When the red zone just isn't enough...

Welcome back to the EDH in Ottawa blog! This week’s blog is a bit of a deck clinic. I'd been trying to find a deck that could do well in all levels of the Gauntlet event but that might also fare well in the 1 v 1 events. I knew I wanted something that would live and die in the red zone but wanted to be able to somewhat grief my opponents as well. Decisions decisions...

I reached out to Robert McEachern, whose Balthor deck has been doing quite nicely of late since it has had a Morality Shift, and asked for a second opinion on the decklist below:

Commander: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (1)

Lands (35):

30 Plains
Cavern of Souls
Eiganjo Castle
Emeria, the Sky Ruins
Mistveil Plains
Strip Mine

 Creatures (40):

Angel of Jubilation
Baneslayer Angel
Banisher Priest
Celestial Crusader
Champion of theParish
Deftblade Elite
Devoted Caretaker
Duskrider Falcon
Elite Inquisitor
Emancipation Angel
Flickerwisp
Freewind Falcon
Gideon's Lawkeeper
Glowrider
Hero of Bladehold
Hokori, Dust Drinker
Icatian Javelineers
Kataki, War's Wage
Knight of Meadowgrain
Knight of the WhiteOrchid
Kor Skyfisher
Leonin Arbiter
Leonin Relic-Warder
Leonin Skyhunter
Mirran Cursader
Mother of Runes
Paladin en-Vec
Phyrexian Revoker
Pianna, Nomad Captain
Planar Guide
Precinct Captain
Preeminent Captain
Samurai of the PaleCurtain
Serra Ascendant
Serra Avenger
Soltari Champion
Soltari Monk
Soltari Priest
War Falcon
War Priest of Thune

 Artifacts (7):

Lightning Greaves
Relic of Progenitus
Scroll Rack
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Thorn of Amethyst
Winter Orb

 Sorceries (2):

Armageddon
Revoke Existence

 Instants (7):

Army of Allah
Banishing Stroke
Condemn
Last Breath
Path to Exile
Renounce the Guilds
Swords to Plowshares

Enchantments (8):

Crusade
Honor of the Pure
Jihad
Journey to Nowhere
Land Tax
Nevermore
Oblivion Ring
Path of Bravery

Thalia is a 2/1 First Striking Thorn of Amethyst. The original plan was to throw a bunch of dudes in there, some Crusade effects and just go to town on my opponents' lifetotals.

A little research on the topic (Thanks Tyler Woyiwada!) informed me that there are some nice Stax/Prison variants on Thalia, which seem really nice but I’m also trying to not explode in the first round of the Gauntlet, so I can’t just start dropping Tangle Wire or Smokestack with impunity. Creature count increased to 40 or so, consisting of a variety of "Hate Bears" (2/2 for 1W or WW with game-altering abiltiies like preventing search, stopping abilities outside your turn or making your opponents pay more for non-creature spells) and evasive creatures, whether through protection from colours (Mirran Crusader, Paladin en-Vec) or just punching through regular defenses, such as the Soltari contingent.

I've been asked why Thalia over Rune-Tail and quite simply Thalia's "tax", compounded with Thorn of Amethyst and even Glowrider, dramatically slows things down in a format that just wants to tap out. When Sol Ring costs 2, Wrath of God costs 5 and the Swords cost 4 things start getting a little tight around the collar. If you manage to sneak through an Armageddon the chokehold could well be complete. That said, I wasn't entirely sure of the above build (which had a lot of pet cards like Army of Allah and the "prot-chickens" Duskrider and Freewind Falcon), so I asked Robert about this and he dropped a line through the magic of Facebook...

"Banisher Priest is pretty much strictly worse than Fiend Hunter. I feel you should run more equipment, and run less creatures that are barely helpful. The fact that you have no Glorious Anthem or Marshall's Anthem is puzzling, even with the Thalia tax. I feel you should have at least a couple of boardwipes. Army of Allah is pretty garbagey, that should come out for Glorious Anthem."

Also, "Dude...WRATH. OF. GOD."

Can't argue with removing pet cards. Out went Army of Allah and in came Glorious Anthem.The falcons got replaced with an Austere Command (which proved game-altering at today's Gauntlet) and a Wrath of God, which again was excellent in clearing a clogged boardstate in the free for all section of the Gauntlet. Thalia's tax effect was backbreaking throughout the day, the stack was a clear as a bright summer day lying around the pool. And yes, Greg Tierney was right about Serra Ascendant and Land Tax. While Land Tax has always been completely off the wall bonkers, I wasn't sold on the Ascendant until I saw it action under my own control. 6/6 Flying Lifelink that becomes a 1/1 if your opponent steals it and they have a low life total? Sign me up! Out came another suboptimal beater for a Crib Swap on Shane Shuster's suggestion (more on Shane later on...) and the deck became an efficient and annoying pressure-generating machine. That is, when you can actually untap your lands which wasn't the case in the free for all, but no plan is perfect!

Before I go I'd like to thank everyone at CBS today for the kind words and great service. Extra special thanks to Kathrine and Vince, the latter of whom was an exceptional 2 v 2 partner. <3 all of you!

And now for the first instalment of...

Overrated or Undderated? by Shane Shuster

This week,

Without any further ado, the podium goes to Shane.

"Hey, before I get into the meat and potatoes (or tofu and potatoes for all the vegetarians out there) I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Shane and I am a collector and player of Magic: the Gathering since the Kamigawa block. Over the past few years, I have been getting into playing EDH and have since been a member of Pierre's Saturday group at Wizard's Tower. I have a bit of a griefer streak in regards to the decks that I have (Memnarch Combo, Homura Political, and Scion of the Ur-Dragon, the latter extremely tuned).

"Force of Will is easily one of the most overrated cards in all of EDH. While it is exceptionally strong in any format allowing it due to its redundancy and alternate casting cost, EDH's singleton nature makes it less so. You have to exile the only copy of that crucial blue card to stop one of your opponent's many bombs, and unless you're playing a degenerate combo deck (don't lie, we all have at some point), the alternate casting cost just isn't worth the price in future, and possibly needed, resources. Now I'd be lying if I said Force was a bad card in EDH; it remains incredibly powerful, especially in combo such as Memnarch and Niv Mizzet, but I don't think it is nearly as powerful as so many other cards are in EDH, especially for its price point."

"On the other hand, Mindbreak Trap is a spectacular, versatile card. First it gets rid of all of those pesky combos (Storm) and annoying generals like Maelstrom Wanderer. Second, it acts as a better-than-counterspell as it exiles uncounterable spells. As an added bonus in prevents Unearth, Flashback or other graveyard strategies through its exile mechanic. Lastly, if a player has cast three or more spells during their turn, it's completely free. That's right, for no cost at all you can exile any number of spells on the stack. Otherwise it's a four mana Dissipate instead of losing a mostly meaningless one life point and an important game piece as Force of Will would. Lastly, price can always be an issue and Force's $100 pricetag compared to the $5 Mindbreak Trap might run you may swing the equation in the latter's favour.

"If you want to contact me, either find me playing Pierre while targting myself with a massive Stroke of Genius while I have a Laboratory Maniac on the field OR email me at shaneshuster@gmail.com."

Until next time,

Shane

EDH events:

Comic Book Shoppe: 2-228 Bank Street 613-226-2319 Sunday, Sunday, Septmber 1st      1 v 1 play , with standard EDH banned list.
Gamebreakers: 6-780 Baseline Road 1-800-279-4115 Thursday, August 29th, Casualish tournament starting around 6 p.m. $5 entry, booster pack prizes. Please register early.

Wizard’s Tower: 3350 Fallowfield Road 613-843-0705 Saturday, August 31st. Casual starting around Noon.

Not your average Comic Book Shoppe...

Stay awhile, stay forever!

Welcome back to another weekly installment  of the EDH in Ottawa blog! This week we’ll take a closer look at the Commander tournament scene in Ottawa, the thriving Commander tournament scene, I should say, and its roots and location.

It all started a long, long time ago when former Toronto resident James Larking made his way to the arctic wastes here in the National Capital. More precisely, it was in April 2010 that James met Stéphane Bisson at a draft at Comic Book Shoppe (CBS) where they had a game or two of EDH and it grew from there. In tournament organizer Gilles Labelle’s own words:

“James Larking had just moved to Ottawa and he had been playing the EDH format in Toronto. When he was at the Comic Book Shoppe for a draft he ran into Stephane Bisson who also happened to have an EDH deck. They played some games, but in the end there was no one else playing the format. Most people hadn’t even heard of it. This was around the release date for Rise of the Eldrazi.
“So I got together with James since we’d been best friends since the age of 13 and he showed me the format. I was playing his Wrexial deck. Immeadiately I was hooked. I started building my first deck, which was Lyzolda, and I had fun with that for a while before moving on to another general.
“One of the store employees noticed us getting together at the back of the store every week and suggested the idea of tournaments (CBS had only just started getting into magic seriously). And thus EDH tournaments were born. For the first six to eight months our turnouts were four to six people at most but we fired anyways, and gave packs out for prizes. I think most people would have given up with those kinds of numbers, but we stuck it out, and we’ve come a long way since.”

Have we ever. Turnouts for 1 v 1 events are 30+ people and the Gauntlet (more on this later...) draws close to 40 as well. That’s not even counting the other events like CMT, where EDH tournaments are held, Game Breakers and any other tournaments. But let’s zoom in on the Comic Book Shoppe itself...

Nestled right downtown on Bank Street, a stone’s throw from amenities such as Tim Hortons, Gabriel Pizza and various banking and clothing outlets, Comic Book Shoppe’s unassuming facade would never lead one to believe that zaniness of the highest order lay beyond that glass door. But don’t take my word for it, here are a few shots of the area, all courtesy of The Comic Book Shoppe on Facebook. Rob Spitall, co-owner at CBS, was quite amiable and added: "We have been around 14 years on Bank St. and I am very thankful for the help and support our clientele have given us over the years." As are customers at the great niche store, I'm sure.

Some of the funky items on sale...including a “Batman” shirt...baseball enthusiasts rejoice!

 

A different assortment of snacks, a nice change from the chips/chocolate and soda gamer mix.

 

The gaming area. Do NOT sit in Vince’s chair. Just don’t...please?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but words alone will never do justice to CBS staff. Imagine you were a shop owner that had a steady stream of customers, a happy eclectic bunch, but once a week dozens of card-slinging geek heroes gathered joyously in the confines of your store.  Now imagine if you’re Gilles Labelle and Vincent Laplante and you have to herd the cats into their proper seating areas, call the matchups while an incessant thrumming of Magic lingo drowns you out until you use the “Big Boy Voice”, all the while answering questions about the game like: “Is punching someone in the face when they cast Decree of Annihilation a state-based effect, does it go on the stack or can it be countered by running down Bank Street?” CBS staff including its many Tournament Organizers should take a bow because without them and their patience we’d be playing somewhere else at the moment.

But all that aside, why should one go to CBS? What kind of crowd gathers for the EDH events (which start at Noon sharp on Sundays, so be there at 11:30 at the very least) and what’s in it for you, the gamer looking to take that step into competitive EDH? Well, you should go to CBS because it’s one of the most inclusive stores out there. Like the Lady says, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, if you’re a boy or a girl, you can let your inner geek go wild with your 100-card stack. You’ll find all age ranges, all occupations and all tastes here working toward a common goal: crushing the living bajeezus out of the other people at the table. And hey, they let me come back so it can’t be that bad can it?

As for what you have to gain? How about the respect of your peers, the enmity of your fellow EDH players or the adulation of dozens, if not hundreds, of fellow gamers? Still not enough? How about Shoppe Bucks? Potentially lots of Shoppe bucks? Each person’s $5 entry to the tournaments is put into a pool of store credit that can be used toward entry into future events, Magic cards, comics, anything in the store that you might desire (within reasonable limits, of course).  At the end of each event, the top players receive a split of the pool while the rest of us tweak or decks so that we can win...the Gauntlet!

The Gauntlet, and why it may be the best mix of multiplayer and competitive EDH you’ll ever see!

A while back, demand grew for a multiplayer event to complement the steady flow of 1 v 1 play. Gilles Labelle got on Facebook, started surveying people for ideas and came up with a three-tier tournament with its own ruleset and challenges.  All games follow the standard EDH banned list, found on www.mtgcommander.net.

The first part is a four player multiplayer game with a few tweaks. You get one point for every player you eliminate and one point for being last person standing. You can’t concede or you’re dropped from the rest of the event and you can’t “suicide” (IE Going to 0 from Necropotence) or future rounds are out as well. While you can infinite combo the table, you only get the one point and no additional points for individual player kills. The point system leads to some nice jockeying for position, since while you might not want your rival to win, you’ll need their help to finish off that pesky Edric player. Do you allow them to get a kill only to mop up the table, or do you overextend to get a clean sweep, leaving you vulnerable to a return strike? Fun problems to have!

The second part is a 2 v 2 event. Teammates are seated diagonally from each other and if they want their partner to know what they’re playing they need to reveal it to the whole table. And this is where I confess (as promised) how I punted the last 2 v 2 for my poor partner Billy Wray. A terrible mulligan decision at the very start cost us the match. I had a Path to Exile, a few non-white producing lands and fatties and a Sylvan Library in hand. Of course, anyone worth their salt keeps the Path, maybe the Sylvan and a few lands and chucks the rest. But no, of course not! Why would I ever need a one mana spot removal spell in EDH? My gracious and skilled partner Billy Wray also had to mull down to five, so we were in dire straits to begin with, and all the more so when Greg Tierney dropped an early Serra Ascendant and a few other beaters that we struggled to keep at bay. Eventually I did draw into a Blazing Archon, which sadly did nothing to help Mr. Wray and we were roadkill a few turns later. So yeah, next week, keep the broken spot removal and stop being bad at this game.

The last part of the Gauntlet is a 1 v 1 event and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have yet another catastrophic tale of implosion in a Magic game. Seated in front of me is the somewhat wild-eyed but quite pleasant Abhay Mehta on Balthor the Defiled and accompanying endless graveyard shenanigans. A spectator notes “Game 2?” as Abhay drops Swamp, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and turn two Grave Titan.

I frantically hope for Terminus but alas none is coming and we move on to game two, another sterling effort by Mr. Mehta as board wipes are answered by Balthor recursion and...the end. Still a fun time though!

At the end of the gruelling competition comes prize distribution, handled by Vincent and Gilles and Vince’s awesome scorekeeping program. Once that’s done, we disperse home or to Gabriel’s Pizza for more Magic and tall tales.

All in all a whole lot of fun for the price of a Magic booster back, a little time and a lot of cooperation and patience from CBS staff and our valiant TOs, Gilles and Vince. So if you’re bored one Sunday and looking to improve your EDH skills, hop onto Facebook and check out the Magic the Gathering in Ottawa or MTGOttawa pages for event information, or just drop by! There should almost always be a game going on!

See you at the Gauntlet next Sunday, so that blog update late Sunday or early Monday!

Until then, may your Gauntlet rounds never go to time.

Upcoming EDH events:

Comic Book Shoppe: The Gauntlet 25/8/13, Noon start (11:00-11:45 registration), $5 entry.

Game Breakers: 1 v 1 22/8/13  , 6 p.m. $5 entry.

Wizard's Tower: Casual EDH  24/8/13 starting around noon.

When legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Welcome back to the EDH in Ottawa blog!

 This week we look at the centrepiece of any Commander deck, the Commander itself, or rather its identifier as a Legendary Creature. As we know, the first occurrence of these creatures occurred in the (Surprise!) Legends expansion released in 1994. Distribution of the set was insanely scarce; I recall at the time Fandom II had some boxes for sale, about two or three of them, and they were sold almost instantly.

While we pored over the crazy new creatures, it was obvious that some cards were better than other cards and people started jockeying for the better stuff. The saving grace that scarcity gave us was that decks weren’t immediately streamlined so your Stangg or Lord Magnus might go all the way, unless your opponent had played theirs first, in which case you were locked out from playing yours under penalty of losing yours upon entering play. Oh, rumour has it that you could only have one of any type of Legendary Creature in your deck as well, so if Jasmine Boreal starts pushing up shurikens, that’s it for her and her plans for world domination.

 Of course, it should be noted that the rules back then were very, very, very vague. Since there weren’t a lot of judges around you basically had to go to USEnet and look up the various newsgroups for rules updates, or hope to find an IRC channel where a rules expert would help you out. The helpful folks at Wizards also included a nifty rules insert explaining the legend rule, bands with other, enchant worlds and why they actually used cardboard to print Wood Elemental. Well, eventually we had The Dojo (Thanks forever Frank Kusomoto) which helped introduce deck streamlining to us all after the DCI's inception and the four per deck card limit (with notable exceptions).

 
Calling your son Mephistopheles? Hmm...

 Before I move on to the evolution of the Legend rule and its current impact on Commander, first an anecdote on the coolness of Steven Conrad. Who the heck is Steven Conrad you ask? He was one of the lead designers for the Legends set and fate (Well, it was really my best friend Eugene acceding to a whim of mine...) drove me to the Wizards of the Coast Game Center in 2000 or so. I namedropped Mr. Conrad's name (I'd heard it from a friend) and the man spent a good half hour with us just talking about Legends. The set was a top-down design and tried to cram as many icons from their long-running RPG campaign as possible. They added other cards to round things out and threw some overpowered effects for good measure. Hilariously, when I asked Mr. Conrad to sign my set of Chains of Mephistopheles (I had a really annoying deck with those and Megrim / Anvil of Bogardan and so on) he joked that he wanted to call his newborn son Mephistopheles at the time but his wife vetoed it. Somewhere in Ottawa (or abroad?) is a set of four Chains with a vertical signature by Mr. Conrad. Use them in good fun, whoever has them now. :)

 Back to our iconic friends, the Legend rule didn't start causing too many issues in sanctioned play until a Rebel grrl and her posse had an encounter with a certain blue enchantment. that turned any target into a Legend. What followed would be a long, grinding game where you'd remove your opponent's duplicate, or dig yours with Lin Sivvi and then hopefully win before time ran out. Good times, good times. Eventually, Kamigawa Block and its influx of legendary permanents brought a much-needed change to the rule. From then on, legendary permanents would simply cancel each other out as a state-based effect and the Legendary Creature supertype was born. Not a bad deal since Umezawa's Jitte proved somewhat useful in that period, but as every rule must have an unintended consequence, so did that one...

 With Elder Dragon Highlander starting out as a between rounds pastime for judges and blooming into a casual staple, decks started streamlining. With streamlining comes efficiency and with efficiency comes, well, this guy his brother Darrell and his other brother Darryll. Then came the joyous proceeding of having your more-than-two-mana Legendary Creature get sent to the Command Zone or seeing a Phyrexian Metamorph become a permanent gamestate equalizer through Academy Ruins. 'Cos Blue wasn't already good enough, I mean sure Healing Salve is clearly miles better than Ancestral Recall but hey...With time came an opportunity to clean up the rules and M14 brings us to our current state: Each player may have one copy of any legendary permanent and if you copy your own, you choose which to keep in play. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth around Hexproof commanders such as Thrun, the Last Troll, Geist of Saint Traft and Lazav, Dimir Mastermind but recent gameplay at the Comic Book Shoppe (More on them next week...) hasn't shown these to be ubiquitous. We also haven't had many problems at Wizard's Tower so it looks like crisis averted so far.

 I hope you all enjoyed today's foray into the Legendary Creature rule. Next week we'll be taking a closer look at the EDH tournament scene in Ottawa, focusing on Gilles Labelle's tournaments at the Comic Book Shoppe, and how I fail at the partial Paris mulligan.

In other news, local Rush fan Robert McEachern asked me to mention the sorts of really bad cards we throw into our decks for fun over at the Tower. Well, Jia Long has a "Sea Monsters" deck that ramps from Quest for Ula's Temple into Lorthos, the Tidemaker and he once locked me with Natural Selection on Isochron Scepter. Hey, I was playing mono-black with a really bad draw. :(

Congrats to Jia Long for taking yesterday’s three-hour long game with Angel of Despair after a “Strioniced” Terastodon by yours truly (nearly?) crippled Robert by savaging his manabase. And he still almost took it by casting Black Sun’s Zenith repeatedly to keep himself in after a Morality Shift left him with a handful of cards in library. Fun times!

Congratulations also go to Scott Job taking the CMT 1 v 1 with Maelstrom Wanderer vs. Matthew Foy on Zur the Enchanter, while Ted McCluskie took Game Breakers with Malestrom Wanderer with Scott Job in second with Prime Speaker Zegana.

Next week we talk to Gilles Labelle about the 1 v 1 scene around Comic Book Shoppe and welcome Scott Job’s piece about the 1 v1 at Game Breakers!
 
Until then, may you avoid being hit by a Falling Star.

 

EDH events:

Comic Book Shoppe: 2-228 Bank Street 613-226-2319 Sunday, August 18^th 1 v 1 play this week, with standard EDH banned list.

Game Breakers: 6-780 Baseline Road 1-800-279-4115 Thursday, August 15th, Casualish tournament starting around 6 p.m. $5 entry, booster pack prizes. Please register early.

Wizard’s Tower: 3350 Fallowfield Road 613-843-0705 Saturday, August 17th. Casual starting around Noon.

 

Welcome to the EDH in Ottawa blog! A little background about myself before I get to the meat of things. Pierre DuPont, early middle-aged, casual Magic player since Legends (I've tried to quit but they keep dragging me back...foils, Mythic Rares, you name it) and have fallen in love with the format once known as Elder Dragon Highlander and now bearing the moniker of Commander.

 So, you must be asking, what makes Ottawa's EDH scene different from yours? We likely have the usual mix of oddballs and casuals but we have an excellent mix of competitive play that can fill your need to throw together  a 100-card stack and just fling some overpowered cards at your opponent to hopefully generate some laughs and bitterness. Bitterness, oh how I love you. You are the sweet siren that keeps me coming back to the Comic Book Shoppe's tournaments or even to our Saturday group. That lingering feeling of having had a good game with lasting memories of THAT GUY that did THAT THING (Constant Mists, Living Death, interacting with you when your board of Sylvan Primordial, Iona and Gisela can't possibly be threatening...but I digress!) that put a bug in your ear to improve your deck or find a counter-deck that essentially leads to an interminable MTG Cold War.

Right. Where do we play? Who do we play with? What are our zany strategies? Will I be listing any decks? (Yes I will, mostly because I'm terrible and they need tweaking.) Read on to find out...

 Word of mouth tells me there are a good half-dozen places where people might be congregating to play EDH on any given day of the week. Algonquin College on Woodroffe Avenue (Former Alma Mater, oh how I miss vegetating in the agora and other unmentionable activities), Saturdays at WIzard's Tower on Fallowfield Road in Barrhaven, Sundays at the Comic Booke Shoppe on Bank Street (Competitive, $5 entry starts at noon but be there earlier!) and Game Breakers on Baseline Road on Thursdays (Casual tournaments, $5 entry starts at six p.m.) My habitual haunt is the Wizard's Tower, a spacious store with a wide variety of singles and sealed products, seating for 40+ and a good mix of casual and competitive players, leaning toward the casual. There is likely some EDH going on in Eastern Ottawa and Gatineau as well, which I'd be glad to promote given information through my Facebook account or a quick email to crazypierre@hotmail.com (Subject: EDH please).

 "But Pierre," I hear you clamoring "What kind of EDH do YOU play? What are your preferred strategies? Are you THAT guy who infinite combos (No) or just sucks all the fun out of any game? (There's a good 3% fun left at any of my tables.)" I generally have three to four decks on me at any time. They range from Mayael the Anima with some harsh punishers to the more casual Ezuri, Renegade Leader and the combo-y Iname,Death Aspect. I'm currently building Thalia, Guardian of Thraben for something simple yet aggravating. I'll readily admit that I have a strong griefer streak to my gameplay, which I'm slowly trying to curtail (It's a 12-step program. The first step is getting chased around the parking lot by an Angry Mob. No more Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for me!) Our meta at the Tower is fairly casual, so casual that yesterday one of our players, Chris, smashed into me with a Bruna that had so many enchantments on her that she looked like Uril's kid sister. Oh, he was at 280 life as well, just for kicks. In the end, that's what EDH comes down to. Big splashy plays, groans when something like Obliterate or Winter Orb hits the table or a barrel of laughs when that theme deck actually gets there.

In the end, EDH is about the stories, but to paraphrase The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “No sir, this is EDH sir. When legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Next week we take a quick look at legends...the card set and the creature supertype. Until then, may a Sol Ring light your path.

Resources and Events:

EDH events this week:

Comic Book Shoppe: 2-228 Bank Street 613-226-2319 See below!

This week’s event is at the Canadian MagicTour on Saturday, August 10^th! $20 pre-reg 3:00 p.m. registration time at the Westboro Legion at 391 Richmond Street! Judge foils to be had!

 Game Breakers: 6-780 Baseline Road 1-800-279-4115 Thursday, August 8th, Casual tournament starting around 6 p.m. $5 entry, booster pack prizes. Please register early.

Wizard’s Tower: 3350 Fallowfield Road 613-843-0705 Saturday, August 10th. Casual starting around Noon.

MTGCommander: The place to look up banned list updates, discuss with fellow players and petition for your least favourite card to get the axe (I'm looking at you, Carrier Pigeons!)

Magic the Gathering in Ottawa Facebook group: Join this to keep up with events in the national capital.