So I’ve finally gotten to take a crack at Kaijudo draft play, as well as gets some hands-on experience with one of the Duel Day decks, and the Quest for the Gauntlet Master Challenge Evolution Swarm Deck.

Those 3 items right there are a huge turning point for the game, in my opinion.

Kaijudo is, and will continue to  be, a very fast, tight game. Deck are trim and streamlined, containing only 40 cards. Any card can be played as a mana card, so it’s a lot different than needing lands, like in Magic, or energy cards, like in Pokemon. Even with all of that, Kaijudo felt a bit…weak/light. It was still a lot of fun, but didn’t feel anywhere near as deep or competitive as the other two games I’ve mentioned.

Now, with draft play and the increase of cards in the booster pack, we get a solid tournament format. Not only that, but with the Duel Decks and Evolution Swarm Deck we get decks that are much better constructed for serious play. These decks are balanced, and containing enough blocking power, attack power, and special combinations that make them versatile and interesting.

I see great things in Kaijudo’s future if things keep going in the direction they are now. This game has gone from a fun distraction to a serious competitor for the CCG play time in my household.

Wizards of the Cost provided a Master Challenge Evolution Swarm Deck, along with enough Quest for the Gauntlet boosters for a 4 player draft, free for review.

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Today, Kaijudo Elite Series: Horde of Onslaught has been released. This event-ready, 40 card deck is entirely trimmed in gold foil, a first in Kaijudo. The cards included in the deck are some of the most popular seen in the competitive scene, along with some brand-new ones. This means that some older cards have been reprinted with the new gold foil trim.

Kaijudo Elite Series: Horde of Onslaught is available in stores now for $19.99.

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This weekend, the new Kaijudo Master Challenge season begins!

It all starts at the Anime Expo in Los Angeles, CA, and will run until Sunday, September 14th at retail locations all over the US and Canada. You can see the schedule so far right here.

Of course in addition to the Master Challenge events, the Kaijudo Organized Play program also includes:

Kaijudo Duel Day

• Weekly in-store tournaments offer the opportunity to earn exclusive promo cards through standard constructed or booster draft formats.

Set Premieres

• o   Held the weekend following the retail launch of a new product release, Set Premieres offer a first-look and an opportunity to earn exclusive promo cards.

Kaijudo Master Challenge

• Events for players to prove their skill and duel with others. Kaijudo Championship
• National tournaments held twice a year where winners from the Master Challenge events around the country go head-to-head for the Championship trophy.

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This past weekend a new Kaijudo Champion was crowned.

Christian Van Hoose came out on top over 82 other participants, and took the title from 2x champion Bobby Brake. There were over 40 events over the course of 3 days on the road to becoming the new champion.

The top 8 players from the championship are as follows:

• 1st Christian Van Hoose (LW Blockers)
• 2nd Richard Yan (LF Rush – “Canadian Bacon”)
• 3rd Tyler Hine (LWN Tempo)
• 4th Robert Efserhoff (LWD Blockers)
• 5th Noah Koessel (LWN Tempo)
• 6th Kevin Winther (LDF Backhoe)
• 7th Joe Bass (LWN Tempo)
• 8th Alexandyr Dolph (LDF Agaryx Control)

You can watch the highlights from the tournament on the Wizards of the Coast Twitch page.

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The latest Core Set for Kaijudo has been released! Quest for the Gauntlet brings Booster Draft play to the game, and the 170 card set increases the amount of cards in a booster to 14.

Drafting: To draft Kaijudo, all you need is 4 or more players, a few booster packs per player, and the drive to compete! Each player grabs a few boosters, opens one pack, chooses a card and passes the remaining cards to his or her left. Players continue to choose one card until all of the cards are gone from each pack. Repeat this process, alternating passing to the right and to the left with the each pack.  Once all the cards have been drafted, players make 30-card decks from their selections and the dueling begins!

This is pretty exciting news for Kaijudo fans. The booster price will stay the same, so you’re getting more for your money. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some of these new cards.

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On February 14th, Wizards of the Coast will release Kaijudo Booster Brawl, an odd-shape box of cards that marks the official launch of a new game play format with the same name.

The Booster Brawl format has opponents playing from a shared draw deck and five extra face-up cards called “the veil”. Instead of starting with a hand of cards, on each of their turns, players draw one from the deck and one from the veil. The veil is refilled whenever the last of its cards is taken.

To create the shared deck for a Booster Brawl game, the rules direct players to open eight new booster packs. However, I imagine any 72 card deck would work well in practice, if not in tournament play.

To support the new format, as well as a Flip Draft format on which information is not yet available, The Booster Brawl box includes eight booster packs (two from each of four sets), three unique foil cards, a play mat, and a how-to-play guide.

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This beautiful, foil, promo card for Kaijudo made its way to my mailbox yesterday courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.

The card, Snow Fort, has a power of 9000, is used strictly for blocking, and cannot attack. The two main powers of the card are Snowball Fight and I’m Melting!. Their effects are as follows:

Snowball Fight – Whenever one of your creatures attacks, you may discard a card. If you do, target enemy creature can’t attack or block until the start of your next turn.

I’m Melting! – When an Armored Dragon or Melt Warrior attacks, banish this creature.

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Hitting retail beginning Friday, November 8^th, Invasion Earth is a new 90 card expansion for Kaijudo. The set premiere will take place on November 9th at participating locations. The Invasion Earth booster packs, featuring all-new super rares, ($3.99) and the Choten’s Army competitive deck ($11.99) are sure to be a welcome addition to any Kaijudo player’s deck.

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Board Games

Matthew Pierce was the winner of the Catan North America Championship at Gen Con.

At Gen Con, Mayfair also organized a world record game of Settlers of Catan with 922 players.

Dominoes

Sixty divers of the British Sub-Aqua Club set a record for the largest underwater Dominoes game.

Backgammon

A team of Israeli seniors won the 38th Backgammon World Championship.

Magic: The Gathering

Grand Prix Warsaw’s Standard format was dominated by Red-Green and won by Wenzel Krautmann of Germany.

At Grand Prix Kitakyushu (also Standard), Raymond Tan of Malaysia earned the trophy after mulliganing down to four cards but still coming out ahead in game two of the final round.

Grand Prix Oakland was a Sealed/Booster Draft event and conquered by Hall of Fame player William Jensen.

Another Sealed/Booster Draft event, Grand Prix Prague was won by Anatoly Chuhwichov of Russia.

Other Card Games

After taking fist place in the Melee event (four-player games) and second in Joust (one-on-one games), Steve Simoni was declared North American Champion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game at Gen Con.

The 2013 World Champion for the Legend of the Five Rings CCG was also at declared at Gen Con. His name, Tom Kirchgesner.

Bobby Drake won the first Kaijudo Summer Championship in Seattle. During the weekend event, the invited competitors also spent time with Wizards of the Coast’s Kaijudo R&D team to help develop future cards.

Chess

Vladimir Kramnik has taken the 2013 FIDE World Cup, though he won only one game in the final match with Dmitry Andreikin. The other three games were a draw.

At the always outdoors Moscow Blitz Championship contestants prepared for the cold and wet weather had an advantage. In the main competition, top-10 FIDE ranked player, Sergey Karjakin, was victorious. In the women’s division, Daria Charochkina bested her nearest competitor by 2.5 points. The veteran men’s division was led by Vladimir Voevodin and the veteran women’s division (first time at the tournament) by Galina Strutinskaya. junior championships were won by Stanislav Romanov won the boys’ junior division and Anna Vasenina won the girls’ junior division.

Alex Lenderman won the Atlantic Open.

Awonder Liang is the youngest Chess master in the United States. At 10 years old, his rating is 2,220.

Scrabble

The Guyana Association of Scrabble Player’s Open tournament was won by the organization’s president, Leon Belony.

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Saturday saw the release of the largest Kaijudo expansion set yet from Wizards of the Coast. Clash of the Duel Masters features 120 new cards covering all five civilizations, as well as a number of multi-civilization cards.

Multi-civilization cards come in five varieties: Light/Water, Water/Darkness, Darkness/Fire, Fire/Nature, and Nature/Light. They require both types of cards in the mana zone to play. And when put in the mana zone, they start out tapped.

Also debuting in Clash of the Duel Masters are two super-rare monarch cards, King Tritonus (water) and Infernus the Immolator (fire). At levels 10 and 11, it will be difficult to bring these two in to play, yet based on their abilities, certainly worthwhile when one can.

In addition to the standard 9-card booster packs, for Clash of the Duel Masters there are two new pre-constructed 40-card competitive decks, Psychic Assault and Skycrusher’s Might—with one exclusive card each.

Triple Strike Elite Series decks will ship in July with all foil cards.

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