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.

Guardians of Meletis Update

My current favorite Magic card is Gaurdians of Meletis which is so rad it had its own episode on the Geek and Sundry Vlogs station

 In the Comments, the point was raised that I may be reading to much into this card, so I dropped Magali Villeneuve, the artist a note and asked her. 

Here is her response

Hello David, 

sorry for taking so long to answer. 

As I usually do not write blog posts about my work (I only show the images), I'm gonna tell you here about the process. 

In fact, I think what you're writing here about this card is very funny, cause I absolutely had no clue about the same sex aspect when I painted the illo.  

When I've been commissionned for this, I was simply asked to depict a river and two stone warrior giants crossing their swords as some kind of an arch. They do not send me the flavor text you can find afterwards in the game, only a factual description. Then we can consider that I painted this very "innocently", but I do like the idea of it being now the first Magic Gay card :D

Have a nice day !

MagaliMagali Villeneuve

Freelance Illustrator

http://magali-villeneuve.blogspot.com/ 

Actual Play Murder in Baldur’s Gate--D&D Encounters S15 S10

Murder in Baldur’s Gate--D&D Encounters S15 S10

Another great week of D&D Next at Mercenary Market. 

This was the second week that Jack, Brian, Scott, and I had played there and it was loads of fun. DM Nick was again behind the screen doing an awesome job. Eric and Sara were there again--Eric is a fun roll player and really gets into his characters drunkenness. 

All of the other players at the table were new--which was awesome. 

MM has a ton of space and a lot of very interesting players--I am very glad that I found this shop. I do miss Tuan and the Dice House as well as Brookhurst Hobbies, but the fact that this shop is 10 minutes from my house does make a big difference.

One down side is that D&D Encounters starts at 7:00 PM so Jack is not getting home and to bed until almost 11:00 PM which is late for a seventh grader. When I run at MM next season I may try to start a little bit earlier.

Brian, who is playing Elspeth the Human Cleric, had a great week with some of the best Role Playing I have ever seen.

 

Jack was laid back and mellow playing Garruk, an Elf Ranger to great effect. 

Scott was totally into it with his Wood Elf Bard named something absurd like Throckmorton Elderberry--he spent a lot of time on his character and it really showed. 

I played Xenagos the Usurper, a Tiefling Mage Sage.

Eric was still playing his Drunk Human Monk and Sara has a raging Dwarf Fighter.

Will [who has been DMing this season and really knows the rules] was playing a Human Barbarian, Jake was playing a Human Monk, Diem was playing a Human Cleric, & Cody was playing an Elf Ranger.

A really big table with a lot of good diversity. It was a fun week & I cannot wait for next week.

Mercenary Market After Encounters Showdown

Jack and Brian sat down for a game of Magic after an awesome week of D&D Encounters. Before Encounters Scott and Brian took on Jack and I in Two Headed Giant and even with Scott's deck not going off at all, Brian almost beat both of us so this was going to be a great match.

Jack is playing his Green Heroic Deck which is very good--he basically has 20/20 Lifelink Flyers with Trample by turn five and the game just ends with him crushing you.

Brian is playing a more sophisticated Blue White deck with a lot of removal, a lot of Planeswalkers, but no real win condition--it is a frustrating deck to go up against, but if you can keep the pressure up it is beatable.

Brian won the first match--it was fairly close, but Jack never got going. The second match Brian was mana screwed and Jack went big for a horrible smash down. Game three was closer, but again Jack was able to go big at the end for the win.

Brian was talking about adding some Master of Waves to his deck for the rematch.