GP Kyoto 2015 Info (updated 3/4/2015)

I've finally got the conviction to make my way to GP Kyoto 2015 which is the first Asian Legacy GP.

I've done this before so I know what I need to do.
I do, however, have less than 2 full months to prepare.

Here is the official page.

It's held at the same venue as the previous GP Kyoto, at Pulse Plaza.
Pulse Plaza 
5 Takeda Tobadono-chō, 
Fushimi-ku Kyōto-shi 
Kyōto-fu 
I believe that we took the train to Takeda and walked down.



With this, I know how to get there and I know where I can get food prior and in between rounds.
The is a supermarket down the road on the left side and across of the below picture.
There was a udon shop on the left side, down the road and turn right.

The above is the venue. Just behind the cylindrical thing.

It is quite late time-wise to procure good lodging and I need to find out of there are people I know who are going as well. Hopefully I can get a good grasp of this part asap.

For preregistration, go to http://peatix.com/event/74847/ .
Entry is a whopping JPY 5,000  (onsite is JPY 5,500).

The playmat is going to be Swords to Plowshares by Terese Nielsen, originally from DD Elspeth vs Tezzeret and also found in FTV 20 and subsequently in Conspiracy.

If you play in some side events (see below), you could win the below playmat by Stephan Martiniere (he drew Dark Depths). The art doesn't seem to belong to any card from what I know.

The GP promo is Griselbrand.

The artists there would be Mark Poole and Scott M. Fischer.

Mark Poole has a bunch of awesome Vintage cards:
Edit: Trop Island is not by him.

Scott M. Fischer's list is also quite badass for a legacy player:

Side Events:

17 Apr 2015 (Fri)

Last Chance GPT Sealed
Entry fee: JPY 3,000 (JPY 2,000 if registered from 10:00~11:00)
Registration timing: 10:00~15:00
Format: Sealed, 5 round, Single Elimination
Prizes: 1st place gets 2 round bye
1~8th placing gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

Starts when 32 people sign up.

Last Chance GPT Legacy

Entry fee: JPY 2,000 (JPY 1,000 if registered from 10:00~11:00)
Registration timing: 10:00~16:00
Format: Legacy, 5 round, Single Elimination
Prizes: 1st place gets 2 round bye
1~8th placing gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

Starts when 32 people sign up.

Tokyo MTG Vintage Open

Entry fee: JPY 4,000 (Updated 4/3)
Registration timing: 13:30~15:00 (Updated 4/3)
Format: Vintage, no proxies, 4 rounds swiss with top 4. (Edited)
Pax: 32
1st - UL Mox Ruby (Edited)

Foils Tournament

Entry fee: JPY 1,000
Registration timing: 16:30~17:30
Format: Standard, no limit to players, 3 rounds swiss
Prizes: Past promo foils

VIP Modern Open

Entry fee: JPY 3,000
Registration timing: 13:00~14:00
Format: Modern

Pax: 128

Prizes: 1st and 2nd placing get GP kyoto VIP service
(from the end of the tournament till the last day),
artist products (not confirmed yet) or Dragons of Tarkir set.
1~8th placing gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

On Demand 8 man Drafts

Entry fee: JPY 1,500

Registration timing: 11:00~17:30 (Updated 4/3)
Format: 2 Dragons of Tarkir 1 Fate Reforged Draft, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat and Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

On Demand 8 man Constructed

Entry fee: JPY 1,500

Registration timing: 11:00~18:00 (Updated 4/3)
Format: Standard/Modern/Legacy, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat,
1st place gets a Dragons of Tarkir box (Japanese).

On Demand 4 man Commander

Entry fee: JPY 500

Registration timing: 11:00~18:30 (Updated 4/3)
Format: Commander

Pax: 4

Prizes: Each participant gets a Dragons of Tarkir pack (Japanese),
Winner gets another 2.

18 Apr 2015 (Sat)

PWC Rebound Tournament

Entry fee: JPY 2,000

Registration timing: 13:00~14:30
Format: Legacy

Pax: 128

Prizes (Updated 4/3): 1st place gets PWC playmat, invite to PWC2016 with 1 round bye, 1 Jpn Wasteland, P3K 1 pack each of Jpn, Eng, Chi.
1st~3rd split a promo Griselbrand, 2 promo Swords to Plowshares (no idea which since there is more than 1 version)
2nd~20th placing gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

Johnny's Standard (Updated 4/3)

Entry fee: JPY 3,000

Registration timing: 10:00~11:00
Format: Standard
Pax: 226

Prizes:

1st place gets 1x Jpn foil set of Journey to the Nyx

1st~3rd split a promo Griselbrand, 2 promo Swords to Plowshares (no idea which since there is more than 1 version)

2nd~20th placing gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

ENNDAL GAMES Chaos Draft

Entry fee: JPY 3,500

Registration timing: 11:00~17:00
Format: 3 random packs draft

Pax: 8 on demand, registrations ends when packs run out.

Prizes: Top 2 gets Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).
Winners of the first 30 tables get a random draw (1/30 chance of getting an Arabian Nights pack)

On Demand 8 man Drafts

Entry fee: JPY 1,500 (Happy hour pricing of JPY 1,000 for registrations from 11:00~14:00)

Registration timing: 09:00~17:30
Format: 2 Dragons of Tarkir 1 Fate Reforged Draft, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat and Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

On Demand 8 man Constructed

Entry fee: JPY 1,500

Registration timing: 09:00~18:00
Format: Standard/Modern/Legacy, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat,
1st place gets a Dragons of Tarkir box (Japanese).

On Demand 4 man Commander

Entry fee: JPY 500

Registration timing: 09:00~18:30
Format: Commander

Pax: 4

Prizes: Each participant gets a Dragons of Tarkir pack (Japanese),
Winner gets another 2.

19 Apr 2015 (Sun)

Super Sunday Series Panda Cup Legacy

Entry fee: JPY 3,000

Registration timing: Saturday 09:00~21:00
Format: Legacy
Pax: 409

Prizes: 

1st gets a 10k point charged Hobby Station point card.

2nd~8th get a 3k point charged Hobby Station point card.

Top 4 get invite to the Draft Finals.

Top 16 get Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese) according to the tournament size.

Super Sunday Series Panda Cup Standard

Entry fee: JPY 3,000

Registration timing: Saturday 09:00~21:00
Starts at 08:00
Format: Standard
Pax: 409

1st gets a 10k point charged Hobby Station point card.

2nd~8th get a 3k point charged Hobby Station point card.

Top 4 get invite to the Draft Finals.

Top 16 get Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese) according to the tournament size.

Super Sunday Series Panda Cup Draft Finals

(Invite only)

Format: Draft (2x Dragons of Tarkir 1x (the previous set - sorry I don't know it at the back of my head))

Prizes: Winner gets SSS Championship invite and travel support.

Each participant gets a Dragons of Tarkir box (Japanese).
9 uncut foil Dragons of Tarkir sheets given by placing.

BIG MAGIC 2HG Couple Sealed

Entry fee: JPY 5,000 (for 2 pax)

Entry condition: Regardless of male/female, if the two are in love, they can enter. (WTF?!)
Registration timing: 11:00~12:00
Format: Sealed
Pax: 50 teams

Prizes:

1st place gets Jeff Gourmet food voucher of JPY 20,000 and 2 boxes of Dragons of Tarkir box (Japanese), invite to BigMagic Open vol4 in Kobe with lodging.
2nd~8th get Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).
1st~25th get 2x special GP shirts

Hareruya Sealed [Road to Chiba]

Entry fee: JPY 5,000

Registration timing: 09:00~12:00
Format: Sealed
Pax: 226

Prizes:

1st place gets GP Chiba 2015 entry and VIP service, hotel stay (2 nights).

1st place gets 1x foil Dragons of Tarkir set.
1st~8th get Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

Full Foil Feast! (FFF)

Entry fee: JPY 10,000

Registration timing: 10:00~10:30
Format: Dragons of Tarkir all card Rochester + foil
(4 tables do a normal rochester draft and play 2 rounds, top 2 of each table proceed to play 3 rounds with a foil rochester draft)

Pax: 32 

Prizes:
1st~8th get the split foils from Dragons of Tarkir (says rare and up go by placing, then commons and uncommons are random so I'm a little confused)
1st gets artist goods (unconfirmed)
Top 32 (everyone?) get Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

On Demand 8 man Drafts

Entry fee: JPY 1,500

Registration timing: 08:00~17:30
Format: 2 Dragons of Tarkir 1 Fate Reforged Draft, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat and Dragons of Tarkir packs (Japanese).

On Demand 8 man Constructed

Entry fee: JPY 1,500

Registration timing: 08:00~18:00
Format: Standard/Modern/Legacy, Single Elimination, 3 rounds

Pax: 8

Prizes: Top 2 get Stephan Martinier's playmat,
1st place gets a Dragons of Tarkir box (Japanese).

On Demand 4 man Commander

Entry fee: JPY 500

Registration timing: 08:00~18:30
Format: Commander

Pax: 4

Prizes: Each participant gets a Dragons of Tarkir pack (Japanese),
Winner gets another 2.

Also, if you want Wifi on the go, you could use https://www.econnectjapan.com/ for their portable wifi or the SIM cards (which you can pickup-return at the airpot). I intend to go there only for the the weekend so I should take the portable wifi.

By the way, if you plan to fly in, the closest International airport is in Osaka.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper

Another smartphone game which I am playing now is Final Fantasy Record Keeper.
As usual, it's only on the Japanese app store.
You can sign up for an account by registering a local address.
The official site is http://ffrk.jp/



So why this over FF Agito and the FFVII bike game?
Firstly, it's less repetitive. The above two titles were very very repetitive.
Literally, I had to play the same thing over and over and over again and I hated that.

This game brings you back to a very old game playing style that has all the mobile app game elements to it. It also hardsells nostalgia and that is very hard to resist for a guy with a long history with the title Final Fantasy. To make things even for all the titles, they pixelized everyone, throw in music from every title, put in monsters and bosses from the titles that when you look at them and if you played the respective titles, you would recognize in an instant and would probably have a mini flashback of somesort. The FFVIII parts hit me very hard as that was the first FF title I played. It was very exciting to see some of the boss fights like Ifreet from the first cave.

The game element is simple.
You have a party of 5 characters, each can be equipped with an offensive item, a defensive item, a carry item and 2 abilities.
Each character has its own set of what he can be equipped with exception to the main character who is a swiss army knife but has bad stats. A jack of all trades but a master of none is a very appropriate saying for him.
I can have a white mage with a rod, a cloak, an amulet with Cure and Cura. Etc.

Each character has a limit break ability but is usually crappy. They are all unusually crappy for a limit break by the way.
Some items have limit break skills in them that are either character specific or universal and these limit break skills are much better in terms of damage/effect.
You get these from the gacha mechanism (sadly).

Items can be leveled up using a gold color ingot for weapons, a purple color ingot for defensive items and other items. You can evolve them with 2x the same item at max level to unlock a higher level range.

You can also level up characters with Grow Eggs that feed Exp.

I came into the game late (3 months past its release) and they recently introduced a way to break past the original lvl 50 limit (to lvl 65) with a memory crystal which could be a specific stage reward or from an event stage reward (limited release essentially). Thankfully, with this new upgrade to the game, they are re-releasing the older limited characters which I have already missed so I think I can get all the characters in due time. (Yay!) The memory crystal also unlocks ability materia that can give your characters and edge in the game and these materia can be equipped unto any other character that has the memory crystal unlocked.

Anyway, the basic story line is like this:
Something is stealing away the memories of the FF games so the main character is sent to go into these memories to help preserve them.

You get to find some characters who will become usable as you go along and hopefully you'd be able to make your FF dream team.

When playing, I'd direct you to the wiki which can be interpreted using Google Chrome's rikaikun add-on if you need. It tells you what you need to know to plan your team or to beat the bosses.
Certain criteria unlock a better score so that you can get a reward for the master grade (very important) or you could just try it again after you see what the criteria is which is usually not dying to the boss or using the boss' weakness.

Also, if you put my invite code of eDSS6 into the menu -> friend invite ID, you get a mythril crystal that you need to play gacha with.
(I'd get one too as with all social games.)

I'm now training my team to unlock some ability materia while I figure out how I want to do my dream team.

Buddyfight: Jackknife Gold Ritter Deck

The group I play cards with is weird. They can't seem to stay in a single card game to play.

Anyway, we've recently gotten back into Buddyfight (which we played during its first release).
The thing I dislike most about the game is its name more than anything actually.
It is, in my opinion, the worst mashed up name one could ever come up with for a card game.
It irks me just thinking about that because they could have come up with something much better and it would probably have a more positive response.

Putting aside from the fact that it is primarily designed as a cardgame directed at kids, a game is a game and there is no discrimination on that point from me because I love games in general.
The only thing that prevents me from playing a game is if the game is filled with lolis and almost fully naked girls because I obviously shouldn't and cannot afford to be caught playing those type of games and there is no lack of games in the world that I would have to end up in the state of having to play one of those.

I chose the Jackknife Gold Ritter deck to use because I like how it fundamentally changes the way the game is played and I like how there is a promo art of the Green Dragon Shield (that is not out yet).

While my deck is almost there, the below is the build I want to ultimately end up at (I am 2 cards away):

Buddy: Jackknife Dragon
4 Jackknife Dragon
4 Jackknife Burnenergy
4 Jackknife Thunderstorm
4 Jackknife "Berserker"
3 Jackknife Gold Ritter
4 Jackknife Braveheart
4 Jackknife Gift
4 Blue Dragon Shield
4 Green Dragon Shield
2 Flying Dragon Shield
2 White Dragon Shield
2 Gargantua Punisher
2 Calvary Academy
2 Dragonic Grimoire
2 Dragonic Charge
1 Dragoenergy
1 Day of the Dragon
1 Dragogenius

It took me awhile to understand how to build the Jackknife Gold Ritter deck because most references I looked at ran less Jackknife Berserker or Braveheart and they all seem happy with it.
The numbers are simple to understand once the reasoning behind them is established.

Firstly, the base Jackknife Dragon has to be maxed out so that the climbing can start.
Hence, 4 Jackknife dragon, 4 Jackknife Berserker and 4 Jacknife Braveheart is essential because everything starts from there.
At a 12 base count, the odds of it showing up in the starting hand is 82.6%.
At a 8 base count, the odds of it showing up drops to 66.9% which is essentially 1 less game per 10.

Jackknife Braveheart is easily replaced by Jackknife Burnenergy which turns into a net -0 on the gauge with 1 extra soul so every Jacknife Braveheart is equivalent to having an extra soul.
In addition, it can be used to search for Jackknife Gift to find Jackknife Gold Ritter which would be at an effective count of 11.
For what Braveheart does to the entire integrity of the deck, I cannot fathom how people reach any numbers less than the full 4 copies.

Jackknife Braveheart and Jackknife Burnenergy are the core enablers to the strategy which needs gauge and a specific life total to go off.

Gold Ritter is at a count of 3 to prevent games where all the ritters are in the gauge and therefore unusable. At that point, the game ends because this Jackknife build can only make one attack per turn since it neither runs any grade 1s nor does it run any equipment apart from Gold Ritter.

Other than the Blue and Green Shields I suppose the rest are all variable.
White Dragon Shield is to help against impacts and Flying Dragon Shield is to help against attacks that cannot be nullified.

I use Gargantua Punisher over Victory Slash because I want to close games with more certainty.
Dragonic Charge helps that and the building up to Gold Ritter.
Calvary Academy pushes Gold Ritter out of the 10k mark so that it is more protected than it would be otherwise and 10k is a sweet spot which most people can reach comfortably.
It moves out of a Drill Bunker range and also out of a natural Excalibur to force it to link rather than comes straight.

Playing it is no rocket science but it plays a little differently from a normal deck. You start by charging a spare Jackknife so that you can have one in the discard to use Jackknife Gift on. Otherwise, it will come down to whether or not you manage to burn any gauge with a Jackknife in it to use the gift. Gold Ritter itself needs 2 gauge so the gauge count is very important as you might need more gauge at times to get to Gold Ritter. If a Jackknife comes down to stay and it is not well protected, it might become very difficult to add enough soul to it on the following turn. It does not really work as a lone attacker because it does too little and there is only one attack because of how there only is Jackknife Dragons in the deck and no size 1s so Gold Ritter is really a priority.

All in all, it is a very interesting deck that warps the way the game is played. I look forward to using the alternate art Green Dragon Shields. =)

How to block game invites on Facebook (iphone)

It's been annoying that people keep spamming Pirate King invites so I went to figure out how to stop those. So here are the 5 steps to stop all that nonsense.

1) On the iphone app, tap the "More" button at the bottom.

2) Tap on "Settings".

 3) Tap on "Notifications".

4) Tap on "Mobile Push".

5) Scroll down to find "Application Requests" and "Application Invites" and uncheck those.

Voila.

Final Fantasy VII G-Bike

Recently, Square Enix released a new smartphone game. Final Fantasy VII G-Bike, based on one of the mini games that was in the original FFVII. It's the mini game where you had to guard the little van if you can recall. Otherwise, you could go back to the gold saucer to play it. I think you can find it there.

Anyway, it's available on the Japanese apple store. I don't use Android so I cannot tell if it's ENG/JPN location protected there too. If you need the official link, it's http://www.jp.square-enix.com/ff7_gbike/  .

(You can make a Japanese app store account by registering a Japanese address (take a shop address or just google map a random place).

You go around using Cloud on his bike.

This game is kinda like those running games where you have to jump over stuff, go under stuff, attack enemies. It's has the best graphics for that genre though. The basic gameplay is still just that.

You get to add a support character (once per 30 mins, sometimes you get to use the character again so I don't know the exact logic yet). Tifa shows up when you fight a boss to do FinalHeaven for a little more damage at the end of your limit break sequence.

You get to see the limit breaks only when you fight bosses and the limit break is determined by the weapon you hold. So far I've seen BladeBeam (Buster Blade), Finishing Touch (Butterfly Edge/Murasame) and Meteorain (limited boss mission).

 If you have the support character, the limit break transits into another by that character (currently only Tifa)

Tifa is all ready to give a good punch.

BAM!

TIFA!!! <3

Their first limited edition Boss mission has Bahamut in it. (The very first you summoned in FFVII).

You can get the limited edition Bahamut bike using the parts. It's kinda late if you start now...

His intro scene.

MEGAFLARE!!!

Getting punched by Tifa~

You level up weapons/bikes using items (which you get from the end of a mission at the roulette).

I would advise against using the gems unless it's a rare item and it's just beside the one where you landed on.

After some time, I realized that what you need can be gotten easily from the missions that have it as the reward. If you hit 100 pts they put more of that on the slots so it becomes much easier to get that particular item.

It's still a game in its infant stages so it's a very good time to get into it. =)

I like how fast the points charge with time and it seems like the game would get better in time.
I'm a sucker for FF games with all the nostalgia (Currently playing FF Agito on the phone too).

Commander 2014 in Legacy Part 2

So I went down to my local cardshop last night and they had Commander 2014 singles.
I bought the below stuff and found another cool card - Malicious Affliction which could potentially take down 2x Tarmogoyfs.

I was deliberating on Dualcaster Mage and the red Planeswalker but I did not get them as I would not be likely to be playing anything along those lines in the near future. I'll try my luck online but it's very hard to find singles from these products because the reprinted cards are so much more easily accessible online and thus have very minimal resale value as compared to irl.

The key buy was the 2x Titania which I feel is half Primeval Titan and half Grave Titan in the same card and I think that it would be the card that would be able to bring me into 2015. I would probably be still working along the lines of BUG mid-ranged/control to find something that I like.

There was a BUG nic-fit (weird name like tin fins) deck that I am interested in running. The big mana fatties deck sounds good vs Miracles / Delvers.

Titania is very underrated. =)

Commander 2014 for Legacy

If I had to pick 10 cards to get from the commander 2014 boxed set, I would get these 10 cards.

In specific numbers, if I had the money, I would get:

4x Daretti

He's a 1 card engine in itself but you'd probably be playing Goblin Welder and Dack Faden.
4cc Planeswalkers are usually played at the bare minimal, apart from Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Control Slaver sounds fun.

3x Contamination Priests
Sideboard card that you can't really play too many of. 3 is a good number to have between the main and the side. I guess it singlehandedly beats Sneak and Show and Reanimator but 4 seems excessive.

2x Spoils of Blood

I have no idea where this would go but it looks like it does something.

2x Song of the Dryad

Maelstrom Pulse exists so this could be a liability. 2 is more than enough for a straight up answer card.

3x Dualcaster Mage
I'm not convinced that Fork is needed but we've played similar cards that we would never have just because they have creature bodies. The 1RR cost is the biggest problem but it's better to get this earlier than later.

2x Wake of the Dead

The ability to reanimate more than 1 guy at eot is very powerful. I don't see this replacing stuff but it's definitely interesting.

1x Ob Nixilis

This is for sure a good buy at 1x. The -2 ability is going to be very strong.

(Like vs Miracles who can't really counterbalance lock it) You would almost never need more than 1.

2x Titania

This is Primeval Titan + Grave Titan in a card. I'm sold. With its cost, I'd be comfortable playing 2x easily but it's a very high potential card. I'd pick up more since it's so cheap at the moment.

1x Nahiri

I'd play Elspeth so I'd consider this too. The Batterskull reanimating upside makes it worth thinking about. I don't see more than 1 ever needed like Ob Nixilis but I'd get that 1x first.

2x Intellectual Offer
This is like a mini Time Spiral that could go into a High Tide deck to untap Candelabras...
(A little pushing it)
Or maybe the same Dack Faden deck with Welders and Notion Thief?