Happy Thanksgiving!

 Trying to take the day to play a bunch of games, make good food and chill out. 

I hope you all have a safe, fun day. 

Chillout Tent

I build this deck many years ago with the weird notion of: what if we tried to use White for reanimate strategies? Named for the Hold Steady song mostly because I like the song. 

3 Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens
1 Patron of the Kitsune
3 Lantern Kami
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
3 Devout Witness
4 Patrol Hound
1 Mageta the Lion
3 Ghost-Lit Redeemer
2 Eternal Dragon
1 Noble Templar
3 Karmic Guide

3 Blessed Breath
3 Otherworldly Journey
2 Miraculous Recovery

1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
22 Plains

1 Wrath of God
1 Kirtar's Wrath
2 Resurrection

It's a little weird, I know: at the time I built the deck there wasn't much in the color to support a typical reanimation take and I can't say that I know that's changed. But the newest card in this deck is probably Emeria, the Sky Ruin so there's a good chance that something has changed in the past 11 years. Some of those changes are undoubtedly creatures, but others might include a better curve, ways to get creatures into the graveyard, or...maybe this is a flameout deck and needs to be retired. 

The subtheme of trying to get Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens online is probably where this deck is taking its worst turn. Reanimator strategies rely on putting one game changing creature into play and winning; Oyobi wants to show up, get a few drinks, maybe you get to play some more spells?  

There's definitely a more streamlined, focused deck to be built, one that isn't constrained by Spirits and Arcane spells, so that's where I'm going to head.

Tournament of Legends!

 From the same people who brought you the Magic Bracket, for fans to vote on the best Magic card of all time, we have a new bracket: the best Legend printed! 

You'll have to register, in order to help keep the voting on the level, but you don't need to submit an email or anything; just username/password and you're set!

Into The Amplifier

This one is locked in. After solid performances against an aggressive B/W deck and a more resilient Zombie deck piloted by Fuz, I knew Rollin was on the right path.

A few more games with Lauriel and I'm confident that this deck has some game. I could put it into a perpetual cycle of refinement but I like where it's at. 

The sideboard is meant to reflect things I have to face; token decks, enchantment/artifact heavy decks, along with Duress for combo and Leyline of the Void for graveyard strategies. 

Disenchant is the slot most up for change against a Delver heavy field, but I've faced multiple decks with cards that simply break this deck along Humility lines and it's only a matter of time before someone tries to use Leyline of the Void on me, so I'm not sure there's a better choice. 

Nonetheless, I really like where this ended up. 

3 Soul Warden
3 Cabal Archon
1 Rotlung Reanimator
4 Cleric of Life's Bond
2 Orah, Skyclave Hierophant
3 Suture Priest
3 Drana's Emissary
2 Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
3 Archfiend's Vessel

4 Grave Pact

6 Plains
1 Starlit Sanctum
3 Salt Flats
6 Swamp
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Brightclimb/Grimclimb Pathway

4 Living Death
4 Winds of Abandon

Sideboard

3 Orzhov Pontiff
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Disenchant
4 Duress

Late To The Party: Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

I finished Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order recently and...it has issues.

First, the cut scenes are ugly. Humans have faces that are smoothed out like an Instagram filter put over them, and it skeeves me out.

Next; this game doesn't know what it wants to be, and thus it conveys its information poorly. Is it a Dark Souls clone, where the respawning enemies teach you combat better? Is it a God of War clone, where you have to string combat moves together to create lethal combos? Is this a Prince of Persia clone where exceptional timing skills come into play to thrillingly traverse dangerous environments?

This game doesn't know. It just wants to give you doses of Star Wars so you can feel that jolt.

The combat is incredibly pedantic. I didn't even know my abilities gave me extra moves until well over 2/3rds into the game and even then: I had virtually no use for them. The game didn't want to encourage me to learn the new thing. So combos don't matter and spamming the attack button is boring. Parry wasn't a well explained concept either, since you can just permanently hold a button to block, what encourages me to try to time my blocks out?

So there were difficulty spikes that I just hated because I didn't know I had abilities that might help me. Which means the learning curve and improved combat doesn't matter.

Worse, controls were muddy, so I would find myself on slides without precise control and falling to my death just because, or searching for the out to a room with little direction, or in puzzle rooms without clues, or worse, knowing the solution and being frustrated that the solution wasn't working.

So: not Dark Souls, not God of War, and not Prince of Persia. What is the primary gameplay loop this game can confidently rest it's code on? I can't tell you, and I don't think Jedi can either. 

On top of that, the UI is working against me. I have three bars I have to pay attention to: life, blocking stamina, and force.

The life bar is in the lower left. The other two are in the middle bottom. I have to look away from one critical resource to another in order to see what's happening.

So the integration of these playstyles don't mesh well and the game doesn't build the bridges between them. I don't know how this game got the positive press it did, but it does not execute well and I finished it more out of pandemic frustration than the thrill of seeing it play out.

The Mix Might Glow

Even though Rollin' has been working out well, there is still a point where I feel I have to ask: what if I'm just wrong? 

Edgewalker is a great card. Free or severely reduced costs are a great thing. 

But is it right for this deck?

Similarly, Order of Whiteclay is crowding the three mana slot, but with now six effects that bring creatures back, (I'm sticking with Orah) maybe something else should come to play.

Time to try out the Archfiend's Vessel! And while I'm going a little lower to the ground I can up the Cleric of Life's Bond to four, and maybe have a stronger threat count to deal with. 

The results have been very encouraging. Vessel's lifelink ability isn't irrelevant, and once it's in my graveyard, any reanimation effect gives me a 5/5 flyer. That's something people don't like to see. The Cleric can grow pretty big early, and still be a reasonable threat in the midgame. 

The other bonus of Archfiend's Vessel is that as a lifelinker, the card helps extend the game to the point where I can draw enough resources to overcome my opponent. Without card draw, I have to stack the odds in my favor to get a Winds of Abandon, Grave Pact, or Living Death and one way I can do that is to gain enough life to give me time.

It's been working so far, and I'm pretty happy about it!

Where I am still torn is on the Vito/Orah split, so I'm going to be keeping an eye on that in future games. 

 

 

Distracted Days

 There's Commander Legends stuff (so far, I'm a fan), I have some more games with Rollin' under my belt with a tweaked configuration that seems to be for the better, and a vote today that is so important, it will define the country-and maybe more-for a long time.

So I don't have anything prepared today. I just don't. 

Remember your 2020 rules:

Be nice.

Wear a mask.

Film the cops.

Wash your hands.

Tip well.

Vote.

Stay safe everyone. We'll resume on Thursday. 

The work goes on.