December 30, 2009

Battle of the Border 3 Announced

Greetings everyone,

I was asked by bkwrds from vssystem.org to pass along the following tournament details.

When: January 16th and 17th (Both days start at noon)
Where: 69 Agnes St in Kitchener, Ontario
Formats:
Jan 16th - BYOS followed by MUN draft
Jan 17th - "Silver Age Constructed (DCR-MUN, + MEQ)
How Much: $20 entry fee (covers both days)

For anyone who is interested in attending, please contact bkwrds via private message on the vssystem.org forums.

December 29, 2009

VS System Council Errata - Incorrect

In their year-end address to the community the VSSystem.org council has suggested an errata. The full text explanation can be read below:

Our final topic of the day is Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury (MVL-123). This card has been nominated for an errata because of a broken interaction that allows for consistent turn 3 wins (sometimes turn 2) in Silver and Golden Age. The combo uses the following cards:

Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury
Haywire, Suicidal Lover
Mind Gem, Unique * Infinity Gem
Soul Gem, Unique * Infinity Gem
Ratcatcher, Otis Flannegan or Apokoliptian Zealots, Army
Any team-up
In ten test games, KardKrazy won on turn 3 eight times, turn 2 once, and turn 4 once. The trick is to put a Soul Gem on Nick Fury and a Mind Gem on Haywire, Then have Haywire stun himself repeatedly with Nick Fury’s effect, and bounce to hand repeatedly with Soul Gem’s effect. Ratcatcher burns your opponent to death throughout this process. In Silver Age, you simply need to replace Ratcatcher with Apokoliptian Zealots to gain infinite attack. This version is equally unstoppable since you can include a single copy of Blind-Sided in your deck (Mind Gem will be drawing up your whole deck).

The council has decided to change Nick Fury to the following:

Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury
Marvel Knights
Range
1/1
Loyalty
Exhaust X equipped MK characters you control >>> Stun target opposing character with cost less than X.
MVL-123
Rare

Chuck says: After Roy and Scott's comments, I had a really close look at this and they are indeed correct. The second line on Soul Gem reads “Whenever equipped character stuns a character with lesser cost, return that stunned character to its owner’s hand.”

In order to bounce Haywire back to your hand, he would have to be in combat with Nick Fury. Haywire is not being stunned by Nick, he is being stunned by Nick’s power, and there IS a difference. WIthout being in combat you can’t bounce Haywire back to hand, so there is no infinite loop.

Comment 2: According to rules lawyering this combo does actually work, but were I asked to rule on it I'd still say it doesn't work. My opinion and the truth seem to be in disagreement this time. I'm not going to bother adding the errata to the Legends FAQ...but should someone play a deck of this sort in one of my tournaments, I'll be extremely disappointed in them for being cheap. :P

December 18, 2009

I Luvs Me Some Muzak

Oddly enough my parents never pushed me to do anything overtly musical as a kid. I didn't have the prerequisite piano lessons that a lot of kids did, or even get pushed into joining the school band. It's actually something I chose to do on my own. Now I can't recall exactly the process that went into it, but it's been a part of my life for so long (skill level notwithstanding) that I can't imagine not having an interest of some kind.

In junior high and high school I played in the concert band until grade 11, which overlapped into joining the metal band of some friends. It was interesting getting that gig, as it came about from being taught to play bass guitar for a school assignment. As soon as we had played it a few times and recorded it, I was asked if I wanted to join their band "because you're better than our actual bass player." We played some live gigs but mostly tried to blow out the power system of an old gutted trailer my dad had set up for us out on the farm.

Landing in the city meant more people to jam with, and eventually my first 'semi-pro' band. We played for several years all throughout Alberta and even a half dozen locations in Saskatchewan. Two CDs and the departure of the last remaining original member of Diesel Fly signalled the ultimate demise of that group.

I sort of hung it up for a while at that point, being tired of the travel, practice and personalities involved with it all. I ended up in Japan as a teacher and stumbled upon several locals who gave me a new outlet, even going so far as to lend me a bass for over a year! Our little trio in Japan was called "Nan-da-rou" which roughly translates to "What the Hell?!". An Aussie guitarist/singer, Japanese drummer and a Canadian bassist/growler made for a pretty interesting collection. Unfortunately we never got to play any gigs due to our guitarist having some visa issues and eventually having to leave the country.

After coming back to my homeland, I left all of my musical junk in storage...as I had no one to play with any longer. After about two years, something started the itch and I went and pulled everything out and set about putting together a new space. First it started with an audio interface and DAW program. This was promptly followed by a beautiful new guitar, then full on mixing and monitoring hardware, complete with a virtual drum program to get that realistic sound that computer muzak is lacking.

On occasion I do get to jam with a few friends, and have started writing again in a very limited fashion. My finishing touch for the newly minted casa-studio was an uber-spiffy Roland HD-1 v-drum kit. I can now jam, write or record, alone or with friends, in the middle of the night in my condo without anyone else in the building knowing. Adding in a singer would make it interesting, but I'm extremely psyched about the whole thing! Vocals can be recorded during daylight hours I suppose.

Merry axe-mas to all, and a happy shred-year!

December 16, 2009

Rant Time Is Upon Us...

Ok I don't usually do this kind of thing, but I'm seriously annoyed at the situation thus far and have no other outlet for my rage so it's going up here on the blog.

UPS LICKS FUCKING DONKEY BALLS

So I receive a delivery notice last Thursday, stating that I have a package waiting and owe a minimal fee of $16.05. That's all fine and good. So I call their 1-800 number in an attempt to talk to a REAL LIVE PERSON, hoping to re-route the package to my workplace. Yeah right, before each of the enter-x bullshit menu options I get from the uppity computerized bitch on the phone, there's a plug for the fabulous technological marvel that is ups.com...where I can fulfill all my package-related desires with speed and ease.

But I'm already on the phone. After what seems like dozens of menu options I obtain a confirmation that my package will be available at the service center Monday morning. Of course, I can't understand the address the spits out at me, nor does asking to have it repeated result in a more-intelligable response. It appears that I must resort to looking at the website after all.

Aha! I find a UPS shipping center address, but I'm a little suspicious. None of these addresses even remotely resemble the one spewed at me by binary-bitch. Having been to the shipping center before however, I decide to take a trip up there on Tuesday AM before work in an attempt to reclaim my package, figuring they'll have had plenty of time to reroute it to the center and all will be lovely.

You know where this is going now don't you...

I arrive at what used to be the shipping center, only to find a BIG "For Lease" sign in the parking lot. Pulling up to the door I find a map, with a NEW location for the shipping center, which just so happens to be another 15 minute drive from my current location. And did I mention it's -27 degrees Celcius outside and icy as a freshly waxed witches ass? Off to the shipping center it is then, where are my skates?!

Upon arriving at the military-compound, I mean shipping center, there is no obvious place to park, nor decent signs to show you that you're allowed to drive through the gates to the place of parking-ness. I go in anyway, because I want my fucking box at this point. So I walk in, wait impatiently for a surprisingly short 5 minutes, and finally hand my delivery slip to a clerk. She looks the number up with alacrity, only to inform me that the package is not, I repeat NOT at the shipping center.

Yeah, I was happy about it too.

So great, where is this elusive box in question? Apparently it's still on the truck and the driver (love how it's the driver's fault now), didn't read his notes and hadn't brought it in the the shipping center. Fine...here's my proposal to the clerk:

"Well if it's still on the truck, how about we get it delivered to my office tomorrow?" I hand her a business card and indicate the address written clearly at the bottom. She accepts the card and circles the address, clearly, in blue pen. "Oh yes, since it's a downtown address we can deliver it before 5pm tomorrow afternoon."

Great. That's settled. I drive back to work, and think nothing of it until this morning, when I stop at the front desk to inform the reception staff that there should be a package for me today. Three PM rolls around and no package as of yet. Color me suspicious once again. Off to the bloody website we go again, to find this lovely collection of fiction:

AS REQUESTED BY THE CUSTOMER, THE RECEIVER WILL PICKUP AT A UPS FACILITY WITHIN 5 BUSINESS DAYS / ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED WITH CUSTOMER

I particularly enjoyed the "confirmed with customer" part of that story, didn't you? So after talking with the lady yesterday, they just decided that I'd confirmed that I would come back another day, pretend that I had been spoken with, and then not notify me of a god-damn thing that was decided with my 'confirmation'. Excellent.

At least after talking with the girl on the phone today the status is actually representative of the redelivery request. Let's see what tomorrow brings shall we?

December 01, 2009

December Gaming Schedule

Greetings fellow nerds, I mean...no, I guess nerds is pretty accurate. But don't feel bad, we're all on the same page here. I felt it important to throw some outlines down for the rest of the holiday month here in regards to our gaming fun down at Trilogy.

This coming Thursday (Dec 3rd) we have another Call of Cthulhu Adventure League night planned. Come out and play some games before we finish up for Christmas! I have some gifts for anyone who can make it down and play three games. This event will also mark the end of the 2009 Adventure League, so I'll be giving out the FFG-provided prizes as well. Win or lose, you'll have fun playing games AND get an early Christmas present! What's not to like about that?

For the event on the Thursday, Dec 17th we will have an open tournament. Any card is legal for play, including legacy cards! Build your trickiest, nastiest deck with any cards you want. Faction head abilities will still be available for use to add for extra shenanigans. If you're all good little demons and devils, I might be convinced to hand out extra Cthulhu cheer for this event too.

There will be no event on Thurday, Dec 31st. Go out and ring in the New Year!

Ok here's the big one: our final VS System Hobby League event for 2009 will take place on Friday December 11th. I'd really love to see everyone come out for this event (Golden Age Open). I have some great prizes prepared to show my appreciation of the best player group in town. I'm hoping to have enough goodies to make sure everyone goes home with something spiffy. I'm laso hoping to talk Pascal into staying open a little later for us, but that's not yet certain.

There will be no VS System event on Dec 25th. (Like you had to ask.)

There is a lot of new stuff on the horizon for 2010 as well. Most notable is the move from bi-weekly to weekly events. That's right, we're going to start playing every week, with a pre-determined monthly schedule and new (yes you heard me...NEW) cards given away every week.

Be sure not to miss any of these great events...if you do Santa might not visit you for Christmas this year!