No Brushfire Left Behind

I know the expression "flying by the seat of your pants" is American (at least I think it is), but it seems some people have begun taking established cards and making up the rules for the card as they go along.

Take this question that was posted on the CCGW forums just today:

"Do the rules prevent the playing of multiple brushfires from the discard?

About half of the people I play say that 'any one brushfire' means that I can play more than one and the other half says it means I can only play one."

Let's have a look at the card:



The card is a dual region card - the Cald version is shown above. The region is not the issue here, and since it is a spell, the usual regional restriction and regional penalties apply.

The text of the card in question here is:

"Once per turn, you may play any one Brushfire from your discard pile as if it were in your hand."

So what does it mean? Let's break it down:

You may play: This simply means you may pay the cost and use the effect of the card
any one Brushfire: One and only one and not two or three, but any one of it, either the cald one or the weave one
from your discard pile: Go look through your discard pile and only your discard pile. Not your deck, not your hand, not your opponent's deck or discard pile or hand. Just your discard pile.
as if it were in your hand: so that any effects that triggers when you play a spell from your hand will trigger

Put it all together: Go look through your discard pile, grab your favourite copy of Brushfire, be it the one that was defaced by Holmberg at GenCon 2002 or the one you improved upon the art by painting the rabbit creature bright yellow, pay the cost for it from your magi - usually two, but you might have cost reduction cards in play like a Rayje's Construct, or alternatively, you might have to pay the regional penalty of 1e, while remembering that the regional restriction applies, so if your magi is core, unless you have some way of playing a cald or weave card, you can't play it - then do what the card says, choose a creature and remove two energy from it, effects and interruptive spells trigger at the appropriate times as a spell is played as if from hand - so remove an extra one energy if you have a scroll of fire in play and one less energy if the chosen creature's magi has a weave hut in play, for example - and when all is done discard the card from play - i.e. it goes into your discard pile.

With me so far? Good. So how many times can you play the card? Well, the first part of the special text says "Once per turn". Now, usually "once" means one time and "once per turn" would mean "one time every turn". Can you do the same thing next turn with the same copy of Brushfire? What does the card say? "Once per turn..." How many times every turn? "Once per turn..."

I have no idea how else to explain that phrase which would make the meaning of the card easier to understand. Texas used to have a "No Child Left Behind" policy. I wonder if it should be applied to the rest of the world...

Tropical Mountain Battle

I was mostly online to check on how the tournament had been going so far. Since I had read in the forums about the Tainted Glimpses event for the summer, I was also curious if that was listed and how many might have signed up for that. When I noticed the listed special tournament with Novelty, I quickly looked over my list of decks for ones with ten custom cards in them. I didn't have any. Oh, well. But, I do think I have a few that qualify for the Summer / Tainted Glimpses (TG) League. I would have to look over the rules again, but I only recall that I had to have at least one TG magi in my magi stack. Most of my TG test decks had at least one magi and one or two creatures or a spell in it. So, I shouldn't have to actually build a new deck to qualify. Just sign up. I think I'll do that. I don't expect to do too well, but it should be fun.

Anyways, CapAp was online as I was checking out my decks, the tournament scene, and checking out things in general for Magi-Nation online. CapAp pointed that they needed to play me to tie for first place. Actually, looking at the standings, what CapAp needed was a win. While playing one more person and winning will now place CapAp ahead perhaps, I didn't choose to hand CapAp a win. You'll have to read to the end to find out how our game ended. It took me some time to choose between a couple decks I had. In the end, I chose to run the tropical deck again.

Arawan started things off for the game and for my tropical deck. He played out the Robe of Petals and searched for a Fog Hyren with warp driven. Dreamwarped up, the Fog Hyren used its power to draw me some cards. With some more cards for the end of the turn, Arawan was already setting up Ookami nicely with some Hardshell Weebos and Lahalous. Kazm would start off things for CapAp with a Rockslide. Five energy spent to remove my five energy creature. Not too bad. Kazm would continue with playing a Giant Baldar and Baldar. Ambush took out Giant Baldar. Warp driven fetched another Fog Hyren. I played it out with all of Arawan's remaining energy and did not trigger Kazm's effect. Again, I drew more cards from the Fog Hyren. Of course, this left a beatup Fog Hyren that the Baldar could attack for free, and attack it did. This defeated Arawan. Ookami came next. With all three copies of both the Hardshell Weebos and Lahalous in hand, he would be destined to give a whole lot of free energy. I would've loved an Ambush for that single Baldar, though. Anways, Ookami started by dreaming down a Vine Hyren. Since all the rest of his creatures were guaranteed to trigger Kazm's energy gains, I went ahead and dreamwarped down the Lahalous and dreamwarped up the Hardshell Weebos. Throwing in a N'kala made for seven creatures to give Kazm a whole ton of energy to work with. With the energy gains amplified by Ookami's effect, I was hoping to overcome this advantage I had just handed Kazm. Rockslide would get the Vine Hyren, and Gravity would bring my biggest Hardshell Weebo back down to size. Baldar attacked my biggest Lahalou for free, which is actually why I had boosted it with one of the weebos too—to draw attention to it. Rolling Baldar was played out and sacrificed to a spell that I forget the name of. Basically, he sacrificed his creature to discard an equal amount of energy from my creatures divided in a manner of his choosing. This would wipe things out a little more for me. However, when I saw that their hand was now greatly reduced, I had hope that I could turn things around. Kazm had lots of energy, but apparently a lack of ability to use it. On my next turn, I played out Stalker's Boots and attacked. Got in a couple free attacks on Ookami, but he still had quite a cushion from all that free energy. I had two surviving Lahalou and a Hardshell Weebo. I played out another Vine Hyren to increase my creatures a bit. Kazm followed with a Rolling Baldar and a Baldar Amulet. It took me a moment to realize that using Stalker's Boots would allow my weaker Lahalou to take out the Baldar without really costing me a creature from retalation of the amulet. With the unopposed attacks taking out Kazm, I played out a Tropical Jumbor and remembered to add the two energy at the end of my turn. Groll the Fallen would stand up to Ookami next. Gravity would do some damage again. Baldar and Darge were played out. The Baldar was sacrificed to the same spell I had seen earlier. What made things interesting, was that energy leftover was taken from the Tropical Jumbor, restoring it to its starting energy. With Groll's power used for the surviving Darge, things were looking fair for Groll. This is when I rejoiced. With the jumbor at its starting energy, I tossed down both a Staff of Vines and Ookami's Drums. With its new power, the Jumbor not only started the energy games again, it was ripe for the drums to hit it because this power put it below its starting energy just long enough for Ookami to smile upon. Groll would survive by one energy. Stalking helped reduce the energy that Darge removed from Vine Hyren, but he still gained energy from his power's effect upon the Darge to survive the free hit by the Tropical Jumbor by just that one energy. I played out an N'kala to keep Ookami strong on the creature front and going after all my energy gain mechanics. Groll wouldn't play anything on the next turn and merely drew two cards at the end of turn. This would allow a better setup for Ullig. I used the power strengthen around the board, attacked to eliminate Groll, and played out a Tropical Hyren. I figured it was that or the Tropical Vinoc I kept in my hand to roll forward with the tropical theme of the deck. Ullig would play out four relics, two Thoughtful Baldar, Darge, and Vertigo. I didn't really pay attention to the relics. Now, I should've used the strengthen first, while it was still in effect. However, in my haste, I paid the penalty for Spell Pulse and wiped all our relics first. It was really nice to get Ullig's Slingshot out of the way. After a massive wave of attacks that cost me some creatures, I played out Ookami's Drums from my hand. This allowed me to heal one of my somewhat toasted creatures and hit the surviving Kybar's Teeth creature for one energy. Ullig wouldn't do much to worry me on the next turn. Another strike with the drums would finish off the creature and grant Ullig some energy, but some free attacks from my creatures were just enough, barely to do the job. It was a good game. To go against Kazm with so many small creatures was certainly quite a sight to see.

Jore Cub

I got a surprise visit from the one-time Shadowsfall Promo artist Essence online yesterday. He was asking about a number of things and we chatted for a while. One of the things he asked for was a list of cards still requiring art. Since I'm on hiatus (sorta) and all that, there aren't that many cards that's still looking for art, but I did give him the list of cards in Exodus Flight that I have not yet done. Less than a day later, I got an image from him and well, here's the templated image. Enjoy.

Art by Essence.

The templated EF cards done so far can be found at Novelty's Custom Cards.

Glimpses of Legality

Tainted Glimpses and Keeper's Quest recently moved out of playtesting into Custom set proper and that has got a few people a bit miffed about the status of everything else (as usual). It's going to get even crazier defining what's "gEngine tournament legal" in the future with more sets so here's the start of something simpler.

"Custom legal"

Here's the proposal for something called "custom legal". What is "custom legal"? Custom Legal will be the list of legal cards for online tournaments on CCGW's gEngine. So instead of defining the expansions and the cards that are legal for each tournament, all anyone has to define is "custom legal" and it would automatically imply the list of cards below.

Custom Legal cards as of May 2006:
All printed English cards excluding Power of the Creators and Tony at a Con. (i.e. all black cards on gEngine)
All spoilt Traitor's Reach cards, including promos. (i.e. all purple cards on gEngine)
Custom sets Elder's Legacy and Tainted Glimpses. (blue cards on gEngine)
Custom promo sets Shadowsfall Promo and Keeper's Quest Promo. (blue cards on gEngine)
All Japanese promo cards. (i.e. all green cards on gEngine)
Custom promo cards - Glimpses, Dion, Elder's Legacy, Ploomb. (blue cards on gEngine)

Cards that are not Custom Legal as of May 2006:
Power of the Creators and Tony at a Con (red background on gEngine)
Double Jeopardy (custom promo) cards (red background on gEngine)
All cards in playtest (grey cards on gEngine)

This list will reside on the CCGW MND forums and will be updated if there is any further changes.

Note that the Novelty Tainted Glimpses Tournament uses Custom Legal cards.

Moving Into The Tropics

Waiting for parts from work, I logged on once again to check out the online Magi-Nation scene. There was four other people online. Considering the time of day, I was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps a number of them were in quite different time zones than myself, where it was approaching lunch time. Birdie21 was among them and offered to play a tournament game. I had to search a bit for a pen and paper first. I take notes as much as I can to write these blogs. It helps me remember. Now if I could just remember what I did with three note pads that used to be by the computer yesterday.

Anyways, birdie21 went first with Harresh. I was having flashbacks to my game the other day. When the only creature played was Xala, I was seriously debating not playing any creatures for a while and just using warp driven. Oh, yeah. I decided that if I had created a tropical deck as well, I might as well use it. Unlike my crystal creature deck, my tropical deck has the minimum of one quarter of the deck in tropical creatures, or 10 of my 40 cards. Arawan would start off with a Fog Hyren in the hand, so I used warp driven to get a second copy. I dream warped them both down. I was expecting Unmake and an attacking illusion, so I wanted to minimize my energy losses at first. So, my first turn was all about massive card draw. It was my best shot of matching Harresh in setting things up. The next turn went almost as anticipated. An Olum Digger would bring back further images of my matchup versus olums before. With the digger in play, I decided that ending my next turn with no energy on Arawan would be best. I would use warp driven for my last Fog Hyren and dreamwarp it up. Combined with a Tropical Jumbor and Tropical Plith, Arawan was left without energy. The idea was to make it so that for maximum damage that the digger would have to attack my creature directly. Ookami's Drums added an energy back to the Fog Hyren and beat down the Xala. I just forgot to add two energy to Tropical Jumbor at the end of my turn (just like I forgot when posting on the CCG Workshops forums that I had the jumbor too). If I had remembered, it might have changed things a little. Anyways, Arawan was defeated on the next turn by Harresh. The only surviving creature was the Xala by two energy, and it was the Xala that had attack the jumbor. Chill of Night had taken out the Fog Hyren, so that should give an idea of the cards I had been desperately drawing. When Ookami flipped over, I went nuts. First I dreamwarped down a Vine Hyren and then played out six more creatures, including three copies of Lahalou. I dreamwarped up and down all of them except the Tropical Vinoc, which doesn't dreamwarp. This made for a rather large hyren. As a side note, my deck almost qualifies as a hyren deck too, but I didn't want to drop any other cards to do it. The icing on the cake was Staff of Vines. Ookami's Drums would hit the Xala again and restore the Hardshell Weebo, after the weebo used the power from the Staff of Vines. Oh, it was nice that dreamwarp applies until the end of turn. After that, the weebo would've had a starting energy of one. With Ookami's effect, it was simply insane amounts of energy. Harresh would attack with the Xala, play a Szhar, and use Relic Stalkers on both my relics. So, it was back to Ookami, who continued to grow his creatures and attacked to wipe out Harresh. He did try to better my hand with the Tropical Vinoc and sacrificing an Equilibrate from my hand to use Stalk. At this point, Equilibrate was probably going to hurt me far more than be helpful at any point. Drajan flipped over next. He used Warrior's Boots to attack with a Warrior Olum. This wiped out my Hardshell Weebo. Than Uban took out what was left of the Tropical Vinoc and Chill of Night got one of the Lahalou. Drajan wouldn't last long. Ookami attacked, wiped out Drajan, and played out another Vine Hyren and a replacement Hardshell Weebo. Combined with my second copy of Staff of Vines, that was a massive swarm once again, and I made the Hardshell Weebo very big at about twelve energy. Dey was next. Another Warrior's Boots, but with Olum Digger this time, setup a nice move to remove energy from my magi and get the N'kala into crushing range. Then, the Olum swarm began. It was too little, too late. Still, Dey did some damage with Crushing Sands before Ookami took some very big little creatures and overwhelmed Dey in a single turn of attacks. However, if birdie21 had gotten past Ookami, my last magi would've been in a world of hurt. I ended the game with Tropical Hyren as the only creature in my hand.

Twilight Warring with the Hiatus

I wonder how many people picked up the nuance that the hiatus doesn't apply to Twilight War. Not many perhaps, but it's stated very clearly in Flight Cancelled that it only applies to Exodus Flight and later. Twilight War is definately before Exodus Flight (see this list) which means that work is still on-going on that set.

I have finally finished fleshing out the Weave cards earlier in the week on Twilight War, and it's there for the players to comment on at the moment. Links to a page for each region with all the proposed cards are at the CCGW forums, although the pages for KT, Underneath and Arderial have already been superceded by their current versions on the engine. It's still fair game to comment on any one of the cards though, although I hope people will follow the rules.

I see people making comments like "I like Card X a lot." and although that's good for my ego (heh!), it's not good from a Card design point of view. It's got nothing I can use because I have no idea why that person likes that particular card. Is it because of the colour? the art? the FT? the name? What exactly about it do they like? I wish they would state their reasons so that I can incorporate them into future versions of the cards.

What I do like are the negative constructive criticism as I mentioned in passing in the previous blog entry. No, I'm not a sadist. Constructive criticism, even if they are negative tells me what a player doesn't like about the card, what I should try to avoid, and what doesn't work with the cards. However, it seems not many people are adept at giving constructive criticism; they often miss out the "why" part. Standalone statements like "I don't like Card Y." or "Card Z is useless." is worthless to me because they don't say why said person doesn't like Card Y or think Card Z is useless. There's nothing there I can use to improve the card and that frustrates me more than the negativity itself. I just wish people would mention "why" for every comment.

The other thing to remember is that I'm not designing to please just one person or one group of person. Ever set has to try to please everyone. Yes, I will repeat it again, every set, even a custom set, has to try to please everyone. But that's impossible? Well, not really though. I didn't say that every CARD has to please everyone. It means that in any likely given set, if a player like a least a small fraction, say 5% of the cards, or even 1 card in the entire set, then I have done my job in delivering the set. Those are the cards designed for the said players. The other cards are designed for different other demographics/players.

Let me illustrate. As a mainly Creatureless player (sometimes, if I get the time to play), I have no interest in creatures, and that's probably a quarter or more of a set that I would have no interest in. Now not all spells and relics are created equal... naroom spells and relics are more likely to add energy to creatures, which would be useless to me as a Creatureless player, so there's more cards out of the window. However, if I find that cool Nar spell that I can use in my Creatureless paradwyn deck, or the great KT spell that combos nicely with the final magi in my creatureless Core deck, then I'd be happy... for eventhough most of the set is useless to my play style, there are at least 2 spells on cursory inspection that I would be excited about as a player. Now, these 2 spells might be worthless to a Naroom creature player, but it doesn't matter. The spells are not designed for the Naroom creature player in mind, and in an ideal set, the Naroom creature player should get excited about some other cards in the set, probably a number of Naroom creature cards, which will be of no interest to a creatureless player.

Some people intuitively understood all that. When I got the designed cards back from Tim for Underneath, I didn't even change a word that he submitted on those cards, nor made any comments, because he captured the feel of the Underneath set of cards just right. There was something for everyone, be it Korrits or Burrow or even Creatureless underneath.

By contrast, when I got the list of cards from Daniel, I was aghast and ... well, bored. All the cards looked and felt the same and all of them seemed to be designed for one deck and one type of player in mind. While it might find use outside of that one deck, it would probably be very unlikely that it would be used so, and I wrote a rather gentle email back telling him that the card designed were technically perfect, but were boring and lacking. Credit should be given to Daniel as he took the comments away and worked on the cards after about 4 or 5 edits later, laced with all my comments (and some of those were negative yet constructive), he produced a series of cards that were, well, almost there. I edited a couple of the cards and posted them for comments and there were a number of people praising Daniel in that thread. Good for him.

The thing was, he took his designs away, and together with my comments, redesigned the cards. He didn't let the negative (yet constructive) criticism get him down, but he persevered and rewrote and rewrote as many times as possible to end up with a result that both he as the region designer and I as the overall set designer can be comfortable with. I think only one idea out of the original 6 was retained for the second draft which I got, and eventually, even that one idea was thrown out the window for something more robust and interesting and... divergent. I like the end result of the 6 cards. Each one of them cater to a different type of player and the cards now have a distinct personality to them. Perhaps one of these days, I'll post an example here on this blog.

(And I'm rambling, but some days, it surprises me to see someone using all the custom cards from one region in a single deck and calling it a playtest. The cards were not designed for a single deck, and I think a single playtest with all the cards from one region cheapens the cards somewhat.)

So, it's the final stretch before playtest begins in earnest. Sometime by the middle of May, I'll begin coding the remainder of the 10 regions onto gEngine so that the playtest can begin in ernest. And then after that, of course, there's still Double Jeopardy (which according to the same list is before Exodus Flight). Exodus Flight and Cure for All Seasons will probably take a leisurely stroll down the adaptation road, but look out for the announcement for Cure after Double Jeopardy goes onto the engine!

Crystals In Mud

Today, I was online while waiting for some news back from work. All dressed up and nowhere to go. I figured I would log into gatlingEngine for a bit while I was doing a whole lot of nothing. As luck would have it, YT Sno was online and looking for another tournament game. There was also a new player online anxious for a game. So, when the new player backed out of the game creation lobby, the turn order was apparently rerandomized, and I ended up going first.

Going with the crystal deck again, Ulmi tossed down her two starting cards. I had two Crushing Fungus and one Gorgle's Curse in my hand. And, since YT Sno said they read this blog, now they will know how long I had Gorgle's Curse and a second Crushing Fungus. So, yes, I could've beat Eryss a turn sooner, but I held on to the Crushing Fungus for a time when it would be more, um, useful. Okay, that's getting ahead of things.... Back to the game: Eryss came next with a full opening swarm. Standard stuff for Eryss. Lots of card draw between Gremble and Fog Hyren. Poison Baloo Root used wither, so one energy spent and one energy discarded from my one Crystal Jile. I went ahead and crushed the Poison Baloo Root on my next turn. With a steady flow of crystal creatures, I played some more out. What was interesting was to see Eryss still get out a Black Stuff with her two energy despite the lack of energize. It was somewhere around this time that I got a work related call, so YT Sno took the opportunity to tell the new player who was observing our game what was going on while I took notes for work. YT Sno was still describing gameplay when we resumed our game. If I had crushed one of Eryss's creatures on my next turn, I could've followed up with enough attacks to get Eryss, but this probably would've canceled the nice energy denial since Eryss would no longer be the opposing magi. So, I made my attacks and kept the Crushing Spell in my hand. Eryss survived that turn by one energy. However, she was on the ropes and wouldn't hold out much longer. Ulmi was gaining momentum with her constant supply of crystal creatures. And, I was playing them to use up her energy every turn, since an Umbu had been attached to Crystal Goblet. With no energy to lose at the beginning of YT Sno's turn, it didn't hurt quite so bad. When Whilp was flipped over, I was thinking that his ability was just going to rip into my crystal swarm. With only one non-crystal creature, it would've been two energy to a lot of creatures. However, there was something far more devastating coming. YT Sno tossed down three Muck Vinoc and several other creatures, in addition to having that Black Stuff come back from the discard pile at the beginning of the turn. Yog's Maul would sacrifice Black Stuff and destroy Akkar. It would've been nice to have the extra energize, but I was already trying to figure out how to sacrifice Ulmi at this point. This is when Whilp whipped the creatures up with Frenzy. Not only did this give those Muck Vinocs enough energy to use their powers, it also provided some valid targets for those powers. So, instead of just hitting my creatures hard, YT Sno did one better and actually totally gutted three of my crystal creatures from play. By the time time Whilp had played a Moss Pendant, used its power, and used his own power, there was no energy left on Whilp. This would totally change my turn. I chose instead to take advantage of Ulmi's energy savings on crystal creatures and combined that with Crushing Fungus. With Crystal Twinklet and a Crystal Arboll, plus sacrificing my surviving creature to pull off a surprising comeback, Whilp would be left with no energy, no energize and insufficient creature strength to finish off Ulmi. Novelty was observing the game at this point and asked YT Sno if they were going to sacrifice their magi. All they would've had to do was attack and Whilp would've been defeated. Since Whilp didn't make the sacrifice, I ended up making the finishing blow on my turn. Grahnna would face off against Ulmi next. This is when my copy of gatlingEngine locked up. Fortunately, YT Sno saved the game. So, after waiting a bit for the server to acknowledge that I had logged off (I tried right away but it said I was already logged on), I was able to resume and finish the game with YT Sno. It started us back at the point where Whilp had no energize, just before he was defeated. We played that turn out the same and continued on to Grahnna. Grahnna tossed down big. Another Fog Hyren would appear and the stuff creature theme would begin to reveal itself, something that hadn't really happened up to this point. Grahnna would take down Ulmi. With two Treepsh in play, I gambled with Fossik Ringsmith on my two Gorgle's Curse. With a nice bit of invulnerability on an Akkar in addition to his other creature in play, I calculated it out that Grahnna didn't have anything in attacks that could get Fossik. What I failed to count on was another Yog's Maul. While it didn't destroy the Akkar outright, it did make it small enough that a creature with three energy could take it. So, with five creatures in play, and two Treepsh that couldn't attack until Fossik was defeated, Grahnna still got the Ringsmith in one pass. And, as for the Treepsh being cursed, a lot of Grahnna's effect had been fed into those two so they were some of the biggest stuff. So, with Fossik down, it was down to the Celebrated Hero to try and turn things around. The first thing Gogor did was use the leftover Bottomless Pit from Fossik. With only one relic in play, Umbu had to attach to the much hated Yog's Maul. The real advantage for me was that it took away the threat while leaving Grahnna unable to play a fresh one out. Considering that Umbu had been used on my relics earlier, this was a nice return on the pain. Well, now the Umbu bit the maul and I was happy. With two Urigant to play and his spade, Gogor was feeling pretty good. I had already seen all three Muck Vinoc, so even Frenzy wasn't looking quite so bad when looking at my survival odds. On Gogor's next turn, he would make a couple attacks with Strag's Claws in play. So, not only did those two Urigant get bigger eliminating the Treepsh, but Gogor was looking to be in a good spot. Crystal Arboll would make a great target for Impact on Grahnna while the third and final copy of Crushing Fungus would prevent the little titan from energizing. This would decide the game. I believe Grahnna's effect could've overcome Gogor's high energize, but being denied the maul and unable to energize for a turn turned things completely in the Hero's favor. We called it a good game at this point and chatted for some time about Magi-Nation, this blog, and other CCGs we've played. We both have seen deck types online that we had never encountered in our local arenas. And, I think we both really had fun today with this game.

Desert Underground Unsafe

Today was game two of the tournament for me. Pass me some sugar to held the medicine go down. *smiles*

I don't think I've ever played Cliff_Burton before. They went first with Harresh and a her wonderful bit of card draw. My guess was that I needed to take her out quickly or risk suffering a terrible defeat. A quick defeat of Harresh was not to be. With Bottled City, Harresh stole one of my Crystal Lascinth. Not a terrible loss for me. Still, it could be a problem. With a full count of crystal creatures by Ulmi, I thought to hold Harresh off a bit. However, Dessicate took out my biggest creature and rendered my use of Crystal Arboll on my previous turn useless. After the subsequent attacks, Ulmi was on the ropes. She would hold out for a few turns, but Harresh definitely had the offensive at this point. Fossik tossed down fast and furious. He crushed one creature and cursed another. Combined with Bottomless Pit, he only had enough energy for a single Akkar. Although Dreamcatcher would steal some energy for the cursed d'Resh creature, I was banking on the Akkar for its invulnerability and energy gains for the Ringsmith's chance to make a comeback against the next d'Resh magi. When Harresh spent her last energy to draw cards, it made it so that an attacking Akkar would take her out her only creature and defeat Harresh. I tossed down Gogor's Spade and Strag's Claws first. One for card draw, and the other for some energy gains for the Akkar. Dey wouldn't let the Ringsmith think of a uphill battle. Warrior's Boots and Unmake opened Fossik wide up for a Warrior Olum to take him out. With several other d'Resh creatures fielded, Celebrated Hero gambled everything he had. With Crushing Fungus to keep Dey tight on energy for the next turn, Gogor spent all the rest of his energy on creatures. This time, it would an Urigant providing some invulnerability. I knew that Dey couldn't get all of Gogor's creatures just in attacks. What got me though was an Uban. Dey made just the attacks needed so that though the Urigant was the Hero's only surviving creature, it was just beaten enough for the Uban to burn. With Dey's only two energy, one Uban finished off the game. Ouch! I am not sure if Celebrated Hero could've come from behind, but that's a moot point now. Great game by Cliff Burton. I loved to see a deck do so well without all the mad energy gains that the xyx deck usually employs.

The Sky Falls Upon Crystals

I suppose that if I scrolled through my posts, I could find the last time I played a tournament game. It feels like it has been a while. Today, I put together a crystal creature type deck for May tournament. In the end, I think the deck only has six creatures that don't have crystal in their name, three each of Akkar and Urigant. A lot of the crystal creatures seem appropriate for defense. While that isn't really my style, I was hoping that I could still get some good use out of them with Strag's Claws and a mix of Underneath spells that I seem to have grown rather fond of.

Shortly after getting the deck put together, I played Frosty Ninja. I went first with Ulmi, only selecting the Crystal Goblet and Crystal Jile. It was a dream start of crystal creatures and tossed down something that looked good. Frosty Ninja flipped over Lady of the Sky and played out her Cyclone Xyx plus a Xyx Elder. Xyx Elder almost wiped me out in a single shot. It took a couple turns, but Lady of the Sky would defeat Ulmi. Fossik, Ringsmith would finish off Lady of the Sky. She was practically left wide open for Fossik's single Akkar. He used his power to make it big enough. Defender of the Sky came next. Suddenly, it was a massive swarm of mighty xyx. It was hard to choose what needed to go. There was at least four xyx, with one being the impressive Xyx Minor. That little beast had to go before it got too big and destroyed my deck one creature at a time. Fossik fought well, but in the end, he fell beneath the xyx onslaught. Fortunately, he had paid the price. Celebrated Hero was going to aim for some serious card draw with his spade. Plus, he got lucky with a Crushing Fungus. This really cramped the Defender's style. This would be very deciding for the Hero. With Strag's Claws, he would crush the Defender's creatures. He did have to waste a Gorgle's Curse on a Xyx Minor. It was huge. Sorreah's Dream combined with its own power had made it huge. Attacking the minor quickly made sure another spell didn't fix the curse. With Defender hurting, Celebrated Hero would finish her off to face Sorreah. He had placed out my second copy of Crystal Goblet, so getting my creatures crushed or Shockwaved at this point didn't really hurt too much. Sorreah did eliminate all his creatures. However, I knew I had the cards to finish off Sorreah on my next turn. I just had to think it out so I didn't mess up. I played out a Crystal Jile, Crystal Arboll and one more creature. Crystal Jile used its power and then I bounced the jile and Sorreah's single creature using Attekia's Gift. I should've used Impact on the bigger creature, but we had forgotten about Sorreah's increased energize from the Lady of the Sky. An Impacted Crystal Arboll would've finished off Sorreah if not for that. Frosty Ninja remembered the increased energize and added the one energy to the magi to reflect it. Impact fell short by one. So, a quick check of my hand revealed that I still had a Resonate available. All in all, a good game. While this blog might not reflect it, the xyx swarm looked like it should have had me as a goner. I may have won, but I have a healthy respect for xyx decks. It is a powerful creature type. I got hit by the Xyx Elder at least twice in this game, and it wrecked me something terrible. Part of the reason I went after the Xyx Minors with such vengeance was so that they couldn't be used at some point on the Xyx Elder for repeated thrashings on my non-xyx creatures.

Burning Naroom

I am debating a creature type to build a deck around to go with this month's tournament. Not sure if I'll get any tournament games in, but I thought it might be good to be prepared to do so. Anyways, CapAp was online and asked if I wanted to play a game. Not ready for the tournament yet, I opted to accept the chance to play a game for the fun of it.

CapAp was going to play with one of their not so good decks. So, I opted to take a chance and play my “unusual” Cald deck. Maybe not unusual in the grand scheme of things. However, it is the only nearly creatureless Cald deck I've ever built and played. It isn't my style and I find it a bit nerve wrecking to play. Without all the experience of a seasoned creatureless Calder, I thought it fitting to give it a run when playing for fun.

CapAp went first with Tiller. With Naroom digging in deep and fast on the card draw, it wasn't really surprising to see Tiller beat Vorga. However, Vorga did toast everything on her first turn. Tiller had tossed down two four-energy creatures and the Weebo. Vorga would Shatter the Weebo and burned the two others with Brushfire and finished them off with Beam of Light. A real lucky opening for Vorga. That Brushfire in the discard pile would remain the majority of my burn for a while. Tiller retaliated by using Warrior's Boots on a Giant Carillion. A wide open Vorga took a major hit, so the best choice was to sacrifice her on my next by spending all her energy to destroy the giant with Boomstick. Barak would have to expend a lot of my card resources, but he took advantage of Abraxin's Crown to bend the Brushfire and Firefly Amulet to go after Tiller's energy. Topped off with a Fireball, it was soon second magi versus second magi. Evu used Relic Stalker on the crown before going after my limited card resources with the dark ones from Evu's Jellybeans. I had never tried to sort the order of my cards like this before, so CapAp's simple instructions on how simple it was key to using Barak's power. This meant Barak not only had a Wildfire and the Scroll of Fire left over from Vorga, but I was able to setup my hand with another Abraxin's Crown after Barak toasted all the Naroom creatures in that one turn. I was gambling that with only three cards in my hand, CapAp would try the black jellybeans again. Evu fell to the crown since this all took place during the first spells-powers-relics step and no creatures were in play on either side of the field. While I was trying to manage my cards with Barak's power, a small hand like I had isn't the greatest. It was my guess that unless I cost CapAp their hand with retaliation from the crown, Narooom would take the game just from sheer card advantage. With CapAp set back to the two cards they drew at the end of the turn, T'dek was left in a world of hurt. I now had three of the five creatures from my deck in my hand. An Inferno Xyx would toast the fresh Giant Carillion, allowing the two Giant Arboll I had just played with it to grow a bit too. Brushfire with Blast Gloves on the five energy K'teeb Thumper would make for one small critter. So, it was two six-energy arbolls versus the thumper. T'dek would use his power on the thumper, crushed one of the arbolls (which lived), and the thumper hit my magi in retaliation for using Barak's ability on previous turn. But, it was still worth it for me. Barak had what he needed. Although the Scroll of fire had been stalked previously (or the thumper wouldn't have survived the Brushfire), Brushfire softened up the thumper and the Firefly Amulet finished it off. This left at least one very healthy arboll with which to attack an undefended T'dek.