The air hummed with energy and the roars of the crowd. The massive stadium, packed to the brim with people from all over the city, the country, even the entire north, were united in their excitement as the announcer finished introducing the combatants. Across a massive empty field easily larger than a village, the two fighters stared each other down with careful, analyzing eyes. While both were dressed modestly, wearing comfortable leather, fur, comfortable fabric, and each sporting a gemstone mounted on a wristband, only one had a shining belt around their waist.
“Now the moment has finally come ladies and gentlemen!” came the booming voice of the announcer, magically enhanced so that all could hear him. “Let the final match of the tournament, BEGIN!”
The sound of a bell clanged, overshadowing the cheers and screams.
The crystals on both of the contestant’s wrists thrummed with energy at the same time, marking their wielders with a glow. From the crystal, six projections appeared, visible only to their user. The two contestants reached out and grabbed a card, before throwing it onto the field. Instantly, the terrain changed from barren into a forest on one side, and a graveyard on the other. Each side then threw two more cards into the field, though without any visible effect.
“And so, we begin!” the announcer called out in excitement. “Our reigning champion has chosen the Sentinel Graveyard field ladies and gentlemen, which means we’ll be seeing the undefeated undead after a long break! He must be taking this one seriously! And our challenger has pulled out, yes, yes, it’s the Glenwood Forest field! Will we finally get to see her full strategy?”
“Both players have placed their first trap cards,” the announcer continued, “and here come the first monsters!”
An ethereal card landed in the graveyard, causing the palos to shake as skeletal hands shifted the dirt away to reveal undead skeletons. On the other side in the forest, small green figures emerged from the undergrowth. Neither had weapons in their hands.
“Oh ho!” the announcer screamed. “What’s this? Skeletons verses goblins, my gods and goddesses’ ladies and gentlemen, we have two horde decks! It’s swarm against swarm, neither side holding the innate advantage today! I’m losing my mind here, what an epic start for a match that will surely go down in history. The coin toss is away…”
At the boundary between the forest and the graveyard, an illusionary coin appeared, one side a skull and the other a goblin head. It shimmered and rose in the air, and then landed. The skull leered up from the ground.
“And the first move goes to our champion!” the announcer called out. “He gets double draw and first action, while our challenger will start with double card play. How will she use this to her advantage?”
A third and fourth card appeared alongside the unused two in front of the champion, who considered his options. He flicked a card into the graveyard alongside a hand motion. More dirt was disturbed as bodyless arms appeared with the skeletons, before the two groups got to work.
“The champion has chosen to summon the rare support monster, helping hands, and has ordered his monsters to begin resource gathering!” The announcer said. “He must be expecting a drawn-out fight then. The hands will improve gathering and building speed by 25%, but can’t contribute to combat easily.”
On the other side of the field, the challenger gained a third card and quickly threw two into the field. Instantly, a small and strange sapling appeared at the center of the forest, followed by a sudden growth the changed the sapling into a regular sized tree. The goblins appeared around it and began to worship it automatically.
“What’s this?” the announcer gasped. “Can it be? A super rare combo! Our challenger has not only summoned the elusive tree of origins, but also applied the spell ‘Ages Pass’ to it, resulting in an instant skip to the tree’s second phase! Without wasting an action, her goblins are now worshiping the tree and will gain bonuses the longer they worship it! Both sides have chosen to accumulate strength while using horde decks, unbelievable! It’s a race against time now as both sides share turns now, what will we see next!”
Both players gained a new card, threw a card into the field, and gave an order to their monsters. In the graveyard, pits of bones appeared to radiated visible decay, while in the forest huts appeared around the tree. The undead began building what appeared to be armories, while the goblins continued to worship. As the turn ended, new goblins and skeletons appeared from their new spawn locations and joined their brethren.
The following turn is when things picked up. Skeletons clad in makeshift armor and broken weapons began entering the forest, while goblins armed with slings and nets moved to take up defensive positions in the trees. The two sides clashed for a bit before the goblins retreated. The skeletons attempted to follow, only to be suddenly accosted upon by giant teeth-mawed flowers with tentacles that pulled the undead into its mouth.
“ANDDD there we go have it folks!” the announcer yelled out. “The first trap of the game has been revealed, the carnivorous flower monster, Stink Maw! While it can’t move and is easily detected from its bad odor, it’s the perfect counter to the undead since it can finish them off without invoking the undead’s natural instant respawn characteristic and they can’t smell it! With both sides having placed their spawns down, things will slowly ramp up from here folk!”
The announcer was right. Despite the counter having stopped the first assault, the champion’s expression didn’t change as he summoned new undead, zombies, to begin assaulting the flowers while ordering the other minions to begin an undead empowering ritual. On the other side, the forest gained a divine totem representing Yule, goddess of the forest, and a lesser fey species called twiggets that improved worship effects when wielded. Above the tree, a 2-turn timer suddenly appeared.
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“Uh oh,” the announcer said. “It appears our challenger is only two turns away from reaching phase 3 in their tree of beginnings. That will automatically improve the rank of all her starter monsters by one, and inch ever closer to that legendary phase 4, where all monsters will improve a rank every other turn. Our champion will need to- MY GODS DO YOU SEE THAT?”
The announcer roared out the last bit of his commentary at the sight of the champion summoning ghosts, before activating one of the hidden trap cards. At the center of graveyard, an ominous triangular altar appeared, with each point holding the image of a skeleton, a zombie, and a ghost. Black smoke appeared at the center, instantly causing the forest to wilt and weaken. A 10-turn countdown appeared above the altar.
“There it is folks, there it is!” the announcer screamed his head off in excitement. “The champions legendary card, the altar of life decay! Only activatable when the three started undead that represent the death of body, mind, and soul are in play, it casts a huge debuff on all living creatures and fields while beginning the countdown for the legendary rank 4 True Undead! Once a certain number of monster die, the countdown will accelerate too! We’ve only seen this a few times ladies and gentlemen, since most surrender once the altar is in play! Our champion’s luck this game is amazing to have gotten everything he needed so quickly, and that his opponent didn’t swarm him early and reveal only a single counter! The challenger is in trouble now!”
Despite the stated danger, the challenger did not appear to be ready to surrender. Instead, she calmly drew a new card and activated it. The altar to Yule glowed, and instantly three new cards appeared from the crystal. The goblins and twiggets continued to worship, even as the stink maw began to struggle against the zombie attack. As the next turn began, the challenger didn’t hesitate to summon another basic race of dirt fey as the tree of beginnings began to glow and grow. As the tree entered its fourth phase, the goblins evolved into hobgoblins, the twiggets turned into lesser treants, and the dirt fey changed into earth pixies. Three tier 9 basic monsters had become tier 8, tier 7, and tier 8 respectively; a truly massive change that normally would heavily impact the game. Instead, it only seemed to restore the balance as the lesser treants joined the fight against the zombies while the hob goblins and now earth pixies joined in worship.
On the other side, the champion summoned a new minion monster, ghasts, to push the attack with the zombies and ghosts. The ethereal undead were much harder to deal with in the forest, even with the lesser treants adding their aid due to their resistance to physical attacks. The altar counted down to 9, then 8 as the number of dead hit the threshold. In the skeleton pits, new skeletons arose to replace the slain undead and joined in work at the workshop improving the grimy weapons and shoddy armor. As the turn ended, a flash came over the skeletons as the workshop finally was complete, and they all ranked up to tier 8 armored skeletons.
“Both sides have achieved rank up!” The announcer said over the roar of the crowd. “While our challenger managed to reach phase 3 with their tree of beginnings, the champion completed the workshop meaning all skeletons will become tier 8 armored skeletons, even the ones respawning in the pits! Without wasting an action or card to upgrade his zombies or other monster, now dying will only make his army stronger! However, will the champion be able to overwhelm the challenger before the tree reaches phase 4?”
The champion opened the next turn with terrain object, undead totems, to boost the fighting power of the undead before ordering the skeletons to join in on the assault. Now, four types of undead entered the forest to fight and quickly overpowering the defenders. The challenger summoned another support unit, some tier 9 leaf spirits, to tend to the tree while activating one of the hidden cards in the forest. Giant, bulbous mushrooms grew up from the forest floor, blue and white specimens of oddly angle less fungi that blocked the path of the undead. Soulless eyes attacked the shrooms, only for their attacks to be bounced off violently.
“The champion has finally begun his horde swarm assault on the forest of the challenger!” the announcer cried out. “The endless and relentless undead are pushing their way through the lesser treants and stink maws, forcing the challenger to activate their bounce shrooms to repel the assault. Another stationary defense, bounce shrooms can only counter attacks and resist damage without taking initiative of their own folks. They’ll only slow down the undead, is the challenger being backed into a corner?”
The countdown in the graveyard continued to decrease, now reaching 5 turns. The champions played another buff effect, and the challenger summoned another defensive unit, this time thorny hedgehogs. The undead were slowed again, but continued to make their way toward the tree. The tree of beginnings continued to grow, but it was clear it would not be possible to reach phase 4 before the undead reached it. The altar turned down to 4, then 3, then 2 turns remaining.
“We are reaching the end ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer screamed, practically frothing at the mouth. “The altar is almost reached its end, and the tree is not close enough to change the tide of battle. Is this the end of our challenger, who worked so hard to get here? I- DEAR LORDS BELOW I DON’T BELIEVE IT!”
As the turn ended with both sides continued their strategies, as the turn counter dropped to 1, the undead altar was smashed into the sky as roots suddenly exploded out of the ground of the graveyard. Hobgoblins poured out with the roots, invading the graveyard and commencing with destroying all the skeletons pits. The champions desperately played a new zombie type, but was unable to stem to loss.
“I DON’T BELIEVE IT, I DON’T BELIEVE, AND YET, I SEE IT HERE FOLKS WITH MY OWN EYES!” the announcer screamed crazily. “Yes, I’m getting confirmations from the refs now. Earlier, the challenger threw a status card into the field, ‘Growth Focus’, which caused all plant life to cease growing upwards and instead grow their roots. A common farm card spell, while ensuring the tree of beginnings would never reach phase 4, instead allowed the challenger’s army to reach the champion’s base from underground! The judges are conferring now over this unprecedented play, and, IT’S GOOD! The challenger’s play has been accepted within the rules of the game as they are, though some discussion will occur it seems over modifying the rules for future games.”
“And with the fall of the altar and the loss of the spawn pits, the champion, yes, THE CHAMPION IS SIGNALING SURRENDER FOLKS! THAT’S IT, THE GAME IS DONE! AT 2 WINS AND ONE LOSS IN THE BEST OF THREE, THE CHALLENGER IS THE WINNER! I REPEAT, WE HAVE A NEW CHAMPION!”
The stadium roared in excitement, hands clapping and feet stomping, as the field once again became barren and clear. The two contestants met in the middle and shook hands, both crystals glowing softly now on their wrists. The former champion handed over the belt, to which the new champion took and raised over her head in victory. The audience cheered again.
“AND that’s it folks!” the announcer cried out. “The fifth annual Card Core tournament is complete! We will have the interview with the new champion in a moment, and then see you all at the next in 5 years! I’m your announcer, Clyde Von Hootin, and this has been the Card Core Finals hosted here in the grand stadium of Labyrinth City, capital of Bosrol! May everyone enjoy the rest of the day!”