New Sets, New Rules

So here's the deal.  Since my last post, there have been all kinds of changes in my gaming world.  Warhammer 40,000 was given a new rule set by the gaming lords at Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast graced us with yet another core set in their endless pursuit of profit.  The only really good thing I have to say about the release schedule from Wizards is that it keeps the game fresh.

But, to move along let's focus on the Magic side of things first.  M13 has changed up the format a little bit.  Right now we're in the midst of the worst (depending on how you're looking at it) or best part of Standard progression.  We have two core sets and two whole blocks to pull from, and both of them are very powerful blocks in their own ways.  Personally, I can't wait for October to come around and Return to Ravnica to kick Mirrodin and all the terrible cards it offers as well as the over bearing duplicity of M12 out of the format so we can all breath a sigh of relief.

However, in the meantime, competitive players have three months of this to get through.  Its just a mater of knuckling under and getting work done.  I've been building and tinkering with a lot of new decks and cards.  Last night I went to a "win-a-box" event at one of the local shops.  I played a Bant Superfriends deck that was a lot of fun, but needs some tuning.  I ended up placing 4th out of around 13 players and won 4 packs.  Naya Pod made up both of my actual match losses.  I also had a rough time against a BR Vampire aggro deck with tons of burn in it.  My final record after the swiss rounds was 2-1-1.  I drew against the BR Vampires and lost to Naya Pod.  Then for some reason we cut to the top 4 and lost again to the same Naya Pod list.  My biggest problems with the deck were that I flooded out hard in four or five games in the event.  Drawing 14-16 lands out of 25 seems very unlikely and harsh.  I'm probably going to cut a few for some more ramp spells.  I need to play test some more, but I think this is the deck I want to play.

So, moving on to 40K...  The new rules set is pretty good after a little play testing and a lot of reading.  GW may have gotten things right finally.  The game plays a little more complicated, but it is a lot of fun.  There are some great rules changes that have made the game a lot more interesting and a lot more balanced.  My favorite two things in the new rules set are the Allies system and the new wound allocation rules.  They're going to make the game a lot more bearable and add a lot of diversity to the games we play.

As of now though, I'm out to get some work done.

SD13