VICTORY!
Exp gained: 32
Coins gained: 57
Card(s) gained: None
Additional reward(s): Common card pick, Uncommon card pick, Rare card pick.
Claim
Before claiming my rewards I decided to move from my current location. The battle had been going on longer than I would have expected and I was afraid it would have drawn unwanted attention. I decided to take a five-minute walk to the right of the battle. After what seemed like a decent distance I found a nice tree to perch in and claim my hard-fought rewards.
The amount of earned experience made me chuckle. With that one fight, I had almost recovered all the experience I had used yesterday to upgrade all my uncommon cards. For a moment I thought about upgrading all my common skeletons but with the prospect of a rare card, I decided to put that idea on hold for now.
I still had no idea what I could use these coins on or for but I had racked up one hundred and seventy-nine of them. The mention shop flashed through my mind but I had no idea if this zone even had a store or how I would go about to enter it.
Putting those thoughts aside for now I finally claimed my rewards. Six cards floated in the air in front of me. They were all common goblin cards. Having no real use for them since I already had another six in my storage, I just picked the one with the best-looking art on it. It was a menacing-looking goblin with a jagged dagger.
Having picked it from the air, the other five cards vanished and were replaced by a new set of four floating cards. The two on the left were goblin shankers and the two on the left were two goblin bodyguards. The bodyguards had both the Bodyguard and Defender tag which further increased my suspicion and the one without the Defender tag was an upgraded version. My suspicion was confirmed when I inspected the shankers and saw they had only two points of health instead of the three points when the witch doctor had played them.
My bloated zombie had shown the power of poison against high health creatures especially if that was combined with Armour. On the other hand, the bodyguard was a decent choice early when the field was wide open and I couldn´t predict where my opponent would play their cards. I could spend an upgrade to remove the Defender tag and have it also act as an attacker. After some consideration, I picked one of the shanker cards.
The other three cards vanished and two new cards appeared. Each card was accompanied by a soft blue glow. On the left was the witch doctor card and on the right was the charger. That confirmed that card pick rewards would be from the set of cards my opponent had used against me just like when I could pick a card from my fight with the mummy.
The choice was an interesting dilemma. The charger was a solid card on its own while the witch doctor was only as good as the creature in front of it. Realistically, I only had three cards that would benefit from a healer behind them. Those being the commander, the bloated zombie, and the tomb guardian. Looking at it in that light made me pick the armoured orc charger. It would be a better card in more situations than a healer would be.
With another set of greenskin cards added to my growing card collection, I was starting to wonder if I should switch over to the deck box I had obtained from the goblin player yesterday. I like the bonus from my box of bones but with so many goblin cards currently in my deck the swap seemed plausible.
I pulled out all of my cards and quickly sorted them into three stacks. The first stack was the ´neither´ stack. I had six cards in it and they were all the not a skeleton or a greenskin cards. The greenskin stack had twelve cards and the skeleton stack had fourteen cards. I put all the cards back in their original place in the deck box. The new common goblin went straight into the storage section with all the others.
As I opened up the shanker´s upgrade tree I quickly pulled both of my knight cards out. I closed the shanker´s upgrade menu to quickly upgrade the knight to (3/2) before putting them back in my main deck before I forget to upgrade them. The shanker had the common inverted pyramid tree. The left option would increase its attack by one and the right option its health by one. On the next layer, the left option was another attack increase. The middle option was the combined attack and health option and the final option was to give it Ambush.
I was a bit surprised by the second attack increase instead of an upgrade to the venomous value. While it was both an increase of one the value of venomous was higher than attack in my opinion. This would mean I had to choose between a (3/2), (2/3), or a (1/3) with ambush. The (2/3) was the first option I discarded since going full just seemed to be the better option unless it was a full defence card like my bloated zombie.
Thinking in terms of card advantage the ambusher won out. It would still deal two damage and take none in return. This should hopefully be enough to kill any attack-upgraded cards. And if it faced a high health card it could take another hit while the poison stacked. I select both of the upgrades and put in into my main deck.
And for the real price, I opened up the armoured orc charger’s upgrade tree. Similar to my bloated zombie it had the palm tree upgrade options. The first mandatory upgrade would add two to its health points bringing it to (3/7). The first upgrade option would give the charger two stacks of Enrage. The fact that it gave Enrage stacks instead of flat-out increasing attack points hinted at some kind of combo mechanic with counter-stacking or amplification. The second upgrade would increase health by one and give one stack of Sharp. Luckily the upgrade included the effect’s tooltip.
Sharp (1): deal back (1) damage when attacked.
While similar to a flat attack increase of one, it could in theory attack back twice if attacked from both the vanguard and rearguard slots. It would also damage creatures with Ambush since they would attack but not take attack damage in return. For its final upgrade, it would gain another two points of health and a stack of Block. Compared to the shanker, this was a harder choice to make. From a stat perspective, it was between (5/7), (4/8), and (3/9). In the end, I decided to postpone the second upgrade for now. I´d decide once I wasn´t up a tree. Just before selecting the first upgrade, I noticed that it would cost fifteen experience to upgrade it. A quick look at the second upgrade displayed the same cost. That was a pretty big step up from the five experience needed to upgrade uncommon cards but it did look to also have double the stats for each upgrade. I clicked the first upgrade and a warning popped up.
Attention!
Your current zone is restricted to uncommon cards.
Are you sure you want to upgrade this rare card?
That gave me pause. On the one hand, I’d probably upgrade the card but it wouldn’t increase my current deck power. I mulled it over in my head for a few moments and decided to not go through with the upgrade. The first round still had four more days and with holding off I could potentially upgrade three uncommon cards. Just to be sure, I tried to put the card into my main deck but a similar zone restriction warning popped up. With a sigh, I slipped It into the storage part instead.
I was still on the fence about the whole deck box situation. Yes, the skeletons had more cards but them having to die was now a bit of a bottleneck. I pulled the other deck box from my backpack and just stared at both of the boxes trying to make a decision. I was only considering the greenskin box because of the number of goblin cards currently in my deck. It was also cheaper to get a token with four plays versus five skeletons having died. The moment I idly tapped the boxes against each other another notification popped up which almost made me drop the boxes to regain my balance on the tree branch.
Deck box fusion is available.
A deck box can be fused with one other deck box to combine or expand their effects.
The Box of bones and Box of the horde can be fused into the following three options:
Box of Greenskin bones
Effect 1: When a creature with the skeleton subtype or a Greenskin dies create a bone token (this effect can only happen once per creature).
Effect 2: You can use 5 bone tokens to summon a basic common skeleton (1/1) to the field. You can choose a subtype from Human, Goblin, or Orc.
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Box of the skeletal horde
Effect 1: For every four Greenskins or skeleton sub-type creatures you play create an Enrage token (this effect can only happen once per creature).
Effect 2: You can use this token to enrage a creature you control.
Box of bones and horde
Effect 1: When a creature with the skeleton sub-type dies create a bone token.
Effect 2: You can use 5 bone tokens to summon a basic common skeleton (1/1) to the field.
Effect 3: For every four Greenskins you play create an Enrage token.
Effect 4: You can use this token to enrage a creature you control.
I went over all the options and it was a lot to take in. The first two options were actual fusion and the third option combined both boxes. My whole dilemma was deck dilution and the combination option was a continuation of that problem. While it would activate on almost every card I played, it was still a division instead of a focused effect. Having excluded the combination box it came down to which effect I liked more. In principle, both effects added one point of attack power. The skeletal token would need one more card to have died but it was its own card and could be played in either the vanguard or rearguard slots and could be played in any lane. The enrage token needed to be played on an already existing create and so far nothing had come down to one more point of attack making the difference. Favouring the utility more than the enrage token I selected the Box of Greenskin bones.
The second deck box sort of melted into my Box of bones and the skeletal holding the deck box in place started to morph and resemble the bone structure of an orc. The colour also changed to include a more green taint compared to the dirt brow before the fusion.
While I was super excited with the upgrade it once again left me with more questions about the game’s mechanics. Like how many deck boxes could I fuse and if there were more than the nine deck boxes the starter decks came in? Did deck boxes have a rarity and would I be able to get a higher rarity of one? My mind raced with all the possibilities as I let my imagination run wild with exotic and outlandish deckbox effects. My favourite one was where it would automatically make all cards in my deck a skeleton. My daydreaming was interrupted as I saw a goblin patrol trudging through the forest. Having been slightly disorientated by the battle with the witch doctor I quickly grabbed the compass to determine their direction. The patrol was moving east indicating they were going towards my direction hopefully returning to their camp. The fact that two of them carried a large pole between them with two hares and a wolf tied to it almost solidified my assumption. What followed was a long and slow journey through the forest as I trailed the patrol back to their camp.
Dusk was already approaching by the time we made it to their camp. I was glad to have trailed the patrol since finding this place on my own would have been nearly impossible. A large rocky hill hid the camp mostly from view as it was built inside an open space between two rock walls. A wooden wall lined the entire space between the rock faces. A single doored gate currently stood half open with two goblin bodyguards stationed outside. I remained hidden behind the trees at the forest edge since the space was mostly devoid of any cover. The returning patrol wasn’t stopped and freely entered the camp as the leading goblin grunted too the two guards.
With dusk quickly approaching I was expecting more patrols to return to camp and I decided to set up an ambush for them. Only a few minutes later did a patrol of two goblins come into view and the fight was over in the first round. A second patrol of two goblins quickly came into view after another fifteen minutes. While I had ambushed them successfully, I only drew a single one-cost card in my opening hand resulting in me losing a point of life. It was almost night when I tackled a third and final patrol. This one consisted of three goblins and I traded another point of life to take them out. I waited for another thirty minutes but no new patrols showed up.
At some point, the goblins had closed the gate and presumably barred it from the inside as the two guards were nowhere to be seen. I did spot a single goblin patrolling the catwalk above the gate which was now lit by a torch. I walked along the perimeter until I was out of sight of the gate and made my way across to the rocks. The rocks seemed scalable but I had no way to get down once I was above the camp. Stealthily, I made my way over to the wooden wall.
You have found a settlement with the following traits: Gated, Single entrance, and Lead from the back.
Rating: Intermediate
Type: Frontal assault
Size: 4 staged prolonged assault
Deck size: 16+
Accept the challenge: Yes / No.
Just as I reached the border where the wall met with the rock, the notification window popped up. It read a lot like the dungeon menu but a whole lot of new terms got thrown in the mix. Gated seemed the most obvious as I was currently staring at it. Single entrance likely determined the type to be a frontal assault since if there’s only one entrance it was the only option. Lead from the back was the only trait I couldn’t directly place. It was rated as intermediate compared to the dungeon’s beginner rating but that currently told me nothing. I had fought the rare witch doctor and if I used that as intermediate difficulty I sort of knew what to expect or it could be easier. I had twenty cards in the deck so that easily cleared the recommended sixteen cards. The size was another curveball since I had no idea what that would entail. I did get the fact it would be four fights but what was that prolonged assault about?
I wearily eyed the distance from my current position to the gate. If that first stage was me knocking down that gate, the pull would be very, very unpleasant. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. As soon as I felt my lungs empty of air I accepted the challenge and the world warped around me. I was assaulted by vertigo as I opened my eyes and found myself now opposite the gate. The sudden jerk clearly hadn’t roused the attention of the lone guard on the catwalk above the gate but that would soon change.
Combat initiated.
Battlefield modifiers are in effect.
The battlefield is reduced to two lanes.
Destroy the gate to advance to the next stage.
The gate took up both lanes and all four slots. I could also still see the goblin on top of it. A quick inspection just returned a goblin archer like the one in my own deck. Inspecting the gate returned very unusual information.
Wooden gate
Structure – Gate
Large
Defender
Platform (2): rearguard units can take up a platform slot.
Debuff immunity: can’t be affected by negative effects.
Attack 0 Health 12
Yep, that’s a gate I thought. I was a bit surprised by the somewhat low amount of health but maybe the material played a part in it. Besides the modifiers in effect, my usual five cards appeared in my hand. Spider egg, two skeletons (1/1), goblin archer (2/1), and bloated zombie (0/5). A solid starting hand with the zombie to soak the same damage while I played the archer behind it. I did some mental gymnastics for the spider egg. I would normally just plop it down but with only two lanes I didn’t want to not play a card that round. It could work but there was a fifty per cent chance that the spider would spawn in front of the archer. With that in mind, I opted to not play the spider egg this time around. I played the skeletal lizardman in the second lane and it charged the gate with its club in a batter's position. With a mighty swing, the club collided with the gate but despite the loud impact, the damage was minimal. The goblin atop the gate screeched in alarm but didn’t get an attack off in the first turn. Instead, it started to strike the wooden disk next to it with a hammer.
Field effect activated.
Continuous reinforcement: Each round a goblin archer will automatically man the gate platform.
While it wasn’t a complete surprise, the sudden activation of a field effect wasn’t something I had expected to happen. It also wasn’t the worst effect that could have been played. With my skeleton surprisingly surviving the first round I now was glad to have not played the spider’s egg. I drew one of the goblin enforcers and played my bloated zombie into lane one. I saw a second goblin archer climb a ladder that was attached to the side of the gate platform. The zombie just stood there as an arrow impacted its bloated form. It heaved back its head and between something of a fling and a spit, it launched a cloud of poison at the archer. The skeleton once again struck the gate and some wooden splinters jumped away. After some shrieking from the goblin archers on top, it was quickly killed by an arrow through the skull.
Right after I drew my card, the previously poisoned archer turned purple in the face before it promptly stumbled off of the platform’s side. Surprisingly no new archer climbed up the ladder. This led me to believe there was an order to things that I wasn’t fully aware of just yet. I played my goblin archer behind the bloated zombie and considered my options for the second card to play. I had drawn another common skeleton and while they would die each turn I would draw another card in the end. On the other hand, the gate was currently at ten health points and the archer combined with the enforcer would take down the gate in two turns. Swayed by ending the fight quickly, I went for the latter option. A goblin nocked a blunt arrow heavy tipped arrow and it cracked the wooden gate door even further. The charging enforcer took an arrow to the shoulder but despite the injury got in a solid axe chop on the wood.
Before I drew my card a new goblin came climbing the ladder to man the gate platform. My card for turn was the goblin shanker but I had no open slots to play cards in at the moment. With the gate going down this turn I just played the spider egg card for shits and giggles. The new archer got a repeat action when it shot the zombie and was promptly poisoned again. Another blunt arrow broke away more wood from the gate. The enforcer charged forward and just before it reached the gate an arrow pierced it through the neck. Blood gushed out of the arterial wound but momentum carried it forward as it crashed straight through the gate and blew it wide open. As a final act, I saw the goblin archer abandon its post and jump down from the platform.
A few moments after the gate had been breached and the dust had settled a notification popped up but before I could read it I was pulled through the gate.