We are heading into dad joke territory with the title this week. We made it to Gaming DNA for the first time which was very cool. Going to new stores does hurt the bank account though as you get to see a different range of deck boxes and stuff.
We also got to our local armory at Gateway Games and did some shopping there too.
News
The quiet after the storm. There was news about who won worlds and congrats to them. Let’s be honest though that’s like looking up at the eagles soaring through the air. Not something that I’m ever going to be involved with.
Emptying The Wallet
I saw Armory Deck: Kayo available online for $40 so bought that again not to play competitively but for the Armory Deck League. That means I’ve now got 4 Armory Decks.
At Gaming DNA we couldn’t resist these 2 Avatar: The Last Airbender deck boxes. Zuko for my daughter and Uncle Iroh for me. These were $44 each ouch the impulse buys….
I know it’s not Black Friday yet but the Black Friday packs were available at Gateway Games so I had to get one. I bought an Armory Deck: Aurora for my Armory Deck League series ($60) and 4 booster packs ($7*4=$28) to get a ‘free’ Black Friday pack. I also picked up a Dragon Shield Strong Box to keep the Aurora deck in.
The armory at Gaming DNA was $15 each but you get to choose 2 packs from a range of releases. We went for 4 packs of History Pack 1, spoiler we didn’t pull a Spring Tunic. Gateway Games is $6 each and you get 1 pack of the latest release which at the moment is obviously Super Slam. So $42 in entry fees for this week.
Ops that’s a total spend of $267.80 for this week. But think of all the content…..
Armory - Gaming DNA
I did come in to the Gaming DNA armory with some confidence. Last week at Card Merchant Hamilton I had gone close in 2 games and my daughter had come second. I knew that we would be seeing quite a few of the same faces and that normally means same decks.
Sure enough first up I got to face Nick again and his Prism deck. I started off well with an attack using pummel that emptied his hand. All he could do was draw 4 cards and pass back to me. I then ended up with 3 red cards and not able to really do anything. All the momentum was lost and I never got it back as he got out his auras, angels and library. Last week I got really lucky and had 2 of my 3 yellow cards in hand to kill the library, that didn’t happen this week. It was close as it finished 0-24.
Next up Jesse took me on with Puffin. 2 Pummels and no Blues really blocked up my hand. It then all went crazy with cogs and gold everywhere. Another loss was chalked up. You’ll understand why the write-ups are getting shorter and I had a really bad week of games.
Finally Braiden used Rhinar to beat me up. I did get some early hits but ended up with a pummel in arsenal I couldn’t get out and play. I don’t know why my deck has become so clunky. I really will need to have a look at my cards and try changing somethings.
My daughter went much better with a 2-1 record.
Armory - Gateway Games
Surely being on home territory things would work a bit better for me….
First up I got the bye. Well at least I got a free win. But let’s be honest we don’t go to armories to watch other people play….
I then matched up against James with Gravy. Apparently I’m supposed to kill his allies and then when he’s run out win the game. I did keep killing his allies and I really defended my arsenal because I had a Colossal Bearing in there that can destroy equipment. My plan was to use this to destroy his Compass of Sunken Depths. I did get to play it and get it to tower but the judge ruling was that I can only destroy equipment with a defence value. I had put this card in here specifically to destroy Compass and Flick Knives. I get to play it and then find out it doesn’t work. I went on to lose unsurprisingly after I’d put so much effort into getting that card played with the right combo.
Prism again and let’s be honest I was already dispirited by my performances this week and my special play not working. I tried killing his angels and more just kept coming and this game was lost a long time before it finished. He still had over 30 life at the end.
A really bad week of games. A couple of us stuck around for an extra casual game and I pulled out the Rhinar armory deck and picked up another loss this time to Ira.
I thought you were supposed to get better at this game. I feel like I’m getting worse….
Cardboard
Clearly I picked up a couple of armory decks this week but also we got a bunch of packs that we opened.
Unfortunately the 4 History Pack 1s didn’t yield anything that interesting.
Yes we did get 1 majestic in High Octane but I don’t think we’ll be able to trade that for much. The extended art cards from the GEM packs are nice but again nothing that anyone is going to clamour for.
I did get to open my Black Friday pack….
Again more cards that we’re unlikely to ever play. Oh well…..
Meta Matters
Having attended 2 armories this week there are 2 locals Metas to go through. First up the Meta from Gaming DNA where we had 11 decks and 10 heroes:
* Pleiades
* Ira
* Oscilio
* Prism
* Bolton
* Jarl
* Cindra
* Verdance
* Puffin
* Rhinar x2
Quite a few faces that we saw last week at Card Merchant Hamilton but it had less of an experimental feel. Maybe that was due to the decks I faced but there wasn’t Layth or the 2 Armory Deck: Iras this week. Still a very casual feel but less experimental and still a very diverse Meta.
The Gateway Games meta was a little less diverse with 7 heroes across 9 decks.
* Gravy
* Ira x3
* Vynnset
* Verdance
* Prism
* Pleiades
* Puffin
We lost Rhinar as I brought Pleiades back, Yarl as Puffin was brought back and Florian and Lyath as people changed to Ira. Arakni, Victor and Cindra, dipped out as people didn’t make it this week. Quite a bit of change from last week as 4 people changed decks which again I think is healthy and keeps things fun.
What’s Coming Up?
We’re aiming to get to Card Merchant Hamilton armory this week which is Blitz. We better get building decks quickly…. As well as attending our usual Gateway Games armory. We also might get to a Skirmish 13 event at Card Merchant Hamilton.
The first two of my posts for the An Armory Guide To Aotearoa series should be released this coming week.
Over the next few weeks I should be posting the write-ups and results of several matchups in the Armory Deck League.
