DCC 2/4/14: Board Gaming League SEASON 2!

Hear ye, hear ye! Today we present you with the official details on our...

CURIO CAVERN BOARD GAMING LEAGUE SEASON 2

Begins: Saturday, February 15th, 2014

When: Thursday nights at 7:30PM & Saturdays at 3:30PM 

Entry fee: Just $2 per game played :-)

What you get: We will teach and run excellent games for you. You will have a fantastic time, and you will feel fantastic. You'll be all like "Oh man, that was so fun, lets go again!" Additionally, if you participate in a game, for the rest of that day you will receive 10% off any in-stock board games you buy from us! You will also have the option of purchasing the board game demoed that day at 20% off (in-stock or direct order).

Details:

Each Monday (beginning 2/10/14), we will be explaining on the Daily Curio Cast which games we'll be running for that week's Thursday & Saturday sessions! On the same day, we will put a sign-up sheet on the main bulletin board where you can sign up in advance for the Board Gaming League sessions that week. 

We will offer the opportunity to play the same demoed game multiple times on the same day as well! Each player only needs to pay once per day, so if you play in a consecutive game but already paid $2 to play earlier that day: no charge.

A sneak peak for the game we will be running on Saturday, February 15th at 3:30PM:

-CC

DCC for 2/3/14: Modern Format Banlist changes!!!

Hellooooo! Hope you had a great weekend, full of Born of the Gods cards and perhaps some football on the side :-) A huge thanks to everyone who came out to our Prerelease events- we hope you had a fantastic time!

Today brings us some exciting news for the Modern format!

Deathrite Shaman is banned in Modern!
Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl are unbanned in Modern!

These changes are officially effective this Friday, February 7th.

That being said, we have decided that for this Thursday's Modern tournament (February 6th), we will make these changes effective for that event as well. Because of this, it will be an unsanctioned casual Magic tournament, but outside of that, everything else will be just like all our other Modern tournaments, except for the new Banlist changes of course!

So, long story short, bring those Zoo and Faerie decks you've been itching to rebuild to this Thursday's Modern tournament, or be ready for 'em! :-)

Born of the Gods goes ON SALE this Thursday at midnight (technically Friday)! Singles, boosters, booster boxes, fat packs, intro decks, and Curio Combo Deals! More details on that later!

-CC

DCC for 1/31/14: Some New Leagues!

First up, a quick update on the Board Gaming League Season 2: We will be announcing the full scoop with all the details by next Wednesday!


We are starting up some official leagues for several games as well! We have a sign-up list on the main bulletin board; please feel free to jot your name down and let us know which of these upcoming leagues you're interested in!

BATTLE CON: Devastation of Indines LEAGUE

DECENT: Journey Into the Dark (Second Edition) LEAGUE

KROSMASTER: Arena LEAGUE


Let us know if you are interested in participating in any of these upcoming leagues! We want to bring these games to a higher level of competition and excitement. If you have other games you would love to play in a league for, we would love to hear your suggestions as well. There will be entry fees and prize support, and the tentative schedule is for weekends in March and going forward! :-)


See you all tonight at midnight as we launch into the second set in the Theros block: Born of the Gods!!!

-CC

DCC for 1/30/14: February's RAFFLE DRAWING PREVIEW!

Welcome back friends! Another freezing day in paradise :-)

Some sneak peeks for what we're giving away at this Saturday's raffle:

There will also be multiple other items raffled off as well! And hey... what's that sweet playmat beneath all of that? It must be pretty large, right...?

HUZZAH! This 8-feet by 30 inches playmat will be part of the optional Grand Prize for this Saturday's Raffle Drawing, which will present the winner with these glorious options:

Winner's choice of one of the following :

1x Any in-stock Standard Booster Box

~or~

1x Any in-stock Board Game

~or~
1x that HUGE playmat pictured above, plus a secret prize (gasp!)


Looking forward to seeing you all this weekend!

-CC

P.S. Huge thanks to Bob Huang for giving us a shout-out on his most recent article on Starcitygames.com!

DCC for 1/29/14: Our locals at SCG Baltimore & More Born of the Gods talk!

So this past weekend was a rather large semi-local tournament hosted by Star City Games: the SCG Baltimore Open for January 2014! Several of our local players went to compete, and multiple Top-8s were made!

Sunday was the Legacy format for the Baltimore Open, and three of our Legacy players made Top 8 for this huge event: Jack Kitchen, Travis Cowley, and Bob Huang! Coming in just shy of Top 8 was local Kiet Ngo at 9th as well! Well done gentlemen! You guys rock :-)

Taking many by surprise, a gentleman by the name of Kurt Speiss playing Lands.deck managed to WIN the entire Legacy Open! Expect Lands to jump a bit in popularity. The decklist he piloted:

1st Place at SCG Legacy Baltimore Open, 2014
Decklist by: Kurt Speiss
Lands (35)
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
2 Taiga
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Dark Depths

Spells (25)
4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
3 Crop Rotation
4 Punishing Fire
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam

Sideboard
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Primeval Titan
1 Crop Rotation
3 Krosan Grip
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths

So, speaking of Legacy and changes to come, let us revisit some of the Born of the Gods cards coming out beyond the already-incredibly-potent Spirit of the Labyrinth:

Meet your auto-replacement to Infest. While Infest has only seen some marginal sideboard play, I think we can start to assume it will see at least a little bit more sideboard appearance with Death & Taxes getting some potent spells. Tack on a free Scry 1? Sure, why not!

And then there's this guy:

Pain Seer will see definite play in Standard. That is nearly certain. But will he see any play in Legacy? Dark Confidant is better in that he gets you the card advantage the turn after you cast him, but he has 1 less toughness and you can't "turn off" his detriment when you want to. That being said, in Legacy, successfully turning a 2/2 sideways and not having it die can be tricky. Perhaps Dark Confidant #s 5-8...? That is a lot of card advantage... and life loss :-(

Next up, Searing Blood!

Yo, Searing Blaze, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish, but Searing Blood has one of the most effective damage outputs of all time! Oh Deathrite Shaman, why is your blood on fire?

Finally, let's discuss Swordwise Centaur. We don't have an image available for him yet, but his is purely a vanilla 3/2 for two green mana. This is actually pretty interesting for Green Devotion in Standard. That gives us EIGHT 2-drop GG creatures that have 3 power. Very intriguing... 

We hope you look forward to cracking some of these sweet cards in Born of the Gods packs this weekend at the prerelease events! We still have some spots left for preregistration, and hopefully some space open for walk-ins on the days of! It is going to be exciting :-) 

-CC

P.S. Tomorrow's DCC will include a preview of what will be given away at this Saturday's Raffle Drawing!

DCC for 1/27 & 1/28: Complete Store Championship 2014 schedule!

Sorry for missing the DCC yesterday- I had a pretty intense weekend of competing to the tune of Decipher's Star Wars CCG! I'll be taking some time to do a special DCC in the near future talking all about that beautiful and unique game. But for now, let us discuss our Fantasy Flight STORE CHAMPIONSHIPS for 2014!

As we already stated, we're doing a Game of Thrones one very soon (February 8th), but we are also hosting Store Championships in February and March for the Netrunner LCG, Star Wars LCG, and Star Wars X-Wing Miniature games! Here's the details in chronological order:

GAME OF THRONES LCG STORE CHAMPIONSHIP

When: Saturday, February 8th at 2:00PM

Entry fee: $10

NETRUNNER LCG STORE CHAMPIONSHIP

When: Sunday, March 2nd at 2:00PM

Entry fee: $10

X-WING MINIATURES STORE CHAMPIONSHIP

When: Saturday, March 22nd at 2:00PM

Entry fee: $10

STAR WARS LCG STORE CHAMPIONSHIP

When: Sunday, March 23rd at 2:00PM

Entry fee: $10

Prize support for these will be glorious! We look forward to you all coming out and having a great time :-)

Magic Born of the Gods PRERELEASES are right around the corner- *THIS* weekend! Preregistration spots are still available but drying up very quickly! Don't forget you can preregister over the phone!

-CC

DCC 1/24/14: Some Born of the Gods spoilers & thoughts!

Wowza, guess what the Magic community was gifted with last night? The entire set of Born of the Gods! You can find the data of every card, and most images too, all over the internet already. Here's one link of many to the entire spoiler.

For those of you who wish to not know what the new cards will be until opening them in a booster pack for the first time, you should probably stop reading here.

We'll only be discussing three different cards today, but we would love to go over with you some of our thoughts and insights on them!

First up:

Image obtained from MTGSalvation; Copyright Wizards of the Coast

Brimaz, King of Oreskos. This guy is pretty potent. Look at that CMC to power/toughness ratio. Double white too, not bad for Devotion. While Brimaz will most certainly make a debut into EDH, I think it is pretty safe to presume that he will be an excellent card for Standard. He may even find his way into Legacy Death & Taxes sideboard; imagine AEther Vialing this guy into play.

Image obtained from MTGSalvation; Copyright Wizards of the Coast

Legacy, meet your new hatebear. But probably even better at a 3/1, though Deathrite Shaman can trade with a 3/1 while just dies in combat to a 2/2.

Best home for this card will probably be the aforementioned Death & Taxes. It is wonderfully potent to AEther Vial this into play in response to two of the most commonly played cards in magic: Brainstorm & Ponder. This card might subtly reshape some of the ways blue decks are built. It's even excellent against Jace the Mind Sculptor. I expect us to see more:
-Removal that is easy versus 1 toughtness (Darkblast for example)
-Portent over some number of Brainstorms/Ponders

This card really has some heavy potential. 3 power for two mana. You can even Enlightened Tutor for it! Expect this card's price to skyrocket!

Now, this guy...

Image obtained from MTGSalvation; Copyright Wizards of the Coast

This card is really cool. Entirely defensive, and it should probably be looked at as a form of removal, but man is this neat. We look forward to what this card will do in the formats. Right now, it may be flying under the radar. Removal for Mono Blue? Sign me up!


We will talk about some more cards on Monday! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Don't forget:

BORN OF THE GODS PRERELEASE WEEKEND in a week! Preregistration still available!

-CC