The first thing that I would like to see added to Magic Online is voice chat. Communicating what you like to do in multiplayer is hard enough in real life, but on Magic Online text based chatting is the worst. While I think that the majority of the time I would not use this particular function in random pick up games, it would be nice to sit down with five of my buddies and chat away while we killed some time slinging spells. Most of my career playing Magic has been multiplayer Magic. We would spend most nights just huddled around a table playing for six or seven hours straight only stopping to get soda or go pick up more of our friends. I would love to see Magic replicate this social aspect of the game in the digital world. Most of my friends now live hours sometimes states away. Having a native way of voice chat would make these engagements more memorable. This leads me to the next thing that I would like to see.

Player Run Events. I think for Magic Online to take the next step it needs to have Player Run Events be an actual thing. I would love to see what some of the bigger tournament organizers in the paper world could put together online. Considering how Star City Games Open Series has single-handedly saved the North American Magic scene. Now, the game is doing better than ever and I would love to see the kinds of turnouts that an Online Open could get. Here comes the best part, if Wizards wanted a piece of the action they could always take a cut or have strict scheduling that would limit the size of these events or the amount of them that could be run. I realize that this would cause a lot of issues in terms of logistics. I mean what kind of effect would it have on the servers, and if god forbid the events crash or the program crashes and who would the players come talking to most likely not the people who ran the event. And even if they did, it would be hard for them to push through refunds to people unless they did all of the ticketing outside of the game. That being said, I think this is something that they should seriously consider. There are so many people running events on their own events that would benefit of having it’s own room on the program. I would love to see more people doing their own thing and I would love to see a whole new independent Magic scene that could arise from Player Run Events.

The next thing that I want to see is the thing that is most likely to be coming back. Leagues. Leagues are a great way to play limited on a budget. You pay a sealed deck and you can play all month on one cost if you want to. I think the problem that really came with doing leagues is prize support, it was just paying far too much. Here is the thing, playing in the old league system was a lot like playing a lottery ticket. If you didn’t get a great pool, you had no real reason to keep playing. You had a certain amount of matches that counted for league matches in a week and once you were done with those, the only people who would be left to play would be those trying to get good tiebreakers for the top prizes, if you didn’t get a particularly great pool and lost out early in the league, you were far more likely to just stop playing and never even open the screen again. However, if you did have a great pool, you would be grinding out a ton of matches whether you wanted to or not. Here is what I propose. Same structure as before, you start with six boosters, you’re allowed to add a booster each week, you can play in as many matches with that pool as you would like, only the first five matches count towards your league win or lose record. Here is where the twist is, I think they should do the prize payout weekly. Let’s say you get a 5 – 0 record in the first week, you get paid for it that week. But the rub comes, you can no longer play for prizes in the rest of the league. You can still play with the sealed pool and you can see how you stack with the rest of the players in the league, but your matches won’t gain you any prizes. Now, I know there are kinks in this system as well, but it does reward players playing well, and if the goal is to play a lot of Magic for cheap you can still do that and it gives grinders a way to get their prize packs out of the leagues earlier. There can be other prizes as well, for example, best records that didn’t go undefeated in a week or there can be options to forgo your prizes and go for more by having each week “count”. The point is, I would love to see grinders doing league matches on Twitch each week. It would be awesome if there was a more varied prize structure because we all know that Magic means different things to different people. Leagues can be as casual or as cutthroat as each specific customer wants them to be. And giving the customers the choice on the experience will give the brand more value in the future.

You may have noticed a pattern in this article, I want to Magic Online to be less about “business” and move more to include casual ways that people play Magic. A few other ideas that I would love to see materialize is casual draft formats. Right now, we get Cube drafting every so often between releases of new sets, but there are few other formats I would love to see on Magic Online. First, Two Headed Giant Sealed. The format is typically very popular at Grand Prix side events as well as Star City Games Opens. With the addition to voice chat to the program, adding in Two Headed giant events would be amazing. I also realize there are a lot of logistics issues with multiple players, especially in a program that isn’t known for it’s stability, but I think this would bring an entirely different crowd to Magic Online. One of the reasons why I started playing Magic Online in the first place was because the store in town did not sanction enough limited events. So, I went online to play in events that my store did not do. I think players would migrate to a service where they could do something that they can’t do at their local store. I feel this is why the old format drafts do so well for Magic Online. The last one I would love to see included in Magic Online is Reject Rare Draft. This format if you’ve never played it is pretty amazing, people just bring 45 terrible rares and you kind of shuffle them all up and make boosters for every then draft as usual. While it does depend on who brings what, and you do kind of have to make sure people skew more on the creature side then anything else, it is a very fun format with crazy card combinations that you don’t see too often. Like I said, this is all dependent on who you play cards with, but it would be a fun and interesting format that among friends, would be great to add to Magic Online.

This article seems like it is just focusing on the negative aspects of Magic Online, that isn’t my intention, the new program seems great and all the planned additions are all exciting and I can’t wait to see some of those come to fruition. The only other thing that I would love to see added to the program is an auction house style trading system. All other games do something similar to this and it would be something that I think would be highly beneficial to the program.

Either way if you are a fan of the digital game then the future is very bright, bright indeed. If you want to check out Magic Online yourself here.

The post A few words on Magic Online appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I thought my sealed pool was pretty good, it wasn’t nearly as easy to build as my last sealed pool that we had a few weeks back, but I thought it had potential. I kind of got suckered into playing Dimir. Which of all the guilds in Gatecrash, is probably the weakest and most swing worthy. I thought that my strong suite of mill spells would get me there. Doing a postmortem on the pool it appears I probably should have went with the much stronger red green cards in the pool and maybe splashed blue for some of the better Simic cards. This isn’t the first time that I’ve overvalued Dimir cards. The milling seems really good and the creatures that are hard to block seem good on the surface, but fact of the matter is when it comes to Gatecrash sealed, you need to be as fast as possible to get wins.

I don’t remember too much about the games, I do know that I won my first match and then lost my second. In the final and deciding match, I had a few opportunities to win the game, but as it happens, I drew five lands in a row. If it were any spell in my deck, I would have pulled out my second straight MTGO event in the money. But variance is a thing in Magic, it is something that can be the most exciting thing in the world or the most heartbreaking. I can’t imagine Magic being a very interesting game without it. I tend not to dwell on the bad beat stories, I try to learn from my mistakes and carry them forward and learn from them. I will say a few things, I haven’t played a format as fast as Gatecrash since Zendikar draft. Zendikar was heavily influenced by landfall and cards that killed quickly. One of my most successful tournaments was a Zendikar prerelease where I went undefeated sporting a deck with Vampire Nighthawk and World Queller. Not only was Vampire Nighthawk one of the best cards in the set, it was so incredibly powerful and very tough to beat. Usually the lifelink didn’t matter so much, you were always after the deathtouch and the flying. That meant it was basically a removal spell for their best creature. But I will say a few more things about Gatecrash. I can’t wait until we can do full block drafting in a few weeks.

Because Gatecrash was so fast and Return to Ravnica is comparatively slower, it’ll be interesting to see how Dragon’s Maze will merge these two very different draft formats into a unified format. Personally, I think that the format will be much faster than Return to Ravnica, yet slower than Gatecrash. So far, the best cards of the set have been the “guild champions” which are gold legendary creatures of each corresponding guild. For limited picking up any of them is probably a good bet, so far the only guild champion I wouldn’t really play much is the Dimir one. It’s kind of slow and clunky, it does have a decent mill effect, but it requires an attack phase and no blocks. And sometimes, those are premiums that you just can’t afford, even in sealed or draft. My strategy when the full block comes around is try to stick to position myself for either Gruul or Orzhov in Gatecrash  which will then let me be in either Golgari or Selesnya in Return to Ravnica. I feel that those color combinations are the strongest. There is also a pretty decent strategy of ending up in Boros/Orzhov/Rakdos, which I will imagine will be one of the more popular archetypes in full block draft. I’m not sure I would want to be in the Simic/Azorius/Selesnya camp but I can definitely see the benefits of going that route as well. I think you’ll want to try to force a base of red or black for Gatecrash, if only because the removal in Gatecrash in those colors are much stronger than the removal in Return to Ravnica, besides you want the focus of that last pack to be the stronger more resilient creatures that Return to Ravnica has to offer. There are so many different potential archetypes that I cannot wait to see how it shakes out.

Wizards recently gave us an update on the guild leader board. That means how many Planeswalker Points that each guild has accumulated since we were allowed to pick a guild (which, correct me if I’m wrong, was way back in September).  Here is the list that we got in our email today. The number next to each guild is the amount of Planeswalker Points they have accumulated.

1)    Azorius (3,390,302)

2)    Izzet  (3,330,408)

3)    Dimir (2,485,106)

4)    Simic (2,209,464)

5)    Golgari (1,628,324)

6)    Boros (1,597,323)

7)    Orzhov (1,519,002)

8)    Selesnya (1,392,553)

9)    Rakdos (1,214,476)

10) Gruul (889,470)

For those wondering, I am a member of the guild Dimir. The reasoning I am a member of that guild is two-fold. One, I’ve always gravitated towards Black/Blue decks in general. My first tournament I took 3rd place with a “suicide black” deck for a Junior Pro Tour Qualifier tournament back in 98. The first deck that I can remember building and doing well with was a deck that has a lot of similarities with what the Dimir guild tries to do now, and that is to mill the top cards of people’s libraries until they are gone. While I didn’t win many games, I had a lot of fun taking cards off the top of people’s libraries and I’ve always been drawn to discard, rouges, being sneaky, and counterspells. All of these things define the Dimir guild to me. So for me, the flavor of playing for the Dimir guild it is the same as playing a Rouge or any other shady character in an RPG. You are independent and you take orders from yourself and no one else. You also don’t have a strict world view when it comes to laws and “what society thinks” which is also me philosophically.  Sam’s guild is Gruul. She likes to smash face and ask questions later. She just wants to watch the world burn. Which is something that I can respect. I think the Gruul guild is criminally undermanned in my opinion.

You can head on over to Guilds of Ravnica to take the quiz and figure out which flag you should wave as you try to fight your way through the Dragon’s Maze this spring.

As for what I think of the standings, I think blue guilds are over emphasized. Blue is probably the most popular color among players who play in a lot of tournaments. The Azorius guild is over represented because most DCI judges identify with the guild that makes and follows the rules, yeah I know typical. I feel all the cool kids choose to be a part of the Simic or Izzet guilds. If Doctor Who was in a guild, he probably would be in the Izzet guild. I know many of the people in my playgroups would probably represent Rakdos, the punk rockers of Ravnica or Golgari, the metal heads of Ravnica. One guild I don’t think I could ever get behind and that is Boros guild. I don’t know if I want to be known as the “cops” of Ravnica. That being said, of all the guilds, I’ve had the most success with Boros. As for how the other guilds translate, Simic are the mad scientists of Ravnica, Gruul are the incredible hulks of Ravnica, Orzhov is definitely the political, religious, mobsters of Ravnica, obviously the Selesnya are the hippies, and finally the Dimir are the men in black of Ravnica.

Puca watch this week. Still no changes. That being said I have not blostered the content of my trade list yet and I will do that sometime this week when I have some time. That being said, there is so much that I like about Puca trade. For one, if you have excess cards you are not using, why not trade them away for cards you are using  and get as close to “full value” as you can for them. It is better than trying to eBay them away or selling them on web forums. The bad thing is you can’t “value trade” as much on Puca as you can with other systems. What I mean by that is you can’t trade one of your cards for more than it is worth to people who are unaware or not as savvy as you are when it comes to the value of cards. Like I mentioned in my previous article, this is one of the things I wish would go away in our community. The thought of  ripping people off because they are not necessarily as up to date on the prices as you are. There are some things I wish Puca would work on. The first, and most obvious, is a way of purchasing points. Right now the only way you can get points without trading in Puca is by buying into Puca Pro or donating via their crowd source funding method. Not that these are bad ways to add points into the system, it really isn’t friendly for the end user. For example, if there was a card that I wanted on Puca that was available to me and I had 1200 points and I needed 300 points, the only way I could get those points is by signing up Puca Pro, which should be noted that only works once, or trading away something else that you may want to keep. However, these are all minor complaints. I am super excited to actually get going with it. I do have boxes and boxes of cards that I am no longer using and can probably serve a better purpose by being shipped away.

I am approaching my upper limit for an article but there is one more thing that I wanted to talk about. You Make The Card is now in the card creation phase. Depending on when this article goes live, you may still be able to submit your design (designs must be in by Wednesday night). I realize that thousands of people will be competing for a spot to be in the final voting phase but it is always fun to participate in this kind of thing. It was suggested that we design a “top down” design, meaning the function is derived from the flavor of the card rather than the other way around. I have always thought that demonic possession was a cool thing. It is something that I have very seldom seen in Magic in general. I am not sure why because it has been one of those fantasy tropes that have been brandied about over the years. Anyways here is my submission for demonic possesion:

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature and pay 3 life, put a creature that is a copy of target creature onto the battlefield, if you do, the token gains haste and “at the end of your turn sacrifice this, if you do, return a creature sacrificed by [card name] to the battlefield tapped”

I realize that my wording may be a little off, I also have no clue on what the card will be costed. But I do think the effect is very black. The idea that your creatures are being possessed by the spirits of other creatures seems very black to me. I also think that since it is an effect that you have to do every turn makes it interesting. Maybe you don’t want to sacrifice something and you have to. Maybe you don’t have the 3 life to give. Either way, I think this would be a pretty interesting card and I hope it gets a chance at a community vote.

I will be making it a point to make sure I attend FNM this week. If you’re at Dragon’s Keep Orem say hi or trade with me.

Robert Chesley has been slinging cards since ’96. He has become a FNM regular and plays sealed online on Mondays. Check out his ramblings on Twitter @urzishra

The post FNM Drafting – TBA appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

This week at FNM I had to go stag. Sam was not able to accompany me this week, which immediately makes me feel a little down. Magic is so much a social game and sometimes even playing in tournaments without anybody there to share the glory or the bad beats stories with it is a little discouraging. We almost did not have enough players this week but a few players showed up at the last minute and we had a full eight for a Triple Gatecrash draft. This will be my third time drafting Gatecrash and the format is so incredibly fast you really want to make sure you have the pressure early and constant. This week I was pushed into Boros, a guild that I feel is slightly overvalued at my favorite local game store. I pulled some bombs and had a decent curve, but I may have been a little light on removal and I may have messed up signals that I should have moved into black, even if just for a splash.

I am finally getting more and more comfortable at my particular game store. This will be the third week that I’ve played there in a month and while I am still somewhat shy when it comes to meeting new people. I am establishing myself as a decent player and not just an “unknown newbie” player. My first match was against a kid who was playing his first draft. After our match, I saw he was a little discouraged. I take responsibility as a player of Magic, to make sure everyone has a good time. Because honestly I want to see the game continue to prosper, and honestly no one tells you a lot about the specifics of drafting or what you should be doing. Since it was his first draft I asked if I could kindly take a look at his deck and help him rebuild it. He was heavy into Simic and actually drafted some pretty good cards. We trimmed his monstrosity of a deck down to 40, added some more creatures, fixed the mana and he won a game his next match which he was very excited about. If there is a peeve that I have is that there are some game stores out there that make no concerted effort in helping new players understand the rules of the formats they play. The younger kids I’ve encountered at FNM have little to no idea how a draft works outside of the basic “take one and pass it”.

After I helped two younger fellows with their decks and gave them some general guidelines on drafting for the future, they seemed genuinely more enthusiastic about their upcoming matches and future drafts. One might argue, why would you do something like that? It is just one of those things that I take upon myself. FNM to me is a place to have fun for a few hours on a Friday night. It is a place where you can just forget about the week you had a school or work and just enjoy slinging some spells with some good company. I’ll always look over people’s decks or help them out with deck choices. It is just something that I do as a Magic player to spread all the enthusiasm that I have for the game and pay the karma forward.

My next match was against a fellow named Wayne. From what some of the people around the shop were saying, he’s one of the top players around. I always love when I get to play against the best of the best competition. Most of our games were very close. I got game one by curving out to my best creatures and swinging fast and hard. The second game I had to mulligan to six and keep a very risky hand. I ended up not drawing the third and fourth mana I needed to complete the deed. So we were set up for a decisive game three. A quick aside, there is nothing more fun to me than playing a do or die game. Game threes are my favorite games in any tournament. We both landed haymakers and it came down to a final draw. Unfortunately for me, he drew his final removal spell and dealt me that last 3 damage the turn before I could.

I’m at 1-1 so far in the tournament and while I am not discouraged, I was a little miffed that I wasn’t able to pull out the second round victory. I replayed the game in my head and while I think I could have survived if I had chosen to kill one of his other creatures I think it was just too close to call. I try not to ‘tilt’ at FNM. I realize that variance is not only part of the game, it is what makes the games interesting and helps placate all the amazing plays and stories that Magic fosters. My third and final match was against an Orzhov deck. I typically love playing black white in Gatecrash I feel it not only has the most versatility, it is far more stronger than most other types of decks. With Orzhov you have to be careful you don’t run against all of the extort spells. Unfortunately for me, there was a card I overlooked in the draft portion. My opponent was fortunate or had the foresight to pick up multiple copies of Contaminated Ground. While I don’t think the card is particularly strong, he did manage to pick up three copies of it. One of the games I did win I just overpowered him with flight. The next two games I just couldn’t stop multiple Contaminated Grounds hitting my only sources of white or red mana.

So far in my FNM drafting adventure, I’ve won more than I’ve lost. by my count I have gone 5 – 3 overall. Which to me signifies about what I expected, that I’m a good, decent player but I have yet to take it the next level yet. While I’m working on it, I think drafting more and more each week we’ll get a better idea of what my actual playskill is.

This week I added a few more cards to my Puca Trade account. So far, no takers on any of my draft rares so far. While I realize that most of the cards that I am putting up for trade are from the easiest set to get a hold of, I was expecting at least a few bites on some of my more expensive sought after Standard rares from the set. My current balance at Puca is 500 points, which is about five dollars. I got all of those points just from sharing on Facebook and retweeting on Twitter. So far, this week I have not made any headway into my quest for power cards from drafting, but I am also in the process of setting up a trade binder to take with me to FNM and we’ll see how this experiment goes next week.

As for other Magic news, the allocation for Modern Masters is slowly leaking out. The general consensus is that you should get as much of this set as you can get your hands on. Most places will only be able to get a fraction of what was available for Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash. Wizards is playing it cool and advising that it will be available but it won’t be available for very long. I expect the entire run of Modern Masters to be sold out everywhere within a month of it hitting the shelves. If you are looking to draft the set try to secure a box or two from your local game store, but from the looks of it the best they’ll be able to get is three cases of product. Which sounds like a lot, but that is usually what most stores open solely for singles for their shops.

The box prices of Modern Masters have been going through the roof, if you are able to get a box for anything less than $130 then you are getting a great deal. Most places started at that price sold out immediately, raised the price to $170 and then sold out of that nearly immediately. I am not sure of a place online that is pre-selling the product at all. What does all of this mean? To me, it is good news. If products like this are very successful than that tells Wizards that the market is ready for more reprint style expansions that are not necessarily legal in Standard. But it is a double edged sword. Personally, I think that these kinds of expansions should have a much wider reach. I think if players want the cards, they should be able to obtain them in some kind of sealed product. The secondary market has been going crazy the past few years. Most cards have shot up in value and stayed high. It was announced today that many of the Legacy staple cards at Star City Games’ buy list have shot up again, probably pushing another segment out of Legacy and into Modern. It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out. If there is one thing that I’ve noticed in all my years of playing Magic, formats come and go. Legacy may get to a point where it won’t be financially viable for Star City to run Legacy Opens on Sunday because the cards cost so much and people can only afford so much to play cards.

I’m just about hitting the top limit for my article. I’ll be slinging cards at FNM this weekend at Game Den in Orem, stop by and say hi if you’re around.

Robert Chesley has been slinging cards since ’96. He has become a FNM regular and plays sealed online on Mondays. Check out his ramblings on Twitter @urzishra.

The post FNM Drafting – Good Karma appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

This week’s format was going to be presumably Triple Gatecrash, but they didn’t quite have enough packs of cards for everyone who wanted to draft. So, we tried our hand at Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash. This isn’t a typical format (as both sets are considered “large, stand alone” sets, we will be drafting RTR and GTC when Dragon’s Maze hits next month and pushes us into the triple set format we’re so accustomed to. I considered this exercise as kind of a preview of coming attractions in terms of draft formats.

It started a little later than usual. That’s the thing with going to Magic events that never really changes, nothing really ever starts at the announced time. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive and the tournament to start up I made one speculation purchase. I bought a couple Assemble the Legions for a couple dollars a piece. These were used in many of the winning control decks in Standard last weekend at the SCG Opens in Orlando. I thought they were a steal at two dollars. I think they probably have a potential to grow to maybe five or six dollars in a few months, but by then, people will be chomping at the bit to get them out of the trade binder. This is a perfect place as any to talk about what I think about trading.

I love trading Magic cards. It is one part of the overall culture of collectibles that really gets me going. I love knowing that my collection grows in value and I love trading for cards that I think are undervalued and have potential. That being said there are a few things about modern card trading that needs to be discussed. If you are a new player and you see existing players getting excited over a pile of cards you think is terrible, you may need to research the price of the cards before you just let them go for nothing. Everyone has a smart phone, at the very least, everyone has a device that can hop on free WiFi and check prices at most stores. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t “make a buck” or try to value trade, I’m just saying that newer players or people just starting out trading should do a little homework before you let cards sling back and forth. Everyone has a bad beats story and everyone has a story of “I had a really valuable card once, but I traded it for a way worse one.” Don’t let your way worse one be because you didn’t know the value of your cards up front.

Once the draft legitimately started I was itching to see how this format shook out. I took an early Ogre Slumlord and never really looked back. Picked up the Orzhov cards throughout my first pack. One of the things I’ve noticed about Gatecrash, and this particular shop in general, is that many of the players vastly overvalue cards that are not very good in limited. People draft for whatever the reason, I draft to build the best deck I can and win the most games, some players draft for cards for their constructed brews. The best advice I can give players looking to become better drafters or better limited players overall, don’t get sucked up into playing what you’re used to. The shocklands are valuable cards, it is hard to pass up a card that is worth the price of the draft for a card that may be better for your deck. I’m not saying that the shocklands are bad cards in limited, quite the contrary, they are pretty decent. But if you are not in those colors and you waste your first pick on a card that won’t make your deck, you’re playing from behind.

This draft went a lot better than my last draft. I stuck to playing color combinations that I knew would work well. I benefited from the general consensus that Red and Boros in particular is the color and guild choice. I stuck to picking Orzhov cards in pack one, got rewarded in pack two by some very powerful black cards being sent my way. I steered towards Selesnya in Return to Ravnica, because they work well with Orzhov and green isn’t a particularly hard color to splash for. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have already seen this picture of my draft deck. It is highlighted by a fourth pick Pack Rat (which is a very hard card to remove) and a first pick Armada Wurm. Ending up with both on color guildmages was pretty sweet. The all star of the deck was the two Centaur Healers, which not only negates early beats with the three life. But it puts a 3/3 body on the field and that stops most early attackers and gives you something that can trade later on. Other highlights are the Knight Watch and Knightly Valor which are almost the same card.

I don’t remember too much from the matches I did get to pull off the turn two Pack Rat. I lost a game off of a lost Volatile Rig coin flip, which is one of the most memorable experiences of the tournament. I felt my deck was close to perfect. I only lost the one game. Other memorable board states were I used a Merciful Eviction to remove my opponent’s two artifact creatures and smash face. I think I drafted about as perfect as I could. I don’t think I made a “wrong pick” at all. This time I received my foil Farseek and three packs of Gatecrash for a future draft or sealed deck at my house. I placed 2nd overall (although statistically I was tied for first) I think the one game loss affected my placing. I still got first place prizes and I had another amazing time.

We’ve also done what I like to call MTGO Mondays at our house as well. This is where me and Sam relax at home and fire up the old Magic sans pants and play a quick tournament or two before bed. The past few weeks we’ve been playing in phantom Gatecrash sealed. Here are a few pros and cons about playing in Phantom events. One, from what you have probably gathered from the name of the event, phantom means you don’t get to keep the cards you open after the event is over. Which for some players that would be a major drawback. The bright side to all of this is that the price of the event is far less than a non-phantom event. The difference between a regular sealed event, around twenty six dollars retail, and a phantom event, about four dollars is not an insignificant amount of money. That also means that the stakes are much lower. The prizes are not nearly as good, but definitely comparable to what we find at FNM each week. We love playing sealed decks and hate the cost so this works out great for us. The other great thing is they fire on demand. We have found that the longest we’ve waited for an event was about ten minutes.

You’ll see from my sealed pool that I think I built a pretty good deck. I went 2-1 in rounds and prized. I think I could have gone 3 – 0 if I had sideboarded in the Pit Fights in my second match. I did pretty well though winning 2 – 1 getting a pack of cards for my trouble isn’t too bad. I also think that possibly the Act of Treason should have been the Homing Lightning or the Massive Raid. It is also unfortunate that I didn’t find space for the Ruination Wurm because that is also a very excellent. card. But outside of a few 20th to 23rd cards in the deck, I think it is mostly the

correct choices. I don’t recall too much about this particular tournament except that I was very weak against flying in the second round and I think siding in the Pit Fights would have helped me on that front. It would have at least helped me slow down the onslaught of flyers coming at my face. All of my games this tournament split, that’s kind of exciting to, knowing you’re on the verge and coming back from behind and winning out.

There was one other thing I wanted to talk about before I closed out this article. I’ve been trying to find ways to liquidate my Magic card collection and actually maximize the value of the cards that I do have. I decided to go with an online trading site called PucaTrade. PucaTrade works similarly to a few video game sites that I’ve used to trade with. Where you are not trading one for one, you’re trading for an amount of points, and then you use those points as currency to get other cards. Everything happens automatically on the back end so you just get updates on when you need to send cards and when you’re going to be receiving cards. While it takes some doing setting up, you’ll need to manually add a lot of the cards on both the have and the wants, and you’ll also need to add additional copies if you like playsets of things. What I’m going to try to do is use it to get rid of cards that I am no longer using or have far too many of and try to get some of those more expensive cards out of it. We’ll see how successful I’ll be (and seeing how I’ll need hundreds of dollars worth of points, it may take me a little while). I’ll try to keep a running tally of my PucaTrade points. So far, I have 250 points for signing up and re-tweeting the link. The points don’t translate well to dollars, but from the looks of it, about every 100 points is a dollar in real currency. This week I’m just starting it, I added most of the cards that I’m willing to part with from my current draft to my “have” list we’ll see if any of those go in the coming weeks. So, we’ll see how this experiment goes.

Also, remember to vote Red in YMTC. I think it is really the best option in terms of power level and challenge for the community. I would love to see better and more interesting red cards and what better way than voting on it for the community card.

Robert Chesley has been slinging cards since ’96. He has become a FNM regular and plays sealed online on Mondays. Check out his ramblings on twitter @Urzishra.

The post FNM Drafting – A look at things to come appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

My wife suggested we find activities we can do together and that get us out of the house. She agreed to play at FNM with me but I have to promise to make sure we go each week. I was still a little reluctant. Mostly for vanity reasons, like “Oh, I’m not good enough” or “I won’t know anyone so I’ll feel awkward”. It’s a little social anxiety that I feel most people have. I’m not really sure why I have this anxiety about playing Magic. I’ve been playing for going on most of my life at this point. It isn’t like I haven’t been successful in the area (quite on the contrary I’ve won more tournaments in this area than my “hometown” of Price.) Such is life, the first time you go to one of these there is always so much awkwardness. Even if you’ve done it a million times. The first thing we did was search our area for shops that had FNM. It surprised me on how much the game has grown and in our area there are at least six or seven stores that have FNM each week. We decided that we were going to go to a place that held drafts. Drafts are the easiest format to get into competitively, you have to do little to no preparation just show up, pay the fee, crack packs, pass cards. While you should stick to a few general guidelines, such as be mindful of your mana curve, value removal, emphasis on 3, 4, 5 drop creatures, you don’t really have to bring anything else other than yourself.

The options in town were as followed, everywhere held draft. The prices varied on the prize structure and the level of competitiveness. Most places in town were charging $15 dollars a person, keep what you draft (meaning no rare re-drafting at the end, which is something that I frown upon local game stores doing), and a pack per each match win. The place we decided to settle on going to only gave out packs to the top winners but cost far less per draft. It ends up being close to $20 for us to draft. Which is close to two for one at other places. If you are in the area, drop by Dragon’s Keep in Orem on Friday and we can battle or trade. The store itself is pretty interesting. It’s a typical comic book/game store but it is also combined with a take out pizza place. Which in and of itself is pretty convenient. We have yet to try the pizza out, but man it smelled really good as we were slinging up cards. As for the game area itself has tables that are big enough, plenty of windows for natural light, and one of the most underrated features, high ceilings. This helps with noise. For example I never felt like I couldn’t understand or hear my opponent. All in all, it is the perfect place to go play on Friday night for us.

The first FNM we went to was a couple weeks back. We were both pretty nervous. I was nervous because of all the unknowns. It is tough to break into a new group. Most people know people from school, whether that is college or high school, it’s a little harder to break into it when you’ve been out of it for a while and you’re slightly older. I feel overall Sam had an easier time, because she was the only lady and she has been comfortable in these kinds of settings for a while. We sat down for the draft and I could immediately tell that my draft pod had all the ringers in it. The two guys with the most followers when we came in sat at my table. It was an understatement to say that I was sweating bullets. We passed the cards around. I pulled some good Orzhov cards and splashed a bit of red for some bombs that I opened. In my nervousness, or maybe the rust that I haven’t drafted in a while came to the forefront. I missed the signals that I should have been in Simic or Dimir passing up really excellent blue and green cards for mediocre white or black cards. I later learned that most of the six person pod tried to force black and white and I should have definitely been in other colors. This is one of the best things I can say about drafting, you’re always learning and second guessing your knowledge and perception.

The first round I was paired up against David. Who I learned won the draft the previous week. He was to my right in the draft pod. I kept a few questionable hands, there isn’t really much else to say about the match except I felt like I had a shot in the first game where I could have won if I had just another land and in the second game he had double Madcap Skills, one of the few cards that can just win games on it’s own in Gatecrash limited, and I was put on a two turn clock on turn three. So, while I don’t think I made any glaring play mistakes (sometimes your opponents just have it), it brought me down a rung on the pole and made me that much more hungry to get my first match win at this new store.

My second match was against Jared, who informed me while we were shuffling for our match that this is the first time he’s tried to draft a control deck. He was playing Dimir. The first game I had to mulligan down to 5. Though I was still in the game. Jared windmill slams down a few flying fae who I cannot overcome and I succumb after losing to a hoard of flying horrors. The next game, I got down my guys who quickly outclassed his and I extorted to victory. We were down to the third and final game. It was a tooth and nail, grindy kind of battle that involved a lot of extorting and counterspells. I eventually landed a guy I needed and swung in for the final points of damage. Playing against Jared makes me feel great about playing at this shop. We were slinging spells and laughing about our own misfortunes.

The final match of the night pitted me against Matt who was guiding a plethora of Boros legion for the glory of Ravnica. I don’t remember much about this match. I know that Matt was having some difficulties finding the mana he needed for his spells and I was clicking on all cylinders at that point. Extort is a very powerful mechanic that basically adds a bit of burn and life gain to each of your spells. Creatures that are normally decent, become must play because of their extort ability. The outcome of both games came down that I just had more flying and was able to send the troops in by air and took Matt in two games. Just like the previous match there were no hard feelings and we ended the match laughing and having a great time. Which is exactly the point of Friday Night Magic in the first place. It was very refreshing.

My first foray into Friday Night Magic was successful. I went 2 – 1 in matches and lost to the eventual winner, David. I placed 7th out of 12 which is about middle of the pack. Considering I had not drafted Gatecrash before that night, playing in a new shop, and seeing many interactions for the first time I mark it as a win even though I didn’t make prizes.

This isn’t going the be the last time I talk about my forays into Friday Night Magic. It seems that I am pushing the upper limits of space at this point. My next Friday Night Magic at Dragon’s Keep was much more successful. If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook then you’ve already heard all about it. I’ll save those stories for another article.

I wanted to close this article by talking a little bit about the You Make The Card contest going on at wizards.com/dailymtg. The first vote has already finished and the card type is going to be Enchantment. My vote was cast for lands because I feel that it is a more interesting card type and can potentially be used in many or all decks. For Enchantments it is going to be a little interesting to see which direction it goes in. The next vote starts on April 2nd and we’ll be deciding which of the five colors the enchantment will be. I am putting my hat into the ring for Red. Red has historically been one of the weakest colors in terms of playability and card quality. Sure Red gets amazing removal and direct damage, but outside of those strategies very few Red decks see the final tables.

I want to see an enchantment that does the following and mind you this is very rough and may not be worded correctly.

Enchantment – At the beginning of your Upkeep flip a coin, if the coin lands on heads this enchantment gains “Creatures you control have haste” until end of turn. If the coin lands on tails this enchantment gains “You have an additional Attack Phase after your first Attack Phase” until end of turn.

I think this plays up so many of Red’s interesting attack philosophies. It would be a fun and interesting card in competitive formats as well as many casual formats. It also plays up the chaotic flavor of Red’s color identity. If you want to join the conversation about You Make The Card, use the #YMTC hashtag on Twitter and while you’re there follow me @urzishra.

Robert Chesley has been spell slinging in Friday Night Magic since 2003. You can follow him on twitter @urzishra where he muses about Magic.

The post FNM Drafting – Triple Gatecrash appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

What makes GPs so attractive to pros is that they offer cash prizes, appearance fees, and Pro Tour points (which can be worth up to $500 each in real money). The Pro level club matters if you want to be on the “gravy train” or you want to make money being a professional Magic player. In order to get these Pro Points (which determine levels for plane tickets and invites to Pro Tours, appearance fees, and exclusive tournaments) you have to do well during the Pro season (the 3, soon to be 4 Pro Tours as well as at Grand Prix that year). It is next to impossible to get all the points you need to be in the highest levels of the Pro club without traveling, playing, and doing very well at Grand Prix.

This wasn’t such a big deal a few years back, but for 7 consecutive sets Magic has one upped each previous set. The game is more popular than it ever has been and that means a direct correlation to people trying to “live the dream” and grind their way to the top of the Pro ladder. Which means that Wizards has added more and more GPs to an already crowded schedule. This means if you are one of those “pros” that wants to stay on the train, you have to travel to at least 2 or 3 Grand Prix tournaments a month just to keep up. Not only that, you’re eating most of that cost. Now, I will argue that all of this is based on choice and I believe it shouldn’t be Wizards’ priority to make sure a small subset of players can perpetually make money playing on the Tour. The game is obviously growing, the demand for high level play is growing, and it gets easier and easier to travel to events all the time Grand Prix events used to be one of the few ways in which pros had a clear advantage over the average player. But the world is a much different place than it was even five years ago. Players are better than ever before, which can be attributed to the slathering of content which is easily and freely available. It was one thing when you were one of the top players in the world going to a Grand Prix knowing that you’re going to be at the top of the standings because only about 500 people managed to make it out to non destination city a week before Thanksgiving. Going to Grand Prix events now are like 1500 people slugfests with only so many pro points to go around. Brian Kibler, one of the more successful American pros, stated that unless the Pro club levels change or more Pro Points are added to the system. He and other top pros have stated that because of economic reasons they may not be able to travel to as many (or any) Grand Prix events.

I’m going to be quite frank for a minute. I am not a pro Magic player. That doesn’t mean I think I’m a bad player or that I couldn’t be. But the amount of time, talent, and effort it takes to become a pro Magic player is not only an incredibly high hill to climb, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You can work on your game and you can can work on going to events. But if you don’t run into a string of extremely good luck, such as winning a PTQ that are getting bigger every season, making the top 8 of a 2500 Grand Prix, traveling to enough large events to get qualified by Planeswalker Points, or having a string of “just misses” that just so happen to pique the interest of Wizards for one of those hotly debated “special invites” then for most of your Magic playing experience will be just the fun and entertainment aspect. For anyone who doesn’t have a well-paying flexible job (one that lets you have multiple long weekends monthly or bi-monthly and lets you pay your bills), it is incredibly hard to pay your way to a different American city every week to get to events. It is a little bit easier if you live on the East coast to get to the population centers, but it is irrelevant to the discussion. Let’s say you do have a flexible job that affords you the traveling pro lifestyle (a stretch I realize, but go with me on it). You still have to do extremely well at each of these events just to break even or to sustain it for any period of time. That being said, no one is saying that playing Magic should be a job or that Wizards needs to do things to cater to the “traveling pro” segment of the audience.

I do think the Grand Prix structure is outdated. I don’t like the proposals that suggest that there should be another level of invites to Grand Prix. I also don’t think that there is anything necessarily wrong with large Grand Prix that start early in the morning. What I would like is a different way for pros to make those last few Pro Points that they need. The aforementioned judge, yesterday informed me that each Pro Point is basically worth about $500 because of the appearance fees, airfare, qualifications, and byes that getting to that 45 Pro Point level affords. As it has been explained to me, getting to platinum pro level means that make $250 dollars a week for every Grand Prix you attend that is before you get any kind of prize money or other prizes. You can make $11K in appearance fees and have 11 months of the year off. No, that isn’t a ton of money, but it isn’t insignificant either.

Here is the best solution I can even think of to help with pros to “stay on the gravy train”. What I propose is that some Grand Prix during each Pro Tour season are designated as “Pro Challenge” Grand Prix events. At these events, you play day 1 as you normally would. The change comes in when it cuts for day 2. If you are qualified for the upcoming Pro Tour, played in the previous Pro Tour, or are within 5 Pro Points of Gold or Platinum and you do not make the cut for Day 2, you may play in the “Sunday Challenge” event. In order for the “Sunday Challenge” event to fire it must have at least 32 players and no more than some number. Players will play in *some* amount of swiss rounds (I want to say six or seven) then cut to Top 8. The payout for this event will pay some amount of pro points to the top 4 players.

The specifics can be worked out and this is just a rough suggestion. But the idea of it is to have an event that caters to pros, doesn’t make the GP any less important, and would be entertaining and fun to watch for spectators. I love watching the Pro Tour top 8, it is by far the most interesting part of Magic coverage for me. The matches in this event would rival the top 8 of the Grand Prix itself. Which would be good for Magic coverage, the fans, and the pros. It also makes the Grand Prix fill the slot that it always has (offering a big event that anyone can enter and can play in all day if you want to).

The problem with any of these proposals is only so many people have the eye and the ear of Wizards. I believe that Wizards has some of the best social media presence of any company I’ve ever seen. You can tweet at the director of Magic Design and Development and he’ll tweet you back. You can ask the tournament director a question and more likely than not you’ll get a reply back. They have open and honest discourse with the people who care about the game the most. I remember when I “quit” Magic Online temporarily and I casually mentioned it on a web forum and I got a personal message from the Brand Manager advising me that I shouldn’t sell my cards (I shouldn’t of) and that he considered my opinion on making the game better and I would be missed. No, he didn’t have to do that. They don’t have to reply to community. They could do what a lot of companies do and just hide behind a massive corporate agency and ignore the pleas and cries of the community. Wizards won’t do that because they genuinely care about us as gamers, consumers, and players of their games.

That being said, it is much easier to be heard when you have thousands of followers because you’re a well-known pro and “personality”. The casual player, who buys more product than any other group, doesn’t always gets a word in. One of the best things I’ve read out of all of this is that a lot of players play in Grand Prix events because they get to play in one Magic event all day for one price. My friends came to Grand Prix Salt Lake City to play two-headed giant sealed. I personally scrubbed out of the main event in round 5 and joined a Standard Sealed (an event that gives you one pack of every set in Standard) and went 4-0 and won a ton of packs of cards. Not to mention I did pretty good at a lot of the side events that I played that weekend. The amount of players that play because pros are there is very small (I would argue that less than five percent of the players are there because of the pros). Most of the people, surprisingly I know, go to a large Magic event for themselves and playing in as many cool events all day as they can.

The levels of elitism and entitlement among the top, most vocal, most heard players is staggering. There were a lot of suggestions that there should be a “public” event and a “private pro” event at Grand Prix events. Not only does this go against the very idea of a large event, but is a spit in the face to players who are decent, but either can’t afford or justify traveling the country to play in Grand Prix events every week. There was a lot of slamming the “bottom half” of players in these events who play primarily for fun and to see how well they can play for themselves isn’t and shouldn’t be acceptable. The amount of pros who publicly stated that attendance would drop significantly if they didn’t attend not only shows how disconnected from the reality and fun of playing Magic and only care about their own egos and self image. I’m not saying that people don’t like to watch pros at these events (I have watched pros play at these events before). But it is far down on the list after playing actual Magic for all but a very small percentage of players.

Wizards can’t and shouldn’t cater to only one of these groups of players. Most Magic is played on kitchen tables, all night restaurant tables, and school hall floors than is played under the glitzy lights of a Pro Tour. But that doesn’t mean that pros shouldn’t have events that are more appealing to them, it just needs to make sense in the grand scheme of Magic events.

I’m not saying any solution is perfect or ideal for all player groups or even if it is viable at all. I would like to see pros continue to live the dream of playing a game for a living. I would also like to continue to see Grand Prix cater to communities as kind of a Magic: The Gathering festival. I went to Grand Prix: Salt Lake City last season and it was one of the best weekends I had playing Magic. I don’t want those experiences to go away for any player.

A special shoutout goes to @Ahalavais and @Dr_jeebus on Twitter for inspiring most of this article. You can also follow me on Twitter where I spout off my opinion the most @Urzishra.

The post What do we do with the “bottom half”? appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I think that goes for writing about just about anything. I mean I could tell you in acute details a terrible experience at a restaurant when nine times out of ten I enjoyed my cheese burger, but this one time they put mayonnaise on it and I tilted so hard that I didn’t even want to finish it. I mean how hard is it to not put something on a sandwich?

I realize people make mistakes and that is the human element that is so often the focus of Werner Herzog’s films. (If you haven’t already check out “Into the Abyss”.) That being said I’m here today to talk about “Gatecrash”, the latest set in the widely successful Return To Ravnica block. The gimmick this time around is there are two “large” sets that each feature five of the ten two-color guilds from Ravnica. Personally, more of my favorite guilds are in Gatecrash than they were in Return to Ravnica so I’ve been anticipating this set’s release since the announcement.

I’m going to get through the negatives right off the bat. First, the set is at a slightly lower power level than Return to Ravnica. What that means is the mechanics and cards are not as easily slottable into existing archetypes in Legacy or Modern (the two formats with the largest card pool.) There was so much value in just cracking packs of Return to Ravnica. In fact, if you opened any random five packs of Ravnica you were bound to open a card that was worth the price of the pack or more. Obviously, not all sets are created equal and the value of Gatecrash is going to be more in the long term, casual style players who like combat.

Speaking of combat, the focus on many of the guilds in Gatecrash is dealing with creature combat. Boros, the red-white police military guild of Ravnica, focuses on a mechanic that is very fun to play called Battalion. This gives all your creatures a bigger effect if they attack in a squadron style of three or more. Judging from the buzz from this weekend’s prerelease this is the archetype that I would try to force in Sealed or Draft. But each of the guilds in Gatecrash have very powerful combat mechanics that will have you sending most of your creatures to the red zone frequently.

Wizards was kind enough to send us a sample of Gatecrash and I got my first duels in with the new set. Wizards sent us a Boros intro deck that features the Battalion. We played a few games with that against some of the other intro packs from Return to Ravnica and I have to say that I feel Battalion is one of the funnest mechanics that I’ve played with in a long time. When the original Ravnica was legal in Standard the first time around, I was just starting out on Magic Online and I was in a lull in the paper world because of college and life. On a limb, I decided to drop by the local card shop for Friday Night Magic that week and battle some Magic. Since I didn’t have a lot of cards from Ravnica or really any Standard deck of any kind of value. I made one on the spot. I bought two of the original Boros theme decks and kind of played up to the synergies and entered the tournament. I didn’t really expect to do that well as I was a little rusty and everyone else had much better decks than I did. But I actually made it to the finals and lost to my friends. I have loved Boros cards since and it is one of the few times that I actually enjoyed playing a weenie swarm style of deck. One of the moments I remember most from this tournament was when I ripped a bathe in light, that gave all of my creatures protection from my opponent’s entire squad. I alpha attacked for the win. One of the most satisfying experiences I’ve ever had playing a game of Magic and Battalion giving these kinds of bonuses when you attack is sure to set up more.

As for the sealed format for Gatecrash, Wizards ended up getting us 5 packs of Gatecrash so we had to make due with extra Return to Ravnica packs to round out the rest of the packs so we had enough to build decks out of it. I ended up with an even 3 and 3 packs of each set and Samantha ended up with more Return to Ravnica packs than Gatecrash with 4 and 2 respectively. We shred open the packs of cards and start building decks. I immediately saw the synergies that I had with black-white’s Orzohov guild and built a pretty good mid-range B/W aggro control deck. Samantha on the other hand was able to play kind of a three color R/W/B deck that was tough to stop because of battalion triggers on her aggressive creatures.

We played ten games with Samantha winning the majority of them. Going over the pool a few times I feel like there wasn’t a better way for me to build the deck while I was casting expensive smaller creatures, Samantha was curving out to giant creatures that I had a very difficult time with. I couldn’t remove them all and most games ended rather quickly when Samantha ended up at six or seven mana. I had a lot of fun using the “tax” mechanic of Extort. Which allowed me to grind out a win a few times. But overall I feel the synergies with boros and small threats is going to be tough for people to deal with in limited with this set.

I had a great time with Gatecrash and I can’t wait to draft the set on Magic Online when it releases in a few weeks. I would like to personally thank Wizards of the Coast for sending us some new packs of Magic cards and the timing was perfect. Gatecrash crashes in stores this weekend. You can find more information about Gatecrash at www.wizards.com/dailymtg .

The post First Duels with Gatecrash appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The following is all the official at-a-glance information that Wizards provided about the product:

229 Reprint Cards for the Modern Format, many with new art
Cards are reprints from Eighth Edition through Alara Reborn
New never before printed tokens
15-card booster packs, one premium per pack
Designed to be drafted
24 packs per box
$6.99 MSRP
English only, global distribution
Conservative print run
These cards won’t be Standard-legal. But they will be tournament-legal in all formats where the original printing is legal. And what that means is that this card is going to be in booster packs that are hitting stores on June 7, 2013.

We also know that the most expensive barrier to entry to the format will be reprinted, the card is Tarmogoyf. This card, while to the untrained eye seems narrow and innocent enough, is actually the yard stick to the format. In a format where you consistently have lands, spells, and permanents going to the graveyard you are able to profitably cast Tarmogoyf to be at least a 3/4 but most games he is at least a 4/5 for just two mana investment. The card is seen in top level decks ever since it was printed and has maintained a hefty price tag throughout. I recall only one time I was able to get a Tarmogoyf for under thirty dollars, I passed it up thinking that it would drop on rotation. I can only remember a few times that it has dipped below sixty dollars a piece. Right now it is pushing on the door of eighty to ninety dollars a card.

Ever since the inception of the Modern format it has been told that they are going to aggressively reprint cards that are relevant. Siting the “hard ceiling” that a format like Legacy has because of the Reserved List. The Reserved List, while admittedly was a mistake, is a promise to collector’s that Wizards will not print any card for any reason ever again. It effectively ties up all “story relevant” rares and “the good stuff” from most of Magic’s first five years. This means that while Legacy sees a good number of events, they can’t address card supply directly. They can’t print the cards that are good in Legacy tournaments hence they can’t really grow the format beyond a certain point. The point of Modern is a to have a format that is like Legacy (meaning cards do not “rotate out”) but they are able to print any card at any point as deemed by the demand of the format and to ensure healthy growth.

Personally, outside of sealed deck, I play primarily Legacy and Modern. I hate the idea that a deck is only good for a month or two before I have to spend hundreds of dollars to retool or adjust to a metagame. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a changing metagame in Legacy or Modern, it just means that the money I spend for the good cards do not depreciate at the rapid pace that Standard cards often do. I like to know that the five hundred dollars I just dropped on a good deck means that in five years I can get five hundred dollars back or at least still have a decent deck with minor updates.

As for what will this set be like? Well, considering that they are willing to print the most sought after, expensive card in recent history really opens the doors up to what this set will be like. From the preview article, we also see some artwork that looks suspiciously like City of Brass. We also know that this set was created for stuff that they “just can’t put in Standard”. Which means that any pack of this you open you’ll likely get *some* kind of value out of it. While I am extremely suspect that “all of the great Modern cards” will be in this there are a few that I think have some serious merit. 8th edition to Alara Reborn spans a lot of sets, I played Magic a lot during this time (in fact, I had just gotten back in the game right before 8th edition was released) and while I do own most and many of the relevant cards, this set really excites me. There were times where it was just too hard to get cards or I couldn’t pick them up for whatever reason I feel this will address many of those kinds of issues for a lot of people.

According to the announcement article, the format will play like a cross between Cube and regular set. Cube draft is a format where only the best of the best cards are included. We will also see the return of Faeries and Dredge. Both of these are cards that hold a lot of power in constructed formats. Obviously not all the cards will be 100 percent winners, but with pack prices nearly three dollars above what they usually are, I can expect we will see some higher priced commons and uncommons in a lot of the slots.

We also do not know how “limited” it will be. We know that it won’t have the print run that say Return to Ravnica has. We know it likely will not be sold at the mass market superstores like Target or Wal-Mart. I am just guessing, but I think it will have a pretty healthy supply for the first month. I feel the print run is going to be about the same as a typical “first run large set” and that will be it. That will increase the supply of a lot of these cards to numbers comparable to their more “Modern” brethren. While I feel that anyone who wants to get this set will be able to get it, but it will sell out before Magic 2014 is legal. I also feel that it has the chance to affect the uncommon and common prices far more than the rare or mythic rares in the set.

This is also considered a test. They are testing the market to see how it affects not only growth in Modern as a format, but to see if they are able to print booster packs that are not always Standard legal. Something that I have been clamoring for a long time. Personally, me as a player, I don’t play a lot of Standard. I love all the products they produce that target non-Standard formats. That means Duel Decks, Commander decks, Archenemy and Planeschase decks I gobble those up. I don’t buy new expansions as much other than to draft or play a sealed deck here and there. I think this product is going to be widely successful. It has the potential to bring a lot of players into a format that I love playing and wish was more widely available.

One more thing before I end it, a lot of people are worried about the price of their collections. This format was built specifically so they could pump relevant cards back into the system should they need to. They do understand the value of collections and that not everyone is super excited that cards they invested in will lose some value when it gets reprinted. I do want to say a few things about this. I own a lot of expensive Magic cards. I can build a lot of high end decks in a wide range of formats. I don’t say that to brag or gloat, but to qualify what I’m about to say. I want to have a format where new players can jump on board. I was there when Vintage died out because no one could afford the cards. I am currently feeling that pressure with Legacy, it has a hard ceiling on what can and can’t be reprinted, unfortunately a lot of relevant cards can’t, that limits the player base significantly. With Modern, Wizards willingness to try different products to get us the cards we need so we can grow a format should be commended. If the value of my cards halved tomorrow just so we can see a lot more events in the formats I enjoy to play, I would gladly do that.

The post Speculation, Magic: The Gathering Modern Masters appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Return to Ravnica is a sequel of sorts to one of Magic’s most successful expansions of all time, Ravnica: City of Guilds. This time instead of seeing a big-little-little format that kind of short changed each of the 10 color-paired guilds, we are seeing two big sets that will each spotlight five guilds in each of them and then gives them all additional cards in the final set in the block. I feel this is a slightly better way to accommodate not only a good limited format, but it will give each guild a spot to shine on it’s own.

The guild pairs this time around will feature Golgari (Green/Black), Azorius (White/Blue), Rakdos (Black/Red), Selesnya (Green/White), and Izzet (Blue/Red). Personally, I’m a Dimir (Blue/Black) fan myself, but we’ll have to wait until winter to sneak through Ravnica’s undercity quietly controlling the fate of plane. So for my first sealed deck I kept a few things in mind that I recalled from my first trip through Ravnica.

1. Mana Fixing. This is one of the reasons so many players loved the first Ravnica block. The set featured very aggressive ways to allow you to play the color combinations you want. In fact, with the right pool, you can easily play 4 or 5 color decks that have the consistency of 2 color decks.

2. Keywords. Each of the guilds has a new keyword associated with them. Some are better than others, but I was surprised at how well all the keywords worked the first time and they streamlined it a lot more this time around.

3. Don’t sleep on the Mono colored cards. Some of my favorite cards in Ravnica were the simple Mono-colored cards that were a little overlooked for the admittedly flashy multicolored guild cards.

Shredding open my packs and my first preliminary sort through the colors and the guilds, I was thoroughly impressed by how deep each color went. Out of the six packs I think I only placed about 10 or 12 cards off to the side through the first glance. Narrowing it down, I noticed that I had a good proportion of my cards in white and green as well as a number of playables in black and green. While I didn’t open up the best in mana fixing, I felt confidant that I could play a mostly Selesnya deck while splashing for the Golgari cards that I wanted. Namely, guild master Jarad.

We played a few rounds with the sealed deck. Samantha was running straight up Rakdos (the R/B guild on Ravnica) and had a nice quick, aggressive deck. We played pretty evenly. Even though Samantha is a relatively new player, she’s great at building good sealed decks. She overpowered me a few games and I tweaked my deck slightly. I felt that my deck was lacking a creature so I went ahead and added another 2-drop creature to my deck and we played a few more rounds. I still felt the decks were relatively even, though I pulled away with most of the victories after that change.

Overall, we had a great time with this romp through Ravnica, below I am including Samantha’s thoughts on the experience. I feel the set overall has a great feel to it, for new and older players alike. The two color guilds make deckbuilding comparatively “easy” in a sealed setting. Something that I greatly appreciate. I like when there are tools laid out for you and it is easy to pick up on a direction for your deck. Not all limited formats offer this kind of flexability.

We are also looking forward to Gatecrash (which will feature the other 5 guilds on Ravnica, namely Samantha’s Orzhov and my Dimir guilds).

Samantha’s take:

I rely on my husband for news of all kinds. We don’t have cable and I am firmly of the belief that my knowledge or lack of knowledge about world events is not going to change those world events. Fine, I’m lazy. I’m so lazy that my husband even goes to the trouble of forming my opinions for me. He provides me not only with content, but with what I should think about that content. He tells me that Mitt Romney is so rich he cannot understand poor people and that there is no way I am voting for Mitt Romney. He tells me that there is (was?) some football referee strike and that fans were up in arms about the refs’ calls. He also tells me that football regulations are so extensive that any call by any ref could potentially be challenged; he tells me that I think football fans are overly sensitive about the substitute referees. My husband also tells me that there is a new Magic: The Gathering set and that the set is organized into guilds and that my guild is Black/Green: Golgari.

As with all other presentations my husband provides me about world news, I initially nod my head, not knowledgeable enough to disagree: I’ve never really liked green, but I have only once made the choice not to play black. And that was disastrous. Eventually my husband shows me GuildsofRavnica.com. I flatly refuse to involve myself in the plant and insect guild and instead am attracted to Black/White: Orzhov. “The guild is run like a combination religion, credit-lending agency, and crime syndicate.” Perfect. Very traditional, very much a representation of real history and real means to obtaining power.

I’m getting you excited for nothing. It turns out that Orzhov isn’t in the recently released set. I found this out when Rob brought home 12 packs of cards today so we could play our own sealed “tournament.” Rob had a hard time choosing cards as he always does: he likes all of them and it’s all he can do to stop himself from just piling all six of his packs into one giant deck. I had a clear decision: a giant stack of Red/Black: Rakdos cards, all of which were pretty aggressive. “The Rakdos Cult is a large group of hedonists, sadists, criminals, and psychopaths…” No wonder I was immediately attracted to the set: sadism is really just the next step after corrupt power structures.

I’ve played my husband in Magic quite a bit. I always win the first hand. I’m decisive in building my deck. I open my packs, organize my cards by color, and select the two strongest (fastest-playing, most aggressive) colors. Ravnica is a bit different. Because of the guilds, there are a number of two color cards, so there are more piles as I sort by color and less options as far as combining colors that are not in a guild together. I looked through each stack, knowing already that my black, red, and black/red stacks pretty much made up half of the stack of cards I had to work with. I would most likely have to play them, but I’m always careful to look over every color just in case there’s a better, less obvious option. This time there wasn’t.

I stacked my red and black options together and put my other cards aside. I’ve been playing Magic for less than a year and I’m already stubborn; I already have my rules and routines. Unlike my husband, who can’t resist a good card even if the rest of the cards of that color are junk, you will never catch me playing more than two colors. I won’t wait to draw the right lands; I try to have a low mana curve, aggressive cards, and I try to win before Rob can get his good cards out for lack of mana.

This is why I always win the first hand: Rob plays slower than I do. He sees complex combinations and can’t resist them. He’s the better player for a decade or so of experience and for understanding the nuances of the game, but he loves new cards too much. He wants to play them all and he doesn’t think about speed and drawing the right lands. He’s nuanced and high-minded; I’m scrappy.

Of course, once he’s beaten once, he goes back and fixes his deck and catches every miniscule misunderstanding I have — generally of order and timing and what’s where on “the stack.” He never lets me win more than once. Except that he can’t beat my Vampire Onslaught deck no matter what deck he plays. If you’re playing Rob, you should get one. And definitely make a big deal of it when you win. He likes that.

The post Our Duels – Returning to Ravnica appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Its return on Sunday brought a lot of mixed emotions. One, the hype was almost overbearing. Never have I seen a season of Television so broadly anticipated by practically anyone who has ever seen for a glimpse into the posh lifestyles of the 60s upper middle class. But that was to be expected, the show always has garnered great respect and reviews from critics who then in turn hype the show. I think a lot of the last weeks “meh” responses come from the fact that Mad Men never really had a clear and definite direction. Take most of the last few seasons. If you watched from the beginning you would imagine that Don Draper would always want to stay either one step ahead of his wife or his mistress of the hour. Now, we know that Don will survive any kind of plot twist and that leaves viewers wondering “Well, what’s next?”. The climatic ends of seasons has marked ends of marriages, companies, relationships, and long kept secrets. So what else can the show offer to a fan base that has already been so jaded by “completed plots”.

Ryan wrote that the show may have lost what initially made him interested in the show in the first place. That got me thinking, “Why did I want to watch this show in the first place?” Well to tell you the truth the only reason I started watching Mad Men was because of a Black Friday deal on the first season one year. Once I started watching the first season, I plowed through the second and since have always anticipated the next. It is one of the few shows that combines everything I love about the medium. No show has more depth of writing, masterful directing, or superb acting. Mad Men, to me, is at its best when the show is showing something that happens as a reflection to the life and turbulence of the time period. Whether that is showing generational gaps as a boxing match or foreshadowing the end of an era by the death of a transcendent president. That is where the show excels and pays off for me as a viewer and a fan.

That isn’t to say that I’m not entirely sure I like the direction the show is taking. I didn’t see anything in the “first two episodes” last Sunday that made me feel the show has jumped the shark. In fact, I am eager to see the parallels of Pete as “the next Don Draper” and see if he reacts differently to that lifestyle. I’m interested to see where the “equal opportunity” storyline takes us. I’m interested to see if we can peel away more of Megan’s and Dick’s relationship. I also question Roger’s motives and wonder if this is the year we finally see some of the major cast depart from the show. The show will be seven seasons, that much we already know, I know much of this season will set up what will ultimately be the climax and meaning of the show in the pantheon of shows. But like another great television series, “The Sopranos”, I wonder if maybe we have already seen the best the show will have to offer by year 5? Like “Sopranos”, there was a large gap between the last third of the show and the first two thirds of the show and for better or worse, it affected the production and ultimately how the show is held in within the eyes of the fans. I think it is hard to base a show off of these first two episodes and people who are crying wolf should wait and see the entire piece before passing judgement.

But also like “The Sopranos”, “Mad Men” stands upon a mountaintop that few contemporary shows even have a claim to. You could make an argument for “Breaking Bad” but that is just about it. The shows with the best quality are always going to be the most hyped and overly picked apart for any noticeable slight. The acting, in my opinion, has kicked it up a notch. Everyone has brought themselves to another level this year. Maybe it is because we haven’t seen January Jones yet, who in seasons’ past has been one of the weaker characters of the ensemble. I also found myself not missing her one bit and will question whether or not she will even be in any of the further seasons of the show. This new Don Draper, who isn’t afraid of having a genuine personal life, is a breath of fresh air. I’m glad he’s not sulking around cocktail waitresses and seems completely happy in his personal life for once. I’m glad we are seeing more and more of that carefree Dick Whitman that we’ve seen previously when he had business trips in California. This is where I think the show is heading. We’re going to eventually see the complete death of Don Draper. He’s going to just get to a point to where he just doesn’t need to put up with all that goes on in the advertising world. He’s becoming who he is and this is the foundation of that juxtaposition.

But to answer my own question at the beginning of this piece, what keeps me watching Mad Men? It is to watch life unfold for these people. It is to watch a man who seemingly has everything, lose it all, get it back, and foolishly give it all away again. It is to watch these characters experience the ups and downs of one of the most important time periods in our history. I enjoy watching the class warfare. My favorite scene of the opening show was Don’s party. It was so incredibly surreal and brought about everything that is amazing about the show. It has class conflicts, generational conflicts, and even marital conflicts. While I can side with the people who say that it has “lost it’s magic.” I can also argue that I think that is a little harsh and you need to at least give it another two episodes before you can say that you aren’t completely sucked back into that world.

The post Mad Men: Here to Stay appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The premise for “New Frontier” is to create a new continuity in a literary sense for “Star Trek”. I originally heard about the series a few years ago when Peter David was interviewed by a podcast I was listening to at the time. It took me a while but the series was always in the back of my mind. I started by picking up random books from thrift stores, but quickly found out that there was a specific order to the books. I read “book 1″ and was immediately hooked. When I purchased a Kindle, the first thing I did was start tracking down these books.

In my opinion there are several different “seasons” of New Frontier. The “first season” I would argue as the first four novels (you can find the first four novels collected into one volume called “New Frontier”). Here we are introduced to many of the characters that you’ll grow to love over the course of the entire series. Mackenzie Calhoun, Captian of the Excalabur, is assigned to patrol Thallonean space, largely unexplored by the Federation. The crew is made of characters from Peter David’s previous “Star Trek” novels (Soleta, Zak Kebron, and Mark McHenry), guest stars from “The Next Generation” TV show (Shelby and Selar) as well as new ones created specifically for this series (Si Cwan and Burgoyne 172).

While it is seemingly impossible to go over all eighteen books in just this short little introduction, I did want to make note of a few things. I feel the books are best read at least two at a time. There are cliffhangers and continuity between the novels. While there are only two instances “officially” where there is a story arc. I felt like I couldn’t put these books down. A typical book took me about six to eight hours to finish, or about a few days worth of heavy ready. I also want to preface that I would not have considered myself a huge “Star Trek” fan before reading these books. I mean that I’ve seen the movies and I am familiar with the characters, but I wouldn’t say that I was intimately familiar with all the story lines or episodes of the main series. I also feel if you just want to get your feet wet in the “Star Trek” universe this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Also, my one big regret on reading this entire series was skipping a few of the novels (most notably the “Double Helix” novel and the “Gateways” novel). There is also a specific order you should read these novels (which I will include below) and while you can read any of them in any order the story is chronological and linear.

If there were going to be books in the series that I would skip I would say that I didn’t really enjoy the first two parts in the “Excalibur” series as much as I thought I did. While I appreciated the change of pace, it really felt like the first two of those books were a little rushed and almost felt like three fourths of one novel. “Restoration” was really excellent and something that “Star Trek” rarely does, it reminded me of an old western and was definitely one of the high points in series for me. I seemed to enjoy the first “half” of the New Frontier run better than the last half. I say that because in the later novels it seems the stories try to “one up” the previous story, while I enjoyed that, I would have also enjoyed spending more stories with “those configurations” of the crew. Overall however, even the worst “New Frontier” book is on par with a mediocre episode of “Next Generation” and the characters grow and arc really well over the course of the series run. I really enjoy how the book references many aspects of The Next Generation universe and does a nice job of tying itself in. I would have loved to see this done more when we had multiple Trek shows on TV at the same time. Would have been neat to see more crossover than what we saw. That is the beauty of novels I suppose, it would be extremely difficult to gather all of these shows and coordinate them. As for specific references, I’ve seen most of the first 4 seasons of The Next Generation and they reference some of the episodes and definitely some of the events of the films. One more thing to note, you can skip the graphic novels. That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the two comic stories, there are just so many characters and ideas in New Frontiers that it is hard to portray in comic form. Also, it was a short 5-issue one off story, that I felt would have been better as a 12 issue fleshed out story line. But that is because I feel sometimes that comic stories are a little rushed. The events in the comics are not directly related to the main series, which is also kind of a shame.

It took me the better part of this year to finish the entire series starting from the very beginning. After every novel I was looking forward to the next book. I enjoyed the style, pacing, and respect, not only to the reader but to the universe it portrays. The series had its ups and downs, but the downs were never really that low and the high points of the series stands alone with any of the great novels of our eras. I love when I get to see characters grow over such a long period of time. I highly recommend this series to people who enjoy Star Trek, want to get into Star Trek, would like to read a novel series that feels like a TV series, or just a fan of big ensemble casts.

1-4 Star Trek: New Frontier
5 Martyr
6 Fire on High
* Captain’s Table Book 5: Once Burned
* Star Trek:TNG #55: Double Helix Book 5: Double or Nothing
* Double Time (graphic novel)
7 The Quiet Place
8 Dark Allies
9 Excalibur Book 1: Requiem
10 Excalibur Book 2: Renaissance
11 Excalibur Book 3: Restoration
* Gateways Book 6: Cold Wars
* Gateways Book 7: What Lay Beyond (anthology): Death After Life
* No Limits (anthology)
12 Being Human
13 Gods Above
14 Stone and Anvil
* Tales from the Captain’s Table (anthology) Pain Management
15 After the Fall
16 Missing in Action
* Star Trek: Mirror Universe Book 2: Obsidian Alliances (anthology) Cutting Ties
* Star Trek: Mirror Universe Book 3: Shards and Shadows (anthology) Homecoming
* Turnaround (graphic novel)
17 Treason
18 Blind Man’s Bluff

The books noted with “*s” are “non-essential” to the series. I would make note that you should at least read the two Gateway novels as well as the No Limits anthology in this order.

You can buy New Frontier from Amazon.

The post “Star Trek: New Frontier” – Series Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Of course they had to roll up on the Star Destroyer in “A New Hope” at the end. Could you imagine if this was actually a movie? The other movies that would have been neat is the Delorean flying across the “moon” in E.T. or somehow going to “toontown” from “Roger Rabbit”. Do you have any places you’d like to see the Delorean end up?

The post VIDEO: Alternate Back To The Future appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

If you are a fan of Fallout: New Vegas and the extraordinary high standard at which the DLC is generally regarded. Lonesome Road is no different. This time you must go on a quest to avenge a former courier and one that brings new challeges and new locations to the game. When you start Lonesome Road, you must travel it alone. If you are used to your companions, as I was at this point in the game, learning to adapt to new ones proved to be difficult for me. The scenery of the Silo reminded me a lot of “The Pitt”, a Fallout 3 DLC pack. Upon entering, you are required to hack a lot of terminals in order to advance through the military grade silo. This was a welcome change. However, my luck quickly went south as I was ill-equipped and ill-prepared to play this DLC. My character was only a level 20 and while the game recommended a level 25 character at the minimum, I thought I could handle it and went ahead anyways. After several attempts to get past a certain point of the game, I reluctantly write this about it. Warning, you should be at least of level 25 to even start this quest. I’m not a fan of DLC that isn’t “self contained” I would have liked this to have been at least something I could have tried. I feel that even if I was at level 25 a lot of the enemies are vastly superior to those I was fighting in the normal game, I would not have survived long. That could have been a lot of player error on my part as well. I built a character that I thought fit me and the game. The game was getting harder because I mismanaged the character so badly.

- This adds a lot to an already huge game. You’ll get roughly 4 to 6 hours of gameplay not bad.
– Area is vastly different than that of “New Vegas” proper.
– A solid alternate “conclusion”. Without giving it away you’ll get some satisfaction out of it.
- Requires level 25. I would argue that most players should be of even higher level. The learning curve got really high really quick.
– This shouldn’t be your first DLC. I attempted this as a level 20 “jack of all trades” style of character. I was quickly beaten back down.

I can recommend this to fans of Fallout: New Vegas and are looking for some higher level missions and quests. You shouldn’t attempt this DLC without accomplishing one or two of the other DLC packs. Don’t make the same mistake I did. I argue if I was at level 30 when I strolled into it I would have had a much easier and enjoyable experience. That being said, it isn’t the fault of the DLC that my character wasn’t up to snuff. I did try it again later when I was closer to level 25 but I didn’t get much further. I will say that if you haven’t already purchased most of the DLC by this point, you should probably hold off until the inevitable “game of the year” edition comes out. If it was anything like past Fallout games, it will include all of the DLC.

I would say however, if you are looking for a challenge, this brings it on many levels. I really did enjoy what I did get to play of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to finish it.

A copy of “Lonesome Road” was provided for review. It was reviewed on an Xbox 360. The reviewer attempted the game three times and spent a total of six hours playing the DLC sections. I did not complete it however.

The post Lonesome Road – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

From the official product description:

Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon’s revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser
18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
Amazon Appstore – thousands of popular apps and games
Ultra-fast web browsing – Amazon Silk
Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle
Fast, powerful dual-core processor
Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows

Technical Details

Display 7″ multi-touch display with IPS (in-plane switching) technology and anti-reflective treatment, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors.
Size (in inches) 7.5″ x 4.7″ x 0.45″ (190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm).
Weight 14.6 ounces (413 grams).
System Requirements None, because it’s wireless and doesn’t require a computer.
On-device Storage 8GB internal. That’s enough for 80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.
Cloud Storage Free cloud storage for all Amazon content
Battery Life Up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as web browsing and downloading content.
Charge Time Fully charges in approximately 4 hours via included U.S. power adapter. Also supports charging from your computer via USB.
Wi-Fi Connectivity Supports public and private Wi-Fi networks or hotspots that use the 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or 802.1X standard with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication; does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks.
USB Port USB 2.0 (micro-B connector)
Audio 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, top-mounted stereo speakers.
Content Formats Supported Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8.
Documentation Quick Start Guide(included in box); Kindle User’s Guide (pre-installed on device)
Warranty and Service 1-year limited warranty and service included. Optional 2-year Extended Warranty available for U.S. customers sold separately. Use of Kindle is subject to the terms found here.
Included in the Box Kindle Fire device, U.S. power adapter (supports 100-240V), and Quick Start Guide.

There has been a lot of talk of how it compares with the iPad 2. Well, for all intents and purposes, it really doesn’t compare at all. There are no cameras, no GPS, not even a 3G option for those inclined. If you are looking for an Android alternative to Apple’s premier device, you won’t find it here.

That being said, there are a lot that is here that Apple can’t touch. First, the price. $199 is a terrific price point for what this device can actually do. I’ve been looking to get into the mobile computing tablet market for a while. I just couldn’t get over how expensive they are. $200 is about the same price as my Nintendo DS when I purchased it. This does what I want from a tablet device. It surfs the web, plays Amazon cloud music, streams video (though not Netflix however), and plays tablet games. The most exciting feature for me is the ability to read comic books on a digital device. It is one of my main gripes I’ve had with my Kindle. It isn’t color and doesn’t really display comics that well or really at all. For $199 the thought of having a device that can take up a lot less space than all my graphic novels and comic books becomes very appealing. I’m also a huge fan of Amazon’s cloud products.

I’ve also been a huge fan of their android app marketplace. I buy most of my apps almost exclusively through them now.

It is exciting to finally have a device that most consumers can get their hands on. Let’s face it, a $499 entry level iPad is pretty daunting for most casual users (or even pretend “power” users), but with Amazon’s huge built-in audience, this may have a lot more legs than people are giving them credit for.

You can Pre-order Here.

In other Amazon news, they also announced a Kindle Touch. Which works just like any other typical Kindle except it does not have the keyboard, it sells for between $99 and $149. Another Kindle was announced that has a slightly smaller screen but a huge price drop, only $80. At that price, no one really has an excuse not to have a great e-reader.

The post Amazon Announces Kindle Fire appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Traditionally, films based on books are pretty straight forward. Something like “Harry Potter” or “Message in a Bottle” are easily rooted in the source material that was provided. “Moneyball” was a little different. The book is more factual based. Like if someone took a non-fiction statistics book and made it into a film. That is roughly what we got with this picture. While the book “Moneyball” mentioned a lot of the science and facts behind what the 2002 Oakland A’s did, Oscar winning screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, had to invent a lot of the drama involved with one of the most bizarre seasons of baseball ever to take place.

Brad Pitt delivered one of his stronger performances in this film. Although, Sorkin is notorious for writing characters that are flawed and have a neurotic work ethic, and nothing is different in this film, Pitt had a certain charm that some of his other “in charge” characters lacked previously. While the film had it’s fair share of laughs, I didn’t find it to be a particularly “laugh out loud” kind of film. As someone who was intimately familiar with the situation and the book that it was based off of, I was left with a feeling of wanting more. The movie felt long (well, it was long, almost two and half hours), and at points it seemed to be dragging along. It is very difficult to judge a story like this. The book was written in more of the “how” and the film tries to dictate the “why”. I felt a lot of the “non baseball” scenes could have probably been cut and we wouldn’t have missed them. My favorite scene of the entire film involves Pitt and Hill in an office during the trade deadline, as a sports fan, I had always wondered what goes through the minds of GMs on trade deadline day, and that seems like a pretty accurate portrayal. Phillip Seymore Hoffman seemed completely misused throughout the film. I would have liked to see Pitt and Hoffman’s conflict get escalated more than what we were shown.

While it was not up to the pedigree of those other Aaron Sorkin works, it had it’s moments and it had charm. This was a film that I had been anticipating for a while now. I loved moments of this, but make no mistake, it isn’t “The Social Network”, and I would probably argue that there were episodes of “The West Wing” that were stronger, but it is still a good movie and I had enjoyed the story that was presented, it was just unfortunate that not as much of the “information” behind how the team was put together was shown in the film. “Moneyball”, the book, changed the way GMs and teams evaluated and rank players. This film didn’t carry the weight of that accomplishment. I would recommend this movie to people who are interested in seeing a decent sports film with strong actors and strong writing.

The post “Moneyball” – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

From the official announcement:

Announcement Date: September 20, 2011
Effective Date: October 1, 2011
Magic Online Effective Date: October 12, 2011

Modern
Blazing Shoal is banned.
Cloudpost is banned.
Green Sun’s Zenith is banned.
Ponder is banned.
Preordain is banned.
Rite of Flame is banned.

Extended
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is banned.
Mental Misstep is banned.
Ponder is banned.
Preordain is banned.
Stoneforge Mystic is banned.

Legacy
Mental Misstep is banned.

Vintage
Fact or Fiction is no longer restricted.

You can find the explanation from Magic R&D here.

The changes in Modern reflect the recent Pro Tour where there were many “early turn wins”. Wizards has maintained that they wanted games to last longer than four turns in Modern and these bans will combat some of the most severe offenders. Personally, I’m a little sad that I can’t play “Storm Combo” in Modern, it is a favored deck of mine in Legacy.

Speaking of Legacy, Mental Misstep getting the ax was somewhat surprising. I thought it was a narrow card, though I agree it was not being used as intended. No one really plays Extended, though that may change now. Fact or Fiction went on the Vintage restricted list ten years ago, it is one of the better, though not broken, draw spells in all of Magic. I feel this was a way of cleaning up the list (Wizards wants as few cards as possible on each list). There was speculation that Jace, The Mindsculptor and Ancestral Visions would be taken off of the Modern banned list, but that was not the case. Jace is still probably better than all.

I’ll leave you with this video from “Tha Gatherin”.

The post Wizards to Players: We Banned All The Things appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Some of them I knew, others I did not, the one that surprised me the most was the Bugs Bunny and Flintstones ones. There were some other ones that could have been taken that way. I thought a lot of them were pretty clever in how they “hid” the innuendo. It should be noted that the video is SFW, but the content may not be, so use your own discretion.

The post VIDEO: “You’ve got your Innuendo in my Cartoons” appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I had a great time with the original “Duels 2012″ game that came out this past summer. It expanded on the original “duels” and fixed many of the “problems” that the original title had. That isn’t to say that this game didn’t have it’s problems. The most glaring of which was the ability to “play as the Archenemy”. Well, the first expansion, “Ascend Into Darkness” fixes some of these issues.

The first thing you’ll notice with you turn on the game with the expansion installed is the new splash screen featuring “Liliana Vess”. Getting into the game proper, if you had purchased any “keys” to unlock cards or decks in the past, all the new cards will be unlocked from the get go. That makes them worth it a bit more. To unlock the three new decks, you’ll need to fight the single player game. Which the campaign this time around focuses much more on “you get to be the Archenemy” there are only six single player matches to play through before you unlock all the decks. This took me about forty minutes to unlock the new decks.

The new decks feature a Green White “Auramancer” deck which relies on weenie style creatures and enchantments to pump them with. A Black “Grave Whispers” deck, which is reminiscent of the discard deck featured in the original game. A Blue Red “Cloudburst” deck. This deck uses creatures and spells that benefit each other when others are played. Of the new decks, “Auramancer” looks to be the most original, it seems the other two are highly derivative of previous decks. Nevertheless, that means there are more cards to unlock and new decks to play. One of the selling points of this expansion is that you can play cards from the upcoming “Innistrad” expansion before they are technically available to the public. While that is cool, none of the cards featured in the game are particularly powerful or exciting.

The feature I was most looking forward to was the ability to “play as the Archenemy”. This was something that I’ve said previously I have a hard time accomplishing in the paper Magic world. You have to gather friends and Archenemy cards and it always seems to be a bigger hassle than it is typically worth. One of the most appealing aspects of Magic to me is interactivity and skillful plays. Some of the best games I can remember involve a really skillful move (either for or against me) or games that seemed to be very evenly matched until the game “luck” striked one of competitors. That makes Magic fun for me. “Archenemy” took all of that out of the game. Yes, it is a 3 vs. 1 format. Yes, there should be a way to “even the field”. But should all the cards in my Archenemy deck be so obscenely favorable to me that it was impossible to lose. Making a bunch of tokens and then using the card Mass Polymorph in the Green Blue deck meant that I cheated out practically all my biggest and best creatures far earlier than should be allowed. Giving the “heroes” nothing to stop me when I can attack all three for lethal on turn 3 or 4 wasn’t very fun. In fact, I don’t think I will play much as the Archenemy. It seemed too swingy for my tastes.

My favorite part of “Duels” is the puzzles. Unfortunately, there were only 5 new puzzles and all of them were “Archenemy” puzzles. I really want a game dedicated just to the puzzles. None of the puzzles were incredibly hard, a few stumped me for a moment, but were all easily finished within an hour.

- New cards and New decks. This is what you are paying for the bulk of the content. Getting 4 cards per deck and 3 new decks is worth the 4.99 if you play this game as much as I do.
- “Play as the Archenemy”. While I may have mixed feelings about it, this is a major selling point. I feel that this should have been part of the original game proper, but it is nice to finally have it now.
- Few puzzles. I know I may be in the minority, but I want more puzzles, I’d even pay more just for puzzles.

All in all, I feel the DLC is worth the price. You get plenty of new cards and new decks to spruce up the old ones you may have been kicking around with. While I don’t think playing as the Archenemy is something I’ll likely continue to do in the future, I did have a good time playing it.

A copy of the DLC was provided for review, the reviewer finished all the campaign content in just under four hours. I unlocked 2 of the 3 achievements and I did not play online. This review is in reference to the Xbox 360 version of the game. The DLC is available on all systems for around five dollars.

The post “Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 expansion: Ascend Into Darkness” – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

Moneyball

Director: Bennett Miller
Stars: Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill (Full Cast)
Studio: Columbia Pictures
The Plot: Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Pitt) works to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

I can’t say much about this film until my review drops on Friday. Of the films coming out this week, this might be the one of the highest quality and the one that your wife or girlfriend won’t roll her eyes at when you roll up to the cinemas this weekend.

Abduction

Director: John Singleton
Stars: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina (Full Cast)
Studio: Lionsgate
The Plot: When Nathan (Launter), who has always felt distanced from his parents, discovers that he was kidnapped as a child, he begins to uncover a vast conspiracy and must go on the run in order to survive.

Taylor Lautner begins his ascension to action star of the moment. I have to say, I would much rather see Taylor beat up bad guys than Shia LeBeowulf. The trailer probably makes the story more interesting than it actually is, but it doesn’t seem terrible.

Machine Gun Preacher

Director: Marc Forster
Stars: Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Shannon (Full Cast)
Studio: Relativity Media
The Plot: After finding God, Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) leaves his outlaw life behind and crusades for hundreds of Sudanese children who’ve been forced to become soldiers.

And the title of this movie had me without ever having to see the preview. Then I realized that Gerrard Butler would be the preacher, I’m in. It will be interesting to compare how often Butler is without his shirt on compared to Taylor Lautner in his film. Also, this film may or may not come out this week, I have a strong feeling that it doesn’t come out until the 7th of October.

Killer Elite

Director: Gary McKendry
Stars: Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro (Full Cast)
Studio: Open Road Films (II)
The Plot: A retired member of Britain’s Elite Special Air Service (Jason Statham) is forced into action when his mentor (Robert De Niro) is taken captive. His mission: kill three assassins dispatched by their cunning leader (Clive Owen).

This just seems like the perinial “Statham Action Hour” film this year. This time dragging De Niro and Clive Owen along for the ride. I had to double check to make sure there wasn’t another Transporter film coming out next week (there isn’t). This seems like a typical guy action movie. You know what you are in for with Statham at this point.

I have a good feeling that this week I would rather see “Abduction” or “Moneyball” those seem like the best films based on the trailers to go to this week.

The post In Theaters – “Moneyball”, “Abduction”, “Machine Gun Preacher”, and “Killer Elite” appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I Don’t Know How She Does It

Director: Douglas McGrath
Stars: Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer (Full Cast)
Studio: Weinstein Company, The
The Plot: Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a finance executive who is the breadwinner for her husband (Greg Kinnear) and two kids. A new account adds another layer to her already packed schedule — and it includes temptation in the form of business associate Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan).

I’m interested to see if Pierce Brosnan can be as suave as he was in the James Bond films. This film looks like it is geared towards the late 30s early 40s married crowd. So bear that in mind.

Straw Dogs

Director: Rod Lurie
Stars: James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgård (Full Cast)
Studio: Screen Gems
The Plot: L.A. screenwriter David Sumner (Marsden) relocates with his wife Amy (Bosworth) to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both.

Definitely my pick if I were to pick one of these three movies to see this week. I’m a huge fan of racial tension movies and James Marsden looks to be a great choice for this role.

Drive

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston (Full Cast)
Studio: FilmDistrict
The Plot: A Hollywood stuntman (Gosling) who moonlights as a get-away driver for the criminal underground finds himself on the run from after a botched job. Riding shotgun and equally in danger are his neighbor (Mulligan) and her child.

If you’re looking for a “guy movie” this may be you’re only option this week. It seems if you are a huge fan of the Transporter style of films, you’ll fit right in with this one. Everyone’s favorite “actor’s actor”, Bryan Cranston finds himself into this film. They guy has really blossomed since overcoming the “I used to be Malcom’s dad” role.

To recap, I would strongly suggest Straw Dogs based on the trailer alone. I wouldn’t mind seeing Drive but it really just sounds like a pizza and soda night at home to me. I would suggest “One Day” over “I don’t know how she does it” but if you’ve already seen that film, this seems to be the only other sensible option.

The post In Theaters – “I don’t know how she does it”, “Straw Dogs”, and “Drive” appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

There is a lot to cover so bear with all the quotes. I strongly suggest reading the entire article posted here before reading what I have to say about it. There is far too much information to quote.

From the official announcement:

Planeswalker Points is a replacement for the system previously used by Wizards to rate and rank Magic players’ participation in sanctioned Organized Play events. It’s a point accumulation system built on a simple premise: Playing is good; winning is even better.

At its most basic, Planeswalker Points rewards players for playing in sanctioned events (with larger and/or more competitive events awarding more points) and for winning matches (with 3 points for each win, 1 for each draw, and zero for each loss). You can’t lose points for losing matches and you don’t have to “spend” them to get the perks of a high rating, so your lifetime total never goes down*.

Planeswalker Points tracks your points in various ways, including a Lifetime total that allows you to level up and gain ranks in an advancement system. There are also different totals, like the Competitive total and Friday Night Magic total, which are used to invite players to exclusive events and offer other rewards.

Finally, Planeswalker Points is retroactive. If you already have a DCI number and have participated in OP events, you already have lifetime points since we have applied the Planeswalker Points system to all the matches in which you have already played. In addition, you already have a level in the advancement system!

There are a lot of ways you can earn points, most stem from playing in high level sanctioned events (such as Grand Prix or Pro Tour events) offer the highest point values, while playing in sanctioned but not Friday Night Magic events offer the lowest. I logged into my account and noticed that even though I played better at some events (such as the many Vintage events I played in) I got far more points in FNM events that I “scrubbed” out in. For the record, I don’t really play in as many sanctioned events as I would like, there isn’t any near me to do so. However, over lifetime points, I’m dangerously close to cracking the top 500 in the state. I am at level 29 at 858 points. Not bad, considering the last event I played in was over a year ago.

Critics of this system will argue that there is no “penalties” anymore. Your rating will no longer go down, ever. You’ll accumulate points based on how prestigious the event is and eventually you’ll crack “level 50″ status. I’m ok with this. I mean, there will always be people with higher point totals than everyone else, but it gives you a good idea of “progress” as a competitive magic player and you’ll be able to track that a lot better than an ELO ranking system. The ELO system encouraged players not to play in events off of fear of losing a lot due to losing to a bad player or a bad match up. This alleviates the pain caused by losing out on a bye or invite due to “bad draws”. It also encourages higher level players to play more often rather than just hiding behind a number. This can’t be bad for attendance or the game. I was always confused on why I gained or lost points under the old system and this is far easier to look at.

For more information check out this.

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Contagion
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Stars: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law (Full Cast)
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Plot: The Center for Disease Control dispatches an international team of doctors to stop an airborne virus from spreading around the world.
“Contagion” judging from the trailer which you can see for yourself below, has a laundry list of semi-big name actors in it. It seems like an outbreak of some super virus is taking over our country in a matter of months. Matt Damon delivers his best “Mark Walhburg” line in the middle of the trailer. It has potential. Typically, Soderbergh’s movies are typically well made, this looks to be no different. He has said to view the film as a “horror” movie of sorts.

Warrior
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Stars: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton (Full Cast)
Studio: Lionsgate
The Plot: Ex-Marine Tommy Riordan (Hardy) returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh to train for a mixed martial arts tournament with a major cast prize. Looking to his father (Nolte), an alcoholic former coach, for guidance is tough enough, but Tommy’s chosen path also is putting him on a collision course with his older brother, Brendan (Edgerton), a former MMA and current struggling parent.

“Warrior” has been giving me “The Fighter” vibes ever since I first saw the trailer for it. I love these kinds of sports movies and fights are the ultimate in sports movie gold. Directed by Gavin O’Conner who also brought us another great sports film, “Miracle”, this seems to be the best bet for a good time at the cinemas this week.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
Director: Tom Brady
Stars: Nick Swardson, Don Johnson, Christina Ricci (Full Cast)
Studio: Columbia Pictures
The Plot: After learning that his parents were porn stars in the 1970s, a nerdy guy (Swardson) leaves his home in northern Iowa for Hollywood, hoping to follow in their footsteps. He’s taken in by a down-and-out director (Johnson) who sees a bright future for him and the kid.

If there would be one movie I would avoid like the “contagion” this week it would be this film. The trailer, which for comedies typically show all the funny moments, didn’t really make me laugh. While porn is funny, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good comedy that has mined “porn film comedy” successfully and this doesn’t appear to be it. I’m not really a big fan of Nick Swardson much anyways, that probably has a lot to do with the enjoyment of this film for me.

The post In Theaters This Week – “Warrior”, “Contagion”, and “Bucky Larson” appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

The story follows Luke, a golfer who has a hot head and a short fuse, through his journey to Utopia. Utopia is a small Texas town where things are done the old fashioned way. Everyone knows everyone, folks go to church on Sunday, and there is always a local BBQ or party to waste away the summer nights. Luke is there to meet up with old Johnny (played by Robert DuVall) who agreed to show him what it is to be one with the game of golf.

While I enjoyed probably the first half of the film. Later, it became apparent that the film makers were pushing towards a spirituality message. Playing up the high drama of the final holes of a golf tournament the ending leaves the viewer asking more questions that those that are answered. we are left with a website address to “finish the movie” and that just seems like in poor taste. It would be like the ending of Rocky ending with “did he win the fight? go to this special website to find out”. While I felt the movie climaxed earlier. Most of the scenes felt really indulgent on the part of the obvious christian filmmakers.

I thought the acting was ok. It didn’t feel like the main character grew that much from where we saw him in the beginning of the film. Even the antagonists of the film eventually become his best friends out of really nowhere. I never felt like the journey was rewarding in a typical sense. I understand that films work on many levels it just felt like the one that this one provided was tinged with overtones that may not have necessarily been appropriate to the plot of the film.

While I am not personally against movies with spiritual messages, in fact, I typically do not mind them. This one breaks the mold for me. I was put off by the ending and how none of the antagonists seemed to go anywhere in the plot. I did not appreciate a film that did not show a proper climax. In these sporting movies, the point of them is the viewer to know the outcome of the journey. By delaying the ending and cattle herding the audience to a website just seems wrong. I’m certain this isn’t the first time a film has approached the problem in this manner, but it was the first time for me and with everyone watching the film you could hear the groans as everyone immediately shuffled towards the exits. It isn’t a bad movie, but I’m not sure I could recommend this to anyone except those who really like spiritual message movies.

The post “Seven Days in Utopia” – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

From the official announcement:

To address this concern, we have developed a new event type for Magic Online limited events: Phantom Events. A Phantom Event is a booster draft or sealed deck tournament that lets players open booster packs, build decks, play in the event, and even win prizes (when they are offered) but does not add the cards played with to players’ collections.

That last point is very important, so let’s repeat it. Players who play in Phantom Events DO NOT keep the cards they play with.

Phantom Events will be called out clearly in Magic Online in their name (they will be the ones with Phantom in the title), on the event details page, and in the entry options window so players can tell exactly what kind of event they are entering. Phantom Events will have entry options like all other tournaments, though they will usually only require Event Tickets, and these events may have prizes as well. Once the tournament is over, however, the cards used to play the event will not be added to any of the players’ collections.

I feel this is a step in the right direction. This brings down the price of a draft to two dollars and the price of a sealed deck to four dollars. That is an incredible deal. Not only that if you are good enough to win outright, you can effectively win six times your money back. I’ve been asking for something like this for a while now and this is definitely a step in the right direction.

You can check more on the format and a schedule (right now they are only available on Sundays) by going to the official announcement.

The post “Phantom Events” Coming to MTGO appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I’m a fan of espionage thrillers. When I think of the best times I’ve ever had in movies it was films that made me think about what was going to happen next. Maybe it was a government cover up? It could be a political intrigue? Either way, I love the journey these films that always captivate the viewer into asking what is next.

“The Debt” attempts to take the viewer on a trip to unknown lands that are as restrictive as they are fascinating. Much of the film takes place in what was known as East Berlin. We spend the film following three Israelian spies as they track down and attempt to hold a trial for a notorious Nazi killer for his war crimes. These three people are brought together because of their amazing talents and strengths. What follows throughout most of the film is the blossoming love triangle between the three characters. We follow several attempts to track down this murderous doctor.

I wouldn’t call “The Debt” a bad film. In fact, I loved most of the shots in the film. What I didn’t like was the story. It didn’t seem to keep me interested and I guessed the end game right away. While many films of the genre don’t always include a love triangle twist, there wasn’t much of a pay off in the end. In a story that ultimately comes down to telling the truth, we spent much of it wallowing in a sea of confusing dialogs and set ups that didn’t go anywhere. While I enjoyed the accuracy of the language, it was a little much at times, particularly that while we were nearing the end point, we forgot about the language all together and moved right into talking in English. I thought individual performances were good, just it didn’t equate much better in the end.

I would recommend this movie to fans of the spy genre or of historical fiction. This film felt much longer than it actually was and tried to cram a lot of information in a very short period of time.

The Debt will be released in theaters nationwide on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 and is MPAA-rated “R” (for some violence and language).

From the official synopsis:

The story begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (played by Academy Award winner Helen Mirren) and Stephan (two-time Academy Award nominee Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Ciarán Hinds of Focus’ upcoming Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). All three have been venerated for decades by Israel because of the secret mission that they embarked on for their country back in 1965-1966, when the trio (portrayed, respectively, by Jessica Chastain [The Help, The Tree of Life], Marton Csokas [the upcoming Dream House], and Sam Worthington [Avatar, Clash of the Titans]) tracked down Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace), the feared Surgeon of Birkenau, in East Berlin. While Rachel found herself grappling with romantic feelings during the mission, the net around Vogel was tightened by using her as bait.

At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations that compel Rachel to take matters into her own hands.

The post “The Debt” – Review appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

All joking aside, it is a pretty slick shirt. Unfortunately it does not commemorate his “Thriller” video on this particular shirt. I only recently found out that today was The King of Pop’s birthday. This could be that guilty pleasure shirt you wear around that isn’t suddenly recognizable by everyone on the planet. Like all TeeFury shirts, you have until midnight EST to pick up this one before it is gone forever.

SOURCE

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It is tough having to experience change in your life. I don’t think anyone really prepares themselves for it, sometimes it happens naturally, sometimes it is just thrust upon you. As I am experiencing some life changes of my own, some for the better, I’ve been trying to get out and try a bunch of new things. I guess that is what everyone does when they say they want to change their life. Most people don’t actually do anything different than they normally would have done. I suppose I fall into that camp a little bit. I mean I haven’t changed jobs or changed locations, so I mean that part of my life is intact. But I have started to rediscover things that I used to be interested in and finding new hobbies that I’m eager to explore.

One of the things I hadn’t done before that I’ve always wanted to do is just get in my car and drive. Without really a purpose or direction, I got into my car one day with a general location in mind. I started to drive east. For someone who lives in one of the most typical picturesque places in the country, I haven’t seen a lot of it first hand. I mean sure, I’ve “seen” it but I don’t think I’ve really ever experienced it. On my drive I passed old deserted gas stations that reminded me of my days roaming the “Mojave Wasteland” and it got me thinking about how much video games are inspired of where I live. I was barreling down a highway that looks like it came from “Red Dead Redemption”. In fact, I stopped on the side of the road looking for someone to appear out of nowhere and offer me a fight and some whiskey. As I traveled further and further away into the vast nothingness that surrounds my small mountain town, I discovered that the journey is always better than the destination. So, when I got home I loaded up my favored Western sand box on the prowl for bears to hunt. I got my wish, but actually having been inspired to see some of these locations first hand, its hard not to feel completely ripped off by the virtual facsimile.

I’ve been watching a lot more movies lately. As I am now one of the official movie critics for WPR, I am invited to press only screenings. The first of which was “One Day” (you can find the review here). It has been an interesting experience so far. One of the things that caught me off guard initially when I arrived was how often many of the “critics” would arrive late or exactly on time. I, of course, need to travel a greater distance so my day was already half way done by the time I arrived at the theater. Sitting in an outdoor mall before it opens is an interesting things. The quietness is unparalleled. For those of you who have not been to “The Gateway” in Salt Lake City, it is probably the premier shopping center downtown. I’ve spent a lot of time at or near this place most of my life. But there is an eerie quietness that comes with the early morning and sometimes you don’t recognize it unless you are in a city you don’t particularly live in. I’m a big fan of enjoying breakfast and reading outside, so getting some reading in before “going to work” is relaxing to me.

The other fascinating aspect of seeing movies with “critics” is how each of them are kind of friends with one another. I mean it makes sense, I imagine these people see a lot more of each other than they see of me (I’m only free to go to these events on Tuesdays). So, when you get a bunch of these people together and listen to some of the “war stories”, as an outsider or newbie, you feel like they are just being overzealous. The past few weeks I’ve heard tales of mass exodus’s out of “artsy” films or how awful a particular theater was. I’m not judging them but if it were anyone else in the room, I’d feel like they were acting a little pompous and pretentious. But because they are allowed to let their hair down a bit, you get to hear some stories that probably only other film critics can really relate to. According to the unofficial poll in the room “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was clearly the “best summer film”. I disagreed. Probably because I haven’t seen it, but I didn’t really have an inkling to. Personally, I really enjoyed “X-Men: First Class” for it’s faults, it was the first X-men film that I enjoyed from beginning to end. But to each his own I suppose.

The post What I WPR’d: Real Life Video Game appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

On a personal note, I imagine the gray cat to be one of the cats that I am currently sharing my apartment with. She looks exactly like that cat. I always assumed that cats were secretly Jedis. Now, we have proof.

The post VIDEO: Jedi Kittens appeared first on WatchPlayRead.

I feel it captures the essence of what made that film so grandiose. ZARDOZ.

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From the official release:

The Pro Tour returns to Hawaii in February as the marquee showcase of high-level Magic play. Pro Tour Dark Ascension in Honolulu will be February 10-12, one week after the release of Dark Ascension. By aligning the Pro Tour so closely to the launch of a new set, the Pro Tour becomes the exclamation point to the Dark Ascension release season. With the Pro Tour turning into a private event, Wizards of the Coast will increase the amount of coverage through streaming video, audio, text, live chat, and social media to make fans at home feel like a part of the event. Our expanded Pro Tour coverage will highlight the top players in the world showing off the latest deck ideas and strategies from the new set.

That is particularly interesting. Lining up major Pro events with set releases makes a lot of sense. I imagine that we are going to see more Star City style videos and events for this upcoming Pro season. Below is the schedule for the first few months of Grand Prix events.

Austin USA January 7-8, 2012
Orlando USA January 14-15, 2012
Kobe Japan February 18-19, 2012
Lincoln USA February 18-19, 2012
Madrid Spain February 25-26, 2012
Baltimore USA February 25-26, 2012
Lille France March 3-4, 2012
Seattle USA March 3-4, 2012
Indianapolis USA March 10-11, 2012
Nashville USA March 17-18, 2012
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia March 24-25, 2012
Mexico City Mexico March 24-25, 2012
Melbourne Australia March 31-April 1, 2012
Salt Lake City USA March 31-April 1, 2012
Turin Italy March 31-April 1, 2012

The event that I am obviously most excited about is the Salt Lake City event. There hasn’t been a “major” Magic event since a 2005 Grand Prix. I’m particularly excited in participating in an event of this caliber. I’ve played in the Legacy World Championships a few years back and I love watching high level Magic and I’m sincerely hoping that it will be Sealed or Draft.

You can get more information from the official announcement below.

SOURCE

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There are a dirth of romantic movies that both sexes can enjoy. Typically, the genre is geared towards women but every once in a while they make a movie that can appeal to both sexes equally. “One Day” which opens everywhere today is part of that rarified air.
The film is based on the novel “One Day” by David Nicholls, who also adapted the screenplay, centers around a love affair that takes the viewer the course of twenty years. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess are the two lovers in question and we are subjected to their highs and lows based on where the characters are on the day they met every single year. I thought both actors had strong performances and carrying a film with pretty much two characters is extremely difficult to achieve. While I found it hard to suspend my disbelief over the “age” of the characters, as they didn’t really “look different” from year to year, I was compelled to root for each character as they struggled through personal and emotional issues throughout. “One Day” was one of the most genuine romance films that I had seen in a long while. I lost myself in the themes and the atmospheres of England and found myself rooting for both of the characters. It has some funny moments and some down right thrilling engagements.

People have said that romantic dramas are predominately for women. As such, I would definitely recommend this to any woman who generally likes “Nicholas Sparks movies” but I would also say that this was even enjoyable from a male perspective as well. It isn’t a “Guy’s night out” kind of film, but I would definitely enjoy taking a lady friend out to see this movie. It was gripping and powerful, and because I didn’t read the book, nothing was “spoiled” for me which made the ending all the better. If I had known the ending at the beginning, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the journey as much.

Before I bring this review to a close, I did want to make mention that there are plenty of “geek” references throughout the movie. I spotted a few geeky comic books and a few “Star Trek” references, which made everyone kind of chuckle.

The film is rated PG-13 for some brief language and nudity.

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if you do not have DirecTv you’ll have to pony up nearly $350 dollars for the privilege.

DirecTV subscribers can pay a mere $ 50 to get every Sunday game and the ability to use the PS3 as an extra receiver, while those with other cable providers will have to pay a hefty $ 339.95.

To be fair, this is a lot less expensive then actually purchasing season tickets to your favorite NFL team. And if you are like many of us, our football team is always “out of market”. If you feel like justifying it to a significant other, it boils down to about twenty bucks a week over the course of the 17-week season. This entitles you to watch up to 14 games a Sunday. Which is a lot of football, and if you’re into Fantasy Football at all this might be a great way to catch up on some of those “non-games”.

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The September promo will be Teetering Peaks while I realize that the image we have is Asian in origin, your FNM location will have English copies.

Teetering Peaks will see play in both Modern and it’s remaining time left in Standard. It is used in heavily aggressive decks like Mono Green Infect, where you need any pump spell you can get your hands on.

The October promo will be Contagion Clasp. Unfortunately, this was spoiled at a Wizards trade press conference at Gen Con and we do not have the picture for it yet. I imagine we will see new art. This card is a decent colorless removal spell. While it doesn’t see heavy play, it doesn’t see no play either. This will be one that Commander players will seek out.

As always, you can find a location to play at Friday Night Magic at www.wizards.com/locator.

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From the official announcement:

The Planeswalker Koth, from the metal plane of Mirrodin, sought help when his world darkened. He traveled to Dominaria to enlist allies and met fellow Planeswalker Venser.

When Venser recognized the threat to Koth’s world was none other than Phyrexia, he knew that the only hope for Mirrodin was to find its maker. But that would mean forsaking its people in the meantime.

Koth would rather die than turn his back on his fellow Mirrans. But Venser all but knew they would die anyway if they failed to reach Karn, his former mentor and creator of Mirrodin.

Two Planeswalkers, one goal, very different methods. Recreate the struggle to lead the way to Mirrodin’s salvation.

Deck Design and Development: Chris Millar and Mark Gottlieb
Twitter Hashtag: #MTGVVK
Languages Available: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish
Release Date: March 30, 2012
MSRP: $19.99

It is an interesting time to be releasing a Koth card. This will give you ample time to play with him before he rotates in a year from October. They also switched how the “Duel Decks” will be released. Instead of having a “faction vs faction” style deck out in the spring, those will come out in the fall. The explanation is that they can better line up a “faction vs faction” to line up better with the upcoming block. Which makes sense. Who wouldn’t have wanted a “Humans vs Gothic Horrors” duel deck series to come out just before Innistrad? The “planeswalker vs planeswalker” style duel decks will now come out in the spring instead. This gives them an opportunity to give players a chance to play with them while they are still in standard. For more information and some artwork, check out the official Magic site.

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While I may not be the biggest fan of Japanese animation, I always watch Hayao Miyazaki’s films. He is one of the most talented and brilliant minds in animated cinema. After watching this clip, you’ll wish that they had finished the movie. According to legend, there were some conflicts and Miyazaki had to leave the project. Much of the ’89 film retains most of the vision that Miyazaki had, although the style is most definitely changed.

I also realize that this was based on a Comic Strip, I’m most familiar with the NES game that featured a little boy who went off to sleep and used individually wrapped pieces of candy as a weapon. The game was notoriously hard and I can’t ever remember getting past the first few levels.

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Magic, and by extension Magic Online, is one of the most unique games on the planet. There are high stakes tournaments every weekend. There are even moderately high stakes games online day and night. Magic is at an all-time popularity high. They have been selling record numbers of cards since Magic 2010 game out in summer of 2009. We’ve seen a monster growth in not only tournament players, but players looking to “invest” in the Magic Market. Once upon a time, Magic’s economy was dictated by players. No one really sought after cards for future gain. Or if they did, it was on a much smaller scale. According to some of the more popular Magic community members on Twitter, there was a major buy of the card Force of Will for the online market back when the card was about a twenty dollar card. We’re not talking about someone who purchased an extra playset or two to inevitiably sell later. This person bought thousands of copies of this essential card.

I don’t have the exact number of Force of Wills that entered into the system on Magic Online, only Wizards has that number. But it seems to me if someone was able to purchase even close to a hundred copies of a card like Force of Will that would in turn drive up the price of the card. That is simple supply and demand of a capitalistic system that we obviously use on Magic Online. What happened was eventually a huge boon of players joined Magic Online. Legacy, one of the top tier formats, showed up and now everyone wants to play test for the big money tournaments on Magic Online. And understandably so, Magic Online is the best tool in the universe to play test day and night against the best competition in the world. So, as anyone can plainly see, we had a huge influx of players and not enough copies to go around and the copies that were around are sold at such a high price that many of these players were “priced out” so to speak.

It must be frustrating to see from Wizards standpoint. You have a metric ton of players who want to play in these tournaments or want to play these cards online but you have an entirely different subset of players who want to invest and make money off of the game. There has got to be a better distribution system to get the cards into the hands of these players. For Magic Online at least, Wizards can print practically any card they want. They can set up drafts that use specific sets. They can release “Master’s Editions” and sell packs that contain many of these staple cards. Though there are some restrictions on how they can use this, they can always come up with “a new Master’s set” and put the more problematic cards into these categories. But as we’ve seen even that isn’t enough. Hoarders will hoard the cards as soon as they are available to the market. Because some people have such a high bank roll they are able to buy up any available copy of any sought after card, then set the price and trickle out demand. This hurts the game. I personally have yet to really find any copies of some Legacy staples as I’ve tried to reenter the MTGO scene. It’s a daunting and difficult task. Even if you have the money, the time, and the effort the necessary cards are just “not available”. If they ever do become available they are snapped up so quickly that it leaves a lot of players just sitting around asking “well what can I do about it?”

I’ve had a few suggestions about what we should do about it. Only Wizards controls how cards are printed and distributed. They have made some efforts with “event decks”. I think those are a great way to combat some of it. Giving players a deck skeleton that features actual “tournament viable” cards in them is a step in the right direction. The only real issue comes down to that Wizards probably won’t be putting Mythic or really valuable sought after cards in these types of decks. This makes the most sense for Wizards. Wizards doesn’t really make money directly off of the secondary market. They are in the business to sell packs of cards. However, the only way you can get some of the best cards in the game is through packs of cards. Dealers and mega-stores buy huge quantities of booster boxes for the sole purpose of cracking them and selling the singles to the general public. The problem arises when the secondary market can dictate the cost of Magic. I feel that some of these systems are outdated for the growth that we’ve seen in the game recently.

What is my suggestion? Well, for starters lets figure out a way to get more of the “best” cards into the hands of the players who want them. The biggest problem with card prices is that there are far more tournament players out in the world then there was even five years ago. We need to cater to this audience. There needs to be another way that the top tiered cards can get into the hands of these players at a more reasonable price than what is currently offered by the big sites on the internet. There should be event decks or duel decks that include cards that are actual staples of the format. Force of Will shouldn’t be a luxury for the ultra rich or the super lucky or both. If we want to continue to have growth in our hobby than having all the cards for all the top decks being crippling financially can’t be a good thing for the game. I’m not saying that these cards should be easy to come by, but they shouldn’t be unobtainable either. Maybe you release a set of event decks on a rotating basis that they are only in the online store for a few weeks at a time. Or there is a limit that each address can buy.

My other suggestion is to put out more “Master’s Editions” that focus just on the cards that are relevant for the formats that it is geared towards. Why would people buy these packs if they just end up with “the shaft”? Price them a little bit higher, but give us a better return on the investment.

The other drastic change that I would like to see happen is changing the distribution in booster packs. Instead of getting one rare or mythic, we should be putting two rares in packs. That was every pack gets a rare, and sometimes a pack contains a mythic and a rare. This would increase the supply of many of the more popular rares. It would also give more people incentive to crack packs of cards if they had the opportunity to get “more value” for their money. I think having the one rare, three uncommons, and eleven commons made sense close to twenty years ago. But the only way we can make buying booster packs a better option for established players is by giving them far more value then they would if they just went to the shop and bought singles.

I’m not saying that all my ideas are perfect or are best for the game. But something has got to give. We are seeing events dwindle because of card availability and we are seeing inflated prices because of this trend of speculation that has swept the Magic playing populace.

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From the police story:

Bensley, covered with tattoos and wearing only boxer shorts, forced his way into the apartment on Seawall Boulevard and made his way into the bedroom of a woman whose name has not been released, Heyse said.
Bensley made growling and hissing noises while biting and hitting the woman in her bed, Heyse said. Bensley then dragged her out of the apartment and she broke free.

“I’m a vampire, and I’ve been alive for over 500 years,” Bensley said, according to Erickson.

So, if anyone out there likes to “slay” vampires, maybe you want to set up camp in Dallas. Unfortunately, for the real vampires this guy gives them a bad name. I can’t wait until Fox News gets a hold of this story and blames video games for the cause. I’m getting 3 to 2 odds in Vegas for that one happening.

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According to sources

Supernatural has landed Buffy alums Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters for guest starring roles. Carpenter and Marsters will play a married couple. In a reversal of their Buffy days – when Carpenter played Cordelia, a member of the Scooby gang slayers, and Marsters played vampire Spike – Carpenter will be the supernatural, playing a witch on a rampage after Marsters’ character does her wrong.

I’m a pretty big fan of the show “Supernatural” and “Angel” so this is pretty exciting news for me. I can’t wait to see these two actors on the screen again. They had a few fling romances on both shows, so this is an interesting pairing to say the least.

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From the official announcement:

Three new playable decks: Liliana Vess’s “Grave Whispers” deck, Ajani Goldmane’s “Auramancer” deck, and Ral Zarek’s “Cloudburst” deck
Six exclusive sneak-preview cards from the upcoming Innistrad expansion
Players can become the Archenemy in single-player and online multiplayer formats
Six new single-player campaign levels and eleven Archenemy single-player campaign levels
Four Archenemy challenges
Four additional card unlocks for all thirteen Duels 2012 decks
New achievements on Xbox, Steam, and PlayStation
New loading screens featuring art and text exclusive to the Duels 2012 Expansion

Much like the rounds of DLC for the original game, we’re seeing three new decks plus cards for the decks proper. This has quite a bit more “content” in terms of campaign levels, but they do not note if they are “puzzle” levels or “duel” levels.

The other huge news to this release is that you’ll be able to play “as the Archenemy”. Currently, you may only take on a computer Archenemy. This will be one of the big selling points to me, I love this aspect of the game.

The price was not announced, but I would take a guess and bet on it being close to $5 dollars, which is reasonable considering the content you’ll receive. They also did not note “when” it will be released other than “early fall”. Considering “Innistrad” comes out at the end of September, I would imagine we’ll be seeing it sooner than that.

You can find out more information and check out some screenshot here.

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Zachmuhn is now the envy of most “Star Trek” geeks everywhere for this incredible proposal. I think my reaction when I saw the clip for the first time was “Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.” but then again, I’m a pretty big Star Trek fan. Here’s hoping they bodly share the rest of their life where none of them have gone before.

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While I can’t embed the song link, you can find the track here.

As a major Alkaline Trio and Muppets fanatic, this was one of the only songs on the record that I was really looking forward to. For an Alkaline Trio track, it is a bit interesting. It was mentioned to me that it sounds very positive. Which it obviously is a very positive song. It isn’t quite as “up the punx” as some of their other songs have been. It also doesn’t have a morbid sense of depression about it. It is great to hear actually. I would love to hear Matt and Dan try the “dueling” vocals on more of their own tracks.

You can check out the original song below:

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According to New NBC Entertainment topper Robert Greenblatt, the network wants Fuller to try another go at rebooting the seminal monster series that they passed on last year.

Fuller reportedly wants to give it a more darker tone than the original. Which judging from Fuller’s other work I’m not quite sure how that is possible. Many of his previous TV shows (which include “Pushing Daisies” and “Dead Like Me”) were very optimistic and upbeat. It will be interesting if Fuller can bring this “edge” to the show.

I would love to see Lee Pace or Ellen Muth to return to a Fuller created show, but I have a feeling we won’t. NBC would be the perfect network for a Fuller inspired show, the network could definitely afford to grow an audience and would get a boost from many Fuller fanatics, myself included.

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From the official Pro Tour announcement:

The Constructed-format portion of Pro Tour Philadelphia, previously scheduled to be Extended, has been changed to Modern. The new format will be used for ten rounds of Swiss play and the Top 8.

The Modern format consists of all Magic sets printed since the introduction of the modern card frame, starting with Eighth Edition. This includes Eighth Edition, Ninth Edition, Tenth Edition, Magic 2010, Magic 2011, Magic 2012, the Coldsnap expansion set, and the following blocks: Mirrodin, Kamigawa, Ravnica, Time Spiral, Lorwyn, Shadowmoor, Shards of Alara, Zendikar, and Scars of Mirrodin.

It should be noted that this does not include cards that are printed in special sets like “Duel Decks”, “From the Vaults”, or “Commander” those cards won’t be legal unless they were printed in a booster expansion set. These sets reflect a lot better what Extended “used to be like” and while I was on the fence about the format before, it makes a lot of sense.

There are many advantages to having a conglomerate format that uses cards that can be printed “at will” so to speak. I’m still skeptical that cards like Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant will be printed in a core set or expansion ever again. Which means one of the format’s biggest strengths may end up being the same downfall that Legacy has faced. Wizards has been reluctant to print cards based on tournament demand. I feel they use an outdated “limited” expansion process. The print runs of most expansions today completely sell out. Now, this is due to Wizards knowing how much to print and when to print as much as it is as the demand for Magic cards is at an all time high at the moment. But card availability is a huge problem. Coupled with the fact that there are many constructed relevant “Mythic” rares that compound the factor further. Magic Online doesn’t have as many of these problems, but card availability is still a major issue there. We’ve seen Magic Online give us events that use only certain expansions or offer “Tix Only” drafts to pump more cards of relevant expansions back into the system. It’s harder for the paper world to do this and with more and more people jumping from Paper to Online, the card prices have hit all time highs. Which is a great problem to have from Wizards’ standpoint but it has become an increasingly difficult proposition for many players who are now being forced out of the game because of monetary constraints.

The official banned list for Modern:

The final banned list is as follows:

Ancestral Vision
Ancient Den
Bitterblossom
Chrome Mox
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Hypergenesis
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Seat of the Synod
Sensei’s Divining Top
Skullclamp
Stoneforge Mystic
Sword of the Meek
Tree of Tales
Umezawa’s Jitte
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Vault of Whispers

You can read this for an official explanation for why many of these cards are banned.

It should be noted that many of these cards were banned in the old Extended format when they were legal or were banned in Standard when they were legal. The interesting omission according to the Magic Twitter-verse is Aether Vial. Aether Vial is a powerhouse in many Legacy “Zoo” decks. Which is also interesting that Mental Misstep is banned. The reasoning is that they do not want really effective counterspells in Modern. This will make aggressive strategies that involve Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant to use Aether Vial to cheat out really powerful creatures and put a constant pressure against other slower strategies.

I find that many of the cards on the list were really necessary and the format will feel noticeably different from Standard or Legacy. It will also be much more player friendly in that most of the cards in the format are at least obtainable, though as of this writing the “Ravnica Dual Lands” were at $40 a piece and sold out practically everywhere.

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This had to have taken quite a bit of time to accomplish. I’m a little skeptical on if it was completely done using “stop motion” animation, seems like it could take months or years to accomplish. I loved the “Mario” and “Tetris” scenes the best. What was your favorite part about it?

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As you can see, Abraham Lincoln appears over Canada freeing the thunderbolts from their systematic oppression. I can’t say I’ve ever really “seen” anything substantial in the clouds before but this was a very convincing video.

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From the plot description

The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen.

While I was secretly hoping it would have been filmed in the “documentary” style that the book took on, it should have been an inevitability that it would not be a “to the letter” adaptation of the novel. I’ll probably still end up seeing the movie but as a huge fan of the Max Brooks novel, I may not be as enthusiastic about it as I once was. The movie will star Brad Pitt and directorial duties will be provided by Marc Forster.

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From the official press release:

San Diego – August 10, 2011 – Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (“Mad Catz”)
(AMEX/TSX: MCZ) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Harmonix® Music Systems, Inc., to re-release the critically acclaimed Rock Band 3 this holiday season and beyond. Mad Catz anticipates that it will bundle Rock Band 3 software with its popular Rock Band 3 Wireless Keyboard Controller, Wireless Fender™ Stratocaster™ Guitar Controller and Wireless Fender Mustang™ PRO-Guitar Controller, an instrument controller which allows gamers to learn to play real guitar and bass parts for Rock Band 3’s 83 song set list and regularly released downloadable PRO-Guitar content.

There were no prices set on these but if I were a betting man, I would wager that the Keys and Guitar bundle will probably come out to 149.99 and the pro guitar model at 199. That is purely speculation, but I would really look into picking this game up if you haven’t, it is by far one of the most accessible Rock Band titles out there. I still buy songs for it every chance that I get.

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You can preorder this baby for about 12 dollars right now over at TFAW.com. I’m really digging the artwork on this one as I usually think that the lunchboxes aren’t always the best designed out there.

Official Description:

CHARLIE ADLARD FEAST ON THIS! This is the ultimate gift for any fan of ROBERT KIRKMAN’s THE WALKING DEAD – a lunchbox featuring artwork by series artist CHARLIE ADLARD! Don’t be the last survivor to roam without one!

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It has all the makings of a great iPhone/iPad hit. Crazy title. Cute music. Even cuter animals.

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This article is meant to show off the “geek” side of Rock Band’s DLC. It isn’t meant to be a be all end all list either however, if you come across a geeky Rock Band track that I may have missed, by all means hit me up in the comment section.

(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar from “The Guild”

Well, the first song I think we have to start off with is a song from the hit geek show “The Guild” featuring Felicia Day, who doesn’t need any introduction to her geek cred. This is one of the few “pop” songs that is on the platform. Unfortunately, it does not have keyboard support.
Code Monkey by Johnathan Coulton

You can’t have a geek music article without mentioning Johnathan Coulton. There are actually plenty of offerings from Johnathan Coulton on Rock Band. I chose “Code Monkey” because it was also a great short lived 8-bit TV show about a game company in the 80s. It was one of my favorite shows and I always lean towards this song when I want to prove my geekiness in Rock Band.

Mr. Spock/ by Nerf Hearder

The ultimate band name inspired by “Star Wars” yet singing about a character from “Star Trek”. It really can’t get my sci-fi nerdgasm any higher than this unless the video took place on the “Lost” island or the “Battlestar Galactica”. Nerf Hearder was also the band who performed the theme song to the TV show “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” (you’d be surprised how many people I’ve met who thought it was The Offspring). This one describes how a jilted lover feels towards his love prospects. It is a great song to play guitar while singing.

The Ultimate Showdown by Lemon Demon

You can’t talk about great geek songs without mentioning this one. This one practically has everyone you could ever want in one song. It has Chuck Norris, Godzillia, Shaq, Batman, and Abe Lincoln. This is pretty much the ultimate geek song that is available on Rock Band.

What are some of your favorites?

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