Games are great, but sometime you don't have enough time to really enjoy them. Here at Snack, Play, Love we are devoting time to exploring bite size games and opinions on those games that don't seem to get as much mainstream exposure.
Friday, 29 April 2011
Games night & actually winning
I've actually won some friendlies now. Whether was as a result of me inviting everyone round to my house to play and giving them snacks, or my constant shouts of "don't attack me, I've got nothing!" but I won our first (and only) 4 player match.
Was a fairly standard resurrection deck really, but with black, white & blue it had a lot of counter too. Mana was so plentiful by the end and due to my getting 7 cards a turn from the Sphinx and draw I could pick & choose my hand. Took two players out in one turn and then over-run the remaining guy with my big beasties. I've changed most of the creatures in the deck now for the ones I actually wanted that were still in the post, so it'll probably never win another game.
The Artifacts/red mana Firin' Squad deck got a win that day too by out competing a valakut deck which isn't too bad.
I also knocked up an infect deck to see what cards I had that fitted and ended up winning three games out of 4 with that. It's an interesting mechanic if the opponent isn't expecting it especially as it's not too hard to put 5 on someone with that first mad hit.
My Blue Draw=damage deck was quite fun too and while it's only ever won one game I think it could nest nicely into a control deck if I could be bothered to figure it all out.
The Red/Blue I'm looking at currently hasn't won yet, but I'm still refining the balance between control & destroy while keeping it cheap in both senses. As I only have 4 non common cards in it (and neither are essential) I might strip it back to Standard Pauper just for kicks & see how many mythics it can destroy.
Of course I could always go look up some deck-lists but that feels like cheating.
MTG on hiatus now until after exams & NPH launch. It's only a week I guess, but it's going to be a long one...
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
One for the real world
Cards I've ended up with greater than 4 of for people in my game group. 2 x DBC + a few boosters means I have a reasonable amount already!
Spares | Card | Colour | Clear | Colour | Total Mana | Rarity |
3 | Rise From The Grave | BK | 4 | 1 | 5 | U |
2 | Sign In Blood | BK | 0 | 2 | 2 | C |
1 | Aether Adept | BL | 1 | 2 | 3 | C |
1 | Guard Gomazoa | BL | 2 | 1 | 3 | U |
2 | Into the Roil | BL | 1 | 1 | 2 | C |
2 | Mind Control | BL | 3 | 2 | 5 | U |
1 | Steady Progress | BL | 2 | 1 | 3 | C |
1 | Unsummon | BL | 0 | 1 | 1 | C |
1 | Wind Zendikon | BL |
| 1 | 1 | C |
2 | Brass Squire | CL | 3 | 0 | 3 | U |
1 | Perilous Myr | CL | 2 |
| 2 | C |
1 | Plague Myr | CL | 2 | 0 | 2 | C |
1 | Psychosis Crawler | CL | 5 | 0 | 5 | R |
1 | Stone Golem | CL | 5 | 0 | 5 | C |
1 | Triskelion | CL | 6 | 6 | R | |
2 | Garruk's Companion | GR | 0 | 2 | 2 | C |
2 | Garruk's Packleader | GR | 4 | 1 | 5 | U |
1 | Llanowar Elves | GR |
| 1 | 1 | C |
5 | Terramorphic Expanse | LD |
|
| 0 | c |
1 | Earth Servant | RD | 5 | 1 | 6 | U |
1 | Ogre Resister | RD | 2 | 2 | 4 | C |
2 | Anjani's Mantra | WH | 1 | 1 | 2 | U |
1 | Ghalma's Warden | WH | 3 | 1 | 4 | C |
2 | Kor Skyfisher | WH | 1 | 1 | 2 | C |
2 | Pacifism | WH | 1 | 1 | 2 | C |
2 | Souls Attendant | WH | 0 | 1 | 1 | C |
Saturday, 9 April 2011
First trial decks - report
So I'm currently something like 0 wins 10 losses in our casual Magic circle, and with my working burden still being high it's unlikely to change. Here's what I've tried so far:
Black Vamps & Blue Splash – decent set up but played a Legacy deck that's pretty well refined. Deck is mostly black singles in original form to see what works but one match isn't going to tell you that!
Blue Green Landfall – this is essentially Mysterious Realms updated with more uncommon and some excellent M11 and later cards and some great WW booster drops. This has been consistently good, but I seem to end up with more mana (due to action cards) than creatures. Lost a 3 player due to not realising I could counter a mass removal spell when I had way more creatures than opponents. Learning curve.
Blue Insanity deck – a gimmick deck that is purely for fun and focuses on getting lots of cards into my hand. Got mana screwed by drawing 16 lands in 18 cards when I only have 24 in the deck, otherwise shows potential.
White NHS deck – this is all about lifegain, but I'd misunderstood the ally clause on cards and included 8 useless cards, will remove these and repeat
Firing Squad – Red & art deck. Drew my two 8 mana joke creatures in my starting hand, didn't think to mulligan and still didn't loose too badly. Have put the cards I had in reserve in instead.
Pretty sure I tried another Magic The Gathering Planeswalkers style deck at one point, and I have an unused Worldwake 'Flyover' pre-made I got using store credit to play with.
Need to keep revising these (and revising for exams) and stop buying cards too. I estimate £120 total now – spreadsheet not up to date with prices.