5th Annual Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship 2016

The Annual Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship took place on 8/20/16.  This year Anime Kat and Mark’d Body Art were the sponsors.  We had a good turn out for our small town.  A total of 17 players competed to win a part of the prize pool valued at over $1,000.  Big prizes include a booster box of Eternal Masters and a certificate for a tattoo at Mark’d Body Art.

There was a nice variety to the decks this year.  Final standings were:
1. Evan – Merfolk
2. Casey – R/G Tron
3. Connor – Dredge
4. Dan – Infect
5. Joey – Abzan Company
6. Dillon – Esper Control
7. Joel – R/G Tron
8. Jake – Living End
9. Kyle – G/B Elves
10. Colin – Storm
11. Travis – Mono Red Artifacts
12. Conan – Mono Black Demon
13. Tyler – Pillow Fort
14. Marcus – Bogles
15. Will – Mono Red Goblins
16. Troy – Soul Sisters
17. Ben – W/U Knight Control

Watch the final match between Evan and Connor.

Watch our award presentation.

 

Game Review: Bananagrams

By Drew

 

Background
Bananagrams is a tile laying game where the goal is to be the first player to complete a word grid after the pool of letter tiles has been exhausted.

Initial Thoughts
The game is inexpensive and very quick to learn.  It uses elements from Scrabble and Boggle; so, players familiar with those games will have almost no learning curve.  Bananagrams is a multiplayer game, but you have little interaction with the other players.  The only player interaction is racing to complete your grid first after the last tile has been drawn.  There are no turns.  Everyone places at the same time.

Review
Pros: Bananagrams has very high replayability.  Its easy rule set makes getting new players up to speed a quick process.  If you get bored with the base rules, there are variants to the game that people have posted online.  The game has a heavy dose of luck which does help level the playing field when playing with poorer spellers.  Bananagrams is great for causal gamers and those looking to take a break from more complex games.  The only set up is placing all of the tiles into the middle of the table face down.

Con: I have few, if any, complaints.  The game does bounce between being skill based and luck based, but many games are.  The basic game can get repetitive if you play too many rounds, but that’s while variants exist.  The pieces are high quality.  The packaging is very thematic (it’s a zip up banana), but it can make putting Bananagrams away more difficult.  You can’t just put it at the bottom of your game pile.

Final Thoughts
This game is loads of fun, quick to teach, quick to set up, and a great breather from more complex games.  It’s fun for heavy table gamers and casual players.  Each round is short, and you can keep playing rounds until you are bored with playing making the game last essentially as long as your group wishes.  I highly recommend playing this game.

Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship 2015

We just finished the 4th Annual Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship.  The Championship is a chance for players to participate in a Modern Format tournament to win big prizes.  This year we had over $1,400 worth of prizes from Anime Kat, and Mark’d Body Art including a full booster box of Modern Masters 2015 and a tattoo vouchers.  This year, we had 11 players.  Here is the final standing and decks the players used:

1. Luke J. – Splinter Twins
2. Kyle P. – Tron
3. Travis R. – R/G Goblins
4. Eric H. – Tezzerit Control
5. Joey K. – Dredge Devine
6. David P. – R/B Falkenrath (Friends for Dinner)
7. Colin T. – Podless Collective
8. Greg V – B/W Tokens
9. Kevin T. – Mono B, Discard/Control
10. Colton F. – R/W Heroic
11. Jake E. – Mono Black Vampires

3rd-Travis, 1st-Luke, 2nd-Kyle

Paint Contest Results – Diorama on 100mmx150mm Base

We just finished up with our second paint contest at the store.  This time, the challenge was creating a diorama on a 100mmx150mm base.  There were two prizes given out.  One for People Choice, whoever received the most in-store votes, and one for Judge’s Favorite.  Our unbiased judge, Robynn, was again our judge.

People’s Choice
Brian

People’s Choice
Brian

People’s Choice
Brian

Judge’s Choice
Sydney

Judge’s Choice
Sydney

Judge’s Choice
Sydney

Judge’s Choice
Sydney

Our next painting contest is all set.  Painters may enter any model usable in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.  The entry cost is $10 per submitted model. Entries due by 9/22/15 with results announced 9/29/15.  There are three prizes: First and Second place by popular vote, and one Judge’s Award given by an impartial judge. Prizes will be offered as Gift certificates with the value depending on the number of entries.

Khans of Tarkir Prerelease, Release, & Game Day at Anime Kat

From MTG Salvation, Khans of Tarkir is the 65th Magic: the Gathering expansion, and the first in the Khans of Tarkir block.  Tarkir is a world embattled with ambitious warlords and powerful clans that wage eternal war for supremacy of their plane, a conflict that spans over a thousand years. Tarkir is also the home plane of the planeswalker Sarkhan Vol.  Tarkir was previously inhabited by dragons, all of whom were killed before Sarkhan’s arrival.  The clans each worship one aspect of the extinct dragons.

Anime Kat offers several events whenever a new set is about to be released.  Always first is the prerelease event.  The First Khans Prerelease event was the largest event Anime Kat has ever hosted.  With 33 total players, the event lasted for 6 rounds.  Congrats to all of the winners from the two days of prerelease events.

The following Friday, we hosted the Khans of Tarkir Release event.  The event was a 3 round Draft.  Cliff and Troy earned 1st and 2nd place respectively.  Our top top 2 players competed the following night against Dragonrail’s (another local store) top 2 players to earn the title of Top Khans of Tarkir Player and earning their store the Title of Top Store for the Khans of Tarkir Release.  Congrats to Cliff for winning the title for himself and Anime Kat.

The last major event during the release of a new set is the Game Day.  Game Day is a Standard Format tournament that gives players a chance to play with the newest cards.  Allow players at Anime Kat walk out with promotional cards.  The Top 8 earn additional foil promotional cards, and the 1st Place winner also receives a Champion mat.  For this Game Day, Anime Kat owner Drew took 1st place running a Jeskai Tempo deck.  However, Greg (2nd place) and Will (3rd) were very close behind.  The final standings were based off of Opponent’s Match Win Percentage (you get more points for beating a player with a higher standing).

The next set in the Tarkir block, Fate Reforged, is released January 23, 2015.  We hope to see you at one of our events.

Third Annual Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship

We recently had our annual Clallam County Magic: the Gathering Championship.  The Championship is a chance for players to participate in a Modern Format tournament to win big prizes.  This year we had over $1,500 worth of prizes from Anime Kat, Mark’d Body Art, and Northwest Fudge and Confections and included a custom Anime Kat playmat, full booster boxes of Magic cards, tattoo and piercing vouchers, and other great stuff.

This year we had a total of 12 players for the event, but only one can come out on top.

Congratulations to Travis for his First Place victory.  Good luck to everyone at next year’s Championship.

Hang With Garruk; Win a Box of M15

Hey everybody.  We just finished a contest that ran from the release of the Magic 2015 Core set until last Saturday’s Magic Game Day.  The contest was simple:

1. Take a picture with the cutout of Garruk in the store
2. Post it directly to Anime Kat’s Facebook page
3. Tag yourself and anyone else in the picture
4. Add Anime Kat as the location tag for the post
5. Share the post with anyone you know.

The person with the most “Likes” would win a free box of M15.  6 of our players took the challenge and with a commanding finish of 48 “Likes,” Greg won!  Congratulations Greg with your impressive photo with Garruk.

Anime Kat’s Move to a Larger Store

It’s been two months since our last article.  We’re very, very sorry for the long delay, but we were busy in the store.  Since May of 2013, we’ve been looking for a larger location.  We outgrew our 1,000 square foot store.  It was getting harder and harder to host events, and there were products we wanted to carry (I’m looking at you board games) that we had no room for.

We had a few requirements for a new location.  We wanted a location that was at least twice the size of our last one.  It needed to be relatively square shaped to make it easier for us to keep track of everyone and everything when we’re working.  Lastly, we wanted to stay in downtown Port Angeles.

After looking for 8 months (including walkthroughs at 3 different locations), we found out that Trading Post (an antique store) in the same building as we were already in decided to move out in March of 2014 and switch to online sales only.  From January to March we prepared to move.  The entire month of March 2014 was mostly spent preparing to move.  On March 25, we received the keys to the new location and we had lest than a week for painting, building, moving, and set up (I didn’t want to pay rent on two locations at the same time).  On April 1st, 2014, we opened our new 2,100+ square foot store only two doors away from were we started exactly four years priors.  The following Friday, we hosted a grand reopening event and ribbon cutting.

Robynn and I would not have been able to move without the support of everyone we know.  Family, friends from work & church, frequent customers, and other people we can’t even think of right this second helped us.  They helped us in more ways that we can think of: emotionally, physically (so much painting and moving), financially (thanks for buying stuff from us during the last 4 years), and other ways.

Robynn and I thank all of you for the support, and hope for continued support in the years to come.

The beginning.

The beginning.

The beginning.

The beginning.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The painting.

The moving.

The moving.

The moving.

The moving.

The moving.

The setup.

The setup.

The setup.

The setup.

The setup.

The finished store.

The finished store.

The finished store.

The finished store.

The grand reopening.

Born of the Gods Prerelease

The second set of Magic the Gathering’s Theros block is Born of the Gods.  On February 1st and 2nd, players got to participate in a prerelease event where they were able to play with the newest cards before they are released on February 7th.  Born of the Gods is a smaller with only 165 cards.  The set introduces a new planeswalker: the blue/green Kiora, the Crashing Wave.  As a continuation of the Theros’ gods, the set also introduces the ten demigods of Theros.  The demigods are dual-colored and uses their controller’s devotion to both of the demiogods’ colors.  Born of the Gods will feature five of them with allied-color combinations while Journey Into Nyx (the final set of the block) will feature the remaining five.

We want to thank everyone that came out to the store for the prerelease event.  A special thanks to the players who came to our Sunday event (Go Seahawks).  Hopefully, next year Wizards of the Coast won’t schedule the prerelease during Super Bowl weekend.

Anime Kat Supports the Seattle Seahawks with Free Booster Packs

Greetings and salutations.  It’s been 2 months since our last entry.  The holiday season is a busy time for everyone, and we wanted to wait until things slowed down a bit.  But, things aren’t slowing down; they’re speeding up.  Last week’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Sneak Peak started off 4 weeks straight of card game weekends at Anime Kat.  In the middle of all  that is the Born of the Gods prerelease event on February 1st and 2nd.

What else is on the 2nd of February…the big game!  All season Anime Kat has supported the Seattle Seahawks.  If you listen to the radio coverage of the Seahawks’ games on Twilight 96.7, you’ve hear Anime Kat and Mark’d Body Art‘s joint radio ads. (If you haven’t, feel free to listen to the ad here).  You may have noticed we were closed during the Saints and Seahawks playoff game (we were at the game!)

Now, we are giving a gift to other fans.  If you play in any of our three Born of the Gods prerelease events (Feb. 1 & 2) in Seahawks colors or team apparel we will give you a voucher valid during the release weekend for a free pack of Born of the Gods.  That’s right.  Get a free booster pack for supporting the Seahawks.  Only at Anime Kat.  Go HAWKS!