Lurker 2-Son of Night

 But we're just gonna shorten this to Lurker 2. 

4 Jet Medallion

1 Nightmare
1 Myojin of Night's Reach
1 Bringer of the Black Dawn
2 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1 Ihsan's Shade
1 Reiver Demon
1 Visara the Dreadful
2 Magus of the Coffers
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
3 Twisted Abomination
1 Stronghold Overseer
4 Scion of Darkness
1 Phyrexian Obliterator

4 Dark Ritual

21 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers

3 Forced March
3 Drain Life
2 Corrupt

The premise behind this one was to make a big mana/Black legends deck. Obviously, there's a whole lot that can be updated from here, but I'd like to try and keep the premise going-including keeping the Jet Medallions if I can. 

My first thought: cut Stronghold Overseer (shadow OR flying, I do not need both), Bring of the Black Dawn, Myojin of Night's Reach (I can do better for 8 mana now), Ob Nixilis (there really isn't enough land to make this worth my time), Corrupt (same problem), and Scion of Darkness.

That's ten cards that I can replace to make a better deck. Let's go.

Late To The Party: Othercide

I've played through the first fifth of Othercide and feel like I can talk about it. 

Othercide is an interesting, turn-based tactics game that wants to do a lot with a little. I can respect that: making something very lean asks players to really focus on the things that matter. 

And focus is what it asks for: this is not a game where the player gets to have three teams that can rotate through missions. Characters don't heal: they are regenerated if you sacrifice a character of greater or equal power. 

So you use your high level characters until they are nearly dead and then sacrifice them to boost an up and coming character. 

If that sounds bleak, it's because it is: in Othercide's Victorian-era influenced apocalyptic setting, it goes out of its way to remind you that there are horrors all around you. Children are possessed and need to be sacrificed to stop a plague-or worse. 

Unfortunately for me, the game cut too far down. With only three classes, there isn't a lot of diversity between your characters, nor many choices that feel meaningful to make within those classes. 

In addition, the visual style starts to work against Othercide as well. Black, white and red is a striking color scheme, but those are the ONLY colors in the game and red is used as a highlight. After awhile, it just gets dreary to look at. 

I'm glad I checked it out but I'm not sure it has the lure to keep me playing. 

Late To The Party: Clair Obscur-Expedition 33

I finished Clair Obscur recently-not long after it was announced as a game of the year. Pretty nice timing, for once!

Is it the game of the year? Not sure about that. It's quite good though. 

First, and most importantly, there is a great gameplay loop. Giving players something to stay engaged during turn-based combat seems like such a gimme idea I cannot believe I haven't seen it before. You can't just ignore what the enemy does, you have a chance to impact what happens! The rewards for dodging or parrying are immense and feel very good. 

Next; the game is realistic in it's gameplay scope. That is: I don't have to invest 100+ hours if I don't want to. I actually completed the game in a reasonable amount of time! Are there more quests to do? Yes, but I don't feel as though I missed something important by opting out of them. I could just play them-get this- for fun. 

There are some drawbacks though. For example: You can get lost. The dungeons aren't huge, but they do have an unfortunate lack of markers to help players find their way. It's not just knowing where the main path is-although the game doesn't tell you, it's the one lit by lamps-it's knowing which of the side paths you have taken without having going down it again, or knowing that you are headed back to the entrance instead of the exit. 

The next criticism I have is that the story mostly holds, but there are two points that don't make sense. Unfortunately they are spoiler related so I will try to keep it as vague as I can but: there are two points where specific characters are unaffected by the machinations of the boss and the game doesn't tell you why they are immune. 

Which is a pretty big deal. Especially since if they had explained it, then you'd have a pretty tight story all in all, in my opinion.

Finally, Clair Obscur doesn't do a great job informing you how it's systems work. I was about 2/3 of the way through the game when I realized I had to assign Luminos points, they didn't just get automatically allocated. Now, I may have been told this early on-before I even had Luminos points to assign-but the game didn't make a point of it when I DID have points to assign and so I didn't go through the act of assigning points. 

Well, in games you learn by doing. That's a pretty big oversight and one that allowed me to actually play the game better, once I implemented it.

That said, this game felt like a breath of fresh air, after playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. It is very enjoyable and worth your time.

You Can't Control Me

Stingerback Terror is a challenge. They can do a lot of damage, but they rely on me casting stuff.  Still, I don't think I remove them: they don't need a ton of time to do their work. 

The indestructible creatures though have been champs. Thrun in particular as a late game uncounterable threat is VERY good but even Bark-Knuckle Boxer has been creating a little problem.

I'm pretty happy with where this one ended up. 

4 Talisman of Impulse

4 Rukh Egg

4 Brindle Shoat

3 Fanatic of Rhonas

2 Incubation Druid

3 Stingerback Terror

2 Bark-Knuckle Boxer

2 Thrun, Breaker of Silence

4 Stomping Ground

2 Mountain Valley

6 Mountain

6 Forest

1 Gruul Turf

4 Cragcrown Pathway

3 Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

3 Obliterate

3 Jokulhaups

2 Harmonize

2 Explore

Back Off Baby

It struck me; what if more of my creatures were indestructible? 

I love Elephant Guide, but it is an aura and those are weak cards, especially in the era the Guide comes from. So maybe those get replaced.

2 Bark-Knuckle Boxer

2 Thrun, Breaker of Silence

The initial runs were positive, though those were mostly goldfishes. Still, good sign is good. It made me wonder about killing my darlings. 

I really love Predator Ooze, but it has always been awkward in this deck. Triple Green is a difficult ask for a two color deck without a lot of mana fixing. 

And I lose games where I do not draw or successfully cast an Obliterate. So let's go further. Elephant Guide is a good card, and on brand for what this deck wants to do, but it's dead in hand if I don't have a creature. 

What about this:

4 Talisman of Impulse

4 Rukh Egg

4 Brindle Shoat

3 Fanatic of Rhonas

2 Incubation Druid

3 Stingerback Terror

2 Bark-Knuckle Boxer

2 Thrun, Breaker of Silence

4 Stomping Ground

2 Mountain Valley

6 Mountain

6 Forest

1 Gruul Turf

4 Cragcrown Pathway

3 Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

3 Obliterate

3 Jokulhaups

2 Harmonize

2 Explore

Pixleated

After some tweaking, this is what I landed on:

4 Rukh Egg

4 Predator Ooze

4 Brindle Shoat

3 Fanatic of Rhonas

2 Incubation Druid

3 Stingerback Terror

4 Elephant Guide

4 Stomping Ground

2 Mountain Valley

6 Mountain

6 Forest

1 Gruul Turf

4 Cragcrown Pathway

3 Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

3 Obliterate

3 Jokulhaups

At first I tried adding in some cheap removal, like Incinerate and realized that it just didn't matter. I also wanted to find ways to win after nuking the board, hence Stingerback Terror. I also had more Incubation Druids than Fanatic of Rhonas, and flipped that when I realized the Fanatic could fend off more creatures in the early game and return in the late game. 

It's a good place to end up at; mana ramp with a bit of recursion, something to cast after I've destroyed the entire board, and something to help stall the game out if I don't have access to a reset. 

Jaya is doing what I hoped: creating board stalls until I can cast one of my resets. The Fanatic is a great way to ramp my mana. 

Still, I'm finding myself out muscled by other control decks and not quite fast enough to hold off ago decks. So something is still amiss. 

Marvel Snap: Dragon Season-High Voltage

I was hating this version of High Voltage. It seemed TOO high variance, but I believe I have found a cure:

The odd thing is, I haven't changed this deck much in a year. I think Armor is now Mad Thinker but aside from that, this is what made High Voltage bearable for me.

I also got my Free Pizza, grinding it out with a High Evolutionary deck. Nothing special there: I was mostly trying to stay ahead of any Shou-Lao The Undying decks. Once I did that, I crashed hard on ranking, messing around trying to do dailies. 

I know, I know: I should've been in Conquest mode but eh. It's just a game!

Your Head Asplode

 Another deck I've been putting off for awhile because of the reset. Because Your Head Asplode, baby. 

4 Talisman of Impulse
4 Rukh Egg
2 Seedguide Ash
1 Greater Gargadon
4 Viridian Joiner
4 Predator Ooze
4 Brindle Shoat

4 Elephant Guide

4 Rootgrapple

4 Stomping Ground
2 Mountain Valley
6 Mountain
6 Forest
1 Gruul Turf
4 Cragcrown Pathway

3 Obliterate
3 Jokulhaups

Obviously, there's a LOT that can be done now. Hell, Thraben U has a whole thing about using Jokulhaups and winning games, so even if it is just for fun (and it is) I should be able to improve this deck considerably. 

Lorwyn Eclipsed Prerelease 1-2

A slightly auspicious start to our Two-Headed Giant experience, as I got a paper cut while I was opening my box! Fortunately for me, Rebecca had a narwhal band-aid for me, so no blood hit the floor. 

I built a RW deck using blight counters and heavy on removal-I had a ton of spells to remove or incapacitate creatures. 

We also opened 3 copies of Maralen, Fae Ascendant so why not try an elves and faeries deck with lots of flash creatures? Rebecca took that one. 

Round 1 vs. Brian and Brian

They were running UW merfolk & RG elementals. And I'm pleased to say that our decks did things in the early game...but Brian (no, the other one) cast 3 Run Away Together  on consecutive turns. That's right; every turn we cast creatures, they got bounced. 

That took our creatures out of the action long enough for them to build tempo & use the Champion of the Path to take us out. I drew one removal spell that game, and I was reluctant for Rebecca to run out a flash blocker. Lesson definitely learned: flash creatures can sub as removal. 

Round 2 vs. Steven & Eli

They had a cheap UW fliers deck with a BR goblins that worked together well to overwhelm us. We had some removal, and the Lasting Tarfire I cast did some WORK but we couldn’t get enough creatures onto the board to hold off the creatures coming at us. Lasting Tarfire did all our damage, while at one point, they swung for NINE in the air. 

Round 3 Jacob & Harold

Jacob had a BG elves deck, and Harold a UWR Elementals deck.

Unfortunately for them, after a Keep Out on Jacob’s Shimmerwilds Growth, he had to spend time getting his colors fixed, slowing him down considerably. Harold had some Summit Sentinels, but apparently drew dead when he blocked with them, while Rebecca sent fliers over to swiftly end the game.

Despite the record, we both came away from the prerelease with very positive impressions of the set! I am looking forward to playing this set and seeing what decks it has to offer. 

Thanks as always to Red Castle Games for a well run event. 

Preview Season

The Lorwyn Eclipsed pre-release was this weekend--and do you know what WotC did all weekend?

If you said: preview cards from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set, then collect your prize!

Sigh. Why are they ignoring the product I'm about to give them money for, product that I had in my hands this weekend to play, for product that doesn't even exist yet?

I don't know; maybe a mistake was made and the cards were leaked early but it just seems like WotC doesn't care to allow us to enjoy things.

Set Review: Lorwyn Eclipsed

Mechanics article. 

Set list here. 

Added bonus; the behind the scenes creation of the Lorwyn Eclipsed trailer!

Let's get cracking with the mechanics.

I'm not sure Vivid is a mechanic, but it's a very intuitive thing to understand and that's always good. 

Hybrid mana feels less like a mechanic and more like a feature. Cards don't do something because of hybrid mana, they just become a little more versatile to cast. Still; good feature to have in any set, and it is a good signal boost for Shadowmoor.

Blight is something I'm definitely interested in, as "drawback" mechanics provide inspiration to do something unusual. -1 counters let WotC turn some different knobs on creature abilities, and they wisely did not include +1 counters to avoid confusion. Dig it.

Changeling & Kindred: Kindred is something I think players have been hoping for since the original Lorwyn, so it's nice to see that codified. Changeling has been around long enough that I don't feel like it's adding anything new to the game but it still finds a good home here.

Finally, double-faced cards offer a pretty neat way to illustrate Lorwyn/Shadowmoor's duality. Do I wish there were solutions beyond DFCs? Yes, but the game is this way now. Might as well howl at the moon. 

However, in the I don't like it column, we have Behold. There are a couple reasons for this. 

First; to do what they did for Lorwyn Eclipsed, the templating on the mechanic changed. The mechanic in Dragonstorm provided you with a bonus if you did it and was a "may" effect. One card in Lorwyn Eclipsed mirrors this: Celestial Reunion. None of the other cards have that conditional on them. Why do that? Now they aren't even consistent within the set. 

Second: with the other new cards, you cannot chose not to pay the Behold cost: either you pay it or in the case of 5 spells (6 if you include Flashback on one), you cannot play the card, in the case of 5 spells you pay an additional 2.

The mechanic is a drawback one and now it feels different: again, I think this inconsistency is a bad thing.  

Set thoughts overall:

This time, I'm finding hard to do color breakdowns. The cards feel "flatter" from a power stance, and not interconnected in the way Bloomburrow cards were-another typal set. Likely this is because Lorwyn Elipsed has a lot more heavy lifting to do, to represent two different blocks. The blatant interactions are just that, but there isn't anything that feels unusual here. Little that catches my eye to do something new or different. 

I'm not saying the set is bad, more that it may take some time to reveal itself for what it is, providing a lot of possible options for players to make decks work in Limited environments. Certainly there's a soft nudge towards making three-color decks, with Vivid and hybrid mana, and at least a couple possible 'go wide' options in goblins and kithkin. 

How it interacts with the larger ecosystem of Magic is harder to predict but my guess is that it doesn't overthrow any old decks or create new ones. Instead, it offers options and gives newer players cards that are good, but might be overlooked by more established ones.

All in all Lorwyn Eclipsed seems like something that doesn't have an immediate right answer or obviously powerful thing to do. There's some cool cards, and the opportunity for a lot of interactions and that feels great. The more the set can reveal itself through play, the more engaging it is. 

Late To The Party: Arranger

I had Arranger on my list of games to try for quite some time due to a review I read on the Escapist, before that website had a break and now just looks like blue Kotaku. 

Speaking of; does anyone know of a good gaming review site? With written reviews? I don't mind the occasionally playthrough but I do not need 10 fucking minutes of a game review that isn't done by Yatzhee Croshaw. Three minutes is about what is needed for a video review that isn't a discussion between people.

Anyway; Arranger has some really great upsides; a charming story and presentation and a puzzle system that is almost too intuitive it's so easy to grasp. I feel like you could set anyone in front of this game and they would grasp the basics almost immediately. 

Unfortunately, it also has one really big drawback; the lack of a map. So if I took a break between games, even if it was just a week, I would come back to the game and have no idea where I was or where I needed to go. This lead to me inadvertently backtracking, then getting to a new spot with no idea what I should do next. 

It also meant that there were some puzzles that just baffled me and I had to go online to get help with. This sort of frustration put a kibosh on any fun I was having, which felt like a shame. There was so much going for Arranger, yet I just felt too stymied to continue. 

However, maybe it is for you! There is a lot to like so it's at least worth trying. 

Off With His Head

 

I think I've got it, and am happy to settle here.

4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Cranial Ram

3 Junk Diver
3 Myr Retriever
4 Broadside Bombardiers
2 Rottenmouth Viper
2 Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender
3 Hullcarver

4 Weapons Manufacturing

3 Shrapnel Blast
3 Deadly Dispute
2 Demand Answers

4 Glimmervoid
3 Great Furnace
2 Swamp
3 Mountain
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Drossforge Bridge

3 Tezzeret, Cruel Captain

It needs a sideboard and I'm not sure what that would consist of. I'm also strongly considering removing Syr Ginger (who I dig) for Syndicate Tracker. I'm also considering Lotus Petal, but for now: this deck is in a completed state.

The real 'aha' moment came with Tezzeret, Cruel Captain. It isn't a sacrifice outlet the way Claws of Gix is but it can turn Munitions tokens into robots that explode. That seems like a pretty neat idea. 

The Legend

 John Avon is retiring from Magic art and I just think y'all should take a moment to appreciate the man's work. 

As great as so many of the early artists were, I'm fairly certain that without Avon's majestic landscapes, many of which set the standard for people, Magic wouldn't be the same game. Not to overlook his other contributions! The man clearly works hard to bring exceptional art to us. 

So for that a moment of gratitude.