MTG: 15/13 With Trample Turn 4? I think so!

After some thinking, I realised that I can get a Deadbridge Goliath to 15/13 with Trample by turn 4, and I thought that was just a little insane.

In fact, I think it's more than a little insane, because if one had no removal in hand at the time I'd probably just be scooping. In any case, it's all good fun and would make for a good, maniacal laugh when pulled off.

Giant Insect Rhino Fungus

 First turn, we play a Forest and then slap down an Arbor Elf.

Turn 2 throw down our second land, then tap both for a Farseek.

Turn 3 we play another land and then place our Giant Insect Rhino Fungus, then we tap Arbor Elf to untap a Forest, then retap afforementioned Forest and throw Rancor onto the Deadbridge.

Finally, at turn 4 we play another land, making for 5 in total, then play a Corpsejack Menace, use the 5th land for a Bond Beetle and putting the counters onto the Goliath, then we swing with the Goliath, pray they attempt to lower the damage coming from the currently 9/7 Trampler running at them and, if they do, we slap a Hunger of the Howlpack right onto our already-massive creature after untapping a Forest with our Arbor Elf for a total of 6 +1/+1 counters placed on him.

So there you go, a 15/13 creature with trample on turn 4.

Viable? Well, I don't really know, but against anything not black or blue, I'd say so. Definitely kitchen table friendly in the least.

Fun? Oh god yes!

As long as your opponent doesn't have any cheap removal you'll be set and it's pretty much game over right there. If they do, well, at least your Rancor comes straight back to your hand, your Corpsejack is down and you've got a bunch more mana than you should, plus a couple of chump blockers until you can more buffs and bodies down.

Thoughts? Comments?

First FNM: Stomped By a Kid

Last Friday I headed up to my local store to play in my first ever Friday night Magic. It was also the first time I've versed anyone that's not my two MTG playing friends, and the first time I've versed anyone with a decent deck that's not pretty much the Intro Pack + a couple of cards.

It's nice to get some games in against more experienced players and to see what kinds of decks people run in my area.

My deck isn't complete yet, so I wasn't running an ideal set of cards, but I still did reasonably well I think.

My only real issue was actually against a child of about 7 years old. His dad was playing someone else, and as soon as I sat down he said "My mum has the same card sleeves as you" and I was all like "Oh great, a family of MTG players. This'll be fun..."

But it turned out it wasn't. He was playing a Blue/White control deck that his dad had won some tournament with, and the kid obviously had far more experience at the game than I did. I learned a very important lesson that game: playing against control is not fun.

Other than that I played against RB Rakdos aggro and GW token spam. I only just lost to the aggro 1-2, but they were fun games and really could've gone either way. The GW token spam went my way the entire time and I won 2-0. In the first game I had a Corpsejack Menace that I had cast Increasing Savagery and Rancor on which managed to destroy every single token creature in a single attack and still do 3 damage to my opponent.

A fun night all in all and I've had the chance to check out which cards work and which don't in my deck, as well as what I have trouble with so I'll be able to fine-tune my deck a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to post a complete decklist pretty soon, I just need to finish fiddling around with it.

Thoughts? Comments?

So Little Time...

Unfortunately for the past week or so school has insisted on keeping my schedule absolutely packed, leaving almost no time for any real hobby. All I've been able to get done during my weekdays in terms of hobbies and games is posting over on MiniWarGaming and looking into Infinity. Although on the weekend I did get some Fantasy and Magic done, so I'll go into that and Infinity a bit.

"Doomwheels are so OP"

So on Fantasy first, I had a game at 1250 points against a Vampire Counts player. I didn't get any pictures of the game because I didn't have my camera, but my army was only about half-painted and his was almost entirely base-coated, so I don't think many would care too much anyway...

Regardless, the game was over pretty quick. I ran a Grey Seer, some Clanrats, a unit of Slaves, Warpfire Throwers, Plague Censer Bearers, Doomrocket Engineer and 2 Doomwheels. He slapped down a couple of small units of Zombies, a Master Necro, Vampire, Ethereal Hero thing, Ghouls, Crypt Horrors and a Terrorgheist.

Before the game began he was joking a bit about the Terrorgheist, and one of his friends asked what the leadership of Skaven was. When I told them 5, they both had a good chuckle. They also claimed the thing would just scream away my leadership 7 Doomwheels. I was really looking to end the boasting and show them that Doomwheels are not something to be messed with. And I succeeded.

The game went to turn 3, where one of my Doomwheels got S8 on it's Zzzap! and killed the Terrorgheist. I'd fired my Doomrocket at his Ghouls the turn before and pretty much destroyed them, as well as taking out the Crypt Horrors with a Cracks Call and the Plague Censer Bearers. He conceded with a few Zombies and his characters left, whilst I had my entire army minus the Slaves, one Censer Bearer and one Doomwheel was down a single wound.

If I had a dollar for the number of times "Doomwheels are so OP" or something to that effect was said during and after that game, I'd be a very, very rich man.

So very, very sick.

Onto Magic: the Gathering. I'm still a complete and utter n00b, but I did get myself quite a large number of games Friday night and Saturday against the friend I started with and my High Elf playing friend who'd started on Saturday himself with a Blue and Red deck. I've currently beat my R/B friend three more times than he's beat me, and it's nice to put a bit of a gap between our win/loss ratios, if just for bragging rights.

I think I've worked out the kind of deck I want to go for, and I'm pretty much just going to follow on with the theme the starter deck I got has. Golgari Growth. I originally wanted a Zombie Graveyard deck, but I'm really liking buffing monsters to huge levels, and the general thematics of the whole deck appeals to me as well. Dreg Manglers and Corpsejack Menaces are easily my favourite cards in my deck currently.

I'm still building on my deck, but we'll get there eventually, and it will be glorious.

Infinitely awesome.

The last thing I'm going to cover is my interest in Infinity. It looks like an extremely interesting game, and should be one that's quite different to 40k and Fantasy, which should be quite nice. The Factions look incredibly cool, and being a fan of anime and pretty much everything Japanese in general, the style appeals to me even more.

Everything I've heard of the game is extremely positive and it's very cheap to get into (compared to the likes of Games Workshop's games at least), so now it's just down to convincing some friends to grab some stuff with me and I'll be good to go. Naturally, I think I'm going to go with Yu Jing right now, but my opinion may change given a little more research.

As usual, thanks for reading and feel free to give any thoughts and/or advice. I do quite desperately need it for MTG...

There's a First For Everything!

Today I've had a couple of firsts, the first of which is my first follower, which is definitely a boost. Thank you!

The other is my first game of Magic: The Gathering. I've never really been into card games a whole lot, but I must admit I did have quite a bit of fun and have picked up my first Intro Set.

This picture gave me an idea for a Wood Elf Forest Dragon conversion...

I picked up the Black and Green set, and have spent a bit of my afternoon checking out how the game works properly and how I build my deck. To be honest I'm still a little stumped, but I'm definitely looking forward to playing some more with my friend and working the game out.

It's quite the departure from table-top gaming, but it's always nice to have something fresh to do!

Anyway, I guess I'll keep the blog up-to-date with my progress on the game and see if I can work out how to build decks properly...

Any advice is definitely welcome.

And just before I go, the Chaos Space Marines Codex review will be up tomorrow should my Internet permit, otherwise it will absolutely, definitely, 100% be Tuesday!