Free Candy For Everyone

For a very long time, my co-workers and I had been playing the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game at lunch. It has, however, been dethroned from its place of honor. For the past few months we have been playing Race for the Galaxy in an obsessive, addicted, just-one-more-game sort of way.

It’s a card game, not collectible, just pick it up an play. The quick description is San Juan in space. And for those of you that doesn’t help, it’s sort of a card game version of Puerto Rico. And if that still doesn’t help you then you need to go check out some board games! Just kidding.

In all three games you select from a pool of different roles that let you acquire resources or build things. You are trying to get the most points and the ending point is when the point pool is empty or enough buildings have been constructed. While I really like Puerto Rico and San Juan they just don’t compare to Race for the Galaxy in how they hold my interest. As my friend Brian said, as soon as we finish a game we just want to play another one. How many games can you say that about?

I’d say we’ve been playing an average of three or four games a day for the last two or three months. Every game is still different and interesting. There are many different strategies to victory. Luck plays a factor in the game as the cards in your hand determine what you can do but there’s also skill in looking through what you’ve been dealt and formulating a strategy from it all.

There’s an expansion pack due out sometime in the next few months and we just can’t wait for more ways to play. I continue to be excited about playing this game every day. And in just a few short months it has infiltrated the top ten games on Board Game Geek and that is an impressive feat. This is the list board gamers use to find what’s good. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to rise in the ranks, it’s just that good.

I’m not talking about some bizarre programming thing (see Wikipedia’s entry on foo if you don’t know what I’m talking about, though I thought foo was derived from fubar and Wikipedia says naught on that and hey, who knew snafu was also an awesome acronym? But this is turning into a terribly long digress, let’s return to our scheduled subject matter). I’m talking about Fires of Outland, the new WoW TCG expansion.

I’m still playing the card game quite a lot. And this weekend is the Pre-release event for a new card set. The set doesn’t come out for another two weeks, but we can go play this weekend, get our hands on some cards, and get a unique pre-release only loot card. I’m so geekily excited!

All new cards, all new ways to destroy my friends, what could be better?

Yesterday I went to the World of Warcraft TCG Regional Qualifiers. It was my first real TCG tournament. I’ve played in pre-release tourneys before, where you go and basically are just playing to get a chance to see some new cards before they come out. The rewards are at most a handful of booster packs so there’s nothing really on the line and no real need to prep.

This was different. If you placed in the top 4, you got a spot in the National tournament with a chance to go to Worlds and win $100,000. And placing well at Nationals will also net you a cool laptop or iPod or other gear. I didn’t expect anything much, having never played seriously, but I knew my deck wasn’t bad and that I can play well. And I did pretty well! I’m annoyed at myself because I messed up at the end, but overall it was a good experience.

The format was a Swiss tournament. There were 31 players and we played 5 rounds, best two games out of three in each round. My end record was 3 wins, 2 losses. But I was just one game away from 4-and-1. Oh well, let’s not dwell, right? I ended up rated 12th (or 13th? I can’t quite remember). This meant I was in the top 16 and got a prize of an extended art Counterspell card. I was pretty psyched about this. At least I won something!

I must relate my one story of glory before I go. In my third match, I was playing my second game. I’d won the first one but things didn’t quite look as lucky this time around. My opponent was almost at full life, and while I had several allies out ready to attack him, he had a lot of armor and a shield that would decimate my army as soon as anyone hit him. On his turn he made a play that let him search his deck and draw this crazy sword. He was all kindly and apologetic, “Oh, yeah, this sword is so broken.” He thought he had me. Oh, too soon my friend!

I pulled a card into my hand that let me destroy his shield. Bam! Now with nothing in my way I played a great card, Heroic Presence. This let me pump up everyone in my army so that they were all swinging for an extra three damage. I then hit him for 37 damage. In one turn. Which killed him. He just sat there looking at me like, “what? How did you do that?” Oh, it was glorious! Two earth elemental totems hit for 6 each, three yetis hit for 5 each, Kal’ai the Uplifting hit for 8, and I swung my Fel Iron Hatchet for 2 more. Ba-bam! I will live on that glorious moment for some time.

All in all, it was a fun experience. People were nice, no one was too extreme about having to win. I was the only woman there, which isn’t really that much of a surprise. And my final opponent said “What’s a girl doing at this table?” since we were at the highest ranked table. Um, “Because I’m good,” I answered. But other than that, no one really cared at all that I’m a woman. And no one seemed to mind losing to me for it either.

I might have to try again - there’s another regional qualifier in San Jose later this month. I may need to try for another prize card!

No, I haven’t gone back to World of Warcraft (and pre-BC content at that), I’m talking about the WoW Trading Card Game raid deck. Back when the WoW TCG came out I ran out and bought it immediately. I wrote about it a bit, but I haven’t written about it since. Well, that’s not because I stopped playing. I used to play Magic the Gathering, but never the way I’ve been playing this card game.

A few of my co-workers are actually competitive in the card purchasing, not just their playing. If one buys a box of cards, then the other has to top that and buy two! Well, I got a little sucked in. Oh, and let me say all this card purchasing is to feed the daily duels. They’ve been playing every day at lunch since the game came out. I join them several times a week, so I’m maybe not quite as hardcore as they are!

This is the first card game where I actually know every single card in the set by name, so that probably means I play it a lot. And have a significant number of cards.

But enough about my geekiness! Let’s bring it to the next level!

In addition to playing one-on-one in duels, Upper Deck (the company that makes the WoW TCG) also has made a few raid decks. These are special decks with unique play rules designed for several players to band together and fight together. Last week my friends and I grouped up and took on Molten Core.

We each made a deck of cards specifically for the fight. We didn’t know what we were going to be facing so we weren’t quite sure what we needed. But our guesses paid off. After about two hours of brutal battle, we defeated Ragnaros and walked away victorious!

It’s a great card game. It owes a huge debt to the TCGs that came before, but it’s kept me very interested for quite some time. The next set of cards comes out in August and I’m eagerly anticipating it!

There’s a regional qualifier for the National Championship coming up which could lead to the World Championship and a $100,000 prize. My friends are going so I think I’ll join too. I doubt I’ll make it even out of the regionals, but it will be fun to go play in a tournament, regardless.

I sometimes wonder about my decision making skills. I can see when something is a bad idea, but sometimes I do it anyways. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the World of Warcraft trading card game! It came out about two weeks ago and promptly sold out. I had been a bit curious about the game. I like Magic: The Gathering, the trading card game (or collectible card game, as they’re also known).

I got a little… excited when I started playing Magic. I would buy cards all the time. I even ordered some off eBay. I really really liked the collecting of cards. There’s something about tearing open a new booster pack and rifling through to see what you got. I don’t know, it’s probably a bit like gambling. The card packs have a random card assortment with a set number of common, uncommon and rare cards per pack. So you want to see which rare you got, how good is it, will it help you build your deck? I love that.

Anyways. Take that… interest and combine it with my… interest in World of Warcraft and it sounds like maybe a recipe for badness? For my wallet, for my tendency towards… being very interested in things, you know, all that jazz. I had not really intended to give the game much of a look. I wasn’t eagerly counting the days or anything. But then I was talking to a friend at work about it and next thing I know, I’m calling stores to find if it’s in stock. “Sold out everywhere in the city,” they told me, “everywhere but for one store.” Ooh! I called that one store, they had stock because they’d limited people to 5 boosters per person and jacked up the prices. I didn’t care! Now that I knew the supply was super limited I needed in! My friend and I hopped in the car and rode out to buy some cards!

Because there was a limit, of course I bought to that limit! And, well, I had another friend along and he didn’t want to try the game. So, um, I made him buy cards for me. (I paid him back! I just mean he let me get 2x the limit!) Met up with my friend that weekend and we played the game. And it was good. It’s a lot like Magic, so of course it’s good. Plus it has fun WoW flavor to it. You can see some of the ingame spells and critters.

The next week rolled around and the list of people interested in playing was growing. But the supply was still limited. Another co-worker managed to find a place online that had some in stock. He asked who wanted a box. Yes, a whole box of boosters.

I guess I sort of bought one. I’ve played the game several times now and I’m not sure I should have bought so many cards. I like the game - it’s pretty darn fun. But come on! Did I need all those cards?

Heh. Probably.