#tri-horned bunyip

[pink-pone]

✨ MY LITTLE PONY CREATURE APPRECIATION POST ✨

They really gave us so many unique and fascinating designs that I honestly think are slept on

#ahuizotl #chimera #cragadile #the great seedling #manticore #sphinx #siren #ursa minor #timber wolf #tri-horned bunyip #creature design #creature #creatures #character design #my little pony #mlp #mlpfim #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp:fim #mlp g4

[jokingluna]

#Princess Luna #Princess Celestia #Tri-horned bunyip #carrots #food #joke

[diamond-song42]

Card Shark 121: Flitter, Flutterer

Happy Christmas Eve and welcome back to Card Shark! I’ve been hard at work on my new site... which means the Holiday Dumpster Fire Card-a-Thon is going to continue into the new year! I can’t wait for you all to see the grand new site when it is complete. For now, as I await Santa’s arrival, I focus on a High Magic card that may, unfortunately, be on the naughty list this year. Let’s take a look at “Flitter, Flutterer!”

I know I’m definitely on a couple naughty lists since I’m featuring this card in the Holiday Dumpster Fire Card-a-Thon. 3 AT and 2 Pink req nets you this 2 power Pink Friend. High Magic has a series of Friends that you can Immediately banish from your hand to temporarily reduce the play requirements of your cards by 2 of a certain color - this card is Pink’s version. But you can play her, too: in fact, when she enters play, you dismiss each opposing Friend in her area with 1 printed power or less. If you’re unaware, printed power is the raw power on the card - for example, this Flitter card has 2 printed power. At first glance, this may not seem like a very useful ability. While there are a lot of decks with at least one Friend with 1 printed power, paying 3 AT to dismiss 1-3 power may be too expensive. But you may be thinking about the wrong type of Friend. Back when I used to heavily play Blue/Pink, I realized the novelty of this card when I dropped it at a Problem with a handful of Token Friends. Arguably the most popular Token Friends in the game (at least right now) all have 1 printed power (Unicorns, Critters, and Earth Ponies). And Flitter can absolutely annihilate them. Thanks to the specification of printed power, Flitter can bypass cards like Conductor’s Baton that boost the power of certain cheap, low-power Friends and Holder’s Boulder, Key Stone that try and protect Token Friends from potentially more common ailments such as frightening. And what’s worse for your opponent is that unlike other dismissed Friends, they can’t get back their Token Friends unless they generate more. Token Friends may be able to be dismissed, but they won’t be going into the discard pile! And that’s not to say this is truly only applicable to Token Friends - if they’re at a Problem, Friends like Pillar of Strength, Tymbal, Guard Geese, Brian, Tri-Horned Bunyip, Delivery Mare, Shoeshine, Living to Laugh, Cover to Cover, any of the Cutie Mark-able or Breeziefied Mane 6, and many more can be scared away by Flits. That’s a frightening pink bow right there.

This is the part where I really get condemned to the naughty list. Let’s start with the first part, which is the ability to be banished to reduce color play requirement. It has... not aged great. Banishing any of these Friends only reduces play requirements until the end of the turn they are banished - temporary reductions that require banishing seem a bit... lackluster when cards like The Fire of Friendship, Rainbow Generator, and Motivational Speech now exist. As for the second half of the card? Sweet Celestia, this is so niche it isn’t funny. Seriously. When I ran Flutterer in my Blue/Pink deck, I did it just for the banishing aspect (this was before The Fire of Friendship existed). Other than one or two chance occasions, the ability to dismiss opposing Friends with 1 printed power or less was virtually useless to me. And in today’s metagame, it is unbelievably easy to generate and regenerate Token Friends. Just look at some of the decks that like to flex Bodyguard, Equine Escort or Critter Choir, Cheerful Chirpers. I can’t count the number of Unicorn Tokens I’ve seen Bodyguard generate in a single match. Unless you managed to block access to any discard piles, retrieving any non-Token Friends with 1 or less printed power is easier than it sounds. There’s this new card called Mrs. Cake, Pastry Panic that allows you to effectively replace certain Pink Friends... it’s not pretty when you’re on the receiving end of it. I appreciate you, Flits, but you’re being featured in the Holiday Dumpster Fire Card-a-Thon for a reason.

Here’s a few more cards looking for just the right flap:

*Party Hat. It’s the “Oops! All Resources” edition of my suggestion list! Party Hat was one of my staples when I used to run dismissal decks. You attach it to a Friend, and when any other opposing Friend is dismissed, the Party Hatted Friend is also dismissed! With this, Flitter can both wipe out a 1 or less printed power Friend and a Friend with any power as long as that Friend has a Party Hat. Of course, it isn’t just good for Flitter dismissing - it works with more traditional dismissers such as Pinkie Pie, Party Cannoneer and Belly Flop as well. Like with all Resources (and this is true for the other Resources on this list), beware of the Resource removal that may squash the fun.

*Somnambula’s Blindfold. If you’re using Flutterer, then chances are she’s not your only dismissal trick. For those other dismissal tricks, the dreaded Blindfold comes in handy. The Blindfold blocks players from searching or peeking at the top card in decks and stops cards from leaving discard piles. That means when you dismiss a non-Token Friend with the Blindfold in play, your opponent can’t use anything like Discord Pile or Redeeming Qualities to get that Friend back into play. Keep in mind that the Blindfold does go both ways - if you want to search your deck for anything or use a Discord Pile of your own, you’ll have to do away with your Blindfold first.

*Friendship Express. The obligatory New Dawn card of the Shark isn’t the most popular new Resource, but I think it could hit hard when circumstances are perfect. Hitching a ride on the Friendship Express gives any and all Friends in your hand Hasty, allowing you to play them Immediately... as long as you spend one additional AT. And I know some decks that can save up to 12-15 AT before making their move! Using this with Flits is probably the most obscure, crazed idea on this list, namely because I can already picture the look of devastation in your opponents’ eyes as they set up a bunch of Tokens to confront a Problem or challenge a Troublemaker or whatever and then Flitter comes in for 4 AT and all hell breaks loose.

Thanks for reading another Dumpster Fire edition of Card Shark! I may have another Shark out tomorrow (it remains to be seen depending on the Christmas Day activities I decide to indulge myself in), but whenever the next one comes out, I promise it will feature a Marks in Time Resource that may have been more threatening in the show than it is in the game. Come back next time to see what Resource it is! Diamond out!

#my little pony #mlp:fim #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp #flitter #mlpccg #mlp:ccg #flutterer #friend #high magic #ccg #card shark #holiday dumpster fire card a thon

[draconesmundi]

Book Review: The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews

The Element Encyclopedias are a series by Harper Element, containing books on Secret Signs and Symbols, Birthdays, magic (Encyclopedia of 1000 and 5000 spells), Secret Societies, Witchcraft, Ghosts and Hauntings, the Psychic World, Vampires and of course, Magical Creatures. These Encyclopaedias cater to niche interests on the weird and wonderful. They aim to deliver a factual overview of particular subjects, covering as many different viewpoints from as many different cultures as possible.

The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures is a compact volume; most entries are only a sentence long. The limitation of an Encyclopaedia format is that the entries are in alphabetical order by only one spelling of their name, which means the author chooses name spellings they think are best and stick with them – for example Pai Lung is used but Bailong is not – which means if a reader is looking up a creature by one specific spelling they might not be able to find it. This issue is solved by other, similar books by having multiple entries for a creature, for example an entry saying ‘bailong’ would say ‘see Pai Lung’ to redirect the reader to the correct chapter. However, the choice to NOT do this in the Element Encyclopedia means that the book can be a small volume jam-packed with information. This decision means the book is well formatted and neat, easy to read with a good font size, and a good place to find out about a lot of dragons.

If a dragon has a full story to it, it may not be recounted in full; for example the entry for ‘Bida’ simply reads ‘Bida is an African dragon, which appears in the West African Epic of the Dausa’. However, enough information is given so that the reader has a few terms to google (“bida dragon epic of the dausa” for example). Again, I think the brevity of the book can act as a benefit, as the book is very easy to read and accessible compared to some more thorough books with smaller font sizes and bigger book sizes.

For further research, the bibliography is eight pages long (two columns per page) and mentions not only books, but articles from magazines (the Fortean Times, for example, is a magazine which can dedicate many, many pages to interesting mythology topics).

Quick note on the reading age; there is some sexual content in the story of the Egyptian god Set and maybe in a few other entries. These mentions are only where they are pertinent, and they are written in a factual manner, but if you buy this book as a gift for a young reader be aware of whether this content is appropriate for them.

Dragons covered by The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures are:

Abaia, Afanc, Agathodemon, Ahi, Aiatar, Aida Hwedo, Aitvaras, Akhekhu, Alklha/Alicha, Altamaha-Ha, Amphithere, Amphisbaena, Amphisien, Anamtaboga, Anata Sesha, Angont, Ao Chin, Ao Kuang, Ao Ping, Ao Shun, Arassas, Asdeev, Aspis, Ayida, Azi Dahaka, Basilic, Basilisk, Beithir, Bida, Bistern Dragon, Bobbi-Bobbi, Bujanga, Bunyip, Burach Bhadi, Buru, Camoodi, Cecrops, Cerastes, Cetus, Champ, Ch’ang O, Chang Lung, Chi Lung Wang, Chudo-Yudo, Cipactli, Cirein Croin, Cockatrice, Con-Rit, Da, Dabbat, Dahak, Damballah Wedo, Dan Ayido Hwedo, Ddraig Goch, Derketo, Dev, Dhrana, Dhumavarna, Draco, Draconcopedes, Dracontides, Dragon, Dragon-Horse, Drake/Fire-Drake, Echeneis, Echidna, Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi, Elbst, Falak, Fire Dragon, Fire-Drake, Fu-Hsi, Fu-T’s’ang, Gaasyendietha, Ganareva, Ganj, Gargouille, Glycon, Glyryvillu, Gong-Gong, Gorynich, Goryschche, Gou Mang, Gowrow, Great Horned Serpent, Great Lynx, Great Serpent of Hell, Gucumatz, Guita, Gurangnatch, Guyascutus, Gwiber, Hai Riyo, Hatuibwari/Figona, Herren-Surge, Hordshyrde, Horned Serpent, Horomatangi, Huru-Kareao, Hydra, Hydrus et cetera

(I tried to list every dragon by flicking through the book page-by-page and writing them down but that took a while – hopefully the dragons from A to H listed here gives you an idea on how thorough and extensive this book is!)(spellings are as they are in the book, I’ve seen herren-surge spelled more often as herensurge)

If this book appeals to you it can be found here:

Thriftbooks: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-element-encyclopedia-of-magical-creatures-the-ultimate-a-z-of-fantastic-beings-from-myth-and-magic-the-element-encyclopedia_john-matthews_caitln-matthews/390280/#isbn=0007850506

ePDF https://epdf.pub/the-element-encyclopedia-of-magical-creatures-the-ultimate-a-z-of-fantastic-bein.html

#Dragon Books #Book Review #Caitlin Matthews #John Matthews #Elemental Encyclopedia #The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures

[alexanzolaj]

Folklore and Fairytales 2019 Day 5: Bunyip The bunyip is a large mythical creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. Common features include a dog-like face, a crocodile-like head, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns, or a duck-like bill. I tried to go for the crocodile head with a dog face... . . . #folkloreandfairytales #folkloreandfairytales2019 #challengebysophy #penandink #drawing #inkart #inkstagram #inkfeature #bunyip https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv3v6mSnRhz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=12fi3im6qndj8

#folkloreandfairytales #folkloreandfairytales2019 #challengebysophy #penandink #drawing #inkart #inkstagram #inkfeature #bunyip

[cloudchaserandflitterexplain]

Cloudchaser and Flitter Explain: Their top 10 Defenders of Equestria cards

You guess? Did something go wrong?

No…

Then what’s wrong, Cloudchaser?

It’s just that...

There are so many good cards in this set! Cutting them down to just ten meant I wouldn’t be able to mention a lot of my favorites and even ordering the ten I do have was really hard and I’m still not sure it’s the order I want them to be in and—

Boop.

Feel better now?

Did… did you just boop my nose?

Hi everypony! Have you been enjoying Defenders of Equestria so far? I know I have!

And considering how hard it is to get Cloudchaser to stop talking about the set, I’m pretty sure she’s been enjoying it too.

You can’t just boop someone’s nose like that…

In fact, you might even say we’ve been enjoying the set a bit too much! It’s about time for us to make our traditional top 10 favourite card lists after all.

And Defenders is so full of awesome, it was really hard for me to pick only ten cards to talk about. And something tells me Cici had just as much trouble as I did! Didn’t you, Cloudchaser?

I mean, what would Equestria be like if ponies just walked up to each other willy-nilly and just… boop.

Okay... I seem to have completely shattered my best friend’s brain. Give me a moment to try and fix this.

Gah!

You booped my nose again…

Well I needed to do something! We’ve got top 10 lists to share with every pony.

Care to do the honors by sharing your first card with everypony?

Oh, uh, sure.

So to start things off, I’m putting Maud Pie: Counteroffer at number 10.

Now this card may surprise a few people. As, well, she has most of the qualifications for a card that I’d be inclined to say is not good at all for competitive play. She costs 5 for one thing, which is a huge investment for a card unless it gives you a massive advantage.

Which brings us to her ability set. Which, if you ask me, is not at all worth that 5 AT pricetag. Exhausting an opposing character during your Main Phase is pretty underwhelming at the best of times, and there are typically better ways to get +1 counters than when you flip a card.

So yeah, I’d say she’s pretty bad in a vacuum. Close to unplayable outside of a casual environment.

But if you add one other card to the equation, namely Big Mac: Princess for a Night, she becomes ridiculously good. So good, ponies have already been building around the combo.

Ponies like Gyro, which should tell you something.

Oh, so you’ve seen the deck?

Yup! I really liked the idea!

Though I’d probably hate to actually play against it.

Anyway, if you haven’t caught the combo yet, these two friends let you flip your entire deck. Start a Faceoff involving Big Mac and flip a card. Maud will then a put a +1 power counter on him, which lets him spend it to flip another card which lets Maud put a counter on him and so on.

Now, you might be thinking “okay, so this lets you flip your deck and win a faceoff by a lot. So what?” Which is a fair question to ask. Well, two things.

First off, it lets you stack the order of your deck. So you know exactly what you’re going to draw and flip for the rest of the game. And you can even restack the deck in a future faceoff, if you need to.

The other thing is you get to flip every Chaos card in your deck!

Yup. And that’s where her true power lies. There are a lot of powerful chaos abilities right now. And with the right selection of chaos abilities, as well as the correct other cards, you can basically win the game right then and there. Hence why ponies are building around her.

So yeah, she might not look like much at first glance, but she’s actually pretty strong.

Just like a rock.

Well, my number ten pick is nothing like Cici’s, but what else is new, hehe. I went ahead and chose Ravers: Glowsticks Optional!

Just look at those happy ponies! Makes me wish I was there with them. They’re having so much fun!

Almost as much fun as I have making millions of Earth Pony tokens with their ability!

...Have you actually literally made millions?

Don’t be silly, Cici. That’d take forever to put them all into play.

I just stop at the first couple thousand or so.

Of course. How silly of me.

Oh, and because some ponies miss this when they first see the card, but Ravers actually make tokens when you play them. They trigger themselves!

Which just makes sense, cause you can’t have a rave without lots and lots of ponies participating! So naturally they’d bring friends with them when they first arrive.

And the party keeps going with new friends coming and going all the time. Everypony on the dance floor!

I’ll, um. I’ll stay home, thanks.

That’s okay. Ravers work wherever they are! Even from home!

So they can bring the party to you.

...I’m going to move on to the next card.

So I just got done talking about a 5 cost, 3 req, 5 power Orange Earth Pony. And, well, I guess I’m not done doing that since my next pick is Applejack: Captain of the Seven Seas.

Yar har har. Shiver me timbers, be that an ultra rare I see? Yar har har.

Uh… sure.

Again, normally I wouldn’t really want to pay 5 AT for just one friend. You can usually do more with your AT than just that. But, in this case? The effect is absolutely worth it.

Basically this is a mono-Orange Party of One.

Sure, there are a few differences. like the fact that this affects resources and Troublemakers too, or the fact that both players get to keep things instead of just one player, but the principle is pretty similar. And a single colour Party of One is pretty nuts.

Now, yes. There are times you won’t want to play this. Like if your opponent has fewer friends than you, or you just can’t afford to get rid of your board state, or whatever. But that was true of Party of One too. And the times that you do want to play her? Well, it’s proven to be very effective.

Very, very effective… I may have been on the receiving end of Captain AJ a few times now.

Plus whenever you play her, you have an excuse to talk like a pirate for the rest of the game. Yar har har! Avast! Dead ponies tell no tales!

Okay, you are having way too much fun with this.

Silence, scurvy dog! Or else I be making ye sleep with the fishes.

Heh, you’d have to catch me first.

Oh, I’ll catch you, don’t worry about that.

But I should probably continue with my next card. Which is Pinkie’s Present!

Which is the first Song card I’ve put on these lists! What’s wrong with me, I love the song cards!

Ah well, problem solved now, hehe.

So this is on the list mostly just because I like the song. It’s just fun! Who doesn’t love presents or spending time with friends, hehe.

Though it also has a friend borrowing mode, and that’s one of my favourite things to do in this game. And the other options aren’t bad either!

It’s just a fun card with fun art based on a fun song!

Bit of a shame I couldn’t find room on the list for more songs, though, since they’re all pretty fun somehow. But oh well.

Eh, I would have gone with It’s Gonna Work myself if I was going to put a song on today’s list, but yeah, that’s a fine card too.

Anyway, my number eight card is Tri-Horned Bunyip: Elusive Myth.

Three Super or Ultra Rare cards in a row, huh Cici? Is every card on your list going to be shiny?

What? No!

...It’s just a coincidence.

I’m just giving you a hard time, Cici. Go on with your list.

Anyway it’s no secret that I love aggro. And a key part of aggro decks is point acceleration. Something basically only Blue and White had before Defenders. Which basically meant to be competitive and also be playing aggro, you had to be playing Blue, White, or both.

But with the introduction of Bunyip, Yellow’s got it now too! And this is actually pretty good point acceleration at that. 1 AT for 1 point is pretty fantastic. And it’s much easier to get that point than, say, Night Glider: Overpowering’s points.

Now sure, you do frighten Bunyip to do it. But that’s pretty minor.

Let’s compare to Rarity: Truly Outrageous, who does something pretty similar and is more or less universally considered to be a good card. With RTO, you move her home to score points. It then normally takes you 2 AT to move her back. Similarly, it costs you 2 AT to rally Bunyip. Same cost.

Yeah, there are other differences. RTO has less req, so can be used more easily if White is your off colour, and cares about higher bonus problems, for example. Plus she has 2 power, and it costs you to same amount to score points off her next turn even if you started a faceoff, while it’d take 3 AT to get Bunyip to a problem and unfrightened. And so on.

But Bunyip has advantages too. 1 initial cost is pretty cheap, and there are a few cards that care about 1 cost friends, like Find the Music In You or Pinkie Pie: One Filly Party. Plus, being a critter plays nicely with several of Yellow’s other strategies.

And most importantly, it’s in Yellow, a colour that otherwise has no point acceleration at all. That’s really the most important part.

It’s just a good card. And shouldn’t be underestimated.

My number eight pick is an Ultra Rare too! And let me tell you something…

Evil doers better run and hide because the protectors of a great nation are here to fight.

The Defenders of Spiketopia: Magic and Might!

...Not the nation I thought you were talking about, I admit.

Hey, imaginary nations can be great nations too!

Defenders of Spiketopia is great! Not only does it have my favourite art in the entire set, with everypony striking a cool pose, but it’s also got a whopping five different traits!

With trait icons to match, hehe. I bet they had to bust out something special to handle that!

Honestly it just annoys me that the trait icons aren’t in the same order as they are listed.

Huh? They aren’t?

They aren’t!

Yeah, I noticed it right away. It’s super minor, but man does it bug me for some reason.

Oh well. It’s still a super fun card with cool art!

...Aren’t you forgetting something?

Hrm? No, don’t think so.

What about their abilities?

Oh, I don’t care about that at all, honestly. Farming’s not my style. I just like the art and the traits, hehe. And I guess also the fact that their name references the actual set name, which is cute.

Though a bit confusing since we also have a Defenders of Equestria card… Ah well.

What’s next, Cici?

That would be my number seven pick, Changeling Mimics: Unreasonable Facsimiles.

I have the sneaking suspicion I should put this card higher on my list… but I dunno, this just seems to be the place for it.

Which says something about the rest of the cards on the list, because Mimics is really good.

Paying +3 AT to play any cards of the chosen type is pretty huge. You may as well not be able to play them at all, that’s such a huge tax. And unlike Octavia: Harsh Judge, you don’t need to know exactly what the opponent has in their hand, just what they’re likely to have in their hand.

Now, most of the time, you’re going to choose event with this card. Events are the cards that can be played on both players’ turns, and are far more common than either resources or troublemakers. But don’t discount the other options either.

Dilemmas are resources while not in play, for example, and players aren’t going to want to play them at +3 AT. Similarly, Singing Barrel, one of the most common forms of entry in the game, is really difficult to use if it suddenly costs 4.

And of course, making Troublemakers cost 4 makes it a bit more painful to play an epic to get rid of the Mimics due to uniqueness. Not impossible, of course, just expensive.

But let’s face it, that’s just a bonus. You’re almost always going to name event because it’s generally going to be the most useful. The other options are just icing on the cake.

Oh, and don’t forget the 6 power. They even do a decent job of protecting themselves against Friends due to being big. Though not so large they’re insurmountable.

I’m just glad they have a bonus higher than 0 so if you defeat them, you get something out of it.

Oh yeah, good point. It does have a drawback.

But then again, it’d have to. It’d be pretty insane without a drawback of some kind.

And even with the drawback, I think it’s the best non-epic Troublemaker we’ve seen in awhile.

What about Tantabus?

That doesn't count. It wasn’t good because it was a Troublemaker, it was good because of its chaos.

Well, speaking of Tantabus, I hope you’re ready to have nightmares…

Because my number seven pick, Zomponies: Terrifying Infestation, is coming to town!

OOOooOoOOoooOoOOoooO!

It kind of spoils the spooky factor when you smile like that.

These horrifying ponies have eaten so many cookies, it did something terrifying to them. Muzzles eternally stained by the objects of their undying desire, they roam all of Ponyville in search of even more tasty cookies to devour. But no matter how many they eat, their cursed hunger never diminishes.

Or maybe it was just one giant prank at Rainbow Dash’s expense, hehe. One of the two!

Yeah, it was that second one. Everypony was in on it, Flits, it’s not like you’re telling anypony anything they don’t already know.

Not everypony! Only those of us here in Ponyville.

Shouldn’t you be talking about the card?

I am, silly! The card comes with the story!

Plus it’s kind of fun just frightening everything over and over. Sure, there are better ways, but none that are so ripe with the ability to tell ghost stories while you do so.

Well, uh, besides Spooky Scary Story, I guess. Or Rainbow Dash: Goosebump Giver.

But hey, why not run them all? The perfect deck to play against somepony if you’re going camping and need an excuse to tell scary stories!

Do ponies really bring card games with them when they go camping?

Probably not. But hey, now that we gave everypony the idea, maybe somepony will!

You are one weird pony, Flitter.

Guilty as charged.

Well, let’s move on. My number six pick is Turning Point.

Now I know what some of you are going to say.

“Turning Point isn’t as good as Cracking the Case.”

And yeah, you’re right. It’s not. Immediate timing is insanely good, and banishing is always better than just dismissing. If you have the option of running one or the other, you should definitely pick Cracking the Case.

That being said, I still absolutely nove this card.

1 AT to dismiss a TM during the Main Phase by itself would be already the second best TM buster in the game right now, after Cracking the Case. Yes, even better than Epic Win, in my opinion.

Not only does being 3 req make it substantially easier to cast than Epic Win’s 4, but Main Phase timing is way better than Troublemaker Phase.

Having Main Phase timing means that if you pay AT to draw it, you can play it immediately to confront that turn without the opponent being able to mess with it somehow on their turn. Also, 1AT is about as cheap as you can get for this kind of effect.

And this card does more than that! The optional ability to discard a card to borrow a TM permanently is huge!

Especially if you borrow the card CIci was just talking about, hehe.

Yup. Suddenly it’s not you who has to pay +3 to play cards, but your opponent!

And that’s not the only good TM to borrow. Yellow Parasprite, Rarity: Hoarder, and so on are pretty solid candidates since now you’re getting the benefit instead of them.

Really, borrowing any non-epic TM can be worth it. So long as it prevents the opponent from confronting for a turn or two while letting you confront.

Sadly, there are no epic TMs that benefit you for borrowing them, really. You’re probably just better off dismissing them.

Good thing the card can do that too.

Heh, yeah. Good thing.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with this card and feel its utility is great. I look forward to using it in all my Yellow aggro decks.

Well, I look forward to making super big friends with my number six pick, Trixie: Smoke and Mirrors!

Playing events is fun and making big friends is fun, and this card lets you do both! She can get super big super fast.

One event makes her 4 power. Two events means 8 power. And ten events? A whopping 2,048 power! Twenty events? Over a million. A hundred events?

Two nonillion, five hundred thirty-five octillion, three hundred one septillion, two hundred sextillion, four hundred fifty-six quintillion, four hundred fifty-eight quadrillion, eight hundred two trillion, nine hundred ninety-three billion, four hundred six million, four hundred ten thousand, seven hundred fifty-two power!

Which is good enough to win most faceoffs, let me tell you, hehe.

...How do you even know that?

What do you think Rainbowshine and I have been doing these past few weeks?

Making stupidly large Trixies?

Amongst other things, yes!

Why?

To see if we could!

To be honest, we could have gone higher if we wanted to! But a hundred and one events just seemed excessive.

Whatever makes you happy, I guess?

Now maybe working together with your opponent to make nonillion plus power Trixies isn’t your cup of tea, much like it isn’t Cloudchaser’s. But it’s still pretty fun to see just how big you can make her when playing a normal game.

Plus she’s a unicorn and a changeling, despite being one pony! You gotta love fun flavour like that.

So wait…

Trixie is actually a changeling?

No, silly! The other Trixie is Thorax.

Oh. Right. I knew that.

Your turn!

Well my fifth pick doesn’t have the ability to breach a million power…

Nonillion.

...But I think it’s still pretty awesome.

In fact, it can easily stop that giant friend with ease. I’m talking about Belly Flop.

SPLOOSH!

So Belly Flop is probably the best removal card in the game right now. For 1 AT, you can dismiss just about every friend in the game at Immediate timing. That’s insane.

Sure, you do have to retire a friend to play it…

But Pink has no shortage of ways to make friends. Whether it’s an Earth Pony Token, someone you want to retire like Party Favor: Balloon Master, or simply a friend at home you’re no longer using, chances are you’ll have somepony you don’t mind retiring.

Of course, the best way to use it is to combine it with borrowing effects like Pinkie’s Present, which lets you retire your opponent’s friend to dismiss another opponent’s friend. This is ridiculously strong.

And fun! Well, for you. Your opponent might grumble a bit.

Not really much else to say. Just super solid removal that I expect to see an awful lot of in the immediate future, if not forever.

Well, I won’t let your dive bombing Trixies ruin my plans to make the biggest friends ever. Because my number five pick is Cheerilee: Cheerileeder!

Uhh, how does she stop me from ruining your plans?

Well, she doesn’t.

I just wanted to emphasize I like making the biggest friends ever!

Oooookay, then.

Anyway, Cheerilee is great! If you’ve got a giant friend at home, you can use that giant friend to make another giant friend even gianter!

Why have one friend at nonillion plus power when you could have two?

With one of them at home…

I just played a hundred events, you think I can’t spare a couple AT to move my Trixie at home?

Fair point.

Even without silly plans to make giant friends, it’s just fun moving power around! It’s like your friends are all working together to help each other confront those problems! How fun is that?

Not to mention Cheerilee looks amazing in her cheerleader outfit. And she’s so happy!

You just put this card on here for the art, didn’t you?

Maaaaybe. I’ll never tell!

Moving on to my number four pick, we have Gabby: Lending a Claw.

Getting into the really good cards now.

Oh, I like Gabby! She’s so helpful and cheerful!

Well, her card is definitely helpful, that’s for sure. The longer a game goes on, the more likely it is you’re going to run out of cards in hand. But Gabby here helps with that pretty amazingly.

More cards in hand means more options, after all. And Gabby ensures you always end your turn with at least four. Which is great for aggro decks that try to play a lot of cards in any given turn.

Not that you’d know anything about that.

Huh? I play aggro all the time.

That’s the joke, silly.

Oh… right.

Anyway, Gabby’s potential to keep you going in the mid to late game without resorting to having to pay to draw is pretty great. Four cards is a lot. You won’t usually get to draw a full four, since you’ll have five on your next turn, but even drawing just two cards off of her is fantastic.

She is basically worth running in any Pink deck that plays lots of cards.

Unless, of course, you’re using Vinyl. She can keep your hand full all on her own, so Gabby’s not needed.

Which kinda puts her in this weird space where she’s best as an off colour friend since if you’re playing a competitive deck with a Pink Mane, you’re almost certainly using Vinyl.

Good thing she’s only got 2 req then, huh?

Definitely.

By the way, Cici…

Have you happened to hear the new hit song that’s been the rage all across Equestria lately?

Oh, you mean Coloratura’s latest hit? Yeah, it’s great! I love everything she does!

Nope, not Coloratura!

Uhh…. Sapphire Shores then? She’s okay, but she’s got nothing on Coloratura.

I’m so pleased I got to actually help out with the preparations when she came to Ponyville! Seeing her in concert was great.

I’m not talking about a Coloratura song, Cici!

Sheesh.

Well, who’s it by, then?

Ponyville’s very own princess!

Huh. I didn’t know that Twilight—

Wait.

I see where this is going.

Sweep Sweep Sweep!

My number four pick.

How did I not see this coming sooner?

You were too busy fangirling all over Coloratura, hehe.

I wasn’t fangirling...

Anyway, I really don’t have much to say about the card. It’s just got a fun name referencing a silly little bit in Princess Twilight’s history, hehe.

And it never fails to make me laugh! I just love it.

Not sure why they didn’t just actually make it a Song, though. I mean, it even says it’s a song right there in the title!

Maybe because it’s not a song?

Sure it is!

Sweep sweep sweep sweep sweep.

Repeating one word over and over doesn’t make it a song.

Sweep sweep sweep sweep sweep.

Knock it off already.

Sweep sweep sweep sweep sweep!

Anyway, moving on to my number three pick…

Once again, I had some trouble organizing the top 3. They’re all really powerful cards, and picking which one was the best was pretty hard.

But after careful consideration, I came up with this particular list. And I’m pretty pleased with the outcome.

Enough Buildup, Cici! Which card is number three?

Heh, alright then. Sweetie Belle: Most Traditional gets the slot.

I was very close to putting her in the number one slot too. Just because of how versatile she is.

She does so many things. She can get rid of cards you don’t want to draw or flip. She can help you with faceoff math by knowing what you or your opponent is going to flip next, and if there’s any chaos on those cards. She can even get rid of the opponent’s chaos cards to ensure they don’t flip them!

Though, truth be told, the best way to use her is to control what the opponent draws. Pitch all the stuff you don’t want them to have and give them the stuff you’re okay with them having.

If you’re really confident, you can even let them draw good cards just so you know what they have. Sometimes knowing exactly what’s in their hand can be stronger than getting rid of the good cards. Just because hand knowledge is important.

Don’t forget she’s Stubborn too!

Yeah! You get to do all that and still have her help you confront in the process! She’s pretty nuts.

I’ve seen her take control of games almost single hoofed. The opponent has a much harder time drawing cards they actually want, and almost never gets to draw a way to actually deal with the situation ever again. She is seriously a huge threat.

And don’t even get me started on multiple copies of her. Now you can use one to control their draws while also using the second to control their flips, or help smooth out your draws, or just super ensure the opponent doesn’t get what they want.

It can get kind of gross.

Mostly I just use her to discard the opponent’s entire deck.

Yeah, that’s actually an option too. If you’re getting close to the end game, you may want to switch to just discarding cards from their deck to ensure they run out of tools, be they ones you hoof picked for them or not. Which makes her a huge control tool and also a win condition rolled into one.

Well, sorta. You still need to actually score points after the opponent has no deck, but they’ll have very little way to stop you at that point.

Anyway, that’s more of a secondary function, though. And only when the opponent is down to like fifteen or so cards left in their deck.

If you just use her that way to start off, you’re unlikely to do much unless your deck is entirely dedicated to discarding the opponent’s deck, which is difficult to pull off.

Psh, says you. I do it all the time!

Yeah, well, we have different playstyles.

Anyway, that’s about it for Sweetie Belle.

Though I guess it’s also worth mentioning she’s useful if you’re trying to get specific cards into your discard pile. White is good at playing cards directly from the discard pile, after all. Orange White especially.

There’s probably a deck idea in there somewhere, though I haven’t found it yet myself.

Hehehe.

What?

You’ll see!

Well, let’s move on to my top three! And we get to start with Baby Flurry Heart: Newborn Nightmare.

Ugh, not this card.

Rules Nightmare is more like it, if you ask me.

As you can see, Cici hates this card. But I absolutely love it!

Randomness is fun! Not knowing what’s going to happen can be exciting sometimes. Will your friend move? Or will they stay still? Who knows!

Yeah, but she doesn’t work like anypony expects her to.

See, assuming there are no dilemmas, there are four total locations in the game. Your home, your problem, the opponent’s home, and the opponent’s problem. And Flurry looks at all four as a possible area to move the character to.

And if she picks an invalid location, like the opponent’s home or the place the character already is, the friend stays still. Meaning you tried to move a friend for absolutely no benefit.

Exactly! She causes chaos! And that’s fun!

It’s frustrating.

Sometimes frustrating is fun, though.

Wah?

Don’t think about it too hard, hehe. Just go into you number two!

Heh, that I can do. My second favourite card is definitely Spitfire: Drilling It In.

Talk about a card that does it all, she’s got a whopping four abilities, and they’re all great.

You all probably already know how good Prince Rutherford is, which is to say phenomenal. The ability to frighten at immediate speed and also get power in play is pretty great. He even bypasses event hate like The Vote.

And Spitfire does that too.

Of course, she does cost an extra AT, and you have to discard a card to do it.

But the effect is still worth it. Especially since you’re not losing anything for the extra AT cost. She’s still 3 AT for 3 power. Or more, thanks to her Experienced. And she’s in two colours, which is always a plus.

And that’s not even all she does! She also lets you draw a card when she’s put into the discard from anywhere. So if you discard Spitfire to another copy of her, you get a 4 power friend in play and still the same number of cards in hand!

Her ability also works if she’s put into the discard from your deck. Like say, from Sweetie Belle.

Yeah. She’s just an incredibly versatile card with a ton of applications, all of which are really great.

And Cloudchaser’s totally not just saying that cause she’s trying to suck up to Spitfire to get pulled from the reserves and become a Wonderbolt proper.

Huh? Of course not. Spitfire doesn’t even play the game.

Soarin does, though. Oh, and Surprise. Few others too.

Are they any good?

Eh. Surprise seems to have a knack for it, but only ever plays mono Pink. And Soarin is…

Well, he tries.

Well, maybe you should give him some pointers, huh?

Yeah, I help out where I can.

Anyway, enough about Wonderbolts! Let’s focus on my second favourite card from the set: Starlight Glimmer: Taking Charge.

Of course you’d pick a Redeem card.

Starlight is super fun, since she lets you play a Friend for free every single turn, provided you meet its requirement. This lets you play all sorts of expensive Friends you wouldn’t be able to otherwise!

Sure. Just as soon as you pay her 8 AT cost.

Oh, wait a second, you can reduce that to 5 by retiring another Starlight which cost you a card and at least one more AT, such a good deal.

Your sarcasm is noted.

Look, Redeem is just a bad mechanic, okay? 3 AT is barely worth the initial investment and the cards are nigh unplayable without the discount. Even with the discount, they’re still pretty obnoxious to play since you need your cards to line up just so, and you can’t really count on it..

I’m pretty sure they’re the worst Ultra Rares printed. Period.

Oh hush. I like them.

They may not be competitive at all, but it’s a neat little flavor thing! And their effects are huge, which is cool!

Plus, who says I pay 8 or even 5 AT to play her? I only pay 3!

Huh? How?

Redeeming Qualities, silly!

Or a similar effect. But usually Redeeming Qualities.

Just get her into the discard using the Sweetie Belle Cici mentioned earlier, or Apple Bloom: Re-Markable, and you’re in a great position to redeem her without actually using Redeem!

Okay, that sounds a little fun, yeah.

And then you get to play free friends forever!

Or until the opponent dismisses her. Which happens a lot for some strange reason, hehe.

And since her ability specifically says you’re playing the Friend, she even lets the other Redeem Friends do their thing! So you can totally re-enact their daring trip through the Changeling Hive!

I’ll stick to my decks, thanks.

But I guess there’s a little bit more there than I thought. Still not a fan, though.

Well, that’s it for my number two! All that’s left are our absolute favourites.

The bestest cards in the set!

At least, in our opinions, anyway.

What’s yours, Cici?

Oh, it’s a good one.

Now, when I first saw this card, I instantly knew she was going to be good. She just has value written all over her.

That being said, I never would have guessed she’d have topped my list at the time. But the more I played with her, the more I realized she wasn’t just good, she was deceptively powerful in what she allowed me to do.

So without any further buildup, my absolute favourite card of the set is Angel Wings: Friendly Fan.

A wonderbolt in both your top two spots?

Are you sure you’re not playing favourites, hehe.

It’s a coincidence, I swear!

She’s just a really good card…

Well, tell everypony why you think so!

Well, it’s pretty simply, really. She accelerates your gameplan to crazy degrees.

Being 1/1 req lets you play her off of any Pink or Blue Mane with either Trading Traditions or any entry friend of the other colour. Meaning it’s incredibly easy to play her turn 2. And since makes your next friend cost 2 less, she’s effectively 2 free power. Which is just amazing for an aggro deck.

With just a single copy of Angel Wings, it’s not too hard to DFO on turn 2 without even setting yourself back at all! I see it all the time with both Pink and Blue Manes. Assuming the opponent’s problem is easy to confront, anyway.

And occasionally, even if you don’t want to DFO or can’t DFO that early, she can be useful just getting out your high req friends a turn earlier.

I’ve seen both Rainbow Dash: On Even Ground and Snips & Snails: Problem Solvers played turn 1 off of an Angelwings. Both of which can disrupt the opponent’s early game strategies pretty hard if they’re not expecting it.

But it’s not just amazing early game plays that makes her so good. 2 free power is good no matter when in the game you are, provided you’re trying to DFO. She makes it so easy.

Heh. I can’t even recall the number of times my opponent has said to me something like “You can only win if you can DFO this turn, but I don’t think you have the power" only for me to surprise them by playing an Angel Wings or two to create huge amounts of power for almost no AT.

She is just that fast!

And of course, providing power in two different colours means she’s great at confronting any problems you’re likely to throw into your Blue/Pink deck. Not to mention she helps unlocking the req for your other friends since her own requirement is so low.

And don’t even get me started on chaining her. Playing two or even all three of her in one turn is just gross.

So what you’re trying to say is she’s a good card.

What I’m trying to say is she is an amazing card! And alongside Spitfire and a slew of other great Pink and Blue cards from this set, I am absolutely looking forward to playing Pink/Blue aggro this year.

It’s going to be an absolute blast!

I’ll bet!

I also appreciate that your list has 2 cards of each rarity, hehe. Kinda wish my list was like that!

Huh, is it? Just a coincidence, really.

But it kinda goes to show the power level of the set when there’s strong stuff across all rarities. And I thought Marks in time was an insane set.

Well, we’ve seen 19 cards so far, and all that’s left is my number one pick. Can anypony guess what it is?

Us?

Nope! As amazing as it is to see us on cards, it’s happened a million times by now so it’s kind of lost it’s novelty.

Which isn’t to say I don’t like seeing us on cards or anything. In fact, I hope they continue that trend! It’s just not my favourite card this time. Not even to the point where I’m going to ban it from the list preemptively.

Besides, this time it doesn’t have adorable pictures of you as a filly with flavour text explaining your deep dark past!

Flitterrrrr. Stop bringing that up!

Anyway, no, my actual favourite card of Defenders of Equestria is Sunset Festival!

Oh, hrm, yeah. That makes sense. It combines randomness with borrowing. Two of your favourite things.

Sure does!

I never know which Friend I’ll wind up borrowing, but it’s gonna be somepony! And that’s just fun!

Maybe it’ll be entry and not help me at all. Or maybe it’ll be the best Friend in my opponent’s deck. or maybe it’ll be Captain AJ and I’ll have to end the Sunset Festival early because everypony was dismissed.

Who knows what chaos will be unleashed!

Yeah, that’s exactly why I don’t want to use it myself. But I definitely get why you’d like it.

One time I hit an opponent’s Coco Pommel: Refurbisher. So of course I chose Sunset Festival with her ability and played it again. Only to hit another Refurbisher! And I still had AT, so I played it again. And hit the third Refurbisher!

Wanna guess who I hit the fourth time?

Let me guess, a fourth Refurbisher.

Exactly!

Wha? But that’s cheating!

Not really! It was a Queen Chrysalis: Identity Theft.

Oh. Right. That makes sense.

It was still a pretty silly turn, though.

I was out of AT then, but oh well!

And with that, we’re done with our top 10 lists! Hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them!

This was a tough one this time around. I had so many cards to cut…

But yeah, making it was a blast. So much great stuff to talk about.

When we started this you were freaking out about it. Feeling better now then?

Yeah, guess so.

Although…

You don’t think I put too many Pink cards on the list, do you? I had 4 counting the multi-coloured cards.

I wouldn’t worry about it. Your list is your list! As long as you’re honest, nothing wrong with what’s on it.

Fair enough.

Although, come to think of it, I had a lot of Pink on my list too…

Guess Pink was an impactful colour for both of us, this time around hehe.

Anyway, that’s all for today. Thanks for taking the time to let us share our favourite cards with you all. Bye everypony! See you all soon!

Later.

#cloudchaser and flitter explain #cloudchaser #flitter #mlpccg #MLP:FiM #MLP #mlp ccg

[thegeneralsnotebook]

Adventures in Deck-building Part 114: Princess Cadance, Loving Ruler (White/Yellow Aggro) [Harmony]

New Adventure Queue

I’m going to start this article off by introducing the new changes that are going to be coming to the Adventure series as a result of starting up the new queue. In reality, saying “changes” is being a little facetious, since from the perspective of the reader almost nothing is going to change. It will still be an article on Friday of every week, covering a deck built around a single Mane Character. There will be pictures of the Mane now, as you see above. But the only other difference is how I’ve organized the new queue. I started Adventure with the goal of building one deck for every Mane in the game, and while I did that, at the end of the second queue I realized two things.

First, that by now there are some Manes that I’ve covered quite extensively, and others that I’ve barely touched on. I’ve worked with them all at least once, but some, like Pinkie Pie, Ambassador of Laughter, have three whole articles to their name, while others still have just the one. So for the new queue, the goal is simple: get to the same number of decks for all of the Manes. That number is going to be three.

Second, despite my intentions to keep things varied, I haven’t always done that. A quick perusal through the archive revealed that all three of my Starlight Glimmer decks were Purple/Orange, for example, and a number of colour combinations get overused as well. That’s the main reason that I’ve included the new grid queue, as it makes seeing trends in colour choices much more obvious at a glance. For this run, I’ll be doing my very best to take each Mane in a direction that I haven’t explored with it before.

All of that thus brings us to this week’s entry.

Princess Cadance, Loving Ruler

No Expenses Spared

As one can see in the grid, my last two outings with Princess Cadance were White/Purple and White/Pink, both Midrange, though one leaned control and the other aggro. This time, I decided to throw all such pretense aside and jam in as many cards that scored points as I could. Part of this came from the fact that Yellow’s Problem set now contains quite a few high bonus point Problems. In fact, Orange is the only other colour with three 2-bonus point Problems in Core, and Yellow is the only colour with a 3-bonus Problem. If any colour wanted to be the one to bring back RTO, Yellow seemed like a good place to go.

Never mind of course that Yellow brings a lot of other strengths to the table, including its method of scoring additional points in Tri-Horned Bunyip, and the powerhouse of value that is Day Shift. Even though this deck is basically resigned to the fact that Cadance herself isn’t going to be helping, there is one nice interaction that might be worth pointing out. Namely, that if somehow we do manage to flip Cadance, being able to have Day Shift move her to a newly played Dilemma is likely to cause the opponent some real issues. It is of course unfortunate that Bunyip’s four req is likely going to sometimes be difficult to reach, as it would likely be an easier source of points than RTO, but as our Changeling Citizens will go Yellow we should be able to pull it off often enough.

Another thing worth pointing out that is RTO has a chance at seeing some work if Harmony ends up shaking out the way that some think it might. If Chaos Control really does become the ruler of the roost, then decks that score most of their points without starting faceoffs get a huge boost. In Harmony, both Yellow and White have ways of doing that, and they both have easy ways of getting rid of Troublemakers without having to challenge them. Tree Hugger especially can’t be taxed by a Mimics, and needs to be dealt with once she enters the field, especially if she’s sitting on a high-bonus point Problem. If I were to build this deck with a different Mane, perhaps with Octavia or a Yellow Mane like Nurturing Nature, I would actually be cautiously optimistic about its chances.

Now it’s not entirely true that this deck is going to always play as if Cadance was just a 1-White token. The Staff of Sacanas allows her to at least provide some value, and occasionally gives us an incentive to move her to a Problem where she might maybe get a counter or two. And it’s worth pointing out that if ever does flip, her ability isn’t actually terrible. +2 AT to play Friends is quite significant, especially if it’s getting stacked with a Plaid Stripes on the field. I can imagine that Bluna especially could have an issue with navigating around a tax that high during her Score Phase. Again, though, much of that is wishful thinking. With some extra space I could perhaps have considered including Backup Vocals to sometimes get Cadance into the game, but in the end I felt that I could already do okay enough without her. And indeed I do think that this deck can do okay even without a real Mane.

Honestly, now that I’ve got Day Shift, I might start advocating for Cadance as a character to get some better love in the upcoming sets. We need to show deference to all of the Princesses after all.

Pulling a new Mane off of the new queue isn’t exactly easy. Cadance for example was the Mane this week just because I felt like it, but for the future we’ll go back to the usual random order, starting with Manes that only have one deck on the list right now. That means that next week will be: Rainbow Dash, Hanging Out!

#mlpccg #mlp:ccg

[reynewcw-blog]

Name: Armin Sumner Face Claim: David Leon Age: 39 (Is actually 87 ) Height: 5”11 Hair: Black Eyes: Lilac Species:

Imp of the Fey variety Powers: Armin is capable of a few things.

First, he is able to mildly shape shift. He can change his appearance away from its usual form which is that of a creature with pink-grey flesh, horns, pointed ears, purple eyes with slits, fangs, claws, and a tail. He also has a pair of wings but they are very small and translucent with how thin they are. They don’t do much in means of flight. They’re useless.

He wears his human facade in the day to day functions. It does drain him pretty quickly to shift too much in a day so he refrains from doing so.

Armin is also able to conjure up fire. He can use his glamor to disappear and he also moves rather fast with light, nimble footsteps.

Weaknesses:

Iron and salt can harm Armin. They are also on the lower rings of the fey pyramid so they can be influenced and over powered by higher, better fey. And by overpowered he can be influenced by their powers. And in some instances be used as an errand boy of sorts. Personality:

Armin is a bit of the squirrely type. They work within a library, finding ways to speak to people through his day while also shelving and organizing books. They’re nervous and shy, their personality a brand of their treatment from when they were younger.That being said they do like to share jokes and play pranks on people. Usually they are harmless, sometimes he can get carried away but he tries not to.

In truth he craves interaction with others. His nature calls him to reach out to others and so he does, but he’s also...wary.

Birthday:

November 2nd Role/Occupation:

Librarian Registered: No Origin Story:

Armin was formed from a combination of demonic, fey, and magical energy. Bound to the will of a fey, he was used for forty years as an errand imp. He was useful for eavesdropping and retrieval of information as well as easy to move items. When his master went missing, he was left on his own outside of the Veil where he had followed them.

Alone, Armin struggled to know how to move forward. What was he supposed to do without a master? He wandered on his own a few months, trying to make his way through the forests. Until he finally managed to find a city. He was homeless in the city as well until he managed to find a way to join a shelter thanks to the kindness of a humanitarian.

As Armin got used to their own life of independence they searched for a while on what to do. Humans had jobs. He had a job. But being a spy was out of the question and his comedic timing was not as good as he thought. He started doing small part time odd jobs as he saved money and moved into a low income housing building within England.

It took time but he finally got enough money for illegal papers that gave him access to America, which he thought might help him really start over.

Since he moved to America twenty years ago Armin likes to think he’s settled into his role of living life outside of being an imp. Not only does he have a job he also has a small friend Bunny. Which is...actually a miniature Bunyip that lives in the small muddy pond outside of the library. Which is an upgrade considering he used to have Bunny living in his backyard full of mud and grass.

#character #profile #characters #armin sumner

[diamond-song42]

Card Shark 68: Yona, Friend of Spiders

My friends, today’s Card Shark is a special one. Today is not only the first Set 11/Leaders and Legends Shark, but it is a card I have gotten the privilege of spoiling to the world first! I can’t thank the fine folks at Enterplay and Commentary is Magic enough for this opportunity. Now then! This card is a Friend card featuring one of my favorite members of the Young 6. If you’re an arachnophobe, you might want to turn away now. Let’s take a look at best yak herself, “Yona, Friend of Spiders!”

Who knew the duo of yak and spider could compliment each other so well? This is a Friend you can play on your first turn if you have a Yellow Mane, costing 1 AT and 1 Yellow req for 1 Yellow power. But there’s more to this seemingly simple entry-level Friend: Say you put a 1 power Critter Friend Token into play (how you do this doesn’t matter). When you do this, you can exhaust Yona to stick another 1 power Critter Friend Token into play. That’s double the Critter Tokens for the price of one! One Critter Token becomes two, then four, then six. What immediately stuck out to me about this card is not how it can effectively double Critter Tokens, but how she isn’t Unique. That means you could have a full set of these in play and one Critter Token suddenly becomes four. There aren’t a lot of cards that can multiply things like this, especially on a consistent basis. She also doesn’t specify which phase you have to be in to multiply those Critters - if your circumstances are right, you could add up your Critters during your opponent’s turn! “Oh, so you’ve moved that character to that Problem to try and confront it? HERE’S A CRITTER and my Zipporwhill is moving you home. Oh, and while we’re at it, Yona’s putting in another Critter and moving another character home just for the fun of it.” It may not seem like much, but stuff like that adds up over time! No wonder Spike hasn’t been sleeping well.

So where are the inherent flaws of this card? She clearly wasn’t designed to be something that reigns with an iron fist in a deck - 1/1/1 cards (as in 1 power, 1 AT cost, 1 X color req) don’t tend to do that. Heck, I’m not even sure the Ultra Rare Rockhoof, Pillar of Strength does that. I think the biggest con with this card is that, in a way, you have to build other cards in your deck around it. If you’re not running any kind of Critter Token generator, this card is useless ability-wise. It needs another card to create Critter Tokens so it can activate. Without that, all it does is give you a small chunk of Yellow power. Cards like Falcon, Fast and Furious and Sclerite, Two-tone have similar costs and can fill that empty space just fine. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’d rule this card out entirely. If you’ve ever been at the receiving end of a Zipporwhill, Puppy Addict deck, you know how devastating Critter Tokens can be. It’s a favorite play style of mine, and once Leaders and Legends hits store shelves, I would love to experiment with this card in that deck. I guess the ultimate point I’m making here is that this is a rather specialized card. No Critter Tokens? No yaks given.

Besides cards previously mentioned, here are some more cards that can team up with Yona and Spindle to leave their foes cowering in terror:

*Zipporwhill, Pet Collector. You probably guessed that Zipporwhill, Puppy Addict would have a field day with this card once you read “1 power Critter Friend Token.” Two Critter Tokens at Zippo’s Problem = two opposing characters moved. Not much more to be said there. But what about the other Zippo? I’ve seen this one make the occasional appearance in competitive decks. Pet Collector not only protects Critters from going against your home limit (meaning you won’t have worry about retiring any Critters that may exceed said home limit), but you can Cutie Mark her to put not one, but two Critter Friend Tokens into play! It’s a pretty decent combo! Yesyesyesyesyes!

*Maud Pie, Not Amused and/or Holder’s Boulder, Key Stone. So now you have all these spiders in play - chances are you’ll want to keep them there. Token Friends leave play when they’re frightened, so that’s the main thing you’ll want to avoid. Maud and Holder’s Boulder work similarly: Maud stops Friends from being frightened if she has at least 4 power, while Holder’s Boulder stops Token Friends from being frightened without the need to stockpile additional power. I list both here since I can see both being beneficial in different ways: Maud works in decks that rely on stacking power counters, while Holder’s Boulder can be useful if you have equally powerful Friends that would force your opponent to determine their frightening priority. Ultimately, I prefer Maud in this case, but Holder’s is always an option.

*Rise and Shine. This Event is not only a quick way to put some Critter Tokens into play, but also compliments Yona’s ability to be Immediate. Pay your 1 AT whenever, put two Critter Tokens into play, then exhaust Yona and put a third one into play. If you’re doing it to confront Problems, it can easily make up for the power lost by exhausting Yona. Trust me, guys, if you’re using a Critter Token deck, this is not a card you should pass up!

*Friends Are Always There. This is one of my favorite Songs not just in the show, but in the CCG. I love this being in my Critter decks because it can stick a whopping THREE Critter Tokens into play for only 2 AT! If you’re okay on your Critter Token situation, this can also dismiss a Resource or temporarily grant you control of an opposing Troublemaker. I’d recommend the former as a last resort in case you can’t get to your Bewitched Beavers and primarily stick to Critter Token entry with this card.

*Fast Food. Here’s another card that should be a mainstay in your Critter Token deck. One of these boosts your Critters’ power by 1, basically doubling the power of all your Critter Tokens. It’s not Unique, so one can easily stick three in play and boost your Tokens’ power from 1 to 4 each in the blink of an eye. Supporting Critters you may use like Brian, One Swell Guy and Tri-Horned Bunyip, Elusive Myth can also benefit from this card, even if it isn’t as long as the Critter Tokens do. But I can’t stress enough how important running multiple copies of this card is - it’s a prime target for your opponents’ Resource removal!

Thanks for reading this very special Card Shark! I’m shifting the schedule around since this is not the only surprise I have in store! This Sunday the 22nd is Sunset Shimmer Day, so I will be publishing a specially-themed Shark then. The 70th Shark will not be a UR Shark - I am pushing the results of the latest UR poll to the 71st Shark. So what in Equestria will I be doing for the 70th Shark a week from today? You’ll just have to come back and find out! Diamond out!

#my little pony #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp #mlpfim #yona #yak #leaders and legends #mlpccg #mlp:ccg #ccg #friend of spiders #spider #spindle #friend #exclusive

[diamond-song42]

Card Shark 56: Power Pony Up!

Happy Friday, CCG-ers! It’s Day 6 of Card Shark Week and I have a High Magic Card Shark for you. This is not only the only Common card I’m covering this week, but also the only Orange card! Don’t be scared - it’s time to “Power Pony Up!”

It’s an epic-looking card with all six Power Ponies ready to kick some flank - does it hold up on the CCG field? For 1 AT and 3 Orange req (the equivalent of a flipped Orange Mane Character), you can unfrighten up to two frightened Friends. That’s pretty nifty when you look at its individual parts. It’s Immediate, which means that you can almost instantly unfrighten Friends once they are frightened (maybe with the effect of Prince Rutherford, Quick to Judge or Rainbow Dash, Pony Pirate). Oh, Rutherford’s gonna come in here and shut down this Problem confrontation? I don’t think so. It can also unfrighten two Friends at once for a fourth of the normal AT cost. Unfrighten two Friends normally? 4 AT. Use this card instead? 1 AT. Easy as pie. I will also go out on a limb and say Orange is one of the biggest colors players want to frighten, if not the biggest of them all. Orange is typically focused on high power (any AoH farmers are probably well aware of this), and it’s great for an opponent if they can shut that power down early. Should that happen, a card like this can help bounce back from that loss faster. And that’s a win in my book 👍

There’s gotta be a reason that a card this nifty isn’t seeing more gameplay. I don’t believe it’s a matter of not having enough room in a deck but more because there’s only one color that really embraces the frightening technique (Blue). I’m not exactly sure what the ratios would be, but there’s always the chance that you won’t be facing Blue in any capacity. And yes, I’m aware that there exists a Resource called the Staff of Sacanas that can frighten a Friend if they lose a Staff-initiated Faceoff. But even so, depending on your strategy, it might not be worth it to fit this card in when you could just cut your losses and pay the 2 AT to unfrighten that Friend. There’s also the matter of how this card might not even be needed in a hardcore Orange deck. Why is that, you ask? Allow me to direct your attention to Maud Pie, Not Amused. As long as she has at least 4 power (not a hard thing to achieve), none of your Friends can be frightened to begin with! In a deck with Maud, I say this Event should be kept as a last resort in case Maud can’t find her way into play. And that leads me to my ruling on this card: Only use it if you think you can really make it work to your advantage.

Here’s some more cards ready to face the Mane-iac:

*Dr. Hooves, Unblinking. When this card yanks an extra Dr. Hooves out of your deck, the second Dr. Hooves is played to your home frightened. Powering that second Doctor up to Power Pony status can save you an AT! And nothing bad ever came from saving AT. Well, unless Rainbow Dash, On Even Ground is in play. Or Philomena, Up in Smoke. Or Incriminating Evidence...

*Tri-Horned Bunyip, Elusive Myth. This gentle giant scores you an extra point if you frighten it when you confronting its Problem. With this Event, you could immediately unfrighten the Bunyip if you want to use its power during a Faceoff or something like that. There’s also a lot of tricksy things you could stack on top of this, like Thorax, The Changed Changeling, Defend the Hive!, Fast Food, Conductor’s Baton... but that’s for another Shark. ;)

*Apple Bloom, Re-Markable. This one is pretty easy to explain: Exhaust Apple Bloom and discard a card and you can unfrighten two Friends for free. If you want to get really technical, you could discard Dr. Hooves, Unblinking, search your deck for and put a second Doctor into play, and then unfrighten it for free. (At least I think that’d work? If I’m mistaken, please let me know.)

Thanks for checking out Day 6 of Card Shark Week! Day 7 tomorrow will be focusing on Marks in Time, and this one I’m rather excited about... Diamond out!

#my little pony #mlp:fim #my little pony friendship is magic #mlpccg #power ponies #mlp:ccg #mlp #ccg #high magic #power pony #power pony up! #event #shark week #card shark #card shark week

[diamond-song42]

Card Shark 40: Daring Do, Adventure Time

Happy 40th Shark, everycreature! I hope y’all had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend. Today’s Ultra Rare comes straight from Equestrian Odysseys... with a surprising chunk to unpack! Here’s my thoughts on “Daring Do, Adventure Time!”

This is such a badass-looking card, I can’t take it. Like most Ultra Rare Friends, she isn’t exactly cheap. That’s 4 AT you need to throw down along with 3 Blue AND Purple req. But she does come with some interesting features! First, she has Meticulous 1, allowing you to preview what’s on the top of your deck before you go too far into your turn. When she enters play (yes, this is a “when this card enters play” card and not a “when you play this card” card), you have the option to frighten a Friend, any Friend. Before you go shoving her aside because Prince Rutherford can do that same thing for half the AT, you might want to check your Troublemakers. Those Troublemakers have an additional 1 power for every frightened Friend in play, yours and your opponent’s. Just one frightened Friend can take a Nightmare Moon or Pony of Shadows to 8 from 7, and multiple frightened Friends can take a lower Troublemaker such as Arimaspi or the Squizard much higher. Bruh, there are not many cards PERIOD that can simply boost a Troublemaker like that. This is a pretty combination of powers right here! And that’s just for one down payment of 4 AT! No wonder so many ponies like her so much that she has a whole convention themed around her.

Even the most awesome adventurer has some flaws. It’s rare that I see anyone use a single card that costs 4 AT period in a competitive deck (I usually see 3 AT tops). It can be a hefty price to pay if it’s not the focus of your deck, which it probably isn’t. Unless you get super lucky, you aren’t playing this in your first three turns or so. The color req is also a bit heavy early on in the game, but not unobtainable (though again, probably not a play within the first three turns). Also... need I mention this graphic? Sure, she’s an epic adventurer and all and striking a cool pose to boot, but... are you sure it doesn’t look a little suggestive from far away? There are so many other epic Daring Do poses you could’ve used, but you had to go with this one. She did not work her flank off to stop those 800 years of sweltering heat for you to put her on a card looking like this. I know, it’s really nitpicky, but honestly, I think this is overall a nicely-balanced card in rarity, cost, and power. I do find it peculiar that she has Meticulous 1 since it’s practically unrelated to her two other abilities, but hey, I still think it’s worth using if you have the deck space and AT.

Here are some more cards that may go awesomely with this card:

*Changeling Drone, Fear Eater. You’re powering up your Troublemakers with each frightened Friend, so why not have your own Friends share in that power too? This evil bug feeds on the power of frightened Friends and goes up by two for each frightened Friend in play. One frightened Friend doubles its power permanently. There’s so many frighteners you could combine this with, and if you’re doing anything remotely related to frightening, I will suggest this. And if you combine this with Daring and a couple other cards on this list, you get a nice Blurple cocktail. (It’s “Blurple” because it’s Blue/Purple. “Plue” didn’t have the same ring to it.)

*Tri-Horned Bunyip, Elusive Myth. A strange choice? Maybe. One of my favorite Ultra Rares of all time gets you an extra point should you frighten it when you confront its Problem. Well, Daring Do boosts your Troublemakers for each frightened Friend - the controller doesn’t matter. By purposely frightening your Bunyip and gaining the extra points, your Troublemakers will at least have a 1 power boost! Of course, chances are this isn’t your strategy, otherwise I wouldn’t bother including Bunyip on this list. And the worst part for your opponent? Even if they get to frightening the Bunyip first, your Troublemakers will still have that power. One great gentle giant indeed!

*Read the Manual. If you are not using this card in a deck that focuses a lot on Blue/Purple, I demand you stop reading this column now and go fit some of these into your deck. This card is amazing, though it may not appear to be on the surface. Essentially, gaining a bunch of AT like this can cushion the loss you’ll have from playing Daring Do in the first place. And like I always say, every AT counts. If you have a good way to gain and save more money, I say do it!

*Interdimensional Portal. Because of this thing’s base power and its ability to frighten when it “enters play” (not “when you play this card”), I can see a lot of funky plays one could do with this card. Just one example: Confront this card’s Problem normally. Then go and play Interdimensional Portal to warp it to the other Problem, frightening a Friend in the process. Then you confront the other Problem with Daring Do’s extra power and initiate a double Problem Faceoff. Again, you could do this with a cheaper Friend that does the same frightening, but I think Daring’s higher power gives you more opportunities for weird shit.

*The Scariest Cave in Equestria. I highlighted this card last week in my piece on Nightmare Moon, Mistress of the Night, and I will highlight it again. This thing sits at your home and forces your opponent to pay an extra AT if they want to unfrighten a Friend. As Daring Do frightens Friends and powers up your Troublemakers, your opponent has to sit and let their Friends writhe in agony or throw down 3 AT to get ONE back. My guess is that if you’re using this, Daring Do won’t be your only frightener, so you can incorporate other cards that make the most of this. As long as I write about cards that frighten, I will recommend this card. At this point, I should just write a Shark about all the best cards that do frightening shit.

Thanks for reading the latest Ultra Rare installment of Card Shark! I’ve got an extra Shark coming tomorrow to celebrate DJ Pon-3 and Octavia Day, so stay tuned this week! Diamond out!

#my little pony #mlp:fim #daring do #mlpccg #mlp:ccg #my little pony friendship is magic #equestrian odysseys #friend #ultra rare #mlp #ccg #adventure time

[thegeneralsnotebook]

Another Adventure in Deck-building Part 36: Thorax, The Changed Changeling (Yellow/White/Pink Control) [Core]

Thorax, The Changed Changeling

Safe And Warm

Ah, Thorax. When this Mane first debuted, it was heralded as a chance for an emergent Yellow style to really shake up the meta, precisely what every proponent of the colour (including myself) had been asking for. Of course, it was not the first time that a new Yellow card had made that claim, nor would it turn out to be the last. Still, with Core now upon us, Thorax has been given another chance, to turn Yellow in a new dirction, in the hopes that something worthwhile can be produced.

Before him, Yellow Manes had been mostly geared towards confronting Problems exclusively. A few strayed from this idea, but each one only did so in confusing ways that didn’t really work into anything useful. Upon his debut, Thorax’s ability to concentrate a large amount of power into the single body of the Mane character lent itself automatically to considerations of farming, as I myself tried at the beginning of this series. However, it’s just as true that a lot of power works for the traditional Yellow aggro strategy too, and the Mane has turned out to be at least reasonably effective in that regard.

With all of that being said, today’s deck takes a fundamentally separate approach to the task. The influences from the Yellow/White Bedtime deck of yesterday should be quite self-evident. Separately, I was inspired by last year’s Classic Rock deck that utilized Maud Pie for a controlling style, trusting in the power of the Mane to deliver consistent Problem confronts while the rest of the deck went for control instead. And finally, adding in a dash of Pink allowed for the premier token production card du jour in Bodyguard, as well as Pinkie Pie & Princess Skystar, which fits the Bedtime style just right. The end result is walking something of a tightrope with regard to its colours, but at the end of the day I think that it’s got some real teeth to it. So let’s get down to the details.

Bedtime has been a card that people have experimented with for a while, with mixed success. Acting as a bridge between Yellow’s return to hand effects and White’s propensity for banishing things, it’s only really been held back by the lack of a proper suite of supporting cards. Fluttershy, Kind Pony and Tough Love are great additions to that set, but Pinkie Pie and Skystar I think are the real stars of the new show, as they can deliver an Immediate-speed banish effect that can finally hit anything on the opponent’s side. By the way, a slick side benefit of Bedtime in today’s game is that it shuts down the super-annoying Soprano/Barrel loop, and it also turns off Transform. Remember that returning a Friend to hand is a cost of using a Transform effect, and if a modifier would replace a cost (as Bedtime would in this case), then that cost can’t be paid. Not that Transform is a particularly huge thing in the meta right now, but it’s still a nice bonus.

In this deck, we attempt to make Thorax work with the Bedtime idea by using him as a confront engine the same way that Classic Rock used Maud. With a Mane that can confront Problems all on his own, the opponent has very few ways to stop those confronts from happening, save forced movement and exhaustion effects. A Troublemaker could also suffice, with the clear downside that Thorax would beat it up posthaste on the next turn. Notably, Maud’s power was secured by cards in her discard pile, while Thorax’s is based on cards in play, and this makes him a little bit more susceptible to wide removal effects.

In order to address this, I felt that it was essential to have a reliable source of tokens. And while one power Yellow critter tokens are nice, one power White unicorn tokens are even better. Thus, the entrance into Pink and White for the superlative Bodyguard. That card, by the way, supercharges the usual Bedtime style by ensuring that our return to hand effects not only banish their targets, they also create tokens for us that add to Thorax’s power and in turn make it even harder for the opponent to stop him. The fact that the tokens have Prepared also adds to our advantage as we hunker down behind Troublemakers.

My major concern with the deck that we are playing rather fast and loose with our colours. Tri-colour entry is always a trick, and so I’ve endeavoured to keep the deck as Yellow as possible so that just in case we lose access to one of our colours, we can still function. In fact, in theory the deck can fall back into a threadbare Yellow/Pink aggro style in a pinch, with Bunyip still pitching in for the usual points. Anyone confused by that card’s inclusion in a control deck, by the way, need only remember that we are still relying on confronting Problems as our primary point generator. Add that it can be recurred with Find the Music in You, and Tri-Horn was a natural choice.

In the end, I would still be wary of being hamstrung by colour issues were I to play the deck. A part of me says that it should be okay, but only experience can really tell that tale. On paper though, the interactions between the cards all seem to work together nicely, and I’m also happy to say that I don’t think this style could be properly pulled off by any other Mane. This is one niche where Thorax stands alone, pulling his colour in an exciting new direction. Would that every colour could have such exciting developments every once in a while!

Next week’s Mane takes us back to Equestrian Odysseys once again, this time for another card that’s bearing the standard for its colour: Octavia, Standing Ovation. These past few sets have made White quite a controlling colour, but it’s worth remembering that it can go frighteningly quick too! Check back next week for a refresher on some White lightning! (But not the actual White Lightning card, naturally.)

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[thegeneralsnotebook]

An Adventure in Deck-building Part 23: Pinkie Pie, Pokey Pony (Pink/Yellow Midrange)

Pinkie Pie, Pokey Pony

Canterlot Limbo

Some decisions we come to regret in retrospect. In my case, the most recent one is using up the party-themed deck name last week, right before the Party Pony (no, not the Party Mare) needed to have her deck made. Thankfully, when it comes to flexibility and parties, I have some ideas yet (though the idea of the Limbo is still rather absurd when we consider quadrupeds).

My commendations go out to the maintainers of Ponyhead; I hadn’t expected the site to be updated for Seaquestria & Beyond this quickly, and so this week is still a boring old Defenders of Equestria build. Next week, we shall be commencing with the slapdash experimentation that always accompanies new sets, but even so Pinkie gets her time to shine today.

I chose Pink and Yellow to go together in building this deck because they are the two colours that shine best in token management, and most importantly in token generation. This Mane revels in being surrounded by expendable ammunition, and so cheap Friends and token generation are a must for any deck using her. But these colours aren’t particularly well-suited to building a strong control deck, so I settled for a midrange, flexible style instead. This deck would prefer to play a slower, single-confront style game, but the beauty of it is that most of its cards can be easily turned around to the other job of trying to go fast or break through an opponent’s walls. Raptor Raiser especially shines in this regard, being a huge drop against an opposing Troublemaker, or a ready supply of expendable tokens in the event that we are the one sitting back and controlling the board.

Pink as a colour offers us an enormous supply of cheap removal, that being perhaps best exemplified by Pinkie herself. When properly supplied with tokens, we earn the ability to dismiss something from the opponent’s side every turn. Now, of course, Pinkie is limited by location in her dismissal, which is a major drawback. Not only does she has to dismiss something at her Problem, that Problem has to be confronted for the effect to trigger. Being able to confront either Problem as needed is tricky in a control deck, where you really want to be sure that you are only confronting one Problem each turn. However, this drawback can be considered as a bit of a plus if we are playing on the other foot.

Our Troublemaker suite is naturally light, both to support the intended flexibility, but also to ensure that those we have are very effective at what they do. It’s worth pointing out that six Troublemakers is, while a small number, not an unheard-of figure for control. And Pink’s Immediate removal tricks, used judiciously, should be perfectly sufficient of defending them.

The final point to make is the decision to include Tri-Horned Bunyip as the point accelerator. This is certainly something of a risk, as its 4 Yellow requirement makes it a questionable pick in a deck with a Pink Mane. But I thought it a reasonable choice for a deck that wants to confront to score its points. Having to pay 2 AT each turn to get that point is equivalent to a Changeling Throne, though of course without all of the extra benefits that Throne provides. Again, though, the acceleration works just as well if we are adopting the quicker playstyle, while the traditional White style has a much more inflexible control usage. For a deck that’s trying to do well in a variety of circumstances, Bunyip seemed surely the better choice.

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With the cards all now in, from here on out anything in Seaquestria & Beyond is fair game, of course including the six new Manes. I’m not going to bias my random choice in favour of them though; they’ll get their time when it comes. Instead, next week we move on to Twilight Sparkle, Friendship is Magic!

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