Legendary Changes to Magic Rules

Wizards of the Coast have made a couple of important rules changes to Magic: the Gathering that will have an effect on games played in our Grand Melee League. The changes in question apply from July 13, so our July round of the league will be played with these rules.

The main changes affect legendary permanents and planeswalkers. You can read the full article at the Wizards of the Coast website, but the changes are summarised here.

Legends
Having two or more copies of a legendary permanent in play no longer causes all of them to go to their owners’ graveyards. It now doesn’t matter if you control the same legend as an opponent – nothing happens. If you control two or more copies of the same legendary permanent, you choose all but one of them to go to your graveyard.

Legend Example 1
Old
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. An opponent in range also has a copy. Both copies go to their owners’ graveyards.
New
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. An opponent in range also has a copy. Nothing happens.

Legend Example 2
Old
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. You cast a second copy. Both copies go to your graveyard.
New
You have a copy of Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius in play. You cast a second copy. You choose one copy to go to your graveyard, and keep the other.

This means a few things. Legendary permanents can no longer by automatically destroyed by playing a second copy, or by casting a spell that creates a copy. Also if you have one legendary permanent you can replace it with another to gain an advantage, for example getting rid of a creature with Pacifism on it.

Planeswalkers
The planeswalker uniqueness rule has also been changed, in a similar fashion to the Legend Rule. Again, the game only cares about the planeswalkers you control, what your opponents have out is not relevant. If you control two plansewalkers with the same planeswalker type, you choose one to be put into your graveyard.

This gives planeswalkers some extra flexibility they previously lacked. You can now use a deck with different copies of the same planeswalker, and know that you can never be stuck with one version in your hand and on in play, and be unable to cast the second without losing both. Now if you need to place your Garruk Wildspeaker with Garruk Relentless, it’s a simple as casting the second version and choosing the first to you to your graveyard. You can even use on of his abilities first!

There are other rules changes too but the legend and planeswalkers are the main changes.

New Top Selling Games

ICv2 have posted their latest list of top selling games, across the categories of role-playing, miniatures, card/deck building, collectable cards, and board games. There are a few surprises in this update.

The chief revelation is the strong sales performance of Fantasy Flight’s new Star Wars miniatures game. It enters the top 5 miniature games as second only to perennial top dog Warhammer 40,000. This pushes War Machine to third, Warhammer Fantasy to fourth and Hordes to fifth on the list.

In board games Settlers of Catan is again the top board game. Ticket to Ride and Small World here also strong sellers as is the new edition of the Game of Thrones board game.

Magic: the Gathering is again the top collectable card game as this games phenomenal recent growth continues.

Munchkin is the top card/deck building game, followed by Dominion and the new Android: Netrunner. New game Gloom and club favourite 7 Wonders are also in the top ten list.

The top RPG list has also seen some changes. Pathfinder remains the top selling game, but the old dog Dungeons & Dragons falls to third, with Fantasy Flight’s new Star Wars RPG taking second spot. Whatever Fantasy Flight are doing with Star Wars, they are clearly making games people are happy to play.

International Tabletop Day, March 30, 2013

The events are coming thick and fast these days! Here’s another one, International Tabletop Day, a mix of virtual and physical get-togethers for tabletop gamers all around the world.

The explanatory video says everything that needs to be said, so take it away, Felicia Day!

Celebrating Early Magic: The Gathering Art and Artists

There are quite a few long-term magic players at LXG, and players who played in the early years but rarely duel these days. Eaither way there’s a few people who will be interested by this project on Kickstarter.

The Gathering: Reuniting Pioneering Artists of Magic is a book featuring many of Magic’s early artists. The book is being compiled by Jeff A Menges, himself an early Magic artist. The artist list is not finalised yet as they are still confirming the involvement of some of Magic’s early artists. Chances are some of your favourites are already involved.

The book is an independent publication, not one put out by Wizards of the Coast. The Kickstarter projects has already reached its initial goal, so it’s all stretch targets from here on.

Magic Grows and Grows

There was a recent Hasbro investor conference, if you like that sort of thing. Hasbro are the owners of Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Magic: The Gathering.

They included a very interesting slide on Magic’s growth over the past few years. After coasting sideways for a number of years the game has taken off in a big way.

(Click on the image below to enlarge it)

If you like large files you can view the full PDF presentation here. It’s over 8MB in size.

Reports are rife (though difficult to confirm globally) that hobby game sales have been consistently rising over the past few years. It looks like Magic is leading the way, as more players are spending more money than ever before on this game. Remember that Hasbro only measure initial sales, and those valuable second-hand cards that change hands for $20 and more aren’t included, so real spending on the game is higher than Hasbro’s revenues suggest.

Our Grand Melee league has been going for many years, but over the past year or so we have had a number of new players join in, and many of these players are new to the game.

Epic Diem – Sunshine Coast September 2013

2013 is going to be a good year for Nerd Conventions! With CanCon past, there is PAX and now Epic Diem to look forward to!

Epic Diem will take place at the USC Sports Stadium on Queensland’s Sunshine Coat on Sunday 21 September. Eagle-eyed readers will not that this clashes with LXG’s September club meeting, but we won’t hold that against them!

It is great to see a new convention appear, especially in Queensland, as we have had a long wait for a quality convention to come around. Epic Diem looks to be focused around role-playing and LARPing, but with plenty of other events added in. It bills itself as a nerd culture expo. Confirmed so far are:

TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING MINI CAMPAIGNS
MAGIC THE GATHERING TOURNAMENTS
YU-GI-OH TOURNAMENTS
COMICS
COSPLAY RUNWAY SHOW AND COMPETITION
BATTLESPORTS
BOFFER BATTLES
MONSTER MAKER SEMINAR
FACE PAINTING

There will be further announcements of events and also of vendors as we get closer to the event. You can keep updated on their website or Facebook page. If you find out what a Boffer Battle is, let me know!

If you aren’t able to make our September club meeting, why not drive up to the Sunshine Coast and check it out!

Crowdfunding Your Game

We’ve previously linked to an interview about game design with Alex Norton. Alex is a Brisbane-based game developer, and his indie game project is soon to enter beta testing. If you like old school rpg games you’ll be interested in this.

While Alex is based in Brisbane, his team is scattered around the world, including in the US. Thismeant they were able to organise a Kickstarter for thier game, and this returned many times their funding goal.

Alex will be speaking about this at the State Library of Queensland at 6.00pm Wednesday 23 January. The talk is free, and you can read more details and register here.

Update: Here is a video of the talk.

Hobby Game Business Events of 2012

ICv2 has an article covering their list of the Top Ten Hobby Games Business Events of 2012.

The article has a number of events specific to certain businesses, but the industry wide events are more interesting, including:

1. Kickstarter’s emergence as a major force in hobby games funding. For board and miniatures games, Kickstarter is very relevant. Many projects have been funded this way that otherwise may not have been funded, or may ahve come out months or years later. While it is tempting at times to be a little cynical about the glorified pre-order aspect of some of these titles, Kickstarter is effectively replacing business project finance at a time when such finance is hard to get even for worthwhile projects. The LXG website has also written a few articles about Kickstarter.

2. Sales are up! In an era where videogames sales (through shops at least) are declining, hobby games, especially board game, are up. While board games can be released as apps, their main sale is still through in in-person store.

3. Magic is sparkling! If board game sales are up, then sales of Magic: The Gathering are in orbit. This is a game that has more than doubled over the past four years, and is still continuing to grow. LXGs own Grand Melee League had a massive year in 2012, awarding 180 booster packs as prizes during and after the finals, and also as achievement and winners awards throughout the year.

2012 has been a big year for tabletop games, 2013 should be even bigger!

Game Development with Alex Norton

I saw this linked to from Slashdot, and I wanted to share. Alex Norton, lead developer of Malevolence: the Sword of Ahkranox is talking about things they don’t tell you as a game developer. It makes for a fascinating read.

Malevolence is a CRPG made in the ‘old school’ style, that uses procedural content generation to create an infinite game world. But wait, isn’t LXG all about non-computer games?

Alex is the son of LXGs current Secretary and runner of the Thunderstone league, Jeremy Norton. So there’s the link – plus this is a really interesting read, regardless of what type of game you are developing.

CanCon 2013

CanCon is on again in 2013! Held each year at Canberra, the next one will take place January 26-28 at Exhibition Park, Flemington Rd, also known as EPIC.

CanCon is free to enter (though there is a cost to play in organised tournaments. In addition to the tournaments there are many demonstration games that are free to play, and a large trade floor, with more games to buy than you can possibly fit in your luggage!

For more information, check out our CanCon 2012 article.

Converplaytions at The Edge

There is a new program on at The Edge, starting in December. Called Converplaytions it’s a series of talks all about gaming, followed by some playing of games.

From the website: “Gaming stereotypes have led us to believe that gaming is the domain of the introverted, male geek. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Throughout this talk series you will discover how game theory is embedded in your everyday life, hear from the women who are using alternate reality games to make richer learning experiences and take a tour through the ages, exploring gaming in all its guises.”

There will be some games from the LXG games library on hand too, as we have agreed to lend a few board games for the duration of the series.

The first one is on 11 December, with a ticket cost of $10.

The committee is also seeking a volunteer to speak on games at the Converplayion on 29 January.

November 26 update: Club games available are: Dominion, Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride.
November 28 update: The club will now e providing a speaker for 11 December, not 29 January. David K from LXG will be talking about board games past, present and future.

Kickstarter Helps Hobby Game Boom

An interesting quarterly update from the people at ICv2. The hobby game boom that kicked off earlier this year has continued and looks to be sustainable as far as these things can be: “Longtime industry insiders are comparing the current market to the Pokemon boom era around 2000, but with the difference that sales are good across the board rather than dependent on a single title.”

Another interesting point was that Kickstarter is seen as a positive part of this boom. Rather than replacing retailers with Kickstarter drives that effectively allow people to per-order cheaply, Kickstarter is creating buzz around products that drives people into stores to buy them when they become available.

LXG has been a beneficiary of this game boom too- our active memberships are currently at the highest they have ever been, so if you have a new game you’d like to play, we have the venue!

ICv2 measures sales in the hobby channel in the US, from distributors to retailers. In a category breakdown:
Magic: the Gathering remains the top selling collectible game.
Settlers of Catan is the most popular board game, with Ticket to Ride, Small World, Eclipse, and the second edition of Descent making up the top 5.
Munchkin is the top card/building game, with Dominion, 7 Wonders, Ascension, and Quarriors also selling well.
Warhammer 40,000 is still the top selling miniatures game, with War Machine, Warhammer Fantasy, Hordes, and Malifaux following.
Pathfinder remains the top selling RPG, followed by Dungeons & Dragons and Dark Heresy.

London On Board

For Anyone Travelling to London

I have just recently returned from a holiday in the UK. While in London, I found a board games club called ‘London On Board’. It was quiet on the night I rocked up, announcing, “Hi, I’m from the League of Extraordinary Gamers in Brisbane, Australia.”

This certainly broke the ice (and gained me a few la-de-da comments). There were several tables of more serious board games eg Agricola, taking place. I was made extremely welcome at a table of 5 people and another newby to learn ‘Bunny, Bunny, Moose, Moose’. During the night, we also played 7 Wonders with an expansion and ‘Cash N Guns’. It was a great night with lots of laughs. Of course, being in a pub, you could get drinks and food. Even my non-board gamer husband was kept amused.

The club meets in and takes over the basement of The Red Herring pub several nights a week. Check out their website for details as they like an RSVP if possible, because the place only holds 50 people comfortably (http://www.londononboard.com).

Thanks ‘London On Board’ for a great night!!

Leanne Jones

Thunderstone League Sept Update

Sorry for the delay folks!

In the September meeting we played 2 games where 4 players played both. Our newest recruit was Luke Irwin who I am sure has now been converted from Dominion…..

 

The Antipodean Steampunk Show

Whether you play Dystopian Wars or not, many of our members find Steampunk somewhat interesting.

So you will be pleased to hear about the forthcoming Antipodean Stempunk Show!

This show is running at the Artisan Gallery, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t been there before.

From the write up “This fantastical exhibition, the first major Steampunk exhibition in the country, showcases highly imaginative, handcrafted Australian Steampunk sculpture, photography, fashion, lighting, illustration, jewellery and communication devices. Steampunk merges a 19th century aesthetic with scientific invention, salvage, and new technology, and artisan has partnered with the Queensland Maritime Museum to include the old nautical, aeronautical and navigational equipment that inspired the style.”

Can’t wait!