RTN Card Merchant Hamilton was the second competitive tournament that my daughter and I have taken part in. This one was bigger than the Store Champions Qualifier that we took part in last year.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

We really got back into the swing of things this week. We got to 2 armories and had our highest value card pull so far! Check out the Cardboard section for that.

Also we had a really successful armory so read about that below as well.

News

I think that LSS are having an extended festive break as there’s not been much news. There has been an announcement about how you receive any monetary prizes but let’s be honest I’m not going to be winning any of those anytime soon. But my daughter…..

Emptying The Wallet

There was a question on Reddit asking how people sort their cards. I noticed someone had these coloured dividers. Until now I’ve been using coloured paper which is floppy and not that secure. I was pointed to Ultimate Guard Flex Card Dividers and bought 6 packs of 10 from Goblin Games for $43.94.

On the event entry side of things we had $15x2 for Card Merchant Hamilton Armory and $6x2 for Gateway Games Armory for a total of $42. Meaning we are $43.94 + $42 = $85.94 for the week.

Also $131.70 on a Pokemon deck, sleeves and event entry but that’s not part of a FAB Journey. Or at least the main path….

Armory

First up was Card Merchant Hamilton on Tuesday night. After 2 weeks of no armories who would I get matched up with first?

My daughter, back playing her Ira deck after playing Slippy towards the end of last year. She really enjoyed playing her main deck again and I predictably lost. I was made to go first and had no auras to setup so a bad start. I got behind on life and never could claw it back. Even when I could deliver 15 damage she was able to take it all and maintain momentum.

Next up I was against Ettie playing Fang. Ettie is someone that I have had several draws against and we very nearly ended up there again! I managed to land some big hits and also a Tear Asunder/Thump combo making Ettie discard 3 cards. In the end we got the time warning and I was able to get the win with the last turn of the game with me down to 2 life.

Finally I played Karl with his Bolton armory deck. It wasn’t until afterwards chatting that I realised it wasn’t a tuned deck. He’s only been playing a few weeks and has cards in the post to build his first proper deck. I was surprised when he threw all his armour in the way of my first big attack! It did allow him to stock up his soul though and go again wasn’t going to be a problem for the rest of the game. I had some bad all red and all aura hands which didn’t help matters and I ended the night 1-2.

On Friday night it was Gateway Games. First up it was Matt playing Arakni and things were going ok at first. A couple of rounds of Thump being boosted just the 1 point by The Suspense Is Killing Me. This is a suspense aura that I’ve added back in recently and these little pumps to activate Thump really showed it’s worth. I was all setup to destroy his Flick Knives with Colossal Bearing when an untimely banishment of the Blue card from my hand ruined everything. From there the disruption got to me and I lost the game.

Next up it was James with Gravy who I’ve faced a few times now. Turn 2 I had an Act Of Glory, Edge Of Their Seats and Tension In The Air all pop for +15. Unfortunately James had Chum on the board meaning that I had to attack his ally and not him directly. All that setup wasted. I did try to keep killing his allies with the aim of wearing him down but I wasn’t able to do it quickly enough and kept taking damage. He won with 31 life. Hammerings don’t get much bigger.

Finally I played the other James (who’s leaving party it was) with Prism. It became very apparent why people say that a necromancer is just a shadow illusionist. When you’re playing them Dead Threads does feel very much like Celestial Kimono. This was another game where I lost it a longtime before the game actually ended. We weren’t playing with time limits so I think I’d normally have got the draw. Early it looked ok as I quickly got him down to 22 but from then on he didn’t take any damage. I spent the whole time killing auras or heralds with him getting the occasional damage getting through. It’s that occasional damage which is why this game took soooo long.

I end the night 0-4. My daughter on the other hand won her first armory!!!! Yup that’s right she went 4-0 playing Ira. Hence why we might need to be setting her up for cash prizes way before I need to worry about it :)

Cardboard

At Card Merchant Hamilton we chose The Hunted for our packs as usual. We pulled a Blood Splattered Cloak but not just any Blood Splattered Cloak but an extended art cold foil version!

We already have a Rainbow Foil Blood Splattered Cloak that we traded for at the Rotorua Christmas Party. The question is do we upgrade and trade the RF or trade the CF?

The aim is to trade the new EA CF which on Collectr has a value of $183. We’re looking to getting (all None Foil):

* Mask Of Momentum $101

* Ancestral Empowerment $16x2=$32

* Tarantula Toxin $20x3=$60

* Kiss Of Death $18x3=$54

Clearly we can’t get all of those but some sort of combination of the above would be good.

The other packs didn’t yield anything else really of interest. There were a few extended art cards from the GEM packs but nothing more than a little bling for ordinary cards.

Meta Matters

I forgot to record the meta for Card Merchant Hamilton. There were only 7 of us and between my daughter and I, the heroes we remember are:

* Pleiades

* Ira

* Fang

* Bolton

* Teklovossen

* Rhinar

* Florian

So a very diverse meta and Karl on Bolton is planing on building a Dorinthea deck so more variety.

Gateway Games was 11 heroes across 12 decks:

* Pleiades

* Ira

* Gravey

* Arakni Marionet x2

* Osilio

* Fai

* Visserai

* Florian

* Puffin

* Prism

Across 17 decks that’s 15 different heroes with only Arakni Marionet and Florian doubling up. I still maintain that the meta at the local level at least, is in a great diverse place.

What’s Coming Up?

Next week we probably won’t be making any armories due to family commitments. However on Saturday it is our first RTN (Road To Nationals) at Card Merchant Hamilton and the following weekend on the Sunday we have RTN at Gateway Games.

At the end of the month it’s the big one!!! C*lling Taihape (which isn’t in Taihape but why let details get in the way of a good name?).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

Some times things just don’t go to plan. Family commitments got in the way of one armory, we then forgot something meaning we couldn’t make another armory and finally another armory wasn’t on due to the public holiday.

Will I even know what to do when we get to an armory? With Road To Nationals coming up we are seriously lacking in play time. I’m not that fussed about the Road To Nationals side of things though as I play for the community not so much the competitive side of things. However it would be nice to do well and pick-up a cool prize…

It does mean that we are in for another rambling post rather than the structured News, Emptying The Wallet, Game Recap, Cardboard and Meta Matters. We will still have What’s Coming Up?

The Perfect Deck

Over on Reddit there was a post “Sage Decks / Unique Cards“ where the poster said that they hoped there weren’t unique cards in the new SAGE precon decks. They thought LSS would be being greedy if they included unique cards as it would be making existing players buy the decks just for those cards.

First up I think that we will see unique cards in the SAGE precon decks. It gives existing players a reason to buy the decks and LSS is a business trying to sell things. Also I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have cards introduced this way. If they are really important cards they’ll get a reprint in time.

The problem as I see it is that people want the “perfect deck'“ and don’t want to try and work with the cards they have. This is where I think things have changed massively from when I used to play Magic 30 years ago.

Back then there wasn’t a single card market (at least where I lived in the UK). So you had to trade for cards and find alternatives to the “perfect” card to play with until you could trade for what you wanted.

Now-a-days it seams that people don’t want to have that growth with their deck/card collection. The answer is to buy the cards that you want rather than trying out other cards until you get what you “need“.

If I was running the “perfect” or fully tuned Pleiades deck I would probably be running 3 Enlightened Strike and 3 Command and Conquer. In reality I have no EStrike cards and just the 1 CnC that I luckily pulled from a History Pack.

Limited Formats

I’m starting to understand why people like limited formats such as booster draft. Sure it’s a more expensive way to play as you’re having to buy packs every time you play a draft. However people are having to come up with solutions to not having the “perfect” cards for a deck.

Seeing cards played that wouldn’t be in Constructed as they aren’t seen as being the strongest option, I can see being refreshing and interesting. Trying to figure out how to get cards to play together that aren’t the prescribed combo and seeing what other players come up with I’m sure is surprising. Sure it will be in both a good and a bad way but at least it’s different.

Where I am, the only time that limited formats are played is for pre-release and the 2 weeks following a release. So it’s something that I have very limited experience of with 1 Crack, Shuffle, Play Skirmish and Super Slam Pre-release being the only events I’ve done so far. It’s increasingly becoming something that I’m looking forward to playing more of.

Ideas Bouncing Around In There

A couple of things that are bouncing around in my head are:

* The Largest UPF Game Ever Played

* Werewolf Hero

The Largest UPF Game Ever Played

UPF is designed to be played with 4 people but I’ve seen tables of 5 also play this game. So the question is how many people could you fit in 1 table?

If you did this I think that you would have to have more than 1 turn going round the table at the same time. This would mean that you’d need to have a strict time limit or fixed time duration for a turn.

When the turns met each other once players are eliminated how do you cope with that? I think that you would have to get rid of one of the turns so I need to figure out the mechanics of that.

Werewolf Hero

I’ve been catching up on my FAB lore and have read/listened to every story from 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. I’m working my way through 2023 at the moment.

From what I’ve learned so far I think that a Shadow Brute from Demonastery would be the best fit for a Werewolf Hero. Initially I had thought a Brute from the Savage Lands but I’ve changed my mind the more I learn.

At the moment I’m thinking the hero ability would be something along the lines of:

Human

* Attack and defence of cards you control are halved, rounded up.

Note this is not just the base but the total.

* At the beginning of your turn put a Moon counter on Human

* At the beginning of your end phase, if there are 3 Moon counters on this transform into a Werewolf

Werewolf

* Attack and defence of cards you control are doubled

* At the beginning of your end phase, transform back to Human

The challenge would be surviving to the 4th turn and being able to setup a combo to make the most of the double attack.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on my Werewolf hero idea.

What’s Coming Up?

Hopefully getting to some armories :)

Also I sent out a questionnaire asking people what their favourite card is and why. I’ll be having a look at the responses and seeing if there’s a link between hero played and favourite card.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

With this being Christmas week both Gateway Games and Gaming DNA’s armories were cancelled. We were too knackered on Tuesday to make the 3 hour round trip to Card Merchant Hamilton’s armory meaning a week with no armories. I think this is only the second time in the 21 weeks since we took up FAB that has happened.

Also being Christmas there’s not been much news. The only thing really has been the video showing us what you get for taking part in the Compendium Of Rathe World Premier in London. Looks great but I can’t afford to fly to London for it :(

Considering that my normal weekly update just doesn’t fit and I’ll be going on a more rambling path.

First up I hope that you had a good Christmas break and got to spend time with loved ones or whatever your tradition is for this time of year. Christmas isn’t something that we take very seriously. Sure we’ll have a couple of presents and a nice meal but it’s a low key affair in my family.

Before I do head off on my ramble I have found time to release my second Armory Guide To Aotearoa post. Gaming DNA in Hamilton is the store to get the treatment this time.

Looking back over the last 20 odd weeks that we’ve been playing FAB it’s been a winding journey with a few fun surprises along the way.

FAB Is Expensive

Starting out thinking that we’d have a game that we could play for practically free as we were given blitz decks at the Auckland Card Show. That illusion was quickly shattered but I still don’t think the game is as expensive as people say.

There’s this persistent comment that a competitive deck will cost you $1,000 and that’s USD not NZD. Sure if you want a ProTour level deck then they are going to be in that range. But to play at your local armory you don’t need anything like that level of deck. When Armory Deck Rhinar came out I played it straight out of the box at our local armory. I ended the night with 1 win and 2 losses and in those 2 losses my opponents were down to 1 and 4 life so they were close games.

Do I think you’ll be winning an armory with the basic deck? No but you can have fun playing it and you’ll be competitive in most games. The initial upgrades can be made for not much money or even donations from fellow players. Then you can build-up the deck over time.

It’s All About Community

I started playing FAB because it was a fun game but also so that my daughter and I had a hobby that we could do together. However the thing that’s really made this grow from a fun thing for us to do 1 evening a week is the community.

At our first armory people were very welcoming and suddenly we had a pile of cards being given to us. Sure they were nearly all bulk but the generosity was really appreciated as we had only just started the game and had no cards really.

Clearly I’ve put myself out there more that most people with this Substack/podcast/youtube channel or what ever this is. However early on when I posted about how much the game was costing we were donated deck boxes, sleeves, play mats, dice, counters, etc… It’s not just cards to help upgrade decks that people were willing to help out with.

We didn’t just get lucky with the Gateway Games/Tauranga crowd either. I remember turning up to a Blitz Skirmish at Card Merchant Hamilton with 2 Ira decks ready to play. Only to find out that Ira was LL in Blitz and we couldn’t use those decks. The people gathered around to give my daughter a deck and modify mine quickly so that we could still take part.

Then there’s the community organised events. Sure FAB is the premier organised competitive TCG however we’re learning that the community organised events are as much if not more fun. We had a great time at the Rotorua Christmas Party and we’re looking forward to the C*lling Taihape (which is in Rangataua this year, 50kms from Taihape).

On the welcoming side of things, I’ve found the playing community to be diverse. Sure it’s ~90% male however on other metrics I’d say it is diverse. I do love how C*lling Taihape is giving extra Kin Oath cards “for players identifying as a woman or part of the LGBTQIA+ community.“

Also at the Rotorua Christmas Party 5 out of the 20 players were female. Clearly not only is LSS looking to grow the inclusivity (with it’s Creator Grants this year) but the community (at least here in NZ) wants to be inclusive.

Is the community perfect? No there will always be personalities that rub each other up the wrong way. These though are tiny minority and this is a community that I’m proud to be part of.

What’s Coming Up?

We will be back to playing cards this coming week so normal service should resume for my weekly update.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to An Armory Guide To Aotearoa where I aim to visit and review every FAB armory in NZ.

Gaming DNA is at the northern end of central Hamilton, near FMG Stadium. If you’re staying in a hotel in the centre of town it’s walkable but a long walk. Chances are you’re going to be driving. There is some street parking and with a supermarket carpark just across the road, parking isn’t a problem.

On the food side of things, there’s the supermarket across the road. Relatively nearby there’s a couple of pubs, sushi and other places to eat along Victoria Street, you’re going to want to stop and eat there then drive the last bit rather than walk. You can even get food delivered from Last Place (they have a special Gaming DNA! menu).

On the drinks side of things they have a good range in their fridge in store and if they don’t have what you want there is the supermarket across the road.

Flint and Paul behind the counter are really helpful when you come in and will show you where the FAB table is. Whilst this was our first visit to Gaming DNA we knew a bunch of the community from when we’ve played at Card Merchant Hamilton. They are a welcoming and helpful crowd. The play style is at the casual end of the range even if I did go 0-3 on the night.

FAB is not the only game being played and it can get noisy. If you are sensitive to noise then don’t forget your earplugs.

I was really impressed with the range of deck boxes and we couldn’t resist picking up a couple. They also have a very good range of armory decks available.

Meeting a new group of people is daunting for many of us, Braiden and Michael are friendly faces to help welcome you into fold.

* Gaming DNA

* Level 1/550 Anglesea Street,

* Hamilton 3204

* Website

* When is the armory? Thursday 6:30pm

* What format? CC

* How much and prizes? $15 and everyone gets to choose 2 booster packs from a range of releases. GEM packs for the top 10 players

* Is food allowed and/or available? There’s the supermarket across the street and a range of eateries on the nearby Victoria Street. Delivery to the store and bringing food into the store is allowed

* Does the LGS sell drinks? Yes there’s a good range in the fridge

* What parking is there? On street parking and a big supermarket carpark across the road

* How many people turn up? There were 11 when we were there but 8 is normal

* What’s the game culture? Casual

* Are there casual games before/afterwards? Yes there are casual games before

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

It’s been really busy over the last couple of weeks so I have some catching up to do. Last time we talked, my daughter and I had been to the Auckland Card Market and bought a box of Welcome to Rathe. The intention was to do a box opening video, things got busy so we did a quick opening. We didn’t get anything interesting so decided not to bother posting it. I won’t be buying old boxes for opening in the future.

Since last time we have been to 5 armories (4 different ones) and a FAB Christmas party. For the full story on the Christmas Party check out my Armory Guide Special - Digital Natives Academy Christmas Party post. This is my first post for paid subscribers. I know I don’t have any paid subscribers yet but “if you build it they will come.“

On the news front, LSS talked about playing formats, banded some cards and made a cosplay update. Also Kano LLed in CC. I guess we can just say LLed now as there is no LL in Blitz anymore.

For cardboard we traded for some cards and also pulled some nice ones.

News

LSS said that they would talk about all the formats of Flesh and Blood and their future. It’s good to get this insight and I think much needed. I did my own post looking at all the formats recently. The difference being that I talked about all the formats, where as LSS showed that they don’t care about their multi player format, Ultimate Pit Fight. That’s right UPF wasn’t even mentioned, neither was Shapeshifter but that’s less surprising. They released Smash Palace this year but still seam to have forgotten that multiplayer exists.

On the other formats there was the announcement that Blitz and LL will get annual outings of some sort. That CC is the main format and that they are putting a lot of effort into SAGE. Sealed formats will be back after Compendium Of Rathe.

I really think that they don’t understand what LL should be. They tried to make it a mass participation format and failed. So they have put it on the back burner for now. They said that at Worlds the top players really did it justice and seam perplexed that people weren’t turning up to play it at LGSs. The obvious answer is that LL is an elite experienced player format, so why not keep it as that?

LSS banded some cards to deliberately shakeup the meta. Cindra, Gravy, Florian and Verdance all took hits. Also they preemptively hit Arakni, Marionette as well with the other Araknis getting caught in the cross fire. They did say that cards will likely make a return and this was a shake up of a good meta, rather than fixing imbalances.

Kano LLed which was expected and those of us that get mixed up between Kano and Kayo had to read it a couple of times to make sure we knew what was going on.

Finally there were changes to the Cosplay competitions to be honest though I don’t understand the changes and I’m not prepared to spend the time to figure it out.

Emptying The Wallet

Armory Deck: Arakni came out on the 12th of December so I had to get that ($59.90). Yes I know that my Armory Deck League hasn’t really got going but I do have the decks… Just need to get my daughter to play the games with me and write up the posts…

As we picked up some nice equipment cards I bought 3 Ultra Pro Mini Snap cases ($2x3) to keep them in good condition. More on those cards in the Cardboard section….

For events we have Gateway Games armory ($6x2), Card Merchant Hamilton armory twice ($15x4), Gaming DNA armory ($15x2), DNA armory (free) and DNA Christmas Party ($20entry+$20secret Santa x2). For a total of $182 for events and a $247.90 for the fortnight. I’m glad I started this free game to spend time with my daughter…

Armory

Let’s be honest with 5 armories and Christmas party these are a bit hazy. I do have notes somewhere but in the interest of getting this published before it becomes a monthly update...

Using the info I have from GEM, the first armory was Card Merchant Hamilton back on the 9th of December. Draw, Win, Draw was my record that evening playing CC. I didn’t lose!!! But the draws also mean I didn’t rank that highly. From memory Braiden ranked above me with a Loss, Win, Draw which I think is really unfair… I did drop a 23 hit attack on a new player which probably wasn’t the nicest intro to the game…

At DNA (Digital Natives Academy) armory on Friday night we played UPF. Somehow I got into the final. I didn’t win my table (my daughter won and made it to the final) but I think as I was the visiting they let my daughter and I play 2 games. I came second in the final and got Gem Pack 1, 2 & 3. GEM doesn’t handle UPF well, it registered me as having a double loss and a loss (look above for the lack of love from LSS for UPF).

On to the Christmas party on Saturday and I got knocked out in round 1 but my daughter made it into the final (after a game that lasted more than an hour). Check out my Armory Guide Special for all the details. It was great fun playing UPF but you don’t get as many games in as 1v1.

Back to Card Merchant Hamilton on Tuesday night and I racked up a Loss, Draw and a bye. So kind of got a win in there. That event btw is still active on GEM…

Thursday night was Gaming DNA also in Hamilton where I racked up a Win, Loss and Loss. This was the first time I’d played Hunter and I dropped a 24 hit attack in turn 2. She did ask how often this was going to happen. That’s my biggest hit yet and I couldn’t repeat it but I did manage to get the win.

Finally it was to Gateway Games the following night where I racked up a Loss, Loss, Bye and Win. The win was against a new player. Anton does play Magic so knows TCGs but is new to FAB. Let’s be honest even though he was playing a borrowed tuned Ira deck, it is one that I should win.

Overall there were a lot of close games that I lost. I feel that I’m moving forward again after a week where it felt I was playing worse not better the more I played. There have been some changes to my Pleiades deck and there is still some more tweaking to do but I’m happier with how it’s playing.

Cardboard

There are some bits that you just can’t skip over. As you’ll see in the video above I pulled a CF Kunai of Retribution. Unfortunately it was the GEM002-CF version not GEM003-CF version so it wasn’t worth $40. Still Jesse did need it for his folder so we traded it to him.

The Rampart Of The Ram’s Head has not been traded and is safely in a mini snap and seeing use in my Pleiades deck.

My daughter has decided to play Slippy as her second deck. When the opportunity to trade for a Blood Splattered Vest and Flick Knives came up at the Christmas party I took it. You can probably guess that this is where the other 2 mini snaps went. It did mean giving up my CF Cerebellum Processor and extended art cards from my Pleiades deck. He was looking to bling up his wife’s new Pleiades deck.

Also we got picked up a Go Bananas, Squizzy & Floof, Christmas Cracked Bauble and a sealed The Hunted pre-release pack which has foil tokens in it.

I can’t remember there being anything of significance coming from the decks we got for armory entries.

Meta Matters

At the top end there’s been a shake up in the meta. Kano has been banned in CC and the card bans have seen Kassi rising up the rankings.

At armory level though there’s not really been any change. The only time I remember seeing Kano was in UPF where he went on to win the whole thing.

As far as the bans changing things for Cindra, Gravy, Florian and Verdance? Well those players are still playing those heroes.

I’ll aim to get back into more detail around the local meta after Christmas.

What’s Coming Up?

No armories for a week! Yup Christmas has got in the way and the only armory that we could have made we were too knackered for.

Hopefully with the Christmas break in my 2 part-time jobs, I’ll have time to catchup with an armory guide or 2.

Finally what did you get for Christmas? Anything better than a pair of socks?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

I’m so late with this post, will my memory of last week hold up? We did a couple of different things last week as well as getting to our local armory.

My barber friend Levi had bought a box of Super Slam in the Black Friday sales so we recorded a box opening. My daughter and I popped along to Gateway Games for our local armory on Friday night and then on Saturday headed up to Auckland for the Card Market.

The Card Market was a bit like a heading back to the beginning in someways. We discovered FAB at the Auckland Card Show which we were at because my daughter collects Pokemon cards. The Card Market is organised by the same people and again we were there primarily for my daughter to look at Pokemon cards. However there was 1 FAB dealer there and I’ll talk about that in the emptying the wallet section.

News

There wasn’t really anything in the news last week. We’ve already had some juicy news this week but I should save that for next week’s post.

Emptying The Wallet

I wasn’t expecting much if any FAB at the Card Market. However we did take our cards up just in case. There was no playing of TCGs at all, it was all about collecting. As I mentioned above there was 1 person there buying and selling FAB cards. He had a folder of $1 majestic cards. I had to have a look through and there was nothing in there that either my daughter or I would play. However there was a Hala mentor card. The art work is lovely and of cause they are releasing her as a Hero next year. So I thought for a $1 it would be a nice card to have. I’ve not seen a mentor card before and as we hardly ever play blitz it’s not surprising that I haven’t seen one played. I don’t expect to ever play the card but it’s just nice to have one in the collection.

He went through our trade folder which no one has been interested in these cards at our local armories. There really isn’t that much trading that goes on from looking through folders. Normally people ask for specific cards in the chat group to do trades.

He took out a pile and some we decided to keep but in the end we got $68, so not a kings ransom. I did notice that he had some Welcome to Rathe boxes for sale at $140. We went for a walk around the rest of the show and decided that it would be fun to open a box of the original cards. Also maybe we’d pull a Spring Tunic or Ancestral Empowerment or Enlightening strike cards that we would like for our decks…

Look out for the box opening video of this box to see what we get.

What I have learnt since though is that back in the day the drop rate of legendary cards was 1 per 4 boxes. So people would buy a set of 4 boxes, if the first box they opened contained a legendary card. Then they would look at selling the other 3 as they believe there won’t be a legendary in them. So maybe we have bought a box that’s less likely to contain a legendary card. We’ll just have to wait and see.

For we week we were $140 for the box +$1 for Hala -$68 in sales +$12 Armory entry for a total of $85.

Armory - Gateway Games

We were an odd number again this week meaning byes were back in action. I was playing my main deck Pleiades so big hits were the order of the day.

First up I was against Slippy piloted by Fletcher. I started well but then got stuck with 3 all blue hands and 2 all Red hands that really stalled my progress. I did manage to wrestle back momentum with a big turn using Thump and Pummel to remove cards from his hand. However I couldn’t do anything with my hand the following turn so all was lost.

Then I played Qi Wei with Florian and this is one that I was always going to lose. An experienced player with a fully tuned deck….

I then got my sole win of the night via the bye and was paired with my daughter for round 4 but we were tired so bowed out and recorded it as a draw.

Cardboard

We got nothing really from the packs and I’ve talked about the card I bought earlier.

Meta Matters

The Gateway Games was back to being a fully diverse Meta with 11 decks and 11 heroes.

* Gravy

* Ira

* Verdance

* Prism

* Pleiades

* Arakni, 5L!p3d 7hRu 7h3 cR4X

* Arakni, Marionette

* Lyath

* Florian

* Osilio

* Kayo

Puffin and Vynnset bowed out from last week as well as 2 Ira decks. Lyath and Florian replaced the Ira decks. Returning players brought the 2 Arakni decks, Osilio and Kayo. A really diverse meta and I think the meta is in a really good place.

What’s Coming Up?

Next weekend we are heading down to Rotorua for their Christmas party. Bad Christmas jumpers have been bought as have secret santas.

Also I have a box of Welcome to Rathe to open…..

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

It’s been a busy playing week for us. We made it to 3 armories this week. I know that I said that the armories in Hamilton weren’t going to be regular and are more treat armories but we got to both of them again.

This week I also got my haircut. Stay with me, there is a Flesh and Blood connection. As all barbers do, he asked me what had I been up to? And I responded that I’d started playing a card game called Flesh and Blood. He said he knew of it and we chatted Magic and cards as I got my haircut.

His brother had given him a bunch of Flesh and Blood cards but he didn’t know anything really about them. After my haircut he popped into the house and brought back 3 boxes of cards. I started going through them and there were commons and rares, nothing special. Then there was a Heart of Fyendal, Scabskin Leathers & Tectonic Plating….

When I told the Tauranga crowd no-one believed me so I rang Levi up and went round to take photos.

He’d been diving in to see what the cards were worth and had watched streamed game. I’m going to have to get him down to the local armory….

News

This week it’s all looking forward to next year and the prizes that will be available for Road To Nationals and ProQuest Las Vegas.

Definitely need to try for those In The Palm Of Your Hand cards as part of Road to Nationals.

Those Bittering Thorns cards will look good in my daughters Ira deck from the ProQuest. So I guess that’s us signed up for these events next year….

Emptying The Wallet

Last week I ended up spending quite a bit so I had to have a much more sensible week this week. Luckily we aren’t counting petrol or drinks…..

This week it was only entries for events so $15 each at both Card Merchant Hamilton and Gaming DNA and $6 each at Gateway Games. That’s a total of $72 and we got 10 booster packs and 6 GEM packs for that.

Armory - Card Merchant Hamilton

I’m already a couple of days late with this post so it’s going to be a bit of a whistle stop tour of the games I played. First up was Card Merchant Hamilton which was a Blitz armory due to the Skirmish happening on the weekend. I thought about trying to build a Tuffnut deck but in the end did the sensible thing and cut down my Pleiades CC deck.

A draw against Arakni was not what I was expecting first up but this wasn’t the first time that Ettie and I have drawn a game.

I them faced Jesse playing Data Doll. There was so much stuff going on in this game. There were boom grenade threats and I did survive 2 rounds to make them runout of steam. But I couldn’t block everything in the end and I was mainly left swinging with my hammer. I did manage a 12 attack with Colossal Bearing but that needs to get to 13 for it’s on hit to activate. I did lose it in the end but I did have him worried at times.

In the final round I managed to beat Andrew playing Oscilio. A couple of big hits was what it took as he couldn’t block well.

Armory - Gaming DNA

Gaming DNA was back to CC. Finally a game with Ettie that didn’t and in a draw! Verdance this time and I did manage to get big hits in to reduce their life to 2. But that just rose back up to 11 by the end! I only got attacked once during the game which meant that I didn’t get to use my armour. I really should have gone for more arcane block, especially the feet.

Prism against Nick is always a tough game. I got lucky and was close the first time we met but since then it’s been 1 way traffic. As you can see below there’s a silly number of cards in play. I did make a mistake early on, I mentally gave up at that time and just went through the motions after that not that it would have made any difference to the result.

Finally was a fun race against Dexter playing Rhinar. This one was close and it was pointed out to me afterwards that I should have used card to block and saved my armour. Armour can’t be intimidated or dominated you see. I did get some good hits in with Crush Confidence and Thump but it wasn’t enough and it finished 0-3.

Armory - Gateway Games

I started off with a bye as we had 9 players this week in the least diverse meta I’ve played.

Round 2 and my first game was against ET playing Verdance. I got into the rhythm of things and was able to swing big repeatedly. I got good disruption from A Good Clean Fight, C&C and Thump that slowed his game plan down. You might not think of A Good Clean Fight as a disruptive card but it stops Decompose in this matchup. I threw enough damage at him that I got the win!

In round 3 I was up against Kayo and we both were swinging big hits. Blood Rush got him the tempo and I lost this one. It was setting late so we dipped out of the last round so I don’t know if Declan won his first Armory or not.

Cardboard

I was very lucky to be gifted a play set of Cries of Encore when we arrived at Gaming DNA. This is a card that I’ve known I need for my Pleiades deck and will help make it less clunky at times.

We chose to get 4 History Pack 1 boosters as our entry for Gaming DNA hoping to get Ancestral Empowerment for my daughter’s Ira deck. We didn’t get that but we did get a Command and Conquer that went straight into my Pleiades deck.

We didn’t get anything else of significance from total of 10 boosters and 6 Gem packs we opened over the week.

Meta Matters

Having attended 3 armories this week there are 3 locals Metas to go through. First up the Blitz Meta from Card Merchant Hamilton where we had 7 heroes across 8 decks:

* Pleiades

* Data Doll

* Arakni

* Oscilio

* Arura

* Kayo x2

* Florian

With Blitz leaving I’m not sure that there’s much to say about this one to be honest.

Back to CC at Gaming DNA where we had 11 decks and 10 heroes (just like last week):

* Pleiades

* Ira

* Prism

* Jarl

* Cindra

* Verdance

* Rhinar x2

* Max

* Kassai

* Gravy

From last week we lost Oscilio, Bolton and Puffin gaining Max, Kassai and Gravy. Great to see non-meta heroes like Max getting a run out. A shame that I didn’t get to play him though.

The Gateway Games meta was the least diverse I’ve seen it!!! 6 heroes across 9 decks.

* Ira x4

* Florian

* Verdance

* Arakni

* Pleiades

* Kayo

We lost Gravy, Vynnset, Prism and Puffin. Florian, Kayo, Arakni and an Ira came in. Actually 2 Iras came in as one of the Ira players from last week changed to Florian. It can’t even be explained by new players using the armory deck. These are all experienced players just being silly.

What’s Coming Up?

I keep saying that there will be Armory Deck League posts and then not delivering. I don’t think that there will be one this week.

My barber friend has bought a box of Super Slam and asked if I would like to do an unboxing video. So that’s a maybe.

I really need to put the video together for the Armory Guide for Gaming DNA. The post is already written I “just” need to record and edit the video. I know that there’s normally no evidence of editing but for the Armory Guides I‘m trying….

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to An Armory Guide To Aotearoa where I aim to visit and review every FAB armory in NZ.

Gateway Games is my LGS and the armory that I get to most weeks. If you follow A FAB Journey you might have already read about my first experience down there.

Gateway Games is located in Bethlehem which is technically on the western side of the Tauranga but is the northern approach to the city. Yes Tauranga is a geographically confusing place but we aren’t here to review the town planning (or lack of it). All you need to know is that it’s not in Tauranga town centre so if you’re visiting you will need a car to get to the store, it’s not going to be walking distance.

Access and parking are really easy as Gateway Games is in an outdoor shopping centre. Normally I can park right outside the door. This also means it’s opposite fish & chips, noodles, sushi, Dominos and Tank. Grabbing a bite to eat on the way in easy and you are allowed to take food into the store but food rubbish is to be gotten rid of outside.

You’re now fed but maybe not watered but don’t worry there’s a fridge of drinks available in store.

The community here is very welcoming and will hold the hand of a new player as they take their first wobbly steps on their FAB journey. I would classify the play as Friendly Competitive, the reason being that people are normally happy for you to take a card back if you’ve mistakenly played it. However people are trying and do want to win, they aren’t here just to play the game and chat. I normally go 1 win and 2 or 3 losses depending on how many rounds we have.

You’re not going to be rubbing shoulders with Calling top 8s or nationals champions but you are going to get a good standard play with friendly people.

Meeting a new group of people is daunting for many of us Roydon and ET are friendly faces to help welcome you into fold.

* Gateway Games

* Shop G9Bethlehem Town Center,19 Bethlehem roadBethlehemTauranga 3110

* Website

* When is the armory? Friday 6:30pm

* What format? CC

* How much and prizes? $6 and everyone gets a booster. GEM packs depend on number of players

* Is food allowed and/or available? Allowed but not sold. Sushi, Pizza and other outlets in the shopping centre

* Does the LGS sell drinks? Yes there’s a drinks fridge

* What parking is there? Plenty of parking just outside the door as it’s in a shopping centre

* How many people turn up? Up to 12

* What’s the game culture? Friendly Competitive

* Are there casual games before/afterwards? Normally there’s people hanging out from about 6 but normally not games

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe

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.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afabjourney.substack.com/subscribe