#dropping attack and defense while attacking all 3 opponents is. good lord.

[niuttuc]

New “budget” Commander cards: Lord of the Rings: White

You know these by now, we'll go color by color, mixing main set and commander set. Reprints can be included if they brought the price down under our bar. All the cards presented here are under $2 at time of writing. Cards will be evaluated as part of the 99, even legendary creatures.

We start with a 6-drop, but one that's quite good, introducing the monarchy and protecting it all at once with a tax. With how many cards commander players like to draw, I would be surprised if that tax was often under four mana, and that's a lot of mana to attack you. And if you lose the monarchy anyway, then players are still incentivized to not attack you because they want the monarchy. A solid card, though the high mana cost will limit the decks that can afford to run it.

Squeezing by right under the $2 price at time of writing, Boromir is just a solid card all around. Saccing to give your board indestructible is fantastic for three mana (the golden rate for this is Selfless Spirit at 2, but we don't have other options that cheap and in one color). The body is already very solidly on rate as a 3/3 vigilance. And you get extra upside with the hatebear text that'll mostly stop cascade and any free counterspell shenanigans, and only affects opponents. Unlike indestructible spells, it is a creature, easy to bring back to the board and providing presence and defense there.

The only downside of this card is probably the ring tempting you meaning you need to keep track of it in your otherwise unrelated commander deck. But that does ALSO enable an infinite combo with Boromir and Ratadrabik of Urborg to sac infinite Boromirs, have your board permanently indestructible and also trigger any etb or death triggers infinitely. So, be aware of that I guess?

Do you gain life? Does your commander have 3+ power and lifelink? Here you go, card draw. Not even limited to your end step, so if you can eat food or otherwise gain life around the table, you'll be drawing plenty of cards.

Listen, Remand isn't the best counterspell in commander, far from it. But this is by far the best way for White to interact with the stack, and that's an ability that's incredibly rare and powerful outside of blue. So many games end with a Torment of Hailfire, Insurrection, Cyclonic Rift or similar spell that can only really be answered by a counterspell, and Reprieve will at the least greatly reduce the damage, and at its best give the table a turn to deal with the offending player.

Rosie is a solid token card, but let's not kid ourselves, if she's here, it's that she's now the simplest and cheapest option to go infinite with Scurry Oak (and Herd Baloth) in Selesnya colors, and offers further redundancy for those combos. If you're already running those, grab yourself a Rosie and make your decks more consistent.

I'm not only putting Sam here because he's next to Rosie, but he's in general a pretty useful card. Flash is incredible to keep him versatile and he can bring any permanent back from a creature that died to a board wipe to a fetchland you just cracked to, if you're feeling nasty, a Mindslaver. He's cheap so it's easy to keep the two mana, and since that effect is on a creature ETB (and a 2-drop at that), it is very easy to use it multiple times via blinking, reanimation, or more. Same as Boromir, the Ring temptation might actually be more of an annoyance than the small upside it provides, but technically it is an upside.

Damn, Roon got so outclassed. While she only targets your own creatures, being able to pick between returning the creature now or at end of turn is HUGE, even without the extra abilities she provides (and lifelink+vigilance is very relevant to stay alive). Being able to return immediately means you get to immediately trigger etbs even in the middle of combat, untap a blocker, or just dodge a targeted removal if you want. Being able to return at end of turn means you can use it to dodge literally every board wipe in the game, from Blasphemous Act to Farewell. Being able to CHOOSE which you want is incredibly powerful. Needing to keep up 2 mana for a blink might seem like a lot, but that kind of flexibility isn't something we see often.

Despite my love of Sagas, I will say, this card is not as strong as it looks at first reading. Or rather, it is, but that's an issue. A four-mana tutor isn't particularly efficient. Two tutors is a bit more interesting, it makes this card advantage and great card selection. And that last chapter is quite the finisher.

But it's a scary finisher the entire table can see two turn cycles in advance, so in reality it probably just forces a board wipe right before the last chapter, or to kill you.

With that said, if you have enough legendary creatures this offers flexibility, I would consider this. Sometimes they won't have it, and hey, they need to cast that board wipe at some point anyway, right? Might as well get it out of the way and have two legends to start rebuilding.

This common is the most efficient we've ever seen a disenchant on a body, among plenty of options in white and green. The free activation makes it particularly interesting when bringing this back regularly. With that said, it is very much balanced by the timing restriction on the ability, forcing you to think ahead about what will be the problem and not allowing you to stop combos or effects deployed until you get back to your turn.

For some decks, it'll be worth the mana saved, and more options is always more better. With that said, I think most decks will stick with Cathar Commando, and if they have access to green, Cankerbloom, Haywire Mite and Outland Liberator. The new options we're getting for that slot are very good, and this isn't any different.

Closing things off with a reprint, this is the first time Weathered Wayfarer has been reprinted in a widely distributed product that's not at a very inflated price in over 15 years, and such it has fallen in price to a low not seen in a long long while, under $1. This card's ability to tutor nonbasics on a 1-drop makes him quite powerful, from providing Ramp with a Nykthos, enabling white catchup ramp (and himself!) by grabbing bouncelands and Lotus Field, doing cheeky land stuff like Dark Depths+Thespian's Stage, getting cards in hand to loot away, or just simply never missing a land drop. It was a $10 card for years and years for a reason, and the two latest reprint brought him down to a very budget-friendly 70 cents at time of writing. Grab one, you won't be disappointed!

[thecreaturecodex]

Warduke

“Dungeon 105 Cover” by Wayne Reynolds, © Paizo Publishing

[I keep getting distracted by retro villains! I wasn’t born during the 80′s D&D boom, so I missed the action figures and the cartoon growing up. I did subscribe to Dungeon Magazine, though, and issue 105 wasn’t my first, but it might have been my second or third. It certainly made an impression on me. Warduke is the Boba Fett of D&D (quiet, cool helmet, more badass in later appearances than the original canon, first appeared as a toy). And so Warduke appeared twice in my various campaigns in high school and undergrad, once in a prehistoric game (as an ophidian), and once in the Age of Worms. Both left a high body count in their wake. The Age of Worms rendition even managed to kill the same character twice in one round.

This version of Warduke is based on the Dungeon Magazine 3.5 version, with a few major tweaks. The shift from 3.5 to Pathfinder was kind to fighters in general and shield bash builds in particular, and he takes advantage of many Pathfinder-exclusive feats. I dislike the idea that Warduke’s glowing eyes are fiendish grafts, so I dropped that (it’s all about that helmet). Speaking of the helmet, I did make it a unique item, but not an artifact as it was in the Dungeon version. Understandably, Warduke is something of a cypher personality-wise, but I figured I’d give him a little backstory. Feel free to ignore it. In addition to Boba Fett, my main inspirations here were Angel Eyes (the “bad” from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and the Dread Pirate Roberts.

And yes, I realize that my version of Warduke is stronger than my Venger, which may upset D&D cartoon purists. I like Warduke better.]

Warduke CR 18 NE Humanoid (human) This man’s face is concealed within a dark, bat-winged helmet, revealing only glowing eyes. He is powerfully muscled, revealing his physique under a set of mismatched armor and a fur belt. He carries a heavy sword in one hand, a round shield engraved with a horned, fanged skull in the other.

Warduke is the soldier’s bogeyman. He has fought a thousand wars, killed ten thousand men. He is a mercenary, bounty hunter and assassin par excellence, who slays lesser opponents with a blow and can challenge even the stoutest adventurers.This much is true, but claims that he has lived for centuries or is unkillable are greatly exaggerated, and there is as much myth as man about him. “Warduke” is a title, not a name. Anyone who wears the signature blue steel helm of Warduke, set with three gems and causing the wearer’s eyes to glow in a sinister fashion, can theoretically claim the title. It is even possible that multiple versions of this helm circulate, and there are multiple Wardukes simultaneously on different worlds.

The current Warduke is driven by selfishness and greed above all other goals. Warduke does have a claim to nobility—he was a minor lord who preferred to train in warfare than in statecraft, who was obsessed with the legend of Warduke upon learning that Warduke’s Helm was kept in his kingdom as a trophy. He stole the helm after murdering its keepers, and assumed the title of Warduke after forsaking his previous life. Those who knew of his former identity were slain to keep the secret. Warduke is a cynic and pragmatist, and he kills for the highest bidder. He calls his sword Nightwind.

Warduke favors attacking enemies while they are weak—after a long battle, when emerging from a dungeon, or while at camp. He has no sense of duty, honor or humanity. He is not so foolish as to believe he is capable of fighting all battles by himself, however, and may travel with other cutthroats to act as ranged or magical support. Warduke doesn’t have much loyalty for these associates; he knows he can always buy the services of others if he needs them.  Likewise, he does not retain loyalty to a patron once his job is done—his next job may very well be to revenge his previous mission, or betray them if he has learned a valuable secret.

Warduke’s Helm (wondrous item) Price 57,390 gp; Aura moderate conjuration and transmutation; CL 11th Warduke’s Helm grants its wearer 60 foot darkvision, and makes their eyes glow bright red as a consequence. This grants the wearer a +5 competence bonus on Intimidate checks. Once per day as a full round action, the wearer of Warduke’s Helm can attune the helm to a location, as if casting the word of recall spell. From that point, the wearer of Warduke’s Helm can transport himself, allies and goods as per word of recall. Warduke’s Helm can only be attuned to one location at a time. The Helm is cursed—it does not function for any wielder of non-evil alignment

Construction Requirements Cost 28,695 gp; Craft Wondrous Item, darkvision, word of recall, creator must have 10 ranks in Intimidate

Warduke                 CR 18 XP 153,600 NE Medium humanoid (human) Human fighter 18 Init +7; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +4 Defense AC 36, touch 15, flat-footed 32 (+3 Dex, +12 armor, +6 shield, +2 natural, +2 deflection, +1 insight) hp 211 (18d10+108) Fort +21, Ref +13, Will +16; +5 vs. fear DR 3/- Defensive Abilities bravery +5, fortification (75%), freedom of movement Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee Nightwind +35/+30/+25/+20 (1d8+17 plus 1d6 fire/17-20), +4 bashing shield +37 (1d6+14) Ranged dagger +25 (1d4+13/19-20) Special Attacks weapon training (heavy blades 4, close 3, light blades 2, axes 1) Tactics During Combat If Warduke does not feel threatened by opponents, he begins a fight with Dazzling Display to demoralize foes and weaken their defense against him. If enemies are more prepared, he waits to intimidate instead with his Dreadful Carnage feat. Warduke prefers to close with enemies and stay close, using Shield Slam to isolate his prey and Step Up to remain in melee reach. He always uses Power Attack, unless he misses with three or more attacks per turn. Morale Warduke is not stupid, and retreats from a losing fight using his helm. Statistics Str 28, Dex 16, Con 22, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 13 Base Atk +18; CMB +28; CMD 45 (49 vs. disarm, sunder) Feats Combat Reflexes, Dazzling Display, Dreadful Carnage, Furious Focus, Improved Critical (longsword), Improved Initiative, Improved Shield Bash, Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, Missile Shield, Power Attack, Shatter Defenses, Shield Focus, Shield Master, Shield Slam, Step Up, Stunning Assault, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (longsword), Weapon Specialization (longsword) Skills Acrobatics +13, Climb +19, Intimidate +30, Knowledge (local) +12, Ride +10, Survival +16, Swim +19 Gear belt of physical might +6 (Str, Con), headband of Wis +6, Warduke’s Helm (see above), Nightwind (+3 flaming human-bane longsword), +4 bashing light steel shield, +3 glamered adamantine full plate of moderate fortification, ring of freedom of movement, ring of protection +2, cloak of resistance +4, amulet of natural armor +2, boots of speed, gloves of dueling, dusty rose prism ioun stone, bag of holding type I, flying ointment (x2), silversheen (x3), dust of appearance, potion of cure serious wounds (x3), 4 daggers, 900 gp SQ armor training 4, exceptional resources, inherent bonuses Special Abilities Exceptional Resources (Ex) Warduke has ability scores built with 25 points of point buy, and has treasure equivalent to an 18th level player character. This increases Warduke’s CR by 1. Inherent Bonuses (Ex) Warduke has accepted wish spells as payment for his dark deeds, gaining a +2 inherent bonus to his Strength and Constitution scores.

[inventors-fair]

Brushwagg Commentary part 2

Okay I’ve calmed down now

There were a lot of themes this week. I noticed a lot of deathtouch, which is understandable considering the flavor of the brushwagg. One thing y’all gotta watch out for is repeatable deathtouch tokens. It makes limited games absolutely grueling when any attacker on the ground can be kileed by paying a couple mana or tapping a creature. And these would show up in limited, because boy you guys really like making uncommons! I know one of the winners was going to be a lower rarity card, but I think only about 6 or 8 people even bothered making rares. What’s up with that? Lastly, all of your guys’s homemade art was glorious. I was not expecting any new art, and while I don’t usually let it impact my judging (since this is about card design, and I don’t want to give artists an advantage), I was delighted at every piece.

@aethernalstars​ - Nyxthorn Brushwagg

Is that a pun? Because most enchantment creatures are called something like “nyxborn” which rhymes with “nyxthorn?” Because if so, shame on you. Anyway, a bestow brushwagg! I really like the idea of this, because putting the icnonic brushwagg coat on another creature just seems fun and cool. On his own, this guy makes your guys a little harder to kill in combat but also makes them worse at killing. The “may” here is really nice, though. Reminds me of Gustcloak Soldier in a way, which means that the bestow cost is right on the money. The fact that you can put this on a big guy to keep everyone safe is nice, and the idea that if you put it on just the right creature you can survive the fight AND kill the guy will feel great when it happens. I do worry that the effect is too niche and weak to see much play outside of Doran style decks (in which case dear lord), and I also don’t know how I feel about the bestow not granting +1/+1 like every other bestow creature. Regardless, the card seems fine, just a little hard to play, but great for those who want it.

@demimonde-semigoddess​ - Porringer Brushwagg

A porringer is a small dish used for soups, stews, and other dishes. Anyway, here’s a brushwagg. So first off, a 2/3 with persist for that mana cost is good! It’s the right cost I feel. The bad news: that ability is way off color. Only blue and red really do that, and with this being a hybrid card, both mono black and mono green need to be able to do it, but neither really do outside of the 5 color “-ling” cycle. It also seems a little bit pricey considering it already comes with a downside, but maybe that’s fine. I do like the idea of the card, it’s just a bit too hard of a color bend for me. Oh, and the art and flavor of this card are really good, I like how it tells a story.

NOTE: After writing this I found out porringer is a place in Lorwyn. That seems fair, then. Good name.

@deafeningsandwichpeach​ - Unstable Brushwagg

Second card with this name, but a completely different take. For one, our only artifact entry! So it’s a one mana 0/3 that acts as a one-time mini-boros reckoner, but only to creatures or planeswalkers. But it also has to survive the hit. Seems kind of narrow? Your opponent would have to attack into it, or knowingly block it just t let their stuff die anyway. But as soon as they get 3/X creatures all that’s out the window unless you hold up 3 mana each turn, which is not as easy as it sounds. I think if you reverse the phrasing on the first ability, something like “you may have it deal damage... if you do, sacrifice it,” you can get it to send the damage back even if it died from it. I think I’m making this guy sound worse than he is. Colorless pumping isn’t the worst, and an 0/3 for 1 with text will often see play for any number of random reasons. I think this card is perfectly fine, but nothing spectacular. It does feel adequately brushwaggy, even without some of the standard brushwagg stuff, just because of it’s self-pumping and vengefulness.

@deg99 - Apex Brushwagg

Our only silver-border brushwagg, surprisingly. Thoughhonestly? It could stand to be a little more silvery. That activated ability was a prime spot to put something silly for X. But hey, the last ability is definitely silver-border, and feels very on theme for such a prickly guy. The two keyword abilities are a scary mix, making sure that if this thing dies, it’ll die in combat, and when it does, it’ll take something down with it. Still, it’s weak enough that it can get hit by pyroclasms and the like if you tap out, so it’s not game-breaking. All in all this guy is fine, he’s just got a little too much pulling him in different directions to really work for me. Though the fact that you found brushwagg fanart is impressive all on its own.

@gollumni​ - Brushwagg Elder

Not with that creature type he’s not! I jest. This guy is pretty neat! The idea of an “activated ability matters” theme is neat in concept, and the fact that a lot of activated abilities require mana or to sacrifice something means the ability wouldn’t be so easy to trigger as you might think. I could even see this thing seeing play in older formats where no-mana abilities are easier to come by, like an arbor elf tap. On the other hand, in standard right now most creatures are played for ETBs, aman abilities, or just their bodies, so finding easily repeatable activated abilities is tough enough to not make this 1 mana 5/5 too easy. I still might either drop the P/T by 1 each or raise the cmc by 1, but I might be pvercompensating because this guy is hard to judge. Still, I really like this card and this concept, either as a draft archetype or possibly an overarching tribal theme.

@kytheon4-4 - Tumblewagg

Well, they are just tumbleweed monsters I suppose. So I’ve kind of got a big issue with this guy. Green does get indestructible and supertrample, and red gets “attacks each turn if able” and firebreathing, but together they make this card a color pie break. The only difference between supertrample and unblockable is that the blocking creature can still kill the attacking creature. But that’s not the case here. An opponent blocking here accomplishes nothing unless they have wither or something. So this just becomes an attacker that can’t be blocked and can pump for extra damage. That’s not particularly red green, and it’s not going to be fun to play against, and probably not great to play with, either. Not a fan.

@misterstingyjack​ - Flatlands Brushwagg

Wow does this guy have a lot going on. He’s got an ability counter, a dinosaur ability word, a flavor text referencing something that I can’t suite recall if its canon or not, and it’s a brushwagg! So a 3/2 with defender is pretty rough. Green is getting 3/2′s for two with upside nowadays, but the fact that this is common makes it a little more reasonable. The enrage ability is very weird here. 2 toughness means he has to somehow be dealt exactly 1 damage, and I doubt any opponent is going to attack with a one 1/x into it. So this guy needs a little help, either a ping from something or a defensive pump spell. And then you get a 4/3! That’s pretty good! I like it. I do worry about the wording on the enrage ability. It is phrased so that it gets the +1/+1 counter even if it has already lost it’s defender counter, but some new players might not realize that. At common, you better makes rue there’s nothing to trick new players. In general, I think this card is pretty good, but it’s just a little clunky here and there.

@naban-dean-of-irritation​ - Progenitor Brushwagg

I was expecting “protection from everything” with a name like that, but this is fine. It costs one more mana than the almighty ‘wagg and loses trample, but in return it pops open like a spider mama from that vine. Seems a little strong at uncommon, as any sort of pump, aura, or god forbid anthem makes this guy pretty ludicrous. We’ve seen sprouting thrinax do something similar but at a locked number in 3 colors, but myriad construct and thopter foundry have been artifacts at rare with the ability. So I think the power is not quite right. But the ability itself seems fine. I could see it being a pain to fight against, since you don’t really want to attack into it, but you don’t really want to kill it, and if you do then you have to deal with its babies, but I don’t think it’s a bad enough situation to make the card bad. I’d just say it needs some limiters, perhaps a more expensive activation cost, or a once per turn limitation.

@scavenger98​ - Possessed Brushwagg

I want to slap the roof of this guy and say he can fit so many tokens in him, but then I’d hurt my hand. So this guy is sort of afterlife 2, but also kind of just unblockable. Blocking this guy is just so much work and can go so poorly. Blocking with more than two creatures also seems unlikely, so I think it’s be safe to just say 2 instead of X for this card. It also seems really strong: it’s an evasive attacker with a big body and leaves behind flyers when it dies. That’s kind of comparable to the mythic Seraph of the scales. However, this still dies to removal much easier and doesn’t do anything in that case, but I could say that about any creature. I guess this is fine as a 3 color uncommon in most sets, but I think the power level of it is a little screwey, and the design itself is a little unnecessarily extravagant.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path​ - Tasty Brushwagg

I’m glad someone finally managed to do it. I like how this card tells a little story. I like how there’s an ability that wants you to let it die and an ability that stops it from doing it to create some tension. I don’t like the unlimited (as in not once a turn) pumping in green. Almighty Brushwagg had it, but that was a bit of a stretch already, and this guy can do it for way cheaper. It’s stepping into shade territory. I also think the power level on this common is a little high. A bear with one amazing upside and one pretty good one probably deserves to be at least an uncommon. So yeah, a little bit of power concern at common, and a bit of color pie bending.

[capricornus-rex]

Stronger Than Blood (8)

Chapter 8: Bound by Fate or by Blood? | Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by Anon

Summary: Meeting another Force-sensitive was one thing, but having them related to one of the most formidable known duelers was a whole other story to tell. While being stranded in another planet after barely escaping the Haxion Brood, Cal crosses paths with someone who’s at a crossroads with their own identity and lineage.

Also tagging @ayamenimthiriel​

Also posted in AO3

Tags: Force-User! Reader, Force-Sensitive Reader, Sith-Related! Reader

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 | Previous: Part 7 | Next: Part 9 | Masterlist

8 of ?

Apparently, the only reinforcement they needed was the Purge Trooper. His kind was specifically made for Jedi—but you were an exception.

“You’re no Jedi,” the trooper points out, brandishing his twin batons. He points one at you. “But the Emperor says you’re a prize!”

Your weapon’s caliber is a bar below his batons, but that didn’t falter your will. Positioning yourself in a defensive stance with your techstaff in front of you, buckling your knees and keeping your grip firm.

“Ha! Don’t make me laugh, kid!” the Purge Trooper sniggered.

“I wasn’t trying to!”

Slightly impressed by your determination, he lunged towards you in a deadly nimbleness, you barely afforded a second to react. Deflecting him in the last minute resulted in a flimsy block that you leaned backwards, accepting all his weight onto you. With little strength you could gather, you pushed him away so you could reset your stance.

Finally, you were able to trade strikes with this black-armored Purge Trooper; though, as much as you hate to admit it, he was more skilled than you were. Granted, he’s probably received top-notch quality his whole life, while you only survived and learned through street and cantina brawls.

I can’t shake him… He’s trying to tire me out!

Meanwhile, the Stormtroopers who received the radio call saying that you were spotted in the caves was a red herring. Cal almost wondered if this was an elaborate trap to separate the two of you. Now he’s stuck with facing off the Stormtroopers stationed there before getting to you.

The comms gauntlet of the Stormtrooper he just downed beeped, in a miraculous convenience, and the voice of another trooper fizzled through the reception.

“Insurgent found in the village. Purge Trooper RF-4756 already engaging her.” The voice calmly reported, indicating that he’s only standing by and watching the fight ensue.

“Gotcha!” Cal exclaimed under his breath and headed for the elevator that leads out to closest point to the village.

Unfortunately, he was hindered by the creatures and troopers—who were on high alert—who spotted him in the caves. He tried to make quick work of them, just so he wouldn’t have the stress of being tailed by enemies—especially troopers—when they’re headed to one common destination. But the Stormtroopers accompanied by a single, lance-wielding Purge Trooper, held Cal back from reaching you.

In his burst of adrenaline, he struck his fist against the soil, sending off an energy wave of Force against his surrounding enemies and disorienting them. Before they could stand up, Cal cut them down and rushed for the elevator, avoiding the Jotaz and the other creatures that stood in his way to the lift.

“I don’t have time for this!” he grumbled, evading the charging Phillak and immediately cut down the Scazz as he ran past it.

The elevator hummed and rumbled when Cal’s boot weighted against the pressure plate. The lift was slow, but he kept jostling himself, antsy and impatient—it took a single beep from BD-1, apparently asking if you could be alright, to calm him down.

“I hope she is,”

The Purge Trooper wasn’t having any of it today, although he made it seem like a game. You scarcely made a dent on him, he continuously deflected your strikes and forcefully hammered his batons against both ends of your staff. For a body so slender, the amount of strength he puts on his attacks was staggering.

“Good night!” he snarled and tossed out a stasis bomb to your way.

You were too late to remove yourself out of its blast radius. You’re caught in the net—the static current numbed your muscles as they wrapped around your calves like vines until it crawled all the way up to your body, further halting the movement of your torso and then arms and eventually your neck.

You watched your opponent walk over the static field unaffected, he pommeled you across the cheekbone, knocking you out while you’re immobilized. He nudged your stomach with the tip of his boot. Your fingers were slightly twitching, but he saw you’re out cold. He presses a single button on his gauntlet.

“I’ve apprehended the Emperor’s prize,” he reported. “Requesting transport shuttle.”

“Confirmed, RF-4756. Please indicate area coordinates.”

A transport shuttle shortly arrived to the planet, hovering by the cliffside of the village’s edge. The Purge Trooper scooped you up, carrying you like a sack. From the distance, Cal heard the engine of a ship from his current location; he followed the general direction of the gray ship he spotted. He immediately knew where it’s headed, but he arrived too little too late.

“NO!! [Y/N]!!”

“Jedi! Over there!”

A row of Stormtroopers barred him again. Cal’s finding it quite vexing to find enemies standing in his way when things are most dire. He spotted the transport by the cliff, he saw your unconscious body carried over the Purge Trooper’s shoulders as he enters the ship.

“NO!!”

He quickly slowed down the windmill to cross over the gap, but the transport ship was already hovering away from the edge, the gap became more and more impassable as it stretched. Cal watched the ship gain altitude, he immediately went through the shortcut leading back to the Mantis on the landing pad.

“Cere!” he called through the commlink. “They’ve taken [y/n]! Do you see the transport ship?!”

“Yes, I see it!” Cere replied, her barking orders bled through Cal’s commlink. “Captain, prepare for take off! I’ll see if I can make a backdoor to their communications. Hurry back!”

“Already am!”

Meanwhile, in the ship where you’re held captive, the Purge Trooper ordered the pilots to set a course for Mustafar.

“I’m getting the payday of a lifetime!” the Purge Trooper boasted.

“Is it the Jedi?” one of the pilots dared asking.

“No, it’s the other one,”

The two pilots exchanged glances, despite their nearly-opaque helmet visors, each one could immediately tell which “other one” the trooper was referring to. Neither of them said a word, as much as they wanted to, and charted the course to the volcanic planet.

The Purge Trooper RF-4756, overly proud of himself and excited to show off his achievement, slumped on the other chair behind the pilot’s seat. Not bothering to understand what flashing symbols meant on the secondary dashboard screens, he rested his feet over them, leaned back against the seat—quite far enough to make the backrest bend—and cushioned his head with his hands.

——————————————————–

It has probably been hours since you were out cold.

You wake up to find yourself in a prison cell, you’re settled on a bed; not exactly queen-sized as you had hoped—much to your disappointment—it was only a big slab of duraplast painted black, big enough to fit an adult individual. Quite spacious for a single prisoner, though.

“One star for the room quality,” you grumbled sarcastically as you massaged your calves, the static still felt fresh hours later.

You surveyed the entire room—black metal walls with panels for the light to pass through, a sturdy-looking blast door, and of course, the miserable excuse of a bed.

There were no cuffs around your ankles or wrists, expecting that you were, but you supposed that they put all of their faith with the architecture of this cell. The hums that spoke through the wall was stale and inorganic, metal clattered from the water that dripped from the open pipes was so rhythmic that it helped you relax. You decided to stand and walk off the remaining numbness in your legs, you slowly stalked towards the door—feeling the presence of the pair of guards standing in the other side.

You slowly angled your head so your ear faces the door and eavesdropped on the banter borne of their boredom in the silence of the cell block.

“So, let me get this straight: this prisoner can use the Force… but isn’t a Jedi? I thought only Jedi can do that kind of stuff!”

“Yeah well, I don’t understand it either—and frankly, I don’t plan to. I heard from the report she didn’t have their kind of weapon, she only used a staff of some sort—looks hand-made.”

“But for someone that isn’t Jedi, the price on her head is kinda steep, don’t ya think?”

“Yeah, I heard that it’s way above the pay grade. I’m guessing the pay grade of an admiral times five,”

“Wha—!? That IS higher than anybody’s rates! That’s ridiculous! What’s so special about her, anyway?”

The indifferent Stormtrooper incoherently grumbled, you wagered he simply shrugged his shoulders just for this conversation to end. Their banter may be short, but you think you’ve known enough. Shortly after, you felt another presence enter the prison block—it was heavy and foreboding—you had secondhand anxiety from the Stormtroopers once they’re in the presence of the third one.

“L-Lord Vader!” the Stormtrooper, the perky and nonchalant one, shuddered upon addressing his boss.

You backed away from the door, you felt your stomach drop to your feet when the door opened and revealed a lumbering beast of an entity clad in full black armor.

The eyes of his helmet were like the sockets of an empty skull, gleaming a blood-red tinge that afflicted indescribable horror to those who laid eyes on him.

Your hands trembled uncontrollably, not even clenching your fists helped in stopping the shaking; your heart rapidly pounded under sheer stress. As much as you badly wanted to, you cannot take your eyes off of this towering man. You clumsily fell back to the slab, the strength on your feet now unfound as he entered your cell. The gloss over the curve of his helmet shone under the light panels of the room.

“So, you are the prize the Emperor so badly desired,” the baritone that rumbled through Darth Vader’s helmet was frightening enough to get your tongue.

“Dooku’s way overdue, I shouldn’t be of any value to your master anymore!” your voice shuddered as you spat back.

Vader tilted his head upon the mention of that name. He thought he had buried the memory of the name and its owner within the deep recesses of his mind. However, it was neither a long time ago nor was it recent, but the familiarity serves.

“I don’t think so,” Lord Vader hummed. “When your uncle failed to deliver, the Emperor was most displeased with his efficiency—or lack thereof. You are still his blood, we will sharpen those invaluable powers of yours.”

“DO NOT ASSOCIATE ME WITH HIM!! I AM OF NOT OF HIS BLOOD!!!”

The instinctive anger gave you sudden burst of strength to stand up, protesting against Darth Vader’s statement of your lineage. He felt the wave of energy nudge his balance, but he held ground. Rather than be intimidated, he was impressed at how you went from a shying violet to a vessel flaring with rage.

“Yes,” he purred. “Strong are you with the Dark Side. Your hate and anger fuels you, it makes you more powerful than your weak, old man of an uncle could ever be.”

“He killed my mother…” the words involuntarily went past your lips. From that, Darth Vader understood the root of the pent-up, impulsive wrath that claws its way out of your system. “You’ll never get anything out of me!”

“We shall see.”

Not needing a response, he turned tail and you watched him exit your cell; the billowing of his cape almost reminded you of Count Dooku—the way he marched away from your house upon the demand of your mother. You felt yourself melting to the floor, you couldn’t believe that you had the gall to talk back to such a man of power. You weakly crawled back onto the slab, curled into a fetal position and struggled to rest and calm down—your hope and optimism fluctuating.

He probably hates me now… you sulked in your mind, drawing invisible lines on the slab as you tried to rest.

“No one’s coming… I’m going to die here,” you resigned with a dejected sigh.

You searched for the necklace she had given you during her final moments. You fished out the pendant under your shirt, gazing at the tiny cracks that it’s gotten over time, the gem had already chipped as well. Your thumb ran across the face of the jewel, leaving a blurred smear of your thumbmark over its surface.

“Am I going to see you now, Mom?” you murmured and nuzzled it to your cheek as you closed your hopeless eyes.

Little did you know that Cal and the crew were on their way to Mustafar, after struggling to tail the transport ship that carried you out of Zeffo and splicing their comms at a safe distance. Cere managed to hack through their communications and eavesdrop on the passengers’ banter.

Greez expressively objected the idea, not because he didn’t want to rescue you, but because being in the proximity of Imperials in a foreboding backdrop comprised of a black castle over a river of lava wasn’t exactly his ideal place. Nevertheless, he docked the Mantis close by the castle; with the help of Cere’s expert splicing, she had cloaked the ship with an Imperial signature so they stay incognito under the scanners for as long as she can keep it that way.

“I’ll bust out [y/n] and we’re out of here,”

“Keep your line open then,” Cere advised.

“Always,”

Cal stepped out of the Mantis and searched for an entrance into the narrow pyramid. Perhaps the only way through were the exterior ventilation shafts. After tearing out the grate, he crawled through the vent and followed his instincts, when he got to the point where he can stand up from the crawlspace, he cautiously tiptoed over the grates that served as his floor. He held his breath throughout the ordeal, careful not to make a sound and alert the clueless Stormtroopers beneath his boots, he strained his eyes through the holes of the grate—watching the enemy and his step at the same time. When he reached the end of the vent, he carefully undid the clamps of the vent door.

“Oh, thank the Force,” he sighed with overwhelming relief when he discovered that the end of the tunnel was an empty corridor.

He daintily refitted the grate back to the wall. He prowled through the corridor, hugging the wall in case he comes in the way of Stormtroopers patrolling the area. Cal kept worrying over how you’re holding up right now, where you are, or what they’re doing to you; he continued on while retaining his caution and stealth.

“Cal, are you there?”

“Yeah, Cere, just got myself into the fortress itself,”

“I managed to fish out the coordinates of their prison block, I’m sending it to you now,”

BD-1’s tiny satellite popped out of its designated hatch on his head, receiving Cere’s info that she’s sending from the Mantis; apparently, she had access to certain databases while retaining an Imperial radar signature. When the upload was complete, BD-1 promptly flashed the holomap into the space of the nook he and Cal are hiding in.

“The wonders of Cere,” Cal chuckled to himself as he glanced at the map. “Okay, that ought to be the cell block. Come on, let’s go get her.”

“Booo-woo!!”

Following the map, Cal stalked through the corridors, avoiding the areas where the count of Stormtrooper is dense and avoiding the need to draw out his lightsaber, as it would raise the castle on high alert, and the owner—which he could safely guess is more powerful than an Inquisitor—would send swarm upon swarm of Stormtroopers in his way.

He found the lobby of the prison block, but the bridge was a computer-operated type, so BD-1 did his magic on slicing it with his scomp link. In the process, the little droid stole data of a report that you were scheduled to be brought to an Imperial torture chair. After slicing the computer, he relayed the data to Cal.

“They’re gonna make her into one of them…” Cal mumbled. “We can’t let that happen!”

“Trill, beee! Woop-boo!”

“That’s very brave of you, BD-1!”

The boy and the bot marched over the bridge once it’s connected both platforms. In the second foyer where the door that actually leads the prison itself, Cal spotted your things sitting over the top of the computer terminal, obviously confiscated upon your incarceration. He swiped them and examined your staff, apparently none of the Stormtroopers have figured out how your weapon works, much to their carelessness, they simply left it partially retracted; but not for him—who’s lived his life over scrapping and making handiworks like these in his spare time back in Bracca.

Recalling how you used the weapon in Nalima, he searched for the buttons that triggered the mechanism to unfold and then retract the staff’s heads on both sides. It worked. He clipped it next his saber hanging by his belt and slung over your small bag across his chest.

The wide blast door hissed open, revealing the cell block’s interior. There were floors upon floors of cells, each tier was guarded by two or three Stormtroopers. On ground level, at its center, was the main control terminal; deactivating that would cause a domino effect of opening all the cell doors at once. There is only one problem: the Stormtroopers.

“Huh? I-It’s the Jedi!”

One hand signal from the commander with the red pauldron and all Stormtroopers aimed at the redheaded Jedi standing at the door. Igniting his dual-ended sabers, Cal deflected and returned every single ballistic rod of plasma fired at him. When he had cut down their numbers into a half at a staggering pace, the remaining Stormtroopers had already ordered the alarm.

“That’s not good!” Cal exclaimed.

He finished off the remaining Stormtroopers and ran towards the main terminal. Knowing that he couldn’t undo the alarm, he had to find you fast.

In your cell, your head jerked up when red light pooled around your entire cell, the blaring alarm fully woke you up while attempting to regain your energy while locked up. You didn’t understand why the alarm was off, you peeked through the window of the door—which was only a rectangle enough for your eyes to fit—and saw hordes of Stormtroopers spilling from both sides.

You didn’t understand what’s happening, until you heard the Stormtroopers’ dying groans as you heard a familiar noise. You sat up from your slab bed and watched the door whizz open, only this time, it was Cal standing at the other side.

“Cal?”

“Come on, we’re getting out of here!”

There was obviously no time for questions. Both of you have to move fast.

“Oh, by the way,” he unbuckled your staff from his belt and tossed it to you. “You’re gonna need this!”

It felt great to have your beloved techstaff in your hands again. You drew it to its full length, still in mint condition, a proud smile curled along the line of your lips. You sorely missed it.

You followed Cal out of your cell. He took the lead and you stayed close.

[startrekandwars]

Shadows of Monsters

Word Count: 1746

Tags: N/A

Summary: Matahd finds himself face to face with Darth Vader and learns quickly that the worst monsters are the ones you used to know

AN: written for @celebrate-the-clone-wars Writing Wednesday Prompt Monsters

Mat’s violet eyes narrowed as he caught his lightsabers. He trusted Eagle to throw them exactly when he needed them. And they were indeed there. Igniting them with the practice he never forgot, he blocked the blow coming down from the sith lord in front of him. Six feet tall, dressed in all black, a helmet that prevented any possible view of his face was definitively not what Mat was expecting when he landed, yet there he was. “How many people know you work with a clone commander? Surely people would be suspicious, Jedi.”

“How many people know your form 3 really needs some work, Sith?” He countered, his voice dropping the fake Shili accent and slipping back into the high Courasaunt accent expected from him. “I have to admit, I struggled to figure out who you were under that mask. You see, the person I used to spar against was more elegant. But then it hit me, cybernetic replacements would prevent you from reaching for your favored battle forms. So I got to thinking, who would fight like this?” The Jedi Knight slid under his opponent and then used the Sith’s growing anger to fuel his fluid slashes and leap backwards away from the Sith. Hit hit jump. A child’s move with a master’s form. “Anakin Skywalker. The only person you could’ve been, the only person still alive to slip past me because in the Force all I registered was my friend and the pain he felt. I never considered that you would go from my brother to my enemy. Yet here we are.”

The human growled under the mask. “You are toying with me. Anakin Skywalker is dead. You know this as well as I yet you use that name. I will admit, Matahd Sa, you also have slipped past me with ease, this is something I plan on rectifying.” If he was going to use moves from their childhood, he planned on using the counters. Two hits and a jump back countered by a leap and downward slash and a force pull. And he leapt with the same practice.

Expecting the force pull, he pushed against it. “Your anger unbalances you, Anakin. It makes you sloppy. Unfocused. This will be your down fall.” The words of Obi-Wan found voice through Mat. “Your anger cannot counter my calm.”

“If you want to beat Mat, you have to find the gap in his attacks. He hits twice and jumps back. When he jumps back he switches into a defensive form. Here watch me,” Obi-Wan helped Anakin up and then picked up the training lightsaber, squaring off against the young togruta. “Come at me Mat.”

Eager to prove him wrong, Mat took a deep breath before leaping forwards hitting and being countered twice. As he went to leap backwards, Obi-Wan stuck his foot out from under him and spun, knocking him flat on his back. “Oww!!! That’s no fair you cheated!”

“No. I found your weakness. You know actual combat forms but you prefer your composite form. Allowing the strengths of multiple forms. You need to be aware of those new weaknesses too.” The young knight countered, gently helping Mat back up. “Come on you two, I think you have enough bruises. Lets go get something to eat.”

Mat grinned and then looked at Anakin. “I’ll race you Skywalker!”

“You’ll lose, Sa!!” And then he sped off. Leaving Mat in the dust until he force leaped.

“NO RUNNING IN THE TEMPLE!!” Obi-Wan shouted, now running after them to try to stop them.

Mat jumped all the way on top of a building to buy himself some time. What Anakin now lacked in speed, he made up in force. He had to be faster and lighter if he wanted to best his old friend. “Do you remember how Obi-Wan taught us? He always saw that you favored aggression. He showed you what it took to beat me when we were kids. And when we sparred in the Clone Wars? We were even matches.” He watched as his old friend leapt up and landed hard. Leading Mat to jump onto the thin pipes. “My calm and your anger together was an unequaled balance. I cooled your fury and in turn you heated up my calm to the point that we danced between light and dark easily, it was a balance only we could achieve and yet here we are- so far from that balance that it seems like a distant dream.”

“And you are on the wrong side. The Jedi were weak and corrupted. Join me and together we can be what we once were! Powerful and without an equal. We don’t have to fight, Matahd. Yet you insist on the wrong path.” Vader followed him, striking out at Mat’s side, which the togruta blocked without losing his balance.

The other took two steps back before flipping over Anakin by almost a good extra five feet, landing on the building instead of the pipes. “Anakin- do you even hear yourself?! The Jedi weren’t perfect, but the never harmed innocents. We failed the Clones but we always minimized casualties. We did the riskiest assignments so no one else got hurt. And now? Now you walk into villages and cities and slaughter them all, where as all I do is save as many as I can. How can you insist you are in the right when you cause so much pain?” Hurt radiated from both of them in the force. They were inseparable. “How can you think I would join you after all of this destruction? Can’t you see that you’ve become a monster?! This is madness!!”

“No. You are the only one suffering from madness, Matahd Sa. You like all Jedi are corrupt. And you ability to feel pain in the force should prove that.” Anakin stopped restraining himself, unintentionally, in the force. He hadn’t forgotten that the Togruta was prone to being overwhelmed if there was enough emotional turmoil around him. He was also aware that unintentionally, Mat focused on him as an anchor. But now? Now he let the tidal wave crash down. As it did, Mat collapsed on the ground, his hands going from his lightsabers to the sides of his head. He couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t think straight. He could barely feel the ground beneath him. “I am not your friend, Jedi. He died long ago. And you are lost without him.”

“I mean come on, Mat. Its like you can’t think when anyone mentions Eagle. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were attached to him.” Anakin teased as they continued to walk through the pass to get back with their new intel. “So... what’s the deal with you?”

“I’m not lost without Eagle. I’m just... used to him. Its not like when I’m with you or Kenobi, I have to keep myself focused all the time. He just... makes it easier.” The Togruta picked up a small rock and threw it at his friend. “I could ask the same of you and Senator Amidala, come on we both know she’s more than just a friend~”

“You are the worst Mat- she really is just a good friend... I won’t tell Obi-Wan if you won’t though.” The two knew full well that the redhead could see right through them both if they weren’t careful.

Mat just nodded. “Dea-“ His violet eyes widened before he collapsed onto the ground, screaming. So much death. There was so much death. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. One minute they were alive and now there was a wave of death that just washed over him.

“Mat?! Mat!!!” Anakin had placed both of his hands on his shoulders. “Mat focus on me. Focus on me, come on I know you can see me.” He moved his hand so it was on the side of his friend’s head, focusing so that he was more obvious in the force. “Come back to me Mat... please come back to me. Come back to me.”

Eagle rested his forehead against Mat’s, not moving. “We need you grounded in the present Mat. Sari needs your help and you can’t help her like this.”

Mat’s voice sounded strained as he managed to speak. “I’m here... I’m right here.” Slowly, he managed to close himself off from the tidal wave of emotions Anak-Vader flooded him with. “I’m okay, Eagle.” He placed a kiss on the Clone’s lips and then forced a smile. “Really, I’m okay so long as you’re here.”

“Good. Just keep your focus on me and not Vader- I don’t want you to get hurt because of that.” The former Commander pressed an almost desperate kiss on his former general’s lips. “Go kick his ass, General.”

“Of course, commander.” He grinned honestly this time before running off towards the fight. Three blocks away, Sari Nebi was trading furious blows with Vader.

Sari had a wicked grin on her face as the two Jedi flipped, trading places. So that she was behind Vader while Mat was in front. Trading when they would attack. “Looks like you’re running out of steam, Vader.” Her black tattoos, faded but still obvious seemed to get a hair lighter. They still contrasted with her blood red hair, and her amber eyes. “And we’re just getting started.”

Vader growled again as he attempted to force push both of them away, the pair only grounding themselves further. “You have made yourselves a powerful enemy this day, Matahd Sa and Sari Nebi. Do not forget this.” Then, he stepped backwards off of the building.

Mat lunged as if he could catch his former friend, Sari stopping him. “Wait-“ A tie fighter almost screamed as it took off with Vader standing on top. Watching the two Jedi on the roof top. “Lets get you out of here, Mat.”

He nodded, staring as he felt Vader get further and further away before leaning against Sari. The two jumped down off of the building and hid their lightsabers.

Eagle jumped off and grappled down, running to meet up with them. “Mat- Sari-“

“We’re okay. I mean, Sa should probably lay down for a while but we’re both okay. What happened?” She asked, handing Mat off so Eagle was now supporting him.

“I came face to face with a monster, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it.” Mat answered, not even resisting. “He’s gone... there’s nothing left but pain and anger.”

[marblesarelost]

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

                                         CHAPTER FIVE

Her throat was raw for the next two days from the strength of her scream.

Later, all Darcy would remember was her vision suddenly being covered by green, Doom whirling his cloak over her and turning, placing his body between hers and the blast. Thankfully, he didn’t throw her to the concrete floor and dive on top of her or anything like that; he probably ran about two twenty to two fifty, it would have hurt like hell.  Instead, though, strong arms encased in faintly glowing metal wrapped around her, holding her up as the floor shook.  “No, you are safe, I will not allow any harm to come to you,” he rumbled in her ear, and for just a second, half a second, she allowed herself to be comforted.

“But the others,” she protested, “they were sitting --“

“We will see what has happened to the Avengers in a moment, and you may call for assistance from whoever might be able to help.  For now, we must wait; there are still missiles being fired.”

“Who,” she choked out, “whoever did this, whoever did this, they have opened up such a goddamn can of whoopass…”  

“What an interesting idiom. And yes.  They have.  They have attacked a home where the King of Atlantis and the Lord Protector of Latveria were being treated as honored guests.  They will know the wrath and the fury of the Sub-Mariner, and of Doom.” The noise was dying down.  “I will release you in a moment; find cover. Three, two, one, go.”  His arms uncrossed from around her, the green falling away, and she could see the door to the common room.  

“Be careful,” she said, then ran forward, jerking the door open and heading through the kitchen into the TV room.  “FRIDAY, status report?”

“No known casualties at this time.  Mark 16 and RESCUE were initiated when Sir saw the incoming bogeys. All of the other Avengers dove into the pool as the first missile was fired.”

“Okay,” Darcy breathed. “Okay.  Where’s Steve’s shield, Friday?”

“Captain Rogers’ shield is in his quarters.”

“Emergency override his lock.  SHOCKER-Alpha-3-9-6SW,” she said, running for the elevator.  “Who else needs their weapons?”

“Falcon does not have his wings, and Hawkeye does not have his bow.”

“Damn it,” she sighed. “Do they have other weapons up there that they can use?”

“Currently, both are firing Glocks.”

“They need more than that,” Darcy muttered as the elevator door opened on the residential floor, and she ran down the hall to Steve’s quarters.  Opening the door, she saw the shield beside his couch.  Grabbing it, she headed out again.  “How heavy are Falcon’s wings, FRIDAY?”  Because the shield by itself was heavy enough she was having to use both hands.  “More strength training, Darce,” she muttered to herself.

“Hey Darce,” Sam’s voice sounded over the intercom system.  “Don’t worry about my wings, sugar, we’ve already got enough flyers out here to make things really interesting, especially since I’ve never worked with Doom or Namor.”

“You sure, Sam?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.  Does Clint want his bow and quiver?”

“Negative.”

“Oh.  Okay.  I’m bringing Steve the shield, though.”

“He’ll appreciate that; he’s pissed ‘cause he’s having to hide at the moment.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

She was upstairs again, and now she was pissed.  Oh, she was pissed.   She stopped at the door to peek out from around it, and her breath caught. War Machine and Iron Man were blasting the hell out of what appeared to be a red suit of armor, while Namor and Doom were busy kicking in the faceplate of another.  A third was being kept busy by Clint, Natasha, and Sam, while Steve stood helplessly fretting nearby, She-Hulk holding him back.

“Hey Rogers,” she shouted, stepping into view.  “Catch!” She threw the shield with both hands like a discus in his general direction.

“Lewis, you’re a lifesaver,” Steve called, leaping to catch the wobbling airborne disk.  He rolled as he came down again, jumping up and launching the shield at the armor that Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon were firing at. It hit the chest mounted machine gun, bending it sideways, ricocheted into the side of the building, then back to Steve’s hand.

She-Hulk leapt from the building toward that armored attacker a split second afterward, making the jump, but barely.  She held onto the assailant, however, and started pulling pieces off of the armor, digging her strong green fingers into the suit, its defense systems all but useless against her.  Sure, she could be shocked.  Sure, it hurt.  But nothing like it would do to an unenhanced person.  Darcy watched, her mouth open, as she tore the faceplate away from the helmet, exposing a woman who couldn’t be much older than Darcy.  A single punch from She-Hulk was all it took to knock the pilot out.

What she hadn’t taken into account was that an unconscious pilot meant that the suit was going down, her scream echoing between the buildings as she and her foe plummeted toward the earth.  Namor left Doom to deal with their opponent, diving through the night sky as easily as he cut through water, and Darcy crossed her fingers. “Please,” she murmured.  “Please, please…”

A flurry of laser shots drew her attention back to the battle in the sky.  Doom’s opponent was giving it all he had, obviously, but Doom only hovered there, letting his unseen foe fire at him at point blank range. Until he had had enough, that is. “You have made a grave error,” he proclaimed, reaching out his hand a lot like Darth Vader’s force-choke.  The suit began to crumple, Darcy could hear it, the metal squashing and screeching as it folded in on itself.  “You have angered Doom.”

“Holy shit.”  Darcy glanced to the side to see Clint watching beside her.  “Why the hell didn’t he do that before?”

“I don’t know,” Darcy replied.  “Maybe you can ask him in a minute.”

“Yeah,” Clint agreed. “Think I will.”  He looked down at his Stitch patterned swimming trunks. “Fuckers got a hole in my new trunks, too.”

“Aww.  I’ll patch it for you this weekend,” Darcy offered.

“You’re a treat, Darce.”

“Did Namor catch --“ she began, and Clint nodded.

“Yep.  Looked to me like he was controlling the fall rather than trying to drag them back up, though.  I gotta go downstairs and help collect them.”  His shoulders sagged.  “You did good getting Steve his shield.  That helped.”  He sighed, standing straight again as Black Widow came to stand next to them.

“Barton.  Let’s go.”  

“Wait,” Darcy said, quickly untying her sarong and handing it to Widow.  “Here.”   For a second, ‘Tasha blinked out of Widow’s face, then faded away again as she nodded, wrapping the sarong around herself quickly into a full sleeveless dress before jerking her head to the door where Pepper stood, her gaze fully on the battle still raging between Iron Man, War Machine, and the last armored asshole. Doom was slowly lowering the one he had subued to the now wrecked pool as the last red armored adversary dodged a blast from Iron Man and knocked into him, hard.  The heap of scrap metal, for that’s what it was now, dropped the last twenty feet in free fall as Doom surged forward from the impact, then turned around, purple sparks flying off of him.

“Coward!”  He thundered, and Darcy couldn’t see what he did next, but the enemy armor suddenly thrashed about in the sky, its limbs flailing wildly and likely painfully, as Iron Man and War Machine backed away in the air.

“Holy SHIT!”  

“Fuck my life, son, you shoulda done that earlier,” War Machine said.

“I could not; you and Iron Man were in too close quarters, and this would likely have affected your armors as well.”  The armor stopped moving as quickly as it had begun, holding deathly still for a moment before it moved smoothly toward the building, ending up beside the mangled metal that had been its associate.  “Crimson Dynamos, are they not, Iron Man?”

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like,” Tony agreed, coming to a landing and flicking the suit off a few seconds later.  “Uh. This one…is this one dead, Doom?”

“No.”  He landed beside Tony, a few seconds before War Machine. “The pilot is alive.  Perhaps a bit worse for wear.  But alive.”  He stepped out of the way as Pepper ran to Tony, hugging him tightly, and Darcy could, would swear later that for a fraction of a second, just a fraction, she saw Doom’s perfect posture stiffen before he stalked back to the edge of the terrace, his back to them all.

“Fuck,” Darcy muttered, turning on her heel and running for the bar.  “FRIDAY, where does Tony keep the really, really good stuff?”

“Wine, champagne, or whiskey, Miss Lewis?”

“Any of it.  All of it,” Darcy snapped, her eyes sliding over labels.  “The good shit, FRIDAY, the Thank You For Being A Pal shit.”

“I would suggest the single malt Macallan Single Malt Craigallachie if you are celebrating the triumph.”

“Great.  Where’s that?”

“Third shelf from the top, to the left.”  Darcy stepped up on the stool, grabbed the bottle and two glasses; hopefully he drank his whiskey neat.  “How much is this bottle, FRIDAY?”

“The MSRP is three hundred dollars.”

“Great.  Take it out of my pay for the next couple months, would you?”  She was already in the kitchen before the AI could reply affirmatively, and out the door, picking her way around the rubble that had been the terrace pool five minutes earlier.  She waved at Rhodey and Tony, but never stopped moving until she was a few feet behind Doom.

“Lord Protector?”  She called softly.  He turned, he had to turn his whole torso to do so, she noticed, and saw her.  She held up the bottle and glasses.  “To the Victor goes the spoils?”

“Is that my Laphroaig, Lewis?”  Tony called from across the hole where the pool had been.

“Nope!  It’s something called Macallan…Craigie something, it came recommended,” she shouted back.  “And I already arranged to pay you for it, so hush.”

“Nah.  On the house,” Tony said.  “Doom, take five and have a drink with a pretty girl before SHIELD gets here; you’ll have to give a statement, damn it, I didn’t want --“ Tony was cut off by Pepper’s fingers over his lips.

“What Tony means to say, Lord Doom, is that he deeply appreciates your help tonight,” Pepper said, and Tony sighed.

“Yes.  Yes, that is what I want to say, seriously, I just…this isn’t what I wanted, I wanted to just kick back and have a good time and make new friends, goddamn it.”  Tony kicked at a piece of loose concrete.  “And you BASTARDS had to fucking RUIN it!”

“If it comforts you, Mr. Stark, that is exactly what I had hoped for this evening as well,” Doom said, turning all the way around at last.  “And I add my curse to yours.”

“Yeah,” Tony sighed. “Well.  Unfortunately, this comes from being my friend.”

“God, you have no idea,” Rhodey sighed.  “He’s been a trouble magnet since I’ve known him, building the suit didn’t change anything.” He wrapped one arm around Pepper’s waist, the other around Tony’s.  “Come on, you two.  Let’s go find our own bottle.”

The bottle was plucked from her fingers a moment later, and she wondered briefly, how did he move so fast and so silently?  Oh yeah, hovering, Darcy, he’s a fucking Sith Lord, remember?  “This is a very good Scotch,” he said lowly.  

“Yeah, well, you won. Practically single handed,” she shrugged.  “And hey, saving the plucky sidekick’s life comes with benefits.”

“Do not speak of yourself so.  You are, even on our short acquaintance, much more than the plucky sidekick.”  He opened the bottle, poured two fingers’ worth of liquor into both glasses.  “Prosit.”

“L’chaim,” she replied, touching her glass to his and sipping, the alcohol peaty, burning its way down her throat.  She didn’t cough, but her eyes watered.  “Damn,” she said after she caught her breath.  “I just remembered why I like Irish better.”

“Oh?  Then why did you choose this?”

“One, it’s one of Tony’s best, two, you seem like a Scotch kind of guy; complicated, with added fire.”

“That is…a very apt descriptor.  You used a Hebraic term for your toast; you’re Jewish?”

“Yep,” she nodded. “Not observant or anything, but yeah.” She sipped her drink again, glancing at the two subdued assholes.  “They’re not gonna wake up anytime soon, are they?”  He chuckled, and a shiver ran down her spine at the sound.

“Not likely.”  It wasn’t quite a growl, but it wasn’t far from it, either.  “I overloaded the subdermal receptors in one suit, causing a massive amount of biogenetic feedback.  Nothing that can’t be cured with a few weeks’ care.  As for the other, well.  The Grasping Hand is not known for subtlety.  There may be broken bones.  I’m afraid I have no sympathy for them; they meant to ambush unarmed people at a party, after all.”

“Yeah, I don’t have any sympathy for them myself at the moment,” Darcy agreed.  “So that’s what the Force Choke move is called?  The Grasping Hand?”

“Force Choke?”  He asked her, gesturing, and a pair of chairs and a table, knocked over to the wall by the missiles, rose, righting themselves. “I’m not sure I know the term.”

“Star Wars?  Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker? Kylo Ren, Rey?  The Millennium Falcon?”  He shook his head as she named off each integral piece of the space opera.

“I am afraid I do not care for much modern media.  I have had other concerns.”

“Oh, um…yeah, okay,” she said, joining him as he walked over to the table and taking a seat.  “Star Wars.  It’s a movie franchise, very…at its core, it’s the Hero’s Journey, I guess, and the actual first three movies are awesome, the prequels are crap except for Rogue One, and we’re now waiting for the last in the current trilogy.”

“I see.  It is a cultural difference, I suppose; movies were never that important to me.”  He refilled her glass, and his own.  “Books were. Do you know Tolkien?”

“Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone, nine for mortal men, doomèd  to die, one for the Dark Lord on his dark throne, in the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie,” she quoted, and he nodded.

“Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul,” he intoned, purposely, she was sure, deepening his voice as he spoke the Black Tongue of Mordor.

“In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie,” she repeated softly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, me and John Ronald, we go back.”

“Obviously,” he agreed.

“Also, the Black Speech?  Really?”

“It amused me, in my youth.”

“So,” she said after a moment.  “Are you Theoden awakened, then?  Or Boromir, regretful at the Falls?”  He didn’t answer her for several long minutes, taking a drink, considering his words.

“I think…” he began slowly.  “I think I am more Saruman, but a Saruman who has seen his folly.  I have broken the White, and become the Saruman of Many Colors; and now I am trying, perhaps, to regain my humility, and earn back my Staff of Office.”

“Or Bilbo,” she offered. “After giving up the One Ring.”

“No; no.  You are very kind, Miss --“ she glared at him, and he changed.  “Darcy. But I, like Saruman, have committed too many sins, and Bilbo did not.  No. I am Saruman if Saruman had come down at Orthanc, when Theoden and Gandalf and the Ents had cornered him.  I have come down, and I know I have a great deal of work to do to redeem myself.”

“Looks like you’re doing a good job of it, from my point of view,” she offered.

“Thank you.  There is a veritable Aegean stables to clean, however,” he sighed, “and the expedient way tempts me, always.”

“Change is hard,” she agreed.  “Changing as completely as you’ve done, that’s…that’s next to impossible.  May I ask, if it’s not too personal, what…did something happen to drive you to it, or…” she let her words trail off. “Sorry, I’m presuming on short acquaintance.”

“You are,” he agreed. “But at least you’re asking.” Slowly, he ran his finger over the rim of his glass, the metal of his glove causing the glass to ring, just slightly. “Good crystal.  Stark has taste.”

“Yep.”

“The truth of it is…” he began, sitting back, “the truth of it is, I am tired.  I am tired of always being on edge.  I am tired of always fighting.  I am weary, Darcy.  I have seen the future and the past, I have fought battles with gods and monsters, demons and abominations, and while…while I have always…prevailed, at least in survival, I have not always triumphed.  I am tired.  I wish, at this point, only to lead my people into a new age.  An age in which Latveria prospers beside her neighbors, rather than eking out a spare living, hand to mouth.  It is time, it is past time, to give up the childish travails and idiocies of my youth, and see to the welfare of my people, rather than myself and my own wounded pride.”  

“Those are good reasons,” she said softly.  “I can understand those reasons.”

“Oh, there are more.”

“Of course there are; you’re complicated.”  She grinned at him.  

“I’m tired of seeing them quail whenever I walk among them.  Of seeing women hide their children behind them, of seeing even my own people, my mother’s people, quake in fear at the mention of my name.  Fear is not what I wanted, when I took the throne, I did not want their fear, I wanted to help, I wanted to build, to make things better…and all I have done is make it worse.  No more.  No more traipsing about time and space, no more fighting with Reed over sins, his and mine, long past.  No more proclamations of how great I am, and playing Big Brother from Orwell.  I am not great.  I am a man who has made a multitude of mistakes.  And I cannot, even if I went back in time again, I would not be able to rectify them all.  But I can build a better future.  I can.  But it takes allies.  It takes trust.  And I have to earn that trust.”

“Doing a hell of a job so far,” Steve’s voice cut through the night, and Darcy looked over her shoulder to see him standing a few feet away.  “Sorry to interrupt.  Coulson wants to ask a few questions, you know how it is.”

“Of course.  If you will excuse me, Darcy?”  He asked politely, and she nodded.  He rose, taking her hand and bowing over it.  “It has been a delight to spend time with you; I hope to do so again before I leave New York.”

“It’s been my pleasure, Victor,” she assured him.  “And thank you again.  I know you saved my life.”

“I would gladly do so again. Good evening.”

“Good evening.”  She watched him walk away with Steve, sighed to herself.  Well, the assholes hadn’t completely ruined the evening.  Just mostly.  

 STAY TUNED, TRUE BELIEVERS!

EXCELSIOR!

[rawheight]

It was my original intention to post these like 3 days apart, but... I got a little behind in writing them and things have exploded with my roommates over the past couple weeks so... woof. Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 5 Darth Suwa knelt on one knee before his master, staring at the floor but not seeing.  The time had come. Syaoran Li stood calmly at the feet of the dark lord’s throne.  He kept himself upright with his shoulders back, hands cuffed before him and looking at the vassal.  He too, knew what was to come next.

“And here we are,” Fei Wang Reed said with a devious smile.  It was upon his order that when the Jedi knight had tried to sneak onto the ship, he be taken captive alive.  Syaoran’s companion, the oracle, had vanished in the fight that had ensued.  When a search for their boarding vessel turned up nothing, the Imperial Guard presumed he had escaped to save himself.  Darth Suwa knew better.  Fei Wang Reed probably did, too.  The oracle was using whatever trick it was that he employed to keep his presence from being felt within the Force.  Likely, he was somewhere in this very room. “Your spat with this knight of the old order has gone on too long, my apprentice,” the dark lord said, disengaging Syaoran’s handcuffs with a dismissive wave of his hand and letting them drop to the floor.  “Destroy him, or perish yourself.” There was a break - a pause where the only sound in the room was that of Darth Suwa’s breath hissing through the apparatus over his mouth and nose.  Then, “As you wish.”  He rose slowly, a head and shoulders taller than the boy in front of him.  He eyed his opponent for just a heartbeat, his expression as blank and unreadable as ever.  Then, in one fluid movement he drew his lightsaber and leaped in the air, bearing down on the young Jedi. Without missing a beat Syaoran held out his hand and, using the Force, recovered his own lightsaber from the cushion that lay in the hands of one of Fei Wang’s servants.  He parried Darth Suwa’s attack, and the successive blows that came afterward.  The fighting was tense, heated, with the apprentice clearly on the offensive and the knight working hard to simply keep his defense up, though doing so skillfully. After only a few moments, however, it was obvious who had the upper hand.  Darth Suwa’s raw strength was unparalleled.  He hit hard, driving his opponent down and back, relentless.  His swordplay was not nearly as graceful and refined as the Jedi’s, but was instead brutal and efficient.  He let his rage feed his power, channeling the dark side of the Force.  This boy, who not only had tied him once in battle but also challenged him and drudged up feelings that he had long buried in the soil under the wall around his heart, had come here knowing it would cost him his life.  Why? Syaoran was able to get in several more parries, driving the fight closer to the center of the room again, but it wasn’t enough.  With a few deft, powerful strokes Darth Suwa had soon disarmed him.  As the Jedi knight’s lightsaber flew through the air and clattered harmlessly on the ground yards away, the vassal’s left hand came up swiftly to grab the young man by the throat, lifting him off his feet. “Good, good, very good!” Fei Wang Reed commented from his throne with a dark, insidious glee. The mechanical fingers of the apprentice’s hand tightened around Syaoran’s throat, cutting off oxygen.  In an automatic defense, the young man’s hands came up to grip the cold metal forearm, trying to gain traction.  The irony was not lost on him.  It had been he who had relieved Darth Suwa of his original arm, causing the machined limb to be installed as a replacement.  He was the harbinger of his own death.  But his enemy had paused.  The pressure on his throat remained and he was incapable of drawing breath, but the dark apprentice had halted his attack. Darth Suwa peered deep into Syaoran’s eyes. Why?  Why had he come?  It was a suicide mission.  But the boy was smarter than that.  There was something else. Ask him who murdered your family.  And take your destiny into your own hands. “Master.” Fei Wang Reed’s vile grin faded.  “What is it?” he asked irritably.  This was no time for his servant to falter.  In the deep sleeves of his coat, a long knife slid forward and pressed against his palm, hidden from view. “Who killed my parents?” The silence that followed was enough of an answer for him.  In fact, he had known the answer even as he asked the question.  It was, unfortunately, a truth he had known all along but refused to acknowledge.  A dark, horrible truth that he had hidden from himself so that he could somehow keep living.  But he didn’t feel alive in any sense of the word.  He felt strong.  He felt powerful.  He knew rage. But what did it mean to be alive? It only took a moment to change everything. Syaoran reached out and grabbed the mask that obscured the apprentice’s face, only vaguely aware of the shout of rage from Fei Wang Reed as the Emperor rose out of his throne.  Using his other hand braced against the vassal’s chest, he violently Force-pushed him away while keeping a hold of the mask, ripping it off his face.  Kurogane flew backward across the room, airborne for ten yards before hitting the ground and sliding over the floor into the far wall.

[shikkokunohaoh]

Kamen Rider Gatol (so far)

This is a lot. Sorry if it’s too much!

 In a world separate from other worlds, where Kamen Rider wasn't so much as an idea, much less a reality... the organization NEW-DIMENSION has obtained otherworldly technology, contained within the DiLoaders, odd, key-like structures with the power of other realities injected within. Using these keys, they plan to create a mechanical army, and rule over the world...and maybe, one day, all worlds will fall! However, two of their experiments go rouge, and work together using their own DiLoaders to combat NEW-DIMENSION, with the power of justice from other worlds backing them up. They are...! Kamen Rider Gatol (gattai + portal) Real Name: Midari Akami Former Code Name: Load-0 Age: 21 Bio: A scientist who was working on a project into other dimensions that NEW-DIMENSION took over, her physical fitness allowed her to be used as a test subject to create human-Newload hybrids. It succeeded, but she kept her sanity and escaped with an Ichigo DiLoader. She proceeded to use it for a while as her only form, creating her Proto-Typhoon Version, which helped her fight off Newload goons. However, it wasn't enough against the Shocker-type Tarantula Newman, who overpowered her until her foe accidentally dropped a Mighty Kuuga DiLoader. Using the full power of her Dimension Driver, she was able to use the Ichigo and Mighty Kuuga DiLoaders to create her "base" form, TyphoonMighty Version, and defeat Tarantula Newman. She would later come to blows with the other Rider, Load-1 or, as they preferred, Kamen Rider Nuzion, as she tried to scare the kid off from endangering themselves as a Rider. She stopped upon learning that they, too, were forcibly converted into a cyborg, and the two formed a powerful duo. Personality: Intensely studious, sharp-witted, and somewhat friendly, Midari was a good friend to many before her friends in the lab were killed, and she forcibly converted into a human-Newload hybrid. Afterwards, she became more boxed-in, suffering from a deep depression and a burning anger that was barely kept in. Once she realized her full potential as a Rider, she started going wild, filled with intense rage. However, she started to calm down upon teaming up with Nuzion, who she now protects fiercely as her only friend. She is also intensely self-sacrificial, willing to lay down her life to stop NEW-DIMENSION from hurting anyone else the way she was hurt. Forms (the DiLoaders are very interchangable (even between Riders), so these are just "the most used" forms): Tier 1: TyphoonMighty (Ichigo + Mighty Kuuga), DecaRessha (Decade + Den-O Sword), JustiWheel (Faiz + Drive) Tier 2: MechaOrgan (Black RX Roborider + Black RX Biorider), MechaDead (Black RX Roborider + Blade Ace), RushOrgan (Kabuto + Black RX Biorider), ShinkaMighty (Agito Ground + Kuuga Mighty) Tier 3: ClimaxBlazing (Den-O Climax + OOO TaJaDor) Tier 4 (no switching around, as DiLoader for this combo fills both slots): Thunder-la-Finale (Stronger Charge Up + Kuuga Ultimate) Kamen Rider Nuzion (new + fusion) Real Name: Jo Ishida Former Code Name: Load-1 Age: 18 Bio: A world-renowned motorbike racer, Jo was aiming towards the championship when he was kidnapped by NEW-DIMENSION to create the second of their hybrids. However, like the last attempt, Jo managed to escape as they found themselves with the Knight and Nigo DiLoaders, allowing them to attain their "base" form, MiraiStrong. Using their newfound powers to help fight off petty criminals and NEW-DIMENSION alike, they found themselves in a fight with Gatol, who wanted to chase them off from the life of being a Rider. The fights only ceased upon discovering their similar pasts, and the two have since formed an intense duo. Personality: Jo was (and still is) intensely high energy, confident, and was a decent speaker, allowing their fame as a bike racer to take off even further than it already had. After their forced conversion, however, their cocksure attitude became more of a defense mechanism, a response to the intense pain and suffering that the conversion had caused, as well as the attempts to break their mind. They try to hide it behind a friendly smile, however, and have gained a desire to help as many people as possible, which NEW-DIMENSION has used more than once in an attempt to trick them. Forms (again, the DiLoaders are interchangeable, so unless said otherwise these are not the only combos available): Tier 1: MiraStrong (Knight + Nigo), GeistKing (Specter Specter Damashii + Baron Banana Arms), DefendArm (G3 + Riderman) Tier 2: MemoryKing (Zeronos Altair + Baron Banana Arms), GeistRoll (Specter Specter Damashii + Brave Hunter Gamer Level 5) Tier 3: TempoRoll (DiEnd + Brave Hunter Gamer Level 5) Tier 4: Turbo-la-Inseki (Accel Trial + Meteor Storm) NEW-DIMENSION, however, isn't quite so easy to beat--thanks to the DiLoaders from other dimensions, they can summon monsters based off those from other series--the Newloads! Shocker-type: The first type to show up in the series, Shocker-types are the most intelligent and the ones most complacent to strategy out of all the times. They're also one of the better shapeshifting types, able to take multiple human forms naturally. Grongi-type: A very powerful type, only being able to be beaten by intense physical strength and/or the power of the Kuuga DiLoader. Very tough skin with decent regeneration. However, they are intensely violent, and the hardest to control. Lords-type: The most loyal type, and also the type hardest to deter from their goal. They can also slightly bend the laws of physics to do their mission. However, they have a very one-track mind, and can be outsmarted. Mirror-type: Typically the least human, they are able to float between the real world and the world within mirrors easily. Strength is variable, and they need humans to prey on to survive. However, they can use the power of Vents to make the difference in a battle. Orphenoch-type: Usually forbidden by higher-ups, Orphenoch-types require a corpse to revive and fuse with, essentially becoming that person back from the grave. However, said person will often have mood swings, and will eventually be unable to use their human form. Restricted by higher-ups both because of the distasteful necromancy, and the fact that they are uncontrollable. Undead-type: Not the strongest, nor the smartest, but they have regeneration that even outpaces Grongi-types. Typically only the Blade DiLoader's ability, Joker Seal, is able to stop their regeneration and allow them to be destroyed, though stronger finishers can sometimes do the trick. Makamou-type: A spiritual type of enemy, decent in most capabilities, but their best quality is their immunity to most attacks unless they create great noise. They are able to feed off humans to increase their power and resistance, some even evolving into Super Makamou-types, which are almost as strong as Grongi-types, and able to induce hallucinations of various kinds. Worm-type: Able to use Clock Up, making it the fastest variant by far, these types blaze through the battlefield with no fear. They can also take on human disguises. However, they also have weak defenses, and if hit hard enough, not even Clock Up can save them from their shells breaking. Work well with Roidmude-types, thanks to being immune to time-slow. Imagin-type: Able to transform into sand, these variants are typically only used in specific scenarios, usually on children. Able to grant wishes and then possess the user into doing its bidding, these types are hard to get out of the victim's body, but once they are they are quite mediocre in battle, unless powered by a very strong DiLoader. Decade-type: Does not exist, as Decade DiLoaders have data on other variants, but doesn't cannot create a stable variant on its own. Used to increase the power of Conglomerate-types. Yummy-type: Able to use strong desires to become stronger and stronger, these variants are good at targeting the rich or the needy, using their wants to increase its power exponentially. However, if cut off from its source, they are easy to defeat. Roidmude-type: With a shapeshifting power equal to that of the Shocker-type, and the power to slow time, Roidmude-types are good for espionage and assassination. In battle, they can overpower opponents with time-slow, and also fuse with vehicles and machines to gain their attributes and extra power. Work well with the fast Worm-types, thanks to them being immune to time-slow. Ganma-type: A spectral variant that can possess and fuse with objects. Invisible in their true forms, their evolved forms become powerful the more objects they can consume, however what they can consume varies from monster-to-monster, meaning that they can't always attain their final forms very fast. If they consume enough items, they can evolve into Super Ganma-types, which allow them to gain silver armor and access to various powers from the Ghost world. Bugster-type: A variant that is spread as a disease. It typically combines a video game genre with a certain kind of illness, infecting victims so that they show similar symptoms to whatever it is themed after. They can also summon minions from the infected. If enough of their victims are healed, however, it starts to lose minions and power at a fast rate. If it manages to kill or incapacitate enough people with its infection, it can become a Union Bugster-type, which allows them to take a form that spreads their disease faster, and spawn higher power minions. Conglomerate-type: A fusion of any two types, gaining their strengths and weaknesses. Decade DiLoaders can be used to increase the power of Conglomerate-types, but this can backfire and cause an overload into a mutated form. Higher-ups in the organization tend to turn themselves into Conglomerate-types when they have to fight.        

[wiresandstarlings]

a marathon runner, my ankles are sprained

Hey, my name is Allen Wu, and I top 4'd the Santa Clara RPTQ last weekend. Not a huge result, granted, but I promised my therapist I'd start writing again and this is a better occasion than most.

There's a trend in tournament reports these days to focus on stories rather than the grit of Magic gameplay, and I appreciate that trend. Magic is a fun game, but the real appeal of tournament Magic is good times with friends in cities all over the world. Narrative reports are not only more entertaining, they're also more true. And there's so much magic content out there these days that nobody really needs another deck breakdown.

That said, there's not much of a story here. I live in Mountain View, which is a twenty minute train ride away from the ChannelFireball Game Center in Santa Clara. I qualified via Silver pro level. I woke up at eight, ate yogurt and some coffee cake for breakfast, played a match on Magic Online to warm up, and biked to the train station. I picked up some cards and sleeved my deck, and the tournament started shortly after.

My deck choice was, however, a little unusual. I inched my way into standard following the Pro Tour, and I couldn't find a deck I liked for a long time. BG with Mindwrack Demons and 4 Verdurous Gearhulk was too clunky, and I lost so many games because I drew a Blossoming Marsh, Traverse the Ulvenwald, or Hissing Quagmire when I needed an untapped land to cast a finisher. 4c Saheeli flooded a lot,  played so many low-impact cards, and everyone on Magic Online was ready for the combo. The mana and inherent inconsistency of the vehicle mechanic scared me away from Mardu. Every other deck felt an order of magnitude less powerful than these three, though I did enjoy a brief flirtation with a 5c Improvise brew.

Recent builds of the three big decks have obviously solved many of these problems, but since I didn't have much time to test I was looking to find rather than innovate.

The first deck I really liked was Oliver Tiu's BG build with Oath of Nissa, Sylvan Advocate, Nissas, no Mindwrack Demons, and a full 25 lands. Tiu's build maintained the power of the Delirium builds but played Gearhulk on 5 far more consistently, and it had even more nut draw potential with the full squad of Nissas. However, as 4c Saheeli decks began playing more copies of Chandra and her Oath, and as players began to figure out the control decks, I found I ultimately flooded too often with Oliver's list. When my opponents always killed my turn 2 Snake, my other cards were just too slow or too low-impact to do anything.

I shelved testing for a while, until I saw the list Ben Stark played in SCG Baltimore. It looked like Ben had solved all the problems of previous BG lists. By playing only 2 cards that cost 4 or more mana, Ben's list could play 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald while rarely missing key land drops. Gnarlwood Dryads helped break serve and further ameliorated the cost of playing so many tapped lands (counting Traverse as a land that comes into play tapped), and Grim Flayer was a real threat even without a Snake in play. Flayers and Traverses both mitigated flood. The list I ultimately played at the RPTQ was only a few cards off from Ben's:

4 Blooming Marsh 4 Evolving Wilds 4 Hissing Quagmire 6 Forest 4 Swamp

2 Gnarlwood Dryad 4 Grim Flayer 4 Winding Constrictor 4 Walking Ballista 2 Scrapheap Scrounger 3 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar 3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade 2 Tireless Tracker 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury 2 Verdurous Gearhulk

4 Fatal Push 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald 2 Grasp of Darkness 1 Grapple with the Past

Sideboard: 1 Blossoming Defense 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet 2 Natural Obsolescence 1 Natural State 1 Noxious Gearhulk 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited 2 Ruinous Path 1 Scrapheap Scrounger 1 Tireless Tracker 3 Transgress the Mind

By the week of the RPTQ, my friends were largely off BG because they didn't like its 4c Saheeli matchup and weren't sure how it fared against the new Mardu builds with Oath of Liliana in the sideboard. An actual conversation from the day of the RTPQ:

Still, I was winning these matchups way more often than I was losing online. I felt comfortable with the deck, I liked how it played, and I'd put a lot of practice into it. So I borrowed and bought some cards and was locked in by Thursday night.

My matches in the RTPQ:

loss 2-1 vs. BG win 2-0 vs. 4c Saheeli win 2-0 vs. Mardu Ballista win 2-1 vs. Mardu Ballista win 2-0 vs. Jeskai Saheeli draw win 2-0 vs. Jeskai Saheeli

Starting off with a loss was a little unfortunate, but thankfully my opponents all crushed their remaining matches and I not only could draw into top 8, but wound up third seed. My finals match was mercifully anticlimactic. In the first game, my opponent mulliganed to a mediocre hand and I had a great draw with little removal, a good distribution of lands and threats, and – most importantly – an unanswered Winding Constrictor on the play. In the second game, he mulliganed again but had a Radiant Flames on turn 4 for my 2 Grim Flayers. But I had a third Flayer which he couldn't answer after a Traverse and Evolving Wilds gave me Delirium, and that Flayer smoothed my draws for the remainder of the game. I had a Grasp of Darkness in hand for either combo or Torrential Gearhulk, but I only had 3 black mana, so for most of the game I forewent attacking with Hissing Quagmire to leave up Grasp. On the last turn, I drew a Trangress the Mind to see my opponent's hand of Immolating Glare and Negate, then activated my Quagmire and minused Nissa for lethal.

There were a few interesting spots in the tournament proper. In the first game of the second round, I had a mana-light draw and my opponent answered my first few threats, so all I had going was a Nissa against my opponent's Saheeli. My opponent's turns were so weak he almost certainly had Felidar Guardian in hand, but he didn't have white mana or a fourth land. So when he scried an Attune to the top and found Plains, I knew I was dead the following turn. I had both Grasp of Darkness and Fatal Push in hand, but only a single black mana and no way to trigger Revolt. So I minused Nissa to 1 on my two plants and attacked his Saheeli to 1, hoping he would kill Nissa with Saheeli's +1 before going for the combo. Thankfully he did, so I was able to Push his Guardian and then kill his Saheeli. I drew the lands for my Gearhulk, which carried me the rest of the way.

Round 4, I lost a quick game 1 after mulliganing into a hand with a bunch of Traverses that needed an instant or artifact for Delirium but never got there. On the play for game 2, I boarded into a fairly greedy configuration with all my Nissas and all my Scroungers because my opponent's sideboarding looked pretty involved and I figured I could afford to be more aggressive on the play even if my opponent didn't sideboard into planeswalker midrange. My hand for game 2 had a bunch of tapped lands and I skipped playing Grim Flayer on 2 to guarantee a turn 3 Nissa, which is normally an awful play because of Heart of Kiran, but I got rewarded when opponent curved Ballista into Oath of Liliana on my plant. Game 3, my opponent didn't touch his sideboard so I boarded even greedier despite being on the draw, removing my 2 remaining Fatal Pushes. That ultimately didn't matter though, after my opponent risked a one-lander on the play rather than mulligan to 5.

The game I'm most proud of this tournament was game 2 of round 5, against end boss Harold Chow. He surprised me with a Fevered Vision on the play which ultimately dealt me 12 damage, and I had to walk a tightrope of managing my hand size, beating him down, and playing around Torrential Gearhulk over a protracted game. The game was too long and complicated to describe in detail, and I may or may not have forgotten about a Scrapheap Scrounger in my graveyard for a couple turns during that balancing act. Even so, I was happy with how I'd played.

To conclude, a brief sideboarding guide against the major decks of the format. The usual caveat emptor of how sideboarding should depend on the exact cards in your opponent's deck, how your opponent plays, and how you think he'll sideboard applies in this format even more than others because of how much variation there is within archtypes. Still, I hope this guide will illustrate what's important in each matchup.  

BG on the play: -2 Walking Ballista -2 Gnarlwood Dryad -1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade -1 Grapple with the Past

+1 Ob Nixilis Reignited +1 Noxious Gearhulk +1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury +1 Tireless Tracker +2 Ruinous Path

on the draw: -1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade -1 Verdurous Gearhulk

+2 Gnarlwood Dryad

Basically, you want all your removal for big creatures and all your cards that are resilient to removal, since your opponent will likely be on a similar plan. Verdurous Gearhulk is a lot worse in this matchup postboard, as making an 8/8 is asking to get blown out by Ob Nixilis or Noxious Gearhulk and smaller creatures will often have traded or gotten picked off by turn 5.

Mirrors and pseudo-mirrors are defined by BG's high density of 2-drops. The player going first will almost always have a play on turn 2, and the player on the draw will often have to spend their second turn answering that threat rather than developing their own because leaving a Flayer or Snake in play is so risky. The Gnarlwood Dryads are excellent on the draw as they let you break that parity, but on the play you want to get ahead and stay ahead.

Mardu max greed: -4 Fatal Push -2 Grasp of Darkness -2 Rishkar, Peema Renegade -1 Verdurous Gearhulk -1 Walking Ballista

+3 Transgress the Mind +2 Ruinous Path +1 Natural State +1 Scrapheap Scrounger +1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury +1 Tireless Tracker +1 Blossoming Defense

min greed: -3 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar -2 Scrapheap Scrounger -1 Grapple with the Past -1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury

+2 Ruinous Path +2 Natural Obsolescence +1 Natural State +1 Blossoming Defense +1 Tireless Tracker

Sideboarding in this matchup is tricky because you have to guess whether your opponent is sideboarding into a midrange deck or if she'll stay aggressive with Hearts of Kiran. The max greed configuration is if you know your opponent is playing the exact GP Utrecht list and will always transform. The min greed configuration is if you think your opponent will resubmit her game 1 deck. In practice, you want to be somewhere between the two configurations based on what cards you saw from your opponent, whether you're on the play or the draw, and how far you think your opponent will commit to the planeswalker plan. (Eg. if you think they might leave in Hearts or Scroungers but also board in Oath of Lilianas.) The cards you want against the two setups are wildly divergent, so the key is trimming rather than cutting for game 2 and reconfiguring again for game 3 if the match comes to that.

4c Saheeli on the play: -2 Gnarlwood Dryad -2 Fatal Push -1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar -1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade -1 Grapple with the Past -1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury

+3 Transgress the Mind +2 Ruinous Path +1 Kalitas, Traitor to Ghet +1 Scrapheap Scrounger +1 Tireless Tracker

on the draw: -2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar -1 Verdurous Gearhulk

+2 Gnarlwood Dryad +1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

Push is unreliable as it only kills Servant without Revolt, and Nissa dies quite easily between thopters, Oath of Chandra damage, and Saheeli. Gonti and Grapple are just weak cards in the matchup. I leave a couple Push in because I value the tempo a Revolted Push on a 3-drop or Guardian generates, and Nissa on the play is still quite powerful. I want to max out on interaction with planeswalkers, as that's how 4c Saheeli usually wins. Kalitas is a little vulnerable to Chandra, but while he's in play 4c Saheeli can no longer block favorably.

Gnarlwood Dryads again show up on the draw but not the play because on the draw they let you develop against a Servant of the Conduit without mortal fear of a turn 3 Chandra. Even if 4c Saheeli doesn't have a Servant, the Dryads will still let you break the parity of 2-mana removal for 2-mana creatures and make it more difficult for your opponent to set up Chandra against a single creature. The Dryads aren't necessary on the play because you'll have had more opportunities to develop before Chandra becomes relevant.  

Temur Tower -4 Fatal Push -2 Gnarlwood Dryad -2 Walking Ballista -2 Rishkar, Peema Renegade -1 Verdurous Gearhulk

+3 Transgress the Mind +2 Natural Obsolescence +1 Natural State +1 Ob Nixilis Reignited +1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury +1 Tireless Tracker +1 Blossoming Defense +1 Scrapheap Scrounger

No shenanigans here, just bad cards out and good cards in. The only debatable part of this plan is leaving in Grasps of Darkness, but I like them because they both kill the Whirler Virtuosos and Shielded Aether Thieves the Tower deck will have postboard and let you win combat against Torrential Gearhulk.

I'm not playing GP New Jersey because of school, but if I were I'd likely play the same 75. The only change I'd make is moving the Kalitas to the maindeck over either the Gonti or a Verdurous Gearhulk. Kalitas is an excellent game 1 card against almost everything, and the mirror, where Gonti and Gearhulk are best, is much less common now.

Thanks for reading. I didn't think I'd qualify for the Pro Tour again after starting school, so I'm pretty ecstatic.

props: Jake, for lending me Grim Flayers and his luckiest Grapple with the Past Nathan, for reminding me play-draw matters the group chat, for being great CFB, for an excellently run tournament Tireless Tracker, for never getting tired slops: Hunter, for ever doubting medium GB Felidar Guardian, Winding Constrictor, and Heart of Kiran, because why

[housebeleren]

The Rare & Mythic Cycles in Throne of Eldraine

Throne of Eldraine previews have finally wrapped up, so it’s time to start taking a look at all the cards and seeing where they are likely to have impact. One thing I love to do is start with the major cycles in a new set, and rank them by format. So let’s take a look at the main cycles in Throne of Eldraine and see what we’ve got to work with!

Art: John Avon

Mythic Colored Artifacts

The big Mythic cycle is an Artifact for each color that represents the most valuable relic possessed by each Kingdom. Each one is expensive, but has a cost reduction mechanic that makes the card cheaper by having lots of something that Kingdom/color cares about (White: Creatures, Blue: Spells cast, Black: Dead Creatures, Red: Attacking Creatures, Green: Big Creatures). Then, each one has effects that tie into the same theme. Let’s check out each one by relevance:

Limited

The Circle of Loyalty - I feel like this might be a bit controversial at first, but I would absolutely expect The Circle of Loyalty to be a limited bomb. I’m comparing it to Ethereal Absolution, which isn’t identical, but shares a lot in common. It’s a 6 drop anthem effect, to start. But while Absolution weakens the opponents’ board too, Circle of Loyalty is easier to cast and will not be at all difficult to get out for 4 or even 3 mana. Then, the creatures it pumps out are even bigger, and doesn’t require exiling a creature from a graveyard to do so. All told, I think it’s going to overperform and end games. You should run this.

Embercleave - Again, the lower starting casting cost is a huge benefit here. And, once again, the hurdle to jump through is super minor, and it should be super easy to get this out for 4 mana. Compare it to Uncaged Fury, a fantastic combat trick. If you can cast this for 3, it’s strictly better because the buff sticks around, and that is worth an extra 1-2 mana anyway. I’d basically always run this.

The Great Henge - The starting cost on this is much higher than the first two, and it’s unlikely you’ll get too much of a discount. But, it does make mana right away, so if you can cast this for 5 or 6, and then immediately play a 2 drop with it, that’s a pretty good turn and not at all unreasonable. And from there, it’ll just keep creating value.

The Cauldron of Eternity - This one has the heftiest starting cost, but will become significantly cheaper as the game goes on. Once you land it, it is a powerful value engine. The only reason I put it this low is that it’s completely unplayable in the early or even mid game, which means it’s quite possible you’ll be killed while it sits dead in your hand.

The Magic Mirror - This is the only one I think is basically limited-unplayable. Compare it to The Immortal Sun. I’d much rather have that suite of abilities for a guaranteed 6 mana than this that does literally nothing for a full turn.

Constructed

The Cauldron of Eternity - This may be optimistic, but I absolutely think this has a home in Standard as a creature-based finisher. You’ll quickly out-value your opponent once this hits the field.

The Great Henge - Ghalta decks may be rotating out, but this card is a huge incentive for Green stompy decks to keep going. It could also see a home in a Green/Blue deck that cares about the counters.

The Circle of Loyalty - Knights decks look like they’re absolutely going to be a thing in new Standard, and this is a cheap anthem and a way to pump out more relevant tokens in that build. It’s niche, but it works.

The Magic Mirror - I think control has better options, but there are decks like Izzet and Dimir that very quickly get tons of cards in their graveyards that might be able to get this down to a castable number. My only fear is that aggressive decks make this look beyond silly, and there are lots of those in the format.

Embercleave - My issue with Embercleave is that it cares about lots of creatures attacking, but only buffs one single creature. I wish it gave a buff to all attacking creatures you control or something. As it is, it fights with the decks that could run it, since they’d probably rather have another body.

Commander

The Cauldron of Eternity - Once again, the Cauldron is the king here. Recursion is amazing in EDH, and decks like Grenzo will absolutely break this.

The Great Henge - Some monogreen decks with big creatures could be into this, as well as big stompy decks like Dinos and counters decks like Ezuri or Experiment Kraj. 

Embercleave - Voltron decks will like Embercleave for Double Strike & Trample to help them push through damage. Maybe something like Zurgo Helmsmasher could do good stuff with this.

The Magic Mirror - It’s really slow, but it’s a powerful effect given enough time. Maybe some turns decks or pillowfort decks could find a home for this as a way to fill up their hand, but Artifact removal is plentiful enough in the format to make me nervous.

The Circle of Loyalty - Anthem effects are always worst in EDH than in other formats, so I expect the only deck to run this is Knights tribal.

Rare Leaders

I love Legendary creatures, and this set is giving us a bunch. For this cycle, we have monocolor Legends that all cost 3 of their respective color, and has an effect that boosts that color. This heavily pushes monocolor play and will make these, on the whole, mostly aimed for Standard constructed than EDH. But let’s take a look.

Limited

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell - Hear me out on this one. First, having this as a 4 drop is actually a boon here, since it’ll be a lot easier to cast on curve at 4 than at 3. Then, barring Instant removal, he’ll have an effect on the board right away by making your existing creatures +2/+0. This is a big punch coming out of nowhere, and if he sticks around, he’s going to make your whole deck that much better.

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Ayara is more useful than she seems at first glance. Automatically granting Extort (effectively) to all your Black creatures can add up quickly, and as the game continues she can turn creatures that have outlived their usefulness into card draw. I suspect she’ll be good.

Gadwick the Wizened - It’s a bit of a tossup for me if Gadwick will actually be better than Ayara. You really want to cast him for 5 or more before he’s excellent, but even at 4 mana he’s decent. You need him to stick around to generate value, but he can run away with things if left unchecked.

Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig - Yorvo is huge and just keeps getting bigger. That said, removal looks strong in this format, and it won’t be hard to take him out before he gets really out of control. That, and lacking Trample or other evasion, he can get blanked by chumps. We’ll have to see how the format shakes out if he’s just okay or bonkers.

Linden, the Steadfast Queen - Linden is decent, but the lifegain is pretty incremental of a bonus. If it were on attack or block, I’d be more interested, since then it wouldn’t matter if you’re on offense or defense.

Constructed

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell - Mono-Red Cavalcade is a major deck in Standard right now, and this card boosts the power of every card in that deck by 2 per hit, without actually pumping their power and breaking the strategy. That seems crazy good, and I think Cavalcade decks will jam a couple of this card right away.

Linden, the Steadfast Queen - This assessment is entirely contingent on if the lifegain deck continues to be a thing in Standard post-rotation, but if it does, this is a huge boost, and will turbopower Ajani’s Pridemates and other similar cards.

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Aristocrats decks have been on the fringes of Standard since Ravnica Allegiance, and one more outlet that also buys you time could be exactly what they need to break out.

Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig - Mono-Green decks are losing many of their most important pieces, but there’s enough support coming in this set that I could see them piecing together some sort of a comeback.

Gadwick the Wizened - Gadwick is a decent mana sink, but there are just better options. Mass Manipulation or Hydroid Krasis are your better ramp targets, and Control has better finishers than this. I don’t think he’ll make much of a splash in Constructed unless the format changes massively.

Commander

Gadwick the Wizened - Commander, on the other hand, is an entirely different game. Mono-Blue decks will have tons of ways to abuse this. Is it better than Stroke of Genius? Maybe in some builds and not others, but just the fact that I can make the comparison bodes well.

Ayara, First of Locthwain - Ayara seems very promising. She’s a win condition and card draw all in one, which is a strong combination. There are probably better generals, but Ayara looks fun to build around, and she’ll go in the 99 of plenty of other decks.

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell - Torbran seems like an insane addition to decks like Purphoros, but could also lead his own red deck in a similar vein. There’s some promise here.

Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig - Probably not as good as a number of other big Green stompy decks, so you’re likely to stick with Ghalta for go tall & Ezuri for go wide. But not the worst option out there.

Linden, the Steadfast Queen - Righteous Cause isn’t a great card on its own, and having a cheaper version in the Command Zone doesn’t make it much better. I doubt Linden has much EDH potential.

Rare Castles

The Rare cycle of Lands in this set are are all pretty universally great. So I’m going to do this lightning round style. Let’s go!

Limited - For Limited, Castle Embereth is probably the best, since it can close out games quickly, and Castle Ardenvale isn’t far behind. Castles Locthwain & Vantress are pretty easy ways to gain advantage, but are a bit slow so they won’t come into play in all games. Castle Garenbrig seems not amazing, but there isn’t a lot of reason not to play it, so that’s fine.

Constructed - All 5 Castles are going to see extensive Standard play, and it will mainly be the metagame that determines which is on top at any given point. Castle Garenbrig also has a ton of Modern potential, with the other 4 showing some promise in Eternal formats, but they’re less certain than the Green one. Because, y’know, Titan.

Commander - Castle Garenbrig again seems really good here, and Mono Green decks will basically all play this as a no-downside Temple of the False God. Castle Vantress seems excellent, and will be an amazing inclusion in Aminatou builds. Castle Locthwain is good, but has more downside here than in 60-card formats, and Castles Ardenvale and Embereth are going to be occasional inclusions in niche decks.

Uncommon Legendary Knights

Okay fine. I know I said the Rare & Mythic cycles, but I’m going to keep going just a bit and take a look at the two other cycles of note, starting with the cycle of Legendary Uncommon Knights. Each of these Knights exemplifies the attributes of the kingdom they’re in, and each one has potential to see plenty of play. Again, I’m going to do this lightning round style.

Limited - Basically all of these are designed for Limited play. Personally, I don’t love Syr Faren, since he is usually going to get killed early and is useless as a topdeck. Syr Carah is a flat out bomb, and the others are all above average playables.

Constructed - In Standard, things are somewhat reversed. My guess is Syr Faren is actually the most likely to to see play in various Green stompy builds. Syr Konrad and Syr Carah also have potential as 1-2 ofs in various builds. I doubt Syr Elenora and Syr Alin are unlikely to see play outside of limited.

Commander - This one’s a no-brainer. Syr Konrad the Grim is absurd in Commander, and is probably the best new Legend in the set after Emry, Lurker in the Loch. It’s beyond simple to build a deck that can go nuts with any number of pieces every mono Black deck has. Besides Syr Konrad, the Awesome, I can see Syr Carah having niche applications in mono Red decks, while the other three are unlikely to see much play.

Common Effect Lands

Last, but definitely not least, are the Common lands that have an effect when they enter the battlefield, provided you have enough of the right basic Land type in play. These effects may seem minor, but they can make the difference between winning and losing in the right circumstances. And some of them are surprisingly potent:

Limited - Mystic Sanctuary and Witch’s Cottage are pretty much on the same level of awesome here, rebuying your best threat or removal in the late game. Gingerbread Cabin is awesome in the dedicated Food deck and shouldn’t be underestimated. Dwarven Mine & Idyllic Grange are both role-players, but not up to the level of the other three.

Constructed - Here, it’s all Mystic Sanctuary, which has applications beyond Standard and into eternal formats like Modern. Buying back a Time Warp will give Modern turns decks a whole new level of consistency. In Standard, it’s likely to see play in Control decks until rotation. Witch’s Cottage will potentially see play as well in mono Black decks for some extra resilience. After those, I think it’s possible Dwarven Mine will show up in mono Red, as it does make a 1/1 that plays well with Cavalcade of Calamity. I doubt Gingerbread Cabin & Idyllic Grange will see play.

Commander - Once again, Mystic Sanctuary is the king here. It’s going to see tons of play in mono Blue decks, as well as some other builds that have combo pieces to get back. Similarly, Witch’s Cottage could work in decks that already run Mortuary Mire. As for the other three... I wouldn’t count on any of them having an impact.

So there we have it. The most impactful cycles from Throne of Eldraine. All of these have cards that are going to see play in Standard until rotation, and a few will even see play in eternal formats. 

Good times.

[holoir]

As a new player, you will have heard something about Aggro, Midrange, Control and Combo decks as being the different deck archetypes. In the Blood Warriors Guild, we are running a coaching section for new and experienced players. Recently, we discussed a few questions on the different match-ups:

What are good match-ups against each archetype?

Like what beats aggro, what beats midrange and what beats control/ combo? Do you have some examples?

The answers might be interesting for a wider audience and we want to make it easier for new players to get familiar with The Elder Scrolls Legends.

How do the deck-types beat Aggro?

Your Aggro beating Aggro

Getting under aggro is one way of beating aggro, either with faster aggro, or prophecy, for example. “Getting under” means you are beating down your opponent than he can beat down you. A crusader deck that is tokens, mostly yellow, is very fast and a good ladder climber, and beats most other aggro. Challenge is getting Divine Fervor up fast enough to last through an Ice Storm, against control. Another style of Token are the various Dwemer decks . They are neutral so could be paired with any sort of two color combination quite well.

Another way of beating aggro is by putting down cards of greater efficiency on curve, avoiding unnecessary trades, and this is through tempo. Control does this by surviving the early game, getting the cards they give you by breaking your runes, then recovery, and finally by achieving a better board state, and finishing them.

Your Midrange deck against Aggro

Midrange and mid-gro (=mid-aggro) decks have an earlier recovery stage, putting creatures with greater value in the lanes in front of aggro, swiftly gaining a superior board state with more or larger creatures, and eliminating aggro’s creatures before smashing to the face. The key is to answer the threats of aggro with larger creatures, taking the field lane so they have to switch to defense. Then you have the choice each round to make beneficial trades, or to go face. The field lane gives you this choice, whereas the shadow lane gives that choice to your opponent.

Your Control-deck against Aggro

Hive Defender

Ice Storm

The control method of beating aggro is to delay it, then recover/ stabilize. Recovery is also called stabilizing by some. An example of stabilization would be mass-removal with an Ice Storm, or it could be an “on curve” Hive Defender (dropped turn 4, a “4-drop”). Anything that stops their forward momentum works. Guards have to stick, however, while an Ice Storm achieves a stop, board clears, and doesn’t have to stick.

Protector of the Innocent

Morkul Gatekeeper

Shrieking Harpy

Wardcrafter

Khuul Lawkeeper

Cleric of Kyne

There are early cards in every color that help to slow down the momentum of aggro, so even a control or midrange deck needs some early game. Examples of this are

Red’s Protector of the Innocent, or Morkul Gatekeeper

Blue has Firebolt, Shrieking Harpy, or Wardcrafter to name a few;

Yellow Cleric of Kyne who is underrated, Execute, but also countering with tokens works, Khuul Lawkeeper is a great early defender and has rally, and of course Hive Defender. So that’s enough examples because going through each color would be exhaustive.

Basically, you could be beaten down to 1 life and still win. The better way is to have some drain cards or ways to gain life. There is an art to it, when it’s done well you time the recovery to get a few cards from rune breaks, then come back up in life. Don’t try to gain life too early if you want that card advantage, but if you don’t care because you have draw engines that are better, then gain away.  Examples of that would be of course, Ash Berserker, Gamblers (kind of, engines are more like every round, or death), Disciple of Namira, Altar of Despair, to name a few (Altar being mid-late game). Petamax has his name indelibly attached to the Abomination deck, he could describe that one better, its sheer card draw – then journey – then crush.

Aggro – Midrange – Control: Beating Midrange Decks

Underworld Vigilante

Sower of Revenge

Sharp Eyed Ashkan

Midrange, or mid-gro, are decks with a curve more around 2-3, focused on winning the game after round 5, but before the late game. I’ve seen some midrange decks that have a few 7, 8, or even 9 drops, but most efficiently they will top out at 5-6 drops. Midrange Warrior is the classic example, starting typically with 2 cost cards (2-drops), and ending with Sower of Revenge, sometimes with a couple of 6 -drops (though a well-curved mid-gro warrior deck ends with Sowers and possibly a couple Underworld Vigilantes, and anything above that is a dead card in your hand when the opponent dies, or doesn’t help because you’ve lost to control already). A good 6-drop here is Triumphant Jarl. A better one is Sharp-Eyed Ashkan, because it procs even if you’re at one life, drops the dead cards and picks up 3 new cards.

Your Aggro against midrange

Getting under midrange decks is a way to beat them, of course, by playing aggro. This means being more aggro than them, having a curve that is higher earlier, and probably more draw. Play and go face, and the better aggro decks have good card synergy, so the cards that you play are low cost and buff each other up. Then go broadly across the lanes quickly and overwhelm the midrange decks with speed. Midrange decks try to slow down aggro with defenders that are larger. But aggro has some big creatures too, and can play to shadow lane (with the expectation that they will draw faster and get one hit or more per creature) and add the face damage up quickly. Aggro also has ways to deal with guards, which are the only way to block attackers.

Your Control against midrange

Sanctuary Pet

Quicksilver Crossbow

Control beats midrange decks often, by dealing with threats until the mid deck runs out of steam. By using creature removal and guards, or cards with lethal and multiple vectors (Sanctuary Pet shackles one creature, then Quicksilver Crossbow kills another, and finally the Pet kills another threat next turn).

Tribunal Control can use Execute, Firebolt, Lightning Bolt, Javelin, and Cast into Time, along with Barrow Stalker, Vigilant Ancestor, Hive Defender, Emperor’s Blade, etc… The aim is to slow them down, remove, then gain life, and finally lay down large creatures and go face in one single large wave.

Archein Venomtongue

Quicksilver Crossbow

Sword of the Inferno

The Ramp Warrior Control archetype controls the board and builds up ramp with Tree Minder but also with Archein Venomtongue and Quicksilver Crossbow, as well as the Sword of the Inferno. The game plan is to then combo the midrange deck for the win using Unstoppable Rage combos (e.g. with Night Talon Lord or Vigilant Giant).

Goblin Skulk

Cruel Firebloom

Telvanni Archanist

Black Hand Messenger

Telvanni Control uses more creatures than removal, but has the advantage of very good synergies between cards, cards that do damage and gain life (Black Hand Messenger), cards with shackle and lethal (Sanctuary Pet), combinations that draw multiple cards while simultaneously removing large threats (combo of Goblin Skulk, Telvanni Catspaw, and Cruel Firebloom).

Aggro – Midrange – Control: Beating Control decks

If a control deck gets enough removal cards, or the right combination of removal cards and draw engine, you won’t beat the control deck. There’s a reason some competitive players keep playing a majority of control decks in their lineup. That said…

Your Aggro against Control

Fifth Legion Trainer

Ambitious Hireling

Steel Scimitar

Firebolt

Execute

Aggro can beat control by putting a priority on their draw cards, by putting more creatures on the board than control can deal with. The other way aggro beats control is by focusing on raising power or defense to values that make it more difficult to deal with removal cards. Firebolt is cheap but cannot kill a Fifth Legion Trainer alone. Execute can, but Execute cannot deal with anything with a power of 3 or higher. Put down an Ambitious Hireling right after a Fifth Legion Trainer, and you will make the Fifth Legion Trainer a 3/5 creature that cannot be removed by Firebolt, Lightning Bolt, or Execute. You can achieve the same effect with a Steel Scimitar on a Fifth Legion Trainer.

Ice Storm

Immolating Blast

Dawn’s Wrath

The aggro deck must also play around certain control cards, like Ice Storm or Immolating Blast, both 6-drops, or Dawn’s Wrath, an 8-drop. If possible don’t play all the cards in your hand before the control opponent has 6 or 8 magicka, or raise the defense of your creatures above 3 defense for the majority of your creatures, or drop wards on them if you’re playing blue. These are ways of playing around Ice Storm.

To play around Dawn’s Wrath, just play to each lane rather than just filling one, but by that time the aggro player may have lost anyway. When the control player has 8 magicka at hand they can generally play two removals or a removal and another card, and may start playing their big finishing creatures.

Your Midrange against Control

It is harder for midrange decks to play around control than it is for aggro, because they cannot put down as many creatures. Control is very good at dealing with one creature at a time. One method, though, is to play that one creature at a time, maintaining hand size, to draw out all the removal spells before putting down mass creatures. Hopefully the control opponent starts using mass removal spells to remove only one or two creatures instead of wiping out your whole board. Midrange generally has larger creatures too, so those cards are more resistant to damage removal. Here, the idea is to bait out the hard removal (Javelins, Edict of Azura, Cast into Time), and then take advantage of their absence to play creatures that cannot be removed by a single damage removal card like Lightning Bolt.

Combo decks

Frequently, combos are already included in the other deck archetypes. Combo decks are really decks that have an OTK, i.e. a one-turn-kill, combination of cards. That or the deck is made up of several combinations that can achieve the death of the opponent in various ways, but the deck isn’t about killing fast, killing steadily, or killing by stifling the opponent, like the other archetypes. Nix-Ox Combo is the best combo deck, was and still is, because it’s combo is very consistent and there are many ways to get the combo off.

Combo decks also try to achieve stabilization against the other deck types by several ways, by defensive creatures, removal, or creature superiority. Support Mage decks use supports to achieve this. Nix-ox uses Telvanni Control. Ramp Warrior is another control/combo deck, and uses Archein Venomtongue and items to remove threats while ramping.

Piercing Twilight

Cast Into Time

Hallowed Deathpriest

Since an article could be written solely on each combo deck style it’s a matter for another set of articles. Suffice it to say, the way you beat a combo deck is by removing the pieces that are used for the combo. Or defeating them faster than they can get the combo off. If an aggro or midrange deck applies enough pressure each round, the opponent won’t be able to keep the combo cards safe in his hand. Also, there’s Hallowed Deathpriest (who turns the highest power creature in the opponent’s hand into a Mummy), and if they’ve had to discard a card they use (like Nix,-Ox or Genius Pathmage), there’s Piercing Twilight. There’s also Cast into Time to banish a combo piece.

In conclusion, there are many ways to deal with each archetype, and some tried and true strategies, and I wish you all the best of luck in learning them all, because new cards are coming and there will be new cards to deal with soon.

Aggro, Midrange, Control - The Ways and Means of Archetypal Match-ups - Awesome #teslegends guide by 1andonlymidstorm @blooddrunk007 As a new player, you will have heard something about Aggro, Midrange, Control and Combo decks as being the different deck archetypes.

[flauntpage]

The Ben Simmons Game – Observations from Sixers 103, Grizzlies 95

That felt like a “professional win.”

I don’t know how to describe that phrase other than to say that the Sixers took care of business against an above-average team on their home floor, and they did it by answering runs with some tough buckets, playing solid defense, and coming up with key momentum plays at the right time.

Memphis isn’t a bad team. They were 13-8 coming into Sunday’s matchup while sitting at 5th place in the west. I doubt they’ll score enough points to be be a consistent playoff contender as this season progresses, but they’re a tough defensive team and they just sort of grind out results while making opponents work on almost every possession. They don’t blow teams out and they don’t get blown out; they just sort of find a way to be competitive in almost every game they play.

To that point, Joel Embiid didn’t have an amazing night – just 4 of 13 shooting for him. JJ Redick didn’t get started until the 2nd quarter and Jimmy Butler didn’t really start rolling until the fourth quarter.

Ben Simmons, however, was on his game from the tip-off and really had an aggressive night attacking the rim, posting up various Grizzlies, and playing staunch defense.

He had two incredibly important plays in the fourth quarter, two that I think really helped swing momentum back in the Sixers’ favor and solidify the win.

The first one took place at 84-81, with Memphis starting to find a rhythm and the Sixers stagnating a bit. After a Grizz bucket, JJ Redick threw the ball away, only for Simmons to somehow keep it in play:

Scrappy play, and one that kicked off an 8-0 Sixers run with that really difficult Butler finish.

I asked Jimmy about this sequence after the game:

It starts with (Ben’s) hustle, you know what I mean? If he just says “F it” and let’s the ball go out of bounds, the game could go either way. But because he put in that extra energy and kept the ball in and we made the bucket, we were able to go down on the other end and get a couple of stops. But it all started with that play right there, and if he doesn’t do that, we don’t go on an 8-0 run.

The other play I picked out took place a few minutes later, with Memphis cutting the lead back down to four with an 8-1 run. On the ensuing possession, Butler had the ball slapped away, Memphis found a quick outlet, and Simmons was able to chase down MarShon Brooks and poke it away from behind:

The Sixers came back down the floor, got the ball to Butler, and earned a couple of foul shots to extend the lead back to five with about 90 seconds remaining on the clock.

Brett Brown brought up that play, unprompted, after the game:

What I do know is this: There were a few things that happened tonight that were sort of, not being overly dramatic, defining moments in small ways, if you will. The back tip and coming up with the steal in transition, like you know, the game’s kind of in the balance, but he stalked that down and his breakaway speed we’ve seen on offense, but you saw it on defense, as like a typical college drill would do. Just stalk you down and he tipped it and came up with the play. His defensive mindfulness, his commitment to playing defense, for way more possessions in a game than we’ve seen lately. His willingness to slide over to the four and let T.J. have the ball and make passes out of the elbow and do stuff. Like all of those things stood out and I agree with you that he’s moving in a really clear, positive direction. For me I feel it, I see it as well, but I feel it. He was our bell ringer tonight.

Ben had a wonderful game, maybe one of the 2-3 best performances he’s put in this year. He finished with 19 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists while shooting 8-10 from the field. Really the only blemish on an otherwise outstanding effort was his 3-8 mark from the free throw line. Otherwise, he was getting down in the paint, swapping between point guard and power forward, and just doing the Lord’s work on both sides of the floor.

“Oh my God, I’m gonna get a layup on this play”

There was a third key play involving Simmons, but it was more about Redick and it deserves its own section in the recap.

It was 97-89 with about 49 seconds on the clock when T.J. McConnell was judged to have fouled Marc Gasol on a made bucket from about 10 to 12 feet out. I personally did not think it was a foul, but I’m not the ref. T.J. may have impeded Gasol, who came close to taking McConnell’s head off with an elbow, but I honestly would just not have blown the whistle at all and allowed play to continue.

Either way, Gasol missed the free throw, Jaren Jackson got the offensive rebound and scored a layup, and Memphis ripped off a four-point possession to cut the lead back down to four.

Philly called a timeout and came back with this:

Wonderful bit of improvisation there from Redick, and a great stuff from Simmons to hit him with the perfect pass. That made it a six-point game with 37 seconds remaining and essentially secured the win.

Brett Brown explained that they weren’t looking for a cut to the rim here, it was just one of their basic “get in” plays from a sideline out of bounds situation:

I try to take four players, and we move them around from time to time, but the objective is simple; it sounds like that’s the only go, and yes it is, is just to get it in. If you can just get it in in that environment, that’s a good thing, and you expect them to trap you and probably not hack you and stop the clock. Most teams in that environment will have one aggressive trap, make you throw it out, try to steal behind it, then foul. JJ went into the spot that we have him going into, Ben made a hell of a pass, I was surprised he was as open as he was, but there was a lot going on in that environment with the objective being to get it in. I’d be lying to say that’s the thing we thought was going to be there. That’s not true. But the space and the speed create our ability to get it in.

And here’s JJ elaborating on that:

That was just our ‘get in’ play. It wasn’t meant to be a layup. Jimmy and I are kind of looking at each other like, ‘are they really going to guard it this way?’ We normally wouldn’t see them line up to guard it that way because normally we have everybody above the three point line. But I kind of just looked at Ben, and before he even threw it in I was like, “oh my God, I’m gonna get a layup on this play.” I don’t know if they were supposed to switch or what they were supposed to do, but they messed it up.

I asked JJ if there were any similarities on this play to what Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons did against the Jazz a few weeks back on that SLOB sequence, but he explained that the backdoor in that game was part of the scheme and not necessarily a read of the defense or an audible.

That was more by design (the Jazz play). In general, if a team is gonna switch, they might have the big, whoever is on Joel, sort of drop back near the free throw line. In general, when I catch that ball, it’s generally more on the Malone spot, sort of mid-wing or open-corner. It’s not to get a play at the rim. It’s just to get the ball in. They’re either going to foul or we’re going to run a play to milk clock.

Like Redick says, there’s generally going to be a center or power forward sitting on the foul line, and Redick I think usually just cuts above him to catch the ball on the near side in that foul-line extended or low corner area:

Memphis plays this in a funky way so Redick just backdoors into the white circle and gets an easy layup instead.

Other notes:

there was a sequence in which Ivan Rabb picked up 3 fouls against Joel Embiid in something like 45 seconds

Wilson Chandler was unavailable last night due to the knee vs. thigh he suffered on Friday night. Mike Muscala started, played 27 minutes, and scored 8 points on 2-4 shooting while grabbing 7 rebounds and tossing 5 assists. Amir Johnson played 10 minutes off the bench and Simmons got a good chunk of time at the four.

Embiid definitely took a swing at Shelvin Mack in the third quarter on a transition opportunity when Mack was holding him to slow him down. There was a slight elbow after the whistle, too. Joel looked a little tired last night, in my opinion.

Furkan Korkmaz hit a pair of three pointers last night and I feel like his defense is improving slightly as well. Brett had a good quote on that which I’ll use for a sidebar story in the future.

Butler did most of his scoring in the fourth quarter and hit some pretty tough shots. He can be quiet for 3 quarters if he’s going to give the Sixers clutch shot making in the 4th. That’s why you traded for him.

+16 for McConnell, who closed out the game at point guard with Simmons at the four. He had a solid performance.

All of these home wins are nice, but we’re judging this season on what happens against Toronto, Boston, and Milwaukee. The Sixers get another “barometer” game in Canada this week, so we’ll see how far they’ve come over the first quarter of the season.

The post The Ben Simmons Game – Observations from Sixers 103, Grizzlies 95 appeared first on Crossing Broad.

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[khanimatedadaptationau]

Season 1: Episode 3: Olympus Coliseum

After Jiminy recaps the previous episode, we get a somewhat hilarious scene of Sora literally freezing the Highwind’s console while practicing his new Blizzard magic. Donald scolds him, while Sora argues that he has to keep his skills sharp for the next time they fight the Heartless. Goofy suggests that they find a place to train, instead of firing off powerful magic in an enclosed space. Goofy then radios Chip and Dale, who alert them to a tournament at a place called “Olympus Coliseum”, where they should be able to hone their skills. Donald uses a weak fire spell to thaw out the controls, and they blast off for Olympus. Cue theme song!

Olympus Coliseum’s courtyard is filled with a ton of people training for the tournament, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy sticking out like a sore thumb.  When they step into the vestibule though, it’s pretty much lifted straight from the game, except Sora’s facial expressions while trying to push the stone block are hilarious. They do actually convince Phil to let Sora train until the tournament starts. The training montage is pretty cool, with Sora, Donald, and Goofy smashing barrels, and Donald teaching Sora how to use Thunder magic. Of course, they’re kicked out shortly before the tournament, with Phil laughing off Sora wanting to enter since he’s not a hero. Sora storms out as all the training heroes pour in, and we have grumpy Sora. As in, one or two lines, but still, hearing him grumble about how he saved Traverse Town and still doesn’t get any respect is kinda funny. Regardless, Hades then pops in and gives Sora, Donald, and Goofy passes for the Tournament, which Sora then immediately presents to Phil, allowing the trio to register.

Eerily enough, instead of any the heroes we saw training, the trios first opponents are some Heartless. Namely, Power Wilds and Bouncy Wilds. Sadly, none of them really get much of a chance to shine since all the Heartless are taken care of in a montage (though Goofy slipping on a banana peel and sliding into Donald is hilarious), which is also a bit of a disappointment when we get the debut of the Blue Rhapsodies and Yellow Operas. That said, we can see some audience reactions, including a man in a black coat, who doesn’t really visibly emote even as the crowd around him cheers. After the montage, Phil wishes that Hercules was there to see these Prelims, but he’s already qualified for the games and so he doesn’t need to compete in the Prelims and instead decided to visit his father, Zeus. Phil then notes that Sora’s next opponent is a man named Cloud Strife.

Cloud, meanwhile, is receiving his orders from Hades, to send the Keyblade Wielder to the Underworld. Oh... Never Say Die is in affect in this series... Well...

*ahem*

Anyway, Cloud argues that he was only supposed to “Send Hercules to the Underworld” (oh my word this dialogue is clunky), but Hades urges Cloud to send Sora to the Underworld as well. And I’m sorry but why not just use “eliminate”? Gets the same point across without using the k word and is faster to say. Back on topic, Hades remarks that Cloud will never be able to defeat “his shadow” and find his light, unless he uses the powers of darkness, and in order to master those powers he’ll have to get rid of Sora. “By sending Keyboy over there to the Underworld.” You already used a different euphemism for death, that was completely pointless. Kinda interesting how we can have a man get eaten alive as he screams in pain in the first episode, yet we still can’t say “kill”. Regardless, right as Cloud heads into the arena, Hades remarks that he should prepare plan beta just to be safe. We see six red eyes open in the darkness right as we cut to commercial.

After the commercial break, we have the final battle of Sora, Donald, and Goofy versus Cloud Strife. The battle is incredibly short but tense as Cloud dodges all of the bolts of lightning, toughs through the fire, shatters the ice, deflects Goofy’s shield (disarming him) before literally knocking him out by sending him flying out of the arena (complete with a “Goofy holler” and crash), and knocking Donald out by sending him flying into a pillar while he was busy healing Sora. And oh yeah, when it’s down to just those two, we get Hades orders echoing in Cloud’s head, right as he charges Sora. To his credit, Sora actually does put up a pretty good fight. He stays on the defensive until backed into a corner, where he then blocks Cloud’s attack, dodges behind him and hits him in the head. When Cloud knocks him away and takes flight, Sora notices that he just has that one wing, while dodging out of the way of Omnislash of course. So he interrupts Cloud’s attack by STUNNING HIM WITH THUNDER AND FREEZING HIS WING WITH BLIZZARD! Okay, clearly the team was saving their energy for this fight because now the tables are turned and Cloud’s the one on defensive, until he gets backed into a corner and uses Sonic Blade. However, when Sora’s on the ground but not quite unconscious, Cloud closes in and readies to make the killing blow, but stops just short when the image of a young Aerith crosses his mind. And the way this is handled is pretty creative as everything disappears except for Cloud as Aerith appears behind him. And when he looks at his shadow, it morphs into Sephiroth’s shape. Realizing just what he’s doing, he sheaths his sword and walks away, just in time to for Cerberus to step on him. Cerberus moves to bite the still downed Sora, but is stopped by none other than Herculese! Wow, he is barely in this episode. Sora picks up Donald and flees, along with all the spectators. Save for that guy in the black coat, who the camera lingers on before the scene change.

Donald heals himself, Sora, and Goofy after coming to. Sora suggests that they should help Herc, but Phil insists that Hercules can handle himself. Maybe. Also, you can hear Hercules fighting Cerberus while this is going on. Regardless, Phil relents, and SDG charge into the arena. Herc and Cerberus both look kinda worn out, so Hercules does appreciate the help when Sora, Donald, and Goofy hop in to help.

The battle is actually pretty good. Cerberus shrugs off all of Donald’s spells, relegating him to healing duty, while Sora and Goofy attack the heads. Sora is able to hurt him with magic by hitting him in the eyes, at which point Donald drops back into the fray. The battle ends when Hercules tries to throw Sora behind Cerberus to get him out of the way of an attack, but Sora is, through the power of anime logic, able to redirect his course and hit the base of Cerberus’ middle neck, knocking the creature out.

While the trio (and Hercules) are celebrating, however, Hades poofs in and asks “Why won’t you die?” Sora recognizes him and realizes that he was playing him. Hades then decides to officially introduce himself as “Hades, Lord of the Dead”, which makes me wonder what was up with all the euphemisms earlier. Regardless, we then get several Heartless warping in and we finally get a full on Heartless battle as Herculese charges in to fight Hades as Cloud finally comes to, and gets ushered out by Phil.

This battle shows how much synergy our trio has formed in such a short time, Sora takes out the Red Nocturnes with Blizzard while Donald takes out the Blue Rhapsodies with Fire. When they try to use Thunder magic to take out the Power Wilds, however, Yellow Operas swoop in to absorb the lightning and get supercharged as a result. Oops. However, while Sora and Donald are being hoist by their own petards, Goofy swoops in and knocks the Power and Bouncy Wilds into the Yellow Operas, causing all of them to absorb the electric charge from the Operas. Sora then copies Cloud, utilizing Sonic Blade to take out the stunned Heartless, and throws his Keyblade at the Yellow Operas. It bounces off of the first three, but hilariously enough misses the fourth. A frustrated Sora then simply jumps into the air and slices it in two as it charges it’s next attack, getting a bit of a shock in the process. Right as that happens, Herc flies right into the wall, worn out from his battle with Cerberus. Hades then smirks and throws another blast of fire at Herc in an attempt to take him out. Goofy blocks it with his shield, and Sora and Donald counter with Blizzard. Hades encases himself in a whirlwind of flame to bock the ice, and teleports behind Sora. Sora gets blasted with fire and sent sliding. When Sora gets back up Hades again materializes behind him. This gets him hit in the midsection, forcing him to teleport away again. Then he lobs a fireball at Sora from a distance, and Goofy blocks it with his shield. It then becomes a duel between Hades and Goofy, with Hades lunging at Goofy and trying to burn him with blazing fists while Goofy dodges and blocks his blows, sometimes jabbing him with his shield. Eventually Hades gets a hit on Goofy, and then encased in a block of ice. Turns out Goofy was only distracting Hades so Donald could heal Sora, and the two of them took advantage of the opening to hit Hades while his guard was down. Donald then heals Goofy, and the ice already starts to melt, with Hades himself starting to move. Goofy throws his shield, hitting Hades in the neck and sending him flying. Donald then heals Hercules, and Hades gets back up, lunging at the quartet with murder in his eyes and red-hot flames in his hands. Hercules, meanwhile, starts to glow with a golden aura, and uppercuts Hades so hard he becomes a speck in the sky, falling over the horizon. A sheet of paper falls to the ground, and Sora picks it up. The man in the coat, meanwhile, is revealed to have been watching this whole battle, and comments that he’ll have to keep an eye on the Keyblade’s chosen one, before vanishing into the Darkness.

Phil then names Sora, Donald, and Goofy Junior Heroes (much to Donald’s consternation), noting that while they have the will, they have a long way to go.  Hercules then states that he can’t budge the stone block, even at full strength. Sora then offers to give it a try, asking for Donald and Goofy to help him out. The three of them manage to move the block, revealing a keyhole. The Keyblade then materializes in Sora’s hand and locks it, prompting Sora to wonder what’s going on. The three bid Phil and Hercules farewell and head on out.

However, the episode isn’t over quite yet as Cloud is brooding outside. Sora decides to see what’s bothering him. He had made his deal with Hades so he could use the powers of darkness, thinking it would help him on his quest, since he was looking for someone. When Sora asks who, Cloud vaguely replies with “My light”. Sora admits that he’s also looking for someone, and Cloud wishes him luck, before giving him a Gummi Block, Goofy recognizes it as such, and Cloud passes up Sora’s offer to have a rematch at some point in the future. As soon as the trio departs, however, Cloud has only one thing to say: “You can come out now”, and Sephiroth makes his Disney Channel Debut. Sephiroth comments that there’s darkness in Cloud’s heart now, and that they’ve always been two sides of the same coin, before telling Cloud to join him. Cloud refuses, stating that he’ll never let himself be like Sephiroth ever again, and that he will find his light and rid himself of Sephiroth and the darkness. The two then clash, and the episode ends.

...

Not gonna lie, this one was kinda lackluster. While seeing an Organization member appear this early was unexpected, this episode felt incredibly directionless, not helped by the fact that Sora and co don’t have a goal outside of “find their friends” and that Sephiroth and Cloud never appear again this season. But the fight scenes, when they were allowed to have them, were suitably epic, and Goofy really shined in his toe-to-toe match-up with Hades. But next episode is when the plot starts to get real, and our heroes have a more quantifiable goal.

[junker-town]

Kristaps Porzingis is the right man for New York.

But are the Knicks the right franchise for him? This year will determine a lot.

BOSTON -- Kristaps Porzingis, the one true unicorn, was going to work. The game opened with Al Horford guarding him. Horford is a master of positioning, as crafty as they come, but Horford is 6-9 and Porzingis is 7-3 so the obvious ploy was to shoot over him whenever Porzingis could get an advantage.

KP opened by securing the high post, but his jumper missed the mark. Next he tried attacking the basket on a pick-and-roll, but he couldn’t get all the way to the rim. He then tried to establish low-post position, but there was no entry pass. Finally, he tried to create for himself with a pull-up jumper, but that clanged off the rim.

It went like that for the rest of the night. Porzingis couldn’t connect. Passes and actions that should have funneled through him went nowhere. He couldn’t take advantage of smaller defenders like Horford and Jaylen Brown, and he didn’t do much of anything at all against rookie Semi Ojeleye. For one night, the unicorn was rendered invisible.

His task this season is carrying the team night after night in city after city with all the defensive pressure mounted squarely on his back. Maintaining that level will be the hardest thing for Porzingis. His body makes him unique, and it also makes him a target. He came back from Europe with a maintenance plan to get through the 82 games, focusing on rest and recovery.

“If I can stay fresh throughout the 82 games, then I’ll be fine and I know I’ll be ready to play at a high level,” Porzingis said. “Eating, sleeping, all that. Just non-stop thinking about that. That’s what I did this summer and that’s what I’m going to try to do this season.”

He will have to deal with smaller defenders -- they will all be smaller -- getting into his space and trying to cut him down at the knees. He will have to deal with double and even triple teams. Opponents will be physical with him because how else do you try to stop a 7-3 dude with this kind of game? He knows that, and he thinks he will be better prepared.

Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

This was not all about Kristaps. The Knicks were bad on Tuesday night. Really bad. They were so bad that afterward Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee both lamented the lack of cohesion on the offensive end. “We were all out there running around like we don’t know what’s going on,” Hardaway said. “And it can’t happen.”

Lee took it a step further: “There were a lot of possessions, like the normal eye might not see it, but we messed up on a lot of plays whether it was the ball getting delivered on time, or one or two guys not being on the same page as far as the play calling. That’s on us, we got to pay attention more in practice and make sure we execute when we’re out there.”

Everyone is entitled to an off night, and Porzingis had been brilliant in his first two games, scoring 64 points in a variety of ways. It’s not that he doesn’t have a go-to move yet, it’s that he has so many options at his disposal with his uncommon range, athleticism, and reach.

Porzingis can do everything and that’s part of the problem. He will have to do a lot of it by himself, given the lack of a penetrating guard or a wing creator. With Carmelo Anthony gone, he is the unquestioned man of the New York Knicks. Welcome to the maelstrom.

Porzingis is just 22 years old, one of the handful of wunderkinds currently playing in the NBA tasked with carrying franchises even while they develop their own games. That task is made harder in that he is playing for a team in the midst of a transition wrapped in a transformation.

That his team is in New York, as opposed to say Milwaukee or Minnesota, means that his every move and every utterance will be chopped up and scrutinized for backpage consumption. He will not be allowed to falter anonymously.

Porzingis is one of the few young players who seems not only equipped to handle New York, but born to play the role. He is funny and sharp enough to spar with the New York press and he’s blessed with a game that’s been sanctified by every discerning corner of New York fandom. He is their adopted Latvian son and woe to anyone who tries to mess with him. Including the New York Knicks.

Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

It’s hard to remember a Knick savior that’s ever had this amount of goodwill built up at the beginning of his tenure. Lord knows Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Carmelo Anthony had their skeptics and critics throughout their runs. Even the sainted Patrick Ewing had to deal with the ill-fated twin-towers experiment along Bill Cartwright and a handful of coaching changes in his first few seasons.

That will come in handy because this season figures to test everyone’s resolve. The Knicks have a couple of young players they like, including rookie point guard Frank Ntilikina and young big man Willy Hernangomez. But Ntilikina has been dealing with injuries since summer league and Hernangomez has been dropped from the rotation in favor of Enes Kanter and Kyle O’Quinn.

The Knicks are a year away from being a year away. In an ideal world, they’ll develop their kids while Porzingis adjusts to life as the number-one option. They’ll make individual progress while losing a sufficient number of games to draw a high draft pick and take a shot on a player like Luka Doncic, Michael Porter, or Marvin Bagley.

For just about every other franchise in the league, this would be easy. The Knicks are never easy. Porzingis is playing for his third coach in as many seasons, if you count the interim tenure of Kurt Rambis who wanted him to play like it was 1989. He’s also on his third lead executive, if you count the interim run of team president Steve Mills, who signed Hardaway for $71 million before the team hired Scott Perry.

From last year: How the Knicks began to rebuild their offense around Kristaps Porzingis.

In Perry, there is hope. He is widely respected throughout the league and widely connected. He is not under the spell of a particular basketball philosophy. As a decision-maker, Perry offers the best kind of hope for a rebuilding franchise: patient, restrained, and smart.

The first of many tests to that approach is already happening with Eric Bledsoe due to be traded after a fallout with Phoenix. Bledsoe is exactly the kind of player the Knicks have pursued in panic-driven maneuvers over the years. While he would undoubtedly help now, he would also compromise a good chunk of their future. The Knicks are reportedly not inclined to deal any of their young players. This is a good sign.

If the Knicks can just give this a little bit of time ... if Ntilinka can be the point guard of their dreams, if Hernangomez can provide an interior compliment to Porzingis, if they can simply maneuver from Point A to Point B without a self-inflicted catastrophe, then there is hope.

Porzingis offers the best route toward a long and prosperous run. Teams spend years trying to luck into a player like this in the draft. Landing one is the hardest part, regardless of front office dexterity or brilliant maneuvering. Now he just needs to live up to the role.

“At the end of the day I always try to make things simple for myself,” he said. “I’m just playing basketball out there. I know it’s going to be physical. I know guys are going to try and come at me, but at the end of the day just play basketball and have fun.”

Good luck having fun in New York. The city is many things, but fun hasn’t really been part of the equation. Kristaps Porzingis could be the one to change that dynamic. In many ways, he should be the one to usher in a bold new world for Knicks basketball. It would take a unicorn, frankly.

It would take someone like Kristaps Porzingis.

[blessuswithblogs]

Thoughts on The Surge: in the future, nobody has guns

~there are, by necessity, spoilers on The Surge in this post and also a lot of rambling holy cow~

Yesterday, I finished the Surge. It was not something I was particularly expecting to do at that juncture. I was getting very close to beating a boss, but I had about 5 minutes to go before I had to go raid in FF14. I figured that if I beat the thing, I would just save and quit and come back to it and that would be that. Imagine my surprise when it turned out this fairly nondescript monster was actually The Final Boss of the game and immediately after beating it, I beat the game and the credits rolled. I was a bit nonplussed by this, both because the game only had 5 bosses in it and because I had to hurriedly explain to my raid group that I was going to be a few minutes late because I Accidentally Finished A Game, Oops. After some reflection, it occurred to me that this experience was quite emblematic of the whole game: a strong start with good ideas that never really go anywhere and sort of implode on themselves at random intervals without warning.

Let's start with brass tacks. The Surge is Souls-like. Not one of those games that games journalists think are souls-likes because they're fucking awful at video games and they died a bunch, but an actual honest to god "our mission is to make dark souls with robots." product. The systems, mechanics, and level design philosophy are extremely similar to FromSOFT's critically acclaimed action RPGs. The Surge is from the same developers as Lords of the Fallen, which was a putrid mess. Their sophmore effort is much, much better. I quit Lords a few hours in while I'm considering a second playthrough of The Surge. One of the big problems with Lords was that it was seemingly designed from the perspective of someone who played Dark Souls 1 exclusively clad in Havel's armor and the Dragon Tooth and thought that playstyle wasn't quite deliberate enough. The Surge, conversely, is much faster and more responsive, about on par with Dark Souls 3. It also gains a lot from its unique aesthetic sensibilities, at least at first, but more on that later.

The big mechanical selling point of The Surge which differentiates it from other games of its type is the practice of targeting specific limbs and body parts. It's not at all the first Dead Space parallel one might notice, and certainly not the last. At first, it's quite novel, but The Surge never quite leans into it enough to make it very deep or rewarding. Invariably, the strategy is "attack the unarmored parts, idiot." If everything is armored, it's "attack the head, idiot." The only real exceptions to this rule are when you are engaged in the tedious process of farming gear or when the game forgets its major draw and simply throws enemies at you that don't have any limbs to target. Initially, the process of getting new gear is kind of exciting, as to acquire new weapons and armor, you have to target the body part of an enemy wearing it and successfully do a finishing move to cut it off and receive a schematic you can bring to Operations (the bonfire equivalent) and build. This sounds like a reliable and engaging way to improve your character, but there are some issues with it. To build a new piece of armor, you need to use specifically Mark 1 upgrade materials. Which is fine, at first, but as you progress through the game, enemies will stop dropping this teir of materials. They will not stop dropping new schematics, however. After a certain point, to create new pieces of gear, you need to backtrack to an earlier area just to get the proper parts, and then a different, slightly later area, to get parts to upgrade them. It's real bad. Bad enough that I'm doubting my own experience with the game. Surely, there was some way to buy older parts or exchange them that I missed? Please somebody tell me I'm wrong I hate living this world where there are no alternatives.

REVISION: I did miss something!! You can actually just skip upgrade tiers entirely by using higher grade parts, though it costs more scrap. I feel silly for not catching it myself, but it seems that a lot of people didn’t. Either way, this significantly alleviates some of my major issues with the upgrade system! Praise IRONMAUS!

At any rate, the intent is to create a tension between going for easy kills by targeting unarmored body parts and going after armored parts for more difficult fights with better rewards. It's a good idea, theoretically, but the execution of the idea makes it tedious and grindy. The Surge is extremely crotchety about experimenting with new things, both because of aforementioned weird upgrade material scarcity issues and because the game's difficulty curve is a stickler for wearing gear that is up to date, unless you like getting killed in one hit. I, personally, do not. I find it to be quite frustrating. In my theoretical second playthrough I'm going to just stick to one set and not bother with branching out. There aren't very many armor sets to begin with, so it sort of balances out. You tend to have more freedom with weapons because they use a universal upgrade material all enemies carry, though I personally found most weapon types to be way too slow and awkward for my liking and stuck with the Vibrocutter for 90% of the game. That seems altogether too subjective to really count against the game, and is also the focus of my next playthrough: trying to learn weapons I passed up on in my first.

Character progression is done via upgrading your Core Power level with tech scrap that everybody drops on death. Core Power determines the quality and quantity of gear pieces and implants you can have active at any one time. Core Power also gates progress behind overload nodes that require a certain power level to activate, one of the more random and haphazard mechanics in the game. It's usually not an issue, though you will occasionally run into nodes with requirements so high they might as well read "backtrack here later asshole." Progression itself is kind of muddled by the way implants work, which is somewhat too broadly. Implants can provide minor bonuses, but they can also dictate your entire suite of healing options, maximum HP, and your ability to see enemy healthbars (which is quite important when you need to keep them alive long enough to cut off their limbs, because it would be rude to do that while they're dead. You find implants all over the place in various grades. I assume that the idea is to gradually upgrade your older ones as you go along, but I always felt a bit lost about where exactly the Surge wanted me to be at in regards to my implant setup. I would count this against the game less if I didn't consistently run into points where I would find a new enemy that just killed me in one hit from across the room and feel very sad about life.

This brings me to what is one of the game's biggest design problems: enemy variety, or lack thereof. The designs of the enemies are more than a little uninspired. For a good 80% of the game your only foes are Zombie Men in Robot Suits, Small Drones, and maintenance/security robots. There's enough room for variation in the zombie men that it's tolerable, but the god damned leaping security robots show up everywhere, are never any different, and are incredibly obnoxious to fight. High defense, hypertracking, and the ability to leap across the room from any angle and deal what is consistently 80% of your healthbar in damage is nightmarish, and certain areas of the game are just CRAWLING with these fuckers. You can cut off their tails to get some implants you can sell for scrap. That's something. But god I hate these things. The crystalline nanofriends at the end of the game have many of the same problems with unreasonably high damage and absurd tracking, but I found them much easier to deal with because of how easy it was to bait out their railgun attack.

The bosses in this game are a mixed bag, which is usually okay, but there's only 5 of them. I try not to harsh on games for not having enough content for value, so believe me when I say that my criticism here is based on the fact that bosses are desperately needed to cut up some of the monotony of samey enemies. The first two bosses are big robots, as they should be. The camera is a little shitty in spots but they're big and tough and impressive looking. You can also fulfill special criteria to get Super Strong versions of the weapons they drop during the fight, but there's no way to actually know what those criteria are and some of them are eso-fucking-teric. The first boss, the P.A.X., has a mechanic where you can lead its own missiles into it to stun it and make it vulnerable and the game telegraphs it fairly obviously. To get its special drop, you have to not do this. Conversely, the second boss, the Firebug waste disposal robot, has a special weapon you can get by specifically doing the mechanic that is presented to you and cutting off all its limbs. Then the next boss, the Big SISTER construction platform, needs you to not kill any limbs at all. It's extremely inconsistent. These first 3 bosses range from good to serviceable, and are pretty good spectacles. The last two, however, are ffffucking dire.

The 4th boss of the game, the Black Cerberus, is a fight against a human opponent with military grade equipment. It's pretty fun to start out with, requiring different strategies from the huge robots previously fought. Things go south extremely quickly when the boss, after taking some damage, becomes invincible, runs away, locks himself in a room, heals himself, and summons a P.A.X. for you to fight. There are only 5 bosses in this game and they still found a way to recycle them. So you kill the P.A.X. and the actual boss comes back powered up. Fine. Alright. However, you have to do this cycle 3 times. 3. fucking. times. It's actually inexcusable that this is a thing in a game made in 2017 and I get mad just thinking about it. It makes the Bed of Chaos look like a reasonable fight because it at least had the decency to save your progress. You can get a beefed up version of his energy axe thing by cutting off his right arm but who even fucking cares. The final boss is a sort of neat looking monster made of nanomachines but I think it's borderline plagiarizing a bit of fanart I saw once for a Cyber-souls game. It's kind of whatever honestly. You have to kill the parts that glow white until the whole thing glows red, then you have to... hit a button? It's weird and random but I figured it out quickly enough that I'm not going to say that it's bad or unintuitive. Then it turns into a humanoid swordfighter guy with no armored parts at all and you just stab him in the head until he's fucking dead. It's a joke of a fight. You can get some Super Good Claws if you cut off his right arm but at that point I just wanted the boss to be dead so I went for the cranium. All throughout the boss spouts off voicelines from other characters in the game because of some bullshit about nanomachine networks that's extremely underdeveloped and tacked on. It's a fine boss fight, but the fact that it's the final confrontation and the last bit of gameplay in the whole game makes it such a wet fart of a thing I still feel kind of depressed about it.

So now we come to my biggest complaint about the game. The gameplay is mostly good with some tedious parts and some fucking awful parts. The story and setting, however, are just. How do I even put this? Imagine if System Shock, Dead Space, and SOMA got mashed into one thing by a thirteen year old. Let's start with the good, because there is good in here, and it kept me going for a long time even if I was ultimately disappointed. The game starts out with an extremely Corporate Culture advertisement for a job at CREO, which is probably an acronym for something, but hell if I can remember it. What is immediately striking is how true to life that ad is, stuff about cybernetic enhancement aside. CREO ends up as this sort of idea of "what if Apple dealt in sick robot arms and rockets instead of phones", which I feel like is a concept that is going to become more and more popular to explore in the near future. At any rate, the protagonist, Warren, accepts the job offer and goes off to his first day of work at CREO HQ. The first thing we learn about Warren, aside from looking like an average mainstream western video game protagonist, is that he has to get around in a wheelchair. The reveal of this is one of the very few character moments we really get in this game, and it immediately gives us some insight into why Warren was so eager to go work for a company that turns you into a fucked up robot man. Being a fucked up robot man is probably a pretty sweet deal if you get to Ambulate With Your Legs again. So Warren wheels his way into the lobby to check in and get kitted out with his Rig, an extremely Dead Space name for a sort of power loader exoskeleton wot lets you do the cool robot things as happy corporate music plays as a hip young guy on the monitor extolls the virtues of working at CREO, the revolutionary company out to save the world. Then he gets into the Robot Chair and has extremely invasive surgery done on him without anaesthetic because I guess the opening was just too down to earth and needed some fuckin gore.

I personally feel like the surgery scene is ultimately unnecessary and tacky, serving no real purpose in the narrative except to hint to more trusting players that "maybe CREO bad???". That notwithstanding, the opening is very strong because it establishes a very intriguing world. The Surge is set in the 2060s, or thereabouts, making it near-future firm-ish scifi, and the world of 2060 and beyond kind of fucking sucks. Not because of any great cataclysm or alien invasion, but because late capitalism is a hellish, undying force of destruction on a planetary scale and Earth is rapidly approaching a point where it can no longer support human life due to pollution and over-exploitation. That's about as hard sci-fi as it gets. There's mentions of failed nations, wars, riots, famine, and all of the lovelies we can expect in the next half a century. CREO's mission statement is to use revolutionary new technology to save the world and undo the damage with Project Resolve. Project Resolve is a sort of nebulous terraforming initiative involving CREO shooting rockets into the upper atmosphere that release chemical agents that will gradually repair Earth's atmosphere. The science becomes much squishier here but that's honestly fine with me because it sets up the core tension of the game: how can the same institution that destroyed the planet for centuries turn around and save it? Turns out it can't.

After Warren awakens in the junkheap, about to be disposed of for being "defective", he goes on a fantastical journey through CREO HQ to accomplish basically nothing. Everything in the facility has gone completely off the rails, with the majority of employees hooked up to rigs having completely lost their minds due to some sort of technical malfunction in the neural network. Warren is presumably unaffected by this because he wasn't linked up to the system yet when it happened, and so can adventure around and kill lots of deranged construction workers. You learn more about CREO from audio logs (it's a gritty sci-fi game with pretensions of being scary so naturally everyone in the world compulsively records their thoughts on things on oversized PDA things), environmental storytelling (blood on the walls, skulls in the toilet), and more promotional company videos about how great CREO is. The latter is the most organic and believable mechanism of exposition, and provides a strong sense of juxtaposition between Corporate Image and Reality. It's at times a little on the nose, but, well, art imitates life.  The real problems with the narrative occur after you meet Dr. Chavez, a disgruntled former head of R&D at CREO who worked a greatl deal on Project Resolve. It comes out that there's a problem with Resolve that basically makes it poison to living things. Chavez believes she can fix it, but is unceremoniously fired and replaced by another scientist more willing to compromise. This is fine, and is a great illustrative moment of how even something as noble as saving the world becomes harmful when performed by a beuaracratic, for profit institution. The problem comes from what Dr. Barret, Chavez's replacement, cooks up. Instead of just holding steady on the flawed Project Resolve, Barret decides that's not villainous enough and creates Project Utopia, an alternative to resolve that will absolutely repair the Earth with the small side effect of killing 97% of the current human population.

It's at this point that things start straining that suspension of disbelief, both because of the general unbelievability of something that can wipe out the vast majority of humanity by itself, in a short enough time period that no other organizations would be able to counteract it, and simultaneously restore the environment and because it's hard to believe that a profit-oriented organization like CREO would willingly kill off 97% of their consumer base. The mechanism by which Utopia works isn't revealed until the end of the game, and it's a bit of an eyeroller: nanomachines. The game's sudden, weirdly low-key shift from all-too-believable corporate negligence to literal grey goo end of the world shit is jarring and makes a lot of what came before weaker. Warren is no longer just a Guy With a Robot Suit trying to make it, he's the world's last, best hope to not die horribly. This raising of the stakes was honestly quite unnecessary. Simply finding the cause of the CREO-wide malfunction and reversing it was a worthy enough goal, but I guess it just wasn't enough. Also Dr. Barret is a literal mad scientist making human-machine hybrids and waxing philosophical about the necessary evolution of mankind while all this is going on so there's like 4 unresolved plot points sent careening on a collision course with eachother with not a lot of game left to wrap it up, and also like 2 of these plot points are stupid.

The final area of the game, the launch facility for project utopia, is infested with nanite monstrosities that look kind of cool at least. Up until now your primary foes have actually been company security personnel, hilariously enough, who are largely unaffected by the big neuronet hiccup from earlier. I had no problem with this, honestly, because beating up rent-a-cops sounds like a good time to me. Where it gets weird is that the rent-a-cops are seemingly 100% on board with global genocide of everybody ever. ACAB, and all that, but maybe not to that degree. So you get this weird scenario where you can find security guards harmoniously cooexisting with nanite gestalts of an emerging consciousness spreading and repurposing the launch facility. The guard posted at the entrance to the launch site even gives you a verbal warning to back off like there's nothing going on, something that no other security guard has given you since the beginning of the game. It's super bizarre. There is a subplot of an NPC who gradually loses their identity and memories and joins the guard, so there is evidence for some weird neural implant fuckery. I think I might be missing some information, since I didn't get all of the audio logs and shit.

Basically the climax of the game is that you go to the Nucleus launch facility to try and stop Utopia from getting into the atmosphere, or at least slow it down. You get a virus from Dr. Chavez you can upload into the payload to weaken the nanites. You would think that would be the Main Goal of the Game, but it's actually a totally missable side thing you can do if you feel like it. The actual end point of the game is getting to the rocket launch platform and fighting the Rogue Process, who appears to be guarding the rocket. The rocket launches anyway no matter what you do so the whole situation seems forced. The trigger for the fight is overloading a node by the launch panel. Prior to that the Rogue Process just sort of hangs out in noncorporeal form babbling nonsense at you. If you put the virus in the payload, then what are you even doing here? Just let it do its work and don't fuck around with nanites and rocket engines more than you have to. If you decided that you're okay with 97% of the population dying, then what are you even doing here? Just hang out or try to escape. You fight the Rogue Process because the game needs a final boss, and for no other reason. The damn thing doesn't even die if the ending is to be believed. This whole part of the game left me feeling extremely perplexed, like there was a big chunk of the story just missing. Like a conclusion. Or hell, even a climax.

My working theory of it all is that the Rogue Process developed sentience at some point before Warren arrived and started working on getting Utopia into the atmosphere to spread itself, heedless of human casualties because there's no possible way an AI developed at CREO could have any ethical considerations. It needed the board of directors to vote in favor of the launch, and engineered this impossibly convoluted chain of events to kill one of the no-go voters by Doctor Octopusing him to his chair in the board room. Or something. It might have been one of the board members who became unhinged? I'm really genuinely unsure of what actually happened except that Warren basically didn't do anything the whole game. You've got this very system shock style of progression where voices on the other ends of speakers yank you around to do stupid bullshit and you just sort of End Up where you end up. It's not really so much uncovering a mystery as desperately searching for a supervisor to give you some form of employee orientation, which, to the game's credit, is appropriate. I have no problem with vagueness in video games, being a noted devotee of Dark Souls style storytelling. It just feels extremely random and haphazard in The Surge, like part of the game is told one way where Atlas is asking if you would kindly fix the valves on the bathysphere and another part is digging for Lore on the Ancient Board of Directors Who Passed Long Ago to figure out what any of this even means. Except the Lore is audio logs. Some people don't like Lore. -I- don't like audio logs.

In the end, the whole thing starts strong and doesn't, or can't fulfill its promises. I'll say one thing now: the overall package would have been better and more coherent if they had just leaned in on the nanomachines. One of the things that super bugged me about The Surge was the death and recovery mechanic. The currency in this game is tech scrap. Little bits of metal. That's lying around everywhere. It is not precious or special in any way. There is no diegetic reason for why you drop it on death, and why Warren can come back from being bisected. It's there purely for gameplay purposes, To Be Like Dark Souls. And that just drives me up a wall. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls built their entire worlds upon the cycle of Try, Die, Repeat, Succeed. It's engraved upon the very DNA of those games, from top to bottom, mechanically to thematically. The Surge just does it because it feels like its supposed to, and that is a rotten reason to do anything. The timer mechanic, which was present in Lords of the Fallen, which had similar issues with nebulous "Experience Points" being lost on death, adds insult to injury because it's ridiculously Video Game-y. There's no reason why an inert pile of scrap would disappear after two minutes or why killing some random drone halfway across the map would extend the timer. The reason I mention this with the nanomachines is because nanomachines provide an elegant solution to the dilemma. If you're so damned determined to be like Souls, then just use nanites as the diegetic justification for death recovery. Nanites can reconstruct your body after lethal trauma, but it means that the excess nanites you were carrying are discharged or used up to do so. Something like that. Expand on the nanomachine constructs from the end of the game, and the neat adaptive nanite armor some of the endgame enemies wear. I personally prefer the initial approach the game takes with less apocalyptic do-anything technology, but I would totally respect the decision to go whole Metal Gear hog on nanotech to explore some of that Try Die Repeat Succeed theming.

Also did you know that they even managed to stick in some poison swamps? Please. Please no more. Stop. I guess that brings us to environments? They're kind of bad in The Surge. It's all just industrial zones with occasional but extremely appreciated detours to greenhouses (poison swamp greenhouses!!!!), a show floor, and swanky executive offices. I think what really wore on me was the maintenance tunnels all looking identical. So many dark yellow cabley tunnels. Why didn't we ever go to space? The entire game takes place in a rocket production facility. I feel like there's a whole other act that takes place on a satellite or the fucking moon or something that got cut. Let me go to space you cowards. The NPCs are all extremely forgettable, too. They're all bland character archetypes with no agency and they all die. Not that I really cared. But god even in Bloodborne a couple of characters made it through the night! Even if it was only like Suspicious Yharnam Man and the Chapel Dweller. But the Chapel Dweller was a good person, at least. I guess if you don't give The Crazy Widow tech scrap to make a weapon Hobbs will survive. Maybe the doctor also lives? His robot-daughter doesn't, which is a shame, because she was like the one character I did enjoy. The whole game is very soulless, despite best efforts, another problem shared with Lords of the Fallen who in my 4 or so hours playing did not have a single character I did not wish violent death upon. It's a step up that only a couple of The Surge characters fit that criteria. I guess.

In conclusion, I still don't really know how I feel about the Surge. It's.... worth playing? Like I would enthusiastically recommend Bloodborne or Dark Souls 1 and 2 to anybody who likes video games, but I think the only people who would enjoy the Surge are those who specifically enjoy Souls-like games. I think most players would find The Surge needlessly awkward and difficult without much payoff in other areas. You can cut off heads real good, I guess, but if you're really hankering for satisfying dismemberment for some reason, you'll get a lot more mileage out of 2016 DooM. The Surge wants to be too many things at once and seriously Warren just feels so much like off-brand Isaac Clarke after the opening when his one defining characteristic is no longer salient. They're both engineering types, have Rigs, and their arsenals are comprised entirely of power tools being used in the most unsafe ways conceivable by the human mind. That's not really a criticism. More of an observation. I don't know. God I wrote lots of words about this. I hate video games.

[game-refraction]

Game Review: Pyre (PS4)

While Fantasy Sports Leagues are nothing new, I’m pretty sure that discussions about them don’t involve horned creatures, talking dogs, or earning one’s freedom back via some sort of fantasy based basketball, but maybe they should. Pyre, the latest from Supergiant Games, feels like the twisted offspring of NBA Jam and The Banner Saga as the fast action sports elements of the game are wonderfully married to its gorgeous character and environmental artwork. Pyre is a title that at first glance was something I put off until I kept hearing just how good it was, and boy were they not wrong.

Pyre takes place in the Downside, a gorgeous yet tragic land of exiles, cast down from the glory of the Commonwealth. It is here, as the Reader, that you will rally your companions to earn back their freedom through the Rites, a mystical game of basketball that takes place in swamps, snow capped mountains, and among patches of thorny vines, a far cry from that of hardwood stadiums or neighborhood back alley courts.

Supergiant has packed Pyre with a tremendous amount of back story and lore, so much so that should you seek it out, you will learn of every character’s past, present, and what their motivations are for taking part in the Rites. The game also does a great job at giving each and every character a proper ending, allowing you to know exactly what they are up to when you eventually complete the story, and this is true for every single character you encounter, even the shopkeeper.

You play as the unseen Reader, a character who is recruited by the Nightwings, a team who have entered the Rites to earn back their freedom and it turns out that you can also read their mystical book that explains the history of the Rites. You can also read the stars in the sky which in turn indicates where the Rites will take place. While the Rites are where you can earn back your freedom, there is a catch, and it’s one that plays further into the story despite any victories you may have there.

The Rites themselves, are a 3 on 3 sporting event where you’ll need to grab an Orb and deposit it into the oppositions pyre on their side of the court. You’ll do this by simply running, jumping, or throwing it into their goal. The Orb drops into the middle of the court and you can either race towards it or play defensively and attempt to recover the Orb. In order to recover it or just put the hurt on the opposition, you have Aura attacks that work offensively or defensively. When not handling the Orb, each character has an Aura circle around them that varies in size, and also have attacks that vary in type and purpose. By making contact with either form of your Aura, the opposition will be temporarily banished, unable to return to the match until a cooldown has expired, and this rings true for scoring a goal as well, as the player who scores cannot return immediately to the match. This prevents any team from using a single character to steam roll the other, it’s a design element that creates strategy on how to recover from not just your success but from your failures as well.

Despite the matches being 3 on 3, you can only move one character at a time. You can pass the Orb back and forth as many times as you want, but the restriction placed upon player movement is intentional and one that makes matches more strategic than what Pyre is attempting to borrow from the typical sports genre. You’ll also need to watch out for structures that are built into the level and several of them can be moved around to create defensives. These can also block attacks, but should a character be leveled up and learn a specific skill, they are able to attack through them. The Rites also do not need to be won in order to advance the story, as the game doesn’t really have a failed state and the story will keep going regardless of your victory. However, if you want, you can simply restart a Rite should you be about to lose, thus keeping your perfect record intact.

Characters will earn experience and level up which allows them to learn a few skills that make them a bit more effective in the Rites. This can result in better movement, more effective ways in which their Aura can be used, or causing banishment to last far longer. To further make their efforts more potent you can also equip Talismans that add additional perks like causing more damage to the pyre on a goal or boosting some of their existing stats as well. Each pyre has a base health of 100 and certain characters will range from 15 to 30 damage each time they score a goal and said Talismans can also be used to increase that base health as well. Talismans can also be upgraded to be far more effective and you’ll do this by using items you can procure from the shopkeeper as you earn money from selling other items or by achieving certain tasks during the Rites.

There are also constellations that appear later into the game that unlock ever so often and these will boost the amount of experience you earn as you level up your roster, but at a cost. Each constellation has a side effect like increasing the opposing team’s speed or stamina or allowing banished players to immediately respawn. You can choose to select as many of these as you see fit and adding more and more will increase the percentage of boosted experience you will earn.

The cast of characters you can recruit to your team may be small, but this limited roster is extremely well fleshed out and can make choosing who to include in your three man team a rather tough choice. There are times, however, where you won’t have access to certain characters so you will need to make sure that each character is used to learn how effective they can be. There are also individual trials that each character can access to earn them an item that benefits their stats. Some of these trials are fairly easy while some took me almost an hour to complete and made me frustrated with a few characters for several hours after.

You’ll start your adventure with Hedwyn, Jodariel, and Rukey Greentail; a human, a horned girl, and a talking dog. Hedwyn is your typical balanced character that is useful to learn the in’s and out’s of the game. Jodariel is slow but has a large Aura and a very effective dash that can be leveled up. Rukey is extremely fast and has a jump attack that you can use to jump right in the pyre from fairly far away. I found that despite how effective someone like Jodarial can be defensively, that speed, in the end, is the best stat to utilize.

You’ll soon be joined by a vagabond girl whom you will choose a name for her that rhymes with Gray. In my case, I chose the name Kae. She, like Hedwyn, is fairly good at everything and can work as a replacement when you won’t have access to him. There is Ti’zo the small imp who can dart around the court fairly fast and has a very interesting way to understand his dialogue. Sir Gilman, a wyrm Knight was hands down my favorite character not just to use, but in the story as well. His excitable nature to prove himself is so well handled and the speed at which he can move around on the map can truly make him a life saver. Pamitha Theyn will join your team when you encounter a race of bird people who have quite the history with the Commonwealth, as most characters will, and Pamitha can fly on the court, making her very useful in levels that have a lot going on design wise. There are also two characters that join you in the late game that I won’t be talking about so that to leave a bit of mystery about these very effective late-comers.

Right from the start, you will be a passenger on a mystical wagon that has a history with the Nightwings and it belongs to a mysterious benefactor that has put forth a mission for the current Nightwings roster. The wagon can travel from place to place and eventually you’ll get upgrades to traverse oceans and the ability to just fly from place to place. The wagon also comes with the Minstrel, a man who is acting on behalf of said benefactor, and one that explains much of the lore throughout the game.

The opposing forces that you will do battle with in the Rites usually consist of counterparts to your full roster. You’ll encounter people that resemble dogs to those that are dogs themselves; which were my favorite opponents to interact with. There are also the Crones, Curs, Demons, Saps, and more, giving you a wide variety of fantastic characters to interact with that are wildly different from one another.

Despite the variety of not only its characters and its locations, Pyre is visually consistent in the mood it offers. The levels themselves feel like a mix of H.P. Lovecraft and older animated films like the Lord of the Rings and Fire and Ice, with a bit of Dr. Suess thrown in for good measure. Characters have static images for their cutscenes and wonderful animations when on the court during the Rites. While not all the art is fantastic, as the images during the credits are somewhat lacking, the game never feels unpolished.

Each character has their own music attached to them and this is very apparent when taking on other teams as they each not only have very distinct personalities but drastically different music as well. As for vocals, there is only one character that actually has spoken dialogue as everyone else has a made up language that is used to initiate their written dialogue. This initial burst of nonsense chatter isn’t new to videogames but it does help add to the wonderful personalities that come with such a diverse cast.

Pyre, for the most part, is a single player game that does have some local multiplayer to enjoy with friends but does lack any sort of online matchmaking. You can tackle CPU opponents should you want, but should you look to play with friends, they’ll need to share the couch with you, which isn’t a bad thing, but online battles could have opened this game up to a much wider audience. The best part of the versus mode is that you are able to play with all central characters featured in the game, even those you faced off against during the campaign.

I only had two main issues with the game that do affect my overall score on the title. The individual trials felt as though they highlighted the weaknesses that each character has a bit too harshly, and while I know these trials are meant to make you understand how to overcome such weaknesses, they tainted a few characters for me for several hours. My final issue is mainly the repetitive nature the game takes after the first time you complete a freedom Rite. The narrative then takes an approach that causes the game to feel grindy and much of what occurs after that supposed ‘final’ battle is repeated again and again. While this opens the game up for some of its best storytelling, the rinse-recycle-repeat way in which the game then follows starts to affect the overall gameplay. I wasn’t wishing the game to end or anything, but so much of the way in which the game operates is repeated far too often in the very same manner.

Apart from those flaws, Pyre is a remarkable title that has a very interesting premise and its merging of sports and fantasy is something I don’t think I’ve seen handled in this particular way before. Sure, there are games like Blood Bowl that combine sports and fantasy, but Pyre is a very different beast in its own way. The characters, the locations, and the dialogue are wonderful and nothing feels out of place despite the very different genre’s that are being fused together here. Pyre may speak to you in different ways as you may enter the game wanting its fresh take on the sports genre or its character and lore building that may feed that fantasy need of yours, but regardless, it is a wonderful marriage of solid ideas with some really fun character moments that makes Pyre a real winner.

Pyre was reviewed via a $26.99 digital purchase on the PlayStation store.

All Screenshots were taken on a PlayStation 4 Pro and formatted for this review.

Game Review: Pyre (PS4) was originally published on Game-Refraction