Cards & Boards

Work’s picked up again for yours truly, which accounts for the silence on the blog for a good week plus.

The good thing is, there’s been a slew of updates gaming-wise, so let’s get right to the heart of things shall we?

Firstly, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) finally gave Star Wars gamers a solid reason to rejoice, as they finally gave a solid release timeline for its Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. This summer release looks like a solid combo of painted, high-quality miniatures and cards that depict the pilots, equipment and equipment that these little beaters pack.

Yes, there’s even astromech droids, dice and some funky tokens to go along these starter sets. The game will be sold in Core Sets, which presumably is enough to start anyone off, as well as the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Y-Wing and TIE Advanced Expansion Packs, which add more fighters and pilots to the mix.

In other news, Wizards of the Coast has finally unveiled the entire card spoiler list for Magic: the Gathering’s newest set, Avacyn Restored. Being out of the scene for awhile now, what do you guys think?

And finally, I thought it’d be fun to highlight a pretty fun-sounding FFG boardgame, called Ugg-Tect. The team-based game has players racing to complete monuments in the cavemen era, accomplishing and performing “grunts” and actions along the way.

Sounds like another fun party game to me!

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Wizards of the Coast has certainly been not averse to revisiting older expansions, in churning out the new stuff. Yeap, here’s looking at you, Scars of Mirrodin.

Looks like mixing up the new and the old, will once again be the theme for the upcoming Return of Ravnica block, which has just been announced last week by Wizards.

The original Ravnica block gave us some pretty fun and memorable times, with plenty of thematic storytelling involved. The different guilds, powerful critters and spells, and of course, the now-super-pricey shocklands – ah, that block was one of the best in recent years, in my books.

How will Wizards reimagine this classic? How can they top the shocklands? Will some of the original set’s heavy-hitters make a reappearance? Find out in September then!

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Magic: the Gathering fans would no doubt be ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the new stuff that’s being spoiler-ed online.

Yeap, a new set means we are go on spoilers, and what better way than to kick things off with this?

For more spoilers, do check out the GatheringMagic.com as well as the official Magic webpage of course. Don’t forget the official Magic: the Gathering Facebook page too – some exclusive content will be shared across there first.

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TCG (trading card game) fans always get plenty of cool swag when playing in pre-release events, but I bet you haven’t seen anything as cool as a “Helvault.”

The upcoming Magic expansion, Avacyn Restored, will feature exclusive Helvault kits, which are essentially mock-ups of the Helvault so central to the final story arc of the Innistrad block.

The bad news? Not all stores worldwide will have Helvault kits. Will Malaysia have it? We’ll have to wait a little longer then!

Meantime, check out the cool teaser for Avacyn Restored, in the very article which talks about the Helvault events, here.

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Okay Magic: the Gathering and World of Warcraft TCG fans, listen up!

The decklist for the latest Magic product, the Duel Decks: Venser vs Koth, is now completely demystified and up online! Wizards.com has spoiled the product’s deck lists, here.

As the name would suggest, Venser vs Koth has two decks, each containing a copy of the aforementioned planeswalkers.

Perfect for some friendly and fun Magic action straight up, these preconstructed decks may not exactly be tournament-worthy, but ought to provide plenty of fun!

Don’t know about you, but I do love decks that are pure fun, very casual and thus, make for some random and exciting games.

Good deal for beginners and experienced Magic players alike, Venser vs Koth is actually perfect for further tweaks and customization. Just add more copies of the cards already in, or heck, swap in other cards! That’s why it’s a trading card game yo!

While we’re on the subject of TCGs with preconstructed decks, WoW TCG also announced its Champion Decks recently.

And looks like the contents of the Hunter deck, is now online for everyone’s consumption!  (Albeit this is off a third-party reviewer.) Kudos to gloriousaspect.com for this awesome read.

Now, I’m eagerly awaiting what the other Champion Decks have. Can’t wait!

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One of the better things to have come out in Magic: the Gathering in recent years, has to be the Commander format, or what used to be called Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH in short).

Wizards of the Coast has been promoting the format heavily, and has made some fine products to support it, either by designing new cards, or reprinting some classic staples that see play in better Commander decks everywhere.

Looks like you can count the special 15-card all-foil miniset “From the Vault: Realms” as yet another product that will make everyone’s Commander experience a little better. Especially for the newer players who might not have bought some of those difficult to buy cards that are no longer available.

The set will be released on August 31, 2012. The speculation’s already starting, on the possible 15 cards: check out this GatheringMagic.com article for the latest ones!

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Long-time Magic: the Gathering fans will remember the days when buying certain novels and comics actually gave them the chance to redeem and score some real valuable and rare exclusive tie-in cards.

Remember Mana Crypt? Well, those days in Magic, Wizards of the Coast was quite open in coming up with cards so rare, they became instant collector’s items.

Nowadays, Wizards is a lot stricter in such promo cards, which is pretty much good news for many fans and collectors’ (and their wallets too no doubt).

Apparently the current policy is, no promo or tie-in card can be a new card, and should only be an existing card with alternate artwork. But this does not stop some of these alternate artwork cards from becoming prized loot on their own.

So, you wanna get those new alternate art cards from IDW’s new Magic: the Gathering comic books, soon! Don’t say I didn’t warn ya – different cards for selected issues.

Awesome deal right? Score some before they’re gone!

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Magic: the Gathering fans are definitely abuzz over the latest expansion set now, Dark Ascension.

In fact, I daresay that this weekend will be an even more anticipated one, for the new cards, compared to last weekend’s prerelease events. This is simply because the packs are now available for sale in better game stores everywhere.

This weekend will also see Dark Ascension release events, which means more fun and casual tournaments for everyone!

IMHO, the week after the prerelease of a “smaller” expansion is optimal as gamers and fans finally get the chance to buy the new set in “full.” I say this because pre-release events bundle in the preceding “larger” expansion.

Yup, this means that if you bought any of the Dark Ascension pre-release “packs”, you would have ended up with Innistrad packs as well, which may likely be a poorer choice for you, especially if you’ve already busted your budget for that older set!

So, will you be playing this weekend?

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Living card games have been steadily making its market in the increasingly diverse boardgames and card games market for a few years now.

The idea that one can share “expansions” which come in non-random assortments, thus reducing the need to “chase” cards, is one that seems to balance out the money factor so inherent in trading card games (TCGs), such as Magic: the Gathering. (By the way, Dark Ascension, the latest Magic set, has been completely “de-spoilered” here.)

As an “old hand” when it comes to TCGs, I have to admit that the kick of opening packs has somewhat lost its luster completely. Maybe it’s the awesome Blood Bowl Team Manager card game from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), which allows a mini-league to be run easily, but TCGs are certainly extremely low on my priority list now. I’m cured, haha!

Anyways, FFG has recently announced new league support kits across its three leading LCGs, A Game of Thrones, Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Invasion.

These First Quarter 2012 LCG Game Night Kits are supposed to add another dimension of play to the existing games, by introducing new incentives and levels of play, via Achievement Books.

To quote FFG’s official announcement: “Each kit features Achievement Books that layer new challenges and accomplishments on top of regular play. Achievements offer veteran players a wide variety of game-specific challenges to tackle each week and reward new players with a sense of accomplishment as they mark these goals completed.”

Wow, just when I was actually considering Warhammer Invasion, on top of my ongoing Blood Bowl Team Manager league! So, game to try?

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Magic: the Gathering fans will be pleased as heck to learn that Dark Ascension, is weeks away from being released here. More vampires, zombies, spirits and demons, plus some, will be available in this follow-up to Innistrad.

The online spoilers are all over the place, most notably at MagicTheGathering.com and MTGSalvation.com.

Plenty of highlights in this set no doubt: I’m betting that everyone’s waiting for Sorin Markov’s return in a different card, for this set. Will it be the money card this time around? Highly likely I say!

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