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.