Hour of Devastation Two-Headed Giant

Hour of Devastation Two-Headed Giant – Each player gets 3 Hours of Devastation packs and one Amonkhet booster pack to share in building their two decks.

Ton of fun and best way EVER for bringing in people who haven’t felt comfortable playing before. It works great for significant others, buddies who want to check it out, or just friends who want to play.

$17.50 each player, get (4) packs for each player starting at 4 pm- build decks until play begins at 5:30

Who’s it good for:

Buddies
Sweeties (couples…either where both play, or the significant other is looking for a nice, no-pressure way to share something the other person really likes)
Parent/Kid combos (or big sibling, etc) Kids get to be the smart ones for once, and the parents get to see what this is about (and get a great date with their kid)

About Two Headed Giants

Two-headed giants are a team Magic the Gathering event. Teams usually comprise of buddies, parent/kid combos, and a lot of couples. Both players play together, sharing a life total, showing each other their cards, consulting with each other and playing at the same times. Because of that it is both great social fun, and probably the best way for a new player, or someone who is just curious what their buddy/kid/or SO likes so much about the game to get a chance to try without feeling any pressure to know all (or any) of the rules. Think of it like tandem skydiving…you get all the fun, without having to worry about when to pull the rip-cord.(It is particularly great for Moms or Dads who want to have a really cool date night with their kids. This event is a GREAT way for parents to figure out what this thing the kids are doing is anyway, and for the kids to get a chance to be the ones who know what is going on for a change. ;-)Because you play as a team and can help each other out, the kid gets to be the smart one for a change, and the parent gets to play without needing to worry about “doing it wrong”. Also…kids love having their mom or dad help them try and beat another team.)

Each player (head) gets 4 packs and shares them with their partner to make two 40 card decks, one for each player . You’ll have plenty of cards to use to make interesting decks with that number of packs, and the cards you open are yours to keep. Teams play 3 matches against other teams (since the team starts with 30 life instead of twenty, it is a single game…they usually last anywhere from 25-50 minutes.) If you win a round, each team gets two prize packs. If you lost, you will most likely be paired up with someone else who had the same type of night, so it tends to balance itself out.

D20 tends to be a friendly place to play, and the Two-headed Giants are particularly so. We have great players who take pride in making other players feel welcome and remembering that it’s a game, its played for fun. 😉

Frequently asked Questions

What is it?: Two-Headed Giant Magic Tournament. (Two players on the same team, sharing life and playing in parallel against other teams of players)

Do I need to know what I’m doing?: Since both players play at the same time and can show each other their cards, as long as one of the two players knows what they are doing, nothing is required of the other player. It is the best, most fun way to learn the game.

Do we need to make and bring our own decks? Nope. This is what is called a sealed deck tournament, which basically means that each team gets a fixed number of packs (8) of Magic cards to build the two decks used to play in the tournament.

How much does it cost? $17.50 per person which includes 4 packs ($19.50 including sleeves) (Special sets may cost more)

When is is and how long does it go? Get packs as early as 4 pm, starts at 5:30 and the last match usually ends by 8:30 (if not earlier).

We also run kid friendly drafts for 9-14 year-olds the first Saturday of each month at 5:30m and adult FNM at 6:45 on Fridays.

www.alameda.com 510-522-2109.

MTG, Magic the Gathering, Friday Night Magic, FNM

Father’s Day Mystery Box-Fat Pack WarsTwo-Headed Giant

Special Father’s Day version….Any team that includes a Father/kid(or adult kid) combo gets an extra bonus pack each at the end of the event…Special pre-grand opening price of 19.50–includes 5 packs!!!

It’s Back!! One of our all time Fav Two-headed Giant formats…the Mystery Box. In this version, one team member reaches into the mystery box and pulls out a pack that matches with a Fat pack for the team. This means that each team member gets 5! not 4 packs and the two decks for the team are built with those 10 packs. It’s a great way to get a chance to play, either with an old favorite, or a set you may never have gotten a chance to play with before. (And for those who groaned about getting BOG, the last time, the two best sets of decks in the event came from that underestimated set that really brought the goods.)

Two-headed giants are the best way EVER for bringing in people who haven’t felt comfortable playing before. It works great for significant others, buddies who want to check it out, or just friends who want to play.

$19.50 each player, get (5) packs for each player starting at 4 pm- build decks until play begins at 5:30

Who’s it good for:

Buddies
Sweeties (couples…either where both play, or the significant other is looking for a nice, no-pressure way to share something the other person really likes)
Parent/Kid combos (or big sibling, etc) Kids get to be the smart ones for once, and the parents get to see what this is about (and get a great date with their kid)

About Two Headed Giant

Two-headed giant is a team Magic the Gathering event. Teams usually comprise of buddies, parent/kid combos, and a lot of couples. Both players play together, sharing a life total, showing each other their cards, consulting with each other and playing at the same times. Because of that it is both great social fun, and probably the best way for a new player, or someone who is just curious what their buddy/kid/or SO likes so much about the game to get a chance to try without feeling any pressure to know all (or any) of the rules. Think of it like tandem skydiving…you get all the fun, without having to worry about when to pull the rip-cord.(It is particularly great for Moms or Dads who want to have a really cool date night with their kids. This event is a GREAT way for parents to figure out what this thing the kids are doing is anyway, and for the kids to get a chance to be the ones who know what is going on for a change. ;-)Because you play as a team and can help each other out, the kid gets to be the smart one for a change, and the parent gets to play without needing to worry about “doing it wrong”. Also…kids love having their mom or dad help them try and beat another team.)

D20 tends to be a friendly place to play, and the Two-headed Giant is particularly so. We have great players who take pride in making other players feel welcome and remembering that it’s a game, its played for fun. 😉

Frequently asked Questions

What is it?: Two-Headed Giant Magic Tournament. (Two players on the same team, sharing life and playing in parallel against other teams of players)

When is is and how long does it go? Get packs as early as 4 pm to start building decks, matches start at 5:30 and the last match usually ends by 8:30 (if not earlier).

We also run kid friendly drafts for 9-14 year-olds the first Saturday of each month at 5:30m and adult FNM at 6:45 on Fridays.

www.alameda.com 510-522-2109.

MTG, Magic the Gathering, Friday Night Magic, FNM

Eternal Masters–Sooo Much good stuff

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic

“Really, they reprinted that!!” Eternal Masters (releasing 6/10/16) is the third set in the limited print run Masters series, this time bringing back some of the best cards from the eternal formats (cards from before 8th edition, special editions, and those that got banned because they were just too good.) Like there predecessors, these packs won’t come cheap, and will almost definitely go up and up in price over the next year, but we will do our best to allocate them for playing over just buying boxes.

Before you ask, no there are not duel lands or power nine in this set. Wizards has been good to their promise never to reprint those items on the so called Reserve list, but short of that, this set looks beyond amazing, with a shocking number of some of the best cards in all of Magic, from arguably the king of Planeswalkers, Jace the Mindsculpter, to Mana Vault, Sensei’s Divining Top, and even Force of Will, these packs are just, well, packed with goodness.

Boxes will pre-sell in VERY limited quantities for $349.99 ($339.99 for regulars). And we will do a number of special events. For the limited events, to make the more affordable, we will offer player the option of taking $10 off the event price if the opt to take any prize packs they win in regular packs rather then Eternal Masters packs. (Obviously, BEFORE they look at their deck pools). Events will include:

6/11 FNM-Drafts @ $40($50 with Eternal Masters Prize Packs)
6/12 Two Headed Giant at $50/60 per player
6/13 Sealed Tournament $70/80
Plus we will be doing a Tuesday Night League. $75 to Start, and $11 a week for a new pack (four weeks) or $110 for the whole event. Players report the weeks match results by the end of each Tuesday and get their new packs when they come in on or before Tuesdays.

Shadows over Innistrad

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic, Misc

Everything old is, well nice and creepy again.;-) In Shadows Over Innistrad, we return to the glorious classic horror of Innistrad, a land where Vampires, Zombies and Horrors, try and hunt down humans, who grab their pitchforks and stand side by side with the Hero’s Spirits and Angels who fight on their side.

Spoilers Here...Wizards starts leaking cards about 4 weeks before the set comes out…it’s fun to get a sneak peek…

The first Innistrad, ironically enough, was also the first set that came out when I took over the store, so the attachment is beyond how great the set was. (And it was great…Innistrad was the first set in a long time that Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic, was brought back to have a hand in, and it shows. Beyond the utter commitment to the storyline-i.e. no elves popping up in Bella Lugosi land, the mechanics of the set had a fun and directness to them that carried over to many of the sets that followed.) So stop smiling…this is supposed to be horrible (or Horror-ible). Hey…the puns are in the right Spirit!…Oh, stop barking at me, I know my jokes suck. (Yeah…I have teenagers…I can pull out bad Dad-puns all day long. Bring your groans…they are the music of the children of the night to me….)

Each new set introduces a small number of new abilities and brinks back a few oldies. Here is a rundown on these new (and some old) mechanics pulled from the wizards of the coast website.

DOUBLE-FACED CARDS

It wouldn’t be Innistrad if horrible things weren’t transforming into other horrible things, so double-faced cards make their return. Each double-faced card has two card faces and no back. Whoa! For the most part, they haven’t changed, although we have made a few rules tweaks that may pop up. If you’re comfortable with double-faced cards, feel go to the Double-Faced Cards Rules Changes section.

DELIRIUM

As advertised, Innistrad is a bleak world of horror and death, so a focus on the graveyard is to be expected. Delirium is a new ability word that highlights cards that get better if you have four or more card types represented in your graveyard. There are many different kinds of delirium abilities, including activated abilities such as the one found on Reaper of Flight Moonsilver.

The card types that could show up in your graveyard are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal (a card type found on older cards). Don’t count supertypes like basic or legendary, and don’t count subtypes like Vampire or Equipment. The number of cards doesn’t matter, as long as you get four or more card types. An artifact creature, an instant, and a planeswalker will do the trick.

INVESTIGATE AND CLUES

Mysteries permeate Innistrad like strange references permeate my writing. Zoinks! To solve these mysteries, you’ll need to investigate and follow the Clues.

She looks friendly enough. I’m sure she’ll help! Investigate is a new keyword action found in Shadows over Innistrad. It’s pretty straightforward. To investigate, you put a Clue token onto the battlefield. A Clue is a new artifact type. Clues are colorless artifacts (what, you though they’d be blue?), and they each have the ability “{2}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”

MADNESS (A returning mechanic)

The next stop on our tour of brand new, never-before-seen Shadows over Innistrad abilities is madness, a returning ability you may have seen before. If you discard a card with madness, you exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard. This causes an ability to trigger. When that ability resolves, you can cast the spell for its madness cost. If you don’t cast the spell this way, it’s put into your graveyard. Well, all of that just sounds insane.

Note that the mandatory discard into exile is a small change from previous rules. Before, you could discard a card w
ith madness into your graveyard and skip the whole madness thing. This may be relevant with cards like Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. That dude shows up a lot in this article for a card not in this set.

One cool thing about casting a spell using the madness ability is it doesn’t matter what its card types are. So if you manage to discard a creature card with madness during an opponent’s turn, you can cast that spell and maybe create a surprise blocker. The spell’s mana cost and converted mana cost don’t change. You’re just paying the madness cost instead.

SKULK

By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Innistrad is a bleak world of…Right, we’ve been over this. For some creatures, being all conspicuous isn’t the best plan. For those creatures, we present a new keyword: skulk. A creature with skulk can’t be blocked by any creature with greater power. Introducing Farbog Revenant.

Aww…it’s totes adorbs, in an inky kind of way. With skulk, you consider the power of potential blockers only as blocks are being declared. If Farbog Revenant gets legally blocked by a 1-power creature, raising the power of the blocker won’t undo the block. But if your opponent has amassed beefy defenses, skulk can be an effective way to sneak damage in.

Order Tickets Here….

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Magic Origins @ D20 Games

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic

Hey folks….some frustration evil is afoot with my Eventbrite software, so the ability to sign up online is, well, offline. We ARE having THG on Sat night, just come on by. Limited to the first 20 teams, but it is unusual for us to completely sell these out so just make sure to be here by 4 pm if you want to make sure you have a slot.

This set is in the slot normally taken by the yearly core sets and goes back to the origins of some of the original planeswalkers.

This weekend’s release events include:

Friday Night Magic @ 7
Two Headed Giant (using the prerelease Packs!) $17.50pp
Sunday 11am Standard

Click here for the full spoiled list of cards…

For a great Sealed or Draft simulator to get familiar with the cards, click here

Spell Mastery example — Mastering spell Mastery

New abilities in the set (and those who make a return):

Renown (new)

Example of card with Renown — Get some Renown

Renown triggers the first time a creature with renown deals combat damage to player. The ability puts some number of +1/+1 counters on that creature (the number after the renown keyword). Also, it causes the creature to become renowned.

Renown won’t trigger if the creature deals combat damage to a Planeswalker. In the unlikely event that the creature deals combat damage to its controller (through a damage redirection effect), renown will trigger. A creature that’s renowned stays renowned until it leaves the battlefield, even if it somehow loses all its +1/+1 counters.

Spell Mastery (new)

You count the number of instant and/or sorcery cards in your graveyard as a spell is resolving to determine if the spell mastery ability applies. Don’t count the resolving spell itself. It’s still on the stack at that point, not in your graveyard.

Menace example — Sometimes Menace is a good thing

Menace (new)

A creature with menace can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures. Once a creature with menace is legally blocked by two or more creatures, removing those blockers from combat won’t change or undo the block.

Prowess

Prowess is a triggered ability that gives a creature +1/+1 until end of turn whenever you cast a noncreature spell. Creature spells won’t cause prowess to trigger, even if those spells have other card types, such as an artifact creature spell.

Scry

To scry N (where N is a number), look at that many cards from the top of your library. Then, put any number of them on the bottom of your library in any order and the rest on top of your library in any order.

We will be having prereleases the weekend of July 11th and 12th, and release events the following weekend. (Color choice is first come first served, and will be random at the event, so sign up a head of time. Online registration stops a couple of hours before each event so if you can’t sign up at that time, we may not be sold out in the store. Check website and we will post when we sell out.)

“That’s Just Broken” Fate Reforged Set info…

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic

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Shamanic Revelation - Buy a box promo for Fate Reforged — Special limited alt. art buy a box promo for Fate Reforged

The second set in the Khans of Tarkir Block, Fate

Reforged, is on it’s daily reveal of new spoilers leading up to the Jan 17th and 18th prerelease and Jan 23rd release, and it has us muttering the phrase, “Well that’s just broken” over and over again with a concentration of some of the best cards we’ve seen in a magic set in years.

Boxes are available for preorder now at $99.99 this week, $105.99 after 1/13, 110.99 after 1/20, and $119.99 after release. The Buy a Box promo for the first 30 boxes sold will be Shamanic Revelation.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1420485814176{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}”][vc_column_text]

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Register for Prerelease.

Sat events usually sell out, and early registrants will get to pick which of the special clan packs they would like. As usual, we will be doing casual (3 rounds, win a round win a pack) and competitive (4+ rounds with two rounds winning needed for a single pack, but 12 or more packs for the top winners, depending on the number of players. Sun. at 3 will be a two headed giant team event. All of the events will be sealed (build the best you can from 6 packs provided in the prerelease kits) and also as usual, fun is the main goal of the days. 😉

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Kahns Release Weekend Events

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic

So here is the dealeo with Events for the Khans Release weekend for Khans.

(Kahn’s online Practice Drafter)

Thursday at OPEN at Midnight to buy first boxes (12:01 actually…since the release is Friday Sept. 26th.
Khans Release Promo card

We will open at ~10 pm for a little pre-midnight Zombie Conspiracy.
Friday:
1. Release day: Boxes ($119.99, Boosters 3.99 per pack, buy 6 get one free), Intros decks ($15.99-17.99), and Fatpacks ($39.99-one bonus pack) .
2. 7 p.m. Friday Night Magic.
Saturday
1. 1 pm…Kid’s Draft (and Non kids draft depending on signups)
2. 4 pm...Two-Headed Giant ($17.50 pp)
Sunday
1. 11 am-Kahns Sealed tournament ($25 pp)

After it dying out for a while, interest in the league has popped back up because of how much people are enjoying Khans. Stay tuned…

M15 Prerelease Events @ D20 Games

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

Prerelease time!!! M15 is looking full of what I can only term as the Magic Equivalent of Super-Heroes. 😉 (Including SIX planeswalkers, 4 of which are brand new. )

As usual we are running 4 `prerelease events, two on Saturday and Two on Sunday.

What: Sealed Standard event (get 6 packs of the new stuff and build best 40 card deck.) Play either competitive (at least 4 rounds, with bigger fistfuls of prize packs for the winners, but needing to win at least two rounds to get any prize packs.) or casual (play three rounds, win a round, win a pack)

Who: Who’s it good for? Since everyone is starting from scratch from a new set, this is a great event for all players. We run a very friendly shop, so particularly for the casual events, feel free to ask for and get help in figuring out what to make. Regardless of what happens, you get to keep all your cards and have a day worth of fun.

Each of 5 different color prerelease pack comes with 5 M15 boosters and 1 special seeded pack of it’s color, as well as a special promo card that can be used in the deck.

Game Day Coming…And time for some Horde Battling

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Misc

Foil 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 — 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.

Happy Valentines Day

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Magic, Updates

Happy Valantine's Day From D20 Games — Happy Valantine’s Day From D20 Games

Happy Valentine’s Day Folks…go out( or stay in) and play with someone you love.

This weekend we are having our Two-Headed Giant with a special twist. Any one who comes with a significant other on a Date (kids, this does include moms) can get a one dollar upgrade on our two dollar sleeve special from regular sleeves to our Valentine’s Nyan cat sleeves.love. 😉

Other goodies…we have some great two person(or more) games that are perfect for playing together. These include Love Letter (click for our game review) and Hanabi, a cooperative Fireworks game with the twist that everyone can see your cards, but you. 😉