My Eye of Judgment has been expanding for some time now. In order to best serve the EoJ Community SonicKaos and I have our own domain now. We are still messing around with the layout so pardon the newly formed dust.

• http://myeyeofjudgment.com

We hear about tournaments all the time from readers and other Eye of Judgment sites. However, every-single-one of the them is over the PlayStation Network. Never once have we hear about a physical tournament where you can play face to face with your opponent. Not the case anymore. We just got word that Poland is the home to one of these tournaments.

Game Lord, a store that specializes in collectible trading card game, hosted what looks to be a very successful gathering. The most incredible part is that most of the matches were not played with the aid of the PS3. Yup, that’s right, some matches were analogue. Game Lord used crafty skills with construction paper and dice to make the game playable without the Blu-ray game disc.

The site we are about to link you is Polish so don’t be surprised if you can’t read everything on the pages. The most important thing is that they were having fun and used a bit of old fashioned ingenuity to accommodate more people.

• Tournament Results
• Tournament Pics

This horse may seem to be beaten to death but the issues are still here — booster packs are harder to come by than a Budweiser at a NASCAR race. The most vocal portion of the community is the Canadian EoJ players. To their credit, booster packs haven’t shown up in stores and Sony or Hasbro haven’t said a word why that is so it is understandable why they would not be happy. I hate to say I played a roll in this by jinxing the community by saying we have been freakishly patient but I forgot to knock on wood from the Juno Forest.  SonicKaos could probably explain the frustration best because he lives in the Great White North.

That’s the reason for the Canadian flag shaped like a heart — to send out love to our brothers and sisters suffering without boosters.

Rumors are flying across the EoJ Community about why that is. Some say production has been halted because of easy-to-print-off cards while others say the supplies are not meeting demands. We don’t know what to believe other than we hope whatever is the problem gets resolved soon.

There isn’t much us consumers can do other than be patient and wait for official word. We’ll let you know the second we hear something.

It seems Sony has been working hard on fixing the issues plaguing some online players recently in Eye of Judgement. They released a network update earlier today with two main fixes:

1. Improved connectivity with opponents in online mode – Many people have been having connection issues with the game, so to hear that this has been noticed and taken care of is great news.

2. Better balanced COM AI in Battle Arena Mod – What this means exactly, we aren’t sure. Perhaps the computer will become smarter (or a bit dumber in lower difficulties) so that the selected difficulty will give better competition to a wider range of players skill.

For info on how to update your game version, please check the official site. There are some steps to ensure you apply the patch correctly so read carefully.

Remember, you will not be able to play online until you have installed this update.

Happy Battling!

One of the community managers at the European PlayStation forms has spilled the beans on a network update to everyone’s favorite game — Eye of Judgment. It is still unclear if this update if just for the PAL regions or will carry over across all the territories where EoJ is released. Still, what does the update consist of?

• Reinforcement of COM AI in Battle Arena Mode.
• Optimization of network connection for Online Mode.

Good news for the back-end of the game because more and more issues were cropping up about connections dropping. We are not clear on what “reinforcement of COM AI” is but it SOUNDS good.

The update will hit on November 12, some places are incorrectly reporting it as Nov. 9 but the forum post has since been amended. Don’t get confused with the 12/11 part because Europe likes to keep us Yankees on our toes by switching the month and day.

With the deep card strategy system in place for Eye of Judgment, there can be a number of uses for a single card. Icepick from the Black Cubic site highlights all kinds of cards from the ninja set to the Green Lycanthrope. He does a great job at looking over the card and analyzing what kind of effectiveness it truly has. Not only that, he shows off a sample of the card (and blanks out the bar code, hurray!) so you know what to look for when you open an elusive booster pack.

So far, the updates have been very consistent and it is becoming an invaluable resource to the pro EoJ deck builder. Speaking of building decks, they recently joined forces with one of our favorite card management resources, the EoJ Card Manager. That duo of card information makes it the premier place to look for any question you might have on abilities, battle patterns or mana costs.

We’ll keep you all updated on their development and what is happening with the Black Cubic as they keep on posting about some of the basic and more unique strategies found with individual cards.

• Click here to read Black Cubic’s latest Card Spotlight

I need to say a huge THANK YOU to SonicKaos for the kind words and public humiliation! Sincerely, it was very nice of you to do that and I thank you.

Now on to EoJ discussion!

There is a decided lack of new EoJ news. Supplies are still tight and boosters are even harder to come by. We hope distribution ramps up and EoJ can have a “second” release, of sorts, with a whole lotta cards. The community is being extremely paitent which is awesome to see. Not everyday does a hardcore fanbase stay low key and wait their turn. You usually see fanboys with foam coming out of their mouths.

Tournaments are becoming a staple of the community. It is awesome to see organizers getting ladders put together when EoJ doesn’t have the best system for setting up matches in a tournament format. One site (which we’ll feature later), in particular, is now going to be doing smaller, weekly tournaments that are gaining popularity.

The next question in my mind is where Eye of Judgment is headed from this point on. The shortages won’t last forever and cheaters will shrivel up and die… eventually. Where does EoJ go from here? Will the community still thrive? When will the new series of cards launch? Will there be a EoJ2? The crystal ball looks fuzzy at this point. The one thing to be sure of is that the fanbase is staying hardcore and strong.

One day a year, you celebrate the day of you’re birth with friends, family and other loved ones. Today happens to be that day for Groovester!  From all of us in the community, we wish you a Happy Birthday! Hopefully it has been a great day, and there will definatly be many more to come. Of course, this means that there may not be an article from our friend for a day or two… but it’s a legitimate excuse and totally understandable. Enjoy tonight, and hopefully the morning wont be too bad!

P.S. - Save me some Cake!

There has been a recent trend within the Eye of Judgment community– calling out cheaters on message boards. Let’s all agree on one thing, cheating in EoJ is terrible and cheaters should be reported so they can be dealt with… to the proper authorities in charge. To publicly tar and feather blatant cheaters is not a constructive way to rid ourselves of the problem. While some may think it is a way of warning others but the time it takes to “alert the internetz” that time could have been reporting the person to those who can actually ban the person.

Hopefully, there will be a patch that can close the holes currently open to cheating. If it continues, maybe something like what Warhawk is doing is in order. Incognito just implemented the Arbiter system where gamer “moderators” can ban people if they are reported or spotted doing naughty cheating. Perhaps that is what EoJ could use if it keeps growing in popularity. There is no easy answer to deal with cheaters but getting on a soap box and yelling with a megaphone on a forum is not the way to stop it because you give the villains what they want — attention.

With trading card games come the collectible nature of it all. With some cards (*cough* Phantoms *cough*) more rare than others, you can bet that these creatures and spells will be worth some coin now and down the road when older series are phased out to make room for the next best things. To keep the cards in good condition, you have to do something to protect them. Card sleeves are the most sensible option but due to the light-based nature of Eye of Judgment, it can cause trouble when the PlayStation Eye has to read the bar code. It can be a tricky balancing act, like getting rabbit ear antenna to give you a clear picture. Never fear, we have some tips for you to ease the problem of protection vs. readability.

• Use non-glossy card sleeves: The duller the gloss, the better as it won’t reflect light like a mirror
• On that same note: stick with the soft plastic
• Don’t go over board with card sleeves: Those common Hellfire Spitters don’t need 2 layers of plastic or even 1 for that matter
• No direct sunlight: Ambient room lighting is fine, just don’t use a spotlight over the mat
• When not playing: find a stack holder to house your cards or maybe a portfolio with pages to fit cards in
• Respect: This is Eye of Judgment, not Eye of Throw Your Cards Around the Room

The main theme is be careful. You can use card sleeves just keep direct lighting to a minimum and there won’t be an issue.