#my eternal fight against bgs

[moonwarde]

clone wars screencap redraw 21 - 3.04 | sphere of influence

#anakin skywalker #padmé amidala #ahsoka tano #anidala #the clone wars #star wars #my art #padme amidala #my eternal fight against bgs

[scarlettaagni]

deep into season 2 of G1 Transformers. miscellaneous thoughts:

my favorites thus far are Starscream, Bumblebee, Jazz, Mirage, Beachcomber, and most surprisingly, Rumble

he simply delights me

Jazz gets better with every appearance and I'm delighted he gets focus even after a ton of new characters are introduced

literally who liked the original S1 Transformers theme enough for it to become iconic and even bring it back

the singing is off-tune, the song is missing a line to space it out well, and everyone rushes like they spent too long on a lyric or ran out of breath but the music follows them which means someone intentionally wrote it like this and they should answer for their crimes against the concept of sound

this show literally invents new animation errors on the fly

my mom was born in 1974 so she grew up with G1 and she told me this was all they had in a slot on Saturdays so I'm convinced this show just tricked kids into liking it via Stockholm syndrome

it almost got Sage

but I saved them

but the S2 theme slaps and I vogue to it

I would like it if Warpath shut up forever

I also would like it if Seaspray shut up forever

this show feels like they have characters and several episodes after their first appearance, only then decide on what their personality trait and voice is (Skywarp and Thundercracker)

sometimes they do it even after they decide what their Thing is (Warpath)

I would like it if Huffer shut up forever

he literally has nothing good to say ever. except those two or three episodes where he was weirdly chipper for no reason

Ravage kity

Megatron and Starscream take turns with the one braincell between them

Hoist's legs look horrible

also he is dating Grapple but here I am stating the obvious

I AM BLOWN AWAY BY THE COMPETENCY OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS. THEY'RE ALL CRAZY AND I LOVE THEM

Grimlock gets to be Grimlock and then there's my terrible son Fuck. why

I am a Constructicon apologist, I fully believe they wanted to build Grapple's solar tower just out of love for their field regardless of alignments and made up the ulterior motive when Megatron caught them. they were all extremely cute

will Starscream and Skyfire ever Catradora again

HEY IN THAT EPISODE THEY JUST HAD DON'T FEAR THE REAPER PLAYING IN THE BG? THEY TOOK THE GUITAR CHORDS

where is Frenzy you fucking cowards

is Wheeljack bowlegged? they kinda. just have him standing like that in wider shots sometimes

I wasn't expecting to see Chip so often after his first episode, I'm glad he's a mainstay

if Autobot Spike was about Carly the conflict would be she doesn't want to be human again

Reflector can go fuck himselves

I dunno what pronouns to use for characters that have different genders in Earthspark cause it feels wrong to he/him Frenzy and Skywarp

do you think Starscream was this insufferable and maniacal as a scientist or he won a fight and that defined his life goals for eternity

I just want to hug so many characters. they're all so huggable. they need hugs. I almost cried when Optimus held Bee like a cat and then hugged him.

I also almost cry when humans or Autobots get pat on the head by other Autobots

you know everyone talks about that episode where Megatron removes Lincoln from his monument and sits on his chair but no one ever mentions this is the episode where they discover Atlantis, the telepathic frog-fish-reptile Atlanteans form an alliance with the Decepticons, it rises to the surface and they fucking invade Washington DC

THE LINCOLN MONUMENT THING IS THE MOST NORMAL PART OF THAT EPISODE

Starscream lives because God hates Megatron

#nerd stuff #transformers

[godkilller]

@izzabizz139

I wanna hear you rant about the Gin vs Hitsugaya anime fight bc I love seeing your pov and you clearly write better than whoever extended that scene :) pretty please

          out of character.  DON’T ENABLE ME SO MUCH !!  No but I cackled when I first saw this ask because oh my god, clearly you saw a taste of my annoyance about the anime adaptation -- no, adaptation implies it was accurate, I’ll say the anime’s take was “inspired by” the manga’s quick run-in. I’ll start by saying this moment is supposed to be a bit important considering, via the audience’s point of view, THIS IS THE FIRST WE SEE OF TWO CAPTAIN-RANKED SHINIGAMI CLASHING. The only other captain-involved fight we’ve seen thus far in the manga is Kenpachi  ( who is an outlier and should not be counted... no, I joke... but, still, Ichigo was not an equal to him, his sword was sliced through like butter. )  The whole reason I enjoyed this encounter between Toshiro and Gin was simply this; it wasn’t some fancy multi-chaptered fight. IN THE MANGA, THERE ARE ONLY TWO BLOWS MADE. One, by Toshiro, to begin the fight. The second, to end it, is Gin’s strike.

          I want you to know that I’ve rewatched this specifically to answer this ask, and only due to this, as I wouldn’t have ever sought it out otherwise. HONOR MY SACRIFICE.

          Read more for length. I’m merciful.

          In the anime, they monologue at each other, and it’s mostly a combination of Toshiro making three separate death threats  ( he starts this off by saying “I’ll kill you before Hinamori arrives” and then goes on rewording it each time, and then also repeats the death-threat he gave Gin prior to this conflict about “I’ll kill you if Hinamori bleeds” )  and then also Gin and Izuru talking about how truly powerful and amazing Toshiro is -- no, this isn’t me being bitter or petty, I literally shit you not, Gin has a line that is legit “AS EXPECTED FROM HITSUGAYA TOSHIRO, CAPTAIN OF THE TENTH DIVISION, A CHILD PRODIGY OF TH' SORT THAT ONLY COMES ALONG ONLY ONCE EVERY FEW CENTURIES. HOW VEEEERY DANGEROUS. YOU’RE SERIOUS, AIN’T YA?” like don’t get me wrong, love a good sarcastic little shit comment like that, but the amount of times the anime pumps Toshiro up like he’s their shinest new cash cow ( and he is, at this point, it is not even 50 episodes into the series and they’ve realized everyone likes him and he’s jumped to high ranks in popularity polls... earning him filler spotlights, and eventually his very own non-canon movie )  so everything coming out of Gin’s mouth feels like more bullshit than necessary. Izuru’s already literally monologued, internally, how powerful and amazing Toshiro is anyways. Why this ?

          Not to mention that, prior to saying that long-winded shit, Gin’s haori changed length three times  ( and once it was longer than his entire body by several feet, and no not in a ‘to show motion’ way )  and most importantly Shinso was drawn, consistently, at katana-length for the duration of their little spat where the following, too, happened: Gin frog-leaps after doing a backflip, Toshiro gives Gin two (2) haircuts, Gin ruins some floorboards and gives Toshiro at least one splinter in his arm, Toshiro whilst wearing socks lands on Shinso’s blunt edge and pushes the sword down with his footsie because that’s how that works, there’s another backflip somewhere in there that Gin doesn’t need to be doing, twirl, twirl, and ballet, Gin’s face elongates until his chin is bigger than his face, Gin spends ten+ seconds purely dodging very close strikes to his face as Toshiro is the only one making breathy growly and ‘tsuuaaah’ sounds, there is a brief moment of no gravity as Toshiro keeps hacking at Gin midair and Gin blocks it over and over again but they still stay in the air but they’re not standing or jumping or using reiatsu they’re just like, momentum-locked I don’t fucking know, Gin frowny faces as he blocks because like somehow this kid who doesn’t even have more reiatsu than him, whose arm strength should not be an issue, is like. making him nervous?? as sword sparks fly. if you know me at all you know I hate when they fuckin’ firework sparkler-ify swords clashing.

          Anyways, all of this happens whilst Shinso is the wrong length and Gin’s hair is getting purpler by the second and this entire thing is somehow a big jack-off to Toshiro’s immense strength even though he’s screaming and wailing at Gin like a child and Gin’s just a vessel at this point to Enhance Toshiro, which, fine, okay, but at least be more accurate with it god damn. ANYWAYS,

          THEY JOUST. They literally run at each other, swords centered, and run past / to the side of one another. Jousting. “Cause that’s how that works. No slashes, no cutting motion. Just swords centered, because the animators were like “no worries guys I know swordfighting basics that’s a legit pose” yeah it is WHEN STATIONARY. Not rUNNING IT DOWN.

          And then Gin’s sleeve is cut, somehow, from the Jousting, because wow Toshiro wow wow wowowowow, and then Toshiro comes back and starts wailing at Gin again and Gin blocks it, again, and it’s all very annoyingly repetitive, and Gin’s frowning and sparks are flying and Gin’s using Shinso, the katana-length wakizashi I guess, with two hands because like I said, the animators knew basics and basics are “katana are used two-handed” like. Okay, you’re not wrong, but I cannot stress this enough: SHINSO IS NOT A KATANA. It’s shorter and meant to be used single-handed!!!! sTop!!! So then Gin rips off the tattered part of his sleeve and throws it at Toshiro, who swipes it away from his face using his Zanpakuto because that’s intelligent and a piece of cloth was definitely threatening enough to use your sword to bat it away  ( btw, Hitsugaya wasn’t holding his sword with two hands at this precise moment, so he could have just... used his other hand )  and then Gin goes in for the classic “stabby stabby rapidly at you while the animation gets a little breather because we repeat this cycle a few times with flashy bgs and phew money made” ... WE ARE FOUR MINUTES AND THIRTY SECONDS INTO THIS FIGHT BY THE WAY. Gin does this for seventeen (17) agonizing seconds straight. Yes, I counted. That was sixteen and a half too many seconds for me, personally.

          Toshiro somehow lassos Shinso whilst Gin is stabby stabby-ing with Hyourinmaru’s chain component. I say component like it’s somehow some type of beauty guru’s lipstick holder, but really am I that wrong ? When else has he ever used this feature ? Anyways, he lassos Shinso because yeehaw I guess, god I’m falling apart at this point can y’all tell????? I need a drink.

          and so, because now Toshiro has Gin’s sword somehow trapped with chain even though it’s just looped around it, he backflips over Gin for a cool trickshot, no blow issued, just vibes, and Gin uses a big brain moment to tug Shinso and the chains slide off. okay now what. We’re past five minutes into this fight, nonstop.

          SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD TIME FOR GIN TO PAUSE AND APPRECIATE TOSHIRO AGAIN! “I see, I shouldn’t have underestimated you, HItsugaya Toshiro” I’m starting to have a feeling Gin’s VA was told to just wing these lines because the amount of times he fills silences / Gin’s mouth movements with Toshiro’s long-ass name is astounding, he’s definitely drawing blanks here but he sure as hell knows one thing: that damn ice-boy’s name. He continues by saying “I suppose I’ll end up regretting it afterwards.”

          Toshiro says that’s not enough, and it’s really dramatic and cool. His eyes even glow all icy and blue and pretty, like his flowy reiatsu. Aesthetic points were gifted entirely to Toshiro’s animations in this scene. Gin was finished in MS Paint and each new scene they had to draw Shinso from memory and try to remember what hue of purple his hair was at gunpoint. Toshiro lets off a big wave of reiatsu and then it vanishes, and he jumps up reaaaally high. like this guy’s flying. his eyes arent glowing anymore that’s sad. Bring Back Glowing Eyes For Strong Shinigami 2k21.

          Toshiro releases his Shikai, and it’s badass, the sky darkens, Izuru looks distinctly more worried than usual, and Gin’s frowning with his teeth out like Bugs Bunny’s having a bad day, all is right in the world. Toshiro and his released Shikai have a nice moment for the Pics, and a big epic freeze frame blur moment happens with it all coiled and swirling around him. Wrow!  ( click the ‘wrow’ it’s a link to my exact reaction )  Izuru narrates for the third time about how powerful Toshiro is, his reiatsu, his Zanpakuto being a deity who is only unlocked every few centuries. The strongest ice-type sword. Pardon the pun, but that’s... you could say, so cool.

          It can even control the weather. So hey, next time it’s rainy, cold, icy, or snowing and you’re unhappy, it’s time to direct a big fuck you at Toshiro.

          Gin dodges the first dragon, and blocks the second with Shinso because blocking water and ice with a sword makes sense right? This actually takes a solid amount of seconds as Gin cuts through the entire length of this ice dragon noodle. Things dissipate, and pause, too, to really drag this out. Surprisingly, this reveals that Gin’s made a boo-boo, his left arm’s frozen, which doesn’t even mean anything because Gin is right-handed, and Toshiro teleports himself behind Gin in true fighty fashion.

          We have arrived at seven minutes and just under twenty seconds of this fight, and Gin turns, DOES THE UNTHINKABLE, gasp! He opens his eyes. His red, dull, evil, gray-eyebrowed with purple hair eyes, and shoots Shinso through its hideout spot behind his haori. This nearly takes off Toshiro’s eye and upwards of his head, but the little guy dives down fast. The rest happens in slow motion, supposedly, because it takes an eternity and people talk entire full sentences in its span of time.

          Gin asks Toshiro if he’s sure he’d like to dodge that  ( it’s a little late for that ) and says that Momo’ll die if he does. SHINSO SCRAPING ALONG AGAINST HYOURINMARU STRANGELY MAKES NOT A SINGLE SOUND. Mute. Even though before they had no problem animating and adding sounds to them smacking blades earlier. There are soundless sparks though, so there’s that. Yay. Can you tell how exhausted this’s made me? I need a nap.

          Shinso is already more than halfway towards Momo, still unconscious, she most definitely has a serious concussion via Toshiro backhanding her midair consider she’s been unconscious for longer than ten minutes. Toshiro has time to get up off the floor where he dropped to dodge, realize with a shocked gasp, turn, shout her name, and watch as Rangiku arrives in a random glow of gold which never happens ever again and blocks the attack with Haineko. Haineko almost cracks on the impact, and continues growing in damage as Rangiku holds Shinso there, implying that she’s stopped it from reaching one-hundred sword’s lengths to pierce Momo. Yes I’m including that implication / note in here because we love to see Rangiku succeeding in life and being Not-Helpless, all while potentially damaging Haineko severely if it wasn’t able to hold him off. Yikes, Gin!

          Rangiku threatens to join the fight if he doesn’t withdraw his sword. Gin smiles, withdraws it, and then Shunpos away.

          Whatta mess. Oh, and the anime fight was pretty fucked up, too.

          This is a long post, but here’s the manga version:

Toshiro leaps into the air,

This is where the fight actually starts between them:

And end. 

Five pages. Two blows. Does not equate to ten minutes of non-stop fighting and monologues. Sometimes, and I mean this in the most unbiased way possible, less is more.

#[ out of character ] masquerade; hide your face #me: i wanna reply to things!! #also me with eyes glowing red: no. #long post #LOOOONG POSTTTTT... #4 pages. #of text. #im so sorry.

[ncko-art]

ep 27 of bakugan battle brawlers

- nobody is more exasperated than the subtitle provider lmao

- what kind of store are they even in?? thought at first it was a jewelry store but there’s all kinds of random stuff in the bg

- i like how julie just casually assumes that dan is buying something cute for runo, where did your previously established possessiveness go girl

- marucho and julie are the two ppl who love to sneak around, they were out here hypothesizing that shun could be masquerade and now they think dan is buying runo a gift, and they’re never right on the money

- jo appears *sparkly pan up*

- can’t believe dan and jo are endgame, wow

- you see alice sending dan those telepathic waves and telling him to sit properly

- literally all the guys in the store are looking at alice, sTOP

- jo is really cute tho 😭

- dan: jo being out of the hospital needs to be celebrated! old man, bring us your finest juice!

- omg stop i actually felt really bad when he lost siren 😂😂😂

- bro that’s your problem this is why you and drago both get sent to the shadow realm

- iS SHUN ABOUT TO AVENGE MY BOI KOMBA?? ;w;

- dan bought a frog phone accessory and they really think there’s someone he likes, mAYBE HE JUST LIKES FROGS???

- i love how every time dan talks shit about marmelade boi, he’s just gotta respond. you want to get in touch with him, use dan as a mouthpiece.

- also i didn’t expect this to be the ep where he actually gets sent to the shadow realm but i called it lmao

- you’re right and you should say it

- dan bends the rules one way, shun bends the rules this way

- having an ability called ‘devil’s judgment’ when you were the one to send the devil to the shadow realm is a p big power move, ngl

- i can’t get over how cool masquerade’s voice is, he might be an asshole but he’s got a cool voice

- yeah drago’s your partner now but yesterday you were throwing his ass against windows so like. what’s the truth

- reaper really died so the hydra and drago could have a dragon fight, that’s so mean. either that or reaper was too damn op with his nullifying abilities lmao it’s one or the other

- masquerade: the stage has been set, but the actor’s have yet to arrive. the curtain has risen. your play ends in a tragedy. . .eternally.

- masquerade is a theater kid confirmed but we all knew that

- lowkey dan got a lucky hit in and we’re supposed to be like, ooooh. . .but maskerade was using ability after ability with the other higher ranked brawlers and he was caught slipping now?? when hydra has barely done anything?? because it’s dan??

- i mean, i know dan and masquerade have their rEAL fight later but still

- oh no, dan’s power boosting strategy didn’t work. . .what a shocker lmao

- watching drago get pummelled tho was. . .p hard ngl

- omg sTOP 😂😂😂

- assdfwkjwehj so am i  😂😂😂

- they look so sHOOK and tbh if i hadn’t watched the show as a kid and if this wasn’t dAN and DRAGO, i might have thought omg???? myself but here i am, knowing that this kid is still the mc in the next four installments of bakugan

- i love how we didn’t see shun cry at the end with dan’s ‘confirmed’ death, even though he’s the only one in the group who’s experienced loss before so he would probably take this harder than any of them. especially when you consider that dan was there to help him get through it. but no :))

#bakugan battle brawlers #liveblogging episode 27 #should i continue to post these here or like. . .on google drive?? #who knows #bakugan

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Blizzard/World of WarCraft did Sylvanas Windrunner dirty and let me tell you why.

Okay, so many of you coming into this post are probably asking two big questions and that is A) MJ you play WoW wtf I thought you were cool and B) w... who is... sylvanas?? and let me answer those questions for you before I tell you why WoW ruined Sylvanas’ character and turned her into another Horde villain that we’re all supposed to hate. In this essay I will attack Blizzard directly. 

First off, I’ve been playing World of WarCraft since 2006/2007 when it was only the base game (I was in sixth grade at the time blame my brother he wanted a pocket healer for his rogue so he bought the game and trained me). I joined at the Naxx patch and right before BC came out and I have been off/on playing up to the current day and have always mained disc priest heals/holy if doing bgs. 

Second off, Sylvana Windrunner is a character in the games and was primarily known for being the leader of the Forsaken/the Undead race in the game. She was always a good leader and one of the more interesting characters, lore-wise, and Blizz screwed her over and oh, yeah, I’m giving my opinion on the upcoming expac for Shadowlands so spoilers and rant under the cut! 

Okay, so, first off, I’m going to assume that whoever is still reading this post knows the basics of World of WarCraft and the Horde leaders. 

Sylvanas was a High Elf (the race that became the Blood Elves) and was the military leader before she was screwed over by Arthas (the Lich King) and killed. He ripped out her soul and turned her into a banshee and, basically, throughout the war that Arthas raged she eventually managed to free herself, reclaim her body, and become the leader of other freed Arthas slaves who were all undead. She branded them as the Forsaken and joined the Horde (the Forsaken/Undead being a playable class.) 

Overall Sylvanas was a good leader and did everything she could to keep her people safe while being smart about it - she also helped the Blood Elves become part of the Horde and sent them aide because she still loved her homeland even after everything that had happened. 

Then we get to Wrath of the Lich King lore and jeeesus. Sylvanas was basically betrayed by some of her top people with the Wrath Gate bullshit and she kind of jumped the gun on fighting the Lich King, but everything turned out chill in the end, right? 

Arthas was defeated, Sylvanas felt like her time in Azeroth was done, and she basically ended her life in Northrend after the battle; content that her people would be cared for in the Horde and that things would be fine. 

And then Blizzard fucked her over. 

Instead of the peaceful death SHE DESERVED she was instead subjected to visions of her people dying and killing themselves rather than suffer the Alliance because Garrosh Hellscream was a dick. So she basically made a pact with the Val’kyr to live again and go lead her people and okay, cool, that’s great, but Blizzard just kept screwing her over. 

They basically made her power-hungry and drew so many parallels to the Lich King that the Argent Crusade noticed and started watching her and her Forsaken. Like, Sylvanas had always cared about her people and the Blood Elves, but the fight against the Gilneans... I can kind of see where she was coming from. A lot of her people lived in Lorderon in life and they continue to do so in death and Gilneas had walled themselves off and were basically thought to be dead or some shit. 

But then she just turned outright cruel instead of calculatingly cruel. Like, canon wise her “soul had been broken,” but she was still never so power hungry and crazy as she started to become in Cat. 

Then the whole Hellscream bullshit happened and long story short she was planning to kill her little sister so she could join the Forsaken at her side but her sister “betrayed” her and she basically vowed to never love again so whoops, there goes a little bit more of sanity. 

And then Legion was basically her realizing that if she died she would be sent to suffer eternal torment (which, bullshit?? it’s bullshit. it’s bullshit.) so she basically is now on a path for immortality which, in case I didn’t mention it before, is bullshit for her character. 

So then we go into Battle for Azeroth where she wages war on the Alliance, kills the Forsaken she used to fight to defend, and basically not give a shit about the other horde races. Oh, yeah, she also burned Teldrassil the world tree are you fucking serious. 

It basically ended in her abandoning the horde after being called out on her bullshit and killing a Horde hero, going fucking insane, running away to defeat the new Lich King, and breaking the barrier between life and death because fuck her character. 

Just, y’all... she deserved a peaceful death back at the end of WotLK, not this bullshit where she’s the latest villain to defeat who wants to?? Kill the entire world I guess??? 

Fuck you, Blizzard. 

#wow #world of warcraft #sylvanas #sylvanas windrunner #i had feelings #so many feelings #original

[frogtownhobbies]

Let’s start with the top 10 and get to the honorable mentions and longshots after….

Top 10:

10. Tectonic Giant

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Low) Possible Homes: Temur Elementals

A hard-to-deal-with threat that an opponent must deal with has possible applications in Pioneer but 4 mana is lot for most of the decks that might want this. Temur Elementals is one possible home but I would definitely expect that if I do see this card it will be paired with green accelerants.

9. Woe Strider

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Aristocrats (of some color combination)

Aristocrats is a deck that is perpetually on the fringe of playable in both Modern and Pioneer. There are already more than enough playable cards for the archetype in BR, BRW, BGW or even some more obscure color combinations so the thing that will make the deck better is finding cards that can double up on roles to increase the card quality. Woe Strider fills the two most important roles in an Aristocrats deck; extra bodies in the form of goats and a sac outlet as well as also providing some reach and card selection. I feel sure enough about Woe Strider making Aristocrats playable that I moved it from the “If…then…” section to my top 10. Depending on the best color combination for the deck, Slaughter-Priest of Mogis and Alirios, Enraptured may also see some play.

8. Ashiok, Nightmare Muse

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UBx Control

Makes the list on the power of having a plus ability that makes blockers to protect it while threatening an ultimate in only two turns. If you play Ashiok while ahead you will probably win the game. It’s closest competition is probably The Scarab God, and in parity and while ahead this card is close to that power level. Its worse when you’re behind but has less deck-building restrictions so overall I like this card and I can’t wait to win some games with my opponents’ stuff.

7. Staggering Insight

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UW aggressive flying decks like Spirits

I feel like people are sleeping on this card but as Curious Obsessions number 5-8 that also grant lifelink I think it’s pretty good. Mono-red doesn’t want to see this on a spirit if you also have Selfless Spirit in play and I know that control decks don’t want to get hit by it. The card on this list that’s probably most likely to miss (along with Tectonic Giant) but I think it will see some play.

6. Storm’s Wrath

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Jeskai Fires, RB Control

Great rates on red’s Wrath of God that also hits Planeswalkers means you will be seeing this card. It does come with some heavy deckbuilding constraints but the value is there for those who can fit it in to their strategy.

5.  Phoenix of Ash

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Phoenix, Mono-red agro, Dredge

A recursive hasty threat is just what many mono-red decks want as the top-end of their threats and it also plays nicely with a lot of the cards in UR Phoenix, although it fights with Treasure Cruise. Making sure you can interact with graveyards is starting to seem like a priority in Pioneer just like it is in older formats.

4. Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible homes: BW midrange, Abzan Midrange, 5c Niv to Light

This set’s best “pile of abilities creature”, Kunoros packs a lot of punch into a 3/3 for 3. Having a bunch of abilities on a creature doesn’t always lead to a successful Magic card (see: Savage Knuckleblade), but Having abilities that are particularly good against two disparate kinds of decks makes Kunoros intriguing. If 3 toughness in Pioneer is truly akin to 4 toughness in Modern (outside the range of the most common removal) then I think Kunoros will be giving aggro decks and graveyard decks fits for the foreseeable future.

3. Polukranos, Unchained

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Hardened Scales, Escape Strategies (Sultai?), BG Midrange Strategies

Polukranos provides a lot of undead beef for its mana cost, both at cmc=4 and cmc=6. I expect to see the big Zombie Hydra augmenting an already good Hadened Scales plan of attack as well as enabling a few other midrange strategies to finish off their game plans. Bonus points if you can utilize the counter aspect or give Polukranos trample and/or Haste but even by itself this is a fine creature.

2. Heliod, Sun-Crowned

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = High) Possible Homes = Mono-White Devotion, Soul Sisters, Collected Company Decks, Hardened Scales Decks, Any deck that already plays Walking Ballista

The boogie man cometh. Heliod is a card so scary that lots of people are already talking about a Walking Ballista ban in Pioneer’s future. While the combo is obviously scary and something you have on your radar any time you’re playing Pioneer I don’t think it’s quite to that level. Outside of winning the game on the spot, Heliod slots in nicely next to Benalish Marshall in a White Devotion/Beatdown strategy, perhaps utilizing other Theros cards; Favored of Iroas and Taranika, Akroan Veteran (which are both soldiers as well). The other white devotion deck possibility is probably more of a “pillow fort” kind of deck utilizing white’s many enchantments that make it hard for your opponent to win. That deck has the added benefit of wanting to play Walking Ballista alongside Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx already and also likes the lifegain Heliod can provide.

1. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

(Frequency = High, Impact = High) Possible Homes = UG Ramp Strategies (including Devotion), 5c Niv to Light, Escape Strategies, Maybe Soulflayer

My pick for the card that will have the biggest impact in Pioneer, Uro packs a lot of value into one card. UG ramp strategies with and without devotion will love this card and it slots perfectly into Niv to Light as a ramp spell which also gains you some life early and gives you more reach late. Uro will probably also spawn some new strategies all by itself like UGx control or some sort of escape deck that includes some self-mill. Expect to see a lot of this card going forward and expect to die to it eventually if you can’t deal with it permanently.

Honourable Mentions

Playable Removal Spells:

Eat to Extinction and Drag to the Underworld will both compete with the format’s best removal and will see some play but I don’t think they are appreciably better than Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, Vraska’s Contempt, Murderous Rider or even Murderous Cut. Keep in mind that Drag to the Underworld’s upside is a one mana break on Murder, have you ever thought about playing Murder in Pioneer?

Cards to Help you Out Against Mono-Red:

Erebos’s Intervention, Shadowspear and Setessan Petitioner provide more ammunition for decks that have trouble with mon-red or other aggressive decks. The Petitioner is definitely a sideboard card whose cmc probably makes it an upgrade over Nylea’s Disciple. The other two may be maindeck cards in the right deck (perhaps UR Ensoul for Shadowspear) but probably also head to the sideboard.

“If _________________ is a good deck then this card will probably see play in it.”

Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea is a good body for blue Devotion strategies along with Thassa, whose blink effect is proving to be better in testing then I expected. Green devotion decks may want Omen of the Hunt and some will probably try Nyxbloom Ancient but that card definitely screams “win more!” to me.

Longshot Squad

Could any of these have a chance? Probably not, but crazier things have happened.

Gaalia of the Endless Dance

Firedrinker Satyr, Satyr Hedonist, Boon Satyr and the new Careless Celebrant….You’re right, those are not the cards a good Pioneer deck are built around but it’s too bad, this card is efficient and a cool effect to have in an aggressive tribal deck. Maybe when we go to Theros next time we’ll be able to complete this deck. Gaalia might just be good enough to get there on its own in a Gruul agro deck but usually if you’re attacking with three or more creatures in that kind of deck you’re already winning anyway.

Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders & Nyx Lotus

There isn’t a precedent for a three cmc mana-producing creature to be good in the format but I can’t help but wonder if this card can do something with Paradox Engine. Nyx Lotus could go in that deck as well. Maybe mostly blue with a red splash and including Emry, Dalakos, Saheeli, Mox Amber (Which Dalakos helps out), Nyx Lotus, Paradox Engine….

Storm Herald & Mantle of the Wolf

Could Storm Herald spawn an aggressive combo deck? Prodigious Growth and Spectra Ward are probably the two best creature auras to use with Storm Herald and you probably need something like Battle Mastery and/or one of the lifelink enchantments. We have a lot of red rummaging effects like Cathartic Reunion, Tormenting Voice and the new Thrill of Possibility as well as perhaps Thirst for Meaning out of blue to set things up. It’d be nice to be able to bring back Control Magic effects and enchant your opponent’s creatures but, c’est la vie, there may be something here.

Nadir Kraken

Look man, I don’t know why I like this card, but there’s just something about it. Maybe because Squirrel Opposition is my all-time favorite deck and this card makes me nostalgic for constant token generation. I’m at least 95% sure this won’t be a playable card in Pioneer but I’m also 95% sure I will own too many foils of it for the chance that it becomes playable.

Underworld Breach, Aphemia, Calix & Kroxa

What do we do with these cards? I don’t know, but someone is going to try. Underworld Breach obviously has the most potential but may need the larger card pool eternal formats to really shine. If you squint really hard Aphemia has Bitterblossom potential. Calix is a really interesting build around for enchantment-heavy strategies. Kroxa might want someone to introduce them to Davriel to really make opponents miserable.

            - Stephen K Timmons

#articles #staff #mtg pioneer #pioneer #mtg

[jesawyer]

Balance in Single-Player CRPGs

Someone on twitter asked me this question and I think it’s worth answering in a longer form than twitter allows.  I’ve already answered this question in brief and in video form at various points, but I think it’s important to address here:

Something that bothered me from PoE was the constant updating to classes and races to balance them. Did you guys worry about this>

In Baldur's Gate I or II or even the Icewind Dale series? I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class? >>

You guys are making a single-player RPG not an MMO or game with a online multiplayer component.

Variants of this question are common in single-player CRPG circles.  The implication is that balance is important in an MMO/multiplayer environment but it is not important (or so much less important that it doesn’t merit addressing in patches) in a single-player CRPG.

I would like to repudiate this in two general ways: 1) I will argue that overall balance is important and valuable for players in single-player CRPGs 2) I will argue that individual CRPG players and CRPG communities overall do not present consistent objections to tuning and this undermines the general complaint.  It is not the responsibility of individuals or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but it is the job of the designer to design, which means considering the needs of the audience by listening to and interpreting feedback on a broader scale.

Yes, Balance is Important in Single-Player CRPGs

I think it’s easy enough to make the first point through reductio ad absurdum: why not give AD&D fighters 1d4 hit points per level, a worse THAC0 than wizards, and worse saving throws than any other class?  Obviously it’s because playing them would feel terrible.  Why don’t we give all of the enemies attacks that do 1-3 damage, a quarter of the hit points of the PCs, and rock-bottom defenses?  Because playing through that would feel boring for anyone who had the slightest interest in combat content and systems.

Some may say, “Hey, no one is arguing that balance isn’t important at all,” but in fact that is what many people directly say or suggest.  Maybe they don’t really mean it (which I will get to later), but that is often what comes up.  If we can agree that some degree of balance is important, then there’s no point in suggesting anything to the contrary and we’re really just debating to what degree is balance important and worth a) design consideration pre-launch and b) patching.

In my view, balance in a single-player CRPG is important to the extent that it allows players making different character and gear choices to be viable through the content of the game.  It is always important to remember that system design (including class, race, ability/spell, and item design) is one part of the equation.  Content makes up the other big part (setting aside UI/UX for purposes of this discussion).

When our area and system designers build encounters, they have to be built around an understanding of party capabilities: their overall statistics, their available gear, their consumable items, and their various abilities.  In a traditional D&D-style CRPG, this spectrum of possibility gets wider and wider the higher the levels get and the more gear becomes available to the player.  The less balanced individual choices are from level to level and item to item, the more difficult it is for area designers to design content that works for a spectrum of choices.

It Was Actually a Problem in the Infinity Engine Games

One of the questions was, “Did you guys worry about this in... even the Icewind Dale series?”  Well, no.  I certainly didn’t worry about it in the original Icewind Dale.  I assumed everyone who picked up the game was as conversant as me in AD&D 2nd Ed/Forgotten Realms rules and lore, had played hundreds of hours of it in tabletop with similarly aggressive psychogamers, and had weathered fair but diabolically brutal DMs whose scenarios demanded quick thinking and ruthless min-maxing tactics.

You might not believe the number of Black Isle QA testers (and developers) who yelled or cried in anger, virtually or in person, about how difficult some of the IWD scenarios were.  One in particular was the Idol/priest fight in Lower Dorn’s Deep.  I had a tester hootin’ and hollerin’ about how it was “impossible”, how he had tried to beat it for two hours and couldn’t make any progress.  It was a scenario that I and my office mate (Kihan Pak) both beat on the first try.

On Heart of Winter, Burial Isle practically split QA in half.  One half thought it was a cakewalk.  The others acted like they were being forced to dive into a swimming pool full of razor blades.

The dividing factor was system mastery.  AD&D 2nd Edition (and 3E) are systems with a boatload of trap choices, inherently bad builds, garbage spells/feats, and generally inferior options.  They’re not presented as inferior options to the player.  They’re presented as options... that turn out to be implicitly awful even in the best circumstances.  To the next part of the question, “I mean really who cares if one class is OP or Race or Hybrid class?”  The answer is, “The person being brutalized by content designed for the OP classes/races because they picked the ‘bad’ option.”

The broader that spectrum of choices is for players, the more difficult it is to design content that will be at a similar level of challenge for those players given any given combination of choices within that spectrum.  And to restate what I wrote before, the balance is mostly important to the extent that viability, i.e., the ability to get through the content, is supported.  BG, BG2, IWD, and IWD2 often failed that test.  Once viability is addressed, I’m not particularly concerned about balance.

Tuning Down High-Powered Outliers

The exceptions are abilities and items that are so incredibly powerful across the board that it’s almost impossible to make any content challenging with them in play.  If we design content to be challenging with those abilities/items in mind, any players who lack those abilities and items will effectively be crit path blocked.  Their game has either ended or become so incredibly difficult that it’s no longer enjoyable.  And if we don’t design content with the overpowered abilities and items in mind, any player who coincidentally or intentionally uses those items effectively no longer has any challenge going through the game.  It becomes an unlabeled Easy difficulty slider rendering all other options/choices irrelevant.

In those cases, I advocate reducing the power of the abilities/items so players don’t trip over “Hey I guess I win” options and our testers can still use them in playthroughs and give meaningful feedback.  There is one salient example I can think of: sniper rifles in Fallout: New Vegas.  In Fallout 3, Bethesda had given sniper rifles a x5 crit rate modifier.  Keep in mind that any attack from stealth (e.g. shooting an unaware target with a sniper rifle from long range) is automatically a crit.  The x5 multiplier made even standard/close range combat shots have an incredibly high chance of critting.  I didn’t notice that sniper rifles had that multiplier and it didn’t come up in testing prior to release.  In release, players noticed it quickly and sniper rifles became the de facto way to handle most encounters.  Why use a 12.7mm SMG or hunting pistol when any shot from a sniper rifle was likely to crit and do 90+ damage?

In one of the first patches, I reduced the crit rate multiplier to x2.  There was initially a lot of complaining about it, as there always is when anything is tuned down, no matter how overpowered, but the sniper rifle retained its role and continues to be used in that role. It’s a sniper rifle. It’s good at sniping. It doesn’t need to be great at close range.

Inconsistent Player Feedback

There is one trend about player feedback regarding tuning that’s hard to argue against: communities generally complain about tuning anything down but applaud (or at least do not complain about) tuning things up.  I can tune up 10 things in a patch and detune one thing and will hear far more feedback about the one thing that was detuned, no matter how marginal or necessary that detuning was.  If there’s negative feedback about tuning something up, it’s usually because players feel it needs to be tuned up more.

In Patch 3.03 for Pillars of Eternity, Matt Sheets and I tuned up seven rogue abilities, five barbarian abilities, and a variety of other spells and abilities. Players generally seemed to like this, though some wished the rogue abilities had been tuned up more.

In Patch 3.04, the soulbound dagger The Unlabored Blade had a bug fixed where its 10% Firebug proc was never firing.  Two weeks later, Patch 3.05 reduced the 10% proc to 3%. This was a change I had requested for 3.04 but it had been overlooked.  I requested the change because daggers have a fast attack rate and that dagger has a +20% attack rate enchantment.

Which set of changes do you think I heard more feedback about?  If you guessed the marginal drop in proc rate on the soulbound item that had only worked properly for two weeks, you’d be right.  The rogue and barbarian changes affect far more players and more significantly, but “loss” (even if imagined for most players) weighs more heavily.

Despite having a reputation for only detuning, I tuned many more abilities and items up in PoE patches (and in F:NV patches, as well as the JSawyer mod) than down.  Players remember the losses more than the gains, but both are a necessary part of the tuning process.

I could abstain from tuning, but I don’t think most players would benefit from that.  Players remember early Diablo 3 tuning as particularly bad, but the game at launch (especially the economy and itemization) was poorly balanced, as Travis Day elaborated on in his 2017 GDC talk.  In the long term, Diablo 3′s economy and itemization today are much better than they were at launch and I believe most players benefit from and appreciate that.  Even if you effectively never played D3 as a multiplayer game, you still benefit from that.

I don’t expect players or communities to be consistent in their feedback, but as the director and, in many cases, the lone system designer, I have to make decisions on more than just the volume of feedback on any particular topic.  Changes that make bad options better are almost universally good.  Changes that make overpowered options worse are often still a good idea if I believe more players will benefit from the change.  I didn’t hesitate to reduce the Petrified damage bonus from x4 to x2 in Pillars of Eternity because that affliction was far and away the best way to deal with difficult encounters, either through the Gaze of the Adragan spell or trap.

I Will Tune Again

Just to make this clear, while there will always be a point where I stop tuning a particular game, I’m never going to stop using patches as an opportunity to balance items, abilities, classes, encounters, enemies, etc.  I’ve been house-ruling and tuning games since I noticed trap options and OP garbage in 2nd Edition AD&D in middle school.  I re-wrote 5th Edition Ars Magica’s certamen system because it’s a cool idea that’s really uninteresting in play.  I re-wrote Pathfinder/3.X’s armor system because, as many players have noted, it doesn’t actually provide many interesting options.

If I think players will benefit from adjusting the rules or the content and there’s an opportunity to make those changes, I’m going to do it.  I certainly don’t expect players to like all of the changes I make, but if you object to the idea of post-launch balancing, you should probably never play any of the games I direct.  I’m always going to tune them, if possible.

Thanks for reading.

Portrait by Jason Seow.

#game design #pillars of eternity #fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout 3 #icewind dale #baldurs gate