Chippey's 1st Annual Cube Tournament (+playlist)

Caleb documented our tournament yesterday! :-)

(See post below for stills.)

 

First Annual Meyer MTG Cube Tournament

The table is set:

 The cube is ready for drafting:

 The lands are available:

And the gaming begins:

I won my first round game (sorry Tim!).  This is my winning board.  The Restoration Angel paired with Wolfir Silverheart was the secret to my success!

With a trophy on the line Caleb and Anthony proceed to the final round: 

 And, with his four-color deck (all but red), Anthony emerges victorious - proud winner of the Magic Cube Tournament trophy (at least until next year!)

Card of the Day

Loving this card for my Ixidron deck :-)

True 60 Times Over (and then some)

Sometimes there's wisdom even in a card game.
The flavor text (italicized) says it all!

Conflux

I've been hard at work on my thesis, but Anthony and I took a break today to recharge our geek batteries :-) We'd been looking forward to this new set, Conflux, coming out and are enjoying the fact that the store in our area does pre-releases now. As you can see we were not the only ones looking forward to it - quite a crowd!Sorry (especially to Anthony!) for the poor quality pictures. I hope the fun we had comes through nonetheless. Oh, we both lost big time but had lots of fun! We're hoping to take in the release next Friday. Good times!!

The one picture I really wanted and didn't get was of the guy I played first who was wearing a fuzzy pink hat with brown antlers sticking out of it. What happened to the standard goth-like black trench-coat look? Ah well, I guess even geeks have to establish their own identity!

My Time

Well, I may not have time to try to create anything like what's in my last post (nor the talent either!), but I did take time to draft with Anthony tonight. We were paired in the first round, which was kind of a bummer since it is single elimination. He beat me, BUT he won the draft. I guess it's not so bad losing to the person who won overall - especially not when he's my son. And I got a card I've been wanting since the set came out (see image) so I'm happy.

Now I'd better stay up most of the rest of the night! I usually finish grading mid-terms the day they are taken (yesterday in this case) so I can give IMMEDIATE feedback, even before class meets again, but it has been non-stop over here - mostly meetings all day, one right to the next, and stuff going on last night. I have a lot of email messages from students asking how they did. In case any of you reading this are my students, sorry - needed some mother/son bonding time - and couldn't get out of the rest of the busyness! NOW back to the tests!

Saturday Evening Post (Part 1)

Today was major geek day for me and Anthony. We played in our first ever PRE-release Magic Tournament. This was for the Shards of Alara set. You can't even buy these cards yet. The release is scheduled for next Friday night. I finally had the inaugural wearing of my totally awesome geek-shirt birthday present (see above).Here we are - candy and dice nearby - decks built - ready to GO!!Clearly things are not going my way right now. I've mentally blocked out exactly what happened, but I see when I enlarge the picture that my life total was at 3, so I think he had just made the killing move. This guy is REALLY good, though, so it's respectable to be beaten by him. I won 2 of 4 rounds overall and felt pretty good about that for an old lady! (Do you notice any other women in any of these photos? No. I alone am upholding the honor of womanhood in the domain of Magic the Gathering!)

Here is Anthony in action. He totally "owned." He won 3 of 4 rounds, 2 of them 2-0, so he won prizes - 4 boosters of these cards you can't buy yet! He was jazzed! (I'm so proud!)

I played red, green, white - and pulled an Ajani (Plainswalker), which was also the promo card, so I got to play it - worked well for me. I also had a Battlegrace Angel, which was what won me my games - exalted, lifelink, and flying - hard to beat. Anthony played red, black, green - and had a nice combo: Hellkite Overlord and Dragon Herald, which can allow him to search for the first card.

Magical Interlude

Well, I realized anew how the stress has gotten to me at all levels when I left my division meeting today, reached into my "purse" to get out what I needed to open the van, and walked about a hundred feet with it towards my van before realizing that the hairbrush I was holding was not going to unlock the door!I guess the time when you can least afford a break is the time when you most need to take one, and Anthony provided that for me tonight by asking me to go with him to a Magic draft. Magic is a game I was into when he was a baby (only child). I'd been taught by my uncle. (Thanks Uncle Dave - remember that late night out in Illinois when you taught me and were dinging me a life-point at a time with 'Tim?'). Anyway, I taught Anthony to play before he could read; he had to ask me what the cards said and then memorize what they did. I dropped out when I had more babies and got too busy. It's a game with new installments coming out all the time, so you have to keep up with it. I taught him to play, and now he is returning the favor by bringing me back into it and teaching me the finer points. Now he's the one who keeps reminding me, "Mom, you've got to know what your cards do!" Within the last month or so he has gotten me totally addicted to where I'm now not just playing with the cards but collecting them also and trying to keep them in mint condition.

The first card pictured is one of the wildest I came across tonight (and kind of reminds me of what life feels like right now!), and the second one pictured I pulled in the draft just because I like the artwork so much. (For those of you who know the game, I pulled quite a few rares - including "Oversoul of Dusk," which I understand is worth about $20, and it only cost me $10 to participate. Of course I'm not selling it . . .)

Sunday Magic

And in more breaking news - this coming to you mid-tourney Sunday afternoon as the Magic the Gathering Time Spiral draft is underway. Above Jacob and Dad face off in round one. Here's a close-up of the opening moves between Mom and Anthony. Jacob ponders Dad's move. We even convinced "UT" to play - to the great joy of his adoring nephews.

At this point I am down 0-2, my 15 year old and even my 10 year old having beat me! I'm beginning to wonder about training my children so well. It can be a bit hard on the ego at times. Oh well, two matches to go. Perhaps I'll yet win one! If not, it's OK; it's fun no matter what. I just can't resist a game with a fantasy element, tokens and dodecahedral dice!

In case you don't know about Magic, it is a role-playing card game in which each player begins with 20 life points and has a deck of cards (self-made through selecting about 40 cards from in our case 270 available today). There is a lot of strategy involved as you try to select cards that work well together. Many are creature cards (elves, goblins, dragons, etc.) that have a certain power and toughness. You can "attack" with them, and your opponent can block with creatures, play "spells" to try to prevent damage, or they can take damage. There are also cards that allow you to gain back life points. Once you are down to zero life points or below you lose. Each round is best 2 out of 3. There's a lot of strategy involved, some great artwork on the cards, and a lot of imagination if you want to engage it! It's a favorite in our family.