Hey, why not.
Now, this might be hard to digest, guys... but I really, really like Norin the Wary.
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- Gaka
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Member for 13 years, 11 months, and 4 days
Last active Fri, Jan, 15 2016 03:42:26
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If he dies within the opening scene, I'm ok with it.
Ah, Pia has been added to the main deck, and I'm still working with Impact Tremors to get the most... impact. Playing it will move a bit of the identity of the deck away from screwing with people are more towards "look at all these tokens that are killing you!" and I want to be careful about how I proceed there. Generic fun isn't fun.
For Magus, I can totally see running it in place of Chandra. As of now, Chandra fulfils two main roles - removal and card draw. She's wonderful with Squee and Feldon, and provides "free" advantages if she sticks, which is admittedly a rough beat. I will try this swap.
Nykthos isn't great for two reason. Firstly, it produces colorless mana unless you have devotion 3. Secondly, devotion does not work with tokens. This means, unless you've managed to make it to a state where you have such a board state, it's actually worse for you than a basic mountain. We run a really low land count, so you could argue that each land needs to be highly functionable. I'm of the opinion that it means your lands need to be consistent. You need colors more than you need colorless, and other people DO tend to run wasteland. It's certainly fine to play it if you feel you can gain from it, but I don't like it.
Recruiter is the most powerful card in the deck, but the deck functions absolutely fine without it. You can trade it out for draw, removal, or whatever you want. You'll have a few slight options taken from you, but it's not too terrible. If you can afford to buy one, you should do so - but it's not necessary.
None. A brief experiment with a couple less Goblins, but nothing came of it. (for now)
There hasn't been anything interesting in the latest sets, so not much has needed to change.
Huehuehuehue. Dude's strong and simple. I like it.
Don't forget - I pulled Confusion at one point (for the sake of online play, but it still counts) and since then, hell nah. It's too good.
Altar of the Brood you should definitely cut. It literally doesn't do anything - consider that you're only taking ~1% of a deck per activation. It's going to take a long time to get anywhere with it unless you get a hilarious Warp World activation or something. I might consider playing it for that alone, but this isn't a Warp World centric deck. Sort of. Kind of.
Suppose I'll look at the cards spoiled so far:
Awaken the Sky Tyrant - Just no.
Dream Pillager - Dream Crusher. No!
Fiery Confluence - Almost good. It's too expensive for such simplistic effects - you're simply paying for the option of which to use. Yes, you can do it three times, but it doesn't fit in with the goals of Norin. It's still playable for most monored decks, though.
Magus of the Wheel - N..ooh. Wait, what? A creature wheel? Now I absolutely know that Wizards is screwing with me, for not making it 2 power or a goblin, but at least they got the 3cc correct. I have the feeling that this will be a thing. Of course, testing will need to be done, as always!
Meteor Volley - Say it together, class! No!
Mizzix's Mastery - Say this sucker five times fast. Interesting, but not for us. Might be useable in a storm deck, but even then.... It's as strange as its name!
Oh yeah, colorless. Duh!
Blade of Selves - Wait what? This card is really damn funny, but it's not for Norin. Yes, you can attack with Norin and do silly token things. Yes, you can attack with Siege-Gang and make someone very sad. But it's an equipment with no instant value, and it's got these small words that you gotta squint to see and that just ain't me. It's 6 mana for tricks. It's not worth it.
Sandstone Oracle - This is interesting except for the seven mana part. You know, the part that involves actually playing it! Don't do it!
Scytheclaw - Not for us. Interesting effect, but not for us.
Seal of the Guildpact - This would go so well with our massive spell count! Play it in every deck! If you look closely, you can see the biting sarcasm of a man without any ice cream. Why is the ice cream gone, dog? Why did you trip me and make me spill it? Why do you want to play this card?
"Your group doesn't seem like fun! Your banlist ideas are all terrible."
GO CRYO GO
"Moooooom"
Thus why i absolutely loved a lot of the books that really didn't care about Jedi or Sith. The Bounty Hunter series barely even dealt with them - and it was awesome.
You've got a really cool world if you'd spend the time to dig into it. But noooooo. We need lightsabers with light-hilts for some reason.
I, for one, think we need MORE Jar Jar! A whole subseries devoted to him! Go!
I still don't get the Jar Jar hate.
He was a character in a film designed to get young kids to watch and enjoy them. He was mildly entertaining, and provided at least some measure of plot device (which is more than I can say for most comic relief characters.) Jar Jar's "use" in episode (3) was even believable. No, Jar Jar was not qualified to be a Senator. Neither are many politicians. What's important is that his intelligence, or lack there-of, was used cruelly and precisely to engineer the rise of Palpatine. I was down with it.
Could Jar Jar have been done away with or perhaps utilized/performed better? Duh. But he was fine. It was a kids movie! Everyone who had seen star wars back in the day had grown up. I'm sure they were expecting movies along the same tone, despite Phantom Menace being marketed pretty clearly for the new generation.
That being said, Episode 7 pisses me off. Not because it exists, but because of where it exists in the Star Wars Universe. I've got nearly every book written for Star Wars, and absolutely love how the Universe has grown and changed. They killed Chewie by dropping a goddamn moon on him. Coruscant got essentially terraformed. The Solo's have kids, and one of them went Vader. The Bounty Hunter trilogy showed us that there were other characters in the universe, and Boba Fett was both a bad-ass and humanized. We got an incredible backstory with the Heir to the Empire books, and the Grand Admiral Thrawn series. These were all series that could have been absolutely excellent retellings of novel canon. I was so hyped to see which storyline they'd adapt, or if they'd do soemthing in a different time-frame altogether.
Nope. The books were declared non-canon after being the mainstay for Star Wars stories. Now, the shows remain canon, but make slightly less sense. A lot of the background for those shows were written in books, books which only make sense because of the world building that all the authors (and george lucas!) collaborated on.
Instead, we've got a new storyline. This annoys me, because now I need to buy more books, and I can't order them chronologically anymore. Why Disney, whyyyyyyyyyy.
tl;dr - JJ OK, E7 NO
I mean, I sold everything except for my decks and any cards that I wanted to hang onto for various reasons before I left for the World. I'm pretty happy with the result. Now I get to build up a new collection from the ground up, which is two thirds of the fun. (TCG baby)
Warp Six, Mr. Sulu. Engage.
That would have been hilarious if I didn't know them. Unfortunately I associate with them near daily. Or fortunately. Whichever gets me more concert tickets.
I mostly wanted to hit the 5 minute mark for posterity and affirmation - that's the mark that I could hit when I ran all the time. After all the traveling I was a bit out of sorts, so I wanted to get back in form. Pretty pleased with myself, but won't be aiming to improve on it or continue going for times.
In other news, I got dragged to a concert tonight, very suddenly and very strangely.
About five minutes after I wake up, I'm too lazy to get out of bed. Laptop on stomach, let's browse the news. Sudden phone call.
"...Hello?"
"Hey! What are you doing tonight?"
"...eh?"
"Great! You're coming to the concert with us!"
"...I don't have tickets..?"
"We got you. What are you doing tonight?"
"...Going to a concert?"
"Yes! We'll pick you up."
So it was an interesting wave of sound and light for four hours.
For those interested - Let Live started the set. I'm not sure if they planned to have music playing, but the drummer was really good. I don't know if the singer was singing or if the guitarists were playing because it was just a constant blasting of sound that had me giggling at the memory of past front-row experiences. We were set up just behind the light and sound crew, so we had a clear view above the main pit. Great spot to be in.
Second set was Killswitch Engage. My nephew absolutely loves them; I couldn't stand their style. But during the concert, I think they stole the spotlight from the title band. These guys actually played like they had music. I could distinguish notes over the cushion of sound. I could even understand -somehow- lyrics. Hell, based on what I'm used to from heavy rock/punk/metal/whatever concerts, this was quality. I actually enjoyed their set despite being prepared to hate it. Also one of their guitarists, who I shall refer to as Bandit Keith, was awesome. There was one point during a song where he walked back to the sound crew - still playing - and had a beer fed to him. This was happening about two feet from me. I was too caught up in watching this awesome unfold that I pulled my phone out too late for a good picture. I only got his back as he walked back to stage. Oh well. An opportunity missed.
The Main Event was Rise Against. I'd never heard of their music before, but what the hell. Unfortunately, I still don't know what they can do, because everything sounded the same. I don't know if it was the sheer volume or what, but compared to Killswitch, there was a vast drop in music and an increase in random churning of sonic noise. Eh. Listening to a song hit by a studio's tuning sounds utterly and completely different compared to their live performance. Compared to other bands I've heard live, this was by far the largest difference.
Maybe it was the enclosed venue, but I really didn't feel like there was more to their music than the tremendous bass lines. Eh.
All in all, the concert was worth going to, if sudden. The sheer energy from all of the performers made it easy to get sucked into the beat, and watching random idiots in the mosh pit was always entertaining. Someone threw a shoe onstage, followed by a phone. At one point, Bandit Keith grabbed a beer and downed it on stage in one go, which was totally hilarious. Pretty sure he ran on alcohol for that set. Don't blame him - alcohol fueled jukeboxes have places everywhere.
I'm really interested in the methods that they come up with to cope. Should be interesting.