Thursday, April 30, 2020

Powered by an angry mind

Affinity win at last minute
I believe it was Cedric Phillips at Starcity Games who pointed out that playing Affinity can feel like you've got a fairy godmother in your corner. It didn't matter how badly things were looking, you always had a shot at winning.

There have been a few games that have felt like this: even when my opponent established parity of some kind, I have topdecked my way into a win. In this instance; with Fuz at six and me at three, drawing a Galvanic Blast meant that I was able to attack, taking out his two blockers and kill his remaining creature. Which, I don't mind telling you, feels pretty good.

More often, I find myself presenting an overwhelming rush that just wins straight up, or I stall and that's it. Hunter-Killer can feel very combo-deck in this regard and without moving into card draw, I'm not sure what can be done about that.

If there are turns where I get to transform an Ornithopter into a 8/2 flier with Cranial Plating by turn 3, maybe there isn't anything I need to do about that.

However, part of my metagame is lifegain decks. I know that's not the standard-and dealing with some kind of Blue based (likely Delver-ish) deck is also part of my group, I think I need to look at the sideboard now with that in mind. Space is going to be very tight so I'll have to be smart. And, although Companions haven't set things on fire in my meta yet, I am pretty sure they will, so I'll need a way to manage that.

Currently, I'm looking at this
4 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Bedevil

Bedevil is my catchall spell: Planeswalkers, artifacts and creatures are all a problem-why not hit them at instant speed? It's likely too expensive (crazily enough!) at three mana but it does do all the tricks.

Scrapheap Scrounger is probably a mistake. It's there to be a recursive threat against decks that have a lot of removal but...do those decks really exist? Unlike Bedevil, I think that the Scrounger might be a solution looking for a problem. Abrade is the most likely fix there but I'll keep my options open, for now.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Patience and Practice

Playing some Transformers games with Jason last week, I could feel myself getting frustrated.

Being frustrated is a novel feeling for me, and being frustrated at my friends even stranger.

That was one of the moments when I realized: The pandemic is getting to me.

It just is. I am sure everyone is managing in their own ways: I am pretty fortunate, myself, to still be employed and have a regular schedule. I can connect with people online to play games, and most of them are willing and able to do so.

That doesn't mean the strain isn't wearing on me. It's been over a month now and I don't know about you, but I don't think we've seen the worst of it.

So I started to think about what I can do to try and keep myself calm during these times and I remembered that there are some pretty simple breathing exercises that help. I thought that maybe if I consciously took a breath between plays, that might help me slow down enough to not get irritated at anyone.

As a bonus, it might help me see plays I was overlooking and perform the best play possible.

I began by doing this while goldfishing Hunter-Killer and it's more challenging than I thought it would be! Twenty plus years of playing Magic have given me a lot of shortcuts, some good, some bad. Slowing my play down to accomplish a conscious breath is hard to remember.

Still, I'm making the practice so that I can exercise patience. Hopefully that will be something I can talk more about in the future, to see how it's impacting my experience.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Companionship

Well...

Everyone has raised quite the kerfuffle regarding the Companion mechanic, especially in Legacy.

And, I can't say they're wrong. In the first couple weeks of online events, it certainly looks like Lurrus of the Dream-Den is a massive offender, and coming in at a close second are Zidra, the Dawnwalker and Gyruda, Doom of Depths.

So, something is clearly going to have to be done about that. Maybe players will adapt and the format will evolve, just as it did with Miracles-another mechanic people insisted was 'unfun'. Maybe there's a way to blunt the impact Companions have. They haven't done anything about Oko, Thief of Crowns in Legacy yet and that card is just so...so bad.

Maybe not. But that's OK. I tend to come down on the side of Patrick Chapin here. It'll be fine and moreover, people should stop berating WotC for taking these kinds of risks. 

WotC should take risks, they should try mechanics that shake things up. Every mechanic breaks the rules. Pick your mechanic, and we can illustrate how it let's you do something that you couldn't do. That the whole point. We just don't remember most of them because they are a) uninteresting or b) not pushed very far. 90% of these mechanics are balanced for Limited, and now Commander, because that's where the money is. Insisting that they balance for Eternal formats is a logistical impossibility for Wizards to accomplish.

If everyone spends a month dealing with a mechanic that warps things because WotC took a risk and messed up the format; well, that's just the cost of doing business. It isn't the end of the world. Eternal formats need new blood and new ideas, just like Standard does and new cards that newer players can get their hands on and make weird decks with is just as important as reprints.

Other mechanics will come out of this, other mistakes will come out of this. But don't complain because they did something that "breaks the rules."

All the play has been online; how much money has been lost here, really? Nobody's having to sell Underground Seas because they aren't useful anymore. The "pillars" of the format that people invest in haven't gone anywhere. Let the format settle; if it doesn't evolve, fine call for the ban. You clearly won't be alone. But don't chastise WotC for doing things that break the rules and taking risks. That's their job. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

A Delinquent Survivalist

Hunter-Killer has been doing good work for me lately; pulling off a win in a three player game was a great surprise!

It only happened once but that it happened at all is good.

The MVP however is Sphere of Resistance. Sphere punishes most of the manabases in Magic, without using land destruction. And since my cards can shrug off the tax of the Sphere, I have an opportunity to win while my opponent struggles.

Of course, the next game (not pictured), Noah was able to ramp up and I could not find a Sphere of Resistance so things went a little differently. 

Multiplayer games are generally not kind to the all-in aggro player. That I could get it to work once is a testament to the strength of the affinity archetype.

That said: Sphere is probably something I would need to sideboard out against 'big mana' decks. Maybe swapping in a card like Bedevil would be appropriate, trying to keep their big creatures from functioning before I can get the win.

Ghostfire Blade has been an excellent addition: one frequent event playing H-K is to have an Omnithopter and no reason to attack. Ghostfire Blade has helped shore that problem up. All in all I feel I've improved the aggressive qualities, which is great.

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Ikoria Thoughts

The latest set has been fully spoiled! Let's talk about it.

Mechanical overview:

Cycling is an old mechanic that has never been explored in depth. Ikoria looks to be remedying this, after some probes in Amonkhet block, and I couldn't be happier to see both a solid mechanic return and WotC try and make it more interesting.

I do find it a little disappointing that they've removed the 'or discard' clause that they were using in Amonkhet, but I understand the need to keep the power level reasonable.

Companion is...very weird. A twist of the Commander mechanic, it's hard to say how powerful this is. Having consistent access to a card is very rare for Magic, I don't know that it's ever been done, honestly. But the deckbuilding restrictions are such that I don't know if these can be broken. On top of that, I'm not sure that the consistent access to a companion is even worth it: some people are sure the sky is falling, others not worried at all.

What I do know is that they are weird enough that someone is going to try to break them. That's exactly the kind of risk I think Magic should be taking.

Keyword counters are weird in the opposite way. They take something very familiar and allow players to staple them on to whatever creature they want-even manipulate them in ways we haven't ever seen. Yet, because they're so familiar, it doesn't look like any new ground has been broken.

On the other hand; traditionally, Auras, then later Equipment, were the tools that were used to put new keywords on to creatures. Making keyword counters eats at one of the few things those cards have an identity for, and honestly keyword counters seem like an upgrade. Auras, especially creature auras, are already a very weak permanent type, and this new mechanic doesn't do that any favors, though Equipment really isn't impacted, since it can be easily put on a new creature.

So I wonder what will come of this, and how Auras especially will be impacted down the line. Finally: I can see this mechanic laying a little groundwork for a 'counters matter/manipulation' theme in a set down the road. 

Last but definitely not least, we have Mutate and I think this is a humdinger. A hybrid of Bestow and creatures, I can now see why WotC didn't use Bestow as a mechanic in Theros: Beyond Death. The similarity is bad for making each set stand out, and the potential for confusion as to which creature is an aura and which one isn't, too easy to make.

That doesn't take away from how cool it is, though! It feels like it opens up some doors for combinations that players could mine for ideas for years. Talking to other people, Mutate seems to be deceptively simple, with some rules interactions that could make for very interesting game states. Definitely something to keep your eyes on.

As for the cards themselves:

The mythos cards all stand out because they're meant to. The contrast is something Magic isn't able to get away with too often but when they can, boy isn't it cool?

But for once, I don't have comments on much: there are some fun moments, like the "nightmare squirrel" type (I am particularly fond of Hippo Dinosaur), the set seems...pretty standard.

Now, that might be considered a negative from some, but I don't mean it that way for Ikoria: there are some challenging mechanics and giving players an opportunity to deal with them is in the game's best interest. Providing a lot of familiar touches is important, so we can stand on that familiarity and then work on the new things.

Speaking of familiar, I do like how WotC has made little nods towards famous cultural monsters. I don't just mean the Godzilla series (though that is fun too), because there are less overt allusions as well; sharks, apes, the film Aliens-it's all a lot of fun!

Which seems to be a thread tying it together; there's a joyousness to the whole set that I'm really appreciating: it's big and colorful in ways that I haven't seen in awhile.

It's also got humans which...did we really need humans? I mean; fine, but this would've been a cool opportunity for a different humanoid species.

Also, I don't get the sense that humans are really the bottom of the food chain here. There are plenty of small creatures that aren't humans; are we expected to believe that those creatures don't get eaten?

That might be because of the overall fun vibe of the set, and if that's the case, I'm ok with it. It might also be because mechanically, you really can't get Mutate to be any fun unless there are small non-human creatures and if that's the case, then again, I'm ok with it.

Still; it's a niggling thing that I have.

Overall though; well done, and I am really looking forward to what Ikoria brings to Magic!

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Armored Skeleton

My first pass at upgrading Hunter-Killer went like this:

Obvious trades are obvious; Galvanic Blast was a shoo-in for this deck but it wasn't until I sat down to revise Hunter-Killer that I realized I'd overlooked such a basic card.

One thing I'm curious about at this point is: can I shave a couple lands for some inexpensive artifacts?

Kaladesh block has a lot of cool things-I have added a Hope of Ghirapur as a replacement for one of the Myr Enforcers: are there more? Cutting a Swamp and a Mountain seems risky: if I can find something effective or that says "draw a card" however, it might be a good idea.

With a top end converted mana cost of three and Aether Vial to help, I am thinking it might be worth it! I could even cut four lands, adding in four Spire of Industry to keep the colors fixed and whack the Chromatic Stars to increase my threat count further.

Possible adds include; Ghostfire Blade, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Bomat Courier. The last of those I'm more iffy on, as I probably want to add four so they reliably show up turn one and I can start to draw cards off them. But it's a strong effect, so I have to consider it.

Ghostfire Blade is so cheap for what it does that I'd be a fool not to take advantage. Ornithopters that can attack for 2 on turn 2 should not be underestimated.

The mana base is split 50/50, but the analysis at Deckstats says that's correct so I'm OK with it. I'm a little nervous about shaving lands so some testing is definitely in order to see if I can accomplish what I want without as much mana.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Hunter-Killer (formerly The Mechanix)

Originally named after a Megadeth song, that song is...creepy. Bad creepy. But Fear Factory's H-K is way better and so we're renaming it!
2 Chromatic Star
4 Aether Vial
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Cranial Plating

4 Myr Enforcer
4 Disciple of the Vault
3 Atog
4 Etched Champion
2 Glaze Fiend
4 Ornithopter

3 Fling

5 Mountain
5 Swamp
4 Great Furnace
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
It's pretty basic and has some old tech but I'm proud that the first time I build this deck, I included Sphere of Resistance, because this was well before anyone else was doing it. I'm inclined to keep that, since HK is so low to the ground it can operate with one out. Plus, Sphere is such a pain for so many decks.

Still, it's past time to update this. The existence of Kaladesh block along suggests I need to revisit this. I know Disciple of the Vault has fallen out of favor, but the chip damage it can do with Chromatic Star and Atog...wait. Atog?

OK, so first thing's first, swap Atog for Arcbound Ravager. I don't even know where my brain was there. Probably using Atog because I didn't have Ravagers at the time, but now I do so let's fix that.

Next up, let's see where we go!

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Ikoria Mechanical Essay

I really liked this essay on how the mechanics of Ikoria were developed. It's a cool window into using familiar tools like cycling, bending old ideas like wedge-colored themes into new shapes, and trying something new to spotlight the themes of your world, as mutate does.

Magic doing a kaiju world is a nice take and one I'm genuinely surprised hasn't come up before. But I'm also really digging on what they've done with this world so far, and with the things I've seen in Commander 2020.

It's unfortunate that all of this is getting delayed, but it's still a pretty exciting set to me and I am looking forward to messing around with it.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

The Feel Bads of Doom Eternal

One of my favorite gaming stories came last year from a conversation I had with Jason about Doom 2016. I'd been hyping it up to him, telling him how great it was- I'd only played it in early 2019 or late 2018 but it was great, right? He likes other first-person shooters like Far Cry, so I figure I'm giving him a solid recommendation. So he gets the game and gives it a go.

He's miserable. He hates it.

"What's up, man?"

"Dude, I keep trying to snipe these enemies and all I have is a shotgun. I do almost no damage and they just murder me."

"Wait. No. Man. Listen, you're not Hawkeye. You're Wolverine with a shotgun. Play it like that."

24 hours later he's telling me how amazing Doom is. So you could say that I was excited to play Doom Eternal, because it's true!

Unfortunately, my delivery of Doom Eternal was delayed because Amazon was prioritizing medial equipment during the pandemic.Which I'm totally fine with, because waiting to play something I thought was going to be good wasn't a problem. I'd still get my game and that was all that mattered-I don't have a fear of missing out.

Getting to read the reviews made me all the more excited: this game is supposed to be excellent.

So you might imagine how excited I was to get this game in the mail finally, because hey: the pandemic is on, as you might've heard, and things to do at home are nice!

The first thing that happens is: A Bethesda registration screen.

Why? Why is THAT a hurdle I have to jump over in order to play a game? ANY game?

There's no way to opt out: If I want to play their game, despite paying $60 for it, I now have to give them something more.

Fuck this nonsense. I hate it. I want to murder demons, I don't want to try and use a videogame controller for typing purposes: that isn't what it's for. I don't want to give Bethesda my information for anything; they've already got my money. And I know that they can track who is playing and when and for how long, because my PS4 is an internet device, which aside from letting me play games and giving me access to Netflix, is a box exists to tell businesses everything I do on it.

So eat shit, Bethesda.

You might say that I'm irate when I boot this up. First impressions matter and this one is already farting on me, but I really loved Doom-there's no reason why this shouldn't turn around quickly, right? There's only one thing to do in Doom: murder every demon until they are gone!

How do I do that?

No, really; watch the first thirtyish seconds of this video: tell me, how do you shoot or punch anything? 

I didn't know. So I did the most obvious thing you can do: I pressed X.

It caused me to jump.

You don't know how to do anything until instruction for a glory kill appears, thirty seconds in. No instruction on movement, no instruction on how to do the most important thing you do in Doom.

Worse, the button is mapped to the R2, or the "not your trigger finger" button. Basically: the last place I'm expecting to look.

Who thought that was the correct idea?

So eat shit, id software.

Next we come to the very first instructional screen. You can see it at 2:56 in the last video. But can you read it? Because I can't read it easily.

Yes, yes, I know I'm older but I am playing on a modern, HD tv and I have my contacts in. Why isn't this big enough for me to read? Compare this to Doom 2016 where the instruction takes up a whole chunk of the lower screen. The font is bigger and isn't stylized, making it easier to read.

Why is my first moment of instruction one that I cannot parse? Worse, this is how all the instructions are given, as you can see approximately 20 seconds later with the chainsaw. So in a game that wants to push frantic movement and incredibly quick reactions, your instructions about how to do so are unclear.

So eat shit, id software.

Finally, I get a moment and press enough buttons that I can bring up a map of the level. I can see there is a secret for me to collect, but I can't seem to collect it. I can jump, but I can't jump high enough to reach a ledge. So I start wandering around-here's a wall that has a break in it; let's just press buttons until I get a "punch" action. (It's R3, which at least is familiar to other games that want you to perform a melee attack.)

And I begin to wander, trying to find a way to get at this secret. All I get is frustration-until the game finally-after I've nearly passed the opportunity to get the secret- tells me I can double-jump. I could always double-jump. From the get go!

Why why WHY do I feel as if the game is hiding the most basic stuff from me? I am being thrown into action and I don't feel empowered or being given skills to utilize: I feel like I'm being told to just 'figure it out'.

And I hate it. I don't want to play this game. I don't feel like I'm doing anything awesome, or have any joy of discovery, I feel like this is work.

I'm not even ten minutes into the game when I come across a character who I summarily murder and there's no context or meaning to it. But this is the first interaction you have with anyone! Whomever this creature is, it speaks to you, it isn't immediately trying to murder you and...it's dead.

My response to this is: So what? I don't feel any sense of accomplishment-I certainly never felt any sense of threat. I don't even know this character's name! I jump into the next stage-but again, I didn't know if I should jump, because I don't know what I can survive, so I waste time looking for a path down that doesn't involve jumping to my death, before just going for it, come upon another tutorial about weak points (about 7:50 into the video), die and then quit.

I hate this. It isn't fun.

In the rush to throw me into the game, they seem to have overlooked all the things that make the game worth rushing into!

Which all sucks, because I was really looking forward to this. Maybe that'll change, as I get the hang of things and I hope that it does.

But the people who made this game haven't made me feel welcome to their playground.