Lee's Sandwich Show Down

On Monday, Tuesday, & Thursday I take Jack to Water Polo practice at UCI. This week, while I was waiting for him Brian came by for some Magic.

He has a ton of cards in this bag.

We set up on a small table outside of Lee's Sandwich's which is sadly being turned into a Chicken restaurant [that one that all the Christians eat at because of some anti-gay stance they took a while back]. There is a Blaze Pizza and a Chipotle going in as well so it is not all bad.

And we were right outside the Irvine Center for Peace--perfect place for a Planeswalker showdown

I was ready to go from the moment I sat down.

Brian had to drive there 

and he took a rather odd route.

In any event, once he sat down and we got shuffled up it was on! And he killed me--his mono blue deck prevented my Rakdos deck from doing anything and then milled me to death with Jace.

The second game some UCI Business Major showed up. He was very experienced at Magic and coached me on how to better use my deck.

Needless to say the second game went a very differently as I was able to use the Whip  of Erbos my Gray Merchant very successfully.

Tonight we will play game three to decide the champion.

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.