Tough Defenses Needs Ormy

Last night I got in another game of Magi-Nation, this time with Trentonx. They started with Kolte and played a Reef Hyren. That starting Reef Hyren looked quite scary as the opponent. With the threat of Reef Hyren, I skipped pulling Keelie's starting cards. As it turned out, I got an Alpine Xamf and Giant Carillion that Keelie would toss down and Stomp out the Reef Hyren. After a long battle, Keelie defeated Kolte. Next she would face off against Kesia after Trentonx decided to take a chance with their bad hand. Kesia would toss down the defensive Grass Hyren and a Speag. For a while, Kesia would end up commanding two Speag, making that Weave defense very annoying since I didn't have any of my crushing spells for a period. By the time Keelie managed to get the second Speag, it was one very large Speag and required the special attention of a Giant Carillion. Keelie was having troubles with Weave's defenses so she was building up her forces to maximize the energy she gained from a copy of Orwin's Ring. With only her Grass Hyren defending Kesia, Keelie would save up a little energy to place a Garan to prevent it from using that defense. The screenshot included in this blog is from the end of that turn. Kesia would spend all her energy to play an Ormagon and an Underneath hyren. The Ormagon destroyed all my creatures, so Keelie would put a Bhatar into play. Kesia would attack before I could get the energy gain from the Bhatar attacking the hyren. After some more struggles, Keelie would make her way past Kesia. It would now be up to Yerthe to oppose Keelie. Yerthe started off with Harmony to shrink my single creature in play, then played another Grass Hyren and Iceberg Hyren. The defensive battle began all over again. Yerthe would get a Monarch Hyren into play, and Keelie would be fighting an uphill battle again. Fortunately, the Crushing Roots was making its showing. Keelie would fight her uphill battle over many turns. At the very end, Yerthe had lost that Grass Hyren and had a Reef Hyren in play. Playing out another Grass Hyren would use up his energy and created a unique opening. With no energy on the magi, I was able to safely use Nocturne to get one of my Garan from the deck and put it into play. Sure it only had one energy, but with the protection of the Grass Hyren canceled out, my other two creatures in play were adequate to finish off Yerthe. While this description doesn't give much of the details, the game lasted so long my wife had started a movie after I started the game and had finished the movie before I was done.

Bane Of All High King Korg

With the news that Double Jeopardy is now available on gEngine for playtesting, I dropped online to see what was happening for Magi-Nation and start building the one or two new decks for playtesting. Freigabe logged in and asked if anyone wanted to play. I checked with my wife first, she wants to go to the store for a wreath later, and then I was ready to play. Freigabe went first with Eryss. The first thing that went through my mind was that I didn't know if my Naroom deck could handle Bograth. Eryss would play out her whole hand, her four starting creatures plus a Jile. Tiller would go first. You may have noticed that a lot of my Naroom test decks for Twilight War start off with Tiller. Well, they are test decks, so I want them to be as good as I can think to make them to see what sort of negative or positive feedback can be generated. Anyways, Tiller would start with Vortex of Knowledge. After sacrificing the Weeblit to Scrounge, Tiller finally had two creatures in hand. Playing both the Weebo he started with and the Lumber Hyren, he played Crushing Roots on the Jile and Tap Roots for what was left of the Fog Hyren. With the Lumber Hyren and Weebo both using their powers, he was doing good despite the lack of creatures in my hand. Eryss would fold to Tiller and Golthub would make a strong showing. Two Swamp Hyren, a N'kala, Moob, Gremble, Glablit, and Double Jeopardy later, things were looking bad for Naroom. Tiller did what he could and even played a Flood of Energy so he could squeeze out a Giant Carillion with a Warrior's Boots. The series of attacks left him spent but did take that initial swarm down to more managable levels. Next it would be up to Keelie to battle Golthub. She tossed down two Wasperines to create a more creature friendly environment for herself. Giant Carillion, Weebo, and Stagadan rounded out her creatures. Giant Carillion stomped a Mist Hyren in play and then Keelie sacrificed the Weebo by using its power. Orwin's Ring rounded off her turn and ensured that Golthub would not get her in a single shot of creature attacks. In the end, Keelie would be defeated by Golthub's power of Mire while she had no energy left. Now it would be last Magi versus last Magi with Woot going first for me. He got his starting Wasperine and Wasperine Stalker but only played an Alpine Xamf. With Warrior's Boots in hand, I figured it best to wait and see. All High King Korg would make the final stand for Bograth. He played out his starting Pyder as well as two Muck Vinoc and a Gwaeg. Quietly, I had been saying to myself, not the Pyder unless an N'kala and Glablit setup for the Double Jeopardy spell. Because of the Pyder, All High King Korg would end his turn with only one energy. While it would only take one Wasperine Stalker, I played both I had in hand plus a Wasperine just in case. This defeated Korg, which is the screenshot you see in this blog. For those of you that have been tracking things, this was another of my Naroom test decks for Twilight War.

Eidon Hits The Wall

CapAp offered a second game. The crushing of Core was a little mismatched with such a Core hungry creature in play. So, keeping in line with what I had been doing thus far, I moved on to my next deck. This time a mild Furok deck with Tiller starting it off. Again, I managed to go first. I would flip over Tiller, use Vortex of Knowledge, both of his powers, and then Tiller would play out an Alpine Xamf and a Bhatar. When CapAp revealed Tiller as their magi, I declared, "rofl." It was almost too funny. Tiller would use both his powers, just like my Tiller had done. With an Eebit and a Plith to defend himself, this double Tiller ended the turn. Tiller versus Tiller would last a while. A couple Baby Furoks would buy the opposing Tiller some time. However, I put a couple Baby Furoks of my own into play. With Bythan's Gift and Orlon's Ring, my little swarm was beginning to swarm. When Tiller defeated Tiller, CapAp would reveal Evu as their next magi. Evu would play Vortex of Knowledge, Robe of Vines and Orwin's Rings. With three Plith, an Eebit and a Furok to defend himself, Evu was doing alright. Tiller was left with a tough choice. Hold off and try and get those Pliths with spells and powers or steam on ahead. I chose to take my chances and steam ahead with my swarm. Evu would end up netting lots of cards, but Tiller had quite a swarm still. Eidon would go next after Evu. With a strong toss down of Robe of Vines, Yaki's Guantlets, and Orwin's Ring, Eidon was ready to move in with force. He used three Warrior's Boots in a row to play all three Leaf Chogo. With three Wasperine and a Wasperine Stalker, Eidon had used up most of his energy. In the end, Eidon was unable to make a finishing blow against Tiller because of those two Baby Furoks. Tiller would fight hard against Eidon, getting both the Robe of Vines and Orwin's Ring using my only two copies of Relic Stalker. While Tiller would last against Eidon only a few turns, he had cost Eidon his opening momentum. Salafy would have to fight Eidon next. This was good. She would use her effect with an Alpine Xamf, leaving a copy of it in my hand. With a Giant Carillion and Weebo added to the mix, she would Stomp one creature and restore the Giant Carillion. We had both cycled through our decks by this point, so I had the Weeblit in my hand and used that to sacrifice the Weebo and add energy to the Alpine Xamf. In the end, Salafy would punch through Eidon's defenses as seen here.

Tillant Likes Core!

I was sitting in my hotel wondering what I could do. Writing hurt my head too much. Maybe I could've read my books some more and learned something to improve myself towards a better and brighter future. Instead, I thought that I might log onto gatlingEngine and see about a game before bed.

As it turns out, CapAp was online and offered to play. I had started back through my sequence of Twilight War test decks back when I had last played, so why not play the next deck. So, I would go first with Keelie. I debated a first turn Tillant for the fun of it, but I chose to go with the way the deck was designed to play. Tillant for Core, otherwise start with Alpine Xamf. Not knowing what CapAp was playing yet, I used Nocturne for an Alpine Xamf, played a Weebo and Ember Hyren, then healed the Alpine Xamf. CapAp would flip over Lanyx, Reaper. With the power first, Lanyx would then Turn the Ember Hyren and played out a Shadow Hyren to get a taste for Naroom. This would foretell Keelie's doom. She would do what she could, but it was best to attack then using Crushing Roots to eliminate the hyren. Yaki would have to challenge Core next. With Giant Carillion, Yaki would Stomp out the one creature that could threaten his fresh Tillant. After using Weebo, the Giant Carillion would be safe for a little while. In the end, Tillant would do massive damage to Lanyx and Spirit of the Core would threaten to take the Giant Carillion. To pad his odds, Yaki placed a second Tillant right after defeating Lanyx. Togoth would take the Giant Carillion since those annoying Tillants were immune to the Core spell. With a Naroom Shadow Geyser, he promised doom upon Naroom. Koil would eliminate the beatup Tillant. To top off his selection, Togoth would mix in a Shadow Vinoc. Yaki tossed down his gauntlets to increase the strikes of his Tillant to three and wiped out the whole spectrum. When Togoth repeated the three creature challenge, Yaki would setup another repeat play by using Tap Roots first to ensure the Tillant would survive. This is when CapAp declared "gg" and announced that they had nothing to get rid of the Tillant in play.

Custom Card happenings

It's the end of the year. Time to hand out Christmas presents?

Just a quick notice for those who are interested what will be happening over the next few months for the custom cards on gEngine:

November: Double Jeopardy gets added to gEngine for playtesting.

This is the last chance for people to comment on the Double Jeopardy cards on the Custom Card forums. Please take the time to see where you can improve on the cards there, including the grammar. All help will be appreciated. It's up to you to shape some of the most powerful cards ever.

December: Project Second Chance Base sets gets added to be immediately custom legal.

I think I'll just go ahead with the cards already listed and based on the list of cards that people have posted. I'm going to do away with the voting. The cards will be immediately custom legal when added, but I have no idea if anyone will be playing with them.

January: Twilight War moves off playtesting and becomes custom legal.

This gives us 2 more months to playtest the cards. After January though, the'll be custom legal online on gEngine. There'll be launch events for these cards and stuff between January and May which is the official date that they'll be off playtesting offline. Anyone with strong opinions on any of the cards from the set better get ready their last chance to voice out their objections on the Custom Card forums.

February onwards: Exodus Flight gets added to gEngine for playtesting.

Nine regions are alreadya available for comments on the Custom Card forums. The remaining 4 will be added in December (Paradwyn and Underneath) and January (Weave and Universal). Post your comments in the respective threads on the Custom Card forums. Things are still fluid at this point. Designers are reminded to respond to the comments for their regions as well (yes, that includes you Doug).

March: Cure for All Seasons gets added to gEngine for playtesting

Cure for All Seasons is the custom promo set to go along with Exodus Flight. It's only a 4 card set and will feature 1 Naroom magi. Dartax and I will be working on the cards over the next few months. Oh and a preview?

May onwards: Ancient of Days starts getting designed.

The images are slowly getting added, the designers are being co-opted to make sure they get what they want. Design will officially start after May, but it may start earlier for some regions. Ancient of Days is a 100 card set with the same breakdown as Twilight War. The set will (and supposedly) focus on early Moonlands, particularly Agram, Une and Rayje. There will be two other sets associated with AoD. Ancient Enemy, 50 cards, details of which are still sketchy at this point so I won't say anything until things are more firm and Guardians Promo custom set, which will probably feature all 12 guardians. The latter will not be based on the playtest cards for the guardians.

Future Plans

The 2nd custom expansion based on the Insiider RP material will be next - the current title for the expansion is titled Fallen Hour. There'll be machine cards in this expansion, but it'll also include leftover cards from the development of Exodus Flight. The set will be the same in terms of numbers as Exodus Flight: 12 cards for each region and 6 from Universal. There'll probably only be one magi for Fallen Hour, but the spell count will be upped to two and there'll be 9 relics/creatures.

The promo set that goes along with Fallen Hour hasn't yet been determined yet... obviously I've got to source the artwork and stuff which will probably determine the set after that. This will be done closer to the time of the development of Fallen Hour.

The final custom set that we will be doing is probably High Noon, which as the name suggests involves mainly shootouts and reacts. Burn spells will predominate with Cald and Nar taking to the fore for this expansion. It is uncertain if this set will be a full 100 card set, or just a promo set of less than 50 cards. The thing that limits this set will be the amount of art I would be able to source for this. We are talking about 2009 here though... and the game might be fully dead by then so who knows what will happen?

Art Request

Since I'm on the topic of art requests, anyone who wants to submit art for the custom cards is more than welcome to do so. Thanks goes to SuperRyoga, Essense, Whyrl and Dartax's sister who has been providing a large number of good stuff so far. I'm still currently collecting images for AoD/AE and need to colour the guardians. Anyone willing to offer any help in either of these is more than welcome.