Playing without a full deck (14) - Mammoth announcements

Blizzard recently announced a number of things related to the upcoming Year of the Mammoth (AKA the time after Reno).

In this article I want to take a look... er... I wanna put down my thoughts. On it. I'll be dealing with the following points in particular:

1) Lost Secrets of Un'Goro
2) Hall of Fame
3) The end of Adventures
4) Login-Rewards
5) Maiev Shadowsong

See you after the break!

Falling up the Stairs (12) - One Night in Karazhan

... or Kazachstan, according to Gaara. Best slip of the tongue ever!

So yeah, I'm doing a review of the cards spoiled for the new adventure "One Night in Karazhan" (ONiK) releasing for Hearthstone today (the 12th, at least in EU). "Review" meaning that I spout my human-sciences, semi-ambitious-casual-on-a-glorified-typewriter opinion onto the internet for you all to read.

If you're looking for a cutting edge gamer review/opinion - you might be wrong here but you're welcome anyways! In all other instances, you're right here, and welcome.

I will go through the list of playable cards (as in: has a mana cost and come into your collection) in the order they appear on Hearthpwn, so by clicking the link you can see the actual card pictures. As used in other places on this blog, I'll use a star-based rating system that is a scale of 0-4.

Also, I'd like you all to tell me the card you're looking forward to the most in the comments!
Spoilers: I like it. I also use the word Niché. Often. And et aliter means "and others".

Let's go, shall we?

Falling up the Stairs (11) - Trying my luck with Warrior Decks... yet again.

I suppose that's true with everybody - there are some some classes you just can't play well in Hearthstone. Whether it's lack of cards or just not having the mindset necessary.

For me, Warrior is one. I can easily get behind the concept of full-on aggro of a Zoo Hunter or Warlock, or the control powers of Magician or Warlock, or the powerful minions of Shaman and Druid. I have issues with making Paladin and Priest work. And don't ask me about Rogue, I can't play that except in premade-deck Tavern Brawls. I mean, I can play it, but I can't really win reliably.

Warrior, even though omitted in the above list, has been particular frustrating. It always felt like it should work, it's not like there was an obvious misbalance in the decks I made... but it just wouldn't work to any satsifiable degree.

It doesn't help when the arguably strongest Warrior Deck at the time is also fittingly labelled "Wallet Warrior". Recently, through an article over at Mana Crystals, I came across a Warrior Deck that gave me another one of those "You know... I kinda have the cards for that..." moments. Read all about it after the break!

Falling up the Stairs (10) - Empirical Research regarding the Lolz of Yogg-Saron (Update!)

THE LOLZ of Yogg Saron!
or: Keeping track of whether my Servant of Yogg Saron does meaningful shit.

At the time of this writing, my Servant of Yogg-Saron cast this for me:

Falling up the stairs (09) - Adventure Resumee: League of Explorers

As I told you last friday, I plowed through the League of Explorers, finally. So today I'll talk you about LoE in the same way I did talk about BRM (in order to create a comparability. It'll come to fruition with the next adventure).

To reiterate, these are my four points:
 > Optics
 > Plot
 > Bosses
 > Cards

See you after the break!

Falling up the stairs (08) - Adventure Resumee: Blackrock Spire

As of this monday, I managed to garner the last 700 gold which would get me the final wing of League of Explorers and, within very few hours of doing so, allow me to finish the last adventure currently available.

And I think that makes for a perfect time for rehashing the particular experiences, an endeavour I want to go about by looking at the following points:
 > Optics
 > Plot
 > Bosses
 > Cards

And I will start with the older of the two adventures I experienced: Blackrock Spi...err...Mountain!
See you after the break!

Falling up the Stairs (07) - Day of the Tentacle

For this post, I want to present a "fun" deck. It's not necessarily good - it may be, though, with some tweaking, I guess.  Maybe. ;-)
It basically came into its own with the "Forbidden Ritual" card and the Tentacle of "N'Zoth"

It's for the Warlock. I call it "Day of the Tentacle".
Yes, I'm that 80's.

Falling up the Stairs (06) - Waiting for C'thun & Lulz of Yogg Saron

As promised in the last posting, I want to talk the deck that - surprisingly, I gotta say - took me to 14(**). I'm still kinda proud of that achievement, even though it certainly was a matter of getting the right games/matchups at the right time.

It's a Magician deck featuring our Lord and Saviour C'Thun! See you after the break!

Falling up the stairs (04) - WotoG initial thoughts

   At the time of this writing, we've had "Whispers of the old Gods" (WotoG) and Standard Play for four/five days, I've had my 13 free packs and reached Rank 14 (More on that in a later article) - and am about to dust the free golden cards b/c my computer may run HS, but all special/golden (i.e. shiny) graphics are just black spots.
   I also think that the idea of golden cards, or at least collecting those especially, is a silly waste of time and energy. And no, I had no particular fondness or desire for foil cards in M:tG, either.

   In this significantly longer article, I want to talk about WotoG, my thoughts on things related to the set, the set and the cards I got out of it. But before all that - we're gonna have a break.

Falling up the stairs (03) - Shaking things up

   As I communicated in former posts, I did the first wing of "League of Explorers". And one of those cards was/is the "Rumbling Elemental", a Shaman card. He's obviously big on the elements, but this Elemental was really different - has no "active" ability of it's own, but one that reacts to other cards by flinging two damage whenever a card with a battlecry is played.

   I've been pondering a deck build around it for some time. Quick interjection: That's a ridiculous idea, by the way, building around two cards out of thirty. I then went ahead and did it - a basic suite of Shaman spells, the Elemental, and then as many Battlecry cards as I could grab.

Short warning: As per the most recent BattleNet update, I can't access the BN anymore, and thusly can't play Hearthstone, which is very sad, as, even though my Graphics card wasn't "supported", the game ran fine enough for me. This enrages me! I'm working on a solution, but that'll take a while.

List after the break.

Falling up the stairs (02) - Somebody's hurtin'

   Continuing on in this opening series of posts about my currently favoured Hearthstone decks, we are arrive at the one I've had ... considerable success (it got me from Rank 20 to 19 in a streak, that's kinda saying something!)*.

   It's a Warrior deck that, like the Pain & Response one, builds off of profiting from your own minions being damaged. Turns out, Garrosh is better at this than Jaina. And it's more fun, too. List after the break. Oh, and I don't play Hearthstone in English, so please forgive me when I... retranslate the names wrong. I'm learning.

Falling up the Stairs (01) - Djinni Paladin, Budget Style

I promised a look at the decks I'm currently liking the most, so here we go. Gotta start somewhere.

Just to remind you, I'm playing Hearthstone for two-and-a-half months, and without spending money on it. So a lot of decks are, for the foreseeable future, quite budget in a bunch of card choices, out of necessity.

This deck I'm going to talk about is based on the same idea as the deck presented here. And while I know it's definitely inferior to the deck presented there - let's just say that I managed to defeat Baron Geddon (heroic) with it. Not the most impressive feat, but my first heroic victory anyway, and on the first run with the deck. ;-)

Less bragging and more talk after the break.

Falling up the stairs - my Hearthstone misadventures (00)

I blame Fishc0p (that's a German Youtuber - you can find his channel here)!

I got into Hearthstone mid-February. Why? Because it's free. And I used to be seriously addicted to Magic: the Gathering, so...

However, whereas I spent an atrocious amount of money on M:tG, I'm decided not to throw a single cent Blizzard's way. This obviously "handicaps" my progress - but as far as I figure, that'll only be the case until I am caught up with the adventures (I did the first episode of "League of Explorers" and am 3/5 into "Blackrock Spire"). Once that is done, I'll be free to spend my gold on the arena. I will go into a little more detail about my recommendations for new players in a later post, though.

For this one... I guess I'll just introduce you to the deck that has "carried" me so far. Up to rank 19, at least, and that's the highest I got to this day. But I'll give you that, and some thoughts on it, after the break.

"Getting destroyed in space!" - FTL 02

I am afraid that I might have already run out of FTL-fitting, alcohol-referring sci-fi puns. But the two I had (last time's and this one) are really good.

Let's hit the space bar - a) press the space bar on your keyboard. In FTL, this pauses the game, and is very important during combat. b) visit a space bar to get drunk.

Getting destroyed in space - a) what it says, having your ship blown out of the (metaphorical) skies in FTL, probably by sth way stronger than you (Rebel Flagship). b) getting so drunk it causes loss of memory (and digníty), on a space ship or station.

My linguistics professor would be so proud of me.

Anyway, after the break: Boarding Drones, and sth else!

"Let's hit the space bar!" - FTL 01

   Recently I spent two-thirds of my monthly hobby budget on a video game - I bought FTL from steam, because I saw it, and immediately liked it. Which may be due to the fact that I'm an old school computer guy (I had a C64, and played the digital crap out of it!) who conciously witnessed the development of computer technology from its beginnings to their modern shape, and FTL's "retro, no-nonsense" graphics flood my brain with serotonines, stimulated by memories from way back when computer games were simple in graphics, but very deep when it comes to ways of dying.
   I can't say that I have played it a ton (yet!), but I'm seriously addicted. There's a lot to explore, discover, achieve, and the obvious death at the hands of the rebel flagship (Seriously, whoever designed that thing probably was one of those WOW players that liked to gank (i.e. kill players to weak to defend themselves against you and your gear) others).

   In this string of articles, I'll try to briefly cover some awesome things I came across. This time, after the break, let me jabber about: the Vulcan Laser.