Category: Announcements

The blog and pod are taking this week off due to our various personal obligations. If you haven’t already check out the First Year Retrospective in the mean time. Friday will still have a written playthrough. Thanks everyone as always for reading, watching, or listening!

July marks the first anniversary of the blog! My first card review, Followed, premiered on July 13th. Since then we’ve had over 14,000 visitors and 32,000 views. Thank you everyone that has visited and take the time to read some card reviews or written playthroughs. In celebration of this milestone, there will be extra content every weekday this month. There will be extra card reviews from community members and written playthroughs. The playthroughs will continue my saga of playing the cycle quests in The Against the Shadow cycle and maybe even getting into Ringmaker. Thanks again everyone for making this blog a success and I hope you continue to enjoy it!

No card review today. I’m planning on posting one of my early playthroughs from Heirs of Numenor instead later today.

Sorry everyone no review this week. The Podcast is taking the week off. I’d get a one of the reviews submitted as part of the last contest, but I’ve been under the weather the last couple of days. There will be 2 playthrough posts on Thursday. Please check back then!

It’s been a long time coming and a year in planning, but Card Talk was able to hand out its 2021 swag to folks at Con of the Rings this weekend. If you weren’t at the Con, you can expect to get Swag soon as I start sending it out. Domestic patrons’ swag (to the US) will go out first, then international deliveries afterward. I am hoping to have everyone’s swag sent by the week’s end. But before I get to far into the reveal, I have to thank the patrons of Card Talk. Without their generosity, it would be very hard to continually provide content. If you ever thought of becoming a patron, please visit HERE. There are several levels for you to choose from and we like to give out swag to all levels.

The idea for this year’s swag came from the communities love of alternate art cards. But, I also wanted to make sure that I honor the game and the developers by giving out something that everyone has access to, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t done before. Enter Journey Along the Anduin.

This is only one of three quests that I can guarantee every member of the community has played and owns. Also, with iconic enemies like the Hill Troll and Chieftain Ufthak, maybe an update was warranted. Lastly, it’s a quest that I play multiple times a year to deck test so having a copy of the scenario that is prebuilt makes all the sense in the world to me. To see a video of the cards, click HERE.

This whole thing would not have been possible without the hard work of a member of the community, Maarten. When he originally signed on to the job, I’m sure he didn’t know all that would go into it. He did all the graphic art “stuff” for the deck. He created the frames from 2-Player starter so that we could get expanded art into the game. He took all the art I found and put it on the card. He added all the text. He did not complain. He is a champion. Thank you, Maarten.

There are a few details that must get a shout out as well. First, I wanted this set to have its own encounter symbol. I reached out to Amy Alyse Kell and she was able to come up with “Podcasting Gollum” to use as the encounter set icon. And I love it. I loved it so much that I decided to use it on this years poker chip. And, I have decided to make the poker chip the Card Talk “thing” for patrons who contribute at the Citadel Custodian level. The chip will be different every year. And I always like to give folks at least a little token of appreciation for their contribution to Card Talk.

I also wanted a back to the card that screams encounter set. The traditional Card Talk logo is to bright and familiar to be used as an encounter card balk. Of course, the official card backs from FFG are copyrighted so they couldn’t be used. Fortunately, Amy was able to design a card back for us as well. The card back turned out sharp and provided the exact tone that the cards need to have as encounter cards.

So. it is with great humility and a sense of pride that I present our patrons with this swag. Thank you!

Hello everyone, just a quick announcement. Instead of a card review this week and written playthrough Dave and I will be posting reflections and recaps of Con of the Rings and Can’t of the Rings, respectively. Dave’s reflections will be available Tuesday Oct. 5th. My recap of Can’t of the Rings will take the place of the written playthrough on Thursday the 7th.