Remember if you haven’t paid in full yet your payment is due on or by the June club meeting.

Below is the list of names, we have used full names to avoid any confusion.

Alexander, Kim
Alexander, Paul
Bauer, Peter
Bell, Nigel
Brittain, David
Caffrey, Angela
Catton, Darren
Catton, Grace
Catton, Oliver
Crompton, Eddie
Done, Alex
Done, Keith
Ferguson, Paul
Grimsy, Jennah
Hulsey, Cindy
Hulsey, Dustin
Jones Courtney
Jones, Leanne
Kay, David
Krause, Terry
Maher, Jayde
Maher, Steve
McGowan, Kat
McGruer, Daniel
Morton, David
Morton, Sallie
Morton, Sam
Murray, John
Nielsen, Jay
Nielsen, Sue
Owen, Mal
Reilly, Anthony
Reilly, Tom
Rimmington, Ken
Rimmington, Nicholas
Roberts, Adrian
Ryan, Leigh
Serin, Anne
Serin, Kahli
Serin, Maia
Serin, Sean
Shearer, Dylan
Spinaze, Alex
Spinaze, Callum
Tottle, Aris
Tottle, Brianna
Tottle, Aaron
Tottle, Courtney
Van Someren, Luke
Van Someren, Ross
Van Someren, Rachel
Van Someren, Julian
Wilcockson, Andrew
Willis, Mark
McCleer, Julie
McCleer, Kid
Roy, Martin
Chowdhury, Babul
Farrel, John
Skellet, Ben
Skellet, Christine
Tanner, Danny
O’Brien, Kevin
Dapore, Ann
O’Brien, Zuperfliegen
Horn, Tony
Horn, Joanna
Horn, Jessica
Horn, Michelle
Sheldermine, Anna
Sheldermine, Ryan

On table 2 Andrew B claimed his first melee victory after Adrian realised he couldn’t win against the last player on the table. Both Andrew and Adrian now move into the top 8, so will most likely play on Table 1 next month. Good luck!

This being the fifth round, those players who have played in every round this year gained the Contender achievement – Anthony H, David K, Jeremy N, Leanne J. On table 2, Adrian R picked up the Impact achievement. Full details on achievements can be found on the Grand Melee League page.

Here are the standings after round 5. A few non-renewed members have been removed from the standings, but will be added in again when/if they renew their membership.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Seventeen members gained a rank (or more) today, they were:

Leanne J is now an Electress
David M is a Duke
Anthony H is a Marquis
Andrew B is a Count
Alex Sp is a Viscount
Kat McG is a Baronetess, Greg P is a Baronet
Leigh R, Joseph C, Garth P, Dylan S, Jennah G, and Dustin H, are at Knight/Lady rank
Paul F, Jasmin H, Ryan H, and Murray H are Esquires

Important Notice

We have just been advised by the venue that names for all attendees for must be made by the end of next week. This means that those of you who wish to come to Winter Retreat must commit by this club meeting (ie a firm commitment and a $20 non-refundable deposit). Our apologies for this late notice. Full payment will be due by the meeting in June. If you aren’t coming to the May meeting but wish to make a Winter Retreat reservation by other means please contact use as soon as you can.

Also, for some members have expressed to attend Winter Retreat but stay off camp. We can advise members that this is possible and you will be charged a reduced fee of $120 per adult (most of the fees are in the catering charges). The child rate remains the same.

At this meeting:

Our large games library will be available for use

You can improve your Game of Games score, or start playing

The next round of our Thunderstone and Grand Melee leagues will take place

A Dragon’s Maze draft will take place in the morning, for 5-8 Magic: The Gathering players

Bring along your favourite miniatures game and make use of our tables and terrain

Book for Winter Retreat 2013, and renew your club membership if you didn’t have the chance to do this last month

And more!

You can win trophies and prizes to the value of $500

Play in any board games at Grill’d on Tuesday night and your score in the game gets registered with the League of Extraordinary Gamers. The top three scorers at the end of the 10th December meeting will share in the $500 prize pool.

How does it work?
There will be score sheets available on Tuesday night. You rank the players who participated in order of placing (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc). The number of players in a game determines your score. For example, if five people were playing the game, the person who came gets 5 points, second place gets 4 points, 3rd place gets 3 points and so on.

Hand your score sheets in to the LXG representative at Grill’d on Tuesday Game Night and your points will accumulate. Check out the leader board each fortnight to see where you are placed.

This process will be familiar to those of you already playing LXG’s Game of Games system.  In fact if you are an LXG member you are earning Game of Games points when you play at Grill’d Burger, and these will be added to your score.

The three highest scored paricipants at the game meeting to be held on the 10th of December will receive:

First Place: Trophy + $300 games voucher
Second Place: Medal + $150 games voucher
Third Place” Medal + $50 game voucher

Where Do I Play?
Grill’d Burger, Cnr Samuel Street and Boundary Road, Camp Hill QLD 6pm to 9.30pm every second Tuesday.

The dates to play in 2013 are as follows:

14th May
28th May

11th June
25th June

9th July
23rd July

6th August
20th August

3rd September
17th September

1st October
15th October
29th October

12th November
26th November

10th December

Ral Zarek costs four mana to cast, of which one must be blue and one red. He enters the battlefield with four loyalty counters and has three abilities. The first two are useful, the third is more of a gamble. Literally. We’ll get to that.

The first ability lets you tap target permanent, then untap another target permanent, for the cost of adding a loyalty counter. Very nice. You be be untapping one of your creatures or lands, while tapping down something one of your opponents needs.

The second ability costs two loyalty counters, and with this one Ral Zarek deals three damage to target creature or player. Lightning Bolt is a popular spell even with multiple players at the table, and this ability will be useful at all times.

The final ability is the one that catches the eye, and makes this planeswalker unique. You need to remove seven loyalty counter to pay for this one, and you flip a coin five times. For each flip you win, you get to take an extra turn after this one. This could be fantastic (five additional turns) or useless (no extra turns), but will more likely be generally very good, as two or three additional turns is going to set you up nicely.

Verdict: Good. The abilities look unconnected, but Ral Zarek is actually an excellent representation of his colours. The first ability gives you the controlling finesse of blue, the second gives you the straight blasting ability of red. The final ability gives you the chaos that the red/blue colour pairing is known for. All in all a perfect card, and a great addition to the game. This is not the most powerful planeswalker, but this is certainly a character that feels right, and will no doubt be a joy to use.

Connections: Like Ral Zarek? You may also like [Ajani Vengeant] [Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker] [Domri Rade]

Don’t like Ral Zarek? You may prefer [Liliana of the Veil] [Jace, Architect of Thought] [Vraska the Unseen]

Keep your opponents off balance with this creature based deck. They won’t know what to expect next! This deck is creature-based but comes with enough utility cards to keep the game interesting and varied. The deck works best when you can get some early changelings into play, and then follow them up with the likes of Tribal Golem and Gutwrencher Oni. Watch out for your opponents taking out your changelings to remove your advantage though!

Deck Name: Ch- Ch- Changelings

Colours: Blue, Black, Green

Cards: 60

Designed by: David K

Deck list: Cards are ordered by converted mana cost (cmc) with the cheapest cards first, then land.

cmc1: 1 Cloudfin Raptor, 1 Rapid Hybridization

cmc2:  4 Woodland Changeling, 2 Nature’s Spiral, 2 Naturalize, 4 Frilled Oculus

cmc3: 2 Seal of Doom, 3 Woodland Chnageling, 2 Mistform Warchief, 1 Verdant Haven, 1 Dimir Cluestone

cmc4: 1 Blunt the Assault, 2 Deep Analysis

cmc5: 4 Gutwrencher Oni, 2 Adaptive Snapjaw

cmc6: 2 Tribal Golem, 2 Skaab Goliath

Land: 3 Terramorphic Expanse, 10 Forest, 6 Island, 5 Swamp

See other melee library decks

In Dragon’s Maze all ten guilds of Ravnica return, with the guild Abilities seen in either Gatecrash or Return to Ravnica. If that weren’t enough there is an eleventh mechanic, this one new to the set. Split cards make their return in Dragon’s Maze, but with a twist. Usually a split card allows you to choose which half of the card you want to cast. The Dragon’s Maze split cards all have the ‘Fuse’ ability which allow you to choose to cast both halves of the card if you wish. This “have your cake and eat it” change is bound to be popular.

While the other ten mechanics are all known, the additional cards plug some gaps and add powerful new options for every guild. Each guild gets and equal share of the pie, so no one is being favoured over everyone else. There are a few reprints in this set, including Putrefy from the original Ravnica.

Each guild has a “champion’ in Dragon’s Maze, a legendary creature in that guild’s colours. Each of the champions appear at rare and they all add something interesting to the mix.

Another way this set has mixed things up is in the distribution of cards within a pack. Usually, Magic boosters contain one basic land, regardless of what set they are from. With Dragon’s Maze the basic land is replaced by a random guildgate, giving the set mana fixing in every pack, great for a multicolour set. In some packs the guildgates will be replaced by one of the “shock lands” from Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash. There is even the possibility of receiving the new Mythic Land, Maze’s End in place of a guildgate! This doesn’t affect the normal distribution of rares and mythic in packs, making it possible to open a pack with two Mythic rares, Maze’s End and one of the set’s regular Mythic cards.

This set has taken multiplayer into account, something that makes the cards of all rarities interesting to the grand melee player. There are plenty of “each opponent” type effects, from the life-sucking Extort cards to the punishing Ruric Thar, guild champion of the Gruul.

Ten interesting cards

1. Ruric Thar, the Unbowed – a multiplayer beast who punishes all your opponents
2. Tithe Drinker  – a cheap vampire that presents an early threat
3. Zhur-Taa Druid – a creature that damages each opponent when it taps for mana
4. Ready//Willing – a great combination of creature-boosting
5. Unflinching Courage - best creature enchantment since armadillo cloak
6. Maze’s End - the land to end the game, in your favour
7. Blood Baron of Vizkopa – another creature to fear
8. Gaze of Granite – mass removal a la carte
9. Warleader’s Helix - Lightning Helix has a big brother
10. Ral Zarek a very interesting planeswalker design

See also: [Return to Ravnica] [Gatecrash]