Trifecta: Avast! Take That and That!

Guardians Trifectas

Trifectas are interesting -- and sometimes deadly -- three-card combos for Guardians . . . if you can pull them off.

And watch out that you're not on the receiving end of one of them!

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Avast! Take that and that!

(alright, so this one is kind of obvious.)

Master Gunner

5 pt ranged attack.

Cabin Boy

Can be sent from Combat Hand to Creature Pen in place of bribed Pirate

The Great Balderoon

Play when using Pirate ranged attack; attack counts as AOE as well as normal; costs 1 stone

What? He tried to bribe your ranged attack? Well, send the Cabin Boy back instead and then serve up the Great Balderoon to make that five point attack and AOE attack.

Trifecta: Rising from the Ashes

Guardians Trifectas

Trifectas are interesting -- and sometimes deadly -- three-card combos for Guardians . . . if you can pull them off.

And watch out that you're not on the receiving end of one of them!

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Rising from the Ashes

Summon Dimensional Fire Well

Play during D&O rubble one of your Strongholds, destroy anything
on it, make your Power Stones equal 5

Cuthbert the Resurrector

Play during D&O pick a Creature from discard pile as one of your
draws; must show Creature to opponent

Castellan Keir

If on your Rubble space during TS, may discard Keir to flip
Rubble back to Stronghold

Low on Power Stones? Rubble a stronghold to bring your total stones to 5. Put Castellan Keir on it and discard him to bring your stronghold back to life. Then play Cuthbert and bring Keir back! You're ready to try it again.

Probabilities when Drawing

I was rereading one of Jackalware's blog entries about probabilities in Guardians, and I decided I was going to do the math on this one for myself. Yes, I've been away from teaching for less than one week, and already I'm doing recreational mathematics.

Anyway, my numbers were way off. I thought I was doing it right, but I must've been entering something incorrectly. I finally gave up and used the formula that Excel has just for this sort of thing, and which Jackalware originally used as well.

Here's what the results look like:

How do you read this?

The "60" in the upper left is the number of cards in the deck.

The rest of the numbers in column A represent how many of card "X" you have in the deck (terrain, shields, Vampires, Knights, etc.).

The rest of the numbers in row 1 represent how many you may get in your initial 12 card draw.

The formula is shown. Note the dollar signs ($). They are important for cutting and pasting in Excel. Don't forget them. Notice that $A$1 has two of them. Doubly important.

You can expand the list by adding more rows and columns and copying & pasting the formula into more cells. It you paste into an invalid cell (e.g., drawing 3 copies of a card when there are only 2 in the deck), you will get an error.

The formula has a 12 in it. That stands for the 12-card draw.
You can adjust this for other card games (do you play other card games?) just by changing that number.

How NOT TO read this

Let's say you have 8 Shields and 8 Terrain in a deck of 60 cards.
There is a 33.66% chance of getting 2 Shields in the initial draw.
There is a 33.66% chance of getting 2 Terrain in the initial draw.
There is NOT a 67.32% chance of getting 2 Shields and 2 Terrain!
Nor if there a (33.66*33.66)% chance. (In other words, don't add or multiply).

It's a little more complicated than that.
The chart just gives you a basic idea, such as if you put 8 in your deck, you are most likely to get 1 or 2. If you put 10 in your deck, you are likely to get 2 or 3.

If you 5 each of 8 creatures, you will most likely get 1 of any specific one, but you could easily get 2 of some and none of the others.

Creature Class Critique #25: Undead, Part 2

Christopher's Creature Class Critique #25: Undead, Part II

There are so many Undead that I've had to break it up into the Limited and Dagger Isle Undead and the Drifter's and Necropolis Park Undead. This worked well because the first two sets are so much easier to find. Now let's mix in the "play 'em if you got 'em" cards.

This critique covers Drifters Nexus and Necropolis Park, if you can find them. Obviously, from its name, you can guess that NP was full of Undead -- and you'd be right. There was only one Undead in Drifters Nexus: "Buzz", Vampire Mosquito. He's also a Bug, but whether or not he qualifies as a "Vampire" is an unanswered question (but he sure acts like one and my "house" rule is that he is). DN also has Carrag the Black, a Wizard that kicks serious butt in an Undead deck, particularly near the end.

Common Threads

Bribery: Four by Gold, three by Babes (plus Carrag). None by Beer. I guess the Undead have lost their tastebuds. Nubian Slave Girls can be sacrified for discarded Gold.

Channeling: Five creatures accept channeling, but the largest of these is only Vitality 6. None of them channel. The Priest of Sethos prevents stones from being spent for channeling (though it doesn't prevent channeling outright).

Flying: Just the Mosquito. Fan Bearer sends fliers back to the Creature Pen. Combine her with Ice Storms for maximum hilarity.

Size: No Large, 17 Medium, and two Small (including a Saurian, believe it or not).

Off-Color bonus: Ones and zeroes mostly, except for the Priestess of Isis, who is Vitality 12 with OCB 3.

Ranged attacks: Slim Jab is a 1-pointer that's only usable against externals, but when played, your opponent discards a double-bordered card. Great when your opponent plays Fairies. Or Undead. (Slim Jab makes a great "sidebar" card.)

Terrain bonuses: None. Not counting the Necropolis Park stronghold, which "saves" killed Undead. It's basically a "permanent" Howl of the Dead spell.

Commands: Nine! Choose wisely. You can prevent Spells, stop channeling with Power Stones, change your Creature Class, change your opponent's Mortal's creature class ("There goes your Pirate bonus, Nick."), discard all double-bordered cards, empty text boxes, swap Spells and steal your opponent's command Spell or Item. I think I got them all.

Immunity: None. Mummy and Plague Walker have fear-based attacks, but neither explicitly states that they are immune to them, too (like, e.g., Sun Spirits and Fire Walkers).

Power Stones: Buzz can cost you a Stone and several of the command abilities cost a Stone to use.

Other: Just about every Undead creature has a special ability of some sort. This is what makes up for the lack of immunity, terrain bonuses, ranged attacks, etc. It also makes it more confusing to put a dedicated deck together (other than "pile on the Undead and go out and kick butt!" -- not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I hope I covered everything.

A Quick Rundown of Cards

As stated in Part 1: Not gonna happen.

Other "Theme" Cards

Carrag the Black: He's Vitality 5, but his text box gives him a +1 Vitality boost for every Undead in the discard pile. You can get him up in the 10-15 range pretty quickly, without too much harm to your position in the game. Particularly when using Dead Cats (which if they get killed, your surviving creatures get a Vitality bonus.)

You Can't See Me, I'm a Vampire: When played on an Undead creature in primaries, both cards become Unchallenged Cards. This can be used to save your Undead creature or by your opponent to save his. Neutral card, but you already know that you have Undead, he probably doesn't, so it can work in your favor more often.

Chant of the Osirans: Played after Up-Cards are revealed, if opponent's Up-card is an Undead, it goes to the discard pile, along with the next 4 cards in his draw deck. Another Up-Card is then drawn. This is something to be careful of, but, again, the card is useless against all but Undead decks. Not to mention the fact that Undead in your discard pile only helps Carrag.

Other Cards

See Part I (Critique #24) for more. They all apply here, too.

Ice Storm: mentioned above -- combine it with Fan Bearer to destroy little flyers and send big ones home.

Jambo Slick, Smuggler: This Wanderer from DN will get back your Bribery cards (all of them, not just Gold). Works well with Nubian Slave Girls.

Cuthbert the Resurrector: Undead have a tendency to stay around, thanks to things like Howl of the Dead, the NP Stronghold, and even Holy Grail. But should they actually go to the discard pile (perhaps by way of Chant of the Osirans), this will pull one back.

Bruno Smashmouth, Union Boss: This Misc. Human from DN has been mentioned by me before. After you play Bruno, if any of your creatures's classes match your opponent's class, your opponent's primary attacker goes to the Creature Pen. So? So combine this with Chief Lector Priest of Sethos and turn all of your Undead into whatever your opponent is playing. All that will be left are his command card and his first primary (played opposite Bruno). Beating Bruno doesn't help him, your opponent has to bribe or destroy Bruno or he'll likely lose his shield.

St. Ballantine's Evocation: A variant of Bruno, above, you can hold onto Ballantine in case of emergency and turn any of your Undead into a Knight and then blow up your opponent's biggest creature. No Warwick's Conversion needed.

Strategies

You're on your own here. There are just too many possibilities. It depends on the Undead and Guardian you pick. You can siphon off stones with your Vampires and Shadrunes. You can chop down their flyers. You can give bonus channeling above the usual limits. Use Arms of the Earth if your opponent favors big creatures and shields with few creatures. Ice Storms & Fan Bearers, Chief Lector Bruno. Endless possibilities.

Secondary Classes

Undead can stand on their own well and don't need a secondary class. That's true enough without the cards from Drifters Nexus and Necropolis Park, which only add to the kickass nature of the Undead.

Weakness

Sun Spirits: They kick Undead butt from here to the MidRealms. Not much you can do about it. You don't want to carry about 10-point Captains with you to smack them down. Best you can do is send them away using the Bruno combo or go for mutual destruction. Only two Undead (Eternal Witch Lord and Black Unicorn) can survive if you channel enough to them.

Final Comments

I can't make too many comments, but Undead decks are brutal and Necropolis Park only adds to their lethality.


C. J. Burke
Keeper of the Flame

Rouge Scepter: Hand Magic Item, Up 15
Play during primary match-ups. Your primary match-up Creature gets +10 versus Undead. It Undead opponent loses, it is destroyed.

(Yes, I deliberately spelled it "Rouge" instead of "Rogue".)

Creature Class Critique #24: Undead, Part 1

Christopher's Creature Class Critique #24: Undead, Part One

Okay, I'll state this right off the bat -- this is in no way the definitive discussion of Undead. There are just too many of them for that. But I'll do what I can to slice through this pile of stinkin' bones.

There are about 50 cards that deal in some way with Undead and nearly half of them come from Necropolis

Park. If you don't have any NP and have no access to them, keep reading. I'll do this in two parts, the first being restricted to Dagger Isle and earlier. That is, this critique will be restricted to 19 Undead creatures, one supporting and three anti-Undead creatures, and 1 Spell.

Common Threads

Bribery: Easy one. Out of 19 creatures, NONE are bribable. The Necromancer, however, a mortal Wizard is bribable by Babes.

Channeling: Six creatures accept channeling. Three creatures can channel. Two do both. Bone Shambler and Wraith receive double the usual amount. The Necromancer also channels -- better than any of the Undead do, but only to Undead.

Flying: None of them. Not even a bat (he came later). So bring on the Ice Storms.

Size: A few Large and one Small, but the rest are all Medium. That might be a problem about a bunch of Varmit Archers but even that's not much to worry about.

Off-Color bonus: Ten have a small off-color bonus, including the Bone Shambler, which has a variant card that has no OCB. (That was a typo when they were printed.) Be careful which one you use.

Ranged attacks: Just one, Grim Skull, but he's got a bonus -- he's the only ranged attack that can receive channeling to the ranged attack!

Terrain bonuses: None.

Command Cards: Three. Arms of the Earth, which allows you to pull a creature from your opponent's hand, Wailing Spectre, which has a 4-pt fear AOE, and Embryonic Witch, which wins pushes. Leaves room for Rik' Sook, so you can use your Necromancer.

Immunity: None. Shadow of Ashes has a fire-based attack, but isn't immune to fire, nor is Wailing Spectre immune to fear.

Power Stones: Skeletal Minion returns to Storage for a stone, if it loses. Shadrune can cost your opponent a stone. So can Vampire and Vampire Lord.

Other: Just about every Undead creature has a special ability of some sort. This is what makes up for their lack of immunity, terrain bonuses, ranged attacks, etc. It also makes it more confusing to put a dedicated deck together (other than "pile on the Undead and go out and kick butt!" -- not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I hope I covered everything.

A Quick Rundown of Cards

Not gonna happen. Just too many of them.

Other "Theme" Cards

Ice Spirit: Immune to Undead. Watch out for it, or you'll be channeling just to keep your creatures alive. (Ice Spirit hits Undead as a 7.) Note that Ice Spirits are not immune to secondary attacks or Grim Skull's ranged attacks.

White Unicorns: Destroy Demons, Devils and Undead. But they're rare, so you don't have to worry as much as you do with Ice Spirits.

Vampire Hunters: A strange creature. A Vitality 8 Mortal with an OCB of 1 against Elementals and +10 vs Undead, but they have to worry about the Undead's OCB against them. However, since Undead have low or no OCB, that +10 bonus can be devastating or at least cost you a stone.

Howl of the Dead: Reclaim your Undead when you lose them in combat. Good card to have.

Other Cards

Warwick's Conversion: A natural for theme deck. Note that these are good for the Necromancer, but not for the Vampire Lord. Vampire isn't a real class. Perhaps it could be a "subclass", if there were such a thing. (And that begs the question, which I'll ask again next time, is Buzz, the Vampire Mosquito, the Undead/Bug, is he, in fact, a Vampire? He sure acts like one!)

Rik' Sook: You have a guy that channels only to Undead, but the Undead don't receive channeling in great numbers. This will even that out. And without large numbers of command card creatures in your deck, there's plenty of room.

Ice Storms: You're not flying, and flying creatures are popular even if they aren't in flying shields. Go for it.

Strategies

You're on your own here. There are just too many possibilities. It depends on the Undead and Guardian you pick. You can siphon off stones with your Vampires and Shadrunes. You can chop down their flyers. You can give bonus channeling above the usual limits. Use Arms of the Earth if your opponent favors big creatures and shields with few creatures.

Secondary Classes

Undead can stand on their own well and don't need a secondary class. That's true enough without the cards from Drifters Nexus and Necropolis Park, which only add to the kickass nature of the Undead.

Individual cards are helpful, but not an entire secondary class.

Weakness

Sun Spirits: They kick Undead butt from here to the MidRealms. Not much you can do about it. You don't want to carry about 10-point Captains with you to smack them down.

Final Comments

I can't make too many comments. The first Undead deck I went up against was made after we got our hands on a box of Necropolis Park, and that set was heavily represented. Has anyone else put together an Undead deck without benefit of Drifters Nexus or Necropolis Park? They still look formidable.


C. J. Burke

Banshee: External, Vitality 6, OCB 0, Medium, Undead, CMP 0, red bar.
At the end of the next match-up, if both creatures remain in play, the losing creature is destroyed.

Creature Class Critique # 23: Wizards

More power in their fingertips than in a Giant's biceps. You know them by names such as Argammond, Warwick and Carrag the Black. These are Wizards of the MidRealms. They can make or break a game, and decks can be built around them. But will they work together? Possibly.

There are nine types of Wizards found wandering the disputed lands, and unlike nearly all other classes, they are divided among the Mortal and External classes. (The O-Men are the only other single class creatures to be like this.) Quickly, they are Seer, Visionary, Cleric, Sorcerer, Grand Avatar and Rik' Sook from Limited and Voodoo Wizard and Necromancer from Dagger Island and Carrag the Black from Drifters Nexus.

There are no Wizards in Necropolis Park (though Rik' Sook looks like he belongs there).

Common Threads

Bribery: Most of the Wizards are in it for the money, and Gold will count for a lot with them. But things change over time, it seems, because after the Revised edition came out, all the expansion Wizards have turned their eyes toward the ladies and will go for the Babes.

Channeling: All but one can receive channeling. (Mini-quiz: which one?) Find another creature class (with many members) that can boast that! On top of that, two of them can channel (though one channels only to Undead.)

Commands: Bad news - five of these guys are command cards, so you can't use them all at the same time. But if you're out for power and you're using their channel receiving abilities, then you could look at this as flexibility.

Size: All the Wizards are human or humanoid. That is, Medium-sized. Too bad there isn't a Tookle for Mediums, huh? Nah, that would be silly.

Other "Theme" Cards

Elandar, Mighty Wizard: He's not a Wizard, he's a Wanderer and he blanks out texts boxes. This actually only "harms" Carrag the Black and Clerics as the rest don't come into play in primary attacks. It actually *helps* the Grand Avatar by removing a restriction!

Wizards Tower: A Stronghold Upgrade that aids any channeler (not just Wizards) by bumping CMP up by 1. And you have 2 channelers in this
group.

Sacrificial Altar: Yes, it's a theme card. Clerics use Altars and they're Wizards. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, there is no distinction between Clergy and Magic Users. Spells are spells, you know. And besides, you'll need the stones if you're planning to channel.

Strategies

Channel! Fight and channel! Then channel some more! The abilities demand it.

Some of these guys are better than the others, particularly in this type of deck. The Visionary is helpful to try to avoid your opponent's OCBs, but the Seer isn't going to give you any useful information. Voodoo Wizard gives you a great power boost, but Rik' Sook's ability is only needed for one other Wizard (he gets better with a secondary class). And the Sorcerer's AOE is nice, but it's expensive -- unless your playing against Sikura, you're better off with Vitale's Dark Cloud. (Granted, Sorceror can be re-used, but your opponent will be on to you after the first attack.)

Secondary Classes

Usually Wizards are support for other cards in your deck -- the high OCB creatures, creatures with immunity to or bonuses against certain sizes, lots of channeling non-receivers, etc.

But if you want to put multiple Wizards together as a main class, one (obvious) secondary pops to mind: Undead. The Necromancer channels to some (not all) of them, Rik' Sook allows the Necromancer to channel to more of them. Carrag the Black gets amazing bonuses for the "dead" Undead creatures. Grand Avatars can channel to some or all of them. And you can still use the Voodoo Wizards command for the secondaries.

(Visionary and Seer are less important but they're still channel receivers.)

It might have been nice if there were Wizards for Angels or Demons & Devils or Knights or what have you, but there aren't. (Not even my made-up Alchemist from a previous Elements post.)

Otherwise, the only other uses is to make the Wizards the secondary class. Take a class with a good OCB, then use the Visionary to insure that the best bonuses go up against the right type of creature. If playing Knights, you might consider Seers to balance your Lancers (ooh, but look out for those Titans!). And then use Rik' Sook to channel to your non-channelers for a little surprise.

Quiz answer: Necromancers cannot accept channeling.

Summary: Wizards would better supporting others, but there's no reason why the Wizards can't work for themselves with just a little support from others instead. Just have plenty of stones and channelers for pumping these guys up. You'll need them.

C. J. Burke
Keeper of the Flame

Wizards' Guild: Stronghold Upgrade 24
All Wizards defending on this Stronghold space can receive double their usual limit for channeling.

Now this is a cool Barnyard Animals card

If you like homebrew cards, such as my .sig cards or the Seven Seas expansion, check out the Champion's Odyssey Card, Preview #10: Abracadabra!

I don't know if it would tip the balance for a Barnyard Animals deck, but, like Chicken Soup, it couldn't hurt.