The last day of our Hong Kong trip was a visit to Mong Kok Ladies Market to buy our ‘pasalubongs’. As we scoured the usual t-shirts and key chains that the vendors are selling, we came upon one vendor that sells tabletop games at a cheap price.

That got our inner geek self excited and we browsed through his products for our purchases.

This card game is called Pick Picknic and I bought this for around 35 Hkd or converted it to 200 pesos. Let me share you this post as I unbox the package.

Here is what the box cover looks like. It is a cartoon of a bunch of chickens that seem to enjoy life on the farm. The game was created by Stefan Dorra.

As I opened the box, the topmost is the brochure on how-to-play guide printed in different languages.

Here we have six cardboard of the farms that I think are the major components in the game. It is sort of a battlefield or playground.

The next contents of the box are the package of the square pellets in three colors and a dice. Also, we have the deck of cards for the actions or spells in MtG’s case.

What got me attracted to buying the game is the similarity of the power and toughness indicators in the cards in the deck. I will be testing the gameplay on our next playtest sessions with my card pool or any peeps in Magic Iloilo and hopefully, we can learn it fast so that we could teach it right away to other players.

That’s a wrap for this unboxing post. Stay tuned for my next post on this as I explore its gameplay and probably rate the game afterward.

Until next time.

I can say that I am still novice in building deck through a pool of six booster packs and have no proper process of creating one. I’ve been checking and reading a few Limited guides online and has known that the strategy may vary on the set. For example, on the previous Return to Ravnica block, the building strategy relies on the card value given by one or two guilds. Decks were mostly run on three colors to optimize the pool. That is unless you’ve opened enough colors for just one guild to use.

I’ve sorted a nicely written article and guide for building sealed pools which was written by Marshall Sutcliffeon the mothership. He detailed and explained each steps thoroughly which somewhat has given me ideas on what to do on the next Sealed event.

You can check the full article here. Enjoy.

Here is another take of the Birthing Pod aggro archetype, this time with the Black Red Green colors known as Jund. Avacyn Restored has offered a lot of new options for the creature chain of the deck. The popular of which is Zealous Conscripts and Borderland Ranger for mana fixing.

Here is the list:

Jund Pod
by Mark Ian Alloso

Lands
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Woodland Cemetery
2 Rootbound Crag
1 Grim Backwoods
6 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain

Creatures
1 Inferno Titan
2 Forge Devil
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Viridian Emissary
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Strangleroot Geist
1 Daybreak Ranger
3 Borderland Ranger
1 Acidic Slime
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Grave Titan
1 Entomber Exarch
1 Skinrender
1 Hellrider
1 Perilous Myr
1 Sylvok Replica
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Spells
2 Garruk Relentless
3 Birthing Pod
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Red Sun’s Zenith
1 Sword of War and Peace

A few insights on the card choices:

Viridian Emissary – this card has faded in popularity on favor of the green spirit but I think this has potential to be included main deck because of the recent popularity of Aggro.

Borderland Ranger – additional mana fixer support critter and smooths late game card draws.

Forge Devil – Aggro decks today ramps with an early Birds or Pilgrim so I thought I’d be better to include this guy to deal with them.

Glissa, the Traitor, Perilous Myr, Sylvok Replica & Ratchet Bomb – the mini combo of the deck. In addition, Glissa can return previously destroyed Birthing Pod.

Garruk Relentless – this walker act as both a creature source and removal, and your support versus control matchups.

Hellrider – I’d personally go with Hero of Oxid Ridge over this devil but the two toughness is a bad thing at the moment.

Red Sun’s Zenith – with Undying being so popular, I think this should be a staple card in red based deck. The thing I like with this Sorcery is you don’t mind to waste it on the early turns and top deck it later on for the ‘burn on the dome’ finish.

To conclude, this is pretty much a rough list but you’ll notice most staple Green cards are already included. Don’t expect it would be perform better than the Naya version, though personally I’d go with a deck that has more removals than that of a typical list.

For comments and suggestions, you know the drill. Until next post!

With over six million players in dozens of countries around the globe, it is safe to assume that Magic: The Gathering is—and probably always will be—the most popular card game of its genre. No one is entirely sure why battling via a deck of cards has caught on like wildfire, but it has caught on nevertheless.

The battles, the fantasy, the pwnage, a combination of it all – anyone’s guess is good as to why MTG has such a strong following. However, it seems fairly clear that card games are just winners, bound to pick up an audience. Whether we’re speaking about playing Texas hold’em via one of the many internet casinos or jumping in the way-back machine and trading Garbage Pail Kids cards, something about that printed paper lures us in.

For Magic in particular, we’re speaking about much more than a dumbed-down time-killer. Created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and released in 1993, MTG instantly caught on as a sophisticated fantasy role-playing game, far more intense than D&D and other competitors, and has since earned a slew of achievements, including a Mensa Select Award, an Origins Award, and many more.

A big part of the game’s immense popularity is its willingness to change and grow. A player’s imagination will always be the trump card in the deck, but various, ever-changing designs, international tournaments, and even a large trade market have helped spread the word about MTG to every corner of the globe.

When you boil it down to basics, people simply love to play games. Some find their thrills ticking away at an online blackjack game. Others might appreciate the true-to-life 3D graphics of PC and seventh-generation console games. And others leave their mind to do the work, foregoing the bells and whistles and seeking an intellectual alternative to everyday gaming.

Any way you slice it, MTG’s run as the top game in its genre is very impressive. And with new decks still being released and more people catching on every year, Magic may never lose its top spot in the genus of role-playing fantasy card games.

Playing Magic for almost half of my life has been very memorable and fun of course. The game has brought me strategies, creative thinking, innovations, and new friends, colleagues, and even long-time buddies. With that, I decided to reminisce about some important lessons I have learned in my nine years as a Magic player/enthusiast. Here it goes:

1. Teamwork – This is probably the reason why I like hanging out with the community peeps here in Iloilo. They are very willing to lend you some card components needed to complete your deck. Also when preparing for big events like Regionals or the Grand Prix, they are there to help. Sharing deck ideas and tech and even crazy stuff just for laughs is what I love with these guys.

2. Patience – Waiting for a top deck burn or Demigod is one example I can compare to being patient in Magic. Good decision-making is a nice effect of that, which means less error on your part and you’ll get a lot of info for side boarding in Game 2 in case you’ll never win the current one. Just remember, never concede right away.

3. Management – What I mean by this is what we call in gaming “Unit Management 101” or knowing how to handle your board. Playing the right spells on the right turns is one key to winning the game. Also, getting the right creatures in play to gain board advantage and knowing when to overextend or not.

4. Being Creative – Magic is not just about competition and playing to win. It is also about playing to have fun and one way to achieve it is through creativity. Dropping Progenitus through a Dramatic Entrance will surely give you a good laugh at the look of your opponent’s reaction (I just saw this last Saturday and mind you, it resulted in a roar from the crowd).

5. Psychology – One of the best things I’ve learned in Magic. Faking it to give a wrong signal to your opponent which will result in a wrong play is a good example of this. Studying the behavior and reaction is one of the basis to get the right play and I find this actually fun and challenging. Fun because mind tricks will sometimes get your opponent sweating (although I know I’ll be losing the game) and challenging when used against a pro.

6. Business Development – The strategy I learned from Magic can also be applied in handling a business or just planning to have one. In Magic, you formulate the right mana curve in order to optimize the deck’s performance. This is also equivalent to investing to the right business strategies to be successful in the field.

I am very thankful to know the game that has molded me as an individual and the people around me. Geekiness yes, but this is life to me.

I’m proud to be a Magic player.

Now here’s some interesting news. It was recently confirmed that the game “DJ Hero”, a descendant of the Guitar Hero game is in development and is due to be released this year.

It was mentioned by Activision Blizzard head Bobby Kotick when he was speaking to CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He said as quoted “We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you actually can play competitively and spin discs and mix songs.”

Here is something I want to check out besides buying an all in one VDJ mixer. I hope though that it would really function like one.

Source: Neowin.net