Our new contest, Arakis' Quest, has gotten off to a running start.   

Judging by the number of entries for the first Quest, it's at least as popular as Across the Spectrum was in its heyday.  For its first outing, we wanted to keep it simple so we went with those most common of cards, the 1-star rarity set.  Next time we'll start getting into some more esoteric restrictions, but read on to see how it went down this time...

The Reinforcement Packs, a fixed pack of cards available right now in the shop under EX Cards, will be removed from the shop on October 16, and replaced with a new type of card pack.  If you've got your eyes on the Reinforcement packs, now is the time to grab them!

Many of our users are big fans of Reinforcement Packs, because they let you get the exact cards you want for a fixed price. However, we were hoping it would be a good choice for first time buyers, but it has appealed instead to more experienced users who happen to need those specific cards. This is probably because the cost per card was a little high, so you really had to understand the value of those specific cards to be interested. Meaning, the target audience for them was a smaller then we had thought, and really overlapped with the EX Packs more than we had planned.  As the first part of a new initiative to offer choices in our Card Shop that appeal to a wider range of players, we will be creating a Card Pack that will be perfect for first time buyers who want more playable cards and more options. After that we will move on to introduce card packs to provide more options for the advanced players.

For now, let's call this new pack the "Beginner's Pack," and while the final details haven't been set in stone, we're pretty sure what it'll look like. First, there will be some randomness, but within limits. This will be achieved by a maximum number of Grimoires available per pack, a maximum of 3 copies of any particular card, and a heavily restricted rarity 1 card pool (the list will be available on the site). What this means is that you'll have a good idea of what you'll get, and you'll get playsets of several cards right away. However, new players will still have the excitement of getting new cards in a random pack.  Second, and most important, is that the Beginner's packs will have a low cost per card, more than the lottery but not too much more.  This will make it a no-brainer for users who don't have the cards.  Lastly, we can always change the list of available cards as new packs come out. This is something of an expermient, like the reinforcement packs, so we will probably put the Beginner's Pack out for a limited time, and then see how everyone likes them and go from there.

It's Friday! And that means two things here at Alteil. The Weekend is here AND we have chosen our Card Flip Theater Caption Contest winner. Everyone give a big round of applause to fellow Iczer, skewer. Clap loud he may be located a state or few over from you. Four point cards to you sir. 

Congrats to everyone who submitted and look for the next contest coming soon.

(For the period of 10/1/09 - 10/14/09)

Here comes another fortnight challenge already, and this one is a special one. After all, just about this time last year, the very first Challenge of the Fortnight was issued. Time has really flown by in the course of this short year, and nearly a literary score were issued forth (slightly fewer than that were judged of course, a situation that shall be rectified in the near future). And so for this special anniversary Challenge of the Fortnight, we've decided to kick up the difficulty level a bit, and as the spheres roll around to Gowen, our MVP card for the next fortnight shall be the mysterious Red Mantle / DeFau.

We have your winners! Well one winner and one runner up!

Artist has taken top prize and peralisc2 is the runner up. Congrats to both of them. More details on the results to come.

Oh wait David Lee Roth, we are. It's Monday and it's ranking time. DLR, you have been served. And so has everyone else. Served a minimum of 10 rockin' gran. So get your hot deck and cruise down the avenue for that top ranking spot next Monday.

As always, anyone who fought in the arena at least once this week will receive 10 gran. Listed below are your top 5 ranked Iczers, top 3 guilds, and guilds that have leveled.

TOP 5 WEEKLY RANKED ICZERS

1. Sethiel
2. evit
   
3. Hinata
4. worthing
5. shawnreed343

TOP 3 GUILDS

1. Royal Flush 
2. Order of the Black Knights
3. SRX Team

GUILDS THAT HAVE LEVELED UP

1. Dragon Knight Council 1 -> 2
   

GUILDS THAT HAVE BECOME OFFICIAL

1. Imperium
2. Row Row Fight The Power
   
3. Fluffies
4. WTF

We've gone and done it now! All of our previous year's Halloween costumes are on display in our Art Gallery. Check out all the craziness at that link in the last sentence. 

Also folks, our Halloween Costume/Pumpkin Carving contest is going on now. If anyone wants to participate, now is the time. The awesome prizes are listed here. Check out all the contest rules in our original The Many Faces of Hallowed Eve II Contest post.

Our first user submitted strat article is up, courtesy of DarthRaider... check it out here.