I haven’t played since the release of NPH (New Phyrexia… Niel Patrick Harris) besides casually but the announcement of the banning of these two cards did not come as a surprise to me neither should it be a surprise to anyone playing standard. Jace has been dominating since it was overpowardly printed and Stoneforge with the addition of equipment that came on to the field with a creature is kind of silly.

What DID shock me however was the exception that was made on Stoneforge Mystic. I’m sure as a retailer it would have been a total anger management issue to have brought in a ton of event decks containing Mystics and try to sell them when they are banned. However, to put an exception on a ban means a lot more work for judges and organizers.

Most of us are used to showing up to our local game store (LGS) cracking out our deck and playing in a weekly tournament.  There are the occasional rule calls a judge or tournament organizer have to deal with but it’s usually a casual, fun, but competitive atmosphere. NOW, the inclusion of deck lists is almost a must in tournaments containing 20 people or more. Judges will have to have the  decklist of the event deck on them. Not to mention that if you bought the event deck there is a good chance that you bought it just for the Mystics and would never play the deck the way it is packaged.

Personally, I think that the standard will be much better now that these two cards are gone. More decks will emerge and I dont think Valakut is really going to be as bad as people think, there are a lot of ways to deal with non-basic land in the format.

Looking forward to the decks that arise from the dust and ashes!

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First off, I need to start this review with a confession. Ladies and gentlemen I, Joee Zellweger, self proclaimed board game guru, have shamefully never played this game until this week. This week GSBC cracked open a copy of Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder.

This game is probably one of the simplest games to learn. You draw cards that are different coloured train cars and then use the different colours to connect routes between different cities. On your turn you can either draw a card from the face up cards and one from the deck, or draw 3 route cards and choose at least one of them to keep, or connect two cities by using the appropriate coloured cards. The more train cars you use on the route the more points you get and at the end of the game you either add or subtract points if you do or don’t connect the route that is on your route card. That is literally the rules in a paragraph minus some minor details.

Our game was a 3 player game with myself, Kim and Ryan. The route cards I started with were New York to Seattle for 22 points and Duluth to Houston for 5 points. I couldn’t have gotten a worse start with cards so most of my turns for the first little while consisted of drawing cards to get the right cards needed for the routes. Ryan shot off right away getting points for making his way from Vancouver on track to Montreal. Kim did a little of both starting with some small routes and drawing cards.

Halfway through I realized that Ryan was taking off with the lead. Unfortunately by the time I even started my routes he was half way across Canada. I eventually made the track from Seattle to New York but Ryan had pretty much circled the entire continent by then. Kim had pretty much kept on track with me.

Ryan ended up winning the game by a landslide with Kim and I around the same amount of points. The game went by quickly and didn’t seem to drag on like many others do.

All in all I would say that this game is definitely a staple for any gamer to have. It’s simplistic with the option to add a lot of strategy. Obviously the more players the better and Ticket to Ride can be played with up to 5 players. So make sure to grab a copy or come down and try ours!

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With it being Easter weekend we didn’t have time to open a new board game so we revisited an older favourite.

Created by John Yianni, Hive is a portable strategic game that can be played on virtually any flat surface. Most easily described as chess with bugs, Hive is a two-player game comprised of 11 white and 11 black pieces with different bugs printed on them. The pieces make up the board as they are placed. The goal of the game is to surround your opponent’s queen bee piece by moving the other bugs of which all have unique movement patterns. Having your queen bee surrounded seems like a difficult feat until you realize, like Ryan did in his game against Joee, that your own tiles around the bee count towards your opponent’s victory. For those that are strategically challenged, like myself, this game is a quick and painless way to hone your opponent reading and perfect your scheming skills as it takes only 5-20 minutes to play. After few games, I still lacked the foresight to escape from Joee’s experience in strategic maneuvers, but the games were close; came down to one piece more opportunistically placed than another. Whether it be a quick game at work during lunch or at home during a homework break with the kids, Hive is great for rejuvenating the mind and getting the kids to think analytically; great for teaching how to think ahead and anticipate what is to come. In short, it is great for the whole family.
With expansions of the mosquito and the ladybug pieces make your game even more challenging and exciting!

Published by Rio Grande Games, 20th century is a fitting game for today’s society as it is a game based loosely on the relationship between technological advancement and environmental
cleanliness, you are faced against your opponents in a series of auctions as each of you strives to win the land, science and avoiding catastrophe that will put you ahead. Every second turn there is a bonus phase that allows those falling behind a chance to catch up. The trick is finding that fine balance between your country’s growing economy and its environmental impact. At the end of the sixth turn, totals of coin, science and garbage are calculated and bonus victory points are awarded accordingly. If you plan it right you can pull ahead in this last phase!

In the game that A.J., Joee and I played this week A.J. focused on science, Joee on commerce and I simply focused on gathering victory points. By turn two I had pulled ahead of the guys on the victory track, however, Joee’s mitt-full of coins found himself being able to hold his head above the proverbial water by recycling a large portion of the garbage that he created each turn. A.J.’s focus on science kept him clear of the catastrophes in the last three rounds leaving Joee and myself even more garbage to clean up. In the end Joee, to my surprise, managed to clear his country of all garbage, A.J. was left with a few squares slightly polluted and myself with one garbage lingering in the corner of my country. Despite his perfect environment Joee couldn’t quite catch me on the victory track; however it was a fairly close game as A.J. closed the gap with his hordes of science points.
20th Century is a simple but sophisticated strategy game that the whole family can enjoy.

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This week we have cracked open Sid Meier’s Civilization the board game. This is the second such game with the first coming from Eagle Games. Eagle Games is known for their giant boards (Age of Imperialism is four feet by three feet) and their less than great game play to go along with those boards. This one comes from Fantasy Flight which is already a good sign.

If you have ever played any of the Civilization games on the computer and enjoyed them, you will probably enjoy the board game as well. It comes with so many pieces and markers that even on the box it says “hundreds”. You will need a lot of time to play this one but we found that it’s hard to get bored of a game when there is so much you can do.

You start the game being one of the great civilizations from the computer games. America, Russia, Germany, Egypt, China, and Romans. There are four ways to win the game. You can win with a technology, military, culture, or economy.

Our first complete game we played had Sheryl as America, Donny as Egypt, A J as China , and myself as Russia. Each civilization has different abilities and starting technologies. Russia started with Communism which increased production.

There are a million things I could write about that happened during the game but I am going to cut to the final couple turns. A few hours in it was very close between all of us. I was very close to getting a tech victory, Sheryl was close to an economy victory, AJ close to culture as well as Donny. I researched Atomic Theory and got lucky enough to find uranium to nuke one of AJ’s and one of Donny’s cities. Also, moved some armies into Sheryl’s zone to cut off coin supply from her banks. Finally researching space flight to get the victory.

All in all, this is a great game. We have played it at least five times since we’ve opened it. It IS a time consuming game but it’s very satisfying as you play it. The cost is $64.99 but with all of the pieces you get, and the fact that it is a different game every time you play it, it is a very solid purchase.

Store copy available if anyone would like to try it.

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GameSpark cafe is proud to announce that we have made a bunch of new specialty poutines. Besides all of your favourites we now have:

Club Poutine sm: $6.99 lrg: $8.99
Bacon, Turkey, Ham, Mozza Cheese, Beef Gravy

Meat Lover Poutine sm: $6.99 lrg: $8.99
Bacon, Sausage, Pepperoni, Ground Beef, Mozza Cheese, Beef Gravy

Veggie Poutine sm: $4.99 lrg: $6.99
Peppers, Onions, Olives, Tomato, Banana Peppers, Nacho Cheese

Country Poutine sm: $5.99 lrg: $7.99
Bacon, Onions, Mushrooms, Mozza Cheese, Chicken Gravy

Chicken Curry Poutine sm: $5.99 lrg: $7.99
Diced Chicken, Curry, Mozza Cheese, Chicken Gravy (Optional Spicy)

Cheese Lover Poutine sm: $4.99 lrg: $6.99
Mozza Cheese, Cheddar Cheese, Beef or Chicken Gravy

Philly Cheese Steak Poutine sm: $5.99 lrg: $7.99
Roast beef, Mozza Cheese, Onions, Peppers, Beef Gravy

Breakfast Poutine sm: $4.99 lrg: $6.99
Egg, Meat (Bacon-Ham-Sausage), Cheddar Cheese, Peppers, Onions, Tomato

Cheeseburger Poutine sm: $5.99 lrg: $7.99
Ground Beef, Cheddar Cheese, Onions, Beef Gravy

Steak Poutine sm: $6.99 lrg: $8.99
Steak, Onions, Mushrooms, Mozza Cheese, Beef Gravy

Hotdog Poutine sm: $4.99 lrg: $6.99
Chopped Hotdog, Mozza Cheese, Option (Mustard-Ketchup-Onions-Relish)

Spicy Poutine sm: $4.99 lrg: $6.99
Mozza Cheese, Banana Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Hot Sauce

Last night myself and a few others opened up a copy of Mayfair’s Automobile. Now, I know anytime I open up a Mayfair product I’m going to enjoy it. I mean, Settlers anyone? The box says 120 minutes for game length so I figured we were in for a long night with the learning process.

The premise of the game is that you are brought back into the era when cars were first being built. You sell, build, and advertise in hopes of making the big money. The player at the end of the game with the most money is declared the winner.

The game is played in four turns which I enjoyed. I have played many other games that were similar with a set limit of turns. However, I did not expect each turn to be comprised of 9 different phases, and a few of those phases to be broken down into different actions.

First turn started off with us selecting our characters for the turn (Ford, Sloan, Kettering, Chrysler, Howard, and Durant) Mitch building a factory on a mass-production tile, myself building on a premium class tile, and Kim, Becky, and Donaven building mid-range factories for our first action. We all built cars on our factories for the second action. And our third actions were varied with some placing salesmen and some gathering R & D cubes. At the end of the turn Becky, Kim, and Donaven all scored points but Mitch and I both took losses because what we didn’t realize was that only mid-range cars were scored on first turn… oops.. my bad.

The rest of the game continued with me trying my hand at only premium cars and everyone else diversifying. The only problem we had was when we mixed up the demand tile rules and the guys got got hosed yet again.

Overall the game is very well put together even though at first glance it is very daunting. The rules are very clear once you read them through and the only time we really referenced the book after we played a couple of turns was to see what each character did. I highly recommend checking out this game. Just make sure you aren’t playing with a friend who is out to get you!

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Thanks to everyone who came out and helped us have a 50 person strong pre release. Hope everyone had a good time and we hope to keep numbers like this for our other tourneys!!!

Check out Joee talking with Mary ito and the owners of Snakes and Lattes, Ben Castainie and Aurelia Peynet, on CBC radio’s Fresh Air.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1757209381

We will be having an Xmas party on Sunday Dec 19th. Tickets will be $10 and will include buffet style food. We will also be having a present swap game. Everyone who attends must bring a generic wrapped gift of $10 or less. Post here if you’re interested or ask at the store.