Dominaria United Pre and Release starting Labor Day weekend.
It's good to be back, and with Dominaria United, we finally are. This September, Magic: The Gathering returns to its roots: the home plane of Dominaria. Whether you're a returning player seeking new spins on familiar faces or someone experiencing MTG's flagship plane for the first time, Dominaria United has something for everyone. This new Standard-legal set is a return to Magic's roots, returning to the Multiverse's oldest plane in its new hour of need. Join some of Magic's most beloved heroes in its fight against their greatest enemy: the fan favorite Phyrexians. This set comes with a host of new cards for normal and Commander play alike, from new spins on old favorites to just the old favorites themselves, and has a product for everyone. Live your legend with its two Commander decks, play in its premier Limited environment, or if you're so inclined, crack boxes - each one contains one of twenty exclusive box topper legendary creatures found only as box toppers or in Collector boosters. Upcoming Events: 9/2 Friday 7PM Sealed 9/3 Saturday Sat 10AM Sealed Sat 4PM Two Headed Giant 9/4 Sunday Sun 10AM Sealed Sun 4PM Tw0 Headed Giant 9/9 Friday 7PM Sealed 9/10 Saturday Sat 10AM Sealed Sat 4PM Two Headed Giant 9/11 Sunday Sun 10AM Sealed Sun 4PM Two Headed Giant This weekend and next, we have a plethora of sealed events using the prerelease kits from the new set. Players can get their boxes of 6 packs to open and get to build their decks starting 1 hour before each event. Prerelease kits have six 15-card packs, 1 random exclusive promo foil rare or mythic rare from the set, and a special spindown die. We provide the basic lands, so you don't need anything more to play. We pride ourselves that no one here will make you feel anything but welcome (we all started from scratch at some point). All events are sealed using the prerelease kits. Make your best decks and win a round, win a pack. If we have enough players to accommodate both, we will also have competitive prize pools for the 10AM sealed events. (Competitive prize pools mean more chance to win lots of packs if you do very well, but more rounds and the chance to win no prize packs if you don't. Better for more expert players.) The prerelease and release events are great chances for players who haven't gotten a chance to play in person to come to a friendly, fun event where everyone is starting from scratch and no one knows much more than anyone else yet. We recommend if you are new, or you have a friend who is new, to play in the Two-Headed Giant events, which are two-person team events. So long as one person in the team knows how to play, you can both have fun without any pressure to know the rules right away. Masks and vaccination cards are required. Set Mechanics Dominaria United offers a host of new and returning mechanics which present a flavorful and fun twist on well-loved gameplay. Enlist conscripts, read ahead with your Sagas, master your Domain, and more! - Enlist: Band together with your other creatures with Enlist! When you attack with a creature that has Enlist, you may tap another creature you control (that isn't attacking or summoning sick) to add its power to the first. Enlist this spiritual successor to banding to overwhelm your opponents with massive creatures! - Read Ahead: One of Magic's most beloved subtypes - Sagas - returns to the game, but with a new twist! Sagas enter with a lore counter and gain one more after each draw step, triggering each of their chapter effects in order. Sagas with "read ahead" let you skip the wait and start on whatever chapter you want to! - Domain: This returning mechanic, last seen in Modern Horizons, improves the more different basic land types you have among different lands you control. Gather a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest - or a Plains Island Swamp and a Mountain Forest - to maximize the magnitude of your Domain effects! - Kicker: Fan favorite returning mechanic Kicker comes back with a twist! Spells with a kicker cost let you pay the extra kicker cost to gain an additional effect, and new to this set, every spell with kicker in Dominaria United has a kicker of a different color than itself. Here's the kicker - it doesn't stop here! One of the oldest traditions of kicker returns, with cards that have multiple kicker costs to adapt to any situation! - Stun Counters: Finally, Dominaria United brings to the game an entirely new type of counter! When a permanent with stun counters on it would untap, you remove one from it instead. Now you can finally tap down creatures for more than two turns! Collecting Dominaria United Dominaria United comes with a host of beautiful variants for your collection, including six borderless rare lands, borderless planeswalkers, stained glass and textured foil stained glass legendary creatures and lands, and foil and foil etched versions of the Legends Reborn box toppers. For full information on where to find which variants, see here. Exclusive to Dominaria United, one out of every thirty-three collector boosters will have a card from the original Legends set - not a reprint or special variant, an actual card from the original print runs of Legends, now over twenty-five years old. This includes reserved list cards, such as the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Note that this is not a new printing, so supplies are very limited! Also exclusive to Dominaria United collector boosters are non-foil and foil etched versions of the Legends Reborn box toppers and foil stained glass full art basic lands. New to Dominaria United and continuing going forward, Magic offers a new introductory product: Jumpstart boosters. Jumpstart boosters are designed for two to be shuffled together and played against one another, for easy out-of-the-box fun that still offers something new every time. Dominaria United offers ten themes, two in each of the five colors, in twenty-card packs, which each include two rare cards, two traditional foil basic lands, and one non-foil stained glass full art basic land. For full information on the availability of other variants, see the Product Overview. Set booster boxes are $159.99. They contain 24 set boosters. We will take $10 off for preorders ($149.99,includes box topper promo). Preorders end on Friday 9/2. Only events and set booster boxes are available until Friday 9/9, when all Dominaria United products will be available.
Return of Drafting @ D20 (plus pokemon
Hey folks.... A few event updates of significance.. Return of drafts for FNM Two Headed Giant on Sat moves from 3pm to 4pm start time. D&D is coming back... Return of Drafting for FNM: Starting 10/22 we will experimenting with doing drafts again for Friday Night Magic. We'll be pulling out the plastic tablecloths (the ones we used for birthdays) so we can sanitize them in between rounds, and we will have everyone sanitize hands before they start drafting (and have a no drinks or anything that will get hands next to a mouth during the drafting process). If I think this is going well, this is what we will do from now on. We have also raised the price of the drafts to $20. (The packs have gotten more expensive and we have a much more limited number of players we can have for the events so we really need every dollar we can to start to clime out of the joy and fun of last year). But I'm going to do this. For all of our old players, if you also were pushed to the limit from last year or just can't afford the price increase, tell us at the counter and we'll let you keep doing the old $15 for at least the next few months. Two Headed Giants moving from 3-4 on Saturdays: We're shifting the time for the two headed giants back to the old time of 4pm, so it returns it to being more of a date night, evening fun activity. This really is one of our favorite events and we will be doing it consistantly to get it back up and running. (Still have to have the 12+ age limit, but as soon as the vaccination for the younger folks comes in, we'll happily open the doors to let them back). D&D in person is starting back up: This Sunday (10/24) is going to be Dan's return to DMing events in the store. The time will be 2-7 and will be limited to 7 players. This event will be a 4 session run and should be good fun. This is for players with some experience playing, not a first time event. $20 pers session (and if you want to come to all 4, probably best to get tix in advance) "We will be doing a Dungeon Crawl into an Abandoned Dwarven Keep . Players Should Create a Level 5 Character using Standard array or the pound buy system in the players hand book. Players will have standard starting equipment as well as any 1 Uncommon Magic item of their choice. Any Player resources and books printed by Wizards of the Cost will be allowed including unearthed arcana." Starting in about a week we will start doing Weds D&D and after that, late night Saturday Pokémon: Pokémon continues to be in extremely short supply. We are continuing to let 12 and younger kids buy 1 pack a day at the old 3.99 price so they don't get totally overrun by the adults who are snapping everything up. I'm sorry for not having preorders for all the higher end stuff, but we don't know until the last minute what will come in. If you want Pokémon gifts for the holidays, I really reeaally recommend getting them now. The supply chain is truly messed up and hits this stuff hard. Hope to see you this week and as always...seriously thanks for shopping local. Ben P.S. We will be spreading out sales/offerings over November so we don't have to get people to waste part of their vacation running around shopping.
D&D Epic One shot, Modern Horizons 2, and return of THG Fat Pack wars!!
Hey folks... This weekend we have 5 most excellent events that we are gonna hold in as safe a way as possible and with all sorts of bonus goodies for those who attend, including a Special D&D event one shot event on Sunday.: Modern Horizons 2 "Prerelease" (Sealed event using the prerelease kits that we've been holding since covid started), $60 in advance, $65 at the door.Friday 8/27 @ 6:30 Sat 8/28 @ 10am Sun 8/29 @ 10 am Two Headed Giant/Fat Pack Wars returns!!! Sat 8/28 @ 3pm (We bring out the mystery box, and each team has a player reach in and pick a surprise pack for whatever Fat pack/bundle they get to use to build their decks together.) $30 in advance, $35 at the door D&D Epic One shot, Lair of the Dracolich (up to three parties at different tables come from different places to try and survive to defeat something that will take all of them cooperating.) $60 in advance, $65 at the door. Extremely limited seating (only 18 max) 13+ and Vax cards required for all(and masks still) As we've bemoaned earlier, a whole mess of people who've been talked into proving they have the freedom to lemming off of a cliff, have put us back to needing to be ultra careful. To attend events here safely, you must bring proof of vaccine (and still wear masks). I don't mess with this stuff at all, so we will be very strict about this. And I hate it means that the 12 and under kids can't participate yet. Really hate it. (probably why I'm extra grumpy about this.) I know for me, going out to an event felt fairly nerve wracking, in delta land. So we really will be extra careful. Therefore, we're gonna treat snacking like smoking....need to step outside if you need to breath outside a mask. The good part...Goodies (10th anniversary style) So everyone who attends events this weekend (and for as long as I feel like it), will get a ton of bonus goodies, from special promo magic cards for the magic folks, to mystery dice sets for the D&D participants.
Need to put 12 and under (unvaccinated) events on hold. (GRRRR)
A sucky decision to make: I've been struggling with this for the last week, but a call with my competitor (friend) over at Games of Berkeley finally settled it. It really bugs the hell out of me, but we have to put doing in person kid events (12 and younger), on hold for a while. (I mean it really bugs me..it isn't fair at all. We are still doing the 13+ vax events. ) The big problem is that the kind of events we do are designed to get people face to face for a while. It is why we are having an extremely strict policy of proof of vaccination to attend the events, and even than, making the events smaller so there is more space between folks. The numbers are that the breakthrough cases that end up in hospitalization or worse for the vaccinated is less than .004% . The number of cases for the 12 and younger is way higher, but still small. The problem is that the Delta variant is both insanely more infectious and delivers way more bad stuff per punch. (Like those scientific terms?) Not inviting Covid to play. And then there is the Antibiotic factor. So remember how your doc says it is super important to take all of your Antibiotics when you have an ear infection or whatever of a thousand things that is good for? The reason that they say that ain't for you...at least not today. It's because they need to make sure that none of the bad guys are still sticking around, because they reproduce at an enormous rate, and in among those that survive are some that learned to thumb their nose at that antibiotic. So next time they show up in someone, the meds don't work anymore. You don't wanna give them time and body to reproduce enough to learn. In this case, the body is the whole country/world. The more people who let covid have a place to grow and transmit, the more chance for mutation occurs, and suddenly something shows up that can get past the vaccination protections. That is why getting vaccinated if possible isn't just about the person, but not helping the virus a breeding ground for more, scarier versions. The delta variant is, unfortunately, a perfect example of that. Blowed up plan: I thought that by separating the kids from the adults, and making sure the kids wore masks, that we'd be able to make sure that D20 didn't do anything to provide a way for the virus to get more hosts to party down and grow in. But the Delta variant changed all that. It all but guarantees that if we have a set of unvaccinated kids sitting close enough to play, that it will show up and it will spread. So we are thrown back, at least for the unvaccinated kids. It is totally unfair and sucks, and is unfair. I'm gonna cancel and refund all the kid friendly events for now. But I will do this as what I can do to make up for it. Any 12 year old or younger who wanted to play in any of the "prerelease" events can buy a kit to take home to play with their buds, and I will add an extra prize pack to the order, as well as a random promo card that they might have won if they were here. You guys know how I feel about you, and this is making me equally sad and angry to have to do this. I'll get you guys back in as soon as we can do so safely.... (grr)
D20 Games 10th Anniversary Events start Aug 6th...
Ok, somehow, some way, we not only made it to 10 years of me having the store, but we also managed to survive last year!!! So in August, we are gonna party like it's... (ok..a little like it was last year, cause we are having to go back to masks indoors). Big note...we're gonna keep the events sized nice and small to make sure everyone has plenty of room, so sign up fast, cause these will go quickly once everyone knows they are there. If we have a lot of people who can't get in, we'll add more events if we possibly can. Oh...and one more thing before we move onto the "what are we gonna do for the 10th anniversary month". We did finally get the bigger loan (eep). But that means that we are really in need of some great people to help us do some major improvements for the store. That includes installing a serious skylight/vent in the place, a great interior design/set design person to help us make the place interesting and gorgeous, and an electrician that can handle a very confusing bit of upgrade on an ancient system. (If you know of any great electricians that also love magic, I'm willing to do some amazing bits of barter so we can make it happen.) We also are looking to do some high quality after-school programs, so we are looking for great people who can run D&D adventures for kids, and someone to potentially run a chess program. These are D20 kids we are talking about, so we are really looking for top notch folks, and we will be doing full livescan/background checks. So what are we gonna do? Magic--Every weekend is a prerelease that we missed last year. (we have more than we can stick into only one month, but this'll get us started. We are gonna do 13+ events, Jr. events, and events that are carefully mixed. Fun, sure...but also keeping safe. And we are gonna do giveaways for just a ton of promo cards...all winners this month. We are gonna bring back one of our all time fav events, Two Headed Giants. This team version of Magic is perfect for buddies, couples, and parent-kid combos. It is a great way to get to share something that you (or your potential partner) loves in a very low pressure kinda way. These will be Saturdays, Starting at 3 pm. These will be with each of the "Prerelease" events till the last of the month when we do the higher cost Modern Horizons 2 events. For that THG Sat, we are gonna bring back one of our all time most popular events, Fat Pack Wars. (Each team has a member reach into the mystery box and pull out a pack that matches with a Fatpack from up to 7 years ago. We make sure the number of packs reaches 10, and they open all of those to make their two decks to play together. These could be Born of the Gods to Strixhaven...its all up to the fickle fingers of whoever pulls the pack.) (we will be bringing back single sales in the next week or so. We are also looking to start playing modern, commander, and standard as well, but those will start in a bit.)(Oh yes...in terms of FNM...we are gonna hold on drafts until the safety settles down. In its place will be the sealed events.) Pokemon...We are just working on getting packs in stock for the kids to buy that aren't snapped up by the adult collectors. We will bring back the Pokemon league in a month or two when it is safe. D&D..we will start doing regular events again after this month, but we will do some special events for the anniversary, including a special all day event on the last Sunday of the month. This will have 4 tables of adventurers all working to an epic battle together at the end of the event. We did this once before, but it was back in 2013, so I think we are good to repeat it. ;-) We are also extremely well stocked on dice and D&D goodies that have been sitting there, waiting for people to come back in the store and find them, including full dice made of actual gemstone/semi-precious stone. Board games... oh my do we have a bunch of games we've saved up. We will have some serious quick sales on games from Cover your Assets to Gloomhaven. Keep an eye on Facebook and the D20 Twitter feed for our equivalent to Blue light specials. (if you're a kid, ask your parents. If you are a parent and don't get the reference, don't tell me so I won't have to admit my age. ;-) We will also be having a used board game mega sale, as well as a return of the mystery game loot bags. All kidding aside, we are incredibly grateful for people having helped us make it through all this. Now we will really need your business on the regular as much as possible so we can truly survive, and pay off the loans etc that let us make it through. And it really is important to try and keep the family/friend game night as much as you can. For those of us who are fighting the battle of keeping people face to face, not face to screen, it was a tough year. But there were some cracks in families starting to see each other again, so I'm a big advocate for turning the night you toss the cel phones into a basket and play together into a regular habit. (If you need to make room at home for more games, consider donating them to the women's shelter or any number of the hospitals, etc.) I've missed the hell out of seeing you all! Warmly, Ben (yer store owner dude) Here are some of the events coming up this Month...
Open(ish), and doing MTG Events!-Real Reopening first Weekend in August.
D20 Games Magic Events and reopening plans....
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