Session Report: May 3, 2004
Games Played: Ticket To Ride, Einfach, Genial, Schwarzarbeit
Gamers: Richard, Chip, Marianne, Rob, Mike, Vitas, Josh
Thanks to Rob for hosting!
TICKET TO RIDE (1:15)
Richard: 140
Mike: 125
Chip: 116
Marianne: 86
Rob: 75
Mike brought his copy of Ticket to Ride, which I had heard a lot about and was eager to try. Richard explained the rules (which were pretty straight-forward) and we were off.
I kept two of my initial destination tickets whose paths overlapped quite a bit. I didn't draw any additional tickets throughout the game, and I think that hurt my score. I found it difficult to resist building tracks right away, as my ideal path included a few single connections between cities. I felt that if I lost even one of them that I'd be at a huge disadvantage. Fortunately, I was able to connect all the routes that I wanted. The more experienced players did take additional tickets, and waited a few turns before building.
There was a fairly nice game. There were a few moments in the game when it became clear that a player needed one particular connection, and other players did not take advantage of this player's vulnerability. In particular, Rob once considered blocking off my long train path, but decided against it. He later rued his kindness as I blocked him from completing either of two tickets he drew during his penultimate turn.
While comparisons to TransAmerica and Union Pacific are inevitable, I believe that Ticket To Ride is significantly different from either. Of the three, this is my favorite so far. I'd like to play again, and take the first few turns drawing Destination Tickets. Once I had five or so that overlapped decently, I'd start trying to make my connections. I can't wait to play again.
EINFACH GENIAL (0:42)
Mike: 16
Josh: 12
Chip: 9
Vitas: 8
There's something a little worrying about a game that encourages players to declare, "I'm a genius". In most games, it's best for the leading player to keep a low profile, lest opponents conspire against him. Mike taught the rest of us how to play this abstract domino-like game.
Early on, I tried to hoard some of the double pieces (two of the same symbol), hoping that when I knew more about the game I could use them more to my advantage. I found that it was useful to sort of follow the crowd - if other players were building up a large blue field, that's a good time to pump up blue, rather than trying to start a new green field elsewhere.
I tried to follow Mike's example of "going out" in multiple colors during the same turn, but I found that I was always one or two points away. I should have taken those points at the time (to enable an easier declaration of supreme intelligence later), but I opted to try to boost my weaker colors instead.
I enjoyed this game, and I'd be happy to play again. Even if I don't win, it's an interesting and fun puzzle challenge. I'd even be willing to sit at Josh's right (:
SCHWARZARBEIT (0:28)
Mike: 18
Josh: 15
Marianne: 12
Vitas: 11
Chip: 7
Josh brought out Schwarzarbeit ("Moonlighting") and taught all of us the rules. We all reacted pretty negatively to the memory aspect of the game, but we played it (with varying degrees of effort) nonetheless.
I tried to put some effort into the game, and took some risks early in the game, but eventually settled into a pattern of either taking a worker that was known to be safe (e.g. the weekend version was face-up on the table), or accusing a working at random. In either case, I felt that my decisions were either obvious (in the safe example) or completely random. Mike and Josh seemed to have a better strategy, so whenever possible, I would follow their lead (:
In retrospect, it seems to me that if a player can remember which weekend cards are in the deck (and, after the first time through the deck, all this information is publicly available), that player should be able to accuse (and rack up more points) with impunity. Unfortunately, I didn't think of this until after the game was over.
I'm not really impressed with this game, and I'll try to avoid playing it again.
Some monthly stats for April, 2004
Total games played: 58
Unique games played: 24
Total gaming sessions: 17
Total Gaming Time: 38:01
Total Set-up Time: 1:33
Average Game Length: 0:39
Games played more then once this month (other then Magic):
Alhambra (four plays)
Land Unter!, Trendy (two plays each)
New games this month:
San Juan
Formula Motor Racing
Sticheln
Trendy
Fantasy Pub
Marvel TCG
Cathedral
Evo
1313 Deadend Drive
Game of the month: San Juan
I only played San Juan once (and I won), so it might be a bit early to declare this the best game ever, but it's safe to say that it's the best new game I've played this month. I got off to a good start by focusing on finding ways to replenish my hand. I felt some real tension when I dove into my monument building strategy, especially as I had to discard the Hero to pay for my first monument. I managed to get two of the three before the end of the game, and it contributed to my final score. I haven't played Puerto Rico yet, although San Juan has whetted my appetite for PR.
In other games, Formula Motor Racing has replaced Formula De as my little plastic cars game of choice.
Computer Games played: Puzzle Pirates.
PS2 Games played: Finished Crash Bandicoot 3.
Session Report: May 1, 2004
Games Played: Magic, Cathedral, Blokus
Gamers: Mike, Chip, Vitas, Shaun
Thanks to all of you for coming. All the magic cards in the world aren't worth anything without great people to play with, and you guys are the best. I'd like to expand this to 6 players sometime and try team sealed-deck. In the meantime, I'll look at my collection and see which block we can play with next time (probably Urza's block). Perhaps May 29th?
MAGIC (2:00)
Mike: won
Vitas: 2nd
Chip: 3rd
We played a Mercadian Masques sealed deck tournament. Each player had three boosters from Masques, and one booster each of Nemesis and Prophecy. Mike defeated me to in two close duels, and then defeated Vitas (although Vitas did win one of the three games).
Some notes on Mike's winning deck: It had 13 creatures, 11 other spells, and 19 land (for a total of 43 cards). These thirteen creatures, including Saber Ants which created even more creatures, were key to his victory, although the other spells (Desert Twister, Ancestral Mask, and Aura Fracture) were very effective. Indeed, I choose to play blue in my first deck mostly for the inclusion of Coastal Piracy, but I didn't bother casting it when Mike had Aura Fracture in play. He could leave it in play to power his Ancestral Mask and then destroy it before it helped me.
MAGIC (2:30)
Mike: won
Chip: 2nd
Vitas: 3rd
Shaun: 4th
We all got new booster packs and made new decks. I defeated Vitas to face Mike, who defeated Shaun. Mike won in two games against me (not as close as the first tournament), and Vitas defeated Shaun.
Mike's second tournament-winning deck had 15 creatures, featuring powerhouses like Gerrard's Irregulars and Battle Squadron. His top non-creature spell (of the seven he included) was probably Ferocity. In my match against him, I hoped to use Unnatural Hunger on the creature Mike enchanted with Ferocity. Unfortunately, I never saw that card, and his pumped up creatures had little difficult overrunning me. The other 17 cards in his deck were 7 forests, 9 mountains, and two non-basic lands.
CATHEDRAL (0:10)
Mike: 0
Chip: -5
While waiting for Shaun and Vitas to finish their match, Mike and I played two rounds of Cathedral. I lost to him by five points in the first round, and the second round was a draw.
BLOKUS (0:30)
Shaun: -11, -12= -23
Vitas: -9, -17 = -26
Chip: -17, -11= -28
Mike: -19, -12= -31
We then played two round of Blokus. Vitas taught the game to Shaun and I, and Mike had played before. Although he didn't place first in either round, Shaun ended with the highest total score.
I'm not sure if I really got this game, although I did see things differently in the second round. I wasn't really enthralled by the game, but it is an interesting puzzle-like activity.
After that, Mike and Shaun went home to enjoy the nice weather. Vitas and I played a series of Magic matches - first with an expanded sealed deck (using up the remainder of the "boosters"), and then with pre-constructed decks.
MAGIC (1:01)
Chip: 2 games
Vitas: 0
We started with a sealed-deck duel, each of us with 7 boosters instead of the usual 5. I built a white/black deck, and Vitas had a white/green deck. In each game, Vitas beat me down early with creatures such as Pangosaur. I gave up at least half of my life to Murderous Betrayal to deal with such threats, but it eventually won me the game.
MAGIC (1:11)
Vitas: 2 games
Chip: 1 game
Vitas played his blue/white deck featuring flying creatures (such as Serra Angels) powered by Unstable Mutations. I played a blue artifact deck featuring Memnarch and Tinker.
I won the first game by Tinkering for Memnarch and then stealing Vitas's creatures. I lost the next two games from poor decisions. I had the misfortune of having Memnarch in my hand (in hindsight, I probably should have mulliganed), without the mana to cast him. I had a re-usable Tinker on a Panoptic Mirror, but I foolishly sacrificed the creatures I needed in order to bring out other, less effective creatures. My planning didn't improve in the final game, and Vitas out-played me to win the match.
MAGIC (0:17)
Vitas, Chip: tie?
I discovered that there were two boosters left, so to mix things up a bit we played a limited infinity duel. Each player starts with 15 cards (the booster pack, arranged commons -> rare) in his library. Each player has access to inifinite mana each turn, but is limited to one spell per turn (hence the name of the format). We discovered that the flailing creatures didn't really work in this format (we decided that they simply existed at their printed power/toughness). The game ended in a stalemate.
MAGIC (1:01)
Chip: 2 games
Vitas: 1 game
I played a mono-blue deck featuring Vizzerdrix and card-filtering cards (e.g. draw 1, discard 1), and Vitas played a blue/red deck featuring Quicksilver Dagger and Jilt.
Vitas crushed me (16 to 0) in the first game - three of his creatures were enchanted with the Dagger (which, I suppose, would be an Equipment if it were made today), and he could draw all the cards he needed. I managed to build up an army of creatures in the next two games to win.
MAGIC (0:16)
Vitas: 2 games
Chip: 0
Yearning for a simple strategy, I brought out my mono-red burn deck, and Vitas played a mono-white deck. In the first game, Vitas played Armageddon before I had a chance to Flamebreak his flying creatures. I never recovered from this loss of tempo. I conceded the second game when he played Conversion.
MAGIC (0:27)
Chip: 2 games
Vitas: 0 games
We finished off the night with my elf deck against his black/artifact deck. The elf deck set itself up quickly while Vitas was searching for creatures that he could afford to cast (e.g. anything but Lord of the Pit). The second game ended when I combined three of my elves with three copies of Wirewood Pride, and attacked for twelve points of damage.
