Docile Tree

While doing my usual morning round-up of going through my daily online comics (using the awesome Darkgate Comic Slurper), I came across yesterday’s latest Penny Arcade comic. I don’t usually read the news around their comics, but this comic mentioned a “Raid Deck“, which stirred my interest a bit. You see, I used to play Magic: the Gathering about 14 years ago, and sold all my cards for a measly R3000 (back then) in 1999 or so (I had a complete Ice Age, Homelands, and even a complete 4th Edition set), so the mention of some sort of “Deck” just got my interest. (I love card games, especially trading card games, but can’t afford to play them anymore. Doesn’t mean I can’t love them…)

So a Googling I go. I found that “Raid Deck” referred to the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. After some digging I found that AnimeDirect sells this game online (although, looking at their prices, it seems a bit over-priced when compared to the US Dollar prices: $30 vs. R340), and I’m sure your local Wizards shop (my closest one is in Stadium on Main in Claremont) will also stock it. Interesting, you can even go through the interactive demo to find out how to play, and download PDFs of demo decks too. Awesome stuff.

All this reminded me of all the trading card game cards I still have lying around the house. After selling my MtG cards, a few years later I managed to convince the S.O. to play something a bit simpler, in the form of the Pokemon TCG. We bought several starter decks when the First Edition just came out here, and I tried my best to collect a complete set. I got quite far before I lost interest, but I still have all the cards here, all in display files in a folder etc. I also came across the two starter decks and several booster packs we bought for the Harry Potter TCG, which was also an interesting take on the TCG thing, but with the increasing cost of these cards, we just couldn’t keep up. I’m sure I could get a fair amount for these Pokemon cards, they’re in mint condition, and they’re all First Edition and Second Edition. Where to flog them though? Nobody in South-Africa still plays it.

Anyway, the whole point here was that I love card and board games. I even bought the Civilization Chronicles Box Set to get the Civilization card game (Fixed card amount, nice game really, takes a few hours to play one game), and more recently I bought the S.O. a Carcassonne box set, and the one expansion. Philly_Girl also told me about some other card games which piqued my interest, such as Murdero and Fluxx. Have to try those still. And Catan. I’ve played both Catan and Carcassonne on XBLA, and they’re equally fun there too. (And I want to try Sierra’s new “Lost Cities” card game on XBLA too… Launching over the next few weeks I think.)
And, if you’re interested in buying board games, I’ve found that the prices on www.boardgames.co.za are very good, they have a nice selection (Including Doom and World of Warcraft boardgames), and they do free shipping too.

So, while hunting for links for this blog post, I came across Penny Arcade’s news relating to their “Raid Deck”, and they’re giving WOW TCG stuff away. What makes this even more interesting and relating to my previous post about 100 words, is that the way to win some of the stuff PA’s giving away, is you’re to write a short story, set in the World of Warcraft setting, consisting of exactly 10 (yes, ten) words. Heh. I’m gonna try I tell you!