Monthly Archives: February 2018

Comics!, Snap *censored* Pop Culture

Comic Haul! #3

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This haul from the middle of December strays from my usual ordering habits as I usually don’t order runs of one title. Last summer Shawn had mentioned that the Aquaman series was pretty entertaining. Being the comic nut that I am I made a mental note to give it a shot once my pull list thinned out a bit. Once Secret Empire ended, I had the room but then those godamn Marvel Lenticular covers came out and I was suckered. Needless to say Aquaman was an afterthought until a coworker mentioned how he really liked the series. About a month ago I finally ordered the first seven issues since they were all on sale.

Note: I’m slightly tweaking the way I’m writing these posts to include the official solicitation for each comic followed by my thoughts about it. The reason being that I’m self critical and don’t believe that my previous overviews of the plot were giving you guys enough information.

Aquaman vol.6 #1 (DC Comics, 1st printing, Rebirth)

THE DROWNING’ Chapter one Black Manta returns, and as Aquaman attempts to broker lasting peace between Atlantis and the surface world, his greatest foe engineers a plan to destroy everything and everyone the undersea hero loves.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting too much to begin with as I’ve never been a big Aquaman fan, so my expectations were set low. Fortunately, this issue was fantastic. The Black Manta terrorism angle added a serious overtone to this otherwise fun issue. The art of Brad Walker really impressed me and the story was a solid start to the series. I’m hooked. Get it? Because it’s Aquaman…fish?..hooked? Eh, I’m not proud of that one either. 8/10

Aquaman vol.6 #2 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

THE DROWNING,’Chapter Two: In issue #2, unity between land and sea is Arthur Curry’s greatest dream. But Black Manta has a dream too: to destroy everything Aquaman stands for, starting with the sea king’s Atlantean embassy and everyone in it.

Again, another solid issue. The Drowning storyline is really good so far. *****SPOILER ALERT***** After the Black Mantis blows up the Atlantean Embassy (issue #1), Aquaman finds himself at odds with the United States military. 8/10

Aquaman vol.6 #3 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

THE DROWNING,’Chapter Three: In issue #3, Aquaman’s mission of peace is dealt a devastating blow when Atlantean terrorists attack the surface world in retribution for Black Manta’s deadly assault on their embassy.

****SPOILER ALERT**** The “twist” in this book was very predictable..clearly it wasn’t “Atlantean terrorists” that took out a navy ship. I mean, we just got through 2 issues where the Black Manta made it perfectly clear that he wanted to destroy Aquaman by any means necessary and we all know that he isn’t the only one who shares that sentiment. What better way to take Aquaman down? Frame the guy and let him get locked up or killed. 7/10

Aquaman vol.6 #4 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

The Drowning’part four. Aquaman is arrested for a war crime he didn’t commit: ordering an Atlantean terrorist attack on the surface, killing hundreds! The young king is willing to sit behind bars if it means peace between two worlds, but one ally is determined to break Aquaman out, no matter the cost: his girlfriend Mera!

I was really loving this Aquaman series until I hit this book. Pet peeve: switching artists in the middle of a storyline. The art fell flat in this issue, good thing the story is definitely pulling the weight. 7/10

Aquaman vol.6 #5 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

The Drowning’part five. Unjustly branded a murderer and a fugitive, Aquaman’s forced to defend himself against the might of America’s military. Meanwhile, Black Manta and the deadly underwater crime cabal known as N.E.M.O. advance their plan for revenge on Aquaman.

This one is basically one long action scene with Aquaman and Mera fighting the military to get back to the water. Also Black Mantis reminds us why he is not one you want to screw with after coming across fairly weak at the end of #2. No real surprises in the issue besides Black Mantis meeting the head of N.E.M.O. 7/10

Aquaman vol.6 #6 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

THE DROWNING’conclusion! As this first epic concludes, Aquaman and Mera are on the run for a crime they didn’t commit. They’ve fought through every kind of firepower the U.S. military has thrown. Now all that’s left between them and Atlantis is the Man of Steel.

This was a crazy issue! Who would win in a fight? Supes or Fishguy? It’s not as one-sided as you might think as Aquaman can hold his own. Right when he throws the first punch my jaw dropped and it stayed that way until the end. It didn’t feel like the usual superhero kind of fight though, more of a fight you would have with your brother in the backyard. It was really, really interesting to see how Aquaman views himself within the Justice League as his frustration bubbles to the surface (I swear I didn’t mean that pun). The ending was decent but didn’t feel like the true ending of the story, more of a direct bridge to the next arc. 9.5/10

Aquaman vol.6 #7 (DC Comics, 1st printing)

‘Who framed Aquaman?’The investigation into the Atlantean attack on American forces kicks off a mystery as the criminal collective N.E.M.O. unleashes a new and terrible weapon that threatens the existence of Atlantis itself.

This is the beginning of the next arc, where Mantis and N.E.M.O wake up a giant unstoppable creature to tear through Atlantis. Right when the creature wakes up it has a “Doomsday” feel to it as it smashes the Atlantean army flat. Entertaining issue and spoke to the B-monster movie guy in me. 8/10.

Ok, that’s it for the Aquaman portion of my order, I did grab a couple of other comics:

Hawkman Found#1 (DC Comics, 1st printing, Metal tie-in, foil cover)

One of DC’S greatest heroes is missing! No one has seen or heard from Carter Hall-a.k.a. Hawkman-in years. Reincarnated repeatedly since the dawn of humanity, Hawkman has spent his many lives uncovering history’s most fantastic mysteries, and now he has become one himself! Take a journey into the one of the darkest corners of the DC Universe as a mysterious man tries to piece together what happened to Hawkman, and how it all connects to the events of DARK NIGHTS: METAL!

I mentioned in one of my previous comic hauls that I felt “Metal” was kinda going off the rails and becoming convoluted. Thankfully, this book is more straightforward than the main Metal books. One of the main plot lines of Metal has been that Hawkman is incredibly important as he is the guardian of “The Forge” of the universe but he is awol. This one shot is focused on reintroducing Carter Hall as he fights to rediscover who he is in order to escape a psychic prison. It’s entertaining and worthwhile to check out but I didn’t feel like it added a ton to the overall story. It did make me think that there should be a Hawkman series though. 8/10

Avengers vol.6 #672 (Marvel Comics, Lenticular cover)

WORLDS COLLIDE Part 1
Following the events of GENERATIONS comes the long-promised clash between the Avengers and the Champions! The countdown has started as the High Evolutionary, a twisted scientist determined to create a better world at all costs, sets the Earth on a collision course with destruction! The Avengers and the Champions are ready to meet this threat – but will their first cataclysmic clash deter them from changing theworld?

Wow! Just look at the synopsis! Looks entertaining doesn’t it? Yeah, I liked the cover. Haven’t read this one yet. N/A

That’s it for this haul, as always thanks for reading! 

On the Tabletop

Feeling a Draft (2-3-18 RIX, RIX, IXN)

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Introduction

I mentioned in a previous article that the 2 Guys Gaming got together this past weekend. We played some of the old X-Men arcade title on Chris’s new Christmas present, the Pandora’s Boxx. We played about a dozen matches of Dragonball FighterZ. In fact, that’s what the last article was about. We also talked about playing some Magic the Gathering. Well, neither of us has a deck that has been updated (or even tuned) for a couple of months, so we’d have to figure something else out.

Inspired by this impending get together and with 20 dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I went to Wal*Mart to grab four packs of the latest MTG set. I figured I could combine them with two packs from my Ixalan fat pack (I’ll never get used to calling it a bundle) so that Chris and I could do a 2 player draft draft. What the heck. It had to go better than my disastrous xMage cube draft that I tried.

I also took the opportunity to open the rest of the packs from the fat pack. I have to admit that it was a weird feeling. For no particular reason, I had been hoarding them plus the packs from my booster box since I bought them months ago. I didn’t get anything worth value. Certainly nothing along the lines of the shiny Chandra that I opened from that set and promptly sold on eBay for 75 dollars. I got a new Vraska and a Wakening Suns Avatar in the last pack. So, a couple of fun cards that maybe I’ll do something with eventually.

The Draft

I thought the format we were using was Winchester, but apparently it isn’t. It is a variation of that, too. I can’t remember where I found it, so I will just briefly describe it here. We shuffle all of the packs together, put them in a pile between us, and one person starts by dealing out 3 cards face up and one card face down. The person who didn’t deal picks one card, the person who did deal picks two, and the last goes to the person who didn’t deal. Continue until all cards are drafted. Build a 40 card deck and battle.

The reason that I went with this format was that I couldn’t figure out the math of the Winchester format. It felt like players would end up with different numbers of cards and that didn’t seem to make sense to me. I have not actually tested this theory, so maybe there is balance in the format that I’m not seeing. This format ensures that both players end up with the same size pool from which to build their deck. It does take some of the intrigue away from drafting, but if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t pay all that much attention to what Chris drafts and what his plan is, so it’s all a surprise to me when it comes to playing the games.

I would hate draft that card, but I’m honestly not sure if it’s something you need. But, I’ll draft it anyway because strategery is one of my strengths!

It didn’t feel like there were many bomb rares or mythics in the pool. We did open a Huatli, which is just as bad on paper as I thought it would be when I did my Rivals of Ixalan preview article. While we were drafting, nothing else jumped out at me. I ended up going off board because there were very few blue cards and none of them were really worth drafting and went with Abzan. It was actually more WB with a splash of green for Hunt the Weak and Hardy Veteran. Chris put together a Naya deck with a heavy dinosaur theme. He ended up with Huatli, poor guy.

The Deck

I said earlier that I didn’t see any bomb rares or mythics. As I was typing my deck into Tapped Out for the screenshot, it immediately recognized what I wasn’t able to see until I drew the card during the second game. Bishop of Rebirth is a draft bomb rare and don’t you forget it. Overall, the deck was good. A little creature heavy for my play style, but once it got cranking with that Bishop, there’s no stopping it. Add in removal for days and it should add up to a win.

The Games

So, yeah, about that win. I lost game two to some bad luck. I drew 2 of my three forests before drawing a single plains so that I could play the various white cards that were rotting in my hand. I ran Chris over in game 2 initially with my dorks before he recovered and stabilized. We played at a stale mate for a while until I could get my Bishop of Rebirth on the field and just remove all of his stuff while bringing mine back.

The last game was one of those epic affairs for which we will hopefully eventually become famous. We again went back and forth with me gaining the upper hand and what I thought was a two turn win when I drew my flying creature. He top decked a “pacifism” and I had to play some mind games with him to keep him from killing me for a few turns. I finally got rid of his big ugly and tried to stay alive long enough to get my Bishop out there. After the game, which he eventually won, I saw that the Bishop was two turns away. Oh well, he won this round fair and square.

Until Next Time…

I’m researching some other 2 player draft formats. One thing that we could do is just do a 6 pack sealed match, but I actually prefer the strategy of drafting, even if it doesn’t contain all of the intrigue due to the fact that cards are “known”. There are some other formats that do introduce that the unknown into the draft. Who knows? Maybe we will try one of those formats next time. Then again, we have something that we enjoy, it works for us, and why fix what ain’t broke.

Digital Playground

Deck List! Hearthstone Secret Tempo Mage (Wild)

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This is probably one of my most favorite decks to play. The synergy between Flamewaker, Mana Wyrm, Sorcerers Apprentice and all of the cheap spells make it easy to go off for 6+ damage every turn. All of the secrets in this deck give you some breathing room to keep going face on your opponent as well as pump up your Mana Wyrms.

Mulligan Strategy: Try to get a Mana Wyrm in your opening hand as well as some 1 drop spells or a Kabal Lackey with a Secret. Maybe its just me but it’s pretty easy to get a decent opening hand with this deck.

Digital Playground

Super Saiyan!

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Introduction

The 2 Guys Gaming got together for the first time in months. With the business of the holidays, the start of the new semester, and just general overall old man Mr. Winter, we just weren’t able to connect and make plans. Whenever we do, we both say that we need to do it more often and then life gets in the way. Well, I’ve made last year and this year about telling life to go to hell when it decides to get in the way of my grand plans. We’ve got games to play and podcasts to record!

During this visit, we tried out his new arcade stick emulator, Padora’s Boxx by beating the old classic puncher X-Men. It seemed much shorter and easier than when I was a teenager. it’s a game where you walk sideways and punch things. It’s not like we were playing 3 dimensional chess back then. Why did the game seem so difficult? Well, Chris and I didn’t have to plug quarters into the machine. When you aren’t paying a quarter every 5 minutes to revive your character, you aren’t as aware of your limitations when playing the game.

The difficulty is ratcheted up, though when you are hitting the enemy with skateboards and vacuum cleaners instead of lasers and Adamantium claws.

We also did a Winchester draft (more on that in a couple of days) and played some of the new fighting game Dragonball Fighterz. Chris has raved about the game to me and he even wrote a review of the game last week. He was so excited about the game that I couldn’t wait to play it. We waited until the end of the night to play. Without giving too much away, it was worth the wait.

The Good

The best part of the game is that they have made it very noob friendly. I had never played the game. I hadn’t even watched any gameplay videos like I told Chris I might after seeing some screenshots and thinking that the game looked absolutely gorgeous. I was going in completely blind, so to speak. That made no difference.

The move scheme is, as Chris explained it, “If you can do a fireball motion, you are all set”. Because of that, I was pulling off crazy combos right out of the gate. Well, based on my previous experience in fighting games, they were crazy combos. I imagine in this day and age, they are just a basic combo that any preschooler could pull off with his eyes closed and both hands ties behind his back. I even beat Chris in the first game. Beginner’s luck?

And you had to walk through the snow, uphill both ways, in order to pull off a combo.

Then I beat him again, and a third time. I can’t remember how many times I actually beat him in a row before he finally got a win, but it was at least three. More on that in a bit. It sounds weird and it might just have been because I was new to the game, but it felt like something different happened every match.

One time, one of the characters flew up into the air, seemed to collect a bunch of energy, and then threw it down onto the other guy. Another time, Chris finished my guy off by throwing him threw 3 mountains, bringing the third one down on top of me. Several times, it looked like an atom bomb went off to end the fight.

One time, I somehow pulled off some sort of “finishing” move. It was called an ultimate devastation or something like that. It wasn’t quite a fatality like from Mortal Kombat. The camera panned back, the animation was a huge explosion, and then the words came across the screen. I can’t remember exactly what the words were and I can’t find any evidence of it online, but both Chris and I sat in stunned silence for a few seconds. He finally said, “I’ve never seen that happen before.” Mind you, he’s been playing the game about 2 hours a day for a week to this point.

Animations like this are commonplace. Needless to say, this isn’t a game for those with epilepsy. Heck, they may find that it’s bad for people who have functioning eyes.

The Bad

Naturally, having grown up during the hey day of Street Fighter 2, I’m a Capcom baby. Since this game utilizes a lot of the same functionality in moves and super combos, it made me think of the Capcom games. In fact, during our games, Chris said something like “Capcom should take notes.” While I agree, that’s not quite my main disagreement. Because I grew up with the Capcom characters, I know which characters I like and which I don’t. Having never watched any DragonballZ, I had no idea about anything about any of the characters. I knew some of the names from various memes and everyone knows the “over 9000!” line. Other than that, though, I knew nothing.

In addition, there aren’t that many characters to begin with. I mean, the character selection screen is full, but many of those characters are just alternate versions of the other characters. I think I counted 3 or 4 different Gokus and that might be low. Again, as a new entry into the Dragonball Z universe, maybe there just aren’t that many characters in the series. However, as someone who likes a variety of characters to choose and try out in a new game, that was a bit disappointing.

Finally, with all of the interaction and animations, they do get stale. Most notably, the entry animation when one of your characters gets knocked out gets old real fast because it never changes. The new character just flies in along with the opposing character and they punch each other’s fists. This is quite disappointing as I was at least expecting each pair of characters to have their own animations similar to the beginning fight sequences.

Yep, that’s it. I kid you not.

The Ugly

I know that I often struggle to find “The Ugly” for many of these articles, but this game is as close to a perfect fighter as I’ve played in a long time. Other than the few minor nit picks I had for “The Bad” section, I have no complaints about this game. Certainly not anything that could possibly be elevated to “Ugly” status.

So, I will just take this space to gloat a little bit more. It took Chris a few matches to finally beat me and I probably won about 70-75% of the matches that we played. I suppose we could just call it all beginners luck, but I’m going to go with L2P Noob. I’m just too good for you.

Shots fired, Bro.

The Verdict

As we were playing, I said to Chris, I definitely have to get an XBox One. I actually said that I wanted to get an XBox One and a PS4 because I didn’t think that Dragonball was a cross platform title. I have no idea why I thought that. I think I’m just looking for a reason to spend money that I don’t have on things I don’t need. I’m a complicated individual.

So, now more than ever, I want to buy an XBox One. We can get Minecraft that allows for cross platform support. We can get Dragonball Fighterz and Chris made the point that the boys would really get a kick out of the game. He’s right. Dragonball Fighterz is selling consoles (at least to me) and I don’t know when the last time a fighting game made me want to own a console.

I’m sure anyone who wants to play the game already has done so. However, if you are like me and have somehow avoided both purchasing either and XBox One or PS4 and the game, then you need to go out and buy it right now. You will not be disappointed. Heck, the game has even made it to EVO already as Chris predicted that it probably would. At least for me, that is must see viewing.

Snap *censored* Pop Culture

Kong: Skull Island Review

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The Synopsis: Kong: Skull Island reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong in an updated CGI fest full of giant monsters. In this remake, a diverse team of explorers is brought together to venture deep into an uncharted island in the Pacific unaware that they’re crossing into the Kong country.

The Review: I really wanted to love this movie. I mean, I love all B-sci-fi movies and this one has an all star cast. I mean you can’t go wrong with Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman and John C. O’Reilly right? Well, turns out you can when the story doesn’t have a lot of substance to it. The film seems to go from action scene to action scene leaving no room for actual character development. When there is a death, I found myself not really caring (I’m not a sociopath) because the script doesn’t give the viewer a reason to care. Other than the shallow script, the rest of the film is eye-popping. Kong has never looked better and the other prehistoric creatures are really cool and imaginative. In the end, I guess that’s why people would want to see this movie: the giant-sized creatures fighting. You don’t necessarily walk into a King Kong movie thinking, “this story is going to be amazing and full of twists and turns.” No, it’s more like, “I can’t wait to see this giant-ass monkey punch a giant squid in the ol’ food hole!” I get it. And for the most part, I’m with that crowd, hence my undying love for all things sci-fi and cheesy. It’s just that there were too many weak jokes and “witty” one liners that fell flat for me. The action and the visuals do save the movie and the post credit scene sets up a showdown with Godzilla which had me sufficiently geeked. All said, it’s worth renting if you just want to watch a fun movie where you can switch off the brain a bit.

Kong: Skull Island: 6.5/10

On the Tabletop

Deck List! MTG Bushwhacker Zoo (Modern)

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Today, I bring you the latest deck that I’ve enjoyed great success with, Bushwhacker Zoo. Since this is an aggro deck there isn’t much to explain as far as strategy goes. You use Lightning bolt, Lightning Helix, or Bonfire of the Damned to keep the board clean on your opponent’s side and then pump up your zoo with Reckless Bushwhacker and swing for the fences. Pretty simple right? I didn’t include a sideboard list (I usually don’t), but if you twisted my arm and asked me for some good options, I’d say that you’re probably going to want a couple copies of Ash Zealot in case you’re playing Dredge or any other deck that interacts heavily with the graveyard. Also, maybe a couple Deflecting Palms would be helpful in a mirror match or against Eldra-tron. I’d also include a Grim Lavamancer or two just to be able to have extra removal on hand. Finally, Glorybringer is the real deal if the game gets the midrange stages and you need a finisher.

Creatures (31)

4Reckless Bushwhacker
4Burning-Tree Emissary
4Experiment One
3Ghor-Clan Rampager
4Flinthoof Boar
4Bloodrage Brawler
3Vexing Devil
4Monastery Swiftspear
1 Combat Celebrant

Spells (11)

1Mutagenic Growth
4Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
2Rancor
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Boros Charm

Lands (18)

2Forest
3Mountain
2Sacred Foundry
1Temple Garden
4Stomping Ground
2Wooded Foothills
4Rootbound Crag

Digital Playground

Hearthstone Deck List – Priest N’Zoth Greed (Wild)

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Introduction

Chris posted a Hearthstonedeck list a couple of days ago. I checked it out and then texted him with encouragement. It’s a Paladin aggro list and those are very strong in Wild right now. I used one that I threw together to beat the same poor soul three times in a row by turn 5 in each game to finish off a quest that I had to do.

His post inspired me to think about maybe with some possibility probably posting one of my own. I have this debilitating controlly greed Priest deck that I use to crush any hope out of my opponent. I told Chris that I can almost see the point at which they realize that it’s hopeless and give up on the game even though they are an anonymous avatar in a computer game.

The Deck

Some Notes

The deck hasn’t been updated with any new cards for maybe two expansions. So, it probably isn’t as strong as it could be. I do know that I discovered a cube from my curator in one game that seems like it could be very strong in the deck. Maybe I’d remove one or both of the curators so that I just had the cubes without having to rely on discover. I also only have one shifting shade, so maybe cutting a Shrinkmeister for another Shade would add that extra death rattle minion for your eventual N’Zoth.

The only board clear is Nova, which generally isn’t an issue. With the Velen’s Chosen cards and the Thalnos, you can generally get a 3 or 4 damage nova. I don’t know much about the meta of wild, but a Lightbomb might also be an addition if you wanted to swap out one of the Novas. Other than that, I have good success with the deck as it is. The one downside is getting stuck with a heavy hand or the Shrinkmeister without any other minion.

Playing/Mulligan

I usually hard mulligan for a cleric against most decks. The card draw let’s you cycle through the deck and get to your heavy hitters/defensive cards quicker. Having a Shrinkmeister is nice, too for decks like Shaman or Paladin, that can coin or play big minions on 2. Aside from that, just shoot for a low curve out hand so that you are making a play each turn and getting that board presence. PW: Shield and Velen’s chosen allow you to get great value trades and a follow up Holy Nova often wipes their boards completely.

Entombs are there to clean up possible big taunts/high impact minions. It can also be used for those pesky 4 attack minions that people think they’ll play to give you trouble. Then again, a Shrinkmeister/SW: Pain or Cabal Shadow Priest will give you a big to massive swing in the early game with Pain or the late game with the Shadow Priest. Once you’ve exhausted all of their resources, the N’Zoth turn is often back breaking.

I’m no professional deck builder. I just put together things that I think are fun. This one plays right into my fun police player profile and it gets good results most of the time. If you have any constructive criticism, I’d like to hear it. L2P Noob? I’ve heard that all before.

Snap *censored* Pop Culture

Completely Ignorant Super Bowl Extravaganza

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Introduction

Yeah, I said Super Bowl. Whatchoo gonna do about it NFL? Sue me? Go ahead, do it, and I’ll bring your whole stupid farce of a league down around your heads. The Immaculate Reception and The Tuck Rule both just happened to be against the Raiders? Two franchise altering and ultimately dynasty launching plays in the playoffs against the exact same team? And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Once I’m done Alex Jonesing you, my cadre of minions will boycott everything that contains an N, and F, or an L, including your fraudulent product. I’ve already gotten 4 other people to join me in my anti-Super Bowl party and there’s many more just waiting for a ridiculous cult leader to rise from the population and lead them away from your web of lies.

Okay, did I scare them off? Yes? Whew. It was tough keeping up that insane prattling just to throw them off the scent. I just wanted them to go away so that I can freely use the word Super Bowl without fear of being sued by the league. Normally, I wouldn’t be worried, but with all of this talk of tanking ratings, concussion protocol, and terrible product on the field, I wouldn’t doubt that they’d come after some tiny web page in the corner of the internet. They might actually need the money.

As people tell us, if you misrespect ol’ Glory, she gonna get her revenge! Sad!

Okay, now that the silliness is over, let’s get to the game. We will have time for silliness after. It is a serious and solemn occasion after all. There’s no time for silliness in a child’s game!

What Philadelphia brings to the game

Good cheese steaks that have somehow been elevated to the status of national icon. The cradle of American democracy even though the revolution started in Massachusetts. Rioting fans that somehow caused the police there to rub Crisco on light poles. At least, that’s the official story. Maybe some rogue cop there just likes rubbing Crisco on light poles. Some dude did still ascend a light pole smothered in Crisco.

Oh, I’m supposed to talk about the football team here. Apparently, Philadelphia has a great defense. They said that about Minnesota and Jacksonville, too. The former did what Minnesota does and broke their fan’s hearts by rolling over in an NFC Championship in which they could have played in the Super Bowl in their home stadium. The latter played right into script by folding in the second half and letting the Patriots dance all over our broken hearts once again. So, I don’t know what to make of the Eagles defense.

Could these guys electric slide all over Brady (boogie oogie oggie)? Sure. Sh’yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

We’ve seen that the way to get to Brady is the way you get to all quarterbacks. You pressure him up the middle and take away his ability to step up out of your pressure on the ends. Everyone knows the formula. So far, only a select few teams have been able to execute the strategy in the playoffs and only one has been able to in the Super Bowl. So, pardon me if I’m not overwhelmed by your ridiculous discussions of the Eagles defense.

Speaking of recency bias, how about Nick Foles! I was guilty of the same thing last week in my pick of the Vikings. Now, it seems like all of America, clinging to some faint hope of a Patriots loss, is using that logic to elevate Nick Foles to Doug Williams status. Again, I’m not going to say that he can’t do what he did against the Vikings. I’m just saying that it is highly unlikely. He’s playing against Negan Belichick and his version of Lucille, Tom Brady.

This picture redacted due to depictions of eye related mishaps. Just know that the Patriots will give us all the Glenn treatment tomorrow.

Other than those two talking points that have saturated popular culture enough to even make it into a brain that has tried to avoid all discussion of the Super Bowl these last two weeks, I think the Eagles might have a decent running back, maybe two. Their coach is apparently a guy who knows how to do football things and tell other guys how to do football things. What does it all add up to? The Eagles will use all of that to build a 10+ point lead in the first three quarters. Congratulations, guys, but a football game is 4 quarters long. That’s how math works.

What New England brings to the game

Fans that think that the NFL was founded in 2001 when football Jesus descended from the football heavens above with a football shirt and pants on his body, and a football hat on his head. Fans that used to be known for rioting and occasionally urinating on one another in drunken fits of drunkeness, but are now much more sophisticated and refined in their drunken behavior. Stephen King, though he’s more of a baseball fan and I think he might have somehow avoided Patriots fever. Probably his experience with Captain Tripps. Clam chowder that has rightly been elevated to national icon status.

I’m biased here. I can’t talk bad about the region or people. I may hate the Patriots, but I love New England. That’s why my snark might be dialed down a bit. Apologies.

And, again, here we are at the place where I have to talk about football. Everyone tells me that this Patriots defense is not as good as Patriots defenses of the past. I hear that Tom Brady is 40 years old and that father time is undefeated. There have been reports that Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and Robert Kraft had a little fight a couple of weeks ago over Jimmy G-sus and Brady’s role on the team going forward. Gronkenstein went out last game with a concussion. Edleman has been hurt for much of the season. I’m here to tell you that none of this means a damn thing.

You can cling to whatever sliver of hope speaks to your stupid little heart. I’ve seen this story in some form or another many times over the past decade. I don’t suffer entertainment that becomes so predictable as to be boring. And, I don’t suffer false hope. Do not. I repeat. Do not hate watch this game thinking that the Eagles will win. You will waste 4 hours of your life.

The zombies will always breach the perimeter in the last 2 minutes of the show. Joffrey will Joffrey even harder just when you think that he couldn’t be any more Joffrey. And, the Patriots will win this damn game.

The Gordian Aiden

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned in this article that I haven’t watched the Super Bowl in over a decade. I’ve had to say it so much to so many people that it doesn’t even sound like real words to me anymore. Well, I haven’t. I took an assessment of my life, a la my Skyrim days and I decided that I didn’t like the person I was becoming in regards to the NFL. There were other triggers, as well, and I didn’t like how other people in my life were falling into the gravitational pull of the league either. We’d be on vacation and people would disappear into a bar to watch the Patriots game instead of doing vacation things. It’s almost a disorder.

Instead of the Super Bowl, our family has thrown an anti-Super Bowl party. We watch a marathon of movies or TV shows together and I still cook food as if we were watching the Super Bowl. Potato skins, chicken fingers, nachos, pizza, etc. We just don’t watch the game. Well, it got out that Aiden wants to watch the game this year. It’s most likely because his friends are talking about it. That brings up a bit of a dilemma. Christine hates football. I’ve gotten used to not watching the game. But, we also don’t want to dictate what he does with his life.

Okay, it’s not Gordian Knot level, but both of us have expressed our deep displeasure at having to break our tradition for this silly game.

Well, my friend Craig, who I’ve mentioned a few times on the page, invited us over. He was very careful with his words because he knows that the only one in the family who wants to watch the game is Aiden. I told him in no uncertain terms that I have no interest in the game. I’m not playing that up to make this article seem more intellectually honest as being “completely ignorant”. I don’t want to watch a single minute of this game. I don’t want to see highlights. I don’t want to know stats or the score. It will be impossible to do so, of course, but the longer I can stem the tide of Patriots revulsion, the better I will be for it.

So, I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, but I think we might end up at his place. He’s got a big place and I can avoid the game without seeming too antisocial. Christine likes to hang out and talk with his wife and he says the only other people that are there are Patriots haters. I wish them well in their hate watch, but I’m not falling for it this time.

The Pick

I’m 5-5 so far in these playoffs. I don’t know if my crystal ball is just foggy. I’ve gone 8-2 in my ignorant picks as recently as three years ago. Maybe this NFL season was just especially wacky. I have to admit that I never thought at the beginning of the season that I’d be picking between the Vikings and Eagles in the NFC Championship or that the Jaguars would beat my Steelers in a game in which the two teams scored 87 points combined.

But, here we are. I mentioned last week that choosing this game is like choosing between sawing off my leg and bleeding to death vs. letting the rot slowly spread through my body. It’s an apt metaphor and the main reason that I can’t hate watch this game. I hate the Patriots. That’s been established. I hate the Eagles just as much, if not more. That’s in the DNA of every red blooded Pittsburgher.

Though, to be honest, my true hatred of Philly sports teams lies with the Flyers. They can go straight to hell.

Who do I want to win? The answer in any Patriots Super Bowl is always “not the Patriots”. Who are “not the Patriots” this year? Well, fate being the cruel mistress she is, they are the Eagles. So, the true answer is, “I don’t care. Just end this stupid spectacle already.” Well, what about the commercials, you may think. I feel like the commercials peaked about 5 or 6 years ago just before they started releasing them online before the game. Huh, I guess I am somewhat affected by spoilers. The halftime show? Justin Timberlake? Eh, sure, I guess. What’s he gonna do, dress as a troll and sing with Anna Kendrick? I’d tune in for that. Maybe. Prop bets? Not a gambler.

Who do I think will win? Crazy things can happen. Somehow in the recent past, we went sideways in time and now exist in the universe where Donald Trump is president of the USA. However, I don’t see any way that the Eagles win this one. Heck, I’ll take the loss and go 5-6 in these playoffs to be wrong. But, even if they did, so what?

I just hope that it doesn’t take very long to bleed to death.
Digital Playground

Silver Hand Recruit Paladin (Hearthstone:Wild)

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Yup, you read that right, a Hearthstone deck list. I know, I know, for a couple of years now I’ve expressed my disdain for the game but I’m starting to come around. Since our “nerd nights” have become less frequent and the ol’ MTG group has disbanded, my competitive itch has not been scratched. This is where Hearthstone comes in. At first I was just playing as something to do but slowly I realized that I was starting to enjoy it. While I will forever maintain that W.O.W TCG was better and will forever hold a grudge against Blizzard for killing it, I can admit that my previous judgement of Hearthstone was…harsh.

Anyhoo, back to the decklist. This is a “Wild” format Paladin deck. The strategy is to overload the board with Silver Hand Recruits and pump them up with spells and minions’ abilities. There are different variations of this deck online but this is the one that I built and has worked wonders for me.


Paladin Class Cards
2 x Lost in the Jungle
2 x Righteous Protector
2 x Drygulch Jailor
2 x Equality
2 x Warhorse Trainer
1 x Steward of Darkshire
2 x Muster to Battle
2 x Quartermaster
2 x Lightfused Stegodon
1 x Level Up!
1 x Stand Against Darkness
1 x Crystal Lion
2 x Vinecleaver
2 x Consecration
1 x Truesilver Champion

Neutral
2 x Silver Hand Regent
2 x Knife Juggler
1 x Shielded Mini-bot

Mulligan Strategy:
You should aim to have a Lost in the Jungle, Drygulch Jailor, or a Shielded Mini-bot in your opening hand. With Lost in the Jungle being the better option of the three. Right away you get 2 minions on the board to pressure your opponent.

On the Tabletop

Board Game Bento Impressions

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Introduction

In December, I saw that Board Game Bento was having a sale. In case you don’t know, Board Game Bento is one of those subscriptions services that sends tabletop games every month. I’ve tried a few of the services. Some (the original Minechest and Tinker Crate) have been worth it, while others (Loot Crate and the Loot Crate Minechest) have not endured for longer than the initial shipments. Mostly, unless you like those Pop! vinyl figures, nothing from Loot Crate is worth it in my opinion.

I have seen the various “Bento” subscriptions come across my social media feeds. They have one for comics and another for anime. I have considered the comics one just because I like comics, but I’ve had to stop buying them again. A box of comics/TPB would be welcome. I never bit on it, though.

Unless, maybe, it’s this comic book. I Googled “comic book sad” and got this. I, I’m not even going to argue.

We play a lot of games as a family. You may remember my article about Ticket to Ride. The boys also like Clue, Stratego, Othello, and Scrabble. I want to teach them Backgammon and chess. Always looking at things through the lens of how it will affect us as a family, that was enough to get me to consider the board game subscription. When they ran the sale, there was little reason not to give it a try.

The first box that I got came with three games. The second box just came (even though I didn’t necessarily want it, so more on that later) and it also had three games. Two of them were board games and the third was a card game. The first game that we played was a board game called Flag Dash. The other game we played was the card game, which was called Water Balloon Washout. The third game, that we didn’t not play yet is called Cottage Garden. I suppose the theme of the box must have been spring or something.

Oh, Spring, how I’ve missed you. Please come back soon.

(Note: I am going to go out of order for this particular article and do “The Bad” first. Always lead with the bad. Aside from that, “The Good” references “The Bad”, so it just makes sense.)

The Bad

As I mentioned, we played Flag Dash first. Quinn wanted to play both that and the Water Balloon game, we had time on Sunday evening, and everyone else was busy. So, I grabbed the game and asked him to play. We sat down, I pulled out the instructions, and started to read. And I read, and I cross referenced, and I read some more. Quinn was getting antsy, so I started to set up the board to get him interested. That required me to read even more.

This is a bad sign. Sure the game recommended 8+ as the age range. But, any game that requires you to spend more than 5 minutes setting it up is not a game meant for children of any age. They simply don’t care about your stupid rules set and interactions. They just want to put their pawns on the board and roll the dice.

That’s the other thing. There aren’t dice in this game. It’s movement cards coupled with something known as a priority card. Basically, you establish turn order according to the priority cards and then move based on the move card. Call me old fashioned, but that is simply overly complicated. Quinn just kept wanting to move, but I had to keep reminding him that we had to establish turn order first. He got frustrated and it almost got to the point where I just put the game away to prevent a Sunday evening meltdown.

I’m not against a priority system. There’s one present in D&D and we spent 4 hours playing that the other day. It’s just that for a game that is supposed to mimic capture the flag, you’d think that they wouldn’t want to interrupt the flow of the game so much. I mean, capture the flag is about running around like crazy people and trying to grab a flag.

In that regard, it is a poor simulation of the game that it supposedly simulates. In other regards, there are just too many damn rules. I have no idea if we even played the game correctly because I just started ignoring the stupid rules and playing more simply. The game moved more smoothly and we finished quickly. Thank goodness because I didn’t want to spend a ton of time on a game that could ruin the last free hours of my weekend.

Granted the game is made for 4 players and we played two with one of them being below the age limit. As a result, we had to both act for two players and that might have bogged the game down. I don’t know. All I know is that this game was not an enjoyable experience and there’s no way I would pay the $17.50 that I saw quoted when I went searching for the game picture earlier.

The Good

We played the Water Balloon Washout game second. Okay, now this is more like it. I wish that we would have played it first. It was, by far, the better of the two games. I’ve often read that the best games are ones that don’t have a large rules book. While there might be exceptions, that was certainly the case with these games. Unlike the complicated rules of Flag Dash, the rules of this game were so simple as to be printed on a pamphlet that fit inside of the card box. We were up and playing in no time at all.

Quinn enjoyed this game far more than the other one. He didn’t get a chance to get bored during set up because set up took no time at all. He was able to grasp all of the rules immediately because there weren’t that many. He was able to put together a strategy that allowed him to compete in the game and eventually beat me. It was just a much more well designed game for kids.

This game was also suggested for 8+ and 2-4 players. It scaled much better to only 2. Also, I can’t see why it would be 8+ other than the reading required. Apparently our 6 year old reads at an 8 year old level. I knew that, but I just wanted to write it to brag that my kid is a super genius.

The Ugly

You’d think that with three games and three sections that the last game would go here. It would line up neat and tidy, but we didn’t get a chance to play the last game. It is a board game, though, so hopefully it doesn’t have the rules book similar to Flag Dash. It’s something about building gardens, though, so I doubt that there can be that many rules to placing garden tiles on a board.

No, the ugly of this service is the same as most of these other services. They set you up for autorenewal and you have to go in to the page to actively cancel it and avoid being charged for a second subscription. I only signed up for a month and I thought that I had canceled. Then, the charge appeared in my account again.

What the hell? I wondered. In case you are wondering, no, they aren’t the type of company to charge you without your consent. I had signed up via PayPal and while I had changed my subscription status on the Bento website, I never did so through PayPal, so I got hit with a second charge and a second box. It’s my fault and I could look at it as a positive because now I have a second box to weigh and decide if I want to continue with the service.

The Verdict

One good, one bad, one unplayed. One additional box with three more games to try. Overall, I’m happy with the service, even if it is a bit on the expensive side when it comes to these subscription boxes. It is 50 dollars plus 12 dollars shipping and handling. But, you are getting 3 games. The MSRP of the 3 games in the “Spring” box was 17.50 for Flag Dash, 39.99 for Cottage Garden, and the Water Balloon Washout isn’t commercially available right now. So, just taking the two games into consideration, you are getting almost your money’s worth from the box.

It also introduces new games into a house that sometimes can’t decide what games to play because we’ve played them all multiple times. That’s a service that can’t be given a price. While I haven’t kept the subscription to every service (I just don’t like what Loot Crate has to offer monthly), I do keep the ones that I enjoy and that seems worth it. I can’t say yet whether this one seems worth it, but we did get great enjoyment from one of the games and I’ll be able to make a more informed decision after trying the latest box.