By Gregor Torrence
Here is a suggestion that has spruced up our local weekly games:
Several of my coworkers and I get together every Monday night for a game of four to six players. One week, three out of four of us showed up with primarily Dragon decks. So for the last few weeks we have all played deck with only one faction each. I hand out sealed and shuffeled envelopes with a "coaster" card in each envelope, one from each faction. Every player must make a deck for next weeek with only neutral cards and cards from that one faction. No one tells anyone what faction they got. The undistributed envelopes are not opened.
This makes for some rather entertaining game play. Nobody gets into a rut in their deck construction. Deck with very specific card combo themes never work well. Any specifically tuned deck is always a Discerning Fire or Inauspicious Burial away from failure. Only a generically well balanced deck has a fighting chance since you will be up against threee to five other factions.
I recommend you give this a whirl sometime. It may even force you to see the virtue of factions you never seem to play.
Last modified: May 3, 1996; please send comments to