Total lie. FAKE NEWS! I was just commenting on the Magic: The Gathering forums that I am completely happy and satisfied with the pace of gold and pack accumulation as a free to play player. I felt it was important to balance out the view of what seems to be a vocal lot that if…
My Dominaria Pack Openings
With Dominaria launched for Magic:The Gathering both in “real life” and the digital world I was fortunate enough to have have saved up a lot of gold (free to play currency) to buy 8 packs. I also received three free ones, and through the first few days of winning daily contests and matches I also…
Small Update Post
I hate going a full week without posting, but that happens from time to time when I have nothing fun or exciting to write about. Both of those should be qualified a bit – things I fun fun or exciting. I have been writing about un-fun and boring things from you, the gentle reader’s perspective…
MTG Arena : Joy in Learning
The way rewards work in MTG:Arena is twofold – daily and weekly. The daily is a pretty easy to hit challenge by just playing the specified card colors, and the weekly grants you a pack of cards at 5, 10, and 15 wins. What is good about this in the early stage of the game…
MTG Arena : Hitting My Stride
I am still not “good” at the game, but I am becoming “effective”. Quotations used for loosely defined terms. What I mean is that I fully understand what is going on and have been able to create strategies on the fly with the two decks i am comfortable with. I am still not “good” because…
MTG : Arena
I finally got my closed beta invite to Magic The Gathering : Arena. I say that like I was always entitled to it and it was just a matter of time (I am, and it was, right?) but good old RNG worked in my favor in their last round of 100,000 invites. I quickly loaded…
I am Number Four : World of Warcraft
Weird gaming lately. Searching for a mindless, zen like state where I can log into someplace comfortable and advance and repeat tasks. Not really with a fun focus but just a time killing focus. Some may say “wasting”. I can’t disagree with that. I hit my fourth max character in World of Warcraft this morning….
Making a Generation of Bad Players : WoW
There is nothing like a Timewalking event to make you appreciate old school MMO players and feel bad that newer MMO players haven’t had to learn what used to be “core competencies” in MMOs. Now to be sure – these skills aren’t as important because they aren’t prevalent in today’s gaming but for anyone who…
Backtracking : Paladins
When I last wrote in depth about Paladins in this article I was shocked and dismayed that they were ignoring everything that EA just went through with BAttlefield 2 and was launching a new “Cards Unbound” system that was clearly and obviously designed as pay 2 win mechanics. It was a sad hail mary from…
Content Catch Up : WoW
Well, that didn’t take long. As of this morning I have completed all the Broken Isles content I had planned too (LFR once through all, got the new flying form, have completed all the main quests). I am also done all of Argus except the LFR raid (and will probably finish that off tonight). It…
Flying Not Flying : WoW
Well, with some helpful tips in my last post from Leo and Will my “ehrmagahd this grind is going to suck!” path to flying turned into “really, that’s it?”. It helped of course that I was fully done all the prereqs and had to just slog through a gated quest to get the Legionfall rep…
Jumbled Mess : WoW
Well, my return to World of Warcraft wasn’t as smooth, fun, or heralded as I expected. I haven’t used bullet points in a while. First off my guild of the past three expansions was gone. It wasn’t that I was kicked out of it but that it had completely disbanded. I was shocked because even…
Finishing an Expansion: WoW
I spent a lot of months in Legion last year, and it has been probably my second favorite expansion. I have a strange relationship with WoW that bounced from love to hate and most emotions in between. It is hard to explain why in some regards – I have had multiple accounts at multiple times,…
More Learning by Listening: Critical Role Campaign 2
In my last post about learning by listening I explored the questions that popped into my head while listening to the Critical Role podcast as they played through a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It was fun and interesting for me to listen in and learn how the DM and players react to different situations, how…
In the Shadow of Monsters: Dauntless
I spent more time playing Dauntless when it dawned on me. This is an actual beta. No, not the normal, pay for 95% complete game so we can test and do some minor things but grab millions of dollars before it goes free to play beta, but an actual, game is barely done and things…
Magic Carpet Ride: Critical Role
The current Critical Role podcast episode I am on is over 4 hours long and they are fighting a Beholder. This is an advanced Monster that graces the cover of the Monster Manual and throws all sorts of challenges at players. The interesting part for me is that I have been learning higher level D&D…
Learning by Listening : D&D 5e
I am on episode 10 of the Critical Role Podcast – that is around 30 hours worth of D&D, audio glory. It has completely taken over my time when I drive to and from work (which used to be reserved for The Economist) – so while I am far less up to date on the…
You Zig, I Zag.
It feels like the gaming and blogging world is playing one thing and I am doing the opposite. Far from being a hipster but it just feels like when the community is going one way I am going the other. There is nothing wrong with that I just can’t relate to the common experiences in…
Slay The Spire : Thanks KTR
I often find and enjoy games based on what I read from other bloggers. When Zubon posted about Slay the Spire, a game I already had on my “watchlist” on Steam, I bought it instantly. I had received $150 in Steam Bucks at Christmas / Birthday (same time frame) and it was burning a hole…
I Don’t Get It: Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms
With my current D&D obsession and clever Google marketing I “somehow” “managed” to get “randomly” introduced to a new D&D game – Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. It’s on Steam, it’s Free To Play, so why not try it, I thought. The game is simple enough. It’s an automatic side scroller. You choose the formation…
More D&D Talk
I have been absorbing a lot of D&D 5e material and enjoying just learning, reading, and letting my imagination play out. A lot of this is much easier with the launch of DnDbeyond.com  which is free for the base information and has some handy, but basic, tools. I read more information about it and the future…
Hearthstoned Part 2
The last time I played or wrote about Hearthstone was to explain why I uninstalled it. The coles notes is that in an effort to ramp up revenues they ramped up expansion packs, requiring a bigger commitment to buy new packs and accept new meta strategies to remain competitive and have fun (if competitive is…
D & D 5e & DDO
I am still in “prep” mode in DDO – I have been gaming mostly in EQ2 but logging into DDO a few times a week to build comfort. I have decided to research less, and go for it more – there too is a very deep advanced mode to spend points in that I have…
Almost Half Way There : EQ2
The other good side to having your blog broken is that the time I would often spend writing was spent gaming instead. I have continued on my EQ2 journey with furor and much attention. Playing an MMO like “the gold old days” again has been a ton of fun. I am playing both on Test…
2017 I HAS REVIEW – Q4
Good news is my site is back up! My tinfoil hat edition is that one day I get a notice from WordPress – sign up for paid backups now! I said no. Next day, a standard, Jetpack update broke my site for a week. Quite the coincidence, right? I am so sad that now I…