Things I Didn't Know

 The Story of Ghazban Ogress. 

There's...a lot to unpack here. As someone who was playing at the time but not as plugged into things, I had no idea that this card was in reference to mock a well respected woman in the game.

And that fuckin' sucks. 

But damn if Ms. Nicoloff doesn't seem like a badass. Props to her. I'm glad she got a chance to tell her story. 

Magic has done some great work, bringing a more accepting attitude to the game--certainly a hell of an improvement over this. But it is good to know the history so we can do better. 

I also saw in a Reddit thread on this, that Mark Rosewater has made an apology to Ms. Nicoloff, which is the least he could do-but that is a good thing.

On vacation again: Hoping for posts resuming Oct 9th!

Broken But In Control

The first few tests with Kingbreaker proved that it could do some crazy stuff. I went up against Noah's goblins deck and was able to take the match to 3 games. I got him down to 2 but ran out of steam when my Tifa died. 

I played against a control deck Matt had and was able to create very large Tifas to end the game in one blow in two matches. 

The deck works.....sometimes. In these tests, I was using Bristly Bill and while that card is good, Scythecat Cub is a stronger card for this deck, and isn't legendary. 

So when I got proxies of those I added them in. After multiple plays, I'm realizing that Kingbreaker is a combo deck, in much the same sense that Doomsday might be. You set your hand and board up as best you can in order to try and win on one turn. 

Sure you can do it over a couple turns-there's nothing wrong with attacking with a Dark Confidant if nothing else is on the board. 

But what this deck really wants to do is make a 16+ power creature and trample for the win. 

Dark Confidant was my way of ensuring that cards would get into my hand, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. I'm in the 'what do we do to streamline' stage of deckbuilding. What do I cut or adjust to make this better, what just needs to go to a sideboard? 

Kingbreaker

 Once upon a time, I had an idea. This is what I turned it into.

Named after The Armed's song, thanks to Rebecca for the song idea. 

3 Dark Confidant
4 Tifa Lockhart
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Voice of Victory
3 Elvish Reclaimer
2 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Scythecat Cub

2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fatal Push
4 Crop Rotation
3 Berserk

2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Temple Garden
1 Bayou
1 Godless Shrine

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Scale Up

This is what I ended up going with. It took some refining, as I didn't have Berserk to start with. Turns out you can do a lot with this deck just using cards like Royal Treatment.  

However, I really wanted this to work, so I started cannibalizing other decks for a Bayou, and I happened to open a Godless Shrine from my Edge of Eternities pre-release!

With an appropriate level mana base, I want to test this out. 

Note: no posts until the 25th, I'm out of town!

Free Pizza: Visions of the Future

This was a LOT of fun. I hit my Free Pizza this month on the back of two decks, which I am enjoying quite a bit of. I hope you find some inspiration in these, because I've had a great time playing them.

While this says Auto-Air Walker, I just didn't change the name after messing around with it. 

This deck wants to use the destroy package to ideally trigger Air Walker into Morgan Le Fay. Moira X isn't necessary but IS a but of fun in this deck, potentially setting up multiple Morgan triggers. But even if Morgan isn't used, there's a nice destroy backup: The Thing First Steps and Lady Dethstroke can flip lanes, which can't be overlooked.

I didn't build this entirely from scratch; Uncle Ben is a character I added after seeing someone with a list online, for example. But it's been pretty neat to play with and it definitely pushed me up in the ranks. 

This next deck I'm really proud of: 

I started off using Viv Vision as a card in a move deck, and she was terrible. But once I shifted the deck to a Sebastian Shaw- boost deck it came alive. Frankie Raye Nova and Nakia are flex slots: Frankie is a fun card to pair with Sasquatch, and Nakia really could be something better. Red Guardian is probably a better choice but all in all; this is fun! 

Just Some Thoughts

 After being told that I am missing the point of the Spider-Man set, because while it seems half-baked to me: ‘what does half-baked feel like to casual players’ and I'm 'overestimating what people are looking for out of Magic. It's not like MtG is such a complicated game', I have a few thoughts.

First; a half baked set is one that gives players a poor play experience, especially when combined with the larger Magic ecosystem. If you get into Magic because Spider-Man is your favorite hero and you don’t feel like it represents things well (and I think the heroic cards in particular feel very samey), plus your play experience sucks, then how is that good for the game? Because I think any player is looking for a good time: it is precisely the reason Commander is popular as a format. 

Because Commander is not a great format, but it IS a great time with friends. It's easy to miss this but my experience has lead me to that conclusion: the presence of friends makes up for the shortcomings of Commander as a format. 

That aside: if someone plays the Spider-Man set and then gets trounced by someone playing the Final Fantasy set, how is that going to feel? 

Second; Magic is the most complicated game and that's just the fact. Nothing against other complicated games but saying that Magic isn't complicated is incredibly dismissive, especially when you're trying to teach new players the game. This shit is hard. 

Third; the new draft format that they are doing is probably being pitched as a way to sell those Spider-Man packs. That is: Hey, this is specifically for Spider-Man but it's also official so if you want to play it with other sets, that's fine. I used to think it was a way to cover up the weakness of having a set made of only 188 cards-and my understanding is that 88 of those were fast tracked

However, in the same thread where I was told that I was missing the point of the set, I saw game store employees talking up the new format, because you only need 4 players to get a draft to fire. That's really good for game stores, and reduces the burden on people who want to play at home.

And I have to admit; it is a LOT easier getting four people together than eight, something that is good for players and for stores where people play! But now I think there’s something else going on.

Conjecture: I think this is a way for WotC to float doing new sets every month. If they are releasing six sets for Standard this year and five of those have close to 300 cards per set, how difficult is it halve the size of each set and say “new sets every month! New draft format means you won’t ever get bored, and the format can’t ever get stale because it’s just 30 days for new cards!”

Now, on the one hand; formats like draft becoming more accessible is a really good thing. Drafts sell packs and packs keep the game going. 

On the other hand; There. Is. Too. Much. Goddamn. Product.

Nothing gets a chance to be explored, because we’re already on to the next set—and the next set is already being hyped before the current one is out! Where do we actually get a chance to play games instead of be on the hype train?

I dunno. I’m probably just overthinking it, because that is what I tend to do. But it wouldn’t shock me, because I feel like WotC-or more likely Hasbro-has taken the position of milking the customers for as much money as possible. 

Horror Revisited

I really dug this article on Kamigawa's evocation of the violence of war, in contrast to the high fantasy violence we are typically presented with. 

Kamigawa was a beloved set because of its incredible evocation of story, lore and art. I am reminded that Magic sets, as with movies, are comprised of many moving parts and a whole lot of people dedicate their time and effort to getting details right. Efforts that go all but unnoticed when they go right, they become so glaring when they are wrong.  

I'm glad they went back to the plane to get the gameplay right.

Late To The Party; Doom: The Dark Ages

 This was the moment when I knew Doom was jumping the shark:

Forgive the potato quality of the picture: the game wouldn't let me just take a pic of it. 

There's a lot of good in Doom: The Dark Ages. I found getting into the rhythm of the game to be easier than in Doom Eternal, and the jumping sections don't require you to do something precise or else die, which is good. 

Doomguy is a lumbering unit, every time he lands from a jump there's a "thoom" and ripple in the ground. It feels right. The combat sections even when they become a colorful wasteland of insanity are still engaging and, if you're putting some thought into your weapons and how they interact, feel good to fight through.

The map is well laid out too: Always offering enough detail to show you where to go, but not so much that you cannot figure out how to get there. They want you to find the hidden items, which feels good. 

There's also sections of the game where you play in a giant mech and these are...fine. They aren't complex, and you become a titan of destruction, wrecking buildings and giant demons with your metal fists. I can't say that they are incredibly fun but they do provide a nice break between other segments of the game and they feel correct.

That is; you are still Doomguy and you exist to fuck things up. 

The dragon, however...

As with everything in The Dark Ages, the dragon is metal. And by that, I mean the aesthetic and vibe. 

However, flying the dragon is not metal. I am not playing Doom to fly a dragon. I am playing Doom to take a chainsaw to demons. The dragon does metal things, like breathing fire down the neck of a giant demon, but the player doesn't do them.

And this is where we get into padding. The Doom reboot of 2016 was about as perfectly distilled as you could ask for. What did you do? You murdered every demon in the room until there weren't none. If you felt like it, cool; get some dollies. 

Now...you  have to drive a mech and a dragon. And I'm not saying that they don't have moments, but they do take me out of the primary gameplay look and I'm not sure what the upside is for the dragon elements. 

Still, all in all I enjoyed the game and had a good time.