Suggestions needed.

Two completely different things here...

Double Jeopardy has been previewing cards all over the internet... and 6 of the 7 cards have already been previewed (check the CCGW forum thread to see where they are). I'm at a lost as to where to preview the 7th card, so I'm open to suggestions. The site should be one with a predominate MND content though, so if anyone wants to suggest anything, please feel free to comment.

Also, since Exodus Flight will be made for gEngine players, I'm giving the opportunity to the players to comment on the cards and images. The cards can be seen in the Custom Cards site and comments are being solicitated Exodus Flight Forum. All comments from regular gEngine players are welcomed, but note that text and FT for the cards are not being accepted just yet.

eXodus Postscript

Jen Reed submitted one image after I finished with the card templating earlier. Anyways, here's her new image templated as a card. Yeah, I think this will make it into EF as well, but without the text.



Please keep in mind that all eXodus cards are designed for the RP and not the CCG. The RP is a completely different game with a different set of rules, and thus the cards are not compatible with the CCG.

Exodus Flight (EF) is the set of custom fan-made CCG cards based on the art and names of the eXodus cards, but the text will be rewritten so that they can be played with the CCG.

eXodus and Away

These are the last few images of the current batch of eXodus stuff. I'd say, there are some rather good images out of this batch and I did enjoy templating them.

Blitzkrieg (Jeffry Ransom) as usual monopolises the entire batch with his markers and pencil renditions of some of the artwork.




FlameRaven (Beth Zyglowicz) isn't far behind with her renditions of cuteness and power.




New artist Krosios (John Lytle) joins the fray with this freshman piece of instant turf. Great markers, no background.



And this last image is by Scar (Scott Montgomery) whose images aren't too often featured on custom cards.



Well, even with the 6 above, I'd say Balde Eebit and Ring of Power are a definate for EF. Osatch Balm is a maybe... and as for the rest, well, let's just say that they should be happy they made it into eXodus.

Under Mountain Dew eXodus

Working though another 5 cards for eXodus. Insiider can only take 5 images max as attachments, so I'm doing a max of 5 a day. Underneath and Paradwyn this time around. Nothing outstanding from the usual suspects though.

Let's start with Austin Gardner (WindRider) and another two of his tryter. When I saw the paradwyn one, I thought it was an Arderial or Orothe creature. I'd never would have guessed it was Paradwyn. The Rubble Tryter is nice, I just wish it was drawn a bit more 3D.




Beth Zyglowicz (FlameRaven) was complaining that I was distorting her images when I template them. Well, I retorted that if she had the proper dimensions, I wouldn't need to distort them. The Bisiwog seer below is a good case in point. The Drop-lens Goggles though is good.




And to finish it off, here's one of Jeffry Ransom's usual manual pencils and markers image. The background looks too plain, but I guess it works for a relic.



Heh, which one of these cards will make it into EF? I'm going to guess that only the goggles might have a chance, and even then that's a slim chance.

Wet Trees eXodus

Three more images for Naroom and Orothe, as I move though the list of images for eXodus. Blitz doesn't have an image represented here, which is interesting.

First off is an original FlameRaven. Beth Zyglowicz's image had to be distorted slightly to get it to fit the rectangle, but I don't think it looks too bad.


Jeffry suggested that this Whyrl image be used for Miraculous growth. I think it would look better as a magi, since it is one of Alison Strom's RP character.


Last but not least is an image by Austin Kestler (ssjhyren). It's mere colour pencils with no background originally, but it does show a lot of promise. I just gave it a quick simple background to make it look interesting.


So there you have it. Of the three, I guess only the Stagadan will make it into EF. I think the Whyrl image will be made into a magi in EF.

Icy Teeth Exodus

KT and Nar follows next and there are a few good cards mixed in with some great cards.

First off, Beth Zyglowicz's Onyx Ithaper is drawn with her new retro-60s Power Puff Girl style. I think she's really getting into her grove with this artistic style.



Here's Yora by Cody Shipman and coloured by Austin Gardner. This was the first image that Windy coloured that he didn't draw. I like the way the clouds turned out in the image.



Austin has his own creature with another one of this Tryters, complete with a Holmberg background. Hail Tryter!:



To round off the list, the following three are by Jeffry Ransom, with background images by Holmberg for the creatures and myself for the Relic. Note the colour pencils, but in all three cases, the colouring is of exceptional quality. It's a pity he doesn't colour with the computer.





I like the Ithapher, and the Weebo... I guess those are making it into EF, together with the Yora.

Dark Desert eXodus?

I'm trying to burn (no pun intended) through templating the eXodus cards with coloured images. It seems I'm facing an uphill struggle. Another one just got added today bring up the total to well, more than I can count with my fingers anyways. I suppose it's best I counter with some templating of my own.

First off is Shadowsfall main artist (chaoshyren) Jen Reed's Smog Vahsp. I really like this Vahsp, although I think I botched the background slightly. Oh well.


Jeffry Ransom as head RPG mod Blitz has his usual amount of images, this time a d'Resh creature and relic. I think the staff was a good touch, but really, his talents are wasted with pencils and markers. I'm sure he can do much better with a computer if he puts his mind to it, but I digress...



One person who has been getting better with artwork is Austin Gardner (WindRider - yes, it's Austin, not Alex. Don't ask me why I keep on referring to him as Alex...). Here's an Izmer done with a FlameRaven styled background. It's good to see someone progress with pencils and markers to plain computer shading to something a bit more complex with a background. OK, I'm digressing again...


Talking about FlameRaven, here's one of Beth Zyglowicz's image. Her style is bold, which is slightly different from Holmberg's (and Whryl's), but it works and it says FlameRaven. I had to rename the card though, to get the title to fit.


Well, I'm going to take 3 of the above cards into EF (sorry Jeffry). It's really exciting to see such good custom artwork for MND cards. Next up, KT!

A Long Battle

And, hopefully, a quick post. With time enough for two games tonight, or so I thought, I played a second game. Since the opponent mentioned that they didn't want to play against creatureless or nearly creatureless, I opted to go with my deck designed to go against creatureless. It has a good mix of creatures in it. It's just a matter of the selection of everything that is supposed to make it perform better the less creatures the opponent uses. For example, Storm of Fishes.

Well, this game lasted far longer than I would've anticipated. I suspected from the comment that their deck might be mostly creatures. I knew that my chosen deck would be weaker there. As it was, their deck was definitely outclassing mine, almost as expected. However, after using all three Cataclysm (probably a first for me), we were both struggling uphill. They had put almost everything into play at that point and were for some time trying to draw back into some creatures. On the bottom end of the energy pool, I was regretting all the Orothe creatures that got ditched into my discard pile. However, each time I used Cataclysm it was nearly a must. A Naroom-Eidon swarm can be nasty. In the end, Eidon took the game. Some good moves cost me my Orathan Flyers with Niffer, my last chance to turn things around. Without them, the energy advantage in creatures was all in favor of Naroom. With Twees recurring a few things and Ancestral Flute in their favor, my deck just couldn't regain a solid foothold. However, things did go back and forth as my deck tried to hold on for dear life and their deck struggled to recover from the cataclysm it endured. A very interesting struggle it was, too. And, a very long one. I am getting to bed a lot later than I had planned for.

Testing Without Testing

I sort of forgot about Novelty offering some tokens for playtesting and submitting a report on it. With a few extra tokens, I thought I would spend them testing some more. Now, it is just a matter of free time to do so. As it is, I found a little time to spare tonight.

CapAp started a game and I asked if it was okay if I used a Tainted Glimpses test deck. I chose to go with a Cald deck I had put together some time ago. CapAp led off with Celebrated Hero. Going first with Gogor's Spade and a creature should've been a great advantage. Except, we're talking about Cald here. Burn. Burn. Burn. The Cave Rudwot died quickly and Magam, Flamesmith gained the upper hand with an Ergar in play. My next turn added a Giant Arboll to that. The creatures from the mountains then were Ambushed and burned some more. Celebrated Hero was defeated by the power Spark granted by the Ergar and the calders did not attack once. Powers only. Kazm flipped next. The wonder magi of Kybar's Teeth really did toss down good. However, Cald was up to the task and Magam tossed out a second Ergar after toasting one opposing creature just shy of defeat, plus a Spark Chogo and a Magma Hyren. She began to tear into Kazm's creatures. That's when CapAp declared thanks for the fun game and logged out. I did have two copies of Pyre Grag in hand, but with a power to discard and I was hoping to maximize the card draw of Gorgle's Glasses at the moment so they didn't get tested. Nor did I get past Magam, Flamesmith to test Kyndle. Oh, well. Nothing tested. No report. Everything played was standard Cald, although all the energy management of Cald confused CapAp a bit. Ergar. Giant Arboll. Deadly combo. Can be confusing keeping track of it all though.

RE: eXodus?

Well, I'm going through the regions alphabetically again. More people have contributed artwork to the set, although, I don't think everything is stellar. I have had to provide background to most of these and well, let's just say that I haven't been stellar as well.

Talking about stars, let's start with the Star Orshaa by Beth Zyglowicz (FlameRaven). It seems she's getting her own style that's seems to be a bigger departure from Holmberg. Nothing wrong there though.



Austin Gardner (WindRider) submitted 4 Tryters. He's apparently been testing with the burn and dodge tool to attempt to get his images a bit more 3D. These aren't too bad, but they still seem a bit flat to me. The first one is shown below.



Jeffry Ransom (Blitzkrieg) as usual has a whole host of creatures in markers and colour pencils. The bolobog looks nice, it's a pity it's not coloured with a computer. I did some touch up work on the images and got photoshop to throw in some generic background in addition to the holmberg stuff.




Next up: Core, d'Resh and KT.

eXodus Spell-ing

I went back into the RP forums and to my surprise found that there are now a lot more artwork for eXodus. I decided to start with the easier ones though, so I took on the 5 spells. Note that most of the images have already been used for the custom cards...

Liam provides a quick image for the Cald card Ember. Don't ask me how that is a spell, I'm just templating the cards.



The other 4 cards have images provided by Alison Strom aka Whyrl.






Note that Duplicate has been used for the Double Jeopardy magi Shaper Twins, Tropical Humidity has been split into three cards - Darunia (TG), Ardit and Radiant Falls (both TW), and the background is also used for Paradise Hyren (TW). Scarletsong Fever has also been split into two TW cards - the Paradwyn magi Bigil and the Bograth creature Muck Vahsp. Well, there's only one source of images... I don't think any of these 5 cards are going to make it into Exodus Flight.

Tainted Weave Attacks

Well, it looks like I am getting in my desired three to four games almost all at once this month. I was online to work on building some more of my test decks for Tainted Glimpses as BobbyDoc2 was giving some advice to xXGoramXx on making some improvements to their defensive Weave deck. When xXGoramXx asked for someone to play, I chose to swap my deck up to my test deck for Weave. I run aggro Weave instead of defensive, so my deck was in theory playing into the very area their deck was supposed to function. Not that I've found the two approaches to be always balanced when pitted against each other....

xXGoramXx went first with Zaya. That starting Grass Hyren would serve them well for a few turns. Ahdar started off with the massive energy gains the Uwamar. In a bit of a fluke, I started with all creatures in my hand. Playing most of them out, including a Vuryip, would create a massive energy advantage with that Uwamar. Zaya tossed down a Jumbor and taunted my creatures. The Uwamar sat there while everything else stampeded across going for the Speag in the very first attack. Weaving to the Vuryip ensured that the Speag couldn't survive and gain any energy in my subsequent attacks. The card draw would help too. Ahdar managed to take out Zaya and make a strong assault on Kesia, almost always weaving off of the Uwamar to whichever creature was making an attack. The strong assault on Kesia left her struggling for creatures even though she took out Ahdar with just a little effort. At this point he only had that Uwamar left to which Photosynthesis had just been attached. Weave Seed on a creature took out the Uwamar and Ahdar. Crasz then flipped and used a Sawgrass I had kept in hand. Brushfire softened up the other creature Kesia controlled. Drowl and Rabid Sagaweave gave Crasz a little shield and the power of the sagaweave eliminated the other creature. While I still played some aggressive Weave from this point, my game shifted a more defensive play. Frequently, I would use a spell or another creature to soften something up and then finish it with the power of the Rabid Sagaweave. I even got in a couple chances to use it's effect. The first time ditched a Weave Seed into my discard pile. Ouch! I had already played the other two by this point, one of which just earlier in that same turn. The second time placed my third Uwamar into play shortly after the second Uwamar had been set down. By this time, Crasz was past Kesia and was working their way through Bo'Ahsa. It was getting to be a Weave swarm. Quite often just using Brushfire from the discard pile and following it up with Poison. xXGoramXx ended having to leave before the game finished. However, I feel it safe to say that Crasz would've won the game, it was just a matter of how soon, maybe just with another turn or two.

Like my game with the Underneath test deck, I posted a review on Novelty's Custom Card Forums. While writing the report, I wondered if I should've played the Underneath deck again instead and posted another report there instead. Then again, with at least one deck designed, or being designed, for each region, I will have a lot of decks to test out. This one part of Magi-Nation I enjoy. Trying something a little different. There are many cards for Tainted Glimpses I will leave to others to test because I don't think I can wrap my skills around playing the game in a way to make them work. In other words, my style is wrong for them.

Fighting the Hurricane

For my second game this month, surprisingly quick after the other one, I had the opportunity to play NightmareMJ. I found out that they live in the Florida Keys where a bunch of commotion is happening due to a real life hurricane. In honor of that, they put together a hurricane deck.

I had an Underneath deck completely untested, although it was based heavily off of my own burrow deck. So, it was burrow with some Tainted Glimpses versus a hurricane.

Burrow dug in deep early on. Although NightmareMJ went first and started off with Sorreah, getting the Hidden Door among Romura's starters really made a good opening. Coming up with the other copy in the starting hand, I chose to play both copies fetching all four of my relics, two Digging Goggles, Strag's Ring, and Strag's Claws. Tossing down with a Burrowed Weebo and using the relic to burrow Moldy Syre, Sorreah gained some energy from the Hurricane Orish and lost the Flutter Yup to the Syre's power. It took a couple turns, but attacking with two burrowed creatures and Strag's Claws was a powerful opening. This left only one copy of Digging Goggles in my hand. Trogovo did make a showing. This cut into my energize, but the original deck this was based on is meant to survive at four and five for an energize rate. When Voice of the storm flipped, the Hurricane Orish returned and was accompanied by a Xyx Minor. Tidal Wave took both my burrowed creatures. I ended up sacrificing the Trogovo to beat a real big and ugly looking Hurricane Orish. The goal was to get it without triggering its effect. Storm Shield had really boosted it up. With no energy on Voice, Abwyn's Quill couldn't rewrite the Ormalet. It didn't seem like Voice lasted long. For the final magi, NightmareMJ revealed Velouria. That made the deck look very interesting.

At this point I am regretting that this game was rather one sided for two reasons. First, I don't remember who my second magi is. I didn't even remember that Romura was first. Two of the magi are in here from Tainted Glimpses, but I don't recall the order. Second, it looks like NightmareMJ has put together something really cool, but I am only getting glimpses and hints thus far.

Now, I am not sure which magi hit me with Storm of Fishes, but it did wipe out some of my cool spell combos. However, I was really strong in the creatures at that point since the first Trogovo had been left in play a couple turns. Velouria tossed out good with an Orathan Flyer and Brannix. That was solved with hitting the Flyer with my burrowed Ormalet. My critter was small, so it didn't make for an automatic kill. However, one Crystal Arboll and Urigant later, the Ormalet used its power. No more Orathan Flyer, so I turned Strag's Ring from burrowing my critters to targeting the Brannix which is conveniently dug up by own Urigant. In the end Romura went all the way when Velouria gambled with an Xyx Elder dice roll leaving the magi without energy and without creatures.

Now that I think about it, I should've just peeked at my next magi before I logged out of the game. Then, I would know who comes next and could've made a note somewhere to remind myself.

Three In Free-For-All

It has been long time since I've posted here. This matches with the long period since I last played a game on gEngine. I did get in some games of Magi-Nation locally which was quite a surprise.

Well, I was most fortunate to be online and get in a game with malovis and ultradoug. Malovis started with that Trug deck he mentioned here, while ultradoug went with Arderial-Orothe. As for myself, I went with Weave. With Trug's powerful start, I was a little nervous. My Weave has never featured any anti-burrow. This spelled trouble for me. It was a fun game. Trug actually went down to Warrior's Boots after everything was cleared out with Cataclysm. Malovis went first in the order, so they got a creature. It took a Weave Seed to get in the necessary strikes with the booted in creature to defeat Trug. In the end, we were all on our final magi when malovis played Resonate to get the last of my surviving creature and the last two energy on my magi. This was followed by an attack with a massive Pylofuf against ultradoug's final magi. Close game. Good game. Lots of twists and turns. It is good to be back.

I don't have the free time I once did not so long ago, but I plan to stay true to this game. Expect to see me a little more often on gEngine now that I am getting a little more used to my new schedule. Maybe I'll find some time to test some new decks I'm tinkering with to test a selection of cards from Tainted Glimpses.

101s

Remember school and there was lots of 101s that you had to do before you can do the other courses? Those were always the real basics, the "introductory" stuff, the "get to know" bits and pieces.

Well, in MND, a "101" is something like that - it gives an overview of the cards, the good, the bad and the ugly and it touches briefly on the strategies, but it doesn't go into detail with either. I wrote a Paradwyn 101 a while ago, and updated it just recently to include Elder's Legacy. The four parter may be found at:

CCG Workshop:
Introduction and Magi
Relics
Spells
Creatures

Insiider:
Paradwyn 101

So, anyone has enough free time this summer to write up a 101 for their favourite region?