Magic "B.Y.O.B." (Bring Your Own Boosters) Draft

Today John E., Ian E., Jon G. and I enjoyed being the FINAL FOUR (out of 4) in a makeshift Magic: The Gathering CCG draft. We decided ahead of time that any 15 card, non-Unglued boosters would work fine, and brought 4 each (3 to use, 1 for the prize pot). John and Ian brought a lot of the new Time Spiral, which is a great set that features a lot of re-released cards and game mechanics. I brought 2 each of Champions and Saviors of Kamigawa and Jon brought some Guildpact and Kamigawa, and I think I even saw some Coldsnap so it was all relatively recent stuff. To me, to be honest, it would not have mattered much what cards were in the packs because playing Magic is just a lot of fun. Plus, it had been a long time since most of us had played.

Final ranking was 1. me (6-1), 2. John (5-3), 3. Ian (2-4), 4. Jon (1-6). I ran heavy white, with medium blue and a splash of black and artifacts. John included green/red, Ian used black/red and Jon ran white/green/blue. Read on if you're interested in more details.

During the draft, I saw some okay white and blue flying creatures and cards early, and they seemed to keep coming, so I stuck with those colors mostly. I only drafted a couple of red and green cards, but there were a few black cards I thought I just might use, because blue/white is weak on creature removal/control. In draft, artifacts are almost always useable, and I got three or four useable ones. I know I let a lot of good cards go and could have made some better choices for my deck but on the whole I was happy with the cards I chose as they came around.

The most memorable play of the game for me came late in game one of my first match, when John tapped 8 mana to play a red dragon, some kind of Hellkite (Shivan or Balduvian, I think) that's a 5/5 flyer and does 5 damage split any way among creatures or players when it comes into play. I countered it for 4uu with Draining Whelk (Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.) Flying. When Draining Whelk comes into play, counter target spell. Put X +1/+1 counters on Draining Whelk, where X is that spell's converted mana cost. 1/1 rare from Time Spiral. All of a sudden, with a card I had not planned on including in my deck at all because of its high casting cost, I had a 9/9 flyer! Incidently, that card has excellent artwork. I went on to go 2-1, winning the first and third games of the first match, but each game was long and close. John is an excellent player both in deckbuilding and game play, and a great guy too. He was topdecking well with an artifact, and made good use of massive red removal. His deck also produced excellent mana and some big green creatures that were difficult to deal with, and everything seemed to work together. Most of my creatures had a toughness of 3 or less, and kept all getting killed off at once. For me, Fortify (a white common instant from Time Spiral that gives all my creatures either +2/+0 or +0/+2) helped me a lot. I had two, and each time I used the card, I used for power, not toughness. So did Clockwork Hydra, an uncommon artifact creature that automatically "Tim's" for 1 whenever it attacks or blocks. My white and blue weenies and relatively low-casting cost fliers were the workhorses of my deck, but I think it was the surprise factor of instants like Fortify that won games. One of my favorite aspects of Magic is finding really useful commons.

The second match I played Ian, who had just beaten Jon 2-0 very quickly. His deck was a very fast and focused black/red Sligh style deck, well-tuned for draft. His deck had cool graveyard effects too. A guy this good, this young has real potential. I was a bit concerned that my life total might dip into the danger zone because so many of my cards (especially the fliers) cost 4 mana or more. But it seemed like every draw I got just what I needed. Thunder Totem (U, TS Artifact 3 tap: add w to your mana pool. 1ww: Thunder Totem becomes a 2/2 white Spirit artifact creature with flying and first strike until end of turn) helped speed my mana curve, as did my 1-cost (Drifter il-Dal, Children of Korlis) 2-cost (Silent-Chant Zubera, Fathom Seer) and 3-cost (Descendant of Kiyomaro, 2x Icatian Crier) creatures. It was interesting that Ian and I each had a creature with shadow in play in game 2. One of his favorite creatures was a black 3/1 with flanking for a casting cost of 2b, that is a common (I forgot it's name). What really saved me against stuff like that was first strike. Creatures like Shinen of Stars' Light (2w Creature-Spirit First strike Channel 1w, discard Shinen of Stars' Light: Target creature gains first strike until end of turn.) and especially artifacts like the Thunder Totem and also No-Dachi (2 Artifact--Equipment. Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has first strike. Equip 3.) really did help. So did that splash of black, especially for Ostiary Thrull (3b, Creature--Thrull. W, tap: tap target creature 2/2). In the later part of the games, blue enforcers like Viscerid Deepwalker (4u Creature -- Homarid Warrior u: Viscerid Deepwalker gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Suspend 4 -- u) really came in handy too. The effect that caught my attention in the second match was the combo of Promise of Bunrei (2w Enchantment, whenever a creature you control is put into a graveyard from play, sacrifice Promise of Bunrei. If you do, put four 1/1 colorless Spirit creature tokens into play), Icatian Crier (2w, Creature--Human Spellshaper 1w, tap, Discard a card: Put two 1/1/ white Citizen creature tokens into play. 1/1) and Fortify. It's not hard to make white goblin-like hoards and pump them up quickly. I had two Criers and two Fortifies in my deck, and didn't pick up on the combo until we were actually playing. Promise of Bunrei is one rare that would be scary in a constructed enchantress-type deck, especially something with recursion...

When I played Jon in the third match, I could see early on what he was going for with the cards he had chosen for his deck. Although his deck shared colors with mine, he had more creature enchantments, while I had more creatures. One of my bigger fliers, Castle Raptors (4w, Creature--Bird Soldier Flying As long as Castle Raptors is untapped, it gets +0/+2 3/3) came in helpful, as did No-Dachi. I finally got to use Kaho, Minamo Historian (2uu Legendary Creature--Human Wizard, When Kaho, Minamo Historian comes into play, search your library for up to three instant cards and remove them from the game. Then shuffle your library. X, tap: You may play a card with converted mana cost X removed from the game with Kaho without paying its mana cost. 2/2), one of the reasons I drafted blue in the first place. What a great card. Unfortunately, in the game situation where he came up in game two I had to insult Kaho's ability by pumping him up with No-Dachi and just attacking with him, instead of using his ability.

Next D&D Game should be Sun, Dec. 3rd at noon

Next Magic: TBA.

Slugs and Stormtroopers

In D&D today, the Joseph figured out that the party had just been to Olympus. The portal vanished and after exporing the cave further, Geena and Fergus discovered a narrow fissure in the wall, which the party followed for four periods of waking and sleeping ("days" are meaningless underground). The fissure opened into a huge chasm, and once the party climbed to the top of the ledge, observation and scrying unveiled more titan city ruins a quarter mile across, with bits of buildings on both sides, including a crypt, with pieces of titan bones sticking out of each cliff face. The party climbed (and/or fell) down to a ledge below, where they fought three giant acid-spitting slugs, each 5' in diameter, with slippery yet sticky thick hides. After what proved a difficult encounter, the group continued downward and discovered the ruins of a titan bank. "Oh great, more huge coins?" said Taito. No, it had been emptied a few days previously by the drow, according to the well-dressed kobold accountant who was the sole inhabitant of the empty vault. "I'm supposed to tell the owner of the vault it was the lizard men who took it. The drow tried to get me to implicate my own kind, to say it was kobolds, until I threatened to kill myself if they made me. That magic eye is watching. The vampire titan is going to be very upset when he comes back here for his money."
XP 2000 GP 0

Star Wars was pretty fun today, with the Akbar's Trap bunch up to their usual craziness. Crashing landspeeders until quickfoam spilled onto the duracrete. Disarming killing and misleading the endless supply of stormtroopers. Stealing plans for the Empire's newest underwater "maximum supression" war machines. Stuff like that.
XP 2000 Party credits 30,000

Remember, this coming Saturday (the 25th) we're playing Magic, so bring 4 boosters (or 60 random non-land cards).
Next D&D/Star Wars session should be December 3.

Underdark Olympics?

Aaron J., Phil, Rod, Rob, Carson, Jon, Aaron E. all made it to today's D&D session. Welcome Aaron J. We were going to play upstairs but space looked a bit tight in the kitchen and the basement wasn't quite too cold this afternoon. We played D&D the whole session.

Picking up where we left off last time, within one of the clay pots in the ruins of the titan city market were found the recent remains of a halfling. Curious, High Inquisitor Joseph Prax did a raise dead on the body. As it turned out, Day-O, the halfling rogue, had been smashed by a titan's gargantuan warhammer about a week previously. The little halfling had been attempting to loot the market ruins on a solo expedition, and had the misfortune of getting caught in the act. Having explored the area a bit, the halfling discovered an area of loose gravel in the floor. After investigation, stonecunning, and excavation involving Geena and Gemberlion, a circular hole was revealed. A while later, the party had 150' of rope leading straight down into the unknown. Gemberlion was digging further when the bottom fell out from beneath him and he was falling into such a large underground chamber it seemed he was outside. Luckily, he was able to save himself from a crushing death by using his flying bicycle, which he had been using to cart debris to the surface of the hole.

Before long, the party had decended to the floor of the great chamber. There, a 35' tall carved arc of stone stood, with 10 symbols and glyphs in an old dialect of the giant tongue. As the party investigated the "henge," they found it to be much more greatly detailed than the crude structures of stone they had seen on the surface. They also noticed a path made of large stones, which formed a perfect circle. In the distance a gigantic tent and several flaming braziers could be seen. Soon, footsteps thundered. Day-O recognized the toga-clad titan who had crushed him the previous week. Already atop the stone arc, the rogue pushed buttons at random. Warm air rushed into the area. Suddenly, beyond the portal beckoned a bright cloudy mystery. All of the party but Noctorium went through, and the titan followed. Noctorium stood vigil; you never know when you might need a wizard friend on the other side of something like this, especially if you want to make sure you get back...

On the other side of the portal there was daylight. As their eyes adjusted, the group saw a tremendous stone sports arena, where "Olympic" events were being held, with "entries across time and space." Here, the titan who had seemingly followed them ignored the party completely and simply went about his business. In the place and time where the party arrived, the 10 events were: Javelin throw, 1-mile footrace, Greek-style wrestling, triple-jump, rowing, archery, water polo, maze race, diving, and two equestrian events: dresage and obstacle race. Delegations present included Goblonia (goblins), Kingdom of Orcus (ogres & orcs), Draconia (lizardmen), Titania (titans, the hosts; many magically reduced in size for fairness), Liliput (halflings), Garumoso (trolls), Fiveleaf (elves), Dargnagor (dwarves), Diamos (drow), Nilofanti-Nova (gnomes), and others (mostly unaffiliated and mongrelmen). Most of the judges were titans, however representatives of each of the races were included on the judges panel (Joseph, for example, represented the humans, who were otherwise represented only by the human members of the party).

Most of the rest of the game session consisted of the various competitions. I will relate here what I can remember to the best of my ability, with apologies for anything I'm mistaken about (but let me know and I'll edit this later): 1. In the Javelin Throw, the ogres and trolls dominated, but I think one of the party members got the bronze, either Revan or Taito. There was talk about "the incident," of a few years previously, when the goblin delegation went into the supply shed and began throwing javelins into the stands, killing a young titan girl when she was struck in the throat; security has since been increased. 2. The One Mile Footrace was held "indoors, out of the heat and wind," back through the portal the party had used earlier. Day-O managed to sabotage the track by raising one of the stones in the one-mile path, without getting caught. The titan, running his race at 6' instead of 25' for fairness, tripped on the stone and Taito ended up winning the gold. 3. Greek-Style Wrestling was also won by Taito, but the competition was pretty good. 4. The Triple-Jump was interesting, but I didn't write down who won. I think Revan got a medal. 5. Rowing was dominated by Black-Eyed Bill, Fergus and Taito, all of whom have spent many an hour wielding an oar at sea, arr! Medals for events with each type of boat, with one to six men or women were awarded. Even the gnomes managed a bronze, though they had to remove the footgears and propeller from their craft first to qualify. The Diamos Drow were caught by event judge Joseph Prax trying to use hawk on a rope to go faster, though they were losing anyway. Joseph's proposal to burn the drow as punishment was considered and dismissed, as was the idea of branding them. Incidently, each event is surrounded by an anti-magic shell for its duration, largely due to previous drow attempts at cheating. 6. Archery was won by Geena, a first ever for a female and a first ever for a dwarf. Elves took the silver, I think, and Revan or maybe Balthizor took the bronze. 7. Water Polo was ferocious, with the "Human/unaffiliated" team consisting of Black Eyed Bill, Revan, Fergus, Taito (I think) and a walruslike mongrelman goally. After beating the lizardmen favorites of Draconia, the team were defeated by the Garumoso Scrags (trolls), who had a lot of penalties but could not be stopped. The silver was the first medal ever for humans in this event. 8. The Maze Race, for which the minotaur team were barred after 500 consecutive golds, was in turn designed and administrated by the minotaur delegation, who focused entirely on it. Two identical mazes, one contestant at a time. Some come out alive, and some don't. Others have gone crazy or exited the maze with dehydration and starvation symptoms. Nobody from the party won, though Day-O was able to complete the maze in 28 rounds. (five consecutive DC 32 search checks are required for success). 9. Diving: Day-O got the bronze by virtue of a great tumble check. 10. Equestrian: Dresage and Obstacle Course events were both won by Revan, though the elves had a good showing also.

After each Olympic events, the flag of the delegations of each medal winner were hoisted in turn, while the song of each played. Nightsong Sharpfang (the former Daybill) performed this service for the party members, as heraldry and music are her stock in trade. Taito drunkenly sung his Monster Island anthem from his pedastal whenever he won a medal.

Experience: 2,000 xp. Treasure: Bragging rights. Next session: should be two Sundays from today at noon.