FML

I had intent to make this post a long, long time ago. I would have conveyed my surging rage on the internet about some of the games I had been playing at that time. League of Legends and Dark Souls are the key components of the post, but the rage has surprising quelled! First off, I can say that I finished my first playthrough of Dark Souls, which I almost never expected to complete.
Dark Souls
In this post of the best games ever, I was really excited about Dark Souls. I bought the game shortly after release, thanks to a sale, and let it sit in my Gaming Ottoman for a while. I believe I was playing Uncharted 3 at that time. At least a month later, I finally decided to pull out the game..and I was in for a (un)pleasant surprise.

Now, don't assume that I didn't like the game, because I definitely did. The game may have been a little overwhelming for me, as I did terribly at first. Eight hours into my character, I realized that I needed to start over. I NEVER "reroll" characters in games, but Hiryo was so far behind and had wasted so many hours, that I created a new character. In that same 8 hours, I traveled twice as far and had much better equipment and bank. Another oddity, I had built a Boy-weilding character, which is arguably one of the worst builds in all of Dark Souls. Despite that, my campaign was going well. The first boss of the game gave me little trouble with Basaimah and I began to finally build a real-life skillset to play this game successfully.

That is, until I ran into the the Capra Demon of Lower Undead Burg...The worst feeling in a game like this is to be stuck on "beginner monster," and the Capra Demon definitely fills that role. In hindsight, every boss of Dark Souls isn't very difficult. Of course, the difficult is only evident when you actually fight the monster, and this is where I had so much trouble.

Imagine if you will, an alley. There is a set of stairs on one side that don't lead anywhere, they are just stairs and a drop back into the alley. Your enemy charges each of his attacks and leaps to strike you, fairly easy to avoid. To hold you in place, there are 2 minions that stagger you upon hitting(and they have a fast attack speed). They have low HP, but their run speed and attack speed give you minimal chances to get in damage.

I was so bad at killing this thing, that I left the area completely to try my luck at other bosses. In Dark Souls, the world is fairly open, so you do have the ability to set monsters aside for a later time. However, the difference between this and Demons Soul is that avoiding 1 difficult monster just leads you to another. If you cannot kill the ones you are currently facing (at least strategy-wise), there isn't much sense in skipping it. This was my problem: I had positioned myself between a rock and a hard place with the game.
A) Fight the Capra Demon.
B) Travel through the Catacombs and find a way to deal with reviving skeletons.
C) Make my way through Blighttown and not get lost.
D) Find a way past the Hydra.
E) USE A GUIDE.

I rarely use guides in any game, but not using one in Dark Souls is just torture. You don't have to follow it as a strict map for finishing the game. What you can do, and what I finally did after months of not playing the game, is figure out what you're missing that may actually give you an advantage on these difficult fights. To be quite honest, we assume that the developers of Dark Souls expect you to find these items and shortcuts designed to make life easier. And, even with my terrible bow character, I created my own roadmap that led me to finishing the game!
1) Travel through New Londo Ruins to obtain the composite bow.
2) Return to Undead Asylum to get the Rusty ring.
3) Use the souls found on the Crest of Artorias and find Pharis's Black Bow.
4) Use the new-found items to roam Blighttown and clear all the shortcuts.
5) Kill the Capra Demon, then clear the rest of the Undead area.
6) Kill the Hydra with the new items and make your way to the other end of Artorias's map.
7) Enter Sen's Fortress.
8) Enter Anor Londo
9) ???
10) Beat the game!

And trust me, I still rage every time I die in this game, but the difference here is the level of "impossibility." As the game progress and your confidence increases, the "impossibility" rating of monsters and areas begins to decrease. Situations that seemed completely unreasonable, sudden become..possible.



League on the other hand gets FMLs daily, and there isn't much to do about it. The rage that I had for this will have to wait for next time, as I don't want you guys to have to read a novel 1 on post. What I can give you are a few hints to my frustration:
1) I'm leveling "smurf" account from 1 to level 30.
2) I am NOT playing with friends.
3) I am buying as little champs as possible, mostly filling roles for weeks that I do not approve of.
4) I am avoiding the use of RP on this account. (maybe I'll buy a few skins).
Please do not feel sorry for me.

Hasbro's My 1st Yugioh Sealed Tourney

What, Yugioh sealed? Isn't that just offering Giant Soldiers of Stone as tribute for Summoned Skull?

Dave at Diehard Games held his first Yugioh sealed tourney last Saturday. It had a modest turnout of around 12 people, a mixture between non-regulars(irregulars?) and "event" players. Battle packs have been sold out at our locals for a while, so the top prize of "more battle packs" was highly sought after. And rightfully so, as Tour Guide, Fiendish Chain, Forbidden Chalice, and a number of staple cards litter the card list. I and a few others actually pulled Tour Guides from our initial packs! Of course, most of us didn't get to keep ours. Setting up the tournament gives you an idea why:

1) Everyone pays to join the tourney.

2) Everyone is given 10 packs and a spreadsheet with every card listed.

3) Upon opening each pack, you mark every card that you found on the spreadsheet, registering them.

4) Once everyone registers all the available cards, you then turn in your cards and the list to the tournament organizer.

5) He then randomly distributes each "package" to each player. You have a 1/Xparticipants chance to get the cards you opened.

6) Finally you build a deck out of the cards you received.



Of course, if you liked what you pulled, you are more than welcome to drop from the tournament and go home with those cards. From what I understand, the general consensus is that you should only drop if you pull multiple tour guides. Though I did get a Tour Guide and Starfoil Lance out of my packs, I was more interested in playing the game than getting loot, so I happily gave my cards away. In return, I got a really, really lackluster stack of cards to make a deck with lol.



If you look at the FAQs for Sealed play, most games are done with a 20 or 30 card minimum deck. Keeping it low makes things a bit more consistent, but it may give you less answers to your opponent's plays. On Saturday, everyone played with FORTY cards (Casual Variant #2). That is 80% of all the cards you had in your pool. This meant that most of us played with a complete mishmash of cards, with very little coherence. I do have to admit, playing with 40 cards was probably more fun than it would have been to use twenty. With 20 card decks, the real fun comes from deck-building. With 40, you are probably running 1 copy of 90% of your cards, so each draw is as random as possible. Keeping a good hand and field is extremely important, as your next card has a high chance of being useless. Some call this aspect "skill" and perhaps that is what makes Sealed fun.



My 40 card deck was probably the worst one out of all attendees. Though I made it to top 4, I can't say that my deck was any good:

Monsters:26!

x1 Fortress Warrior * x1 Twin Headed Behemoth *** x1 Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite ***** x1 Vortex Trooper ** x1 Naturia Strawberry *** x1 Abyssal Kingshark ** x1 Cyber Jar ***** x1 Treeborn Frog ***** x1 Cyber Dragon ***** x1 Dark Resonator *** x1 The Tricky **** x1 Dark Magician of Chaos ***** x1 Des Mosquito *** x1 Beast King Barbaros **** x1 Jinzo ***** x1 Ancient Gear Knight ** x1 Big Shield Gardna *** x1 Greenkappa *** x1 Stealth Bird **** x1 Injection Fairy Lily ** x1 Blue Thunder T-45 *** x1 Chainsaw Insect *** x1 Toon Gemini Elf *** x1 Luster Dragon **** x1 Old Vindictive Magician **** x1 Psi Blocker ****

Spells: 7 Traps: 7

x1 Soul Exchange **** x1 Axe of Despair **** x1 Darkworld Shackles **** x1 Forbidden Chalice **** x1 Premature Burial ***** x1 Pot of Duality ***** x1 Fighting Spirit *** x1 Interdimensional Matter Transporter *** x1 Inverse Universe ** x1 Liberty at Last! **** x2 Pixie Ring ** x1 Blast with Chain *** x1 Half or Nothing **

The star ratings on these cards are actually pretty generous. Though you may not agree with me on a few of them, I am really comparing them to cards I could gotten instead such as Fortress Warrior vs Hedge Guard. As you can see, I only had 3 Forbidden cards in my deck. Two of which very good cards, but not the best I could have gotten. One of them, Cyber Jar, is particularly nasty, especially in a higher monster, lower tribute count deck. On the flip-side, most of my losses came from drawing monsters that are simply too weak to take on Archfiend Skull of Lightning or Zaborg.

Gameplay is thought of as a slugfest by most. Play monsters and get in damage whenever you can, and just go back and forth until someone runs out of options. Rare cards like Ring of Destruction, Raigeki, and Xyz monsters make it slightly more difficult, as aggressive play can be countered. Defensive play isn't always reliable either, as Shield Crush, Drillroid, and Gaap the Divine Soldier can flip over your strategy completely. There are also whole strategies you can try to pull off if you are lucky enough. James Fox had Machina Fortress and other machines to support it. You can run Goblin Attack Force monsters alongside Gaap for some serious pain. Burden of the Mighty and King Tiger Wanghu are a no-brainer.

My deck really had no combos, but playing conservatively helped me win. Though there are less and less responses to summons, or excessive backrow, Greenkappa, Harpie's Feather Duster, Torrential and Raigeki all exist. There is also Snatch Steal, Change of Heart, Creature Swap, and Premature Burial that can make rob you of your excessive field. In the end, Sealed play has a bit more thought process than you may have imagined.

I highly recommend playing Seal play whenever possible. It is easy, affordable, and gets you great cards with a lot of longevity (inb4 Tour Guide limited in September).And don't forget that more Battle Packs are sure to come in the future, so you may as well figure out how to play now.