Shadowfist -- Newest Articles

Puzzle Garden #3

MikeS — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:10:04 -0700

by Willow Palecek

Just in time for Gencon, here's two new puzzles to keep you occupied during the ride, flight, or running gun-battle to the convention.

Shards of Warped Reflection

Difficulty: Easy to Medium

Below are four Shadowfist related lists. Unfortunately, they've all been translated through a cipher. In each list, every instance of a given letter is replaced by another letter. (For example, the letter A might be replaced with Q.) The cipher changes from list to list, so be wary! Any punctuation is kept intact.

List One: Feng Shui Sites

ZGZN FKOQXZ ENTUWN

Puzzle Garden #2: Solution

MikeS — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:40:56 -0700

The secret message that is revealed when all 50 characters are found is:

"Congratulations on finding all fifty secret warriors! But you aren't quite done yet. There is an extra challenge for you, as somewhere in this puzzle there is a tightly-knit group of six characters with something extremely special in common. What is it and what other unique character also shares this unique trait?"

Puzzle Garden #2: Open Season

MikeS — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:09:02 -0700

by Willow Palecek

Fifty unique Shadowfist characters are hidden in this grid. How many of them can you find? After all are found, the unused letters will spell out a secret message.

Happy hunting!

The solution to this puzzle can now be found here

Puzzle Garden #1: All in One Solution

MikeS — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:28:47 -0700

by Willow Palecek

All in One contained a small but key error: a “Fortune of the Turtle” was mistakenly labeled “Amulet of the Turtle.” (Now corrected. -The Ed.) This had the effect of making it much easier to obtain Stealth. If you solved the puzzle as written, congratulations are still in order, but you may wish to go back and see if you can solve the puzzle as it was intended.

“Mostly Harmless” - A Deck Type

MikeS — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:48:13 -0800

by Bruce Neiger

This article, presented in two parts, with an “intermission” and an afterword, describes the “Mostly Harmless” and Netherworld Return deck types. I have given the Tim Linden’s Netherworld Return deck, published on Stephan’s Shadowfist site, an “honorary” entry into this category as an “unrelated ancestor”. I hope he doesn’t mind.

The Mostly Harmless deck type has taken on several faces at this point, each inspired by the others. The core concept, however is to combine alternate power generation with large hitters and (almost always) with cheap recursion. All except the Netherworld Return deck also combine Red Bat with a large number of free or low cost events, quickly yielding very large Red Bats.

The Story of the Three Acrobats

MikeS — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:41:39 -0700

by James Przytulski

At the Origins Final Brawl I played a Dragon/Seven Masters deck I called the Story of the Three Acrobats. I finished third at the Final Brawl with an attendance of around 15-20. This deck is a combat trick deck. This deck attempts to go for an unstoppable or at least difficult to defend against win.

I built this deck on the hypothesis that the best four player decks are the ones that can break through the stalemates that plague multi-player games. The original deck contained one hundred cards with four Wu Bins of Turtle Island, five Scrolls of Incantation, and five Fighting Spirits for search and recursion. The deck would then play a large amount of combat trick events that are notorious to the Dragon faction. Events such as Back for Seconds, Flying Kick, Got My Mojo Working, and Old Hermit’s Gambit are very potent yet very narrow unless you are in the right position. That is why I only play one of each of the trick events. Scroll of Incantation allows me to search out an event, such as Got My Mojo Working, and play it in response to a card such as a Nerve Gas in the same scene. This is because Scroll of Incantation says the event can be played “immediately”. Over time the deck was whittled down to 64 cards. The current incarnation is 64 cards. In the next section I will go over the combat tricks.

Building Demo Decks

MikeS — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:56:51 -0700

In these beleaguered time, where no starter decks are available for purchase anywhere, demo decks are a crucial way to get new people to play our beloved game. If you have always wanted to contribute to the recruiting effort from your collection while cleaning out your closet at the same time, here are a few guidelines for building a decent demo deck.

The Purpose of the Deck

… is obviously to introduce new players to the game. Ideally, the decks should be fun and easy to play, and showcase some of the strengths of Shadowfist. You want lots of characters, and lots of free stuff, so that the new player feels like he can influence the game at all times. You don’t want tricky decks. You don’t want decks that are poorly resourced. And you absolutely don’t want any cards that are hard to understand, or that (even worse) have been errated and don’t do what they claim they do.

Brian's Guide to Drafting

bsmithsweeney — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:51:29 -0700

Brian's Guide to Drafting 'Fist

Brian's Guide to Drafting

Navigating the Netherworld by the Seat of your Pants

Card of the Week: Scramble Suit

MikeS — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:20:05 -0700

Scramble Suit
State of the Art Tech
Requires: Tech Tech 1
Subject Character cannot be intercepted by Characters controlled by players with cards in their hands. Any player may discard his or her hand when subject turns to attack.

As was pointed out correctly on the forum, this card will usually give you one uninterceptable attacker, but after that you may even be helping the opponents by letting them flush their hands. We should also remember that a character that is uninterceptable is far from unstoppable; denial events and sites can still ruin your day. So, is this a niche card or a killer card?

Dueling 102, Part 2: A case study of two decks

MikeS — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:23:43 -0700

by Marek Laskowski

“Rise of the NeoBuro” - Online Proving Ground spring 2007 duelling event winner.

5 BuroMil Grunt
5 DNA Mage
4 Test Subjects

3 Arcanowave Researcher
4 Bouncing Benji
2 Johann Bonengel PAP
2 Elsa Winterhagen
2 Dr. Curtis Boatman PAP
2 Arcanotechnician

4 Artillery Strike
3 Dangerous Experiment
2 Imprisoned
2 Neutron Bomb
4 Pocket Demon
2 Paradox Cube
3 Probability Manipulator
5 Rise of the NeoBuro
2 The Rackets
5 Dragon Graveyard
5 Nine Dragon Temple
2 Thousand Sword Mountain
2 Stone Dolmens

Yes, it really is 70 cards. It's not a mistake. This deck burns through cards as a resource for both Artillery Strike fodder (damage and reload) as well as reloading Bouncing Benjis. In a pinch it can draw a new hand and still generate power: when you pay the reload cost for the Benji, you can pay it again in response, and thus discard as many cards as you like while reloading a single Benji. If you don't care which cards you discard, Artillery Strike will work the same. Due to the 5 namesake Rise of the NeoBuro's you can also quickly see a big chunk of the deck quite fast. It's really the only card you need to draw, which is why there are five.