Review Icosahedrophilia Podcast, Episode 170: From Beyond, Part 4

I listened to this late at night while on a load test conference call.

It is a fairly entertaining brawl from start to finish--in fact the fight is still raging when the podcast ends.

Good fun.

Time to Feed Attack

So I guess the question here boils down to is "Fight" the same as the "Attack" Step. 

During our Theros Game Day Draft, Briannah played Time to Feed and had her Polukranos, World Eater

Fight Andrew's Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

Andrew Responded with Divine Verdict.

Does this work? Is the Polukranos destroyed?

I ruled that it was not. Attack only happens in the Combat phase--we were in Main Phase. This was a Fight not "Attacking or Blocking"

This ruling was made with the understanding that Briannah was going to swing with The  P-U during Combat after she had killed Gary so it really did not matter all that much--Andrew could Divvy it up then. 

However, in reflection, I thought this may be more relevant because if Divine Verdict 'interrupts' the Time To Feed [the "Target Creature You Control" dies, in this example], then Gray Merchant would not die & Briannah would not gain three life, I think...

As Always, any advice would be fantastic.

Ender's Game Game

We are going to play Numenera in Line to see Ender's Game at the Irvine Spectrum IMAX at 8:00 PM on Friday 11/01/13.

Team Lower Table, one of my favorite Gamer Groups, has a tradition of playing D&D in front of movie theaters that goes back to the Harry Potter films--recently we have had huge games at Avengers, Hobbit, and even Clash of the Titans!

This one will be amazing, not just because Numenera is an amazing system basically designed for public play, but also because we are going to raise money for CHOC as part of Extra Life. 

As many of you know my son Jack has been receiving infusions for the last two years and this is a great chance to give back to an organization that has given our family so much.

I will be posting updates here.

Who Goes First

At Theros Game Day we had an issue regarding who plays first.

The players shuffled & cut and agreed to high roll. Evan, won the high roll decided to go first, then looked at his hand and mulliganed. Andrew decided to keep.

Evan reshuffled, cut, and drew six cards. 

When Evan looked at his hand the second time he wanted to go second. 

Andrew did not think that this was fair--Evan had already decided to go first.

My understanding is that you have to choose who is going first before you draw your cards, is that true?

Once that decision is made, can it be changed?

I ruled that Evan could go second, but mostly because I did not really understand why it mattered & wanted to keep things moving--I do not think that this would have been the Official Tournament ruling.

Theros Game Day Draft @ Magic and Monsters

For the Theros Game Day I took the Tuesday Morning with Magic Crew to Mission Viejo's Magic and Monsters card shop for the Draft. 

The shop is a little further than a lot of other shops--we are blessed to live in a MtG Mecca with five shops within 20 minutes. But it was an easy drive & more convient for Team Milne who were joining us for this event

The shop was running a Theros Standard Constructed event at the same time, but the kids would rather draft since we do not have a lot of cards and cannot compete against people who buy cards based on Grand Prix's. Currently, that is just not our scene--we are way more into Old School / School Yard magic.

TMwM crew included Kate, Jack, Alexander, Evan, & Andrew. Team Milne was Erin, Briannah, & Cameron. I was Level Zero judging this event.

This was the first time most of these people drafted. It went fairly well. I did answer a lot of questions, a lot of very good cards went through several hands, but most of the kids loved being exposed to all of the cards. 

Drafting with Kids is a blast!

The first round had some of the best match ups. Kate in Erin in a RW Aggro Mirror Match that ended in a coin toss.

Jack & Alexander in a fun rivalry  Jack really knew the cards and pretty much had the deck he wanted. Alexander was playing a strong Theros strategy so this match was closer than the 2-0 result indicates.

Alexander and Briannah in fun super creature slug fest, Briannah's Mono Green mana starved game one & mana screwed game two which cost her the match. 

Cameron crushed Evan--Cameron opened an Elspeth pack one and had a very good deck. I think Cameron likely had the best Deck of the day.

When Cameron's deck went off there would be like 9 soldier tokens, each getting +1/+1 each round and getting flying. It was very hard to deal with, and having nothing but mana did not help Evan all that much.

Round Two's match of Andrew vs Jack was fantastic. Jacks removal frustrated Andrew almost to the point of Table Flip.

Jack and Kate meet in the Finals. Jack was very confident in his Deck. But in the end Kate's Red White Aggro deck just did too much damage to the face for Jack to deal with and Kate came out on top.

Congratulations Kate!

Magic and Monsters was really awesome and gave Kate this Nighthowler for her victory!

The Hydra Decks were in use while we were at the shop, but Jack & I were still able to fill out our Hero's Path collection--another cool thing that the Shop did.

Here are the final results.