The greatest plans... were meant to be broken?

It's January. A new year. Time for some new plans perhaps since the old one was really out of date anyways. So this is what can be expected for the first 6 months of this year and beyond. Of course, the disclaimer is that everything is subject to change though.

January - Weave and Universal cards gets rolled out for comments on the Custom Card Forums
I just realised that I still haven't finished the custom card designs for those 2 regions. These have to be done ASAP to ensure that they get added for playtesting at the same time with the other cards as well. I'll do Universal today and Weave hopefully by tomorrow.

February - Exodus Flight gears up for playtesting
Arderial will be the first region added for playtesting. If there's time in February, Bograth and Cald would also be added. I realised that I haven't exactly setup the code to accept Exodus Flight cards so I would have to do that first before adding any cards. Playtesting is only available to people who have signed up on the CCGW Forums though.

March - A Cure for All Seasons gears up for playtesting
I think there's some excitement about this series of 4 magi and these will get added in March, together with EF's Core, KT, Nar and Naroom, all for playtesting.

I'm still looking for images for Ancient of Days though, so that will be done in between adding all the cards for playtesting. Remember that images made using the 2i Card maker website that are posted in the Custom Card forums might get added to AoD.

May - Twilight War moves off playtesting and becomes custom legal
I decided to make May the month that new sets are made custom legal, so TW will join the ranks of EL and TG (and SP and KQ). DJ still has a while to go yet though.

2nd half 2007 - DJ becomes custom legal
No idea when this will happen or if it'll even change. I haven't seen too much complaints about the cards since they entered playtesting. I expected people to say they were underpowered, but that hasn't surfaced yet. This might still change, but I think the cards would fit in the custom legal environment.

Remember, originally, these cards weren't even supposed to be custom legal. They were supposed to be created and banned for tournaments, making them useless most of the time. I think it's with the collective effort of everyone who has been involved with the custom cards that has got the cards suitable for the custom legal environment, and I thank everyone involved in the making of the cards.

Sometime 2007 - AoD design begins
I still haven't finished collecting the art for AoD yet, and yes, it's difficult to get the art now. I think this set will go ahead, eventhough I still haven't gotten the 50 images needed for half the set. I will get there, I think sometime this year. After that though, the remaining 50 images needs to be created/collected, before it gets passed on to the card designers to do their magic.

Other Plans:

The invaders will probably NOT make an appearance due to the fact that I couldn't get enough images to justify a separate region. That would mean removing all references to them in EF onwards.

Project Second Chance - Awakenings would probably get kicked off sometime this year if there's interest. I'm sure Doug or someone would start a thread on it soon to see how many people are interested in that.

As usual, I'm still looking for artwork. Anything is welcomed. Dartax's sister has been going crazy with great new art stuff. If you know anyone who can draw and colour on a computer, see if you can get them to do something for the custom cards.

And of course, the MND cartoon will be shown on WB (in the US) and CBC (in Canada) sometime this year, probably in fall/autumn. That might mean the end of the Custom cards... or it might not.

Not a lot to look forward in 2007.

Dark Twins Battle Orothe

I am sorry that I lost my notes for this game. I was hoping and waiting for them to resurface in the clutter I had. But now that it has been cleaned up, I can only guess that these notes found their way to the garbage without my catching it. I can tell you that this was a fun game that used one of my first Arderial/Orothe decks. My first Magi was Aula Mindseeker, followed by Voice of the Storm. Those two Magi did their job and took out the Dark Twins. However, a couple low rolls on Typhoon sort of ended any chance of a comeback for my final Magi. Oh well. A fun loss to Pylofuf Boy. If I had my notes, I am sure I could've told you a little more even this late after the game (March 1).

I don't go down to Eidon

I am really out of practise with regards to what cards do. So today I threw together the Paradwyn version of the weenie swarm deck - my second on this machine - and when I was done poor Frosty Ninja logged in. I asked him for a game, and he didn't realise he was going to be my guinea pig for the just created deck.

I got to go first and revealed Pok. I don't have any of his starting (look out for the circlet in AoD though!) and drew 5 random cards. I got a bunch of cards I can't even play including TR's Jungle Riddle and EL's Second Shadow. I plopped down 2 relics - Scarletsong Banner was going to be a loss if I got hit by anything that removes energy from Pok, and a Robes of Petal. Immediately though I realised that I really should have Rayje's Shield in this deck, but oh well. Drew 3, discarded one and ended the turn with 5 cards in hand, 2 relics and no creatures in play.

Frosty went next and revealed Delia and did the usual Vellup swarm playing out a string of Vellups. Thankfully, nothing to damage my magi and the Banner was safe. During my turn, the Jungle Riddle was played gaining me a net gain of 3e. I laid out a string of weenies and shockwaved the 6e Elder Vellup... and well, that went on for a while as Delia recovered Vellups while I made sure that I always had more creatures in play (with less energy) to make sure that my magi could not be attacked. I was getting the free energy from the robes of ages, Lahalou and Hardshell Weebo, while Delia had Strenghten.

By Turn 10 though, Frosty had got all the cards in hand (it was more than 15 at that point) and decided to just draw cards without playing any creatures. Delia went down on turn 11 thanks to one Scarletsong Hwit and I played out more creatures knowing fully well that a swarm was coming next.

Eidon wasn't a surprise on turn 12, with a Staff to gain massive amounts of energy and 3 Flutter Yups and 3 Flying Hinkos. A K'teeb and then Nocturn pulled up a Forest Hyren. Poad's Secret Sauce would make things saucier. Let's just say he ended the turn with a 10e Flutter Yup, a 19e Forest Hyren, 3 4e Flying Hinkos and the K'teeb and 2 Flutter Yups at 2e. Eidon was at 3e.

What do I have against that? Well, not much I could do against the 10e Yup and the 19e Hyren, this is the unlucky Turn 13 after all, but a Beam of Light took out the 2 smaller Yups, and 3 attacks took out the Hinkos. A huge Lahalou bumped into the Hyren making it lose 8e (thanks again to the Hwit) while sacrificing itself. Then I laid out 2 K'teeb Thumpers which made the Forest Hyren lose 6 more. A Second Shadow and the Forest Staff got rid of Eidon's energy while the first Power of the Staff made sure the Forest Hyren could either attack or use its power, but not both. Staff of Vines was used to reduce all my creatures above 3e (remember this is a weenie deck, so 4e is my largest creature) down to 3e so that it would threathen the Yup. And that was the end of my turn, 8 creatures - 4 at 3e and 4 at 2e and no energy on Pok.

Turn 14 was interesting. I expected the Yup to attack and the Hyren to use energy transfer. Instead, 4 of Eidon's 6e was spent on a crushing, boosting the Hyren up to 10e and taking out a Thumper. The other Thumper went down to the Hyren's attack and then Frosty drew 2 signalling the end of his turn. Wait a minute... he did not attack with the Yup? And he left a Hwit alive? Would it make any difference?

I started the next turn with 6e on Pok (thanks to the Banner). Bagala Fangs Upped Yup to a starting energy of 10 (at which point, I could see Frosty was probably wondering what I was doing, since I was so confused with the Fangs after such a long time of not playing). Ambush took out the 10e Yup easily, and the Hyren and Eidon went down thanks to a couple of attacks each (By this point my solitaire Hwit has gained me more energy than I used to play it). I ended the turn with 1e left on my magi and over half a dozen creatures.

Frosty's last magi was Niffer which appeared in Turn 16. A cataclysm with Core overwritten to Naroom meant my swarm was gone and a Wasperine finished off Pok. He ended the turn with a 3e Wasperine and 4e left on Niffer.

Next up for me on Turn 17 was Arawan and I got back the Robes (free energy) and the Hwit (yay!), Spirit Drain took Niffer down to nothing as Frosty had 6 cards in hand by that point. But wait, I couldn't take out a 3e creature. I only had a Beam of Light in hand. Blegh. Guess Niffer will live for another turn... But wait! I haven't used Warp Driven yet. Let's see what I can pull up... oooh... what's this a Poison Baloo Root! Well, I played out a string of creatures as usual, but Wither on the Root and the Beam of Light took out the Wasperine! Wow, goes to show how some thinking is needed to win the game. A screenshot of the game at the end follows:



I enjoyed the game - taking out Eidon was almost as satisfying as taking out Super Tony. Swarms seem to rule, or at least when I'm playing them. I think the next deck that I will be making will probably be a creatureless one to throw people off balance...

I tested 3 cards in the deck - Radiant Spring and Commander's Knife both didn't even get to see play, so I can't comment on that. One of the key combos of the deck was Second Shadow - Jungle Staff. 3e to take off 3e. Not a big energy gain. The trick is that Second Shadow can be played way way before hand and most people will usually ignore it since, well, what's the chance of throwing a 6? It wasn't as annoying for Frosty in this game, but it did one thing that I wanted it to do - it stalked the opposing magi. That enabled the Staff to be played just at the right moment for me to take off 3e. I liked that.

Now why use that over Spirit Drain, for example? I don't really know. It's weird to magi stalk when the deck is based around Dreamwarp - I really need to test it out with a real magi stalking deck and Loaded Dice. The one thing the combo does is annoy with Second Shadow and provided that neither that spell or the Staff is discarded, a repeatable 3e loss every turn for the cost of 1e after the first try from the opposing magi. Oh and I guess that's the other purpose. It protects my other relics by being discarded in preference first - and I have quite a number of them in play. I don't know. It's not such a great card in a dreamwarp deck after all, but I'll leave it as it is.

The card that saved my bacon this game? Hmm... I was going to go for the Jungle Riddle which gained me 8e this game, but my Robes of Petals actually gained me more. Either Bahza's Pendant or Ambush might qualify, I like the way it took out a Yup which would have taken me ages to defeat with attacks, but that's a combo everyone else uses anyways. No, the one card that made victory possible again and again was the tiny Scarletsong Hwit and I'll call that the card of the match.

Arderian Adept Swarms

It was nice to see a few people online playing recently. I haven't had much time to play this week, so when Frosty Ninja had some time to play Wednesday I took the opportunity to play. Delia would start things off for me and for the game. Just a standard Vellup swarm with three Vellup and an Elder Vellup. With Aerial Flist put in the hand, it was a good start. Chur would flip and play a Borgor and Nightmare Hyren opposite Delia. With the Nightmare Hyren giving my Elder Vellup some bad dreams, it looked like a good opening for Frosty Ninja. I had a tough choice to make. If I attacked with the Elder Vellup into a big enough Core creature, I would be rid of Toss and Turn, but I had the right setup to get through Chur's creatures despite appearances and hit Chur with the energy of the Elder Vellup. I ended up choosing to hit Chur with the Elder Vellup, so I would have to deal with Toss and Turn for several turns. In the end, Delia beat Chur. Zet would steal my biggest Elder Vellup and play a Drush. While this would foretell Delia's defeat, I managed a great setup going into Arderian Adept. I think I had over half my deck in my hand at one point. That is, until I revealed Arderian Adept as my second Magi. She would use Sandswirl for two to prevent any immediate creature theft and played out two Orathan Flyers, two Aerial Flists, and a Vellup. With a Storm Ring and Storm Shield to round things off, she had a good start. Shimmer would use her effect to undream a Drush and net a bunch of energy on all her creatures. After the Adept defeated Zet, Morag would flip and play Vaporize, Szalak, Koil, and Zungg. With the effect of the Koil and power of Zungg, Morag setup an Orathan Flyer for Turn. With a loaded dice, he spent his last energy to help the Szalak gain five energy. The screen shot here is from the turn immediately after this. With a single Storm Cloud, I ensured that the energy advantage in creatures belonged to Shimmer once again. Frosty Ninja declared it a "gg." Unfortunately, although I took notes, I did not write this report until half a week later.

How the Super has fallen!

New computer, no decks.

The only deck I can easily throw together is my LE-Weave deck. So I did that and as I finished Doug popped in and asked me for a game. So why not... I figured... it'd be fun to lose to Super Tony.

I went first and got my Uwamar as usual. The other 4 cards were all creatures which I played with ease. Doug flipped Eryss and proceeded to draw massive amounts of cards leaving a 6e Fog Hyren, a 4e Poison Baloo Root and a 4e N'kala. During my next turn (Turn 3), I could have got rid of Eryss since I had a Brushfire and a Beam of Light in hand, but it would mean sacrificing all the creatures I have in play that could attack, clogging up my hands with creatures I couldn't play since I played the spells and drawing close to nothing. Instead, I chose to play it safe and keep Eryss for an extra turn while I laid out my creatures and drew more cards.

Eryss did close to nothing on the next turn (Turn 4) which lead me to suspect she was being used as a draw magi. She went down fast in Turn 5 and I had 2 massive Uwamars out at this point of over 20e. Aula, Minseeker was revealed in Turn 6 with her starting cards and Doug drew another 4 cards without playing any creatures. Bad choice of 2nd draw magi IMO, and she went down fast in Turn 7, at which point Doug taunted me if I was ready for his next magi.

My heart fell when indeed Tony Jones was revealed during Turn 8, but hey, it was only a fun game right? I started the turn with 5 cards in hand and about 14 creatures in play, one of them a Frusk and 1e on my magi. Doug proceeded to play his relics and spells and 2 constructs and did all sorts of crazy things including massive draw and massive energy gain with FoE, Jasker's and Bog Pit. An Ormagon took out my swarm. Major Ouch! But it also took out his Constructs as well as he did not have the Quill in play then. Thanks to all those cards he played, I ended the turn with 21e on LE, 21 cards in hand, but no creatures in play and no cards in my deck because I drew them all. Oh well. Doug had a whole bunch of relics, but no creatures and 8e left on Tony Jones.

During my go in Turn 9, I booted in a Zassyfer and if I had a Weave Seed in hand it would be game, but I didn't. I scratched Tony for 3e with the Zassyfer, then played an Uwamar and a Grass Etiki. Thanks to the Grass Etiki, I warped down all my weave creatures to play all 21 cards in my hand including another Frusk, Uwamar Beads and Weave Hut. The latter 2 was to be my saviour.

Turn 10 saw more crazy relics being played by Doug, including the Alaban Gloves and Abraxin's Crown and Abwyn's Quill. Book of Life + Book of Ages means a 15 energy gain for him with a FoE, but that gave me 10 as well. He discarded Uwamar Beads with the newly played construct's Pound and did a few other things. At one point during this turn he was on 40 with a 5e construct, I was on 36, and he attempted a Syphon Vortex on my magi. I triggered the Weave Hut to make it do nothing and he behaved rather cordial at accepting this major mistake. I offered him the chance to take it back at which point he gleefully typed in "Cancel" and then used the vortex on my 25e Uwamar. Oh well, the Uwamar couldn't attack anyways, and thanks to the cards he was playing, I had drawn 11 cards to make it 16 in hand and 36 on my Magi. He ended the turn with a 5e Construct and a 30e Tony Jones in play while I had my swarm of a dozen creatures in play, most of them with 1e or 2e. Would that be enough?

A Weave Path brought back an Uwamar, the only creature in my discard pile at that point, making it 13 creatures in play. Uh Oh? Kesia's Flute did a quick weave to give me a gain of 5e, but is that enough? A quick count revealed that I had more energy on my side of the table, but 4 of those were on creatures that could not attack. The creatures that could attack though had less than 35 energy. Will Tony Jones live another day?

A 4e bungaloo attacked the 5e construct, weaving itself so that it was at 5e and then going out, giving it's additional 2e to another Bungaloo. Had I been thinking though, I would have attacked with all 3 of my bungaloos, weaving them down so that I would gain 6e on my creatures thanks to Flee. But that was not to be. The remaining creatures attacked Tony Jones weaving energy away from the creatures that could not attack and removed - get this - exactly 30 energy. Had Doug had a Spirit of Rayje in play, he would have lived for another turn thanks to my mistake with the Bungaloos. He only had 3 cards in hand and Spirit of Rayje wasn't one of them so I won.

Wow. And I mean wow. A deck quickly thrown together in 2 minutes took out one of the most powerful decks currently online. There's a screenshot on the CCGW forums of the endgame.

I suggested 2 cards to Doug - Orwin's Gaze to get back the Ormagon and the Orothe relic that allows powers on relics to be used twice. He said the Orothe relic won't work, and since I don't really remember that relic, I guess he's right. I think he's gonna add the Orwin's Gaze though... The other card he could have added is the universal relic that copies relics... but I don't exactly remember that card as well.

I had Pineneedles and Photosynthesis in the deck, but never got to use the properly. Photosynthesis was just discarded for Channeler's gloves for energy gain instead. I was also testing out Speag Sprouts, but since Doug never attacked, I didn't get a feel for that card.

Doug thanked me for the text on Bog Pit at the beginning of the game which made me wonder what he's got up his sleeve. I found out during the game though. Bog Pit is getting an errata perhaps soonish with the addition of just one word to the text.

I enjoyed the game, it was a Challenge taking out Tony Jones, after Doug gave up on 2 attempts trying to take out my first magi. Had he played the Ormagon first thing when he flipped Tony, he might have got the win, but somehow, I don't think he started the turn with the Ormagon in hand. Had he an Orwin's Gaze in hand during his next turn, the game would have gone on longer. I think he wasn't trying really hard to defeat me somehow. The reverse was not true though, because I really wanted to give him a good game and defeat the (almost) Tony Jones. I did it, without the use of Weave Seed, which I never drew when facing Tony Jones. The only customs that I used of any consequence were Weave Path, but that played such a minor role that even if it was substituted for a non-Custom card, the outcome of the game would still be the same.

And I was playing the weakest of the 5 swarms. Imagine what a Naroom or Arderial or Bograth or Paradwyn swarm would do to Tony Jones. I'd like to see that happen!

Forest Hyren Conspires With K'teeb

For my second game tonight, I thought I would honor Crust357's play of the Flying Hinko and those three Magi by playing my own Flying Hinko deck, although I use those same three Magi in the opposite order. I would go first again, this time starting with Tryn and a random set of five cards. Tryn would get lucky with a K'teeb and Forest Hyren in the opening hand. This would not bode well for Crust357. She played out the powerful opening with the K'teeb dreamcrossing the Forest Hyren. Pruitt would make a decent showing herself by playing a Glade Hyren, Flying Hinko, and Poad's Secret Sauce. With a good roll on Grow and using Pruitt's Power, that would become one large hyren. I would later end up telling Crust357 that putting a little of that grow into the Flying Hinko would've made things a little more difficult for me. At three energy still, it was easy to use Crushing Roots and begin overwhelming Pruitt with the K'teeb-Forest Hyren energy combo. By the time Poad faced off against Tryn, it wasn't looking to good for the little cook. Poad would toss down real good with Weebo, Leaf Hyren, Flying Hinko, and Tree Hinko. A real good lineup. The only problem was that Tryn was already in a strong position. While Crushing Roots would make the Forest Hyren too small to use its own power, the K'teeb would remedy the situation by using its copy. After the attack step and eliminating the much healthier Flying Hinko, Tryn would add a Weebo and Tree Hinko to her side of the field. This allowed the K'teeb to gain more powers by dreamcrossing with the Weebo and later with the Tree Hinko as well. With the Forest Hyren still in play and plenty of add energy or revitalizing powers to go around, Tryn was certainly in control. When Poad would play out his own copy of Forest Hyren, it looked like he would have a comeback until Tryn cut it short with a Giant Carillion. While it would come down to Tryn versus Tryn, Crust357 chose not to play anything out against the Naroom swarm already in play. Afterwards, I think Crust357 was going to take out the Glade Hyren and put in some K'teeb after learning that dreamcrossing would keep the powers of the other creatures as long as the other creatures it got its powers from stayed in play. While these were both crushing losses for Crust357, they showed great sportsmanship in these games. I was impressed.

Forest Wudge Goes Nuts

My games tonight were with Crust357. Since I last saw them playing a Dark Twins deck, I thought I might give my early anti-Core Naroom deck a spin. I would go first with Tiller, so this was my first clue that something was up. Still, my anti-Core Naroom has done alright against plenty of non-Core decks. Tiller would have a fairly standard opening drawing cards with his powers and Vortex of Knowledge. He would play out a Forest Wudge, Bhatar, and a Weebo. Weebo would be returned to the hand to make that one very large Forest Wudge. When Crust357 revealed Pruitt, I had a feeling that the Forest Wudge was going to get out of hand. Although Pruitt would only play a Tree Hinko on her opening turn, she would use Crushing Roots twice, once from research using the Tomes of the Great Library. The second relic she played was Orwin's Ring. Since both Crushing Roots had been used to shrink the Forest Wudge, I responded by using another copy of Bythan's Gift to make that one really large Bhatar, attack, and played the Forest Wudge back out to draw a card this time. Pruitt would fight well, but the Forest Wudge really was causing trouble in the energy scales. Having two out at one point was devastating. Poad would use Crushing Roots to eliminate my Wasperine in play before playing a creature out. While Tiller had lost one of his two Forest Wudge, one was still plenty. Sadly, Poad wouldn't last long. It would then be up to Tryn. While she got some good rolls for two copies of grow on a Flying Hinko, all it took was a copy of Warrior's Boots and a Giant Carillion for Tiller to deal with such a large threat. It was nice to see Crust357 playing something non-Core. When they asked for a rematch, I decided to change decks.

Newbie Rules?

I played a game at the beginning of this week that I haven't been sure how I should write about it. My opponent showed some skills that led me to believe they were a beginner, yet quoted the rule book to defend their actions. It was frustrating for me. I went first with Chayla. My Flood of Energy deck is decent, but I certainly don't consider it my strongest deck. I did the standard opening with Rabbage and Eebit. When they flipped Dark Twins and retrieved a Naroom Shadow Geyser, I wondered if they were playing some interesting and skilled Shadow Geyser deck. Matching it with a Gia Pet seemed an interesting choice. While they got my Eebit with a spell, I already got a lucky draw on my second Eebit. When I played this second Eebit on my next turn, they asked how I was drawing more than one card in my turn. I pointed out Chayla's effects. When I would later play two Flood of Energy with Chayla, they tried telling me that Gia Pet would gain energy too. My argument was that my spells don't stay in play. While they didn't actually add energy to Gia Pet then, it would be later when I tried to using Crushing Roots on Gia Pet that would call out the “Effect – Power Syphon” again. It was frustrating, to have some rules lawyering going on. I was fairly certain that it was a typo on Gia Pet. Everything else in the wording of that “effect” had to do with a spell in play, and not with a spell being played. Anyways, while it canceled the crushing spell since the spell would now remove the same four energy the Gia Pet gained, it didn't save Gia Pet, or the Dark Twins in the end. Yes, I wasn't being too nice by this point. I think that by the end of the game they may have finally realized that the effects of both the Dark Furok and Orok don't actually allow those two creatures to take half damage in attacks.

By the way, eventually I would dig up my one copy of Gia Pet. Magi-Nation seems to have ended up as my bottom box of cards in the closet, it has been that long since I've done anything with my physical collection. And yes, Gia Pet has one effect and one power, “Power – Power Syphon.”

No screen capture.

Tony Jones Rules

This is the first time I am trying to post two pics. It is an exception of sorts. The first pic seen above is from the middle of the game, near the end. This is when the largest amount of energy was had on both sides of the field. Shortly after this, it will become vastly one-sided. There should be a clue to what happened in the relics seen under the control of Tony Jones.


Now, I have known for a while that Ultradoug wanted to play me with their super Tony deck. While this had not happened yet, I was of course a bit curious. From the pics I had seen online, I was guessing that I might want to take my best swarm deck. I was wrong, but I'll leave it up to you to guess what I should have played instead. Ultradoug would start the game with Eryss. Eryss played a fairly standard opening, playing all four of her starting cards and drawing up what she could. Baa would be my first Magi. I decided to setup my second Magi instead of playing rough with Baa, and she would play out Slarnath, Trulb, N'kala, and Muck Vinoc. After using Trulb to play Ooze Arboll and setup more card draw, Baa would end her turn drawing five extra cards. After a little struggle, Baa was defeated by an Ormagon. This was my first hint on the deck I was playing, even though I did not quite know it yet. Grahnna would simply play Spirit Drain on her turn to defeat Eryss. When Aula Mindseeker first flipped as the next opposing Magi, she would only use her power of windsight. Keeping things light for a possible Ormagon, I played a Ruid, Treepsh, and two Trulb. Aula would not leave herself wide open. She played Rayje's Construct, Book of Ages, three copies of Vortex of Knowledge and two Tradewinds. Lots of card draw, and Aula was down enough energy that I need not fear an Ormagon in the immediate future. I figured this was my best opportunity to “go nuts.” And, played big I did, holding enough back to repeat what I just did if necessary. First a Pyder, then a Swamp Hyren, or in this case two hyren, and then a whole lot of virtually free creatures. After defeating Aula, Grahnna would play some more creatures yet. There was plenty of card draw to go with this so it wasn't a real danger for me at this point. Now, it was time to see Tony Jones rule the end game. Tony would flip and start laying out all those relics you see in the first screen shot. Each copy of Rayje's Construct you see was played using Warrior's Boots. It was a rather intricate pattern with Flood of Energy and the constructs copying Tony's power and drawing cards. This allowed all this to take place without getting to the play creature step. Tony ended up with plenty of energy to play an Ormagon and rewrite it to non-Universal using Abwyn's Quill. Having used a spell to eliminate the energy on my Magi, this devastation defeated Grahnna. The first screen shot is from before the devastation. Next, it would be up to Brog. He would play out a Swamp Hyren. A couple Treepsh, Trulb, Jile, Ruid, N'kala, and Muck Vinoc were among the creatures Brog played. Trulb would net me an Ooze Arboll which I was hoping for. This got me one of the Rayje's Constructs. Vard Stampede reset the opposing relics and it was just a matter of waiting and seeing what Tony Jones could do with all that energy. A lot more card that managed to net Tony Jones at least two Warrior's Boots with which to play two Ormagons. One blew up my creatures along with the remaining construct, and the other was sufficient to attack and ensure the defeat of Brog. Very impressive.

Frozen Swamp

I played a game with BobbyDoc2 a couple days ago. While I failed to get a screenshot, I still have my notes. BobbyDoc would go first using the Secret Lovers. Using their power, they revealed a very good card but not one the power would put in the hand. With just a Zyavu played, it didn't look like a powerful start for the dual Magi. Eryss would flip as my first Magi. She would play out a Swamp Hyren, Fog Hyren, Gremble, and Poison Baloo Root. Not a bad start at all for Eryss. When the Secret Lovers tossed down some more creatures, I opted to sacrifice Eryss. Quite possible with this deck. Olabra would be next to battle for Bograth. Now, I would forget her own effect and make some choices later that could've been different for perhaps a better result. Oh, well. Anyways, Olabra flips and plays a Deadwood Staff, Swamp Hyren, Jile, Treepsh, and Ruid. Using the Deadwood Staff, she placed a second Swamp Hyren in play. Adding in a Moss Pendant made for a nice opening swarm. With two Swamp Hyren, she had a power position for building a vast swarm. As I wasn't playing against Underneath or Arderial, I probably should've played a few more creatures out earlier rather than hold them for my next Magi. It still looked overwhelmingly in Olabra's favor when Odavast flipped after the Secret Lovers were defeated. He would play a Yaromant, three Mombak, and Ice Lens. A great opening. Olabra would attack then use the power of her surviving Muck Vinoc to eliminate the Yaromant which had grown in size. With the help of Ice Lens, his protection in attacks, and a constant freeze, Odavast would slowly comeback from his desperate situation. When he defeated Olabra, it would up to Brog to try for the Bograth comeback. He would play out a Tar Hyren, Fog Hyren, Torpar, and an N'kala. Having seen all three Crushing Ice in gameplay, I felt it safe to leave some creatures at four energy. Odavast would defeat Brog by using Warrior's Boots to bring in an Aegris. This would allow him to take out the Tar Hyren cheaply and without harm to his creatures or magi for future play. Although Brog would survive, he didn't have the creatures in hand or energy left anymore to oppose Odavast's growing swarm. I declared it a “gg” and enjoyed the impressive comeback by Nar after suffering some terrible card draw in the early game with the Secret Lovers.

We'll all be burnt to a cinder!

With the previous game being somewhat short, CapAp and I would play another. For this one, I would go with the last of those old decks that I have recently loaded into gEngine. Liriel would go first for CapAp. With two Bagala Cub in play, this promised to start some thinning of the Paradwyn deck. This also meant the two creatures were a bit smaller than I usually like to use the Boomstick for. However, when I flipped Good Ol' Ashgar as my first Magi, I still grabbed his Boomstick. Ashgar would play out a Quor and Magma Hyren. He would battle Liriel several turns, including putting out his Boomstick to do some burn. In the end, she would beat him. Barak the Red would reveal as my next Magi. His purpose is to use his power to thin the creatures from the deck. Besides, the right combination of creatures allows him to great. Barak would play Brushfire, Crushing Heat, and Thermal Blast to do massive damage to Liriel. He would then play two Flame Rudwot and grow them before ending his turn. When Arawan flipped as the next Paradwyn Magi, I had thoughts that something nasty would be setup for that last Magi. He would play a Scarletsong Banner, Bagala Hunter, and Froxfire. With only the one creature, Cald would burn through quickly. Now it would be up to Squik. She would return the Scarletsong Banner to play, use Relic Stalker on Gorgle's Glasses, and then she tossed out the Jungle Riddle. Crushing Vines would do some damage, and Bagala Hunter would create her defense. I had to do some serious thinking to sacrifice Barak. I didn't want him to have to face Squik if she got out of hand. By using Fireball as part of the effort, Scarletsong Banner went away quietly on its own. Valkan would flip as my last Magi. With another copy of Gorgle's Glasses, he was ready to battle it out. Valkan has a low energize, so he would play Robe of the Ages before using Brushfire to finish off Squik's single creature in play. Then he would take a change and play just one creature, a Greater Vaal. When the first die roll was a five, he didn't need a real high roll on the second die to finish off Squik. I cannot remember when I last played that deck. It has been a while.

This finishes off all those old decks that I have entered into gEngine so far this year.

Weave Creature Feature

For those of you who might not know, during the Cald Season of the Magi-Nation League they had a special path one could earn stamps on for playing a deck with all creatures. No relics. No spells. Now, originally, I built an Orothe deck out of all creatures. It was doing well until it went against another deck which was all creatures. When it was exposed that my creature feature had a severe weakness against creature features, I chose to build another one instead. Unfortunately, I never wrote down the list of that Orothe deck. I wish I had. However, I did keep a record of my newer creature feature, including some mods I made after Voice of the Storms to keep it somewhat competitive.

When CapAp offered to play a game, I decided to go with my creature feature deck. Since it has only creatures, and all those from one region, I knew it has some inherit flaws. So, the question would be if CapAp's deck would be able to exploit them. I would end up going first with Ahdar. Yes, a Weave creature feature. Ahdar would play Uwamar, Grass Etiki, Drowl, and Sagaweave. Being a creature feature, I would never run out of creatures for my Uwamars. Well, CapAp would reveal Emlob as his first Magi. I would end up reminding CapAp of some effects going on with his Magi and creatures. It sort of showed that he doesn't have much practice with Bograth yet. Emlob would end up playing a Quido Swarm, Zungg, Treepsh, and Mist Hyren on that first turn. While I would make a full range of attacks whenever I could, my first clue that I wasn't facing another creature feature was a Dream Balm that restored the Mist Hyren a couple turns into the game. Of course, I lost my first Uwamar early on, but when I played another and started using some of the Aritex combo, CapAp declared it a good game. Apparently, these energy tricks I was using to help keep my creature feature competitive were more than his deck could handle and he knew it. I had been snapping screen shots, except my last screen capture happened to be just as CapAp was logging out of the game. Oh well. Too slow on my key strokes and I chose not to save the pic of only myself in the game.

P.S. If you want to play against this creature feature I have, just let me know.

O'qua Battles Dark Twins

My next game would be against Crust357. I had just witnessed them playing a Dark Twins deck against another player and knew that this has been their deck of choice for a little while now. One of the older decks I had yet to play was an O'qua deck which I was sure had one Hunter Jile in there. The Dark Twins would go first, as was their right. They played out a Corathan, Core Grag, Raveled Drush, and Corrupt. This was a bit more on the opposing creatures than I was hoping to face on an opening turn. If it wasn't for the Corrupt, I would've summoned an Abaquist and stole that Core Grag. Instead, I would flip O'qua and summon the Hunter Jile to break the opening Corathan and Corrupt combo. With two of my Giant Parathin in my opening hand, I almost wanted to cry then and there. It presented two problems. One, if I didn't play one out, then I only had one creature to defend O'qua. I guess I am just too fond of that little magi. So, taking a chance, I had O'qua summon one of them normally and used its power. Now, afterward, I wonder if I should have just left it in play and taken the chance that way. Anyways, O'qua slipped away undefeated to have Shaper's Apprentice take the field in her place. He would play out Will of Orothe and end the turn. I would have Corathan attack. This opened up an opportunity for the Dark Twins to use Crushing Roots on the Hunter Jile. Ouch! That changed things, however I was feeling somewhat good about my choices since I had drawn that third Giant Parathin with Shaper's Apprentice already. Yes, all three Giant Parathin in the opening game. Of course, Shaper's Apprentice didn't survive and get a chance to slip away. While that hurt a little, it did mean that I could get Arosa's starting cards. Arosa would play a Giant Parathin, River Abaquist, and an Abaquist. She would put Karak Necklace and Karak Band into play too. River Abaquist would steal the one energy Zungg while Submerge would allow Abaquist to take another creature away from the Twins. While Arosa would make trouble for the Twins, she would not last either. It would now be back to O'qua. She would summon a Coral Hyren and play a Hurricane Orish. After tossing down the Orothean Belt once again, O'qua would use Submerge and Crushing Surf. The Tomes of the Great Library discarded themselves from play when O'qua gained control of them. O'qua would continue to make trouble for the Twins until they were defeated. When Warrada flipped, I thought of the Tomes of the Great Library. O'qua had no energy and only one creature in play. Although it was a healthy sized creature, I had just used Undertow to defeat the Dark Twins. Ignoring my discard pile, Warrada would play a Crushing Roots from the hand and research another copy from their deck to finish off O'qua's creature and O'qua herself in the process.

Drawing With Underneath Geyser

I've played a few games in the past few days. Lets see if I can get caught up in sharing them in this blog. As you can see from the pic I posted right after the game, I played ManiacMadMax again. I opted to go with another of my older decks. ManiacMadMax would have the first turn and flipped over League Elder as their first Magi. I was figuring that I might be seeing Gia so it was a pleasant surprise. League Elder would become a Bograth Magi and played out the full hand. With Rayje's Belt, Fog Hyren, N'kala, Ainjer, and Umbu in play, it would take the card draw of the Fog Hyren to get a Moss Pendant in play on that same turn. An awesome start for a Bograth deck, especially after League Elder repleneshed the hand. On my turn, I would reveal Togoth as my first Magi. Keeping consistent with the strategy I can remember for my deck, I pulled the Underneath Shadow Geyser and played it after energizing per his effect. I would also play Warrada's Ring, Wudge, Shadow Vinoc, and Raveled Drush. While none of my creatures would survive past League Elder's next round, Togoth would hold out and eventually do massive damage with a Core Grag. Togoth's next challenge would be Baa. Baa would start by playing Rayje's Shield, and then played out eight creatures. While my Wudges in play would gain a bunch of energy, the card draw at the end of Baa's turn would start the swarm into some healthy growth. Phlouk's Lantern would also be part of Baa's turn. Both the Wudge would attack the two Treepsh in play. This would prevent the Treepsh from canceling the power from the Core Grag I would then play. After such a massive blow, ManiacMadMax would declare it a “good game.” It seems that every time they've played this particular deck against Core, there has always been a Core Grag or three to destroy the swarm.

A Beginning That Looks Like Another

Last night, CapAp had the chance to play the above game. CapAp would start with Delia and the standard swarm of Vellups. When he had the Elder Vellup pull a Xyx Minor into the hand, I began to suspect another Flying Hinko and Xyx Minor combo similar to the Arderial deck I used recently. I was wrong in my guess. In addition to the Vellup madness, Delia would shield her creatures with the Arderian-Guard Wings. Suddenly, I felt like I had lost the game from the beginning. To my surprise, I revealed Empress Gia as my first Magi. After checking the deck, I confirmed that although I had the wrong Magi pile, the deck was a matching mistake and I had the correct deck for the Magi pile in front of me. Because of the naming of all my decks to help me sort them, I had grabbed the set of decks I call Core 3 instead of Cald 3. So, with Delia facing Nagsis once again, it looked like the start of the game I had just played earlier in the day. After shuffling my deck, Nagsis would play just two Vuryip. When the Vellups began attacking, that was a lot of card draw. With Weave Seed, Nagsis would gain even more cards for me as Empress Gia struck out at Arderial. After several turns going back and forth, the Aritex combo began to hit. This allowed Nagsis to build a strong Weave swarm. Now, there was one moment when Empress Gia could've defeated Delia one turn earlier, but I held off attacking with Tropical Jumbor to build up energy against a possible threat of Xyx Elders. How fitting that I forgot to add the two energy to the Tropical Jumbor anyways. Delia would sacrifice herself on her next turn. When Defender of the Sky flipped, she played a Relic Stalker to eliminate Weave Hut. Tradewinds would net some more cards for CapAp. He then had Ora play Channeler's Gloves, a Xyx Elder, two Xyx Minor, a Xyx, and another copy of Arderian-Guard Wings. While the Shock Ring would help Ora in her energy struggles, it would not help CapAp in his efforts to roll a two for the Xyx Elder's power. After demonstrating a powerful opening turn for the Xyx deck, CapAp would declare "gg" on my next turn when I tossed down Agram's Staff and a Weave Seed. Look at the pic included to get an idea of the Weave swarm threatening the Xyx. And, in case you might be wondering, the idea behind playing Agram's Staff with Empress Gia is in Nagsis's second effect which would allow those Uwamar's to attack.

Eidon Stumbles Against Corrupted Weave

It was fun to play another of these older decks I had. Frosty Ninja was online and asked if I would like to play a game. Empress Gia would go first. While I had a far from ideal starting hand, I went ahead and played a Tropical Jumbor in the hopes of starting some card draw for this corrupted Weave deck. Sure, the corruption isn't that big. Anyways, Delia would flip for Arderial. This spelled swarm. Three Vellup and an Elder Vellup later, Delia was beginning to setup things for Frosty Ninja by putting a Flying Hinko in the hand. Nagsis (Empress Gia) and Delia would continue to battle it out for several turns. Delia would stick to her Vellups and managed to get in the final blow on Nagsis. Although, I made sure on my previous turn that Nagsis sent his one energy creature over in an attack to prevent him surviving by his defensive effect. Spending all his energy on a single creature to be left in play meant that Delia could beat him with just the two Elder Vellup in play being used. Taisa would flip over next. He would play out a Grass Etiki, Uwamar, two Drowl, and Tropical Jumbor all dreamwarped down where possible. This would be followed with an Aritex and Weave Hut. After using the power of the Aritex, Taisa had plenty of creatures and plenty of energy for the next turn. By the time Taisa defeated Delia, he was building up quite a swarm of Weave creatures. Although, Delia actually sacrificed herself by using her power and using Warrior's Boots to put an Elder Vellup into play and attacked to eliminate all her energy and all her creatures. On Taisa's next turn, he would just play a copy of Drought. This would prevent Eidon from starting with his energize. With a healthy swarm across the table, Eidon needed that energy to swarm himself. It would be later that I learned another issue facing Eidon was that Delia lasted too long and drew too many cards creating a unique problem for Eidon that way as well. Eidon would play nothing and it would be defeated easily. Niffer would have to make the last stand for the Naroom/Arderial deck. She would level Taisa's swarm easily with Cataclysm, using her effect to save all those Naroom cards in her hand. With a follow up attack using a Wasperine, Taisa was defeated. Niffer would toss down a Flutter Yup for good measure. Ashio would play a copy of Agram's Staff first before beginning the rest of his opening turn. With Brushfire in the discard pile, Ashio eliminated the Flutter Yup and then used Sawgrass from the hand to eliminate the Wasperine. A Tropical Jumbor, Grass Etiki, Aritex, and Weave Hut would round out his cards for the turn. Ashio would sacrifice the Grass Etiki to the power of the Aritex and hope to survive the next turn. Having run out of deck, it was helpful to have another copy of Brushfire in the hand. While a Galiant gained a fair bit of energy because of the Tropical Jumbor, Weave Seed and Brushfire would end the game by eliminating the fresh Flutter Yup as well.

Stealing More Than Core

With the first game being so quick, we went ahead and played a second game. ManiacMadMax was trying to fine tune their deck, so I just switched to one of those two Orothe decks. Aula Mindseeker would start the game for me simply using her power on her starting Typhoon and playing only a Phrup. Warrada would look so much better with her dark blooming. She would play her Ring, an Orok, and Raveled Drush. Unfortunately, the turn ended without it using at least Ravel. This meant that Aula could play a Karak Necklace and use Crushing Surf to steal the Ring, eliminate the Raveled Drush, and net two cards for the theft. She wouldn't be seeing the effect of Warrada's Ring anytime soon as Aula's own power would stop the card draw for the rest of the turn. Warrada would try a couple time to play Tomes of the Great Library, only to suffer from Time Lapse each time which would account for both my Phrup in the deck. Aula would get a Reef Hyren, Hurricane Orish, and Wellisk into play. She also pulled off a Pharan and Spray Narth combo for extra energy. By the time Zet took the field, Aula had gained some steam. It seems that ManiacMadMax doesn't have much experience with Karak Necklace, and so Zet learned a hard lesson as Aula would take her creature back and then play a River Abaquist to steal the Zungg too, since Aula now controlled three relics. Zet wouldn't last long. Morag would take the last stand again. First order of business was to steal away the Karak Necklace so Aula couldn't keep taking her creatures back. Morag begin stealing Aula's creatures and played one of his own, which Aula rebuked with her Reef Hyren. As you can see in the pic, Aula had another Karak Necklace in the hand which would allow her to take her stuff back anyways and essentially ended the game. It seems ManiacMadMax is going to go back to their staple Gia deck. It was a good Gia deck, but I have enjoyed seeing all these fresh decks recently from ManiacMadMax.

Sorreah Crashes Warrada

It is now 2007. With a new year starting, I debated adding some old decks from my days playing in card shops in Utah. So, I pulled up the wordprocessor file where I recorded the deck lists and started choosing some decks to import. So far, I have added one for Arderial, two I call Core decks (one is actually Weave with two Core Magi and a few Core cards in the deck), a Cald deck, and two Orothe decks. While I was doing this, ManiacMadMax showed up oline. After chatting for a bit, we played a couple games.

In this first game, I chose to go with that old Arderial deck. Sorreah would go first for Arderial. I didn't draw any starters and got lucky with an Elder Vellup in the opening hand. So, taking a chance, that is all I played, using its effect to put a Xyx Minor in my hand. Warrada would not appreciate Sorreah cutting off her effect. However, Warrada would go all out with a Raveled Drush, Orok, Zungg, Tomes of the Great Library, and her Ring. Tomes of the Great Library researched Corrupt and spent the last of her energy. This would spell her doom. Especially when the Raveled Drush used both of its powers so that Sorreah only had two creatures to deal with. Crushing Winds took the Zungg and luckily netted Sorreah a Storm Ring, allowing the Elder Vellup to attack and gain the one energy it had lost to the Zungg. After eliminating the energy that Orok would've take off Sorreah, Warrada was defeated and Sorreah nearly so. Zet would flip next for Core and Nagsis's Sigil would finish off Sorreah. That was all for that turn. Well, Sorreah did his job and upset Warrada's start. Ora would go next. She would play out two Xyx Minor, a Flying Hinko, Hurricane Orish, a Xyx, and Shooting Star. After a few add energy powers, she had some energy to spare on Beam of Light to get the only valid target, Nagsis's Sigil. Zet would steal the Flying Hinko, but that was easily countered using Alaban Gloves. Zet went down in the following series of attacks. Morag would play Dream Rift, steal the Alaban Gloves, and return my fresh Flying Hinko back to my hand. Robes of the Ages, Nagsis's Sigil, two Raveled Drush, and Maelstrom would round out the turn. However, Morag was still facing a strong force waiting to pummel him and ManiacMadMax declared "gg." It was a quick game.