NEWSLETTER
APRIL 2011

Spoiler Alert: ''Artwork of ACT III''

Quantuum Magic found new talented artists and also hired some famous artists from other well-known TCG's. The result: “A lot of AWESOME illustrations!!!”

A couple of days after we had sent out the briefings for the artwork of ACT III, we received the first sketches from our illustrators. Now, about 2 months later, almost all the artwork is finished.

To kick off: Check out this "the making of " movie to see Vinz el Tabanaz in action with artwork for "Undead Energy" an X610Z ACT III card.



Card Design
The Card Design has drastically changed. We have made these changes because a lot of players told us that they found the X610Z cards too dark-looking. Also the information written in the specifications box and the action panel has been changed. It is no longer printed on a card whether it´s a Permanent or a Non-Permanent.

We have renamed the Card Types. A Non Permanent Effect Card is now called a Charm card. And instead of a Permanent Effect Card we now speak of a Relic card.

Each Basic Stat (Attack Power, Defense, Speed, Range) now has its own symbol and the Movement Costs of a Summon is now written as: "Activation symbol, Cost: Move.

Thanks to the use of symbols, the action panel now has enough space for a second and even a third Ability.
But more about this later on. We will publish a summary of all the changes we have done as soon as ACT III is released...

	Qin Shi Huang Warriors	Homeless Mercenary	Battle Royale	Last breath of Aethelflaed
	Tied to the Mast	Graveyard Shift	Qi Sao's Heart	Qi Sao's Soul
	Wisna's Curse	Hidden Arsenal	Undead Man's Song	Blood Money

Keep an eye on: http://www.x610z.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=56
We promise to spoil more and more there.

Deckbuilding Guide - Step by Step: part 2
Multiplayer & Team Battle

Last month I discussed the first steps of becoming a deck builder. This month we will take a look at how to build your deck for team battle or multiplayer (free-for-all). Building decks for these formats gives a whole new “dimension” to how to build your deck. 1. Multiplayer Multiplayer is a game where 3 to 6 players individually compete for victory. In most of the games every player tries to perform actions that will mainly benefit him or her. Politics Let’s start with one of the most misunderstood aspects of Existenz' multiplayer format: “Politics”. How best to describe politics. To be honest this isn’t one of my strengths. Politics is all about making friends around the table and try to stay out of harms way. Letting them spend their resources in dealing with other players and then strike when they don’t have the strength to deal with you. Another way of making friends is to give them things for free. A good example of a card you could give another player is Scroll of Light. There aren't many players that dislike the opportunity of drawing cards. Many times players will thank you for this and might relieve you from an attack, or destroy your permanent cards.

Multiplayer Cards
Cards that affect all players are mostly good choices for creating a multiplayer deck. Remember, you are not facing only one opponent, each other player at the table is an enemy.

Summons
Summons play a major role in multiplayer games. In a 1vs1 game you can win by just using speed cards, but with multiplayer games it's nearly impossible to win the game without using at least a few summons. Summons are not only useful for offensive purposes, they are also great at keeping hostile summons at bay to protect your Life Base.

2. Team Battle
In Team Battle 2 or 3 teams battle for supremacy. Team battle can be played 2vs2, 2vs2vs2 but is mostly played 3vs3. All players are sitting next to two opponents, one directly on the left, and another directly on the right. Building decks for team battle is one of the hardest things I have done as a deck builder, since there are a couple of differences with the other formats.

Deck Restriction
In Team Battle deck restriction is also the team restriction. This means that if a card has deck restriction 4 your team can only have a total of four copies of that card included in the team's  decks together. So how does this affect you as a deck builder? You have to find the balance in what deck cards are best. For example a card like “Discount” has deck restriction 4. But maybe all decks your team plays could use 4 Discounts in each deck. When something like this happens you will have to look at all the decks your team is bringing to battle and see in what decks the discounts are most vital. But some other times you want to spread them out over all the decks, this all depends on how your team builds their decks. It's also very useful to look for cards with a similar effect.

Winning and Losing
In Team Battle the win conditions are slightly different than in a 1vs1. In Team Battle you win or lose as a team. This means that if the Life Base of a player is destroyed, that player's team loses. But it also means that if a Life Base hits an ending dot, that player's team wins.

Team Strategy
Now that we've discussed the extra rules for team battle, let's go and have a look at how to build a deck for a team battle. First of all, I would advise to discuss this with the team since building team decks are most of the time a team effort. Determine a strategy: “Are we going to attack one of their Life Bases, or are we going to get one of our Life Bases to an ending dot”. Maybe the best thing is to distribute your forces over the players. Construct one deck that is going for speed win, let another team member attack & protect with his summons, and the third player has a free role (e.g. a counterdeck). Figure out together what works for you and your teammates. Try out different strategies and distribution of cards.

Team Work
This isn’t that much about deck building but I still think I should add this to the story. You can openly talk strategy with your teammates, but this has to be done in a language that the other team can understand as well. So it can be quite important to know your team mates and especially what their decks do, this will help you make the right decisions at the right time without your opponents knowing your plans.

3. Building The Deck
Try and see if you can use any of my tips from this or last month's article to build your deck. I hope my advices are of any help. Next month I will try to give you a better insight in how to build your Existenz decks. I will be describing how to increase your chances in drawing your key cards and giving you some tips about competitive deck building.

Thank you for your time! Hope to see you next month...

Niels

Silv's Alternative Game Ways: "Trophy Hunting"

In this pure attack game no Life Bases are used, instead every player starts with 5 normal Summons. The objective of Trophy Hunting is to gather as much trophies as possible. Whenever a Summon destroys another Summon through an attack, the destroyed Summon is placed with the attacking Summon as a trophy. If a destroyed Summon has trophies those are also looted.

The Rules

•    No Life Bases are used. Consequently Speed and Attack Win are impossible.
•    Players must have in their deck 5 Summon Cards of different (non-Life Base) classes. No more Summons are allowed in the decks.
•    At the start of the game - before shuffling - each player, in turn, must place a pawn on the board and the corresponding Summon card on the
     table. This continues until all the Summons are on the table.
•    Whenever a Summon destroys another Summon through an attack the destroyed Summon is placed with the attacking Summon as a
     trophy. Any trophies on the destroyed Summon are also placed with the attacking Summon.
•    If a Summon is leaves play as the result of an effect or an ability (as opposed to being destroyed as the result of an attack) an opponent of
     and chosen by the controller of the lethal effect or ability choses a free dot on the board. The Summon pawn is moved there. The Summon is
     treated as if it had died and was cast on the chosen dot, i.e. all Effects on it are discarded and it's stats return to normal. The trophies stay
     with the Summon as if nothing has happened.
•    The game ends when a player has no more cards, when a player has no more Summons on the board or when less than half the
     Summons that were on the board at the start of the game are still on the board.
•    The winner is the player or team who's (owned) Summons have the most trophies in total.
•    Everything else is like in a normal game.

Tips and Tricks
Notice that you can switch a Summon to your control with the appropriate cards, but the trophies still count for the owner. Sometimes you can be better of attacking your opponent's Summons with a stolen Summon. Be careful though, you can't attack a Summon under your control with another friendly Summon so it might not be easy to get rid of that stolen Summon.

As Summons are placed freely on the board at the start of the game there are a lot of possibilities for smart tactical play. You could for example place a Summon in the No Attack Zone of your opponent. Or you could place a Summon far away from the action to throw some crew on it first. As players take turn positioning their Summons it's wise to look very careful at what your opponents are doing, lest they attack your Summon with a long range attacker in their first turn.

During your first turn(s) you will have little energy for moving. Attacking however is usually free. So positioning matters during the early game. Later Summons will be able to move and things will become more dynamic.

Being able to attack a Summon is nice, but if your Summon gets shot in retaliation it's actually a net loss as the Summon you shot will count as a trophy for it's owner.

In the same vein be careful with Summons with lot's of trophies on them. They may be great for you, but not if someone attacks them and takes all the trophies.

Decoy can be quite useful when an opponent uses a card that damages its target. If you can redirect the damage to kill one of your own Summons with it all the damage (and cards) on it goes away and you can chose a new location for it. This works because your opponent will still be the caster of the damaging card, even though you've set the target.