Kybar's vs Core vs Bograth

It has been some time since I last played a game of Magi-Nation. Now, I was hoping in the meantime that I wouldn't have to personally test the Naroom cards from Exodus Flight. Maybe they've been played and tested. However, there has been no such posts on Novelty's Custom Card forums, so I haven't been able to read about it. While I am not looking for feedback on each and every card, I am hoping to find out if a few of them work and what others might think of them in actual play. I started drafting a couple decks last night to give a few of the cards a spin when I had the opportunity to play Soulara and Frosty Ninja. When I saw them chatting online, I didn't know who Soulara was. So when Soulara described having a super Tony deck, it took a hint that they were the same person I had played against back then. I guess they forgot their original account's password.

Anyways, we would start a three-way game last night with Soulara going first. They flipped over Amara, played Inhibitor Band and drew their cards. Frosty Ninja went second with Evil Evu, a Dark Furok, and a Chaos Plith. With a great setup to draw cards, it would be a tough rumble between Evil Evu and Eryss for a few turns. Yes, I decided to go with one of my older Bograth decks for this game. Eryss was able to compliment her early card draw with Great Throne Mushrooms. Eryss would be the first Magi defeated. With Evil Evu taking down Eryss, Amara was left untouched to simply draw cards and gain energy. Olabra would flip as my second Magi, and she went nuts. Crushing Stench placed out a Swamp Hyren and the insanity would begin, including a couple Jile and one Torpar. I don't think I captured any screenshots of that first turn by Olabra. However, you can see here when Olabra took down Evil Evu.



While a healthily growing Torpar would take a few hits on Amara, Frosty Ninja got the final blow on the Kybar's Magi. With Spirit of the Teeth setting things up, we would face a nearly invulnerable Kyg'n Impervious. By the time all the spells and effects stacked up, you would've had to hit for more than seven energy to make the Magi even feel it. With two Pygmy Balamants, it looked like attacks would be far from effective here. As it was, I managed to crush the Floral Weebo and put out my one copy of Poison Baloo Root. I was on my second time through my deck. I totally forgot that I had Vard Stampede in my deck, or Kyg'n might not have been so impervious that first round of strikes.



Now Fiend of Furoks was really quite powerful. Having played two Wudge, then using her effect combined with some Baby Furoks and annoying Firds, she was really making a stand. The only thing that saved Olabra from the worst of it was attaching a Tar Hyren to one of the Wudge. Unable to attack, and gaining energy from all the Bograth and Core Creatures being played, that Wudge wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. A Muck Vinoc finally got the other Wudge and allowed Olabra to escape the pressure. And once Olabra escaped the Wudge assault, Olabra began to rebuild her steam. Of course, a few Rabid Wasperines allowed the Fiend of Furoks to finish off a few important pieces to the Bograth swarm. With another Great Throne Mushroom in play, Olabra was netting plenty of replacement cards. In the end, Olabra would take down Kyg'n and Fiend of Furoks. Frosty Ninja essentially sacrificed Jalex with a couple Warrior's Boots and Shadow Bones. While Jalex survived with creatures in play, Olabra was quite out of hand and fairly easily finished Jalex off with the final blow coming from a Muck Vinoc to prevent any Spirit of Rayje from being used should they be there. Ullig would take a hefty blow being left creatureless right after she appeared. Olabra just couldn't swing the final blow on the same turn as finishing off Jalex. I tried my math this way and that and just couldn't find that one more energy. Without creatures and short on energy even though another Spirit spell had prevented Ullig from taking critical damage, Ullig would end the game by spending her energy on spells so that only Olabra remained.

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.

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.

Flood Overwhelmed

The second game I played today was with GinsuBlender. They were playing a solitaire game when Freigabe was dropped. Looked like they were trying to make sure their Flood of Energy deck worked. Anyways, I went with my Flood of Energy deck again, so it would be Flood versus Flood. GinsuBlender went first with Tiller (I just peeked and found that my TW version of the deck starts with Tiller too). Anyways, they would play Vortex of Knowledge, Weebo, Eebit, Wasperine, Rabbage, Yaki's Gauntlets, and Flood of Energy. A big start for Tiller. Chayla would start with a meager Eebit, Rabbage, two Crushing Roots, and Relic Stalker. With two crushing spells in her opening turn, it sort of evened the field of play. This would last several turns, but Tiller would slowly gain an edge over Chayla. Next it would up to Salafy. Tiller was gaining steam, but Salafy didn't have a good setup. She was short on cards to use and I was really wishing for another Relic Stalker to get rid of the opposing Orwin's Ring. Anyways, Salafy would toss down strong with Wasperine to setup the elimination of an opposing Tree Hinko. Two Rabbage and a Furok would make her wall of defenders. With Tap Roots and then Flood of Energy, Salafy would have enough energy to play Overgrowth and another Flood of Energy to make her creatures somewhat impressive. This also made Tiller very strong. With a copy of Warrior's Boots, Tiller would tip the scales and defeat Salafy. While my final Magi was up against a virtually impossible wall since Tiller did some Flood of Energy tricks while Salafy was defeated, I still flipped him and took the screen shot after that. Tiller was running low on cards, so I suspect that if I could've got past him, the next Magi would've been in a similar boat that Salafy and Woot found themselves in against the opposing Flood of Energy.

Partial Flood

I haven't played any games of Magi-Nation lately, so when I got a chance to play Freigabe, I was thrilled. After having seen Freigabe overwhelm a Flood of Energy deck, I thought I would try my own against them. Instead of using my version with any Twilight War cards, I opted to go with the deck it was built after instead, which has no custom cards. Anyways, I would go first with Chayla who played an Eebit, Rabbage, and a Glade Hyren to use up all her energy. I figured that if it was the same Bograth deck I had just seen Freigabe play, I would want as many potential attackers in play as I could. Eryss would flip and play two Fog Hyrens, Gremble, Poison Baloo Root, and N'kala. It was an impressive swarm to be facing this early. While I began tearing into it as best I could figure to do it, Freigabe would end up getting dropped from gEngine. After waiting for a bit, I would end up starting another game. It would be a bit into that game when I would receive a page from Freigabe. I guess they finally managed to get back on. By the time I finished the second game, Freigabe had already logged out.

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.