The EPI-log

  It seems like a monthly tradition at this point - the store layout has once again changed for the better. The gaming wall is now one of the first things to greet customers when they enter EPIC for the first time.  Why the change? The Benevolent Owners agreed has enabled more efficient use of floor space and eye level. With board games, role play games and trading card games being the core part of the community we structured the business around - having the store's copies of games ready and available to play in a more accessible location further helps drive that point home. Plus it looks pretty neat too..... Your Friend and Ally Lachy

  If you're an active participant in our EPIC League on a Wednesday and were present at yesterday's game would've heard from the League's GM Daniel that after the current story arch, there will be some major changes to the league and it's structure as all the DM's have noticed and felt the slow decline in the leagues structure.  The DMs spend alot of nights planning and preparing for the league but with the actions of one table derailing other tables, different DM styles, different ideas on the availability one magic items, the disconnect in interpretation, communication breakdowns and the handicapped freedom that DMs get to have in the league - the burnout is real. To offer a transparent view behind our screens most of the DMs are tired and don't find joy in running on a Wednesday night anymore, the thing that keeps us going is the players and the enjoyment that get with every session. In saying this this isn't the first changes we've had with the l

If you read the title, you should know a more accurate title would be "Why aren't you playing Modern at EPIC Ipswich?" The Community Modern is perhaps our most popular Magic Night here at EPIC Ipswich, as I'm typing this blogpost, we currently have 26 Players still on their first round of the night. It's a testament to the loyal Modern Community in Ipswich, most people that play Modern with our local players end up becoming close friends, all incredibly grateful players that tease and support each other. The Leagues Modern at EPIC originally started with the local community wanting to play in a league (The Modern Masters League). Now known as the Aus Magic League, the Ultimate Guard sponsored, multi store league sees people accumulate points to compete in the finals and win some goodies along the way.  In addition to the Aus Magic League, EPIC has it's own EPIC Battle League, which tallies the accumulated points from the weekly plays and lets the top 8 battle

 It is one week out and this is the start of a Trading Card Game (TCG) you don't want to miss out one! Based off the anime of the same name, this TCG features your favourite characters from throughout it's long spanning history! Super Pre-Release and why you want to attend! The Super Pre-Release is your only chance to buy decks (with exclusive alternate art), free promo packs, exclusive art promo cards AND.... The winner gets a specially stamped alternate art Luffy card! How do I attend? There are no walk-ins permitted on the day and we have limited spots reserved, we are already half booked leaving 8 spots left! There are two time slots available as we are doing to Super Pre-Releases - one at 12 PM and the other at 6 PM on Saturday the 1st of October! Call our store or message us over facebook so we can record your details and time slot you wish to play in. For the low cost of $30, I don't think anyone wants to miss out on this (I'm also playing in one so I mean what I

  TIKTOK on the clock but the party don't stop no ow-a-ow-a-ow-ow For those who follow the blog, you'll recall I may have mentioned that when the benevolent owners of EPIC Ipswich returned from their business trip, they were very changed people.... their eyes had shifted colour and they seemed to have renewed youth, resembling dashing figures in their late 20s - Needless to say I need their skincare routine but that's not what today's blog post is about. If you would like to read that article click here , however, if you would not like to read that article, you flatter me with your determination to read the words I am carefully typing as they look over my shoulder with terrifying smiles, full of joy, viscous fluids and sharpened teeth. No, today's article is to entertain you, today's article is about community and making 'fun' EPIC Ipswich's business. We now have TikTok Ladies and Gentlemen. Whilst it's early days, the benevolent owners were most

You've heard of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, now make some noise for The Fresh Prince of Bell Street. The Benevolent Owners of EPIC Ipswich have been blown away by the love of our Lost-Friend Fblthp, we've even had people make fan art specifically for him (see the background of this blogs featured image). Well now, as part of this Blog, we are making a section dedicated to his adventures around our local community.  Expect to see him doing crazy shenanigans including beach trips and his run in with rival Plushie - Nicol Bolas.  To aid in our Fblthp-ing fantastic fanbase of locals - We even have a new facebook Page dedicated to linking everyone to upcoming blogposts, TikToks and facebook posts. The benevolent owners have even asked if Fblthp can accompany some of our most loyal and dedicated patrons on an adventure or two. Like and follow it now to stay up to date for fan-fblthping-tastic time (still working on it :P) https://www.facebook.com/FoundFblthp Your Friend and Ally, La

  Local trader of (the not so) illicit cardboard crack - Jene Johnston is here to do (not so) shady deals in the corner of EPIC Ipswich on September 23rd! Not just that - Every commander player on the night and everyone who purchases from his store go in a raffle to win a FOIL JEWELED LOTUS! A bit about Jene's MTG, Jene is a MTG Card vendor that specialises in competitive rates to get the cards local Magic Players need for the cheapest price around. As someone who has done business with him many a time before, both in person and online, he is the most modest and honest gentlemen you will ever meet. He has vended in EPIC Ipswich for Aus Magic Leagues finals and is based up in Toowoomba. Supporting as many local events as humanly possible! How Jene Buys: Card will be bought at a price of around 70% TCG Player for cash or 80% for Store Credit. This will vary for card like reserved list, card condition and general cost factors. SAVE THE DATE and we will look forward to seeing Jene on

Last week we spoke about EPIC League via a recap of everything that happened in our store-wide campaign. Another good example of organised play is Adventurers League, sometimes referred to as D&D Adventurers League, similar to EPIC League in that there are multiple tables all running D&D at the same time. Adventurers League has been designed by D&D parent company Wizards of the Coast to have a series of side adventurers that run in tandem with their most recent module releases. Each adventure has situations that rely on the four pillars of playstyle - combat, role play, exploration and puzzles. Moreover, each adventure is designed to be played in one sitting allowing players to jump between tables with the same character and loot from previous adventures - this isn't just store wide, this applies to all Adventurers League Games everywhere! This comes with some ups and downs as you can't go off and buy magic items like in a homebrew campaign and can find some limitat

EPIC League has been going strong at EPIC Ipswich since it's conception since I last wrote a blog recapping the events of our store-wide campaign in July ( You can read that article here ) there have been some ground-breaking changes! The Five Cults Story Line When venturing around their local area, each township started encountering problems with cults as their towns grew, so too did the attention on them. Baelfalls encountered the alien/reptilian cult of the Jade Fang - a cult that believes that the world should return to the natural rules of predation. Saltrock encountered the bizarre divided cult of the Cobalt Claw - a cult consisting of two ideologies, that order and chaos keep each other in check to achieve progress. This Cult loves mutating and experimenting on lesser beings to bring about balance. Darrohold has encountered the Pale Eye - a cult that always operates in groups of 3, answering to the whims of their mysterious Seer leader without question, they believe that not

Normally closed on Sundays, on the 11th of September EPIC Ipswich had other plans. After rescheduling our originally planned ANZ Super Series on Thursday the 25th of August, we finally saw the day come around. Magic players arrived early to gloss over the cabinet of singles, pay for entry, register and receive their promos. After a long day of play (originally starting at 11 AM and finishing late afternoon) the top 8 were announced for the Quarter Finals, all of which won a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx alt art Promo card. Congratulations to our Top 8 Torin Kelderman Stephen Klease Matthew Macinante Heath Manning Taylor McCormick Thomas Barker Andrew Virgona Carl Frankel Semi-Finals saw Stephen Klease battle against the triumphant Torin Kelderman. A huge congratulations to Torin Kelderman who ventured all the way from Toowoomba to represent our local MTG community at the finals down in Sydney later this year. In addition to a ticket into the Final Torin also received $300 ($100 of which cove

Bingo has been a staple at EPIC Ipswich since it first opened, originally running 6 Games a week (3 in the morning and 3 at night during weeknights), now it sees over 100 people weekly for our Friday night Bingo and our end-of-month Speed Bingo, a late session after the normal Bingo held on the last Friday of each month. To the surprise of many, EPIC Ipswich merely provides the staff and venue for BINGO, it's actually organised by Shell's Team Cupcake, a not-for-profit organisation. But what is Team Cupcake and what is their mission? How did Team Cupcake come about? Team Cupcake Inc started out with a couple of friends and some family raising money to pay for a beloved friend's secondary cancer treatment. Along their journey, we discovered that there were many other people in Ipswich that need a little helping hand and sometimes just needed to know that someone was thinking of them and cared. And so Team Cupcake became incorporated so that they could help to ease the burden

  EPIC Ipswich has reliably been running Dungeons and Dragons since our store opened, even branching out to make a kid-friendly event to train up the next generation of D&D Players. Dungeons and Wyrmlings (or as it is often referred to Kids D&D) made waves with kids creating unique characters of their own and taking them week in and week out to venture into different territories, levelling them up as they had done so. With the increased demand for the Dungeon Masters to run the games, bookings became inevitable, and even then the booking system has failed as parents no longer call the store to let us know when their child is next attending. Rant Incoming - feel free to skip to the next heading Speaking as a DM myself, the sheer frustration of not knowing which kids will be able to attend the game and then making up a one-shot on the fly as everyone is at a different level and experience became stressful. What's worse is the days I showed up expecting to run and found out my

Rowan and his Timeless Lotus 30 years ago, Magic premiered on the plane of Dominaria, 30 years later we revisit it with the newest release - Dominaria United! This set was packed full of mechanics and a bunch of Legendary Creatures, enough to make a standard Commander Legends set jealous, it even has its own Lotus card. 6 PM rolled around to a night full of players queuing to open their prerelease kits and open their packs. Eventlink code was shared and a QR code linking to our previous article on the mechanics and archetype s of the set was included to assist players in deck construction.  Unlike other stores prereleases, EPIC is centred around our beloved community, our prize structure is based on the number of rounds you've won rather than the final standings at the end of the night. Giving, each player a chance at winning a set booster. Moreover, each player in attendance received a set booster already in their prize pool. The only downside was our store hadn't received its

  Dungeons and Dragons is undergoing alot of changes in the upcoming year, however, despite my scepticism and fears about the game morphing the already established 5th Edition into other another Edition of D&D and still calling it 5E, there is still hope for longtime players like myself. 3RD PARTY CONTENT! What is 3rd Party resources and content? Simply put, D&D 3rd party resources and content is Dungeons and Dragons material published under the Creative Commons law of D&D parent company Wizards of the Coast (WotC). This material (as implied by the name) is published and created by a third party for the game of D&D but isn't official content made by WotC. Third-Party Resources should not be confused with general 'Homebrew' content, which has one author that has crafted some additional rules or content at home. There is a place for Homebrew in D&D but that however is not what this article is about. Third-party resources are curated and published by a team

  Y'all ever heard of McDonald's? Maccas? Yeah the fast food chain. One man pretty much saw what they had done with their menu screens and asked himself "How can we make this better?". That was the point the cashier demanded Trevor pay for his McNuggets cause his daydreaming was holding up the queue. At least that's how that panned out in my head. Cut ahead to today and EPIC Ipswich has TV screens of the same quality around our Retail, Cafe and Greenzone in EPIC.  The screen in the cafe cycles through the different menu options we have available. The screen in the Green zone showcases the events we have on in our store throughout the week and as for the screen in the retail spot - it sits there and looks pretty whilst customers browse and occasionally look up at it, often thinking aloud "Oh hey, yeah, I'm in EPIC" before continuing to buy craft supplies or their newest set of pretty click-clacks (Gamer term for dice). So yay! New TV's. That's

  I cannot stress how excited I am for the Dominaria United set! I'm envious this is a prerelease I will regrettably not be partaking in on account of being the Tournament Organiser. In my enthusiasm, I am super excited to share with you the designed archetypes of dual-coloured decks in the newest Magic the Gathering set, as well as the returning and newest game mechanics. If you're planning on attending a prerelease, familiarising yourself with these will help give you the best advantage you could hope for when it comes to deck construction. Mechanics Returning mechanics from Kicker, to Sagas. Dominaria United has built upon some of the returning mechanics, added some new ones and has some sneaky hidden ones in the set design. Kicker We all know it and we all love it. Pump extra mana into a spell to do extra things. Dominaria United really adds the extra - in this set you'll be able to kick certain cards multiple times using two different colours of mana. Sagas (now with R