Archive August 2016

7 Wonders Juliana and I usually play in the Duell version. But since our Thursday round is growing, we also got the big game - with the Cities expansion you can play with up to 8 players. Today was the first training session with the 2-player variant included in the box. Definitely more cumbersome than the small duel, but equally definitely noticeable how the game can run with larger rounds - and it's fun for more. Just enough interactivity not to turn into a multiplayer solitaire, but enough strategy not to become a pure random number. I like it very much.

Here are some interesting reads from this week that I didn't want to link to separately, collected here without comments:

• Temple of the Deceived: Attachments Review
• Interview with Brian Train Designer of Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War, 1954-62 COIN Series Volume VII by GMT Games – Part I
• Colonial Twilight: Pieces and Force Structure
• Interview with COIN Series Creator & Designer Volko Ruhnke – Part I

Here are some interesting reads from this week that I didn't want to link to separately, collected here without comments:

• Sphere Bleed? What Sphere Bleed?
• The Pendragon Chronicles — Vol. 1
• PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linux

Whenever I look at EDH decks, I actually want to build something crazy that has massive combo potential and relatively high stability against various other decks. Slobad - Self-Mill/Eggs (Competitive) (Commander / EDH MTG Deck) does exactly that, if I interpret the list correctly. It's amazing how a rather "cozy" general can be bred into a combo monster.

Here are some articles I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:

• The Might of Caldara
• Update from FFG and new major LCG announcement
• First Time Playing…Mare Nostrum: Empires
• Mare Nostrum: Empires – A Brief Review

Yesterday I played Deckmaster: A MTG Variant Format by Jim Bowie again - and this time, as often recently, against the Horde (the solo variant for MTG). Pretty cool, slowly my Main Stack is becoming quite usable for this. Still some fine-tuning needed, but it's getting there. The special thing this time: out of the three games I played, I basically played three different archetypes. In the first game, a classic lifegain deck, where I almost didn't care how many Minotaurs attacked me, as I kept coming back up through lifegain and could block with smaller creatures and attack with a few boosted creatures. In the second game, one of the funniest deck variants: Voltron. But not just any creature, but a 0/4 Ox from Theros. With the Vows of Wildness on it, a 3/7 for power-blocking large Minotaurs from the Horde and with the Firewhips then double strike after Titan's Strength as a 6/8. It went through the Horde like butter. But the coolest round was the third one: no creatures appeared, only removal and board wipes. The result was a classic control deck with which I could clear the Minotaurs right at the start. My deck still went down to only 4 points, but then it stabilized and in the meantime a finisher appeared with the Stalker from the sixth district. The Stalker gets a boost for every creature in the opponent's graveyard - and the Minotaurs have a lot there after a while. Which led to the Stalker, thanks to removals, simply clearing the Horde deck with 20-point hits. Cool.