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MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 6:47 pm
by TradewindRider
Greetings All,

This is a placeholder for MECCG in Vegas (IV) for Saturday, 25 Jan, and possibly Sunday 26 Jan as well. This is the weekend between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl, so there should be a lull in traffic in and around Vegas that weekend. Will confirm once we get closer to the date, but the venue will be the Little Shop of Magic—please mark your calendars.

TradewindRider

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:38 pm
by rezwits
Nice!, thanks T.W.R.

Just looked and Magic has a release that weekend, but Magic is not all crazy, the shop can handle us, especially if I reserve the room in advance!

[-me_wh-]

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 4:11 am
by Goblin King
I will be celebrating my wife's birthday this weekend. Maybe next time.

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2020 2:08 am
by TradewindRider
Greetings All,

A somewhat belated Happy New Year to all, and confirming that MECCG@Vegas (IV) is on for Saturday, 25 Jan, at the Little Shop of Magic! I would normally say that this is weather permitting, but per the side story below, I’m sure the weather will be nice and clear that weekend. The store opens at 10:00 AM and we plan to play until 6 or 7 PM—I will be driving in as usual and am planning to arrive by 11:00 AM.

Had a bit of an adventure over the Christmas holidays as I promised family members that I would bring them to the Blue Man Group show at the Luxor. As luck would have it, the advance tickets I bought were for Thursday, 26 December—and the weather was not looking very good, so we drove north from the Riverside area on Christmas night to beat the storm. As it turned out, the rain and snow hit overnight, closing down the I-15 both in the Cajon Pass (between San Bernardino and Victorville) and between Baker and the Nevada state line. We took the long way back via the 93/95 south and picked up the westbound I-40, avoiding being stuck on the I-15 around Mountain Pass like hundreds of travelers were, and marvels were told of the snow cover in the Victor Valley! Yeah, a white Christmas in SoCal! :)

Hope to see as many of you as possible on the 25th!

TradewindRider

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2020 2:10 am
by TradewindRider
Greetings All,

Another great day/road trip to Vegas for MECCG—there and back again! Bruce and I took off around 8:00 AM for the Great Road (otherwise known as the I-15 freeway) and made the time pass by quickly listening to podcasts on the way. As expected, the weather was dry and crystal-clear, nothing like the snowy conditions last month that stranded so many drivers. After a failed errand at the stateline mall on the way, we visited the world’s biggest Chevron station (96 pumps!) in Jean, NV, and imitated Harold and Kumar by grabbing a 20-pack of cheeseburgers (plus a couple big orders of onion chips) at the White Castle there. It was perfect road trip food as I’d gobbled up 8 by the end of the day.

We arrived a bit late at the Little Shop of Magic, where Tom and Gandalf Gene were already heavily engaged in their second game. Gene had actually flown out of his home base around 6:00 that morning (a wizard is never late!), while Justin was busily putting the final touches on his Hero deck—I defer to Tom on the happenings (and there were many) of his first two games. Justin, Bruce (with a Balrog deck) and I (with a Dain Dwarf-Lord deck) started a 3-way game. My dragon and drake hazards were mostly unplayable against the big and beefy Balrog crew in their under deeps expressways, so I mostly focused on cycling through my cards and getting resources out, but again became frustrated with the physical logistics of shuffling and dealing with the statistics associated with an 80-card deck. Justin ended up winning the game with his newly-designed hero deck, pulling off the King Under the Mountain feat at Ovir Hollow for a very convincing win.

My second game of the day was actually against Tom, who pitted his Fallen Pallando deck against my tried-and-true Fallen Alatar deck. This is essentially the same deck I played at Worlds in Oakland, CA back in 2014 (when I almost literally got my head handed to me), but with Doors included to ensure maximum effect of Long Dark Reach. I got a very nice initial cut and draw, so I charged headlong to Card Dum and the Iron Deeps (under cover of Secret Entrance and Crack in the Wall) to snag Aiglos quite early, then the main party emerged back on the surface armed to the teeth and hazard creatures cowering under threat of The Hunt. Meanwhile, Tom’s companies were scurrying back and forth in Eriador recruiting factions, but towards the end of the game I’d gotten all my Nazgul out and Khamul did his thing. We ended up talking about the why’s and wherefore’s of the Fallen Pallando deck in Eriador, and I mentioned to him that a Fallen Pallando deck did win Worlds back in 2014.

We adjourned around 7 in the evening and everyone returned back to their respective havens by midnight. A fun time was had by all, and we’ll re-convene in Vegas probably sometime in June. Meanwhile, hope to see as many as possible at LAX/Hilton during the weekend of 15-16 Feb.

TradewindRider

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:40 pm
by CDavis7M
Thanks for the write-up - always fun to read.

That 3-way game sounds fun. Justin pulled off King Under the Mountain against your drakes huh? Were you guys not passing the hazards or maybe no luck? Too bad!!

Re: MECCG in Vegas (IV) - 25 January 2020

Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 9:11 pm
by TradewindRider
Greetings Chris,

I'd like to say that we were taking it easy on Justin, since it was his first-ever deck, but that's not true--he knew what he was doing. We were passing hazards normally, but in that game I was playing hazards on Bruce and I wasn't really paying attention to what Justin was doing too much. My brain is so much on Fallen and DC stuff right now that I really need to watch to At Homes a lot more--tough enough to get rid of them in Hero Arda since there are only 3 Marvels Tolds in several hundred event-deck cards, but in 1v1 games they should be easily caught.

TradewindRider