iphone app: Ascension: Immortal Heroes

After waiting for a really long time, the iphone app for Ascension is finally updated!
I was worried that with the PC/android ver in the works, Stoneblade would totally forget about the iphone ver. I'm happy about there being an update. =)

I pay for good games. =)

New Main Menu.

With 1 more expansion in the selection screen.

One of my better scores. =)

More trophy monsters, a new soulgem mechanic and new everything! Hope to see updates again!

Ride to Victory passwords complete!

Finally, I manage to get my Ride to Victory collection to 100% with the latest Kerekero Ace release.
Below are the passwords (in red):

Those few plus the below few (compiled from a different source) makes up all the passwords in the game.

1.にそふへはかわ
2.わよみてやおきこ
3.しえをやつのらに
4.へすよふをもの
5.おつんえめるねふ
6.りさらうにつめね
7.そあねをゆほく
8.とたいにねつあし
9.せちのまつも
10.しふそさものよつ
11.ろりうのひむもゆ
12.みのけきおおも
13.まいおくせけ
14.かやひをおれあ
15.さほめろきすそ
16.けなのちわみはる
17.るんもしほおすら
18.つはふまいうあせ
19.あいんにおみすら
20.てぬやまいは
21. れまろもおやぬ
22. くむのぬめまひに

Happy Birthday to me :)

As a birthday gift to myself, I made an order to starcitygames...



It came in a needlessly large box this time with big bubble wraps and the little white styrofoam thingies.



Obviously, my highlight buy is the whose flavor text describes itself in more than one way.
The others are just some tag alongs. :)

Although it's late, happy birthday to me!

11th Anniversary Phantom sealed!!!

So I joined the 11th Anniversary Phantom sealed event where they give you a boatload of cards to make your deck from. Despite being apt at evaluating cards, I have to say that such a large card pool was challenging.

I go through the usual routine of: check rares => uncommons => colors
I quickly identified that my pool was easily supported in UR and the most powerful card in my pool was Crystal Shard. The second most powerful card in the pool was Stormbind but I ended up removing it from the deck in favor of white which would be more stable and would allow me to play a more defensive game with the cards in the cardpool. Incidentally, there were some white cards with ETB effects to make better use of Crystal Shard.

Going in, I was prepared to go heavy on 2 drops which I suspected would be the key to doing well in this format but didn't because I could play a more familiar style with my cardpool. I played the 0/6 wall to create some resistance against the 2 drop strategy.

It was fun to play the event and I came out 4-0 so I am definitely in the positive to try again. I hope I get more time to join another.I did encounter a very sore loser who was going "noob" and how lucky I was despite the fact that he practically handed the game over to me (which I had more than half my mind of scooping at the point where his Greater Gargadon could come in against me when I was fully tapped out and had no blockers).

Modern Masters on MTGO

Modern Masters is currently online.
I drafted in a PE but bombed out when I encountered mana problems in my 3rd game. =(

With its high entry fee, I think it is hard to sustain playing over a long term without losing value unless I am a top level drafter (which I am not). This is especially so if I am not playing events to come out positive in terms of tix.

So anyway, below are my MM purchases. The focus is obviously in the Mythics for their alternate art and more affordable prices (which only belongs to the online version). Looking to get a few more foils for collection and thinking of whether or not I should consider getting modern cards while they are still affordable.

(I pawned away my foil promo BOP to get the tix to fund my purchases and pay for the MM draft PE pod)

To be honest, the MTGO birthday celebration this year looks sad with hardly anything special going on unless Modern Masters is the embodiment of that. I was hoping for P9 to make their appearance with the MTGO's birthday celebrations but even the page looks disappointing. The phantom event looks good but without any pictures, there does not seem to be anything really impressive.

First run

Over the past weekend, I went down to my local shop and actually did manage to play my Vanguard deck for the first time. My first few games didn't go very well when my twin drives just couldn't pick up any triggers and I got 2x Baromedes (of which I ran 1x) to update my deck. As of now, I officially have to swap Blaster Dark Spirit for Blaster Blade Spirit and my deck is done for this iteration.

As I played with Exculpate, I felt that I needed another G3 to make up for the "lost G3" spot. I haven't reconciled with myself regarding some choices in the deck so it might go through slightly more tweaking before I am fully comfortable with it.

I hope they make more Blaster cards. Or better still, make a Majesty Lord Blaster "reverse". Lol. Looking at my current build, I think if I settle down with it I might be able to just find the English equivalents for most. Only thing I have against that is the lack of art variations that I have now. Well, I'm kinda short in cash now so I don't think that it would be in the near future that I would do so.

Anyway, below are some more codes which I forgot to put up. And if you look closely to the bottom left, you will see that Exculpate is going to be revealed next month. (It's about time)

I picked up the code for the iphone game from the showcase at the store and asked if I could have it. It turned out to be the Dragonic Waterfall R+ card. I currently have 3 SRs of 6 slots so I'm hoping to get more SRs. I got one more the other day from the breaker campaign which gave out the Masquarade SR to the 1000 placings of the highest breaker levels.

Dot dot dot

Knuckles is so slow that he can even die in the game credits.

I've got nothing to say other than the developer screwed up big time.

Knuckles dies in the below part of the credit roll. He fails to move down fast enough and gets poked by the spike. He revives from the start of that particular scene, repeats and dies again until you run out of lives and Game Over.

I found out that his jump isn't as high as Sonic and Tails. That itself is crappy but dying in the credits? That's just plain unbelievable.

June mailed stuff

After a looonnnggg time, my items ordered through a consolidated shipping service by my local postal company finally made it into my hands after I went down to the post office to collect the packages.

The online reviews for the service were very scary and trouble filled. I suppose I wasn't very happy with it as I had to pay $40 for shipping and had to wait quite a bit but at least I didn't have to go through the whole horrific experience.

I was shocked to see 2 large packages.



The above picture is after I opened the flat package which had a small package with a long piece of cardboard. The second package, a box, was how my other order came in as I ordered a cheap little Blaster Blade figure which was less than $2.



So above are my ordered stuff, small toy on top left, followed by some Mtg based cards from the lord of vermillion 2 arcade game and the rest are vanguard cards (some in multiples but not shown) to complete my deck and some random others.

So I finally have a 'working deck' that is close to my intended build other than maybe 3 slots which I need to figure out (due to the unavailability of certain cards in the 3 game) not including the triggers that I want to make more diverse. The only one I am feeling conflicted with is the future knight Liew whose power is 4k for an ability I wouldn't be able to use.

Sonic 1 secrets for the achievements

I was wondering where 2 of the secrets mentioned in the achievements section were. To be honest, I tried but couldn't find anything for the Labyrinth Zone act 1 secret. I might have missed it as it is small. If I'm not mistaken, if you go down and activate the platform that goes up into the spike (the left one) from below the area in the screenshot below and climb back up, you get to unlock this small little platform that can hardly be noticed even if it's in front of you.

In the below picture, it's above the pole closer to you.

And it moves to the secret area to the right... The below picture shows it much clearer with it visibly above the waters.

Then there is the Scrap Brain zone secret transporter. I didn't have a clue at all as to what it was so I searched and found this video which shows 2 secrets in act 2, the first being the 50 rings transporter and the other being that secret disappearing platforms that you need to know is even there.



And I also found out, to my horror, that Knuckles can't jump as high as Sonic or Tails!!!

If you want to know the secret area of marble zone 3, it is at where there are 2 of those spiky dropping platforms with the chains pulling them up. There is a hole in the wall. Alternatively, you can enter from the other side which is under the spikey dropping platform,to the left wall, directly under the area where you need to hop across to get to the outside before the boss.

The game actually has quite many secret areas. Like under zone 2 of Green Hill Zone which I have no idea how my dad had the idea to jump past the first spikes down years ago. LOL!

2X SR for Vanguard Craywars!

Since my last update on the Vanguard Craywars game, I managed to get the SR from the limited dungeon tickets last week. This week's limited dungeon is different and has a mini Wingal which has a cost of 33, a third of the original. Kinda like the GC slimes I guess whereby their primary function would be to help level up. (Leveling in this game is such a pain because it takes so much resources to level up)

Just today, I managed to get my second SR from the  SR breaker's "gacha".

Below is the deck that I'm using (reshuffled as of now to make better use of my high level SR). 

Also, I managed to grind out more than enough R+s to fill up the slots so my main priority would be to level my 2 SRs and get more cost points so that I can fit in another R+.

I also recently unlocked the territory fight function of the game whereby two side try to take over some cannon batteries to shoot down the other team's life total in a field designed similarly to the dungeon. My team is still kinda weak (I did just start playing 2 weeks ago) so I don't usually contribute much.

Here's a little overview of how it works:

There are 2 spawning points. So you revive here.

Your key objective is to deal damage to the enemy's main core.

That can be accomplished by attacking it directly, behind enemy lines, or by employing the help of the cannon batteries.

You can activate each battery by going onto them and they start a 90 sec countdown.
The enemy team can steal it (without it going back to 90) by going onto it so a late steal is very powerful.

You use both your field deck and dungeon deck in this part of the game. Basically, if your team is strong, you can press your way into all the opponents and they pretty much can't lift a finger. 

Sidetalk:
I think one of the cards I ordered was a Kumamon (promo) and I noticed a Pucho with its picture on it so I bought it. I am guessing it is the Kumamoto prefecture mascot or something.

Knuckles in Sonic 1 Unlocked !!!

First I tried doing the time attack mode (which was very boring and hence long) and I managed to get an accomplishment for <45mins that but Knuckles didn't unlock.

That left with one final possibility: getting all the Chaos Emeralds.
(Possibly harder than just zooming past the stages)

I did get some practice of the Special Stages in the time attack mode but I still have to say that it is still not a simple feat to do given its faster than normal moving speed or even without that.

Anyway, I restarted my Tails saved game (being the most powerful character and all) and proceeded to get all the Chaos Emeralds using the iphone's home function and closing the app to restart whenever I was ejected from the Special Zone. (I'm sorry but I would not be able to "naturally" collect all the Chaos Emeralds.) Also, just getting the Chaos Emeralds is not enough. You have to clear the game as well.

So I finally get to see the difference in the ending...

With GIGANTIC flowers in the background...

And a no longer smug Eggman...

What a familiar sight... Straight from Sonic and Knuckles Lol! I guess it's a little too much to ask for a new title screen.

Knuckles playing around...

And doing his usual climb...

Notice the K.T,.E name...

Shadowboxing Knuckles. =)

Taking some Labyrinth shots would be fun. =D