Re-play TV magazine and Magic: The Gathering

After surviving 4 day long anime convention I arrived home and I checked what was going on the internet during those past 4 days. One of the visited sites was also Facebook. I got an invitation from Michal Ekrt to a certain event taking place at Cerny Rytir. Few things seemed wrong there. Michal Ekrt is a tournament coordinator and is working for the local distributor of Magic: The Gathering products (and many other stuff). Cerny Rytir is a game store that could be described as 'rules everything'. After reading the description I understood why this wierd combination (Michal and Cerny Rytir) came to existence.

Re-play TV magazine wants to show Magic: The Gathering to its viewers and for that they need some Magic players and a place where these players usually gather. To gather them might be a problem and that is probably why Michal announced that there would be 8-man tournaments (single elimination) for free. The winner of each would win some free goodies. The format was not given - kitchen table Magic thus. Anyone could come and play with anything they found in their homes. I had only my highlander decks on me that day so I played with those.

Table 3 - Round 1
In the first game I played against a player whose deck was sleeved in red mana symbol sleeves. I expected to play against mono red and wasn't really happy about it. My deck was not fast and could hardly deal with mono red. My opponent was drawing too many lands though and the only card I've seen for quite some time was Goblin Piledriver. At least I knew what I was playing against. More goblins came and I managed to hit them with Wrath of God and kill my opponent with Faerie Conclave that was getting exalted bonuses from Noble Hierarch and Qasali Pridemage. I needed blockers as there was so many goblins that they could easily kill me in one attack (not to mention the Piledriver). When finally alpha strike from the goblin side came I had Path to Exile to get rid of the Piledriver and block some of the goblins. I survived and attacked for lethal in my turn.

In game two I hoped for a good hand as there was no way of me taking paris or partial paris mulligan. I had a 1 drop and some lands. No removal for Lackey though. I hoped that a creature would help. My opponent played Goblin Lackey. I played some 1/1 mana dork and hoped. When the creature was burned to ash and lackey went through I lost all my hopes for this game. Goblins swarmed and killed me later.

In game three my poor Noble Hierarch was burned by Gempalm Incinerator and again Lackey brought another goblin into play. I managed to survive to the point in which I had Baneslayer Angel on the table with Jace, The Mindsculptor and Batterskull. I was trying to fatesteal my opponent and get rid of Goblin Matron, Gempalm Incinerator and the goblin that can bounce creatures. I put Goblin Matron on the bottom of the library but still the card my opponent played was... Goblin Matron. He searched for Incinerator and burned my Angel. After that too many goblins where there and I couldn't deal with them. Piledriver and the squad hit me for 30 damage when I was at 27 life.

Table 6 - Round 1
I played against another highlander so I we decided to take partial paris mulligan. This time I decided to play with my zoo, because this deck was more suited for playing against legacy decks. I got a good draw with some mana dorks and creatures that could keep my opponent under pressure. I succeeded with that and won quite early. All I needed to do was deal enough damage so my manlands could deal the remaining damage after a resolved mass removal.

Round 2
This time I played against another legacy deck - Dead Guy Ale deck. The deck plays some disruption, stoneforge mystics fetching batterskull, jitte or sword of feast and famine so I knew that if I wanted to win I needed to be able to deal with the goddamn equipments and have some removal for T2 mystic. That's quite difficult when you are hit with Inquisition of Kozilek, followed by Hymn to Tourach.

The first game went quite well. My opponent was unable to get second black source. Zealous Persecution killed my mana dorks so I would be slowed down. In the first game I was struggling with Elspeth, Knight-Errant. She was probably replacement for Tombstalker, a good one. I tried to kill her with my Treetop Village in approximately three turns. I managed that few turns later and then I finally could attack my opponent. I've seen some mystics and equipment but still was able to win. (and some annoying Lingering Souls)

Game two was much more tense. Inquisition of Kozilek discarded my only removal - Magma Jet. Hymn to Tourach discarded Ajani Vengeant and Garruk Relentless and Zealous Persecution made me cry as I was unable to draw a fourth land and my two mana dorks simply died to to the -1/-1 effect. Stoneforge Mystic brought Batterskull and I had no idea what to do with it. Later I drew another 4 mana card, but this time I could actually play it for 3 mana as it was Phyrexian Metamorph. I copied the Batterskull and hoped that it would buy me some time. Later I managed to destroy the original Batterskull but it was soon replaced by Umezawa's Jitte. This card was much more serious problem as it was able to kill my creatures and gain life. I managed to get my opponent down to 3 life, but I knew that one more attack with Jitte would mean too big difference. I really needed my opponent to use the last counter on it (and use other ability than 'gain 2 life'). I attacked with my two creatures and waited what would happen. My creatures died but not due to Jitte. The only thing I could do was use Mother of Runes as a bait and hope. I played the card and passed the turn. My opponent was nice to me and killed the Mother. I showed him my last card on my hand - Lightning Helix.

In game three I played Sword of Fire and Ice on T2. I managed to attack with i once. My poor creature died though. Later I played Batterskull and equipped the sword. That made such a great difference in life total and cards in hand that I won.

Round 3 My opponent won the roll and started. His first land was Forest. That surprised me. It was followed by Rootbound Crag and Sphere of the Suns. I was like...oh crap RG Ramp. After this he played Solemn Simulacrum. Only one land was needed and my opponent would play a Primeval Titan or Inferno Titan that would certainly kill me. The land did not come for the next to turns but he still had cards to play. Acidic Slime that destroyed a land I needed and Vorapede (which was a replacement for Batterskull). After this Primeval Titan came fetching Glimmerposts. My opponent went to 20 once again and all I could do was cry.

In the second game I had two removal spells and I managed to play Mirran Crusader. I tried my best but single Slagstorm ruined my day. In the end it was Zealous Conscripts stealing my own (copy) of Wurmcoil Engine that killed me^_^. It was fun.

After this I played two more rounds against UR Delver and Canadian Treshhold. The game against UR Delver was rather unlucky for both of us. In the first game it was my opponent not being able to draw a creature. In the other two it was me who got mana screwed and I could do much. I mulled to five in the last game because my first hand was full of 4 drops and one land and the other one was incapable of playing a single card. Those five cards looked better (as I had two lands) but what it needed was still a source of red.

I have to say that all the games were nice and fun and it was really a nice change from limited and type 2. I was glad that I came even though I felt pretty dead^^.

Summer Highlander Series Tournament

This Saturday I was prepared to go to next Highlander Series tournament. This time with Naya Zoo Highlander. My friend played with my 4c good stuff this time.

The day before the tournament I went to local FNM that I managed to win somehow even though I went 2-1. My GW aggro this time lacked creatures so I had to make up and I actually felt more like playing Delver. It was more about trying to keep one of my creatures alive and attacking with it rather than playing as much creatures as I could and overrun my opponent. I left home with Jace and Mutilate. When I got back it was around midnight and another player asked me if I could provide him with a deck. I said ok, but the deck would be GBW Pattern-Rector combo as I knew that the cards for the deck were in one of my albums.

I spent quite some time sleeving up the deck (twice) but it did not really matter as I couldn't sleep anyway. I got up early in the morning since I couldn't fall asleep.

Round 1
When on a tram to the game store I encountered a pokemon player obviously heading the same way as me. When I entered the store there were pokemon players all over the place. I was wondering if we could actually fit in there somewhere. The pokemon players are often loud and it is not really pleasant to play in a event when they are trying to participate in their event.

In the first round I played against my friend Zdenek piloting my Dark Bant with bit of red for Ajani Vengeant. My start was pretty aggressive and he conceded early. In the second game I wasn't so lucky. My hand was full of 4 mana cards and only one of them was a creature card. After not so successful mulligan I tried to play with it. Things got a bit worse when my opponent played Stoneforge Mystic fetching a Batterskull. I killed the mystic hoping that it would give me one more extra round without Batterskull in play. This came true so I managed to deal some more damage. Batterskull followed and also attacked. I killed the germ while double blocking it. I thought that my doom was sealed but it wasn't and I somehow won.

Round 2
Round two was against monoblack deck that really likes reanimating big creatures. In the first game I didn't really see too many creatures and those that hit the table were usually 2/x shadow ones. I managed to do 3 major misplays in this game which prolonged the game quite a lot. Letting Ajani Vengeant die wasn't a good idea. But in the end I got rid of all the creatures and won.

In game two Scion of Darkness ended up in the graveyard quite soon and I knew what would follow. My second land was 'edicted' (Dryad Arbor) and I couldn't do much. I wished for a tutor or Scavenging Ooze but none came so I decided to be the first to deal 20 damage. But the black Scion is a 4 turn clock that puts into play my own creatures. Due to having Mirran Crusader in the graveyard I lost since I couldn't do anything with that First Strike (I had Kessig Wolf Run that could get me through but all my creatures had toughness of 2 or less). A land producing either white or red mana would do the job as my Figure of Destiny would gain flying and win. I drew a R/W land, but it was Clifftop Retreat. Too bad that all of my 5 lands weren't basics nor real dual lands!! So I lost.

In the last game we were running out of time so I tried to deal as much damage as I could. Time was up and I still had two turns to win the game. Ajani Vengeant helped me keep cards in my hand (by keeping Hypnotic Specter tapped) so I could play Goblin Ruinblaster to deal two additional damage in the last attack and win.

Round 3
In the next round I played against Radek playing GW deck. There was quite a lot of creatures on the table and I was wondering what I can do with it. There were quite some mana dork and Gaea's Cradle so I was really afraid of what would hit the table. In the end it was just Avenger of Zendikar and a fetch land. Fortunately I had few creatures on my side as well and Garruk Wildspeaker with 4 counters on it. o I decided that if I'm to win this game I'll certainly have to use the OVERRUN ability and try to use that as my 'Wrath of God' effect. I did exactly that and tapped all my creatures and waited to see what would happen. All my creatures died except Tarmogoyf. Even though my Goyf wasn't the creature to deal the last damage I won a bit later.

Next game looked similar. Too many little creatures on the other side of the table and me with just a few attackers. Radek tutored for Thragtusk and playedi it. The card showed me how evil it is. Hopefully the beast blocked my Thoctar and all I needed was get rid of a 3/3 beast. Elspeth followed later. I also had my Natural Order and tutored Primeval Titan that was copied by Phyrexian Metamorph a turn later by my opponent. I did the same to my opponent and attacked. He had to deal with my two Primeval Titans and I had to deal with Elspeth. 9/9 Flyer with trample is not something I can deal with in my deck (except Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, but I don't see those cards often). So I had to build up my board and find a creature that could actually fly. I played Ranger of Eos and tutored Figure of Destine (and Wild Nacatl). This meant that I wouldn't be able to kill Elspeth just yet and be hit at least once by the Titan. Next turn I had to destroy Elspeth and keep the Figure of Destiny and myself alive. I managed that and even managed to get rid of the Titan (my Titans died as well, blocked by squirrels and other tokens, eh). My opponent then played Wurmcoil Engine and was ready to attack. When trying to find out if I would kill him in counterattack he realized that my Figure of Destiny would kill him and conceded.

Round 4
In the finals I played against Tomas (being the winner of the last series and with whom I also played in the finals last time). In the first game I couldn't really keep up with the pressure and when Tangle Wire came I knew I was screwed. My only chance of winning was dealing damage with my Wild Nacatl. Tomas though had Knight of the Reliquary and a copy of the card. He blocked with the copy knowing both creatures would die but considered that less risky. He was right about that, my only chance was to deal those 3 damage and then play my two burn spells. Unfortunately the two burn spells alone weren't enough (I needed to deal ONE more additional damage). I lost both games rather quickly.

The tournament was nice. We had fun, we discovered some new things and we won some stuff. In my case I got yet another Swords to Plowshares (BB). I like the card, it's very nice but I got one last time as well^_^.

If anyone is interested in the decklist, here it is.

Naya Zoo
by Stsung

1 Ajani Vengeant 1 Avacyn's Pilgrim 1 Aven Mindcensor 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Bloodbraid Elf 1 Boggart Ram-Gang 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 1 Eternal Witness 1 Fauna Shaman 1 Figure of Destiny 1 Flametongue Kavu 1 Fyndhorn Elves 1 Garruk Relentless 1 Garruk Wildspeaker 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter 1 Goblin Ruinblaster 1 Grim Lavamancer 1 Huntmaster of the Fells 1 Kird Ape 1 Kitchen Finks 1 Knight of the Reliquary 1 Llanowar Elves 1 Loam Lion 1 Lotus Cobra 1 Mirran Crusader 1 Mother of Runes 1 Noble Hierarch 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Primeval Titan 1 Qasali Pridemage 1 Ranger of Eos 1 Reveillark 1 Scavenging Ooze 1 Serra Avenger 1 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Strangleroot Geist 1 Student of Warfare 1 Tarmogoyf 1 Vengevine 1 Vithian Renegades 1 Watchwolf 1 Wickerbough Elder 1 Wild Nacatl 1 Woolly Thoctar

1 Arc Trail 1 Batterskull 1 Burst Lightning 1 Chain Lightning 1 Eladamri's Call 1 Green Sun's Zenith 1 Incinerate 1 Journey to Nowhere 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Lightning Helix 1 Magma Jet 1 Natural Order 1 Oblivion Ring 1 Path to Exile 1 Punishing Fire 1 Staggershock 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Sylvan Library

1 Arid Mesa 1 Bloodstained Mire 1 Clifftop Retreat 1 Copperline Gorge 1 Dryad Arbor 2 Forest 1 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Marsh Flats 1 Misty Rainforest 2 Mountain 2 Plains 1 Plateau 1 Raging Ravine 1 Razorverge Thicket 1 Rootbound Crag 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Savannah 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Slayers' Stronghold 1 Stirring Wildwood 1 Stomping Ground 1 Sunpetal Grove 1 Taiga 1 Tectonic Edge 1 Temple Garden 1 Treetop Village 1 Verdant Catacombs 1 Wasteland 1 Wooded Bastion

Magic Alter - saving another land - Windswept Heath

Some time ago I played highlander with few people. It was quite a long overnight session and we had lots of fun. One of the players was asking the other one what he was doing with a certain card (because it was in a really bad state). I didn't know what card it was until he played it. He was quite desperate about getting rid of it so I offered to give him a different fetch land instead and took this one into my care.

From first sight you could see that the card went through a wash machine or that it was in water for quite some time. First the card needed to be pressed so it would be at least playable in thick sleeve. After a month of having it under tons of books and cards I decided to take it out and included it in my deck.

The card was playable but still you could see all the white places and the wierd texture water did. Time for altering called. The card at least deserved some color.

Magic Alter - Flooded Strand

I bought this fetch land at a convention earlier this month for 16USD which seemed quite a fair price for card that in ok state costs about 35USD. It was in a terrible state. White spots on the card, torn edges, some text and symbols on the card as well. Other players stated that they wouldn't give 16 bucks for it but I did not care. I still have my acrylic paints, a brush and can theoretically do an alter^^. So I decided to save this card. After few hours I came up with this. I'm not totally content with it. The colors are pain and I wanted the altered version to have more contrast so it wouldn't be so 'boring' (Alexander's painting is amazing, but well it just does not stand out so much when on a small canvas.)

In the near future I'd like to do more alters, but it seems that my creativity and ideas just don't work much. I need ideas and some motivation and I can hardly find them...

Limited improvized report (Launch Party Magic 2013)

Launch Party usually brings booster draft, FNM promo and now Launch Party promo. It's the first time you can officially draft and many times those drafts are fun. When I arrived last week from Festival Fantazie I was exhausted and couldn't really concentrate on the cards or what was going on at the prerelease. My pool lacked creatures. So I ended up in UBw with Vampire Nighthawks and Bandits. I was trying to control the game but I was usually overwhelmed by big green creatures, captain of the watch and some burn that could take down either my little vampire or the bandit (that proved to be better aggro creature^^). During the week I did not check the spoiler so I was still quite clueless about many cards.

(Little disclaimer. I did not expect to write a report from this draft so I wasn't taking notes.)

So when the time of a boosterdraft came I wasn't sure what the format would look like. I opened my first pack and did not hope for anything but my rare was Thragtusk! I picked that and checked the rest of the booster pack before I passed it to the left.

When I got another pack green wasn't any good. If there was something good in it the player next to me had it. So I looked for a white card (or a red one). There was pacifism in the booster. I wanted to ignore the card and pick a creature but then I read the card's text again. It said 'Enchanted creature can't attack or block'. I facepalmed myself and tried to forget about Avacyn Restored where a card saying 'Prevent all damage that would be dealt by enchanted creature' or ' Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by enchanted creature.' wasn't something I would want to pick high. I picked Pacifism and waited for next cards.

I picked quite early Ajani's Sunstriker even though I knew double white would be a problem, but the card is just too good and Timberpack Wolf twice. I knew that the player right of me is picking green so I wasn't expecting anything better and was trying to get something good in white. I got Griffin Protector. It reminded me of Kruin Striker from AVR. I remembered that I've passed Captain's Call and was ready to pick it if by a chance it would come back to me - it did.

In the second booster I picked few centaurs and war priests of thune along with safe passage. I wasn't really happy about it but I had my 2 drops and 3 drops in a good number already.

I waited what the third booster would bring and it brought some fruit! I got finally the 4/4 Vigilance, Reach creature. I was passed down farseek, Roaring Primadox and Acidic Slime. I also picked Naturalize if someone would want to bother me with Mark of the Vampire, rings or something.

In the end I ended up with 26 cards I would play but only 23 made it to the deck. I also had red cards that I wanted to splash but decided against it. I did not have really good cards in red anyway.

1x Thragtusk
2x Captain's Call
1x Naturalize
1x Roaring Primadox
3x Centaur Courser
2x Safe Passage
1x Prey Upon
2x War Priest of Thune
1x Griffin Protector
2x Timberpack Wolf
1x Titanic Growth
1x Ajani's Sunstriker
1x Yeva's Forcemage
1x Sentinel Spider
1x Farseek
1x Pacifism
1x Divine Favor

In round one I played against Blue/Black controlly deck. That showed me Sleep twice. Also Talrand was there early and Tormented Soul with a corresponding ring. I was quite afraid of Talrand making little flyers but in the end he was forced to block my creatures. Sleep though seemed to change the tempo and I would die in the next attack if I wouldn't draw one of the cards that can gain me life. I was lucky to draw my rare. It saved my life as Tormented Soul (being quite big from a 'black ring') would deal lethal damage next turn. I survived the attack, untapped and attacked for the win.
In the second game I tried to be as fast as possible and it worked out for me.

Round 2 I played against Black/Red deck with Thundermaw Hellkite. The pilot of the deck just started to play Magic once again so there were few things that he missed and that caused him to lose the games against me. I tried hard to survive and come up with an answer to the hellkite but even pumped Whelp could kill me. Anyway I still had my Safe Passages and I HOPED that these would solve the problem. It though required my only creature with reach to show up. The spider came hopefully. The little cat with lifelink was also trying hard to save me. Without this card even usually swearing because I couldn't play it early I wouldn't have won.

The final round I knew I would play against UW flyers. From the prerelease I knew that Arctic Aven is really evil (I played it myself). In the first game my opponent played the Aven on turn 3 and a second one turn later. I was bit colored screwed by my mana and couldn't play my lifelink creature. Anyway the game soon ended as I was unable to do anything with the 3/2 flyers with potential lifelink. In the next game I hoped for a draw that would look like 2 plains, Sunstriker, lands and 4/4, vigilance, reach. My wish actually came true partly. I had Sunstriker but the rest of my hand was plains, 2x forest and Yeva's Forcemage. Fortunately I drew the land, played Sunstriker and attacked for 4. Later I was drawing creatures and was able to deal with the annoying avens. Everything seemed fine but my opponent was capable to destroy all my creatures and even my remaining tokens from Captain's call that tried to deal damage via Kitesail. My opponent was at 4 and I was at about 11. We were both in top deck mode, but both of us were drawing lands. My opponent was the first one to draw a relevant creature. He played 2/2 knight with first strike that also brought another 1/1 token into play. Few rounds later I finally top decked my beast and won. (or something like that). The last game was in my favor even though it was also pretty tense.

I won the draft with 3:0 and picked Sublime Angel even though there was also the Hellkite available. I wanted the angel anyway. I got some booster packs and for some reason I opened another Nicol Bolas. (I already have a playset of the new ones)

Festival Fantazie 2012

Festival Fantazie the biggest Czech Fantasy/Science Fiction and many other stuff convention. Held each year in Chotebor. This convention is promoted as the best vacation you can have. 10 days of awesomeness. But well is that so awesome? The entry fee is pretty high, the food is junk and you can hardly sleep there. But there's tons of stuff to do and you can hang out with your friends.

Thanks to Jirka Hes I got a ticket for this convention. I was a regular years ago and I was there last year as well. This time I went there just to have some fun and to slack. I expected to play some (a lot of) magic, music games and some cosole/PC games.

I asked few people around from the vicinity if they don't go there so I could socialize a bit. In the end I went there with Pavel, his brother and Medik.

The trip was quite ok, but we were charged triple for it. So this was the last time I went with these two guys no matter how nice they are. And it is also the LAST time ever that I went there with Medik. But about him later

We arrived in one piece to Chotebor. I went to the board games' room. That's the place I spent most of my time there. I played some board games, magic, deck building games, some angry birds and other crazy games. The first day I needed to accomodate somewhere where it is warm and calm. I ended up at such a place thanks to Jan Safra and I'm really grateful for this.

Music Games
In the morning I got up and went to get something to eat to a local store. I have to say that the shop is really expensive and that I managed to pay 3 different amounts of money for two items that I was buying each day (WTF?). After that it was time for some Music Games. When I came there there was Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Beatmania IIDX Empress Premium Disc, Pump it Up Pro, ITG Quad and Rock Band Greenday (or whatever, the majority of songs were from greenday). I played some pump first realizing that the panels are of different size than on an arcade machine. I also burned my skin due to the carpet surface. But it was nice to play few pump songs again. Soon the DR panel on P1 stopped working (I realized that after I started playing on NM). I failed all the songs I played on nightmare difficulty.

Then I tried some Guitar Hero. I wasn't really sure when to confirm the notes but later I realized that the game is actually on sync. The controller I had in my hands was malfunctioning though. The Green and Yellow buttons were sticky and ghosting and the controller was getting disconnected from time to time. The other controller was fine though. I played GH2 but it wasn't unlocked so I couldn't play the songs I liked from the game. I didn't manage to play GH4 for quite some time, but later I managed that and played some funny charts. It was nice. I was surprised that I could still play the game. ^^

IIDX was another issue. The sync was off and it took me ages to get used to it. Changing the offset wasn't really helping either. The controller keys were sticky and it was difficult to play 8s and 9s on it. It was almost impossible to survive them. But when hitting the keys from right angle it was almost playable. It was nice to hear the songs clearly, here the keysounds and play the game. It felt awesome. I miss the game^^

I also tried GH drums. I was asked to be the fourth member for a tourney but I wasn't sure if I can still play the drums. It was quite difficult. My hand was aching and my leg was on fire^_~. I pulled off some ok results though.

I was asked to play in Rock Band tournaments. They couldn't find someone else so they asked me. I said yes, but I think that I should have joine someone else or not play at all. These guys did not really deserve me.

Anyway playing with these guys meant for me one thing though - I met and shortly talked to Vitek and Brumla. The guys seemed to be nice and it was nice to meet them. But I wasn't the center of what was going on and no one was really paying much attention to me anyway. It was a pity. Wish I could talk to them more.

In the afternoon I met Xsoft. He showed me pump it up pro 2 (really nice!) He played some routines with me. I have to admit that I really like the idea and that some charts are awesome! The theme is kind of cheesy but in overall I like it. The menu is a bit chaotic for me too, but well...it was designed this way so be it.

Later I found out that there is also a DDR stand. Some old Stepmania was usually running there but from time to time there was DDRX-2 and DDR Extreme. So I was playing doubles and having fun^^. Also I forgot what the difficulty scale of DDRX songs is so sometimes I almost killed myself on some 14-15 level song on double. It was really difficult to play on the TX pads. It just did not feel right. Arcade machine platform is something completely different!

While playing people were watching me and some of their reactions were funny as usual^_^. Anyway I always had to map the pads and connect them. I'm not sure who was the one taking care of the stand but certainly he had no idea what to do to make it work. This could be applied to other stands as well. Only GH and Rockband stands were usually running correctly.

Console Games
In sokolovna there were many console games that one could try out. The level of interactiveness depended on the console. Star Wars seemed to be fun, some tennis game was played all the time and Just Dance for Nintento Wii was popular as well. Most of the time there were people playing the games. I was too lazy to wait in the line. So I went upstairs and either played Mortal Kombat or Tekken. Xbox controller was quite a problem for me but still I managed to play the game quite ok. Unfortunately there weren't many people who would want to play against me and if they played against me they usually did not know how to play the game. How come? No one knows Mortal Kombat or what? Tekken was more known to the people there as it seems. Lady Boskonovitch is nice^_^.

Board Games

I mostly played Magic: The Gathering so it wasn't much about board games this year. I played Kaleidoskop which is a nice, simple game. You have a hexagon board on which there are several symbols. Then you have pieces with two symbols each time. You are connecting pieces with the same symbols to earn points. The more same symbols is there when you put another piece the more points you get. There are six symbols and in each you need to collect points because the symbol with lowest points is being used to determine the winner. This game was quite ok to play but I doubt the replayability of this game.

We tried also different Dominion expansions. The latest one adds not only new cards but also new 'victory point area - colony'. The game ends when either Province or Colonies are all bought. The cards in this expansion are pretty expensive and thus there is also a new card producing 'money' - 'platinum piece'. It felt like playing the first Ascension's expansion. But to be honest Ascension is still the better game out of these two (and out of any other deck building game I played).

We also played some Ascension. If I go to the convention next time I need to take Storm of Souls with one of the previous games. There were always players who wanted to try the game out but I did not have cards for more players. The players who played the game for the first time liked it. Yeah, they were saying that it's similar to Dominion so why play this, but later even they said that they like Ascension more.

Many of those who were quite desperate about the choice of a board game or there wasn't any good game around anymore tried Cesko, otazky a odpovedi (Czech Republic, questions and answers) or a Slovakian version or US one. The Slovakian one is an overkill for Czech people and the Czech one is difficult as well. From time to time there are really easy questions but still the majority is quite difficult for everybody. The American version though has questions like 'In which TV series the main characters are Spock and Kirk?'. In these games it is each player for himself. But there are also games in which teams compete against each other. There was a game called Alias and Time's Up. Both games are fun and even though you don't know the answers for some of the questions you are able to find that out during the game. These games are more casual and more fun and well... they also require a bit more imagination from the players. I prefer these games than the ones I mentioned first in this paragraph. But it's difficult to find players for these games as many people prefer games in which they don't need to guess or play with someone else in a team.

The game that also caught my eye was Ubongo. The game is from year 2003 and has quite a lot of variations. It's rather family game. Each player gets a board with a shape and some randomly assigned paper pieces. Each round each player has to solve the puzzle (put the pieces together according the shape on the board). The first player gets the highest chance to collect different colored gems. 9 rounds are played and the winner is the one with most gems of one color. It is quite fun to watch the either really tired people to play this game or people who are drunk already and can't concetrate well on the puzzle. ^_^. Anyway the game is fast and simple and anyone can play it.

When entering the hall there were roll ups with ads for certain games and one of those games was 'Angry Birds'. I guess that majority of you played the game already on your cell phone or ipad or whatever. And if not played then you at least heard about it. I was wondering what the game is like. Few groups of people tried it out. They took out mat on which you have score zones depicted. They took out also a wooden pole and put it on the mat. On top of it the pig was placed. The player took his pack of angry birds and tried to hit the pig. The first player tried to hit the pig but was unfortunate. Another try, more force was used but the pig was still sitting on the pole. Later one of the players used such force that the pig ended up down the stairs. Another round consisted of three poles and the pig sitting on them. It continued like this but the players soon decided that this game is just a waste of time.
There was one more game which consisted of throwing an object. This time it was a wooden pole and many other wooden poles. I have to say that THIS IS NOT a game for drunk people! We were glad that we survived.

Magic: The Gathering
When at the hall with all those board games I usually played magic. There were always magic players around. Unfortunately I should have takem with me a legacy deck or some homebrew no format deck. There weren't too many players with standard decks. Anyway we played lots of EDH and some legacy. There were even four players whose generals were The Mimeoplasm.

I actually won this game but I have to admit that it wasn't as much fun as it could have been. I was able to reanimate first and got much bigger advantage over the rest of the players.

One of the days when we were already tired of playing EDH, type 2 or legacy we tried playing from one deck. For that a all common legacy deck was used. Here's a short video from one of the games.

This year there wasn't any trading cards specialized shop. We wanted to draft but we did not have boosters. We have to thank those who provided boosters for the first draft ad boostermania for the remaining drafts.

As usual I also build few castles from cards. Tomas Pejsa decided to destroy my little castle of cards. I tried to tell him to wait for me so I could at least take a video of it, but he was too fast. He took out the first card, but the castle was still standing (I missed that). Took out a second one and it was still standing to everyone's surprise. The last card crumpled the whole construction. It was fun watching him as he was taking out the cards. ^^

Other stuff
I went to several presentations. One was about wierd stuff in gaming history. The background image on the presentation sheets was from Katamari Damashi so I thought that this can't be bad. We found out something about the game console and peripherals history and then we had the chance to see videos and photos of some really wierd stuff. I have to say that this presentation was good. It got few hiccups but otherwise it was solid and fun.

This though couldn't be said about some other ones I visited. Some were really bad and the presenting person did not know enough about the topic. I know it can be really difficult to speak about something to a public that is consisted of fans and geeks and nerds^^.

Movecon stuff was usually good as I remembered but for the martial arts/self defense stuff it was pretty boring. I don't know why but many people started with warm up and some stretching exercises. This is good but not if you spent 30 minutes of your 1 hour time. After this quite some talk continued and you did not even get the chance to try the moves out. Usually basic stuff for many martial arts is the same so I found all that quite unnecessary and boring. The dancing workshops were much better as there was usually a routine you went through and in the end there was something you actually learned. That was nice.

Apart from this you could go watch pilot episodes of all kind of series which was nice. The small room was usually full and the series were also well picked. I enjoyed that.

I actually have much more to say but I rather keep it to myself. I wasn't actually that content with this convention. Some debates were a bit too much for me and some people really pissed me of. In overall I'm glad I came there. It was fun but not what I expected. I hoped to talk to some people and meet some new people but this was spoiled because of some other people who had to be the 'king of the universe'.

Thanks everyone who made it possible for me to be there or spent some time with me and notably to Deirh who took me to Prague and Jan Safra who would win the nicest person of FF prize.