Fanboys Anonymous

Of the various sorts of battlemats employed in recent editions of Dungeons & Dragons and similar miniatures-based games, Tact-Tiles may have been the most popular and well respected. Indeed, my 3e D&D game’s dungeon master swore by them! Manufactured by BC Products, these modular, hard plastic, dry-erase tiles are loved by players and referees alike. They’re resilient, portable, easy to reconfigure during play, and clean off nicely after the game. However, their high quality came with a high price tag—more than $40 for a set—and the price has risen considerably on the secondhand market ever since the product was discontinued in 2007.

Now, role-playing game publisher Void Star Studios—developers of Strands of Fate, Strands of Power, and Nova Praxis—have announced their purchase of the rights to Tact-Tiles and their intention to launch a Kickstarter to fund a new production run.

From their website:

“Void Star Studios, Inc. has acquired the rights, processes, vendors and original mold for Tact-Tiles! And the original creators of the Tact-Tiles are working with us as advisors.

“These aren't some cheap knock-offs. These are the real deal, tweaked to improve the manufacturing process to insure we can bring them to you at an affordable price.

“Our intent is to make this new run of Tact-Tiles 100% compatible with the original Tact-Tiles from BC Products, and to insure these are of even better quality.

“Tact-Tiles are highly portable, rigid, thick plastic, dry-erase, gaming tiles. No more erasing the mat and starting over when the PCs run off the edge! And no more fussing with a rolled up mat!”

This is great news to anyone running Pathfinder, a miniatures-oriented D&D game, or any other game where a battlemat comes in handy. If you missed out on Tact-Tiles seven years ago—or if your set is worn out, misplaced, eaten by grues, etc.—now’s your chance to pick some up at a reasonable price, rather than the extortionate cost of an original set on eBay. I’m going to keep an eye out for the Kickstarter myself, and maybe pick up a copy for my own Basic/Expert D&D campaign.

If you use a battlemat, or another grid or terrain system such as Dwarven Forge, please share your experiences with it in the comments below!

As a longtime fan of Magic: The Gathering—I've been playing on and off since 1994—I'm excited to post about the game here on Fanboys Anonymous. I'm largely a kitchen-table player who occasionally plays Draft or Sealed, so my posts will be aimed more toward the casual audience than die-hard Constructed players. That said, let's dig right into the new set!

Wizards of the Coast has published a full spoiler and release notes for Born of the Gods, the second set in the Theros block. It retains the previous set's flavor focus on Greek mythology and mechanical focus on enchantments. In addition to three returning mechanics from Theros, it has two new mechanics: Inspired and Tribute.

Inspired is a new ability word found on permanents, although only creatures have it thus far. A permanent with Inspired has some beneficial ability that triggers whenever it becomes untapped. While this is usually automatic, you may be required to pay a mana cost. For example, when Aerie Worshippers becomes untapped, you may pay one blue and two colorless mana to put a 2/2 flying Bird token into play.

The Inspired creatures in Born of the Gods vary widely in their usefulness. They're tricky to employ because unless your deck is engineered to tap your own creatures, you'll probably have to attack with the Inspired creature in order to gain its benefits, which risks getting your creature killed by blockers or hit by spells like Azorius Charm or Divine Verdict. Fortunately for Limited players, there's a cycle of common creature-tapping Auras you can use for—ahem—Inspiration.

Tribute is a new creature keyword. When you cast a creature with Tribute, your opponent can "pay tribute" by putting a number of +1/+1 counters on the creature. If the opponent doesn't do so, that triggers some other beneficial effect instead. For example, unless your opponent puts two +1/+1 counters on your Shrike Harpy, that opponent has to sacrifice a creature.

Overall, the creatures with Tribute appear relatively weak. While each of a Tribute creature's two modes is usually slightly above the curve, your opponent chooses which mode applies; this means that in practice, such creatures can't be played to their best effect. Worse, some modes aren't above the curve in the first place; for instance, if your opponent pays the tribute for Shrike Harpy, all you get is a 4/4 flier for 3BB. As a result, these creatures aren't likely to see Constructed play. They look like solid beaters in Limited, but even there they can't match the raw power of the Monstrous creatures in Theros.

Returning mechanics include Bestow, Heroic, and Scry. These function much as they did in Theros. Bestow remains Limited fodder, Heroic is still good for aggro combat tricks, and Scry provides a cost-efficient boost to card quality that's useful across the board.

Of all the new cards in Born of the Gods, I'm most excited by the following:

Acolyte's Reward: It's like a mono-white Boros Fury-Shield that also works on noncombat damage. This looks great for silly casual combos with Spitemare or Boros Reckoner. Its utility is limited mainly by the devotion requirement.

Glimpse the Sun God: I'd call this a strictly better Word of Binding, but a more recent point of comparison would be Gridlock. Adding Scry 1 on top of tapping out your opponent's creatures at instant speed should prove to be a winner.

Hero of Iroas: This awesome little dude reinforces Aura-based strategies, while its Heroic ability provides an automatic target for beneficial Auras. All this on top of a solid 2/2 body for 1W. What's not to like?

Arbiter of the Ideal: With a 4/5 body and flying, the Arbiter is one creature with Inspired that's likely to be able to attack each turn and survive. Its ability to drop a creature from the top of your library directly onto the battlefield is damned impressive, especially when you can use Scry to stack the deck!

Fated Infatuation: Possibly one of the best Clone variants ever printed! Limiting it to copying your own creatures is a significant restriction, but the bonus Scry 2 will be a tremendous boon in play.

Meletis Astronomer: I don't know if this card is actually any good—I suspect it isn't all that powerful in competitive play—but I'm an absolute sucker for a card draw engine. I want to play this in a deck packed with Flitterstep Eidolon, Nimbus Naiad, and Thassa's Emissary, turning the Astronomer into Voltron while drawing a steady stream of cards.

Drown in Sorrow: Another solid utility card with Scry 1 stapled on. This is a strictly better Infest, and Infest was already a solid card to begin with. I expect to see this one get a lot of play.

Fate Unraveler: This is a splashable Underworld Dreams attached to a solid 3/4 body. It's a bit more vulnerable to removal due to being an enchantment creature but is nonetheless a viable threat.

Servant of Tymaret: Another playable Inspire card, the Servant can attack freely with the knowledge that you can regenerate it. More importantly, it's an intimidating blocker. A creature that regenerates becomes tapped, which may discourage your opponent from attacking into the Servant.

Everflame Eidolon: Could it be—a playable Bestow creature? Like all Bestow creatures, its printed power and toughness are too low to be terribly useful in the late game, but firebreathing gives it the potential to swing for a whole lot of damage, especially after a board wipe when your opponent doesn't have any blockers on the table.

Scouring Sands: This looks like a great way to deal with decks full of tokens or quirky 1-toughness utility creatures, or to clean up some almost-dead creatures after a big engagement. The ability as written is unique (like a strictly better Sandstorm or Simoon), and would be worthwhile even without the Scry 1.

Stormcaller of Keranos: This is the first repeatable Scry ability we've ever seen, which makes it worth a closer look! It should also combo nicely with Flamespeaker Adept.

Hero of Leina Tower: This could be the strongest Heroic creature yet, growing more and more powerful in the late game. It has great synergy with cheap spells that protect against removal (Ranger's Guile), offer evasion (Rancor), or allow the Hero to fight another creature (Mutant's Prey).

Hunter's Prowess: A potentially backbreaking late-game play. Yes, you have to play around removal and clear an opening through your opponent's defenses, but if it works, you'll dish out massive damage and draw a metric fuckton of cards.

Satyr Wayfinder: This looks like a fun enabler for self-mill decks. A 1/1, a land in hand, and three cards in the graveyard to pump Boneyard Wurm or to cast for their flashback costs? Yes, please!

Reap What Is Sown: This could be the best Heroic enabler around, short of playing Gigadrowse. It's generally better than Seeds of Strength and strictly better than Common Bond, and hitting three Heroic triggers should be enormously effective—assuming you can keep three Heroic creatures alive on the table.

Siren of the Silent Song: As a cheap flier with Inspired, this stands a good chance of successfully attacking and forcing your opponents to discard. The extra mill should give a little more oomph to blue-black Mortivore decks.

Magic players, what do you think of my card choices—are they brilliant or moronic? Make your feelings known by posting in the comments section below!

After several days of excavation, between August 14 and 15, 2013, archaeologists discovered gaming stones in the burial site at Başur Höyük. This site, left behind from the Bronze Age, is located in the Southeastern province of Turkey known as Siirt. Lorenzi explains in Discovery News that archaeologists have been excavating nine different graves. In one of them they discovered 49 sculpted stones of various kinds. The groups of stones found have different shapes from each other, and they are painted in different colors such as green, red, blue, black, and white.

According to archaeologist Haluk Sağlamtimur, from Ege University, in Izmir, Turkey, some of the stones "Depict pigs, dogs and pyramids, others feature round and bullet shapes. We also found dice as well as three circular tokens made of white shell and topped with a black round stone." Sağlamtimur also explained that pieces similar to these stones were found in locations in nearby Syria and Iraq. One piece in particular was the oldest board game, the royal game of Ur.

Based on an article in the Smithsonian magazine, What is even more interesting is that the royal game of Ur was found in the area known as the Fertile Crescent, at what used to be called Mesopotamia. In another article written by Viegas of Discovery News, it was found that these board games have been around since 3500 BCE. Even though the royal game of Ur is said to be 4,800 years old, another board game that was found was the Egyptian game of senet, which is said to be 11,000 years old!

It's no surprise that such advanced, elaborately made game pieces would be found in the area where the first agricultural societies were formed.  Even during that time, so long ago, playing games was a symbol of status in society; only the elite would be able to play games, according to an article in Discovery News: "Many of the first board games appear to have been diplomatic gifts to signify status," co-author Mark Hall told Discovery News. “We have early examples of quite splendid playing pieces belonging to elite, privileged people."

Archaeologist Sağlamtimur explained at his conference that the pieces found at the Başur Höyük grave were found in clusters. The pieces first found  in Syria and Iraq, on the other hand, were found separately, so archaeologists had not thought them to be part of a game at first. Now, because the new pieces found are the same and have been found in clusters, they can now be verified as belonging to the same game, states Lorenzi. Alongside this, the pieces have been classified to come in groups of four and eight, which could mean that "According to distribution, shape and numbers of the stone pieces, it appears that the game is based on the number 4," according to Sağlamtimur.

Furthermore, the Archaeology News Network describes that around 2550–2400 BC, during the First Dynasty of Ur, the boards used to play the games were actually for the "game of twenty squares," which could be similar to backgammon. The pieces were associated with the game because they were found in the tombs lined up in a straight row according to shape and color: "The set consisted of seven shell roundels inlaid with of five lapis lazuli dots and seven roundels of black shale inlaid with five dots of white shell."

More detail of the game pieces, the board game, and the area in which they were discovered are written in the Archaeology News Network. This is a great place to catch up on the ancient history of Mesopotamia and see some interesting games!

I promised in my first post to talk about games that were easy to learn, teach, and play. This selection is mostly meant for the gamer who hasn't done board gaming, or for the geek who wants to let his friends sample the hobby. Even if you're more deep into the hobby, there's a lot to enjoy from this selection, and you might find some good filler to play between your meatier selections. So no matter who are, if you've got some friends, some snacks, and maybe some beers, you'll find something compelling.

For this post, I've also included prices, primarily because a lot of the people I encounter aren't familiar with the price of gaming. I'd suggest using Amazon.com for purchasing, which is what I do, as they're the cheapest there are often come with free shipping. I also frequent a FLGS (or Friendly Local Game Store to the uninitiated) when I want a game right-now-right-away, but they're always more expensive.

1. King of Tokyo

All ready to wallop somebody.

I'd also like to heartily recommend the expansion, King of Tokyo: Power Up! It is the best example of what an expansion should be, mostly because it's cheap, and also because it adds a lot of options to the game while adding almost no rules at all. It introduces some new special abilities, called Evolutions, which give each monster its own flavor, which is something I feel was missing from the base game. Expect to shell out about $30 for the base game, $15 for the expansion, and be playing a single game for up to—but usually less than—45 minutes. Great with four or five players, but it slows down if you add a sixth, and is fairly boring with only two.

2. 7 Wonders

I "wonder" how they fit the rest of it on the table.

Another short and sweet game is 7 Wonders, this time a card game rather than a dice game. You're given a board featuring one
of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, and you play your cards for resources, points, science, and military might, utilizing your wonder's unique ability while trying to complete it. The catch to the game is that each turn you pass your hand of unplayed cards to another player, so the cards you have in one turn aren't the cards you'll have to choose from in the next turn. It keeps you guessing, and good players quickly learn to get rid of the cards their opponents need. Admittedly, some of the mechanics are a little hard to grasp during your first game, but the second game always runs more smoothly. The other great thing about 7 Wonders is that the game plays exactly the same with three players as it does with seven, making it ideal for either a large or small group. It has a play time of 45 minutes once you're familiar with the game, and I find it usually takes an hour to play the first time around. Expect to pay about $35 for this title.

3. San Juan

Great game with such a boring box.

Building up San Juan during the colonial period sounds boring, but I guarantee you that it is not. Each turn sees players choosing a role, such as "builder" or "carpenter" from a small selection, and then playing or gaining cards. Each card is a useful building that may give you a new ability, but each card is also the game's currency: to play one you need to discard other cards from your hand. It makes each decision an important one, because you need to prioritize what needs to go to the table and what needs to get discarded. Furthermore, you can only perform the actions that you and the other players choose. If you really want to play cards, you'll need to choose the appropriate role, but doing so may help the other players too much. In order to get ahead in San Juan, you'll need to anticipate what other players are doing and plan your role choice accordingly.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there is a much more refined version of this game, called Race for the Galaxy. I chose to mention San Juan first because Race is a much harder game to learn, even though it is a far more rewarding and re-playable game. Both games will take about 45 minutes to play, play well with two to four people, and cost around $30.

4. Love Letter

I want to know how that dress stays up.

5. Hanabi

"Hanabi" apparently means "fireworks" or some such.

I don't know if I'd call this a "microgame," but it certainly isn't a big one. In this game, you and the other players are cooperating to play cards to the table in order and by suit. The catch? You can't talk, and you can only see other players' cards instead of your own! To learn about your cards, you have to spend a communal set of tokens to give information to the other players. Make three mistakes and your game is over. I found myself surprised by how much fun Hanabi actually turned out to be. It is a very simple game, but the twist that you can't view your own cards is wonderful and kind of stressful. Set aside $15 and 30 minutes--this is a superb game.

6. Suburbia

Suburbia's a fun game if you're a fan of SimCity. The longest game I've recommended so far, at about an hour and a half, this is still an easy one to teach and learn. The basic idea is that you're purchasing tiles and placing them in your city, adjacent to other tiles. Each tile is a building that may affect the tiles it's placed next to. For example, you'll hurt your score if you place an airport next to a residential area, but placing a Restaurant in the same city as a Slaughter House will give you extra money every turn. The tiles you grab can also affect the other players' cities, and each player has goals they're trying to achieve in order to gain an influx of people. At the end of the game, it is the player with the highest population wins. This one will cost somewhere around $45. Lots of neat tiles and things to look at, though, and well worth it.

7. 1775: The American Revolution

I can't decide if this seems more or less boring than San Juan

Don't let the historical theme fool you, this is a really engaging, fast-paced, and fun game. It is also the newest on this list. Like Suburbia, this takes around an hour and a half to play, but is probably easier to teach. If you liked anything about Risk, this game is an absolute must. Essentially there are four players, and each of you play on a team: either as the Loyalists and the British Regulars, or as the Patriot Militia and the Continental Army. There are also Hessians, the French, and the Indians, but they're all allies you get through the course of play rather than playable factions. On your turn you'll play a movement card, which allows you to move a mess of cubes (which represent your armies) the number of spaces shown on the card. There's lots of discussion and pointing and anger because you're on a team and, most importantly, because you can choose any number of cubes in a region to move as long as one of your cubes is present. That means that you can move your ally's cubes and, in fact, you want to as you'll fight better because of it! Then you have battles and get to chuck dice around, and the dice are a lot of fun, too. Each faction gets their own, and each side of each die does its own thing. The British Regulars do a lot of killing, the Patriots and Loyalists run away an awful lot, the Continental Army does a lot of killing and running, and the Indians rarely do anything, but it is a pleasant surprise when they do. In short, this is a hectic, crazy game, and you'd be doing yourself a service by trying it out. Because it is so new, you may have to wait a bit to pick it up, but it should be in stores shortly.

8. Agricola

This is easily the most popular game on the list, but it is also the most difficult to teach and learn (I would recommend doing the family version of the rules for your first game or two). Still, it is definitely worth the effort, and it is a very easy, intuitive game to play once you've learned it. And though it seems like the game is easy once you've learned the rules, it is a game full of tension and difficult decisions, fraught with frustration that then turns to joy when you manage to achieve something. Admittedly, the theme is kind of a hard sell. You're a 17th-century farmer trying to scrape a meagre existence off the land. Sounds boring, but it isn't. You'll try to gather resources in order to build fences to house animals, and you'll plow, plant, and harvest your fields. Each of your family members will give you an action on every turn, but they also need to eat. So to win you'll need to expand your family, but to expand you'll need to find a way to get more food. It all becomes a wonderful, harried mess as you try to expand your farm, feed your family, and try to gain new members. Your first game may take up to 2 hours, but after that you'll get a game in within an hour to an hour and a half. Engages two to five players equally well. About $50.

A Two-fer, for easy comparison!

9. Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small

I thought I'd go with a two-player game for this one. All Creatures Big & Small is everything cool about Agricola, but less of it. Fewer rules, no cards, no family growth, and no feeding your people—this is nothing but the basics. The focus in this game is building up the number of animals in your farm, rather than growing crops. It plays in about 30 minutes and is a very simple, very fun game for two. It can also be found on the cheap, and if you get bored with this, there's a delightful expansion that really increases the re-playability of the title for less than the cost of a dinner out.

10. Pandemic

Play this game and become terrified of every sneeze.

I grew tired of Pandemic long ago, but it is worth mentioning because it is popular, exceptionally easy to find (you can find a copy at Target), and, of course, it is a lot of fun. The basic premise is that you and one to three others are helping one another to eradicate a virus as it pops up in cities around the globe and spreads. Each of you has a special ability that will aid in your quest to stop the spread of the killer virus. This is a tough game to win, but it is easy to learn and plays well with two to four people. Definitely not my favorite on the list, but if you're looking for something where you can cooperate with your friends that has a little more meat on it than Hanabi, this is your box. Might cost around $30.

Honorable Mention: Powergrid

I won't say much, just that Powergrid is an incredible game. If you liked anything about Monopoly, you should definitely give this one a go. I'm not writing more about it because a longer co-op, Pandemic, definitely deserved a spot. Curse you, Pandemic! Two hours, six players, and about $40.

So there you have it. Ten--technically eleven--games, and each presents a little bit of a different look into most of the major genres and mechanics in board gaming today. Pick one up and give it a go. If you've played one of these or purchased one, let me know what you think of it in the comments.

I don't like to tell people I'm into boardgaming. It elicits strange looks. When I meet folks for the first time and they ask about hobbies, I just say that I'm into gaming. They get that. Most of the world has heard about video games or played them and they know they're fun. But I'm not really talking about my PC or my Xbox, even though I have those, too. That really isn't my primary hobby. The problem is that when I tell people—even other gamers—that I'm into boardgaming, they look at me with this gaze that says "really?" out of the corner of their eye and they invariably ask "like Risk?" or "like Monopoly?" Sometimes, I get "like Settlers?" Maybe you're asking the same question. I wouldn't put it past you, I have a lot of gamer friends that don't do board games. This is a geek website, so I'm guessing most of us know what Magic the Gathering is, or Warhammer 40k. Maybe you think that's what I mean. That isn't what I mean either. So there's this problem because of the lack of exposure to the hobby and the wealth of poor analogues, when you ask boardgamers what the hobby is like, it is extremely difficult to explain.

It is difficult for one reason because I am forced to say, that technically, yes: they are board games like Monopoly or Risk or Settlers. It is the only thing I can compare it to. Yes, in broad terms, these games are like Magic: the Gathering and Warhammer 40k. It is a bit like asking if a Jeep is anything like a Lamborghini. They're really not very similar if you know anything about cars, but they are similar if your frame of reference is an automobile. They both travel at high speed along a road, have four tires and a windshield. Pretty much the same thing, right? Similarly, most modern board games aren't really very much like the games most people know, other than that they have bits and pieces and they're all played on a table. So people give me weird looks. Or video gamers ask me if I play Magic: the Gathering or Warhammer. I don't, for the record.

This problem of explaining what it is I do for fun is compounded by the fact that making a hobby out of boardgaming doesn't make sense to people because the few board games people are actually familiar with aren't really very fun. They're games you played when you were a kid because you were bored and didn't have anything better to do. I've pretty much just given you the entirety of what people perceive as the hobby-ish side of board gaming. Risk, Monopoly, and Settlers of Catan are pretty much it as far as the mainstream is concerned. Sure there's Scrabble and some weird party games out there that pretty much insure you hate your life for however long you're stuck playing it, but in general, those are the games that the vast majority of the mainstream knows about. How can you make a hobby out of that? How could you even enjoy doing that?

So much time, so little fun.

I honestly don't enjoy those things. In fact I avoid them as if they were plague-laden blankets. The issue is that until Settlers of Catan came out, that's all there really was in the hobby, aside from wargames, RPGs, and board game rip-offs of Dungeons & Dragons. I think some of those games are great, even today, but their barrier to entry is pretty high. None of them were easy games to get into, most looked pretty boring, and a lot of them required a lot of time just to set up, let alone to play. And there was a stigma around them that suggested if you were into this kind of gaming you lived in your parents' basement and didn't ever see sunlight.

Things are a little different, now. In 1995, the Settlers of Catan hit German audiences. It was a board game Messiah, of sorts. Settlers ensured the game lasted an hour to an hour and a half. Now you don't need to have gobs of time to play a game, like you did with Risk or Monopoly. It included all the decisions that those two games had, but it had more of them more often with less time between them. Settlers had the spatial aspect of Risk, deciding which territory was best to get into, with the gathering and negotiating that was so much fun in Monopoly. Most importantly, everybody can get something on every turn, whether it is their turn or not, and since everybody can trade with the active player, everybody has something to do all the time; downtime is no longer an issue like it is in Risk. Having a variable setup insured that no two games played alike, protecting the game against feeling like a chore, or like it was playing out the same way it always did. The game, in essence, was all about making itself as fun as possible. It didn't stand in its own way. It didn't need to be this thing that you got out because it was raining and you had nothing better to do for several hours. You could bust it out after dinner, drink some beers, hang out with your friends, and get punched in the gut by the freaking robber. You could have fun with your friends around something that itself was fun to play. That's awesome. And that could sum up modern board gaming pretty well.

You're doin' it right, Settlers.

The Settlers of Catan was brilliant for its time. It did nearly everything right, and it set an example for the future of the industry. Designers, with fresh ideas of what a board game was and what it could be, started pumping out games that were nothing like Settlers, but held to the same tenets that had made Settlers great, designing games that were fun, instead of games that were chores.

That's not to say that Settlers is a perfect game. It isn't. And to be quite honest, I started playing Settlers around a decade ago, and there's nothing I would like better than to toss every copy of the Settlers of Catan into a woodchipper. That's because that as of right now, there are thousands of titles just sitting on the shelves of game stores, waiting to be discovered and played. Just within spitting distance, I have games about building civilizations, creating a trade empire in the Middle Ages, running a noble family in medieval France, the first train companies in Germany, solving mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, putting down insurgents and drug cartels in Columbia, and even a game about being a near deity and being given the choice to burn monasteries and raid innocent villages. I have games about city building and mushrooms and zombies and revolutionary France and building the Vulgate language in Italy and working as a team to keep your spaceship from exploding and a game about being stranded on a deserted Island. And those are just some of the ideas behind the games that I can see on my shelf as I'm writing this.

Part of the hobby is just collecting. Finding designers you like and gathering their work is a lot of fun. Seeing all the bits and pieces that come in the box is always pleasurable, too, especially if there's a lot to eyeball, or if the art is particularly eye-catching. Some people turn upgrading their components into a hobby all on its own. Of course none of it would matter if the actual games themselves aren't fun to learn and play. As it happens, there's as much variety in how you play a game as there is variety in the themes of those games. The most important bit though, is that you can't really game alone. It is a social hobby. If you're a boardgamer, you gather with friends and family to experience something together, to enjoy each other's company. You get to be clever and compete in good natured competition. Laugh when an opponent makes a terrible roll, taunt them when you're in the lead, console them if their luck is truly terrible, chatting when it isn't your turn or in between games. It's an excuse to sip a beer and laugh and enjoy the people you're with and the game you're playing. What comes from it, in my experience, is the formation of personal, interconnected communities of people with a common interest and wildly different backgrounds. It is such a pleasure to be a part of the hobby if for no other reason than because the community is a necessary and vibrant piece of that hobby. The relationships and the community is why I game, and that, more than anything else, is what is special about being a boardgamer today.

We take all kinds.

In my next post, I'll recommend some good games you can crack open if you're interested in getting something to the table. I will ensure they're easy to teach and learn, will be easy on the wallet, and play in less than an hour. Let me know about your gaming experiences and if you have any favorite games for newbies in the comments!

Hello again readers! My name as you may or may not know is Chris Jester I have written a few articles here on Fanboys Anonymous before but this is the first article I will be writing on the Pokemon Trading Card Game!

For those of you who already know how to play the game, this is less for you and more for the people completely oblivious to the rules and its history. Still, I encourage you to read anyway, as I am sure there is something in there you will enjoy.

My backstory in regards to the Pokemon Trading Card Game

I started playing the Pokemon TCG pretty quickly after it came out when I was in about the 4th grade. A classmate of mine noticed I had a Charmeleon notebook and gave me a Base Set Charmander card. My interest was piqued and I had my parents buy me some of the cards. At school, some of the kids would trade cards at recess. An older kid convinced me to trade him one of my first holographic cards (a Victreebel from the Jungle set) in a somewhat lopsided deal. This unfortunately happened frequently to many kids, so after a number of complaints, the school banned Pokemon cards. One day I brought my binder anyway with all of my rare cards and my teacher took it away. I was upset and my parents had to go later and pick it up for me.

My interest in the cards kind of died down a bit, but that is because I always thought they were just for trading! I had no idea there was a game you played with them until I found out my local Toys R Us ran a Pokemon Trading Card Game league. They ran ads for it on TV and in the store since it was a pretty big deal. You could collect badges just like the characters in the show and could even challenge the league gym leader. That went on for a few months and I learned how to play the trading card game from kids there and our league leader. Once she became pregnant and couldn't run the league anymore, it closed down and I stopped playing shortly afterward.

I ended up playing Yu-Gi-Oh! for a couple years and getting really into that. I can thank Yu-Gi-Oh! for sharpening my skills into a competitive card player. I have played numerous strategy games since then and I think if I never got into Yu-Gi-Oh! I probably would have never gotten back into Pokemon. So I quit Yu-Gi-Oh! after a couple years because I grew tired of it.

I didn't do anything strategy game wise for a little while and one day I'm about 21 years old and I'm getting the urge to play Pokemon again. My plan is to just buy a couple theme decks and play with my sister...no big deal. I bought a Steelix/Umbreon deck and a Espeon/Bellossom deck. We played those two decks for weeks. I eventually realized we need more decks to play against and even though I assumed there were no more leagues and the game was dead, one Google search later and it turns out there's a league 20 minutes from my house! This is super exciting and we start going the following Monday. The person who runs the leagues name is Heidi Craig. I find out later her son Orion is a former US National Champion and her other son Eric has gotten top 2 at the World Championships so I guess I was learning from the right family. She helps us with some promo cards of some of the better cards that were legal at the time to help make our decks better because frankly, one of the big problems with people getting into Pokemon is the theme decks are terrible. They don't teach you how to build a tournament competitive deck, you have to almost figure that out on your own. Luckily, I had people at my league to help. One of the days at league I play a guy named Casey, he is playing his Dilagachomp deck, I ask for a game he rolls his eyes smiles and says sure and beats me in like three turns. This motivates me to start building better decks and not get rolled next time.

Why does all of this matter to you?

The reason I am telling you all of this is to show you how great and helpful the Pokemon Community can be to a new player getting into the game and if YOU choose to get into the Pokemon TCG you are surely to run into the same kinds of helpful people. If you want to find a league or tournament near you just go here. Shorten the criteria to what applies to you and check it out. Pokemon events are very friendly to everyone of all ages and I'm sure you will have a great experience no matter what. If you do show up to a league, make sure whatever cards you are playing are legal for the modified format. While you are allowed to play cards from whatever set you like at league, you can not for premier events. Most if not all of the people at the league will be playing modified decks and the game is designed for certain cards to be played with other cards that were out at the time in mind so that one card or combination isn't too overpowered. For example, a deck from today's format would probably dominate any deck from any older format just because the Pokemon have more hp and do more damage than any cards before them. Also if you want to eventually go to tournaments and be competitive (which should of course be your goal) then you need to have a modified legal deck and you need to practice it before hand. There really aren't very many negatives about showing up with at least something at your local league. They'll help you from there.

Finding a competitive deck that fits your play style

You may have been playing an edited theme deck for a bit now and you may think its playable, but tournaments are an entirely different animal. You want to make sure your deck can stand up to whatever tier 1 decks are being played at the time if you want to have a chance at being competitive. You can find out what decks are being played by talking to people at your league and stuff but as well as doing some research of your own. Sites like sixprizes.com, heytrainer.org, thetopcut.net, thedeckout.com and of course here on Fanboys Anonymous are all good resources to learn more about the meta game, get sample decklists, and thoughts from experiences players. You can also connect with alot of people on the forums for some of these sites and that can be great for two reasons. You can connect with new people forging new friendships, and you can make connections so you are a step ahead on that "secret deck" for the next big event. Going to your first event without knowing anyone could potentially be awkward but if you have already made friends online before hand you will have alot more people to hang out with at the tournament and alot more fun when you get there. My first nationals I met quite a few people I had talked to online for the past year and it made the experience alot better. Oh also my friend Justin Sanchez won the National Championships that year as well. Can you imagine the excitement one would feel when you all play this game at such a high level and then a friend wins the US National Championships?! It's an un-real feeling and I was super happy for him. That is a feeling I would have never got to feel if I hadn't started playing this great game.

PTCGO

The Pokemon Trading Card Game Online, or PTCGO for short. Is the best way to play the Pokemon Trading Card Game aside from actually playing with friends in person. The way it works is very simple. You make a Pokemon Trainer Club Account, which you will need if you want to go to league or play in tournaments anyway. The account is free and takes ten minutes to make tops. Then you download PTCGO onto your computer. When it is finished you use your trainer club info to login and are given a starter deck to begin with. Here is where the cool part comes in. Every time you buy a product in real life, whether it is a theme deck or a booster pack it comes with a code for that product on the Online Game. If it's a booster pack you get a pack of the same type as the one you bought with different cards for the online game but nonetheless its two packs for the price of one! So every time you buy a pack of cards for your real life collection you get a pack for your online connection. This is a great way to play Pokemon with those friends you met online through the forums or if you don't have time to meet up with friends in person you can play over PTCGO. It's a really useful tool and it looks great. It also let's you practice the Pokemon Trading Card Game in your free time which is useful as you will need to budget how much time you have for play testing for big events. PTCGO lets things happen on your schedule in case you can't always make it to league or what have you. You can also earn promos for the Online Game from your league as well as earn additional cards and decks by playing through the game's single player mode. There are a ton of things you can do with PTCGO. Soon they are going to implement tournaments. It's definitely the band wagon you want to be jumping on right now.

Some new changes this year

Some big changes were made to the Pokemon Trading Card Game Tournament structure this year and I am going to go over them for you since you are new and may not understand what some of this means.

1) League Challenges: For those of you who did not play before this season this isn't too important but it is in a way. Before this season the entry level premier events were called Battle Roads. They still mattered to the competitive player because championship points were on the line, championship points are what every player needs to compete in the World Championships, if you hit 400 by the end of Nationals you are invited back to the World Championships. League Challenges will still have championship points but they are replacing Battle Roads, the difference is they will be held at League Locations Nationwide. Active Pokemon Leagues with a Tournament Organizer on Staff will be given the option to run a League Challenge at the end of each league season. League Challenges feature Swiss rounds and no top cut. It is up to the tournament organizer if they want to run single game Swiss rounds or best 2 out of 3. The main reason for doing this I believe is to draw more people into the local leagues to play and get more people interested in Competitive play so if you see one of these in your area. Check them out! You can find out where a league challenge near you is by using that link I provided earlier on in the article.

2) Swiss Match Play and Single Elimination Changes: For this next season of Pokemon and for every season following it for the foreseeable future States, Regional, National, and the World Championships will have Best 2/3 Swiss rounds with a 50 minute time limit. Also due to the changes in Swiss rounds all events will have a Top 8 cutoff. Larger premier events will have a two day split. Players who make it into the second day of play will play additional Swiss rounds the following day to determine if they make the top 8 cut.

3) Tournament Entry Fees: Beginning this season as well Entry Fees will be implemented to any player in the Masters division. Masters division players are 15 and above. Fees will be determined by the tournament organizer running the event and will be posted with enough time prior to the event for the attendees to prepare. All entry fees go to prizes for the tournament and travel rewards later on so don't worry this is a very good thing! Younger players will not have to pay entry fees but will most likely not be open to the same prize payouts.

4) Travel Stipends: Those Championship Points I mentioned earlier? Yeah they are good for more than just an invite to Worlds this year. Finishers in the top 100 of Championship Points after Spring Regionals will be given travel stipends for their trips to Worlds. Payouts are as follows.

1st–16th: Travel Award and a $300 Travel Stipend
17th–30th: $750 Travel Stipend
31st–60th: $500 Travel Stipend
61st–100th: $300 Travel Stipend

These are all very exciting changes for those of us currently playing and has sparked some more fire under alot of the players I know as well. Of course not everyone is happy by the decisions naturally but the majority seem to be and as the saying goes you can't please everyone. This is definetly a very exciting time to get into the Pokemon TCG and I encourage everyone to do so!

But how do I play?

I've given you loads of information about the competitive scene of Pokemon but you still don't know how to play do you? No worries I'll give you the basic rundown and then you can start practicing on PTCGO, they have loads of tutorials and you should pick the game up pretty quickly after that. A game of Pokemon starts with each player drawing 7 cards from their 60 card deck. Then you look through your hand and check to see if you have a basic Pokemon. It will say Basic in the top left corner. If you do place it face down on the field this is your active Pokemon. Your opponent will do the same. If you don't you show your hand to your opponent and shuffle it back into your deck. You repeat this process until you have a basic Pokemon to

place on the field. Then he or she gets to draw a card for each mulligan you had but only after you lay out prize cards. Which is the next thing you do. After choosing your active Pokemon you and your opponent lay down six prize cards, these represent the six Pokemon you carry with you in the video games. When you take six prize cards you win the game. So to recap you draw 7 cards, each of you chooses an active Pokemon, you each place six prize cards, you then resolve all mulligans, and then bench any other basic Pokemon onto the "bench" that you wish. Each Pokemon that gets knocked out gives up one prize card. Unless they are a special powerful kind of Pokemon called a Pokemon EX that gives up two prizes. A game of Pokemon ends when one of three conditions are met.

1.) You take all your prize cards.

2.) You knock out all of your opponents Pokemon on the field.

3.) Your opponent can't draw a card to start their turn. This means they have "decked out"

What's a basic Pokemon?

Conclusion

I would like to thank each and every person who has taken the time to read my backstory and my experiences in the Pokemon Trading Card game as well as all of the information at hand here for how YOU can get into this great game. I urge anyone who has never played the game to at least give it a chance! Make a Pokemon Trainer Club account download the game and play it for a bit. It can be really addictive and you can meet alot of great people if you take the next step to go out to events and meet people. Sign up for forums, follow my articles here as I will have tons more Pokemon TCG related stuff for you guys and if you have any questions please leave a comment below or tweet at me @chrisjester89. Please like the article and share it with your friends and check out all of the other great articles we have here on the site. There is something for everyone. Also if you ever wanna play a game on PTCGO with me again tweet at me. I'm always up for a game of Pokemon. Thanks again for reading!

Hey Hey Hey Dacitonians. It is yours truly Chris "The Dace Man" Dace and I'm hear to talk to you about a trading car game!! Every time I write here I swear to you I become nerdier and nerdier. So today my fellow geeks we're gonna tap into the Vs Trading Card system. I originally picked up the trading card game because I liked the pictures...and Magneto was on the box...yeah you woulda picked it up too if you were at Five Bellow!!!  Any whooo I decided to actually research the game because trading cards are not just for pictures... according to the nerds at the comic book store.

So when it comes to the Marvel Vs System there are a shit load of sets...I personally have four , which I put in bold and blue, the series on the list. But here's the complete Marvel list bellow.

Release order (expansion sets only)	Set name	Set code	Setting	Set type	Date	Size (number of cards)
7	The Avengers	MAV	Marvel Comics	expansion set	August 2005	220
N/A	The Coming of Galactus	MCG	Marvel Comics	Giant-Size set	November 2007	42
18	Marvel Evolution	MEV	Marvel Comics	expansion set	November 2008	275
N/A	Fantastic Four Starter Deck	MFF	Marvel Comics	starter set	June 2005	80 total, 28 non-reprint
11	Heralds of Galactus	MHG	Marvel Comics	expansion set	September 2006	220
5	Marvel Knights	MMK	Marvel Comics	expansion set	February 2005	220
1	Marvel Origins	MOR	Marvel Comics	expansion set	April 2004	220
N/A	X-Men vs. the Brotherhood Starter Deck	MOR (same as for Marvel Origins)	Marvel Comics	starter set	April 2004	80 total, all reprints
3	Web of Spider-Man	MSM	Marvel Comics	expansion set	September 2004	165
N/A	Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock Starter Deck	MSM (same as for Web of Spider-Man)	Marvel Comics	starter set	June 2004	80 total, all reprints
13	Marvel Team-Up	MTU	Marvel Comics	expansion set	February 2007	220
17	Marvel Universe	MUN	Marvel Comics	expansion set	June 2008	330
15	Marvel Legends	MVL	Marvel Comics	expansion set	August 2007	273
9	X-Men	MXM	Marvel Comics	expansion set	February 2006	220
N/A	X-Men Starter Deck	MXS	Marvel Comics	starter set	February 2006	80 total, 32 non-reprint

So as you can see there are several Marvel series and it helps simulate the iconic Superhero battles we read about every day in the comics. Now there are four kinds of cards in the Vs. System, that have  color-coded frames: Character (usually red, but black for "concealed" characters), Equipment (gray), Location (green), and Plot Twist (blue). From my understanding there's a mat for users to play on as well. Only down side I see to these cards, for me at least, they are a pain in the ass to find in my home town. I lucked out and found my starter decks at Five Bellow but that's the only place Ive seen them so I have been ordering them off of Amazon. So I suggest taking a look into the game if not for the actual game play then for the cards...they're pretty cool.

As always check back regularly to see what  Chris "The Dace Man" Dace is looking at, and no not just porn, as well as all other bloggers here at Fanboys Anonymous. So for The Few, The Proud, and of course The Dacetacular, grab a beer, or in this case flip yo self some cards, and check out what's going on here in the Dace-Sphere. See ya next time!