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.