Fresh Swamp Stench

Today, I played a game with a new player. Unfortunately, it was not finished, nor did I write down their name before I was called off to dinner (which is why it was not finished). The game was saved, so hopefully we might have a chance to finish the game. From what I saw of their deck and gameplay, they weren't kidding about being a fresh player to Magi-Nation. Apparently they picked up a box locally for cheap and have since been playing online since they have had trouble picking up games otherwise.

My opening mistake was playing my Weave deck. Then, not knowing how good they might really be, I really didn't know that I should've skipped pulling Ahdar's starting Uwamar. The problem with Uwamar is that it gains energy when I play creatures, but to get the energy off the Uwamar I must keep a number of other creatures in play. This allows me to gradually kill off my own creature so that a less skilled player isn't facing a perpetual barrier in the form of a creature that cannot attack. What gets challenging is that to play another creature to remove energy from the Uwamar then triggers the Uwamar's effect and adds some more energy I must try to remove. Reweave on a couple Sagaweaves really helped Ahdar shrink his impressive creature. Wiep went down to Ahdar and Olabra took out Ahdar. By not weaving in attacks with Kesia, the game ended with Kesia taking a severe hit from Olabra, which is good. I was trying to keep the power level on my end way down as I sort of estimated the skill of the newbie. At the point to the game was saved, Kesia was not doing too well and my opponent was beginning to take more initiative and demonstrating a more aggressive style. This was good and all desirable in my book. It was a complete side bonus that my hand had been almost completely messed up in my efforts as well. This makes the game a little more fun since I wouldn't have to stretch as far any more to play not so well. In other words, I played a lot of my good cards poorly and they finally had attained a good position.

Taking My Lumps

I got in a second game for the October tournament. This time I played joethemexican. Ahdar tossed down a fairly good opening, but Magam Flamesmith tore into and began fueling Cald with the goggles and the soft card draw from burning me into oblivion. And, thus it went. Magam destroyed Ahdar. Kesia was helpless against Crushing Heat. Only Bo'Ahsa stood a small chance. With a good starting energy, she tossed down a couple Seaweed Lascinth and other distractions. Something was hopefully going to survive. All it took was Weave Seed on a single Seaweed Lascinth and Magam finally went down in defeat. After this, I could only hope that perhaps Bo'Ahsa might get a turn or two to try and turn the battle back around. Barak the Red didn't even flinch. He just chuckled, tossed out a swarm of critters, and burned her to a crisp on the spot. I know this isn't quite the little coverage I've given of my games, but this game really didn't offer much to write about. Magam Flamesmith can be really impressive. I knew this before from my own experiences with Cald destroying my Naroom opponents....

Still, it can hurt to lose like that. This was almost a one way battle. You can feel so inadequate when you lose a battle without even putting in the good fight. Sure, I had a moment, but only a brief one. I don't know if I could have done anything different... even my open version of Weave has never faced the raw energy advantage that Magam Flamesmith offers with her two effects. I begin to wonder if even my open Weave could handle that. I doubt it. Should I consider building a new Junjertrug deck? Maybe, but Weave is only one of the regions I play.

I will still stick with this deck. I made that personal choice. I will live with it.

Well, time for me to get some sleep.

Return to the field

With moving to another state for a new job, I haven't been able to get in any games of Magi-Nation for a while. Since my new job requires access to the internet, I was given a loaner computer. Hooray! One step closer to online participation. I've only entered a few decks into this computer so far. Each deck met the requirements for the October tournament, though about half the decks are restricted and the other half open with just one Elder's Legacy deck.

Arderial - open
Cald - open
Nar - restricted (open version has Crystallize instead of Warrior's Boots)
Naroom - Elder's Legacy (in Novelty's Custom Card Forums)
Orothe - restricted (Brother's of Vengeance)
Paradwyn - open (not entirely entered as of this post)
Weave - restricted

Tonight, CapAp accepted the challenge for a tournament game. I ended up going with Weave. Since it seems that I'll have to stay with one region for the tournament, it looks like I'll be playing Weave for the rest of it. Chances are that I'll use the same deck too.

My preference with Weave is to attack a lot. A lot! So, the defenses of Underneath put a real damper on my game. This isn't the way my deck was built to conduct its battles. Still, it was fun. Lots of fun to take the deck and have Kesia keep Trygar on the ropes. Since Kesia is my second magi, this meant Ahdar had made the sacrifice to set her up. Three Tropical Jumbor and a single Drowl went after opposing creatures in an ongoing battle to break the defenses of Underneath, mostly attacking with the Drowl and letting the Tropical Jumbors grow and grow. Kesia had twelve energy just sitting on her with her smallest creature at eleven energy when she defeated Trygar. His effect placed a Freep down. This set up Trug's Cataclysm. Each down to our last magi, and the end of each our draw piles as well, I tossed out my final magi, Bo'Ahsa. With Warrior's Boots in the hand, I played a conservative Uwamar and Drowl setup. By the time CapAp finished with Fossik's turn, an impact had eliminated Bo'Ahsa's energy and a couple other spells and powers finished off her two creatures. It was a fun game. I was very pleased with it. I gather that CapAp may have enjoyed the game too. I am glad I went with the Weave deck.