It’s been a while since we’ve engaged with the Standard meta-game here in MTG Arena. To be honest, I’d been growing bored and disinterested since it seemed like nothing even the release of Core Set 2021 did anything to shake up or otherwise change the kind of decks being played. It was still mostly Bant/Sultai Ramp, with Temur Reclamation and Mono-Red Aggro trailing right behind, just as it’s been for months now.

That all changed thanks to the recent update, banning a number of key cards that forced most of those decks out to make way for new archetypes to take the stage, while we still have the cards from the Ravnica sets and Core Set 2020 to make use of.

You can find the decklist here. 

Out of all the bans, probably the most impactful one is Teferi, Time Raveler. He the primary reason to run UW, as a strong tempo/disruption piece that can come down early and replace itself. Additionally, his passive completely nullified counter magic (and instant speed interactions), which killed tempo decks almost immediately after he was released. You might remember a couple of the times where, while playing one of the Flash decks, that the moment Teferi is resolved, I pretty much had to surrender. The entire format was warped around not having access to instants, and doing away with him pre-rotation makes it possible to play around with tools we just couldn’t before.

Wilderness Reclamation is another card than maintained relevance for an extremely long time. This was actually a piece of a combo with the Explosion half of Expansion/Explosion. We’ve actually played this deck before, and you can see the combo in action there. Even without that combo, the extra mana gained from it can make a huge difference, allowing it’s controller to safely tap out knowing they’ll still have mana available later. Obviously, the deck named after it relied on it to function, so with it being banned new decks will rise up in its place.

Growth Spiral is banned because, along with Uro, it served as the backbone for both the Bant and Sultai ramp decks that have terrorized most of standard since Theros, along with Nissa. With such a glut of these effects, it was trivial to accumulate a lot of lands/mana and use that to quickly overwhelm the opponent with a choice of powerful finishers. Usually, it would end up being a Hydroid Krasis, or Nissa herself. Getting rid of it won’t completely cripple ramp decks, but it will force them to change up their game plan and do something different.

Sadly, the last card to get banned was Cauldron Familiar, but I understand why. As I have demonstrated time and time again, this card forms a powerful combo with Witch’s Oven that forces the opponent onto a clock that will slowly kill them if they don’t stop it. This core synergy formed the foundation of many powerful decks that used Mayhem Devil and/or Korvold as win conditions, getting many triggers off each sacrifice to control the game. I’ll be sad to see it go, but I’m not surprised because it’ll likely take over the power vacuum once the other big archetypes go away, losing only a few valuable pieces in the rotation.

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Which brings us to the deck we’re playing, which is a hybrid deck using a couple of different strategies that synergize well. Cards like Burglar Rat and Yarok’s Fenlurker can be used to slowly chip away at our opponent’s hand to put them on the backfoot, especially when we double up on those types of effects using Yorion or Charming Prince.

Then, once we’ve got a collection of bodied just sitting there, we can use Doom Foretold, (the card that convinced me to play this deck because I missed Esper Dance) in conjunction with other removal pieces like Oath of Kaya and Elspeth Conquers Death to wipe out our opponent’s board to keep them down, finishing it off with either Yorion himself or Kaya, Orzhov Usurper.

I don’t think it’s a top tier deck, but it’s a fun one.

Once more, we step into a mind game. And once more, my good friend Mathias is joining me for the adventure.

After a brief adventure in the G.U.T.S. of Talos 1, we explore the Arboretum, including “Jupiter’s palace at the top of the heavens” and the greenhouse where the staff have more urgent things on their mind. Then, we explore the Crew Quarters to participate in a good tabletop role playing session while eating shockingly bad food from the station’s kitchen staff.

We also manage to beat the game… -ish.

Thanks again to Sam Callahan for his work on the thumbnails for the series.

The Crew Quarters is one of my favorite areas of the game, because of how much we learn about the people living in Talos 1 from all of the environmental details strewn about. Because of the nature of our main story quest, obtaining voice samples of Danielle Sho, most of it will focus on her and her relationship with Abigail Foy. And that’s a really touching and powerful relationship.

What I want to focus on though, is what these details reveal about Morgan and Alex Yu, since we learn a lot about who they are and how other people on the space station relate to them. Between the two of them, Morgan appears to have been more popular among the Talos 1 crew than their brother, and for good reason. 

As we talked about in the show, both of them, as the ones in charge of the space station, have the ability to pull rank and ignore certain rules and regulations as they see fit. However, they do it in different ways. Alex appears to really only pull rank in ways that obviously benefit him and him alone. While the rest of Talos 1, Morgan included, has to participate in regular physicals to stay in shape, Alex regular uses his status to avoid taking part in those exercises, presumably out of embarrassment. Additionally, he breaks the chain of command to give orders that he’s not in a position to give, like spying on potential whistleblowers and thieves. This extends to the regular psychological evaluations, which get reported back to him as well.

Meanwhile, Morgan used their rank to make life on Talos 1 easily, building custom operators like Skillet (RIP in peace) to help out the head chef despite regulations forbidding the use of custom operators. And they’re also willing to overlook Mikhaila Ilyushin’s paraplexis despite the fact that it disqualifies her from working on Talos 1.

You could argue, especially in light on what we learn of Morgan later on, that these are selfish decisions that they is making for the sake of convenience, since they make life on the space station easier overall. However, it demonstrates that they have the emotional intelligence necessary to value the crew’s morale and mental health. Aside from that, it appears Morgan stays fairly detached, observing how each member of the crew feel about both them and Alex respectively, while analyzing how useful they are around the station and what they can do in order to maintain their usefulness in the long haul.

And as this Paste article notes, Morgan’s room does a good job of acknowledging their Asian heritage, without making it a significant focus. In fact, both of their rooms are really strong cases of visual storytelling. Observant viewers would note that Morgan’s private room is almost a one-to-one recreation of their apartment from the opening of the game. (Remember, although it was a simulation, it had to be an accurate enough facsimile that Morgan couldn’t tell the different.) It  is a fully equipped workspace with a computer, workbench, and tools. But there’s also a bookshelf with a mix of practical and recreational reading, and a TV/game console combo. Alex also gets in on the environmental storytelling with a treadmill that’s covered in boxes and a globe that hides a key-card to his private escape pod underneath.

A pod that we can use to escap-*white noise*

A pod that might come in handy later. It would be cowardly to run away, after all.

Before a sign off, I want to give a shout out to NoClip, who are currently running a documentary series on Arkane Studios. In particular, they did an amazing episode chronicling the incredible opening to this game and how it came about. It’s absolutely worth your time.

Lately, I’ve been burned ever so slightly by both Legends of Runeterra and MTG Arena, but for different reasons. As I was looking for something to play instead, a friend of mine on Twitter started asking about games to play with Twitch integration. Some of the games that came to mind were ones I’ve already played on stream, like Slay the Spire and Dead Cells, but there was one that I remembered loving, but forgot had Twitch integration.

While I’ve talked about Hand of Fate a few times on the old Texture Pop podcast, I’ve never actually showed off either the original game or it’s sequel. And since the sequel allows for viewer participation, it seemed like a good idea.

(Apologies for the abysmal audio balancing on this video. I have no excuse for this one, and I should have seen how loud it was while recording.)

What I find most impressive about Hand of Fate is how well in simulates the experience of playing a tabletop adventure while still taking advantage of the digital space to do things that could not be done on pen-and-paper. And a large part of it’s success come down to the performance of The Dealer.

The Dealer serves as both our adversary and constant companion, connecting the whole experience together to better sell the scene. Every fortune is met with begrudging acknowledgement and faint praise. Every failure is responded to with snide wit and thinly-veiled contempt. While this isn’t as pronounced in the sequel as it was in the original game, shades of it still exist. I couldn’t help but feel as if I had formed a strange relationship with him through my time playing, built on a strong desire to beat him at his own game.

And by traversing this game map, forged by cards both we and Dealer have added to the deck, it truly begins to feel like playing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign led by an asshole DM who nonetheless is still trying to at least play fair so that he can feel good about destroying us.

That extends to the mechanical structure of the game. Sure, the Arkham-style combat system is nothing to write home about, but it does a fine job of being an outlet in which the other systems feed into. It’s cool to see all of the equipment we’ve acquired through our adventure attach itself to our avatar, our stamina determined by how well we’re been keeping ourselves fed and healthy.

It’s the package, when put together, that forms such a strong whole that I find endlessly compelling. I’m happy to come back to it, even after all this time.

Everyone’s had that experience where certain commanders just end up fundamentally warping the game around their abilities. Like that Lavinia, Azorius Renegade player who you just know is playing the Knowledge Pool combo or my own Marisi deck who forces the rest of the table into uncomfortable combat, these are commanders that immediately telegraph that you’re not in for a “normal” game of Commander.

Out of the three players who were in the match played, two of us were using such commanders. I was one of them, using a new flying “tribal” deck I had built around Inniaz, the Gale Force. The other game-warping commander was Zedruu, the Greathearted. And our third player had Kess, Dissident Mage as their general.

Unfortunately for Zedruu, they had problems out of the gate. By turn 3, they were already starting to miss land drops, causing them to fall quickly behind the rest of us in terms of mana. Their saving grace was that, once they managed to get their third mana source in play, they started placing pieces on the board they effectively hindered us. Cards like Meekstone, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale meant that both Kess and I weren’t able to be as aggressive as we would have wished.

This was particularly vexing since I had a Serra Ascendant on board and I wanted to swing in to get my life total nice and high. The other notable card, aside from Inniaz herself, that I managed to stick in this early stage of the game was my Thopter Spy Network. Thanks to the mana rocks on my board, I was able to start building up an army of flying creatures weak enough to dodge the effect of Meekstone, even when bolstered by Favorable Winds.

I also tried to cast a Moat, but Kess Disallowed it before it could resolve, with protests of “I need to be able to attack” and “most of my creatures don’t have flying”. Seems unfair to me, but what can you do?

And really, that was what Kess was doing best in this early part of the game, using removal to make their influence known. Using Chaos Warp on The Tabernacle, Deadly Rollick on my Serra Ascendant (and later Inniaz thanks to Kess’s ability), and later using a Reforge the Soul after Rifting all of our cards back to our hands to reset the game board.

Fortunately, one of the cards in my new hand was a Time Wipe, which equalized the playing field. I was able to cast my Thopter Spy Network again before Reforge the Soul was casted, letting me keep one of my most valuable pieces. That said, I was starting to fall behind, which allowed both Kess and Zedruu to make their moves and build to their end games.

Kess was by far the more visible of the two threats, creating an Army of the Damned, which neither Zedruu nor I could deal with since we were out of board wipes. Since I had already demonstrated Inniaz’s power prior, and had a Luminarch Ascension on board, those zombies naturally found their way to me. I wasn’t dead, but I was in a bad situation.

Seeing that Kess had my number, Zedruu chose that moment to unleash their own move as well. After playing their commander on the previous turn, they used the mana they had finally managed to accumulate taking the following course of action. 

First, they began by casting Illusions of Grandeur to give themselves an extra twenty life. Then, they used Zedruu’s ability to give control of it over to Kess, which meant that Kess would be the one to lose twenty life when it leaves. And finally, with Grasp of Fate, they exiled both that and my Luminarch Ascension to bring Kess down to 4 life, while I remained at 6. And while that was certain a terrifying situation, it also brought me exactly the tools I needed to keep myself in the game.

With my Spy Network in play, and a number of cheap creatures, I was ready to start swinging with Inniaz again. Kess threatened to destroy her before combat so that I couldn’t get the trigger, but I was ready for that eventuality. Not with a counterspell, or any card for that matter, but with an ultimatum.

If we were playing with webcams, I would have looked Kess dead in the eye as I told her that unless Inniaz gets an attack trigger, Zedruu had a 100% chance of winning the game before their token army had the chance to finish both her and myself off with another Illusions of Grandeur transfer. Obviously, this is something I selfishly pointed out to my benefit, but she also knew that I was telling the truth, and so my combat proceeded unhindered.

By taking control of Zedruu, handing a useless token over to Kess, and moving a zombie over to Zedruu’s board, I bought both of us another turn. Zedruu was the linchpin, allowing the deck transfer cards over to other plays to suffer their downsides. In robbing her of that piece, I bought the rest of us enough time to keep going.

At that point, my plan was to team up with Kess to at least get Zedruu down to a point where they were much more vulnerable. Sadly, thanks to a Glacial Chasm, that wasn’t to last. With no other target, I had to murder Kess, stealing a Linvala, Keeper of Silence from Zedruu in the same breath.

In the ensuing one-on-one, Zedruu tried valiantly attempted to turn the tide back in her favor, with powerful cards like Sun Titan to try to reestablish a board state. Sadly for her, I was able to scalp those cards by switching them for thopter tokens. The coup-de-grace was when I used that same Sun Titan to resurrect a Remorseful Cleric, which prevented them from ever trying to bring back their combo pieces with the Hall of Heliod’s Generosity they had access to. Between that and the increasingly difficult cumulative upkeeps of Glacial Chasm and the Illusions of Grandeur they destroyed Grasp of Fate for, there was no chance.

Between Inniaz and Zedruu, that was such an interesting, awkward, and well played game for all three players. Although I managed to achieve a strong enough hold in the end to win, the pendulum could have easily swung in any number of directions. As I write this, I’m still somewhat shocked that I wasn’t taken out the other player, but sometimes that’s just how the wind blows if you know how to take advantage of it.

Jumpstart is one of the innovative and interesting formats I’ve seen the designers at Wizards of the Coast come up with. This weird hybrid format, combining the focus of pre-constructed decks with the variety that comes from a Limited format like Draft or Sealed.

Though boxes of it are hard to come by and too expensive when they are, largely due to Covid-related manufacturing issues, a version of it has come to MTG: Arena for us to play in the meantime. Is this new way to play all it’s cracked up to be? Or is Jumpstart dead in the water?

Let’s find out.

Each Jumpstart pack contains 20 cards, including lands, that all fit a singular theme. By combining the contents of any two of the packs, a deck of 40 cards can be created, fully playable without any need on the player’s part to sift through the contents of those packs to build their own brew with what they have. The Professor at Tolarian Community College goes into greater detail, but the idea is that new and veteran players alike can “Jumpstart” their game by opening a few packs, jamming them together and getting straight to the gameplay.

And this concept largely works. While come themes are clearly a bit stronger than others, all of them have the potential to both hold their own and synergize with other themes in the set. The addition of the Thriving lands for mana fixing help alleviate the problem of mana screw that players could otherwise experience in a set like this, and even two wholly unrelated themes can still win games.

A lot of pre-constructed products have a problem where they result in extremely slow games, as a combined result of many high-CMC cards and lands the ETB tapped. Thankfully, in the hour of game I played, this didn’t seem to be an issue. I was almost always starting to make meaningful plays by turn two. There’s even a decent suite of combat tricks and removal to allow for very interactive gameplay and creative combos.

Overall, I hope this is a mode that stays in Arena long term. It might have even persuaded me to look for a box myself once production evens out and prices return to reasonable levels.

I can’t believe I haven’t played this one on stream yet, especially since it’s one that I never tire of. Arkane Studio’s Prey is one of, if not the, most criminally underappreciated and undersold games of 2017.

Where Dishonored and it’s sequels derive heavily from the Thief franchise that game before it, Prey drinks from the same well as System Shock did. In all but name, this is the closest we’ll get to System Shock 3 until the actual System Shock 3 exits development hell.

It is my hope that by the end of this series, you will come to love this game the same way I do, if you haven’t already.

Credit to Sam Callahan for providing the thumbnail.

As I said while recording during the stream, this is one of the best opening sequences I have ever seen in a video game. So much groundwork is being laid to establish and set up threads, both in terms of the overarching story and the abilities we will gain access to over the course of the game, that I can’t help but be in awe at the work that must have gone into it.

The opening simulation, complete with helicopter ride and fake elevators to get into the test chamber, culminates in a fantastic moment where we have to literally step through the Looking Glass (which is both a very unsubtle literary reference and a cool nod to Looking Glass Studios). But more than that, it helps establish what will become a vital plot point for the story that follows: The process of uninstalling Neuromods erases all memories from after it’s installation. Erasing the neural connections established by Neuromod can only be done by wiping out the memories and experiences built on top of it.

That’s before we get into the double duty of the three tests that we undergo in the facility. When playing through the game for the first time, these segments are perfect for helping a new player familiarize themselves with the basic control scheme. Most of it is standard stuff, but it can be helpful even for people with immersive sim experience to reestablish their muscle memory. They’re all simple tasks, with no time limit on how long players can take.

And yet, these same tests take on a whole different meaning on a repeat playthrough, when we’re already aware of the existence of the Typhon and the incredible powers they possess: Powers which the Talos 1 researchers are attempting to install into humans. Each of these tests were designed to test one of these powers. The three boxes, which we use to learn how to pick up objects in the world, we supposed to be used to test the Typhon power to generate an anti-gravity field. The chair we hid behind was something we were supposed to mimic in order to blend in with the scenery. And lastly, the button on the other side of the wall we learned to jump over was meant to be manipulated telekinectically from a distance. Without us knowing, the game has already previewed abilities that we may or may not acquire for our own as we explore the space station.

To top it off, we head back to our office, guided by the ghost of our past self, from before the mind wipe, established yet another important back of the story: What does it mean to be “you”? The final questionnaire hints at this, but every time Morgan Yu finishes with an experimental Neuromod and gets their memory reset, they don’t come it the same way they went in. Their personality changes in ways both subtle and overt. And as a result, we need to ask the question of who the “real” Morgan Yu is, assuming such a concept even applies anymore.

Get ready, because as this series continues we’ll be sure to enter into a Mind Game. It’s time to see how deep down the rabbit hole we can delve.

Recently, League of Legends implemented a new feature called “The Lab”, where it will introduce experimental modes of play that are unique from the others.

For our first round in the Lab, we play a classic mode from League of Legends: ASMR… I mean ARAM, short for “All Random All Mid”. Four random champions are selected, and after a mulligan the deck is built based on those champions.

Which means that there’s no need for us to build anything for it. Let’s just dive in and see what happens.

Sometimes, it’s fun just to let loose and embrace the chaos, and this mode is absolutely perfect for that. It’s highly likely that even if one plays it a lot, they’ll only have a rough idea of what cards are in their deck after their champion picks are wrapped up.

It also means that while luck is a significant factor in how well one might do, the other factor is how one can improvise with the cards they’re given to outwit their opponent. In the footage, you’ll see us on both ends of the divide, threading the needle perfect in one match and yet failing to arrange our attacks perfectly to close out another when we probably could have.

The high degree of variance in ARAM also means that it’s pretty much impossible to be too mad about losing. The stakes are incredibly low and it’s a good way to just chill and relax while not completely shutting off one’s brain.

Sadly, by the time you read this, the mode will no longer be available, but we can hope that it eventually comes back from another shot. I’ll gladly take another crack at it. 🙂

Statistically speaking, if a 4-player pod are building and playing decks are similar power levels, any one player should win roughly 25% of the time. This means that players should expect to lose the vast majority of their matches.

While this week’s matches fall into that other 75%, I still managed to get in my licks and make an impact on the board.

Almost on accident, our first match went in a tribal direction. One of my friends ran Goblin-tribal with Muxus, Goblin Grandee. Another ran Morophon, the Boundless as a God-tribal deck, and the third player ran a Gishath, Sun’s Avatar deck with dinosaurs.

So what tribe did I go with: Human Advisor, of course! And thanks to Bruvac, the Grandiloquent, I have the perfect commander for my Advisor-tribal deck. (wink wink)

The match wasn’t long, but it was a killer. I feel a little bad for Morophon, since they never really got the chance to go anything, but it was still a pretty good meme match.

I managed to get a nice early start by playing a Mana Crypt to get Bruvac out on Turn 1. And by Turn 3 I had enough Persistent Petitioners on board to start dumping 24 cards from one of opponents’ decks into the graveyard every turn. For reasons that’ll become clear in a second, my original plan was to eat away at Muxus’s deck first. However, since Gishath was the first player to aggressively come after me with a Marauding Raptor I couldn’t comfortably block, they became the new target.

The first card Muxus placed on the board was Quest for the Goblin Lord, which set the tone for the rest of their strategy. Goblins are creatures that don’t usually have much power on their own, so they’d be easy for me to block, but once that +2/+0 boost came online, that would no longer be the case. While they didn’t have any token generators, cards like Goblin Ringleader and Goblin Lackey allowed them to quickly amass an army, despite not having enough lands to play their commander.

The coup-de-grace was Shared Animosity, which nobody could defend against because I had pretty much milled Gishath to extinction, and Morophon had only one blocker to defend themselves against the onslaught.

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After that last match, one of us had to bow out to head to their D&D campaign, so the rest of us settled in for a 3 player game. Gishath decided to stay on dinosaurs, but the rest of us switched to new builds. The other player’s build was helmed by Lurrus of the Dream Den.

My deck was lead by Vela the Night-Clad. Inspired by this old article on EDHREC, I decided to build around the theme of colorless/artifact creatures.

I managed to get an early lead thanks to Mishra’s Workshop, which allowed me to get a 4/4 Stonecoil Serpent on Turn 2. And from there, I managed to maintain a strong position for the majority of the match, despite not getting any of my card draw spells online.

What helped me was an amazing synergy between Steel Overseer, Unwinding Clock, and my other artifact creatures like Foundry Inspector. Not only does this give me a form of pseudo-Vigilance, because my creatures will untap before anyone has the opportunity to attack me, but I could also tap my Steel Overseer every turn to continually pump up my team of machines. Once Vela graced the board with her presence, my attacks were even more secure because none of the other players could block.

While I was in a strong position and probably could have won the game if I was playing just a bit more attention to my own hand, I can’t help but be proud of the situation I had set up for myself. That said, I wasn’t the only one taking advantage of powerful synergies. Lurrus manage to partake a 4-card combo consisting on their commander, Ravenous Chupacabra, Kaya’s Ghostform, and Phyrexian Altar. They weren’t make much progress building up their board, but with that synergy that could sacrifice the Chupacabra to the Phyrexian Altar for black mana, and use Lurrus to recast Ghostform from the grave on the newly revived Chupacabra, getting that ETB trigger every time they do it.

Fortunately for me, that was mostly being directed at Gishath since they were growing into a threat. Thanks to Smothering Tithe, they managed to gain enough treasure before I could raise my defenses and block, getting a few powerful dinos in the process. This wouldn’t have been threatening on it’s own, but then they played Rishkar’s Expertise on the following turn getting an explosive refresh. By the time I realized I could counter with Pact of Negation, it was far too late.

Two of the cards draw in that combo were Apex Altisaur and Flawless Maneuver. Sadly, I had used my Pact to counter a Sun Titan from Lurrus at that point, which you could argue was the second mistake on my part. Aided by indestructibility, the Altisaur fought can killed every creature on the board, leaving both of us open to a resounding defeat.

I may not have won, but I can’t complain about the results of either match. In both of them, but especially the second one, I became a big enough threat that I both couldn’t be ignored and couldn’t be touched. And more importantly, I can see where I went wrong and learn from it, which is really what this article series is all about.

This episode has been a long time coming. Since we began our adventures with the remade PS1 games back in November or December, depending on how you’re counting, we’ve had many incredible journeys across fantastical worlds.

But all good things must come to an end. And this series is no different. Today, we collect the remaining gems and relics and place the finishing touches on our adventures. Afterwards, one last confrontation with the good doctor is all we needed to end this story… until next time of course.

I came into this series thinking that I liked Cortex Strikes Back more than I did Warped, but having played them like this, back-to-back and with a more critical eye, I found myself having much more enjoyable experience using the Time Twisted machine than I did the Warp Room back in that series.

Of course, even the best games always have their problem spots, and this one is no different. Though it doesn’t do it quite as excessively as Cortex Strikes Back, there are still a few levels in Warped that require players to backtrack through significant sections of it in order to obtain the gem, like Future Frenzy in this recording. Whenever the player has to move towards the camera, that will almost always be one of the weaker areas in the game because the reaction time required to avoid those obstacles, especially on the first try, can be quick. This goes doubly so for when part of a Time Trial, since failure means players have to restart the whole level from the beginning.

And on the subject, the Time Trials are probably the most interesting feature of the whole game. They give us a reason to master the upgrades we’ve been gathering from the bosses. Using them, we can bypass obstacles and shave tons of time off of our runs to make it that much easier to obtain the relics we need. In particular, the Slide-Double Jump-Death Tornado Spin combo is perfect for cross over pits and dangerous enemies when this version of the game decides to cooperate with my button inputs.

All and all, it was a fun nostalgic trip back to a series that got me into gaming, and I look forward to the newest entry coming out this year. I couldn’t have timed this Let’s Play any better in that sense.

Speaking of Let’s Plays, our next one is going to Arkane Studio’s Prey, from 2017. Look forward to it! 😀