Chaos Collects Clues (WUBRG Drafting)

We finally got a chaos Clue draft off the ground last night!  We only had three players, but it worked and was quite fun.  Perhaps this is the way to "salvage" drafts with three players in the future; normally we cancel if we can't hit four.

We did make a mistake and only played with 20 life.  I feel confident that this number is too low and we should have gone with at least 25; maybe 30.  I'm really interested in feedback on this!

We got our packs, went over the rules, and divvied out the Clue cards: one of each to the envelope, then six to each of us and none to the middle.  I used three play boosters (Edge of Eternities, Duskmourn, and Foundations) I'd recently got in a "House of Horror" bundle-type thing.

It's just a triangle this time!  We added the Clue supplies to give the picture more substance.

I did a bad job of drafting lands, and I passed on a Moldering Gym, hoping it would come back.  It did not.  Thankfully I got bailed out by the Clue treasure mechanic as well as the land cyclers I drafted.  I picked up Crime Novelist late when I suddenly realized how well it worked with treasures!  I also went for Raise Dead/Resurrection effects because I keep telling myself to do that.  Here were all my picks:

In my greed, I took lots of 2-pip cards in many different colors.

The Clue cards I was dealt were Apothecary White, Commander Mustard, Headliner Scarlett, Knife, Rope, and Hall.  

Suspect-heavy!

I was able to put together a functional deck.  I made some choices here that I might not under normal circumstances; evasion and blocking are extremely important in the Clue format because you can win just be getting in little amounts of combat damage many times.  Here's what I built:

Disguise counts as a MV of three.

I won the die roll.  My opponents were Evasive Esper (EE) going second and Gruul You Out (GYO) going third, which means I was competing for each color with only one other person.  Prior to the game, GYO was very confident, claiming their plan was to kill us before the murder was solved.  Both of my opponents mulliganed; GYO twice, which probably put a hamper on their plans.  (The first mulligan is free since there are more than two teams.)  

No attacks happened until the end of the fourth round when GYO hit EE with Ty Lee, Artful Acrobat.  They guessed Mustard, Wrench and Dining Room.  EE showed them a card.

In the fifth round, I swung with Seedship Broodtender into GYO, guessing Plum, Lead Pipe, and Study.  They had to pass.  I sacrificed the Broodtender to get Rakish Scoundrel onto the board, but EE immediately hit it with Epic Downfall.  EE attacked GYO with a 5/5 Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance, guessing Green, Wrench, and Hall.  GYO showed him a card.  GYO struck back with a 5/4 Ty Lee and a 3/3 Earthbent land, hitting us both.  They guessed Scarlett, Wrench, and Library; I showed them Scarlett.  

In round six, I sacrificed a treasure with Crime Novelist to get out Twinflame Tyrant, immediately becoming the Archenemy.  I attacked GYO with the Novelist, but they chump blocked it.  I finished my turn with an Expedition Lookout.  GYO cast Elfsworn Giant, but EE countered it with Sokka's Haiku.    

I started the seventh round by hitting GYO with the Twinflame Tyrant.  I guessed Peacock, Candlestick, and Library, and they showed me Senator Peacock.  I cast my Dragonfly Swarm and passed.  EE decided to Collect Evidence 6 and guessed Peacock, Knife, and Conservatory.  GYO showed them a card, which I expected was Senator Peacock, but later realized must be something else.  Then GYO cast Gearbane Orangutan to have something to block my fliers, and also Collected Evidence 6 to guess White, Wrench, and Billiard Room.  I showed them Apothecary White.  

In round eight, I sent my fliers into my opponents: the Tyrant towards EE and the Dragonfly Swarm to GYO.  EE had a plan.

That panda has wings!

Hei Bai with Fleeting Flight blocked and ate my dragon.  The swarm still got in on GYO, so I guessed Green, Rope, and Kitchen.  They showed me Emissary Green, so now I knew that the murderer must be Professor Plum!  I had another flyer in my hand, though, and dropped the Quantum Riddler.  My opponents both eschewed attacking so they could Collect Evidence six again to make guesses on both of us.  EE guessed Peacock, Candlestick, and Secret Passage.  GYO showed them a card.  GYO guessed Plum, Wrench, Billiard Room.  I passed and EE showed a card.  

We were getting really close now!  GYO was clearly honed in on the correct suspect.  They said they were close enough that guessing would be a coin flip and were afraid of dying soon.  Since the tyrant had died, though, they elected to pass instead of making a risky accusation.  There was an interesting rule question here where I was clearly considering casting a spell at their end of turn.  GYO saw this and said, okay, I pass priority at the beginning of my end step.  If the Clue rules worked the way GYO was implying, then the current player could choose to to make their accusation after other effects happen after the beginning of the end step.  My intuition is that the options for the current player to make a suggestion and an accusation both go on the stack at the beginning of the end step.  We chatted about this, but left the matter unresolved as I finished hemming and hawing and decided not to do anything.

I attacked with my fliers again to begin the ninth round, one on each of my opponents.  GYO elected not to block with his Orangutan so I guessed Mustard, Pipe, and Kitchen to them both.  EE cut the process short and showed me the Kitchen, but hopefully I was doing a good job of misleading about Commander Mustard.  I was now ahead in the life game too, with 17 against 10 (EE) and 5 (GYO).  EE and GYO made a plan and made short work of that life lead.  

Chomp chomp, Jeong Jeong's Deserters.

EE attacked me with Hei Bai and GYO Clammy Prowler, which was blocked safely by a 3/3 land.  The panda was now unblockable, however, so I took nine and went to eight.  They guessed Mustard, Candlestick, and Lounge.  I showed the only one I had, Commander Mustard.  GYO killed one of my creatures, played Treetop Fighters and swung at me with their team, using Ty Lee's ability to hamper my other creature.  I had a little trick up my sleeve.

Flash creatures are so good.

I cast Appendage Amalgam and blocked Ty Lee to stay alive at three life.  GYO guessed Plum, Candlestick, and Conservatory.  I could only pass.  They then moved to their end step and made a gambit accusation with the same choices: Plum, Candlestick, and Conservatory.  The checked the envelope and were incorrect.  Whew!

I was tapped out, but had two cards in my hand.  I needed a big turn, so I cast Bombard on my upkeep to kill EE's Dreg Recycler.  They sacrificed it in response, putting the life totals to 2 (me), 11 (EE), and 4 (GYO).  That was actually fine for me because now GYO was dead to my Riddler.  And I'd still used up the card in my hand, so I drew two from the Riddler's ability in my draw step.  One of those two was Rescue Skiff, which I was happy to use to bring back the Twinflame Tyrant.  I swung out with all my creatures and won via glorious combat.  The correct cards were Plum, Lead Pipe, and Conservatory.  GYO was really close to winning!

The big issue here were the life totals.  As I've mentioned before, the Clue format is probably at it's best when the murder gets solved right before someone dies.  So... we probably should have been playing with more life.  The best amount is probably either 25 or 30.  

We decided to squeeze in a second game.  I didn't take notes, mostly because that was part of the reason it took so long.  (I have to pause to write down what happens with each suggestion.)  GYO took that game real well.  Not only did they have a great fast start, but they got real lucky and blind guessed both the weapon and room in one suggestion and won shortly thereafter. 

The real lesson is that this format is viable and fun!  I want to do more chaos Clue drafts!  I will probably suggest this anytime I think the group would be willing to make it happen!

Happy Murder-Solving and Magicking! 

Two Multiplayer Mostly-Avatar Drafts (WUBRG Drafting)

I had a Friday free and took advantage with some moderate-distance Magic tourism, driving to Krum's Comics in Winter Garden, FL.  Their drafts are unique for being chaos (to some extent) and played in a single multiplayer game with a starting life total of 30.  (Multiple people there referred to this as "pod drafting", but I feel like "pod" means other things too.)  I am obviously a fan of both of those things and since they run two drafts back to back on Fridays (1pm and 4pm), it's worth it for me to go up every once in a while, especially since the atmosphere is really chill and new-player friendly.  I have been twice before.  (Travel note: if you do plan to go and are coming from some distance, double-check the drive time during the day as there could be Disney-traffic involved in your trip.)  The store has switched over to the pick-two format.  I don't believe that actually solves any issues with low-set sizes, but whatever.  The drafts cost $25 each, tax included.  

We started a bit late to get a full pod of four.  Everyone wanted to do straight Avatar packs for the first one, so we did that.  I decided a priori to try five-color-allies for the first time, so that drove a lot of my choices.  I did, however, remember to prioritize Vigilance, especially with evasion.  Here were all my picks:

I was desperate for fixing in the third pack.  Also, Cat-Owl's ability is like super-vigilance.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't pay enough attention to the cards that I was taking.  For some of my cool allies, e.g. Sokka, Bold Boomeranger, I needed to also have a bunch of lessons.  After taking that into consideration, my deck came together pretty quickly.  Here it is:

This is not my first time with Earthen Ally.

We rolled to go first and the player to my right won.  They (P1) were a relatively-new player who had built Selesnya Allies.  To my left, P3 was an experienced player running Yore-Tiller (all-but-green) Shrines + Appa.  Across from me sat P4, playing Yore-Tiller (yes, also) Mais and who I think started playing within the last three months.  (No wonder I'd had to fight for some mana fixing!)  My opening hand had Hermitic Herbalist and the mana to cast it, so I kept and we were off!

I dropped the Herbalist on my second turn.  P4 ended the round by playing Mai, Jaded Edge.  

In the third round, I played Zuko, Exiled Prince.  These were followed by Iguana Parrot and Earthen Ally on my fourth turn.  I didn't get to attack with Zuko all that often, but I did on my fifth turn and I pushed all my mana through Earthen Ally to turn my Rumble Arena into a 5/5 creature.  

While I was going off, P1 and P4 had built up respectable boards, but P3 had already played two Crescent Island Temples for four prowess-powered monk tokens.  I was not ready for the shenanigans that were to come, but for the moment I was quickly becoming the Archenemy.

My usual philosophy in these multiplayer games is that I should try to keep opponent life-totals relatively even unless one player is an obvious current or future threat.  Nevertheless, I painted that target on myself and overextended, using the Firebending mana + Earthen Ally trick on the next two turns as well, painting a big target on myself.  The first of those animated a second land while the third buffed my Rumble Arena when it got caught in a bad block.  

On my seventh turn I was idiotically holding a big target.  That allowed P3 to flash out Appa, Steadfast Guardian and airbend both of his temples.  I sensed a bigger threat brewing.  

In the eighth round, I attacked with my 10/10 vigilant Rumble Arena (I don't remember who chump blocked or with what) and made another 5/5.  More importantly, P4 played their second Mai, this one the Scornful Striker.  My deck was heavy on creatures, so I was very happy with this change, especially if it hurt P3 for playing more shrines.  

On my ninth turn, I attacked into everyone with some safe creatures.  (My Iguana Parrot had been regularly getting in for damage.)  P3 played Barrels of Blasting Jelly on their turn, however, and correctly took out my Earthen Ally.  

On my tenth turn, I attacked again.  P3 cast Lost Days on my Rumble Arena.  At that point, my Archenemy horns were quite broken, but no one seemed to notice.  P4 cast Razor Rings on my Iguana Parrot, so it's days of easy damage were also over.  On their turn, P3 cast Ember Island Production, copying Appa, which airbent both temples (again) and the original Appa.  There were going to be a lot of monk tokens!

I was stuck on turn eleven, but P3 wasn't.  They replayed the two temples, which also triggered the prowess on the army of monks they already had.  After playing an additional Invasion Submersible (another prowess trigger) they attacked me with an army of 4/4 monks.  I blocked with a bunch but took mega damage and went to 1 life.  My opponents were at 15 (P1), 11 (P3), and 17 (P4).  

I did leave my Cat-Owl alive.  In the twelfth round, I (foolishly) attacked P4 with it.  P3 recast the original Appa and put the temples back in play.

Monks and Monks and Monks and Monks

With their new monk army, P3 swung out and killed P4.  Without my Cat-Owl attack, the attack wouldn't have been enough.  Oops!  

P1 started the thirteenth round by swinging out on me.  I lost most of my creatures (bye Cat-Owl!) but didn't take any damage.  I cast Sokka, Tenacious Tactician, but it wasn't enough.  P3 attacked us with over twenty creatures and won the game.  

We ended almost exactly at 4pm.  P1 had to leave, but another person showed up right in time and took their spot.  They also seemed to be a relatively new player and this was their first draft.  (That person wound up winning the roll to go first and no one switched seats, so I won't bother to rename people.)  We assured the new P1 that this was a chill group and format, so they could certainly ask us questions at any point.  

This time we agreed to do a chaos draft, but everyone chose three Avatar packs.  

I flexed my chaos muscles.

 

I ditched the ally plan and drafted for fun instead.  My opening pack had two rares and a mythic.  When Zuko, Conflicted tabled back to me, I figured that as well as Iroh, Tea Master meant I was in for some donating shenanigans.  Here were all my picks:

People are always welcome to pass Ozai, the Phoenix King to me.

This deck was more difficult to cut for.  I only went down to 24 with 16 lands since I had the two land cyclers.  Risky, but I went with it.  Here was my deck:

Fewer of these are Nobles than I realized.  Sorry, Lo and Li.

My opponents this time were P1 on WUBRG, P3 on Witch-Maw (all but Red) Tokens, and P4 on Ink-Treader (all but Black) Metalbending.  I think this is the most number of opposing colors I've ever had to compete with in a four-person draft!  I can't believe I nabbed so much mana-fixing!

My opening hand had Iroh, so I went with that and gifted my food token to P3 on my third turn in exchange for a 2/2 ally.  I kept it up on my fourth and fifth turns, donating that and then a 3/3 ally.  On my sixth turn, I played Canyon Crawler and donated the food token to get another ally.  At some point in this mess I got Jem lightfoote out, my vigilant flier of choice for this game.  Throughout this, P1 was stuck on three lands, though they had four colors.  So, they were usually the target of my donations.  

On my seventh turn, I gifted a 3/3 ally and attacked with the Crawler and Jem.  P3 followed that up by getting to a third copy of Joo Dee.  At this point they had Tolls of War out so they had an Ally token to sacrifice every turn.  

Awesome combo moves from P3 in both games!

In the eighth round I swung with Jem again and she got killed to Osseous Exhale.  P4 was good at killing my vigilant fliers!  

Unlike the first game, I lost track of the turn numbers.  Things stalled out.  I had to stop donating my creatures (until I later popped my Mardu Monument for three more donateable warriors) and P3 kept building up an army of Joo Dees.  P4 had played Toph, the first Metalbender and built their own land-creature force.  

Finally, P1 broke the stalemate by casting Suki, Kyoshi Warrior.  When it swung on the next two turns, it came crashing in as a 10/4.  This caused P3 and P4 to start swinging back.  I did not like this because I needed to convince the table that P3 with their Joo Dee army was the main danger.  That failed, though, as P1 swung out again at P4.  (I don't remember how Suki died, but I think it only got the two attacks in.)  I had Destined Confrontation and Ozai in my hand, so I was waiting for the right time to nuke the board.  I got Iguana Parrot out for the second game, and started swinging away.

My field, mostly consisting of donation-created allies.

 

Then P3 used Shifting Grift to steal Toph, which fractured their alliance.  This was in preparation for their main move, though.  I played Combustion Man, thinking I was going to get ahead, but P3 surprised us on their turn with Foggy Swamp Visions.  They paid 10 and took advantage of our deep graveyards.  

Hey, some of those were mine!

P3 launched an attack on P1, smaller than I expected, but it was reasonable.  It was also enough that P4 was able to finish off P1 on their turn.  

I untapped.  I wasn't sure I could win, but I went for it anyways.  I swung out with enough to kill off P3, then dropped the Destined Confrontation.  My Pirate Peddlers was very happy to gain 10 +1/+1 counters.  Without enough to get through on me, P4 had to pass their turn.  I cast Ozai the next turn, floated the two extra mana to give it flying, and attacked for the win.  

I really enjoy these chill drafts and playing the big multiplayer games.  

Happy Holidays and Happy Magicking!

A Full Pod of Chaos (WUBRG Drafting)

I got a wacky draft running this week.  I had five people total, but that jumped up to eight right before the event.  Excellent!  There are good things to say about lots of different numbers of people, but eight is a perfectly round number for pods.  

It's early December, but the holidays are chaotic.  I might not get another chance this month, so, just in case, I went festive with my pack colors: Red, White, and Green.  Here's what everyone opened:

Very chaotic!

 

Before we were getting things figured out, though, one player brought a bunch of packs and was putting them in piles of three.  I'm not exactly sure what they were doing, but it was exciting to see the different packs!

Maybe planning for future drafts?

We decided to do best-of-one rounds.  (I was a bit dumb and forgot to tell people that the first mulligan was free... oops!  My fault!  Thankfully the veterans brought it up pretty early in the playing.

 

You can tell from my draft picks that I'm greedy.  I turned down a few good mana-fixing cards, but I did have some good finishers.  The real boon came in the third pack, when I was passed an Ultima!  That bailed me out on my first pick of that pack, the Archpriest of Iona.  I did have at least one each of the creatures for a full party, but I don't think there was enough to be good enough.  Here were all my picks:

I should get more criticism for these.

After ditching the Party theme, I quickly built this deck:

My deck includes the cards for an ethical dilemma.

 

We paired up and got to playing.  I managed to get in my rounds with five opponents, starting off against a Jund Mana-Dorks deck.  My opponent played two early mana dorks and played Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion on turn four!  That was followed by a Spinewoods Armadillo, then turn six yielded an Honest Rutstein, which got the Moose-Lion back, which also hit the board (again).  If that wasn't enough, turn seven brought Beifong's Bounty Hunters.  Thankfully I drew into a plains that following turn and I was able to cast Ultima.  Thanks to the "End the turn" part of that spell, the Bounty Hunters' ability didn't resolve.  Even with that, the game was not decided.  They Sold Out my Mongoose Lizard, then played Feral Deathgorger.  I was able to handle that with Master Piando and either the best or only mana-fixing combat trick, Prishe's Wanderings.  From then on I just kept attacking and won.  1-0.

The second round pit me up against a deck of Orzhov weenies.  They started with Abandoned Air Temple and then played little creatures including a Rally the Monastery.  

Court Street Denizen kept triggering!

I got Hakoda down on turn four, and Jeskai Brushmaster, but it wasn't enough to hold off the onslaught and I died on the next turn.  1-1.

In the third round, I faced my first Glint-Eye (non-white) deck of the night.  (Why is everyone drafting so many colors?)  

It's like I'm playing against myself.  Oof!

I was doing pretty well, but my opponent had a great play against me.  I tried to Lightning Bolt their Locke Cole, but they played Fleeting Reflection.  Targeting my Fblthp.  My one-for-one turned into myself getting two-for-oned.  Then they played Flopsie.  I thought I was sunk there, but I did get Ultima.  Somehow my opponent still drew more bombs and played Iron Giant the turn later, killing me the following turn.  1-2.

Next up I challenged an aggressive Boros deck.  I had more time than I should have against a deck like this, to the point where I was able to cast Malboro on my sixth turn.  I thought I might have a chance to come back, but my opponent got two 3/2 fliers that I couldn't deal with: Aang, The Last Airbender, and Wanted Griffin.  I thought I had another turn to find an answer, but my opponent played How to Start a Riot and I was done early.  1-3.

In the fifth round I was up against my second Glint-Eye opponent!  For a while it was my Blind Hunter against their Goblin Assailant, just trading hits back and forth.  They played Teval, but I put it to some Honest Work.  I got the Brushmaster down and Glider Kids and got there.  2-3.

What a great draft!  I feel like my deck could do a bit better than it performed, but I found nonetheless.  I'm not sure what I can do to beat faster decks aside from draft more early blockers like the Temur Devotee that I pulled this time.  I am genuinely interested whether I could have built a better deck from my draft pool too.

I hope you have some Happy Magicking and Happy Holidays!

Ravnica Clue + Avatar: TLA Beginner's Box

On a bit of a whim, I picked up an Avatar: TLA Beginner's Box from my FLGS, Intergalactic Plastic.  That's likely a bit unethical of me, since I'm not the intended audience, but I was really excited that it had exactly the right number of Jumpstart decks (not exactly packs) for a five-player game of Ravnica Clue.  

That parenthetical may need a bit of explanation.  The Beginner's Box comes with ten 20-card Jumpstart-style "decks" of 20 cards:

• I don't want to say "packs" because they aren't individually wrapped.  They are all packaged together with divider cards between them.
• There are two for each color.
• All ten are different from the decks that can be found in the Jumpstart boosters for the set!
• Two are designed for a scripted game and are meant to be played one against the other to teach two people how to play the game.  (One is Red (Zuko), one is White (Aang).)
• The remaining eight decks function like individual Jumpstart packs.

I put each of the ten decks in a perfectly-sized paper envelope and kept them with my Ravnica Clue box waiting for the right time. 

This week I got lucky enough to get a group to try it out.  I sat down with three other people to play.  Since there were four of us, not five, we decided to leave the two scripted packs out and used the other eight.  I think it would have been okay for those to be part of it, though.  

We decided to try playing at 20 life.  (A higher number might have been better.)  We rolled to determine who was going first and I was second.  Player 1 (P1) had the Earthbending and Allies decks.  I had Firebending and Attacking.  P3 had Waterbending and Counters.  P4 had Big Creatures and Spells.  For Clue cards, I was dealt the Lead Pipe, the Billiard Room, the Dining Room, and the Secret Passage.  Revealed to everyone were the Hall and the Library.

My opening hand had good land but not enough small creatures to participate in the first few turns.  In the first round the most interesting thing that happened is that P3 dropped a Gilacorn, which they hit me with on the second turn.  They guessed White, Candlestick, and the Ballroom, which I passed to.  

In the third round of turns, P1 hit me with their Kyoshi Warrior Guard (slightly better than Squire).  They guessed better with Mustard, Knife, and Billiard Room.  I showed them the Billiard Room.  With that treasure, I was able to cast Fire Nation Archers on my turn.  That was enough to turn away attackers for a bit.  P3 hit P4 and guessed White, Candlestick, and Ballroom.  P4 showed them a card.

In round four, P1 hit P4, guessing Green, Pipe, and Conservatory.  P4 showed them a card.  P4 later hit P3, guessing Mustard, Pipe, and Conservatory.  P3 had to show them a card.  (At the time I was not sharp enough to notice that this meant P4 probably had Emissary Green.)

In round five, P1 hit P3 and P4.  They guessed Scarlett, Rope, and Dining Room.  P3 immediately showed them a card.  I figured I needed to get in on the attacking so I swung into P1.  I guessed Plum, Wrench, and Kitchen; they showed me the Kitchen.  P3 also hit P1 back and guessed Plum, Candlestick, and Kitchen.  They obviously showed P3 a card.  P4 attacked me with their Turtle-Seals.  I had Roku's Mastery, but only five lands, so I took the damage.  They guessed Mustard, Pipe, and Secret Passage.  I showed them the Secret Passage and gained a treasure token.

At this point, battlefields had started to get pretty wide, but people were mostly attacking with one or two creatures just to make suggestions. 

P1 started the sixth round off by attacking me with their Glider Kids that had a +1/+1 counter.  With the newfound treasure, I was able to kill them with Roku's Mastery, saving myself from having to reveal any new information.  On my turn, I played one of my favorites: Mongoose Lizard.  I took out P1's Haru, Hidden Talent with the ETB.  I didn't attack with the archers just because I was wary of more creatures coming on me.  P3 played Fire Nation Sentinels, but P1 immediately Rocky Rebuked it.  Undeterred, P3 attacked P4, guessing Green, Candlestick, and Ballroom.  P4 showed them a card.  P4 made the big play, however, bouncing my two creatures with Water Whip.  They hit me for six damage and guessed Peacock, Pipe, and Billiard Room.  I showed them the room and put my life counter to nine.

The seventh round started with P1 finishing me off.  Oof!  I revealed my Clue cards to everyone and they seemed pretty confident that the game would end soon.  (This does bring up an important rules question that I'm not sure about.  If a player dies to combat damage, does the person who hit them have to make a suggestion?  The only reason this matters is because it means they couldn't do that and make a Collect-Evidence-6-based suggestion at the end of the turn.)  P1 didn't have enough information to win, however, and passed.  P3 took their turn and refused to attack.  They Collected Evidence 6 to guess Mustard, Knife, and Ballroom.  P4 passed, but P1 showed a card.  P3 then made their accusation: Mustard, Knife, and Study.  It was correct; they won!

 

This game was great!  I did die very suddenly, but that seems to have been a tactical misplay by P4 and P1, as it led to P3's immediate win.  So, there's an open question of whether 20 life was too small.  Here are some arguments for more life:

• It's good when life totals get small right before someone's about to solve the murder, but no one was close to that until my cards got revealed.
• 30 life is the amount for the Ravnica Clue Jumpstart-style packs that come with the set.  These "packs" seem similarly aggressive.  

On the other side, however:

• Killing me did not help either of those players to win.
• Do these packs actually have as much evasion as the Ravnica Clue packs to aid in getting damage through?  Maybe not!

I would love to know what you think?  How much life should we have started with?  More importantly, though, have you played Clue with some other Beginner's Box or Jumpstart packs?  I want to play this format over and over again!  I have already put my other Jumpstart packs together to hopefully use in the future.

No matter how you're playing, Clue or not, Happy Magicking!