On Different Ground

I actually wrote this the next day. Because of a number of reasons I have forgotten anyways, I never got around to posting it with the picture.

For our second game, we would both play some less serious decks. Mine was a d'Resh-Kybars-Core-Universal mix of sorts. I don't have many mixed regions decks. Not knowing what sort of fun deck I was going up against, I thought it might be my best bet on a non-serious deck. SilverRaine would go first again, this time with Evil Evu. With a single Chaos Plith in play, I would use two copies of Forgotten Dreams to build a discard pile for Nahara. This would allow me to copy a Karkik in my discard pile before playing two Szhar. This took away Evil Evu's good starting position. Nahara would mix it up with Evil Evu for a bit and then face off against Korg and Zet. I had to smile. This promised to make for a fun game. With such a massive energize, stealing my creatures with Turn would be a good move. The exception to this would be stealing an illusionary creature. Since my illusionary creature could not attack magi by its very nature, Nahara would be safe from the severe danger it was to leave just the weak Sandstorm Orshaa in play. After Korg and Zet stole his illusion, Nahara answered with a simple Sand Hyren and Maelstrom combo to finish off the opposition. By my estimates, I had actually drawn too many cards at this point in our battle. My gut feeling was that if Nahara had been defeated that Nashiq might have run out of discard pile tricks because I had too much in my hand.

Frigid Opposition

Last night I played two games with SilverRaine. When I logged in, I saw a reference to replacing parkas with warmer clothes and such. It didn't show the whole conversation that I had missed, but I did catch a reference to a deck that just needed some minor touches to be real good. So, taking a chance with the parka reference, I decided to play Nar. I really like the Warrior's Boots in my Restricted Nar deck, so that was choice. Turns out that SilverRaine would play Nar too. It was a very humorous game. Thin Ice followed by an opposing Thin Ice. Aegris being attacked and destroyed by an opposing Aegris. The opening game lasted a long time. Velouria went first for SilverRaine. This meant that I would keep the energy left on Balachron at one or less as much as possible to reduce any potential opposing energy gains. Balachron would suffer from all three opposing Crystallize. Real annoying. Still, Balachron managed to sneak past Velouria to face Odavast. Oh, I had to laugh. After some battling, the reason for my laughter was revealed when we ended up with Odavast facing off against Odavast. They struggled against each other for a bit. When Odavast beat Odavast, I saw one of the few differences between our decks for the second time. Spirit of Nar prevented my surviving Odavast from swarming then and there. He would have to wait until after Balachron appeared for the opposition to toss down a mass number of frozen creatures.

A Little Glitch

It was nice to see 420Taco use something else in the next game. They even played under the usual rules of regional penalties on their own. Once again, they started. This time with Ashgar and single Arbolit. When Ashgar didn't play anything else, I wasn't sure what the point of the Arbolit was. Anyways, Ahdar would start things off for me and my deck full of Weave creatures. Yep, knowing that they were playing Cald, I chose a region because they are known for being weak against Cald. To top it off, my deck didn't have any spells or relics, so I should be a tad bit weaker on top of that. Ahdar would spend all his energy on all five cards in my opening hand. That was one healthy Uwamar. Ashgar would not last, but it is not often that I experience the pressure of the Heat Lens in a game either. Now this is where we experienced some form of glitch. When I revealed my hand, they did something that put the chosen creature into play. Normally I don't click on the option to allow my opponent to do anything to my hand, so I didn't expect what would happen next in this turn of events. 420Taco would turn control of the creature to me, but when I went to discard it the creature ended up in 420Taco's discard pile. A most unusual experience.




Barak would flip and begin some thinning of my meager hand resources using Heat Lens. Ormagon would finish off my swarm with ease, and yes eleven energy was paid for the Ormagon. As impressive as that might sound, Ahdar still survived Barak and would face Amanax just after I mentioned how the Flame Geyser they had just recently used was so much better with a Cald Magi whose name I could not recall at first. Amanax would play Scroll of Fire, Heat Lens (must I suffer again?), and Brushfire just once. This sort of surprised me because a second application of Brushfire would've eliminated both my creatures. Anyways, after a few rounds, I would start saving my cards instead of playing one out and then suffering as I would draw two and lose one to Heat Lens and thus only have one card on my turn again. Eventually, Amanax found Abraxin's Crown and would start using Ambush and other spells to bring Ahdar back down in the raw energy race. In the end, Storm Cloud would make Ahdar easy to finish off. Kesia got lucky on the flip. Since Amanax had not used Heat Lens on that last turn, she would still have a Drowl available. Drowl would net two cards, one of which was my last Uwamar. Starting with Uwamar, she would continue by playing three Pagajack, her Grass Hyren, and Aritex. The idea was to have something capable of at least surviving one Flame Geyser. Aritex would use its power, and I sacrificed the first of the Pagajacks, to restore Kesia to her starting energy. This was probably the best hope my Weave had for a comeback at this point. Now, the endgame got confusing. First Amanax was trying to use Vim and Vigor to eliminate energy from Kesia. Then it was the Uwamar with Amanax gaining an extra ten although upon reading for clarification I realized that it specified Cald spells and powers. Anyways, 420Taco mentioned they were getting tired of this game, and so was I. Yes, I would have attacked and used weave to gain energy as much as I could have. It seems that they had finally drawn back into an Ormagon too, so that would've been nasty if Amanax could've survived Kesia's assault. But, could he have done more damage than he did on that previous turn? I don't know. The upside-down Drowl you see in the picture is actually the Drowl 420Taco had drawn after getting it shuffled into their deck. They put in play in another attempt to give it to me. Since I had another Drowl in my hand and was going to play it, I simply discarded the Drowl in my hand and paid six energy off Kesia as if that particular one had been in my hand instead.

Rayje Fails To Swim

Today I played two games against 420Taco. They mentioned a lack of wins, so I look through my decks for something that has decent strength but I can “throw” the game without being too obvious—I hope. I opt to go with my interchange deck. Rayje goes first for 420Taco. They choose defense. Not what I would have expected. Usually you draw with the first and then add the other effects later. With a simple opening turn of Staff of Hyren and Monarch Hyren, I am not too impressed. At this point, I am thinking it will take patience to throw this game. O'qua starts with Submerge and Orthean Belt, so when I pulled a second Submerge in the opening hand, I thought I would put a lot of resources into one Abaquist which O'qua would summon with her power. I took the single hyren. Not exactly a move for throwing the game, but I was so severely tempted by the rare occurance. Apparently her power confused my opponent a bit, so the game was a little slow for that. When they would use Hyren's Call with Rayje to get an Iceberg Hyren, I chose not to call them on that. I just simply changed plans. Instead of kindly throwing the game, I would try and win. O'qua would summon a Giant Parathin using her power and interchange away. Shaper's Apprentice then used Crushing Surf to eliminate the Iceberg Hyren and take the staff. This wouldn't immediately spell doom for Rayje, but it wasn't something he would survive easily either. When Rayje's would continue to play non-Universal spells and creatures without penalty, I just simply witnessed it and went on. It didn't save Rayje, or the next Rayje. Now, the next Rayje would use Beam of Light on my Orthean Belt and Deep Barl. Deep Barl had six, so I refused that. So, Rayje would use a Tidal Wave as well to just get rid of it. With Monarch Hyren rounding out the turn, I smiled to myself and used Undertow on the single creature. Now this would've finished off Rayje, except the regional penalty had been skipped again. On their next turn, Rayje would use Hyren's Call to summon a Night Hyren. With a Baloo Root and Arderial's Crown also played, I was thinking that I wasn't dealing with a very skilled player. Another Undertow would finish off this Rayje and 420Taco would concede the game.

After the game, I tried to tell 420Taco that Regional Penalties and Restrictions isn't exactly universal in its application to Universal as a region. Non-Universal might avoid them for playing Universal, but not so for the Universal Magi when playing non-Universal. I can only hope that this sinks in eventually.

A Minor Miscalculation?

I really lost my notes this time. At first I was waiting for Ultradoug to post about our game since it took place just a bit before this one. That wasn't too long. Then, I could not find my notes. Did they end up in the paper shredder by mistake? Garbage? Did a seventeen-month-old little helper find them? I have no idea. What I can tell you is that Levriat told me that they hadn't played Magi-Nation in some time. They had been pleasantly surprised to find an online community still playing. Figuring that I shouldn't go with one of my power decks, I had to think for a bit. Since they were just out of practice and not a total newbie, I figured that my Restricted Weave deck would be a good deck to use. While they did get past Ahdar, Kesia is still a powerhouse. So while I miss my dear, beloved Aritex (didn't make the cut on the Restricted list), Kesia went to town. Even with weave Belted, the Sagaweaves would help her net some extra creature energy by moving it around. In the end, Kesia would finish things off as you can see here.

I am glad that they got past Ahdar. That would've been awful if they hadn't as I didn't want to scare them off from playing us online. While I haven't seen Levriat since, I can only hope that others may have had the chance to play them.

I Miscalculated

Yes, this game happened some time ago. This is the only screenshot I saved from it. I figured Ultradoug would cover the game quite well in the blog he's been recording the series of games he's played with Cawh across the regions. So why do I label this, "I miscalculated?" Simple. I figured that if Cawh was in Bograth, there would lots of Bograth creatures from time to time to oppose me. Thinking of shifty and swarms, I thought my Cald deck might have some difficulty. In other words, I guessed that the supporting deck within which Cawh would make its appearance would do well against my Cald deck.... Oh was I ever wrong! Sure, Eryss started off with all those starting Bograth creatures, so I thought at first that I had guessed right. But, I was so terribly, terribly wrong. Read Ultradoug's blog for the details.

Face Off | ffO ecaF

Just a few pictures. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, I'll let them speak.

Kybar's Sword by Douglas Brown (aka Ultradoug):



Kybar's Sword by Joe Araiza (aka joethemexican):



Defender of the Sky by Douglas Brown (aka Ultradoug):



Jaylisa by Joe Araiza (aka joethemexican):


Magum by Douglas Brown (aka Ultradoug):


A helm by Anthony Bode (aka actionbill):


We sure do have some really nice artists coming up. I can't wait to see more stuff from these people.

Mud In The Sea

We would actually start a second game that same night. However, it would end up taking so very long on just our first two Magi that Pylofuf Boy would have to retire to bed in order to catch their class in the morning. So, although my notes only really cover the opening of the game, what you see in the screen shot is the results of two Magi who just are struggling to eliminate each other. I started again, this time with Baa. With four creatures in my opening hand, including her starting Slarnath and a Trulb, it was a very good start for Baa. Lots of card draw. Now, you would think that with Riptide played in the last game, I would take a deck that wasn't so vulnerable to it. Then again, Baa isn't supposed to last that long and I can play the majority of it out with my second Magi. Unfortunately, Blu would flip for Orothe. With Orlon's Ring, Corf Pearl, Karak Necklace, Crushing Surf, and Surf Diel, he wasn't strong enough to eliminate Baa quickly. Nor was he weak enough for Baa to finish off either. With a roll on the Corf Pearl to add energy to the Surf Diel it would signal a long fierce battle with Baa pushing with all her might. At least once, Riptide cut down the card resources. While Baa could recoup the loss easily enough, there was the issue of getting off Baa to my next Magi. It wasn't happening. Only just before this screen shot did I finally get a Spirit Drain. I wanted to rejoice. I could choose Baa as my target, except Blu's position wasn't strong enough to eliminate all my creatures. Attack with them all I could, but it seemed that I always had at least one creature with at least one energy left afterwards. As it is, I am not sure we'll get a chance to finish this game....

Water In Caves

My apologies on not posting this shortly after the game. With the discussion at the time on Rayje's Belt and Rayje's Sword, I thought it might be fun to use my Underneath deck although I was seriously tempted to go with Bograth instead. With Pylofuf Boy online, I was happy to play a game. It would be ironic that my opening hand would net me not one creature. Four spells and the Tunneler's Boots. A far cry from an ideal opening. With Myka opening up the game, I simply drew my two cards and waited to see what would happen. Pylofuf Boy revealed Brothers of Vengeance to start things off for Orothe. With a Phrup, Barqua's Bubble, and Hubdra's Chest, it was certainly a far better start then my own. Myka would fight hard, however it would a Tidal Wave that would get her creatures and eliminate her. Emaal would be up next. With a Resonate, she eliminated the one energy Orpus in play and played out a Trogovo and Kier. Normally, this draw would setup my Underneath deck quite well. While Emaal would get the Brothers, thus making it nearly Magi for Magi since the Brothers count as two. Quilla flipped and played another Tidal Wave, Corf Pearl, Vault of Knowledge, two Surf Diel, and Riptide. It is not often that I see Riptide played. I had to sort through and choose four cards to keep. It was tough. In the end, I made sure that I had Crushing Fungus and a Resonate at least. Why? Simple. I planned on losing Emaal. Her defeat would eliminate energy from Quilla, and if I had used the crushing spell, there would be no energize either. The screen shot you see is from the following sequence. Without energy, Celebrated Hero merely had to eliminate the surviving Surf Diel and the game ended.