Late To The Party: Darksiders: Genesis

 I wanted to like Darksiders: Genesis a lot more than I did, but the game didn't come together as well as I think it needed to. 

The upsides to Genesis are many! There's co-op play, including couch co-op. The characters of Strife and War both play very differently, offering a nice variety. The story, while pretty standard, is carried well by the skill of the voice actors, who are charming and having fun. And the combat felt pretty engaging! It got a little same-y near the end, when it just became obvious what the best thing for Strife to do was, and as a single-player using him and then War as my backup was the clear path. But it was still good!

Unfortunately, there are a few decisions regarding the game that end up hurting it quite a bit. 

First, it's the implementation of puzzles with a isometric perspective. Jumping puzzles where the camera hides or obscures what you're doing are just bad.  I honestly thought we'd left that shit behind two decades ago. Isometric angles on the field of play work great for a game like X-COM where you can easily turn the camera to see what you need to, or Diablo or Hades where the on-field action is important. 

It's terrible when the camera is fixed and you cannot be sure of the distances you need to clear, or worse when they put the puzzle BEHIND the camera angle. You get a peek at it but no more. It caused me a lot of frustration and the best I can say about it is: it wasn't always mandatory to complete a puzzle to get past a section. 

That was the largest issue with Genesis and while it wasn't a dealbreaker for me, I can see it being one for others. 

The other problem with the game, however, was that it just ends. I spent 16 chapters being told about Lucifer's big plan, and how we had to stop it. I spent time in the arena practicing skills (which was a lot of fun!) and getting ready for the missions. 

And then when I go to confront Lucifer, the games just goes "Welp, Lucifer is getting away with it! LATER BOYS!" and that's it. 

And that is deeply unsatisfying. 

Sandstorm

Well, now we have a name for the deck! As an added bonus, it's also the name for a Transformer so I'm kinda double-dipping. 

In addition, despite the last decklist working really well, Secrets of Strixhaven gave us a card that I am testing, because I think it's very powerful: Stirring Hopesinger. This is in addition to the new removal spell upgrade, Erode, which is definitely better than Unwanted Remake. 

However that's not all! Hopesinger is a bird, and that means it gets a boost from Valley Questcaller.

Sadly, this means that something has to go, and Mabel is my cut. She's very good-and she creates an additional mana tax with Cragflame. In a deck with so few mana sources, having a flier that could boost the team just seemed better. 

Mice

 I need a name for this deck, but right now it's got it where it counts, kid.

4 Shuko

4 Heartfire Hero
3 Manifold Mouse
3 Valley Questcaller
3 Emberheart Challenger
2 Mabel, Heir to Cragflame
3 Flowerfoot Swordmaster
3 Seedglaive Mentor
1 Feather, the Redeemed

4 Monstrous Rage
4 Unwanted Remake
2 Loran's Escape|
3 Legion Leadership
2 Shelter

7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Elegant Parlor
2 Restless Bivouac

Obviously this started as a riff on the mice deck in Standard-hey, why not build on a proven idea? Without the limits of Standard, Shuko becomes available and the deck can get sick very, very quickly. 

With 20 lands, the deck is running very lean, and I'm absolutely hoping that Elegant Parlor along with Shelter and Loran's Escape can help smooth my draws out, while not slowing me down, despite Restless Bivouac and Parlor entering tapped.

Free Pizza: Daredevil-Crimson Twilight season

 Hit my free pizza pretty early! 

went a little rogue and built a Wolverine Horseman of War deck instead of capitalizing on the new Daredevil season. Storm Horseman of Famine was both surprisingly good and frustrating, as the +2 could be immense, but the setback was no joke. That card really needs to be in a Hi Evo style deck.

Living the dream was having Mother Askani split Wolverine of course, and adding something like 35 points to the board. And while this deck did the lion's share of work getting me to 90, I also had a nice little backup deck. 

This deck has one severe weakness: it needs priority. If you get and keep priority by turn 3, you can do very silly things. Frequently, Wilson Fisk comes down on turn 3 and that can lock in Askani'son or Iron Patriot, and from there cards like Viv, Rocket and Groot and Alioth come in incredibly useful. 

Production Issues

 So far as I can tell, these are legit Magic cards.

Yet it is very clear that the cards on the right are darker than the ones on the right. 

Look, WotC: this kind of shit seemed like it never happened for years and years. Now it seems to pop up every set. Maybe this has always been a problem and it's just social media raising awareness but I'm not ever inclined to give a large corporation the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cutting corners. 

Need To Be Fast All The Time

 I think I like where this is at. 

I had to learn some hard lessons with this deck, and I'm keeping it in rotation for a little longer, because it's excellent practice. 

Seriously, if you ever want to practice how to utilize instants optimally, this kind of deck is worth playing. It's starting to change the way I pay attention to Magic and that's definitely a good thing.

Plus, I want to practice with Skycoach Conductor, since I think that will add just enough value to nudge the deck forward. Kutzil's Flanker; you're going to the sideboard!

One other thing this deck will help with is not tilting out. I recently scrapped a game against Noah when he landed a Voice of Victory and I hadn't noticed. 

I immediately scooped, but looking back at the game, I should have utilized my tools to remove the VoV and then get back into playing my game. Because I wasn't paying attention, I felt bad and did the scoop of shame. Scooping wasn't the problem; not taking a breath to see if that was the correct thing to do, was.

Anyway, here's the decklist!

2 Skycoach Conductor // All Aboard

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

3 Sigrid, God-Favored

4 Brineborn Cutthroat

2 Merfolk Trickster

3 Errant and Giada

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Fire Nation Occupation

3 Opt

4 Counterspell

2 Path to Exile

4 Brainstorm

4 Tundra

7 Island

4 Plains

1 Swamp

2 Contaminated Aquifer

1 Sunlit Marsh

4 Meticulous Archive

SB: 2 Kutzil's Flanker

Going Too Slow

Let's talk about Force of Virtue.

This was a card I subbed in for a bit, thinking it would be a great fit for the deck. My creatures are small, the Flash quality of Force of Virtue meant I could play it off the top of my library if Giada was out, or play it for free boosting all my other creatures. 

But what this card actually represents is "win more". 

I get caught on this all the time. Why win when you can SUPERWIN? The Glory of Cool Things biting me in the ass. 

But...no. I don't need to do that. Just win. That's enough. I have Snapcaster Mage, a card that is practically waving a giant sign telling me to add it to the deck and I was just blowing past it because I was looking at white cards.