Look, up in the sky…

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

No, it’s Superman!

75 Years ago, a small comics publisher named DC released Action Comics #1 featuring, among other stories, the first appearance of Superman, that strange visitor from the planet Krypton with powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men.  Disguised as Clark Kent, a mild mannered reporter for….Well you all know the story.

Yes, Superman is 75 years old and while he doesn't look a day over 35, he has become a worldwide icon and the first true “super” hero to exist.  Love him, hate him or just not sure which way to go, he is the original and in my opinion, still the best Superhero there is.  I know all the arguments about him:  he is too powerful, he has too many abilities, no one would ever be that “good” or “noble” if they had all that power, Batman can always beat him, and his costume, really, red underwear on the outside and a cape?  Don’t get me wrong, I love Spidey and Lynda Carter will always be the perfect Wonder Woman, and The Avengers movie is the best superhero movie yet filmed, but Superman is still, to me, THE Superhero.

DC seems to agree as they are turning June 12-14, 2013 into a Superman tribute.  We have the new Man of Steel movie landing in theaters on June 14, and I think it is fair to say that it is the movie that I hear the most buzz about.  I am so mad that I’ll be at a conference during the premier that even now I am plotting as to how soon I can see the movie and if I will wait to see it with my sons or just go and see it and then take them so I can see it twice!  I know, tough choices.  However, on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, Superman Unchained #1 will be available at your friendly neighborhood comic shop.  You will, of course, stop by the Dragon’s Den and Gamer’s Gambit to get your copy, but you have several options to consider.

Written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Jim Lee and Scott Williams, Superman Unchained is DC’s love letter to the comic BOOK fans of Superman.  Besides the talented main creative team, DC has lined up a host of other top notch artists to provide variant covers highlighting Superman throughout his 75 year career.  These covers are iconic images from the different ages of comic books.  They are a great collection of Superman images from the Golden Age, the Modern age, new 52 and many more.  I've included them below so you can see just how fantastic they are.  Some, like Bruce Tim’s 1930s cover is a younger artist creating a period piece of Superman, while Neal Adams is a Bronze Age icon who was actually drawing Superman during that time.  All of them are a fitting tribute to Superman in the many decades he has graced the covers of a comic book.

Superman Unchained #1 variant copies are available for preorder here!

I hope you will take the time to stop by and pick up a copy of Superman’s Birthday Present to you.  Forget what you think you know about the character and take some time to meet the first and still the best Superhero!  And if you need some recommendations about other Superman stories to read, look for me around the stores.  I’ll be the guy wearing one of my many Superman T-Shirts lurking near the 4 foot Superman S shield on our wall…

David

Worlds Collide

*This article may contain spoilers*

Hey people who read comics and stuff! This blog doesn’t post often (not my fault), but now it will post significantly more, thanks to me! I’m not the usual person who posts stuff—I’m new. I’m only 12 years old, but I love comic books and video games. In the past, I gave interviews on my review of Pokémon videogames for the DS; you may have read them.

But enough about me, let’s jump right in to the topic of this post: Worlds Collide, a twelve-part, action-packed crossover event between Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man comic books! The first three issues (Mega Man #24, Sonic Universe #51, and STH #248) have already arrived and there are more on the way! Now, if anyone has read a crossover before, you know the drill: villains team up, heroes fight, heroes team up, defeat villains together. So far, that’s what’s happening in this crossover. Eggman and Wily have teamed up via Chaos Emerald and tricked Sonic and Mega Man into fighting. Also, Sonic’s friends have been roboticized, so he won’t be getting any help in fighting Mega Man or the Doctors. So that’s the basic plot, now let me tell you about the characters from each franchise that will be appearing. Everybody that’s anybody will be in this story arc, so longtime readers of Mega Man or Sonic will recognize a lot of characters. Some of my favorites from STH are Shadow, Scourge, Silver, and Metal Sonic. I also look forward to seeing MM characters like Bass, the Robot Masters, and Proto Man.

Now, you’re probably wondering: why is this kid so enthusiastic? Well, I’m a longtime reader of both series, and I’m interested in seeing Sonic and Mega Man fight. I want to see how Mega Man deals with Sonic’s extreme speed and agility, and how Sonic deals with Mega Man being a tireless robot with an arm cannon. Also, Sonic calls MM a “blue boy” and MM calls Sonic a “pincushion,” so there is fun banter in this so far. Well, “blue boy” isn’t that impressive, especially for Sonic, but I’m betting we’ll see some improvement with Archie Comics writer, Ian Flynn, in future issues. I’m also surprised at Eggman and Wily’s perfect teamwork. You would think that they would disagree a bit, but no, only on minor things.

This story arc spans five months and encompasses 3 comic titles. Here is the Worlds Collide release schedule:
April
Mega Man #24
Sonic Universe #51

from Sonic the Hedgehog #248

May
Sonic the Hedgehog #248
Mega Man #25
Sonic Universe #52

June
Sonic the Hedgehog #249
Mega Man #26
Sonic Universe #53

July
Sonic the Hedgehog #250
Mega Man #27
Sonic Universe #54

August
Sonic the Hedgehog #251

So yeah, Worlds Collide is a HUGE event. There will also be a flip book comic that is a prelude to this epic given out at Free Comic Book Day! Look for it at your friendly local comic shops, a.k.a. Dragon's Den and Gamer's Gambit, on Saturday, May 4! While you’re there, if you haven’t already done it, make sure to subscribe to all three titles (SU, STH, and MM) to get all the awesomeness! I’ll be back with another post on this before the last issue comes out so stay tuned. This is your new blogger, signing off!

Q-Scourge

International Table Top Day 2013

We were very excited to be a part of International Table Top Day this year, which was its first year.  We ran a bunch of different demo games and offered sales on all the games we demoed. The following pictures were from the event.  If you could not make the event this year, then you should check out Table Top Day on our site and on other social media sites to see everything you missed out on.  We are hoping to have the chance to continue to be a part of this fun filled day.

If you would like to see the other photos, then click and dear more below!  We also ran several other demo games including Dixit, Kanzume Goddess, Zombie Dice, Cthulhu Dice  and Munchkin!

2012 Magic Player of the Year

So we got in our player of the year awards for Magic 2012.  Time to show them off... which the players who won them.

Don't forget to click on the "Read More" to see all the great pictures!

MTG Sealed and You: The Basics

Hey everybody! If you are reading this, pat yourself on the back –stumbling through the labyrinth of the internet, feet weary and sore, you have found Dragon’s Den blog for all things Magic: The Gathering. My name is Lyon, and if you’ve played much Magic at the Den, chances are you’ve spotted me. Today, we’ll be discussing the ins and outs of Sealed. Since Sealed is the primary format of a prerelease (and prereleases are super duper fun), knowing this format is essential to participating in one of the best casual tournament settings Magic has to offer. We’re going to discuss the basics: what Sealed is and how you can best tailor your deck to not only have a blast at the prerelease, but also hopefully take home some additional packs while you’re at it!

At its core, Sealed is a very basic concept: you are given 6 packs. You open these packs and make a 40 card magic deck (lands are provided, so don’t worry about that). That’s it. Like many things in gaming, the nuances of it are what can give it more depth, and knowing those nuances is the difference between staring down handfuls of unorganized cards and preparing your weapon of destruction for the tournament.

The upcoming Dragon’s Maze prerelease is going to function a little differently, but it’s not cause for alarm. In fact, it should be pretty fun! When you sign up, you will only receive 4 regular packs of Dragon’s Maze instead of the usual 6. The other 2 packs will be 1 pack of a guild of your choosing (any of the 10 bicolor combinations in Magic), and 1 pack of a guild allied with the one you chose. These packs will have cards only belonging to those guilds in them, so it’s important to pick guilds that have colors you think you might want to use.

Okay, so that’s the easy stuff. The most challenging part of Sealed for many players is what to do once you’ve opened all of your packs. Let’s cover some sound advice and also discuss what to avoid! Note that there are no 100% foolproof formulas for victory. If there were, the game wouldn’t be fun at all! The following advice is merely to better your chances of having a fine-tuned deck that will play in a way that (hopefully) won’t make you pull your hair out in frustration and curse your “bad luck”.

• First thing first: lay out your cards in a way that is organized and makes sense to you. Just like writing an essay, having an “outline” for your deck can be really helpful. Some useful ways to organize your cards are by color, by casting cost, and by usefulness. Before you begin building, it’s important to see how many actually playable cards you have in any color (or combinations of colors). You’d be surprised how much you might “see” about your cards and options simply from doing this!

• Make sure that you know have an idea for the ‘proper’ amount of cards vs. lands. While this may vary depending on the player or card selection, there are a few general guidelines for your spells / lands ratio for Sealed (and Draft) decks. First, no matter how tempted you are to go over, you should try your hardest to keep your deck to 40 cards. Statistically, it will give you the best chance to draw the cards you want. Second, my base rule is 23 cards / 17 lands for an average deck. If you have mostly cards with very low mana costs (and few, if any, cards with higher mana costs), 24/16 is your best bet. Similarly, if your deck has a lot of high mana cards and not a lot of “mana ramp”, 22 /18 should be fine. Deviating too far from these ratios may result in too many games of either drawing too few or too many lands. You don’t need me to tell you why this is frustrating!

• Make sure your deck has a ‘plan’, but also that the plan is good. While a little bit of everything is a good thing, your deck should really fit one a few archetypes, or things you want your deck to be doing. This decision should have less to do with what you “want” to do when you build decks ‘normally’ and more to do with what your packs are telling you. Did you open up a lot of fast, aggressive creatures? Aggro might be your plan. Did you open up a lot of counterspells, creature removal, and a few larger creatures that can finish up a game? Control is probably the way to go. What do both of these things have in common? You are evaluating your deck based on ALL of the cards, not just a few (or one that you really like). It is better to have a deck full of cards that all work together than a deck with one or two REALLY good cards and a bunch of . . . “meh” to support them.

• Don’t feel like you have to use the guild you chose a pack from. If you chose Rakdos (red and black) as your guild for the prerelease, but the rest of your packs had very few playable red and black cards, that color combination might not be right for your deck. Instead, look to see which colors have the quality and quantity you will need to succeed.

• You don’t have to include every rare you open! While it can be tempting to fall back on a formula like rarity = power level, it’s more important to play with cards that can functionally win a game of magic. For example, in a Gatecrash Sealed tournament I would include  a Disciple of the Old Ways (common) over an Unexpected Results (rare) almost every time. One is an aggressive creature that beats many others in combat, while the other is a sorcery that will not function better than simply drawing a card that affects the game directly.

• Don’t include cards in your deck simply because they are “on-color”. Even if your deck has a lot of powerful cards in any given color, don’t put in bad (underpowered or very little use) cards to fill in those last 2-3 slots you need to make your deck 40 cards. If you have enough good cards in a 3rd (or sometimes 4th) color, it is often better to “splash” (put in lands to support) for that color for 4-6ish strong cards. In Dragon’s Maze and other sets where you will have access to lands which tap for more than 1 color, this is particularly powerful if you have the special lands (like guildgates and the rare shocklands) to support it.

There’s certainly a lot more to say about both deck-building and playing in Sealed (and other formats), but these core basics can take you a long way. Future articles will talk about other formats, more specific strategies for formats, and Magic theory. Most importantly, future articles can discuss whatever you want to know more about, so please leave comments, feedback, and suggestions! I hope to see everyone at the Dragon’s Maze prerelease, ready to kick some butt and have a great time. Remember, the most important rule of Magic is to have fun 

See you next time (but not really because I can’t see you through the computer – I’ll have to trust you’ll be there),

Lyon, Golgari Lich Lord