The 9 event Hero’s Path that Wizards started with Theros comes to its conclusion this weekend, with the chance to play against the Defeat a God, starting during the Game Day events. Players can bring a standard deck or can use one of the draft or two-headed Giant decks to play against the third (and final) of the special challenge decks. Bring in any of the hero cards that you may have acquired during the previous prereleases or special events and you can pick two that will help during with your battle with the gods themselves. We are also doing at Journey Into Nyx Two Headed Giant on the 24th, to round out the day…
Every player gets this full art promoFoil full art promo for the top 8 each day
Also, starting at 10 am on Sat the 24th and Sun the 25th are the Journey Into Nyx Game Day events. These competitive standard format tournaments will have special full art promo cards for each player, foil full art promo cards for the top 8 of each event, and el numero uno each day gets the special championship playmat.
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″ css=”.vc_custom_1398449619935{background-color: #d6dfa4 !important;}”][vc_column_text]Journey To Nyx!!! Prerelease this weekend (4/26-427)[/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”http://youtu.be/gTGm-o3OXcA”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/1″][vc_separator color=”grey”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_tabs][vc_tab title=”What’s new” tab_id=”1398447790-1-66″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]
New Friends face Old Gods
LAST WEEK to pre-order boxes and to sign up for the prerelease events…. Remember, these are great fun for beginner and advanced players alike.
Booster Boxes in advance are currently $105, They will go up to $110 next week..
We will be doing our Prereleases on the weekend of April 26th and 27th…
Here is the latest….[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_images_carousel images=”2460,2453,2455,2456,2459,2458,2454,2457″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” mode=”horizontal” speed=”2500″ slides_per_view=”1″ autoplay=”yes” title=”Cool Journey Cards” img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_tab][vc_tab title=”The New Mechanics” tab_id=”1398447790-2-7″][vc_column_text]The new mechanics for the set (Monstrosity, Heroic and Bestow are all back as well)…
Constellation fires off whenever another enchantment hits the field
Constellation —Another Enchantment effect…whenever an enchantment enters the battlefield, it makes this ability fire.
Got the mana…spread the love around.
Strive–Sort of like kicker, this lets you pay an extra amount to have the spell get extra targets. (think the old Fireball spells)
Once in a while we get to do something weird and fun, and this is one of those times. We managed to get our hands on a cool collection of old preconstructed decks from Mirage through Odyssey! So this will be a special version of our old favorite the mystery box. Each player will reach in and get a random, preconstructed deck and 2 random packs from M12, M13 or M14 to round the precon’s out. This is a great way to get a taste of old school magic, or get a flash back to when you first got started.
And Finally. we are doing our very first event for the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures games. This space dogfight game caught my eye at the last GAMA trade show I went to last year. You get to play with squads of really beautifully designed Star Wars Minis, and the mechanics are nice and straight forward. (Not the X hours, hordes of army’s and massive time and energy commitment of War-hammer, but something that was easy to grasp, but had a lot of depth to it.) I particularly love that an X-Wing can be anywhere from a rookie pilot, to Luke with R2 in tow. We’ve been looking for a chance to start regular organized play, and the Store Championships gives us a perfect opportunity.
Game Day Full Art Kioria’s FollowerFoil Full Art Pain Seer for top 8 each day
While the weekend of Feb 22nd will include the return of one of our fav’s, the Mystery Box Two-headed giant, where each payer blindly reaches into the big box of goodness and picks a random intro pack and uses the cards from it’s deck plus the two bonus packs to blend with their partners to make two killer decks to be played side by side, the weekend that follows will bring the challenges up to a whole new level. March 1st and 2nd will be Game Day for the Born of the Gods set. For those who don’t know, Game day is a standard tournament ($5) entry that is unique because it is the only day to get one of 3 special prizes. The first 30 people who enter each day will get a special full art version of Kiora’s Follower. The top 8 players for each day will get a special full art foil version of the Pain Seer, and el numero uno each day will get the special Born of the Gods Game Day Champion playmat. This does tend to be a more competitive event, so while kids can participate, they should both know how to play and to be ok with swimming with the big dogs and learning from playing against some really good decks. (There are some of the kids that not only can give the adults a run for their money, but wouldn’t surprise us in the least to see walking out with the playmat.) Oh, and one more thing, since Channel Fireball has opted to run a PTQ on that weekend, some of our best players may not be here for the event, which opens up that top slot even more. If you want to practice your standard skills, come by for our regular Sunday Tournament at 11ish and see what your deck can do. The new cards are sparking the imagination of players for a lot of interesting home brewed decks.
Born of the Gods Game Day Champion’s Playmat
In addition, for that day we will be running the Battle the Hordes Deck as the 6th of 9 challenges in the Theros Hero’s path. Bring in a standard deck to run against this swarming special deck that was built in the mode of the Face the Hydra deck. We will be giving out extra promo cards to those who beat this deck on it’s harder levels and will give extra full art cards to players on Sunday after the final registration for the second Game Day has let us know what is left over.
Cost is $15 and comes with an optional pack of $3.50 ultra pro sleeves for only $2 extra. Format is casual, playing 3 rounds, with a pack for a prize for the winner of each round. Current Drafts will be 1 Born of the Gods and 2 Theros packs.
BTW…GREAT Draft Practice sites
Wizards Site (Simple and limited, but a great place to start)
Come on in. Drafts are a great way for everybody to start out on the same footing and have an equal chance to win and an guaranteed chance to have fun. While we have some great competitive players, we take great pride in remembering that playing games is supposed to be fun and focusing on helping everybody have a great time.
Players should know how to play the game, but players who have never tried drafting, new players, and players who haven’t played for a long time will find us a warm and welcoming group, who will help them to get comfortable so we can add new people to our mix.If you want help in getting more comfortable before hand, come on in and we’ll hook you up with one of our regulars to help out. Being a comfortable and fun place to play is our specialty.
We also run kid specific drafts on the first and third Saturday of each month. These alternate between booster drafts and two-headed giant events and start and end earlier to accommodate the kids.
The second chapter in the Greek inspired Theros block is on it’s way and we’re starting to get psyched. Prerelease is signing up now (sign up soon to get the color of your choice for the prereleae pack.) Pre-order box prices are starting to go up, but we will do $105 this week, going up to $120 when the set releases, so if you want to order those, let us know. Also only the first 30 orders for boxes get the buy a box promos, and we don’t know what those are yet and that often will raise the box prices if it ends up being awesome.
The first Born of the Gods spoilers from the set, KioraThe spoilers will start for real around Jan 13, but Wizards gave us a holiday peek with the first planeswalker of the set. This will be a 165 card set, designed to be drafted with Theros. They are also continuing the Hero’s path, that gave us the Hydra deck last time around, so look for more opportunities to get the special promo hero cards to help in the next challenge.
Our Prerelease will be the first weekend of the month, with events on:
As usual, we will be doing Kids and Casual (3 round, win a round, win a pack) for all the events, side by side with competitive (4-5 rounds, win at least two round to get a pack, but much bigger numbers of packs for the top winners) for everything except the two-headed Giant (just casual for that one.)
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!!! Make sure to do some random act of kindness!! 😉 As always, thanks so much for the business, and more importantly, the intensely cool community. I can’t tell you guys how thankful I am for that.
If you aren’t on the road already, swing on by and pick up a good game for either keeping kids happy in the car or good family fun that doesn’t go beep, beep. 😉 We have a bunch of stuff we can recommend (although, the beloved Cover Your Assets is ALWAYs a great family pick….just trust us on this one.) We will be closed on Thursday because, well, we should be…we’ll be hanging and playing with our family and hope you will be as well.
We WILL be doing a Black Friday Sale (starting at 10) and Small Business Saturday Sale….very good stuff, good prizes and the return of our bonus stocking stuffer (or menorah sitter) freebies.
Sunday 10AM Start for a $10 Magic Standard with some free Star City Goodies in the mix…!
We had a second record breaking FNM in a month on Friday before last Friday…went from 42 up to 44!! It was VERY good we had the secret clubhouse next door to be able to use for more play space so we aren’t quiet so squished when we get full.
Two bits of news regarding store Friend, Peter Mohrbacher. For those of you who don’t know, Peter is one of the better Magic artists who happens to live in Alameda. He has done a ton of cool cards, including Erebos, God of the Dead, the much maligned (only for abilities, not for lack of great art) and the ever amusing Grimgrin. Some folks have been lucky enough to get one of the custom matts that he has done and brought by the store, and he is always happy to chat and sign cards whenever he comes in. He moved into Alameda a couple of years ago, with a brand new baby in tow, and to no one’s surprise, only popped in a few times for the next number of months. But since then he’s come in a bunch of times, sometimes bringing his increasingly beautiful daughter in tow.
The sad news is that he is leaving town in the beginning of Dec. to move back to his home town of Chicago to bring his daughter to be near her grandparents. Partially this is enabled by the fact that he has left his current full time (non-magic) gig to pursue projects based on his art full time. As sad as we are to see him go, we love his work (and like him) so we’re very excited for him. As part of that, he has started a Kickstarter project for a special collection of his work, both playmats and full art prints, including some amazing canvas style limited framed pieces. In two days he’s at about 40% of what he is looking for, so this is very very cool. He will also leave us with a small gallery worth of stuff for us to sell in the store.
Recommendations for Thanksgiving family games coming
Black Friday sale, starting at 10
Two-Headed Giants now EVERY Sat. (except the first of the month–date night)
New Pokemon–Legendary Treasures, out on Friday…
How to Play Magic at the Lib. on Monday the 25th @ 1 pm
Recommendations for Thanksgiving Family Games…So as Thanksgiving approaches, we’ve started laying in our recommendations for great family games that work for different groups. We will be putting it up shortly, but no question that Cover Your Assets is at the top of that list. We will also put out a collection of Pre-owned games that we have been building up for just such a purpose.
Black Friday Sale starting at 10am...We will also be doing a serious Black Friday Sale, so come and support your friendly neighborhood businesses, and we’ll try and blend some great sales with love and care and see if we can’t help people feel good about shopping local. 😉
Two-Headed Giants Now every Saturday (except the first): Bowing to popular demand we are going to be doing the exceedingly popular Two-headed Giants every week, instead of a couple of times a month. The only exception will be the first Saturday of the month that is dedicated to Date Night Magic (plus other special events when we can). $17.50 pp (4 packs) unless it is a special event with older, more valuable sets. We will be bringing back the mystery box for the two headed Giant on the weekend of Thanksgiving…each player reaches into the box for a surprise intro pack (intro deck plus two packs from that set). The two players blend the two intros together to make their decks…last time we did this it was a TON of fun.
New Pokemon set, Legendary Treasures comes out on Friday. This set has a ton of great cards in it and people were really loving it. Packs are $4 each (buy 6 get one free) or $119 for a box of 36 (a $25 savings).
How to Play Magic Class at the Lib. On Mon. the 25th (first day of Thanksgiving Vacation for most kids) the Main Lib. is hosting a How to Play Magic that is being run by yours truly. We will provide the decks to use, and this is a great way to get to figure things out without any pressure. The ages for this are ~10-14, though parents who want to come along are welcome to join in.
Ok, ok,,,I give…We’ve bowed to popular demand and decided to start doing Two-headed Giants every Saturday night except the first of the month (which is for Date Night Magic.) For those who don’t know, Two-headed giants are team magic games, where two people build their decks together, and play as a team. We get a bunch of buddies playing, as well as couples and parent/kid teams. Because you get to show each other your cards and decide what to do together, it is a great way for new players to have a great time without feeling any pressure to need to know what they are doing yet. (Since you talk about each thing you do, you don’t have to worry about “doing it wrong”). For an experienced player, it’s a great way to share what they love doing with someone they care about, and for those others, it is a really fun way to see what is going on, without feeling any pressure. These events are very casual and light hearted, so it makes for a really great night.
Events are $17.50 per person (4 packs for each) unless we do a special/older set that is more expensive. Side note to parents: Ok…from one parent to another (INCLUDING THE MOMS), this is really wonderful thing to do with your kids. They love it because they get to be the smart one for once and they get you to share something with them that they love. You get to see what it is all about, and because you are on the same team and get to talk about everything you do, you don’t have to struggle with either competing with your kid, or having them go so fast that you can’t follow, or get into the standard parent/kid arguments about what you should have done. 😉 More importantly (and again, I have 12 year old and 9 year old kids too), we are hitting the time when the kids are pulling away, embarrassed to be hugged and just turning into those ‘wah,wah, wah” adults from the old peanuts cartoons. We’ve had a lot of parents that have found this little oasis of maintained connection as they do this with their kids. Having a “date” with them like this is pretty cool, and feels good for both of you.
The 9 event Hero’s Path that Wizards started with Theros comes to its conclusion this weekend, with the chance to play against the Defeat a God, starting during the Game Day events. Players can bring a standard deck or can use one of the draft or two-headed Giant decks to play against the third (and final) of the special challenge decks. Bring in any of the hero cards that you may have acquired during the previous prereleases or special events and you can pick two that will help during with your battle with the gods themselves. We are also doing at Journey Into Nyx Two Headed Giant on the 24th, to round out the day…
Constellation 
