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Ajani vs Nicol Bolas Review

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

Today I purchased the new Magic The Gathering Duel Deck, “Ajani vs Nicol Bolas”. I played each deck against each other today three times… and found that the Ajani deck destroyed the Bolas deck every time.

Ajani’s is a deck built around fast, aggressive creatures with a good dose of lifegain included. The Bolas deck on the other hand is far less coherent; bits and pieces of powerful spells and strange creatures all limited by high costs or penalties. Yes it has some “I win” cards in the shape of Cruel Ultimatum or Bolas himself, but the deck is so slow that Ajani, in my games, had won handily long before Bolas could cast anything that expensive.

In each game, Ajani defeated Bolas whilst having over 20 life. A complete blowout!

As for the product itself, I’m pretty pleased with it. Not only did I get 2 new art foil Planeswalkers (“Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker” and “Ajani Vengeant”), but there is 7 lands (for my collection!), 2 tokens (also for the collection) and about 6 of the cards are good enough to go into my new Commander decks (ironically enough, most of these are from the Bolas deck).

All things considered, another fine duel deck. Recommended.

Tags:Games
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A (No Longer) Brief Post, Before My Trip

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Yesterday I went to the Altamont fair with SFL. We got their before the midway opened, and started by checking out the animals:

That’s a photo of a brand new Doctor and a goose! The lemonade cost $5 with $3 refills, which we did three times. We both figured the lemonade carney was mad at the fact we actually carried the cup around so long.

This was the brand new ride at the fair, called The Stinger. This shot was taken when they were testing it before the midway officially opened:

With a stunning mix of bravado and foolishness, I rode the above ride. Here is a video of the entire experience (watch for my reaction at the end):

If you couldn’t see the video, here is a hint as to the effect The Stinger had on me:

Check out these art panels on the front of a very, very bad ‘haunted house’ type ride:

Nothing to do with haunting I know, but ultra-cool nonetheless.

After some time I had somewhat recovered from The Stinger, and we chose to go on a very mild looking thing called Avalanche (which we dubbed ‘Glacial Forest’). Basically you sit as seen in the picture and it goes around and around… how bad could it be?

All I’ll say is I was slightly relieved that SFL, too, got terribly nauseated by the above ride since if it had been only me I would have felt like an old man indeed 🙂

The day was very hot and we were there slightly over eight hours (time flew)! The fair seemed bigger than last year with a great deal of things to see, especially animals. Including beyond the usual – such as Kangaroos, bears and even coatimundi!

Oh, and I had my first ever taste of fried dough, which was delicious!

All told a very fun day, even if The Stinger absolutely ruined me for… almost 40 hours and counting so far 🙂

Later today I shall go to San Diego for SPIE. I will not have internet, so no blogging, but you can follow me on twitter.

If you’re not sure what twitter is, or how to access it, click on the ‘Me on Twitter’ link on the right side of the screen —>

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Tech | 1 Comment »

Dragon Week: WTF

Friday, August 12th, 2011

And so we come to those dated and quaint adverts that are not easily categorized. The ones that not only would never be seen today, but must have been astonishing even in their time. Such as this:

It’s not easy to even describe what that is! A weird abacus-y thing for AD&D timekeeping? How on earth could there have ever been a market for this?

But wait! If the above is of questionable use, how about this guy:

Since this was 30 years ago, I just know that ‘walnut finish’ was contact vinyl!

What about these two ads for a service that no-one that has ever lived on Earth has ever needed:

And if you are in the business of paying for your character, why not pay for the whole thing:

I think as far as KLS is concerned the above is the most heinous ad of them all. $2 per minute to have some dude read out character stats? That’s so morally questionable it must be criminal.

Let’s change tack just a bit with a nice double-advert:

The electronic dice machine is just a figment of its era, but those book covers are fantastic! My guess is they were intended for the AD&D manuals, but wouldn’t they look flash on my textbooks today? 🙂

Fancy some arts and crafts:

They don’t mention the kit comes with free lead poisoning! (Not a joke btw, home-casting used to use lead until it was banned, and even then hobbyists melted down shotgun buckshot to keep making figures until that too was banned from using lead.)

Another for the home craftsman:

How evocative is this: the above address is in Albany, NY. I love to imagine that somewhere in this city there resides a warehouse filled with crates full of unsold Red Dragons Of Krynn. If I ever find them, I will be sure to get one for each of you!

And while you assemble it, how about some appropriate music:

That, my friends, is IT! That’s the craziest ad I have yet seen in a Dragon. I just know the dude in the horned helm is Ramal LaMarr who desperately wanted to be Prince but failed but it didn’t matter because he ended up with a (scary) harem anyway. I wonder how many AD&D games were played to his soulful tunes (as opposed to Iron Maiden or prog rock)?

So if that is the craziest, what’s left? Well here’s the worst:

Words fail me…

And here is the best:

The above ad hurts my soul. As I said to KLS, “This is the closest I will ever have to owning this game.” Which leads me to a sad and horrible tale…

It was X years ago, in Rochester, NY, at a game store then known as Crazy Egors. In a large and mostly abandoned pile of board games in the back of the cavernous store, I was astounded to see the above advertised game. It was in remarkable condition (as far as I could tell) and was an original from 198X. For reasons that to this day baffle me I never purchased it, and it’s no exaggeration to say that ever since that fateful day I the last thing I think of before sleeping each night is how foolish that decision was…

And so Dragon Week draws to a close. Rest assured I am still reading the mag, and if any truly spectacular ads turn up I will be sure to share them with you. But for now, I hope you have enjoyed the last five days of posts.

I shall leave with not an advertisement, but an announcement of a very special event. If my memory hasn’t failed me, I have a suspicion AW may be able to tell us more about this event in a comment…

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Music, Otaku, Tech | 3 Comments »

Dragon Week: Cosplay

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

There’s dedication and there is dedication and then there is the level of dedication suggested by some of the following adverts, from early 1980s Dragon magazines:

Or, if you are inclined toward playing a warrior:

I particularly love how all you buy there is an instruction book. I wonder how many people actually responded to this ad and actually made armour?

For those perhaps not as devoted to role playing, they could still show off their fandom thus:

Or via new-fangled (at the time) ‘holographic’ technology:

As with all of these entries, I leave the best for last…

Suppose you didn’t want to dress as a thief, or wizard or even warrior. Suppose you’re true calling was something else. Something like this…

“Wear this life-like dragon mask to all special occasions” indeed 🙂

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, The Unknown | Comments Closed

Dragon Week: Computers

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Ah, the games of yesteryear. In those days graphics were less than realistic, so advertisers used artwork to sell their product. Such as these fine examples:

I would bet money that the two Epyx games are just Temple Of Apshai with new graphics and monster names 🙂

But computer ads in Dragon weren’t all about the games. This was, after all, a magazine for AD&D players and Dungeon Masters so why not try and sell a few utilities?

The map software looks craptacular (and would have massively impressed 12-year-old me), but software to simulate AD&D weather?! Whoever used weather rules, much less enough to pay good money for software to do it??

But weather seemed to be a big draw for these coders, and I could have scanned a half dozen or so ads for different weather system programs:

I find it intriguing. The above ad, by the way, is oh-so quaint. Sinclair 16k software for encumbrance? At $12.95 (now about $25). The world was so much less complex back then 🙂

Here’s the big daddy of DM assistance software, judging by the advert:

That art is soooo 1980s.

What about this ad, for an early MMO?

It’s from 1992, and is almost certainly a text MUD. The best thing about the ad is the cost: $3 PER HOUR! That’s 144 times more expensive than Warcraft is today!

I save the best two game-related ad’s for last.

This one is for a game that simply defies credulity:

Yes, a game about spinning plates! I had to go and do some research on this and you can bet it’s as awful as you imagine. Here’s an (emulated) screenshot of Plattermania, proving just anything was made into a game in those early days:

And last but not least, an ad for Wizisystem. There is so much win here it’s hard to describe what’s so good about it, but I salute the guy who made a business out of (essentially) selling what we would one day called an FAQ:

Gotta love it:

The best Wizardry players worldwide use the Wizisystem!

You know what… I didn’t 🙂

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