Events Archives - Page 3 of 12

About Magic Open House Sun, July 1st

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

Full Art Promo Guttersnipe — Promo Guttersnipe while supplies last

Magic Open House is mainly about bringing in new players to introduce to the game, and D20 Games is a great place to do it. On Magic Open House day, Players can stop by for fun, casual play that includes learn-to-play Magic events, free Welcome Deck tutorials for new players. It is a light and fun event. And if you are one of those new players, you are super welcome. Magic is a great game, (there is a reason that it’s stuck around for 25 years.) It does take a good mind to master, but once you get the basics, it’s all in the cards. (How to play magic) (More How to Play Magic)

(Depending on who shows up, we’ll do a mini how to play magic class at ~11)

Players who participate in any aspect of the event (bring a friend, play in the tournament, or buy one of the Intro Decks) receive a promo card, and the new players will receive a Welcome Deck. A casual League-style Standard tournament at 12 noon. Entry to that event will be $5 and everybody will win a pack, PLUS a bunch of extra promos that I’ll scatter around to reward the brave new folks and thank those experienced players based on how much they are doing to help the new players feel welcome.(Experienced/regular players…this is a chance to pay it forward, and we need ya to help make new players feel invited and welcome.)

BONUS—Get a chance to buy one of the new Core 2019 Intro decks two weeks early! Supplies are limited. And we’ll throw in an extra booster pack with any other intro or challenger deck bought that day.

Fun Changes for Saturday Two Headed Giants

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

So we are doing something cool with Two-headed Giants at D20. Two headed giants are one of our favorite Magic events because it gives people a chance to hang out together and share something they really like. It’s great for buddies, couples and Kid Parent combos. (The really cool thing is that its like tandem skydiving, as long as one player knows how to pull the cord, the other can come along for the fun, without worrying about making any mistakes…its a great way to share something with someone you care about.) THG are each Saturday starting at 4 pm (except the First Saturday which is Date Night Magic) The Changes–3 different versions of THG each month (at least) Classic, Plus, and Premium…how does that sound? Every Saturday (except the first Saturday of the month and rare special events) we do two headed Giants as a team event. The rotating different versions will be:

2nd Sat-Classic: 4 of the current block (newest packs) ($20pp-4packs each)
3rd Sat-THG Plus = Fat Pack Wars. Each team has one member reach into the mystery box and pick out a pack that matches a random Fat Pack (or Bundle) from Born of the Gods to the latest. ($25 pp-6 packs each)
4th Sat: Premium – Master’s Chaos or Mystery box Prerelease kits. Each month we will switch off between 4 pack per person Chaos (mystery sets that include one of the Masters packs) or a mystery box prerelease kits from as far back as Return to Ravnica/dragons maze-6 packs plus promo cards per person ($30 pp–4 packs with one masters pack, or 6 pack prerelease kits)
5th Saturday-Mystery Box THG—Prerelease (rerelease) kits. Random Prerelease kit per player..6 packs plus bonus promo card. ($30pp)

**I reserve to motify any of the events in the future, because, well, we came up with a cool idea and wanted to try it out. The goal is to make it fun!

Announcements

By Ben Calica / 1 Comment / Events, Magic, Pokemon, Updates

12/29/17 Biggest Sale of the year…Pop up sales event….

Pokemon
- League on… 11-1 Pokemon League
Magic–.
- Friday
  - Unsatable For FNM!!! @ 7 pm
- Saturday:
  - 4 pm..Unstable THG-$20 pp
- Sunday–
  - Open at 10 am. 1 pm Master’s Sealed- ~~$90~~ $60 (2 Iconic, 3 Modern (2015 & 2017) and 1 Eternal Masters). Requires minimum of 4 players.

Here is a sealed and draft simulator loaded with the new cards…Draftsim

Magic Commander 2016

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

Four color commanders are a’ coming! The new Commander 2016 Decks are coming out this week and they are creating a lot of excitement. The big new mechanics are Partner, where two Commanders who both have Partner can be picked as if they were one to be your Commander. Place one or two in play at a time.

Undaunted makes more the merrier, getting cheaper to cast for each other player in the group.

The decks will cost $35-40, or all 5 for $140. And they will come with a coupon for $2.50 off one of our Zombie Commander events ($5) on Sat the 12th and Sun the 13th.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/commander-2016-home

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/commander-2016-mechanics-2016-10-24

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/commander-2016

Screen Free Week-May 2-8th

By Ben Calica / 2 Comments / Events

It’s back…Screen Free week 2016!! See what happens when the tv’s, ipads, phones, and computers go into storage for a week, and what’s left. Read more about this in The Case for Being Bored and the Case for Family Game Night

The Screen Free Week Challenge:

Get your family to go the week without (non-work) screen-time
get a FREE magic or Pokemon Pack (Max 2 per family)–Have a family game night and get 2!!

The Challenge: Get your family to go one full week screen free! (no videos, video games or computers except for work/homework, or phones except for, well, phone stuff-talking with each other.

The Prize: I will give away 100 free Pokemon or Magic Packs for parent-verified kids who make it through the whole week screen free. (or $5 off any game more then $20 for people who don’t play the collectible card games.) I will give double packs to any kids of families who have a family game night on one of those nights, particularly if the family are all good sports!.

I know this is hard, super hard. With the screens and devices, we’ve all gotten great at avoiding the feeling of being bored. But bored is very important. Bored is a gift that creates an itch to find something else to do.

…

Screen Free Week-May 2-8thRead More »

About the Pokemon BreakPoint Set…

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Misc, Pokemon

The newest set of Pokemon, BreakPoint, releases in February. The second set in the Break set, it features both Mega Ex’s and the New Break cards that can be played on top of a Pokemon of the same name to add its abilities.

Release Date is Feb 3rd,
Prerelease, Jan 30th at 10am and 2 pm. $30 per player. Each player gets 6 packs, makes their best deck and plays for 3 rounds. After having a bit of fun, they turn in their borrowed energy and get two more booster packs and a special promo card. The 10am event is run by D20 so you CAN register in advance. The 1 pm event is run by the Pokemon League folks and is first come, first served and needs to be paid in cash.

More info about the set below…

http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-tcg/xy-breakpoint/explore-and-watch/

http://www.pokellector.com/sets/BPT-BREAKPoint

Oath of The Gatewatch

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

Here comes the newest set for Magic…Oath of the Gatewatch…the second set of 2 in the Battle for Zendikar block. This set features a new set of mechanics that really favor playing with buddies (two-headed giants and such) as well as the first new land type in, well, ever. (Really just turning colorless mana into it’s own thing, but cool none the less)

[from the Wizards Site]

The battle to save the plane of Zendikar rages on.

Confronted with overwhelming odds, the Planeswalkers face a dire choice: Retreat away to safety and leave the world to oblivion, or stay at great personal risk and fight for Zendikar.

Will you stay and fight?

Prerelease the weekend of 1/16-1/17–4 events (Sat 10 and 5, Sunday at 10 and 2hg at 3…$30 pp…good for all levels of players.)

Buy Tickets for the prerelease here:
What’s in the Set?
Practice Drafting and Sealed here (great way to get to know the set.)
The New Mechanics…

http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/oath-gatewatch-home

http://magic.wizards.com/articles/archive/feature/oath-gatewatch-mechanics-2015-12-28

http://mtgmirror.com/#/

Buy Advance Tickets Here:

D20 GamesMagic Countdown to 2016 Septathlon

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

To ring in the new year, we are doing a different magic event for every day starting the day after x-mas.

The events are.

Chaos Two-Headed Giant -Sat 12/26 @4-$17.50 pp
Standard -Sunday, 12/27 @ 11 am $5 pp
To the Left Drafts–Draft for another player– Monday, 12/28 @ 12 and 6 $15pp
Sealed-Mystery Box-Prerelease kits- Tuesday 12/29 @12 and 6
Zombie Commander, Weds 12/30 4 pm and 6 pm (2 hours each) $5 pp
Modern Tournament: Thursday 12/31 10-3pm $10 pp.
Super FNM Draft Friday 1/1 ….FNM with Lots of extra FNM Promos. Lottery for extra promos based on tickets earned by participating in every Septathlon event!

Bonus Raffle entry Tix for number of events you attend for the Friday FNM Goodie raffle. Raffle items will include promo cards, playmats, Modern Masters Packs, a From the Vaults and more stuff. The more people that come to events, the more we’ll stuff in the give away…

#of Events	Bonus Tix
2	1
3	4
4	8
5	15
6	25
7	40

Extra Life — 24 hour Charity Event at D20 Games

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, News

Update…the event was great. They raised over $1500 for Children’s Miracle Network. The Nerdy Knights were very, very cool guys and we were impressed both by what they were doing, and their spirit in doing it. Great job guys…you are welcome to come back next year. (Oh…and a shout out to my trivia team partner who helped prove that the combo of age and beauty turned out to be unstoppable…woo hoo!!! And good job to the second place team who ended up being a couple of our regular kid players who snuck up from behind and womped on the mostly adult crowd!)

Watch live video from RiddickulousRants on www.twitch.tv

So here’s the scoop. This group of players, who call themselves the Nerdy Knights contacted me to ask if we’d be willing to stay open for 24 hours to play games in the store. After the echos of the initial laughter faded, it turned out that they do this every year as part of a nationwide event for an organization called Extra Life, that has groups like them all across the country do these game marathons to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network to give money to a bunch of Children’s hospitals. After making sure they were legit, I dusted off my cot and gave them the thumbs up. Taking care of each other is a big part of what the store is about, and building in some taking care of others has been a goal of the

How this works. From 6 am Saturday to the same time on Sunday, the Nerdy Knights will be here, playing games, streaming on the net and gathering donations. Side by side with that we will be having tables dedicated to everything from Table-top board game Speed Dating, to Special Magic tournaments. D20 will donate the space and games for use in the events. Events with packs (ie Magic) the store do at a hugely discounted rate so any profit (and most of the $) will go to the charity.

Also, there ARE volunteer opportunities to help out. These include Speed Gaming Game Masters (people who know some of the board games well and can help people get a taste of the game super fast), Twitch Chat Moderators, Sound Mixer Tech, Set-Up and Clean-Up, Promoters to help spread the word and bring in people. If we have the people, we’d love to set up table for folks to learn or improve at Pokemon and Magic on Sat am and afternoon who would then donate to the charity. (And yes for some of kids/teens, this does count as community service for those kids who need to do that for school. –Quick note…don’t just do this to check off a school requirement…do it because it is a good thing to do, and come prepared to really work. We won’t sign off any forms for those who don’t come with their a-game attitude and do great work. )

The events (big time subject to change) Check here for the latest updates and schedule. NOTE…being here either before or during the after hours (after 9pm) is only for the volunteers or the participants in events. (Ok…you can donate a cover charge just to watch….whatever brings in more donations for the kidlets.)

Events for the public to Participate in so far: (We will add more as we get more volunteers to run them.)

On Demand…

Zombie Conspiracy: Bring any number of friends in for this two hour Magic Draft/beat on your buddies fest.
- Cost-$8 to D20 and $10-15 donation to the charity.

2:00pm- 7:00pm

d20 Games – Speed Dating with Board Games
- We’ll Set up 4 tables with some of the best new games and some of our all time favorites. Play for 1/2 hour and we will then play musical chairs (literally) to see where you end up next. $5 donation per game tix ($10 for 3, and $25 donation for 10–enough to play the whole time.) If you love a game and want to stay at the table, you can use two tix to stick around for another 1/2 hour. Have fun, meet people, and win goodies at the table, including promo’s, snacks, and discounts. (Volunteers can earn one ticket per hour they volunteer for the event.)
- Cover-1 ticket per game session. $5-1 ticket, $10-2 tickets, $25-10 tickets

7:00pm – 9:00pm

West Coast Team – Nerd Trivia.
- 5 rounds of 10 questions each. Each round will be a different category and will have prizes at the end of the round. At the end of the final round the team with the most points will go into a lightning round to win the Trivia grand prize provided by NKRN
- Categories will include Star Wars, Nintendo, Pokemon, Comic books, and others
- Teams of a max 4 people – Cover- $20/team

9:00pm- 11:30

D20 After Dark-Adult only games
- Tables set up with Games of a more adult nature (ahem…)–see above for details
- Cover Donation $15
D20 Adults only Magic Draft….Modern Masters 2015!!!
- Cover-$15 to D20 (we will subsidize the rest of the cost of the packs) plus $15 Donation to the store

Community Service Jobs

Speed Gaming -Game Masters – for the speed dating-sequel version of board games we will need one person with each board game to teach the players how to play.
Twitch Chat Moderators – people watching the twitch chat during the event to bring in the participation of the online community. Tasks will include helping running the online raffles and monitoring the online portions of live events (I.e. Trivia, Cards Against Humanity, etc)
Sound Mixer Tech – preferably someone with experience or can easily be taught how to run a small 12-channel mixer to make sure audio and music is played throughout the stream appropriately. Typically students in the drama department in schools will be ideal for this
Set-Up and Clean-Up – for the evening before and morning after we can use 2-3 extra hands for setting up and taking everything down once the event is taken care of
Promoters – Someone standing outside and encouraging community engagement by handing out the fliers and trying to draw people in

Zombie Conspiracy – A D20 Special

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Features, Game Guides, Magic

Zombie Conspiracy is A D20 homebrew special game. We took Conspiracy, Wizards special multiplayer drafting set, and blatantly messed with the rules to make a game that is perfect for 3-6 buddies who just want to spend a couple of hours cheerfully womping the heck out of each other without all the waiting between rounds and not getting to play with yer buddies of regular magic. Conspiracy was a cool idea, a draft format that not only was designed to play with 3-6 people all in one big group, but also had cards that messed around with the draft.

So here is the thing….We really liked the idea of Conspiracy…but when we played it there were a couple of things that just weren’t that much fun.

The first problem we found that was that as much fun as it was to play, if you spent all that time drafting a cool deck and got knocked out in the first ten minutes, it didn’t just make you “ah, I’ll get you back” mad, more the “don’t sleep with both eyes closed anymore, because I will kill you in your sleep” mad. Second was what we call in Commander, the Fluffy Bunny Syndrome….people tending to hang out, doing their best “Don’t mind me, I’m just a harmless little bunny” impressions, trying to be the least threatening person at the table while waiting for enough stuff to come out to do their alpha strike. Boring….

Enter Zombie Land—How our version works is that you get points for knocking out other players and if you are knocked out then, well, you rise from the dead and come back in. We’ve played it a bunch and it works great.

How it works

1 point for each other player you knock out. You get a bonus of one if you never get knocked out.
If you get knocked out, you pick 2 lands to put in play and then take 3 rebuilding (no attacking or interacting with other players) turns and come back in. (If your turn comes up before you are back to rebuild, skip it until it comes back to you so other players don’t have to wait.)
Being milled out does not count as a kill unless you directly force the player to draw that last card.
The game goes on for 1-1:30 hours, depending on players preference (and how long the store is open.) Players with the top half scores get bonus packs from a pool of 1 pack per player.

About Conspiracy.

Conspiracy Video

What are the Cards?

The Mechanics of the new set

You can’t have a good conspiracy on your own. And that is the secret sauce to the special Magic set , coming out on June 6th. This draft -centric, multi-player set is all about what we can do for, er, to each other. This is a special set, much like Modern Masters, with limited initial qualities, though they say that there will be some reprinting after (we are being wary..squirreling away our boxes to let people play with until we know the score.)

Messing with a Draft: Drafting is one of the most fun things you can do in magic. And this set takes the standard “get 3 packs, open 1, pick a card and pass to the left/right” and tosses it in the blender. One of our customers described it beautifully by saying that it “broke the 4th wall” of a draft, and I think that’s true. In this set, there are cards that start the game during the draft itself, letting people mess with each other as the draft is going on. (BTW…all Conspiracy drafts are casual format–will of WOTC.)