Shadow boxes. You can make your own using any of the tutorials available online. A little cheap felt from a craft store or maybe even color blocked to group the expansions can line the inside and help make the packaging pop. A long shadow box down a hallway with each pack displayed in succession might look cool. Alternatively, smaller shadow boxes grouping each set might be more manageable. You can buy shadow boxes but I never like their fit. YMMV.
Don't make or buy the box using something like MDF or treated woods. Try to aim for archival safe materials. Acrylics are always safe or "clean" woods can work well.
Resist the temptation to light the packs using Halogen, FL or white LED. They're cheaper but you'll be sorry you did down the road.
Let's see if I can get this right for a first post.
My 8 and 6 year old discovered my stash of old Cards and kept pestering me to teach them. A couple of coworkers also play casually every Thursday and they've been pestering me as well.
So I decided to pick up three Starters, Assemble Victory for myself, Demonic Deals for my middle one and Take to the Sky for the youngest. To be honest, I thought this would be a great way to teach both my dreamers a bit of math and logic. Worked great for the 8 year old. My youngest just likes to put the cards in binder sleeves and look at the pretty animals. She's probably more of a My Little Pony gal anyways.
That's the background. Now to the deck.
I feel DD gets slaughtered way too often. Even when I switch decks or if I play with a handicap, DD just can't pull enough wins to make the game fun or interesting.
I kind of feel like I'm misunderstanding Demonic Deals. I tweaked AV and it can scrape its share of wins together. I just can't seem to do it with DD.
I tried giving the deck a few direct damage spells I have in my collection like Lightning Bolt or Fireball. Speed up the mana by adding Dark Ritual and Lake of the Dead. Added a couple of cheap dual lands, a Leaden Myr and an Iron Myr to offer a little flexibility But it just doesn't seem to perform very well. Here's the list of the original to save a search.
My intuition is telling me there are too many high cost cards. There isn't enough 1 mana or 2 mana cards in hand on the initial turns. So the player has to sit there and take a beating until enough land comes up to get into the 3 or higher range. The Bolts help stave off the initial creatures, but they don't have any sticking power. The Rituals help with the higher cost cards, but the bigger cards just feel so anemic. Fleshbag Marauder might as well be an "Each player chooses and sacrifices a creature" on turn one or two because there won't be any creatures to sacrifice.
I feel the early creatures need to stick around for a little bit in order to feed the bigger creatures later. I would like to pop in a card like Shivan Dragon and a few Seething Song because what eight year old doesn't like dragons you can pump up?
The kid really likes the idea of bringing creatures back from the dead such as Reanimate). Regenerate would seem to help keep creatures around longer than one turn, like Fog of Gnats or maybe a Zombie Master and just go crazy with the Zombie theme. He also likes things that go boom. Wiping out my entire Ornithopter Army would really tickle his fancy so I was thinking of Comet Storm since it seems to be a bit beefier than Fireball.
Nothing I apply to the deck "feels right" though.
Cost is an issue. I don't really want to spend $500 to improve this deck. Partly because eight is eight and they do what they do and partly because the group at work has a soft cap on deck costs to keep things fair for everyone and keep it as casual as possible.
I guess responding to you is OK since you pulled it from the grave, not me.
Google for "French Memo Board". Not sure how you would handle the piles. A container with sides, open corners and a weighted plate on top?
Don't make or buy the box using something like MDF or treated woods. Try to aim for archival safe materials. Acrylics are always safe or "clean" woods can work well.
Resist the temptation to light the packs using Halogen, FL or white LED. They're cheaper but you'll be sorry you did down the road.
What sanctioned format allows you to play silver bordered cards?
My 8 and 6 year old discovered my stash of old Cards and kept pestering me to teach them. A couple of coworkers also play casually every Thursday and they've been pestering me as well.
So I decided to pick up three Starters, Assemble Victory for myself, Demonic Deals for my middle one and Take to the Sky for the youngest. To be honest, I thought this would be a great way to teach both my dreamers a bit of math and logic. Worked great for the 8 year old. My youngest just likes to put the cards in binder sleeves and look at the pretty animals. She's probably more of a My Little Pony gal anyways.
That's the background. Now to the deck.
I feel DD gets slaughtered way too often. Even when I switch decks or if I play with a handicap, DD just can't pull enough wins to make the game fun or interesting.
I kind of feel like I'm misunderstanding Demonic Deals. I tweaked AV and it can scrape its share of wins together. I just can't seem to do it with DD.
I tried giving the deck a few direct damage spells I have in my collection like Lightning Bolt or Fireball. Speed up the mana by adding Dark Ritual and Lake of the Dead. Added a couple of cheap dual lands, a Leaden Myr and an Iron Myr to offer a little flexibility But it just doesn't seem to perform very well. Here's the list of the original to save a search.
1 Kothophed, Soul Hoarder - gone
2 Malakir Cullblade
2 Shambling Ghoul - torture to use
1 Fleshbag Marauder - gone
3 Nantuko Husk
3 Undead Servant
2 Returned Centaur
1 Cobblebrute - Never lasts long
2 Blazing Hellhound - Replaced with direct damage
2 Enthralling Victor
1 Revenant
1 Reave Soul - I tossed this for the Bolt
3 Act of Treason
1 Nightsnare
1 Necromantic Summons - I like Animate Dead more
1 Chandra's Ignition
2 Fiery Impulse - Swapped for Bolts
2 Cruel Revival - Rarely used
1 Chandra's Fury
1 Unholy Hunger - two extra life isn't worth the extra cost
1 Ravaging Blaze
1 Weight of the Underworld
1 Evolving Wilds
14 Swamp
10 Mountain
My intuition is telling me there are too many high cost cards. There isn't enough 1 mana or 2 mana cards in hand on the initial turns. So the player has to sit there and take a beating until enough land comes up to get into the 3 or higher range. The Bolts help stave off the initial creatures, but they don't have any sticking power. The Rituals help with the higher cost cards, but the bigger cards just feel so anemic. Fleshbag Marauder might as well be an "Each player chooses and sacrifices a creature" on turn one or two because there won't be any creatures to sacrifice.
I feel the early creatures need to stick around for a little bit in order to feed the bigger creatures later. I would like to pop in a card like Shivan Dragon and a few Seething Song because what eight year old doesn't like dragons you can pump up?
The kid really likes the idea of bringing creatures back from the dead such as Reanimate). Regenerate would seem to help keep creatures around longer than one turn, like Fog of Gnats or maybe a Zombie Master and just go crazy with the Zombie theme. He also likes things that go boom. Wiping out my entire Ornithopter Army would really tickle his fancy so I was thinking of Comet Storm since it seems to be a bit beefier than Fireball.
Nothing I apply to the deck "feels right" though.
Cost is an issue. I don't really want to spend $500 to improve this deck. Partly because eight is eight and they do what they do and partly because the group at work has a soft cap on deck costs to keep things fair for everyone and keep it as casual as possible.