Playing the Game

 Earlier this year I decided that I'm done with trading card games (otherwise known as TCGs). Strangely it was a piece of good fortune which caused this. I'd opened a booster pack of Star Wars Unlimited at a pre-release event to reveal a Darth Vader card. It was a good card and simply slapping it down on the table won me at least two games at the pre-release and again at a constructed event the next week. TCGs come in many varieties, but are typically games based around a deck of cards assembled based on a set of rules which may stipulate how many cards there are in total in a deck, how many copies of each card you may have, what sets you may use cards from and so on. Players then seek to build the most powerful deck within these guidelines.  They can obtain cards to build their deck in a number of ways.  They may buy a sealed pack of cards, known as a 'booster' pack, trade for them with other players, or buy them from vendors on what is termed the 'secondary market...

Hello and welcome to my blog. Let me introduce myself. My name is Neil and I'm at my happiest playing games. As a small kid I hassled my family - mostly without success - to play Monopoly. These days you may find me at a board game cafe playing my favourite game Flamme Rouge, or at a wargame club playing sci-fi shooter Stargrave, or WW2 platoon combat with Chain of Command, not to mention one of my all time favourites Blood Bowl! Along the way I've had a love affair with Magic the Gathering too.  I like to think of myself as a gaming omnivore, having a varied diet. I also have lots of thoughts, opinions and insights from across these gaming worlds which I wanted to get out there and share. It is these which I hope you find of interest. Neil May 2024