Sorry for the delays and Colorless Star

During the past few weeks, I got a new job, am helping my wife launch her brand new online store (http://www.snobbywalrus.com), am in the art direction stages of my own non-collectible card game that will release at SakuraCon this April and am still raising three kids.  I apologize for not posting more often, but life is a busy busy place for me right now.  Anyways, on to the meat of the articles.

I have started frequenting a MTG playgroup at my LGS on Friday nights that begins when FNM ends.  They play for fun, not for keeps and all my readers should know by now that that is just my style.  I had brought only one EDH deck, because I don't usually play anything else. (People in our area can't seem to play regular MTG casually...until now!) and it was missing a card  so I borrowed decks(which was just as well because I didn't have any that were non-EDH).

First we did play some EDH, but one of the guys there couldnt play THAT casually either and played Sharuum.  Guess who won... Anyway

Then we played a few games of star because.  Gabe, one of the players whom I had met the week before didn't prefer EDH because games took so long and let me borrow a deck which was just my style to play some Colorless Star.

Here is what I played:

Old-school Lure-Venom Revised (Estimated decklist)

4 - Rampant Growth
2 - Thicket Basilisk
1 - Beastmaster Ascension
2 - Gleancrawler
4 - Noxious Hatchling
4 - Lure
2 - Tangle Asp
2 - Soul Stair Expedition
2 - Desecration Hag
2 - Gift of the Deity
2 - Hag Hedge Mage
2 - Khalni Garden
10 - Forest
10 Swamp

Now, anyone who knows me knows I love oldschool cards, old-school deck Ideas and generally just old-school Magic concepts.  This deck was a blast to play even though it wasnt that good and I didn't win a whole lot.  I played with four other players playing Orzhov lifelink, Red Pyrostatic Pillar enchantment-burn, Bird Tribal splash Altar of Dementia to become mill if need be and, 40 land Zendikron (mostly Worldwake).

The other players frequently switched decks and I did once as well to a GW gold beats deck which was also alot of fun, but for the sake of brevity I am only going to talk about some of the multitude of decks that were played.

So in the first game, the burn player and the Orzhov player were my opponents (and were for the first several because no one wanted to get up and move :P) The burn player started flinging Lightning Bolts and other red burn my way early on and I lost quickly, with the Orzhov player also swinging primarily at me with a Nip Gwyllion with a Edge of the Divinity on it.  In the end Gabe, won with tribal birds milling out both of his opponents (the only 3 players who were alive) and he Stood Alone.

Game 2 I hated the burn player out quickly and then lost to 3 Pillory of the Sleepless, one for EVERY creature I played.  In the end, the same 3 players were left and this time Gabe went down for a 2 player simultaneous win.

The other games were well after midnight, and I hadn't slept much the day before, and didn't sleep much the days since so it gets a little fuzzy after that.  But here is what I learned about Star.

1. Make Allies - It's far more important to team up with allies than it is to hoze enemies.  If you solely focus on defeating your enemies, you WILL be playing 2 vs 1 and it will be alot harder than if you team up with one of your allies to get rid of opponents.  This will be harder if one of your opponents is already dead as allies have one similar opponent to you and one different and they want to win, not to let you win.

2. Have an early game: Star is not Free-For-All or EDH, things go much faster and play somewhere between 1 vs 1 speed and traditional multiplayer speed.  You can have a slightly higher curve, but you can't start at 4 drop.

3. Star is really fun because multiple players can win:  It's always nice to find you and one of your teammates defeating your common foe last when the 3 of you are the only ones left.  Star can give an ally a good feeling and if you don't switch allies they are more likely to help you out in games 2+

Well, that's all I have time for today.  I plan on starting to blog only once each weekend more like an article than a blog so that I can get some of my other personal ventures under way, but please keep reading and I will have more to say from personal experiences now that I have a regular playgroup.

So until next time...

Use YOUR shoes as counters,
-Shoe