Pony warning for those of your who simply can't stand the sight of diminutive technicolour equines. If you can, you're welcome to read on.
As I said about this time last month, May was going to be big for card games. Late April saw the pre release of Journey Into Nyx for Magic, while early May saw both Flashfire for Pokemon and Primal Origin for Yu-Gi-Oh! pre release events. Finally, on the very last day of May we will be able to see a pre release event for Canterlot Nights, of the My Little Pony CCG.
"But hang on Troy, the Card House isn't running a pre release for Canterlot Nights!" I hear you cry. Well, this is true. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't going to be one anywhere. Saturday 31st May will see Guf Brisbane in Fortitude Valley host two pre release events for Canterlot Nights. If you're keen to go, both the 11am and 4pm events still have places open and you can
see the details here. Don't worry Kev, we still have something special here.
The Premiere set laid the groundwork for the game, and Canterlot Nights will add quite a bit more to it. Not only will brand new variants of the Mane 6 Mane Character cards be added to the game, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are also given Mane Character cards as well as their own theme decks to come. Celestia will be a yellow card the same as Fluttershy, sharing her deck with Rarity and her white colour while Luna is a purple card just as Twilight Sparkle and comes with Rainbow Dash and her blue support.
Canterlot Nights will also see a few new keywords added to the game. Magic players will be familiar with the use of keywords, but in this case keywords are usually given to a colour which allows it to behave differently to other colours. I'll give you a quick rundown on the current keywords and their uses:
Blue - Swift (You may move this card for 1 fewer action tokens)
Orange - Stubborn (This card can still apply its power during faceoffs and the Score Phase even if exhausted)
Pink - Random (During a faceoff involving this card, if you flip a card with 1 power, you may ignore it and flip a new card)
Purple - Studious (When you wind a faceoff involving at least one of your characters with this keyword, gain 1 action token)
White - Inspired (At the start of your Main Phase, look at the top card of an opponent's deck and put it on either the top or bottom of that deck)
Yellow - Caretaker (+1 power while at a Problem with at least one of your Critter friends)
Canterlot Nights has given us the addition of a few generic keywords, which can be on any friend of any colour. The first one is mentioned above on the Twilight Velvet card, called Supportive. What it does is give the Supportive card a bonus equal to the number next to the keyword when that friend is at a problem with a Mane Character that shares its colour. In Twilight Velvet's case, she would gain that bonus while at a problem with either Twilight Sparkle or Princess Luna.
The next keyword to mention is Pumped. This one is rather interesting, as it doesn't give a constant bonus like Supportive but rather access to a cost ability that could definitely change how a game goes. If a character with Pumped is involved in a faceoff, you may choose to banish a card you flipped during that faceoff underneath it rather than put it on the bottom of your deck. Once you have cards underneath a Pumped character, you may then spend those cards at certain times to trigger an effect such as Chief Thunderhooves frightening an opponent's character. This can give you a great time advantage as it costs a further two action tokens to unfrighten a friend, which will slow your opponent significantly.
Unique is a concept that Magic players will recognise again. Unique works in the same way as Legendary does, in that while you can have multiple copies of such a card in your deck you may only have one of such a card on the field at any given time. There really isn't much else to say about Unique, so onto the last word.
Epic is the final new keyword, and it is used to denote a much more powerful troublemaker. In fact, two troublemakers from the Premiere set have been errata'd to have the Epic keyword (Nightmare Moon and Ahuizotl), most likely due to their Villain status. So far the only card that has made any use of this status is a new card in Canterlot Nights called Soothe the Savage Beast, which will cause an opponent's non-Epic troublemaker to lose all of its abilities and cannot gain further abilities during your Troublemaker Phase. While Epic doesn't seem to do much at this point, it is possible that further sets will build on that.
What cards am I looking forward to getting? At this point I am definitely liking Princess Celestia, Protector of Equestria as well as Sunset Shimmer. Princess Celestia is a great way of getting rid of an opponent's low powered troublemakers simply by playing her to a problem with a troublemaker there, paving the way to moving forward in the game as well as scoring extra points. On the opposite end, Sunset Shimmer is a troublemaker with the ability to banish an opponent's friend or resource beneath her until she leaves the field (at which point that card is returned to the opponent's hand). She is an excellent disruptive card as well as a high powered troublemaker with a power of 5. There are plenty of other cards that also add to the the current strengths of each colour, and I'm definitely wanting to reshape my deck to accommodate them.
That's all I have to say about Canterlot Nights. If you read through it, I really appreciate you doing so since I know not many people will enjoy this topic. Canterlot Nights will see its proper release on the 6th of June. Myself and Warren will be headed down there for the pre release, and we'll be sure to show what we call the Cardhousian Spirit and doctors insist is a mild form of intestinal cancer!
The Pokemon Professor, Troy