Friday, July 31, 2009

MtG: Friday Night Magic

= MtG: Friday Night Magic
= Friday, July 31st, 2009

Well for this week’s FNM we ran some standard format two-headed giant. I had precisely the minimum to sanction this event with 4 teams of 2 players - or 8 players. The play was fierce and intense on all sides, making for a great (and fun) magic night. For example the first round both matches finished 2-1, with close games. Ben R and Chris L barely managed a 3-0 match record to win the tournament. Of special note was the card Breath of Malfegor, which due to the two-headed giant format was dealing 10 points of damage to a team. Two teams played this multiplayer tech.

Monday, July 27, 2009

SWM: Star Wars Free Play



= SWM: Star Wars Free Play
= Tuesday, July 27th, 2009

We had 8 people attend our free play event. Personally I like free play events because they allow you to explore the game and learn new stuff. I, for example, played only one battle, but used a mercenary squad with Nym - which isn’t my usual squad. I also did more than a few trades, watched pieces of two different games, and just kinda sat back and talked strategy some.

Picture: Dave M. talking strategy to two of our younger players, Mason and Jerimiah (off-frame).

Friday, July 24, 2009

MtG: Friday Night Magic



= MtG: Friday Night Magic
= Friday, July 25th, 2009

We had eight people show up for our FNM. Of those I would say about half were playing at least one new M10 card. The most interesting deck was, not suprisingly, a white deck that used some 2/2 first strikers like white knight and knight of the medowgrain, Baneslayer Angel, and Honor of the pure. Incidentally Ben played that deck and managed to win the tournament 3-0.

Picture: Ben (right) faces off against Scott in the final round of the tournament.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

MtG: Magic Free Play



= MtG: Magic Free Play
= Tuesday, July 22nd, 2009

About nine people showed up for our weekly free-play, including one new player. We didn’t have any extra freebies to toss around, so people just did the usual. That being a combination of talk, play, trade, and generally have fun. Speaking of talk and trade, there was (of course) some activity on both counts concerning M10. People were buying and trading M10 cards heavily. The obvious favorite is white cards - as a fair number of people are out there looking for white soldiers and more specifically Honor of the Pure.

I personally am looking forward to what appears at the table this upcoming friday for FNM. Guaranteed some people will be running some new cards. The question is how much and which cards will be run.

Picture: During free play night we always manage at least one multiplayer free-for-all, such as this one.

Honor of the Pure

Monday, July 20, 2009

SWM: Star Wars 150pt joint team (modified)

= SWM: Star Wars 150pt joint team (modified)
= Monday, July 20th, 2009

First, let me explain a bit about this format. We call it ‘joint team’ and it is very loosely based on other team formats where the team shares resources such as two-headed giant. For this tournament each player fielded 150pts, but teams played on the same map against other teams. Thus each team had a combined 300pts, and could share commander effects as well as strategies together.

I must say that this particular tournament was a resounding success. 7 teams (or 14 players) participated. Unfortunately the tournament did not go smoothly. I planned to go 4 rounds, but then had to cut the last round when I realized that each round was taking too long (we have to finish before the store closes). Also play was continuing long after time was called, so I had to visit each table and demand results before end-of-match procedure was performed completely. Still the attendance (and thus the available prize) was impressive, Thus overall I’m pleased with how things turned out in the end.

Friday, July 17, 2009

MtG: Magic 2010 Launch Party

= MtG: Magic 2010 Launch Party
= Friday, July 18th, 2009

We had our eight for our Friday night magic, except that we weren’t running FNM, we were running our Magic 2010 Launch Party. Our launch was draft format, and everything proceeded smoothly. We actually finished a bit early, with Niel taking the top spot. I’m a bit sorry to see that we didn’t beat our last Launch Party (which also had 8), but at least we had a successful Prerelease last weekend.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

MtG: Magic Free Play

= MtG: Magic Free Play
= Tuesday, July 15th, 2009

Six players for our weekly free play, including one new player (always a good thing). We had some free swag in the game order (a giant 3’ sticker of Jace), so we actually ran an impromptu casual tournament with $1 entry on the spot, winner (Justin) got the sticker. Four players decided to participate in that, so we had a quick tournament while the other two played a bunch of matches. With time to spare we played (and finished) a six-player multiplayer free-for-all for fun.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Star Wars Minis: Free Play

= Star Wars Minis: Free Play
= Monday, July 13th, 2009

Recently some of my players have been asking about ships. So for this free-play we decided to break out Star Wars ships. The ships minis use different maps, minis, and rules than the character game, so I was interested to learn a bit more about it. I’ve done ships before, but only a few times, and it was quite some time ago. As a free-play the event was moderately successful. There were about 7 people there. However, the ships part of the free play didn’t go over well. 2 People played one ship battle, and the rest were content to play or trade character minis. Still, I would like to thank Zach for supporting this free play by bringing in his ships, maps, rule books, etc.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

MtG: Magic 2010 Prerelease!



= MtG: Magic 2010 Prerelease!!
= Saturday, July 11th 2009

First off, yesterday was FNM, and I didn’t post a report for the event because of the prerelease on the following day. However I would like to mention that despite the fact that a handful of people told me that they wouldn’t be there, I still managed to get my 8 players to run the sanctioned event.

So how was the prerelease? Exceptionally good! First off I was over-attended. I was only given enough promos (vampire nocturnus) for 18 players. 19 people showed up. I did give promos to that last person (DCI foil twinclaws/slave to bolas) so that they wouldn’t miss out. I passed out the standard 6 packs to each player, and much excitement ensued as people opened new product for the first time! We went five rounds. In the last round the top two players were both 4-0, and opted to draw and split the prize, and ended up with eleven packs each.

After the main event I ran an 8-seat sanctioned single elimination draft as a side event. I easily got my 8 players for the draft, and even had to turn away 2 more players. Strange thing in that draft, even though we opened a total of 24 packs for the limited pool, there was only one lightning bolt to be found.

Picture: I snapped this photo somewhere around round 2 or 3.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

MtG: Free Play

= MtG: Free Play
= Tuesday, July 7th 2009

We had another successful active free-play. About 8 people decided to show up and play. Told a few more customers who dropped by about our ongoing events, and highlighted the M10 prerelease coming up this saturday. FYI: July 8th, 12:45-8:45pm, $25 entry, sealed deck format :) You can always check out what’s going on by looking at my venue information.

Monday, July 6, 2009

SWM 100pt Sealed (Jedi Academy)

= SWM: 100pt sealed (Jedi Academy)
= Monday, July 6th 2009

I was expecting a few more people than normal for our sealed tournament featuring the new set. Perhaps 5-7. I got a whopping eleven, making this my largest SWM tournament ever! It took a bit more to organize the event. Had to drag out an extra table, prepare an extra map, etc. I had a sealed case of Jedi Academy that I passed out, each player got 1 booster to build 100 points with. We opened 3 Jedi Academy, 1 Bounty Hunters, and 1 Legacy of the Force for our prize pool.

The first thing that was noticed, is that Jedi Academy is a fairly high-point cost set. Some people could make their 100 with two or three characters. Others did it with 4-5. One lucky (or unlucky) player did it with one (Grand Master Luke). This compared to Imperial entanglements where a player could use their whole pack and still not make 100.

The tournament went exceptionally well. A lot of players managed to go 2-0 with a fair number of victory points. We went a total of 4 rounds and Dave managed a 4-0 record with a squad that included (among other things) Darth Plagueis.

With such a large tournament, there was bound to be an interesting question or two. Twice there was a question about lightsaber throw. And yes, it is considered a non-melee attack. And yes, the target does get a cover bonus if they have cover and the force power is Lightsaber Throw 1 or 2 (3 or higher ignores cover).

The other question concerned a character with Force Renewal 1, and subject to the Force corruption ability of an opponent’s character. In this case, it mattered which occurred first, since the character could (theoretically) use the force point gained from force renewal to reroll the save for force corruption. This falls under ‘Simultaneous Effects’ so in this case the player who controls the corrupted character chooses which effect to apply first.

Friday, July 3, 2009

MtG: Friday Night Magic

= MtG: Friday Night Magic
= Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Eight people showed up for our weekly FNM, as usual. What was unusual is that a portion of the players wanted to leave early for some early July 4th dealings. We also had a late addition into the tournament, so we had 9 people total playing, but only 5 by the end of round 2. Strange things like this are bound to happen on the small local scale, and luckily I understand and am flexible enough to cope. The matches that were played were a fierce lot, with a lot of players going 2-1. Mike managed to eke out a first place spot with a hard-fought 3-0 record (although game record was 6-3) with a Bant build.

A lot of people let me know that they won’t be around for next friday’s magic, but will be present for the M10 prerelease the immediately following saturday. I want a successful prerelease more than I want a successful FNM, so I’m OK with this idea.