Pagoda of Gaming

Well welcome back to the Magical Ninja Deck Chef. I guess we’ll go ahead and call this “Season 2”, So hopefully I’ll get another eight deck building articles before I go and get enamoured with something else.

The reason I stopped the first time, I believe was because Modern Warfare 2 came and took over ever shred of spare time I had – along with whatever else was coming out in the Q4 Blitz.

But I’m back – Once the Rise of the Eldrazi leaks started a couple of weeks ago, ala Kozilek, I began thinking about Magic a lot more than usual. And then I went through a similar cycle of behaviour last time I needed to do this. I began contemplating pouring some money into the Pit that is MTGO, then I played three consecutive nights of Duels of the Planeswalkers on X-Box Live, and then I went and spent over £100 on cards on eBay (two Fat Packs and a RoE pre-order Booster Box.

Writing about magic and putting decks together seemed to satiate my cravings last time round, so I hope that works again. Let’s get started…

Oh, and this is a two parter, since it’s disgustingly long already (about 4,700 words FYI). Part two will come later on in the week once I’ve had time to test version one of the deck and formulate some fixes.

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Preview of the Week – Sharkan The Mad

Well, man, that’s just what you get for being enslaved by a badass dragon. I suggest you take a look at THIS recently posted article. It explains why Sarkhan is Mad, and why the Eldrazi are in fact rising. I’m actually not to keen on Sarkhan, compared to his Previous Incarnation. He’s going to be losing loyalty no matter what you’re doing. Though he does provide Black/Red decks with a small, yet totally finite amount of card advantage, The second ability also requires a sacrifice to work too. But it is nice to see Wizards printing more Planeswalkers per block than before, and hopefully this will continue. Personally I’m more excited to find out about this Gideon fellow, the second rumoured planeswalker for this set. It’s almost certain that he’s one of the three original Planeswalkers that imprisoned the Eldrazi, along with Ugin and Sorin.

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History and Deck Concept

In between all these RoE leaks, Wizards announced that this years fall set is going to be called Scars of Mirrodin, and will mark a return to the infamous plane that changed magic forever. So in honour of that awesome announcement I’d like to pool the past 7 blocks worth of sets, and some random others in-between to build a kick ass artifact only deck. A grand tour through the multiverse from Mirrodin to Kamigawa, Alara, Lorwyn and of course Zendikar, before being ready to go all the way back to Mirrodin this fall.

This basically means that the deck is going to be Extended Legal.

Mirrodin was an insane set. And I think everyone who was playing back then will agree that it was grossly overpowered. And maybe that was the point? It certainly got me back into MTG in a big way - The first pre-release event I went to was the Darksteel one.

There were a couple of reasons the Mirrodin Block was so amazingly overpowered. First and foremost it was due to the new Affinity Mechanic, especially “Affinity For Artifacts”. It made everything so grossly undercosted – most of the time you could cast some Artifacts for free. The common artifact lands certainly helped too.

Secondly, compared to older sets, Wizards printed some utterly insane cards in the set, like the ones below. It was a combo player’s dream of having all these artifacts, unrestricted by being bound to a coloured mana cost. Things became so broken so quickly.

And there was of course the Arcbound Ravager + Disciple of the Vault + Skullclamp neat little combo that grew to the point that Wizards had to ban these cards on and off whilst the block was legal in standard. To put that in context, that’s the last time they’ve had to ban cards in about 6 years.

It was a great time to be a magic player. And even though I was pretty newb at the time, I managed to shuffle this deck together, which I’ve been tweaking over the years. For a while, people really hated that I built this deck, and played with it. It was probably my first successful build, take a look at it’s current-ish incarnation:

So the old deck clearly had some problems, but when it worked – it worked. Basically the idea was to play as many cheap artifacts as possible, and then load up a Broodstar with Cranial Plating – effectively doubling his attack power, and a pair of Greaves, and hit my opponent with a 20/10 shrouded beast, and/or use a Feedback Bolt to finish them off. But the deck had little in the way of defences, and only one card, the spellbomb, as removal. The mana base was always a pain in the ass – as you can see, this was before dual lands were readily available. And I hardly had and Glimmervoids lying about.

After Mirrodin, the Artifact Theme died down considerably – maybe intentionally so. The focus was moved immediately to Kamigawa (a plane of Samurai, Ninja, and vengeful spirit gods), but last year when Shards of Alara was known to the world, R&D focused 1/5th of the block centred round coloured artifacts, a first for the game. The sharded plane of Esper, consisting of only White, Blue and Black mana, where it’s inhabitants live magically infused with a rare metal called Etherium, and ruled over by a powerful class of Sphinx. Everything on that plane was an artifact – even some of the spells.

So I propose a deck composed entirely of Artifacts. No Instants or Sorceries, No Enchantments – Everything has to be an Artifact Something. For now anyway, won’t know if it will work out until I try. And the deck will be White, Blue Black to take advantage of Esper’s unique colours and some old tricks from Mirrodin. So that leaves us with about 600 Artifacts to work with as seen HERE. Let’s get sorting…

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Card Pool – Creatures

• Lodestone Golem – The whole “Artifacts Only” idea really clicked when I remembered this card. I actually opened one at the Worldwake Pre-release a couple of months ago, and he really helped me out. In most games this guy will just outright slow your opponent down a turn as if you took a Time Walk. Not to mention the utterly solid Power/Toughness/Cost ration.  I’d really like to main-deck a quartet of these guys for now.
• Master Of Etherium – He’s basically the Artifact tribal lord. And a new incarnation of Broodstar to boot. Super-cheap too, and hopefully cheaper with some of the other cards in the deck. Auto-4-off, no question.
• Etherium Sculptor – He’s got a nice Darksteel, non-artifact cousin that I’d totally be using if he were also an artifact. For this deck the Sculptor should be a little better, instead of providing a mere two mana, he should lower the cost of every single card in the deck. Auto-4-off.
• Myr Enforcer and Frogmite – Both of these cards will probably make some sort of appearance, but to what quantity still remains in question. You can’t complain with what will probably be a free creature, especially the enforcer.
• Scarecrone – The other Scarecrows from Shadowmoor and Eventide were really freaking lame. But Scarecrone is pretty attractive looking with that resurrection ability, and the card drawing ability makes her a decent chump-blocker in a pinch.
• Darksteel Brute – Whilst I don’t like the paying 3 to turn him into a creature – which can actually be useful if you need him to dodge some mass removal. His initial low casting cost and the fact he’s the cheapest piece of Indestructibility in the game put him on this list.
• Esperzoa – This is your go-to guy if the deck fills up with creatures with “when an artifact comes into play” or “when *this* comes into play". ‘Zoa lets you pick them up and play them again, all attached to a sweet 4/3 flyer. He also combos well with cards like Elsewhere Flask to make a cheap card drawing engine.
• Ethersworn Sheildmage – So when you make a bold statement like “Let’s make a deck where everything’s a fucking Artifact” you realise very early on that you are going to have some problems making up for the usual benefits you’d get from packing your usual assortment of Sorceries and Instants. The Sheidmage provides some instant speed one-sided holy day, and as a surprise blocker. Interesting card.
• Faerie Mechanist – Like the shieldmage, this decently costed flyer provides some sweet freebie card advantage, but I get the feeling I could do better.
• Sphinx Summoner – … Kinda like this guy. His only real downside is that he only searches for a creature, and he costs a little bit much.
• Ethercaste Knight – He’s a pretty cool looking dude, but I feel as though I could do better stuff with my mana pool. And I don’t want to worry about having explicitly a blue and white source of mana on turn two. But you never know.
• Glaze Fiend – I’ve actually got a Glaze Fiend deck on MTGO, that infernal game. I don’t think he has much a place here, but he makes for excellent aggro with some cheap artifacts, a couple of Ornithopters or so, and an aforementioned Esperzoa engine.
• Glassdust Hulk – Say that ten times fast… This guy works in much the same way as Glaze Fiend, but I’d be more inclined to use him in this deck, since he only needs one artifact-activation to be more useful than the Fiend. The Cycle isn’t a bad thing either. I’d probably almost always cycle him in the early turns of the game.
•  Lodestone Myr – Yeah, same again. The boost being I can use his booster when I’m hand-less, and that’s any artifact I can tap, artifact lands, other arti-creatures, even more so attractively a Howling Mine or two – to lock it out of my opponent using it’s effect against me. Actually, that last one seems like a fucking brilliant idea. Purely colourless to boot. (I’ll mention the mine later)
• Metallurgeon – Can’t go wrong with a regenerator. Nice blocker too if he can regen himself. But I dunno, I think he’d be hard to fit in at this point.
• Master Transmuter – Swap my tiny Frogmite for a Darksteel Colossus? Shit yeah I’d take that deal! The Transmuter is totally worth thinking about for that mini-combo alone. There’s no sorcery-speed restriction on her either, meaning there’s potential for some sweet combat tricks, or even countering some targeted spells if need be. Definitely worth thinking about.
• Parasitic Strix – For one, I can’t guarantee I’ll have a black permanent at all times. For two, I’d rather cast a Master of Etherium on turn three instead. No way man. This guy’s fired before he’s hired.
• Puppet Conjurer – Nuisance Engine of the future? Not quite with that sacrificial drawback. Unless you want to sacrifice the token intentionally that is – but I don’t think we would. No thanks, but cool flavour. Really wish they did more with the Homunculus tokens.
• Sanctum Gargoyle – Since I will probably have little means of defence against spot removal, the Gargoyle can sweep in and let me recast whatever I lost, on top of being a solid flyer. At least, Sideboard material.
• Myr Retriever – He’s pretty much strictly better than the Sanctum Gargoyle: He’s half the cost, Colourless, and he can fetch any kind of artifact. The drawback being he has to die in the process. I’d have to use one or the other for at least Sideboard material.
• Tidehollow Strix – Early game flyer. Late game deterrent. I bet the dual coloured cost would be a pain in the butt though, especially as early as turn 2. Pretty good card though.
• Tower Gargoyle – Pure meat on a stick this one. It’s hard to argue with a 4/4 flyer for four. I’d have to deal with the tri-coloured cost, but it shouldn’t be too bad by turn four or five.
• Wizard Replica – Probably the only “Counterspell” available to the deck from the card pool. The problem being that my opponent would certainly end up playing around him instead of letting me use him as a counterspell, unless I were able to combo him into play with a Transmuter – at that point he’s effectively a Mana Leak. Decent card otherwise.
• Windwright Mage – I’m unsure about how useful this card would be. A hindrance at tri-coloured cost, but a boon with a little bit of available Lifelink. We’ll see, but I doubt there’d be room for her in this deck.
• Walking Archive – Strictly not as fast as a Howling Mine, or even a Font of Mythos as a matter of fact. He’s a decent looking pumpable wall – but I don’t know if I’m comfortable pumping up a wall when I could be pumping up an attacker of some kind.
• Walking Atlas – I really really like the idea of Walking Atlas. If I could set up something to draw me extra cards a turn, he could be helping me dump my lands as fast as possible. What’s better is that he’s an equal-opportunity accelerator, allowing me to chuck out non-basics – something your average rampant growth rarely allows. He is only a mere 1/1 though, and doesn’t come active until turn 3. I think I’d like to try him out in version 1 of the deck no matter what.
• Ethersworn Canonist – Pretty well shuts down almost any control deck, most combo decks, and any deck that relies on Cascade, and on the plus side, won’t hurt this deck a single bit in the process. The problem being the RL cost of this card, and the rarity. And it probably wouldn’t hit the main deck unless it came into contact with the above.
• Vedalken Outlander – Protection from red - sideboard. Simple as that.

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Card Pool – The Showstoppers

I’ve got a list here for some awesome High-Cost, High-Effect Creatures. Finishers without a doubt. I think I could only dedicate three or four slots in the deck to these creatures, and exactly what ones I would use would depend how the final-ish list looks. Maybe I could boost to a hard five or six if the Transmuter is a major theme. They are all relatively high-costed (mana and otherwise) and range anywhere on the scale between “Meaty Beatstick” to “Redonc Skills”. Take a look…

• Darksteel Colossus
• Enigma Sphinx
• Ethersworn Adjudicator
• Filigree Angel
• Inkwell Leviathan
• Memnarch
• Pentavus
• Platinum Angel
• Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• Sharuum the Hegemon
• Sphinx Sovereign
• Sen Triplets
• Razormane Masticore
• Sharding Sphinx

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Card Pool – Lands and Mana Acceleration

I’ve already talked about the possible greatness of Walking Atlas, but when it comes to mana acceleration, creatures can be a bit unreliable because the easily die. This deck will also have a relatively unique mana base. I’m trying to fit in as many Artifact lands as I can, and at the same time, make up for some of the effects I lose out on due to lack of Instants, Sorceries and Enchantments.

• The Artifact Lands – The deck would just straight up not function as well without them. Using the three colour appropriate ones, and the Darksteel Citadel, that fills up the first sixteen slots in the manabase, without question.
• Academy Ruins – Absolutely no problems with one-offing this in the deck. Guaranteed.
• Arcane Sanctum – 100% colour fixing with next to none drawbacks. 3 to 4-off guaranteed.
• Cloudpost – It sure can make a lot of colourless mana. But I can’t be too cavalier with putting too much of both colourless sources and lands that come into play tapped. There’s always the risk that I never draw into that second Cloudpost. No, I think this one’s going to have to sit it out.
• Dread Statuary – This man-land’s got solid synergy with the deck. Shame he wasn’t an Artifact in his land form too. Consider him to be on the short list.
• Jwar Isle Refuge and Sejiri Refuge – More mana fixing, and a little life-boost to boot! But again, I should be cautious about the amount of tapped lands I play.
• Mikokoro, Center of the Sea – I’m all for drawing cards, but the two mana I tap here could be going to a Howling mine. Still, might be pretty important in the late-game. 1-off only.
• Halimar Depths and New Benalia – I think it’d be pretty crazy to play a full set of each of these. Positively and Negatively Crazy. I’d probably play the Depths over Benalia, simply because it digs a little further into the deck.
• Urza’s Factory – One-off no matter what I’d say. Excellent in the late game, boosts a lot of other cards simply by dropping an Artifact every turn.
• Gargoyle Castle – Not so permanent as the Factory, but a 3/4 flyer is clearly better than a vanilla 2/2. 3/4 Flyers can win games.

• Everflowing Chalice – I hear that this guy is the new tech. It can be a significant mana boost in the mid-late game, and early on he’s no worse than a Mind Stone.  I could even play it for Zero mana if I was desperate to boost my artifact count.
• Mind Stone – Speaking of mindstone. It’s badass. Early game acceleration, late to mid game card advantage.
• Mistvein Borderpost and Fieldmist Borderpost – These guys have many other uses outside of mana. With an Etherium Sculptor in play, I don’t need to pay the one mana alt cost. At that point they are basically Dual Artifact lands. The problem being that they need a basic land to bounce, and looking at the pool right not, there’s not much room for basics without sacrificing space for more interesting lands.
• Ravnican Signets – Cheap and fix mana. Almost as good as playing a Rampant Growth. Also turn some of that colourless mana I’m bound to have lying about into something coloured.
• Blinkmoth Urn – Since Mana Burn has been abolished, Cards like this have excellent potential. I’d be swimming in mana with this card in play on turn 5. The problem being, I’d have to wait until turn 5, and it doesn’t make anything coloured. Always a possibility if the deck has room for it.
• Darksteel Ingot – Indestructible, and can make mana of any colour. I think I’d rather be spending 2 mana on my mana accel though.
• Guardian Idol – Darksteel Brute with an alternate purpose, costs the same as a signet or a Mindstone, and only suffers from coming into play tapped.
• Wayfarer’s Bauble – I’d only consider using this if I could find a way to constantly recur the card after use. And there might not be enough Basics in the deck to warrant that.

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Card Pool – Other Artifacts

• Mirrodin Spellbombs – The blue one is probably the best choice in the case of this deck. Basically a Boomerang.
• Darksteel Forge – Man, this would be freaking awesome to play. Might work well as a tutorable one-off for some pre-finisher tech.
• Courier’s Capsule – Divination in artifact form. Problem being, It’s a two for one, where most decks can pull off three or four for one’s. But it might be fun if I could loop it every turn with an Academy Ruins, or play it a little cheaper with a Sculptor in play. Has the additional Benefit of being able to sit around being all artifacty, to benefit the Master’s of Etheriums of the deck. But the drawback is that my opponent clearly sees that it’s there and can play round about it.
• Dispeller’s Capsule – Naturalize in Artifact Form. This’ll probably end up in the side board. Same benefits and drawbacks as Courier’s Capsule.
• Executioner’s Capsule – Doom Blade in Artifact Form. Must have a couple copies of this in the main deck for sure. Same Benefits and drawbacks as Courier’s Capsule.
• Howling Mine – I’ve been going on about this card all over the post, so I should probably explain. It’s probably the best card draw the deck has access to, and if I play my cards right I can find a way to stop my opponent’s gaining any benefit from it being there – cards like Lodestone Myr or even an Icy Manipulator.
• Icy Manipulator – I’ve had successes before using this card in control decks. The problem is the 4 mana initial cost, but as usual I can probably get that down by either a Sculptor or acceleration. After that the one mana cost a turn isn’t too bad. Great at holding back aggro and generally ticking off opponents.
• Relic of Progenitus – Sideboard against opponents that love their graveyard.
• Sensei’s Divining Top – Don’t know if it’s worth a slot in the deck if I’m dropping Halimar Depths regularly. Great card though. It’s still breaking decks even these days.
• Seer’s Sundial – I’ve played the precon deck that uses this, and it’s a bit pricey. Might’ve been a better card if the initial cost was cheaper.
• Protomatter Powder – Resurrection? Sure! Why not. It’s a relatively reasonable price, but in some cases, it might be as cheap just getting your target back into your hand and playing it again. It’s always there if I need it.
• Scourglass – Can’t complain with a one-sided Wrath of God that also takes out Enchantments and Planeswalkers! Unfortunately has to stick around a turn before I can activate it.
• Sculpting Steel – There’s going to be a playset of these in the deck no matter what. It’s pure advantage. Imagine having easier access to another Lodestone Golem, Howling Mine, Sculptor, Icy Manipulator. It’ll even copy over half the land in the deck in a pinch. And it can give me access to any artifacty tricks my opponent’s bring to the table.
• Thopter Foundry – Turn those chump blockers into more chump blockers, or a mini-swarm for an alpha strike the next turn. Potentially a finisher in the deck. Especially if the lands can turn themselves into attackers for a final push. Great card. I’d play this over Nuisance Engine.
• Elsewhere Flask – Really here as a potential piece of a card draw engine, or some super-desperate mana fixing. Ideal situation: two Sculptors and an Esperzoa in play = me drawing an extra card a turn and completely mitigating the negative effects of Esperzoa’s bouncing.

• Cranial Plating – It’s cheap, and amazingly effective. It’s also got the added bonus of an instant-speed equip. I don’t think I’d run a deck like this without it.
• Whispersilk Cloak – These days, I’d much rather use the Cloak than a pair of Lightning Greaves on my creatures. Just remember to equip the Cranial Plating first.
• Loxodon Warhammer – The best piece of equipment ever printed? Quite possibly. Have to at least consider a spot for it.
• Umezawa’s Jitte – The other best piece of equipment ever printed? Quite possibly. I’d one-off this at least, and tutor it up if need be.
• Mask of Riddles – a possible alternative to the Cloak in the right situations. But I’d probably just go with the cloak, less probable screw ups that way.

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Card Pool – Planeswalkers

• Tezzeret the Seeker – Well, Duh! Really. First off, He basically adds two extra mana sources to my pool whenever he hits the table. Secondly, he can find anything in the deck – including artifact lands at no impact to his loyalty count. And Third, that’s a sweet March of the Machines ability he’s got on the end there. It all comes down to if there’s space in the deck for him, the same goes for any of these planeswalkers really.
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor – It’d be hard to tell you how new Jace is bad in any way. Honestly, he’s just on the list because I’ve got two copies kicking about deckless at the moment, and I’d really like to try him out in some capacity.
• Liliana Vess – Aggressively makes my opponent discard, defensively tutors up any card in the deck. Don’t see her ultimate being any use without specific situations.
• Jace Beleren – Old Jace ain’t no slouch. He’s a hardcore card advantage machine, without a doubt, and he’s still the cheapest Planeswalker on the block. But on the other hand, can’t I get basically the same effect with a Howling mine for an easier, cheaper cost? And his ultimate is a little irrelevant in this deck.

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Deck Version 1

So after putting together all the cards that I think the deck at least couldn’t do without, here’s what we end up with:

It’s certainly missing alot of the sweet tricks I discovered whilst going through the cardpool. The Walking Atlas is there for testing out, also hence the larger land-count, I figured I’d be able to get away with only 20. What can I guess the deck will be lacking? For one, there’s no creature evasion at all, with either built in abilities or from equipment. There’s no tutoring going on, so I’ll have to rely on only the Courier’s Capsule and the Howling mines to speed the deck along a bit. The Lodestone Myr and the Master is probably going to be the deck’s main finishers, for the trampling of the myr and the sheer size that the master should be able to go up to.

But it does need testing, and that’s what I’m off to do. Join my for part two, hopefully sometime at the end of the week where I’ll post my testing results, a sideboard, and any other problems and solutions I ran into. Laters!

I’d love to pull the wires from the wall

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Like what you saw? Want to Contribute? Then please send me your ideas, requests, or your experiences testing the decks that I’ve posted. I’ll be happy to cook up just about anything I’m asked, in any format - All I need is a decklist or an idea to start things off. Remember that I’m not building competitive decks here, I’m aiming for the fun and functional, or even the most budget of decks, and I don’t troll forums for decklists or ideas. email me at themissingnin@hotmail.com or leave a comment on this post (please remember that if you email me, please make it clear in the subject line what you’re emailing me about, or else I will kill it with my mighty delete button, and if you leave a comment on the site and it doesn’t appear immediately, know that it’s probably been picked up by the wordpress filter and I will approve your comment asap). Also, the more I’m sent the more I’ll have to talk about! ‘Nin Out!

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I said I would Blog about MTG a little less, so let this post represent the transition period, because something came up the other day that I’m dying to stoke the flames of, and as a long time consumer of Coastly Wizard goods I feel entitled to prod the situation with an internets stick.

Wizards of the Coast announced on Monday that they’ve been working on, in conjunction with Sony Online Entertainment, a Magic The Gathering based videogame for PS3 and the PC. When WotC makes a videogame, as they have tried many many times in the past, the community gets in an uproar.

Example 1:  Magic The Gathering: Battlegrounds, for the PS2, PC and Xbox was a gigantic piece of shit, leveraging the core of the IP in the slightest. To the unknowing, THIS VIDEO will assure you of such in less than a minute. And THIS video of an in-game cutscene, will only bring your disgust farther.

Example 2: Magic The Gathering: Online, currently still running for the PC. No matter how you look at it, Paying real world money for individual cards is dumb, even moreso when the prices are near equivalent to the physical product. And I say that as a previous partaker. It’s a horrible experience. But also take into account the horrible structure of the UI and the countless bugs still have an overall foothold of the system, and the lack of next to any structure of ranked player matching. Not to mention the problem it has with holding a worldwide metagame.

Duels of the Planeswalkers for XBLA is the most exceptional to the rule, but even it has it’s problems, despite it’s obvious position (obvious to me anyway) in the magic pantheon, and it’s amazingly balanced gameplay, the community still burns with hopes of deck and card customisation more akin to the real game. And for myself, a giant kick in the pants came from the title’s first DLC released a few weeks ago. After having the game finished (and by that I mean I unlocked all the Achievements) for many many months, too many months, they finally get round to releasing new DLC, I go to download only to find that it is only half a megabyte in size. Clearly it was a simple unlock key, and the content I had yearned had been lying dormant all that time on my HDD. I Raged.

But the point is that Duels of the Planeswalkers is very good, and is certainly on the right track if it can deliver more content really damn soon.

It brings to light what the community actually wants from a digital counterpart to the greatest trading card game ever printed. We want to play the game in a balanced pure form, and we want to do so on the cheap. Theoretically, and I think some people would agree, the best way to achieve this is a complete overhaul of MTGO, and placing at most a monthly fee on the price of admission, and place “allowance boosters” inside current booster packs and theme decks. Give players an allowance based on their performance (good and bad) and give them a system of progression within the game, and allow players to build up a personality in the game. Such a beast, I believe, could topple Warcraft.

But it doesn’t look like they’re doing that. Magic the Gathering: Tactics is slated for release sometime in the first half of next year, it is described as: “an online, 3D turn-based strategy game played within the rich Magic: The Gathering Multiverse…to transform the best of Magic’s story, strategy and competitive play into a fantastic ‘Tactics’ game experience for current and new Magic fans”. Allow this trailer to revolt you.

Clearly they hired their 3D artist from 1995, Maybe the same guy that made that oh-so memorable T-Rex from that Jurassic Park episode of Sliders. Seeing “Magic in a New Dimension” is a dangerous prospect for developer and especially the consumer. They’re making a game about another game, that is not 100% the original game. I also have no faith in SOE – Their current projects do not speak “quality” to me.

The only thing I can be thankful for is that I already have Duels of the Planeswalkers, but it’s a shame that the PS3 population cant get in on the action aswel. I think I would consider a second purchase it that weren’t the case, just to play with the disturbingly large percentage of people I know that are thrall to that brand and not the other.

It’s not all bad though: A note to PS3 owners, It seems that Braid is finally coming to your shores, PC and 360 owners already know how awesome and utterly beautiful this game is, including myself. I encourage all of you who are late to the party (though late through proxy of platform holder) to check it out. May it imbue emotion on your soul.

Interestingly, a day after the MTG:Tactics announcement, Wizards posts something wildly opposite on the WotC Awesom-ometer. Starting in May of next year, they’ll begin selling “Deck Builder’s Toolkit’s” that contain :4 boosters, 100 basic land and 125 additional random cards, a storage box, and a game guide, for a price that I can calculate as being under £20. Clearly this is aimed at the casual and new player market, a casual fat pack of sorts, and any product that does that for the game is worth an applause. I’ll definitely be picking one up come May.

I was happy to hear that Blizzard is going to add cross-server-band-of-explorering, but I’m even happier to know what else this improvement brings with it. Revamping the current LFG system is an amazing start, but all the trimmings of Pickup Group buffs, instance teleporting, random Daily Dungeon Runs, and an automation of loot Disenchanting sounds like a heavenly experience. The only minor shame is that the cross-realming is bound to battlegroup. That isn’t so great for players like me who aren’t in the best of Battlegroups. But knowing that I’ll have a better chance now of landing a group for even the most under-subscribed of Instances, left behind by the race to the level cap, may very well be enough to draw me back in.

I bought THIS app for my iPhone yesterday, and I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, from within a range of feelings from “Feeling like a Rapstar” to “Crying into my Wallet”. In a way, my purchase is Giantbomb’s Fault, but I can’t hold anything against those guys. Maybe the following video will bring some understanding to the situation.

I leave THIS final link out of courtesy – it’s an amazing Live concert recorded in HD for YouTube starring the one and only Nine Inch Nails playing the entirety of The Downward Spiral album, even in the same order as the CD! It’s very enjoyable, I assure you.

Now is the part where I ask for some community help, all negative 34 of you. I’ve got it into my head that I want to get my Gaming PC, also known as the NinPuter, back up to snuff so it’s not getting outperformed by a laptop that was less than half it’s initial price, and so I can play some of the future titles the current NinTop cannot. It should come as no surprise that I’m farthest from any Hardware Mc Dreamy, and could do with a hand. The problem areas are the system’s Graphics Card, RAM (currently only 2GB) and I’d like to get Windows 7 Running on it. THIS is the current Motherboard I’ve got, and should do me fine for this upgrade, as should the rather fast Pentium dual core, and the power supply should work too.

It’s the graphics card I can’t figure out. It’d be great to get some recommendations for this – So I don’t go wasting money and blowing myself up. And what I’ve tried to gleam from the internet so far has been unsatisfactory. I appreciate any help I receive.

This weekend I’ll be left to my own devices as the parents go somewhere, and do…. something. I dunno. All I do know is that I’m going to get myself a whole load of pre-MW2 gaming under my belt this weekend, hopefully finishing Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 if I can withstand their shortcomings. I’m also further tantalised by Shattered Horizon that just released on Steam this week. Check the video below, and you might see what I’m talking about. It’s style and proposed gameplay leave an impression on me. Shame that it’s hut the shelves less than a week before, well, I’m sure you know… I’ve Pre-ordered by the way. Have you?

You can flambé me now for that Grey’s Anatomy reference. Good Day Sirs.

who’s wearing the trousers

The Infamous Demo has more than confirmed that my pre-purchase was sound, and that THIS is very true. PS3 owners, those of Fanboy rank will fail to see the utter resemblance to Crackdown. Formulaicly (yes, that’s a word) it is ((Crackdown - Hulk) + Monkey) x Electrical Excuses. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just really really referential. What might bother me is that it really does push the boundaries of the Electrical superhero. On the lower end of the spectrum we have Veronica Mars Herofied - whose powers are reserved for pew-pew and sexual arousal. On the extreme we have the inFAMOUS hero - who takes his charge and revives the dying, explodes cities and flies - well atleast he can’t swim. My concerns might be lifted depending on the depth of the storytelling, the demo wasn’t to hands on with it, it was more concerned with making sure what button did what. I guess I’ll find out on friday when the game arrives. If you want to hear more you can take Brad’s words to heart, though you may get aroused.

Battleforge is now free. This statement makes the game relevant. Before it was £35, now is it £0. You get access to everything from the single player campaigns to every inch of the multiplayer, whilst certiain things unlock when you ding a certain level. I can’t help but wondering if this was their initial plan or if poor sales of the £35 box really did influence things. You can’t tell how evil EA’s going to be on any given day - sure the game’s free, but you’re still paying for cards/units for the game.

To break it down, Battleforge is RTS meets Trading Card Game. You play a simple and entertaining RTS, and your cards are your units - which you can subsequently trade with and as the primary finance model buy more of. That shouldn’t seem so daunting. The points you buy can be taken to the auction house, stripped right out of WoW, and upright buy the cards you want. There is no base building, not really, there are “building cards” - but simply put, they are defence turrets.

The story and the setting is a let down. It’s something that Magic has thrived on since it left dominaria. Everything from the card art to the flavour text to the website articles detail the character of the world and keeps a continuity from dimention to dimention by the legends of the Planeswalkers. But that is lost in Battleforge, the flavour seems random and what story I’ve seen from the get-go is hidden away in a menu as a poor digital book. See also: The Eye of Judgement. I just don’t want to read that shit! Give me a flash animation or an audiobook, or… something - something better than a block of text to waste my time.

I find it odd that the player isn’t really put into play in this game, which is often a factor of a TCG. Enabling the forced discarding of cards or the countering of summons. I suppose it’d rape the fuck out of the balancing or something, or a physical unit to represent the player might turn the game into Dota. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, as a card game is only as good as it’s expansions. I think Mr Garfield would agree with me.

To me, the game’s big sell seem to be it’s Tome decks and “PVE” content. Think of it like a WoW dungeon but in RTS form - you work with other players to kill a boss at the end of a scenario, and you get gold and card upgrades if you win. The tome decks are this game’s version of a “sealed format”, where you and your allies/opponents use the cards doled out to you randomly to build your deck, and you get to keep the cards afterwords. This does cost real money, the kind your employer puts in your bank, but I still want to try it out, once I get a little grip on the game.

It is a unique game, and judging by this upgrade to free, the developers really do have the balls to make the game work. How much EA cock-block them will be evident in future updates, or the game’s inevitable first expansion set. In the right form - this game can have depth beyond alot of CCGs and RTS’s out there, the fact that this game is both is a perfect starting point.

The new TF2 update has left a bit of an odd taste in my mouth. Specifically, the random item drops people have been complaining about. Myself, I unlocked a jar of weponised piss (the good kind) and I didn’t play the sniper. To my satisfaction, I can somewhat confirm that the Achievement milestones still work for the previously updated classes, so I can still play them and get the feeling that I am going somewhere. My proposed solution - a Shop. You could earn a currency through playing well, or unlocking achievements, and you can save up and buy the upgrades you want, the same could go for vanity items - the fabled hats which only appear to me in Wikipedia form. I’m indifferent to the change, I would just like to be given a direction in the game, which the previous unlock system supplied.

The next DLC has been announced for GTA4 and shit is about to get FABULOUS. It’s called “Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony” and I’m being super serious right now. Not only do we have impending awesome, but we’ve got the first game release I know of to have “Gay” in the title. Kotaku has the info, and I’m sure we’ll hear alot more about this at E3.

I’ve got a double-dose of teaser infused trailers for you today. The first is of the new modernised Sherlock Holmes, starring Iron Man and Sky Captain. It looks good, but I’m bothered that I can’t make out whether it’s a pure comedy or not, maybe we’ll get something awesome like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang out of it.

This is the obligatory Modern Warfare 2 trailer. To be honest, I’d like to see nothing more of the game until Amazon ships it to me this fall, and I think if it weren’t for fear of being forgotten by the non gaming masses, Infinity Ward wouldn’t need to show me. It’s like a WoW expansion - I will buy this, you don’t need to convince me otherwise.
In the only comment that I have received in a month, someone, perhaps my only reader, informed me that I forgot to metion the Kojima productions shit. I did. My opinion on the subject is this - prepare to be dissapointed, because chances are they are about to put MGS4 on the 360 or maybe according to todays update a remake of MGS3 or something. Beware Kojima’s mighty cocktease!

Explain these motions and metaphors

My arm is in freaking pain right now from all that goddamn final-boss screen-tapping.

So what have I got to say about The World Ends With You. Well, it is first and foremost the first DS game that I’ve ever completed. So yey me!

I’m delighted more than anything that the game was entirely story driven, with a change in difficulty a touch away. And when you get the ability that stops you game-overing to the title screen, you get to retry the last battle as many times as you want, and with the option of “retry on easy”. This I found this most useful when hut head-on by one of the games bosses - I drop dead, drop it to easy, then I get to continue on with the story. Which is pretty good. Full of memorable characters, pleanty of twists and turns, and a pretty WTF ending. Infact it reminds me alot of Lost - similar in themes and feeling.

Graphically it’s a blend of traditional modern anime, but with a small twist of… dare I say, Jet Set Radio. On some level it’s an open-world game, and doing such a thing on the DS and having it set in central Shibuya is a pretty ballsy move. I’d say they pulled it off. The streets are filled with people - be they 2D sprites, and the Music is cacophany of every ‘J-Genre’ they’ve got.

As I said, it’s a pretty unique title, and it couldn’t be on anything but the DS - It reminded me of the console’s potential. Because now I can forget about all the Brain Training and talking cook-books and know that it’s there for us gamers too.

Tomorrow I’ll be starting on Pokemon Platinum, which arrived in the mail yesterday. I do have Diamond, but I got distracted by other games at the time I got my hands on it. My poor pokemon have probably died in their balls by now. It’s totally the American Version, because I can’t fucking wait another month, and neither should the rest of europe. I reiterate that this baby should’ve hut shelves the day the DSi did - but what can you do if you’re NOE. Clearly not very much…

Today’s video is the teaser for what is clearly the next Burnout Paradise Expansion.

Cops and Robbers - sounds fun. Dunno if i’d pay for it, but I sure am glad that it exists. Criterion sure have been good to us with this game. I doubt that this is just a car pack. I’m guessing - a new multiplayer mode atleast. Tag, but with cars that crash into eachother

I’m planning to hit up Fundee next-next weekend for the Alara Reborn tournament. I should clarify that I didn’t know the name of the set until last night. Part of me is ashamed that I’ve let my relationship with the game get as bad as it is. The other part of me, the wallet part, is too happy to tell. Consider this a dirty weekend.

That would’ve been the final paragraph - but I just got a Battlefield Heroes Beta Key in my mail. I don’t think I can say anything else, they might kick me

we strap on the dirty glove

It’s true you know. Last time it happened, we all lost. Suddenly, out of the blue came the announcement that there’s going to be a Standard Format Tournament tomorrow night. I immediately replied to everyone who received the first message with a second, displaying that image you see above. I think I’ll play Merfolk. They’re solid and quick.

There’s also the Eventide Prerelease this weekend, which I’m somewhat looking forward too. Though I am worried that this is going to be a janky set in the Lorwyn block, and from what I’ve seen of the set so far, there seems to be very little meat, and just alot of one-off hybrid cards that work well in already established archtypes. Like this Beauty:

I think I’m going to need 8 copies of that one, 4 for Merfolk and another 4 for Mermaider. Oh that’s right, I never announced my new deck, the super secret one. Well, It’s Mermaider. It all spawned from the Dethklok song, the perfect marriage of Equipment like Loxodon Warhammer and Merfolk like Rootwater Theif. It’s also a perfect oppertunity to shout out “Check!” everytime I throw down a permanent, and “YOUR LIFE WAS ENDED BY MERMAIDS!” whenever I swing for the win. If there’s any shoutouts for it, I’ll post the list, It still needs a little work, and I’ve yet to test out the new addition of Notorious Throng.

I finally got round to finishing Metal Gear, which made me extremely happy, with the awesome that happened at the end and that I wasn’t interrupted in the middle of finishing it. Details and ‘review’ I suppose next post, I assure you… almost.

I’ve noticed more potential Rock Band 2 leaks, the latest is a track list that’s just begging not to be noobshit. Panic At The Disco’s Nine in the Afternoon, System of A Down’s Chop Suey, AFI’s Girls Not Grey, and LINKIN PARK’S ONE STEP CLOSER!!! I’m fucking sold, epically. Full list, and other info, HERE. There’s also a little rumor in there saying that the entire Rock Band 1 library will be available for download for FREE, eliminating the need for you to switch disks if you want to play some Ballroom Blitz. Yep, looks like Rock Band’s back on my radar. I’m expecting a little show of the title at E3. 25% chance that it will involve Peter Moore.

That’s another thing, E3’s just a week away. And as usual, I’ll be watching the Press Conferences by any means necesary. It’s getting the rest of the info that might be the problem, since I’m avert to Gamespot these days. They used to do such good live interviews and such, I’m hoping that 1up can deliver.

I went to see the One Man Star Wars show on sunday night, and in addition to how awesome it was, it reminded me of how much I love the Old Star Wars films compared to the newer ones. I think I may have to dig out the DVD’s sometime and give them a watch. I sorta boycotted all six films when new-#3 failed to deliver. In celebration of lost love, I give you some awesome funny video.

I bought Theme Hospital the other day, for the PS3/P. It’s been a great play during my lunch-time breaks, that and a whole bunch of Pure Pwnage. And it looks like I’ve got some nice Hi-Def Anime to watch tonight, ala, Tekkonkinkreet. My PC still isn’t back, maybe this friday. With all the PP I’ve been watching, I’m starting to miss it alot. If not I’ll maybe pick up Battlefield Bad Company to celebrate my first paycheck. I hear it’s Pretty Good.

bullet through a flock of doves