Legend of the five rings - Ivory edition CCG - Draft

Legend of the five rings - Ivory edition CCG - Draft

This was the first Legend of the five rings draft that most of us had done. (six out of the eight players) We have been playing with our constructed decks since the release of ivory edition, and all of us were looking forward to drafting. Mark Wootton (AEG Games designer) was their to give advice on how to draft (Holdings to Personalities ratio etc)

The event took place at one of my LGS Major Arcana were the game has really taken off.

During the draft other people were also getting demo games too.

The draft rules were included in most of the Ivory edition booster packs along with  draft strongholds. Both Fate Dynasty decks have to have a minimum of twenty cards.

The Draft Strongholds (going first and second)

Deck Construction and Picks

The early picks i started off with unaligned personalities such as Komori Taruko and then spells for the Shugenja's. After the second booster pack I decided to pick Scorpions as one of my clans with Crane being the other. My decision was made for me after i landed my second Bayushi Meiko. and a Bayushi Masashi.

       

The Cranes i managed to pick were a Kakita Amiki, Doji Dainagon, Daidoji Tanshi and a couple of Kakita Ibara.  and to just give the deck an bit more shugenja i added the unaligned personality Yotsu Shinzai

It was quite tough to limit each deck to just twenty cards. Kakita Amiki didn't make the cut along with Shosuro Tosaku

 

Holdings i picked was Slanderer, one of my two rares i drafted.

 And thus the Scorpion Crane alliance was born.

Game 1

Against Liam running a Spider/Scorpion Union

Scorpion/Crane went first

The Spiders equipped a lot of weapons and followers and attacked my provinces early forcing me to defend, after some small skirmishes causing my opponent to fall back his troops, and causing minimal casualties but enough for me to keep gaining the honour from battle resolution.  the Crane Courtier Doji Dainagon lobbied for the imperial favour to help keep the Spider/Scorpions back. A few turns of gathering troops, the spider player ran out of cards in his dynasty decks. i was able to hold back the spider attack and gained enough honour to win by honour at the start of my turn.

Honour Victory

Game 2

Against Mark using a Phoenix/Crane treaty

Scorpion/Crane went second.

The game was quite a quiet game with both forces just happy to gather forces and the Phoenix/ Crane gaining Honour with three of the holding Kabuki theatre troupe and high proclaims, after my opponent reached thirty honour i decided i couldn't wait longer and i had to launch an attack on his provinces. I managed to take down one of his province but it was made more difficult with Encircled terrain. the next turn i issued a challenge with Katika Ibara on the Phoenix shugenja Agasha Kyokuta. I won the duel and managed to equip the Sadamune blade as a focus effect.

 V

 The Phoenix/Crane left with two provinces and now on forty honour at the end of his turn i had to go all out and try and take out his provinces, however i was beaten back and the Phoenix /Crane won via honour.

Honour Defeat

Game 3

Against Dan playing a Unicorn/Dragon coalition

 Scorpion/Crane went first

Pretty much from the start personalities were equipped with high force followers and and started to attack all out, then lose a province to the counter attack. The turning point was when the Unicorn/Dragon only had one province left and three personalities available. Two non equipped low force personalities and one personality with two followers that could take out a province by itself. My personalities were all bowed from attacking and destroying two of the provinces from the turn before. The Unicorn/dragons were faced with a choice and was worried in case i had cards in hand that could unbow units and personalities. So playing it safe Tamori Shaisen issued a challenge to Bayushi Meiko (who was sitting as a force nine unit , as she had the heavy infantry follower attached)

         V

Meiko lost the duel and was destroyed, however Shaisen was bowed as a focus effect.

the Last personality that the unicorn/dragons had unbowed was given two followers to get enough force to destroy my last two provinces unopposed.

Military Defeat

Results 

1. Mark - Crane/Phoenix
2. Alastair - Lion/Crane
3. Dan - Unicorn/Dragon
4. Brady - Dragon/Lion
5. Kenzie - Scorpion/Crane
6. Irish - Scorpion/Mantis
7. Liam - Spider/Scorpion
8. Ross - Crabs/Unicorn

I placed fifth out of eight

Rare Picks:

A choice of a Promo 

This card was a play set promo pick  

Promo card

This card was given to everyone who took part in the draft. 

All in all it was a great day and managed to play a new players and try out some clans i had never considered using before. I'd definitely want to take part in another legend of the five rings draft and i am considering going down to the Kotei later in the year. 

So look out for my report on that event. 

Magic - Gatecrash league week four & five

So week Four ends of the five week gatecrash league.

Each week i am allowed to play three games that add scores for the league result.

Week one ended with me gaining six points

Week two ended with me gaining another six points 

Week three ended with me gaining seven points 

After week two i had a total league point score of 19.

Game one

                                                                 Result  2-1 Victory

against a Gruul deck 

Game two

Result  2-1 Victory

Game Three

Result  2-1 Victory

Week three total league points 19

This weeks booster.

Each week you are allowed to add to your sideboard one Gatecrash booster. 

Last week i added Drakewing Krasis card to my forty card deck from my booster pack and took out Nimbus swimmer. In this week i decided not to buy an extra pack. i felt that even though the deck failed to perform as good as it had in earlier weeks, i felt a new booster really would give me nothing that would really enhance it that far. So no changes to the deck this week.

Week five

So this week ends the five week gatecrash league.

Each week i am allowed to play three games that add scores for the league result.

Week one ended with me gaining six points

Week two ended with me gaining another six points 

Week three ended with me gaining seven points

Week four ended with me gaining three points 

After week four i had a total league point score of 22.

Game One

Dimir deck

Result  2-1 Victory

Game Two

A Gruul deck

An enchanted disciple of the old ways with Madcap skills won both games, with the ability to first strike for one red mana, and has to be blocked by fewer than two creatures, i just couldn't keep creatures on the battlefield long enough.

With this creature enchanted it became a 5/2 and i had to block when i could as i could really only take four strikes before i was defeated.

Result  0-2 defeat

Game three

There wasn't a game three of the final week as most people play had dissolved their league deck into their constructed decks. This left me with no players to play.  I followed suit and dissolved my deck into my collection.

Week five total league points 2

This weeks booster.

Each week you are allowed to add to your sideboard one Gatecrash booster. 

As this is the last week of the league i had no reason to buy an additional booster. So no changes to the deck this week.

Final result: 24 points

Token prize

Everyone who took part in the Gatecrash league received a copy of this alternative art Boros soldier token.

Dragon's maze pre -release - Magic the gathering

This is my journey through the maze.

Two headed giant Format

This will be my first official pre-release i have been to. So i am looking forward to getting my hands on the new shiny cards for Dragon's maze. The format will be two headed giant so that it will be two players versus two players with a combined health points of thirty. The game will only be one game instead of the usual best of three due to the increased number of players and increased health points involved.
There are also several acheivements to win extra boosters throughout the day.

Achievements:

Azorious : Have five enchantments in play
Boros: Have ten creatures on the battlefield
Dimir: Mill out a player
Golgari: Have twenty cards in your graveyard
Gruul: One player has ten land in play
Izzet: Play five sorcery  or instants cards in a turn
Orzhov: Kill a guild leader or guild champion.
Rakdos: Deal thirty plus damage in a single turn.
Selesnya: Have life total of fifty plus.
Simic: Get a creature to 15/15




The event started at eleven in the morning with the players getting their guild pack and a super secret guild that shares a colour with your chosen guild, i decided my chosen guild would be Dimir, they have a lot of unblockable creatures and a good few spells that make creatures unblockable, they also have some cards that let you produce horror tokens (1/1 blue black  tokens with flying, don't underestimate them) . That was kind of my game-plan, unblockable creatures and flying tokens. The super-secret guild i was given was Golgari, which was handy as my fellow team mate was playing Golgari as her main guild choice, her secret guild was Gruul. By about half twelve everyone had their decks built and were eager to begin their games. 

Decks

Dimir

Land:
4x Island
6x Swamp
3x Forest
Dimir guildgate
Golgari guildgate

Creatures:
Undercity enforcer
balustrade spy
Dreg mangler
Deathcult rogue
Wind drake
Gatecreeper vine
Trestle troll
Metropolis sprite
Daggerdrome imp
Shadow alley denizen
Ubul sar gatekeepers

Instants, Sorceries and Artifacts:
Far- away
Dimir charm
Fatal fumes
Psychic strike
Midnight recovery
Stolen identity
Crypt incursion
Grisly spectacle
Shadow slice
Aetherize
Phytoburst
Mending touch
Hidden strings


40 cards
The boosters i got didn't really have the cards i was hoping for having only one unblockable creature and the spells i got for Dimir were mainly mill spells  but not enough of them to make the deck overly effective.  so i started to rely on my Golgari creatures in my deck instead for the punch i needed.

Golgari

Land:

6x Swamp

8x Forest

Golgari guildgate

Creatures:

Slitherhead

Maze behemoth

Trestle troll

Daggerdrome imp

Jarad, Golgari Lich lord

Disciple of the old ways

Skarrg Goliath

Thrashing mossdog

Sewer shambler

2x Karozda gorgon

2x Maze abomination

Kraul warior

Instants, Sorceries and Artifacts:

Drown in filth

Giant growth

2x Crypt incursion

Grisly salvage

Pit fight

Aerial predation

Chorus of might

Seek the horizon

Predators rampage

Stab wound

40 cards

Time to Run the Maze

Game One

Against an Izzet and Selesnya alliance.
The game started off as fairly defensively play on our part, having to rely on cards such as Hidden strings to keep the attacking creatures at bay.

The planeswalker  Ral Zarek came into play quite early in the game. Using his +1 ability to tap/untap creature and causing our team to have its defence wide open for a harsh hit from their attacking creatures. along with creatures like Haazda snare squad tapping more of your creatures, leaving us on dangerously low life points

Tapping like crazy!

We recovered some life points back by plying crypt incursion giving us a small help , but the respite was short lived and Ral Zarek used his -2 ability twice over the turns taking out our last remaining health points, ending the game. A loss.


During this Game we all got our Promo Maze's end card for taking part.

Game Two
Against a Gruul  - Simic collaboration.

The game started off with our side with in a delicate control with a combo of Black alley denizen and undercity informer. until the Gruul player played a  Scorchwalker, a 5/1 red creature and enchanted it to make it more powerful. We played a combo of Stolen identity and Pit fight to overcome the brutish creature, Jarad, Golgari lich lord came into play only to get turned in to a frog lizard by Rapid hybridization. 

The Planes walker Ral Zarek made another appearance (He seems to hate the Dime/Golgari guild). Ending the game with his -2 ability again.


Dimir/Golgari  -0 
Ral Zarek - 2











Game Three

Against a Boros - Orzhov Pact.

This game was a real grind  of a game with lots of life points exchanging due to extorting and Stab wound. The Izzet player managing to keep his Blistercoil weird in play for most of the game.

We managed to get the Simic achievement by getting Jarad up to a 19/19 using Scavenge and Bloodrushing. We both received a booster pack of Dragon's maze.

Maze Behemoth gave the Izzet-Orzhov pact issues as it gave the multicoloured creatures trample. 

One of the crucial moments was when i countered the  Izzet player playing the Molten Primordial with Psychic strike.

After the slog it was the Dimir Golgari that came off worst and notched another loss.

Game Four,

Well there wasn't really a game four, due to our poor performance we picked up the bye.

So we took this opportunity to go grab a bite to eat and discuss strategy.  But mostly we ate food.

Game Five,

The last game of the pre-release was against a Boros -Gruul union.
 the Game started with or team gaining lots of life, at one point up to forty nine life. This was mainly down to both of us playing a Daggerdrome imp

Lifesaver

\

My team mate got slightly mana starved and i had to resort to anti attack tactics and Aetherize was one of them, just to give us a few more turns to get the mana we needed.

All three of these cards were played during this game to build up our life points.

Aurelia, the Warleader ended our hope of a single win when she came into play, then bloodrushed and smashed us apart (their side did a total attack of fifty two life damage) and won the game for the Boros -Gruul Union.. 

It should not be a surprise to anyone to know that we landed in last place of seventeen teams. The day was a lot of fun and it was good to see the new set (and get kicked about by a planeswalker) One of the cards i picked up was the Selesnya guild champion Emmara Tandris. Who went straight into my Selesnya deck.

I was very happy at how the event was handled  and the two headed giant created a nice  fresh challenge to the game. I will definitely be  taking part in future Magic the gathering events.