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GeekNights 20111117 - Emily and Rym in Japan
I can relate to Rym's experience drinking in Japan. I used to work at a Chinese restaurant, and sometimes my boss would invite me to his house for dinner with his family. The cook also lived there and he loved to drink, so when I came over he would get really excited and get me drunk. I was weird because he only spoke Cantonese, of which I know maybe a dozen words, so we couldn't understand each other at all.
Since videos with intentionally corrupted encoding are not relevant to many conversations, have a couple of links.
Since videos with intentionally corrupted encoding are not relevant to many conversations, have a couple of links.
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Another option I'd recommend is the Commander product which is sold as five individual 100 card decks. Except for basic lands, none of the decks contain multiple copies of the same card, because it is a Highlander format. The Commander format is a lot of fun, but these starter decks are a bit expensive with a price point of $30 each. Commander is however also by far the most popular casual format, and these decks were created by WOTC well after it became so. These decks also contain unique cards that are not available in any other product, and are also quite valuable in resale. The commander decks could also be hard to find though.
Are the Commander decks actually hard to come by? WotC sends me all sorts of stuff since I'm on their review list, and I got a set of all 5 Commander decks back in the summer. If I can turn a pretty penny, might have to look into offloading them now that I've gotten my use out of them.
Your a deck must have 99 cards (100 counting the General). Except for basic lands, no card may have the same english name as any other card (this makes it a Highlander type format, "there can only be one", yadda yadda yadda). Additionally, you may not use any cards that contain a mana symbol that is not also found on your General. This is called the General's "color identity", i.e. the color identity of Bosh, Iron Golem is red, even though it is a colorless artifact since it has no colored mana symbols in its mana cost (in the top right). Additionally, if mana of a color not in your General's color identity were to be added to your mana pool, that much colorless mana is added instead. For example, if Bosh is your general, you can't use Ancient Grudge because a) It has a different color identity (green-red) and b) you can't flashback it because you can't produce green mana.
Players start with 40 life, however, they also die if a General deals a total of 21 combat damage to them (the general doesn't have to stay on the table continuously for this). There's different resources for banned and restricted lists as well, which depend on playgroup. This site is probably the best resource on the format.
Commander is basically playing a highlander format coupled with an RTS Hero unit.
As an aside, the Commander format was originally called "Elder Dragon Highlander" or EDH for short (which is where the name of the site linked above comes from). The Commander product WOTC made was created because it is so popular and because WOTC heard the demand for more Wedge-colored legendary creatures, i.e. creatures that have three colors, an allied pair and their common "enemy" color, e.g. Black-Green-White. Each of the Commander decks marketed by WOTC includes three legendary creatures of one wedge color identity, two brand new ones that can only be found in that deck, and one reprinted Legendary Dragon (because you know, you gotta have them Dragons). They also have enemy-colored legendary creatures in them, which you can use as a starting point for different commander decks.
Each deck is built around one Legendary Creature card. That creature is kept to the side, and can be summoned on any turn. Also, a big part of the deck construction is that you can only ever earn mana of the color types listed in your legendary creature's summoning cost.
Everyone starts with 40 life. If you lose it, you're out. Also, if any one player deals 21 or more damage to any other individual player, they knock that player out of the game, so you do have to track where your damage came from.
Edit: 4-minute Ninja'd, that's what I get for multitasking.
Good thing I got a few Commander sets for free from PAX.