Achiga 16–No Bad Deed Goes Unrewarded

You know I have my gripes with Shiraitodai as a team. Their team creation method that insists on gathering players of a single type is downright ridiculous, making it completely possible that half of the school’s top 10 players end up warming the bench while amateurs (coughSeikocough) that got lucky to team up with Teru somehow go on to represent the school. The result is obviously an incredibly unbalanced team almost entirely reliant on Teru, and even lacking the flexibility to at least try and protect the huge leads Teru gains.

But honestly, Awai takes the cake.

 

Shiraitodai in last place. Needs a baiman from Achiga or Shindouji (8 han, 16,000 pts), or a haneman from Senriyama or own draw (6 han, 12,000 pts) to advance to the finals.

Make no mistake, this is bad.

Luckily enough, Awai manages to turn her hand into a haneman-capable shape. It is still a difficult situation, as she basically has no choice but to go out on a self-drawn six of bamboo if she wants to move on to the finals (or call riichi and add the possibility of going out on Ryuuka’s discards). Still, Awai is determined to see things through to the end.

Only, all her self-restraint and reason seem to be blown away the moment she draws the tile necessary for her kan. She ignores what she sees as a opportunity for a 24,000 point victory from Shindouji just because “it wouldn’t get her first place”. There’s no benefit to getting first place here, except for bragging rights, so I cannot see it as anything but Awai putting her personal pride before the good of the team.

The result we all know: Awai just barely manages second place anyway. The real kicker is, had she followed her erroneous assumption that she will get four kan dora and did the reasonable thing (winning from Shindouji), Awai would have won a 7 han baiman hand… and lost to Senriyama, making Shiraitodai drop out of the finals!

This really makes me question what Ritz wanted to convey here. Awai wins only because she was selfish AND cocky? That’s a broken Aesop if I have ever seen one.

Either way, I cannot see Shiraitodai as a serious team anymore, and I am looking forward to seeing them get their assess kicked in the finals. I am sure Ritz will make them look stronger in the main story than here, but Shiraitodai will always be the least team-like team out there, and it is a shame teams like Senriyama and Shindouji had to make place for those “returning champions”.    

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Bringing the Precious Memories CCG Online

I crawl out from deep underground with a new project in tow.

Many of you have probably already heard about Precious Memories, a collectible card game similar to Magic the Gathering or Yugioh, except with more moe girls than powerful spells and terrifying monsters.

  Of course, knowing about the game and attempting to play it are completely different matters. Playing PureMemo requires you:

• know Japanese
• live somewhere where you can get the cards
• find playing partners

…which is not exactly easy. But it is also about to become easier. I present to you the Precious Memories plugin for the Lackey card game simulator:

Armed with the Precious Memories plugin, Lackey offers the following features:

• card translations you can easily toggle on and off
• a card database allowing you to look up any card within seconds, even when offline
• a convenient deck builder tool
• the ability to test out your new deck idea for initial draws etc. as many times as you like before you invest your hard-earned money into the cards you’re missing
• the ability to connect with other Lackey users to play a game online

The plugin project starts out with the 126 cards making up the Girls und Panzer set, but the aim is to quickly expand to other sets, starting with those that have fan translations already available. (Update: Yuru Yuri, Madoka Magica sets added)

Getting started

To install and run the Lackey plugin:

1. Go to the official Lackey webpage and download the file matching your operating system. Install Lackey.
2. Download the latest plugin version here. (Mediafire mirror)
3. Unpack the plugin to the “plugins” folder in your Lackey directory.
4. Run Lackey and go to the Preferences tab. Click on “Browse installed plugins to load one” and select Purememo from the menu.

Beginner tips

Right click on a player name and choose an item from “Load recent deck” to load a deck. But first, go to the deck editor to construct and save your own decks.

Right click anywhere on the playing field and choose “Draw X” to draw a specific number of cards at once, otherwise use the “Draw” button on the field.

Play cards by dragging them from your hand and onto the playing field, or right-click –> Play.

Discard card by right-click –> Send to Top of –> Discard Pile, or temporarily drag them to the playing field, change the card zone to the discard pile and drag the card there.

Double click a card to ready or rest it. You can also right-click and use the appropriate options.

Send the top card of the deck to the point pile by right-clicking the deck button and choosing Move/Top/1/To top of/Point Pile.

Deck manipulation effects can be carried out by right-clicking the deck-button and choosing Reveal to Owner/Top/X

Lackey will not enforce any rules or card effects. All actions you take are recorded and shown to the opponent in the log box at the bottom of the screen, and it is up to you and your opponent that you play the game in accordance with the original rules.

Precious Memories CCG Rules and Resources

The rules of the CCG have been explained in English by HeartNana here.

A facebook page plugin users can use for coordination purposes was set up here.

The official website of the game (Japanese only) can be found here.

Marlin-sama provides card reviews and translations at his blog here.

A facebook group for PM fans here.

More card translations here, here, here, and other places, probably.

Basic Lingo

Precious Memories-specific terms used in the translation:

Arrival – a character card arrives when you play it from your hand by paying its cost (even if the cost was 0). A character that is placed on the field by the effect of other cards is not considered to have arrived.

Approach/Block – Equivalent to attacking and defending respectively.

Retreat – a character retreats if it is sent from the field to the discard pile as a direct result of participating in an Approach or Block. Characters leaving the field by the effect of other cards are not considered to have retreated.

Score a point – Whenever a character’s Approach is not Blocked, the character scores a point and the topmost card of the opponent’s deck is moved to their point pile. Scoring seven points is the basic win condition of the game.

Contact, Questions & Support

For any questions, corrections, suggestions and the like, you can comment here or drop a line at preciousmemoriesplugin@gmail.com

Other than translating the card effects, expanding the plugin to include new sets requires some simple, but time-consuming data processing. If you have Microsoft Excel (or just Notepad) and would like to contribute a few hours of your time to quicken the release of your favorite set, contact me at the mail address above. Translators interested in the project are also welcome to lend us their support.

That’s all folks, go have fun with the game!

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Disclaimer: LackeyCCG is the property of its developer, Trevor Agnitti. The Precious Memories CCG is the copyright of MOVIC & ensky. All related images and text is used for promotional purposes only and will be removed at the request of the copyright holder. 

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