Another Saturday night has passed, and that means my playgroup had another round of Commander together. This time, we managed to get in two games in. Though we probably could have gotten more in, had we not been too tired to continue, but it’s pretty to go on a high note than force an exhausted person to keep playing.

For our first match, I tried a budget brew of a Werewolf Tribal deck. I had submitted a version of the brew to MagicalHacker to see if he had any ideas for improvements for it, and I ultimately took a number them to heart for the deck…

…but ultimately I don’t think the concept could be saved. I’ve run Werewolf Tribal several times, and the each time I’ve run into problems that stem from the concept alone. In his deck doctor video, MagicalHacker inadvertently points out how few Werewolves exist that actually have worthwhile abilities, making it difficult to extract the kind of value one might want in an EDH game.

Even worse, most of these effects only come online if a player ends a turn without playing a spell (usually us), which is less unlikely if a multiplayer game just through running the odds. Likewise, the trigger to change back is too easy for your opponents to activate unless we pack in ways to slow down the rest of the table, and while this deck does have those I didn’t draw into them. I also didn’t draw anything that could help me play around this restriction, like Vedalken Orrery.

Each of these cards are supposed to slow down the board… if you draw into them.

In addition, there aren’t a lot of strong commanders for the tribe. This version uses Arlinn Kord, with permission from my group, but the only Legendary Werewolf, Ulric of the Krallenhorde, is merely okay. Previous versions of the deck used Samut, Voice of Dissent as the Commander, but I’d rather not need to splash White to make a Gruul-color tribe playable.

The deck barely made a splash against the Yawgmoth, Thran Physician deck running the table. With Dictate of Erebos out, nobody else was able to maintain a board presence for very long. Even with Vanquisher’s Banner keeping me stocked on cards, my board was empty almost every time we turn came up. Part of it was our fault by being blindly by the threat of the Marisi, Breaker of Coil player’s Goad effects, but the other point is the both myself and our 4th player were running under-powered decks, me with Werewolves and the other with a deck consisting of cards with “Herald” in the name.

A powerful, effective, and ultimately game winning combo.

In all likelihood, I’ll need to table the concept until it gets more solid support, but that’s no big deal when I have no many other concepts swimming in my head.

Like the other deck I brought to bear that night, a mono-black brew of my own with K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth at the helm.

That is one beautiful combination of effects

To be absolutely blunt, I vastly underestimated the effectiveness of K’rrik’s ability to substitute B in any mana cost by paying 2 life instead. That enabled me to get a very explosive turn that quickly finished the game.

I managed to take the aggro my deck drew, with no small help from the Marisi deck Goading me and the rest of the table, and use it to my advantage. I only had three cards of my board: K’rrik, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and Phyrexian Reclamation. However, thanks to K’rrik and Nykthos on my board helping my pay for me costs, I first played the Sanguine Bond I had in my hand. This left me with a low enough life total that I was able to cast Repay in Kind to drop everyone else to my pitifully low life total of 4, and swing into an unguarded board to deal enough Lifelink damage to knock out the rest of the table.

My table was shocked when the saw this hit the stack.

I was admittedly scared to bring my life total that low, but it worked out well since nobody was running blue and the removal necessary to stop me just wasn’t there. Plus, I was likely going to be knocked out if I didn’t at least make the attempt. Out of all the ways I planned to win with that deck, I was not expecting to pull that one off.

It was an exciting game, short as it was, and I look forward to further refining this deck to be less of a collection of cards and more of a coherent deck.

At last, we arrived at the end of Cole Phelps’s career as an LAPD detective and the game. With it, we fully uncover the extent of the conspiracy that’s been unraveling ever since his fall from grace, into the cold, uncaring arms of the Arson desk.

Between him and his former comrade-in-arms, Jack Kelso, it seems all but assured that those responsible for the fires and murders will be brought to justice. How will they do it? With some good ol’-fashioned Detective Work, we’ll find out.

As depressing as it is, and as sour as I was on it when I first beat the game, I think the way they chose to end it was fitting for the kind of story that was being told. Throughout the game, and especially towards the back half, we are confronted by corruption and manipulation from within the very institution that is designed to enforce those laws. No matter what happens, the system will do whatever it takes to protect itself.

So what would they do when they see that an Assistant DA, his investigator, and a rogue cop are about to nail them: They cut a deal to sell out their co-conspirators. It’s no coincidence that the game ends with Roy Earle conducting the eulogy at Cole’s funeral. He is the game’s greatest personification of the police’s corruption, indulgence, and violent tendencies. The choice was made to hammer in the fact that although Jack succeeded at uncovering the conspiracy, the world marches on largely unfettered.

Similarly, it makes sense to kill off Cole Phelps. In a metaphorical sense, he was already a dead man walking. For someone who wanted nothing more than to prove that they were worthy of the praise that had been heaped on to them in the war, there was nothing worse than to be paraded across the papers, charged with adultery, and transformed into a pariah. His life was already over, and the revelation that his order is what started the arsonist’s path to become the monster Doctor Fontaine turned him into, he was at an all time low. It is only in death that he was able to salvage what was left of his reputation.

Despite how terrible the working conditions were, and coming out well before the Telltale Adventure Game renaissance, LA Noire is a solid game and story. It was fun going back to it one more time.

Usually, in my Cockatrice Commander/EDH playgroup, we have a series of matches in which we run any number of different decks and play test out the new decks we’ve built over the week.

Last night though, we only had a single match that lasted about 2 hours. There were multiple reasons for this, which largely come down to the decks that were being run. In particular, I wanted to talk about my own deck, which was based on Marchesa, the Black Rose.

3 lines of text that go great together

Marchesa’s ability suite allows her to be played in many different ways, and I’ve built several decks with her at the helm. This particular formulation is based around the idea of taking the board’s best beaters and gaining permanent control of them.

The way I accomplish this is as follows:

1. With Marchesa already on the board, use an effect like Act of Aggression or Kari Zev’s Expertise to gain control of a creature on someone else’s side.
2. Use it to attack the life leader, which will trigger Dethrone and give the creature a +1/+1 counter.
3. If the creature wasn’t killed in the attack, use on the deck’s many sacrifice outlets like Viscera Seer or Phyrexian Tower to sacrifice it.
4. Marchesa will witness the sacrifice and place a trigger on the stack, since a creature died under our control with a +1/+1 counter on it. At the end of the turn, the creature will return to life under our control, and we’re no longer bound by the end of turn restriction we originally had on the first effect.

Take the opponent’s best toys.

And toss them aside so that we can revive them.

Along with the standard card draw, mana ramp, and removal packages, the deck also has cards like Thief of Sanity and Gonti, Lord of Luxury to lean into the theme of theft. With Marchesa out, they are relative protected, and in Gonti’s case it is possible for us to have it trigger several times in a single game.

Just 1 or 2 activations of this effect can be utterly backbreaking against the right opponents.

As for the match itself, although I didn’t win, I was proud of the way the deck performed. The beginning of the game was rough, since one of the other players was running Marisi, Breaker of the Coil. With Mirri in tow, they were able to reliably trigger Goad and force me both to open myself up and force the rest of the table to attack (usually me).

At first I tried to fix that problem by taking Mirri, but then I manage to use my Nicol Bolas to take control of Marisi permanently. Nicol Bolas died before my turn came back up, but at that point he had already served his purpose: Marisi became my best friend. Until another player (running Meren of Clan Nel Toth) used their Liliana, Dreadhorde General to force me to make some sacrifices, I was able to safely swing and have my opponents help me kill them.

*blows kiss* I want to love you, but our colors don’t work out.

When the player running Sai, Master Thopterist used the final verse of The Antiquities War to swing at me, with my board nearly wiped and my defenses at their worst, they would have killed me if I hadn’t managed to steal control of one of them. Still, they left me at 5 life, which I remained at until I eventually died.

Still, that didn’t come for another 5 to 6 rounds afterwards. Although I could barely get a force to stick, I managed to stay safe through smart use of Marchesa’s Dethrone, combined with board clears and spot removal. I eventually died, but I died fighting, so I can’t really complain.

That said, given how much ire I clearly caused at the table, it is unlikely I’ll pilot it again anytime soon. Maybe once the heat has died down, but not now. After a while, everyone was begging to be put out of their misery, and that’s not a feeling I want to engender in my playgroup. And if you have any suggestions for the deck, feel free to comment and I might consider it.

It’s no secret that ever since Risen Reef was revealed in the new Core Set 2020, players have had their eye on Elementals as a tribe. As a 1/1 that either adds a card to our hand when it comes out, it would have already been a decent card. But the fact that other Elementals, including other copies of Risen Reef, also trigger the effect again, the potential is too real to pass up.

And so, with Omnath, Locus of the Roil giving us an obvious direction to go, we’ll give the Temur color combo a try with this Elemental Ramp deck.

Obviously, if we’re going to call ourselves a Ramp deck, we need ways to increase our mana output. Risen Reef is an obvious way to do that, and give us some extra cards, so we’re putting as many copies as we can into the deck.

Leafkin Druid is another obvious choice. No matter what stage of the game we’re in, this card is almost always welcome. Not only does it provide us with mana on its own, even more if we’re got a good board going already, but it’s an Elemental, so it’ll trigger Risen Reef when it comes in, potentially netting either another land on the board or card in hand. And although they don’t trigger our Elemental friend, Llanowar Elves and Paradise Druid round out our package so that we have a high chance of getting to our 4 and 5-drops earlier than we’re “supposed” to.

As for how we win, it’ll usually be either through Hydroid Krasis or Nissa, Who Shakes the World. Nissa has quickly become one of the most popular Planeswalkers in Standard at the moment, and for good reason. Not only does she double the mana output of every Forest, even non-basic Forests like the shock lands we’re running, but she also untaps them, turning them into 3/3s with Vigilance and Haste (but note that even though they become Elementals, they do not enter the battlefield and will not trigger Risen Reef). The combined value and versatility of both of these abilities is insane.

And as you can see in one of our games, just the threat of her -8 is enough to make a player surrender. I saw why in several matches I didn’t record. Not only does in filter out a large chunk of the lands left in the deck, making it easier to draw playable cards in the late game, but it gives all of the 3/3s she created indestructible. It’s not easy for an opponent to keep playing when so many creatures are swinging into them with no consequence.

In the case of Hydroid Krasis, it serves two incredible functions in this deck, and is the best or worst thing to ever happen to Simic depending on what your viewpoint is. Providing a sink for all the mana that we’re creating with our creatures and Nissa, it allows us to sustain well beyond where we normally should by giving us vital, card draw and lifegain even if it eats a removal or counter spell. And if it doesn’t, then it provides a massive body that will be swinging in with flying and trample. Just a few hits can turn around a completely losing game. This can be enough on its own to force opponents to surrender.

Getting to our other pieces, Omnath provides two useful functions. Its first ability gives us the reach to deal with small or large threats, depending on where we are in the game. If the opponent is at a low enough life total, we can even use it to finish them off. Since it scales to the number of Elementals in play, the lands the Nissa turns into Elementals also count for that.

The second ability is another valuable asset. Not only does it provide a valuable boost when a land comes into play, even as part of Risen Reef’s ability, but late game it can also provide us a way to keep drawing cards to push through that last bit of damage. The threat of this, combined with it’s stats is usually enough to make it a prime removal target, which can save our valuable pieces in the long run.

Though I don’t consider it a win condition, Cavalier of Thorns is another card that can neatly wrap up the game. The 5/6 stats, combined with innate Reach, make it a powerful blocker, and an equally powerful piece to swing in with. In addition, it’ll almost always hit a land with its enter the battlefield effect, and if it dies we can reclaim a card that hit the graveyard, likely a Risen Reef, Hydroid Krasis, or Nissa, which can disincentivize opponents from killing it.

Lastly, we run a few copies of Living Twister and a full set of Lava Coils. The Lava Coils provide cheap, exile based removal that can help us deal with early threats to our setup, but Living Twister is so much more than that. Not only is it an Elemental for Omnath and Risen Reef synergies, but it’s activated abilities give us a way to make use of our lands in the event we get mana flooded. We can bounce lands back to our hand either to replay them for Omnath triggers, or discard them to ping something on the board, including our opponent, for a few points of damage. Against more aggressive decks, it’s high toughness can make it very difficult for small creatures to get through.

Seeing the deck in action, it’s impressive watching the machine come together. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does it’s not too hard to close out the game. So many of the cards in this deck provide so much value that an opponent can and will get frequently overwhelmed.

And so it has finally come to this: Cole Phelps, on the pursuit of a conspiracy involving Arson, Murder, and good ol’-fashioned Hollywood grift to the tune of billions, has been completely shut out by the LAPD itself, corrupt as it is.

If he wishes to finally get to the truth, and expose this plot for what it is, he needs to cast aside old grudges and seek out the help of his old rival, Jack Kelso. Aside from DLC cases, Jack will take his rightful place as primary protagonist for most of the game from here on out.

I mentioned Heather Alexandria’s posts about LA Noire from Kotaku. You can find a links to all of these posts, including the specific one I referenced, here for your viewing pleasure, thought be warned that there are spoilers in it.

One of my viewers asked what the importance of the rest of the story was, since Jack can be thought of as the actual noir protagonist, and this is where the story wraps up. At the time, the reason I gave is that they wanted to have you go through the cases and have the experience of solving them as a post-World War 2 cop in LA.

Upon reflection, it occurred to me that there’s actually a good reason why we go through the desks in the way that we do. Each of them servers a pretty critical purpose.

• The Patrol and Traffic desks serve as the player’s introduction to the game mechanics and the world respectively. They gives us a glimpse into the average day in the life of a cop on the force in Las Angeles.
• Homicide starts to show us that the veneer we’ve grown used to in the Traffic desk. By replacing the mildly sexist but otherwise milquetoast and competent Bekowsky with the lazy drunk Rusty Galloway, we’re shown that LAPD detectives aren’t always good people. This extends into the desk’s finale, where the true killer’s identity is covered up to avoid political scandal.
• And this demonstration of how easy it is to influence police is highlighted and brought to the forefront during the Vice desk. Not only is Cole’s new partner, Roy Earle, open racist, sexist, and corrupt, and brags about it as if everyone should aspire to be as much of a scumbag as he is. We’re also shown how organized crime bribes the cops to look away from all but the most serious of criminal offenses, all parties doing whatever they can to hide their dark underbelly. This concludes with Cole Phelps act of weakness being used to cover up a conspiracy that echoes all the way to the top of Hollywood’s wealthy upper class.

And that leads us to where we are now. Since we, as the player, go through all of that, we know exactly what pushes Cole Phelps to reach out to Jack. He knows his hands are tied, and that he needs someone who is willing and capable of doing whatever it takes to expose the people behind the series of fires sweeping the city. All of these other desks provide the groundwork for this change of hands, so that we can focus on the real meat of the story here in the finale, without concerning ourselves with excess exposition.

With this mind, I think I can safely say that I’ve turned a corner with LA Noire. Technically issues with the PC version aside, and despite my criticisms of the Homicide and Vice desks (which I mostly stand behind), it’s an interesting game that came out at a time when Adventure games weren’t in vogue, and used those mechanics to tell a tale of corruption and intrigue that has a lot going for it.

Dare it say it might, in fact, be a good video game!?

I think I might.

As many of you may know, every Saturday night I play Commander with a few of my friends on Cockatrice. Normally, I take to Twitter to go through the decks I played with and won with, talking about some of the combos and big plays I performed.

However, this week is a bit different. Instead of our own decks, we played with the recently releases decklists for the pre-constructed Commander 2019 decks. Normally, we get in several games on Commander in a night, but this night only had time for a single game, since the one match we played lasted 3.5 hours.

With this in mind, I’ll be going over my thoughts on each of the decks, and what big plays each of them performed. Further, the thread will be posted here as a blog post, rather than a tweet thread. I might just do that for future posts as well, but I’m undecided as of now.

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The deck that actually won was the Naya Populate deck, with Ghired, Conclave Exile as the Commander. I was genuinely impressed by the deck’s overall performance and resiliency. Almost every single time after a big board clear was played, the deck was back up and running immediately afterward, generating tokens and reestablishing the board.

The player piloting the deck was able to get Garruk, Primal Hunter out early, and the token generation combined with the card draw kept him in steady supply. In addition, the size of his board made it nearly impossible to attack into Garruk, so he was able to pull off the -3 twice and rapidly accelerate his draw.

There was also a period where we were in deep trouble due to the embalmed Angel of Sanctions. As it kept populating, it exiled so many key pieces from the rest of our boards that we were having difficulty staying in it. Ghired’s Belligerence where X=10 also did an excellent job of keeping us down while keeping him in a steady supple of tokens.

Though a different player finally finished off two of us (in a group of 4), he was in such a strong position for most of the game that he stayed the Archenemy for the rest of us. And despite that, he managed to stay on top and win.

The deck I ran was the Jeskai Flashback deck, helmed by Sevinne, the Chronoclasm. While the deck has some solid plays, I was mostly disappointed in its performance. Sevinne seems like he would be a solid Commander in the right deck, but despite being themed around Flashback, he didn’t have the kind of support that I feel like he should have for his second ability. As a creature though, he’s a solid blocker, able to keep even the strongest creatures from scratching his controller.

The most recurring synergy that I took advantage of was Oona’s Grace. With it’s retrace ability, I was able to spend 2U to transform a land into an extra two cards thanks to Sevinne’s ability to copy it. Sadly, that was the most profound card draw I was able to get in the game we played, but it was enough to help me keep up with the others.

My other big accomplishment was keeping the table’s big Naya-colored Archenemy off their draw enchantments like Elemental Bond, and their token generators like Song of the Worldsoul, using my removal pieces like Ray of Distortion, which also got copied by Sevinne. I was also able to use Refuse // Cooperate to copy the Madness deck’s In Garruk’s Wake to turn it into a full board wipe rather than a one-sided one for some laughs.

I briefly had moments with cards like Guttersnipe and Burning Vengeance, where I was setting up to deal tons of damage to the board, but I wasn’t able to capitalize on them since they got destroyed before I could do so. There’s a solid idea in this deck, but I think the execution leaves just a bit to be desired.

Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer‘s Sultai Morph deck was the deck I was most excited to see in action. Though I wasn’t the pilot, I was pleased to see how well in performed and might build my own version of it at some point in the future. She’s everything a morph deck could want, allowing her pilot to play one Morph spell for free each turn, and turning them into cantrips.

The most impressive aspect of the deck is the way it can interact with everyone one the board to throw wrenches into all of their plans. Between stealing the Populate player’s Ohran Frostfang with a morphed Chromeshell Crab, using Thousand Winds to bounce all of the populated tokens and give all the other players the cards exiled with Angel of Sanctions, and casting Echoing Truth clearing all the Pegasus tokens my Jeskai flashback deck created with Storm Herd, it was responsible for controlling the game.

Sadly, we didn’t get the chance to see it’s splashier plays, but there’s clearly a lot going on with the deck. I think it’ll make waves in a different way than the Naya populate deck did.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of the Madness deck, led by Anje Falkenrath. It spend a large portion of the game completely out of it, top-decking for what seemed like at least 5 to 10 turns. Nevertheless, it still had some impact. Its Bloodthirsty Blade allowed the pilot to force the populate deck to attack everyone else with pieces that could be destroyed on block.

But for the most part, almost every play from that deck didn’t feel very effective or was easily soaked by the rest of us… until they discarded From Under the Floorboards and played it for X=14 with the Madness cost. Which might not have been that bad, if we hadn’t forgotten that they had Warstorm Surge on the board. That was enough to knock me and the Morph player out of the game, but the Populated player just wouldn’t relent and closed out the game since he had so much life from swinging with Wingmate Roc and an army of token.

Even with the one play, it’s hard to say that the deck feels all that strong. Again, most of the time we just ignored it because it wasn’t making too much of a splash on the board, and getting punished whenever it did.

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This was my first time playing with Precons out of the box, and I had a good time even if I didn’t make much of a splash. This was a good game, but not one I’m eager to relive due to the length of it.

One of the best parts about this new Core Set 2020 is the way that it’s opened up a ton of new possibility space for deck building in standard, to the point where I get to try new strategies that I’ve always wanted to, but could never get to work quite right.

This reanimator deck is one example. There haven’t been many of either good resurrection targets, or spells in Standard while I’ve been playing. With the introduction of Core Set (and War of the Spark), there are enough of each that a viable deck can be built.

The decklist can be found here.

The first thing you’ll notice is that despite having Drakuseth in the deck, which requires 4RRR to cast, we don’t have a single Red mana source in our deck. That’s because he’ll be our reanimation target. His stat line and ability are such that one he does hit the board, it’ll only take a few big swings to quickly clean up and opponent’s board by wiping away small creatures and hitting for face.

As for how we’ll do that, Bond of Revival is the choice spell. It may be a 5-drop, but it has the benefit of giving Drakuseth haste, so he can immediately swing in. When I first saw the deck, I was surprised not to see Blood for Bones on the list, but since there’s an overall lack of creatures in the deck, and the card doesn’t give Haste, I understand why the deck doesn’t use it.

Most of the rest of the deck’s goal is to assemble these two key pieces, cycling through the deck for Bond of Revival while (hopefully) pitching Drakuseth before we get to a point where we can cast it for a speedy win. This makes it something akin to a combo deck in that sense. There’s also some spot removal in the form of Tyrant’s Scorn and a few board clears like Cry of the Carnarium and Ritual of Soot to deal with aggressive decks. Tomebound Lick also servers double duty in this respect, sifting through the deck while also being a solid blocker in most situation.

But another key star of the show, the reason why this otherwise Dimir deck splashes for Green, is Tamiyo, Collector of Tales. This has the benefit of protecting us from enemy discard and sacrifice effects, but that’s merely a side effect. The real benefit is her +1 ability to both filter out unneeded cards (and hopefully Drakuseth) while getting to those Bonds of Revival quickly. In addition, her -3 allows her to reuse that card over and over until Drakuseth can stick onto the board, or if he keeps getting removed.

In terms of winning, it’s a bit hit-or-miss, but it’s fun and I had a great time running it.

After a long and arduous journey, Cole Phelps finally arrives at the Arson deck: The final desk of his career as an LAPD detective.

And with some solid Detective Work, we’ll be able to help him through it.

This is where the game’s plot truly begins, and we start to see the web of conspiracies show itself in earnest.

We also begin to really understand the depths of Cole Phelp’s deep-seated personal issues here. As the flashbacks to his time in the war show us, he’s always been someone who obediently follows all the rules and protocols of his station, even when they force him. And as a detective, that’s even more true.

And considering this obsession with obeying the rules, it’s easy to see why it doesn’t make sense for him to fall in love with Else and have an affair, as a married man. As we continue to see later on, self-sabotage is also in line with his nature.

When I first played through the game, I was angry about this twist. Over time, I’ve grown to mellow out a lot more about it. Yeah, it doesn’t totally make sense, but it works for the direction they clearly wanted to go with this story.

That brings us to the Arson desk. A disgraced detective, demoted to one of the lowest position in the LAPD, partnered with a well-meaning but gruff veteran. Despite the odds, his latest case throws him onto the trait of yet another organized crime ring, even greater than any he’s yet to encounter.

Next time, we’ll begin move closer towards this new foe.

When it comes to Magic: The Gathering, one of my favorite experiences is finding a silly concept that has enough support in the cards to become a competitively viable deck. Way back during in the days of the Closed Beta, the deck I played most was based on Muldrotha, the Gravetide. While not a competitive deck, it played well enough and gave me a ton of fun.

While this Simic Flash deck doesn’t offer Muldrotha’s sheer recursive power, it’s in the similar vein of fun concepts that seem like they shouldn’t work, but actually gels into a coherent package that can absolutely end games. On top of that, it fits the kind of reactive playstyle that normally gravitates me toward control decks like Esper and Grixis builds.

You check out the decklist here. Since this version is being used in best-of-one matches, I opted to ignore the sideboard, but the main deck is actually pretty cheap, consisting mostly of commons and uncommons (mana base aside).

The most important part of playing this deck is getting to the 4th land (in any combination that can produce UUGG) as soon as possible, and then getting rid of as many lands as possible beyond that. There are two major reasons for this.

First, once the magic number has been hit, the decks two major finishers come into play. Those cards specifically are Frilled Mystic and Nightpack Ambusher. The sheer value from both of these cards is not to be underestimated.
In the case of Frilled Mystic, her 3/2 stat line is okay, but even better is the ability to counter a spell without losing a card, instead placing a body on the board. This can seriously disrupt and ruin an opponent’s plan while setting yourself up for victory.
A similar case can be made for the Nightpack Ambusher. Even though this deck doesn’t run any other wolves or werewolves, the ability to surprise an opponent with a 4/4 in the middle of their combat step (or at the end of their turn when they’ve exhausted their mana) can completely shatter an otherwise strong attack. And should it remain on the board (which it usually does), the tokens it produces can creature enough power to just win the game. This is usually the card that will ensure a win once it lands.

And yet, despite having such excellent 4-drops, we don’t want to have any lands beyond that. This is a tempo deck, which relies heavily on getting into a rhythm while disrupting the opponent as much as possible. As a result, once we get to our desired land count, we want as many playables as we can get our hands on. This is why we run Sinister Sabotage and the Temple of Mystery, since the Surveil/Scry can help us filter our those excess lands (or get to our 4th if we’re in the early game). And if we can get mana flooded, Spectral Sailor can help us transform that into card draw in the hopes of getting to the key pieces we need.

The rest of the deck is just strong value at instant speed, including good blockers, counter spells, and ways to bounce creatures back into the hand. Overall, it’s a deck a enjoy running quite a bit.

Out of the blue, a few weeks back, I got a message from an old friend from high school. After talking with him for a bit, I agreed to join him and a friend of his for a one-off game session. When he said he wanted to play Warframe, I was intrigued.

Several other people I know are head-over-heels in love with the game, and I figured I’d give it a shot to see if it was something I might be into. And, of course, I streamed it for everyone to see.

Apologies for my overall quietness during the recording. I spend most of it trying to listen to what my friends had to say and also taking in all of the mechanics and progression systems. And also, maybe one day I’ll learn how to balance audio when streaming through my Capture Card.

It’s difficult to determine whether or not I’ll stick with Warframe. In general, I tend to shy away from these “lifestyle games” because I like to dive heavy into a game’s campaign, beat it, and move on to the next one on my list. As a result, these games don’t really find a good slot into my schedule most of the time.

But as far as I can tell, the game is really good. I like how mobile players are, and the shooting feels responsive. It’s difficult to make any calls beyond that since I was obviously carried for most of the session.