Thursday, March 31, 2011

Magic Events April, May

Magic: The Gathering
Events


WPN April Events

Magic: The Gathering: Casual Play: Here, you rule. Come to play, trade, or build decks for Magic: the Gathering. Decks available for use. New Players Welcome.
Tuesdays: 5,12,19,26; 5:30-9:00pm

Friday Night Magic: Here, you rule. Standard type 2 constructed event. $7.00 entry. DCI sanctioned w/ prize support! Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Fridays: 8,22,29; 5:30pm - 9:00pm

FNM; Two-Headed Giant: Totally not a joke. Enjoy a change of pace with a Two-Headed Sealed event. Each team of 2 will receive 8 packs of Scars/Besieged product. Entry $16.00 per player or $32.00 per team. DCI sanctioned w/ prize support! FNM and other promos offered as random door prizes. Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Friday, April 1st, 5:00-9:00pm.

Commander Event: Participate in the most awesome format ever. Elder Dragon Highlander AKA Commander. 100card singleton commander format. Multi-player with victory points. $10.00 entry. Prizes to be distributed as store credit.
Tues, April 12th 4:00pm-9:00pm Note: the date of this event has changed.


WPN May Events

Magic: The Gathering: Casual Play: Here, you rule. Come to play, trade, or build decks for Magic: the Gathering. Decks available for use. New Players Welcome.
Tuesdays: 3,10,17,24,31

Friday Night Magic: Here, you rule. Standard type 2 constructed event. $7.00 entry. DCI sanctioned w/ prize support! Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Fridays: 6,20,; 5:30pm - 9:00pm

Friday Night Magic: Here, you rule. New Phyrexia Draft event. $16.00 entry. DCI sanctioned w/ prize support! Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Fridays: 27; 5:30pm - 9:00pm

New Phyrexia Pre-release!: Once again NDC is proud to host an officially sanctioned pre-release event. A Scars of Mirrodin Block sealed deck event featuring the newest set, New Phyrexia. $30.00 entry fee w/ prize support! Days events to include free play ($16.00) and sanctioned draft ($16.00) if time allows. Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Saturday: 7th; 11:30 registration; Play 12:30-5:30; Draft 6:00-9:00

New Phyrexia Launch!: Celebrate the official launch of the Magic set New Phyrexia in this Draft event. $16.00 entry. DCI sanctioned w/ prize support! Hosted by Dan Regewitz.
Friday: 13th; 5:30-9:00pm.


Future Events

2011-06-11 -New Phyrexia Game Gay (standard)

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Commander: It's all in the cards.

= It's all in the cards.

If you've never built a Commander deck before, it kinda goes without saying that your going to need cards to build with. Even someone like myself who's a big fan of the format with multiple decks under my belt, goes out of their way to acquire cards when attempting to build a new Commander deck.

You're going to need a lot of cards.



Ok, maybe not that many. Although you can build with every card ever printed, remember the limitations of the Commander format. You have to stay in-color with your chosen Commander, you can only run one copy of any given card. You can also start picking your effects now. Running black, but creatures not a big part of your game plan? Don't grab Raise Dead or similar effects. Also low cost creatures (without abilities) are dead draws in Commander as a format



Ah, that's more like it. This is where my last 2 Commander decks started. As approximately 400 loose cards. It took me roughly 4 months to accumulate the selection you see before you by trading with other players, as well as with my FLGS (friendly local gaming store). I spend a good deal of store credit and some cash both locally and online to get this selection of cards to build from.

I want to say that it's OK to have a list of specific Cards that you want to see in your deck. I strongly urge beginners to not build complete deck lists that they see online. Often these lists include expensive singles and aren't going to fit your play style. If you are picking the cards, then there's a good chance the deck is going to be fun for you!

- The Building Process

Why start with so many cards? Because it's relatively easy to cut cards you don't like or don't want. Also starting with 400 cards and cutting down to 60 (not including land), ensures that you get everything you need (but maybe not everything you want) into the deck. Also I find it preferable to finding yourself a few cards short, and attempting to fill those slots with miscellaneous commons you have lying around that quite possibly aren't going to work for your game plan or be syngeristic with the rest of your deck. Worst case scenario they might even work against you. Whereas if you find such cards in your stack of 400, you can simply cut them from consideration, or swap them out for cards you've already cut - but are better than junk.

- Sort your cards

You need to know what you have, before you can get building. I highly suggest sorting all your cards by color and card type. This gives you an idea of what resources your dealing with. It allows you to review your card choices, revise your overall game plan, find patterns, recognize cards that are going to make just about any cut, etc.

The only cards you should cut at this point are those that you have more than one copy of (a no-no for Commander).



Here I have my collection of cards for Zur spread out in front of me. The first row is Non-basic land, then Enchantments by color. The second row is the Commander (Zur), then auras by color. The third row is non-aura, non-creatures by color. The last row is creatures by color.



Slightly more dramatically the stacks are photographed here (left to right) as: Non-basic lands, Enchantments, Auras, Artifacts, Other spells (instants, sorceries, planeswalkers), and creatures.

- The First Cut

Well, the deck cannot come together unless we start to cut cards. I take time to look at each pile that I've made. Within each card type I sort the cards further. Cards that seem really good or fun go into one pile. Cards that seem strong or interesting go into another. Marginal cards go into a third, and cards that I just plain don't like go in a fourth.

Let's not mince words. Your goal here is to cut cards. You should be as brutal as you dare. I typically scoop up the weaker two piles and return them to the box. Culling close to half of my selection in the first or second go-arround.



First cut complete. Looking at the box of 'cut' cards it looks like I managed somewhere below half, but not by much. Not a bad thing.

- Creatures

Creatures are very important to any Commander deck, as they represent the Aggro part of any deck's strategy. Creatures can slowly and incrementally win you just about any game by attacking. Thus any deck should have a few big fat creatures that can win the game conventionally. It's also a good idea to invest some card slots in creatures that have utility functions like fetching land, killing other creatures, destroying pesky permanents (like artifacts or enchantments), and so forth. This is true even if your game plan is to control & combo.

I mentioned "Card slots" there. Let me explain a bit. A commander deck has to be exactly 100 cards. No more, and no less. So when you commit yourself to running a specific card, you've locked that in. By deciding that Zur wants about 20 creatures, and cutting my pile of creatures down to 20 cards, I've not only consumed 20 of my 100 cards total, but I've consumed 20 of my 20 creature cards total.



My 20 creatures, sorted by casting cost ... for now.

- Cut and Cut some more!

This is a process you repeat and repeat again for each stack. Each time you pick up a stack, you try to cut more cards. You distill the piles of junk into stacks of cards that (1) work with your strategy, (2) work synergistically with your other cards, and (3) you really _really_ like!



This picture I snapped somewhere around my 5th or 6th attempt to cut cards. At this point in time I still had 70-some odd cards on the table, and had to cut another 10-15 to pair it down to my final 60. Why 60? Because you need to run Land, and 40 percent is about right for a Commander deck whose spells typically peak in the 3-5 range, and go up to 10. Also keep in mind that I have limited mana-ramping in my chosen colors.

It goes without saying that each time you go back to cut cards, it's going to be more difficult. You may end up revising exactly how many cards your setting aside for creatures, for example. To make more space for say ... enchantments. Which is something I did for Zur.

It might also help to sort your cards using different Criteria. Sorting them by mana cost is something I like to do when I only have a few cards left to cut. I look for mana costs that have a lot of cards at that cost. I then look at all the cards that cost the same, and try to cut a card or two that aren't worth the mana investment compared to other cards of the same cost. I'm particularly critical of spells costing six or more. With that kind of mana investment I should get something that's going to significantly impact the game.



Some more Zur cards, sorted by cost.

You may also want to sort by color. In a multi-color deck like the one I'm building this helps identify if your relying on one color too heavily, or ignoring another.



Looks like it could be a case of too much white, not enough black?

After agonizing over card choices for a while, you eventually settle on a stack that you feel is playable. I ended up with ... 19 Creatures, 11 Other spells, 15 Auras, and 15 Enchantments. Yeah that's 30 total enchantments, but you have to remember that I am building around Zur. Incedentally 20 of those enchantments are casting cost 3 or less, and thus suitable fetches for Zur's ability.

- Mana Balance.

Land is vital to the performance of the deck. The key to figuring out what kind of land you want to run is figuring out what colors your deck is. I know you know what colors your deck is, but the trick is to run land in the right proportion. This is of course a moot point if you happen to be running a mono-colored deck. It's less of a concern for two-color decks, but I would still recommend this process for them. I find it absolutely necessary to do this for 3-5 color decks of any style.

I've worked out an algorithm that works for me and I use for nearly all my magic decks.

(1) Count the number of mana symbols on each card.
I do this step with pen and paper. Using tally marks to mark how many mana symbols of each color appears on each card. I include mana symbols that appear in rules text also. Hybrid symbols count as both colors. Thus Debtors' Knell adds both 3 white and 3 black tallies to my sheet.

Debtors' Knell

(2) Total the number of symbols in each color, and Total mana symbols overall.
For Zur I had 55 white symbols, 30 blue, and 29 black, the deck has a total of 114 mana symbols.

(3) Find the percent of each color in your deck.
This is the number of symbols in a specific color divided by the total symbols in the deck.
(decimals used for accuracy)
White = 55 / 114 = 48.24%
Blue = 30 / 114 = 26.31%
Black = 29 / 114 = 25.43%

(4) Figure out how many land slots your running.
Zur was going to be running 40 land, but I had 20 non-basics to deal with first. Looking at my non-basics I found 14 that I could effectively ignore because they were colorless, any color, or completed sets of multicolor lands (Ravnica bounce and Lorwyn filters). This leaves me with 26 land slots to fill. Note that 6 of these slots will be filled by my remaining 6 non-basics.

(5) Find the number of mana sources you need of each color.
(Land slots multiplied by the percent of the deck in the color your working with above).
White = 26 x .4824 = 12.54 White sources
Blue = 26 x .2631 = 6.84 Blue sources
Black = 26 x .25.43 = 6.61 Black Sources

(6) Get your Basics.
I substituted 2 plains for a Serra's Sanctum and a Celestial Colonnade from my remaining stack of non-basics, and added 10 Plains. (12 Sources).
I substituted 2 Islands for a Faerie Conclave, and Creeping Tar Pit, and grabbed 5 Islands (7 Sources).
I substituted 2 Swamps for a Bojuka Bog and Dreadship Reef, and grabbed 5 Swamps (7 Sources).

Congratulations, you are now ready to sleeve up your deck and give it a test or two.


Um, please use sleeves. You spent all that time and money making this deck, give it some respect. Plus I cringe when I see people shuffle up without them.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Commander: Having a Plan

= Having A plan

Last week I introduced Commander as a format, this time I'm going to write about how one can go about building a Commander deck.

The reason why I'm writing about the Commander format lately is because I recently completed my fourth Commander deck (well, that and because I enjoy it). Except for my first Commander deck, I have followed a series of steps and phases when building decks of this type. I have worked out a framework for how to build a successful commander deck. Thus far, it has turned out 2 reasonably good decks in my local play group. Hopefully this newest one will be the third. I thought I'd share what exactly this framework entails. Hopefully this will enlighten those new to the format, inspire those who want to get into the format, and encourage those already in the format.

Let's say your interested in putting together a Commander deck, but you don't know where to start. You need to set yourself on a road map, develop a plan, and work out a strategy. Probably the most important question you need to ask yourself is what do you want the deck to do? Or more accurately, what do you find fun in Magic? (Mark Rosewater has written a handful of articles on Timmy, Johnny, and Spike which can help you discover what you find fun in Magic).

Painting in very broad strokes every (successful) deck that has ever been built does some combination of the following.
(1) Aggro: Swing with creatures.
(2) Control: Manage the board.
(3) Combo: Get some subset of cards that do something well together.

Now I believe that a good Commander deck will actually do all three of these, but in varying amounts. Each deck is will possess an overall play style or strong focus that will be the deck's core strategy. The deck will contain multiple win conditions which will fit into one of the three strategies. I'll feed you some examples from my own Commander decks.

Thraximundar
The deck itself has lots of spells, only about 20 creatures, and focuses on effects that destroy, sacrifice, or steal cards from other players. It's primary strategy is Control.

Rith, the Awakener
This deck has a decent array of creatures, not as many spells, and focuses on effects that accelerate the game, and pump my creatures. It's primary strategy is Aggro.

Sliver Overlord
This deck is mostly creatures. Even less spells than Rith, and focuses on a wide diversity of creature-based effects. Slivers are creatures, and therefore the deck is most likely to kill by attacking (an Aggro win condition). Slivers however, are inherently synergistic creatures, and the deck does include one combo (that requires 5-7 individual cards) that allow it to explode into unlimited mana/sliver tokens, thus it has a strong synergistic component with a possible combo win condition.


- Choosing a Commander

Choosing who your Commander will be is an important and vital part of building your deck. I can't tell you who to pick as your Commander, but I can tell you that there are a few philosophies behind why people pick the creatures they do.

(1) It's just the color(s) I need.
Sometimes a player knows what color(s) they want to play, but do not have a specific Commander in mind. The different colors in magic specialize in different tasks. You want to play a specific color or colors because it's what you want the deck to do. If you want to sit there and throw burn at your opponent then you're going to be playing red. If that's going to be a primary focus of your deck you may even choose to run Jaya Ballard, Task Mage.

A player can be forced to choose using this philosophy. This occurs most frequently when a player decides on a two or three color combination that include more "enemy" colors than ally colors. For example if you really want to play Blue and Green in a commander deck you have to pick between Experiment Kraj or Momir Vig, Simic Visionary. Similarly, if you want to destroy everything with extreme prejudice in White, Black, and Red - then the only Commander available to you is Oros, the Avenger - At least until the Commander decks come out this summer.

Oros, the Avenger

(2) I'm Building around this commander.

Sometimes a player knows what commander they want, and they simply build around them. In this case, there is some rules text on the card that gives the player a parameter that they want to run with. Sometimes it's as simple as creature type. Eladamri, Lord of Leaves? Looks like mono-green elves!

More often than not the legendary creature has an ability that the player plans on using to their advantage. Sedris, the Traitor King is Blue, Black and Red. However his ability lends him to a creature-based strategy, specifically one that generates extra damage or card advantage out of bringing things back from the graveyard.

Sedris, the Traitor King

(3) This commander goes with my deck..

Sometimes a player has an idea for a deck, or set of cards they want to play, or a type of effect they want to play. The player then has to find a commander that is a "best fit" with what they want to do. Both of my Rith (Naya) and Thraximundar (Grixis) decks mentioned above evolved this way. For each deck I was considering multiple possible commanders before settling on the ones I now use.

In case your curious Rith was once in contention with Johan and Mayael the Anima. Mayael was eventually cut from the deck entirely when I determined the success rate of her ability was too low. The deck still includes a Johan, but Rith's stats I thought were generally superior and more in tune with what the deck's plan was as a whole.

As an example, I will tell you that my latest Commander creation is:
Zur the Enchanter
My planed strategy for this deck is mixed. I hope to stall the game, swing with creatures (specifically Zur), and create some synergistic situations all by using enchantments. My primary focus is to attack (with Zur), and win using Commander damage rules. I choose Zur as a build-around general (Philosophy #2).

Monday, March 14, 2011

Commander, an introduction

= Commander, an Introduction

I sit on one end of a standard 8-foot table, one of six bodies huddled around a massive game of Highlander Commander. One of my favorite formats for casual play. The person sitting on the far side of the table has a Tefferi commander preventing me from casting anything except on my own turn. My brother has a Howling Mine and just put a Mana Flare on the table. The Tolsimir Wolfblood Deck on my immediate right just tried to cast Genisis Wave whith x=23, fortunately the blue player countered it, unfortunately there's now a 27/27 Draining whelk over there. I'm playing Thraximundar as a Commander. I have a blocker, Counterballance and Sensei's Diving Top bringing me a lot of hate, and a few cards in hand - Decree of Pain, Gutless Ghoul, Fork, Plauge Wind, and Land.

This is one of my favorite formats for several reasons.

(1) The decks are awesome. 100 cards makes for a huge deck. You can build with almost any card ever printed, barring a brief 20-some card banned list, and illegal sets like unglued (although some play groups will allow un-sets). However the restriction of building around the the colors (and sometimes abilities) of a legendary creature (your commander), and the restriction of not having anymore than one copy of any given card, except basic land, makes every deck and every game unique.

(2) The games are awesome. Interesting, difficult, bizarre and unusual cards and interactions are all possible in Commander. I find that the format keeps me on my toes and in good practice as both a player and a judge. It also enables me to share rules knowledge with my players. I mostly play multiplayer where there is an additional layer of diplomacy and picking on whomever is top dog. Although Commander can be complex, I find this aspect of it incredibly fun.

(3) The people are awesome. I am somewhat fortunate in that I have found a nest of players who all enjoy the Commander format. Some of them even enjoy it for the same reasons that I do, and this is a great blessing.

The Official website for the Commander Format can be found here:
http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php

Here's a lowdown of the major differences between Commander and the other Magic you may be more used to.

(1) Your deck must consist of exactly 100 cards (this includes your Commander).
(2) You select a single legendary creature, this creature is your Commander.
(3) When constructing your deck, you may only choose cards that are the colors in your Commander's mana cost and/or ability text.
(4) Except for basic land, you may only put one copy of any given unique card in your deck.
(5) You start the game with 40 life.
(6) When drawing your opening hand there may be an alternate mulligan rule in effect. Most groups use something called the Partial Paris mulligan.
(7) Your commander starts the game in the Command zone. You may cast your commander from the command zone any time you can normally cast a creature spell.
(8) If your commander would go to the graveyard, or exile zones, you can choose to send them to the command zone instead. If you do, the Commander costs 2 more to cast for each time it is returned to the command zone.
(9) Most likely there is a "Commander damage" rule in effect. If a player should accumulate 21 points of damage from a single commander during the course of a game, they loose the game.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Running a Magic Game Day.

= Running a Magic Game Day.
= March 7th, 2011

Late on a Friday night, after the FNM was well done and over with, I became suddenly and violently ill. I'll spare you the horrid details but I definitely had a spat with the flu, and it attacked me suddenly and without warning.

This posed a serious problem, because tomorrow, Saturday, was Besieged game day. I knew then that I would not be fit to run any event, but calling anyone would do no good at such a late hour. So I grabbed some much needed sleep, but set my alarm for 8:00 so I could inform my coworkers of my state.

I put the decision of whether or not to actually run the event up to Ken, my immediate supervisor. He was willing to run the event, but needed detailed specific instructions of how to go about it.

What follows is a copy of the e-mail I then composed to Ken. I am posting it here in hopes that it may help some other organizer planning for their first game day, or training a co-worker to run a game day in the event of an sudden and unexpected absence. A slight disclaimer: Some features of this document such as cost to enter, prize payout, the ability of players to "Choose a faction" and get a promo based on that choice will not be the same for all game days or all locations.

"...
Subject: RE: Urgent: Game Day

You need to:

(1) Begin the tournament.
(a) Open the Game day event in WER, from the list of sanctioned events, should be sorted by date.
(b) Enter the players into the event. If you need new DCI cards they are in my box.
(c) Make sure everyone who payed are in the computer and vice-versa.
(d) Everyone who enters gets a "Treasure Mage" Promo out of my box. (Try and save me at least 4).
The Tournament will be 3 rounds with 8 players. 4 rounds with 9-16, and 5 with 17-32 (although I hope you don't get in that range).

(2) Each Round you..
(a) Pair players.
(b) Announce or post pairings so that Players can find their match.
(c) Keep score by entering results.
(d) Each round is 45 to 50 minutes in length. If all results are in before that time elapses, feel free to pair players for the next round.
(e) If you do go to time tell whomever is still playing "Active player finish your turn, you have 5 additional turns to finish this match."
(f) A game that goes to time with no winner is recorded as a draw.

(g) At the end of regular swiss rounds, print up a copy of "Standings" and allow the players to review it.
(h) Assuming no player has any issues with how the standings turned up, you proceed to ...

(3) The Cut
(a) With 8 players you play three rounds and your done (see ending the tournament).
(b) With 9-16 players you play four rounds, then start single-elimination rounds, cutting to top 4.
(c) With 17+ players you play five round, then start single-elimination rounds, cutting to top 8.
(d) Single elimination rounds work like regular rounds, except players are dropped from the tournament after a loss.
(e) After the single-elimination rounds are complete you can ...

(4) Ending the Tournment
(a) Print up the standings again.
(b) The Top 8 players all receive the "Black Sun's Zenith" extended art foil promo in my box.
(c) The top 2 players with Phyrexian - aligned decks get a copy of the Suture Priest card.
(d) The top 2 players with Mirran - aligned decks get a copy of Pristine Talisman card.
(e) I expect that you'll have to question the players about who has an "aligned" deck. If someone is unclear on what that means it's...
(f) At least 10 cards of your chosen faction in your main deck. No cards of opposing faction in main deck or sideboard.'

(5) Handing out Prizes.
(a) Each player who enters adds 3 booster packs to the prize pool.
(b) Figure out what the prize payout will be shortly after you know how many players are in the event.
(c) Prizes scale, and get paid out to 1/2 the player base (4th place with 8 people).

Examples:
8 Players; 24 total Packs; 12/ 7/ 3/ 2
12 Players; 36 Total Packs; 15/ 9/ 4/ 4/ 2/ 2
16 Players; 48 Total Packs; 16/ 12/ 6/ 4/ 3/ 3/ 2/ 2

(6) Dealing with the unforseen.
(a) Chances are somebody (or two) is going to complain about something simply because I'm not there. My advice is to listen to their concerns, tell them your doing the best you can, and if you think it's serious you can call to consult me on it.

If you have any specific questions, I'll try to help as best I can.

- Cheers,
- Dan R.

..."

And that friends is how to run a game-day event!