The Escapist Battles Local Game Studio with Magic

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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The Escapist Battles Local Game Studio with Magic

Who prevailed in the friendly challenge between planeswalkers from Escapist staffers and Mighty Rabbit games?

Gamers love all kinds of games, be it playable on a screen or with cards, and a lot of videogame developers I've met definitely have caught the Magic bug. The popularity of the venerable card game has certainly surged in the last few years and it has gotten to the point where even a casual conversation includes random queries about which formats you prefer and whether Dark Ascension is all that. The guys from Mighty Rabbit studios [http://www.mightyrabbitstudios.com/], a local iPad game outfit here in the Triangle area of North Carolina, recognized that some of us folks at The Escapist talk about Magic quite a bit on various social networks. CEO Josh Fairhurst decided to take advantage of our bravado, and challenged The Escapist to a friendly tournament.

The gauntlet was thrown!

[gallery=643]

To celebrate the release of the latest Magic set, we planned to have a draft tournament using a single booster box of Dark Ascension. That set is great and all, but it isn't standalone by any stretch and works best when paired with Innistrad. So we altered the format to a sealed deck tournament. Basically, players will get three packs of Dark Ascension and three packs of Innistrad and build a deck of a minimum of 40 cards using what they draw. We would then play best of three matches random members of the opposing team of five and compare records after two rounds.

The competition was hot. Spells were slung. Creatures were killed, and damage was dealt.

In the end, The Escapist Team reigned supreme. [user]Kross[/user], [user]Trujkin[/user], [user]s0osleepie[/user], [user]Sir Isaac[/user] and me all fared really well with what we pulled. To the victors go the spoils, and we each netted two extra booster packs.

I hate to rub it in, but we really kicked their asses. Out of the 10 matches played, The Escapist won all but two. But Benjamin Moore, Josh Fairhurst and the rest of the Mighty Rabbit squad were really good sports. We had a lot of fun, and who knows? Once they practice their Planeswalking skills, maybe Mighty Rabbit can come back and challenge us again, perhaps once they finish work on the Saturday Morning RPG. [http://www.mightyrabbitstudios.com/?cat=3]

To that, [user]s0osleepie[/user] says, "Bring it!"

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Redlin5_v1legacy

Better Red than Dead
Aug 5, 2009
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Which of our Escapist warriors do we shower with praise? Who defended the honor of the magazine with spells and misdirection?

I've yet to play Magic myself but I would consider picking it up if I ever got some friends who played it.
 

L4Y Duke

New member
Nov 24, 2007
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You have Graham Stark on your side. You win by default.

Nothing can combat the beard.
 

JaceArveduin

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Mar 14, 2011
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I don't play the card version much, though I do have a deck. Tactix on the other hand... I've got 14 decks in my deck thread on the forums XD Though some of them are just theory, don't have the cards to make them.
 

Warrior Irme

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May 30, 2008
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I used to play, but it's costly to keep up with the cards. It seems the two dynamics of players I see are those using the most recent exclusively, and those that bought enough cards in the past that their decks are impossible to beat when you open it up to any sets.
 

Nuclear_Suspect

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Jun 1, 2010
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Bravo on the win, now its time to play 'Magic: The Drunkening' with them!

The rules are simple:
You play 2v2 where each player has a pure color deck. (Of course you can also have artifacts)
If you lose a creature you drink its toughness (4 toughness is 4 sips of your alcoholic beverage)
If YOU, the planeswalker take damage you drink double the amount. (3 damage equals 6 sips)

And now for the meat of the game, you can counter any spell by drinking your entire bevarage (Or take a shot) however this gives the opposing team a chance to cancel you counter by also drinking the same amount.
This can go on for as long as someone can drink, which often leads to endurance matches and seeing how long you can play with someone to get them to drink as much as possible without them getting the upper hand.
 

Doog0AD

New member
Apr 23, 2010
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Nuclear_Suspect said:
Bravo on the win, now its time to play 'Magic: The Drunkening' with them!

The rules are simple:
You play 2v2 where each player has a pure color deck. (Of course you can also have artifacts)
If you lose a creature you drink its toughness (4 toughness is 4 sips of your alcoholic beverage)
If YOU, the planeswalker take damage you drink double the amount. (3 damage equals 6 sips)

And now for the meat of the game, you can counter any spell by drinking your entire bevarage (Or take a shot) however this gives the opposing team a chance to cancel you counter by also drinking the same amount.
This can go on for as long as someone can drink, which often leads to endurance matches and seeing how long you can play with someone to get them to drink as much as possible without them getting the upper hand.
...Is this some sort of doomsday plot to kill off the entire Escapist staff?
 

Tiamat666

Level 80 Legendary Postlord
Dec 4, 2007
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I played Magic for two years, from about 1997 to 1999, stopped about the time the Stronghold expansion came out. Back then you could still have a clear overview of all the sets and if you were into it, you could know almost all of the cards that existed. Now if I look at what it has become, it's just crazy how many sets and cards there are. I really didn't think that it would just go on and on as it did.

It's a fun, well designed game. But eventually, the continuous investment you have to make to keep up put me off. I still have all my cards lying around somewhere, which is just fine should I want to play with family or friends.

Now I prefer card games like "Race for the Galaxy". It's in the same spirit as Magic (if you like complex card games and are into Sci-Fi, [a href="http://keldon.net/rftg/"]try it[/a]!), but you only have to buy one box of cards and you're all set and can play forever without any pressure of having to keep up and getting the best cards.
 

TheGuy(wantstobe)

New member
Dec 8, 2009
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Nuclear_Suspect said:
Bravo on the win, now its time to play 'Magic: The Drunkening' with them!

The rules are simple:
You play 2v2 where each player has a pure color deck. (Of course you can also have artifacts)
If you lose a creature you drink its toughness (4 toughness is 4 sips of your alcoholic beverage)
If YOU, the planeswalker take damage you drink double the amount. (3 damage equals 6 sips)

And now for the meat of the game, you can counter any spell by drinking your entire bevarage (Or take a shot) however this gives the opposing team a chance to cancel you counter by also drinking the same amount.
This can go on for as long as someone can drink, which often leads to endurance matches and seeing how long you can play with someone to get them to drink as much as possible without them getting the upper hand.
I just felt my liver quake in fear while reading this post
 

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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Unfortunately, Graham is in Victoria, BC, while The Escapist offices are about 3,000 miles away in Durham, NC.

I'm sure LRR would love to challenge us to a Magic tournament though. Wouldn't you?

Greg
 

godofallu

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Jun 8, 2010
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Sealed deck. Bah. You don't have the skill of drafting, or of creating a deck from a large card pool.

You basically just narrow it down to the best 2 colors and go. So whoever pulls the best packs has a huge edge.

Still sounds like a lot of fun. Too bad noone plays MTG near me. Oh well I suppose thats the point of MTGO and MWS.
 

vxicepickxv

Slayer of Bothan Spies
Sep 28, 2008
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Greg Tito said:
Unfortunately, Graham is in Victoria, BC, while The Escapist offices are about 3,000 miles away in Durham, NC.

I'm sure LRR would love to challenge us to a Magic tournament though. Wouldn't you?

Greg
Isn't that possible using something like Google Hangout?
 

L4Y Duke

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Nov 24, 2007
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Kristian Fischer said:
L4Y Duke said:
You have Graham Stark on your side. You win by default.

Nothing can combat the beard.
Where? I don't see him in any of the pictures (for obvious reasons).
It doesn't matter if he is present or not. His spiritual backing of the Escapist was all they needed to secure victory.
 

2fish

New member
Sep 10, 2008
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Greg Tito said:
Unfortunately, Graham is in Victoria, BC, while The Escapist offices are about 3,000 miles away in Durham, NC.

I'm sure LRR would love to challenge us to a Magic tournament though. Wouldn't you?

Greg
Skype MTG game? Just aim the camera at the desk and have a video call. If done right You could record it and upload it too. You know for work purposes.

Nice job with the win! At some point I may get back into magic if only to play you via email.