Hey, I know it's been a while since I wrote anything on this blog. For anybody reading this for D&D (and Star Wars RPG) game/story ideas, I recommend taking a look at some of my early entries on this blog if you haven't already.
For the past couple years or more, I haven't really been gaming every week - it's been every other Saturday, but we play 6 hour sessions instead of 3. I think I posted earlier that I really do enjoy 4th Edition (mostly thanks to Rod). I think it's the minis aspect - It's like playing a D&D version of Mordheim, which I really like a lot. So it's the best of both worlds, only different from either one. I do still like the Pathfinder story line and plan to run it (D&D 3.5) in a couple of weeks.
MAGIC
Today I played in a Shards of Alara/Conflux Magic booster draft tournament at Old Town Hobby. I would like to thank everyone who came for playing - there were 9 of us and we had a great time. Ray (K) won (4 packs instead of 5). Luke took second (3 packs instead of 2), and it was a 3-way tie for 3rd between me, Shawn (R., who won the booster rolloff with a 10) and Nate (last initial unknown at this time). It was great to meet Nate and Shawn, thank you also to Jon (G), John, Phil (who got the Ultimate Loser pack) and Stuart. Ray ran black-red-blue with heavy removal, and when he showed me his deck I saw why - he grabbed pretty good cards, he kept most of his mana costs at 4 or lower, and he has been playing a lot lately.
I ran Green-Red-White with some removal. My deck had okay early speed and a wonderful late-game (5-6 mana) punch, but could have benefitted from a stronger middle game (3-4 mana cards). More evasion and utility (card drawing and all-creature effects) would have helped it too. When it went off, it did great but I could have done better in drafting, deck building and game play - as well as luck of the draw. Originally I had intended to contain my deck to just green-red based on strength of the cards I saw early but both Alara (the 1st 2 packs) and the draft format really favor 3 color, so I splashed the white. I saw some nice rares, but I wasn't rare drafting (in fact, I think I only ended up with 2 or 3 rares). I'm always just trying to put together a deck that will work. In retrospect, I probably should have splashed black or blue instead of white, but oh well - it was really fun. I wonder how my deck would have matched up against Ray's. I played Nate and Shawn (and drew one of the byes).
These sets have some great 5-cost creatures, some of the best special lands I have seen in 10 years, and several "interesting" cards that will probably need to be banned someday...
