(Editor’s Note: This is the same editor’s note as on the main page. I had been working 3 jobs and had precious little time to devote to the pages. However, two of those jobs are on winter break, so I have more time and will be updating the pages on a more regular basis.)

(2nd Editor’s Note: Playing a few rounds of this game has only increased my anger that Blizzard killed it in favor of Hearthstone. I understand the decision, but it still makes me mad.)

After fits, non-starts, and a fried hard drive (2 actually) that took episode 2 of the podcast, Christ and I got together for a couple of game nights. We didn’t record, but we are going to this weekend, so be on the lookout for the triumphant return when we push the reset button on the show. As part of these game nights, in addition to the usual games of Magic and Gears, we played some WoW: TCG. This isn’t our first experience with the game, but it was our first attempts at deck building and strategy. Overall the games were a success and both of us mentioned that they inspired us to find more cards and build new decks or solidify the ones that we already have. For me, at least, the games were more fun than the recent Magic games.

The first reason is the “new”ness of the game. I am always really excited when I discover or rediscover something and it has that feeling of being new. Since we had not played WoW very much, it was a brand new game whild Magic is the old and faithful game, always there for us. Sure, Khans made it new and exciting for a couple of months, but it’s time for a new expansion again. Also, because Chris had more time to tweak his decks, the Magic battles were not very competitive this round. WoW was much more balanced between us. I don’t care if I win or lose, but I do want the games to be interesting or entertaining.

Secondly, WoW has some definite advantages over Magic. There is no mana and therefore no mana screw unless it somehow works to your advantage. Let me explain. You build resources to cast creatures and spells. The more powerful resources are quests because they allow you to draw cards and perform other actions. However, any card can be played face down as a resource. Doing so removes it from the game for its intended purpose, so you can trade a less powerful creature or spell in order to cast a more powerful one or vice versa. All of this adds to the strategy and complexity of the games. I generally try to build my decks so that I don’t have to use cards other than quests as resources, but it is nice to know that the option is there.

Chris and I toyed around with some kitchen table rules to make Magic more like WoW and to remove (or at least reduce) mana screw and make our decks play more like the way we intended. Chris posted the article last year and you can find it on the page here. I was trying to think of other ways to counter mana screw, but honestly it has gotten to the point where it isn’t that big of a deal in the games that we play. Still, it might be nice to have options for people learning the game, so I’ll keep brainstorming.

The only con against WoW is that it is no longer supported by Blizzard, as I mentioned above. Therefore, the shelf life of the game is very limited, especially if we don’t get out there and buy more cards before they are not on the market any more. Chris has picked up some cards, but I don’t feel compelled to do so because I’d rather spend my money on the new Magic expansions coming out and expand into other formats in a game that is still alive and growing.

WoW: TCG was (and still is for a limited time) a great game that got put to the side in favor of the push to digital content. The most unfortunate part is that as I did research into the game, it felt like it got killed right as it was starting to reach its potential. I don’t hate Hearthstone as much as I used to, but every time I see a card that uses art from the WoW: TCG (like the Leeroy card above) it gives me a twinge of anger and sadness that both games can’t coexist and that digital content wins out again. If you get a chance to pick up some of the starter decks for relatively cheap (which shouldn’t be a problem for the near future) you should definitely check out the game. You could also get a lot of 2000 cards for fairly cheap, but those are more random and if you are going to do that, maybe get both the starter decks and the random cards to swap them out for stronger decks. If you are looking for a slight change from Magic, WoW: TCG is absolutely a strong contender and I, for one, will miss it greatly and wish that I had paid more attention when it was around.

As a post script (postmortem?) to the game, Chris and I were first talking after the announcement that the game had been cancelled and I tried to come up with some ideas to extend the life of games that have been taken off of the market. The one idea that I thought would be easy to modify is to give people the chance to make their own cards for the game. There are already web pages that let you make Magic and Hearthstone cards. It wouldn’t be that difficult to make one that does the same for WoW cards, both heroes and the other cards. I don’t know how much support there is for such an idea, but it is definitely something that I’d like to see implemented and not just for WoW.

Do you love WoW: TCG? Is there another defunct TCG or other table top game that you would recommend as an alternative when Magic becomes stale again? Let me know in the comments. Thanks, as always, for reading!

(Author’s Note: Apologies for the weeks of no communication. I’m still trying to figure out a writing schedule with my new job. Hopefully, things return to normal soon.)

Liam’s birthday–number 10, which is considered a big one–was this past weekend. He wanted to have a sleepover with a Pokemon theme. That gave me an idea. Pick up some booster packs and let them have a draft tournament. I’ve never done a draft for any of the games other than Magic Online, but that ended in disaster. We want to put together some Youtube videos for the web page that show how to conduct a Magic draft with us and the boys, so this was good practice.

What you need

• Some players – Generally, each group should have at least four and no more than 8 players. We decided to keep the group small for this first time. Only Liam and three of his friends played in the tournament.
• Some packs of cards – The suggested number of packs per player is six. Since it felt gauche to require admission to a birthday party, we had to come up with at least 24 packs. At three to four dollars per pack, that can get expensive. We lucked into an open box of packs for relatively cheap. If we want, we have 12 extra packs for prizes.
• Schedule – Depending on the size of your group and the time available, you could go with a round robin. Since we only have four, that’s how we organized it. Whether you have a round robin or not, you can use this link to help put together and print your schedule.
• Non essentials – Snacks, prizes, some other games for in between rounds. We gave the snack funny Pokemon themed names like Charizard fireballs for cheese balls, Charmander chips for potato chips, and Squirtles’s Squirt for the juice boxes. The boys all got a kick out of the names. We didn’t end up having games in between rounds because they went quickly, but we did have a game for them to play when they woke up after the sleepover. We hid plastic golf balls painted to look like Pokeballs around the yard and they had to find them like an Easter egg hunt. That was a huge hit, too.

Okay, we’ve got it all. What now?

There are a few ways to do the draft. I was going to have them each open one pack, pick a card, and then pass the pack on to the next person. Repeat this process until all cards are picked from those packs. Then, do the same with the remaining packs. The boys thought that this was too confusing, so I allowed them to draft like we do at the prerelease tournaments we’ve attended. They took 9 packs each and built their decks from the cards that they got in those packs. I tried to convince them to do 40 card decks, but they insisted on 60 card decks. I tried to get them to play best of 3, but they only played one game rounds. My ideas got shot down left and right. Everything worked out well for them, so they knew what they were doing. I just got out of the way and let them do their thing.

They took turns and played each other in a round robin tournament. As I mentioned above, we didn’t need any entertainment for in between rounds since the rounds went quickly and the two that finished early just watched the game that was still in progress. We also had no need for prizes since the boys were so excited about their new cards. Liam came out the winner and there weren’t any major bouts of poor sportsmanship during the whole tournament.

Overall, this one went well and they were able to figure things out with minimal (actually, no) intervention. Now that I’ve done it once, it will go easier and more smoothly when we sit down to put together the instructional videos. Have you ever participated in a Pokemon draft tournament? Do you have any ideas to make it slightly more organized (other than the participants not being 10)? Let me know in the comments.

(Note: I am continuing the Entertainment Compendiums week-ish long Halloween celebration with a themed deck list. I’ve already posted my zombie deck, so here is my first attempt at graveyard/deck manipulation in the form of Sultai.)

Spells (16)

Bitter Revelation (2)
Diabolic Tutor (2)
Dutiful Return (2)
Reclaim (3)
Strength from the Fallen (2)
Taigam’s Scheming (3)
Wreath of Geists (2)

Creatures (26)

Abomination of Gudul (2)
Bant Sojurners (3)
Dreg Mangler (2)
Drudge Beetle (2)
Embodiement of Spring (3)
Kheru Dreadmaw (2)
Nemesis of Mortals (4)
Sanctum Plowbeast (2)
Shambling Attendants (2)
Sluiceway Scorpion (1)
Sultai Scavenger (2)
Thrashing Mossdog (1)

Land (23)

Dismal Backwater (4)
Evolving Wilds (4)
Forest (2)
Island (2)
Opulent Palace (2)
Plains (2)
Svogthos, the Restless Tomb (2)
Swamp (2)
Thornwood Falls (3)

The deck is a bit beefier than the standard 60 cards. That’s only because I didn’t want to cut it down to 60. Also, the Evolving Wilds are sort of like a bonus. They are there both as ghetto fetch lands and also as a way to power the “delve” cards without exiling creatures. I ultimately don’t care that much about creatures except for the Nemesis and tried to grab some with deathtouch so that their trades will clear minions from the board. Nemesis can be such a tough card to remove and there are four just in case it does eat some removal.

The Bant cards came as luck would have it from a flea market purchase and I thought to drop them in there as blockers and also to cycle the deck/hit the graveyard as Nemesis food. So far I have only goldfished with the deck, but it has played well in this latest iteration. Have fun working the graveyard shift!

(Note: I also want to make this into a Youtube series, but I wanted to test it out here first. Be on the lookout for that.)

What is Khans of Tarkir?

Khans of Tarkir (further referred to only as “Khans”) is the latest expansion set for the trading card game Magic: the Gathering. It was released to much fanfare on the weekend of September 26, 2014.

What is the big deal about Khans?

I will discuss three aspects of Khans, in the following order; Morph, fetch lands, and wedges.

“Morph” is a mechanic that allows you to cast a creature as a “morph” 2/2 creature for 3 colorless mana. Some morph creatures have an effect when they are turned face up. The colorless mana cost allows you to cast the creature even if you haven’t been able to draw the required mana combination. It also adds intrigue and strategy to the game as your opponent tries to determine the nature of the card while it is morphed. However, the creature, while morphed, is only a 2/2 and therefore very easy to remove.

The other two, fetch lands and wedges, are features that have been asked for by the Magic playing community. Players asked for fetches back because they are integral to certain strategies in the game. Wizards of the Coast reprinted them from the Alara block. This made the players understandably happy because another reason for the request of fetch lands was that the originals are very expensive for two reasons. First, they are rare. Second, the word is that foreign speculators and manipulators bought up many of the original fetch lands to inflate the price.

Wedges are a three color strategy to building decks. The Alara block also centered around three color decks. The difference between the themes of the two sets is that during Alara, the three colors were one main color and its two allied colors and during Khans, the three colors are two allied colors and their naturally opposed color. You can see my soon to be posted “Noob’s Guide to Magic: The Gathering Mana Wheel” and the gif below to get an idea of what I mean.

Story/Lore

The stories are one of my favorite developments of gaming. Instead of simply running from one end of the screen only to find that “your princess is another castle”, you are often now treated to a movie quality story. Magic has a one of those constantly evolving stories that continues into Khans. Tarkir is a plane that has seen all of the dragons hunted to extinction and 5 clans now war over territory and resources. These five clans are the story behind the wedges.

The Clans – These are summarized from the lore book in the Khans of Tarkir Fat Pack.

Abzan (Colors: White/Black/Green): They use the endurance of the dragon through their ability Outlast, which allows you to use mana and tapp the creature to add a +1/+1 counter on to that creature.

Jeskai (Colors: Blue/Red/White): The cunning of the dragon is evident in their ability Prowess, which allows a creature to gain +1/+1 until the end of the turn when a noncreature spell is cast.

Sultai (Colors: Black/Green/Blue): The Sultai are as ruthless as the dragon with their ability Delve, which trades cards in your graveyard as colorless mana to reduce the casting cost of powerful spells.

Mardu (Colors: Red/White/Black): The Mardu bring the speed of the dragon to the battlefield and use that speed to trigger their Raid ability. This ability allows different effects on the battlefield after having attacked.

Temur (Green/Blue/Red): The strength of the dragon is the the cornerstone of their ability Ferocious. Similar to the Mardu, Temur can trigger different abilities if they have a large creature on the field.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Noob’s Guide to Khans of Tarkir. I will try to record and upload it to Youtube. Also, be ready for more Noob’s Guides coming soon!

The 2014 core set brought Slivers back in a big way. I noticed that as I opened my 2015 core set booster box they have continued that trend into this year. I haven’t worked any of those cards into this deck, but I might see what I can do with them. I know that the trend is to run slivers as an EDH deck, but I don’t have a playable version of any of the commanders yet, so I will keep it as a 60 card deck for now.

Creatures – 22

Bonescythe Sliver – 2
Sentinel Sliver – 2
Galerider Sliver – 1
Syphon Sliver – 2
Battle Sliver – 3
Blur Sliver – 2
Manaweft Sliver – 2
Predatory Sliver – 4
Sliver Construct – 4

Spells – 18

Hive Stirrings – 4
Verdant Haven – 4
Abundant Growth – 2
Trace of Abundance – 4
Profit/Loss – 2
Ready/Willing – 2

Artifacts – 2

Door of Destinies – 2

Land – 18

Plains – 2
Island – 2
Swamp – 2
Mountain – 2
Forest – 2
Shimmering Grotto – 2
Transguild Promenade – 4
Unknown Shores – 2

This is my first serious attempt at a 5 color deck. I chose Slivers because they naturally lend themselves to including all five colors. There is not removal in the deck. It is simply about building a board and overwhelming your opponent before they have had a chance to do anything to defend themselves. I recently learned that it is highly vulnerable to removal if you are too aggressive, though, so it is a bit of a tight rope walk of when to go “all in”. All of my decks come with the caveat, “They might not win you may games, but they are fun to play!”

If I had to choose a few cards to cut, I might go with the onstructs and maybe the Hive Stirrings to get more slivers in there that directly affect the board with buffs of their own. Also, I might try to put some more land in there and maybe since I’ve rediscovered it, I’d include some Evolving Wilds. As with the Slivers themselves, this deck has the potential to change at any minute. Stay tuned for my updates.

I missed my deadline for my article about Breaking Madden yesterday. I won’t be able to post it again until next week, so in its place, I’m giving you all an excerpt from the podcast that didn’t make it into the final cut. This will both offer a different perspective and a sneak peek at the same time. Enjoy and there’s more to come soon!

(Note: You want how much for that?)

I find myself doing something now that I never even considered previously. I’m not proud of it because it contributes to the problem instead of attempting to be a solution. It takes away from my enjoyment of Magic as a game and a hobby and it adds to my frustration over treating everything in society only in terms of money and profit. I don’t think that I will ever take the next logical step, but the forces driving that decision are strong. As I opened my new booster boxes of M15 and Khans of Tarkir, I would periodically type “(card name) price” into Google to assess the “value” of each card.

I became more aware of this topic after my student that plays Magic toldme a story of how he pulled a Sarkhan planeswalker card from one of his prize booster packs and someone offered him 25 dollars on the spot for it. I wrote Chris about it because we had only days before discussed that his Khans decks aren’t quite what they could be because the tri-lands and other cards are prohibitively expensive. He replied that he has known about the state of high priced cards ever since Ice Age. That stayed with me because as I’ve mentioned, Ice Age was when I stopped collecting before starting again recently. Economics wasn’t my main reason for stopping at the time. In fact, I had no idea that it even existed as a strategy in the hobby. I assumed that all collectibles, save the very rare ones, like steroid fueled home run baseballs, tanked in price because of oversaturation. That’s what happened to me as a kid when I tried to sell baseball cards at the local flea market. “Nope,” Chris replied before giving a very specific example from that former set.

The topic continued to ferment in my brain, catalyzed by discussions in the Magic Facebook group that I recently joined. everyone posted about how they “made back part (or all) of their money” from their booster boxes. Wow, I thought, a hundred bucks. After checking the posts, they were only selling a small fraction of the cards and that made the feat even more impressive. Someone else posted bragging about how they got such a good deal for their Rabblemaster at $6 because, even though nobody believed them, it was now worth $20. Hmm, I thought, I have one of those from the fat pack that I bought. Half of the purchase price of that fat pack could be recovered through the quick sale of one card.

I don’t understand economics as a subject in general. I can’t for the life of me, figure out how we can’t agree on anything as humans, but we all agree that a dollar is worth a dollar. Even when it isn’t worth a dollar anymore–like when people say, “In my day, you could get a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, and a stick of butter for a quarter and get change”–we still agree that it is a dollar. That makes no sense to me. It isn’t like money is a finite resource. The government seemingly prints new money daily. It is only finite for your individual circumstance due to your job, bills, and living situation.

I understand individual markets even less. Some make more sense than others. Mark McGwire only hit one #62 home run ball. I don’t understand paying millions of dollars for it, but if that’s your thing, then it is the only one out there. Like money, cards are not finite. Sure, some cards are more rare by design, but for $100 I can get 540 of those cards and so can pretty much everyone else. If they want, Wizards can fire up the printers and go to town on a whole new batch of them. Each pack contains 3 uncommons, and 1 rare or mythic rare card. Some packs have a foil. I don’t know the exact probabilities because I don’t have exact print numbers, but if the economics are to be believed, then I made back my money for my booster box with two cards, Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker and a foil Wooded Foothillls. That seems absolutely absurd.

I said that I would not ever take the next logical step, but that might be a lie. The foil card is sold out at Star City Games at a price of $60. That is about 2/3 of what I paid for a box that contains 540 cards in just one card. No matter what my individual thoughts might be on this subject, that is a tough deal to ignore. The problem as a collector, is that is the only copy of that card that I currently have. Therein lies the dilemma. While there may be many, many of those cards in existence, I only have one. Others may not have any because they didn’t open 36 packs of cards in the last week. The perceived value of the card is at least partially proportional to the perceived rarity of the card. I guess I do understand economics on some level.

I still think that it is absurd that somebody would consider paying $60 for a piece of cardboard just like I found it silly that someone paid $3 million for a baseball. Sixty dollars is hard to ignore, though. Back and forth. Sell or don’t. Ultimately, I don’t think that I will sell for two reasons. One, I don’t value money as much as I value the unique. If somewhere later, I can get someone to say, “Wow, you still have one of those?” that’s priceless. Second, the foil version of this card from an older set is currently worth $150. If I can get someone to both say, “Wow, you have one of those” and follow it up with, “I’ll give you $150 for it” then that is an unquestionable win for me.

Care to explain the changing/constant worth of a dollar paradox to me? Want to commiserate over coffee about the ridiculous pricing of certain cards as we play with paper and pen proxies because the hobby is too damn expensive? Looking to buy a foil Wooded Foothills for 60 bucks? In any case, let me know in the comments, by email, or on Facebook/Twitter. As always, thanks for reading and I will be back on Thursday with a new discovery (for me), Breaking Madden.

(Note: I consider playing this deck so cheap that I have only played it once, but it remains one of my favorite decks 2 years later.)

I returned to Magic a few years ago after a long absence. My return was marked by a purchase of a deck builder tool kit for the 2013 core set. As I opened the set and marveled at the treasures inside, I noticed that they included a helpful deck building guide with some tips. One of those tips that stays with me to this day is, “Build your deck with a theme and try to stick to that theme. Tell a story with the cards.” Being a natural storyteller, I took that advice to such a level that I searched for lands that matched the overall theme of the deck. The cards in the kit seemed to be pushing me to build a blue/white spirit deck, so I tried to find islands and plains cards that looked spooky or darker, like places where spirits might reside.

While I am not quite at that level of lore in my decks anymore, I still like to have an overarching theme to the decks. Most times, that theme isn’t necessarily even a strategy to playing the deck. Rather, I prefer to have tribal decks and there’s a potential story behind every card. This particular deck was built as a response to a life gain deck that Chris built. I actually read up on the various strategies behind various decks and learned aboutmill decks. I figured that would work nicely since I didn’t think that I would ever be able to put together enough damage to overcome his constant gain. Unsure if I would be able to win with a creatureless deck, I thought about it for some time before the obvious answer hit me.

Your library in the game is a metaphor forbrains and knowledge. Zombies like to eat brains. The deck came together as a match made in heaven. I can’t promise you that the deck will win very often and it definitely will not win friends, but it is fun to play and watch the opponent’s cards disappear into the graveyard.

Land – 20

Island – 4
Swamp – 4
Dimir Aqueduct – 4
Dimir Guildgate – 4
Dreadship Reef – 2
Nephalia Drownyard – 2
Haunted Fengraf – 2

Spells – 28

Crypt Incursion – 2
Curse of the Bloody Tome – 2
Dream Twist – 2
Essence Scatter – 2
Ghoulcaller’s Chant – 2
Jace’s Erasure – 2
Mind Sculpt – 4
Murder – 2
Paranoid Delusions -2
Pilfered Plans – 2
Thought Scour – 2
Unsummon – 2
Vile Rebirth – 2

Creatures – 12

Butcher Ghoul – 2
Crypt Keeper – 2
Diregraf Captain – 1
Ghoulraiser – 2
Hunted Ghoul – 2
Rotcrown Ghoul – 1
Walking Corpse – 2

The mana situation is tenuous and the deck might be made better by going completely creatureless and either splashing in some red burn or white control or even some more blue/black control spells, but it doesn’t quite match the overall story of the deck and that’s ultimately what I want to accomplish here. Still, I encourage you to give the deck a try. Maybe don’t try it against your friends unless you have a strong friendship that can withstand the trauma of watching a library consumed by the zombie horde.