I had planned to update Friday afternoon, but as you can see, that plan fell through. Oh well. I was too tied up kicking some wizard ass, babee! Yup, that's right. Here, let me 'splain.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Magic: The Gathering the collectible trading card game. If not, then I'll try to 'splain quickly. Basically it's a game for two or more people dealing with cards. Not cards like a regular poker deck however. Anyway, originally, it was meant for 2 players so that's the description I'll stick with. Each player assumes the role of a "Wizard" and all the cards in each Wizard's deck or "Library" are the spells they have available. Each Wizard starts the game with 20 lifepoints. There is a minimum deck size of 40 cards, but no maximum, usually. There are different types of cards, Lands, Summons, Instants, Interrupts and Artifacts. The lands provide the power with which to play the other cards. Each card, whether it summons a monster, or casts a fire ball, or what has a "casting cost" on it. You must have the appropriate number of lands (or alternate sources of mana) to cast the spell. Anyway, you use combinations of spells, and creatures and stuff to try to knock your opponent down to zero life.

Now, some of you, who already know about Magic, will also know that it was made into a video game about 5 years ago. You could duel opponents over the internet or you could duel against the computer. You could work at building your own decks and everything. But there was something else in the video game. It was called Shandalar and it's the main point of my story.

Shandalar is a single player game "world" in the Magic game. The story of Shandalar is that there are five evil wizards, one for each mana color (Black, White, Blue, Red and Green) and each one is trying to cast the "Spell of Dominion" over Shandalar. Basically, they're trying to take over the whole world. Now, unlike the regular type of Magic game, this one has restrictions. First off, when you first start the game, you have to pick which color of magic your character will use. Instead of constructing a deck of various colors, you have to choose one of the five colors of magic and you start out with about 30 cards. Most of them are pretty common, somewhat weak cards, but also you sometimes get some goodies too. Once your character's color of magic has been selected, you've decided what he/she looks like and has named him/her, then you start the game.

It's kind of cheesy because you walk around a "world map" dotted with villages and various other structures and the walking is very herky jerky. Villages are "safe havens" allowing you to buy food, buy/sell cards and to organize your deck. You can also take quests from villages, which is a good idea since you only start out with 10 life points. Most beginning quests require you to carry a message from one village to another. The quests that you want to take are the ones that result in you receiving a mana link. That basically means another life point. As you progress in the game, quests become a bit tougher, as in "Defeat the Beastmaster terrorizing our Village" kind of thing. You have anywhere from 3 to 5 days to complete a quest.

As you wander around the map, you'll see various "creatures" wandering around. These are your "enemies" and will follow you everywhere you go in their "area". Some are bound by invisible borders. For instance, a Druid, which is a Green magic creature, may follow you through the forest, but once you leave the forest and enter the mountainous region, he'll stop and won't follow. Of course, there are some creatures that go anywhere, these are a pain in the ass. Even on the easiest setting, I ran into various creatures that I could not defeat. Whenever you run into a creature, or, as is the case a lot, the creature moves faster than you and catches you, a duel insues. Most of the time you have the option of just paying them off instead of dueling, but sometimes you don't. As the duel starts, the computer pulls one of your cards at random to be your "ante" as well as one of your opponents cards. If you win, you get his card, if you lose, he gets yours. After each duel, however, you usually get two or three more cards for your victory. These can then be sold at the nearest town for money, or can be added to your deck if they're the correct color. Some creatures, being more powerful, will reward you for defeating them with rare cards, or with amulets, or with a boon for your next duel, such as extra life or having a certain card in play. These are helpful as well.

Other things you run into throughout the world of Shandalar are the color specific "bonuses". For instance, you'll be walking and all of a sudden a grove of trees pops up in front of you, or you'll be walking near a shoreline and all of a sudden the wreckage of a ship pops up. These are bonus areas. Trees for Green, Shipwreck for Blue, Moutain rock for Red, Graveyard for Black, and Pillars for White. Simply walking into these, more often than not, rewards you with a card. It could be anything from a basic land to a spell. Sometimes, you enter one and are asked a question such as "Which card has a toughness of 3?" and are given 4 choices. If you pick the right card, you're rewarded, if not, well, you're not. Again, these cards can be sold in the villages for money or can be added to your deck.

The last structures you'll see in the game are the "dungeons". I didn't really explore these too much, but if you make it through a dungeon, you're rewarded with various goodies like strong, rare cards and such. Anyway, this is the game I was playing.

In the normal course of the game, the evil wizards will send a creature to attack a city with the goal of "Tapping" it. Basically taking control of it and adding to their power. Normally, each wizard needs to tap 3 cities/villages in order to cast the Spell of Dominion, but there is a "World Magic" you can get that requires them to tap five. This gives you a bit more time because sometimes, they'll attack a place that is on the opposite side of the map that you are. There are other magics that help you out throughout the game. Since there are different types of terrain in the game (Mountains, Plains, Forests, Swamps, etc) there are things which aid in travel through these areas. It's helpful when you're trying to reach the other side of the map, to walk twice as fast through areas as you once did. It also helps to get away from monsters.

Guess I'd best just get to the point, eh? Well, each of the wizards has a castle which you can enter. Once you do you have to navigate the corridors until you find the wizard. Sometimes, you can go right to them, others you have to duel various creatures who stand in the way. Once you have found the wizard, you can duel them. Now, keep in mind, they're pretty tough and they always have an advantage when starting a game. All of the wizards that I faced had 25 life points to my 15 or so. Anyway, Friday, I wanted to finish the game. I had destroyed all the wizards except for the Red Wizardess. Problem was, I was playing with a blue character. Red and Blue are exact opposites in the game so I knew it would be tough. After about 4 tries, I finally beat her and rid the land of all of the evil wizards, but my game wasn't quite done. No, not yet. Here's where it gets interesting.

While roaming the Red castle, looking for the bitch, I was able to find goodies (marked as a pair of dice). I got some extra life points and had a goodie that let me start with a good card in play. Anyway, when I face the Red Wizardess, she had 25 life points and I had 23, fairly even match. What I didn't realize was that there was another force behind everything. A "Plainswalker" (read Killer Wizard) named Arzakon who was running the show. So, after beating the Red Wizardess, it was time for the final battle with Arzakon. Um...ok, cool, let's go. Before the duel starts a message comes up telling me that by defeating the evil wizards I have banished Arzakon for 300 and someting odd years, but in the final battle, for every 1 life point I took from him, I banished him an additional 10 years. I wondered why it was telling me this and then the duel screen came up. I looked up at the area of the screen with the lifepoint totals on it and did a double take.

I was back down to my regular 18 life points. And Arzakon? Well, let's just say he had a nice and healthy 100! Shit! Well, I figured I would get whipped pretty bad so I just decided to last as long as I could. Turns out that lady luck was bored Friday night and decided to hang out with me. I had him down to aboud 75 lifepoints and I was at 5 when fate smiled on me. I got out a card called "Lifetap". What this card says is "Gain one life for every Forest opponent taps." What that means is, whenever my oponent would tap a Forest for mana (to cast spells) I would gain a life for each Forest. Now, against the Green Wizard, this was cherry because he had nothing but Forests, but against Arzakon, it wasn't too hot because he only had one Forest out. He also had enough creatures to beat me down in the long run so I needed something better. Enter the "Magical Hack" card. What the Magical Hack card does is allow you to change every instance of one basic land type to another. So, I could change the word Forest to say Mountains, which he had more of. And I do it. So, things start looking up. To top it off, I had another ace in the whole.

The "Energy Flux" card is totally underrated. Remember how I said there were different types of cards and one was "Artifact"? Well, what energy flux does is force each player to have to pay 2 mana (tap 2 lands or some other mana source) to keep the artifact or get rid of it. Some artifacts are valuable and you want to keep out so you have to pay the cost. This is where I got lucky. My opponent, Arzakon, had a ton of land (and could cast a lot of spells), but he also had a ton of artifacts out. So, he ended up having to use all his land just to keep his artifacts. This helped me out twofold. One, it caused him to tap all of his land so he didn't have anything in reserve to cast spells with. Two, he tapped all his islands (which I had changed the Lifetap card to with another Magical Hack) and Forests (got another Lifetap out) so that I was getting life points each round. Unfortunately, though, I was running out of time.

There are 3 ways to win a duel. Beat your opponent until he has no life points left, get him to concede or make him deplete his library. Sadly, this last one was coming close. I checked my library and I had 19 cards left. Problem was, he had gotten a little protection out and I was only doing 3 points of damage to him at a time, and this wasn't each time. So, I had to hope that a card I was praying for would come up before I got to my last card. By the time I checked my library again and had 13 cards, I was at 36 lifepoints (I had been at 5) and Arzakon was at 15.

The last check I did of my library, I was at 7 cards and Arzakon was at 3 lifepoints. Needless to say, I won. I started with a 82 point difference and ended up winning with over 56 lifepoints. Not only that, but I banished his ass for an additional 1000 years! Woohoo!

Now, why did I spend all this time rambling on about this? I have no fucking idea why. Because I was proud of myself, that's why. See, I've been playing Magic since it's inception in the Unlimited Edition. I've never been good at building decks and have sucked at strategy. I guess this was more than just a victory over a game for me. But, that's why I didn't update Friday night, so I think most, if not all, of you out there will forgive me. If you don't, well you can bloody well fuck off and rot. I'll still love ya though. Anyway, take care kiddies.

Icebear

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