One thing that's noticeably absent from my decks that I build here are 'tournament staple' cards, such as Olivark the Quiet or Veiled Passing in cleric decks.  This is because in most of these decks, rather than include those cards, I put in other cards that allow me to test various strategies to see what works best.  Once these are tested, I tend to slide to one of these strategies for a tournament, and add some of these cards in.  But not always.

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of 'tournament staple' cards.  They will often dilute your strategy, in an attempt to defend from possible threats that may or may not actually materialize.  A card will have to be tremendously impressive to convince me that it must be included.

As an example, Wand of Negation.  This is a card that can almost always have a good use, and so if I'm playing a wizard I will include it 90% of the time.  Many decks, particularly in the current EE environment, utilize item cards to make their characters more powerful.  Negating that card will take a large chunk out of what someone is trying to do.  On the other hand, Veiled Passing is slightly less useful.  You must have a trigger to use it, it can and should rarely be saved if it goes unused.  VP only makes my decks when I have no other cards for that slot.  Unless, of course, it's vital to my deck's strategy.

When preparing for a tournament, test your deck thoroughly.  Consider what is being used in the environment, and what your deck needs to accomplish to win.  Do your best to streamline the deck, making sure that each card contributes to your victory condition.  And most of all, play something you'll enjoy playing.  It's very tempting to copy the 'flavor of the month,' but if you don't enjoy playing it, you'll miss out on the full value of the tournament experience.

I've decided to take on Syvonne Ashenstorm as a project.  Largely because it's seen as a Fool's Errand.  She is incredibly difficult to build for, and get to operate properly.  She screams out for Siege characters, as her ability just makes them ridiculous.  At the same time, a deck built entirely of siege engines is going to get obliterated, as without support characters they are just too weak on their own.  An impressive array of siege characters and siege support characters have come out for the NoThRoG in Epic Edition, and narrowing down the choices to get a well-running deck is a massive chore.  Nevertheless, it's one I'm willing and eager to take on, because it's great fun trying to take a sub-par Warlord and make them, if not a tournament winner, at least competitive.  And it's not like people are going to see her coming, so if she runs well it'll be a surprise that few are ready for.

Dwarves.  If you've read some of my earlier entries on my particular play philosophy (Speed Kills) then I'm sure you can understand that I have never been a huge fan of the cave rats, who for a long time claimed as their particular niche the ability to tank up and sit there, absorbing shots from your opponent and healing them away.  Were they effective?  You betcha.  One of the individuals in my play group played Dwarves almost exclusively, and I spent many an hour beating my head against the flesh wall he put up in front of me.  More often than not I came out victorious, but it was almost more than my sanity could take.

However, with late Campaign and on into Epic Edition, the Dwarves have got a brand new bag.  Ready-tech.  Seems that the Stunties are good at getting that axe back into position to swing it again in a round.  Sure, they don't swing all that many times with an attack, but when you get to attack twice at +7, that's not too shabby.  This little trick has been something that I've been looking forward to exploiting for a while now.

So I'm trying my hand at creating a poll.  Give me an answer, if you see this.Poll #955776 Who's Next?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

Which Faction would you like to see a deck created for?

Temple of Lore gave us a fantastic set of items to complement a high-level blitz without having to actually play high-level characters.  This is the Artificer's Set, made up of Destroyer's Armor, Madman's Blade, and Maker's Gloves.  Using a few low-level fighter actions, I can turn a lowly Level 1 or 2 fighter into a lawnmower of destruction.  Instead of dedicating tons of cards to moving high-level characters forward, you can bring in the Artificer Items and use the rest of those action/item slots to support and beef up your newly minted level 3's, 5's, and even 7's.  And one of the wonders of these cards is that, while they change the base-stats for your characters, they do nothing to the text boxes of said characters, making for some interesting possibilities.

 

You may notice my LiveJournal now includes advertising.  Woot! :P

Actually, I did it to increase the functionality of my account.  Sorry for the problems, and I hope it doesn't cause you any undue mental stress.  However, I can now host pictures and such to the account, post polls, and do all kinds of crazy stuff that I didn't know I had access to. 

So, I'm going to check it out and start playing with the features.  Wish me luck.  Perhaps I'll be able to post game situations, visual puzzles, etc.  Who knows?

So, I haven't posted to this journal in over a year.  I stink.  At any rate, I'm bringing it back, with a look at Epic Edition.

Oof.  Epic Edition is a dangerous environment, particularly for front-rank Warlords, especially fighters.  Rogue snipers and Wizard beat-sticks just make the front very dangerous for anyone to hang out in for long.  Even cleric stun-tech makes for a rough road for fighter warlords, who's generally low(ish) skill makes them easy targets.  And when the fighter warlord is usually the primary source of your offense, those types of decks are largely shut down.

There are a few ways around this problem.  The Deverenians have a plethora of cancel/redirect that help to keep front-line warlords alive and kicking, and are probably the best faction to play if you really want your warlords up front and smashing.  The NoThRoG aren't bad, in the sense that they still have the hardest hitting characters in the game.  Unfortunately, without much in the way to defend themselves, they run the risk of getting sniped if they don't manage to break down the opponent's ranks first.

Essentially, if you want a competitive front-line Warlord, you're looking at a major blitz, as you have to keep their shooters/spellcasters in the front where their ranged-strikes can't get you.  No easy feat.

Plane of Secrets is releasing soon, a set that promises to be rediculously powerful.  Each faction gets a weak-class warlord, which will please some of the whiny beggars out there.  Me?  I actually liked the fact that each faction was missing a warlord of a given class.  You had to work around those missing links to do something really different and special with your decks.

Ah well.  PoS does look like fun, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the set as much as I have the last couple.  Epic has been more than entertaining, and it has gone a long way towards making me revise my play style.  I find myself playing a lot more wizards and clerics, where I used to be a rogue/fighter type of player.  And anything that makes you stretch your mind is good, right?

Right?

Well, after a long absence while touring the great state of Kansas, I'm back at work and at play. I'll be writing some new articles soon, but just wanted to let you know that I haven't disappeared forever!

Have you ever tried doing theme games? You know, games played just for fun, where you and your playgroup make decks based on a theme of some sort and have it out? One of my coworkers and I have decided we need a bit of catharsis, so we're playing a goblin horde game today after work. Basically, we're just building NoThRoG wienie blitz decks with Fighter Warlords and unleashing the trapspringers at each other after work today. This type of game is a great time, because it doesn't really matter if you win or lose, it's just fun to see what your opponent comes up with in regards to the theme. A few themes to try out with your playgroup sometime:

Goblin Hordes (NoThRoG Wienie Blitz)
Monsters' Ball (75% of characters must be monsters)
Wizard Melee!! (No spells, all characters must be wizards or multi-class wizards)
Chasm Duel (No melee strikes allowed)
Highlander (Only one copy of any card.)
Battle in the Caves (From the old Warjournal. No more than 5 characters in any rank.)

There are many others. If you think up some, please post them here. Fun for everyone!

In the last article, I wrote about how you can have a very fast deck using Wienie Blitz, and having your Warlord be the heavy kill shot at the end. Today I'm going to look at how you can use a high level blitz to attempt to bring extreme pressure on your opponent using mightier characters.

( Charge of the Cavalry! )

For Speed decks, you need to be causing damage as quickly as possible. This means that, as much as possible, your characters should be striking on the turn they enter play. This allows you to put consistent and constant pressure on your opponent, thus dictating the tempo of the game. There are a couple of ways to do this, and today we're going to look at the Wienie Blitz.

( A Million Tiny Bites )

How many times have you had a game that was decided by a final initiative roll? If you win the roll, you have a large chance of winning the game, but if you lose the roll, your opponent has an equally high chance of winning. I hate this situation with a passion. A 50% chance to win a game, based on a single roll. For this reason, I often place a fairly high priority on controlling the initiative roll, or being able to act first.

( Nya nya nya nya! I go first! )

To be as fast as possible, you need to make use of every card you draw in a turn, preferably to create offense. Although it is not necessary to create offense, at least make sure you get some use out of your cards every turn. For this entry we're going to look at some of the cards that can help you with Card Economy, and the principles behind making sure every card has a use.

Sometimes, your deck needs to include meta, which is a way to shore up weakness in your deck. If Ar'tek is a major force in your play area, you need ways to slow him down such as Rough Road and Exhaustion. If you play against Dwarves or Ready Jackie, you might want Mjol's Hammer or Certain Doom. But what if these (granted, highly situational) cards come into your hand against a different deck? What good are they then?

( Economy of Card Usage )

There has been some confusion as to who the heck I am. Not a problem, I'll try to clear some of it up.

On the Temple of Lore, my handle is Windson. Mostly, I lurk; especially now that the site has been blocked by my school district's web filter. :(

I am an AEG Bounty Hunter, and operate in Northern Colorado, primarily at Game Castle, a gaming store in Loveland. I've been playing Warlord since Saga of the Storm came out, well, actually since the demo decks that were released in the various game magazines. I've been a Bounty Hunter since right before Assassins' Strike.

Most recently, (I guess,) I won the Denver City Championship during the Denver Warlord Invasion. Yay me... :P Someday, if my wife will allow it, I'd like to make it to one of the major conventions, just to help out with the AEG booth and events. I don't even care about participating, I just wanna meet some of the cool Warlord people and players I've been exposed to throughout the years.

Oh, and no, Adam Shadow is not my real name! :)

Holy moly! The Warlords in the Champions set are amazing! I've just been playing with the decks straight from the kit, without any changes, just to gain a glimpse into the minds of the creators. All the decks are good right out of the kit, but I would make changes to all of them. Not because they're "bad," or because I'm "better," but mostly just changes to suit my particular play style. At any rate, the decks are fun to play.

( Taking a peek )

When building decks under the "Speed Kills" philosophy, deck size is vitally important. Often, beginning deck builders will try to pack all the cool cards they own into a deck, thinking "If I can just get this card in and ready, I'll win for sure!" They will also be reluctant to trim out any cards that they think might be useful, and so the deck ends up clogged with useless cards, or diluted to the extent that the deck can't accomplish what it was constructed for.

( A look at the numbers )

My personal play philosophy leans towards the idea of very fast decks that win games in a short amount of time. This philosophy is shaped by my circumstances, as often I try to sneak a few games in during my half-hour lunch break or in a couple of minutes after school gets out. In this type of situation, it is frustrating to play decks that take a long time to win or lose, because you rarely see the end game in a half-hour or less.

Because of these limitations on my play time, I have adopted the credo "Speed Kills."

( Outline of the 'Speed Kills' philosophy )

So, I played the Kara Wadreth Monster Masher deck in a Xaxxon tournament yesterday. The biggest challenge was a well built Karkos Tzin deck that seemed to be using Nothrog Daggers as the kill mechanism. Kara won one game before going to time, enough to place me in first. I took the first shot at Xaxxon, and confirmed one very important thing about the Xaxxon decks. They are weak.

( Really? That's it? )

"What about using anti-monster characters and items to go after Xaxxon?" Hmmm... an interesting question. There may be a few possibilities here. For instance, Ruannad Wadreth can hang out in the second rank, plinking down two wound shots on Xaxxon, while staying safely hidden from Xaxxon's fury. Of course, you have the problem of hiding your Warlord somewhere, and making sure you don't spend anything else thus allowing Xaxxon to go insane on you, but it's a possiblity. I like this idea more than trying to stuff Lady Tornhawk into a deck, so let's just run with it and see what we come up with.

( Let's do the Mash! The Monster Mash! )