3DS: Vanguard - Ride to Victory

 

I got my 3DS package delivered today...

(Arrived in the country on Sat but FedEx couldn't clear the customs for it, held the package till end of Monday, wanted to send on Tuesday but sent to my home instead of my workplace where I told them to send to on Sat. So I FINALLY got it today.)

 

The 3DS I got was pink because it was the cheapest of the bunch. The next was at least $20 more.
To be honest, I initially thought I could get this at $200-$300 but ended up spending $300+.
I probably won't be buying anything next month.


 

Unpacked the game =)

 

I picked a girl for my character. Hard to tell from the above pic why... 

 

 

Here are the 6 characters to choose from.

 



 

I picked the Royal Paladin Starter so that I can get to my Blaster deck the quickest.

 

They gave me a free booster and I got Alfred!

Here are some codes (the ones in red) to get the promo cards, which you get a playset of.
How generous.

 There are 2 more cards, sleeves and a playmat.

 

 

Packs sure are cheap for Vanguard. I start out with 3350 of the currency and each pack costs 100!

The other games so far have packs at a higher price but maybe the money won from battles were higher. I don't recall that part.

 

I remember needing that for my first iteration of the deck until I figure out whether or not it is the better build. Now, he's a grade 1 to ride off Wingal Brave.  I spent some packs on the Shadow paladin pack and managed to get 1x Blaster Dark in the last pack.

I played a match vs Morikawa and I won, netting me about 7 more packs worth. 

 

I cashed it and I got Wingal Brave!

 

 

A game against Izaki and I got enough funds to buy out the box to get Majesty Lord Blaster in the final pack. (They sure know how to keep people at the edge of their seats)

 

Soooooooooo... It turns out that I can't actually charge the 3DS by plugging the charger into the socket. Upon google searching and reading tons of questions/answers, the voltage difference may be a possible reason as to why I can't charge the 3DS at all.

I think and I hope that getting a local 3DS charger would fix this but that also means I am stuck without being able anything more for today. T.T

(While I was going to ask shops about the 3DS, I learnt that it was region restricted like some game systems which means that I can't buy Japanese games at many places and I can't buy normal games to put into the 3DS. What's with that Nintendo??? That was why I gave up and just ordered everything online. I can only hope that the locally bought charger has nothing against the JP 3DS. I'll ask but it had better not be unusable.)

 

Here's my updated blaster page with the 2 new promo Blaster Blade and Dark on the sides of Majesty Lord Blaster. I just need to get one of the trial deck art for Blaster Blade and I would have 4 different art for it. I heard that Shadow Paladins may have a trial deck in June so I hope Blaster Dark (who has a cape in that art) is not a different Blaster Dark.

Temple of trials 2 - update 1

For those of you who want to know what the context of what is happening on every 10 levels, I shall help explain.
I will be trying the good side until the bad side is confirmed. The previous one had some ambiguous scenarios but it usually meant the more troublesome route. That rule cannot be followed this time.
I will leave the evaluation of what to do to you.

Lvl 10: Doggy hood bandit wants you to join him to get the people.
My choice: kick His ass (you get some stones).
Other choice: smack the people and take their stones.

Lvl 20: 2 girls are using the Hansel and Gretel idea of dropping stuff to form a trail back. They used stats stones for that. Lol.
My choice: pick the exit (get nothing).
Other choice: take the stones and make the girls lost.

And I managed to beat the 10 alm valentine specters (!!). Phew.

Mtg cards in the Mail~

So today, the physical cards I ordered from StarCityGames arrived in the mail.

 

At the bottom are some cards I need for my NaoDelver (still lacking a ton of cards).
I would probably take more than a year of slowly accumulating cards before I get the full deck out (if I bother or have the capacity to spend that much).

On the left are some free squirrel tokens...
(Why squirrels? Spirit or zombie tokens would have been better)
On the right is Japanese Baleful Strix...

Top left are 3 cards for my Highlander deck (irl) which I hope to play a tournament of, in Europe when I finally go there. That would be one of my "things to do" in my life. With my passion for 100 card Singleton, I have been trying to make a fully promo/foiled mono red deck irl. I keep them in my folder so that I can periodically look at them.

Top right are foil promo titans from the second batch of Duels of the Planeswalker.
(First was promo Liliana and Nissa I think.) They were cheap and I like titans.

When they say played, they really mean played. My Wasteland looks like it was picked up from a wasteland or maybe used to scratch something off the floor. (Lol) Well, I'm not gonna resell them so it's fine. They were relatively cheaper than what they normally cost (I think).

I originally wanted to get more but anything more than $200 and I can't use the cheap postage option. Zzz...

Temple of Trials 2

I was getting very inactive in GC to the point where I could not even bother to earn friend points but I logged in today to find the limited time dungeon event up from the update from yesterday.



I believe that there was some information that you can go with the light or dark route to get different guardians. I hope more information comes out soon so that I don't end up missing anything. :(

I can't believe that my random field team actually lost to their treasure chest boss: 10x lvl 60 valentine's specter.



To be fair, my team was quite crappy because I wanted to see the April fool special azi and vampire matron but even so, it has been a long while since I lost to field bosses. I guess they finally found a good setup to mow down players. Self destruct actually prevents revive and possibly last stand so that allowed them to keep on par with my kills while getting some from lvl4 deaths.



I'll try to go with a better set up.
Gonna bash the clown now. Hope his team isn't insane. (Otherwise normal players can go home)

Legacy - Food Chain

I recently saw a relatively cheap deck to make for Legacy: Food Chain combo.
Above is the maindeck I am trying now but I probably have to try it out much longer before I figure out what exactly is good or not in the deck.

The combo is simple: Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin = infinite mana to cast creatures.
Fierce Empath => Griselbrand => Fierce Empath => Emrakul (hardcast!!!)
The in between situations without Mishollow Griffin is not too shabby if you have Food Chain in play and Misthollow Griffins are mildly playable themselves.

It looks nice to make irl.

3DS T.T

So I went to scout for the nintendo 3DS today. It was $270 for the older version and $309 for the larger screen and another place had the large screen + 3 games (maybe a select few too) at $388.
Looks like it's quite over my budget actually. I guess the price for a handheld game hasn't changed much in years. I can't imagine the day my future kid asks for one. (Laugh)

I tried to look at ebay and 2nd hand ones but they were going at $200 at least. Found one at $140 but the seller has yet to reply to my msg. I'm kinda stuck now but I guess I would either try my luck at cash converters or think of 3 titles I want.

Vanguard
Monster Hunter 3G (ohhhh)
????

In any case, it's still early to make a move. Perhaps I could look around a little more before I make a decision. I guess finances is always a problem be it in the past or now... Thinking back, I find it quite amazing how much I used to save to get stuff like original games.

Recent happenings

I thought I was in good shape for the match vs my workshop opponent in round 5 of the CQ league with this opener unless my opponent would lead with a Chalice of the Void for 0.
My opponent played a turn 1 Metalworker which was quite bad for me.
I was distracted by irl stuff and I misplayed the hand which at the start of the turn I already planned the right sequence to do so I ended up being unable to cast Tezzeret on my turn which would make it so that my opponent had to have Staff of Domination (which he plays 4 of) or I would win. Alas, a resolved Metalworker would immediately spell my doom because everything would just plop down  next turn and I wouldn't be able to do much no matter what I drew into, even he had all lands I would not be able to do much with my potential draws unless I topdeck Tinker so I scooped in such a scenario.

Game 2, my opponent had Metalworker and Staff of Domination so I lost that.

Anyway, last week I bought some Vanguard cards at my local card shop when I went there.
Surprisingly, I couldn't get any Magic cards so I got some from Starcity game on the last day of its sale. I couldn't really buy more than what I bought because shipping cost past $200 became exorbitant ($50+??? It was about $10 for orders less than $200) and I figured dual lands could be procured locally instead so I decided just to get the less expensive cards.

I learnt some of the rules of Vanguard then and the rest I found out from opponents online.

I've been catching the anime from its start and I am quite impressed with the game and how it is marketed.

I found a Vanguard version of apprentice here and they have a chatroom on Evolve where you can occasionally pick up cardfights. I designed a Blaster deck but there is still much to figure out with regards to deckbuilding. I got some of the core cards of the deck from a person I talked to and he just so happened to want to liquidate his deck. The cards were much cheaper than I had expected (as compared to ebay). I think the card selling market is rather limited (ie online shops) so I think it is a nice market to get into for card shops.

I noticed that I could get 4 different arts for Blaster Blade so I am considering doing so despite not having even played one game irl. There are many aspects of the game to be proficient at and to understand or strategize and I am quite hooked to that. I am actually considering getting the 3DS (I hope it isn't expensive) and the game (which comes with 3 promos - Blaster Blade, Dark and the Dragonic Overlord) to get to play the game and figure out all the minute stuff I want to understand.

I find that the Nintendo platforms have very good card playing system like for Pokémon cards (my 1st TCG),Yu-Gi-Oh (never was interested in the physical cards for this game) and Duel Masters which I have played on emulators in the past.

I enjoy the "earn money buy packs, play against AI, play tournaments" type of gameplay that these offer (like Shandalar of Mtg and not Duels of the Planeswalkers). Too bad Wotc hasn't figured out how to do this after Shandalar.