Snap Daily

Yeah, been playing snap for a fair bit. I would say for the daily grind, this is the deck i would use. It’s not the best deck per say, but in the rank range from 10 – 50, it does quite decently. You have to know when to play some of the cards and reading the room / ability of the location.

Nebula : Good 1 cost drop to Fill in. Unattended, she would just grow in size. Which is good.

Daredevil : Good 2 for 2. Also ability cant be cancelled unless opponent also plays daredevil. If he didnt, then your turn 5 is smooth as you can forecast his play.

Luke Cage : Also another 2 for 2. Good early turn drop if you need to fill it in, and also if you suspect that the opponent plays power penalties, then you can drop cage at a later turns rather than early.

Jeff : He’s godsend. Many times he fits the 2 cost and also free movement unrestricted makes him key for some location winning strategies.

Storm : Location Changer. Close off some location early and force opponent’s hand.

Cosmo : Locks down on reveals. If you see Barney / Wolverine and any location, you can drop him on turn 3 if you have initiative to reveal first so that it will shut down their Carnage / Venom / Deathlok.

Enchanter: Good 4 for 5 power. She also shut downs key ongoing ability. Just remember that her ability is a reveal and shut downs your own ongoing, so use her wisely.

Hobgoblin : If there are enough holes in opponents’ formation, you can hotdrop this to lower their power.

Professor X : Anytime you think you can gain superior advantage especially if daredevil peeked for your 5th turn, hot drop this. If you see that dropping prof but still needing that 1/2 points of power, you can move jeff there to gain the location.

Gamora : solid 5 drop for potential 12 power with daredevil scouting.

Legion: Highly useful in location ability manipulation. Still in testing so far useful. You can lock down if you drop storm on turn 4 and him on turn 5. Then move Jeff on turn 6 or drop from hand to take 2 locations.

Doctor Doom : For the turns you dont get that optimum hand, he fills all three location, so you probably already concede one location away and aim for just two.

Overall i love this deck, have many options and combos to play. It’s not super high imba deck but can weather a lot of other decks.

Post Pandemic Gaming. It’s a Snap, how Marvel.

Well.. I’ll be honest. Pandemic was bad for card gaming in general. We can’t go out and the kids were stuck at home as well with nothing much to do.

During the start and height of pandemic, like many others, I turned away from board game and card games and turned to video games. Why the change? This is due to lockdown forces people to stay home, so no one can make it to the social location to have some games in physical. This also create more access for people to buy games digitally via online store was something that accelerated during covid. Nobody could leave the house, so naturally that’s the easier option.

Picking a multiplayer game was easier too. There’s Destiny and also Genshin impact which was easier for friends to hang out on chatting while gaming.

That lasted a while.

Post Pandemic though, people got back into the groove of gaming physically. I got into mtg again for a few months, then the release schedule scared me away. A product release every 6-7th week? Crazeeeh. So I dropped that, then I discovered Marvel Champions by FFG. A friend decided to go in and purchase the product 2 hand and I shared the cost for the game. It’s quite a good game to play solo or coop. I’m loving it for now and will get into discussion about that game in another post.

The other card game that I actually got into, was Marvel Snap. Designed by Ben Brode being one of the lead designers.

It’s super fast paced, a complete game is done 6 rounds which is in 3-4 minutes, tops. It’s marvel themed, of course. So you have super heroes with abilities, and

The game play is simple, you a finite number of ‘mana’ / resource per turn, from 1 on turn 1 to 6 by turn 6. A deck is only 12 cards with no duplicates. There are 3 locations on the field, each location having their own effects, revealing from left to right from turn 1 to 3.

Your objective is to capture two locations with total power greater than opponents at that location. On the cards, left side is the cost in resource to play and the right, power/points to capture the location. And each heroes tends to have abilities, and it fits generally what you know of that movie/comic character. That makes the game awesome as it fits with what you know.

I can’t remember the exact deck I built when I started the game, but it was similar to this build.

The Control deck in Marvel Snap contains these cards:

• Hawkeye – Quickly becomes the most valuable 1-3 Card in Marvel Snap once you play a card in the same location after it. 
• Misty Knight – Move this card once to gain additional mobility.
• Quicksilver – For that guarantee first turn drop.
• Medusa – A solid 2cost for 5 power placed in center
• Star Lord – A good guesser for 2c = 2/5powr
• Sentinel – A good 2 cost that replaces itself. Always get warm bodies
• Punisher – With his ongoing, you can drop him earlier to a location and later will get boost stats once opponents drop more cards in his location.
• Cyclops – Replaceable with Colossus once you get it
• Iron Man – A good way to boost your location total power by double
• Abomination – Commits a strong force to a location
• Hulk – Brute 12 Force there to swing power to your side if you play it right.

It’s a decent deck with the beginning pool. There a few more decently good builds for beginning games.

That’s it for now, will drop by with more stuff later.

Almost 4 years…

The last post was 2019, Aug 8. If I had waited for another 8 days, it would have been 4 years since that last post.

Well, Covid hits and the world is never quite the same. Hobbies have changed, card games are never the same again. Environment wise, people are more inclined to play online like Marvel Snap or MTG Arena.

Will be back in a day or two to collect my thoughts and post more on what gaming are some of us up to. Later

Card game hiatus, back to mtg on arena and paper EDH

I’m not about to start with another post of it’s been awhile… Although it has been. The last post was like in 2017 so it’s been close to two years already. The last posts were mostly little senseis’.

I couldn’t get much into ffg’s l5r. I tried, really i did. But it seems to that the mechanics of their honor/dishonor and the way force pump stats were built-in into that mechanic is superbly flawed. How?

This is mainly due to high honor clans gets easily punished by being dishonor and the only two clans that dish out the honor/dishonor crap are the crane and scorpions. If you are not them, you have to tip toe too nicely on it so that is one of the reason why i couldn’t get much behind it. Maybe I’m biased since I high honor clans, but anyway, the game didnt quite appeal to me as much as i want it to be.. so there’s that.

So fast forward a year or so of console and pc gaming. I’m back into bit of mtg, mainly due to EDH and their casual formats. Having some friends dive into this format was a big bonus.

But I’m super casual on it anyway. The other thing that caught my eye was actually the release of MTG arena. MTG arena is a way to play back magic with having a nicer slick UI compared to MTGO. While i liked MTGO, it’s truly not eye-appealing to me.

So, I got into it for a bit and made a deck to have fun play out. It’s derived from some decks i saw online, mostly likely mtggoldfish and a blast with it. I know it can be improved a lot more… but i’m being casual about this for now

So here’s a sample of the Izzet deck i was using.. It’s using only cards from the Core M20 and the previous 3 to protect from next rotation which is.. next month? So just in case.

#mtgarena #l5rffg

Friendly Unicorn Casual (which can be competitive)

The deck might not be so friendly. Following the lead from my last article, we’ll be exploring just what can the Unicorn do with only 2 cores to at least keep toe to toe with the other clans with fancy new cards. To be honest, not a lot except to outplay with shenanigans.

However, a stay back Unicorn is a deadly one, so try to buy a dude with 2 Fate over if you can. Be prudent with your attachments and attach them out of a conflict if possible. And if possible, try to at least leave out 2 Fate as you end your Dynasty turn. Prioritize buying one dude for +2 instead of 2 dudes for +1. Possibly the only exception to this rule is Border Rider. Chick’s an Assassination magnet, you can buy her with no Fate and get her back with Cavalry Reserves later down the road. Maybe you can put 1 on her if you’re swimming in Fate.

Allying with Crane can be a big boon for the Unicorn. The Duelist Training works excellently with the big force Unicorns are sporting. Don’t be shy to invite an uncouth bushi to a sophisticated Political conflict, since that’s where Rout can be most effective. With no Yurts, prioritize Air whenever possible because you want to be drawing a lot of cards if you can.

The deck is less mobile than I wanted it to be due to the lack of Favored Mount, but the extra Fate pulls its weight into making sure you can come back next turn. I Am Ready is less scary to use on someone with 2 Fate rather than 1.

The rest is usual Unicorn doctrine. Send your horseless dudes up front, see if it’s worth the hassle before bringing in the cavalry later. Also you should defend with this deck whether you win or not. Try to bleed them off their cards as they try to break your province. Remember, a bowed bushi can still Rout an overconfident courtier back home.

Crane Drop Bear for casual (which can be competitive)

Right, so you want to be able to build a fully functional deck, but not enough for you to go to the extra mile to get the third core. You also want to play around a bit before jumping into Dynasty Packs while everyone else is playing them. Fair enough. It’s 2 cores versus the world. This deck has a 70% win rate in Jigoku Online so far, not bad for a deck to start with.

So the whole drop bear deck thing is the current hotness, especially among the Crane and Scorpion where these 2 bears live: Political Rival and Unassuming Yojimbo.

The entire deck is about tempo. The negations can buy you a lot of it and the lots of holdings can help too. To compensate for the lots of holdings, your drop characters are a bit above average in size.

With clever attachment placement, you should be able to use the Routs and Outwits to fully remove troublesome elements from the equation, especially other courtiers. Also, to make Doji Hotaru worth her weight in gold, playing Rout in a Political conflict can be really effective. And vice versa when you Outwit with Guest of Honor in a Military conflict. The mismatch is intentional to make full use of these send homes.

How to play the deck:

If you have a cheap spud in the first Dynasty flip, that’s cool. Better if you have Imperial Storehouses. You want to see at least 1 of the 4 bears in your opening hand so don’t be shy to chuck everything if you don’t see them.

After that, buy 1 spud and pass. That’s it. Drop the bear of your choice, preferably paying 2 more to keep them around and annoy people longer and swing with covert. Usually 1 attachment is enough for you to break provinces. Your second turn onwards you should be gearing for a normal game, but do try to keep 3 Fate afloat for your send home Events.

Rings to prioritize: Fire and Earth. Hit Earth first because discarding a key card to a loss is damaging. Also, if you can attach or play important stuff, do it outside the conflict. Political Debate is going to ruin your day if they get that all important bear/sword/fan that you need to break a province.

And whatever you do don’t leave with 1 Fate at the end of your Dynasty. I can guarantee you that Goblin Sneak is going to make your life miserable.

I’ll be covering a dual core Unicorn deck next that would hopefully make you a believer of the underdogs of L5R.

Honor Control? Kinda? Not really?

Yep. I’m definitely flooding the blog with my Crane decks. Stopped trying to figure out Unicorn for a while. So what does one do? Why splash them instead!

The control really comes from the Spyglass. If you get a steady stream of cards, you can bid like the Crab all day long too (which is 1, in case you missed it), Captive Audience is perfect against those impossibly high Political Conflicts. Sometimes, you just want to do it to Charge! a courtier in and spam those For Shame! that you couldn’t use before. Or you know… you just want to Banzai! with mam and smash provinces. That works.

This deck takes a bit to get used to, but by far not really a complicated deck to play,

Manly Neighbours v3

A tweaked up version from the previous deck. While the previous one was resilient like a rock, this one is vicious. A bit more swingy and more punishing to the personalities that give you fits, it trades Honor stability for the optimized use of Noble Sacrifice to snipe problematic Dishonored peeps before anyone steps foot into the battlefield/court.

Squishy provinces are back to ensure maximum dishonor when your opponent’s peeps come knocking at the wrong door. I have no idea how to bump some card to 3 copies for this deck, it seems like everything is needed and I have no idea which cards to cut out.

More Manly Neighbours

I’ve shaved off yet more of what makes the Crane… err… Crane. If I got rid of Duelist Training the last time, now it’s The Art of Peace. Don’t get me wrong, the card is more impressive than Manicured Garden, but it doesn’t give me that one Fate I need to put a Charge! or even a Reprieve if I need to.

This deck is inspired by the many Crab players in Jigoku Online that managed beat my face in with their “I don’t bow for shizz” and suicide bombing shenanigans. For the first time, I feel that this deck can really benefit from Noble Sacrifice, if I got rid of a couple of other cards.

This is still in 2 core mode because I’m still trying to hone down on which cards can benefit the most being 3 copies and which can be axed. I suppose we can bump it up to 42 max but 41 is still okay enough to be consistent. If you REALLY want to stick to 40/40, you can cut out 1x Fine Katana since we already have a good boost in the form of Banzai! and Stoic Gunso.  No, cut off 1x Assassination. Further plays with this deck reveals that this deck runs hot on Honor and it can go down to the wire while you’re trying to break the Stronghold’s Province. Also, you can sub Rout for Outwit or 1 copy of each if you fancy, it doesn’t matter since the deck has an abundance of both.

Immediate Response Team

Trying another angle with splashing Unicorn. This time it’s heavy on pop up Conflict Personalities. Been niggling with the finer points and decided to drop the thing that’s iconic to the Crane: Duelist Training. It doesn’t really fit with the deck.

Frankly, I wish I could fit in Good Omen to combo with Charge!, but it’s a bit too situational and I couldn’t afford to make any more central cuts to the deck. You’ll want a healthy amount of standby Fate for this deck. Switching The Art of Peace for Well Manicured Garden might not be a bad idea as well.