Game over.

In which we mourn the dead.

So, straying away from the whole cards thing for a while (Fret not, I have a Horde Mage to share), I wanted to talk about some other things going on in the world of geekery. Specifically some things that are affecting the UK gaming market.

I speak of GAME and Gamestation, the UK high street retailer. Now, I've been covering the story for the websites I write for, and since the start I've been saying that it doesn't look good for them. With the Royal Bank of Scotland intefering for their own purposes, and companies that could make a difference not putting bids in; the situation has gotten worse and worse by the day.

Now, GAME have gone into administration and taken Gamestation with them. Just under 300 stores have already closed, including my local GAME. More than 2000 staff have been made redundant. The CEO has stepped down and handed the company over to the administrators.

Admittedly, as a PC gamer, it's kindof difficult to feel sorry for GAME. They were almost abusive to developers to get discounts and threatened developers in order to make sure that their PC games were exclusive for a short time. Since I buy most of my games via Steam, it's annoying to find out that things I'm looking forward to (Space Marine, Saints Row 3 etc) are being held back for months at a time because GAME wanted exclusivity so they could attempt to cash in on a market that didn't like them in the first place (PC gamers and GAME do not go hand in hand).

Whilst they clearly haven't been virtuous paragons fighting in the name of gaming, I realise now that they're not being terrible people either. The past 2 years have been very difficult for them, and now we stand to lose our only major gaming retail chains.

The UK gaming scene isn't in trouble, but this could mean that there are dire consequences coming. If supermarkets step in to fill the gap in the market, then prices are going to bounce around as they compete with one another. If independant stockists can't stem the bleeding, then what will happen to the UK gaming scene?

We do have online retailers, but that is an almost specialist thing. What of parents who take their children out to buy new games for their birthdays? What of non-gamers who fall into the hobby? They are left with the supermarkets, with tech stores, with trade-in centres.

Those of us who market ourselves as real gamers will continue to buy online, but because of the declining physical trade, prices online will eventually suffer.

To say the least, I'll be upset if GAME do eventually go under and cease to exist. Thousands of people are out of jobs because their parent company made stupid decisions. The UK will lose a lot more than just it's retailer.

There. Are. Four. Lights.

In which we taste the rainbow.

I've been playing Grand Crusader a lot more recently since I got my playset of the delicious ability card. If you remember my previous blogs, then you may recall that I'd built my Grand Crusader deck with a twist: Dragons, Dragons and Dragons.

Using Drax Felfuse for his attack boosting ability and a range of cost 1 & 2 dragonkin to boost him and run with Grand Crusader, this deck can put together a formidable field. I've included Trade Prince Gallywix since he works with Grand Crusader as well as providing resource readying ability for him and Drax. Exxi is still in this build, but I remain unsure about her usefulness. Whilst managing to swing twice with a buffed up Drax Felfuse is very, very deadly; she remains a dead draw most of the time since she doesn't gain the +2/+2 from Grand Crusader.

Hero:
Rohashu, Zealot of the Sun

Allies:
4x Drax Felfuse
2x Azure Magus
4x Emerald Captain
4x Ruby Stalker
4x Bronze Drake
4x Bronze Warden
4x Ruby Flameblade
3x Obsidian Drudge
4x Trade Prince Gallywix
2x Exxi the Windshaper
3x Cairne, Earthmother's Chosen

Abilities:
4x Grand Crusader
4x Censure

Equipment:
4x Etched Dragonbone Girdle
4x Bottled Light

Locations:
4x Twilight Citadel

Quests:
2x Challenge to the Black Flight

I'm missing Cairnes and Twilight Citadels still, but if this is the deck that I end up taking to the Realm Championships next month then it's either going to need improvement or some money being spent on it. 

I'm playing around with the idea of dropping the Challenge to the Black Flights and Exxi the Windshapers in favour of Hammer of the Zealot, Vindicator's Shock or Lordann the Bloodreaver.

I've recently got my MWS working again, so now I can playtest more often. Joy.

Luna ex Machina

In which we appreciate aberrations for their inner beauty.

Since the update to core making it a 2-block system, I've strayed from playing Druid. I was always a fan of Gwon Stronbark, Arturius Hathrow and Kauno Stonehoof in the previous meta and I had a great number of decks surrounding them. Whilst I had a particular penchant for token decks, it was my Goblin Druid rush deck that I mained. When the Drums and Icecrown blocks rotated out suddenly, I found myself lacking a lot of the cards I used: Starshot, Krixel Pinchwhistle, Natural Order, Nature's Reach, Report to Goldshire and several others.

Since I've been rocking Grand Crusader for too long, I've been building other decks to mix things up at my local card pit. Whilst looking through my Alliance allies, I noticed Braeo Darkpaw and Aleksei Brandai. A quick scan of my available Alliance Hero cards bought up Wildseer Varell, an attachment searching Worgen Hero. Having already played a Worgen Druid in the previous meta, so I knew some of the staple allies I'd need. The only thing the deck would require is a stable base of attachment cards and it should be complete.

So, a cursory build looked like this:

Wildseer Varell

4 Kelsa Wildfire
3 Loriam Argos 
4 Aleksei Brandai 
2 Faithseer Jasmina 
4 Davius, Herald of Nature
4 Braeo Darkpaw
3 Rolan Phoenix
4 Genn Greymane
4 Aileen the Thunderblessed 

4 Mark of The Ancients
4 Favour of Nature
4 Mark of Elderlimb
2 Mark of Goldrinn
2 Wrath
3 Earth and Moon 

3 Gilneas 

4 Seeds of their Demise
2 If You're Not Against Us




Playtesting revealed a few things that needed to be removed and others that were severely lacking.
First changes were the removals:
-4 Aileen the Thunderblessed
-3 Earth and Moon
These 2 cards in particular were holdovers from the previous iterations of this deck when Nature Worgen were a lot stronger. Most games they would be dead draws and dead weight, so they're gone now.


-2 If You're Not Against Us...
Whenever it was played, it attributed very little to the game.


-2 Wrath
Because it was rarely playable.

-1 Mark of Goldrinn
Because I never needed it when I drew it. I decided that running 1 and searching for it when it would be more useful seemed like the stronger option.

-1 King Genn Greymane
4 was too many.

-1 Favour of Nature
It's just wasn't as useful as Mark of Elderlimb.

As for additions:
+4 Magni, The Mountain Beard
He fills the roles of being resourceable and being a protector I occasionally needed around turns 4/5 before I dropped Genn.

+2 Faithseer Jasmina
+3 Mark of the Untamed
Jasmina got boosted up because whilst she makes a rather pale Turn 2, she was excellent in later turns when paired with a few cost 1 attachments. Playing her on Turn 4 with any 2 cost 1 attachments made for a 5/5 who was hard to kill.

 +2 Lord Darius Crowley
I was frequently playing Genn on turn 6 rather than 5. Following this with a 1-off Crowley that I used during a playtesting match meant that I had an 18/18 Genn ready to swing. Running 2 seemed stronger than 1, so I'm trying that out.

+3 Energize
Frequent lacking of draw power made for a sad Pandaren Worgen. I'm going to try out the Energize in the hopes that it will work well with an already established Faithseer Jasmina, and I hope that it won't just be a dead draw.

Feel the deadly fin

In which we Rwlrwlrwl.

Battlegrounds have finally relaunched in my local area so I've been busying myself with coming last place in that (And first place. Do or do not. There is no "try") and building random decks.

There's a few regular players down at my local card pit now, and they're having fun building Murloc decks. Murlocs aren't actually something I'm too familiar with, but I wanted to jump on this cheap bandwagon.

I previously traded away my King Bagurgle and Gobblers on the premise that I'd never build a Murloc deck, leaving me with commons and uncommons to work with. Everyone else had been playing the deck out of Warrior using Rawbrgle for his +1/+1 flip. That seemed pretty strong when combined with cards like Chumly and RwlRwlRwlRwl. Now, I couldn't find a Rawbrgle, but I could find a Grglmrgl. His flip meant that I wouldn't need RwlRwlRwlRwl so, I decided to play out of Hunter.

A quick scan of my Hunter rares revealed that I had 2 Monstrous Marks. The quick inclusion of 4 Monstrous Upheavals and a few Unleash The Swarm meant that all I had to do was grab a handful of Murlocs and I was good to go. Since I knew there were a couple of Commander Ulthoks and Miniature Voodoo Masks floating around, I wasn't keen on filling the deck out with Murloc Coastrunners, so I diversified as much as I could. The final deck list ended up being:


Grglbrgl

4 Baby Murloc
20 Murloc Coastrunner
4 Slippyfist
4 Gutfin
4 Crabbyfin
4 Nibbler
4 Swarmtooth
4 Chumly
4 Splashtooth

4 Monstrous Upheaval
2 Monstrous Mark
2 Unleash The Swarm


Whilst this isn't as good as the ol' Poison Tipped/Coastrunner deck, it did the job I needed it to do. Monstrous Mark feels a lot stronger than Poison Tipped, especially since it means that 30+ Coastrunners aren't mandatory, and MVM will only destroy a small chunk of the deck. Past that, Monstrous Mark also covers my Hero which means an additional 2 damage a turn, on top of the Assault 2 on my allies.

In playtesting, it faired quite well against Harmonize Druid, Nature Hunter though it died quickly to an AoE Rogue deck that had tooled up to fight all the Murloc decks sprouting up. Swarmtooth not showing up hampered the draw signficantly time after time after time after time after time etc etc.

I'm considering removing 4 more Murloc Coastrunners and replacing them with Servant of Neptulon since there are so many Frost cards hiding in there. I'm toying with bringing both Monstrous Mark and Unleash the Swarm up to 4 and removing the Splashtooths. I won't be able to playtest this more until next week though now.

Love Is In The Air - Ripley/Stoke

In which we read about my shortcomings at playing cards.

February means that Love Is In The Air, which has nothing to do with Valentines day, and has more to do with giving me another excuse to play cards.

For the Stoke event, I played the Alliance Warrior deck from my previous entry and for the Ripley event, I played Grand Crusader Dragonkin Rush WTB Drawpower Thing Medley.

 Stoke event:-

Game 1, vs Ben Dunbar

A quick game. A starting hand featuring Mekkatorque, Magni, Polished Breatplate of Valor, Golem Skull Helm and Triton Legplates was what sealed the deal.

Ben played a monster Shaman deck revolving around Ogres+ Colossal Totem to spam the field quickly. However he couldn't deal with a 10/10 Mekkatorque and Assault 10 from Triton Legplates

I got a good hand of equipment, including Triton Legplates and Polished Breastplates. Combined with a lucky Magni draw, I quickly got my health into the 40s and managed to mitigate damage. Turn 6 and 7 were spent dealing with his allies whilst I got the rest of the equipment I needed to pump up Mekkatorque.

Game 2, vs Jonny Roberts

Being as good at this game as I am, I attempted to target the Untargetable whilst Jonny was quite happy to ignore me and continuously play Harmonize allies and Muln Earthfury. Whilst I was expecting Mazu'kons to come out quickly, I was more surprised by the Keeper Remulos + Karkas Deathhowl that I didn't see coming. Jonny quickly made 11,000,000 tokens and then smashed my lifeless corpse with them.

To top things off, I had a terrible opening hand, even mulliganed. There was a Magni in it, which made me think I might be able to do something, but I drew into too much high cost armour and not enough allies to deal with his quickly building swarm of Harmonize allies.

Game 3, vs Aiden Laycock

Well, I didn't expect to beat Jonny but I thought I might here. Aiden was playing Token Druid rush with Crown of the Heavens cards mostly. Whilst I managed to lay down a silly amount of armour quickly, he had an answer to every single one of my high-threat cards. Burly Berta got Entangled. My 14/14 Mekkatorque that was about to swing for game was suddenly Entangling Roots'd. 

It was a Wild Cascade that sealed the deal for Aiden though. Whilst I can handle about 10 separate packages of damage, I can't handle it if it keeps doubling the amount of damage packages with Wild Cascade.

When he got to 20 tokens with ferocity, that was game to Aiden. I reckon that if I'd dealt with his Ancient ally giving his tokens ferocity, then I could have done something with the extra turn or two it would have bought me.

Game 4, vs Eddie Skelson

Long, drawn out game. Opening hand featured lots of armour and a Bloodied Arcanite Reaper and a Bromor, but little else.

Ed was playing an amalgamated Hunter deck with Ysera, dragonkin, Eranikus, Tesla and various other things.

Advantage was all over the place in this game. I was happily dropping armour after armour to mitigate the Steady Shot and few allies he was dropping, but Ed was resource ramping quickly with Lifewardens and Eranikus. By turn 7 Ysera was on the table with her mend and draw, but I had a Bloodied Arcanite Reaper with 2 heirloom counters on it. At this point though, I didn't have any allies of my own so I was relying on the 11 damage a turn I was swinging for to pop his big threats before they lowered my health. All the while Ed was healing down the damage I'd dealt to his hero whilst trying to get through my wall of armour.

A late Tesla with a pair of Azure Skyrazors managed to get him to push damage through. I was sweating at this point since I hadn't seen a single ally since my starting hand to help deal with the opposing swarm. And thats when Ed started dropping abilities to ramp his allies up with an additional Assault 4 on 4 allies and his hero. The extra 20 damage was way more than I could handle and that was my defeat, putting me in last place in the standings.

Just to take the piss, my next card was Mekkatorque who would have come out as a 20/20 and put me over the top to win.

Oh well, the things you can do if you had just one more turn.

Ripley event :-

Game 1, vs Adam Parsonage

Pars showed up to give me a lift to Ripley and accidentally wound up registering in the tournament itself. He was playing a Heal and Deal beatdown out of Alliance Priest. Unfortunately for Pars, my opening hand was what I like to call "Taste The Rainbow": Drax Felfuse, Emerald Captain, Azure Magus, Bronze Drake, Ruby Stalker and a Seeds of Their Demise (So many colours...).

Turn 1 was my normal Bronze Drake drop for the extra turn of damage. Turn 2 was Drax. Turn 3 I swung with an 8 attack Drax and filled my field out. A Bronze Warden saved me from his Burly Bertas whilst I spent the next 2 turns finishing his health off with my filled field.

Game 2, vs Oli Ward

Oli was playing Rogue, featuring Boundless Thievery and Poison The Well to hamper Grand Crusader.

My opening hand featured 3 Drax Felfuses and 2 1-drop dragons. I played the slow game and went for the turns 2-4 Drax drops, and turn 5 to drop the dragons I'd drawn into. I managed to make a massive swing for 30 damage, but a Sap stopped me from winning there and then. My turn 6 draw was Grand Crusader, buffing my field of Bronze Drakes, Bronze Guardians, Drax Felfuse, Ruby Stalkers. I used the stealth from Ruby Stalker to swing past his protectors and win.

Game 3, vs Julian Harse

Things went wrong here. Julian was playing an Alliance Hunter, which I wrongly assumed would be a control deck. My hand was an actual Grand Crusader hand, Bronze Warden, Bottled Light, Grand Crusader, Telor Sunsurge; for once there was no sight of my Drax Felfuse or my dragons. The first few rounds were played strategically, comprising of trading off allies for other allies.

Then from turn 4 onwards, I stopped drawing quests and started running out of cards. A lack of Girdle left me in an awkward place and Julian outpaced me quickly. I lost succinctly.

Game 4, vs Jonny Roberts

An average hand, and a close game (As far as I was concerned). I feel that if I hadn't made a small mistake on my third turn, then I could have won this game. I had a Bronze Warden, Bronze Drake and Ruby Stalker in hand. With 2 resources on the field, and 7 damage on my Hero from Jonny's Ice Barrier, I should have played the Stalker followed by the Warden to heal for 3, then rowed another resource and played the Drake for that precious Assault 1 on my Hero. I missed the middle part and played my resource first, not healing the 3.

Turn 6 Jonny got a Mazu'kon down and bypassed my field of Drax, Stalker, Drake and Azure Magus. The hit from Mazu'kon left me on 6 health exactly, meaning if I didn't kill his Hero there and then in my turn, then I couldn't win. A quick Delve showed me that my next 2 cards would both be Censure, dealing with the Mazu'kon problem for 2 turns. I couldn't find any drawpower in my hand or on my field. With less than 12 attack on the board, I couldn't deal with Mazu'kon threatening my health in that turn. It was a win in Jonny's favour, making me wish that I hadn't messed up my resource/ally order back on turn 3 so I'd have a chance to draw the first of those 2 Censures.


The 2/2 win/loss ratio put me in 4th place of 8 players, which was acceptable, especially compared to my poor performance in Stoke.

If your Dad doesn't have a beard, you've got two Mums. Two beardless Mums.

In which we discuss blue beards.

By blue beards, I do mean Alliance flavoured Dwarves. Because it's not a day unless I blog about WoW cards. Though do check out the video. The Beards are extroidanarily good.

So. Beards DWARVES are the theme for todays deck. The original deck was created back in the Drums/Scourgewar/Worldbreaker days of core constructed, before the switch to a 2-block system. I also can't take credit for the deck, it was the concoction of a friend of mine.

The theme is simple, use Magni, the Mountain Beard for his effect and a Beard Warrior Hero to get access to all the delicious plate armour. Utilising Polished Breastplate Of Valor and various stash cards to keep adding armour and health and Bloodied Arcanite Reaper to keep adding damage to their face.

So, decklist:

Hero:
Stromdak of Ironforge

Master Hero:
[2] Nozdormu the Timeless

Allies:
[4] Magni, The Mountain King
[2] Mekkatorque, King of the Gnomes
[3] Jerrak Krandle
[2] Vandos, Herald of War
[2] Kentro Slade

Abilities:
[2] Enraged Rengeneration
[1] Bladestorm
[2] Augment Steel
[3] Brutal Strike
[2] Shockwave
[2] Twisted Rampage
[3] Whirlwind

Equipment:
[4] Polished Breastplate of Valor
[3] Bloodied Arcanite Reaper
[2] Warmace of Menethil
[1] Wild Hammer
[1] Triton Legplates
[2] The Horseman's Horrific Helm
[2] Bloodbane's Fall
[4] Gravitational Pull
[4] Dread Pirate Ring
[4] Swift Hand of Justice

Quests:
[4] Seeds of Their Demise
[2] Grimtotem Weapon


Like my other decks, this is a bit twisted and not very stable (Little draw power, for example). Mostly due to a lack of rares, partly due to time constraints for writing this list and not playtesting it yet.

Regardless, I'm going to tweak this deck overnight and then debut it at my local Love Is In The Air event tomorrow night. I might even actually write up the event for once.

His name is Sentry the Defiant.

In which we talk about his name.

Did you know his name is Sentry the Defiant?
As a Valentines present, Mr. Claudio Sanchez uploaded this video to the official Coheed site and Youtube (with free downloadable audio) with a message telling us that the new album is coming.

After a bit of digging around, I found an interview with Claudio that confirms this album as being tied to the previous concept albums by being in the same universe of The Amory Wars, but being set long before the events leading to The Crowing. A separate story in its own right.

I'll happily admit that my favourite thing about concept albums is attempting to decipher and disseminate their many potential meanings from the lyrics. With the Amory Wars storyline, it's been a lot of fun since it's such a wide open world and there's so little information available from the songs themselves.


I managed to break the lyrics down to this:

Believer, your spotlights on the subject so incorrect.
And suggestion, suggest that I’m someone you should not respect
Oh, you wear your façade so well, covered up in a plastic shell
You’re a liar to everyone around you, just don’t forget

Face the honest truth
You were never you
Now be defiant, the Lion
Give them a fight that will open their eyes.
Hangman hooded, softly swinging.
Don’t close the coffin yet, I’m alive!
And it’s homecoming, and it’s homecoming.

Can you remember when there was no wrong in what I could do?
So young, biting off way more than I can chew
And then one day I grew too old, and my cares were now theirs to mold.
Please accept this as my resignation, it’s time to go.

Face the honest truth
You were never you
Now be defiant, the Lion
Give them a fight that will open their eyes.
Hangman hooded, softly swinging.
Don’t close the coffin yet, I’m alive!

I’m alive.

I will now bleed for what I believe in
No more mistakes for them to make, for me
So goodbye, it’s my time for me…

To be me.

Face the honest truth
You were never you
Now be defiant, the lion
Give them a fight that will open their eyes.
Hangman hooded, softly swinging.
Don’t close the coffin yet, I’m alive!

I’m alive!
I’m alive!
I’m alive!



My intial interpretation was that of a man on the executioners block, because that's the obvious thing. But there's a couple of other things here. I'm sticking with the execution idea for now.

The first verse seems almost like an accusation. Perhaps that of a man who has been caught for perpertrating a crime.
The second verse seems like a man lamenting his life to another person. Perhaps the "Please take this as my resignation" could be interpreted as the figure in-question turning himself over to the authorities.
The thrid verse looks like the last words spoken to an audience before the execution from the victim.


All in all, I'm looking forward to the new album. This song alone is very powerful, and the musical style harkens back to SSTB/IKSOSE:3 but retaining the strength from GA1&2.