Magic: The Gathering For Playing With Friends!

by Marla Desat

MAGIC: THE GATHERING GAME FORMATS FOR PLAYING WITH FRIENDS

Never played Magic: The Gathering before? Check out Angela Hartwick's A Beginner's Guide to Magic: The Gathering!

If you're like me, your collection of Magic: The Gathering cards is a mismatch of half-starts, fleeting infatuations with Blue-Green decks, and years of telling myself, "This year is the year that I'll really get back into Magic!" Instead of fussing over whether or not your dusty old deck is legal for sanctioned play, here are three great ways to break out the game with friends!

STAR FREE-FOR-ALL

If you have a big collection of cards, getting together to construct decks and pit your brand new burn deck against your best friend's experimental Squirrel onslaught is a ton of fun. If you have exactly five players, the Star method is a great way to add a bit of structure to the free-for-all format. Each player picks a single Magic colour and builds a 60-card deck using only that colour. Each colour has two allied colours and two enemy colours (see the chart).  Players can attack any other player at the table, and players win when both their enemy colours lose. Allied victories are also possible. For example, if White and Black are eliminated, and then Blue is removed from the game, Red and Green win simultaneously.

BOOSTER DRAFT TOURNAMENT

If you don't have a large collection of cards, but you do have a few friends and about $15 each, a booster draft is a great way to have a tournament among friends. You will need at least four people and three Magic: The Gathering booster packs for each player. Use boosters from the same set if you can. To start the draft, each player opens a booster pack and secretly selects one card from it, and then passes the pack to their left. The pack continues around the table with each player selecting a card and then passing it on. Once all the boosters are empty, the players repeat their process with the second and third booster packs. Players pass the second booster pack to the right, and pass the third to the left. After drafting all three booster packs, players can freely add as many basic lands as they like. After adding lands, each player must have a deck of at least 40 cards. Once everyone has a deck, each pair of players plays a best two out of three match. The winners of those matches play the other winners, until only two players remain to battle in the final match.

PACK WARS

Also known as Mini-Master, Pack Wars is the quickest game of Magic I know. Simply grab a friend and a booster pack for each of you (or randomly draw 15 cards from your collection). Open the packs without looking at the cards, and add in three of each basic land. Shuffle, and enjoy the chaos! Play a game of Magic just like normal with your 30-card mystery decks. Pack Wars is one of the most joyful ways I know to open a fresh booster pack, and it's the quickest way to play out of a box of neglected cards just begging to be taken off a shelf.

Marla Desat is a recent University of Waterloo grad living and working in Ottawa. When she isn't playing the latest video games, she's geeking out over comic books, board games, tabletop roleplaying games and science. Marla also writes for The Escapist as a freelance news writer. You can follow her on Twitter @mrdesat.

Geeky Craft Tutorial: Lilo & Stitch Frame

This post was originally shared on our sister site, GirlCrafted.com
by Jordan Danger

I’m live-blogging some of my Christmas crafting this year, so I’m going to have disclaimers: WARNING: if you spoil the surprise for a receiver of one of these gifts, bad Christmas karma WILL get you. Be sure of it. And if you are my roommate, this post is about YOU and DON'T PEEK.

So my roommate is a big nerd, and I love him for it. We bonded early on over Lilo & Stitch for reasons that are deep and meaningful and complex...and cute and fuzzy. In the movie, they talk a lot about 'ohana'--family. Because Bruce came in and became a part of my hodgepodge family, I felt the message was suiting. 

HAND PAINTED PHOTO FRAME

YOU WILL NEED
Plain wood photo frame
Pencil
Paper
Printer (optional)
Paints and brushes
Permanent fine point marker
Water based varnish (eg Delta Ceramcoat gloss interior/exterior varnish...available at the craft store)

WHAT YOU WILL DO

1. Decide on your image. Here, my image is Stitch, and some skateboards. Draw these on paper or print them off the computer.

2. Scribble onto the back with a graphic pencil so that the entire image is covered (on the backside) with graphite. This will cause your piece of paper to basically work as carbon paper.

3. Place your paper onto the frame so the image is where you're going to want it to be when it's finished. Trace the image with a ballpoint pen. Be firm. The graphite will now transfer, fairly lightly, onto the frame where you have traced.

4. Paint your background. I used acrylics for this frame because they're versatile and I can use them thick or thin. For the background, I watered down some yellow simply by adding some plain ol' water to some yellow acrylic on a plate. Then I 'washed' the whole frame with the yellow. Don't worry, the pencil markings will show through.



5. Paint your character. I can't give you a whole lesson on how to paint here. But if you're nervous, choose something that doesn't have shading. For example, many cartoon characters don't have shading (look at The Simpsons, generally speaking...other TV cartoons, too.) Or stick to more abstract shapes, like flowers and stars and so forth. I'm a long-time painter, so my Stitch looks pretty accurate. Don't worry if yours doesn't; it's still going to be super thoughtful!

7. Let it dry, then outline the character's lines with permanent fine tip pen. Let that dry at LEAST three days. It needs to off-gas or it could smudge.

8. Varnish the whole thing with a soft-bristled brush and your water-based varnish.

Done!

FOR THE ADVANCED CRAFTER:

Freehand your art...I freehanded my lettering. Just remember: if you mess up your pencil lines, you'll have to paint with a thicker paint to make them disappear. So at least try to get your pencil lines right the first time.