Fans,
This case features a high school friend and a friend of famous Magic player, David Williams.
UPDATE: Check out the Harvard Business School Publishing website for more information on the case.
Enjoy,
Matt Wang
Most Top8Magic readers have heard of Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle. In their Magic-playing heyday, Rob and Darwin were known as members/leaders of the Your Move Games team (along with Chad Ellis and Dave Humphreys). Over time YMG evolved into a game design company and recently they have launched the much-hyped TCG known simply as Epic.
We have been playing a bit of Epic around the office these past few weeks, and we decided it would be appropriate to put a review of the game up on the site for those of you who are unfamiliar with the game.
At its core Epic plays pretty much like Type 4 Magic — infinite mana, one spell per turn. Each player gets 1 “action” to spend per turn. Some cards cost an action to play, some do not. In addition to the binary costing, each card has a “speed,” which tells you when you can play it. Cards can be “fast” (played like Instants), “paced” (can be played in either the first or second main phase of your turn), or “build” (can only be played in your second main phase).
There are a few other rules differences between Epic and Magic, but for the most part they play the same. The big difference, however is the power level of the cards you get to play. For example, there is an Ancestral Recall in this game and I have cut this card from most of my designed (constructed) decks.
The power level of the average Epic card is incredibly high relative to cards from Magic: the Gathering. Since you spend no time developing resources, you can play your big effects right away. It is not out of the question for your opponent to drop an 11/11 Breakthrough (trample) creature on turn 1 in this game.
Playing Epic using sealed product is a lot of fun – typically 3-pack sealed. Open your 45 cards, cut 15 of them, shuffle and play. One of the things players tend to gripe about in sealed deck is not being able to play all of their good cards because of the difficulty of building a good mana base, or keeping their deck on a nice curve. That issue doesn’t really come up in Epic and instead you just get to cut your 15 bad/situational cards and battle bombs v bombs. Opening a good mix of Events (spells) and Champions (creatures) isn’t an issue either because each pack is divided evenly between the two card types.
Given the casual feel of limited play, designed deck is very Spike-y. There are quite a few instantaneous (Split Second) stops (counterspells) and removal cards in the set. Since you can play any cards you want, virtually every deck ends up playing some number of these. We have been testing the game a bit via MWS and control on control matchups can be incredibly frustrating and complicated. Aggressive decks are a bit more fun to play, some of which can reliably kill by turn 2 or 3. Getting those nut draws is pretty nice, but they are also vulnerable to getting blown out by many of the staple control cards.
Epic is a nice diversion from Magic. Coming from Magic, the game is really easy to learn. However, the lack resource development leads to a very different gameplay experience. A lot of traditional Magic theory applies, but there are places where strategy differs greatly, which makes Epic feel like less of a straight Magic clone than it might appear at first glance. I am excited to see where the game goes in the future, and am even tempted to try my luck in a couple of the big Epic tournaments that are going to be in the New York area later this year. If you know anyone who plays, or if your local hobby store carries the game, I would definitely recommend getting a group of friends together and trying the game out with a friendly sealed deck. If you like it, be sure to check out the official site, epictcg.com, to see if there are any events coming to you area in the future.
~WillPoP
Sorry I have not posted for awhile. I have dissapeared a little bit into the frenzy that is Twitter and if you want to follow me there I can be followed at http://twitter.com/Top8Games. What I have been tweeting about mostly are some decks that have popped up recently at the Star City 5K Open, PTQ Top 8s, and even here in our ersatz forums/comments sections. The first was a new version of the green-white token deck that originally appeared at the 5K immediately preceding PT Kyoto. There was another 5K this past weekend in Indianapolis and a new version of the deck made it as far as the Final Four.
Green-White Overrun
Joshua Scott Honigmann — 4th Place
StarCityGames.com $5,000 Standard Open
4 Birds Of Paradise
4 Cloudgoat Ranger
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Path To Exile
2 Ajani Goldmane
2 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Martial Coup
2 Overrun
4 Spectral Procession
5 Forest
1 Plains
4 Brushland
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Treetop Village
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Wooded Bastion
Sideboard:
4 Burrenton Forge-tender
3 Cloudthresher
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Ranger Of Eos
1 Wilt-leaf Liege
3 Naturalize
Fans,
Deckades begin shipping today. Most of you ordered this via media mail, which should take about 2-9 days. Priority mail will take 2-3 days.
International orders should take about 3-9 days.
The covers are now slightly glossy and the binding definitely feels a little better.
Get your orders in now if you want them signed!
Best
Matt
I really liked the BW deck I had been posting about a couple weeks ago. I won a lot of games with some sub-par cards. I was beginning to convince myself that the deck was PTQ worthy. That was, until I hit a rash of faeries/N-Level blue decks on MWS and began to lose faith. I decided I should try to add a little more power to the deck by cutting Descendant and Ghost Council for Tarmogoyf and Doran.
I sent my newly christened Doran list to local favorite/extended Doran expert Chris “magic players just call me Calcano” Calcano. He checked it out and sent me back this list, which I have been testing on and off for the past two weeks:
Doran
2 Windswept Heath
2 Godless Shrine
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Fetid Heath
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple Garden
1 Forest
2 Reflecting Pool
2 Treetop Village
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Dark Confidant
4 Doran, the Siege Tower
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
3 Chrome Mox
1 Slaughter Pact
This deck is a lot of fun to play. Who, other than MichaelJ, doesn’t love a turn 1 Dark Confidant? I was having pretty good success against Zoo and Bant decks, and non-elves combo. However, my blue deck matchup still seemed really bad even with the improved creature base. I am going to continue tweaking the sideboard to see if I can crack the matchup (testing Darkblast’s currently), but as a backup I have begun testing the Bant list that Jeff Cunningham placed 2nd with in the Seattle PTQ last weekend. I found the list in this tournament report.
I really like the Troll Ascetics, and I love the Worship in the sideboard. Blue decks seem to have a really hard time dealing with the Troll, especially once he picks up a Sword or Jitte. The sideboard is a little too advanced for me; I don’t think I could pull off the Trinket Mage + Relics and/or Engineered Explosives. I think I would rather just play 2x more Explosives and not have to spend the extra mana/turns to get my EE into play. I would also cut the single Kataki for a third Relic. Between Bant Charm, Path to Exile, and randomly Stifling a Modular trigger, that matchup is pretty good.
If all continues to go well, this is what I will be sleeving up for the Brooklyn PTQ in a couple of weeks. If anyone has any sideboard advice or tips on playing the deck, post them in the comments.
WillPoP
