Robot Viking

With about half of Dark Ascension spoiled and the prerelease not far off, I thought you might like some DA themed wallpapers for your desktop.

What kind of fiend is this launching itself out of the night sky to feast upon mortal blood? Duh. It’s a Fiend of the Shadows. She’ll make her appearance in the latest Magic expansion, Dark Ascension, continuing Innistrad’s tale of gothic horror in gruesome new directions.

The art of Innistrad is among the best in Magic’s deep history of fantasy art, and it looks like Dark Ascension will carry that theme too. Have you ever seen a picture that perfectly defined “terror” as well as this one? (Well, maybe this one).

The latest Magic premium deck, Graveborn, came out a few weeks ago, and it’s packed with graveyard filling goodies. They’re all decked out with special foil treatments, too. I’m just not quite sure who these decks are for.

Wizards’ efforts to promote Magic to mainstream audiences have been hit-or-miss over the years. This commercial was made by some fans to promote their store. It tops every prior effort, without a doubt.

In the middle of a Cube draft the other week, I had a weird brainstorm for a new Magic mechanic. At first I called it, “Ghost Card,” which is fine as a working title, but ultimately too close to a terrible Bill Cosby movie. The idea is to give a card an advantage by making [...]

Wizards of the Coast announced last week that they’re bringing back Planechase as the multi-player format for this coming summer. It’s easily my favorite summer format since it’s so much fun, blends well with other formats and is easy for new or casual players to grasp. Plus, the new Planechase sets will have some goodies [...]

Gamers, by and large, tend to grouse and complain a lot. We love to scream, “Doooooom!” and bemoan the slightest of changes to our beloved rules systems. Instead, let’s talk about all the fantastic things going on in the tabletop gaming world these days. Happy Thanksgiving!

We had an exclusive Gen Con playtest report of an in-development card game called Ghost Pirates earlier this summer. You can help the designers get game finished and ready for market.

There are solitaire games that you play by yourself, and then there are solitaire games you play with others. Sure, the box says, “For 3-6 players,” but really everyone at the table is playing her own game, developing resources and working toward some goal without directly influencing the other players in any significant way. You [...]

If you make your living designing games (or just dream that you do), the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design is money in the bank. It is packed cover to cover with incredibly useful information on every aspect of game design, written by the most creative, insightful and experienced minds in the gaming industry.

I’m always looking for new, fun formats that take advantage of our Magic collections and give us more excuses to play. The Horde format, explained by Peter Knudson at QuietSpeculation.com, is an awesome way to use your Commander decks for something other than Commander, works as a solitaire game as well as a cooperative game, [...]

A brilliant idea for a Magic set doesn’t always become a great set once all the cards are on the table. Innistrad is built around a gothic horror theme that a lot of players (myself included) are huge fans of. Did Wizards match idea with execution, or do we have another Kamigawa on our hands? [...]

The classic horror of Magic’s Innistrad set is creeping up on us like a full moon crawling up the sky, leering through the clouds and filling us with lunacy and rage. Robot Viking’s Innistrad card does not use Insanity Wolf as the card art, but Insanity Wolf would still be a fan of Full Moon’s [...]