Staff Picks - Customer Service Agent Aaron

Hey Aaron, what have you been into lately?

I've really been into horror movies. I watched Maniac Cop (1988) last night, it’s got an Undead NYPD Officer terrorising people.

Oooh spooky! With Halloween approaching, do you have any seasonal watches or movie traditions?

I've been trying to do this every year, for as long as I can remember, and I've never managed to do it because things like MCM Comic Con London have come up and gotten in the way. So, this year I’m trying to watch a different horror movie every single day for October. But I have some self-imposed rules. The main one being I can only watch one movie from a franchise, so I can't sit and binge watch seven Scream movies, or all of the Saw franchise to take up days. I have to pick. if I'm watching one of them, I pick one of them.

Credit: Funko

So if you choose Scream 2, then you can’t watch Scream 4 or the 2022 one?

Yes! Typically I would have watched a Halloween movie on the 31st, but this year I'm doing it a little differently. I'm watching a Halloween movie on the 1st October, then there's a few movies that I've not seen that I want to. I try and mix it up with classics and movies that I love, that I can just sit and rewatch, as well as movies that I haven't seen. So there's a little variance.  

Is the list all horror or are there some classics like Hocus Pocus (1993) or Coraline (2009) mixed in?  

Typically, it's all horror. Like there occasionally might be a funny little horror comedy. Horror comedies are fine. I've done Shaun of the Dead (2004) in the past, which is a horror comedy. Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) was on my list for this year, but I had to   knock it. I don’t own it, and I wanted space for my favourite horror movie: The Return of the Living Dead (1985). It's totally its own little thing and it is hecking fun to watch. It's a good laugh. If you've not seen it, I highly recommend it.

I’ll have to check it out. With the leaves turning and spooky season upon us, have you got any board game recommendations? 

I’d really recommend Betrayal at House on the Hill. If you’ve not played, it's a horror exploration game for three to six players where you play as people that are exploring a haunted house that develops and grows as you move and explore it. As a player, you reveal tiles from the floor that you’re on. As you turn over the tiles, you can position the revealed rooms to connect with the doorways already on the board. Then, once a certain amount of omens have been revealed, it triggers a haunt, where one of the players becomes the traitor and gets a special set of rules. it basically turns one person against everyone else. Becoming the traitor isn’t an opt in thing, it’s based on the events and rooms that are available in that session of the game. There is also a little bit of a story to the game that’s revealed and changes a little each time. Because of the design of the gameplay, there's quite a lot of replayability.

I think we should be careful going too in depth. We don’t want to spoil all the twists of the haunts to new players taking up the game. Betrayal is a great game. Any other Halloween picks?  

I backed SAW: The Jigsaw Trials on Kickstarter. Not the Deluxe Edition with the hand statue thing that came with it, but the regular version, which is quite fun.

Credit: Aaron, Magic Madhouse

I also have DOOM: The Board Game, that one has a bunch of miniatures, which is hella cool. There’s the choice of four Doom Slayers and players will have different weapons and then there’s some board exploration. If you’ve played Zombicide it’s very similar to that.  

There’s also Overkill: Halloween Slasher, a party card game from Ultra PRO and the EXIT escape room games. Oh, and Bloodborne: The Card Game!

I remember when Bloodborne: The Board Game came out. It was huge, both the release and the physical game. 

I have a fun story, actually. My dad and I had never played Bloodborne, didn't know anything about it. The same year I bought him Bloodborne on PlayStation, he bought me Bloodborne: The Card Game.  

Like a little a little family trade.  

We both had the same thought, “I think you'll like this”.  

Speaking of my dad, I took Zombie Dice with me to my dad's for Father's Day. It’s very quick, very simple and easy to play. You basically just roll dice! The only downside is it can be quite noisy. But if you're fine with the noise, then roll the dice. It’s definitely a good pickup.

Keeping the pulse going. Do you have any spooky themed commander decks from sets like Crimson Vow or Duskmourn?

I had one with Tinybones, Trinket Thief, he was fun. One with Nekusar, the Mindrazer, because I like to be the Archenemy of the table. Also, Thraximundar which is a Red, Black & Blue Zombie Assassin. He's my zombie typal commander. For seven mana, he has Haste, and "Whenever Thraximundar attacks, defending player sacrifices a creature". Plus, "whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Thraximundar". It just means lots of zombies. That's my zombie deck.

Have you picked up a lot of Zombie Token cards or any custom tokens?  

I’ve not bought any, but sometimes as part of the work Commander Nights we’ll sit and draw each other tokens to use, which I treasure dearly. I've gone around asking for slug tokens because of Toxrill, the Corrosive. I've got so many slug tokens. One colleague has drawn me a couple and they've all got cigarettes. I’ve drawn a Slurms MacKenzie (from Futurama) for slug token, and a treasure Token with Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob.

Credit: Aaron, Magic Madhouse

Would it be safe to say you link your love of horror movies with your Commander deck themes?

My favourite thing about Commander is deck building. I have a commander deck project that I've been working on, and that’s JAWS. I wanted him as the commander because I like horror stuff, and it’s JAWS! But, I do want to give an honourable mention to the Secret Lair x Chucky set.

Credit: Magic: the Gathering / Wizards of the Coast

Just the other day, I was building the JAWS deck, which is a mono red commander, which is weird because it’s a mono red card that’s a Shark, while most sharks are blue. What I have tried to make is a JAWS themed Commander deck. It was not supposed to be good in any way, shape, or form, it just had to be on theme. So, there are as many boats as I could possibly get away with, because they're artifacts.

There's a Sorcerous Spyglass, because it's a telescope. There's Fishing Gear, Fishing Pole, and Blood Clock. Even though Blood Clock isn't really to do with sharks, it's blood. That's the theme of the commander.

The whole project was a real struggle, but I've done it. It was not an easy task. My favourite thing about Commander is the deck building aspect; sitting down and picking a commander that I think is different or unique down the line. If I see too many others picking up the same idea as me, I have to drop it like I did with Toxrill. I liked playing it, but when Gary the Snail came out I think everyone and their mums were running it. I’m awkward and like to do things others aren’t doing as much as I can.

Credit: Magic: the Gathering / Wizards of the Coast

If I can find a combo that works, that I don't think I've seen anyone else try before, I'll try to give it a go. I like unconventional decks that do weird stuff. I also like to play Commander as the Archenemy. I want the whole table to turn against me.

The Commander heel turn?  

Yeah! I’ve currently got this one deckbuilding project, but I’m not going to talk around it because I don’t want to “blow up my spot”. But when I pitched the idea, I ran it past the Managing Director. I even went and ran it past people in accounting just to work out exactly how many tokens I was making, because it's actually insane.

Reading the card rules of [REDACTED], it could be a card that finds its way to the banned list.

Maybe? A few similar cards have been released after that. There are maybe slightly less powerful ways to get the same end result. Like the amount of cards with double trigger effects. Are you familiar with Storm Herd? 10 Mana in white, it’s a sorcery that says, “Create X 1/1 white Pegasus creature tokens with flying, where X is your life total”, so if I'm still at 40 life I’d make 40 Pegasus( Pegasi?), and then I can double the tokens made so I’m laughing

Credit: Magic Madhouse/ Magic: the Gathering

You're definitely going to be drawing custom tokens for a hot minute there.  

It’s what I do most in the downtime between turns. It’s better than sitting there and being tempted to scroll on my phone, and I feel like that's quite rude.

What would be your advice for someone thinking about starting a Magic group or joining one?

Honestly, my advice for people starting a Magic group is to give MTG Arena a try. If you've never played Magic before, give Arena a go to see how you like the rules and the formats. Then see if there's anyone at your work or school, or if your local game store has a Friday Night Magic session, or if they have any Magic related events happening. Then just build from there. You'll probably find people willing to join, start a group, or to include you in theirs. That's what it's all about really, it's finding a group of people that you're happy to sit and play with and have fun with. At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world if you meet up with a group and you just don't click, it's not typically a problem to move on and find a different group.

Enjoyed the read? Check out the previous enteries in our Staff Picks series here: