I introduced Gideon to LoadingReadyRun’s comedy series titled Friday Nights, a group that releases short 10 minute videos which center around the hilarious escapades of a group of friends who play MTG. Think Big Bang Theory catered solely for MTG enthusiasts on a smaller scale and you’ve got a pretty good picture. Watching the episodes got our MTG cravings on so we decided that a round of Winston Drafting was definitely going to be part of the schedule in our next game day.
Game(s) Played:
MTG
Euphoria
The Agents
Session – MTG
Player(s):
Gideon
Justin
A couple of posts back (edit: actually it was way back in September) I put a tiny little blurb at the bottom of a pic that I had gotten an uncommon + common playset of Avacyn Restored as a birthday present for myself. After the kind bloke at CCEGames gave me free lands to have enough for drafting (my existing collection was always green heavy), my playset has always been raring to go. It has taken nearly 6 months for it to hit the table, but boy was it worth the wait.
Guess there aren’t many pictures of me whilst playing since I’m usually the photographer, Jimmy helped to take some when he arrived with Louanna
Both Gideon & I ended up playing 3 colored decks (Green, Black & Red for me – White, Black & Blue for Gideon) and I suspect I know why. Having a full playset of the entire set, I thought that the fairest way to draft was to arrange the set in full alternating colors for a perfectly even color distribution. Real life doesn’t quite work that way as boosters tend to end up having a majority color when you open them. I guess simulations don’t always go as planned.
Gideon has all these Magic apps on his phone for life counting & dice rolling, I was up against a veteran here
In three words, I got owned. Avacyn Restored’s key mechanic is Soulbond & I favour green so I focused on that and splashed black & red for removal. Gideon has more experience at Friday Night Magic events & focused on creatures with flying & vigilance (which I thought was a pretty weak ability, boy was I wrong) & when he got this card in the second round, there was no way around his wall of defenders.
Vigilance with +0/+2 is a nightmare
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Results Of Game(s)
Gideon 2 – Justin 0
Rating: 8/10
Magic has had 20 years to refine itself into what it is today and there is arguably no other TCG quite like it. Whilst the biggest high comes from opening new packs and playing standard, it puts a huge burden on your wallet. So far playing drafts with an uncommon + common playset has worked well for me. Having said that, I’m still thinking about whether I should get a full set of Return to Ravnica, Dragon’s Maze & Gatecrash though, I guess the temptation of "owning all the cards" is something each Magic player struggles with.
Session – Euphoria
Player(s):
Esther
Gideon
Jimmy
Justin
Louanna
Since we had 5 Players I pulled out Euphoria wanting to see how the game fares with more Players having only experienced the game with 2 Players so far. I thought it would be faster since the goal of the game (place 10 stars) doesn’t change & with more Players, the acceleration to game end would be even faster.
Me explaining the rules during set up. I think I need to include more demonstrations in my explanations although it does feel that it makes the process longer
Gideon (white) was all about the Icarites & was the first to have stars on his recruits (all 3 of them being Icarites) because the Icarite markets saw a lot of use from other Players. He had a fair share of stars on Icarite territory but floundered thereafter because he couldn’t get enough artefact cards quickly enough to land on other territories & got left out of the construction of two markets (further penalties)
Jimmy (purple) had a cool recruit power giving him discounts on artefact cards which he utilised on Wastelander territory but was distracted by the markets in the second half. I think he & Louanna were not aware about the fact that stars could go on recruits otherwise they would have chosen recruits from the same faction
Esther (red) was the lady with the resources & wasn’t even around when I was doing the rules introduction & three different colored recruits, yet with all that she was only one star behind the rest of us. Louanna always played it safe with three workers but somehow ended up assisting either Gideon or Jimmy in her actions.
I started out focusing on Euphorians who conveniently provided electricity to zap more workers into existence & work towards levelling my faction alliance. The balance electricity I used for tunnel digging to get resources to build markets. With the excess artefact cards from my tunnel digging I blocked Icarite territory from Gideon (else I suspect he would be the runaway winner) & I ended the game by taking the immoral victory of "turning in my friend" to put a star on my secret agenda card.
Time Taken: 120 minutes
Surprisingly it actually took longer than I had originally estimated (90 minutes or thereabouts) but it was fun & refreshingly original (Players looking at the board saying, "How can I be stupider?" is that even a word?).
Results Of Game(s):
Winna – Justin (10 Stars)
Second – Gideon (7 Stars)
Third & Fourth – Jimmy & Louanna (6 Stars)
Dead Last – Esther (5 Stars)
Rating: 8/10
One gripe. Couldn’t it have been something else besides Stars? Somehow it just doesn’t fit in to the theme very much.
Session – The Agents
Player(s):
Gideon
Justin
The other three had appointments to keep so it was just Gideon, me & 30 minutes more of playtime. I had just gotten my last expansion from Kareem at BGN Puchong on Wednesday night (where I played a pretty interesting game called Compounded) to complete my set of The Agents so we decided to play that instead.
Sadly we were in such a rush I didn’t take any pictures but Agents in a nutshell is a card game about balancing power over resources. Each Player takes turns to play Agent cards that will affect both themselves & either the Player to their left or right (in a 2 Player game it just affects both Players). Each Agent card has two ends, one end which gives points & the other which gives an ability so Players have to decide whether they want to get points or give points to the opposing Player in exchange for the Agent’s ability. A simple premise yet very tight & interesting.
© of Saar Shai. An illustration of how the game system works
I decided some points in the beginning would be important because you needed points to buy more Agents from the deck, particularly to replenish the Agents who are KIA. Thankfully I had Agents whose abilities would only be useful later in the game so giving Gideon the opportunity to use those abilities would not hurt me so much in the beginning. If you were a bystander at our match, you could tell Gideon was prioritizing abilities whilst I was prioritizing points which ultimately gave me the win although I suspect the result would have been tighter had Gideon realized he could reuse played Agents’ abilities as an action.
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Results Of Game(s):
Winna – Justin (40 Points)
Dead Last – Gideon (27 Points)
Rating: 8/10
I’m really looking forward to trying The Agents again, especially with more Players although Kareem has warned me that even at 4 Players, the game becomes a little bit unwieldy. Oh, and gripe #2, don’t place this on a friction free surface, plastic cards whilst nice are horrendous to manage on anything but a surface with some friction. Gripe #3, points as cards? Blood diamonds (like Ascension would probably have been more thematic) or even better, a counter track for money but I understand The Agents was designed to be portable & easy to deliver hence… point cards.
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