Posts by obiwein

Star Wars: Unlimited is an awesome game. Full stop. It fixes so many issues that other card games have. Getting screwed on resources by not having enough (or having too many) is never a thing and is just not possible based on the design that everything could be used as a resource and also that…

I find it interesting that a tie result is referred to as a draw when, in the old West, two gunslingers drawing their weapons generally resulted in one of them losing everything. There have been ways for individual games to end in a draw previously. The simplest example would be a single card doing damage…

The last time I was at GenCon was in 2006 as a vendor. Along with a couple friends, we set ourselves up as “Gone to Plaid Games” buying and selling TCG singles. The last time I was there as an event competitor was in 2003 for the World Championship of the Wizards of the Coast…

I will admit to not completely understanding play mats, nor have I used one in all the years of playing collectible card games. I get it that they provide some protection for your cards. However, the cards are already in sleeves and sometimes more than one sleeve. Isn’t the entire point of the sleeves to…

Store Showdown season is wrapping up at this point. I’ve been to three in Philadelphia and the immediate vicinity, with one more on the trailing end of the season coming up. If you’ll indulge me with the humble brag briefly: I’ve done well in these events. Top 8 in the first, winning the second, and…

Extra of something is generally good. Extra money. Extra ice-cream. Extra credit. Extra days off. Extra lives (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A). Extra turns are good too. Collectible card games have always seemed to have this idea of an extra turn as a card. Those cards have tended to be…

The first really large tournament that I went to was roughly 1995 — before the Magic Pro Tour was even a thing.  I don’t quite remember what I was playing in terms of a deck.  I do remember that there were over two hundred players, and that the event was single elimination.  The other major…

Jumping back into collectible card games after nearly twenty years has been a blast. One big change, however, has been the increase in card rarities and variants. The first collectible card games had a relatively simple rarity system of Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Fifteen cards in a pack; One Rare, three Uncommon, and then Common…

Spoiler season is upon us. Nearly every day we are getting to see at least one new card from the upcoming set. Sometimes, we are getting videos with the game developers at Fantasy Flight Games that show multiple spoilers at a time and discuss some of the design choices and theory that went into creating…