Turtle Power

No, we didn’t get Tortos down this week, but we did progress and got him down to 29% on our best attempt Wednesday night.  Hopefully he’ll go down next week.

So what’s this post about?  Well, I just couldn’t let Van have all the mount BMAH glory to herself this week… =P

It’s been a long time since I’ve won anything off the BMAH, mainly because there hasn’t been anything on there worth buying or there were auctions that I lost at the last minute.  I missed out on two X-51 Nether-Rockets, one to Sorak and another because I was so focused on leveling up my mage that I forgot to check up on the auction before it ended, lol.  I did buy a special “weapon” that I’ve been meaning to post, but the screenshots for it have been buried in my folder, so I’ll have to fish for them and post about it later.

What I did win was this guy Tuesday night, a Riding Turtle!

The Riding Turtle is the first mount ever offered by the WoW TCG.  It comes from the rare loot card, Saltwater Snapjaw, from the first set of the TCG, Heroes of Azeroth.  It is one of three loot cards from the set, with the Hippogryph Hatchling pet and the Tabard of the Flame being the other two.

This mount was one I coveted the most when I first started playing WoW, only because it was the only turtle mount available in the game at the time.  The turtle mount didn’t increase your speed on land (it was the same as walking on foot), but got a speed boost when used in the water.  And the space bar or /mountspecial emote is hilarious with its hide-in-the-shell animation and special sound effects.

I tried to get the loot card as I started building my WoW TCG collection and even bought several cheap booster boxes for a chance at one, just never got lucky.  I did end up getting the Hippogryph pet and the Tabard of the Flame, which just sits in my bank, waiting for Blizz to implement a Tabard Storage or Tabard Tab (please?).

In Wrath, I got another chance at a turtle mount when the Sea Turtle, a blue version of the Riding Turtle, was introduced.  I managed to snag mine from a pool when doing some of the Ka’luk fishing dailies in Northrend.  I’ve had good times with my Sea Turtle, especially charging at super slow speed into boss fights like Baleroc and Morchok, lol.

More sea mounts made their way into the game, like the seahorse mounts and the Reins of Poseidus from Vashj’ir in Cataclysm and finally in Mists, pandas got their own sea turtles with their racial mounts, the Dragon Turtles.  Water Striders gave us a new dimension to sea mounts by allowing us to ride them across the water, previously only done by Warlocks and their Felsteeds with help from a glyph, Death Knights with Path of Frost on or anyone under the Water Walking effect given by Shamans.

If only Blizz gave us the ability to fish off these mounts without being dismounted….that would totally make these mounts even more awesome. =)

WoW TCG Raid Deck Sneak Peak – The Caverns of Time

Cryptozoic has announced its latest raid deck, The Caverns of Time.  This deck will be released on April 9, 2013 and contain the following:

• 60 Card Deck
• 8 Raid Hero Cards
• 1 Treasure Pack
• Rulebook

Here is a description of the set:

The timeways are in peril, and only the bravest heroes can stand against the evil forces that threaten the past, present, and future. The Caverns of Time Raid Deck allows you and your friends to take on iconic villains such as Archimonde the Defiler, Queen Azshara, and Murozond, leader of the Infinite Dragonflight!

The Caverns of Time Raid Deck comes with eight oversized raiding heroes. Jump into the battle by choosing three heroes at random for the automated Raid Deck to use, and battle through all three to claim victory. When you’re ready for an even bigger challenge, add more heroes to the Raid until you are ready to take on the ultimate challenge: battling through all eight Raid heroes in a single game!

Treasure Packs

Each copy of The Caverns of Time Raid Deck comes with a Treasure Pack. This 70-card all-foil set features plenty of awesome new cards for your regular Constructed decks. New Alliance and Horde allies expand on the keywords found in the Timewalkers Block, and new abilities and equipment will give your classes the boost they were looking for. Or, if you are looking for something a little more monstrous, add the power of epic demons such as Archimonde, Hand of Sargeras and Mannoroth the Flayer to your decks, and watch your opponents run in terror!

Treasure Packs are also available separately with an MSRP of $5.99 per pack, featuring 9 cards per pack. The set overall contains 24 commons, 18 commons, 22 rares, and 6 epics in total.

Are you ready to face some of the greatest evils that have plagued Azeroth’s past, present, and future? It’s up to you, champions!

This raid deck is another one of Cryptozoic’s self-contained automated raid decks, which they explain below:

The Caverns of Time Raid Deck marks the ninth entry to the growing list of raids and dungeons that we have added to the World of Warcraft TCG, and it will be the third addition to the automated raid list, joining the ranks of the Dungeon Decks and Battle of the Aspects. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the automated raid decks, these decks pit you and your friends against the biggest baddies that World of Warcraft has to offer without the need of having someone to be the bad guy. The raid deck will run itself (with a little help from you flipping some cards over), so you won’t need to find that elusive fourth player to help round out your raid experience.

It looks like Cryptozoic is sticking with this new style of self-contained decks, which makes it easier to pick up and play with a couple of friends without the need of any other pre-constructed decks like the earlier raid decks required.  Of course, you could still try your own created deck to see how it fares against this set.

Here is some of the artwork from the deck:

Aessina’s Boon

Archimonde, Hand of Sargeras

Mallory the Maniacal

With the Treasure packs, you also have a chance at getting loot cards from the Crown of Heavens expansion, like the Gregarious Grell, Magical Ogre Idol or Corrupted Hippogryph.

Be on the lookout next week for this raid deck, I’ll post a review once I get mine. =)

WoW TCG – Betrayal of the Guardian is here, so take a look, it’s in a “Book”

The latest WoW TCG Expansion, Betrayal of the Guardian, is now here and I just finished sorting through all the goodies after receiving them a couple of weeks ago.  The second set from the Timewalkers block, this set continues the theme of bringing back older characters from the past back into the fold.

Just like the prior set, War of the Ancients, each booster box comes with 36 packs, with 15 game cards per pack.  The Epic Collection box contains the following goodies:

• 1 Collector’s box
• 6 Booster packs
• 1 Playmat
• 1 Deck box
• 15 Card dividers
• 1 Visual Spoiler
• 5 Foil Hero cards
• 1 Loot card (for this set, it’s the Gusting Grimoire)

Here is a sample of what you will find in the Betrayal of the Guardian set:

Magatha Grimtotem and Zul’jin

Khadgar and General Turalyon

Some familiar faces you’ll see when you visit Karazhan….

Thrall’s Poppa and Momma

Some of the coolest legendaries you’ll find in-game, Atiesh and the Warglavies of Azzinoth

I was kinda bummed that one of my favorite artists, JonBoy Meyers, didn’t have any cards in this set, but I did find some cards from another favorite, Gonzalo Ordonez.  He also did the artwork for Atiesh and Magatha Grimtotem.

And the winner of the “Best Flavor Text” in this set goes to Don Carlos’ Famous Hat, lol.

And the Phat Lootz! Cha-Ching!

Gusting Grimoire

The common loot card of the set, the Gusting Grimoire is a Magic-type companion/battle pet that shares a similar model to the Lofty Libram, only with rounded corners and a different cover.  The Grimoire shares the same second-line abilities as the Libram, but their first-line abilities are different.

Here are the Grimoire’s abilities:

• Fel Immolate
• Agony
• Meteor Strike
• Shadow Shock
• Amplify Magic
• Curse of Doom

I named my Grimoire, War, and my Libram, Peace, get it? LoL

Dark Portal Hearthstone

The uncommon loot card is the Dark Portal Hearthstone, which is an on-use item that actually doesn’t give you an extra Hearth, but instead replaces your regular hearthing animation with a much cooler one.  This is also similar to the Ethereal Portal loot card from the Icecrown expansion.

Here is the Dark Portal Hearthstone being used in front of the real Dark Portal, lol:

Ghastly Charger

And finally the rare loot card from the set, the Ghastly Charger.  When I first saw images of this mount, I knew I was going to redeem it if I got one, I really like the look of the spectral mounts.  So after I got lucky with my RCG (random card generator) and pulled the loot card out of one of the packs, I headed straight for Landro Longshot to claim my prize.

Here is a shot of the Charger in front of Karazhan:

So what’s better than running around on top of a spectral skeletal horse?  Well, I wanted to get a screenshot of the mount on its hind legs and found a nice surprise when I hit my space bar….

….it flies!  I didn’t realize that the mount would be similar to the Headless Horseman mount.  Woohoo, a new ground/flying mount! =)

Take a look, it’s in a book

So, interested in owning your very own Grimoire? Well, I’m giving away two Grimoires to two lucky readers, all you have to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this post, telling me what your favorite or most memorable book or books are and why. I’ll go first.

One of the most memorable series I remember reading were the Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern books.  During middle and high school, I spent a lot of time at the local library after school waiting for my ride home, immersing myself into the fantasy world of dragons.  McCaffery’s books immediately got me hooked on these mythical creatures; maybe that’s why it was so easy to pick up WoW, with all of the flying beasts it contains, lol.

So get your comment in by Saturday, March 16th at 12 am US-EST and you will be included in the drawing.  I’ll throw all the names into the same Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron I used last time for the Eyes and draw out two random peeps.  Good luck!

UPDATE:  Thanks to everyone that commented, I know I said that I was going to give away two Grimoires, but I found an extra one to give away, so congrats to Tome, Tyledres and Arioch, you guys are the lucky winners!

SR in O-town

Sorry for the long blog silence, the last three weeks have been pretty busy, with work kicking my ass and just being busy with other things.  Our raiding progress has come to a halt, as the Sha of Fear continues to be a pain in the ass and turns our shaman tears (Zari’s term for Healing Rain) into just sha tears. =(

Last week was pretty exciting though, as some of the SR folks traveled to Orlando, Florida for a guild meet-up.  I had met Sorak and Zarm in New Jersey back in October of last year, so I was excited to meet more peeps in person from our small crew.  Chewy also made the trip with me, so he kept me company on the drive down.  The meet-up lasted a whole week, but because of my Real World Raid Boss, the Sha of Work, I was only able to stay until Wednesday.

We left for Orlando Saturday afternoon and a couple of hours later met up with Zug, Sorak, Mrs. Sorak, Shadeey and Ado at Bonefish Grill for a light linner before heading out to the timeshare that the Soraks has reserved for us.  We chilled out for a bit and Chewy handed everyone a World of Warcraft Megablok figure set as a gift, which Zug wasted no time with and immediately put it together, lol.  Sorak then introduced us to a fun game called Bang!, which is basically a Cops vs. Robbers game in card form.  We played that for a bit until we went to pick up Zarigar from the airport in the Trade Chat Ford (lol, I’ll let Zari explain this) around 10 PM.  We then had a late dinner at Bahama Breeze and finished the night playing another game of Bang!.

Sunday started off with a very interesting and crazy Denny’s brunch that involved Cholula, bottled water, references to IHOP and messed up checks, lol.  Afterwards, we headed back to the timeshare and Bang!ed out another game before we went to pick up Vanicus at the airport with the Trade Chat Ford (she can explain this too, lol).  Later that night, we went to Downtown Disney where we had dinner at Planet Hollywood.  And we again ended the night with more Bang!.

Monday was Universal day, as we took on attractions in both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios.  We started our adventure at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where we got to experience what it felt like to walk though the halls of Hogwarts and took on the 3D ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  Then we tested our stomaches on the dual coaster ride, the Dragon Challenge.  We decided to have lunch outside the park and went to an awesome Brazilian steakhouse called Fogo de Chao.  My faves had to be the Beef Ribs and the Top Sirloin.  Ma sarap!

Green means Go Go Go meat!

After we made sure our lunch was digested enough, we headed back to Islands of Adventure to take on the Hulk, which we all agreed was the best ride of the day.  We then park-hopped over to Universal Studios and did Terminator 2: 3-D, E.T. Adventure (I didn’t hear E.T. call my name at the end, but I did hear Zug’s and Zari’s name though, lol), Men in Black Alien Attack (which will be the only time I’ll ever see my DPS top Zug’s, lmao), Revenge of the Mummy (Zari will never forgive us for punking him into riding this one =P) and finished the night on one of the craziest coasters I’ve ridden, the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, with its 90 degree climb to the top and crazy loops and corkscrews.  After heading back to the timeshare and cleaning up, we played another game of Bang! that lasted all night, with Zari as the hilarious Sheriff and Sorak making a critical mistake and losing the game at the very end for the Outlaws, lol.

Our plan for Tuesday was to hit up Disney’s Magic Kingdom, but we encountered a morning rain delay, so decided it was a good time to bring out my gifts for the crew.  I brought everyone a WoW TCG deckbox that represented their main’s class plus a WoW TCG playmat, or what I like to call, an oversized mousepad, lol.  I also gave each one a pre-constructed WoW TCG Champion Deck so they could try out the game.  There were only five decks in the set, so I think Zug ended up not getting one, but he can probably share with Sorak, lol.

Adoe chose Hogger the gnoll and the warrior deck, Shadeey took Jaina Proudmoore and the mage deck, Van chose the Dark Lady Sylvanas Windrunner and the hunter deck, Sorak took Murkdeep the murloc and the shaman deck and Zari got Elderlimb the treant and the druid deck.  We all played a couple of games with the decks, with Chewy and I explaining how to play along the way.  We determined at the end that the Murkdeep deck was the fastest and most OP deck, which made Sorak very cocky happy, lol.  And poor Jaina, her deck was the weakest out of the five, sorry Shadeey =(.

After the rain let up, we finally headed out to Magic Kingdom, where almost all the rides had a 10 to 15 minute wait or less.  We brute-forced out way through Stitch’s Great Escape, Space Mountain, Tomorrowland Speedway, Under the Sea – Journey of The Little Mermaid (don’t hate, it was new lol), “It’s a Small World” (lmao, the first-timers had to see it at least once and it was only a five-minute wait, Peter Pan across the way was 40 minutes!), the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Unfortunately Splash Mountain was closed, which is the best ride at Magic Kingdom, IMO (boooo).  We stayed to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade and a bit of the Celebrate the Magic show, where Cinderella’s castle was the backdrop for the fireworks display.

For dinner we went to Atlantic Cove, a seafood spot, which was surprisingly located next to a Thai restaurant called Thai Thani that the wifey and I often frequent when we’re in Orlando.  Even more surprising was that even though we were in Atlantic Cove, we could still order from the two connecting restaurants on either side, Thai Thani and Oishi, a sushi house.  So we had food from all three spots and the Soraks generously picked up the tab for all of us.  We also made a toast as this was the last night that Chewy and I spent with the crew before heading back home the following day.

Wednesday night is usually one of regular raid nights, so we did just that.  Not of the MMO version, but we decided to try our hands on taking on one of the WoW TCG raid decks that Chewy brought, Onyxia’s Lair.  Zug played as Onyxia, while the rest of us teamed up and used the Champion Decks to battle him.

We were so not prepared.  Even though we had the numbers on our side, Zug/Onyxia and her whelps were too much to handle and killed us off in phase 2.  Even Sorak and his OP Murkdeep deck was no match as Onyxia kept wiping our allies off the board with Deep Breaths and Wrath of God abilities.  But I think it was more that the Champion Decks were built to deal with one-on-one matches, not to take on a raid boss.  Lol, we even tried to nerf Zug/Onxyia and limiting him on the number of cards he could draw, but it still didn’t work.  Oh well, maybe next time we’ll have better prepared decks to take on these raid decks.

Wednesday morning we tried again to take on Zug/Onyxia, this time with six people (Chewy created a tank deck the night before with some cards he brought from home), but we were still unsuccessful.  Nonetheless, it was still fun to try out.  We had lunch at IHOP, having a much better experience than our crazy one at Denny’s.  After lunch, Chewy and I said our goodbyes to the crew and went on our way back home.

I really enjoyed my time with all the guys and gals; it was nice to finally put a face to those pixellated toons that you play with week in and week out.  It was fun to just bug out all week and make WoW references to almost everything we saw or experienced, without having someone who doesn’t play WoW look at you like you’re crazy.  So thank you to Chewy, Sorak, Mrs. Sorak, Zug, Adoe, Shadeey, Zari and Van for an awesome weekend!  Hopefully at our next meet, we can round-up the rest of the gang (Slice, Lyss, Moog/Wok, Bocat, Shirl and Zarm). =)

The REAL Darkmoon Faire

For those who are not familiar with what the REAL Darkmoon Faire is, it’s the monthly World of Warcraft Trading Card Game tournament held around the world to locate the best players.  The winners from each Faire then compete at the end of the year to see who becomes the World Darkmoon Faire Champion for 2013.  There are lots of prizes to be won, including Macbooks, iPads, iPods, rare mount loot cards, travel vouchers, playmats, deck boxes, boxes of cards, card packs and much more.

The first Darkmoon Faire event for 2013 happened this past weekend in Jacksonville, Florida, from Friday, January 11th to Sunday, January 13th.  This is the first time that the Faire has arrived in my city, so I was pretty excited to check it out.

The last TCG event that I attended was a Sneak Preview tournament at a local gaming shop for the Drums of War expansion back in November of 2008.  Back then, the TCG was owned by Upper Deck Entertainment (UDE).

Since that Sneak Preview, that local gaming shop stopped hosting WoW TCG events due to lack of attendance/interest.  The game itself went through a big change and was acquired by Cryptozoic Entertainment (CZE), who has done a really good job with it.

Chewy and I used to play the TCG quite a bit when it first came out, but we couldn’t find others that were interested to try it, so we quit playing.  That hasn’t stopped me from collecting it though, lol.  I have near-complete sets since the first set, Heroes of Azeroth, to the most recent, War of the Ancients.

I asked Chewy if he wanted to check out the Faire and he said sure and we decided to go Saturday afternoon.  We planned on hanging out there for a couple of hours, as it was NFL playoff weekend and our teams were in the hunt (Go Ravens/Niners!).

So Chewy arrived at my house around 1pm and after gathering my stuff, we went outside.  We stood in my driveway for a couple of minutes when Chewy turned to me and said:

Chewy:  What are we waiting for?
Arvash:  I’m waiting for the portal to appear to take us to the Faire.
Chewy:  …
Chewy:  This isn’t Mulgore…
Arvash:  Oh, you’re right…

So instead we hopped into my epic Honda mount and headed towards Downtown Jacksonville, where the Faire was located.  The event was held on the third floor of the Hyatt, with numerous signs directing us to our destination.

Once we arrived at the front gates, er, doors, we were greeted by some familiar faces, Silas Darkmoon and Burth.

Inside were other Fairegoers, already competing in events such as Sealed Deck tournaments, Swiss Round Packs and of course, the main Darkmoon Faire event, the pre-constructed deck tournament.

I wanted to enter into the Beginners Tournament, cause it was a long time since I last played, but we had just missed it and the next one didn’t start until Chewy and I had planned to leave.  Cryptozoic had demos of their other games on hand, including the Big Bang Theory and The Walking Dead.  We decided to try their most recent release, the DC Comics Deckbuilding game.

from Cryptozoic

This was our first time trying out a deck building game.  You’re given a small starting deck of 10 cards and you basically “purchase” cards from the playing field using the valor points found on said cards.  These purchased cards then get shuffled into your deck, where they can be later used as you draw more and more cards as the game progresses.  The game ends once all cards on the field has been purchased or all villains have been defeated (purchased).  You play as one of several DC heroes and the object is to earn as many Victory points as you can.  Each card is given a Victory point amount based on the type of card.  Equipment and Allies are worth a moderate amount, whereas Villains give out the highest point value.

We played with a Cryptozoic employee, who explained the rules of the game as we went along and another Fairegoer.  They played The Flash and Wonder Woman, respectively, with Chewy playing Green Lantern and me as Superman.  I ended up winning our demo game, racking up the most Victory points, thanks to all the villains I defeated.  I mean, it’s Superman, who’s gonna really beat him, right?  =)

Afterwards, we went around and checked out what else the Faire had to offer.  Lucky for us, we stumbled upon a familiar face, Aegwynn, the Guardian of Tirisfal!

Lol, actually, it was Christina Sims in an amazing costume.  You might remember Christina for her other awesome outfits, like Alexstraza and the female Monk from Diablo 3.  She is also a great TCG player, I witnessed her taking out poor, hapless Fairegoers who thought they had a chance of defeating her.  Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t bring my own deck, to save myself the embarrassment, lol.

from Cryptozoic

from WoW Insider

from WoW Insider

After watching Aegwynn/Christina pound noobs into the ground, I spotted another familiar face, can you guess where this person is?  Hint: It’s the person in the far left in red.

Can’t see it, huh?  Well, it’s none other than Michael Sacco of WoW Insider fame!  I believe he was doing press coverage of the tournament, updating the website with results and making additional commentary.  I remember an old article on WoW Insider, where he talked about working with the TCG.  He’s got a pretty good gig going on there, working for two of the biggest WoW-related products that I enjoy.  Here’s a close-up pic from the Cryptozoic website in case you can’t see him in my shot, lol.

from Cryptozoic

And here are some additional photos I took of the event.

One thing I did accomplish while I was at the Faire was to update my league status for future WoW events and tournaments.  Like I said earlier, it was a long time since my last TCG that I was still rocking my UDE membership.

So I went ahead and rejoined the league (for free) and got me a spiffy new card.  Moar dragons!

Also for signing up, I got a cool new priest deckbox, featuring Dark Pharaoh Tekahn from the Tomb of the Forgotten expansion.

And that was pretty much it for the Faire.  I didn’t get to spend as much time there as I wanted to, but I also wasn’t prepared game-wise for it either.  Maybe the next time the Faire roll around here, I will have freshened up my skillz and will finally compete against others for a shot at the World Championship title.  Oh, and also take on Christina Sims in whatever character she shows up as next time, lol.

The next two Darkmoon Faires will be held in Venice, Italy, in February and Dallas, Texas, in March.  Check it out if you live nearby those two areas.

Oh, there is one person I wanted to meet that I didn’t see at the Faire, though.  I wish Jeremy Feasel was there so I could Roshambo him, South Park-style, for that freakin’ Darkmoon Eye!  That bastard!