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.