2016/03/13 News, Updates, and Things

Some things need to be said on my end.  I'm not the best at keeping actively consistent with this blog.  I'm not even in the top half, I'd argue.  But here are the updates to come.

1.  Warcraft:  
   Shortly I'll be finishing posting up here my final missions for Human campaign for the original Warcraft.  I'll probably not too long after do and put up the Orc missions, I've actually got the footage already recorded, just need to edit.  If I go crazier, I might put up something on Nostalrius, a rather decent Vanilla server, well, at least the pve server since I have no experience on the pvp server they have.  From what I hear it is a little crowded there.  I might go mad and put up something on Warcraft II eventually.

2.  Magic The Gathering:
    I do still play and collect, and oddly have recorded but done nothing with box openings.  I'll likely throw up a wall of text before I throw a video on here first.  I'll likely do a video on Shadows when it comes out, or at least the pre-release.

3.  Anime:
    I'll be starting something soon on this in particular.  Starting small and working my way up, I hope.

4. Video Games:
   I also intend to intermittently throw up some things on this as well.  At the moment second lowest on my priority totem though, but I'm a bit mental at times so that can change.

5.  ?????:
     I'm not going to spoil this, but something not of the above is incoming.

M15 Intro Pack- Price of Glory

     It is that time of year again, the core set is out, and that means I have something to rant....I mean discuss.  First up, Price of Glory.

M15- Prerelease Weekend

      Well, I managed to squeeze in some time at a prerelease for the new core set.  Time for some quick observations, list style.
1.  The blue promo, while having cool art, is incredibly dependent on what other cards you pulled.  (I have no regrets though)
2.  People in general seemed to enjoy the sealed event.
3.  Green and red seemed to be the strongest color.  I say this as someone I played against nearly decked himself out after a few Mind Sculpts  and their own Indulgent Tormentor.
4.  I can't wait for M15 sleeves to be on sale, they look great.
5.  Sadly I still don't have a Nissa.
6.  This is a very solid core set to get boosters from compared to M14.
7.  The updated card frames, in person, look better than I thought they would.
8.  I can't believe I hit eight points on this list.

Expect some more things on M15 once the actual set releases on  7/18.

M15 Complete List Spoiled aka the M15 Set Review (Sort of)

     Well, they've uploaded the full list into the image gallery (scroll down) for M15, so I can actually give a decent prerelease guess at what are going to be good cards (more so for limited) and just cards I'm exited about.  Minor warning though as they don't appear to be in gatherer yet, just the gallery, so links are going to not exist in this article.  I suppose I should keep with the "probably better in limited" stack and mix in the favorite cards with those.

Theros Block: Part the Second

After the entertaining set that was Theros, I was hoping to see some good things out of Born of the Gods, but alas, as a whole, the set didn't live up to that personal hype.

Inspired was a cool mechanic, in theory.  The only problem was to use it effectively you needed two conditions:  A) Tap your creature and B) Untap a still living creature.  In a limited format, this is somewhat easy, as Deepwater Hypnotist is a better card than I first thought if your opponent chooses to make a poor early choice, effectively keeping itself alive.  But in a more....planned format you basically need to rely on tap effects or tap costs under most situations.  This made it a lot less desirable.  Then again, we saw a Springleaf Drum reprint for this so.......I'm not one to judge beyond that.

Tribute was another introduced mechanic, although this was a bit cooler and well done.  Take Oracle of Bones for example.  Either you deal with a 5/3 haste Minotaur, or you let it be a 3/1 and possibly take a Bolt of Keranos to the face, or worse, Fated Return.  (On a side note, the Fated cycle were interesting, but maybe could have been handled a tiny bit better.)

Once again they bring us more enchantment creatures, and bestow, but not on the same card.  Meet the bane of EDH for this one, and the reason why I'm/we're no longer allowed to do 4 man Bant vs Bant, Perplexing Chimera.

I don't often intend to post full cards in summaries like this, at least for more recent sets, but this card was made to cause glorious chaos.  I'm tempted to use this and Kiki-Jiki for some high level shenanigans.  The only downside of creatures like these comes to adding another way to get rid of them (i.e. enchantment hate).  Getting back on topic though we also got the rather entertaining Archetype cycle, which I like the call the "no one is allowed to have nice things" cycle.  No to trample, first strike, flying, hex proof or death touch, just not allowed to have them.  They're more worth to have in a deck to deny the benefits they give, although the benefits are nice indeed.

      Scry returned, devotion and gods returned, but this time with 7 devotion requirements and no enchantment artifact cycle.  Due to the multiple color requirement they were easier/harder to get out.  As you may have noticed this (seems to me anyway) is shorter than the first part, one because fewer new things to explain, and two smaller set.

M15 Updates

     So they've updated the site it seems to a new look, as well as showing off some more of the cards (http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/magic-2015-core-set-card-set-archive-products-game-info and keep scrolling down) and so far this set seems a bit silly in the good way.  On a side note the confirmed basic land art seems okay.

Theros Block: Part the First

     Theros (when it first came out) was a very interesting set concept.  With focus on enchantments for the block, I sort of had high hopes for how things would turn out.  The first set was a fun one for that initial draft and still has some gems to it.  My personal favorites of the set are probably still Curse of Swine and Shipbreaker Kraken, and I normally don't run blue (nothing against it, but for most of my MtG experience I was usually white/green/black with a splash of blue and red over the years).  Voyaging Satyr is an all around great card as well.  But enough about silly things in blue, I suppose I should go on about the set as a whole.  Let us talk first about enchantments.

It's all a Conspiracy, I tell ya!

      Sure enough, one of my recent experiences was to have a nice sample game of MtG's weirdest set in a while, Conspiracy.  If I didn't know better, they were working out not having made an Un-set in a long time.

      For those that don't know, Conspiracy is basically a draft set with a bunch of silly new cards and reprints like Exploration or Phage, the Untouchable (which is a Zombie Avatar Minion like it should always have been rather than a flavor fail Zombie despite her having a kid while being Phage instead of Jeska...but enough about lore) and fun new cards like Selvala and Marchesa, and reprinting the classic land cycle set of commons.  Oh right, and official squirrel tokens.

Back to Earth: A quick chat on M15 before they start spoiling it properly.

      So....I have a tendency to get distracted by, well, life.  This time however I'm going to let my actions, rather than posts, speak.  So first up is a bit of random discussion on M15 for Magic The Gathering, before it comes out of course.

Magic the Gathering M14 Intro Pack - Psychic Labyrinth Review

     Well, it is that time again, and this time it is the mostly blue slightly white Psychic Labyrinth deck.  Three down and two to go.  I've gone back for the Intro Packs and put in links for cards I named now.  Also I have been testing the decks against each other, granted in a rather controlled way (always attacking and blocking when possible, trying to make the best decision on what target a spell will have, 10 games, 5 with one deck going first, 5 with the other, that sort of thing), and I will get back later with the results of that as well.  For now though let's get to this deck.

Magic the Gathering: M14 Intro Pack - Fire Surge Review

One thing I can promise is this will be shorter than the Bestial Strength article.  This will also have a video at the end as I'd like to stick to format.  Let us get into the Fire Surge Intro Pack.

Magic the Gathering: M14 Intro Pack - Bestial Strength Review

     With a new Core Set upon us, I suppose I should cover the decks, or at least the ones I've seen in person.  It is important for me to mention that the wall of text here will not really cover the same things as the video at the end of the article, as that is more an opening.  The Bestial Strength Intro Pack is sort of tricky to really describe.

A Look Back, Yugioh!: Duelist Pack 2 Chazz Princeton

     Let us move on in order to the second Duelist Pack, Chazz Princeton.  It had the same release dates in the TCG and the OCG as the first Duelist Pack, as it went hand in hand with Jaden's pack, and overall was a good choice to help introduce this new idea of a small, character focused pack.
      On the cover is Armed Dragon LV10, card only found in this pack and in Duel Terminal 5, while the other levels are easier to come by (with LV7 being found in three packs, including this, and not counted was the promo in a Wal-Mart package, and LV3 and LV5 being in several decks).  A rather nice yet difficult card to get out at times, due to its unique summoning conditions, but more on that later.
     Overall in terms of the cards in this pack, 17 of the 30 cards are monsters (including fusions), 9 spells, and 4 traps.  Time to break these down a bit.

Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters Battle Decks: Tatsurion vs. Razorkinder

     So, what happens when you take the card game equivalent of the Megaman Legends series (or in other words has a cult following, yet seemingly gets not enough love) like Duel Masters, which is still selling in Japan, but not here in America and still has fans and is a well designed game to boot?  Well as Wizards of the Coast, which distributed Duel Masters in America (and their site will link to the Japanese site of the game, if you don't believe me go to wizards.com and highlight brands at the top, its still listed), is a subsidiary of Hasbro, Hasbro brought it back, basically, in the form of Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (and I see what they did there, as I recall a video game called Duel Masters: Rise of Kaijudo being made).  As the backs of the cards are different and it basically is a different game, with classic cards brought back like Bronze-Arm Tribe (and a few prominent cards of the past I recall seeing in clips of the show, as well as on the online version, but more on that later), but functions just the same.

A Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Wall of Text Review: STRUCTURE DECK Samurai Warlords

      Well sometimes I wonder exactly what they think when they release new decks (or tins for that matter) and it just seems like they're trying to fix the game a bit when it comes to balancing issues in organized play.  Granted unlike Magic The Gathering where it is only the last so many sets that are allowed in tournament use, Yu-Gi-Oh! has only its shifting ban list and the sometimes crazy market for selling individual cards to keep it...well enough of such talk, back to the deck
      The cover of the box is Shadow of the Six Samurai - Shien, the new Xyz made for this deck, and while we received this deck the OCG received a new water Structure Deck, and with any luck eventually we'll have it as well.  If you ever wanted to build a Six Samurai deck, this is a decent base to modify with any other Six Samurai cards you may have or want to put in.  Now, let's get a talking.

Carfight!! Vanguard: A Cursory Glance

      I picked this up a little while back, and I'll do a proper review on the game itself when I get a chance to pick up the other deck.  If you don't know about Cardfight!! Vanguard, in short it was created with a melding of the minds from Duel Masters and Yu-Gi-Oh! R (which if that doesn't sound familiar it was an alternate original series Yu-Gi-Oh! manga which is the origin of The Wicked Dreadroot, Eraser, and Avatar cards), and overall its a rather nice game, but again I'll do a proper Wall of Text on that in another post.  The great thing though in short is that this game's first rule is "everything the card says is true" and "consult the manual if needed" as the mat/quick rules it comes with have the basic layout of what you can do on them.
      More to come later on this though, for those curious I bought this for $20US at a retail store that randomly had them.  I've known about the game for a while though.  If interested here is the official website.  http://cf-vanguard.com/en/

A Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Wall of Text Review: STARTER DECK: XYZ SYMPHONY

Well, it is that time of year again, where those of us who play the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG get to see the new Starter Deck come out.  And boy, there are some rather nice things to come in this one, at least in my humble opinion as both a player of the game and a general fan of it.  Biggest thing to point out is this comes with 5 monsters for the Extra Deck, which I believe was a first for a preconstructed deck, and all of them are different to boot.

Rather odd to have that 39 cut out and a separate illustration underneath the top of the box, although I rather like it.   The general deck box format has kind of gotten monotonous.

A Look Back, Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duelist Pack 1 Jaden Yuki

     I decided to start going through these set by set, and I decided as the Duelist Packs were the smallest sets that I'd try and cover these a little bit.  First up is Duelist Pack Jaden Yuki.
     Released back in early 2006 for us in the TCG, this was a new concept for us.  Rather than having a set of cards that were usually based on a few concepts, we got a set of cards belonging to the main character, well kind of.  We didn't get all of them (and to this day I wonder what the list of cards Jaden used in show and manga adds up to, but I'm certain it probably is not legal for deck size).
     Elemental HERO Steam Healer was the cover card, and outside of the packs that made up the Slifer Red Mega Packs in The Legendary Collection 2, the only place to pull one.  With a seemingly unimpressive 1800 attack and 1000 defense points, this fusion of Elemental HEROs Burstinatrix and Bubbleman has the nice effect of gaining Life Points equal to the attack of any monster it destroys in battle and sends to the grave.  This means all you really need is some proper buffing.  Worst case scenario it is a Water attribute so if you have Masked Hero Vapor (or the soon to be released Acid for us in the TCG) then Mask Change will be useful.  But enough on the signature card, let us break down the card list quickly.

Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG Order of Chaos Special Edition

Above: An opened box of the Order of Chaos Special Edition

    When I saw the two Super Rares that make up to bonus card for this, I had vibes near that of Duelist Revolution which had Gold Sarcophagus.  The legal version of The Winged Dragon of Ra OR Effect Veiler? That sounds  like a fun pull, and to top that off three boosters of Order of Chaos.  Unless you are the type to save up for a booster box (or perhaps a box this special edition) it is worth it to at least pick up one considering the retail price (in the US) is $9.99.  Overall this is a rather nice deal.

Wall of Text: A Video Game List Mini-Review

Time to fire out some quick text reviews, all in one massive post.  Now keep in mind I may be giving a shorter version of my views on these than a normal wall of text review, but I try to keep spoilers out and keep it simple.
Things Covered:
I. Batman Arkham City
II. The Sly Collection
III. BlazBlue Series
IV. Trinity Universe

Grading Criteria
Important note: this is a system out of ten based on how I felt the appropriate care was taken in each area.
Graphics:   not so much on a scale of how amazing the graphics look, more if they fit the style they try to give
Voice Work/Characters: Basically if they kept true to a character, or use them wisely, will refer to the general cast
Gameplay/Conrols:  basically is it playable from a controller standpoint
Difficulty: self explanatory, also includes learning curve time, 10/10 is appropriately done, anything less implies too easy/too hard
Replay Value: can it be played through again, and why
Price: is it worth the value listed