d'Resh eXodus

There was only one image for d'Resh in eXodus. Here it is...

Not a bad attempt by blitz (Jeffry Ransom) at a creature, although I'm beginning to see that these RP people lack... imagination, perhaps? These creatures are so close to what normal earth creatures would look that they almost seem... ordinary. I had to recolour the image to remove the crayons and felt-tip pens effect, put in a shadow and added a Holmberg background just to complete it.

Free Magi Week

So it's free magi week. And me, ultradoug, NKX and Blankasmash decided to take advantage by doing really weird things. It was NKX idea. We each made a deck with 3 of every card from one region. Then we used one of every magi for that regio, in alphabetical order. I chose orothe, Blanka chose cald, NKX went with Naroom and ultradoug took Bograth

We only made it through about 3 defeated magi before we got tired. Some of the highlights include a 19 energy magma jile and a 33 energy pyder. I had both in my posession with Arosa. Then NKX managed to vim and vigor both in the same turn. Also, giving bwill to people in exchange for a 33 energy pyder is funny.

What's also funny, is using a deep hyren with the last words in play to wipe the board (nearly) clean.

It occurs to me that my idea of "funny" is often indirectly proportinal to that of other people.

Fog Crij redux

Well, I got permission from Blitz and Scar to use their images on the engine, so I thought I should go back and see what I can salvage. Lava Lasp doesn't look too bad and the two Whyrl images were a definate. Most of the Core images were good, with the exception of the glasses. Nothing from bograth though, which is a pity, so here's try #2 with the Fog Crij. Try #1 is below that for comparison purposes.

Core eXodus

Grymm would probably be pleased with these cards. The Core images were of exceptionally better quality than the Cald and Bograth ones, when comparing artists. I had quite a bit of fun transforming them into cards.

Let's start with blitzkreig's (Jeffry Ransom) sole piece in this, the Acid Morgg. The creature was drawn with quite a lot of detail... I wonder if it's copied from somewhere else. Anyways, a background and a showdow completed the piece and the card looks great IMO... or at least better than his other images (Ember Bleph, Fog Crij).

Angetiger (Cody Shipman) also has one piece in core and he does good stuff as usual (Kiradan, Conder and Dion in TG).

Windy (Austin Gardner) has two pieces here and I'm surprised at how good these are when compared with cards like Mud Mantle. The beeb looks like a tracing though.

Scar (Scott Montgomery) finishes off the set with a relic. His background was a bit weird to work with since it shows one of the ends of the glasses going into the water and floating over it... Instead, I took a copy of the grassy part and transformed that into a background. Here's the final product.

So there you have it. The Core versions of eXodus. Some of these might make it into Exodus Flight, the custom set for gEngine. We'll have to see if I can get permission from all the artists. Jeffry has already given me the go ahead to use the text and his images on the engine.

Tourney action and silly feats

I played two games today, one tourney and one just because. Actually, it's three games if you count the one I played against some guy who put his deck in his magi pile. Let me tell you, arbolit makes one mean magi.

Anyway, my tourney game was against Pirategirl. She played a perpetual motion deck, oddly enough. This time I actually played sorreah properly, making sure I get the 2 tradewinds instead of a shockwave or something else equally bad at drawing cards. She played a few big creatures, so getting control back was kind of annoying after Sorreah died. But I managed OK. After I played out a few orthans and phrups and wellisks, I did the trick with pharan and spray narth, and gained a net 7 energy. Then I shockwaved one of the creatures. After that it was close for a turn or two, but once I drew my forgotten dancers, I began stealing and killing like crazy. Pirate conceded after the second magi. People don't realize that you really have to nix Voice in the set up stage. Because she can roll better than almost any magi I've seen once she's set up. It's free energy and cards everywhere. The stealing and control stuff gets insane. And I can even recycle the deck pretty quick. I can usually block ormagons too. And if I smell a cata coming, I can get cards and energy back on my magi in a hurry. That reminds me, I should add a barqua's bubble.

In an earlier non-tourney game with Godofchaos, I got all 6 orthans in play with Voice. They were all gaining like 3 energy per turn, it was nuts. Chaos tried the cawh trick with Wawek. He didn't know that it doesn't work. He wanted to use cawh to cycle 15 energize with Wawek and then play weave control. When it didn't work, he just played cawh with his last magi. So I decided to STEAL it.

That's right ladies and gents, I STOLE a cawh. After all, I am the cawh guru master. Sandswhirl for three turns, then use forgotten dancer and abwynn's quill. That way I can still play creatures on my turn.

After that his magi was pretty tapped and I killed him without any trouble. I wish I could have some of those losses back now that I know how to play orthans better. Oh well.

So very Rich

Well, I got Holmberg... and then Whryl, so I thought I'd go for broke and get Werner and Holsten as well and see if they'd give their permission to use their artwork on the custom cards. Rich Werner, as usual, was quick in replying and he did give his OK to use the artwork on his site on the custom cards. Yay! That's another one. I'm still waiting from Holsten but I hope it'll be good news as well. Here's a TW card ...

Twin Simulacrums

Last tournament, I fell three games short of completion. With a game today, you could say that I am at the same point this month. Before doing laundry and getting ready for work, I logged into gEngine to see about getting a game in. Things weren't too busy, so I browsed around the internet for a bit. During that time, NKX logged in and we were able to play a game.

NKX started first with the Dark Twins. They pulled Entomb, Corrupt, and Core Grag as starters and then filled the hand to seven. They used Entomb on Cataclysm, attached Corrupt to their magi, and put Warrada's Ring into play. This was an awesome opening for NKX. With Tiller as my first magi, I knew I would need to use the Weeblit to dispose of a Weebo I would lose to the Corrupt. With two of my starting cards needed to overcome the problem at hand, I also played the Vortex of Knowledge to give me a little more to work with. Scrounging one of my other relics gave a good opening with Furok and the Weebo. With a somewhat impressive nine energy Furok in play at the end of my turn, I played things somewhat conservative since I had good reason to be wary of a Cataclysm at any moment I played into one. NKX responded with a Rayje's Belt and Core Grag. With only one creature on my side, NKX kept the grag in play and belted Tiller's Scrounge. Over the next several turns, Forest Wudge and Evu's Plaything would put some pressure on the Dark Twins. Bythan's Gift to the relic turned creature would leave a rather large Furok in play. NKX followed up with another Entomb, this time for Shockwave and took out the Furok. After several turns going back and forth, the twins were starting to take a small beating and a Naroom swarm was well under way. I was playing things out a lot more. With Robes of the Ages and Warrada's Ring in play, NKX played a cheap Maelstrom followed with Cataclysm to take out Tiller. They only had to ditch one universal relic from their hand. Evil Evu tossed down as big as I could manage. An Ember Hyren hit the Core Grag in play to reduce the threat of its power. After a pause, NKX chose to play Blight. Evil Evu gained one energy, but his swarm took quite the hit. NKX attacked with the Core Grag to eliminate the Forest Jile. With the mutual death of creatures, Evil Evu started into card draw. This helped Evil Evu get the edge on the twins. Warrada, Simulacrum flipped next. By using Tomes of the Great Library, they were able to pull off another Cataclysm. Evil Evu was stretched a little thin, but with one Wasperine in hand, I watched as they debated after having played Secrets of the Book whether to use its power. If they had, the Simulacrum would've been left with only three energy. Fortunately, they chose to wait. I did get in the free hit with the Wasperine. Warrada would then toss down two good creatures, both too big for the Wasperine. A Crushing Roots couldn't take one out, but it did setup the defeat with Wasperine. With only one energy left on Wasperine, I used Bythan's Gift to make the Furok I played very big. The simulacrum energized, and looking fairly safe, did not play any creatures out. With the Furok bigger than the one Core creature still facing off against it, all I had to do was rush in two Wasperines and NKX declared, "gg."

Discussing things a little afterwards, NKX admitted that this deck wasn't their first choice. They had built a Naroom/Arderial deck with Niffer but had chosen in the end not to use the deck since Sorreah could easily shutdown Niffer and other key magi.

Cald eXodus

Well, it was going to be sooner or later that I get more eXodus cards done. I really like Angetiger's Conder though, which is probably the only thing motivating me to do the Cald images. There are 5 of them...

Those are the two by Angetiger (Cody Shipman). As I said, I like the Conder, but the Kiradan was a bit lacking IMO, which was why I didn't do as good a job on the background, I guess.

FlameRaven (Beth Zyglowicz) has this sole entry in Cald, and it's not bad for a FlameRaven artwork.

The sad thing is that the RP supermod blitz (Jeffry Ransom) has been drawing images for the custom cards. I guess he thinks he has to do them all or something. Here's the original for the other 2 creatures:

Which was rather hard to turn into decent pictures... I had to try though so...

I like how the Ember Bleph turned out. The Lava Lasp is passable IMO. Cald images are always easy to do I guess. Backgrounds are 100% by me in both cases - nothing spectacular there, also passable.

Whyrlie bird is go!

Well, I got on the line with ROM - he's the scary guy from next to the dead bird - about contacting Whyrl again (since she ignored my previous message). ROM suggested something which I tried and what do you know, Whyrlie replied. Basically she gave her OK for us to use her images as custom cards as long as she's credited. So Yay!

This calls for a preview of something...

Gruk's Garden, a probable card from the still in planning set Twilight War. You saw it here first :)

Burnt Critters

Another day, another game. This time I faced Cald again. Freigabe asked to play a game this morning, or early afternoon depending on your point of view.

So far, I have been lucky to go first with Tiller. A decent opening draw, and Tiller was looking good like usual. Freigabe then flipped over Rayje and chose lore for lots of card draw. He started with Warrior's Boots and two copies of Rayje's Construct. I guess one because Rayje can start with any two Universal cards and the other because it has starting: Rayje. Anyways, he plowed the first construct into the Alpine Xamf. This would hurt, but wasn't totally devastating. I would've loved to Warrior's Boots in a Giant Carillion at this point. As it was, this quick end to Rayje was nowhere in sight. Tiller did make good work on Rayje while Rayje stacked up freigabe's hand with his lore effect. Gar was next and really dug into Tiller. Between the Flame Rudwots, Gar's own effect, and Sinder's Mantle, Braggle's would become a serious problem. This would continue on past Tiller. Evil Evu made a modest stand against Gar and managed to net a few extra cards while at it. Warrior's Boots were a regular on both sides of the fence. A Braggle booted in and boosted with Flame Rudwot would do incredible damage to a Naroom swarm. At this point, it looked like freigabe was going to accomplish what malovis came so close to doing. Warrada, Simulacrum made her stand by tossing down real big when Evil Evu was defeated. Her energy savings on Forest Wudge and Forest Jile was a blessing. The only problem was the return of another Braggle. It took a booted in Giant Carillion to end that threat and get through Gar. After using the power on the remaining Forest Jile, I debated using Bythan's Gift as well. There is no way for me to know if doing so would've saved me the game. As it was, I left two four energy creatures and one five energy critter in play. Garstev flipped and played Wildfire. Beam of Light then took creatures and Crushing Heat took the third. If only I would've had another Giant Carillion in hand to deal with the Granas played. If only will remain an if only. I tried a risky maneuver and played out the energy on Simulacrum for one really large Furok. At eleven energy, I hoped it could just survive freigabe's next turn. It didn't. Another Warrior's Boots and a Flame Rudwot boosted the Granas. Combined with another copy of Sinder's Mantle, Granas took the Furok in a single swift blow. I now have my first defeat in the tournament. :-)

I had to log out for a moment to call and confirm a time for a drug test tomorrow. Although the job I am applying for is part of a group of companies and it is considered a transfer, I still have to take a drug test for it. I logged right back into gEngine after my phone call hoping to get another tournament game in. Instead, everyone was observing a game between BobbyDoc and freigabe.

Bogwhine eXodus

There are only 4 Bograth cards with images in the eXodus expansion. Three of these though were done with what seemed to be crayons and there are no backgrounds. Most of these were probably done to get points for RP and since these cards aren't really used much, there's little to no quality control on the images. Well, it's gonna be a bit more challenging to template these cards.

First up though is a good image done by FlameRaven (Beth Zyglowicz). Good because she's got backgrounds and all and her image isn't one that is done with crayons.

Next up is an image by WindRider (Austin Gardner). I had to texture his image and add a background, but I doubt I could very much improve on the original image.

The last two are by the RP supermod, blitz (Jeffry Ransom). He tries with crayons and magic markers to make his images seem a bit more "there", but it's really nowhere close to MND-quality. The backgrounds are from Holmberg, since he doesn't do backgrounds as well.

I was going to go on and do Cald, but after doing all those last 3 images I was all arted out. Well, maybe tomorrow...

Titanic Clash

Three games in one night. Not a bad start at all. This time, I had already written the posts for the first two games and then checked back to find malovis offering to play a game if I was up to it.

So far, I've been quite lucky going first. Tiller did the usual power drawing and netted two Wasperines and then drew Warrior's Boots during the draw step. Malovis flipped over Sorreah and used Shockwave on the Ember Hyren in play. After malovis finished their turn with a Tradewinds, Tiller took down Sorreah real fast. Using Warrior's Boots and Wasperines, a Forest Jile opened up the attacks on Sorreah. Afterwards, using the power of the Forest Jile left Tiller with a good opening going into the next magi. Voice of the Storm appeared next and the Arderial/Orothe magi tossed down big with the Orathan Amulet. This would spell doom for Tiller. While a mass blitz of attacks did tear into things initially, it would be an uphill battle of epic proportions. Tiller couldn't handle it. A small one energy Orathan attacked to eliminate the exhausted Naroom magi. There was only one hope at this point, and it was to toss down big with Evil Evu. Now, both of us made one mistake that I know of each. When Tiller dug into the orathan madness, I should've used Relic Stalker before Crushing Roots to eliminate the Arderian-Guard Wings. When malovis attacked, I think they meant to attack the Forest Wudge with the Ayebaw first instead of losing the Orathan first in an attack. This would end up marking when Evil Evu would begin his card draw rampage. I would end up sacrificing one of the two Furoks on my next turn and even attacked with a Sandswirl on the Alpine Xamf. With some energy returns from the Furoks, it was possible to play out a Giant Carillion. Evil Evu was going nuts. This did some extreme damage, but two Orathan Flyers would take a couple more turns. Two different turns with Bythan's Gift would finally get the Orathan Flyers. Malovis did steal the remaining Furok with a River Abaquist. Part of the creature count was a Pharan and Spray Narth. After beefing back up the energy on their magi, they spent a little more leaving her with seven energy. Tap Roots defeated the Furok and left a seven energy Giant Carillion that hadn't attacked in play. Malovis conceded at this point when I declared the attack. It was a real tough game. A real tight game. I was really on the edge of my seat trying desperately to do my best, while anticipating that I would lose at any moment.

Cawh Strikes Again

Talk about plain dumb luck. Well, I was excited to have a chance at my second tournament game on the same night. I was thrilled and chose to play first and then write these posts. So, Itchinosi created the game this time and I once again lucked out and went first.

Tiller drew strong into Wasperines, Giant Carillion, and Warrior's Boots. Feeling like taking a step on the more dangerous side of things, I played no creatures that first turn. Itchinosi revealed Scyalla as their first magi and retrieved the Cawh as their starting creature. As they played out their turn, I began to ponder my hand. Bythan's Gift, Evu's Bookworm, and Crushing Roots were all there too. After calculating things out a bit, I opted to play out Warrior's Boots and toss down the Giant Carillion on my turn. A quick stomp and Evu's Bookworm bounced back to the hand by the gift, left a nine energy matchup. Giant Carillion attacked. I then played Weebo and crushed the Cawh to finish it off. It appears that such a fast opening attack on the Cawh left Itchinosi in quite a pinch. Thunderquake took out the Weebo, but a single Wasperine answered by taking out Scyalla. Garstev then flipped and played another Tradewinds. Garstev would end up taking out Tiller. Still, things were looking very creatureless of Itchinosi. Evil Evu placed Robe of Vines and then used Warrior's Boots to play an Alpine Xamf. Followed with a Wasperine, it took Spirit of Rayje to save Garstev for a turn. Evil Evu then tossed down big. A real nice Naroom swarm. This was all in preparation for a possible Cawh. Garstev would go down on the next turn and Voda flipped. Despite some desperate Tradewinds, Voda came up creatureless. This would've hurt if he had played that monster. As it was, Voda ended up defenseless in front of the swarm of attacking critters.

Burn Versus Grow

After getting back from out of town, I got in my first game for the tournament against BlankaSmash. Random starting turn and I managed to start. I opted to run my Naroom deck, a slight modification of the deck from the last tournament. Evil Evu replaces Salafy with a few alterations to the deck. For example, three Wasperines instead of Eebits.

Tiller tossed out modestly well with a few creatures. BlankaSmash flipped over Niffer as their first magi and named Cald for her effect. With her starting two cards, they placed out an impressive wall. Tiller had to dig for some more card choices and ended up taking out the Ayebaw with a full barrage of Naroom flavored burn. With some free energy on the Ember Hyren as creatures attacked, Niffer didn't last long. Garstev flipped over next and took a Boomstick to Ember Hyren. Crushing Roots took the Braggle out. It would be the Flameplate Armor that would buy Garstev some more time to do damage. Now, Tiller did go down in defeat to Good Ol' Ashgar. The Boomstick had returned. Ouch! His effect can be awfully annoying. With Flame Geyser in hand, he waited for a good moment to use it. Evil Evu tossed down real big. I was hoping to bait the geyser. With an Alpine Xamf leading off, there was two furoks and one fird in play. Using a combo with Bythan's Gift and Evu's Bookworm, the Fird ended the turn at nine energy. On my next turn, I would lead off the attacks with Fird. Flame Geyser hit hard. Still, although Good Ol' Ashgar had been doing great up to this point, he took a whopping six energy hit. Both the Furoks would've defeated Ashgar. With the Spirit of Rayje saving him for a moment, it took a final hit by the Alpine Xamf to end the game.

Arderial eXodus

Insiider RP has 3 custom expansions as well. Some of the cards have artwork, but besides artwork and text, there isn't anything much there. The cards were made for RP, not for the CCG so some of the mechanics may seem a bit out of character on a CCG card. Nevertheless, I asked blitz, the guy who's incharge of Insiider RP if I could add these cards onto gEngine and he gave me his permission... however, I doubt I'm going to add them there anytime soon because there are people saying the cards are broken. Anyways, here's the first 3 cards from the first RP expansion eXodus. The other 2 expansions are Chimefall and Dreamstorm.

All art above is by FlameRaven (Beth Zyglowicz), and the cards were designed by the Insiider RP people. Notice the "deactivation" of relics and the CHA+1 text which specifically refers to the RP.

This one is by Scar (Scott Montgomery) and I think it's a good attempt. It's definately better than some of the other RP card images out there.

All art above is by Whyrl (Strom), and the cards were also designed by the Insiider RP people.

Ajnin!

First off, and this may be old news, Matt Holmberg updated his site, Matt's Underworld. Go check it out.

More importantly though, Matt has freely given his permission for us to use his images on the custom cards. Obviously copyrights still belongs to him and/or 2i where relevant, and every custom card I make belongs to 2i anyways. But it's still good that Matt doesn't mind us using his art.

From Canopy to Exotic

Well, I had some time today, so I thought I'll do the modification to the Ploomb to get the Canopy Ploomb. Pencils should be easy - just trace the Ploomb and modify where necessary. Right. The petals were a pain to draw though, but I think I finally managed to make it look like a buttercup or something like that.

Well, the basic pose is basically the same as that of the Ploomb. I'm not so much of an original artist. Next up - shade the drawing and give it the eyes.

Well, I was going to leave it there, but then I couldn't resist shading a bit here, a bit there and before I knew it I had half of it shaded so I decided I might as well finish shading everything.

Well, doesn't look as good as the original Ploomb, but I guess it can do as a card art. It's way too simple though, but I don't claim to be a good artist. The next step is to get some Holmberg background, merge, blur, throw it together, then do the shadow and voila, finished artwork.

Notice that the Ploomb is on the ground... definately not a Canopy anything, so I renamed it Exotic Ploomb. Modify that image slightly to fit on the card, then template the rest of the card.

So there you have it, art by Nov, background by Holmberg. It's a 4e Jungle stalker that stalks a magi when you play it with its effect - intoxicating aroma - and that's going into playtesting. So there's another TG card finished... I think there's still about 15 more to go. Next up, Jile Snacks. I have no idea how that will be done, and a lot will depend on whatever background I can "borrow" to create that image, but it sure promises to be fun.

Burke Burke

Well, here's another Burke card that's templated. I did a number of other cards as well, and they will probably get revealed over the next few days at a number of places. Creature art by Burke, backgrounds by Gillette and Nov.

Other Twilight War cards may be seen at the Novelty's Custom Cards and at Novelty's Novelties.

Ploomb!

So, stalker got hold of me today. He apologized for the delay in getting the image to me, but, hey, it's not like it's that easy to do art, right? After one failed attempt to send the file, I finally got it and I must say it wasn't really amazing or anything at first sight. I decided, hey, why not and started colouring a cup - what looks to me like the cup of a pitcher plant anyways. That turned out better than expected, so I started on a leaf. That was good as well.




So here I was, with a leaf and a cup coloured in and wondering what I should do next. Decided to coloured in two more of the cups and they weren't as good as the first one, but good enough for me. Now I'm seriously wondering where I was going to put the eyes. So I filled in everything as flats and found an interesting spot at the nexus of all the stalks to put in as the eyes. Did those the same way I did the eyes for the Koil Master, and did the top leaf as well.




Hmm... the flats though looks boring, but at least the eyes were in and the cups are now beginning to look like arms and hands with the middle one being the foot. Well, those leaves that are still flat were bothering me, so in between chatting with people on gEngine and dealing with BugLaden regarding server problems there, I continued shading the rest of the leaves until about 6 hours after I started colouring I had this:




All it was now missing was a background. It's a pity I didn't have my backgrounds then, so I had to wait a bit until I got to the computer with my files. Then it was just an easy thing to select a ground and a sky from some of Holmberg's stuff and resize/blur them as the background. The image still looked a bit weird, so I added a shadow (which I learnt how to do when I was colouring Dion) and voila, the final picture:


So that's art by Hicks/Nov with backgrounds courtesy Holmberg. That's not the end of the story though since this picture has to be made into a card. This is the first Naroom Promo that I'm making and although I don't normally worry about rarity in the sets, the Promos are a different story and I had to find the correct template for it. Then I realised that the image wouldn't fit properly since it is a creature, with the extra wide rectangular template, so that had to change as well. It took a bit more time than the 5 minutes for the background to template the card, but at the end of the day I finally managed it and the final card that will be going up to gEngine:


The current card text is designed by Mark Piccarezzi, and it will probably change as it gets put through the paces for Tainted Glimpses playtesting. The final thing to do with the card would be to add the black border and the card text and it should be finished as a card.

So that's MND Card Making 101 for all you guys out there.

Sliced and Diced

I opted to test out Arasyn and Gort'n again, this time with a deck that had the tremor stones removed, but otherwise nothing else changed. Arasyn started well, and I got through his first magi fast, but that was to be expected. He revealed Ora and I progressed fine - I even had a rayje's belt out to lock down those pesky xyx minors, but I made the mistake of using Arasyn's power instead of playing a Szalak. That cost me the game. Lost my magi, but more importantly, lost the belt, and with the Xyx Minors once more being able to grow, there was little that I can do to stop it. The horror was that a second flying Hinko was added into the mix after I got rid of the last one, and then he proceeded to play out a whole swarm of creatures. Ogar went last, but with only 3 creatures left in hand, there was nothing much I could do and would have lost the next turn. One tiny little mistake cost me the game. Oh well.

I did have Agram's Staff out early, but never did have any good Underneath cards to play. Mooky, who was watching the game suggested an Ormagon... which wouldn't normally work in Core, but since I had 2 Underneath Shadow magi and 2 Agram's Staff, an Ormagon or two should prove to be deadly enough. Also, I forgot my Spirit of the Core in this deck, which is a no-no for me. I like that card so much that I'm surprised I didn't put it in.

Overall, I'm still pleased with how the 2 magi performed. They stood up against Arderial for a bit, without being overly powerful. I'm itching to start on my Shadow Cald deck now, I finally figured out a magi order that might work.

Choppy Skies

I need to be quick with this. I had the privilege to face an early draft of Novelty's dice deck with Core. Fairly interesting deck. While the first toss down looked good for Core, Bria had some lucky draws. Two Xyx Minor, one Flying Hinko, one Wyle, and all three Sorreah's Dream were in hand when Bria went down to two Raveled Drush. Those were accompanied by one creature I had used Storm Cloud upon, but it didn't have any great powers or effects to offer the Core deck. Ora then ended up tossing down real big. Real big. By playing the Wyle first, it took the hit from the shadow magi's power and lost three energy coming into play. With three Xyx Minor with one extra energy each in addition to the Flying Hinko, the energy games began. By the time I finished my turn, there were no cards in my hand and an extremely large array of creatures. Crystal Lights took the Flying Hinko out, but it was already way out of control. Novelty got one of the Xyx Minor as well, costing one of the Raveled Drush to do that in attacks. Ora had an impressive swarm going into and through the second magi. Ogar on the end would've had to deal with over 20 energy in Arderial creatures already in play. It did give me a quick feel for my deck. So, two decks tested before I go to bed this early morning. I had to write this report quickly so I can get some decent sleep tonight. I wonder what changes Novelty will be making to the dice deck after that game.

Bria On Air

Well, I got in a partial game first. Very partial. I got in my first turn, then they used a power on their turn and things crashed. I don't think I saved the game in time.

Without my deck even really being tested, I opted to run another test of it when someone else asked if anyone was willing to play. Bria started things out by pulling a Storm Shield and Cloud Sceptre. I was really after the Cloud Sceptre and ditched the shield to its power. A single Hurrican Orish stood out there, and Bria would make a small effort drawing cards for me. I forgot for a moment that she couldn't play Crushing Winds. Hmm. The deck might need a little adjusting. After Bria went down to Grej, Arderian Adept made a strong showing. Shimmer plowed through Ulk, Korriter. It was an Ormagon by Fossik, Ringsmith, that put the killing blow on Shimmer. That hurt a lot. Fossig quickly gained a powerful lead and Relaura was left againt incredible odds. I almost felt bad for Relaura. While they will be working on their deck some, so will I. It was a fun game though. I enjoyed it.

Twilight War prepatory work

I had quite a bit of images left over from Tainted Glimpses, so I thought I'd put them onto cards just for the fun of it. I've showcased some of them on the Custom Card forum, but here's a few more just for laughs and giggles.

That one is by Whyrl. The one below is by Holmberg.

More images, including the ones by the new artists can be found on the custom card forum.

Shadowsfall gets dicey

I had a conversation with both my partners in crime here yesterday regarding SP yesterday and mentioned that I'd like to build a weenie Fiergo deck just to test out how things work. Well, I haven't built that, but I did mention that Auriolis is on my danger list, while Vintok is definately slated for a change. Two magi I did say I'd test though are Arasyn and Gort'n with their dice abilities, they seem to go well together.

So fast forward a day and I'm building my deck. I already have 2 magi, but needed to find a third. There aren't that many Core magi to choose from anyways and Ogar, with her dice power, seemed natural in the deck so she got added. And as to order, I did want to actually play the SP magi, so they went first. Arasyn got to go first since she had the higher starting energy, just in case I get to go first, while Gort'n, who needed a bit more of a boost, went second weith Ogar bringing up the rear.

The deck itself wasn't too difficult. Loaded dice and Fate's Whimsys are a must. Chaos Sphere just for the dice theme. Start Urhail for Arasyn - the tremor stones is gonna end up as a waste since I'm playing with Loaded dice. Gort'n is just going ot get a Fate Whimsy, the other 2 of her starting cards are a waste, and a Ugger and Chaos Jile for Ogar. 3 Szalaks because of the dice ability and since I'm adding energy there, a Trask. Now since the Trask is in, I might as well play 3 Rous, 3 Zungg, 3 Ravelled Drush and since I seem to have a whole deck of weenies, 3 Wudges. See, any deck I build these days ends up to be a weenie deck. 2 Agram's staff so that I can play a thunderquake, an amulet of ombor and a gate to ombor, a crystal lights, maelstrom, vaporise and a turn completes out the core tricks. Rayje's belt just to lockdown anything nasty if need be. No hand protection there, nor spell discard which are the main drawbacks of the deck, but oh well, I don't expect to win with the deck.

I got BobbyDoc to play a game, he used one of his weaker decks that runs 3 Rayje's a whole host of nasty non-universal creatures. So I started first and got to play almost my entire hand of only one creature. Played the Urhail, then used the loaded dice and a fate's whimsy to make the next creature played lose 4 energy. Right, Rayje got flipped, grabbed a boots and a jewel and a construct and it's curtains for the Urhail. Arasyn only lasted 2 more turns as the construct got dream balmed back to life again and again. Oh well.

Gort'n flipped and grabbed the whimsy and played the chaos sphere. Rolling for her energize is weird, but at energize 2 base, she's wasn't too bad even with rolls of 2s and 3s. Bobby then had Granas out and played a Nightmare channel, which effective made her energize equal to the roll for the next few turns. Bobby played conservatively, while I laid out a Szalak each turn, followed with the trask and the drush. By the time Bobby's rayje's belt hit, I had 2 huge Szalak, 1 huge Trask and 1 huge Ravelled Drush in play. He proceeded to lockdown Szalak's power, but it was a bit too late. I just kept up the pressure and got rid of the 2 Granas and then his first magi. So much for that Rayje. Bobby flipped his second Rayje, did something illegal then ran into a crash and the game ended. Oh well.

Overall I like the 2 magi. I still think Gort'n's energize is a bit too high at 2, but after playing with it for a while it feels right, just like Wawek's felt right at 1. Arasyn is a bit on the weak side, but her power more tha makes up for her low energize. I'm going to swap out the Tremor Stones for the Crystal Lights though, to give her more of a story and to up her by a bit more. She'd be useless against creatureless decks though.

I haven't gone out of my way to break these cards, although I've got a weird idea in mind for them - I don't think anything that deals with dice can be broken (by too much), especially in MND where the random effect of dice can be a curse more than a blessing. These two magi gets my stamp of approval to get on the "tested" and "approved" list.

Weaving With Ashgar

Another day. Another deck.

This time I gave a Weave/Cald deck a little test run. We didn't finish the game, but the eebits in the other deck weren't holding up against the burn too well. Brushfire and a couple powers were dropping them quickly into a nice little grave. I did draw all three copies of Tomorrow's Jewel early into the game, as well as all three Warrior's Boots. We were unable to finish the game right then. My opponent was using a deck they had found on the internet. Good Ol' Ashgar was still going and had defeated Evil Evu and Scyalla so far. Eidon had flipped when they got an important phone call. The game was saved. I am not sure how the deck would work past Ashgar, but it was fun to get in a game today. That makes for one more deck from my recent spree of creation having been used at least once.

A Cald Tiller

I managed to get in my third test, or trial, of one of my recent creations. This time I used Tiller to lead off two Cald magi. Good Ol' Ashgar second with Garstev on the end. Tiller drew early and was burning some extra energy on regional penalties. However, I wasn't really displeased with his performance. A few Cald/Naroom creatures helped provide some breathing room. My opponent was playing a Kybar's Teeth deck. Ullig and her Slingshot can be a little annoying. Ullig took out Tiller and Good Ol' Ashgar slugged it out with Ullig. I made a few mistakes. One was forgeting a Brushfire already in the discard pile. Novelty was an observer in the game and asked about that. That would've been a lot cheaper than hitting with Wildfire across two opposing creatures just to keep on some pressure and wipe one out. Good Ol' Ashgar had Rayje's Shield in play and kept growing two Granas with it as he struggled to find some good cards to try create some Cald efficiency. As it is, other than another mistake upon Wessig, the second Kybar's Teeth magi, Good Ol' Ashgar did a modest job of fighting back. Toasting as much as possible in spells/powers helped minimize the damage from Ullig's Slingshot. As for Wessig, Wildfire was now a good choice, but I chose to attack and eliminate the wrong creature. The energy gained from the shield was lost at the beginning of their turn. When they played things out so that Wessig had no energy and one creature in play, they had also played Vertigo. This created a small dilemna. I had been hoping to use the Crushing Heat I had just drawn to make for a safer defeat of Wessig. Denied this since the creature was just a bit too big to be crushed without aid, I opted to sacrifice Good Ol' Ashgar instead. Using the Boomstick left him without energy and without creatures when Wessig's effect resolved. Targ'n tossed out four creatures. I had a good selection going into Garstev, so I tossed down one Ergar, two Giant Arboll, and one Ember Hyren. By the turns end, between spells and powers, there was no Kybar's creatures in play and at least one of them had been crushed to eliminate effects from his magi and relics. He did get two of my creatures on his next turn, but it was really game at that point. All I had to do was burn his only surviving creature since there was no energy on his magi. I made a lot of mistakes in that game, but I was generally pleased with things. Novelty did comment that it wasn't the best tournament deck he had seen that day. I don't think I would let that discourage me from playing this deck, but I still have several decks to test out before then too. Oh yeah, from what I saw, my opponent's deck was supposed to be a perpetual motion deck.

Turning on a Dime

I played 2 games today against tournament decks. I was using tournament deck as well... League Elder, Taisa and Wawek. I guess I should be there to provide an avenue for people to test out their tourney decks eventhough I'm not in the tourney. I'm not going to mention names in this report, so as not to give away the strategies.

First game I played, I went second. My opponent flipped Harresh and then proceeded to steal an Uwamar with Bottled city. The Uwamar was played out together with a Xala and I was faced with an ugly buildup on a first turn. I flipped LE, declared Weave, drew the Uwamar and drew to 5. Got 2 weave paths, a channeler's gloves and a bungaloo. Ack, only 2 creatures. Not the best draws, I thought to myself... and then inspiration struck. Played Channeler's to discard the 2 creatures. Played Weave Path to get back first the Uwamar, then the Bungaloo. Uwamar on 5, Bungaloo on 2. Attacked the stolen Uwamar with the Bungaloo weaving to discard both creatures, and by using Flee added another 2e to the Uwamar... and I ended the turn with 13e on LE, and a 6e Uwamar sitting around. Drew 5 cards - yes 5 cards. Over the next few turns, I gradually chipped away the advantage with my creatures, until about turn 8 when I played Weave seed and caused massive damage and took out Harresh with the now attacking Uwamar, thanks to Rayje's Belt. Played out my entire hand again, drew 5 and had a group of creatures, mostly at 1e and 2e, out. He flipped Bulomp and proceeded to play out Pyder and then another 8 creatures. The zunggs took out a creature, and I was left with 5 creatures. He discarded his arboll to add one energy to all his creatures, and ended the turn. So, I had 5 creatures vs 8, including a giant 10e Pyder. A weave seed and a lot of energy manipulation during the attack left only 1 creature on his board. They Pyder was the first creature to go, after the attack by the 14e Uwamar. I then proceeded to play out another 4 creatures, at which point he conceeded. It's a sad day when Weave can out swarm Bograth.

The second game was against someone who claimed to have an unbeatable deck, and a deck that would not go beyond turn 9. Well, I used the same deck since I was lazy to switch, but was hoping for a quick game anyways - Weave is weak against lots of unbeatable decks. Unbeatable, though, his deck was not. Dark Twins was followed by a Chaos Furok and Agram's armor and he stole a creature. What's this with creature stealing? Aren't I glad that all my creatures are 3e and below, and unless they have another Weave creature, mostly useless. I booted in an Uwamar on my turn, belted it, weave seed it and took out the stolen creature, but it took me quite some time to find the equilibrium. Not drawing a channeler's gloves means that my hand was getting clogged up, and his entombs didn't help in that regard as well. There were a few turns where I had to rely on the defensive abilities of the weave creatures I had in play - Baby Furok and Speag being chief among them, although with a few well placed Essense of Narooms he stole quite a few of my Uwamars (ha ha ha - they can't attack) and Baby Furoks. I finally managed to take out Dark Twins by turn 10, which left LE virtually defenseless. Warrada, Simulacrum was flipped and that was the end of LE... after two of his turns. I did manage to take out the Weebo before I was defeated and sawgrass the Forest Hyren that he had. Serves him right for attacking. I drew a Tweave which would have saved me (I had Uwamar beads out, he had a 3e Wudge and a 3e Baby Furok that he stole), but he vaporised the beads and killed LE. That left him 1e on Warrada and a 3e Wudge. LE left me a hand of 3 creatures and a useless weave seed, and I flipped Taisa and proceeded to draw her 4 starting cards (Weave Seed starts for all Weave magi) and he conceded at this point. I didn't even get to use Wawek and his energize of 4!

What I like about my Weave deck is that it can be both defensive and offensive. With the right cards in play, the Weave swarm can do massive damage. Without the right cards, it can bide its time preventing energy with the Weave Hut (the second player played a Crushing on my 4e Speag at one point, which was saved by the Weave Hut) and gaining energy when the opponent attacks when Speag is in play. And when the right cards are in play - Weave Seed, Rayje's Belt, Weave Path, Warrior's Boots - it can turn on a dime and deal a huge load of damage that can even have the Dark Twins shaking in their boots. Just today it has outswarmed Bograth and gained more free energy than a Shadow Naroom deck. It's still weak against quite a number of decks - cheif among them decks with swarm control - Arderial and Cataclysm, Cald and Wilfire, Orothe and Boil.

This deck won't have been made possible without Dartax's swarming article, although it threw out all the conventions of his aggrensive weave article. It's just a fun little deck that will probably lose 9 times out of 10... unless playing uninspired decks as mal puts it.

While I'm on Weave, mal told me that they found a good combo with Cawh and Scyalla. Well, roadblock city ahead. Scyalla had an errata that prevents that Cawh combo. Sorry. I won't reveal what the combo is, but it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board guys. Still, a Weave Cawh deck running Karse, Scyalla and Kesia probably would be deadly. I should be glad that isn't tournament legal... but who knows what mal's twisted mind will come up with for his Cawh decks. I can't wait to see a Cald Cawh deck though... that would be cool.

hawk hock hack

I have been advertising the various MND going-ons at a few places online of course... and this Insiider reply in particular takes the cake for being the most amusing one. I wonder what part of Rule #1 that people don't understand in the Slumber thread. It says "1. Post in this thread after the 1st of March 2005, the card text and flavour text of the Spell. It's cost is fixed as X." Well, simple solution really... anything not in that thread won't be considered for the competition. I'm glad I have rule #5 "The decision of Novelty is final." in there too, otherwise, I might get sued for not considering entries posted at who knows where.

What a Nightmare

NightmareMJ has just posted his first Shadowsfall Promo playtest on CCGW forums. It's not very well written, but I got the gist of it. Vintok may be a bit too powerful from the sounds of it so it'll get an upgrade. Mal has also posted a report on Auriolis, and although it's easier to understand, he didn't mention too much about how he was playing her. I guess he's saving a few things up his sleeve for future.

I think I'll end playtesting of SP by the end of April, so I'm going to make a push to wrap everything up before then.

Giant Furok

This evening was devoted to a business meeting. With only about forty-five minutes to spare before the meeting, I logged onto gEngine to either get in a quick game or build those four deck ideas I drafted in my planner. As it was, I managed to pick up a quick game. I know it is not yet time for the tournament, but I chose one of my possible decks for a quick test run. Tiller started off, followed by Evil Evu and Warrada, Simulacrum. The game did finish within the thirty or so minutes I had. It was a somewhat interesting game, so I think I will write a quick summary of some of the highlights.

Tiller tossed down a Furok and the Weebo he starts with on the first turn. A quick Bythan's Gift and that left an eleven energy Furok in play. A risky move. I was really worried that Sorreah would turn out to be his first magi and hit quickly and efficiently with Shockwave. As it was, they played Karse and his monstrous and much feared Cawh. With Overgrowth attached, it had potential to be a real long-term threat. On my next turn, I used Tiller's power to scrounge for cards. A quick Tap Roots evened out the two creatures. Cawh would survive the attack by three energy. With the energy returns from the Furok left Tiller in good shape to play Weebo back out and a Crushing Roots finished off the Cawh. On their next turn, they played a Drowl. Warrior's Boots with Alpine Xamf then setup a nice energy gain for a Wasperine. This was sufficient to overpower the Drowl and Karse. An Ormagon with Relaura finished off Tiller. Evil Evu answered with two Wasperines on an undefended Relaura. A Forest Jile boosted those Wasperines. Relaure played Spirit of the Moonlands. This would help their final magi, Gogor. With a good roll with his power, my creatures were toasted. Evil Evu would be left struggling. In the end, I would attack with a three energy creature on a Pylofuf and then played out the remaining energy on Evil Evu with a creature. This creature was destroyed on their turn in an attack. Warrada Simulacrum would toss out several Forest Wudge (all 3) and a Giant Carillion. I stomped one of the Pylofufs. They rolled a one on Gravelstorm, so they attacked to eliminate the carillion. I had another in hand, so I played out another and stomped the other Pylofuf. Gogor then played the third Pylofuf, adding energy to the beatup wudges. He then played out a couple spells attached to the Pylofuf. Overgrowth and Dream Channel. The first spell alone cut off the ability to use Gravelstorm. Once this happened, I breathed a whole lot easier. Another Bythan's Gift and the Giant Carillion was quite ready to stomp once again. This is where the game ended with "gg." Gogor wouldn't have survived the turn without Spirit of Rayje.

That was a good test of that deck. With nine more decks and a limited time to work with, I wonder what I will play with. I already played a half game with another of the eleven ideas. I know I won't have time to even test half of the decks. I figure at least a third of them probably have some real issues keeping them from being good decks, but without testing I don't think I will know what is their problem(s) yet.

Old Europe... meet new MND!

The sign-ups for the tournament is still going on and there seems to be a frenzy of deckbuilding (not to mention boasting) in the gEngine MND chatroom. It's interesting though, but I think I'm going to take a backseat and be a fly on the wall. I'm already feeling ragged by the number of questions that people have been directing at me.

Slumber has been getting quite a few more entries. All I will say at this point is that some people really need to edit their text to make their cards written in the MND-way. As I told Mitch months back... get a card which is similar to what you want to do, copy the style of the text and change whatever you need to change. That's how he won last month's comp, good ideas + good MND-style text. My judging style isn't going to change this month, so anyone who's reading this who already has an entry, think about what I said above. If you don't already have an entry... please do consider what I said above.

Now, I just recently found out from a major CCG publishing company that they limit the number of lines of text per card. Well, something that has gone into my card design notebook. Don't make cards too verbose, this isn't fan fiction, articles or tournament report, it's card making and the text has to be concise and precise. That's a tall order.

The title of this blog though, is a reference to the fact that now that the European players have gotten more interested in the tournaments and everything that's happening, they are playing with more of the custom cards as well. That's a good thing, IMO. (Yes, Mitch, it's not IMHO according to certain people.)

And I've gotten carried away again! Way too much text. I've also got to enable anonymous comments for this blog... one of these days...

March Fever

Who's idea was the tournament format for March? I don't mind too much. It has just got me in a fever of deck creation. Last month's tournament fit a deck I already had. This time, I will need a deck I didn't have prebuilt. In just four days, I have drafted out ideas for eleven decks now. Seven are already entered into gEngine with four as quick notes in my planner. With my weekend already scheduled full of stuff, I am not sure I will have time to play any Magi-Nation until Sunday night at the earliest. Good thing the tournament doesn't start until the seventeenth. Part of me can't wait. Maybe I'll stop drafting up all these decks once it has started. Actually, I anticipate this creation craze will slow down soon. If not, what am I going to do? It's a good month to be excited for me. I am enjoying this.

MND vs Star Wars

We were just doing stupid things in the MND chatroom when Timmie showed up. One thing lead to another and we ended up trading equivalents between MND regions and Star War planets.

This is what we have so far:

Arderial vs Bespin (Cloud City)
Bograth vs Dagobah
Core vs Korriban
d'Resh vs Tatooine
KT vs Geonosis
Naroom vs Endor
Nar vs Hoth
Orothe vs Kamino
Paradwyn vs Naboo

Well, there's still Cald, Underneath and Weave to go, but there's also one more movie to go, I guess. Feel free to comment on this.

Family

Today, I showed my wife this blog. This led to the CCG Workshop and showing her the tournament report. I was thinking that I would just show her that it managed to make it as an article on the front page with the additions of the card images and such by Novelty. As I started to scroll down to show her what it looked like, she told me to stop. It was something her husband had wrote and she wanted to read it. I got up out of the chair and gave her the seat in front of the computer. This way, I would not be tempted in my excitement of show and tell to scroll faster than she was reading. She actually knows a little about how to play Magi-Nation. I think the strategy scares her off a bit right now. Games she likes are Tetris, Solitaire, and Yahtzee. There are more, of course. I really don't want to list them all, in part because I don't know what are all the games she does enjoy.

That's not like my sister who doesn't have much time to play games but actually took to Magi-Nation quite well, quite quickly. Last time I played her, I had to go full out with a mid-level deck against a deck I built for her from just commons and uncommons. My sister won. This is the same sister who drew the creature Dartette. I hope you'll get to see more of her Magi-Nation related artwork in the future. Next time I play my sister, I think I might just have to use one of my tournament grade decks. That probably won't be for a while though. We still have yet to get in another game of Go as well. The last game I got to play her was Connect Four. She got a full-size board just this past Christmas and was thrilled. Annette did point out that the game illustrated on the cover is the worst game she's ever seen.

Stop that Thief!

I was right - stealing a card that has an effect relating to the steal gives the stealer the ability to trigger those effects. So steal a Karak Necklace, draw 2 cards. Steal a Karak Band, gain 2 energy on your magi. Steal a Corathan, get a card from discard. Not too bad really. Of course, anti-theft is going to be big too.

Ritual Niffer

Jonny was asking about Niffer earlier. He's gonna use her to declare Weave to get a Weave Powder to get a Ritual spear. That sounds complicated, but I suppose there's a Weave or a KT magi in his deck he wants to bring back.

I won't be surprised though if Niffer and League Elder are the 2 magi being splashed in for this month's tournament. They are going to be popular in the multi-region magi format.

Giant Carillion?

When I read the reference to Giant Carillion, I can't help but think of the recent tournament on gEngine. I had participated with a Naroom deck with three of those monsters. Oh, the Naroom goodness!

Fortunately, I am human and not a Giant Carillion. Among other things, this means I can learn and adapt. Since participating in a blog like this is a first for me, I will need to learn more. If nothing else, I will need to learn to write faster.

I am signed up for the March tournament of Magi-Nation on gEngine. This tournament excites me. Not because I hope to win, but because it has me dreaming up a variety of new decks. Decks that I don't know if they will even work. There's a good chance I will go with something more proven, but that won't stop me from wanting to play my other recent creations in any casual games I pick up before and during the tournament later this month.

A CCGW MND group project

Yeah, that's right, this is a group project.

I was reading dartax's tournament report and thought - hey, that is actually good as a blog. So I approached dartax about the idea of blogging about MND together and he agreed. So here we are.

This blog is still new, things will change around in a bit once I get the time to do stuff. Meanwhile enjoy the Naroom-ish ambiance and hope that Giant Carillion isn't gonna stomp on ya.

Day 1 of Slumber finishes with 2 entries

Well, only 2 entries for Slumber, but I do admit, this card is harder to make than the Blue Furok. Anyone who wish to try their hand and/or read about it may head to this post.

The CCGW blurb:
SLUMBER is the follow-up to the Keeper's Question series of competition. Keeper's Quest will be a set of 4 promo cards designed specifically for gEngine based around the artwork from the puzzle game of the same name. Now you get to have your chance to design the second card of the series, SLUMBER. The rules is available at Novelty's Custom Cards Forum and entries for the competition should be posted at that same thread. The grand prize winner will get 5 copper tokens and an automatic win for the March Elder's Legacy tourney.

And Day 1 of signups finishes

It's almost midnight engine time and 7 people have signed up for the tournament. I can't believe how popular it is. I hope all 7 of them will at least make the effort to play the games in this tournament. Sign-ups and rules are available on this CCG Workshop forum post.

The CCGW blurb:
March's Elder's Legacy tournament is scheduled to begin on the 17th of March. Rules and the sign-ups for the tournament is now open. The prize pot for this tournament is also 15 coppers to be given out at the beginning of April.