DCC 2/27/14: Street Sharks!

First of all, just look at these guys:

Their bodies make no sense.

However, this show, Street Sharks, had some good things going for it. The best of which was a simple phrase:

JAWSOME

An excellent remark.

...that is all. Have a wonderful Friday. 

-CC

DCC 2/26/14: Raffle Drawing Previews, & A Quick Dinosaur Reference (It's been too long)

Ladies and gentlemen, the previews for this Saturday's Raffle Drawing:

Pictured above:

1 Theros Holiday Gift Box

1 M2014 Fat Pack

1 Gatecrash Fat Pack

1 Dragon's Maze Fat Pack

1 Minigame Library Board Game

1 Machine of Death (and both expansions) Board Game

1 Born of the Gods Booster Box

Mmm.... those prizes look.... 

Dinorific.

Okay, okay, I'm done.

...almost:

<3

-CC

DCC 2/25/14: Board Gaming League News!

Hokay, so:

BOARD GAMING LEAGUE NEWS

Thursday at 7PM: KINGSBURG

Description from Boardgamegeek.com

In Kingsburg, players are Lords sent from the King to administer frontier territories.

The game takes place over five years, a total of 20 turns. In every year, there are 3 production seasons for collecting resources, building structures, and training troops. Every fourth turn is the winter, in which all the players must fight an invading army. Each player must face the invaders, so this is not a cooperative game.

The resources to build structures and train troops are collected by influencing the advisers in the King's Council. Players place their influence dice on members of the Council. The player with the lowest influence dice sum will be the first one to choose where to spend his/her influence; this acts as a way of balancing poor dice rolling. Even with a very unlucky roll, a clever player can still come out from the Council with a good number of resources and/or soldiers.

Each adviser on the King's Council will award different resources or allocate soldiers, victory points, and other advantages to the player who was able to influence him/her for the current turn.

At the end of five years, the player who best developed his assigned territory and most pleased the King through the Council is the winner.

Many alternate strategies are possible to win: will you go for the military way, disregarding economic and prestige buildings, or will you aim to complete the big Cathedral to please the King? Will you use the Merchant's Guild to gain more influence in the Council, or will you go for balanced development?

Saturday at 3:30PM: ASSASSIN'S CREED: ARENA

Description from Publisher:

In Assassin's Creed: Arena – based on the Assassin's Creed video game series from Ubisoft – players compete to uncover the best targets for assassination, but before you can go in for the kill, sometimes you have to deal with pesky guards as well as your opponents. Players will collect cards and treasure, move guards, and hide within the city of Constantinople until they find their time to strike. Combat is handled through cardplay, and the player who best manages his cards will have the best chance at victory.

At the start of each player's turn, he or she draws an Event card, which can spawn new targets in the outer city, move guards, or allow you to find a tunnel to another section of the city. Moving guards is a great way to get them away from you and place them near your opponents. Targets cannot be assassinated while a guard is nearby, but fortunately the guards can be dispatched if need be.

Cards in hand drive the action, but they are also your hit points. If you run out of cards in hand, you die — but just like in a video game, you will soon respawn at your starting area. Moving and attacking targets (or your fellow players) requires playing cards, so doing too much all at once can be risky. Couple that with trying to avoid the guards and you are in for a tension-filled game of cat-and-mouse. To replenish your hand, complete objectives on your movement cards or hide. Hiding in the outer city is easy and grants you lots of extra cards. When you enter the merchant district or the area around the palace, there just aren’t as many places to hide and you will not draw many cards.

Combat is handled through cardplay. No dice are required, although a six-sided die is included to resolve some guard movement. Do you save your best cards for movement or to go in for the kill? He who risks the most has the chance for the most reward!

The Sign-up Sheet is on the main bulletin board! :-)

Tomorrow: This Saturday's Raffle Drawing Preview!

-CC

DCC 2/24/14: Netrunner Deck Talk: Making the Run!

Welcome back, friends! That was a warm weekend!

So, as many of you already know, on this coming Sunday is our NETRUNNER STORE CHAMPIONSHIP at 2PM (and Saturday is our Born of the Gods GAME DAY at 1PM!).

I'm pretty excited about it, and of course we both know you are. My mind has been abuzz with new Netrunner deck ideas lately, especially with our new fifteen cards from the latest data pack. Last night, I managed to compose a very interesting Corp deck that runs 21 ice and 16 agendas, but more on that another time. What I want to discuss today is... running.

Making the Run

A strong, competitive Runner deck. It sounds easy, and they should exist, right? I mean, sure they do. But Corp... Corp has it so good these days. Let's face it, when coming to a Netrunner tounament, you're probably going to expect to be more likely to win as the bad guys. It's just the way the cards are stacked right now. Or so it seems.

To build the right Runner deck, we must think outside the box. Unfortunately, that box is very small. There are no real "combo" decks. There are four main strategies, as I see it:

-Resource Denial

-Zerg Rush (often coupled with the above)

-Economy Ramp (c'mon, Seasource me bro)

-Big Rig (in other words, late game inevitability of breaking down all the ice walls)

That shouldn't limit us. They're just the way things get done. Unfortunately, it can kinda feel like you're playing aggro or control against combo half the time. As the runner, you have no way of flatlining the Corp; you can't go from zero to win in one turn, almost ever. You do get some freebie wins every now and then when the Corp gets stuck with a lousy starting hand, but ultimately that is nothing to work into a deckbuilding strategy. 

What we must assess is playing the field. What will we be up against?

I will risk it to say that probably the most common three Corp identities one can expect to run against right now are:

Stronger emphasis on the latter two.

So, what are some facets of these identities that we can probably expect to deal with?

-Bad Publicity

-Traces (even with Bad Pub, such as Seasource and Punitive Counterstrike)

-Net Damage (even without playing Personal Evolution: Snare & Shock!)

-Meat Damage

-Jackson Howard shenanigans

With those things in mind, I have a few thoughts for us:

This card.

I think this card is pretty great right now. I don't think one can build around this card like we used to when we were only a few expansions into the game. The simple fact is, there's only 3 in a 45 card deck and no real way to tutor them out. In that sense, I would advise against cards like Stim Hack, or combining it with Noise. What this card needs to be is simply an economy card with a bonus. Here are some particular things it does for us against the Corp strategies listed above:

-Takes beautiful advantage of Bad Publicity

-Allows us to "store" our important programs & hardware before running, without having to spend the money first to pay for them. Basically, getting them out of our hand so we don't risk losing them to Damage. Particularly useful against Jinteki, who's going to poke us repeatedly with small doses of Net Damage over the course of the game, and losing a singleton ice-breaker of a particular type to that is painful.

-Money well-spent. We don't have to spend money on particular ice-breakers preemptively before running; we can, for example, hold Yog on the Workshop and only ever pay to install it when we need to.

Running Every Turn.

Finding a way to run every turn is going to remain pretty important. Not only are you applying constant pressure, but you're also disabling Subliminal Messaging, which will almost certainly become at-least-a-1-of in every Corp deck. We need to consider cards that reward constant running, and the two most common ones are Desperado and Datasucker. Both are cards we should probably still run. But there are others, too, including a new one:

There are certainly more cards that reward running, but these ones are pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, we can't fit all of this in the same deck, and the deck I'm proposing here will almost certainly have to be Shaper for the heavy influence cost of Workshop. That being said, I find Kate to still be one of the strongest Personas. Good economy ability, +1 link strength. Yum.

Here's the preliminary stages:

1 Kate

--------

3 Clone Chip

3 Self-Modifying Code

3 Personal Workshop

2 John Masanori

2 Desperado (6 influence)

1 Hemorrhage (4 influence)

2 Data Sucker (2 influence)

1 Parasite (2 influence)

That's all 14 influence already, but well-spent. Unfortunately, it does not leave us enough room for the best off-Shaper breakers available to us: Corroder, Yog, and Femme Fatale. We could cut the Hemorrhage, but there is another option as well: cutting the Desperado and upgrading to the infamous 9-cost piece of work: The Toolbox. Toolbox helps us with another two issues: having enough hardware space for all these neat toys, and attacking traces. With the +2 link (giving us a fantastic three link strength with Kate) and +2 recurring credits for icebreaking, Toolbox may very well provide more economy over time than Desperado does in several matchups, especially those with trace ice (have you noticed how popular Caduceus has become?).

That lets us revise to the following:

1 Kate

--------

3 Clone Chip

3 Self-Modifying Code

3 Personal Workshop

2 John Masanori

3 The Toolbox

1 Hemorrhage (4 influence)

1 Data Sucker (1 influence)

1 Parasite (2 influence)

1 Femme Fatale (1 influence)

1 Yog (1 influence)

1 Corroder (2 influence)

2 Emergency Shutdown (4 influence)

We're maxed at 15 now, and we're down to 1 Data Sucker. That being said, 1 Data Sucker is generally the right number of Data Suckers to have online anyway when you're trying to maximize your hardware space usage. We don't want Corp to get too much value out of wiping virus counters, either. So, why make a particular effort to fit Emergency Shutdown into the 45? Well, for starters, there's this card that sees a decent amount of play:

Probably one of the best ice to Emergency Shutdown. Then there are other expensive ones that see plenty of play, such as Grim and Tollbooth. Emergency Shutdown is an economy battle card that can also provide us with a timely window into free access for a turn. However, we can still go another way, with this particular card that our deck can tutor out:

Crescentus requires us to probably pilot some more hardware space, but it works very nicely with Code, Test Run, and the Chip. I think it's worth it, and the influence cost is less too, allowing us some wiggle room.

This brings our intended final Rig to the following:

1 Toolbox

1 Data Sucker

1 Femme Fatale

1 Yog

1 Corroder

1 Hemorrhage

1 Parasite (coming and going)

1 Crescentus (coming and going)

That's not that cheap; 32 total credits. That being said, the number will probably be reduced by 5+ from Katie's ability, and potentially reduced another handful by Personal Workshop.

I do think the deck needs Test Run to help find everything, and to recur the lone Parasite & Crescentus as well.

Beyond that, economy cards will be integral. We want to stay ahead of the Corp for as often as we can with our resources. 

And then, beyond that, we need to avoid being flatlined in a heavy sense. Weyland has some rediculous meat damage capability now; Scorched Earth, Punative Counterstrike, the new Vulcan Agenda; we will definitely need some copies of Plascrete Carapace. I strongly want to consider a silver bullet to help against the Jinteki matchup, but also in the Weyland and NBN matchups where they run Snare and/or Shock!. That card is Net Shield. Running it unfortunately puts us another 1 hardware space down, but we don't always need to Parasite or Crescentus. I feel Net Shield is probably worth the card slot, especially in being able to tutor it out so easily with the Shaper tutor package.

Here's the final list:

1 Kate

--------

2 Plascrete Carapace

3 Clone Chip

3 Akamatsu Mem Chip

2 The Toolbox

2 Sure Gamble

3 Test Run

2 Quality Time

1 Levy AR Lab Access

2 Aesop's Pawnshop

2 John Masanori

2 Same Old Thing

3 Armitage Codebusting

3 Personal Workshop

3 Daily Casts

3 Self-Modifying Code

1 Net Shield

1 Crescentus (1 influence)

1 Medium (3 influence)

1 Hemorrhage (4 influence)

1 Data Sucker (1 influence)

1 Parasite (2 influence)

1 Femme Fatale (1 influence)

1 Yog (1 influence)

1 Corroder (2 influence)

No Katie Jones; this deck spends a lot of clicks installing and Workshopping. Aesop's Pawnshop gets pretty glorious in here; eats mostly-used Armitage Codebustings, mostly-used Daily Casts (for +1 credit), extra Self-Modifying Codes, Clone Chips, Mem Chips, & Same Old Things- all of which cost us zero (most of the time) and then gain us 3 credits from Pawnshop. Same Old Things help us abuse Test Runs into assembling our rig and recurring & using Crescentus and Parasite.

I'm a big fan of 1x Levy plus 2-3 Same Old Things in the same deck when we're running only 1-ofs for so many cards, as a safety net against Net, Brain & Meat damage that catches you off guard. You only need to Levy once usually, and Same Old Thing helps make it possible even if the damage hit your Levy before you got to play it.   

Hemorrhage gives us an angle on hand control that doesn't require us to run on HQ. In fact, we never need to run on HQ with this deck if we want, which is a neat way to partially circumnavigate Snare, and render ice spent on HQ useless.

The Final Rig is:

1 Toolbox

2 Akamatsu Mem Chip

1 Hemorrhage

1 Data Sucker

1 Medium

1 Femme Fatale

1 Yog

1 Corroder

1 Crescentus coming & going

1 Parasite coming & going 

1 optional Net Shield (and optional 3rd Mem Chip)

We have the following cards to tutor all of those out:

3 Self-Modifying Code

3 Clone Chip (with Code)

3 Test Run

2 Same Old Thing (with Test Run)

Pros:

-Good strategy against Bad Publicity (Workshop & Code abuse)
-Good strategy against Jinteki pings (Net Shield)

-Good strategy against slower Corp decks (excellent late-game Rig)

-Repeatable resource denial with Crescentus

-Easy adaptability to different Corp strategies
-Not as vulnerable to Power Shutdown with several 1-cost buffer cards (6 Chips, Crescentus)

Cons:

-Need to pay 9(8) for our Sentry breaker

-Puts a lot of cards down

-Economy may be shaky at times (more testing will tell)

-A bit slow

It looks good on paper, but will it hold up?

Time to take it for some Test Runs.

-CC

DCC 2/21/14: MTG Legacy Talk: Enchantment Control?

Welcome to Friday :-)

Today I would like to discuss with you a semi-recent and particular passion I found for a Legacy deck archetype that doesn't really have a name yet. Its first iteration took a very deep dive into the competitive realm of Grand Prix DC a few months ago, and was built only the Thursday night prior. There I dubbed it "Leyline Control".

It was Black & White in color, and focused on several key enchantment cards:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Humility

Yes, all main-decked. To support the enchantment theme, it also ran 4x Leyline of the Meek, which coupled rather nicely with Lingering Souls.

The mana base, in turn, was very interesting, with:
4x Serra's Sanctum
3x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Ultimately, the strongest play in the deck was a Turn 1 Stoneforge Mystic, which happened in 3 of the 9 rounds I played the deck in at Grand Prix DC. Running 12 Leylines and 4 Serra's Sanctum, hitting a Turn 1 Stoneforge Mystic wasn't as hard as I had thought, and man did it feel nice.

The deck went 6 and 3, just shy of making Day 2, and in my honest opinion, it did far better than it probably should have.

There's something rather potent about maindecking sideboard cards like Leyline of Sanctity & of the Void. It certainly gave me a handful of free wins, and I didn't even get paired against Dredge all day. The key is to have these cards apply outside of those matches, and that has certainly been the tricky part. Serra's Sanctum is definitely the main bonus, with Nykthos a close second. The deck could have run Opalescence, or even Helm of Obedience. Neither made it into the final 75, and that is a decision I have been unsure about even to this point.

Another thing this deck had going for it was a magic number: 4. 4-casting-cost permanents are immune to Abrupt Decay, which has fast become one of the most effective forms of removal.

I have been thinking recently about what a White/Blue version of this deck would be like. It gives us some interesting options:

I am a big fan of Leyline of Singularity + Karakas. Blue also gives us the reach in card advantage that this deck really needs, probably in the primary form of Jace the Mind Sculptor. Another card that might be worth looking at is this odd one:

An almost-always-online 6/5 indestructible for 4 that can generate potential card advantage by doing something like activating Elspeth, or Karakas'ing our own legendary Stoneforge Mystic every turn.

So, without further delay, here are those thoughts culminated into a list:

Land

4 Serra's Sanctum

4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

4 Tundra

3 Karakas

1 Island

1 Plains

4 Flooded Strand

2 Misty Rainforest

2 Mox Diamond 

2 Chrome Mox

4 Stoneforge Mystic

1 Vendilion Clique

1 Venser

2 Epahra, God of the Polis

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Elspeth, Knight Errant

1 Batterskull

1 Sword of Fire & Ice

4 Leyline of Sanctity

4 Leyline of the Meek

4 Leyline of Anticipation

4 Leyline of Singularity

2 Opalescence

Could it get there?

-CC

DCC 2/20/14: New Toys!

We have some surrrrprises for y'all:

Today's shipment brings us several copies of both new Adventure Time Card Wars decks! 

We also have some new oldschool Magic packs available:

Judgement

Fifth Dawn

Apocalypse

Odyssey

As well as sealed boxes for each of these sets as well!

Also in stock now, these two sweet games by Level 99 Games:

And one more:

Yus!

-CC

DCC 2/19/14: The Forgotten!

Amidst the impressive success of Magic: the Gathering's multiple decades of existence, many a CCG has budded and bloomed with a hope to ride that gravy train. Unfortunately, most of those expenditures have withered and faded into the past. Today, I will discuss with you my three favorite collectible card games that I used to play (one of which I still do) that fell through.

Let us discuss... 

The Forgotten CCGs.

First up is my favorite CCG ever. I still play this one today:

Decipher's Star Wars CCG. The force is strong with this game. Hitting the market in 1995 and going strong until 2001, this game was both glorious and incredibly advanced. It has a steep learning curve and quite frankly makes Magic look like checkers. That steep learning curve is a definite part of what limited some of the potential success of this great game, and during its in-print life, some rules-abuse issues ran a bit too rampant. Ultimately it saw a sour downfall due to internal issues with Decipher and Lucas Arts, coupled with a new high-bidder for the Star Wars license when Wizards of the Coast picked it up to publish their own Star Wars games (to limited success).

So badass.

This game was, and still is, so well-designed and advanced that there remains a large following for it to this date. www.starwarsccg.org is the home to the current state of this great card game, and for over the last decade the Player Committee, a highly-dedicated group of folks who love this game, have been continually breathing more life into Decipher's SWCCG, and have even be releasing "new cards" with a very creative process that allows them to not infringe on any copyright issues. There is still a very competitive atmosphere, and tournaments are abundant if you know where to look. Here at Curio, we run SWCCG tournaments about once a month, with a solid core of 6-10 players. There's even yearly Worlds tournaments with impressive prize purses that players travel to from all around the world. 

This next game is based in part on my particular love for the theme, but it also expanded on the idea set by Decipher's SWCCG of creating an environment/battlefield with location-style cards to play your dudebros to and fight over:

In space, no one can hear your game die

Aliens Vs. Predator (versus Marines?) CCG. Supplied by a source of brilliant screenshots from the movies and beyond, this game gave players the awesome options of playing with and against one of three groups: the Colonial Marines, the Aliens, or the stoic, dominating Predator. If you were a fan of the movies and the lore, you, like me, probably loved the look of this game:

Probably the coolest card ever.

Unfortunately, unlike Decipher's SWCCG, this game wasn't as well-designed and there were a lot of game rules questions that were not well answered by the game itself, and things sorta ran amuck. It lasted a mere two years of publishing, and only two sets as well. There was a huge reservoir of untapped potential for lore and imagery to draw upon, and I like to think of this game as one that could have been amazing if the game's company was more learned and prominent in the field of CCGs. That being said, this game's cards will still always look really, really sweet:

Last up, EVE CCG:

Created around 2006 by CCP & White Wolf Publishing, this excellently-designed card game was based on the rich environment created by the digital game that is still played hugely to this day: EVE online. Ironically, basing a card game on a video game is not what led to this game's demise. There were some surprising internal issues that are yet to be fully understood that lead to this game's swift crash & burn in late 2009.

The concept was pretty awesome. You picked one of four factions to play as, set up your home world, played a bunch of really-sweet looking starships, supplemented your force with resource cards, went out and conquered territories, and ultimately won by taking a final all-in strike at your opponent's home world and beating out their force.

The cards looked beautiful, and drew upon a surprisingly rich pool of in-game screen shots, coupled with large amounts of very well-done concept art.

I still own thousands of EVE CCG cards. They're hard to want to get rid of, because every time I look at them I remember how much fun the game is. I even played EVE CCG in a huge tournament at Gencon 2007 and won over $500. Of all the games I have played, I would say EVE CCG is one of the most fun. Never played the online game, though! Heh.

So, what are some CCGs you loved that are no longer around? Do you still play any of them?

-CC 

DCC 2/18/14: Netrunner Tournament League!

It's quiet outside.

Your arms are sore. You spent at least six hours over the past three days heaving clumps of snow and ice, so that you may one day free your parked car from its frozen prison. You let out a deep sigh of exhaustion.

Finished; free. The local snowplow set you back a bit, but you overcame that hurdle. You basically worked out like a madman, shoveling all of that snow. And now you get to breath easy, wake up, and drive to Luray Caverns or the local Planet Play or whatever it is you kids do these days.

Alas. Something's wrong. It's somehow too quiet. And suddenly, like a hurricane of insight, it dawns on you: only one thing can make the world that quiet and seemingly peaceful: more snow.

But rest easy, my friends! It was but a light dusting to pretty our climate-crazed environment for another day :-)

Welcome to Tuesday, that day in the week where you think to yourself, "I guess I'll eat a bagel today; I like bagels, but only sometimes because they can kinda get laborious to eat after the third one in a row."

Today's DCC is all about our upcoming Netrunner Tournament League. Here's the full scoop, for your anxiously awaiting eyes:

Curio Cavern presents:

Netrunner Tournament League 

Start date: Monday, March 3rd, 2014

Entry fee: $5/four week period (League Cycle), $10/tournament

How it works: Our Netrunner Tournament League will operate on a four week structure called a League Cycle. Entry fee for each League Cycle is $5. Each week of the League Cycle, you will play three Ranked Matches (playing as both Runner & Corp*), against three different players in the League**, recording your Match wins and losses with the staff, as well as your individual Corp & Runner wins (more on that in a bit). 

At the end of each week (close-of-business Sunday nights), the player with the best overall record for that week will receive a random promo prize, while a random other participant in the League that's played their three matches for the week will also receive a random promo prize. Additionally, the player with the most wins as the Corp and the player with the most wins as the Runner (tiebreaker = wins with the other side) will each be marked as eligible for bonus credit in that League Cycle's upcoming tournament. This eligibility does not stack over multiple weeks. The start and end date of each League Cycle will be made clear on our Netrunner Tournament Center board in-store.

On the last day of each League Cycle (each fourth Sunday), we will host a sweet Netrunner Tournament at 2:00PM (4:00PM on days that we have large events scheduled, such as Star City Games Invitational Qualifiers). The entry fee for these tournaments will be $10, and it is open to all players, even those not in the League. Top 4/Top 8 will receive lots of store credit, taken from a combined pool of the entry fees for the Tournament and the entry fees for that League Cycle. Players will be allowed to optionally trade credit prizes for their choice(s) from a large pool of Netrunner promos of varying rarities as well. If, from League Cycle play, you scored eligibility for bonus credit, you will receive extra store credit if you win any in the tournament! The extra amount received will be based on the number of participants in that tournament. 

Get ready to profit or pillage on the battlefield of cyberspace! 

*We'll be following official Netrunner Tournament rules for recording results of League Cycle Ranked Matches. The winner of a game scores 10 match points, while the loser scores match points equal to the total Agenda Points he or she scored. To determine the overall winner, you total and compare your points after both games are played. Draws will be recorded as such. Don't forget to record your individual wins as Corp and as Runner for eligibility for bonus credit!

**Exception to this rule: You may play multiple Ranked Matches per week against staff who are also in the Netrunner Tournament League. If there are available players at the shop for you to play a Ranked Match with other than staff, you will be encouraged to play them first.

DCC 2/17/14: Board Gaming League info!

Hi everybody! Hope your weekend treated you well. Today is Monday. Mondays are typically yucky, but I hope the DCC, and a healthy trip to your local Curio Cavern, can help chip away at that!


Let's talk about what awesome board games we have scheduled this week for the Board Gaming League:

Thursday at 7:30PM: DC COMICS DECK-BUILDING GAME!

Game description from the publisher:

Batman! Superman! Wonder Woman! Aquaman! The Flash! Green Lantern! Cyborg! The Justice League of America is ready for action – are you? Fight the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and peace in the DC Comics Deck-Building Game!

To start the game, each player chooses one of the seven over-sized hero cards, each of which has a special power, and starts with a deck of ten cards. Each turn, a player starts with a hand of five cards and can acquire or conquer the five types of cards in the game: heroes, villains and super-villains, equipment, super powers, and locations. To defeat villains, you'll need to have power – but when a super-villain is defeated, a new one comes into play, attacking all the heroes while doing so. Make sure you've acquired defenses – like superspeed or bulletproof powers, or The Batsuit equipment – to protect yourself from harm.

Craft your hero deck into a well-oiled machine to take on the most vile villains in the DC Universe in your quest for Victory (Points)!

Saturday at 3:30PM: ASCENSION: CHRONICLES of the GODSLAYER!

Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer is a fast-paced Deck Building Game that immerses the players in its incredibly unique environment with beautiful artwork and crafty themes. Players build their decks as they go, acquiring heros, constructs and the like, and defeating monsters too! But there is a delicate balance- you use different resources to defeat monsters than you do to acquire new toys, and there is always the possibility of being flooded with a sea of hungry monsters that need to be taken down! Acquire the most things, and/or defeat the most monsters, and ultimately obtain the most victory points!


Tomorrow, we discuss.... 

Our new NETRUNNER LEAGUE!

-CC

DCC 2/14/14: Love Is In The Air!

Mountains are red,

Islands are blue...

Opposites attract:

...And I

Love you.

Happy Valentine's Day 2014 from Curio Cavern!

We have cupcakes! <3

-CC

DCC 2/13/14: Does Snow Make Blue Mana?

Once again, look at this beautiful card. What day would be complete without thinking of Pygmy Allosaurus? He is both badass and cute. Now, look a little bit closer. You see that bleak sky? That snowy, frozen wasteland in the background? 

Remind you of anything? 

WARM BREEZES AND SUNSHINE, WHERE ART THOU?!

Alas, despite the return of Old Man Winter, I have proven once again that my rear-wheel-drive Mustang has snow-covered landwalk!

"Made it." -Quorra (Tron Legacy)

With that in mind, this winter is running a bit late! Several inches of snow today, though the main roads are pretty well-paved. Curio's parking lot is all paved too, and yes, we are indeed open regular hours today. So is Thai Cafe, our delicious Thai neighbor, should your tummy start grumbling :-)

Hey, look what we still have some of:

These foil Fated Conflagrations are the buy-a-box promos for Born of the Gods! You will receive a free one when you buy a booster box of Born of the Gods. Limit one per customer!

In only two days, we'll be hosting both our first Board Gaming League Season 2 session (for Survive: Escape From Atlantis) and our GRAND PRIX TRIAL: RICHMOND! The Grand Prix Trial will begin at 11AM, and entry fee is only $10! Modern format :-) Preregistration is still available for the GPT, and the bulletin-board sign-up sheet still has slots open for the Board Gaming League session!

Bring your A-Game to tonight's Modern tournament to get ready for the Trial this Saturday! Oh, and of course, then go and win the Grand Prix Richmond, for sure.

Drive safe!

-CC

DCC 2/12/14: WOTC, please bring back DINOSAURS.

As you may have noticed in yesterday's DCC, we made a reference to the Dinosaur creature type in Magic. It used to exist, many moons ago. It is still printed on some cards, such as:

But somewhere along the line, the Dinosaur creature type went the way of, well, the Dinosaurs... it became extinct. No longer do we have dinosaurs in Magic; instead we have Lizards. Lizards. You know what else is a lizard?

Little guys like that. Ironically, he gets bigger than Pygmy Allosaurus. 

Dinosaur has an important connotation to it, one that should be a very excellent example of what part of the color Green is all about: Big, and badass. 

But how could Dinosaurs possibly work their way back into Magic? Certainly we would have some reverse engineering issues should it become a regular creature type again; several cards would be transitioned back to being dinosaurs from lizards, like this one:

It could be confusing. But this is a complicated game, already full of printed creature types that have extra subtypes tacked on via Oracle text.

Cards like this could be errata'ed to be Dinosaurs, or even Dinosaur Lizards, and finally achieve the proper level of badassery:

"Summon T-Rex" is more like it.

I think that we could see a brilliant return to the Dinosaur creature type at a later date when we find ourselves with a new set whose theme is immersed in the past. Jace planeswalks to some new world full of early life forms and lands teeming with rich, untapped mana. 

One day, we could be welcomed to...

Jurassic Block.

-CC

DCC 2/11/14: The Best Mistform Ultimus

Remember this guy?

The original trend-setter for what became the changeling mechanic; say hello to Magic's first official Mutant Ninja Turtle!

Fun fact: He once was a dinosaur, thanks to this sweet-looking-card:

"Now I'm just a tiny Lizard, *sob*" -Pygmy Allosaurus

What would you say is the best creature-type-combination to reference Mistform Ultimus as? That's a loaded question! There is an insurmountable number of combinations... let's look at some of the cream of our crop that we here at Curio have come up with:

Giant Camel Assassin

Bear God

Vampire Werewolf (hello, Underworld!)

Ninja Pirate

Weird Sand

Samurai Sheep Skeleton

Hag Pincher

Cat Hound (almost, Cat Dog! P.S. Where does your poo go, Cat Dog?)

Giant Weird Fungus Angel Spawn 

Mutant Rat Monk (Master Splinter, is that you?)

Okay, okay, your turn. To help the creative process, here is a list of every creature type that ol' Ultimus happens to be:

Advisor, Ally, Angel, Anteater, Antelope, Ape, Archer, Archon, Artificer, Assassin, Assembly-Worker, Atog, Aurochs, Avatar, Badger, Barbarian, Basilisk, Bat, Bear, Beast, Beeble, Berserker, Bird, Blinkmoth, Boar, Bringer, Brushwagg, Camarid, Camel, Caribou, Carrier, Cat, Centaur, Cephalid, Chimera, Citizen, Cleric, Cockatrice, Construct, Coward, Crab, Crocodile, Cyclops, Dauthi, Demon, Deserter, Devil, Djinn, Dragon, Drake, Dreadnought, Drone, Druid, Dryad, Dwarf, Efreet, Elder, Eldrazi, Elemental, Elephant, Elf, Elk, Eye, Faerie, Ferret, Fish, Flagbearer, Fox, Frog, Fungus, Gargoyle, Germ, Giant, Gnome, Goat, Goblin, God, Golem, Gorgon, Graveborn, Gremlin, Griffin, Hag, Harpy, Hellion, Hippo, Hippogriff, Homarid, Homunculus, Horror, Horse, Hound, Human, Hydra, Hyena, Illusion, Imp, Incarnation, Insect, Jellyfish, Juggernaut, Kavu, Kirin, Kithkin, Knight, Kobold, Kor, Kraken, Lammasu, Leech, Leviathan, Lhurgoyf, Licid, Lizard, Manticore, Masticore, Mercenary, Merfolk, Metathran, Minion, Minotaur, Monger, Mongoose, Monk, Moonfolk, Mutant, Myr, Mystic, Nautilus, Nephilim, Nightmare, Nightstalker, Ninja, Noggle, Nomad, Nymph, Octopus, Ogre, Ooze, Orb, Orc, Orgg, Ouphe, Ox, Oyster, Pegasus, Pentavite, Pest, Phelddagrif, Phoenix, Pincher, Pirate, Plant, Praetor, Prism, Rabbit, Rat, Rebel, Reflection, Rhino, Rigger, Rogue, Sable, Salamander, Samurai, Sand, Saproling, Satyr, Scarecrow, Scorpion, Scout, Serf, Serpent, Shade, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Sheep, Siren, Skeleton, Slith, Sliver, Slug, Snake, Soldier, Soltari, Spawn, Specter, Spellshaper, Sphinx, Spider, Spike, Spirit, Splinter, Sponge, Squid, Squirrel, Starfish, Surrakar, Survivor, Tetravite, Thalakos, Thopter, Thrull, Treefolk, Triskelavite, Troll, Turtle, Unicorn, Vampire, Vedalken, Viashino, Volver, Wall, Warrior, Weird, Werewolf, Whale, Wizard, Wolf, Wolverine, Wombat, Worm, Wraith, Wurm, Yeti, Zombie, and Zubera.

Dig in.

-CC

DCC 2/10/14: Born of the Gods LEAGUE & Board Gaming League info!

Welcome back from a bit of a snowy weekend!


Sun...

where have you been?


So, remember that awesome Theros Sealed Deck League we ran? Where after the first week, you could start adding booster packs from almost any set to your sealed pool? We're doing it again! Beginning this Friday:

BORN OF THE GODS SEALED LEAGUE

When: Begins Friday, 2/14/14 (Happy Valentine's!); ends when we close on Sunday, March 23rd!

Cost: $30 entry fee, includes your choice of a randomized Born of the Gods prerelease kit or 3 Theros & 3 Born of the Gods boosters. If you choose a randomized prerelease kit, you can use the promo card included.

How it works: Your sealed pool functions like it would in a regular sealed deck tournament: minimum deck size is 40 cards, you can use as many copies of a card as you open. Each week, you can play up to three ranked matches versus other players in the Sealed League. We record your wins and losses for those games. Each ranked match is best 2 out of 3, and you cannot play the same person twice in a week. Your deck can change between each game and between each ranked match. The Sealed League is five weeks long, with each week rotation taking place on end-of-business Sunday nights (minus Sunday the 16th- your first week will contain a few extra days by starting on a Friday).

Once per week, beginning with the second week, you may purchase an extra pack to add to your sealed pool! This extra pack may be from any Magic set that we have available, minus Unhinged, Unglued, and Modern Masters. You may repeat the same pack in consecutive weeks if you so desire.

At the end of the league, we will give out some awesome prize support to those who rank highly and randomized participation prize support as well! 

Board Gaming League Season 2 News:

SURVIVE: ESCAPE FROM ATLANTIS!

We'll be running this game on Saturday, 2/15/14 at 3:30PM!

Survive: Escape From Atlantis is a free-for-all game where players try to escape from an island that is breaking apart! Each player has their own pieces that contain different point values, and when placed on the game board, those varying point values become hidden information. The island itself is made up of forty tiles that begin to sink into the ocean (represented by tiles being removed from play). Players can try to escape by swimming or by boat, but watch out for whales, sharks, and sea serpents! Nom nom nom.

-CC

DCC 2/7/14: Special Promos tonight & HeroClix news!

Mmmmm.... so much Born of the Gods...

...which happens to be legal starting today! That means that tonight's FNM Standard tournament at 6:00PM will be Born of the Gods-legal (and yes, we have plenty of Born of the Gods singles available for purchase).

Additionally, every player that participates in tonight's FNM events will receive one of these:

All your base are belong to Tromokratisssss...

Now, in the world of HeroClix, a rather exciting announcement has surfaced:

WizKids has just announced a licensing agreement with Wizards of the Coast for their line of Dungeons & Dragons Pre-Painted Miniatures! This means that there will be future releases of Dungeons & Dragons themed Clix models (beginning summer 2014 to be exact), which is pretty sweet. I hope there will be some big dragons, and that they will be compatible with the HeroClix universe! It'd be fun to gobble up some superheros... 

Don't forget- our FIRST HEROCLIX SEALED TOURNAMENT will be this Sunday at 5:00PM! Entry fee will be $25, and there will be plenty of prize support! Haven't played HeroClix before? No problem! We will be happy to teach you, and you will have an awesome time :-)

-CC

DCC 2/6/14: Born of the Gods Combo Deal :-)

Short and sweet:

Born of the Gods COMBO DEAL: $160 + tax
1x Born of the Gods Booster Box
1x Born of the Gods Fat Pack
1x any in-stock Intro Deck
and up to $12 in value of card sleeves and/or deck boxes

Available while supplies last from tonight at midnight until end of business this Sunday!

Born of the Gods singles will be available for purchase tonight at midnight as well!

First twenty players to purchase a Born of the Gods booster box will receive a free buy-a-box promo!

See you all tonight ;-)

-CC

DCC 2/5/14: The Worst Way to Lose!

Once upon a time, many years ago, this question entered my mind while playing a game of Magic the Gathering with friends.

I could not help but ask myself: What is the worst possible way for someone to lose in a casual game of Magic? I wanted my answer to adhere to cards and game mechanics only; no having decks catch on fire or things of that nature. I wondered if it should deal with someone losing a game immediately, but then thought it would probably be more dramatic if the game was one they fought for and perhaps even excelled at. A dark path, I was beginning to travel. But alas, it was in the name of science! Questions must be answered. And results must be tested...

So I built the deck to do it. I assembled the Death Star that would destroy someone's Alderaan. I only needed to have it work just once, and then I would either scrap it or shelve it, like an embarrassed arch-villain hiding his shrink-ray after having somewhat indirectly targeted Superman's phallic region for a minor but permanent "alteration".

I won't post the decklist here, primarily because I do not remember it all. I will, however, explain to you the scenario; the event, in detail. From that you should be able to reverse engineer whatever your heart desires. You may also find that my version of the worst possible way for someone to lose is more comical than yours. I do not doubt that someone may present a better scenario; but it is my hope that you find this one rather fitting. I present to you:

The Worst Way Someone Lost in Casual Magic

It was a regular Friday night, many moons ago, before Commander was a true format. We had our 60+ card decks full of whatever cards we wanted in them. Enter my casual play group, whose true names shall remain hidden. We'll call them: Garruk, Chandra, myself, and Ajani V.

Garruk is on one of his sit-around-and-poke-things decks. It just kinda plays cards and doesn't do anything imposing, and then late game tries to win with big creatures and armadillo cloaks. Chandra is playing some crafty homebrew deck that I cannot recall well; it never had a chance to do much. Now Ajani V... Ajani is playing his favorite deck, his deck he plays almost every time. Red and white, almost 100 cards, focusing on two primary goals: big red spells that do direct damage, and big white spells that blow up everything but lands. It's something he has been slowly improving over time, adding cards like:

 over .

So we progress through the game, and we're about 12 rounds of turns into it. Ajani has noticed I'm on a new homebrew and is keeping me at bay by blowing up creatures at regular intervals, not knowing that my creatures are mere roadblocks to get the right pieces into place. Garruk is doing his own thing and not really presenting a threat, while Chandra is trying to interact with Ajani in a mostly unsuccessful manner. A few more turns go by, and Chandra manages to cause a dent in Ajani's life total. Ajani's attention becomes successfully redirected for a turn, and I resolve a very unimposing Lich's Mirror:

It's just in case I die, I allow my opponents to presume. Harmless, really. Meanwhile, Ajani starts to spend his turns tapping out to destroy Chandra's tools of destruction. The fire war has begun. Thankfully, Garruk is acting as predicted, and I obtain some excellent opportunities to resolve some more toys, mostly in the form of mana acceleration, Diabolic Tutors, and a couple of these, putting me at 20-something after having taken a few random hits:

A few more turns go around, and I patiently wait for my time to shine. I need mana tapped out; an untimely Disenchant would ruin everything. Thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately, Ajani passes the turn to me with no mana open after having cast a rather large X spell, and a life total of 10. Here. We. Go.

I untap, draw, and tap one mana to resolve this little gem:

This gets some stares; nobody likes their permanents stolen, but you can just get them back with the Totem under the new owner's control... right?

And then I get to work. I tap two mana to cast this card:

What could this possibly do? I do have a pair of Life Bursts in the 'yard, however, and things start to get a bit scary for my opponents.

I then proceed to pay 5 mana to activate my Avarice totem, targeting my own Lich's Mirror. I respond with activating it again, targeting one of Ajani's mountains. I still have a lot of mana left (I had multiple of those Mercadian Masques storage lands built up and ready to go). Avarice Totem's abilities resolve in top-down order, first exchanging it for Ajani's Mountain, and then exchanging it back to me and giving Ajani my Lich's Mirror. Ajani smirks, thinking I'm just doing some silly derpy things. I have been known to play group-hug decks. Sudden realization of doom incoming.

I then target Ajani with a third Life Burst. Ajani is at 10, and this Life Burst will cause him to gain 12 more life, going to 22. False Cure will then cause him to lose 24 life for the 12 gained, bringing his new life total to a negative 2. Ouch.

But wait, it's not over.

Lich's Mirror kicks in, sees that Ajani has lost the game, and instead Ajani gets a free revival by replacement effect. He grumbles and looks at me menacingly, but is glad that at least he didn't just outright lose the game. Or so he thinks.

Ajani finishes shuffling everything back into his deck (I give him back his two lands), draws a hand of seven, and feels rather bummed that he has been so completely set back, but still decides to stay in it because he isn't going to give up that easily. 

And then he realizes that he still has Lich's Mirror under his control. Sweet, he probably thought, infinite freebee revivals until he loses it. Then I point out that False Cure is still in effect. I'm met with three blank stares. 

I proceed to explain that any change in life totals from one number to another counts as life gain or life loss. Ajani just happened to go from -2 to 20, thanks Lich's Mirror. That's 22 life gained. False Cure's replacement effect kicks in again, causing Ajani to lose 44 life, and brings Ajani's life total back down to negative 24. Lich's Mirror's replacement effect kicks in again, resetting Ajani to 20, which is now 44 life gained, and False Cure then says "Hey, lose 88 life now". And so the game ends, in a forced draw, with Ajani perpetually losing more and more life into infinity, being brought back to life each time only to lose even worse.

And that, my friends, is what I think is the worst way for someone to lose a game of casual Magic.

If you've made it this far in reading, I congratulate you, and hope that you never use this trick on me. :-)

-CC