#i mean i guess maybe it could play the role of just an aggro in turf war? killing the opponents while the rest of the team inks

[delightfuldevin]

IT’S THE INK CONSUMPTION. THAT’S WHY PAINBRUSH IS SO HARD FOR ME TO USE. I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T REALIZE THAT WAS WHY UNTIL NOW

[echthr0s]

stuff in FFXIV makes so much sense that when I try to do certain things in other MMOs I just get frustrated because they're so unintuitive to me

long post cut

some points:

1. I was absolutely offput by the "must do x dungeon to proceed in MSQ" thing in FFXIV at first but after a while I realised that that creates a level playing ground -- everyone had to be that lvl15 noob in Sastasha at some point, and everyone had to learn how to do duties in pretty much the same way. so that takes a lot of pressure (external pressure, I mean -- internal pressure is what it is) off, and it also normalises dungeons and raids instead of making them something off to the side that only certain kinds of players end up doing, which would make it difficult for noobs to find a way in unless they're the same kind of player

2. Party Finder is a godsend for anyone who wants to do some uncommon raid or has a certain need (farming for a mount, learning an EX, whatever). you can specify exactly what you want out of your group, and then people can join if they have the same goals.

3. there is no zone chat. I mean, there's shout-chatting in Limsa, I guess, lmao, but there's no dedicated zone chat where people just blather on about anything and everything and clutter up your chat log. if you want to socialise you gotta join an FC or a linkshell but at least that way you have some measure of control over the kind of socialisation you get. and you can leave if you don't like it.

now, I've been playing through ESO's story again lately, and now that I have way more experience and way less anxiety with group content after having played over 1000 total hours of FFXIV, I thought to myself, "hmm, maybe I'll run some dungeons, see what that's like in this game".

but ESO has some problems (from my point of view): dungeons and trials in ESO are tied to the story in more tangential ways, so they're not necessary to do. which is fine if that was the only thing. but!

1. dungeons and trials have quests. the quests are picked up inside the duty, and everything in ESO is fully voiced (which is one of my fave things about the game, btw), so you want to stand there and listen to the dialogue and learn what the quest is about, but if you do that, there's a very high likelihood that the other people in your PUG will just run ahead without you and kill everything and leave.

2. there's no Party Finder, just general matchmaking, so if you want to specifically find a group that's okay with running slowly so you can pick up quests and explore the dungeon's environment, you have to... ask in zone chat. zone chat, which is either completely dead or full of jackasses arguing about politics or making puerile sex jokes. no in-between. you might get people to help you out with an overland boss but a dungeon group that's not just for farming or doing a quick daily? ha, good luck

not to mention the way roles work in ESO is obviously different from the way they work in FFXIV -- there's a basic similarity, of course, because tank/dps/healer is a basic setup, but the nuances of these roles and how they work in group play is so different. you can technically be a tank or dps or healer on any class, but which ones are good for it varies. aggro is a whole different beast in this game. I'm still not quite sure what the rules for healing are. to learn this kind of thing, you'd have to... run dungeons. but to do that, you'd have to find people who are patient with and helpful toward newbies who want to learn. and we all know how that is...

I did leave player-run guilds out of this, but that's because it's always hard to find a guild that is good for your needs. it's hard in FFXIV, too (I really got lucky, I only had to join and leave 2 FCs before I found one I could vibe with... I fully expected to have to try out at least 5). I'm hoping that eventually I'll find a guild that will enable me to try out group content in a friendly atmosphere, but for now I'm really just stuck.

[djgamek1ng]

FFXIV Tank Ramble

Welp, I’m feeling a bit tired and I’m thinking about all of FFXIV’s tanks so I’ll just type some stuff on here for a bit. TL;DR: scared for the tanking balance. Main tank/off tank balance scares the crap out of me. Gunbreaker is looking really damn cool. Might switch to either it or DRK for my main job if they feel good in ShB

Let’s start with tanking balance. The balance for the tanks has always been rocky. Apparently in 2.0, double PLD was the preferred “meta” comp because of WAR being weird and pretty bad. Then in 2.1 they fixed WAR. Then double WAR become the comp with PLD being left in the dust. Then 3.x came around with DRK being added. Simply put: WAR went Super Saiyan, DRK was good because of mostly magic damage fights and PLD was... bad. Having Royal Authority combo off Savage Blade made it impossible for PLD to be the off tank and it didn’t bring enough to the table to be the main tank. With the end Heavensward (3.x), came Stormblood (4.x) and ooooooooh boy. WAR was kind of messed up, PLD went Super Saiyan and poor DRK. Of all the tanks, DRK definitely had it the roughest. This lasted until 4.2 where WAR got fixed and therefore became the best tank (mostly best main tank). DRK got fixed with 4.3 in which got the role of either main or off tank depending on your co-tank (with a WAR in the party, DRK would 100% be the off tank. With a PLD, DRK would 100% be the main tank). Also PLD got nerfed a bit because it was doing too much damage... party poopers.

So as we can see from that the tanking balance hasn’t always been the greatest and 5.0 makes me worried. Gunbreaker being a thing, which btw until we get official the short version revealed, Gunbreaker is GBR on here, is one thing. Nomura’s statement after EU Fan Festa about them considering the whole 2 main tanks and 2 off tanks thing makes me more worried. Apparently there is supposed to be a job adjustment patch before Shadowbringers about which my guess, if that it is true, is to give us at least a month or 2 to prepare before Shadowbringers with certain properties on skills or maybe even entirely new skills given.

Anyway, back on topic. Why? Why does it make me worried? Because this can potentially be HW PLD all over again, but then for 2 tanks. It also makes me worried because what the HFIL determines a main tank and what the HFIL determines an off tank? Currently the “main” tank is the one that can generate the most aggro very quickly and off tanks are essentially your 5th DPS that isn’t as good as a DPS, but they are disgustingly tanky and bring utility to the party, though tank swaps are a thing that exist. If they want to keep tank swaps as a thing, main tanks can’t be too bad at doing whatever the off tank needs to do and same goes for the vice versa scenario. Plus how will you explain in-game or through official means (like the job guide) what a main tank and off tank actually means? So my question again is why? Like, I get needing some base to actually balance them off from but I feel like main tank/off tank will only cause more pain then anything. I felt like balancing them on utility vs damage (more utility = less damage, more damage = less utility) is the better way to go about it. Well, not like this will matter in 3ish months when we actually get the 5.0 patch.

Also speaking about GBR... holy hell man. I’m hyped. While I will forever love the classic sword and board (even though I don’t really like many of the sword and boards in FFXIV, I’m sorry ;-;) in PLD, GBR and DRK depending on how they turn out could make me switch mains to be honest. DRK already tempts me a lot because of its lore actually existing (PLD’s really is shallow outside of “here, these are techniques I can teach you. Also this is what the Sultansworn do. You are a Free Paladin however. What do those do? Protect people and land. Neat huh?”) and because the gameplay is a lot of fun. I’m not fully committed to switching from PLD yet though, since I love PLD. I just hope the story for PLD is good this time around. Hell, make it a plot dump about how Free Paladins get their powers and why we should care about Ul’dah to begin with. I know, that is where we start but seriously... the whole point of the Free Paladins is that they AREN’T restricted by a master (in this case, the Sultana of Ul’dah), so why do we care about Ul’dah so much at this point? Why wouldn’t we move to Gridania and help people there? Or Limsa Lominsa? Ishgard? Ala Mhigo? Doma?

Anyway, rant aside, GBR is looking great from the 30 or so seconds of gameplay that we got. I'm hoping its lore is good and that it will play well. Honestly, ideally for me it would find a middle ground between SB PLD and SB DRK. If it does, I will probably main it, though that goes for any of the tanks tbh. Whether it is PLD, WAR, DRK or GBR, if it finds a sort of middle ground between SB PLD and SB DRK, I will main it. GBR is just the most likely since out of all of the tanks it isn't quite as expected to be covered in heavy plate armor from head to toe and I like that (especially in FFXIV where I honestly think most heavy armor doesn't look thay good).

Anyway, tank ramble over. I'm gonna go sleep. Bye!

[housebeleren]

Ravnica Allegiance Mechanics First Pass

Now that the mechanics for Ravnica Allegiance have been previewed, I’ll take a first pass at looking at them to see how they might play out for Limited.

Spectacle

I really like the looks of Spectacle. It has a surprisingly large number of ways it can play. First, as with Light Up the Stage, it can be a cost-reduction mechanic, allowing you to cast powerful spells at a discount. Second, as with Rafter Demon, it can be an alternate casting cost that opens up a more powerful effect. A Vanilla 4/2 for 4 is mediocre filler in most draft decks, but one that also eats a card on ETB is a 2 for 1.

A third possible mode for this mechanic that we haven’t seen yet (so it may not be used), would be a way to avoid a drawback. Something along the lines of “When X enters the battlefield, discard a card unless you cast it for its spectacle cost.” The cost could be the same or similar to its normal CMC, but available to avoid the drawback. It’s also possible that there will be cards with this type of text, but without the keyword.

With Spectacle, I’d expect a lot of minor damage-dealing effects to help turn it on. Cards like Twin Bolt or Arc Lightning would be perfect inclusions in this set, and if the certain Cult Guildmage doesn’t have one effect that causes loss of life, I’d be shocked.

Spectacle strongly favors aggression. In some ways, it’s likely to play along the same lines as Raid in Ixalan. If you’re attacking, your opponents will be forced to accept the trades you set up for them, or risk you hitting them and getting your Spectacle bonus. How big of a deterrent that is will depend on how good the bonuses are. Also, small evasive creatures (like 1/1 Spirits, perhaps?) will be excellent in these decks, as will creatures with Haste. This means Spectacle will play really nicely with both Afterlife and Riot, making it a particularly synergistic mechanic. Overall, I think this is a really well-designed mechanical fit both for Rakdos and for the set as a whole.

Afterlife

Afterlife feels like it can really go either way, depending on the other synergies in the guild. There are a few possibilities.

The most direct would be an aristocrats strategy with lots of sacrifice outlets and death payoffs. This would make the most sense, as death triggers would play really well with Spectacle on the Rakdos side. And an aristocrats theme can be surprisingly deep for limited, so I’m hopeful that this is the direction they go.

A second direction would be a go-wide attack strategy, depending on how big the Afterlife numbers get. Given that this is the Orzhov, however, I’m not thinking aggression like this is super likely, but even a single Inspired Charge type of spell could be a blowout with a pile of flying spirits.

The last possible direction this could go would be to have some amount of spirit tribal in the set. Again, I don’t think this is going to be a major direction, but it’s possible there will be a minor spirit sub-theme that. The one thing that makes me think this is a possibility is that it would allow for some mechanical overlap with the Azorius, who otherwise don’t particularly synergize with the Orzhov otherwise.

Altogether, my best guess is it’ll be an aristocrat-style theme with minor spirit synergies to tie it all together. If so, this mechanic could be pretty fun in Limited, and even prove to be fairly deep. Without those interactions, the mechanic on its surface is pretty one-dimensional. No matter what, I expect Afterlife creatures to generally be pretty good value.

Addendum

Addendum is basically a keyworded version of the Time Spiral mechanic seen on Return to Dust, Might of Old Krosa, and the rest of the cycle. It’s an interesting design tactic, taking these old one-off card designs and keywording them (like Afterlife did with Doomed Traveler). 

Addendum is the narrowest mechanic in the set, as it only goes on Instants (and maybe a few permanents with Flash). So really, what’s most interesting here is what’s not expressly printed on the card. To design enough cards with the keyword, there have to be an above-average number of Instants in White & Blue in this set. That means the guild will probably play a controlling strategy, similar to some builds of Dimir in Guilds, which can often operate almost entirely at Instant-speed.

It’s going to be hard to evaluate Addendum as a mechanic overall, since how valuable the bonus is will depend almost entirely on the individual card. It will be especially interesting to see if they have any payoff cards, such as an enchantment that says “Whenever you cast an Instant spell during your main phase...” Or maybe they’ll just allow for any spell during your main phase, if the bonus is incremental enough. 

No matter what, however, it does mean that activated abilities and mana sinks may prove to be more useful than usual, to ensure you always have something to do with your mana. For this reason, I can see a subtle synergy with the Simic, whose creatures will have mana sinks attached. 

Adapt

People are dumping on Adapt left and right online, and I honestly don’t understand the hate. Wizards has been super upfront that this is a rework of Monstrosity, but some seem to be pissed off at that fact. Personally, I liked-not-loved Monstrosity, but it’s exactly the type of mechanic that helps glue sets together.

Adapt as a redesign comes with one advantage and one disadvantage over Monstrosity. First, the disadvantage. Since Adapt checks for existing +1/+1 counters on resolution, it means if counters get put on the creature any other way, it shuts off the ability. This means if you have other ways to put counters on your creatures (say... Simic Ascendancy & similar cards yet to be revealed), you need to activate the Adapt ability before using the Ascendancy. That won’t matter much for small creatures like the Homunculus Mutant above, but it would be a real shame to miss out on Adapting Zegana.

The advantage over Monstrosity is that, for Adapt, the counters can be removed from the creature, then Adapt can be activated again. This seems to be the direction that Wizards is thinking for the Simic this time around, so I’m expecting a number of cards to be previewed with the ability to remove counters from your creatures for a benefit.

Overall, I think the design possibilities enabled by Adapt far outweigh the occasional ordering issues, and I’m really excited by this direction. I predict that Adapt and the associated synergies in the set are going to play incredibly well, so fuck the haters.

As for synergies, while I think there’s some potential for Instant-speed shenanigans with the Azorius, the most direct will be with the +1/+1 counters in the Gruul mechanic. 

Riot

Riot is a slam dunk. It’s exactly what Gruul wants to be doing, and allows for a ton of flexibility if you’re on either the attack or defense. And which one you choose will also depend a lot on if you’re drifting into three colors at all.

If you’re leaning into the Green from Simic, the +1/+1 counters will be your best bet, since there are almost certainly going to be good ways to make use of them. If you’re more the Red from Rakdos direction, having your creatures come in with Haste will do wonders to help you sneak damage in and activate your Spectacle cards.

Riot is straightforward, but I have a feeling it will play out really nicely. You’ll never be safe against a Gruul player, since they’ll be able to come out of nowhere just about anytime. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a Charging Monstrosaur impersonator in this set, and that’s no laughing matter.

Overall Impressions

In general, I like the looks of these mechanics, at least on the surface. Many of them will depend just on how well the synergy pieces are developed. Without good sacrifice outlets, Afterlife will be simply a little extra value. Without some ways to utilize counters for value, Adapt will disappoint. In general, I trust that Wizards has done a good job fleshing out these mechanics and giving them the environment they need to thrive. That said, they’ve disappointed me before (see Convoke from, I dunno... right now.)

The format looks like it will also have a similar distribution of archetypes as Guilds does. So far, I’m anticipating that Gruul will take the helm from Boros as the aggro deck of the format, though I’m guessing there will be highly aggressive builds of Rakdos available as well. Simic will likely take the role of tempo/midrange, and Orzhov will play the midrange value grind. Azorius will almost certainly be the primary control strategy, similar to how Dimir plays now. 

That said, given how few previews we have now, it’s really a guessing game, and a lot can change once more cards are revealed. Either way, I’m cautiously optimistic by the looks of Ravnica Allegiance, and look forward to breaking in the format!

I’m picking Simic for my prerelease guild. What are you picking?

[videogamesincolor]

Assassin’s Creed: Origins (2017) - An Ode to Bayek’s Beard (SPOILERS)

Assassin’s Creed: Origins, much like Assassin’s Creed 3, feels hamstrung by the period in time it’s set it, or rather the real-life characters it chooses to have the story revolve around outside their protagonists (Bayek and Aya).

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT?

Assassin’s Creed: Origins sees a fully realized period of Ancient Egypt around the time the Greeks and Romans were lurking about and Cleopatra existed. Bayek of Siwa has full reign of Ubisoft Montreal’s latest sandbox and grind world, and if you’re into the kind of game where you can get lost and distracted by the goings on of NPC (human and animal life alike), and the manipulation of “real time” (day can become night, and night can become day at your leisure), then Origins won’t disappoint you. 

It’s a welcome change from a France where everyone has cockney accents and Old London which isn’t all that different from Colonial America.

It’s a part of history most people really aren’t familiar with beyond golden age and modern day movies where white actors dress up and paint their skin brown, and information is almost always dubious at best, so the audience’s general ignorance of the history itself lends itself to the world building that makes the environment feel alive and worth exploring, because doubtless most folk are going to do some research after playing this game for better context and understanding.

In terms of gameplay, the most interesting aspect of the gameplay (for me) is the use of Bayek’s Eagle, which, shocker, really does not have a role in the narrative at all (so you don’t have to worry about a scene out of The Mummy Returns, where Ardeth Bay’s bird companion is killed). The game’s take on Eagle vision is basically using Bayek’s eagle to scope out enemies within the area. This has no bearing on the narrative or the plot, so anyone expecting the Eagle to explain why all of the Assassin’s from Altair to whoever else has detective vision that can see mysterious symbols and enemies in red will be sorely disappointed.

Side missions range from helping a villager save their relative or friend from whoever is occupying Siwa or Alexandria, to saving a villager from lions and crocodiles, who aggro the moment you walk just a few inches within their general spitting distance. There are other elements: if you’re into gladiator or street fights, they’re certainly around to be had, but the villager in peril missions stuck out the most to me and seem to make up the bulk of the busywork.

Most of the voice performances are solid, particularly from Abubakar Salim (Bayek), Zora Biship (Cleopatra) and Alix Regan (Aya). My only real quibble with Salim is that it sounded like he was told to growl through half of his dialog if it had nothing to do with jovial conversation, or quiet moments with Aya, which is a problem I had with the voice direction for the protagonist in The Evil Within 2, but nowhere near as bad or as Clint Eastwoody (thank god).

I like Bayek and Aya, they’re a welcome reprieve the doldrums that were the Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate twins and the the French Ezio from, um, Assassin’s Creed Unity (I think was its name). They feel connected to the world the player is allowed to roam and see primarily through the eyes of Bayek, and which plays a big part in caring about these characters at all in conjunction with their narrative drive.

Even the skeleton of the story for Origins is fine:

You’ve got a husband and a wife, Bayek of Siwa and Aya (presumably of Alexandria and not Siwa) looking to avenge the death of their son when he is killed by a masked group of thugs searching for something (the apple of eden most likely) Bayek has no real knowledge of. The two of them seek out their son’s murders using methods that would later become the foundation of the order of Assassins (tfw you accidentally cut your own finger off and history remembers you as a duty-driven badass). By all rights, this should’ve been the meat and potatoes of the game: Bayek and Aya working together, the player switching between the two characters for different scenarios, and setting up the creation of the order in Egypt and the antagonists that they fought.

WHAT’S BAD ABOUT IT?

Aya and Bayek spend most of their time separated, with Bayek seemingly preoccupied with avenging their son, and Aya preoccupied with a duty she swore to Queen Cleopatra (who apparently is in exile and looking to usurp her brother, the “Puppet Pharaoh”), to the point where she doesn’t seem to have the same passion for retribution as Bayek anymore.

Once they’re together, the game dedicates some of its early cinematics to demonstrating that the two adore each other, mostly through sex. Bayek and Aya are probably the only canon romance in Assassin’s Creed that feels like a genuine relationship, and not “character B makes moon eyes at character A” (Henry and Evie), “character A is a womanizer and ‘the only woman he ever loved’ was murdered” (Ezio), “My girlfriend’s a Templar” (Arno and the Elise), or “Kaniehtí:io has sex with Haytham Kenway in order to justify Connor’s biracial status because Ubisoft made such a big deal about the fact that their Native American protagonist was half-white and they wanted to keep Haythem in the plot” (AC3).

When the game needs to demonstrate how these two work together as a team, it’s often Aya only delivering Bayek some information and the player carrying out said mission as Bayek. Bayek is isolated from the character that makes him the most dynamic, and Aya, who you think would’ve been a “scenario b” character (someone please revive the Resident Evil 2 dynamic, plz), is regulated to much of the background until the end of the game.

Even then, she’s only playable for maybe four or five missions: A ship battle, a stealth mission to light the Beacons of Not-Gondor, and two assassination missions at the closing of the game. An even bigger problem with this structure for Aya, is that this is only possible by removing the central character (Bayek) from the focus of the narrative, which creates imbalance in the story. It really felt like Ubisoft had no idea who they wanted for a POV character. And from the looks of things, Aya’s playability (the reveal that she was Amunet, a legendary Assassin who used snakes to kill Cleopatra) is more of an afterthought than something they originally intended from the very start of the game’s production.

Once Cleopatra enters the scene, the game forgoes pretending that it’s interested in making their adversaries (the people who killed their son) characters. Where a game like Assassin’s Creed 3 might’ve spent just a little too much time fleshing out the fictionalized versions of historical character villains when it should’ve been focusing more on Connor, Origins has the opposite problem. 

It doesn’t give its villains any time to become characters, which undermines Bayek and Aya’s progression as protagonists with a goal. The villains are part of a group called the “Order of the Ancients”, which acts as a precursor for the Templar Order (I guess???). None of them, save Khaliset (the Hyena), even register on the Richter Scale of memorable. They die, and then Bayek and Aya spend a lot of time in empty space having a shouting match with them (in what looks bad theatre) before banishing them with a feather. There was a slightly clever twist where one enemy called “The Crocodile” was a haggard old white woman, but the most they ever do with her is introduce her, and then send the player off to kill her. 

Supporting characters in Bayek’s story, most of which are friends or family, are simply there to betray him after he has a little joke and laugh with them. I swear, its like every single character he meets that isn’t some village peasant! One particularly interesting minor character, Kensa, was a former Medjay that worked with Bayek and turned to Gladiator battles to make a name for herself. 

She’s a fun character who fights with Bayek up until he discovers The Crocodile is one of the people hosting the gladiator battles. Kensa declares that she’d never betray Bayek (and I believe she wouldn’t), but the moment the game sends you after The Crocodile, you overhear her talking to your target like a drone and then the game has Bayek kill her unceremoniously with no reference to Bayek’s deed afterward. She’s just dead on the ground.

The missions dedicated to Cleopatra are perhaps one too many. She and her subplot really could’ve been a background fodder. The people Aya and Bayek were gunning after could easily make up most of the bulk of the story, but, nope, gotta weave Cleo up into that plot somehow, no matter how clunky it turns out.

What good is the formation of the Assassins if the opponents that spark the catalyst effect mean nothing more to the game than a few experience points to shove aside as it masturbates to the introduction of Cesar, Pompeii references, and the assassination of Cesar? Like Assassin’s Creed 3, I really think Bayek and Aya got short-changed because Ubisoft Montreal’s history boner continues to get the better of them (and they just have mediocre writers).

The way the game chooses to end Bayek and Aya’s relationship is about a weak as the accidental creation of the Assassin’s logo (a bird skull falls in the sand, Aya picks it up and bam, there’s the logo). A lot about the last moments of the game feel like Ubisoft remembered, “oh, wait, this is supposed to be a game about the formation the assassins!” And jammed the climax with almost every reference they’ve made to Egypt’s Assassin Bureau beforehand as quickly as possible.

Ubisoft’s gameplay continues to bloat out Creed games that, at this point, are better off being linear experiences, or sandbox games no larger than Assassin’s Creed or Assassin’s Creed 2. The fact that Origins "requires” the player to grind in-between story missions or side-quests in order to exploit a XP system I believe would’ve been ignored altogether like the feather missions in AC2, is scummy to say the least.

I really dislike the lightning in this game and how it effects the character models. Most of Assassin’s Creed: Origins looks as though it was run through a Instagram filter and hit with a bad case of bloom. Aya and Bayek’s skin tone is inconsistent as hell. In some scenes they’re a solid dark brown, in others, they’re so pale and washed out, it looks like they need a blood transfusion. A lot the NPCs look ashy and washed out in the bright light, and that only seems corrected in some pre-rendered cinematics. 

It feels as though Ubisoft tried to find some “happy medium” between the commonly accepted mainstream depiction of Ancient Egyptians (fair skinned, pale, and ambitiously brown) and historical depiction of Ancient Egyptians as seen in their artwork (most if, not all of the, had fairly dark skin). But, more often than not, they bowed to colorism.

On another note, Ubisoft really needs to ditch the real world elements since Desmond Miles is dead and gone (his story, in the retrospect that is “the world is gonna end in 2012!″, was benign to begin with), and none of the no-name characters they introduce do anything to restart the dead battery that is Modern Assassins vs. Abstergo Industries, but, Assassin’s Creed is a franchise perpetually held back by its weaker components on top of the overreach of its developers ambitions.

The most compelling thing about Assassin’s Creed: Origins is the world it created. For a bunch of people who decided Egypt would be a boring environment for a game (thought I’m not surprised they decided to set it during the time the Greeks and Romans were rolling up in the place), they certainly make it work to their advantage. Bayek and Aya are perhaps their strongest characters in the franchise, but, they’re stuck in a story that doesn’t feel all that together and is rushed by the end of the day.

I didn’t expect a lot from this game, I liked some of the things I got from it, but at this point, expecting better from an Assassin’s Creed game seems misguided nowadays and one should always lower their expectations.

[iimmcrtalis-archive]

DA verse

a summary post of all my active muses verse(s) in dragon age because i’m f EELING IT BOYS. except terry for rn bc it’ll be Hard. one day. gonna try and go in a from least knowledge bout their verse to extensive knowledge of ‘em so. ayy

this is a pretty long post i apologize to those on mobile!!

Nova; mage(???), human ( ? ), possibly a distant noble

probably a mage? because blue space magic is her jam. though she’s actually more of a combat & tech. she was like well rounded in that regard so i’m considering iunno??? battlemage maybe w/ lockpicking who knows. she’s a sneaky mage that can stab u real good.

would probably also assume she’s pretty good as inquisitor because she would treat it as her role and thing she still has to bare and takes it seriously. like nova is no nonsense as inquisitor but absolute nonsense when she’s not playing that role lmao. 

Morgan; mage?? human af ye. defo a noble blood t BH. 

i unno man. iunno. is he a mage? yeah probably. would he be a legit battlemage + arcane warrior? probably. Would i say he uses a real sword? pro b ab ly. like listen he’s a beefy mage who wears normal armor and probably looks like a fckn non mage but bOOM SUDDENLY LIGHTNING FROM HIS HAND W H AT 

iunno he’s a mage and he’s aggressive as FUCKKKK. aggro as fuck. probably sides withhh iunno both he’d want both and think it’s wasted potential to only have one lmao. iunno he’s hard to figure out man. he’d ultimately probably be like templars because actual ppl who know how to fight. but also wouldn’t wanna condemn the mageS??? so who knows who knows. 

anyways he probably likes blackwall and the iron bull and viv and cass?? and just ye. chills w/ them a lot probably. probably would flirt w/ cass tho god. butw/e no he’s uhhhh real aggressive as a fckn inquisitor like every body getting beheaded. except a few probably.. he would probably make uh... whats his name... tranquil tbh. worse fate than death that yes he would wish on his enemies bc otherwise they get what they want & too risky otherwise. 

Igne; old af elf, probably an assassin combo w/ magic??

like listen if you tell me that they can’t be both ima fckn punt u bc really that’s dumb. defeats the point of multiclassing in the fantasy genre of g am es. anyways really tho they’re old. old as balls. probably? iunno. probably served like... andruil for a while or somethin! got a lil lil corrupted but didn’t want it and wanted freedom so they were like FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUTTIE 

how’d they live? no idea. not a single clue bc i just don’t know jackshit bout ancient elf shit anymore (when did i ever) but honestly. it’s probably a thing right? old af elves everywhere. but no no they’d probably even annoy sera bc like they’re literally?? nonsense. violent af nonsense. hanging off a roof with a fckn potato in their mouth & lookin ready to murder. 

it’s a look™  but nah thinkin that u hhh corruption shit is probably what gave them a red eye ayyy

inquisitor igne is like dagger eyes at solas but doesn’t snitch on him ever not even once. she’s got his back man. she’d be like cool i’ll plaY BOTH SIDES SUre. sure. no mercy run on ppl tho god 

EVELYN / ISENE; old af elf. got that fckn combo again

it’s a theme really, combo classes. all my muses? multiclassed fuckers.  for a detailed everything, please refer to her old blog bc this is gonna be a stupid summary of it so ayyy.

old as dicks dude. lost her arm in the rebellion, against the rebellion. served elgar’nan because he fits her the most tbh. still sort of serves him i guess. like if he showed up she wouldn’t hesitate to follow his orders is what i mean here. otherwise she keeps up the facade of being a former dalish elf mercenary. and definitely doesn’t shy away from admitting she’s got magic. never calls herself a mage because  like lmao 

she has a fckn big ol sword she carries around one handed? and if ur like UR JUST A MAGE she’s gonna use said big ol sword to chop ur head off. not a fan of modern mages tho lmao. at all. like not a lot of sympathy for them. but she would also just kick a circles door in and be like cool leave gtfo you weaklin lil fucks jfc go learn somethin. 

would fight solas in a denny’s parking lot at 2am if she knew jack shit. but she really doesn’t so she’s like ur weird and i dont trust you  butyeah lm ao

Eludysia; ngl i unno if she’s old old but she’s Old. Old seer lady. 

honestly i think she’s not gonna have much of a da verse in general but it exists enough that i feel like i should cover it here. but essentially she’s an old elf seer in rivain. leader of a port side town. No chantry or qunari around its a lot of elves tho. refugees and what not from kirkwall and stuff. 

i unno if she’s an ancient elf but i know she’s old. like real old. so who knows

if she is ancient she probably woulda been like a priestess to ?? falon’din or dirthamen??? because seer shit but like even in a current state she’s fairly devoted to on e o f them or both? probably both lmao. so it’s w/e. 

she’s the former keeper of the clan revas got sent to, which is where revas’ mom is also from and how she gets to that clan. but she was keeper of the clan for like.. a long time like a long time. like that bald fuck from da:o  but without plaguing people with a curse. iunno how she did it but magic and better than that shit. 

more important if revas is inquisitor because lmao she’d probably be like.. welp im gonna come guide you?? probably.   shit she’s probably like emerald knights old tho shit but no fuckin!!! probably comes to be an advisor. 

i think if u go revas as commander/advisor or inquisitor in a thread eludysia’s probs gonna show up and be like sup  but otherwise she’s mainly just a contact in rivain for info and resources!! no special quest or anything u can just contact her for stuff. 

Warren; half-elf, half-qunari. big man w/ a bow.

&& a thick af accent let’s be real here. 

i haven’t made a post about his shit yet so! this one might be a lil longer!! 

grew up in/around starkhaven. in an alienage somewhere really! but he’s got that starkhaven accent. probably just fumbled his way there because honestly he got fucking ditched by his people and has no idea who his parents are lmao. just knows his mom died during child birth and he was fuckin cursed essentially via his?? clan or something. that qunari bit of him is real obvious as his horns grew out and probably had a harsh life in an alienage. 

because he’s not an elf. but he’s not human. and he’s not a qunari. so he’s just. him. 

eventually falls in with some ppl who teach him to steal. so he does a lot and then gets busted and they fckn break his horns off and chop his ears!!! and throw him the fuck out. as you do. but they taught him to use a bow so he’s good with that. and knives. good at close quarters and a long range.

gets better with a bow. real top knotch stuff. ends up in a mercenary crew (same one as qunari inquisitor? probably.) enjoys his merc lifestyle ya know has a good time killin shit 

anyways. companion warren is p much like ‘Strength & force.’ because he has no tact and doesn’t care about politics. like one day i’ll have his approval / disapproval shit. but today is not that day.

but the same applies to his inquisitor shit. he’s fucking brutal as an inquisitor. cares about the little people but FUCK the rich. takes the well for himself ( tho if i would also say revas is there bc i can and she’d take it) but generally just!! give him power and let him kill shit!! that’s all he cares about. tho he wouldn’t kill samson or calpernia bc he doesn’t see them as enemies or villains truly? just pawns in a big scheme and he’d probably stare corypheus in the face and be like get fucked you saggy fuck 

he’s great, great guy. 

Revas: Keeper. Dreamer. Dalish elf. 

literally like most people know Revas’ Dragon Age basics!! but if you don’t i’ll just direct you to her old blog, so you know what’s up.  i’ll put it into a summary the best i can tho! 

Backstory: short and simple? #fucked.  expanded? she was born to the lavellan clan to one of the head hunters & warriors. ended up having magic so she was sort of training to become second, or first, till her moms old clan was like hey we need a new first so uhhhh help us out. and they traded some goods and revas went on her way. ended up being a fucked up situation where the previous first was murdered by two clanmates who eventually tried ( and did) murder revas but she came back bc lmao spirit help & ended up killing them and leaving for her actions.

Dragon Age: Awakening:  full page about it Takes place shortly after this event happened. she lived on her own for awhile, protecting people as much as she could from darkspawn during the blight. ends up going to the wardens because someone doesn’t appreciate her help since she’s a Mage.     The choices made by the warden in regards to her effect how she becomes a warden and the rest of the timeline. Sort of a branch off feel. highly recommend taking a look at the page and also this post. 

DA 2:  If not in the Awakening verse, Revas travels around to the clans. becoming a traveling keeper & helping the clans the best she can. As well as finding ruins and exploring man memories from lost objects. Eventually finds her way to Kirkwall to actually speak with Merrill. But some other shenanigans play out and some stuff goes down. Ends up helping in the fight at the end and leaving with Zevran ( @allurfavesrqueer‘s zevran only lmao. )

DA:I     Companion: Shows up in fereldan with some tree peeps. gets some elvhen shit. offers her services to the inquisition bc that’s what her spirit told her to do. and ya know real fucky. shares some approvals as solas but usually has some pretty contrasting opinions on things! Will defo take on the role of like older sibling or sibling figure with the inquisitor if they’re close enough. Be kind to elves & mages and you’re good.  ( also she’s an option to take the well if the inquisitor doesn’t want it) 

   Advisor: Takes up an offer by the inquistor to become an advisor which is more or less her using her network with the elves around the countries to do certain objectives and what not. acts a bit like an ambassador for the elves & mages in the meetings to give them a voice and remind the human board of trusteeeess that they’re fucking not the only ones around :)) 

  Commander: Mainly with @desiderrium‘s Cullen. Basically Revas takes over for Cullen? at his request kinda because she’s like what the fuck you’re whAT. and gets pissed at everyone else for keeping him on when he’s Not Okay even if she’d rather kick his teeth in 99% of the time. why revas take over? because she’s actually p fuckin qualified, gestures vaguely towards being a first and the advisor au. like she knows how to lead ppl so ayy. 

  Inquisitor: Same ish backstory happens except her parents died to the blight and she left the clan for the other and ye same shit happens. but the clans ask her to go check shit out for them and shes like of course and gets caught up in the mess so. 

ALRIGHTY !! 

so that got long but yea!! hopefully this is a more condensed version of stuff and good for reference later. 

[cloudchaserandflitterexplain]

Cloudchaser and Flitter Explain: Defenders of Equestria Manes

Hehe, I knew you’d b—

Wait, you’re not?

Nope.

Okay, who are you and what’d you do with Cloudhcaser. You’re always excited for nationals!

Okay, you got me. I can’t wait! Everypony’s going to bring their best decks and the competition is going to be fierce and I’m going to win this year!

Now that’s the Cloudchaser I know and love, hehe. Well, we better get started with our last thing before nationals!

You bet!

Hi everypony! Are you as excited for nationals as we are? Because we’re super duper excited! It’s going to be the best nationals ever!

Definitely. Cause I’m going to win this time.

And to help you guys prepare a little bit for regionals, we thought we’d talk about the new Manes that Defenders of Equestria introduced, just in case any show up.

After all, you’re bound to see a few of them, right?

I dunno, actually. Some of them have powerful boosted sides, but they all have the same flip condition which can hurt their competitiveness.

Turn 1 troublemakers and turn 2 DFOs happen a lot nowadays. And both can seriously hamper a confront-to-flip Mane’s ability to flip. It might be a good idea to just stick with the Manes that don’t have that liability.

Or maybe you could not scare everypony off before we even start.

Sorry…

But it is something to keep in mind. Confront to flip is an easy flip condition on the play for sure. But on the draw?

Well, things can get dicey.

Sure, and that is worth mentioning. But I think most of these Manes are still pretty powerufl regardless!

Anyway, let’s kick things off with Rainbow Dash: Wonderbolt.

Look at her, achieving her dream. Maybe someday Cici will be a full fledged Wonderbolt too.

We can hope!

Anyway, Dash is an interesting card. At first glance you might think she’s an aggro card, as she helps you win Faceoffs. But, really, providing power to confont is more important than faceoffs, and there are definitely better Manes for that.

So maybe you think she’s a good farming Mane? Well, kinda, but she’s definitely not as good as Ambassador of Loyalty for that, who can dash up to problems for free and lets you play high req hasty cards like Thunderlane: Unsung Hero all by herself.

No, she’s actually a control card. Specifically, a troublemaker control card since she effectively gives your TMs +2 power. And she helps a lot with ties too, since each tie gives you another +2. So she’s actually pretty good at it.

Though the problem is she doesn’t do terribly much against other control decks or combo decks, since they don’t care about your Troublemakers so much. And a powerful Mane is usually key in those matchups, so she’ll suffer a lot there.

But, eh. She’s still pretty solid. And gives Blue a reasonable control Mane option, which it was lacking before. Maybe not the best, but hardly bad.

And absolutely great in limited, heh.

Like CIci said, Rainbow prefers a control strategy, though she can fit any role, really. And more specifically, she prefers strategies with lots of Faceoffs!

If you wind up going control, you’ll want to add some troublemakers. And maybe cards like Gilda: Feather Ruffler.

But if going more aggroy, you might want to try cards that care about winning Faceoffs, like Scootaloo: Most Creative, or Storm of Justice!

Meanwhile Farm will prefer lots of epics and cards that flip you extra cards, like The Brave and the Bold or Rainbow’s Epiphany.

And of course cards like Showdowns or Heart’s Desire work for any strategy, really! After all, more faceoffs mean more opportunities to benefit from Dash’s ability!

Now for problems, you’ll probably want to start with something easy to confront. Which is going to be true for all seven Manes today, so I won’t bother repeating that, hehe.

As for the rest, go with stuff that helps you with faceoffs! Ready to Fight is a great option, for example.

Anyway, I guess I’d say, she’s solid. Not the best Blue Mane we’ve seen, but hardly the worst. And that’s fine.

Well, that’s enough about our favourite new Wonderbolt. How about Applejack: Tooled Up?

Heh, amusingly enough, AJ is in the exact same boat as Rainbow. At first glance looks like an aggro or farm Mane, but is actually best at control. Flipping extra cards is a great way to protect your TMs.

But also like Dash, while this works well against aggro and Farm, she’s not so great against control or combo. Which can be a liability in such matchups.

Though AJ has the disadvantage of only helping you out once a faceoff while Dash can help you multiple times. In fact if there are multiple faceoffs between your ready phases, AJ can only help once while Dash helps out in all of them. So honestly I feel she’s a bit worse.

Unless working with chaos effects, I guess.

Not that anypony ever uses chaos effects, hehe.

Again, Cici was right on the money with AJ in that she favors control, but can be used most other places. As such, you’re probably going to want to use similar cards regardless of which Mane you choose! Even similar problems, though you’ll probably want Orange ones instead of Blue.

The main difference, besides colour of course, is that instead of wanting cards that give you extra flips you’ll likely prefer chaos cards. Or cards that care about chaos being flipped, like Tempting Offer.

But whichever choice you go with, you’ll have a Mane that’s really good at winning Faceoffs, which can help you out a bunch!

So next up would be…

Sigh, Pinkie Pie: Cruise Director.

Is it too much to ask for a new Pink Mane that isn’t absolutely awful?

Cici!

What’s really annoying is there were no Pink Manes in either High Magic or Marks in Time despite plenty of ponies wanting a new Pink Mane that would be a reasonable alternative to Vinyl. Not necessarily better, just an alternative.

And Cruise Director is so close. If she were Main Phase timing instead of Faceoff timing, she’d actually see play in some decks. Vinyl would be better in most cases, but she’d at least see play. There are definitely decks that would benefit from getting a free friend every turn.

But Faceoff timing is a joke. She doesn’t help when opponents challenge your Troublemaker, she only provides one power for problem faceoffs and the friend gets sent home taking up space afterwards.

And if Pinkie herself is involved, you’re guaranteed to not want to use her, unlike Dash who’s used automatically or AJ who at least has the possibility of flipping higher than a 3.

It’s just… really disheartening. And it makes me think we’ll never see a good Pink Mane again simply because Vinyl is too good.

Awww, Cici. Maybe there will be a cool Pink Mane in Seaquestria?

Maybe… I’m not holding my breath, though.

Anyway, Pinkie kind of also prefers control, since that’s the best way to get lots of Faceoffs to make lots of friends. And like AJ and Dash, she’ll want to pack several troublemakers.

You’ll also want to include some cards that take advantage of you having a lot of extra friends. Like Belly Flop or Party Hard. And some Showdowns probably wouldn’t hurt either, being a good way to get a 1 power friend into play for 0 AT!

Though you won't have a built in way of making the showdown easier, so you’ll have to be a bit more cautious than if you’re using AJ or Dash!

As for problems… that’s a bit of a toughie. Nothing specifically supports her innate ability. So I guess you should just go with whatever problems you feel help your strategy the most.

Fortunately, Pink has no shortage of good problems, many of which apply to basically any strategy! So I’m sure you’ll have no problem building a problem deck, even without specific direction.

Let’s just move on…

Yes, let’s! Attention students, class is now in session with Princess Twilight Sparkle: Professor Sparkle!

So would that make her Princess Professor Sparkle or Professor Princess Sparkle?

Uh, I don’t think you use both titles together.

Yes, Cici, I was jo—

You probably use the higher title by default, which would be Princess in this case, and only use the lower title in settings where it’s more appropriate. Like the classroom.

Though I suppose it’d probably be fine to use the higher title everywhere? Since, well, that’s maximum respect, right?

Um, I think you’re over thinking it.

Anyway, tell us about the card!

Oh, right.

Well, Twilight here is kind of weird in that she’s the exact opposite of Dash and AJ. You might think at first that she’s a control Mane, and you’d be right for limited, but for constructed? She’s absolutely a farming Mane.

Now, I’m not saying she doesn’t work for control. In fact, she’s fine at it, provided you have a steady income of AT and some troublemakers.

But given enough time, an aggro or farm player might actually be able to break through, given enough power. And spending all that AT protecting your Troublemakers might just bankrupt you.

Not to mention she has a similar problem to Dash and AJ in that she oes absolutely nothing against control and combo.

But don’t forget, she can give troublemakers less power too. All the way down to 0 power. Which makes it really easy to beat them! All you need is someone to challenge the epic. Even a frightened friend stands a chance when fighting a 0 power troublemaker, after all.

That being said, she does have some major weaknesses. Not only do you need to devote a lot of your deck to troublemakers, you have to devote a fair bit of space to generating a lot of AT.

And that’s on top of ensuring you can actually confront a problem with Twilight to flip her, as without her ability to make troublemakers weaker, chances are you’re going to have some serious trouble.

But I guess that’s true for all of these Manes, really.

And of course you tend to be a turn or two slower to actually start farming than the Ambassadors of Loyalty or Honesty. Which can matter a lot against control or combo.

Anyway, overall I think she’s probably one of the stronger Manes from the set, but I’m not sold on her taking any major tournaments anytime soon. We’ll see, though. She definitely has potential.

Regardless of if you go the control route or the farm route, Professor Sparkle definitely wants you to have a troublemaker based strategy. So make sure to pack at least 9 to make the best usage of her ability, possibly more!

On top of that, like Cici said, you’ll want to make sure you have some ways to get some extra AT, since you’ll be dumping a lot into the professor’s ability.

Cards like Zecora: Brewing a Plan or anything with Prepared would be good options for controlly builds, while cards like Heart’s Desire or Spike, Take a Letter might be better for the farmers. Though you can probably mix and match to a degree.

As for problems, well, Purple has a ton of problems that care about troublemakers, and you’d likely do fine with any of those. Alternatively, you could try and choose some problems that will help you gain AT. Entrance Exam, for example, is basically a free AT every turn, which is pretty useful!

No matter how you build her, though, you’ll definitely be ready to teach your opponent an important lesson about the importance of troublemakers!

But it’s time for the princess to give up the stage to our next guest: Rarity: Fashion Mogul, who will be teaching us about all the latest trends and crazes!

This just in, hats are in this year!

I am pretty sure Rarity never said anything like that.

Seriously, Cici? You don’t think Rarity likes hats?

Uh wait, we’re still talking about the game, right?

What do you think?

Er, um, anyway…

Unlike the Manes we’ve talked about so far, Rarity definitely has an obvious play style. Namely control.

Which is why it’s such a shame she’s not that great at it.

Now, okay. She’s not awful at it. Removing a key friend from a faceoff can be a huge swing for sure. Removing a Night Glider: Overpowering or a Thunderlane from a faceoff is fantastic. But a lot of friends right now have powerful come into play effects, so you can’t rely just on this.

Add to this the fact that she’s restricted to one faceoff a turn, and that she does nothing to Manes, she’s basically only useful against aggro or friend-based farming. She may as well have not have text against Mane-based farming, control, and combo, which is really disappointing.

So if you’re fine with an effect that’s powerful against one type of archetype, and even then only if they’re not using too many come into play effects? She’s probably fine.

In fact, I definitely recommend her as a good introduction to control decks for newer players since she’s focused on just one thing, and that’s fine.

But other than that, I don’t recommend her at all. Which is a shame since White has been crying out for a good control Mane for a while now.

Since Rarity focuses a lot on the opponent starting faceoffs, she’s a perfect fit for Troublemaker control. Which means you should definitely make sure you pack a few!

On top of that, cards like Cold Wave can help you win faceoffs when Rarity’s innate ability isn’t enough, while stuff like Discord: Captain Wuzz or It’s Gonna Work can help you get back troublemakers the opponent may have actually managed to defeat.

And if you’re using a bunch of events to protect your troublemakers, you may want to consider Eff Stop to get them back. Cici says he’s the best control card in the game right now.

Well, he is! I don’t think you can play control competitively without him, to be honest. He’s insanely strong right now.

Hehe, that may be an exaggeration. But he definitely has been cropping up in a lot of decklists recently. Probably for good reason!

As for problems, stuff like Fear Itself can help out a lot at denying the opponent the ability to confront problems even if they do defeat your troublemakers. And since you’re preventing your opponent from scoring anyway, why not toss in Blackmail? Nothing quite like free points!

Ugh. As an aggro player, I hate that problem so much. Sometimes it’s right to just not try and confront a problem this turn, but Blackmail makes you try so much harder than you might otherwise. It’s so annoying to have a clock ticking down like that.

Fortunately, Dilemmas help a lot with that problem.

They sure do!

Well, that just about covers Rarity. Let’s move on to Fluttershy: Nurturing Nature!

Absolutely! This is my favourite Mane of the set!

Paying 0 AT to put 3 or more power at a problem is fantastic. It’s been a staple of Princess Luna: Dream Warrior for over a year now for good reason.

Now, that being said, Dream Warrior is still generally better at this. Since Hasty Friends let her pull of DFOs she wouldn’t be able to otherwise, or join in the fight of a TM she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. But Fluttershy is not without her advantages either.

For one thing, if the problem requires only as much power to confront as she has power, you don’t need to spend anything at all, while you still need to actually play a friend to move Luna. So there are cases where you can actually save AT.

And, well, the other advantage is that she’s Yellow. Which means she has a different skill set to draw upon than Dream Warrior does. Like Bunyip, who I put on my top 10 list for the set!

Unfortunately, that’s also a weakness. Yellow aggro certainly isn’t awful right now or anything but it feels a lot weaker than Blue or Pink at the moment, as it just doesn’t have some of the same tools…

But that’s not the point.

The point is she has a ton of potential. And I fully expect her to become a fantastic Mane if she can get the proper support. A lot of ponies have been overlooking her in favor of Thorax, but I think she’s the true winner here. Maybe not this set, but next set?

Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her performing exceptionally well.

Real shame about that flip condition. But fortunately, Yellow has tons of ways to circumvent troublemakers.

Of course, her other major downside is she doesn’t provide that power to faceoffs. Which makes DFOs a bit riskier. But that can be worked around in several other ways, like having high powered friends or using cards like Mob Mentality to reduce the opponent’s flips.

Basically there are solutions if you’re creative enough, and it’s usually a minor problem anyway as usually you have a reasonable advantage when starting a DFO anyway, so 3 less power won’t always matter.

Nurturing Nature, if you couldn’t guess by Cici’s undying love for her, prefers an aggro strategy. She wants to be confronting a problem every single turn, and possibly more!

As such, you’ll mostly want cards that help you confront. Be it stuff like Zephyr Breeze: Quitter, who has a great power to AT ratio, or cards like Conductor’s Baton, which give you lots of power. Confronting is the name of the game.

Though the real tech is to run stuff that makes it easy for Fluttershy to confront by herself. Double Diamond: Second in Command can power up your Mane permanently if you can discard him. And cards like Coloratura: Simply Rara can make big problems much more manageable for Fluttershy.

You’ll probably also want to include some measures to be able to confront even if your opponent is running interference. Be they Dilemmas, which Fluttershy is pretty good at confronting, or just stuff to get rid of the TM, like Turning Point or Battlesnakes.

As for problems? You probably want stuff that’s easy to confront. Concerning Cutie Mark is confrontable by herself, for example. And Equal or Else is pretty close!

If playing with two colours, try not to use problems with a Yellow req higher than 3, though, since this way you can confront with Fluttershy + any of your other friends, not just the Yellow ones.

And I guess with that, we’ve come to the last Mane for the day, Thorax: The Changed Changeling.

He’s… okay.

Hehe, you were pretty excited for him when you first saw him! You were planning lots of decks around him, as I recall.

Yeah. I definitely wanted him to work well. And, well, he kinda does. But the more I play with him and the more I play with Fluttershy, he just feels kind of lackluster in comparison.

On the one hoof, you can get him to huge power levels. Really big, really fast, thanks to cards like Rise and Shine or Furball that make multiple Friends for cheap. But on the other hoof, you still need to actually move him to a problem to do anything. And he can be disrupted really easily.

There are a lot of ways to make friends leave play, nowadays.

Still, he’s definitely not bad. And maybe I just haven’t found the right spot for him yet. Large Manes like Maud Pie: Rockin’ and Applejack: Ambassador of Honesty have historically done really well in the past. So there’s still potential for him to shine. But right now I’d just rather use another Mane.

Thorax is a bit unusual as he’s equally suited to both aggro strategies and farming ones, due to the fact that he can get so big.

Either way, you’ll want to make lots and lots of Friends!

A great way to do that if going the farming route is to use Princess Celestia: Raptor Raiser, who can provide you with a bajillion friends for just 3 AT!

Speaking of farming, if you do go that route you’ll probably want to prefer non-Villain epics to villainous ones, just because they won’t scare your tokens. This can make them a bit more difficult to actually farm, but keeping Thorax as big as possible is usually worth it.

Though don’t worry too hard if you do go with Villains. Since frightened friends still powerup Thorax! They may not have any power right now, but Thorax looks at printed power, which doesn’t change at all.

Speaking of which, this means you can go all out on power buffs too without worrying about decreasing Thorax’s power. Conductor’s Baton is going to be as great for Thorax as it is for Fluttershy, for example, as will other cards that benefit from you having swarms of Friends, like Changeling Citizens.

Oh, and don’t forget Zipporwhill: Pet Collector. Not only does she give you 3 Friends in one card, thus powering up Thorax 3 times, she also lets you keep all those Critters at home to power him up even if you ahve way more than 5 Friends!

Who knew that Changelings and puppies could get along so well?

As for your problems, feel free to use larger problems than you might be inclined to normally. Most Yellow decks probably wouldn’t want anything to do with Too Many Fluttershys’ 8 confront requirement, but Thorax is completely fine with it.

And large problems for you probably also mean large for the opponent, so not only are you not being hampered by it, but your opponent might not be able to DFO as efficiently as they’d like!

And that’s it, I guess. All seven Manes from Defenders of Equestria. Kind of a mixed bag, but Manes usually are.

Still, I think I’m mostly fine with them. None of them are truly busted, like we’ve seen in the past, but most of them are still fine.

Except for Pinkie.

Well, I still like using her. I can never have enough Friends!

Do you mean in the game or in real life?

Both!

Heh, yeah, I should have known that.

Well, guess that’s it for now! Bye everypony! See you all at Nationals!

Yeah! I hope you all show up! It’ll be great.

By the way, nice fakeout earlier. You actually had me thinking you weren’t looking forward to Nationals for a moment there.

Thanks. I practiced keeping a straight face in the mirror for hours.

But yeah, I am crazy excited! There’s going to be so many awesome ponies competing this year, and I think I’m in a great position to take the championship this time! I’ve put in so much time playtesting, and I think I’ve got some great tech. We’ll see what happens, though.

You can do it, Cici! You’re bound to win one of these years.

Don’t I know it.

Of course, I may just nab that title away from you if you don’t watch out. There we’ll be in the finals, staring each other down, knowing only one of us can walk away from the battlefield triumphant.

It’ll be the most epic game ever seen at Nationals ever!

Heh, I’m looking forward to it.

Course, that’ll probably never happen since I’m bringing my hat deck, hehe.

You goof. You’d do way better if you brought one of the decks I made.

Oh, I know! But I like playing hats at Nationals. It’s fun!

Yeah. It just wouldn’t be Equestrian Nationals without Flitter playing hats.

Awww, you big softie. I always knew you secretly liked my Hats deck!

Eh. It’s not for me, but…

Well, you just wouldn’t be Flitter if you didn’t take every opportunity possible to run your hat deck.

Nope!

And that’s the Flitter who’s been my best friend all this time.

Awww, Cici. You’re my bestie too.

Anyway, once Cloudchaser starts paying me compliments for playing Hats, I think that means we’ve rambled on long enough. Bye everypony!

Later!

[thegeneralsnotebook]

Another Adventure in Deck-building Part 40: Rarity, Fashion Mogul (White/Orange Midrange) [Core]

Rarity, Fashion Mogul

It’s Not About the Destination

Storytime this week. With a deck that went through four distinct iterations on its path from concept to finished product, it’s quite a story to tell, too. This week, that story is about Princess Cadance, Royal Envoy, and the absurd lengths that we might go to, in doing everything that we can to make her work.

Per the normal operating procedure, I started the build off thinking about colours. Rarity, with her trigger when an opponent starts a faceoff, can seemingly only be used for control. Having just done White/Purple control last week, that was out. Having done White/Blue control last time with this Mane, that felt like it was out too. White/Yellow is interesting, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it without building a Bedtime deck, and White/Orange didn’t really inspire me either. At least, not at first, as you can see from the deck linked above. (White/Pink, as I’ve made clear before, is a colour combination that I’m avoiding like the plague right now because I feel as though I’ve done it to death.)

So my first stab at the deck was mono-White. On the face of it, this seemed like a reasonably workable proposition. White does have a fair few good cards for the paradigm, like DJ and Octavia for some good Showy and Prepared, Harsh Judge for the usual card denial, and Opalescence, Royal Edict for targeted removal. There are plenty of great Resources to use like Wake Up Call and Petrified as well. Top that with the ability to combine Royal Envoy with Trixie’s Equestrian Apology Tour and you’ve got something that at least feels okay on the surface. But as I looked at it, it felt like the deck had two main flaws.

First, and I think most importantly, White is lacking in “Gotcha” cards, and I don’t mean the literal Gotcha’s that we had in Harmony. I mean cards like Napcakes, Bale Out, Rutherford, etc. Cards that can be played at Immediate speed to stop your opponent from doing a thing. Wake Up Call doesn’t really count because your opponent can play around it of course. There is Cold Wave, and it can be quite effective, but that on its own felt very inadequate for what needed to be a Troublemaker control deck.

Second, having only Tour to interact with Cadance felt like a waste of space. I couldn’t rely on Cadance’s recursion when filling the deck up, so what was the point in putting her in there? Without a way to really take advantage of her, then both her and Tour were only going to get in the way. (Bonus vulnerability: as we all know, White is lacking in quintessential Resource removal.)

Having concluded that mono-White wasn’t going to work, I experienced a brief break with reality as I seriously considered attempting to use Blue’s free movement tricks to give Cadance some Traveler counters. In theory, there might be something there, in maybe getting a free movement every turn off of confronting Daring Escape, and then maybe just paying the 2 AT in order to get something back out of your discard pile. 2 AT to recur anything actually isn’t that bad of an idea, especially when it’s repeatable. And then you throw a few more movement tricks in for good measure, with an Ember or two on top to protect your Troublemakers, a healthy serving of Immediate-speed disruption…

Except, of course, that that’s all utter madness. The only reliable result would be a hand full of useless aggro cards when Cadance gets removed. You might have more luck with the concept running some sort of midrange, and using Cadance to occasionally get back a good faceoff card.

With that said, I cast about for other ways of potentially cheating for Cadance’s counters. The interaction with Ambassador AJ and Staff is already well-understood, and Orange has a few other ways of making it work. Thirty minutes later, I was here, and believed myself essentially done for the week. The attempt to turn Counteroffer + Festival Caterer + Staff into a Cadance resupply engine was wholly absurd, even if supplemented with Applejack’s Hat and Highly Motivated for the same purpose. But it was just crazy enough that I thought it could work.

My labours finished, or so I thought, I started writing this article. It was only when I got to the paragraph above trashing the Blue iteration that I realized this White/Orange version had the same problem. A pile of stuff for generating +1 Power counters that was going to be useless without Cadance, or at least wouldn’t help at all with defending Troublemakers. And the colour platform was so wobbly that the deck would almost always be starved of access to Orange, never mind flipping the Mane if we ever went against Tempest.

So, at long last, I took my own advice from above to heart, and reworked the deck into some kind of midrange. We’re kind of ignoring our Mane for it, but it’s worth noting that Rarity can still serve as an interesting deterrent against opposing Staff-induced faceoffs. Since we’re not leaning on Cadance for our win condition, she settles back into a bonus role, occasionally serving us up an extra Staff, Friend, or important Event. Most importantly, the copious +1 Power generators can be repurposed into fuelling a powerhouse like Granny Smith.

Without question, the deck would do better with a different, Orange, Mane. Yet even so I am satisfied with what we’ve ended up with here. It’s not the greatest, but it’s the best iteration that I’ve come up with out of the list, and it does feel functional, which is more than I could say for its predecessors. I guess the lesson is to always keep your mind open? Even the Mane that I opened this article by saying is only for control has her uses elsewhere, after all.

Gee, that turned into quite the diatribe. Next week’s Mane is Starlight Glimmer, Timer of Her Life.

Archive

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

Billy Magnussen Is on Fire and He's Only Getting Hotter (Exclusive)

Billy Magnussen's career is on fire. The actor, 32, was already Tony-nominated before he got his breakthrough role as Rapunzel's Prince in Into the Woods. (In fact, it was because of his work on Broadway that Meryl Streep herself recommended him for the role.) He's since appeared in two Best Picture contenders (The Big Short and Bridge of Spies) and Emmy-winning TV series such as American Crime Story (playing Kato Kaelin in The People v. O.J. Simpson) and Black Mirror. (He's Valdack in the Star Trek-riffing "USS Callister.")

Turns out, last week, his last hotel caught fire, too. "I was in Montreal, someplace called Mont-Tremblant, I think? Whatever," he recalls. "The first night we were there, the alarm went off at, like, seven in the morning and our hotel caught fire. So, we had to go into the snow, and it was aggressive." The Canadian inferno proved not so much a matter of life and death as an inconvenience, one remedied with a spa trip. "It was someone else's hotel room. It was 420 -- which is my birthday -- that apparently caught fire."

This week, the New Yorker is safe here in L.A., visiting to go on auditions and promote his new movie, Game Night. The madcap comedy, starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, is about what happens when the couple's regular game night stops being polite and gets way too real, after a staged kidnapping mystery party inadvertently becomes the real thing and the suburbanites are left to solve it while outrunning Bulgarian mafia, underground fight clubs and sociopathic police officers. These days, gambling on yet another R-rated action comedy requires, at best, hesitant optimism, so perhaps the biggest surprise of Game Night is that it's actually good.

"I think that's awesome when people are like, 'I...really thought it was good?'" Magnussen exclaims with a whoop. "Like, that means a lot. It's better than someone saying, 'That was good.'" In conversation with ET, Magnussen reveals how to be a respectful s**t talker and teases his upcoming projects, including Disney's live-action Aladdin, a comedy with Tiffany Haddish and a Netflix series opposite Emma Stone and Jonah Hill.

ET: Let's start with some easy game-related questions.

Billy Magnussen: LET'S DO THIS!

Are you a board game guy or drinking game guy?

Can you combine the two?

Sure. What's your favorite board game played as a drinking game?

Have you ever played Betrayal at House on [the] House?

It's one of my all-time favorite games.

Dude! Best game! Is it not the best game?

When do you drink in it, though?

Oh, you know, if you roll under the omen number, you should drink. And if you roll the omen, you drink. You just add it to many things. Cranium, also, if you lose a round, you have to take a drink.

I played Betrayal last weekend and there definitely was not enough drinking, so I'm going to start implanting your rules.

It's so fun. It's a game where you're rolling dice all the time. Or you could even do, like, every time there's a blank space, because it's only zero, one or two. Every time there's a blank, you have to consume something.

I need to stop us before we get very involved with Betrayal.

[Laughs] Well, it is the best game in the world.

How competitive are you on a scale of 1-to-quit in the middle of the game because you're losing, then leave and take the game home with you so no one else can play?

No, never will quit in a game! I'll ride it out to the end, man. I will ride it out to the end. Because you don't know! It's like playing Fortnite. You could keep going in Fortnite and have one percent of health, but if you take the other guy down, you're still in it.

Do you find you are a competitive person, though?

Yeah, of course, man! Of course. I think it's fun. I think it really shows character in people, how they deal with a game, funnily enough.

Does that competitiveness manifest in, like, a simmering rage? Or are you a big s**t talker?

No, no! I'm all about the game, and I comment on specifics. I'm a good loser. If I lose, I'm respectful and whatnot. If I'm a winner, I'm respectful and whatnot. I have to thank my dad for teaching me that growing up, win or lose, still have a little honor. That said, am I s**t talking? Yeah. Of course, I'm s**t talking. I've been s**t talking all my life.

Speaking of competitiveness, with such a deep bench of talent on this [Game Night also stars Jesse Plemons, Kyle Chandler, Lamorne Morris and Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan], do you find that you're competing on set to make people crack?

That whole film, these people I'm working with, they're hysterical. It was difficult making this movie, because we couldn't stop laughing. I guess there's a hidden undertone of that, like, Oh who's going to crush it today? But also working with talented actors and you find that the true person you're trying to crack is the audience. So, if you guys can work together-- Like, working with Sharon Horgan, the best part was the relationship being funny, not a line specifically. You know? I think good humor is situational, not just like saying a witty-- Yeah, there are witty lines and whatnot which are hysterical, but I love kind of situational such.

Sharon Horgan is, I'm convinced, a full-on genius.

She absolutely is. And-- Yes, dude. President 2020.

I don't know if she can be president...

No, I know. Because she's Irish. Or U.K.? Whatever!

Thinking about Game Night and one of my favorite movies you were in, Ingrid Goes West--

Oh, you saw that?!

Ingrid Goes West was one of my top 10 favorite movies of last year. But you get called on to play the aggro, sort of clueless, straight guy himbo quite often. Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I guess it's my face? That's it. I think that probably a lot of people were similar to that character growing up in high school and when they look at me they see that. I don't think I'm that guy, but, you know.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

You don't seem like it. I want to talk about some of your upcoming projects, because you are killing it lately--

Dude, man! I've been so fortunate, I can't tell you. I'm hustlin', dude. I'm trying to hustle. You know, every opportunity I've gotten has been an absolute dream, and I couldn't be more grateful for it. I'm like every other actor out there, just auditioning. Trying to do it.

You have Aladdin. How closely does that hew to Disney's animated movie?

How closely? Well, the Disney animated movie was what? An hour-and-something long. This is a two-hour film, I would guess. I don't know. I don't know the running time. But it's definitely, I would say, developed and you really see these characters live and breathe, which-- It was awesome, man. I'm telling you, it was such a magical-- It's a whole new world, man. [Laughs]

People are pretty excited to see Will Smith as the Genie. How do you think they will react to that?

I think they're going to be so excited and surprised and loving it! Look at the story of Aladdin. It's about knowing your own self-worth -- or finding out your own self-worth is good enough -- and I think a lot of these characters go through that journey. And as long as we share that and share our hearts with it, I think it's going to be fantastic. And being on set, that's what I felt.

Do you get to sing?

They didn't script me to sing. I might have sang just to sing. But, yeah. No. There was definitely not a song for me in that.

Disney hired a Tony nominee and didn't give you a song?!

Dude, I don't know, man. But it is my second Disney prince. So, we're going for a hat trick. I have to figure out how to get one more.

Then you have [Ike Barinholtz's directorial debut] The Oath, which, like Game Night, has a stacked cast.

Duuude! Ike Barinholtz, Tiffany Haddish-- F**k! They are awesome. They are unbelievable people. And the rest of the cast too. Carrie [Brownstein]. Who else was in it with us? John Cho! Dude! Awesome dude! Meredith Hagner!

I need to hear your Tiffany Haddish party anecdote. Have you gotten one yet?

You know what? That woman has the most beautiful heart. That was the best part of her, sharing her heart with everyone. That girl is special, man. She really is. I don't have a party thing.

On the TV side, you have Maniac. [A Netflix limited series directed by Cary Fukunaga that stars Stone and Hill as patients in a mental institution.] How was working on that?

Ahhh! I don't even know, but I can't wait to see it! Dude, it is so unbelievable and so wild. Every day going to that one was just, like, Didn't know this was coming. It's a trip. It's an absolute trip. You can't explain it-- It's so insane. It's so insane. I just want you to be excited about it, because it is such a journey and a trip and it's going to be so fun.

It seems like we're going to see a pretty different side of Emma and Jonah in this. Did you find that was the case?

Yeah! They were delightful. It's really funny, like, years ago when they were coming out with Superbad and stuff like that, I was just admiring them from a distance and now getting the opportunity to work with them, it's shocking. Because you have an idea of these people and then you meet them and you're like, Oh, you're just so much better than I imagined you are! You're awesome!

Lastly, you were just in "USS Callister," which was the breakout episode of this season of Black Mirror. Whenever an episode hits like that, people start clamoring for a sequel episode or a spinoff. Have you heard any whispers of more "Callister"?

You know what'd be cool, man? You know we're online now, the Callister crew? What if they were online and going to different games, different types of games. Like, you could think of a combat game or Fortnite game. Wouldn't that be cool? And maybe I did get contacted about something. I don't know! You'll have to find out!

RELATED CONTENT:

Will Smith Shares Adorable First Cast Photo From Live-Action 'Aladdin' Set

On Set of 'Game Night' With Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams (Exclusive)

Jason Bateman Plays Coy About Jennifer Aniston's Breakup at 'Game Night' Premiere (Exclusive)

[dingoreviews]

Final Fantasy XIII Review

I feel like since this is my first(tm) review I should do some explaining on how this will work. But at the same time everyone and their mom posts reviews for things nowadays so I'm sure you get the picture. Feel free to skip all this and go to the end where I sum it up in one sentence. Don't worry. I won't mind.

...Still there? Neat. Unfortunately for you, you've probably made the worse of the two choices.

As a disclaimer, this rant is purely my opinion and completely subjective. No one is paying me to do this. If you dislike what I'm saying, leave an ask and I will sip my iced tea and laugh about it as I read it dramatically to my friends and loved ones. Anyway, let's continue with me shitting on ranting about the FFXIII series in detail. Potential spoilers, but these games are hella old so if you spoil yourself you can just eat a pint of ice cream and cry about it.

I like to consider myself a Square Enix/Final Fantasy fan. I tend to follow their actions and look forward to their games. Some of my favorite games are made by Square (Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Raider (the reboots) and FFX to name a few). That said, there’s a good chance I’m pretty biased in their favor.

But some of their most recent games have been kinda shaky for me, particularly FFXIII and XV. I’ll save FFXV for another time though.

So FFXIII (or 13 for the casuals) stars your typical cast of generic and angsty characters who, in classic JRPG fashion, have to kill god(tm) with the power of friendship and morals. It's got your pretty generic plot where the entire world/government is conspiring against you and your ragtag group has gotta stab everything between point A and point B. Did that sound like a criticism? I mean as cliche as that all is at that point it's basically Square's bread and butter for FF games so I'm not really worried about all that.

I mean, this is typically the part of the review where you go over the plot of the games right? Well maybe I would if I actually knew what it was. That brings me to my first rant point:

Where's the Damn Story?

There's been a trend in games lately where the devs leave little footnotes and data entries littered about that give you background and fully explain the lore of the world you're in. A lot of the time, that's typically reserved for less important information, like the time sheets for the town's police force or the color of their president's undergarments. You know, things that might be nice to know for people who are really into it, but not necessary to understand what is going on. FFXIII also decided to use this method of storytelling...

While on your epic hallway adventure, FFXIII gives you data entries about background and things when relevant. I, for one, made the assumption that, like many other games, I could save those until later as it wasn't necessary for understanding what was going on right now. BOY WAS I WRONG. Throughout the majority of the game the characters go on and on as if you're already well versed in their world. L'cie? Fal'cie? I mean if you're gonna make up words at least define them for me extremely clearly within the plot and storytelling itself.

Literally everything I understand about the plot of the first XIII game came from reading a wiki after the fact. And that says a lot considering I barely understand it even now. It really shows a failure on XIII's part to actually write a plot in a way that would be clear to anyone who played. Throwing data entries at me as a requirement for understanding the plot is EXTREMELY LAZY in my opinion.

Then there's the characters. Honestly, I didn't like any of them. I mean, I liked Fang and Vanilla (that was intentional) mostly, but they still felt kind of underwhelming. The characters had a lot of potential too. I feel like Lightning had genuine motives behind her actions, but she was as expressive as a spiky haired potato. I mean, at least her design wasn't overly emphasizing her tits and ass. I'm going to pretend that Lightning Returns doesn't exist yet because don't get me fucking started.

Then you get Snow who's just like look at me I'm the dumbass who believes I can save everyone herp. And Hope isn't any better with his momma's boy ass whining all the time. I guess there are character arcs but they only really happen by the weird plot point of hey if you don't fucking grow a pair this giant robot is gonna bury your ass so I'm not sure how much that counts.

Hallways for Days

I had already alluded to this, but the game is extremely linear.

Let me put that in perspective. I love FFX. For those of you that have played X, it is also extremely linear. But despite this, the game opens up in different ways that allow for side tracking and bonus stuff. It's not a whole ton until you get to the end, but it's something I don't mind about the game because there's so much more to it.

Meanwhile, FFXIII is so damn narrow that you could throw a hot dog down one of the hallways and it would get caught between the walls. They have all these lush, beautiful environments that you can only admire from a distance as the hallways the force you in make a sharp left turn away from it all. And then to top it off all those locations are one and done. You cannot go back to a majority of the game environments after completing them. Unless, of course, you restart the game. But why on earth would anyone subject themselves to another 30 hours of hallways anyway?

By the time the game opens up for you to roam and stretch your legs, you're basically in the final chapter. It's a question of "Do I fight the final boss or just grind until I die?" The game opens up so far in and so suddenly that, and this is no joke, when my boyfriend was playing the game he had such a shock from his comfortable, narrow hallways he got too overwhelmed to continue the game. That's a bad way to get introduced to the series, considering that was his first ever FF game.

Press X to Shaun Combat

Now my biggest gripe with XIII is the combat system. I saw combat system, but it’s more like a frustration magnet. So much of it feels less like a tactical system you have to actually control and think about and more like… pressing X until you win or die.

For those of you less familiar with the combat, your team takes actions by filling a turn bar with various commands based on their combat roles (or paradigms). Once they perform all their allotted tasks they then wait for the bar to refill again before taking more actions. This also applies to all of the enemies in the game.

Now, you’re probably saying Well if everyone is taking turns simultaneously based on any number of different timings then the battles must be pretty chaotic and fast paced. Yes, random citizen of the internet, they can be. Or, you know, you can press the Auto Battle option which the action cursor defaults to every time your characters have turns and it usually does the most optimal thing for that character based on their current paradigm.

That means we don’t have to think about anything at all! Let the game do it for us! Amazing! Everything I wanted in a movie video game! FFXIII successfully managed to take a combat system that is normally designed to create situations where players have to think strategically and remove almost all the thinking.

Honestly, that’s not what caused me agonizing frustration while playing the game. What destroyed my will to live most was the various area of effect (AoE) abilities that the characters and, more importantly, the enemies have. The most control you have for your characters’ positions is based entirely on their roles/ abilities used. Nothing stops your characters’ AIs from simply standing next to each other in a big pile. They might as well hold up a big sign that says Hit us with all your AoEs at once! I swear, if I had a dollar for every time my healer character walked right next to my tank character, who was pulling all the enemy aggro and died because they got hit by all the AoE, I’d have enough money to ship a package to Square Enix Japan with a video clip of Hope running directly into an attack directed at another character and a card with a big Why? written inside.

Conclusion

Yeah, you can probably tell that I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone. I mean it’s pretty, the music is solid, and the internet believes that Lightning has great armpits. (As a gay man I have no comment on this.) But I just don’t think it’s very fun. Despite this, I did manage to finish the game and put a lot of time into some of the side quests. But in general, not a great game.

TL;DR

Battle is boring, plot is thrown at you unexplained, and it probably should have been a 48 hour movie. But hey, it’s pretty.