Core Choking

I was reorganizing some of my decks tonight when LegendLowe appeared and asked if I wanted to play a game. They had a deck they wanted to test, so I chose one of my untested decks, a Tainted Glimpses deck based on choking energize rates. I will write a summary here on the game and create an actual analysis of the cards I was using on the custom card forums soon. Hopefully, you will see why from the game that some sort of official feedback be given on the cards I chose to put in my deck.

Warrada started off as my first magi. She tossed out fairly well with two creatures and her ring. LegendLowe then flipped over Scyalla and declared that the arbolls they played were now Weave. Scyalla actually got a good start and Warrada had to fight a steady battle. I am not sure where they got the idea to use arbolls, but it was somewhat refreshing to see something not tried often. With card draw from the ring, I started an early choke on Scyalla with both Nightmare Channel and the Collar of Despair. They attacked my creature with the spell attached to eliminate Nightmare Channel, but I had another copy available to keep things choked. Warrada did get the upper hand, but I chose to leave her spent near the end. The deck was built to test Fug and I didn't want to go all the way with Warrada whether I could or not, so it ended up being a battle between Fug and Kesia. They began some impressive energy tricks by using the Rock Yajo to give arbolls or the Uwamar the power from a Cragnoc. Kesia had massive energy to work with quickly. I turned the Cragnoc and used its power. Not a very good roll though, so Fug was still behind with this beginning. I did toss out the Collar of Despair and a Nightmare Channel, this time choosing their Uwamar and Fug for the spell's targets. Fug had a massive energy disadvantage to overcome. It took a number of turns, and surviving a couple Weave Winds, but Fug managed to hold on and turn the Grass Hyren. With a good defense, stolen from Weave, Fug was doing alright. A Wudge proved to be an excellent distraction while he was still tried to come from behind in the battle against Kesia. To his advantage, although the arbolls were now Weave, they didn't have the effect weave to go with. Warrada's Ring was making huge leaps and bounds in card draw and saving energy. After losing a Grim Pyder earlier to attacks by LegendLowe, Fug managed to have a situation where playing a couple more was possible and good, one for himself and one for Kesia. Shortly after, he tossed down a second Nightmare Channel choosing Kesia this time and the same Uwamar. Kesia was totally choked by this, having finally worked through the massive energy she had started the battle with. Fug was making good use of Wudge and a couple Raveled Drush in play. Vile prevented Kesia from sacrificing her Grim Pyder in a suicidal attack, and so LegendLowe maintained the destruction of Grim Pyder by attacking Fug's copy using a two energy Cragnoc. With little or no energy and no remaining energize rate, Kesia had nothing to do except draw cards. I didn't make LegendLowe suffer too many turns like that, only two, or three if you count my turn between them. So, things were looking real nice for one of my turns and then I attacked on the next. This cost me the copies of Nightmare Channel, so I had to play out another Grim Pyder since LegendLowe had made it good practice to attack the ones I had in play on my side of the field. Kesia was defeated by the attacks. In addition to a Grim Pyder, Fug also attached a Corrupt to himself, leaving Quirle was in a tight spot. They played a Speag first. This was followed by a Cragnoc, another Speag, and Rock Yajo. Quirle resumed the energy tricks. This time the spell Heal entered the mix. The first copy was used on the Speag and they crossed the power of the Cragnoc like before. After using the powers of both the Speag and the Cragnoc, they played another Heal. This time I silently crossed my fingers that they would heal the Cragnoc with all of it. Anything less than the full heal and it would be ripe for Turn. Since they didn't fully heal the Cragnoc and devoted some to the Speag, I used Warrada's Ring to reduce the cost of my Core cards so my twelve energy was barely enough to steal the Cragnoc from Quirle. At this point LegendLowe declared "gg" and then we spent some length of time chatting in the game still about the status of Magi-Nation.

I got the strong impression that LegendLowe didn't really like the custom cards and didn't feel they were properly balanced. This is probably triggered in part due to having Kesia totally shutdown and I realize that this is the condition and problem that got Nightmare Channel changed so that only one could effect a magi at a time. Because of this, I really do need to write a report in the custom card forums. I may have skipped this for the Arderial deck since so much of that game really didn't test the cards much.... although that was fun and humorous to have the only Aurora Xyx that I played used against me. As for this game with LegendLowe, I do hope that they return to play some more on gatlingEngine. I have plenty of open and restricted decks without custom cards in them too.