Late to the party: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

I'll be straight here: I've been having a lot of mental health stresses and getting to play Magic has just not been a feasible thing for me. 

But going back to play XCOM 2: WotC, that's been right up my alley. 

I finished the original but never got far against the War of the Chosen expansion. Years later, I have finally gotten to the point where I both wanted to finish the game and really only had the brainpower to do that. I still wasn't doing well, though.

Enter, Youtuber Ronar, who has a guide to beating legendary difficulty. 

This guide was a huge boon to helping me get through the game. While I haven't beaten XCOM 2 yet, I've reached the point where things are inevitable: I have plenty of staff and crew, I'm so far ahead on my research that the game is just throwing penny-ante stuff at me; things like 50% off the cost of building a room that I've already built. 

It's also been a great deal of fun. There's an odd piece to XCOM where you have to learn to accept that some of your soldiers are going to die, and that it's even acceptable to fail a mission. Not all missions. Not many missions. But you won't lose the game from it.

That seems weird because XCOM goes out of its way to make players feel like every soldier lost is a massive problem. The balancing of resources to gain and train them, the hole in your teams left by the loss of a skilled character, these are not easy to overcome. 

On top of all that, there is a randomness baked into XCOM which can make it feel unfair. XCOM players are quickly oriented to the fact that having 90% on a shot does not mean you hit it. Which makes it feel all the worse when you don't. 

Since we're trained to play the percentages, and players just don't take the 10% shots, we only get the taste of defeat, never the HOLY CRAP THAT WORKED moment. 

Until you desperately have to take a shot that is bad. 

One thing about XCOM 2 is that if you don't add the War of the Chosen pack, then the game looses quite a bit of personality. The three mini-bosses of the War of the Chosen go a long way towards giving the player a sense that they are fighting someone and not just a faceless entity. Plus, they're exactly the kind of extra challenge that if you like XCOM, you're wanting to sign up for.

I know this is going up late, and I'm sorry about that. We're all doing the best we can, I hope. I'll get back on this in 2022, but in the meanwhile, have some happy holidays. 

The Retired: Any Colour You Like

I know, I know: I did a writeup of this! I had 'fixed' it!

But let's take a look:

1 Distorting Lens
1 Grindstone

1 Painter's Servant

4 Shifting Sky
4 Dream Tides

2 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Hydroblast
4 Jolt
4 Lim-Dûl's Vault

2 Salt Marsh
2 Darkwater Catacombs
8 Swamp
9 Island
3 Dismal Backwater

3 Perish
2 Foresee
2 Mind Spring
4 Diabolic Tutor

Really, this deck just doesn't have the needed cards to do what it should, namely four copies of Grindstone and Painter's Servant. This is entirely related to the cost: Painter's Servant is a $50 card and until recently, Grindstone was $25 and I was not willing to pay those kinds of prices for a deck that I was admittedly doing on a lark.

In the meantime, there are Darkwater Catacombs and Lim-Dul's Vaults going to waste here! Time to let this go for something more engaging to me. And the Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo can go into a Commander deck that mills or something.

On Victory

There's an interesting point being made in this article. (Thanks to Matt for sending it along!)

See, I find myself losing a lot. It can get a bit rough because losing at things you like can be hard on the soul. 

Still, I find that I lose frequently-and not just at Magic. I like games in general: I am not good at them. Videogames especially point this out: I see many, many 'game over' screens. Bloodborne is possibly one of the most punishing games I've ever put myself through-but you only have to succeed at the Bloodborne bosses once, and then you can start taking shortcuts.

Makes those losses not seem so bad but I still lost a lot. This is true of every videogame I play and it's one of the reasons I shy away from multiplayer games. I don't need to be berated for being bad-I know I'm bad. 

I like to brew beer and, after almost two decades of doing it, I'm okish at it. I won't win competitions but I made good enough beer that I can enjoy it. 

I've been writing since I was 15 and I'm not sure how successful one could say I have been at it, with two blogs to my name and zero dollars. 

But you don't have to be perfect at something to make an impact. You don't have to be perfect to win. You don't even have to be perfect to have a good time. Those are all different things and some of them are just about choices that get made about how you experience the game.

I want to keep that in mind.

Commander: Gisa & Geralf

New idea. I'm just going to present this finished a Commander deck, and talk about how I got there.

 

Instant 1 Gigadrowse 1 Repeal 1 Sudden Spoiling 1 Truth or Tale 1 Blue Sun's Zenith 1 Catalog 1 Reaping the Graves 1 Capsize 1 Frantic Search	Artifacts 1 Dimir Signet 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Dimir Cluestone 1 Bontu's Monument 1 Nevinyrral's Disk 1 Nim Deathmantle
Enchantment 1 Energy Flux 1 Hissing Miasma 1 Call to the Grave 1 Liliana's Mastery 1 Open the Graves 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead	Sorcery 1 Read the Bones 1 Pore Over the Pages 1 Deny Reality 1 Divination 1 Dregs of Sorrow 1 Life's Finale 1 Decree of Pain
Lands 1 Dismal Backwater 15 Swamp 1 Salt Marsh 9 Island 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Temple of the False God 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Mortuary Mire 1 Submerged Boneyard 1 Halimar Depths 1 Leechridden Swamp 1 Morphic Pool 1 Castle Vantress Planeswalker 1 Liliana, Untouched by Death	Creatures 1 Scrapskin Drake 1 Ghoulraiser 1 Unbreathing Horde 1 Diregraf Captain 1 Lord of the Undead 1 Zombie Outlander 1 Vodalian Zombie 1 Cemetery Reaper 1 Cryptoplasm 1 Reef Pirates 1 Drunau Corpse Trawler 1 Lamplighter of Selhoff 1 Soulless One 1 Clone 1 Gempalm Polluter 1 Graveborn Muse 1 Noxious Ghoul 1 Withered Wretch 1 Zombie Brute 1 Undead Warchief 1 Nefashu 1 Twisted Abomination 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel 1 Gravedigger 1 Lord of the Accursed 1 Phyrexian Delver 1 Accursed Horde 1 Dread Slaver 1 Lim-Dûl the Necromancer 1 Risen Executioner 1 Zombie Master 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed 1 Shipwreck Dowser

Gisa and Geralf is my long overdue zombie build. I probably could have a 60 card deck but my buddy Fuz already made one and I'm not sure I have anything new to offer on the notion. Zombie tribal is pretty resilient and can go pretty far. 

But in Commander, I'm working something a bit different. G&G is an expensive creature for the ability-

casting it on turn four is something I want to do, but isn't likely to pay off until turns five or six. And since they don't get any zombie bonuses, getting rid of them isn't terribly difficult. 

Still, playing G&G is something that gives you access to your graveyard in a pretty cool way. I've added Ghoulraiser and Gravedigger so I can repeatedly utilize creatures from my graveyard, but one big challenge has been the mill quality of G&G. This deck has some powerful spells that I really want to use because it is a little on the slow side. A Life's Finale or Gigadrowse can be huge!

Enter Shipwreck Dowser. It's not much and it's not a zombie but it does allow for me to recur spells and I can even get second helpings from it when it dies by bringing it back with Gravedigger or even Phyrexian Delver. 

Nim Deathmantle was a great suggestion from Caitlin and I'm using Bontu's Monument to help keep me in games just a little longer. 

All in all, I just find this deck entertaining to play. It's hasn't played out as being too powerful but it also has serious threats that opponents have to respect. I'm digging it. 

Bad Idea Is Bad

 PleasantKenobi had this video on changes that WotC is making to Historic, an online-only format.

I didn't have much reaction when they started making online-only cards. I play in paper, my experience with Arena is much like getting to engage with a very precise, beautiful clock: neat, but there's no heart. That Magic would have an online-only format that would have cards specifically for it isn't surprising but I don't support it, in much the same way that I don't like Conspiracies as a card type.

I just think that every card should be playable in every format and if you aren't drafting, a Conspiracy is useless. 

That said: the game is big enough for Conspiracies, and they can be added to Cube for fun, so I don't get on my soapbox about it. Similarly, online-only cards that can really only work because of the electronic format of Magic don't really get under my skin, because the game is big enough for it. If it was possible for the electronic mechanics to exist in the physical game, I would absolutely be asking for it. 

As it stands, the existence of Historic can also serve as a 'test kitchen' for ideas that may, in some form, work their way into paper Magic. Every Un-set has done something like this, and Magic needs places to experiment without the community flipping out every time they try something new.

However. 

Once a card has been made in the physical world, changing it so it works differently in different formats is a Very Bad Idea. This isn't errata, because errata is consistent; it doesn't matter what format you play the card in, the rules for that card don't change. 

This is a fundamental change to the card in an electronic format that has the same name in paper. 

And honestly: what the hell is anyone thinking there? 

At the end of the day, though, it's worrisome because Historic now represents an entirely different game. One that has the IP of Magic, but doesn't have to adhere to it's physical limitations anymore-and will thus morph into something that just isn't the same. 

The goodness or badness of that is probably less of a thing than simply: this game isn't this other game.

But the quality of the idea of turning a physical card into a different electronic cards means there is a permanent break between the cards you use in paper and the ones for the Historic game. That's a terrible thing to do to people who play both. 

One Down, Five To Go

It didn't take me long to realize there was one glaring weakness with Six Heads: Non-combat damage. 

My pal Erik just cut through this deck-not that it was easy, but the chip damage built up fast and I had nothing to do but get lucky. 

However, simple problems use simple solutions: Holomatter Projector can fix this. The best part: I only really need to run one, because everyone focuses on Perceptor as the biggest threat they have to deal with. 

But it isn't. Don't get me wrong; Perceptor late game is a problem, but it's Fangry that is really the issue. I can do so much damage with that character, it occasionally surprises me. Bold 2 against any character larger than it is a massive damage boost, and nobody ever expects it. Add in any bold effect or Grenade Launcher and a lot can get done in a single attack.

Of course if they do go after Fangry, then Perceptor has a chance to become a problem, so that's a win-win.

This picture is from an old game, one when Kup was the middle bot but neither of the abilities were good.  I could manage the extra star for Chromedome-if I cut Monxo. Which as you can tell, I did because Chromedome was so much better. 

Monxo was the more aggressive character, but only in comparison to Vorath. The thing is, at the stage of the game that Monxo is available, the +1 offense doesn't matter. The boost Chromedome provides over Kup is far better and more relevant. 

Still, it was difficult to get my head around that because I wanted this deck to be as aggressive as possible. Once I did, though, playing Six Heads this Thanksgiving showed me I was correct. Chromedome's hand control element have an impact on the game-including the possibility to eat more non-attack damage actions, and make problems for my opponent, while also having better stats to begin with. 

So that's it: it's a good deck with some really brutal abilities and I'd play it all the time if I could. Thanksgivings will have to do.