Month: February 2020

A Ramble for Friday

Izlain

I sat down at my computer this morning to write something, but upon inspection of my drafts folder, there are two articles that I have yet to work on and little else. One of those articles is about the launch of Season 4 for Apex Legends, but I really don’t have a lot to say given that I haven’t really played more than a handful of games this season. I didn’t buy the battle pass either, because I haven’t been playing so I don’t see the point in paying money for something I won’t get enjoyment out of. It’s not that I’m disillusioned with the game, I still think it’s the best battle royale game on the market and I still enjoy the world and character design. It’s still a great shooter at its core as well. I did have enough in-game currency to unlock the new character immediately, and I’ve played enough games to see the changes to the map. There are still rotating limited time game modes and apparently there will be a portion of time where we go back to King’s Canyon (the original map). I still have friends playing regularly, but with my interest shifting back towards League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, I don’t have time to play both with any sort of regularity.

The other draft in my folder is a Magic: The Gathering EDH deck brew, one that I’ve been working on for quite some time. When Throne of Eldraine released, the preconstructed Brawl decks came out as well, and there was one character that I was interested in building around. I finally got my hands on the Chulane deck, and I brewed it up immediately. Thankfully many of the more expensive cards I want to put into the deck are already in my collection, but there are still several cards needed and I don’t think I can build it out just yet. Also, in the subsequent months there was the release of the next set, Theros: Beyond Death and that changed my brew a little bit. It seems at least for me that very few decks are ever “finished.” Instead, they are a more fluid evolving thing — new sets introduce new cards and new combos and new synergies and sometimes a deck that started out fairly focused on one theme ends up taking a completely different turn. As such, I’ve broken up decks to make new ones and as I play more I find that some of my decks just weren’t very good, or another project comes up where I want to pull good cards out of substandard decks to put into a new one.

For instance, I just built a deck around Klothys which is one of the new Gods from Theros, and initially it just didn’t perform the way I would have thought. I already know that there are some better cards I could buy that would replace some lesser versions but I didn’t want to spend a ton to finish the deck off, so it’s a budget build for now. Regardless, it has still yet to perform after a handful of games, and I’ve already gone through and swapped out about 20 cards. I guess it has something to do with matchups in that I have played against other decks that are doing the same sort of thing better, or just combo off faster (for reference, this deck doesn’t depend on combos, just value and big stuff to finish a game). Perhaps it will see a game where it shines, but for now I’m starting to focus on other decks I have and how I can improve them, along with looking ahead to new brews. We also know that the next set of commander decks comes out in the next couple of months, so I assume there will be new projects I’ll want to take on. Whatever the case, between the couple of games I’m playing and MTG, I haven’t had a bunch to write about.

There are new games on the horizon. DOOM Eternal releases soon. Final Fantasy VII Remake as well. Those are two I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. The latest Metro game is no longer an Epic Games Store exclusive, so being able to buy it on Steam has me tempted. I do still have a few games I bought within the last few months that I have yet to complete, so once I get around to those I’ll have more to write about. Whatever the case I’ve been in the mood to write more often, but then I sit and realize I don’t really have anything substantial to say and skip it. I honestly thought I would have gotten more posts in this month but as I said, when you play the same couple of games all month it’s not super exciting to write about nor great for readers. I can tell you that I started my ranked journey in TFT and after being placed in Iron III I’ve worked up to Iron I. Bronze to come. I have yet to play ranked in LoL, but I intend to give it a whirl again. Perhaps I’ll get back to the same level I used to be at. I’ll also be playing MTG as much as I can, and though I’ve had a ton of great experiences it’s hard to translate that into blog posts. Perhaps I’ll start streaming or recording so that I can share some epic games. It’s an idea I’ve been toying with, but I’ll make it official ahead of time if I decide to start doing that.

So yeah, I’m still around, just having trouble getting the words onto the page. I’ll try to do more posts like this if this persists, just to check in.

The War Report: EDH Planechase

Izlain

Magic: The Gathering has been on the uptick in my house as of late. I have fully settled in to the PlayEDH Discord, and have played a few dozen games to this point. I’ve found that I can typically get online after I pick my son up from school and play at least a couple of games by the time the little lady gets home and we do dinner, etc. As such, I’ve been playing almost daily. When joining the Discord server, they have a little welcome message that directs you to one of their bots that allows you to sign yourself up for various channels the server has to offer. For instance, there are general chats and things to do with MTG, some off-topic rooms, and then the meat and potatoes: Battlecruiser, Mid, High and Competitive tags. Once labeling yourself, you gain access to the corresponding chat rooms where you can look for groups to play with. In my playtime there, I have spent the majority in Mid_LFG, but I have dipped my toes into the High_LFG room to test out my more competitive decks. With a rather large community and new people joining all the time (I’ve seriously run a handful of people through their first game), there are a variety of scenarios you can find yourself in. The standard setup is a pod of four players, but I’ve played with three. You can play bigger games but you’d need a paid account to something like Whereby so that you can see more people’s cameras. Despite being a server dedicated to EDH, people sometimes venture off into other formats. Once such format that I never had the opportunity to play is Planechase.

Planechase was a supplemental product that came with Plane cards that are basically random modifiers for the game. Originally released in 2009, there were four precons that each included 10 Planechase cards. Another set of these came out in 2012, and later the Anthology combined four decks with all 86 of the Planes. This was a multiplayer format that was designed around 60 card decks, but of course, people have made the transition over to EDH, but otherwise follow the same rules when it comes to the Planechase cards. The other day I was hanging out in the Discord and someone mentioned something about playing Planechase EDH, and I was intrigued so I agreed to join in. Before we started the gentleman gave me an introduction to the format. 

It turns out the guy had an app on his phone that contains all 86 of the Planes and essentially shuffles them up for you and draws them at random as needed. He went on to explain that the Plane is a static effect that affects everyone. In our above example, we initially Planeswalked to this world, and as such we started the game with the top cards of our libraries revealed, BUT we could also play cards from ANYONE’S library. Crazy stuff. Then, on each turn you can roll a die to attempt to Planeswalk to a new Plane. The initial sets had special dice for this action, that had a symbol which causes chaos. The chaos roll would cause the bottom line of rules text to trigger, which in the case of Windriddle Palaces, we would all mill ourselves for one car. In order to keep things fair, you can only attempt a roll once per turn, unless you are willing to pay a cumulative 1 mana to roll again. We didn’t have the official die, so instead we said roll a d6, 1’s are Planeswalk and 6’s are Chaos. It worked out well, though we were stuck on this plane for quite some time. Later, we’d walk several more times.

The variety of effects that can occur passively via the Plane itself, and via the chaos rolls made for interesting gameplay. Some Planes will be more beneficial to some decks while some help everyone and of course some are to everyone’s detriment. I don’t think it’s the type of thing I’d want to play all of the time, but it was something new and a great first experience. I didn’t win the game but it was still rewarding because it added another layer of complexity and I dig that. I went ahead and downloaded the same app the other player was using (which is also how I got these screenshots for ya) so I have it available to pull out the next time I’m looking for something a little bit different. This is what I love about MTG — the sheer amount of endless possibility that it brings. No two games will ever be the same, and it’s constantly changing and adding more depth. It’s my MMO at this point, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Easing Into Riot’s Games

Izlain2 Comments

Somehow or another it’s been over a week since my last post. Honestly don’t know where that time went. I have been playing a ton of games though, and a bunch of MTG to boot, so I do have some drafts floating around in various states. Still figuring out where blogging fits into my life at this point, seeing as how I’ve had some swings in momentum for the last 6 months. Whatever the case, I’m not here to talk about that, I’m here to talk about Riot Games.

The last time I did so, I wrote about the company’s 10 year anniversary and their livestream with a bunch of announcements for a bunch of different games they have in development. It seems they are aiming at being more than just the company that produces League of Legends. Since then, I hadn’t really played the game, but in the last month or so I have dipped my toes back into their content. The main reason for the renewed interest was finding out a few of my co-workers still play, and though they are much younger and definitely less rusty than myself, it’s been a reason to play. I like the camaraderie that comes from actually knowing the people you’re playing with. The one co-worker in my department actually has a friend list with people he actually knows, so we’ve gotten nearly full groups a couple of times and all get on Discord to bullshit while we run through matches. Another reason I’ve been engaged is that the URF (Ultra Rapid Fire) mode has been running for a good long time, and it’s always been a blast. We jam a few games several times a week and though I haven’t played any normals or ranked yet, but we’ve already to talked about doing so after URF rotates out. I would share more stats and figures but at this point I don’t really have anything brag worthy. I think I’ve earned one S rank the entire time and more low grades than I care to share. Thankfully the friends are pretty good and oftentimes carry me, but I am pleased with my progress. I’ve knocked quite a bit of the rust off and I think when we do drift towards ranked play I should be good to go. I will miss the max CDR and infinite mana, but I’ll adjust again.

Something that surprised me was my interest in playing Teamfight Tactics again. Riot’s spinoff Auto-Battler was in beta last I had checked, but recently fully released. I tried it out last year during the beta, and shared some thoughts. I wasn’t too fond of it, or the genre in general. Initially I played DOTA Underlords and because I don’t have a relationship or investment into DOTA I wrote it off pretty quickly. When a game that I adore made its own version I thought I would enjoy it, but it turns out I just didn’t really understand what I was doing. This is a product of not really giving it a fair shake along with really only using the experience for blog fodder.

Upon its full release, Teamfight Tactics did some overhauling to the systems of the game, and I thought I might as well check it out since I didn’t give it much of a chance in the past and my friend was talking it up as being really good. One day I finally logged in and gave it a shot. I ended up playing nearly the whole day. I’m not sure what the actual issue was in the past, but I now consider myself a fan. One advantage it has over traditional LoL is the fact that there aren’t any twitch requirements which I recall thinking was a bad idea, but in fact makes the game more relaxing. Once you start to understand how the various elements and classes work together, how item builds work and which champions tend to be better than others in various situations, it really does feel like a chess match, except you’re playing against more than one person so the strategy intensifies. My only real complaint is that sometimes the AI is stupid with its targeting system, but I have come to understand that it is working as intended, and that the characters follow particular rules for targeting. For example, when a low health enemy hides behind a higher health champion that happens to be closer to yours, yours will target the high health character when every shred of rationale is screaming to kill the other champion first. Whatever the case, it’s been a blast and I intend to continue playing it for the foreseeable future. At this point I’ve done two of my five placement games in ranked and I’m hoping to make a climb.

Lastly, one of the other games announced last year has entered beta as well, and that’s Legends of Runeterra. I went ahead and signed up and downloaded the client (which is currently separate from Riot’s launcher, though I imagine it will be integrated at some point). My initial impressions are positive, but there is one negative. Overall the game looks like it will be good fun. There’s a fair mix of CCG elements we’ve seen in other games (feels closest to Elder Scrolls Legends and Hearthstone but only in particular ways) and League of Legends characters. Riot’s rich lore lends itself to other genres quite nicely, it seems. The negative aspect was the fact that there is a fairly long tutorial (which I appreciate them having) and while I was playing I got through multiple steps, the game then crashed and I was forced to start over. I assume at some point there will be an option to skip this, but I didn’t feel like starting over and have not played since. Granted, that was only within the last couple of weeks, but I just haven’t gotten back around to it. I do intend to give it a fair shake though, because I don’t want to overlook it too soon just to write about how much I enjoy it later.

So yeah, I’ve not had as much to write about as a result of spending more time gaming. I’ll get working on these other drafts soon and give y’all something new to read. Until then.

TWR: Klothys – God of X

Izlain

Theros: Beyond Death was released a couple of weeks ago, and I was finally able to get my hands on some of the new cards. My best pull was probably the Nyxbloom Ancient, which I already knew I wanted in a new deck. There are still other cards from the set I would like, but I managed to snag some cool cards. Each time a new set comes out I tend to look at the new legendary creatures for potential brews. This time around there weren’t too many creatures I saw being good commanders, rather better in the 99 of other decks. However, one of the new Gods from the set caught my attention, and being in colors I haven’t brewed around much, I decided it would be my first project. Behold, Klothys, God of Destiny:

Klothys is a God, so it already comes pre-equipped with two lines of text that apply to all other Gods as well. Each of the Gods are Legendary Enchantment Creatures along with being Indestructible and requiring a devotion threshold before becoming a creature. What makes Klothys unique is the fact that she does some nice things whether or not you can actually attack with her. Each precombat main phase we get to exile a card from a graveyard. This is great for multiple reasons, but having built in graveyard hate is amazing to break up many of the meta’s shenanigans. You can target your own graveyard if necessary, but we’ll typically be using this ability against opponents. When we exile land cards, we get either a red or green mana. Any other card type gains us two life along with dealing each opponent 2 damage. It’s great value for only three mana. Over the course of the years I have notice a bunch of cards in the Gruul colors that I just haven’t found a place for, and Klothys inspired me to fit most of them in. Green wants to ramp and draw us cards, while red wants to burn our opponents out. So my brain immediately goes towards lots of ramp to feed X spells. While the green X spells are mostly creature based, the red X spells can be potential game finishers, especially when we have a ton of mana to dump into them. First let’s take a look at our ramp packages.

BIG Mana:

These are the general ramp spells and creatures that will help us to produce big amounts of mana. Though there are many other options aside from Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach and Rampant Growth, I chose these because they are lowest curve and most reliable. Farseek is another I typically run but because we are only playing two colors and you can’t tutor for green it amounts to a mountain tutor and I’m okay without it. We also like that Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach both put a land card in our hands, mainly because we are including multiple cards that allow us to drop extra lands per turn. Burgeoning will allow us to play lands on opponents turns as well, and the Great Henge is a busted artifact when you are playing big creatures. Playing it for only GG will allow you to tap it for two immediately, and any creatures you cast come in with a +1/+1 counter and draw you a card. Nyxbloom Ancient is a new card from Theros that won’t instantly give you infinite mana, but you can definitely make a ton of it more quickly with him on the field. There are some typical mana dorks that tap for mana, and then there’s both of the Radhas that can produce extra mana when attacking. Mina and Denn along with the Dryad of the Ilysian Grove will allow us to play extra lands and of course the Sakura Tribe Elder can be sacced to grab a basic. Next let’s take a look at our big mana spells/creatures and support for that theme.

X Marks the Spot:

Here we have a selection of Hydras with X in their casting cost. When we have the ability to pump out a bunch of mana, these can hit the battlefield with rather large power and toughness. For the most part they enter with X counters on them but then some will do some extra things, but I’ll leave it to you to read the cards. When it comes to X cost spells, we’re running a selection of deal X damage to multiple or singular targets. I’ve tried to include only those that have the ability to hit our opponents directly, though some can also target their creatures or in the case of Earthquake, all non-fliers and all players, which we’ll have to be careful with. For additional support for this theme, I’ve also included Rosheen Meanderer who taps for four colorless to use towards X spells, and Gargos, Vicious Watcher who reduces our costs for Hydra Spells by four as well. Lastly, Unbound Flourishing is an enchantment that doubles the amount of X when casting creature spells (so our Hydras are doubly huge) and also when we cast big X damage spells, we’ll get to copy that card, so sometimes this could be a two for one finisher! Here are some supporting cards and my reasoning for their inclusion:

Supporting Cast:

Courser of Kruphix doesn’t let us play additional lands, but other creatures we have in the deck do. Still, if you have the ability to play lands off the top of your library, you can then keep some in your hand for Burgeoning or other triggers. Arasta is a nice creature that gives you free blockers with reach (and we don’t have other flying creatures for those blocks either) when opponents cast spells. The new Nylea reduces creature costs along with some situational card draw. Questing Beast is just good value but it’s honestly only here because I pulled one from a pack and wanted to put it somewhere. Torbran allows all of our red sources to do extra damage, and though that’s mostly with spells, it still can help with the hurt. Xenagos the God can make one of our huge creatures even bigger each combat. He’s a big beater himself when he comes online. Rampaging Baloths have one of the best landfall triggers in the game and with our gameplan we should be able to make quite a few 4/4 beast tokens pretty quickly. I inlcuded Ruric Thar for the same reason as Questing Beast, but he’s also a big beater that punishes noncreature spells. And of course, no big beater green deck goes without a copy of Avenger of Zendikar. For enchantments, we have Cindervines, which also punishes the casting of noncreature spells, but also can be sacrificed to destroy an artifact or enchantment. Elemental Bond and Guardian Project help us draw cards each time we cast a creature, while Rhythm of the Wild gives our creatures either haste or more counters. Greater Good can help us to draw a ton of cards by sacrificing a creature with a bunch of +1/+1 counters on it. Overall I think the deck list is pretty solid, but I won’t know for sure until I test it out. Your mileage may vary. You can see the full decklist here.

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

Izlain1 Comment

Image and Form Games has been producing PC and Console games for about a decade now, with their SteamWorld series being loosely related but also standalone. What you can come to expect from a SteamWorld game is that there will be robots of various sizes and shapes doing a variety of things. If we go back to the first game released, SteamWorld Dig, we’ll get a western-themed Metroidvania that was fun to play but ultimately fell a little short for me. I enjoy that style of game, but it was packed in with a Humble Bundle and I didn’t give it the time it deserved, I also got bored along the way. Fast forward a couple of years to SteamWorld Heist, and I was on board. Rather than being an action platformer like its predecessor, we got a turn-based strategy game. Instead of western feeling, it was sci-fi in space. It was a lot of fun and I played it through its end on PS4. Later, SteamWorld Dig 2 would release, but I already knew I probably wasn’t going to be into it, being a direct sequel to the original. Finally, we come to the latest game in the series, SteamWorld Quest. It was released last year, but I only got around to getting a copy during the holiday sales. It’s still the same SteamWorld we know and love, with plenty of robots and a hand-drawn art style. However, we go back in time to the middle-ages in this romp.

As the story goes, some bad things happened and yadda yadda. If you’ve ever played a video game you can extrapolate from that. You’ll take control of Armilly, a fighter robot that wants nothing more than to be part of “The Guild.” Along your path to trying to get involved with the guild, you’ll meet various characters and some will of course join your party. The story is told via the cutscenes above along with in-game dialogue. Hopefully you’re good with subtitles, because you don’t speak whatever tongue of robot that is actually audible during these cutscenes. Part of the time you’ll be wandering around various landscapes until you happen upon enemy robots, at which time you’ll enter the battle screen, which is where the majority of actual gameplay is.

What makes combat unique in SteamWorld Quest, is that it uses a combination of card game deckbuilding along with turn-based RPG mechanics. Each character on your squad comes equipped with a deck of cards. There are three types of cards, those that do something supportive, those that are basic attacks, and unique skills that cost special action points. The former two types of cards will also provide you with said action points, while the latter consumes them. Each turn, you can play three cards from your hand before passing. The enemies will play one or more cards each turn as well, and then the actions will take place. Cards from all of your characters decks are shuffled together so you’ll have to pick and choose what is right for each situation. So for example, if you have a card in hand that requires two action points, and two other cards that will produce those action points, you can play the two cards first netting two action points, and then spend those points with the third card. When you get further along you can also create chains by playing three cards from the same character, and a bonus action will occur. In the case of Armilly, you’ll get another strike that also heals you.

As you gain experience you’ll level up, providing more base stats like health and attack power. You’ll come across new comrades to join your party, and assume more will pop up over time, as some dialogue has implied that it could happen but I haven’t looked this up due to spoilers. I have only made it a few chapters in but I have enjoyed what I’ve seen and it’s a nice combination of genres that I find engrossing. Overall I’d say the game is worth it’s normal asking price but even better on sale. That’s just me though, you might not have qualms at paying full price for games. I would recommend picking it up if you’re a fan of the SteamWorld series, are into unique RPGs, or just want something new to try out.