My Take on Temur Energy

If you've been participating in the MPDC League (and let's face it, if you're reading this blog, you probably are), by now you are well aware that Energy decks have been the early front-runner for the most dominant deck of our small metagame. This archetype was piloted to back-to-back 5-0 records for the first two weeks of the league, and continued to place well for the third week as well.

As promised, today I want to look at my own version of the Energy deck, inspired mostly by Polyjak's original list. Here's my decklist:

My intent in building this variant was to diversify my threats. I felt Polyjak's version relied too much on winning with a host of Thopter tokens from Whirler Virtuoso, and didn't often do well when that plan didn't come together. So I opted to add in Thriving Rhino as another important threat and Aether Theorist to provide early blocking and card filtering. But more importantly, I also added Empyreal Voyager. This creature not only gives the deck a Flying threat, but also provides a potentially limitless source of additional energy, making all of the other Energy threats that much more powerful and consistent.

To make room for these changes, I had to cut all of the Ahn-Crop Crashers and Rogue Refiners, despite how good the former card is. I also dropped to only 2 copies of Servant of the Conduit, which I felt like was unnecessary considering how much Land the deck consistently drew. Finally, I also wanted the ability to extend the deck better into the mid- and late-game, and opted for Glimmer of Genius.

I changed the Sideboard entirely other than  Sentinel Totem, adding in 2 Shielded Aether Thiefs for more defense and card draw, 3 copies of Manglehorn as my Artifact hate, 3 Blazing Volley to counter rival token decks, and Ice Over as an inefficient but necessary way to deal with creature too large for burn spells to kill.

I've had only middling success with this deck, going 2-3 for the last two weeks with it. But overall it's been decent. If you have any thoughts on how it might be improved, I'd love to hear it.

Next time I'll take a look at the deck that went 5-0 this week. And believe it or not, it wasn't an Energy deck!

Mistborn House War - Two Player Variant?

Within just a few days after GenCon, my Kickstarter copy of Mistborn: House War arrived on my porch. While I didn't get a chance to play it this year, I did demo it at last year's GenCon, and its promise hasn't lessened in my mind since then. The game's only problem, however, is that it requires at least three people to play. Which means I'm still waiting for the opportunity in the midst of a very busy schedule to get together with my game group and try it out.

In the mean time though, I've been thinking about how the game might be adapted for only 2 players (or possibly even just one). Having played a lot of Scythe recently, I was intrigued by the Automata feature of that game, which essentially uses a deck of cards to substitute for the actions of a human player. While I wasn't ready to develop something quite that complex, I was curious if I could come up with a simple set of rules to govern a "dummy" player who the two human players would be competing against.

You see, at its heart Mistborn: House War is a social, semi-cooperative resource management game. Everyone's working for the same end, and you work together to solve Problems before they "erupt" and make the overall situation worse. You do this by contributing your own resources and agreeing with everyone else how much Favor you'll receive for your aid out of the total available. But at the same time, you're all individually competing to earn the most Favor, which is awarded for each Problem solved before it "erupts." You can read my review here for more details.

My design strategy looked something like this:

• Make the "dummy" player always act out a simple script. In this case, it always plays a card during a deal, always gets any Favor that won't divide evenly from any deal it participates in, and only solves Problems during its turn if it can do so without any help. 
• The human players have to agree on any actions that the dummy takes; if they can't agree, determine the result randomly. Furthermore, they can never decide to target the dummy player with negative consequences unless those consequences are equally applied among all three players.
• Finally, to incentivize the players to deal with the dummy more often, any time a Problem "erupts," it increases the Unrest track by one. And should that track reach 8, the players lose. This is in addition to whatever the normal consequences printed on the card when it "erupts," even if that includes additional Unrest.

I'll be testing this with my wife over the next few weeks. It's been a fun diversion and let me enjoy playing the game without having to wait for a full group of friends to come together to play.

Sushi Go

My wife and I, being the avid gamers that we are, are slowly introducing our children to our wide collection of "Geek" games. We decided to start them off easy, and the game we picked was Sushi-Go.

Sushi-Go is a quick card drafting game where you select a card from your starting hand, play it face up in front of you, and then pass the rest of the cards to the next player. You then select another card and continue the sequences until all of the cards have been played. You do this over three rounds, keeping score after each round, and then the winner is declared at the end based on the total number of points you selected.

As you might expect from the title, the cards represent different kinds of sushi, each illustrated with a cute picture and coded to a particular color. Some cards are worth points all by themselves, but most of them are only worth points in particular combinations. These combinations range from having the most of a card type, from completing either pairs or sets, playing a multiplier on one particular card type, and even a card that only scores at the very end of the game, awarding the player with the most bonus points and punishing the player with the fewest the same number of points. The game takes its name from the "Chopsticks" card, which allows you to draft two cards during one of your turns rather than just one, requiring you to announce "Sushi-Go!" when you do so.

While not particularly complex, there is definitely some light strategy when it comes to selecting which card types you are going to build towards. You need to pay attention not only to which cards you're passing but also to which combinations your opponent is playing. Since even in the five player version you don't actually see every card, there is a fair bit of randomness involved, but you typically see enough cards that this randomness shouldn't be too much of a factor.

Our kids picked it up quite quickly, and while there was the typical hurt feelings when only one person wins, it was still a fun and easy game to play with them, and one I'm sure we'll return to in the future.

Race for the Galaxy App

Several years ago, I wrote about a card game called Race for the Galaxy. Although the only components in the game are the cards themselves, it plays out very similarly to worker-placement games like Agricola or Puerto Rico. In each round of the game, each player secretly chooses a single action - such as settling a new planet, exploring the galaxy (for new cards), constructing a development, producing resources, or selling those resources.  All players play each of the chosen actions, but the one who chose it receives a significant bonus. Each planet and development gives the player certain advantages or abilities, and is also worth a certain number of victory points at the end of the game. Naturally, whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Recently Temple Gates Games released an app version of this game for both Apple and Android, and I must say it's a hit. The app includes a nice, clean interface, some basic but appropriate music and sound effects, a surprisingly good AI, a quick three part tutorial, and a variety of ways to play the game - including against the AI, against other players online, or even as a "pass and play" option where you substitute your device for the game with multiple people around the same virtual table.

While $6.99 is a bit steep for an app, particularly when the two expansions will run you an additional $3.99 each, you're still getting pretty good value for your dollar. Games are quick enough that you can easily jam several in a short amount of time, or just squeeze one in while waiting for something else. At least on a tablet, the cards are easy to read even without zooming in on them, and each card includes helpful tooltips to help explain any card that seems unclear.

If you're a fan of the game, this should be a no-brainer to pick up.

Dyson's Dodecahedron

As I have been prepping for the Dungeons and Dragons adventure I am running with my group, one of the resources I am constantly in need of is maps. Fortunately, there are a whole host of maps available online. Most of those, however, are either copyrighted materials or are only available for personal use. So while I don't have any plans on publishing my adventure in the near future, I still very much was hoping to find some maps that I could include in such a product should I decide to put something like that together.

And that's when I discovered Dyson's Dodecahedron. While the author originally used this page for RPG characters and thoughts about roleplaying in general and Dungeon's and Dragons specifically, what he is now known for is his amazing old-school maps. He publishes several such maps a week, each with a short blurb describing a possible adventure hook and/or the circumstances that led him to create the map. But even more remarkable, as long as his Patreon sponsorship continues above the $300 mark for a particular map, he releases them under a free commercial license. This means that anyone can use, reuse, remix and/or modify the maps on a royalty-free basis, with the only restriction being that they must include attribution such as“Cartography by Dyson Logos” or “Maps by Dyson Logos." You can view all the maps that have been released under this commercial license here.

This is a fantastic resource, and one that I highly recommend. Check it out for yourselves.

The Andrenjinyi of Maori

About a month ago, I linked a cool resource for a Polynesian-inspired roleplaying game called Mythos of the Maori. I am currently preparing to start a brand new adventure for one of my D&D groups that I have entitled "The Andrenjinyi of Maori," which utilizes the themes and concepts from that setting and combines them with the concept of a powerful celestial known as the andrenjinyi, a monster found in Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts.

Today, I want to share with you the background and one of the hooks for this adventure.

Aeons ago, as creation still lay in its primordial shape, the first and greatest of the world’s spirits known as the Rainbow Serpent shed its scales. These scales fell to the earth, each spawning a gigantic, black-headed snake sheathed in scales of every color. The Rainbow Serpent then departed for the stars, leaving its children as powerful guardians of land and sky, sun and rain, birth and destruction. These ancient serpents were known as the andrenjinyi, and from their sacred pools they ruled ageless and immortal, demanding sacrifice and rituals but offering protection for all those who submitted to their code of law. With their link to the primordial stuff of creation, the andrenjinyi held the power to shape creation to their will, often creating a fantastic menagerie of creatures to guard and serve them.

Yet, for all their power and immortality, the andrenjinyi have all but vanished from the world, and the knowledge of the Rainbow Serpent with them. Today, only one of these primordial spirits still exists, ruling over a tropical isle known as Maori. For centuries, the Maori people have dwelt in communion with this being, offering it sacrifice and ritual and binding their community to follow the ancient codes and laws that it dictates. Foreigners are forbidden from setting foot on Maori, save for a small district within their chief city of Kahului, where merchants gladly trade desirable wares for items that can be found nowhere else: exotic fruits and plants as well as unique items ensorcelled with the primordial magic of the andrenjinyi.

Our heroes receive a vision about this ancient celestial and learn that its power is being corrupted by unknown agents of darkness. This vision further warns that should this celestial fall to this corruption, it could have devastating implications for the realms. The characters are tasked with learning the location of the island of Maori, discovering the source of the corruption, and putting an end to it.

 I can't wait to unveil this great setting for my players and share in their journey to unravel the mystery and decide the fate of the andrenjinyi.

Mythos of the Maori

First off, I'm just going to concede that at least for the rest of the holiday season (including next week), my blog posts are going to be somewhat sporadic. I will do my best to post twice a week, but my schedule is all out of sorts, and my time in front of computer is somewhat limited. Enough said.

Currently, I am in the midst of writing a homebrew adventure for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign I am running. For this adventure, the players will be journeying to an isolated tropical island where they must unravel a mysterious threat against an ancient power that protects and rules over the islanders. I have been researching precolonial Hawaii specifically and Polynesian culture in general as inspiration for this adventure.

In the process of searching online for resources, I came across a very cool 'rules-light' roleplaying game system called Mythos of the Maori that is currently available for free from Mythopoetic Games. It started out as a non-fiction text on the mythology and folklore of the Polynesian people prior to their contact with Europe based on the author's childhood and early adulthood spent in New Zealand. Eventually though he deemed it unpublishable, but returned to it later and used it for the basis of a unique roleplaying game. The rules document itself is quite interesting, as most chapters the author intentionally blurs the distinctions between the rules and the setting, making it necessary for the reader to work through the entire book before having a good understanding of the system and how it all connects together. While he admits that this is both ludicrous and unfair to his readers, it is by design to deeply engage a potential GM in the setting.

For my adventure, I will certainly be referencing the third chapter extensively as a helpful resource for the language, cultural beliefs, folklore, and religious practices of the islands' inhabitants. As the characters will also need to eventually gain status among the islanders, the rules in the fourth and fifth chapters will also be quite helpful.

Anyway, this is a great resource if you're at all interested in ancient Polynesian culture. Hope you enjoy it.

Eternal Releases on Steam

After six months of closed beta, late last week the new digital card game Eternal released on Steam in open beta, meaning that now anyone who wants to can download the game. As part of the transition, all of the existing accounts were reset, putting new players and veterans alike basically on the same footing. Digital Direwolf also made a ton of balance changes to the game, which included removing a ton of marginal cards, tweaking a bunch of others, and even "nerfing" a handful of cards to help diversify the metagame.

I've already written quite a bit on this game, so if you're curious what I have to say, feel free to check out some of my previous blog posts on the topic. There's a great quote from Numot Gaming that summarizes my thoughts on the game quite well: "Eternal is the game we all wanted Hearthstone to be, and the experience we all wanted Magic Online to become.” 

There are also a ton of great resources to help new players get a feel for the game and hit the ground running. In addition to a surprisingly friendly and helpful Reddit page, there are also guides for players transitioning from Hearthstone or from Magic the Gathering as well as a great video series designed to teach you the basics.

I continue to really enjoy this game, and would love to see others from the Standard Pauper community get into it as well. Who knows, maybe someday I'll even organize a special all-Commons tournament!

More Eternal

As I mentioned back at the end of August, I had the opportunity to join the closed beta for Eternal, a brand new digital card game by Dire Wolf Digital. Since then I have played a ton of it, and probably spent a similar amount of time watching videos and reading articles about this brand new game.  If you haven't seen or heard anything about this game, its being designed and developed by some of the best Magic the Gathering pros, including Luis Scott-Vargas, Conley Woods, and Patrick Chapin, just to name a few. Needless to say, it comes highly recommended.

It is still in closed beta, but the company seems to be pretty generous in distributing new beta keys. In addition, close beta will soon be coming to an end soon, and then the game will be available to the general public.

But even while it's still in beta, there's already a ton of content already available. Today I want to highlight the work of two of this fledgling community's best: aReNGee and Sir_Rhino.

1. aReNGee has created a great website with articles, draft pick orders, and a frequently updated metagame summary. He also has a YouTube channel where you can watch him play.
   
2. Sir_Rhino is a very active streamer on Twitch, and you can view all of his past videos on his channel. In addition, he is also a frequent guest on a podcast called Eternal Cast, where he, aReNGee,  and the host Neon have done a full set review of the cards for draft. This is a great resource for getting up to speed with all of the cards and their power level in the current environment. 

This game is a ton of fun. If you end up in the beta (or are already on there), let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks for reading!

Isle of Skye

One of the great new games I got to playtest this year at GenCon is a board game called Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King. In this game, you take on the role of one of five chieftains seeking to grow your kingdom and accumulate the most victory points at the end of the game. You do this by placing tiles that you either randomly select or purchase from the other players and arranging those tiles to maximize your score based upon four victory conditions randomly selected for each game.

The most interesting part of the game isn't placing your tiles though. Rather, each round you randomly draw three tiles from the bag.  Then, each player secretly decides to discard one tile and set a price on the other two. Once every one has made their choices, you all reveal them, and starting with the player whose turn it is, you can choose to buy one of the tiles from another player at the price he or she has selected. And here's where things get interesting.

Price your tile too low, and your opponent gets a valuable tile that they may be able to score with over multiple rounds. But price your tile too high, and not only do you not get any income when no one buys it, but you also have to pay that money to keep the tile for yourself. Furthermore, based on the way the buying works, it's possible that all of your tiles get purchased, leaving you with just one new one, while your opponent each place two tiles that round. Of course, most of the time the quality of your tiles is much more important than the quantity - but still, that's not typically a winning strategy.

The game is played over five rounds, with only one or two of the victory conditions actually scoring for that round. If you find yourself falling behind in points, after round two you do earn some additional funds to help you catch up. While these funds can be converted into points at the end of the game, ultimately they are a pretty poor source of points, so in practice this doesn't always balance the scales as much as you might think.

The components of the game are beautifully illustrated and solid craftsmanship. The markings on the tiles are easy to identify, and the different victory conditions do a solid job of demonstrating exactly what counts for points for that condition without making you consult the rulebook to read how they work. Speaking of which, the rulebook is short and sweet, and you probably won't need more than 15 minutes or so to teach a new player how to play.

Overall I enjoyed this game very much. This is a great example of a game that is simple to learn and play, but has a surprisingly level of depth as you get into it. The game comes with a good selection of different win conditions and a huge bag of tiles, so there's a lot of replay value. Additionally, from my experience, the game plays quite well with anywhere from 2-5 players. If you like tile-placement games or are looking for a simple but also subtly complex game, definitely give Isle of Skye a try!

A First Look at Eternal

Not too long ago, I stopped playing Hearthstone. There was so much I liked about the game, but ultimately, it lacked that special spark that made Magic the Gathering so unique.

But about a month ago, I received a beta key from joekewwl for a new digital card game called Eternal. Although it's still in closed beta, already it shows a ton of promise. In fact, I would say it takes the best elements from both Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone and creates something reminiscent of both, but uniquely its own. And now that the Non Disclosure Agreement has been lifted, I'm free to tell you about it.

There were three elements that initially made Hearthstone so attractive to me. First, that it offered, at least in theory, a free-to-play model, where you could enjoy the game at least semi-competitively without investing a dime, essentially investing time rather than money to advance. Second, that it offered some single player experiences, pitting you against AI opponents. And third, that it offered a Limited experience that was asynchronous - i.e., one that didn't rely upon having all the players go through a Limited tournament at the same time. And it is in these three areas that Eternal already shines.

However, it also offers a level of complexity and opportunities for tight play that Hearthstone in the end seems to lack. Like Magic, you have lots of complex card interactions. Like Magic, you have a mana system that requires the right mix and number of different sources. Like Magic, you have the opportunity to interact with your opponent on his or her turn. And like Magic, you have a true Limited environment that involves opening packs, passing them around from player to player, and crafting a deck as you go.

It helps, of course, that Eternal is being designed and developed by some of the best Magic the Gathering pros, including Luis Scott-Vargas, Conley Woods, and Patrick Chapin, along with a few others that I believe have done consulting for the game.

Although the game is still in closed beta, new players are being added to the beta somewhat frequently. If you're interested, I encourage you to check out their website and sign up for a beta key. I would also encourage you to check out this recent vod of LSV playing Eternal on his Twitch channel. Check it out, and if you get into the game, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My GenCon Schedule

So I'm writing this Wednesday night, preparing for my trip to GenCon over the next three days, which takes place right here in Indiana, about 45 minutes from my home. In case you somehow don't know, GenCon is "the original, longest-running, best-attended, gaming convention in the world." Last year's attendance was over 65,000, and they are expecting to easily break that number this year. With so much to see and so much to do, you'd best have a plan to prioritize what's most important. So today I thought I would share mine:

1. Most of my scheduled time are classes through the GenCon Writer's Symposium, which is a series of lectures and workshops given by some of the most successful genre artists in the business. This year's guest of honor is Robin Hobb, but many other notable authors will be there as well. I'm signed up for sixteen different classes (although I probably won't attend them all), which cover such diverse topics as short story markets, how magic affects worldbuilding, how to break characters down, and medieval fantasy cuisine.

2. I will also be attending at least two Q&A sessions: one by guest of honor Robin Hobb, the other by Critical Role.

3. My wife and I will be participating in two RPG sessions: one is a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Adventure's League session, while the other is playtesting Howard Taylor's Planet Mercenary RPG.

4. I am also planning on playing two specific board games: Tyrants of the Underdark, which I signed up for a guaranteed spot, and Mistborn House War, which I hope to demo in the exhibitor's hall.

5. Finally, my wife and I will also be present for 2 hours worth of Writing Excuses, the podcast about writing put on by Brandson Sanderson, Howard Taylor, Dan Wells, and Mary Robinette Kowal.

And of course, in addition to all of that, I plan to play a bunch of other board games, wander the exhibit hall, gawk at all the cosplayers, and generally have as much fun as possible. Maybe I'll even come home with a new game or two.

If you're reading this and will be at GenCon this weekend, let me know in the comments below. I'd love to meet you!

Karuba

Today I want to tell you about Karuba, a tile laying board game by Rüdiger Dorn and published by Haba. In this game, you lead four brave explorers as they explore the jungles of Karuba, leading them to hidden temples and collecting treasure along the way. This game is currently nominated for the Spiel des Jahres award, one of the most prestigious awards that a board game can receive.

Each player starts with an identical game board, which is a grid of five by six rectangles that represent the land of Karuba. At the start, you take turns placing each of four explorers and four temples such that each player has an identical setup on his or her board. Then, on each turn, one player randomly draws from a collection of 36 path tiles, and each player places that tile wherever they would like on their board. The object is to create contiguous paths to connect each explorer to the same colored temple. When a tile is drawn, you may instead elect to move one of your explorers a certain number of spaces and not place the tile. Certain tiles reward treasure when you land on them, which are worth points at the end of the game. Once an explorer reaches a temple, you also receive points based on how many others players have already reached that temple.

The brilliance of this game is that everyone has an identical board and identical goals, and each receive their paths in the exact same order. So while there certainly is an element of luck in the game, the game rewards those who make the best choices with their early tiles. At any time you can look and see which tiles haven't been drawn yet, and since there are lots of duplicates, you always have a decent idea what your odds are of drawing a needed direction. You also have to take care in moving your explorers, as they can't move past one another, so you have to make sure that you're not blocking yourself in. 

The game is simple enough to teach to kids, but complex enough to be enjoyable for most strategy-oriented adults. It typically takes 30 minutes or so to play a game, so your investment time is also pretty small. 

The components are well made and clearly marked, and the theme is communicated well in the images and pieces. They aren't anything special, but they certainly get the job done. 

I certainly enjoyed playing Karuba with my gaming group the several times we've played it, and I look forward to playing it again soon.

Stardew Valley

Pop quiz - get out your #2 pencil! What indie game has topped Steam's sales charts since its release back in February, ranking up with blockbuster titles like Fallout 4 and Far Cry? If you answered Stardew Valley, then you are correct.

After years of beta releases and updates, this game was finally released by its sole developer Eric Barone, and has gone on to sell well over a million copies. Since its release, Barone has continued to periodically update the game with new content, and as of this post is diligently working on even more great content for version 1.1. So what is Stardew Valley?

Stardew Valley, at its heart, is a farming simulation game in the vein of the long-running Harvest Moon series of video games. As the game opens, your character has just resigned from his soul-sucking job at the Joja Corporation and accepted ownership of a small farm inherited from his or her grandfather in the backwater village of Stardew Valley. The farm is rundown and barren, and the best days of the village seem long lost, but if all goes well, you have the opportunity to not only create a thriving agricultural business but also revitalize this community and restore hope to its inhabitants.

Opportunities abound right from the start. From the proceeds of the handful of parsnip seeds you start the game with, you can invest in more lucrative crops, raise livestock, become an avid fisherman, mine deep beneath the ground for ores and minerals, defeat monsters that dwell in the depths, nurture orchards, and even dabble in weaving, smelting, brewing, canning, and cooking. And in your spare time, you can also develop relationships with the many varied citizens of Stardew Valley as well as pursue romantic relationships, marriage, and even start a family.

Want to learn more? Check out the game's official wiki, or just search YouTube for dozens of Let's Play series on the game. Honestly, right now it seems like just about everyone is playing this game. So why is it so popular?

• Independent, retro games are big right now. A big part of this game's charm is its old-school pixel graphics and sounds. 
• It's open-ended, with tons of different paths to success. You can play the game how you want, focusing on what you enjoy and ignoring what you don't. Your character is likewise fully customizable, letting you choose gender, hair style, physical features, and clothing.
• The characters bring the world to life. There are 42 distinct characters in the game, each with their own personality, their own likes and dislikes and their own families and relationships, and each of them has something to share with you. Of these, ten of them are available to marry (5 for each gender, although the game doesn't restrict your romance choices by sex). 
• There are a ton of Easter Eggs and secrets in the game. In fact, Barone has stated that despite the extensive wiki, there are still several things that no one has discovered yet.
• The developer is responsive to the community and continues to add free content. When players feel like they can interact directly with the game developer and continue to receive free updates as time goes on, it's only natural to feel more invested in the game.

Since purchasing the game back in late March, my family and I have already logged over 200 hours on this game, making it the second most played game for me on Steam (second only to Terraria). If that's not a big endorsement, I don't know what is!

Offworld Trading Company (Release Version)

Exactly a year ago today, I posted about picking up Offworld Trading Company on Steam Early Access. Late last week, the game had its official release. So it seemed only reasonable for me to jump back into the game, see what had changed, and offer my thoughts on whether it's worth purchasing.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Offworld Trading Company is a game designed by Soren Johnson, lead developer of the massively popular Civilization IV. It puts you in command of a near-future corporation operating on Mars to mine the valuable commodities found there, buy and trade them on the open market, and export them offworld, all for the purpose of buying out your competitors and earning the exclusive rights to the planet. While clearly a real time strategy game, what makes Offworld stand out is that you use money, and not armies, to conquer new territory, expand your holdings, and defeat your competitors. It isn't a game where your success is tied to how fast you can press hotkeys or micromanage your units; instead, the game is all about recognizing the best opportunities while reacting to a market that responds to what's going on in the game, but often not in a totally predictable manner.

While I played quite a bit of the game after I initially purchased it, I admit I hadn't played it in probably six months prior to its release. Here's what impressed me about the final version:

1. It received a ton of graphical polish. Gone are the placeholder art assets and bad digitized voice-overs. The graphical interface was clearer, each colony type had new artwork and story concepts, and overall simply looked much better.

2. It has an amazing soundtrack. Grammy award winning composer Christopher Tin created a fantastic atmospheric soundtrack for the game, and it was released as DLC (and given out free to anyone who participated in Early Access). You can listen to it here.

3. It comes with a bunch of great extras. These include a lengthy design document and strategy guide, the latter of which was actually compiled from the best players who spent all of Early Access streaming the game and participating in ten different tournaments, all hosted by the game's developer.

4. It has a variety of play options that support both single player and multiplayer experiences. There's a short but detailed tutorial-style series of missions, a much longer single-player campaign that changes each time you play it, daily skirmish challenges that lets you view how everyone else did compared to you, and of course a variety of gameplay mods and maps for online play.

Offworld Trading Company has received very positive reviews, and for good reason. It's well worth picking up. I certainly intend to play it quite a bit in the coming weeks.

Jund in MPDC 32.06

While the past couple weeks I have been experimenting with various token builds after seeing the success they were having in recent SPDCs, at the last minute before the start of MPDC this week I decided instead to throw together a Jund build. I was looking to abuse the surprisingly good Pulse of Murasa, combine it with a bunch of good removal spells, and add in some strong beaters. The tournament ended up being delayed an hour due to my failure to communicate the time change, giving me plenty of time to tweak the deck in preparation for the event. Here's what I ended up playing:

Jund

played by gwyned in MPDC 32.06

Creatures 4 Elvish Visionary 4 Tajuru Stalwart 4 Valakut Predator 3 Gurmag Angler 3 Sultai Scavenger 18 cards Other Spells 4 Read the Bones 3 Complete Disregard 3 Fiery Impulse 3 Oblivion Strike 3 Pulse of Murasa 1 Arc Lightning 1 Butcher's Glee 18 cards

Lands 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Forest 4 Jungle Hollow 4 Swamp 3 Bloodfell Caves 3 Rugged Highlands 2 Mountain 24 cards Sideboard 3 Boiling Earth 3 Duress 2 Aerial Volley 2 Naturalize 2 Typhoid Rats 1 Rolling Thunder 1 Arc Lightning 1 Butcher's Glee 15 cards

The deck executed very well despite what feels like an awkward mana base. The removal suite gave me lots of options against enemy creatures, and helped quickly fill up my graveyard to enhance the Delve ability on Gurmag Angler and Sultai Scavenger. A full playset of Read the Bones. combined with the additional card off the Elvish Visionarys, gives the deck plenty of draw, and the aforementioned Pulse of Murasa helps keep you alive long enough to deal significant damage with your beaters.

I ended up going 3-0 with the deck, but due to real life complications had to drop after the end of the Swiss rounds. I was definitely happy with the deck, and will continue to test it for next week.

What have you been playing in our weekly Standard Pauper tournaments? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

Zedikar Unified, Week One

The first week of the Zendikar Unified Pauper Sealed League comes to an end today. First off, I must say that Polyjak has gone above and beyond when it comes to this event, providing an excellent website and quickly responding to the feedback he received from players. Everything has worked smoothly, and I am glad I chose to not only participate but sponsor this event as well.

While I opened some pretty solid Blue and White cards, overall I wasn't very impressed with my pool. I ended up building a mediocre U/W Flyers deck to start with, figuring that the consistency of two colors was probably better than trying to have a slightly three color deck with bad mana (especially since my only fixing was a marginal Lifespring Druid). I ended up going 0-2 with that build, and honestly was feeling pretty discouraged.

Chris Baker (aka DrChrisBakerDC) reached out to me, and I ended up sending him my pool. After looking it over, he suggested I go ahead and cut most of the bad White cards out of my deck and instead play Blue Green with a strong splash in White. The mana would be pretty sketchy, but when it came together he believed my chances would be much better. Here's the build he suggested:

Zendikar Unified

Week One

Creatures 2 Dawnglare Invoker 2 Reckless Scholar 1 Sky Ruin Drake 1 Calcite Snapper 1 Skywatcher Adept 1 Surrakar Banisher 1 Sporecap Spider 1 Netcaster Spider 1 Oran-Rief Survivalist 1 Eldrazi Skyspawner 1 Kozilek's Pathfinder 1 Tajuru Pathwarden 1 Lifespring Druid 1 Snapping Gnarlid 1 Eldrazi Devastator 17 cards Other Spells 1 Seer's Lantern 1 Treasure Hunt 1 Anticipate 1 Puncturing Light 1 Guard Duty 5 cards

Lands 6 Forest 8 Island 4 Plains 18 cards Sideboard 1 Snapping Creeper 1 Demystify 1 Relic Crush 1 Eland Umbra 1 Zendikar Farguide 1 Makindi Shieldmate 1 Negate 1 Shared Discovery 1 Whiplash Trap 1 Lone Missionary 10 cards

For space considerations, I didn't include my entire pool, but just the relevant Sideboard cards. While I ended up almost always including Whiplash Trap after sideboarding, overall I was pretty happy with this alternate build. I ended up going 2-1 with it, bringing me to a decent 2-3 record overall. The two copies of Dawnglare Invoker were by far my most valuable card, and I won many of my games off that card alone.

All of my games were pretty grindy. Removal, especially if it can deal with big creatures, seemed particularly important, especially given the unusual number of Invoker creatures being played (creatures with an eight-mana cost powerful ability) that often determine who will win the game. At least at this early stage, it seems like the format will be pretty slow, with lots of high Toughness creatures. Creatures with evasion are also proving to be quite strong.

Tomorrow we'll receive a new booster pack, so it will be interesting to see what possibilities open up. We will see.

Splendor

Today I thought I would take a break from Standard Pauper content to tell you about a game I got for my birthday last month called Splendor. The theme of the game is that you are a wealthy Renaissance merchant acquiring rare and beautiful gems to achieve prestige and perhaps be visited by one or more renown noblemen. It's a fairly simple game, but one that has a surprising amount of depth and replayability for being so simple.

The game consists of a tableau of cards, arranged in three rows of four cards each. These cards represent not only gems that you permanently acquire, but can also be worth a certain number of prestige points. Each card costs a certain number of gems to purchase, and when a card is purchased (or reserved) it is picked up and replaced by another one of the same rank from the draw pile.

On your turn, you take one of three actions: 1) choose 3 different gems from the supply, or pick 2 of the same gem; 2) purchase a card by paying its cost; or 3) reserve a card by placing it in your hand and drawing a single gold, which acts as a wild-card when purchasing other cards. As I mentioned above, cards that are purchased give you permanent gems, which essentially gives you a discount on all future cards.

Each game you also set out a random assortment of noble cards, which are also worth prestige points. But rather than purchasing them, you automatically receive one of these cards when your "discount" gems are equal to the noble's cost.

The game ends as soon as the first person reaches 15 points. A typical game only takes about 30 minutes, so it's not hard to play a few times in an evening.

The production quality of the game is impressive. First of all, the gems themselves are quite heavy, almost as heavy as a real gem of that size would be, which makes for a neat tactile experience. Second, the cards themselves are nicely illustrated and clearly laid out, with enough variety to keep them visually interesting. The game box is also nicely laid out, with everything fitting snugly inside in a clean, organized fashion.

As I mentioned, the gameplay is also pretty simply, but surprisingly strategic. You want to purchase cards in such a manner as to make it easier to purchase other cards in the tableau, but you also always run the risk of another player taking the card you've been working towards. This is where reserving a card comes in handy, but doing so sets you back at least half a turn, since you're only getting one gem when you do (as opposed to the normal two or three). You also want to figure out fairly early which noblemen you're trying to earn, as their prerequisites can vary significantly.

Overall this was a fun and interesting game, and one that I look forward to playing again.

What I'm Working On

As we enter into a new year, I thought I would take a few minutes to write about the projects I'm currently working on and remind my readers about the opportunity to help guide what I will be writing about for the future.

I'm currently reading a hard science fiction novel called Solar Express by L.E. Modestitt, Jr., which I will be writing a review for as soon as I finish it. I am also working on an article for PureMTGO covering the Finals of Phase One of the Standard Pauper Double League, which I hope to have submitted later this week and published next Monday (you can find the videocast of the matches here, in case you want a sneak peek). My wife and I also received several new boardgames for Christmas, including Dead of Winter and Barony, which I am also planning on reviewing in the near future.

So, as a reminder, I would love to hear about what you would like to see on this blog. Read over this post from last week, and respond in the comments. Also, if you're looking for ways to support this blog, you can do so in one of three ways:

1. Send money directly via Paypal using the "Donate" button in the right-hand column.
2. Support indirectly by starting any purchases on Amazon.com by clicking on the "Shop Now at Amazon" link, also in the right-hand column.
3. When shopping at MTGOTraders.com, let them know that you heard about them from "Writer Adept."

Happy New Year from me and my family. I wish you all the best in the upcoming year!

A Future with Azorius

I've been fairly ill this week, which is why I not only missed my Tuesday post but was absent entirely from MPDC as well. I'm slowly getting back on my feet, and I should have another post Saturday to make up for the one I missed on Tuesday. Thanks for your patience!

A couple weeks ago, I was discussing the dominance of the Izzet Control archetype in Standard Pauper right now and examining whether or not Azorius might have the right tools to combat it. After that post, I spent some time experimenting with a very aggressive build that relied on powerful 2-drops and a great deal of spot removal to try and put a lot of early pressure on Izzet Control. And while the build seemed to have promise, ultimately it wasn't proving to be very effective. So I went back to the drawing board, and starting looking at ways to delay and sidestep Izzet's plan through effects that tap down creatures rather than removing them. This lead to playing quite a few more spells, which pushed the deck more towards the midrange and made Prowess creatures particularly attractive. Here's where I ended up:

Azorius

by gwyned

Creatures 4 Elusive Spellfist 4 Jeskai Student 4 Lotus Path Djinn 4 Mardu Hordechief 2 Student of Ojutai 18 cards Other Spells 4 Anticipate 4 Send to Sleep 4 Treasure Cruise 2 Crippling Chill 2 Whisk Away 1 Clutch of Currents 1 Feat of Resistance 1 Sheer Drop 19 cards

Lands 7 Plains 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Island 4 Skyline Cascade 4 Tranquil Cove 23 cards Sideboard 4 Pacifism 3 Cleric of the Forward Order 3 Felidar Cub 2 Disdainful Stroke 2 Negate 1 Whirlwind Adept 15 cards

These five creatures represent some of the stronger ones in Azorius colors, play well with spells, and have the added benefit of being immune to Twin  Bolt and other 2 point damage spells. The deck can also sift through its library very quickly thanks to Anticipate and Treasure Cruise, all the while casting plenty of spells to keep fuel for Delve. Send to Sleep has proven to be quite strong as long as you have Spell Mastery active, and this deck also finally gives Skyline Cascade a chance to shine. It's quite capable of locking down the worst creatures for two or three turns in a row, giving you plenty of time to power through with your Prowess-enabled creatures for the win.

Thus far I've had great success with this build against Izzet Control specifically. I also had three very close games against the sacrifice-themed Rakdos deck that is seeing more play. I wouldn't say I'm totally satisfied with this build, but I'm certainly pleased so far.

What changes or additions would you make? Let me know in the comments below.