Sunday, June 30, 2013

SCS From the Vault: Dark Messiah




















SCS Live! -- Dark Messiah: Might and Magic

This week Lolzor is busy doing big things, so here is a play through of a game I bought in 2006 but never finished.


Part One: http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem/b/420433590?t=34m00s
Part Two: http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem/b/420509451
Part Tre: http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem/b/420577006
Part For: http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem/b/420637660

Here's a small preview of this game: (it may require playing an ad)

Monday, June 24, 2013

MUCMonday #38

Making Up Cards Monday #38:

And now for our most popular segment of Snow Covered Swamp: MUCMonday.
















Encroaching Terrain - 0
Land
When Encroaching Terrain enters the battlefield, pay {1}. If you don’t, sacrifice it.
When Encroaching Terrain enters the battlefield you may search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.
Encroaching Terrain enters the battlefield tapped.
{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.

A card Lolzor made up. It originally didn't have the Rupture Spire clause of paying 1, but then a starting hand of 3 of these would be the absolute best in the game. It's still pretty amazing.

Lolzor here: I was looking to make a some non basic lands at the common/uncommon level to fill in our set...this seemed different yet powerful...there is a second one made for the set to be revealed later.






Train of Blight - 4
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut
Train of Blight attacks each turn if able.
Whenever Train of Blight deal combat damage to a player, you may pay {2}{B}. If you do, Train of Blight gains Wither.
3/3

Lolzor here on this card too: TRAIN TRAIN BROOOOOOO!!!
So we have a train cycle we are making basically designed for the "23rd card" slot in a draft. It's playable but not optimal in any way. This one actually has more power than the rest in my opinion because wither is very strong so you could do real damage here.








Volatile Constituent
Instant
Volatile Constituent is red.
Apothic - Whenever you cast a red spell, you may reveal Volatile Constituent from your hand. If you do, discard a card at random from your hand and put a copy of this spell on the stack. Use this ability only once per turn.
If a red source would deal damage this turn, that source deals that much damage plus one.

Our newest cycle. Expect a Megacycle actually. It uses a similar mechanic to Forecast, except conditional.

Lolzooorrrrrrr: ok so the apothic cycle came out of just a conversation about the word and snowballed into a set of really interesting cards. I'm excited to show you guys the rest.




Thanks for reading! Tune in next week for more!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

SCS Live!: Multiwinia



Today! Multiwinia!

We are streaming an interesting game from Introvision that me and Sefah played forever ago and is a crazy game so tune in and enjoy the madness.

www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem

Monday, June 17, 2013

RCotD #213

Random Card of the Day #213:
Carnage Gladiator
Creature - Skeleton Warrior
Whenever a creature blocks, that creature's controller loses 1 life. {1}{B}{R}: Regenerate Carnage Gladiator.
4/2

An exceptionally strong card. It's a double-edged sword, but looking at the colors of the card and the archetypes it could fit in, it is pretty good. You could make a deck around this and have it be a huge threat. I'm imaging a bunch of 1/1's swinging in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation.

But this card in limited. Can be the reason why you lost. It's not so much that it's so powerful, but it's the fact that you are limited your opponent's options. Yeah, yeah it's 2 toughness for 4 mana, but at least it's 4 power.

3/5 Contructed
4/5 Limited

P.S. what's with all the new cards we've been getting on random.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

SCS Live! -- Majora's Mask




















SCS Live! -- Majora's Mask

This week me and Sefah attempt to master an old classic...that neither of us ever finished surprisingly. Sorry for the pre-recorded but it was Father's day and such.


http://www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem/b/415216187

Last week on SCS Live!:

Friday, June 14, 2013

This week on League: "Proxy Singed"

A new fad: Proxy Singed

Recently there has been a fad in League of Legends. Just like LeBlanc support or Jarvan IV support, they come and go and only live for a little bit. This week, everyone seems to be up in arms about Proxy Singed.

What is Proxy Singed?

"Proxy" is a verb and made up word in League of Legends which means to farm between enemy turrets so Proxy Singed farms between enemy turrets. It is extraordinarily dangerous and puts you severely out of position for an easy kill. He uses the reverse snowball mechanic in League of reduced kill bounties and kill streak shutdown bonus gold. Optimally, you farm every minion in a dangerous position and get away often, eventually getting enough farm to become a major problem. By farming between turrets your minions will never fight the opponent's minions and will inevitably push down the turret through minions alone.

After several deaths, Singed will become worth less than a minion (approximately 15 gold). However, by creating a huge amount of pressure, you force the enemy to deal with you, or lose pressure across all lanes, as eventually singed can farm two lanes at once by being in your base farming as they spawn. As one of my friends put it in Starcraft, "a traveling army is a useless army." This can also apply to your jungler who is supposed to offer pressure to relieve lanes, but will have to dedicate resources to dealing with Proxy Singed. After dealing with Proxy Singed, because your lanes are so pushed, it becomes very difficult to counterpush.

Isn't this griefing/Intentionally Feeding?

In a sense, yes. But having an unorthodox strategy by utilizing a mechanic in the game used to slow down a winning teams momentum into a lose-lose situation is interesting. This report system makes it seem borderline undetectable in the Tribunal. In fact, DruidDroid, the player who had originally started this trend (who made it to Diamond III) was recently temporarily banned because several of his teammates were upset at him when it didn't work. When Proxy Singed works he will probably 0/3/0 but win through sheer pressure alone. But when Proxy Singed doesn't work, his score ends up looking 0/13/0.

Proxy Singed is invading my games! How do I stop it?!

Relax. You may recall in season 1 there were snowball items that everyone built: Sword of the Occult, Leviathan, and Mejai's Soulstealer. These are nice soft counters to singed as regardless of how much Singed is worth, a kill nets 2 stacks. These items (aside from Leviathan which was removed from the game) only need 5 stacks to become cost effective for the gold you put into it.

Additionally, keep in mind that with no minions, you will have to learn to last hit under a tower. Typically this means wait for melee minions to take 2 turret shots and then last hit, or wait for caster minions to take 1 turret shot before last hitting it. You can also prevent this scenario altogether by having enough sustain to take on an entire minion wave alone for the rest of the game--Bloodthirster of Lee Sin for example will give you enough Lifesteal to not care about minion damage; Hextech Revolver on Kennen should give you enough Spellvamp to not care, etc.

In one of the game I have played before, AP Tryndamere was extremely effective against Singed as we were both able to proxy each other, but with Tryndamere's Lifesteal and Lichbane I was able to chunk down turrets with one or two hits a wave, slowly but surely winning the race.



That's all there is for today! If you'd like to see Proxy Singed in action (from an enemies point of view) check out the embedded video below!

Skip to 3:13:00 to see a MegaZero from team MRN (a professional player) have difficulty versus Proxy Singed. (It may require viewing an ad.)

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Book Review: Maximum Carnage



I've been wanting to get back into reading comic books for a little while now. Most of my previous knowledge came from just random stuff I've picked up here and there. Anyway I decided to pick up Maximum Carnage seeing as I like Spiderman and Carnage and my friend said this was basically the best...I was not disappointed.

I'm going to actually keep this short because I'm not good at reviews without spoilers. This is a great pick up no matter what level of comic reading you are into. It doesn't require much previous knowledge and the little it does they explain in the story. It is fun because superheroes but actually does have deeper themes to get into if you wanna get into it past the surface. I'm not saying its a life changing read but there is enough to draw you in for sure. I read it in about a day of casual on/off reading and the price tag is about $15 and I would say its well worth it.

4/5

Monday, June 10, 2013

Backlog the Stream



Hey guys we are recording some stuff while we are together to have save as pre-recorded stuff. Come join and participate if you want.

www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem

MUCMonday #37

Making Up Cards Monday #37:

Sorry, it's been taking so long to get out articles. We've been chillin' out relaxin' and being all cool. So we are getting back into the swing of things, so let's kick this off right with a MUCMonday!















Forethought - U
Sorcery
Scry 1
Cipher

A pretty simple card that Lolzor had made up. It's not particularly strong at all, but very nifty.













Coin and Curiosity - RRUU
Enchantment
Whenever a player casts a spell flip a coin. If they win the flip, that player draws a card. If they lose the flip, Coin and Curiosity does 3 damage to that player, unless that player pays {2}. If they do, repeat this process.

One of the things that me and Lolzor do when we hear a phrase/idiom/saying/whatever, we kind of just look at each other and say "that's a black card." And make a card up on the spot. Needless to say, coin and curiosity came up, so made the card from name only.











Train of Thought - 4
Artifact Creature - Juggernaut
Train of Thought Attacks each turn if able.
Whenever Train of Thought deals combat damage to a player pay {2}{U}, if you do Train of Thought becomes unblockable.

Expect a cycle of trains when we finish making them. Just keep in mind this one doesn't lose unblockable until it leaves the battlefield.


We hope you enjoyed this MUCMonday and look forward to more articles! Thanks for reading!

Sunday, June 9, 2013

SCS Pre-Recorded!







Long overdue for a post on SCS. So here's a small clip of us just playing on www.twitch.tv/baalhrezem

We are getting back into the swing of things. Expect a MUCMonday soon.