If you were looking for an epically fun set to come and play magic with…this is the one. Rabbits, mice, bats, rats, weasels, and of course (and yay!) Squirrels.
Prereleases weekend of July 27 and release events the weekend of Aug 3rd. (Sign up for events here.) Events at D20 Games are friendly and welcoming for new and experienced players alike. Get prerelease kits with 6 packs and make your best decks and have fun playing. We do win a round, win a pack to keep things interesting, but also to have people there for the fun of the game. Events are $35 in advance and $40 the day of the event. (The new packs are the play boosters, which are a blend of the old draft and set boosters…basically a draft booster with a much higher chance of getting more than one goodie. In Bloomburrow, the Valley is threatened by elemental forces raging out of control, and salvation falls on the shoulders of its smallest protectors. Players will put their best paws forward, fighting alongside mice, frogs, bats, birds, and myriad other critters to restore the balance of peace—and prove bravery comes in all sizes.
We’ve moved down the street (1502 Park St, in Alameda) to a location that is 3 times the size, mostly to allow us to become an event/rpg heaven.We are open while we build out, but already have two of what will likely end up as 4 dedicated RPG rooms.We are going to expand our existing afterschool and adult programs to include holiday and full summer programs.
Our core reason for being is to provide a safe place for people to get to connect and thrive face to face with each other.This philosophy is core to the kind of games we run and the paths we make for our players.We are looking for people who come naturally to that.
We are already doing kid, grown-up, and what is becoming one of the favorite, parent/kid D&D.Our future is going to depend on us having wonderful RPG experiencesand we know where that starts. So we are starting to hold auditions to add to our collection of truly great DM’s.We are particularly on the lookout for those with strong affinity/experience working with both kids and/or neruo-spicy folks.
Provide 3 references from people that you have DM’d for
Provide proof of LiveScan
Be ready to run a one shot for our evaluation players.
We are looking for two types of DM’s.People who are doing it as a beloved advocation, and would love collecting a mass of store credit to be able to get all the D&D goodies they want without having to justify spending the $$, and actors, teachers, etc who have a great skill that they would like to turn into additional income.
We want people who are going to be around for a while because they love doing this.From a compensation point of view, we do store credit based on the number of players for those who want to do it that way, andwill be looking to add employees, or do contracting gigs for the others.If you can help us make $$ to keep the store thriving and do good for the players, we want to make it so everyone does well.
D&D will be in the D&D rooms at the new store on both Sat and Sunday.
For those who don’t know yet…we are in the middle of a big (really, really) big move down the street to 1502 Park Street. (Check out D20gamesalameda on instagram for updates to the work as I look up enough to realize I should be taking pics. )
We keep threatening to get the next events at the new store, even under construction, but so far that has been limited to the D&D rooms. The rest have been at the existing store (though it is getting more and more spacious as things get moved out. To give us a chance to do the build and move thing…we will have Release events for the new Magic set at the old store on Friday and Sat, and in the new store on Sunday. We may press people into service for final moves, etc. (We will have one of the Magic events for the weekend be the ones to help bring over the tables and chairs. Many hands make light work and all.)
We will be open during construction and still will be doing a kick starter for tricking out the place in the next phase. (These will include first dibs on a lot of special events like afterschool and summer programs as well as one of a kind drafts and access to some truly rare pokemon items.)
Things we can really use help on.
People with good screw removal and patching skills on Sunday to help take down the gridwall in the old store.
Help on end of sat to move tables over to new palace after 7pm
Anyone with skills for finding/installing heat pump
Big Big one…anyone with big old truck/van who is willing to take a drive this weekend up just past sacramento to pick up a big batch of bamboo flooring we got a deal on from someone’s house. (this one comes with a major thank you prize, either Magic, Pokemon or D&D.
Anyone with great web skills who can help us set up D20Gamestore.com as a full (email) entity so we can send emails out without accidently getting on a black list this time around. (I made some boo boos in sending out our emails over the years and apparently we’ve been put on Santa emails nasty list for the d20alameda.com site. I really need an ace to help with this.
The Mom Couch needs a new home! (This beloved and extremely comfy couch should go to a good home. ) It has extremely high. (ok..I have no illusion that this couch belongs anywhere but a rec room, but I’d rather see it go to a good cause if possible. If not, need help getting it hauled out of here on Sunday or monday.)
The beloved Mom’s couch in action…
We will also have grindwall that will need a new home, but that is very good stuff and should get sold off. We will also have several shelving units to find new homes.
If any of these things sound like things you would like/are able to help with. Let us know. [email protected] or call when we’re open.
Enough…Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping….
We are doing sales for the whole week through Dec 1st, so take your time.. Come in for Small Business Saturday, or another day this week. We are having extra hours this week and next, open at 10 am every weekday through the 1st. (Except Thanksgiving …closed for that cause I gotta make my Peking duck turkey, people).
We are Closed for Thanksgiving…Open at 10am Friday the 24th. Next week we will be open extra hours, Monday-Friday at 10am.
Black Friday =Family Friday—if you wanna come into pick something up and go home and play, great. But don’t stress about it.
Go play!!! Sure, I’m the board game guy, so that’s my auto suggestion, but go for a walk, hike, de-dust the football (and stretch first..those of us who’s memories of being 12 are a few times older then being 12.) But go goof with each other, and have some (gasp) fun! Relax, go back to the leftovers a bunch of times when no one is looking. Or just chill out.
I’m not saying we don’t want and need yer business. We absolutely do. Competing with the near cost prices of Amazon means that every sale from customers who appreciate that we are creating a home for community more then anything else is absolutely key for us. (So save some of your gift money to spend with us). But it does mean that I’m not going to make my sales last 45 minutes so you have no choice but to leave the house in order to get them. We’ll be doing sales all week , but we’ll base them on how many we need to sell at that price so, you can come in this weekend, or next week, etc.
Our big thing is to make sure that we listen and can point you to things that will actually be fun to play and make people happy. (And no fake reviews either. Ok…that was a little shot at Amazon…couldn’t help myself.)
Coming…list to a page of our recommended gifts for this year, as well as any other special stuff. But for right now, just think about special stuffing. (Ok…if you come into the store today, you can get some great games to play over the holiday.)
Embark on an Uncharted Quest with “The Lost Caverns of Ixalan” at D20 Games!
Prepare to chart a course into the unknown with Magic: The Gathering’s latest set, “The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.” This set beckons players to uncover the secrets of a land where the ancient and the arcane intertwine. With new mechanics like Craft, Descend, and Discover, your journey through the untamed wilds of Ixalan will be fraught with peril and promise.
Prerelease and Release Events at D20 Games in Alameda!
Join the adventure a week early with our Prerelease Events, and continue the excitement with our Release Events:
Cost for each event is $30 in advance and $35 on the day of the event. Secure your spot early and save!
New Game Mechanics to Master:
Craft: Forge your path to power by crafting artifacts of immense strength. As you play, you’ll gather components that can be assembled into tools of victory, giving you an edge in the heat of battle.
Descend: Venture deeper into the game with Descend, where meeting certain conditions unleashes abilities of mythic proportions. With DESCEND 4 and DESCEND 8, your creatures will gain new abilities as you reach these thresholds, offering a strategic advantage that grows with your gameplay.
Fathomless Descent: A mechanic that rewards the bold, Fathomless Descent takes you to new strategic depths, offering rewards that grow with the risks you take. This mechanic encourages daring plays that, if successful, can lead to a cascade of powerful effects.
Discover: Continue the legacy of exploration with Discover, a fresh take on the Explore mechanic, leading you to unearth new strategies and hidden strengths. This ability allows you to reveal the top card of your library and make crucial decisions that could alter the course of the game.
Map Tokens: Navigate your way to triumph with Map Tokens, which build upon the Discover mechanic, marking your progress as you journey through the game. These tokens serve as milestones, unlocking potential as your exploration advances.
Finality Counters: Mark the pivotal moments of your conquest with Finality Counters, a new way to signify the turning points that can lead to ultimate victory. These counters accumulate on certain cards, leading to powerful effects that can end the game in your favor.
Are you ready to forge your destiny with the craft of your hands, descend into the depths of strategy, and discover the untold power within the caverns? Join us at D20 Games and find out!
D20 Games
1530 Park Street,
Alameda, CA 94501 [email protected]
Phone: 510-522-2109
Discover the secrets of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan at D20 Games!
Welcome back to Eldraine, the land of storybooks come to life. When we last left our story, (in Throne of Eldraine),the twins Rowan and Will Kenrith, (the children of High King Algenus Kenrith,)set out on a quest to save their father from the planeswalker Oko.. Along the way, they meet a variety of characters, including knights, wizards, and other classic fantasy creatures. They also learn about the different courtly factions of Eldraine, and the conflict between the knights and the magical creatures of the Wilds.
In Wilds of Eldraine, the twins continue their quest to save their father. They travel to the Wilds, where they face off against Oko and his forces. They also encounter a variety of new creatures and characters, including the witch Eriette, her sisters, and Talion. In the end, the twins are able to defeat Oko and save their father. They also learn that the witch Eriette was responsible for the curse that was plaguing Eldraine. With the curse lifted, peace is restored to the land.
Players attach these aura tokens to their creatures to give them a specific benefit. Players can generate these tokens through spells and abilities.
Cursed — Enchanted creature has base power and toughness 1/1.
Monster — Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has trample.
Royal — Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has ward {1}.
Sorcerer — Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has “Whenever this creature attacks, scry 1.”
Wicked — Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and “When this Aura is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life.”
Young Hero — Enchanted creature has “Whenever this creature attacks, if its toughness is 3 or less, put a +1/+1 counter on it.”
(Commander) Virtuous — Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control.
Celebrations
Players receive a bonus if two or more nonland permanents enter the battlefield under their control this turn. These bonuses include +1+1 counters and other bonuses.
Bargain
Sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token, and get an extra effect when the card comes into play.
Adventure permanents
Some of these permanents have off-color spells. For example, the Sorcery portion of the Adventure has a Blue casting cost, while the creature nightmare has a Black casting cost.
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is a new expansion set for Magic: The Gathering it brings the iconic world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth to life, letting you follow the paths of favorite (or favorite villainous) characters from the Third Age. Whether you choose to reenact your favorite moments from the series or turn the tales of Middle-earth on their head is entirely up to you2.
For the Love of Hobbits and Rings:
The set was clearly designed by people who knew and loved Tolkien’s world. The flavor and mechanics of the cards are joyfully amazing. For example, more often then not, hobbits in the set create food tokens (yes, there is a Second Breakfast card), and there is a saga that not only creates Smaug as a 6/6 flying dragon token, but when it dies, it creates 12 treasure tokens! There are various versions of main characters that match their different transformations in the journey, such as 4 versions of Frodo, from peaceful hobbit to Sauron’s Bane, or Gandalf as the fireworks laden Friend of the Shire, to the White Rider, swooping down in the light of the dawn sun, with the riders of Rohan at his back. I’ve been playing the Draftsim practice drafts/sealed simulators just to get a chance to get familiar with the cards, and the kid who fell in love with LOTR is beyond excited to get a chance to play.
Masters Set that you don’t need to be a Master to enjoy This is supposed to be a Universes Away/Masters set, but it feels much more like coming home than going into a new world. Kind of makes sense since MTG was inspired by D&D, which came from (drumroll….) Tolkien. (if you don’t believe me…check out the early changes to D&D based on hobbit lawyers.) Even though the set is in the higher cost Masters slot ($50/55 instead of $30/35 for sealed), don’t take that to mean that the set isn’t friendly for all levels of players. In fact, the thing that will make the set most fun is how much you like Lord of the Rings.
This set is shaping up to be a fantastic journey through the realms of Middle-earth, filled with nostalgia, surprises, and a sprinkle of that unique MTG magic. Whether you’re a fan of the fantasy epic, a dedicated MTG player, or both, this set promises to offer a thrilling new way to experience Tolkien’s world. Can’t wait for the set’s release? Neither can we!
Alternate Art Fun…
There are some amazing alternate versions of the cards, including some that piece together to create full scenes on their own. There are a bunch of cool art treatments to collect. More info here.
New Mechanics
The Ring
The biggest new mechanic has to do with The Ring, and what happens when it tempts you. I know that tempt sounds like a bad thing, but in this case it is some of the very good stuff. When the ring tempts you, you attach the ring card to one (and only one at a time) of your creatures. Every time the ring tempts again it adds another ability to that card. If your ring bearer dies, the ring falls off and you start from the beginning.
Amass Orcs
We’ve seen this mechanic before in building up hordes of zombies. Basically, you create an “army” that is a token with whatever number of counters that the Amass tells you to add. Every subsequent Amass just makes the one army token bigger. (It doesn’t create lots of them.)
Every year I intend to reach out and ask people to nominate us for Best of Alameda, and every year I forget to do it till its too late. Did the same thing this year, but it turns out that we got nominated and into the final round without my asking.
We’re up against Toy Safari, who I love, and who absolutely wins in the toy store side of things. But in terms of games, I feel comfortable in putting our hat in the ring. Not only because we work hard to hand pick games and figure out what people need, but because we are a place where people can actually play face to face with each other.
If you feel so inclined, we’d love the vote of confidence. I know that kind of thing isn’t really important, but it does feel good to be appreciated through all this. 😉
We are starting Parent/Kid D&D at D20 Games. Starting Thursdays at 5-7 (come in starting 4 for extra help with characters/questions), the idea is for up to 4 parent & kid combos to get a chance to play D&D together. This can be an old-school player sharing their misspent youth with their kids, or kids getting to share something that they love with their kids. (We are also looking to do a weekend table.)
What: D&D ongoing adventure (6 weeks)
When: Thursdays at 5-7 (Time will actually be 4-7, but first hour is for help with characters and other questions) Or Sunday 3-5 (we will be there from 2pm on to help with questions and game help.) The first session will be mostly about getting your characters in good shape and answering questions to make it much more fun/easier to play. (For those who pay for the whole 6 weeks, this will get added in as an extra bonus week for a total of 7 weeks of D&D)
Cost: $40 per pair/ session ($220 for all 6 weeks). Limited to 5 teams per table. If we get more than 5, we will start a list for a second table which will start when we have at least 3 extra pairs and a .)
Requirements: At least one of the two players should be familiar enough with D&D to play. More mature of pair is responsible for ensuring that players are not being disruptive enough to ruin game play for everyone. (Tools we have to help with that include the fact that any ‘loud” talk at the table has a good chance of being heard by wandering monsters.) We strongly suggest that each combo have their own copy of the Players Handbook. (And be very liberal with the post-it notes/paper clips to get easy access to the things about your character that you need to get to during play. (spells, special abilities, etc.)
Players will start with a 3rd level character generated using either Standard Array or Point buy for the stats, and classes/races from any of the official D&D 5e printed content (excluding Critical Role). (If you want to do Point Buy, here is a good tool to help.)Players should bring an extra character sheet to give the DM, and should have reference cards for their most commonly used spells and abilities. (We want to minimize people frantically flipping through books when it is their turn to act so we can spend more time playing.)
Here are some useful resources to help get you started.
My personal recommendation is to figure out what class you would like to play, and then pick the race that has ability bonuses that help with that class and then set up your stats to help. One thing to remember that the bonuses you get from the basic ability scores only make a difference on the even, not the odd numbers. So, for example, a strength score of 14 and 15 would be +2, and 16 or 17 would get you +3. You wanna work to get as many of your ability scores into even numbers. (Don’t worry about not getting it perfect. For the first couple of sessions, we will let people go back and fix things if they realize they had a different option that works better for them. )
This weekend we will have part two of the prerelease/release for March of the machines, and I can report that the set is hella fun! (We actually had a near full house on last Friday).
Plus I’m gonna do something on Saturday at 2ish that is spectacularly stupid.*
Aside from pretty epic story-telling, the last couple of Magic sets see to be getting more and more fun to play, and March of the Machines looks to keep that trend going . (If you wanna check out the set in a fun way, do some practices drafts/sealed using Draftsim.) Remember to get tix in advance to save the extra $5…$35 day of event, $30 in advance, so get tix at store or online early)
About 4 months ago, Wizards did an epically stupid thing in creating the $1000 30th Anniversary Edition with “reprints” of most of the important cards they promised they would never reprint. About a month ago they sent us the copy they promised each of the local game stores.
What: On Saturday I’m gonna take them and do something on camera that I’ve banned from the store. We’re gonna play Rip it or Flip it.
Why!!!: I’m not actually being that “flip” about this. With each pack we rip, I’m going to publicly call out Wizards for some things they are doing that are as bad to LGS’s as the Open License debacle was for D&D developers. I’m hoping if this gets enough attention, it might spark some changes here as well.
If you were looking for an epically fun set to come and play magic with…this is the one. Rabbits, mice, bats, rats, weasels, and of course (and yay!) Squirrels.
Masters Set that you don’t need to be a Master to enjoy
Update…now starting on June 29th!