Ascension (iOS) Gaming League (New Tourney starting Jan 14, 2013!)

shoptroll wrote:
Trachalio wrote:

Heck, I'm still not sure why'd you ever want to destroy a card in your hand/discard pile, other than to increase your chances of a better card being drawn. :S

Maths :p In other words, what would you rather have more often: 5 Mystics or 5 Apprentices?

EDIT: The trick is that with banishing your militia and apprentices, you need to also buy replacements. Kill off too many, too fast and you'll find your buying power is supremely curtailed even though you can cycle through your deck fast.

Oh, and it's not just about drawing better cards, but also making sure those better cards come up more often.

Not to mention that Militia's and Apprentices have no Star value (are they called honor points, victory points, ?)

Heartly7 won game 1 91-73 (or 93-71, I don't remember which). It was a drubbing once she got Avatar of Aiyana online. On to game 2!

TheWalt wrote:
shoptroll wrote:
Trachalio wrote:

Heck, I'm still not sure why'd you ever want to destroy a card in your hand/discard pile, other than to increase your chances of a better card being drawn. :S

Maths :p In other words, what would you rather have more often: 5 Mystics or 5 Apprentices?

EDIT: The trick is that with banishing your militia and apprentices, you need to also buy replacements. Kill off too many, too fast and you'll find your buying power is supremely curtailed even though you can cycle through your deck fast.

Oh, and it's not just about drawing better cards, but also making sure those better cards come up more often.

Not to mention that Militia's and Apprentices have no Star value (are they called honor points, victory points, ?)

It's honor points -- I usually call them "endgame honor" to distinguish from the honor earned during the game by defeating monsters and the like.

The other thing to remember is that it's worth getting rid of the deck thinners as well, after they've done their job. Once you've gotten rid of all your apprentices and militia, an Abolisher is no more useful than an apprentice is, and you're better off banishing it (say, with a Shadowcaster) than keeping it around for the sake of 1 endgame honor. (Although if you've got Dreamer's Glass, better to stick the Abolisher under it and keep the endgame honor, as long as it's out of play.)

A Shadowcaster, you can keep in play because it always allows you to draw one card to replace it, even if you don't use it to banish and draw another. (And in the right situation, it can still be valuable -- for instance, if you've got 6 runes available, and you know there's a Mystic on top of your deck, then it might be worth banishing a Heavy Infantry if it means you can draw that Mystic and pick up Weapon 303V.)

Dixie_Flatline wrote:

A Shadowcaster, you can keep in play because it always allows you to draw one card to replace it, even if you don't use it to banish and draw another. (And in the right situation, it can still be valuable -- for instance, if you've got 6 runes available, and you know there's a Mystic on top of your deck, then it might be worth banishing a Heavy Infantry if it means you can draw that Mystic and pick up Weapon 303V.)

It's also worth 3 honor while Abolisher and the military equivalent are worth 1.

Actually, Abolisher is really the only one in SoS worth banishing when it's done since it functions as an apprentice when you don't have chaff to banish. The military version is a Heavy Infantry if you don't banish anything, so I'm less likely to banish that one after thining.

True enough -- the CotG/RotF equivalent would be the Void Initiate. Anyone who banishes a Shadowcaster (or worse yet, a Personal Wormhole) just because they've run out of militia/apprentice cards deserves everything that happens to them.

There is also a void card that rewards you with honor (I think) when you banish it.

il dottore and I finished our games:

Game 1: Apollo0507: 63, il dottore: 57
Game 2: Apollo0507: 83, il dottore: 76

Fun, close games! I only seemed to get lucky late in each game to pull ahead within the last 1-2 turns. This time I was able to use three Lifebound cards (Aiyana's Messenger, Granger, and Syril, Runic Alpha) in one turn and get the stacking bonuses.

GG il dottore, would definitely like to play again sometime to keep in fighting shape!

I broke my streak and won both games against Cyrax (68-71, 79-57).

Also, Apollo- really great last game (not part of the tournament). Really had no idea who was winning and the game had an interesting feel to it.

demonbox wrote:

I broke my streak and won both games against Cyrax (68-71, 79-57).

Also, Apollo- really great last game (not part of the tournament). Really had no idea who was winning and the game had an interesting feel to it.

Absolutely. We both played a somewhat hybrid game and it was close to the very end, very fun game, felt like it went down to the end and to 1-2 decisions each of us made. I like our RotF/SoS games, I enjoy playing with both decks, lots more variety and different strategies to use. SoS is starting to feel a little vanilla to me and starting to be somewhat predictable.

Oily Penguin, you are indeed a slippery bird... How HUGE was your deck score! Just prior to the tally I was almost 40 ahead of you, then bam, you take it out by a margin of 10!

Excellent game, looking forward to the second.

78 to 88 was the final score in Oily's favour.

I had outright honor score of 51 and a deck value of 27
Oily had an outright honor score of 15 and a deck value of 73

I will admit, I didn't expect this conversation to turn to oily scoring with his massive deck...

Apollo0507 wrote:
demonbox wrote:

I broke my streak and won both games against Cyrax (68-71, 79-57).

Also, Apollo- really great last game (not part of the tournament). Really had no idea who was winning and the game had an interesting feel to it.

Absolutely. We both played a somewhat hybrid game and it was close to the very end, very fun game, felt like it went down to the end and to 1-2 decisions each of us made. I like our RotF/SoS games, I enjoy playing with both decks, lots more variety and different strategies to use. SoS is starting to feel a little vanilla to me and starting to be somewhat predictable.

Agree with all of this.

As much as I'm enjoying SOS for the tournament, I enjoy the RotF/SOS the most.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I will admit, I didn't expect this conversation to turn to oily scoring with his massive deck...

No one was more surprised than me when he came from behind

Lost my first game as usual - but I don't always get quite so crushed like what WolverineJon did to me with his 94-66 win. He just got straight into gear and rolled forward without a care in the world. If he does anywhere near that again then I will not recover to tie the set. But I might, just might, win our game of Letterpress as some sort of consolation.

Any updates on the remaining matches?

Ranger Rick vs. Justin Fletcher - report score
WolverineJon vs. robthomasson - report score
m0nk3yboy vs. oilypenguin - report score

sirjoekcb and I are still finishing up game 2.

Apollo0507 wrote:

il dottore and I finished our games:

Game 1: Apollo0507: 63, il dottore: 57
Game 2: Apollo0507: 83, il dottore: 76

Fun, close games! I only seemed to get lucky late in each game to pull ahead within the last 1-2 turns. This time I was able to use three Lifebound cards (Aiyana's Messenger, Granger, and Syril, Runic Alpha) in one turn and get the stacking bonuses.

GG il dottore, would definitely like to play again sometime to keep in fighting shape!

Thanks, likewise! Was a little disappointed to lose the second game, damn lifebound gang

I'd be glad to play some more, I'll send you an invite for CotG+RotF since I'm also getting a bit tired of SoS. Haven't played much of that though, so you'll probably have an easier time winning!

m0nk3yboy wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:

I will admit, I didn't expect this conversation to turn to oily scoring with his massive deck...

No one was more surprised than me when he came from behind ;)

#thingsyoucanlearnatpencon

bigred wrote:

Any updates on the remaining matches?

Ranger Rick vs. Justin Fletcher - report score

Oop, sorry, screenshotted and everything, forgot to report 'em.

Done now. First game was a crazy 85 to 89, second I got whupped 60 to 87. GGs, though. I'm still having fun even though I'm a total failure.

bigred wrote:

Any updates on the remaining matches?

WolverineJon vs. robthomasson - report score

Just finished the second game against WolverineJon. I squeaked a narrow 72-69 win after losing the first game by a landslide as previously posted.

Oily and I are finishing our final match.

Not sure how much PenCon is impacting on available time, so I am trying to keep up on the turns at my end as much as possible so I'm not holding you back when you have the opportunity.

Just go easy on me with this second one.

It impacted it quite a bit. I think I only manged to get 2 turns in over 4 days which is awful for me. I'll try to stay on top of things now that I'm back but with our time difference? Well, we'll see how it goes.

robthomasson wrote:
bigred wrote:

Any updates on the remaining matches?

WolverineJon vs. robthomasson - report score

Just finished the second game against WolverineJon. I squeaked a narrow 72-69 win after losing the first game by a landslide as previously posted.

Scores submitted.

Rob, nice games! I honestly had no idea game 2 was anywhere near as close as it was -- I thought you were way ahead. I'm not sure I bought anything costing more than 4 runes the entire game, and I wasn't slaying any big monsters, either. I distinctly remember thinking as we finished up earlier tonight how swingy Ascension can be -- I got lucky in that game 1 and was able to pick up a bunch of big Mechana constructs early, and then in game 2 I could never really buy anything, and I was going with pretty much the same strategy in both games -- only to be surprised by that close final score.

Nicely played, though, you absolutely deserved the win in game 2! Looks like we were the only ones to split our games in this round (pending the last match or two finishing up)?

oilypenguin wrote:

It impacted it quite a bit. I think I only manged to get 2 turns in over 4 days which is awful for me. I'll try to stay on top of things now that I'm back but with our time difference? Well, we'll see how it goes.

I'll be on 6 hours from whatever this post is stamped, as that will be when my night shift finishes. Failing that, 6-7 hours after that, pretty consistently through my 'day', so let me know how that works for you.

WolverineJon wrote:

Rob, nice games! I honestly had no idea game 2 was anywhere near as close as it was -- I thought you were way ahead.

Yes, thanks Jon - I enjoyed those games. The play was much tighter for both of us in the second game and I wasn't sure about winning so was very happy to see the final scores. I'd slipped up a few turns before the end on how to use a Fanatic to prevent a construct being destroyed which would have given me Avatar of Aiyana just early enough to have maybe used it so I was kicking myself. Then I got a great boost by snagging Nemesis to get three Minotaurs out of the void. Good that we were able to finish in "real time".

Oily and I just finished up our second game, and it was a nail biter, right up to the last hand played.

I squeaked by 88 to 85... It was worth staying up past midnight, glad we collided on a temporal level OP!

If ever you want to keep it going on a more casual level, just shoot me an invite. I've got all the cards, so please feel free to set the arena (same applies to all really).

Next round! Only one more round after this so make it count!

Chumpy_McChump has a very healthy lead in first but Apollo (currently in third) has the chance to close the gap if he can defeat chumpy twice this week. Sir
joekcb and LeapingGnome aren't far behind and look to secure wins for a final, 8th round push for first.

The battle to avoid last heats up as Ranger Rick battles TheWalt.

7th Round

Chumpy_McChump vs. Apollo0507 - report score
LeapingGnome vs. Demonbox - report score
Ranger Rick vs. TheWalt - report score
Clarkatello vs. m0nk3yboy - report score
shoptroll vs. mudbunny - report score
sirjoekcb vs. WolverineJon - report score
cyrax vs. Bigred - report score
Justin Fletcher vs. Heartly7 - report score
Pacman vs. thejustinbot - report score
robthomasson vs. oilypenguin - report score
il dottore vs. Dixie_Flatline - report score

Sirjoe and I are in the last turn (literally; I just pushed it to his final turn) in our game two; I don't know if that will affect the pairings or not.

Sorry bout the confusion.

EDIT: We just finished, and he walloped me.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Sirjoe and I are in the last turn (literally; I just pushed it to his final turn) in our game two; I don't know if that will affect the pairings or not.

Sorry bout the confusion.

EDIT: We just finished, and he walloped me. :)

I don't think this affected round 7 but each round's match assignment is determined by ranking and who you have already played. Therefore, editing a previous round's score after the fact can technically hurt the tournament. I may have to rethink how scores are entered for the next tournament.

Yeah, unless the tiebreaker is used for pairing this shouldn't have affected anything since Chumpy and I have already played each other.

I think that the procedure we've been using to report scores should work as long as scores are only entered at the end of the match, NOT after each game.

Also, sorry for the slow games. My turnaround has been spotty for the last couple weeks, so I'll try to stay on top of it better in the future.