Insomnia part 2

I gave Deus Ex:Human Revolution an honest attempt but I've found out that its not my type of game, and that is unfortunate, b/c it is a great game. I imagine that if you like games such as Splinter Cell or Assassin's Creed, it would be up your alley. It made me realize, and my best friend reminded me of it, that i'm more of a berzerker than a ninja.

A kamikaze!

I may have light footsteps and am quiet but the similarities stop there; I don't have the patience in Deus Ex (and maybe games in general) to wait and just watch an opponent. I want to run in there and get my hands dirty. It also sucks that when you do trigger an alarm in the game, you need to be extremely precise and not go wild with you ammo. I'd come in guns blazing, ready with a melee weapon when everything is exhausted.  

I totally understand this comic now.

I didn't like how the game guided you to expand your skills to be stealthy and a hacker, while there were boss fights that required you to have alot of toughness, big weapons, or play very craftey and wear down the opponent. Its funny; even on the easiest difficulty in DE:HR, you will die after being shot about 5 times, and about the same for normal (armored)enemies. But then you face the boss, which just means they are more augmented (see: less flesh, more metal) and they will take 10+ shots to the head of a shotgun.

I think ill just stick with waiting for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

Insomnia

I was reading Bronte's article on heirlooms in WoW and it got me thinking..

1. Do you like the idea of heirlooms in games?
I think its a cool idea but a character shouldn't be fully equipped with them. One or two pieces, per character, max, should a character have. It would be better if we could start with a heirloom item right from character creation.
 

My Heirloom

2. How would you like it implemented?
Quest-based. Every milestone (5/10 levels) you'd need to do an interesting personal story quest that would enable your heirloom to contine to grow in strength.
Experience-based. Wearing the gear while gaining experience would be tracked and would increase in strength. Experience could be meeting certain requirements (kill 10 bears while equipped, or completed "named" quest, defeat boss of this dungeon). Being that alot of us are achievement oriented, this would be something we'd do.

3. If you had a choice, would you heirloom a weapon or armor?
I would heirloom... a weapon.

The Last Day

Since it feels like I haven't blogged in ages.. another one..

When I went to the Toronto Fan Expo a month or so ago, it was the same day that my girl friend ended up in the hospital. It wasn't life-threatening, but still pretty serious. I wanted to get her something that would cheer her up ... and I ended up getting fleeced. You think its a good deal, but then you go to some Chinese strip mall and they have the same thing for 70% cheaper... guh.

Bi-winning

(Woah look at this; a non-MTG entry! There should be less now that it released and I tried Deus Ex, so maybe ill write about that later)


Reading Spinks' article on grinding and it made me think of my gf who simply, has played more mmos than you and me (its a really high number). In these mmos include both free to play and subscription-based mmos. I've never liked the FTP ones as i've found it incredibly repetitive and grindey.

What was triggered when I read Spinks' article is the allure of grinding: its constantly winning.

Think of it; if there are no 'greater' purposes to the game (say questing, or pvp)other than grinding your levels, then making sure you survive and get to high levels is basically winning.

I now understand grinding.

Ruling: Illusions

Hehe....

Everyone likes to be right.. and I dont typically like to argue... so i'd never be on a debate team. But I was right again.

"The Bear was still targeted. When Lightning Bolt was cast targeting Phantasmal Bear , the Bear's sacrifice trigger was put on the stack. Since the trigger is already on the stack, using Redirect or Cancel will not save it.

Think of it this way: since Redirect can only pick new targets for a spell, that spell still had to have old targets."

People should know: I only play honest; I don't like to be dishonest or cheat to get my way because winning that way is honorless.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=360727

http://tappedout.net/mtg-questions/illusions-and-being-targeted/

Innistrad Launch Party

So my group of friends had our MTG:Innistrad Launch party last night; it was the five of us; playing 2headed giant and free for all formats. My ending record was.. 1-4...eeek.

I'm a very aggressive player.. I play on the edge, relying on brute force, rather than trickery and deception. I'll easy give up life to get the power I need. This obviously sounds like a red/black type of deck.. though I don't really have a good enough deck to do so. Or more to the point, I think my decks are more made towards 1on1 (even Emperor) combats, rather than FFA matches.

My friends got some amazing mythic rare cards which I'm extremely jealous of.. equipped in their decks now.. whereas I don't have even 1 mythic in any deck, my ginger friend has 3. Am I making excuses to the number of loses? Kinda. But those that have played MTG, when playing with a non-mythic rare deck, versus one with them, it is a game changer when they are played.

On a FFA match between Red, Hunter and I, my usual aggressiveness with my vampire deck was the cause of my downfall. Instead of just waiting it out to let my trump creature just make all my opponents sacrifice their creatures, I attacked when Hunter has no defenders. It was a perfect time to make him lose half his health....
               
But then he played Rebuke... And the next turn, I was out of the game.
It looked like Hunter was going to win that round with his 6-7 werewolves on the field and Red struggling to stay alive with her weak 2/2 zombies, when on her last and most important turn, she pulled this: 

And what was a sure win, ended up as a loss for Hunter and a win for Red. When I had come to their house, Hunter was already on the losing end of a 1on1 match due to the exact same card too.

Winning against people with mythics when you're not using any is a tough situation, but it doesn't bother me too much; the game is balanced and there are always ways around it. 

Another of Red's card and what was used against it the next turn before she could turn anything into a controllable vampire.
               
I must say, Hunter is very much a strategist; always waiting to pounce at the RIGHT time with backup contingencies.... unlike me..


Lastly, I find that FFA is a very different type of game, requiring a different strategy. You need to:
- appear very weak and insignificant but at the same time be able to defend yourself to cause your opponent to think it is a waste to attack you
- at the same time, be able to do spike damage to an opponent and take them out quickly before they can retaliate
- Vigilance is perfect for an aggressive deck or a person that likes to attack and not worry about holding back creatures to defend
- aggressive strategies should be concentrating on a 1 turn punch out and shouldn't last more than 2 turns otherwise the other people will attack you, to save the losing person UNLESS they have a vendetta against them too
- don't p!ss off people; people will continue to attack you, even to their own detriment in FFA games 
- deathtouch is a good ability to keep people from attacking

Every single round, I drew the ire of a player and we would beat each other up causing us to both to be eliminated shortly.

A balanced deck is also pretty important. On the second turn my ginger nemesis, Red, cast this curse on me

Which basically ended up slowly killing me. Though no creatures ever got through thanks to my good (maybe see: cheap) Wall of Denial, I didn't have any Naturalize spells to destroy that enchantment. Nothing is worse than being plinked to death.
Except maybe redirecting a killing blow spell back at my attacker which kills them instead.


All in all, it was a fun night despite the losses. I got some good cards and a booster box waiting to be opened with the gf. I saw the power of werewolves. Glad that Red and Hunter have different decks, albeit very powerful. 

Car! Game on!

After a frustrating and trying week, I finally get my reward... and it was worth it.

Times TWO! Woot!

Its not all about what you think

One may wonder if this became more of a Magic: The Gathering blog rather than a general gaming blog these days, and I assure you that is not the case. Just more limited time for recreation, blogging, and nothing in particular I feel like playing.

I'm looking forwards to Heroes 6: Might and Magic which releases on October 11th 2011, though the beta is out currently. And i'm also really excited for some dual-wielding craziness in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, though I may need a serious pc overhaul (please no!) for that. 11.11.11. If my pc is overhauled, then I guess i'll be trying Deus Ex as well.

For now, I'm concentrating on (besides Magic) my photography. My wonderful gf bought me a new camera bag. 

Kata 2N1-20

While I went out yesterday and rounded out my collection and bought a monopod.

Manfrotto 680B

All that is needed now is a flash, ballhead and better lense filters.

I must say although Fallout: New Vegas is very buggy, it has brought countless hours worth of gaming, and thats with only 1 dlc. I purchased Old World Blues and barely scratched the storyline. Haven't bought Dead Money, or the new Lonesome Road.

Oh! And don't forget, Fallen Earth mmo is going free to play October 12th, which i'm very excited to give a go. Anyone else going to give it a try?

Deja Vu

"Wizards actively tries to put good cards at each rarity, here's a list of commons that have proven to be very strong tournament staples." ~matt

Heh... and this article goes on to further prove the point how there are good cards in MTG even in the commons and uncommons. That, they don't need to be rare or mythic rare to work well. After over 15+ years, they've made their mistakes, make sure they test out to make sure the card isn't flawed and if it does, it makes it into the banned list. Lol; and whats the first card they talk about? The type card we fought so hard and long about.

The next article from Daily MTG talks about various other cards (by the way, all the cards have been released now and can be found in the product section) and their themes such as using the graveyard to fuel your creatures, heavy-token decks and copy spells. I'm eager to have a token deck again... whether it'll work as well as before.. we'll see.

Rulings and Reasoning

I CAN SO tap that creature! SAY IT!

I think Magic needs an online chat room that you can join 24/7 to get instant rulings. There probably is one.. I just gotta find one. Mannnn.. my friends and I had the most heated discussions ever on Friday night. Normally, we're all unsure and we just decide to play it a certain way and then next time have it verified by a veteran. But the sides were insistent and adamant in their own position. I normally save the questionable rulings in my Blackberry so I can email my girlfriend's brother-in-law so he can answer it... but I was so sure in the situation in question that I wanted to text him it... at 2 in the morning. Anyways, i'm glad we're good enough friends to say GG, shake each other's hands and not have hard feelings about it afterwards (though maybe not during the game). lol. Afterall, its only a game.

Not bad for 1 mana.

Ok. So, here are two additional articles from Daily MTG;  the first one is on the reasoning on the 2-sided cards as it didn't sound like it was the most popular decision. One of the biggest complaints was that if you didn't cover your cards, people could easily see that you had a werewolf card. And that it was kind of a hassle if you had to constantly take the card out of the protector to show the correct side (part of the reason why I don't want to play 2-sided cards myself).

The second article, talks about a big part of the horror genre of bringing creatures back from the graveyard.

I absolutely love this kind of play style: concentrating on your offense and attacking creatures, and if your creatures are removed or ever end up in the graveyard, just bring them back and keep the pressure on. One of the greatest things that Wizards are using in Innistrad is the the Flashback mechanic. I love getting better utility of my cards; I dislike when its a one-time use only especially if they get countered. Innistrad seems to lessen the impact of counters as they'll need twice as many with flashback. Make Mill decks less damaging, or actually beneficial. Even discarding cards doesn't seem that bad anymore. Exile seems like its going to be much more important now. 

I think my friends know that I love to use enchantments and have littered their decks with destroy enchantment spells as whenever I get a good enchantment out, its normally destroyed right away before it can do some good damage.