Later

By: Dozer

This year has had plenty of ups and downs.

It's been one year since I started this and asked my friends to jump in and help every so often. I've been lucky to have traveled all across the country playing games and meeting folks.

I know we don't have many readers here, it's a small blog but I'm happy that this experiment is going well so far.

Let's try one more year.

- Cheers

Dozer

Friday 6 April 2018

Magic Format: Brawl

By: Dozer

Brawl is a new Magic the Gathering format that was just released recently from the folks at Wizards of the Coast and I am very interested in the format.

First off this format is similar to Commander sharing a few similar rules. Except basic lands, you may only play with a single copy of any card in your deck. You will need 60 cards in your deck.

You need a commander who must be a Legendary Creature or a Planeswalker who will start in your Command Zone. Your commander is important as mana symbols that don't appear on your commander can't be in the deck, this includes the card's text box as well as its mana cost. When the commander is removed from the battlefield, you may place it in the command zone instead of anywhere else. For each additional time you cast your commander from the command zone, it will cost an additional two mana.

What is different with Brawl from Commander is very simple. You have 30 life and you can only use Standard legal cards. If the card has been banned from Standard is it banned form Brawl. This make you cycle cards in and out of your deck as Standard shifts, which is not as bad as it sounds.

You only need one copy of a card. Meaning those one off cards you picked up from a draft or sealed event (like a pre-release which is a favorite for the players in my crew) may be getting a home finally without having to complete a playset of four cards.

Secondly, Standard will be shifting in the fall of 2018 when Kaladesh, Aether Revolt, Welcome Deck 2017, Amonkhet, and Hour of Devastation will be cycled out. We'll be left with Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, and the yet to be released Dominaria and Core 2019.

Keeping a deck for a year doesn't sound so bad. My last Standard format deck was back in Theros block with a Minotaur Deck. When it cycled out I updated it with a few choice cards like Lord of Shatterskull PassNeheb, the Worthy, and Neheb, the Eternal. I added a few tribal bumps like Vanquisher's Banner. Mogis, God of Slaughter is my only non-Minotaur character in the deck. It's a favorite of mine that I still regularly play and my opponents know what's coming. What I'm trying to say is building a Standard legal deck is not bad because it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg. When it cycles out the deck is a foundation for more casual Modern or Legacy decks that we play around the kitchen table.

I can see Brawl starting to include Modern format restrictions and getting another name but Commander has the hold on the larger card selection that comes with eternal formats and the Modern restrictions may not fit it well. I'd like to see what folks would do.

What is really slick is you can take a starter deck like my starter with Angrath, Minotaur Pirate, and turn that into a Brawl deck. I think this could give these new Planeswalker led started decks to get some more life when they come out. I know that the Teferi, Timebender deck is calling my name. I was originally a Blue/White player and Teferi is one of my favorite Planeswalkers. So right away I'm looking at what I can do with each of those starters to make a Brawl deck.

With the released of Dominaria a set I've really been excited for, I've been getting that MTG itch that's been gone since the last Innistrad sets. Commander always gets my attention but new formats like Wizards Tower and Pauper are what keep me coming back. Shonty, Doc, Wolf, and I played with two other ladies at Emperor last friday and it was a great set of games.

- Will you be playing Brawl?

Dozer

Monday 2 April 2018

LGS on the Road - Le Beginner

By: Dozer

I've always believed that our hobby needs the Local Game Shops (LGS) to keep our games healthy. We need to support the LGS to keep our games on the shelf. We need our games on the shelf to keep the games alive.

Canada has a healthy relationship with their game shop and I want to post about my experience about the many shops that dot Canada.

This year I am travelling all across Canada  for my day job. When I stop at a new city, I will be visiting and playing at as many LGS as I can. 

This was my third time back in Montreal since November and my last trip was so busy I didn't have time to link up with the local players so I made an effort to reach out this time since I would have some down time on this trip.

Le Beginner is a great joint on the east shore of Montreal in Longueuil. Coming off a main street I pulled onto the parallel side roads and parked across from the shop. In the dark I saw folks playing in the front play area with screens on the one wall showing movies and pairings for Magic the Gathering. I popped my trunk and walked up the short flight of stairs and entered into what I thought was going to be a small space but instead turned out to be a well lit, clean, and organized shop that had a dozen smiling faces of folks playing games.
Well stocked front cash with all the goods.
The shop also boasted a great selection of Manga that was well placed on the side with it's own dedicated area. Great selection of mangas that brought me back to my younger days working in a comic shop. The one owner has a great taste in older manga and we chatted for a bit about some of my favorites like Berserk, Gun Smith Cats, and Battle Angel Alita. 



Right away past some display cases and shelves I saw the dedicated table top game area where Martin and two brothers were setting up a table with one of the store owners Etienne. Passing the well stocked front cabinet I saw drinks, snacks, and plenty of cardboard crack and supplies. At first glace this place looks small, in reality it's much larger and the space is very well organized making products easy to access and create more space to play.

The dedicated play space past the comics and the front game area
The place space was so well put together. Three tables side by side with a fourth off to the side. Spare folding seats were available for players at longer games. Players were surrounded by displays of great selections of Infinity and Warmachine/Hordes. There were well labeled bins of terrain that we neatly placed for players to use. I was very impressed started to get excited for the night.

Well organized and clean play area. 
I had met Martin last year at Capital Conflict. On my first trip he showed me L'Abyss but this time I was free on the regular Friday night game at Le Beginner and boy was I happy to show up and see a familiar face. As we set up I told stories of Rumble and GENCON and we went on about how Infinity was evolving, excited about new factions and upcoming releases.

Martin introduced me to the two brothers, Alex and Richard and we split the sibblings pairing off against one each. I was paired with Richard. I recommended the ITS scenario Capture and Protect because it was so much fun as the last game at Rumble. The finished setting up the boards as I grabbed a snack and a Dr. Pepper. The candy selection was very large and their was plenty of different drinks. I was trying to avoid candy and sugar but my weak will was no match for a classic night of snacks, sodas, and dice rolling.

Two tables ready and set to play 
Capture and Protect is a very simple mission that can fall to pieces very quickly.

Each player has a beacon that sits centered along the edge of their deployment zone. You need to get any unit to beacon, pick up the beacon as a short skill (attack), and for extra points get it back to your designated datatracker and/or into your deployment zone. Their is one point for a classified objective adding a bit of a twist to the scenario.

Since I was packing up my hobbies getting ready for a move in less than two months time I had only packed up my Battlefoam Beta Bag and had one of my two Rumble Lists. I was sporting three camouflaged forward observers, my Lizard, an Interventor, my Mobile Brigada LT, and three remotes. It was a tight list representing the best that Nomads had, plenty of strong hacking options, plenty of dirty tricks, and some solid tech. Richard was playing a Yu-jing force with some Monks, Line Troopers, a Tiger Soldier that would pop in round 2 to ruin some fun, and a few other excellent reps to the Imperial Courts. He also added two Krakot Renegades to trip me up and slow me down.

He won the roll and took deployment and me to setup first. I wanted to try my list out in a more aggressive manner and decided to go first. At Rumble when I played this game I took second because I wanted to have my opponent waste orders going through my speed bumps while I kept the scoring units out of sight ready to run up and grab the Beacon once the way was clear.

Richard hid everything from my view so I walked Kipling, my Lizard TAG with Heavy Grenade Launcher up into the middle of the board and starting engaging with units. I followed up with Arthur my Seraph knifing Mobile Brigada going up the middle under cover. Richard followed up my advance with some careful but aggressive fire. My dice continued to roll high and Kipling was down to two wounds but with the last shot Arthur died crouched next to some stairs in the center of the board.

Kipling has 2 wounds and enemies surround it
Kipling is right where he needs to be
The second round was not looking good. My LT was down and I forgot to use a command token to call in my Hellcat that I had off board. I wasn't ready to reveal my camo tokens because Richard was still well in cover with little LOF for my Forward Observers. Using my irregular orders Kipling died from return fire. Z3RO tagged one of the Renegades twice earning my Classified Objective and I fired a guided missile to only see the Morat dodge it. My turn continued to go wrong when I moved my Interventor down the side street and suddenly seeing from the far end of the board Richard's Hsien with HMG. The dice rolled high but now it cost me my next LT, I was going to be in loss of LT on my last round.

Richard brought in a his Guilang and it killed Z3RO. His Tiger soldier dropped in but was stopped in his tracks with a Flash Pulse from my Zond. His turn quickly went south and he was left with off his guys on the back end with few orders left. It was getting late and we talked about how he could gain points. We were tied and he did not look like he could take my Beacon so in an effort to tie the game he took a long shot to medic one of his Morats Mercs.

My last turn was quick, using all my command tokens my Hellcat landed and we discovered that he would not be able to take the beacon. Richard had only two units outside of his deployment zone, the Tiger Soldier and Guilang but not enough orders to be able to rip through my scattered speed bumps of units. A quick count realised that it was over and the game came to an end. Richard and I shock hands on a tie and a great game against a great opponent.

Le Beginner is more than a game shop it's a gamer community. The name of the shop advertises the casual place space and welcoming atmosphere to new players. Etienne was really passionate about the attitude of the shop and the folks who play there. We agreed on fun and competitive are not exclusive to each other.

I stayed on a few more mins after we all cleaned up and chatted more about where Infinity was going and the excitement of the new Uprising books before heading back into the cold and driving back to our homes and hotels.

If you are new to the Montreal area and Longueuil hit this place up. Take up a table or join in one of the many regular events posted on the board.

- Cheers

Dozer