Recently, EDHREC added a new page to their website, detailing the most common and popular combos in the format. And, naturally, as one does when exposed to a new resource of valuable information, I perused it.

Two particular combos, both in Dimir colors, caught my attention, because they resulted in a victory via infinite mill. As someone who loves alternate win conditions (I ran Exodia in my old YuGiOh days), mill is always a strategy that holds my attention. Armed with this knowledge, my reptile brain immediately set to work building a mill deck that I could bring to bear against my Cockatrice playgroups.

To do so, I must of course worship at the altar of Phenax, God of Deception. Answering my prayers, the god jumped to the helm of my deck to help lead my forces into their unconventional battle.

The first of my adversaries ran Heliod, Sun-Crowned. Next, the player who ran Rakdos, Lord of Riots during the Ravnican Guild Night opted to pilot the deck again since he enjoyed running it last time. And finally, Bruna, Light of Alabaster brought up the rear.

The pace and tone of the early was set in round two, when I played my Mesmeric Orb. To be honest, I expected the card to be blown up almost immediately, but it took several turns for it to get destroyed. And because of the untapped I and the other players were doing, I ended up drawing far more attention to myself than I expected to. Fortunately, that was the only real danger on my board. I played creatures like Consuming Aberration, but rarely did they ever stay on board overlong.

Heliod was a wildcard, attacking things seemingly at random, but Rakdos was able to use his discount to consistently build strong board states with demons like Pestilence Demon, Abhorrent Overlord, and Overseer of the Damned, the latter two of which I was able to resurrect with cards like Animate Dead to build my own token defense. 

Bruna was summoned twice, but each time she was killed before she could swing in for the trigger that would spell doom for the rest of us. At the same time, since her pilot was my priority target, his deck was the one being milled. I understood the risks inherent to attempting that strategy, because even one swing would turn Bruna into a near unstoppable voltron. However, it was my only real shot at taking her out of commission. Considering how much land I milled away to prevent her owner from accumulating enough mana to play her, I think that was ultimately still the right call.

The most interesting aspect of the match was the endgame. At that moment, my only cards on board were Phenax and Syr Konrad, along with a contingent of mana rocks. On top of that, I was top-decking, with no other cards in hand. It was extremely good fortune for me that I managed to draw Eater of the Dead. With naught much else to risk, I threw it onto the board and hoped my gambit would go unnoticed.

While Heliod was in a much better position in terms of life, they weren’t much better off. On top of their commander, they had a Rhox Faithmender and an Archangel of Thune on board. Unfortunately for me, they were still sore about the vast quantity of cards that had been milled prior and swing both at me. I blocked with Syr Konrad to stem the bleeding, but the Archangel brought up down to a meager six life.

Rakdos, on the other hand, untapped with a Lord of the Void. Since Heliod dropped their shields to swing at me, Rakdos took the initiative, swinging their flying forces towards him. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the card taken was Avacyn, Angel of Hope. And with that mighty layer of protection, Rakdos set about to establish his own victory. Since they had the prerequisite number of demons on board, they played Liliana’s Contract in the hopes that the indestructibility would ensure that nothing would die and he could defend himself from any threat.

And I have never been so grateful that someone else posed an immediate, overt threat in all the time I’ve played EDH. When Bruna untapped, she had a Lighting Greaves in play, and she only needed a single land drop in order to come out. Lo and behold, they managed to saw into the very land they needed.

I asked Bruna’s player after the match if he would have attacked me with it if circumstances were different. He told me that he would have absolutely done so, but the immediate, obvious threat of Liliana’s Contract caused him to change his plans. For that reason, Rakdos was attacked, and Bruna’s triggered ability turned her into a 40/40 with every conceivable keyword known to man thanks to all the milled enchantments like Eldrazi Conscription, Spectra Ward, and Battle Mastery. Rakdos obviously fell to this extraordinary.

Regrettably, a side effect of playing on Cockatrice is that I lack the ability to look my opponents in the eye. If I could, I would have as I informed them that in allowing me to untap, they had both lost. Those familiar with Phenax might have have already realized that this was the “gambit” I referred to when I dropped Eater of the Dead. Along with Phenax himself, Eater of the Dead forms one of the two infinite combos this deck is capable of pulling off.

Since Eater of the Dead was no longer summoning sick, I could tap him to activate the ability that Phenax bestows upon him to mill an opponent for four cards. Then, by exiling a creature card from any graveyard, even my own if need be, I could untap the Eater and repeat this process until there are no more cards to mill or creatures in graveyards. My earlier efforts had left the grave choke full of creatures to exile, so I could deterministically end the game at this point.

Ironically, when my friend piloting Bruna was questioned further about why he would’ve targeted me with Bruna first absent the threat from Rakdos, he said that I have an annoying tendency to bounce back from tight spots and eek out a win by slipping under the radar. He did not see the combo I had on board, but he was suspicious due to previous experience. I dislike giving him reasons to keep an eye on me, and yet I cannot help it in I can work a table to my advantage.

Of course, being a 4-player format, I lose far more games than I win. Being the writer of the series, I just get to be more selective with the games I talk about. In there’s a lesson to take from this, it’s to be more attentive about the cards on the table. While Bruna could have taken me out, Rakdos had enough power on board to finish the job as well if he so chose.

Anything can happen in a game of EDH, so sometimes a big risk can pay out in dividends.

Start your engines, ladies and gentlemen. We’re getting started with a new adventure starring the orange blunder from down under: Crash Bandicoot. Only this time, rather that scaling walls and leaping over bottomless pits, we’re dodging missiles and bombs as we out-drive and outwit our competition on the race track.

I know I said we were done with PS1 nostalgia when we completed Crash Bandicoot: Warped, but I lied. Fortunately, I’m (mostly) not alone. Once he was finished watching Netflix, my good pal Acharky deigned to join us for these little go-karting escapades.

When it comes to cart racers, there’s usually three names heard in talks over which is the best. Mario Kart obviously has the hearts and minds of many, not just for it’s appeal to Nintendo fans, but also for it’s mechanics. Likewise, Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed has the favor of a loyal fanbase it terms of both cast favor and depth of gameplay.

I didn’t grow up with the same fondness for Nintendo that most people my age had. Not to say that I dislike Nintendo games, nor that I don’t respect their place as pioneers in the industry. I was just more of a PlayStation kid, so that’s where my nostalgia drifts. Naturally, that also means that Crash Team Racing was the game of choice when my neighborhood friends got together to play.

And while, as furry, I’m obvious game for this game’s eye candy, the truth is that as both a Crash fan and a player, this game is doing everything right to gain and keep my attention. Seeing Crash and the rest of the cast, especially now that Spyro is a playable character (which is a childhood dream come true for me), immediately makes me smile. More than that though, there’s a high skill ceiling with the game, that even I haven’t managed to hit yet despite all the many times I’ve played it. With perfect power sliding and turning, players can achieve and maintain breakneck speeds without sacrificing mobility. You see a little of it in the gameplay for this episode, but I would hardly call myself a pro compared to the sharks that populate the online modes.

Naturally, the weapons are also a big aspect of the game, because they allow us to interact with the other racers on the track. By laying traps and lobbing projectiles, we can slow down the competition in the aim of catching up to and eventually passing them, or maintaining our lead if we’ve already done so. I have some complaints about the weapon drops and how they feel different compared to the previous game, but we can talk about that in the next episode.

Until then, take care and drive fast!

PS: You can check out the video Chris mentioned, of the guy that played this game with hitting the gas, here.

PPS: And I looked up the Golden Eggs, and it turns out they are the key to unlock a new racer in the Nitro-Fueled version.

It’s been over a year since we last adventured upon the high seas. Rusty I may be, the ocean nonetheless calls to me. And I was not the only one to hear the call. The crew may be different (and fuzzier) than before, but no less prideful. 

The SS Pride is no worse for wear. Hoist the Rainbow flag and shove off for fortune and glory!

I can’t help but chuckle ever so slightly at how, even after all of this time and all of the updates that have been made to Sea of Thieves, the Merchant’s Guild remains deeply unsatisfying compared to the other organizations. Not only are their quests the least interesting, but they’re also timed, with isn’t the case for other factions. In a game that’s otherwise so low stakes/pressure, introduced that time crunch is extremely off-putting. On top of that, I would just rather be spending my time hunting for buried treasure or dispatching a horde of undead pirates.

That aside, it cool to see how much has been added to the game in my absence. The fundamental loop might still be the same, but it never really needed to change. What the game really needed was things to do, which they’ve been correcting.

Especially when it comes to special events and thing to discover in the game world. We didn’t take part it in here, but Kobuld mentioned the Ashen chests players can get as part of the current event for dragon-themed cosmetics. Those chests spawn in areas where volcanoes are prone to erupting, which can severely damage the ship, making expeditions high risk, high reward. With other activities like fishing, new factions I’ve yet to ever meet, and a whole campaign I still need to experience, Sea of Thieves is moving in the right direction.

It’s good to see a game like this game the love it deserves.

A good way to spice up a Commander playgroup is to run a theme night to force everyone out of their comfort zone in some way. When someone in my Tuesday night crew ran the idea by the rest of us, we were all enthusiastically on board. Voting on a list of options, we unanimously chose a Ravnican Guild Wars night.

Each of us rolled a die, and from highest to lowest roll we chose which guild we would represent. The rules were that our commander had to be in the color combination of the two-color guild. Additionally, it must also be a legendary creature from one of the Ravnica blocks. (Ravnica, Return of Ravnica, and Guilds of Ravnica)

• The high roller chose Orzhov, with Teysa Karlov leading his deck.
• I was the next to pick with Golgari, and while I was torn between Savra, Queen of the Golgari, and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, I ultimately chose Savra because I didn’t see as many decks built around her as I did with Jarad, and I didn’t want to build a combo deck.
• The third player in line went with Simic, and specifically Vorel of the Hull Clade.
• Izzet was selected afterward, represented by Melek, Izzet Paragon.
• Last, but certainly not least (that would be the Azorius), we have the Rakdos guild, with their eponymous guildmaster at the helm.

While I didn’t have any land ramp early on, my land drops were consistent. As a result, I managed to curve nicely into a turn two Bitterblossom, followed by a turn three Bastion of Remembrance. This allowed me to start off with a healthy barrier that keep me relative safe from attacks compared to the other players. In particular, the Bastion remained in play for the vast majority of the game.

But the real big threat on the board was Teysa. Early on, her player managed to hit some early triggers with Priest of Forgotten Gods, which kept the rest of the board empty. Even once that was taken care of, they managed to maintain their lead with Bontu’s and Oketra’s Monument, keeping their tokens and life in large supply.

Worse than that though, once Teysa herself was on board, she started doubling many of the powerful death triggers in her arsenal. Requiem Angel was creating two spirit tokens for ever one token warrior killed, and Blood Artist was triggering twice per kill. Since I was the only one able to mount a defense in any way, those triggers were also aimed in my direction. This grew worse once Athreos, God of Passage hit the board, since Teysa doubled those triggers as well and I didn’t have 6 life to pay each time one of his creatures died.

Rakdos was able to apply some pressure with a Mayhem Devil, but both of them were summarily knocked out by a crappy internet connection booting them from the game. 

Ironically, it was Melek who saved me. Earlier, he has managed to stick a Twinning Staff. With it, he was able to cast Devil’s Play, where X=11, and copy it with a Twincast to deal enough damage to Teysa’s face to finish them off in a single blow.

Unfortunately, that didn’t leave them with enough damage to kill *me*, so I managed to win just by attacking with little army of 1/1s, using that and a combination of Bastion and Dictate of Erebos triggers to finish him off.

To be honest, I was surprised that I managed to win that match. And after we looked back at what everyone had, we realized the Melek could have won because he has a Primal Amulet he forgot to flip into Primal Wellspring, which he could have used to copy his Devil’s Play an additional time to finish me off.

Remember to read your cards to make sure you don’t forget your triggers. It could easily become the difference between victory and defeat.

At last, the Mind Games have reached their conclusion, and it’s time for Mathias and I to enter the endgame. The choices we make will determine the fate of both Talos 1 and it’s crew, and we must consider the consequences of our actions.

Or do we? Maybe there’s more to what’s going on then we can see.

As always, thanks to Sam Callahan for working on the thumbnails for this one.

This series was a ton of fun, from start to finish. Arkane Studio’s Prey was one of my favorite games of 2017, and a lot of that is how much freedom the game gives the player when experimenting with the tools at their disposal. For every problem, there are a number of different tools and solutions available to us, even if we never come across the vast majority of them. Like many of the games in the “Immersive Sim” genre, Prey rewards creative problem solving and use of the physics engine in order manipulate the environment to our favor.

We even got to see an example of that with the Military Operators in the final stretch. Since there’s a finite number of them that can spawn into the same space, we can halt the production of more of them by hacking them all. It became a lot easier to explore the Landing Bay to figure out how to get on board that shuttle once we weren’t getting hounded by legions of robots. Never use a weapon against Morgan Yu unless you want it turned against you.

But beyond that, I wish I could show you all how I reacted what the final scene in “A Hidden Location” played in front of me for the first time. It’s one of those examples of a plot twist that was well thought out. While it feels like it comes out of nowhere on the first run, there was significant foreshadowing, and all the relevant details were established before the scene unfolds.

• Alex mentions in Psychotronics that the Typhon lack mirror neurons, which means that they lack empathy for other living creatures. They don’t kill maliciously. They kill only because human memory is their source of food.
• This is also why mirrors don’t work in the game. Typhon have no sense of self and are unable to recognize themselves.
   
• Throughout the game, we get flashes as we come into contact with the Typhon in the simulation. It’s easy to pass this off as the Typhon trying to influence Morgan, but in truth it’s both the player character waking from the simulation and their Typhon side trying to fend off the process of injecting empathy into it.
• And when we go for the escape pod prematurely, we get the ending where Alex says “We failed. This isn’t the one.”
• The threat of the Typhon is routinely discussed by the other characters. January says that “If even one of them reaches Earth, we’re done for.” While it’s unclear over the course of the game if that’s true or not, it still places the seed in the player’s mind.
• As Mathias pointed out in the episode, the introduction to the game makes it clear that our senses aren’t to be trusted. Anything can be a meticulously crafted illusion designed to make us think we’re somewhere we aren’t. Of course, this is always true since we’re in a video game, but Prey takes great pain to make it explicit as we literally step through the Looking Glass.
• “Morgan Yu,” the player character, never speaks… because they aren’t human.

It takes a great deal of skill and forethought to successfully plant all of the important details in the story, over the course of the campaign, while still keeping the player in the dark. And similar to how the introduction feels different when you play it in subsequent playthroughs, so too does the rest of the game, because returning players can better appreciate the way it all weaves together into a coherent whole.

The only thing I regret about this series is how we failed to accept and complete Mikhaila’s quest to uncover the truth behind her father’s disappearance. I found a video of the quest being completed for posterity. What I like about the quest is both how it emphasizes the horror of the research being conducted on Talos 1 and asks the interesting question of whether we, the current incarnation of “Morgan Yu”, should feel responsible for the actions of our prior incarnations. Do we carry the burden of those sins, or are we so far removed from what “Morgan Yu” was that we might as well be a different person entirely?

Ultimately, it’s up for us to weigh those decisions, and we can’t communicate our motives in any way aside from the choices we make and how we react to the situations we’re in. But can’t the same be said for the real world as well. Is it not impossible to truly understand someone beyond what they choose to put on display?

And with that, our cerebral adventure is all wrapped up. Next week, tune in as my cohort in the Marvelous Duo, Acharky, joins me for Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.

PS: Turns out I was wrong about the speedrun record for Prey. It’s only about 7 minutes.

It’s been almost a month since we’ve been to the world of Runeterra, and last time we were in the Lab experimenting with ASM… ARAM. This time, we have another new mode to tinker with in the Lab, this time called Quick Draw.

Let us test our luck and skill at improvising with the fleeting hand and limited mana at our disposal. Can we rise above our opponents with quick thinking and finesse, or will they be the ones standing when the dust settles?

In theory, I think this is a really cool mode. Each round, we draw 5 Fleeting cards at random, which means they’ll disappear at the end of the round, and gain 3 mana. Normally, 3 mana wouldn’t extend very far, but each spell comes at a significant discount, costing anywhere from 0 to 3 mana. This means that we need to maximize our mana in order to get the most value out of each hand before it goes away.

While playing on stream, I did notice a problem where my hand was frequently full of cards that wouldn’t make any meaningful impact on the board state. This left me twiddling my thumbs while my opponent was busy capitalizing on the big bombs they had lucked into. Or, as was sometimes the case, the opposite happened and I drew into the right cards to win almost immediately. Either way, it wasn’t a pleasant experience because one party blew out the other.

The ideal would be something closer to those last few matches we played, where both players are making powerful moves to swing the game back and forth in an exciting match. One lucky draw or misplay could spell the difference between victory or defeat, standing on the razor’s edge.

I would change the mode itself to make this pulse pounding match more likely. Rather, I would adjust the pool of cards available to draw, making sure that whatever cards show up in a player’s hand have the potential to make immediate splashes on the board, even if not large ones. Even if it doesn’t cost mana, it feels terrible to see one of your cards is a 2/1 with no relevant abilities, and the rest of the cards in hand are combat tricks or cost reducers, the latter of which probably don’t need to be in this mode in the first place.

Still, it’s a good experiment that could use some refining. When the stars aligned, it paved the way for some tense and explosive gameplay.

Another week, another couple of rounds of Commander with my playgroups. Yes, you read that correctly.

One of my friends who used to be in the first playgroup but needed to drop out for his new job started up another one with a few others at a time better suited to his schedule. After awhile, I was invited to join the group, and I did so gladly.

Of course, that also gives me more material for this series. I won’t go into every match I ever play. That said, as long as my stamina is up for it, I’ll write with about those matches that just need to be saved for the record books.

With my new Tuesday group, I brought out a new version of my Syr Konrad list, removing the Mindcrank combo from last time and adding in a density of creatures to get more triggers of his ability. The other players were running Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, the Gitrog Monster, and Heliod, Sun-Crowned.

I had a slow-start, but at I managed to consistently hit my land drops for most of the game. Xantcha… wasn’t so lucky. They started with 3 lands in hand, but one of them was Maze of Ith, and they rarely drew lands for the entire match despite having 37 of them in the deck. 

Aside from casting their commander onto my board, I don’t remember them actually making many other plays at all. And sadly for them, they didn’t realize that the Ayara, First of Locthwain I had on board allowed me to sacrifice her before my turn came up.

Meanwhile, Gitrog was doing the kind of thing one expects a Gitrog deck to do, after getting him out early with a Dark Ritual. And with cards like Ramunap Excavator and Scapeshift, they were able to generate quite a lot of value on board…

…especially when those lands obtained with Scapeshift include Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and Field of the Dead. With a Retreat to Hagra, that also led to a sizeable life drain.

Life which was sorely needed, because Heliod was growing into a surprising terror. As experience has taught me, the turn 1 Serra Ascendant is no joke in Commander. Those early swings can really add up, especially when coming from a big flying creature. Fortunately, I had tools to start recouping losses even after it was gone, like Gary Asphodel with 8 devotion to black.

But the real terror came from Heliod’s synergies. He had a combination of Pristine Talisman, Alhammarret’s Archive, and Rhox Faithmender on board, which meant his life total was soaring to such extremes that the rest of us had difficulty keeping him down. My strategies was hampered briefly by his Angel of Jubilation, but I has able to give it the Tragic Slip after chump blocking a few attacks. Between his swings and my pings, the rest of the board couldn’t keep up and starting dying until it was a one-on-one between Heliod and myself.

This was where I started to reassert control of the game, because I was able to reliably accrue bodies to block with, and draw more cards the Heliod could, to the point where he had to cast Cleansing Nova to wipe both boards out just despite having more powerful pawns to lose.

Afterwards, I manage to achieve a combo of Syr Konrad and Bontu’s Monument, with Carrion Feeder as a sacrifice outlet, Pitiless Plunderer for mana, and Gravecrawler to achieve infinite cast and death triggers to melt away the rest of Heliod’s impressive life total. No matter how much life one has, it is always a finite number.

While I ultimately combo’d into a win, Heliod was top-decking at that point while I was still able to use cards like Skullclamp for card draw. Odds are I would have taken the game over just through attrition, but having the ability to finish the game off quickly just saved us all the time and heartache. That said, it’s conceivable that Gitrog could have taken over if they were luckier, or Heliod might have taken me out if I couldn’t block enough of his damage. Anything can happen in a game of EDH, so you need to watch out.

Welcome to another chapter of the Mind Games, as my friend Mathias and I continue our adventures inside Talos 1.

Today, we use Danielle Sho’s intense loathing of our brother to unlock the road to Deep Storage, arming ourselves before we blast off into the Cargo Bay before running down to the Life Support to turn the entire station off and turn it back on.

Along the way, we encounter many of the survivors left on the station, making tough choices(tm)(C)(R) that will impact both them and our remaining time on Talos 1.

And as always, thank to Sam Callahan for his work on the thumbnails for this series.

This is the segment of the game where we start to get more familiar with the rest of our cast of characters, optionally taking a moment of our time to assist them. I forgot about how close together all of these choices were, but I wonder how much of that comes from the way we’re playing the game by focusing on the main quest.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that these aren’t fairly bog-standard moral choices as far as video games go, because they are. That said, the game does a better job of presenting them than most, and players might not even be aware they’re making a moral choice in the moment. Usually, they take the form of a timed side quest that we can fail if we take too long, like in the cases of Dr. Igwe and Mikhaila. There’s always plenty of time to save them, so accidental failure is unlikely. If they die, it’s probably on purpose.

But more than that, another part of what makes it work is listening to January pontificate about the choices we’ve made and why. Whether it’s because their version of Morgan couldn’t anticipate another one of her incarnations acting with compassion, or that she was simply unable to code a sense of morality into her operator, January seems genuinely impressed and baffled by our choices to go just slightly out of our way to help the people we encounter on the space station.

The operator also makes an interesting point that our compassion might end up being wasted since we do still intend to destroy the space station. Which raises the question of whether or not it is more or less cruel to give the crew of Talos 1 that shred of hope knowing that our actions will likely lead to their untimely demise either way. Ultimately, events that have yet to occur will render this discussion point moot, but it is still something to consider.

Next time, we’ll return to Jupiter’s palace to obtain the second Arming Key as new perils unfold.

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.

————————————-

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.