New Worlds

Well everyone, I have news.  I have been accepted as a writer for Ponycard.net!  Unfortunately, that means I won't have as much time to write for this blog, but all hope is not lost, loyal readers.  One of the conditions for writing for them is that I'm not allowed to reference other games.  It seems rather unfortunate, given that My Little Pony makes a point of referencing everything, not to mention the painfully obvious Black Lotus reference in Heart's Desire.  They also restrict me on how many images I use.  I like to make'em pretty.  Since this is my blog and I only have to go by my rules, I'll definitely take advantage of the increased flexibility I have here.  I just probably won't be posting as much, since most of my creative energy will be focused there.  I also don't want to write exactly the same thing, since anything I submit to them becomes their property.
For right now though, I have the perfect thing to tide you over.  I play a lot of games.  Below the break, I list some games you can play to take a break from MLP while also exercising skills you'll need here.

How to do Limited events

I've been noodling this for some time now.  I stated earlier that in games such as this, people who have lots of money tend to be able to dominate, as they can acquire the more effective cards more easily.  Limited formats help override this, giving everyone a more equal starting point.  Limited, at least from my understanding through Magic, Dragon Ball Z, and UFS, comes in two forms: Sealed deck and Draft.  In a Sealed Deck event, everyone just gets X packs of cards (DBZ also gave out starters because they were very necessary) and makes the best deck they can from that pool.  In a Draft, players all open one pack, choose a single card in that pack to keep, and pass the rest to the player on their left.  They then choose a card from what was passed to them, and so on.  They pass to the right during the second pack, and back to the left with the third.  Basic lands are very necessary in Magic, and since they're by far the most common card type, the organizers will always have an abundance of them available for players to use.  Players get to make smaller decks to compensate for the craziness, about 2/3 the size of normal.  I always enjoy playing Limited formats, especially Draft, and now you're going to get my take on how to handle this.  Let's rock the boat, baby!

Taste Test & an address

I had a bunch of ideas for subjects today, but it seems like I've already covered them pretty well already in previous entries.  Either that, or I just lost my inspiration when I got home.  Instead, I want take probably my first break from strategy and just get an idea of what each of the colors is supposed to represent.  Remember, this game is supposed to represent people from all walks of life working together to confront problems.  This game takes characters from a good variety of professions while still keeping a general feel for common sentiments.  While what you're actually doing to win the game will often be much more about numbers, it is usually important for the health of a game's interest in your mind to think about what they're actually doing.  In fact, someday when I've got a lot of time, I want to write literally every move in a game against a strong deck and see if I can write a short story about what's going on.  Until then, here's what I could dig up from the colors' trends.

It's always darkest before the dawn...

Equestria Daily has previewed a card from the new set today, as well as the beta multiplayer rules.  I can't say I'm much of a fan of the multiplayer rules, but we'll have to see what happens when I can a chance to try them out.  What I can do is give some commentary on the new card, and for those who want to be completely surprised with the new set, I've left it below the break.  Keep in mind that this card review is probably not going to be accurate when the set is released.  As I said before, all cards are as powerful as their environment allows.

The all-purpose tool kit

Today, I'm going to be examining cards that everything I've heard qualify as "staples" for all decks.  For those not familiar with the terminology, a "staple" is a card that literally all decks should use, or at least a heavy majority of them.  I'll give the reasons for including them first, and then I'll go for the counter-arguments.  If you want to hear a bunch of things you already know because I speak ever so elegantly, you'll probably enjoy yourself.  If you think I'm about to give you a bunch of bull and you just want to watch a trainwreck, I hope I give you some interesting thoughts.

Sun Tzu understands friendship's power

I mentioned in a previous article that I have a "play to win" mindset.  I find the fun of the game is in doing everything legal to win.  Encouraging other people to do well only helps me.  The better they get, the better I have to be in order to beat them.  I fear I haven't done so well on the encouragement part lately, but that's something I'll have to work on socially.  As far as actual strategy goes, I've been a big fan of David Sirlin's book pictured above, which you can read for free at his website http://sirlin.net/ptw.  It uses some of the famous Art of War by Sun Tzu and applies it to gaming.  Where he kept things general to apply to all games, I'll attempt to get specific for our game (and no, while I can write a lot, this definitely will not be a full book).

Spectacular Failures

These cards are the most limiting, useless piles of trash you could possibly find.  I'm not necessarily going to tell you that they are thoroughly unplayable (though one certainly is at the moment).  That's the beauty of well-done CCGs when there are so many possibilities that even the worst cards can have their place in the right deck.  In most cases though, you're probably better off avoiding them.  Keep in mind, this is assuming you have infinite resources at your disposal, so I'm accounting for all the rares, ultra-rares, fixed cards, and promos that are legal to play.

So Bright & Shiny

Finally, I get to start writing about individual cards!  I've been keeping everything so general lately, because I want to raise the overall strategic quality of people's decks.  Of course, no CCG strategy section can be complete without single-card evaluations.  I really don't like doing individual cards for whole articles though, so I'll try to have a bit of a theme with this.  This week, I'm going to go over what I consider to be the best and worst Ultra-Rares in the set.  Maybe I can watch my ego inflate as my opinion ends up shaping card prices.

The Art of Friendship: tactics for common situations

This guy has a plan for every situation and readily adapts on the fly.

I've given you lots of advice on how to build your deck.  This time, let's examine some common game scenarios and what you can do to turn things around.  Many of the options you can do will really have to a lot to do with how your deck is designed, because you'll constantly be planning for the future (unless you've entered the late game, in which you sometimes have to see if you can win that turn or solidify the game).  In learning Chess, I was taught to evaluate the opening, midgame, and endgame.  The opening is how you plan on getting your forces out of the gate immediately and start the foundation of your strategy.  In the midgame, players have already claimed a problem or two, maybe even had a problem faceoff already.  Troublemakers are known to extend the opening for a while if they're especially, ahem, troublesome.  In the endgame, it's a race to see how you can get those bonuses quickly while preventing your opponent from doing the same.  Here's some scenarios you will likely encounter.
(Please forgive the strange word coloration.  Something's going on after I post links and I can't undo it without basically rewriting the whole article.  It's late as it is and I have work early on Mondays.  Maybe I can edit this later.)

We Can Work Together: how colors pair up

Because when I think of ponies working together...

Although some rogue decks exist, you pretty much always need 2 colors for your deck to really function.  I hear people asking all the time what could be done for X & Y color combination.  Personally, I think this is actually kind of backward, which is why my last article was more about "what colors work for what I want to do?"  Still, I know many players here play because they like their favorite characters, so here you go.  Pick your favorite two colors and I've come up with strategies to make them work.  I've arranged them in clockwise color order, starting with blue at the top.  If you just want to find your preferred pairing, that can at least help you find the general area for it.  These are only my suggestions, by the way.  I've heard of people trying 3 colors or even just one.  I always encourage experimentation.  This will probably help steer you the right way, though.

Choose Your Weapon: various deck styles

In a collectible card game, there are always a very large number of options for your decks.  How do you choose the right combination of cards to make things work?  It's more than just plugging a bunch of cards that look good.  You can't just make a Yu-Gi-Oh deck out of all strong monsters.  They have to work together in some way.  In this article, I'll examine the general ideas behind how decks typically work and how to make the colors do that.

My Little Judgment: Interesting rules problems

So sorry for my absence lately.  Blogger was having a problem regarding adding images, and I know you all would not enjoy big blocks of text.  Have something to make it at least look nice, amirite?
Anyway, the subject today is going to be my attempt to give some commonly asked rules questions some answers, because if it's being asked here, it's likely being asked elsewhere.  Firstly, everyone ought to check EnterPlay's FAQ page.

WhatisthisIdonteven?: Tutorial

I've heard there are still people who don't know how the My Little Pony CCG is played and want to learn.  I know there are plenty of tutorials out there, but here's my take to help them out.  Since I know everyone learns different and I know I have a rather unorthodox teaching method, maybe this will be the thing that tips you toward understanding.