Ending Swarm

This game happened so long ago that I embarrassed to realize that I had lost my notes on it in my tool bag for work. So sad. Fortunately, I took reasonably good notes. I posted the screen capture shortly after the game but not the story to go with it.
Well, I played SilverRaine that day. They had stated that they were not that good. So, I chose to go with one of my Bograth decks. Now, I knew the one deck was absolutely insane, so I steered clear of it. However, I had forgotten which deck I had for my second deck and made the mistake of thinking it was the same deck I had posted on DeckTech some time ago. It wasn't the deck I thought it was although my starting Magi wasn't my tipoff. I traditionally started most of my Bograth decks with Eryss, so when I went first I played the Fog Hyren, N'kala, Gremble, and Poison Baloo Root like usual. A full turn of card draw and then it was time for Naroom to show for the opposition. Pruitt would start things off for the opposition with Carillion, Vinoc, Crushing Roots, Pruitt's Robe, and Grow. I would choose to sacrifice Eryss by spending much of her energy on Great Throne Mushrooms. Olabra would go next for me. It was an impressive toss down starting with the Swamp Hyren. Now the challenge would be to play such that my opponent might eventually overcome this swarm. No, I didn't record all the creatures I played, just that it was insane. Olabra would end up facing off against Keelie. Keelie would toss down an Eebit, Balamant, Weebo, Arboll, Forest Dew, and use Nocturne for another Eebit. Excellent choice on the Eebits. Anyways, the Balamant used Hunt and a battle ensued. It would come down to Yaki versus Olabra. Yaki would toss down big as well with an Arboll, Weebo, Weebo, Leaf Hyren, Balamant Pup, and Grow. Yaki would use the Arboll's power and then play Nocturne for a copy of Eebit Twins. By this time Olabra had become weak enough that I could lose her defending creatures and sacrifice her to my own Spirit Drain. This was intentional as I wasn't sure that my opponent would get past her without the assist and just leaving my magi wide open for attacks just didn't seem right. Anyways, Yaki would take the reprieve to play out a little more before Brog would toss down like the picture shows. I suppose I could've toned it down a bit. Truth be told, although Olabra tossed down big it wasn't quite this big because I did want SilverRaine to have a reasonable chance of beating Olabra. However, I guess I felt the game had dragged on long enough at this point and must've had some evil voice in the back of my head saying that I should do this. In case you wondering, Crushing Stench is what put both of those Swamp Hyren into play first. Additionally, I can tell you that there is only one Poison Baloo Root in this deck, so Olabra had been wasting a lot of her energy drawing cards instead of using it to overpower my opponent despite how it might sound since she took out two magi and battled Yaki for a moment or two.

Burnt Weave

This weekend, I played Badtothebone. I debated my Arderial and Underneath decks, even Naroom, but I settled for Weave in the end. Magam Flamesmith would start off things by playing a Ithapher, Diomant, and an Arbolit. This promised ill times for a creature dependant deck. As it was, I started with Taisa, so that first turn of pain would be absorbed by the Uwamar he starts with. With two Drowl, Tropical Jumbor, and a Three Leaf Clover to go with the Uwamar, Taisa was off to a good start. Magam Flamesmith didn't last long at all. Now, it would up to Good Ol' Ashgar. With Gorgle's Glasses left in the hand from the Flamesmith, Boomstick and Scroll of Fire would setup a good thing for Cald. Brushfire, Quor, and Arbolit would round out his opening turn. Taisa put up the good fight, but Cald was gaining steam. However, I do admit to at least one probable mistake at this point. I drew all my Uwamars early on and used them up instead of saving them for Kesia and Gia yet to come. Well, Kesia would face Ashgar next. She would use Brushfire from the discard pile to combo with Pody to finish off a Cald creature. Vuryip and Lascinth would round off the creatures for the turn. With her flute and a Three Leaf Clover, she wasn't doing too bad at all. Kesia even got to the point she could/should have finished off Good Ol' Ashgar. However, her attacking creature was blasted by his effect using Smoke Trap. Now, I argued that it was too late to stop the attack, and they felt it would. Anyways, we settled the debate for the time being by going with the judgement that was not in my favor, or that Smoke Trap would cancel the attack (see note at end of this blog). Perhaps my next mistake was sacking the creature to an Aritex at this point. However, my Weave deck is an aggressive Weave deck and I couldn't stand the thought that I had a non-Uwamar in play that just couldn't attack like I wanted. Oh well, I should've remembered Kesia's Flute and started transferring the energy away. I didn't do that. Anyways, the Aritex combo at this point wasn't a total waste anyways. The Three Leaf Clover made sure of that. As Ashgar continued to build a strong number of beneficial relics, it would be up to Gia to take a try at things. Taking a gamble, I figured that the Ergar in play depicted above was the only creature that could attack me. Sawgrass could get it, only if it attacked. With my third Aritex in the hand, I figured that the gamble was worth it. While I took a little more damage than I had anticipated, I did have enough to use the Aritex combo even after the Sawgrass. While this left me creatureless another turn, I wasn't too worried. Despite all the relics you see in the picture, a lot of Cald's work was being done by creatures with some spells up to this point. So, I was thinking that the Ergar was my deadliest threat out there. Oh well. Live and learn. Good Ol' Ashgar would show that he had a number of spells in hand that could work on Gia using Abraxin's Crown in play. Gia went down in a somewhat embarrasing loss. I was tempted for just a moment to build a Weave deck that was up-to-date with stuff like Weave Path and so forth, but I chose in the end to stick to my original Weave. The deck has certain sentimental value. Plus, it's fine with me if my Weave deck isn't the best thing out there. Quite a change at the end of the game from the beginning. See, I had used my first Aritex with Taisa while Taisa had a good build of creatures. I had actually told my wife that since Weave was traditionally weak against Cald, it would be bad indeed if Taisa took the game by storm. So, with a good comeback by Good Ol' Ashgar, I do believe Badtothebone deserved this win.

Note: Badtothebone would post the question of the Smoke Trap with Good Ol' Ashgar's effect on the CCG Workshop forums. The answer they got actually stated that since the attack was already begun in order to trigger Ashgar's effect, Smoke Trap would NOT stop the attack already in progress. So, if the creatures survived like mine had, it would still hit Ashgar for the attack in question.

Evil Firagon aka Evilagon

Super Ryoga aka Nick Szankovics IM-ed me out of the blue today and was showing me his art. So I asked him to draw another Firagon since I really do like them. Here's just something for the fun of it:

Pencil Sketch (with a mouse on a computer)



Preliminary draft - I told him to change the sky to nighttime.



Final Image



Cool, huh?

Surviving Fire... Forest Style

I played Birdie21 just a bit later that same day. Having had a nice break from Naroom, I opted to go back to the first of my test decks for Twilight War. Magam Flamesmith would start things for Birdie21, playing a Braggle and Arbolit. It was one massive Braggle and would be devastating to my Naroom deck. Tryn would help against the pressure of Magam's effect. She would play out a Flying Hinko, Leaf Hyren, Flame Rudwot, and then went nuts on the add energy powers for a little. After that, she used Bythan's Gift to return the Flying Hinko to my hand. It would be a hard fought battle between Tryn and Magam Flamesmith for many turns. Magam would burn some and do devastating damage with the Braggle, she even healed it up more at one point with a Giant Arboll. Unable to do much against the Braggle, I had to play enough creatures and create enough energy to not only counter the effect of Magam, but to allow for a total creature lost to the Braggle. Really, I was quite pleased that Tryn held out until I finally netted a Giant Carillion. Goodbye Braggle. While Magam did make sure that the Weebo wouldn't survive, and immediately destroyed Tryn's Flute as soon as it was her turn, Tryn would defeat Magam with the Giant Carillion as a massive beast, crushing Magam's creature with Poad's Secret Sauce in play, in addition to her own power and Energy Band. Barak Leader would use his power to attack the Giant Carillion right off the block. This reduced it from twelve to six energy. With a Granas, Arbolit, and Lava Balamant, Barak put out a decent creature shield. Arbolit used its power for the Granas. With Brushfire from the discard pile, Barak burnt the Giant Carillion some more in addition to playing out Barak's Ring. However, Barak Leader had also spent all his energy in the process of the turn. Tryn powered up the Giant Carillion between her power and the Energy Band. With the "Sauce" still in play, this gave enough energy to stomp the Granas. Back down to three energy, it wasn't big enough to get the Lava Balamant, so I opted to use Crushing Roots to bring it down to one energy. Barak didn't survive. Raega would take up the final spot for Cald. I wasn't looking forward to Braggle again. Scroll of Fire and Brushfire took out the Giant Carillion without leaving any doubt. Braggle, two Arbolits, and an Ergar looked like a good toss down for Cald. Thermal Blast would finish off Tryn. Now, it would up to Pruitt to survive the Braggle tactics. With another large Braggle in play, Pruitt would follow Tryn's early example and tossed down big. Flying Hinko, two Balamant Pups, and two Leaf Hyren. A good source of add energy powers. One Leaf Hyren was dumped into the Flying Hinko, as well as Pruitt's own power. It would take several turns, but she would find another Giant Carillion. Of course, this time, Cald would choose to eliminate the Carillion instead of the Flying Hinko. The screen shot here is the beginning of the final turn. Raega had tossed down a Giant Arboll the turn before and moved two of its energy back to herself. While this was a good move to try and buy some time, the fact that I had a Lumber Hyren in hand would negate it. Flying Hinko would attack to take out the creature and Lumber Hyren ended the game.

Swift Jungle Snowball

I played a quick game with Martainia this past week. Going into the game, I knew we probably wouldn't finish it. They just wanted to test their deck a little. Arawan started the game for me by using Warp Driven and playing a Tropical Plith and a Tropical Hyren. Between the search and extra card draw, Arawan was off to a great start. Aurora started off a Nar freeze tactic for Martainia by playing Mombak, Ice Arboll, Polar Eebit, Furok Protector and Whiteout. At first, I spent a bunch of time chatting, but this wasn't progressing the game very fast. So, with a little prompting, I stopped chatting and drove my turns forwarded as quick as I could. As you can see in the picture, Aurora had plenty of energy while Arawan was setting up Ookami nicely. Plus, with the final move before Martainia had to leave being a Spell Pulse, the freeze was going to ease up for a bit by getting rid of the Essence of Frost. This also took away the benefits of an Ice Lens, already discarded. If I just had an Equilibrate or crushing spell, that Polar Eebit could've been dealt with. Oh yeah, just simply thawing it would eliminate the annoying effect. It was really annoying. The Mombak and Furok Protector had been eliminated already....

Another Newbie

Well, I played another game against a newbie recently. Cesar69 and I ended up playing Core versus Core. It was unplanned. I just figured that I am not too good at Core, so why not? I started the game with Evil Evu playing a Choas Plith and Dagok. Warrada would make for a good start opposite Evu with her Chaos Jile and Orok. The game was off to a slow start as I explained how to use the various menus and where to find them. Anyways, Evil Evu would answer with two copies of Heal and began quite the offensive on Warrada. When Evu used Dark Portents, I chose to have the Dream Channel Discarded. At this point in the game, I figured it was the least useful card there. This left all three creatures available to Warrada, and later for Qwade. Yes, Evil Evu defeated Warrada after a little struggle and a Raveled Drush. Qwade would play two copies of Storm of the Fishes, eliminating all our spells and relics in hand. Since I had a Dagok in play, Qwade avoided growing my creature and just played out a Tragan and Trask. Evil Evu would put in some more good battles. In the end, he would be left playing out a Severos to eliminate all his energy. Although Qwade didn't take this chance to defeat Evu, Qwade did place a Nightmare and Dream Channel into play. Since there was a lightning storm in Cesar69's area, the game was saved and ended at this point. Not sure if we'll have a chance to finish the game before it expires. Anyways, here's a screen shot from the end of the game.