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Comic for: January 7th, 2010
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Free Realms: "Quack. Quack. Quack."
Posted: Thursday January 7th, 2010 by

I returned again to Free Realms last night to do some quests and play a bit more of the built in TCG. One of the competitors I came up against had this deck that seemed relatively weak early on, but quickly turned into utter hell a couple of turns later. Completely frustrated I turned to Taks to let her know about my dilemma.

I explained as briefly as possible using terms not specific to the game. But even at that I could feel the invisible ducks hands quacking at me. Which basically means, "I'm listening. And I can see you mouth move. But I don't understand a single thing you're rattling on about." I appreciate that she heard me out. And I didn't really care if she understood. I just needed to rant.

Now for those of you that have played the Free Realms TCG, the game went as I described it in the comic. My opponent would drop low level creatures to rake in hunting points while I was trying to get established myself. Then out of nowhere a 1 coin creature would get turned into a 6 coin, 7 attack, 7 defense frog card. And if while in combat one of his attack (or defense) support cards bore a single yellow gem, all of my creatures would be stunned. Which then lead to them to being zapped during my turn. So not only would his 7/7 frog destroy anything I put up against it, the rest of his creatures would then get to freely hunt against my stunned allies.

What I couldn't figure out though was how he was bringing them into play. They cost more coins than he could possible have. I looked at the frog card and didn't see any special exception. It was miserable and frustrating. After several losses I watched closely. It seemed as though he was able to just trade out the frog for an existing creature in play, despite the coin cost and/or the number of cards in his inventory. I went with my best guess which was... he must have a card that when zapped allows him to just trade out one creatures in play for the frog.

I accepted the subsequent loss, retailored my deck to have more lower level creatures, then went back at him with a plan. Every time he put a creature out, I destroyed it. Leaving nothing on the board with which to trade for a frog. This meant he had to have 6 coins in order to bring the frog out. By then I had enough trick cards in reserve to take out the one and only frog he managed to get on the table. And if he did stun my allies I would trade them out even if the only creature I had was lower att/def. Worked like a charm. Close game but at least it wasn't a wash.

And despite my seeming anger in the comic, I really do enjoy the Free Realms TCG. I just wish the cards you get in game were actually powerful enough to contend with the Duelists you encounter as you quest. It's very much like Vanguard's diplomacy system in that regard. Just when you think you're doing well, you run into the NPC in the game that has a deck you have no idea and no real power to contend with. But eventually... you figure out a tactic that works to slow them down enough to give you a chance to win.

My current road block in Free Realms is a Duelist that can wipe your scored cards off the board. It sucks to go from 5 points to 1 in a single turn. No idea how I'm going to contend with this one.

If you guys aren't playing this game... you should be.

( Holy crap that was a long writeup. )

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