The TAV Dictionary

Over 10 years of sitting around Spellfire: TAV tables has produced a bunch of slang terms and nicknames. Here's a few!

Cheese – an instant-kill card. Any card that immediately defeats/discards a

              champion, or has the potential to immediately defeat or discard a

              champion. The Loup-Garou is a dirty piece of cheese.

Champion-killer – any card that places a champion into the discard pile or

                          into the Abyss.

Chump – a champion who is useless in the current situation, especially a

             defender. He attacked with the Living Wall, and all I had in my pool              were chumps like Minervan and Helm.

Counterspell – any card that stops another card from being played or taking

                     effect, or one that interferes with its intended effect.

Cut the cheese - stop an instant-kill card.

Decoy – a card that is played in hopes of attracting a counterspell, so that

            another more important or more effective card may be played safely.

Fat hand – a hand full of useful cards.

Fence – any card that makes it difficult to attack a player’s formation. Her deck

            was filled with fences like Solid Fog, Forbiddance, and Wall of Fog.

Graveyard – discard pile.

Land – a realm.

Land destruction – any card that causes a realm to be razed, discarded, or

                          placed into the Abyss.

Level-up war – any battle between champions decided by total levels, as

                      opposed to instant-kill cards.

Oaf – a champion who is of high level, but does not have a useful power in the

         current situation.

Primo – excellent.

Standard – the official Spellfire rules.

TAV – the Antigonish variant of Spellfire.

Vanilla – any card with no special power, or one that has had its special power

             removed. I wanted to attack him with Tako, but Kiri had made him

             vanilla.

If you have more of these from your Spellfire group, tell me in the comments!

Next Time: Top 5 Wizard Spells.           

The Noble Cheese

Now here's a card made for the Antigonish variant if I ever saw one! I guarantee that if four players are sitting around a table playing TAV, there is one Noble Djinni (3rd edition, 84/100) in each person's deck. You've got to have this card on hand, if you want to be competitive in the format.

Noble Djinni is a +4 ally, but that's not why anyone would use it. Let's also ignore the card's first power. It's okay in its own right - your opponent is prevented from playing flyers once battle begins (basically what this means is that only non-flying allies can be used). But the real fun comes from the Djinni's second power. "All opposing flyers already in the battle are discarded." Well, that means if a White Weird or a Foulwing is in play, they are tossed. Good, but...wait a minute! What if the opposing champion is itself a flyer?!

Yes, that's right. If an opponent attacks you with a flying champion like Ting Ling or Apocalypse or just about any dragon, and you slap down the Noble Djinni, the champion is instantly discarded. Since you get a spoils when an attacker is discarded during combat...BAM. Also, in TAV that opponent cannot attack you again until his or her next turn.  

Not many champions are immune to ally powers, so the Djinni is almost universally effective. It's not a flyer itself, so rule cards and/or events that prevent flyers don't stop you from slapping it down. And *everybody* uses flyers - they are some of the best champions in the game. These facts taken together make the Noble Djinni the very definition of primo, instant-kill cheese.

All-in-all, this is one genie you really don't want to let out of the bottle!

Next Time: Gib Cram's TAV dictionary!     

The Principles of TAV

I know I promised you "a noble piece of cheese"...and it's coming. But first I thought I'd mention that the full, complete, and official Antigonish variant rules will be posted here within the next few weeks (working on them as we speak). Before then, let's go over the guiding principles of TAV. The philosophical tenets that provide the underpinnings of the format, distilled down to their most concentrated essence. There are only four:

Principle 1 - Speed, For Lack Of A Better Word, Is Good.   

Starting off by paraphrasing Gordon Gekko! TAV is a format that embraces speed. Spellfire games shouldn't take hours to complete. Unlike some who bellyache about "speed cards", TAV players embrace them. What other format actually sought to quicken the game?! Toss down that Menzo, use a Caravan, slap down a Caer Allison, WIN. Sweet. Your opponents don't like it? Let them do something about it!
 
Principle 2 - A Spellfire Deck Consists Of 55 (or 56) Cards. Use a dungeon if you wish, but don't bother me with alternate deck sizes. They just slow down the game, and see Principle 1.

Principle 3 - There Are Only Two Banned Cards. 
And their names are Poor Oriental Lord and Wealthy Oriental Vassal. Consider yourselves lucky to even see those cards named on this blog. I like to pretend that they don't exist.

Principle 4 - "One Attack To Launch, And In The Darkness Raze Them!"
...Or not, but in that case you discard your champion and give up a spoils. :)

And with that Tolkien allusion, I'm out for now.

Next time: The cheese arrives.                        

5 Best Dragons

Okay, let's run down the five best dragon champions for Spellfire: TAV! Please note that I have excluded dragon avatars from this list.

#5 - Glimmer, the Brass Dragon (Draconomicon chase, 16/25)

Glimmer is a flyer and an earthwalker, a pretty rare combination (I can't think of another Spellfire champion who has both abilities off the top of my head...are there any?). If Glimmer wins a battle, you can return one magic item or artifact from your discard pile and attach it directly to him - and that's on top of the instantly-playable spoil you will also be collecting. A neat little power, and one that gives Glimmer the edge over Dregoth, Sparkle, and the other dragon champions all clawing at the #5 position on this list.

#4 - Sleet (Draconomicon, 39/100)

Non-flying allies can't be played against him, which rules out Noble Djinni, Athasian Sloth, Loup-Garou, and the Dreaded Ghost (among others). Sleet is himself a flyer, so he can hit back realms and avoid movement restrictions up front. If killed by any cheese (Vorpal Blade, Use Poison, etc.), Sleet is not discarded, returning to his pool instead. These abilities make him a fantastic TAV champion. His downsides include being a monster (vulnerable to events & spells that specifically target monsters), being unable to cast spells, and being of relatively high level, which allows your enemies to play first when opposing him in combat. Still, a very solid dragon champion.             

#3 - Lareth, King of Justice (Draconomicon, 31/100)

A dragon who can cast wizard spells, prevents all other dragons in play from casting wizard spells, and doesn't have to ask Midnight, Goddess of Magic's permission to do anything? And this dragon is also immune to every single offensive card in the game? Sounds like the #3 champion on this list to me.

#2 - Borys the Dragon (4th Edition, 268/500)

Borys is rated higher than Lareth because of his versatility. He can cast wizard and cleric spells, as well as use psionic powers. He's a flyer. And (since he is in direct competition with Lareth for this #2 position) Borys is also immune to Midnight, Goddess of Magic's spellcasting ban, since he's a monster and she can only affect wizards. Borys (like Lareth) is also immune to psionic power cards such as Inflict Pain and Drain Will. All things being equal, I say Borys's extreme versatility is worth more in your pool than Lareth's immunity to all offensive cards. He gets the #2 spot.

#1 - T'chaar, Dragon of Flame (Draconomicon chase, 1/25)

Unlike spots 4-3 and 3-2, there was never really any doubt in my mind as to which dragon champion would be #1. T'chaar is one of the best attacking champions in Spellfire, period. In TAV, where you only get one attack per turn in most cases, the Dragon of Flame is even more awesome. T'chaar is a flyer, and he can use any offensive card. Doesn't matter if it's an unarmed combat card, a thief skill, a psionic power, blood ability, or spell. If it's offensive, he can use it. This gives you an incredible amount of choice as to which cards to hammer your opponent with during battle. As for T'chaar's "downside" (defensive cards are doubled in level against him)...well, that's not much of a downside at all.

Next time: A noble piece of cheese.
    

The Mighty Hettman!

Hettman Tsurin (4th Edition, 257/500). The name strikes fear into Spellfire players everywhere. Though he's only a level 2 hero, Hettman attracts more champion-killing cards than just about anyone else. What's all the fuss about? It's about his primo power. So long as Hettman doesn't attack during your turn, he allows you to randomly draw a card from an opponent's hand and discard it.

In a two-player game, this can quickly result in card advantage being attained by Hettman's owner. In a multi-player game, Hettman can terrorize the entire table, especially since several players will potentially have him in their deck. Once he dies, someone else will slap him out, leading to multiple turns of Hettman picking away at your best cards.

Also, just by having this guy in your pool your other champions are shielded somewhat from cards like Trapped, Mindshatter, and Death Spell. Those cards will probabaly be directed at Hettman instead of other targets. It's up to you whether you invest the time and spells to protect Hettman from the champion-wrecking cards he attracts like a magnet. If you do, he can become a resource hog as you constantly strive to keep the little bugger breathing. If not, he's likely done his job anyway by stealing a card or two before he croaks.

In TAV, Hettman is even better, since you are going to be attacking only once per turn, and if you're desperate enough to use Hettman Tsurin as your one attacker...let's just say things probably aren't going well.

Mr. Tsurin would be even better if he had some sort of immunity. With protection against either events or offensive spells, he would morph from an annoying pest into a primo beast.

Next time: The Top 5 Dragons in Spellfire.                          

Two More Overrated Cards

Now when I say "overrated", I mean just that. Re-target (4th Edition, 389/500) and Deflection (Artifacts, 54/100) are in no way bad cards. But they do tend to get way too much press among Spellfire fans.

Of the two, Re-target is clearly better. The ability to redirect any offensive or defensive spell can be primo, especially when said spell does not need to be specifically targeting you. Deflection has a more restrictive usage, in that you can only target events that are specifically aimed at you. Then again, events by and large are tougher to counter than cleric or wizard spells, so there is an argument to be made for Deflection's worth.

What it boils down to for me is this: in the Antigonish variant, you're going to be exposed to a ton of instant-kill and realm-destroying cards. Everyone has Cataclysm and Disintegrate, Wish and Ancient Curse. The problem with the cards above, as opposed to alternatives like Calm and Dispel, is that they are too restrictive for TAV. Deflection, for example, will sit uselessly in your hand as a Slave Revolt or Bribery hits the table (those events don't specifically target one player). It can't stop a Caravan and has no effect on Black Bess.

Similarly, Re-target can't help against a Black Tentacles or a Forbiddance.

I'd rather put the more general cards Dispel Magic, Dispel, Intercession, and Calm into my deck. I get nearly the same effect (minus the neat "hit 'em with their own pimp" stuff)...but without having to worry about nightmare scenarios - like when someone slaps down The Avatar and I've got a Deflection instead of a Calm in my undead deck. Whoops!

Next Time: Touch my hand again and you DIE!

When Disaster Strikes!

Cataclysm (3rd Edition, 99/400) is an event that you need in just about every deck. I have one deck (heroes) with no events, but that's more of a gimmick  that I use to make a deck-construction point. In a serious game, you should have a Cataclysm in one of your 10 event slots.

Cataclysm has three distinct, separate uses.

1) It keeps your opponent from getting too close to having six unrazed realms. This is self-explanatory I would think.

2) It can be used to remove from play a land that you yourself have in your hand, allowing you to place it into your formation. Because the Rule of the Cosmos forbids two of the same realm from being in play simultaneously, and razing it doesn't get around this, the Cataclysm comes in handy.

3) It can be used to remove a land with a particularly onerous movement restriction or other power. Don't like the look of that Raurin out front in your opponent's formation? POW! All gone.

Events are as a rule harder to stop than spells, so Cataclysm has a leg up on cards like Disintegrate and Raze. Cataclysm works on lands that are razed or unrazed, which puts it ahead of Dissolution and Creeping Doom. Estate Transference is arguably better, since it places the enemy realm in the more inaccessible Abyss instead of the easier-to-retrieve-it-from Discard pile, but Estate Transference can also be Dispelled easier.

For my money, the best way to cause your opponent to feel the wrath of a natural disaster is still Cataclysm.

Next Time: Retarget and Deflection...overrated cards?