Waterfalls

My third game for the tournament ended up being with godofchaos. Sunday night I had a little time to play.

Aula Mindseeker went first. I got a hand full of creatures. Not bad, just no Sea Barl. When I want to draw like mad with Aula, this scared me. Thinking I could try and salvage something, I used her power with the starting Typhoon and netted a Submerge and Undertow. She would end up tossing down big with a Coral Hyren and Sarazen Keeper. Between the Keeper and Submerge, she had two big creatures in play. Godofchaos played out a Crystal Arboll, Parmalag, and an Urhail. Crystal Arboll used its power to bless the Parmalag. This left Motash with a bit of energy and two big creatures in play by the end of the turn. Undertow took out the Parmalag, and my two creatures slammed into the opposition to take out Motash swiftly. I had two energy to spare, so I was hoping to play out another Sarazen Keeper after I energized and draw into the deck a little more before Aula went down. This would not be. Godofchaos flipped over Fossik Ringsmith and used Crushing Fungus. With both a Parmalag and Rabid Bisiwog in play, I chose to attack the Parmalag and hope for an Undertow or Tidal Wave since there should be good odds at one or the other in my deck, or sufficient card draw to net them. It was a gamble, but both those Underneath creatures make for a powerful offensive. Without my energize, Aula couldn't do much else. What meager card draw I did have in hand, I couldn't even play, and none of the other two Typhoons were in sight. Fossik took out Aula in the next turn. With Crystal Jile to help Fossik with energy, a Trogovo would help him net a bunch of cards. Quilla would be my last hope at this point. Using an Orlon's Ring deck with her high energize is where this deck can excel. I was crossing my fingers and hoping for an Underneath relic to steal and nab a couple cards with Karak Necklace. It wouldn't be. Quilla placed out two Sarazen Keeper and a Wellisk. I drew two cards with the powers at hand and hoped to net something useful. This is when Sea Barl appeared. Ouch! I could've used it before the play creature step. Fossik would crush the Wellisk and attack to eliminate both the Sarazen with just the Rabid Bisiwog (I did see that coming, but the crushing was the icing on the cake). While some Orlon's Ring energy gains saved Quilla from defeat then and there. She was short on energy to play much of anything. Unable to energize, I declared “gg” on my next turn. I had to laugh. All my massive card draw to help smooth out the deck and it didn't show until the very end. When it was too late, I finally had Sea Barl, plus Deep Barl and Owinda's Gift in my hand. A perfect combo for all the card draw I try to do.... I usually play Sea Barl without the other stuff just because this deck works that way. It was a fun loss. Quick game. Lots of fun. Everything was so entertaining.

The only problem was reporting the game results for the tournament. The report tab on gatlingEngine only listed the last three names in the tournament roster, none of which was what I needed.

Naroom Beats

I got in a game with Birdie21 earlier this week. Due to real life, I didn't get around to reporting on it until today. Most of my notes are actually quite simple and I tend to write my report within a day whenever possible. This did not happen.... so sad.

We played a tournament game. I went with my same deck, and Birdie21 flipped over Tryn as their first magi. They tossed down a Poad's Secret Sauce early on, plus Orwin's Ring? This is why I try to write my reports quickly. Doing so helps cement my memories of the game before they've faded too far.... Anyways, Tryn was into some massive Naroom energy tricks early on. Tryn would defeat Aula, Mindseeker. Quilla tossed out good. I was thinking it would be tight there at first, but I just might find a chance to squeak through when Tryn tossed down a single Warrior's Boots and a Balamant. Between everything Tryn had in play, this new creature was enough to guarantee Quilla made a very brief appearance.

To think that Naroom was my second choice to play instead of my Orlon's Ring deck. Oh, it was still fun to play this game, loss and all. I loved seeing Naroom make a strong showing by someone else.

Perhaps, next game, the real world might be kind enough to leave me time to play and write like I've been trying to. If I can manage that, then you might get a better report than this the next time I play on gatlingEngine.

Relic Games

Today I joined the tournament for February. I actually wasn't planning on it at first. When Snuff asked if I could play a tournament game with them, I went ahead and signed up. It was just a matter of picking a deck to play. All my decks are 40 card decks, so I just needed to pick one and modify the magi pile to just two magi to qualify... unless I was mistaken about the special rules for this month. While I was originally thinking I might go with my Elder's Legacy Naroom deck from a tournament a while back or possibly with a Weave deck using Kesia, I ended up choosing to go with my Orlon's Ring deck.

I went first in our first game. Aula, Mindseeker started off with her power as usual. Too bad I didn't have the Deep Barl and Sea Barl in hand before using her power. I would've loved to started off with all that card draw on the first turn. I chose not put in them in play so I could hold on to them for card draw instead of risking losing them. When Snuff flipped and tossed down a Wudge, that would hurt. Aula would hold on as long as possible, but I had to take a few turns of stealing Core's relics with Hubdra's Cube. Of course, the first shot of thefts took Secrets of the Book and didn't net me any cards. While the Wudge would rule things as I played creatures, this would also be telling later in the game. Morag defeated Aula and Quilla flipped over. Quilla would barely survive at first, but she would use the Orlon's Ring with Hubdra's Cube trick to steal Morag's relics. Morag responded by stealing Hubdra's Cube and using it to steal another of my relics. This was a little frustrating. I forgot that Karak Necklace refers to creatures because this is not often an issue. Either way, what killed Morag was lack of creatures. He had lots of energy, but Quilla had taken out all his creatures at last and was making free hits on Morag. Then, she would put into play a few more creatures. Now, the game crashed on us a few times. It was nice that the game has an auto-save. The only problem was that the first time we restored the game we could not see our active magi at all (they weren't in the stack either), or the relics we had in play. Fortunately, we knew what was there and played this part by memory. This made the theft of the cube interesting. Snuff declared that they were going to use the power of Rayje's Belt afterwards, a relic of theirs I had “stolen” earlier from memory with my cube. My answer was that they couldn't use its power because it had been discarded from play as a part of purity. It just wasn't in the discard pile because neither of us could see it to put it there. Since they had named Rebuke off my Reef Hyren, it revealed that they had finally netted a creature again. This is also why they stole another of my relics. Snuff knew that although the cube would go back to my hand when Morag was defeated, the relic on it would not. Anyways, it was just as Morag was being defeated that the game crashed again. This time, when we restored the game, Snuff was missing four cards from their hand, three of them being creatures they desperately needed to ward off Quilla's growing swarm. You could read in the side log from Snuff's last turn still, and it showed them drawing two to bring the total up to nine while clicking on info for Snuff confirmed a hand of only five cards. There was nothing wrong with my hand, although the missing relics from before were still missing.

Snuff and I played another game a bit later. This time, Snuff went first. I was very glad that Morag did not net another Wudge. That creature is real good. Shadow Cloak did reappear, and would prove just as annoying this time around. I placed two Sarazen Guard into play and used Submerge on one of them. Snuff had a Rous in play along with a Gragling. The Rous hit the smaller of the two and Turn messed up my plans. If I had kept both, I could've really messed up Snuff's hand by using their effects. Snuff didn't have cards to spare, and I was hoping to take advantage of that by driving their hand of three down to something smaller. However, with only one left in play, there was no way for me to redirect the attacks such that it triggered the effect. The stolen Sarazen slammed home into my other Guard and Morag took Aula out with just the one turn. It hurt. Fortunately, this also left Morag without much energy to throw down more creatures. Quilla searched for a Karak Necklace and Orlon's Ring from the deck. I already had a copy of the cube in hand, so I promptly denied Snuff any benefit from Warrada's Ring by stealing it and drawing two cards. By the time Quilla defeated Morag, Morag had stolen three of her relics and drawn cards for it by stealing her Karak Necklace as one of them. Still, Quilla was doing quite alright. She had two Reef Hyren in play, two Wellisks, one Phrup, a Coral Hyren, and a Sarazen Keeper. This time I got to see the power trick Snuff had in store for me. Togoth was revealed and the Naroom Shadow Geyser was played. I opted to let it slide with my Phrup. When they played a Wudge, I had forgotten that the Naroom Shadow Geyser added only one energy. However, depending on how things were figured between Rebuke and the geyser it might have been possible for the Wudge to survive, so it was probably just fine that I wellisked the critter and ended all debate without even thinking about it. Then Togoth played out a Trask which I only rebuked. This was probably a mistake. Trask would trigger each time they played a creature because the shadow geyser qualified as a spell adding energy to their creatures. I had energy to rebuke twice more, and I wellisked a Rous to avoid Hit. It wasn't the Trask I was worried about at this point. I just don't like the power “Hit” right now. When they played an Orok as their last creature, I phrup'ed it. With the energy back on their magi, they Entombed “crushing.” I knew they were after Undertow most likely, and was quite willing to honor it as such should it be an issue. Why? Because I had Tidalwave in hand and Quilla energized for enough that either one was playable. When I played Undertow on my next turn, Snuff declared their defeat and, “gg.” It was a good game. It was enjoyable to see such a twist on Core. While I am sure that someone found it shortly after Togoth was released, this is the first time I can remember seeing it.

I have no idea if Snuff used the same deck in their next game. All I know as I am writing this that they reported a game on the forums with godofchaos were they used The Dark Twins instead, counting as both their two allowed magi. Godofchaos won that one with Motash it seems.

Trees In A Blizzard

It was fun to get in another game of Magi-Nation. While I hope that the card game does make a comeback in the next year or so, I don't intend to stop playing or hold my breathe in anticipation. With the online testing of Twilight War around the corner, I plan to keep on going for now as if it isn't going to reappear. To that end, I imported a few of my old Naroom decks to help give myself a reference on how the new cards might change the environment.

The first deck I added was my anti-Core deck. It was built just prior to Leaf Chogo, so it only features Tillant and some good ol' Naroom tricks to try and claim some strength versus Core. The heart of the deck is Tiller and Yaki, supported by Pruitt on the end. This deck held its own against some of the early illusion decks when d'Resh first appeared at the local gaming store. I thought it might be interesting to see if it still works.

Well, today, I went online for a little and managed to meet promiseofcure, a player that I don't think I've played before. They offered to play a game, and I took that anti-Core, Naroom deck. Promiseofcure went first and flipped over Odavast. An Essence of Frost on that first turn could prove hurtful for Tiller. I actually got lucky with a Relic Stalker in the opening hand. Tiller stalked the Nar relic and then drew like usual. I may have come up short on creatures, but it was good enough to get at least a Wasperine to eliminate the Mombak which was no longer frozen. Using the Weebo and Bythan's Gift, the lone Tree Hinko I had in play was very good sized. Crystallize would keep it sitting calmly on my side of the battlefield. Wasperines were my friends, and so was a Giant Carillion. Combined with the Weebo blessed by another Bythan's Gift, the power Stomp would get several Nar critters. Fortunately, the Weebo would run out of energy after a few turns and was no longer able to restore the behemoth. Tiller would work his way through Odavast gaining some momentum. He didn't appear to be out of control yet when Fray appeared on the scene. Fortunately for Tiller, he had put a little Forest Wudge into play. Fray would play out several creature and Refract. This Nar spell forced Tiller to choose some slightly different tactics. Tap Roots would soften up the Yaromant, which was at nine energy because of an Ice Arboll. Warrior's Boots would allow Tiller to spend most of his energy on an Alpine Xamf. Furok took the Mombak after Tree Hinko took the first swing at the Yaromant. With both Naroom creatures still in play, the Giant Carillion would wait until after the play creatures step to get the last of the Nar creatures, and with it defeat Fray. This cost me the Giant Carillion, but with the Forest Wudge in great shape and Orlon's Ring adding energy, Tiller was probably out of control. Laranel would toss down two Yaromant and another Ice Arboll. Promiseofcure declared at the end of their turn that I had won but they would not concede. That attitude put a smile on my face. I expect that when we have our rematch someday, that I should expect a fierce battle and likely loss for myself. Anyways, Tiller used Bythan's Gift so that I had two creatures at eleven energy, a Furok and Forest Wudge, plus a few others still in play. A couple attacks later, Tiller won the game.

And, yes, I did draw some of those Tillants. Tiller's power placed the Tillants easily into the discard pile.

Strange, this is the first deck I have a record of using Tiller. I used to avoid this magi like he was some sort of bad disease. Even after this deck, I went two more deck designs (Flying Hinko and Flood of Energy) without him before my recent collection of Naroom deck builds using him quite so heavily. By the way, I did add the Flying Hinko-Forest Hyren deck as well the Flood of Energy deck to gatlingEngine too.