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 I have written a large number of pieces, primarily focussed on gaming and nerd culture. Trading Card Games are a special focus of mine.  I have played Magic: the Gathering since I was 8 years old. I love to explore the ways that TCGs convey emergent narratives through gameplay.

Card Games

EDHREC •

Ranking the New Spider-Man Sagas | EDHREC

Images courtesy of Wizards of the Coast and MarvelThe new Spider-Man set has given us an exciting cycle of Sagas, one for each color. These Sagas depict four beloved Spider-Man story arcs, and also The Clone SagaThe Clone Saga. The cards in this cycle are not created equal, and some of them are significantly stronger than others.This isn't unusual. In fact, most cycles are uneven like this. Everyone remembers Syr Konrad, the GrimSyr Konrad, the Grim from Throne of Eldraine. Few recall Konrad's p...
Wargamer •

Magic: The Gathering's Furby crossover is deliciously deranged

Magic: the Gathering is releasing a batch of five Furby cards which reimagine the fluffy, talking toys as horrors from beyond your worst nightmares. Secret Lair x Furby: The Oddbodies is just one of three Furby themed Secret Lairs arriving on October 13, as part of Wizard of the Coast's enormous Secret Lair: Secret Scare Superdrop.
Although a collab with The flippin' Office was just announced, this still has to go down as one of the strangest Secret Lairs in Magic's history. An Oddbody is a fan...
Wargamer •

We're getting The Office MTG cards, because no one is safe from Dwight Schrute

The Office's Dwight Schrute gets his own suite of Secret Lair Magic: The Gathering cards in October, because human culture is eating itself.A brand new MTG Secret Lair has been announced at MagicCon Atlanta featuring, for some reason, Dwight Schrute from The Office. Secret Lair X The Office: Dwight's Destiny has artwork of Dunder Mifflin's hardest working, and most arrogant, employee pasted over 6 pre-existing Magic Cards.
The drop will release on Monday, October 13 2025 on the dedicated webstor...
Wargamer •

Pokémon Phantasmal Flames' Japanese golden Charizard price tops $600 in 48 hours

Mega Charizard X ex was released in Japan on Friday, and its most valuable gold variant is already selling for over 600 bucks on Ebay!Three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes, and Charizard Pokémon cards spiking to ludicrously high prices. Inferno X - the Japanese precursor to the English Pokémon set Phantasmal Flames - released in Japan on Friday, and its chase card Mega Charizard X ex has hit the market like a truck. Several variants of the new 'zard card are available - but the most...
EDHREC •

Madness and Mayhem - Comparing Magic's Discard Mechanics | EDHREC

Alchemist's GreetingAlchemist's Greeting | Art by Jakub Kasper | Electro's BoltElectro's Bolt | Art by JB CasacopReleased in February of 2002, the second set of Odyssey block, Torment, is one of Magic's strangest expansions. Its unique selling point is that it's deeply asymmetric. Most sets contain, roughly, the same number of cards of each color. Torment, in contrast, is weighted heavily towards black. There are 40 black cards in the set, while the other colors have between 21 and 28 cards.This...
Wargamer •

The MTG Spiderman bonus sheet has some epic cards, and Shock, for some reason

The Source Material bonus sheet for Magic: The Gathering's Spider-Man set is full of powerful cards - and one weakling put there as a joke.One in every 24 MTG Spider-Man play boosters, and every Collector Booster, contains a card from the "Source Material bonus sheet". These are reprints of cards from Magic's past, featuring artwork from the Spider-Man comics. Many of these cards are powerful staples that will slide into any Commander deck as easily as Spider-Man slings his way across the New Yo...
Wargamer •

Classic Pokémon card Birthday Pikachu abruptly doubles in price

Birthday Pikachu and other cards from Pokémon TCG's Celebrations Classic Collection have spiked in value ahead of the game's 30th year.Birthday Pikachu is one of the Pokémon TCG's most eye catching cards. While most printings of this cake-eating electric mouse cost upwards of $50, often climbing into hundreds, there was (until recently) an affordable way to get a copy. The newer Celebrations: Classic Collection version used to be cheap, at just over $6. Now, the card's price has more than double...
Wargamer •

There's a Morbius MTG Card now, whether you like it or not

The new MTG Spider-Man set contains some unusual cards, from Imposter Syndrome, a delightful reference to the Spider-Man Pointing meme, to the absurdly powerful Spider-Punk. Maybe the strangest card we've seen so far, though, is Morbius the Living Vampire: a vampiric villain revealed this week in a set otherwise swarming with arachnids.
Morbius is a Spider-Man villain who's been vamping around since the seventies, but this bloodsucking bad guy is most famous (or perhaps infamous), for being the...
Wargamer •

Pokémon TCG's new Mega Venusaur ex has more HP than any card ever printed

Mega Evolutions' Mega Venusaur ex has the most HP of any legal Pokémon card, but will its in-game power match its astronomical hit points?The upcoming Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution set is shaping up to be pretty massive. True to its name, the set will feature a wide variety of mega evolved Pokémon. One card stands just a bit taller than the competition, though: the new Mega Venusaur ex has the biggest HP total in the history of the game.
Mega Venusaur ex is a powerful card, made all the stronger by...
Wargamer •

Nab this lightweight, light hearted Game of Thrones board game for under $10

A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King is no masterpiece, but it's a decent little Westerosi game of wits, well worth a sub-ten-buck price tag!They say that when you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. Not every battle for succession has to be so bloodthirsty, though; A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King is a friendly, casual little board game that appeals to the schemer in all of us, without being too complex. An empire toppling masterwork for the ages it ain't, but for $9.95 at Amazon US...
EDHREC •

Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance - Spirits and Sacrifices | EDHREC

The new Avatar: The Last Airbender set may not be due out until November, but we've already seen plenty of spoilers for the upcoming crossover. From AangAang, himself, to TophToph, and everyone else in the Gaang.Of course, a show is more than just its main characters. When the new Avatar set comes out, we're going to get a selection of legends that are less well-known ready to slide into the command zone. In The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, we had Erkenbrand, Lord of WestfoldErkenbr...
EDHREC •

5 Fantasy Book Series That Would Make Great Universes Beyond Sets | EDHREC

Heirloom EpicHeirloom Epic | Illustrated by Fiona HsiehFor better or for worse, Universes Beyond is fully integrated with Magic: The Gathering now. The game can now be used to model a fight between Spongebob SquarepantsSpongebob Squarepants and Sonic the HedgehogSonic the Hedgehog (apparently, Spongebob trounces Sonic; who knew?). The Magic multiverse now contains multitudes.You may have already read Cooper Gottfried's piece regarding 5 video games that would make great Universes Beyond sets. If...
EDHREC •

The 10 Best Creatures for Stationing Spacecrafts | EDHREC

Infinite Guideline StationInfinite Guideline Station | Art by Piotr DuraMagic: The Gathering has officially gone into hyperdrive and taken us to the sci-fi inspired Edge of Eternities. To fit this new interstellar setting, there's a new artifact subtype: Spacecrafts.Spacecrafts, and other cards with the station mechanic, gain charge counters by tapping down their controller's creatures, gaining one counter for each point of power possessed by the creatures stationing them.EDHREC has already publ...
Card Gamer •

Indie Game Spotlight: Turbulence - Card Gamer

Tabletop games offer insights into areas of history that are left unexplored by other forms of media. Armando Canales’ The Cost shines a light on the brutal practices of the asbestos industry, Splotter Spellen’s Horseless Carriage allows players to experience the absurdly unsafe world of early automobile transit, and Resist! depicts the doomed but noble war waged by the Maquis against Fascism in Spain. Turbulence is a project currently undergoing crowdfunding that describes a similarly underrepr...
EDHREC •

Alpharael, Dreaming Acolyte Reanimator Deck Tech | EDHREC

Alpharael, Dreaming AcolyteAlpharael, Dreaming Acolyte| Cristi BalanescuAlpharael, Dreaming AcolyteAlpharael, Dreaming Acolyte doesn't look like anything special. This is the sort of signpost uncommon that you'd see in any Limited environment, and it's certainly not much compared to its mono-color counterpart,Alpharael, StonechosenAlpharael, Stonechosen. Unremarkable cards like this can serve as exciting commanders because they grant you a degree of design freedom that more streamlined, powerful...
EDHREC •

Ranking Which Final Fantasy Villains Got the Best Cards | EDHREC

A fortnight ago we analyzed the heroes, now let's cross over to the dark side and look at the villains. Final Fantasy has a Rogues' GalleryRogues' Gallery that's as sprawling and varied, as one of Ultimecia'sUltimecia's sinister schemes.From monstrous clown gods, like KefkaKefka, to power-mad super soldiers, like SephirothSephiroth, this series is loaded with villains of all possible persuasions. Now let's rank them.Just like last time, we're defining the "best" commanders here both as the ones...
Card Gamer •

Ranking the Leaders in Star Wars Unlimited: Legends of the Force - Card Gamer

With the release of Star Wars Unlimited: Legends of the Force rapidly approaching, many players are left pondering which leaders they should build around. Will there be anyone in this set to challenge the might of Boba Fett? Just how impactful is the new “Use The Force” mechanic? Do I want to join the Jedi or serve the Sith?


This ranking of the 18 new leaders in Legends of the Force will separate the Padawans from the Masters; we’ll show who to build around, and who to avoid.


There are lot...
EDHREC •

Ranking Which Final Fantasy Main Protagonists Got the Best Cards | EDHREC

The Crystal's ChosenThe Crystal's Chosen| Art by Kotetsu KinoshitaFrom scowling soldiers like CloudCloud to lovable rogues like ZidaneZidane, Final Fantasy has had a wide variety of main characters over the years.Now that the unfathomably popular RPG series has crossed over with Magic: the Gathering, how do they all stack up? Were Final Fantasy's main protagonists all created roughly equal, or do some of them just have better cards than others?Let's rank which Final Fantasy protagonists got the...
EDHREC •

The Emperor of Palamecia - Self-Mill Commander Deck Tech | EDHREC

The Emperor of PalameciaThe Emperor of Palamecia | Art by Heonhwa ChoeThe Emperor of PalameciaThe Emperor of Palamecia is the main antagonist of Final Fantasy II. While he undoubtedly has drip (just look at all of those beads, and the golden kneecaps carved to look like dragon faces) he also has a bit of a branding problem. The Emperor has never really been able to elevate himself into the higher tiers of Final Fantasy villainy. He doesn't have much in the way of motivation beyond being an evil...
Card Gamer •

3 Exciting, Upcoming Small Press Card Games From UK Games Expo 2025 - Card Gamer

At the end of May every year, tabletop gamers from across the world gather in Birmingham. Britain’s second-largest city has played host to the UK Games Expo for 18 years now, running the convention since it was established in 2007. This three day long exhibition celebrates the best that tabletop gaming has to offer. Board game companies, big and small, demo their games, indie designers bring along self-published zines and adventure modules, and there are more prints, T-shirts, and accessories th...
EDHREC •

The Dragons Approach, With Garland, Knight of Cornelia | EDHREC

Garland, Knight of CorneliaGarland, Knight of Cornelia | Art by Billy ChristianFinal Fantasy has many iconic lines and meme-worthy moments. From Tellah calling Edward a spoony bard in Final Fantasy IV, to Vaan running announcing to the whole of Ivalice that he's Basch Von Rosenburg in Final Fantasy XII, to the infamous laughing scene in Final Fantasy X. But none of these lines can hold a candle to the original, the historic meme line from Final Fantasy I.Early in their quest, the warriors of lig...
Card Gamer •

The Surprising Inspiration Behind 5 Yu-Gi-Oh! Archetypes - Card Gamer

One thing that sets Yu-Gi-Oh! apart from other card games is the varied and imaginative archetypes that it employs. These cards contain multitudes and draw from a bewilderingly huge range of sources. You can build a deck based around anything from Dante’s Inferno, to 90s era comic book antiheroes, to Dragons that are also Maids for some reason. In today’s article, we’ll go over five archetypes that draw their inspiration from truly unexpected sources. Let’s get digging.

If you’ve ever eaten sus...
EDHREC •

Under the Radar - Kurkesh Onakke Ancient

Anyone looking to slot an Ogre into their command zone isn't exactly spoiled for choice. There are 12 options to choose from and three of them are just differentdifferent variantsvariants of HidetsuguHidetsugu. While sadly there aren't any great Ogre typal options, at least not until we inevitably get Universes Beyond: Shrek, there are Ogres that incentivize a wide variety of novel strategies.Today we'll be looking at the 2nd least p...
Card Gamer •

The 10 Most Expensive Quarter Century Stampede Cards - Card Gamer

Image courtesy of KONAMI
Yu-Gi-Oh! has been celebrating its 25th anniversary for several years now. The anniversary kicked off with the release of the 25th Anniversary: Legendary Collection in April of 2023. Since then we’ve been getting a steady stream of Quarter Century Secret Rare cards. These cards have shining golden names, a special foiling treatment covering them from top to bottom, and a 25th anniversary watermark that comes into view when their text box is viewed from the right angle.
Q...
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Gaming

Wargamer •

Look out Wingspan, a new birdy board game just launched on Kickstarter

Isle of Feathers has arrived on Kickstarter - a tile-laying puzzle board game where players compete to build their vision of an avian paradise.Ever heard of a Sandy Gallito, Varied Tit, or Chatham Shag? No, these are not 19th-century innuendos, but birds in the new Kickstarter board game Isle of Feathers, which arrived on the crowdfunding platform on September 28.
Isle of Feathers has the tagline 'A Love Letter To Strange Birds', and as you'd expect, it's absolutely full of feathered freaks. In...
Wyrd Science •

Girl By Moonlight: Hope, Transcendence, Transformation

Hope can be a powerful thing. The desire to believe, to push on in the face of adversity has been the subject of countless stories. From Star Wars, which asserts that "rebellions are built on hope", to Warhammer 40,000’s more cynical message that "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."  Discussions about the strength, or the futility, of hope have rumbled on for as long as people have told stories. Whatever other vices may have burst forth from Pandora’s Box, or jar if you’re fee...
SUPERJUMP •

Galactic Glitch Review

Galactic Glitch, by Crunchy Leaf Games, is a sci-fi shooter with a roguelike progression system. You’ll be blasting your way through space, getting blown apart, and then returning to action stronger and ready to progress just a little bit further.

The game attempts to differentiate itself from other roguelikes through its physics-based combat. You’re able to lift destructible space debris and even smaller enemies, and bombarding opponents with them.

All of Galactic Glitch’s sci-fi shootouts ta...
SUPERJUMP •

Now Playing at SUPERJUMP, Issue 33

We're back with a brand new Now Playing, and we've reached the third-of-a-century mark!! Some of us are playing more games than usual, and some are sticking with the games they've been hooked on for a while. No matter what we're playing, we want to share with you and maybe send you down the path to try something new. Let us know in the comments what you're playing and what news has you excited for the future!

Magic: The Gathering recently crossed over with Final Fantasy. While this move was cer...
SUPERJUMP •

Synergy Invites Us To Question Our Assumptions About City Building Games

From RPGs to action games, every genre carries its share of baggage.

The exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination necessary to progress in Civilization and other 4X games define success in rigidly specific form. To win the game, a player’s civilization must prove itself superior to the competition. Rivals must be crushed militarily and outstripped scientifically. Their competing religions must be consigned to history, and the player must develop a hegemonic global culture that en...
SUPERJUMP •

TTRPGs Can Help Build Positive Communities

Tabletop RPG characters are constantly thrust into dangerous situations. Whether they’re vanquishing a dragon, navigating a dungeon, or dethroning a tyrant, the lives of the characters that we dream up are always fraught with risk. But that danger should always be restricted to the realms of our imagination, and everyone gathered around the table has the right to feel secure and comfortable while they play. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. The internet is rife with horror stories about...
Card Gamer •

StarVaders Review - Card Gamer

Images courtesy of Pengonauts
Invaders are attacking the earth, invaders from beyond the stars. StarVaders, if you will. Using mech and a deck you’ll fight to save the world in this deckbuilding robo-roguelike, from Pengonauts.
Slay the Spire has inspired countless successors, and players are spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing a new roguelike deck builder these days. Does StarVaders blast open a niche for itself, or will it end up engulfed in a swarm of similar titles? Does it rise to...
SUPERJUMP •

An Interview with the Developers of Microtopia

An interview with Cordyceps Collective on how real insect behaviour inspired their design and much more

There is more overlap between video games and insects than you might expect. Satoshi Tajiri was inspired to create Pokémon by his time hunting bugs as a child. Hollow Knight shows us that insects can be as central to a Metroidvania game as vampires and space parasites, and Animal Crossing would just feel incomplete without the trusty bug-catching net.

Cordyceps Collective are a Netherlands-...
Card Gamer •

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection Review - Card Gamer

Images courtesy of KONAMI
The Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection, which releases today, is a compilation of 14 different Yu-Gi-Oh! games from the late 1990s and early 2000s. KONAMI is making a clear appeal to nostalgia here. This collection puts the original Duel Monsters anime in the spotlight, embracing the game as it was before the modern complexities of Synchro, XYZ, Pendulum, and Link summoning.
The duels you’ll play here will be clashes of old cards like Ocubeam and Uraby. There are some grea...
SUPERJUMP •

2024 Games of the Year

Welcome to SUPERJUMP's annual Games of the Year celebration. As always, I like to introduce these awards by expressing gratitude for the year gone by.

Thank you game developers. You are creating marvels of art and science - important cultural artifacts - under increasingly difficult circumstances. Whether you work for a large studio or you're a solo developer: thank you. We are all living in an increasingly dangerous and intolerant world, where the moral pendulum appears to be swinging in a vio...
SUPERJUMP •

Dungeon Inn Review

Inns in RPGs are truly miraculous.  However bruised and battered your adventuring party may be, if they rest up for the night at an inn then they will emerge the next day fully healed and ready for more.  Dungeons, meanwhile, serve the opposite purpose. A fresh and ready adventuring party delves down into a dungeon and emerges exhausted and beaten, but hopefully with huge loads of loot.

Dungeon Inn is a game all about running an RPG inn of your very own, located conveniently at the entrance to...
SUPERJUMP •

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Embraces Silliness

There’s a single moment, roughly a quarter of the way through Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the game. The party is delving into a mystical forest dungeon called the Proving Grounds. An enigmatic cloaked bandit known as Hurstwine cuts through the murky woods ahead of them, the heroes in hot pursuit.

Both the player characters and Hurstwine are seeking a primal lens, an ancient and powerful artifact that lies at the heart of the dungeon. It’s a race...
SUPERJUMP •

Potionomics: Bring Your Best Brew

Potions are the lifeblood of all RPG adventuring parties. No one would get beyond the first floor of any dungeon without guzzling down a frankly unhealthy amount of brightly coloured magical goop. Potionomics puts the player into the shoes of a potion vendor, ready to provide the heroes of the world with the colourful healing concoctions they so desperately need.

The game is a bubbling melting pot of various genres, mixing business management elements with deckbuilding-based haggling gameplay a
SUPERJUMP •

Total War: Attila and the "Dark Ages"

Total War: Attila portrays the collapse of the Roman Empire as an unmitigated tragedy. How does this depiction measure up to scrutiny?

These words are gruffly recited by the narrator of Total War: Attila towards the end of the game’s introduction. This quote paraphrases two verses from the book of Revelations which describe Conquest, the first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, being unleashed upon the world. Accompanying this narration is footage of a pitched battle being waged at night b
SUPERJUMP •

Are Golden Endings Always the Right Path?

One thing which makes video games unique is their ability to tell stories with branching narratives. This is something that isn’t possible using other mediums, outside of experimental choose-your-own adventure stories like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. The interactive nature of video games makes it possible for them to have multiple different endings depending on the path the player takes through the story. This means that players can get endings tailored to the
SUPERJUMP •

Storyteller Review - A Tale Worth Telling

Storyteller is a puzzle game created by Daniel Benmergui, an Argentinian game developer who is probably best known for creating the adorable art game I Wish I Were The Moon.

In Storyteller, the player is given a magical book that they need to fill with insightful tales. Every level is an individual story that the player needs to bring to life. Each story provides the player with an objective that needs to be accomplished by utilising a series of different characters and scenes. For example, pla
SUPERJUMP •

Dragon Ball: The Breakers Review

The Dragon Ball series is famous, or perhaps infamous, for its bombastic battle sequences. Shirtless space aliens, with absurdly sculpted physiques, scream and launch energy blasts at one another. Villains loudly monologue about their invincibility, before the heroes eventually bring them down after a five-minute-long transformation sequence. All of the attacks have wacky names which fans can recite by heart. Because the series is extremely action-oriented, there have been innumerable Dragon Bal
SUPERJUMP •

Why Do Birds Fly? The Moral Philosophy of Tales of Berseria

“Why do you think that birds fly?”

This strange sentence is not an excerpt from a book on falconry. Nor is it a question from a biology exam or a promo for the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s from the 2016 Bandai Namco RPG Tales of Berseria.

The game’s primary antagonist, Artorius Collbrande, uses this question as a means of evaluating people’s moral principles. But how does a basic question about the biology of birds tell us anything about someone’s morality?

More to the point, does this question

Other Articles

South West Londoner •

Review: See How They Run

See How They Run is a comical whodunnit, which lovingly spoofs the murder mystery genre with the care and affection that only a sincere parody can provide.

There are some great laughs, but it builds towards a disappointing conclusion. The film is certainly funny, but it’s hardly a mystery of Agatha Christie’s calibre.

Our leading duo consists of the eager and excitable rookie Constable Stalker (Saoirse

Ronan) and her boozy superior officer Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell).

The pair have a d
South West Londoner •

Thor: Love and Thunder proves lightning does strike twice

There have now been four Thor films and their quality varies wildly – but Thor: Love and Thunder is among the franchise’s best.

The Original Thor (2009) was a perfectly serviceable superhero origin story, that did a fine job of introducing Chris Hemsworth’s titular character without excelling enough to be truly great or being inadequate enough to be truly terrible.

Thor: The Dark World (2013) ranks among Marvel’s most forgettable films, as it features an utterly generic plotline performed by a
South West Londoner •

Elizabeth II: The Queen & history's other longest reigning rulers

In February of 1952 Queen Elizabeth II became the queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

Her platinum jubilee, in June of 2022, marks the official public celebration of her 70 year long reign.

Elizabeth II is one of history’s longest reigning rulers, however, she does not have the longest reign of all time.

Several other rulers have had reigns which have rivalled, or even exceeded, her 70 years.

Here are a few of their stories…

Louis XIV ruled France from May 1643 to September 17
North West Londoner •

Labour keeps control of Enfield but Conservatives make gains

Labour kept control of Enfield council on Thursday after holding the 38 seats they took into the 2022 election, but the Conservatives had a successful night gaining seven councillors and shutting out any other party from the area.

The election results mean that all of Enfield’s 63 seats are held by either Labour or Tory councillors, after the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and the Independent Community First Group, a group of former Labour councillors, lost their two, one and seven councillors r
South West Londoner •

Fundraiser launched for injured Croydon swan

A fundraiser is in progress to assist the treatment of a swan from Croydon who was hurt in a dog attack.

Wayne the swan was injured on the afternoon of the 7 February after a dog bit him on the beak.

The Swan Sanctuary is a wildlife rescue service based in Shepperton, specialising in treating swans.

The sanctuary took Wayne into its care on 8 February.

In a Facebook post The Swan Sanctuary announced: “Wayne was attacked by a dog and has suffered a life changing injury to his beak.”

“We are