Month: November 2023

Video Games

Snap thoughts incomplete series 3

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Marvel snap card collection is split into five pools, the starting collection is 1 and 2. Pool 3 is the biggest one with a huge impact on deck building. Archetypes that already exist in earlier pools get better. New cards are added to series 4 and 5. The second dinner used to do series drops moving cards down towards 3. Nothing about that happening anytime soon, which makes spotlight caches and tokens rather important. Missing a couple of cards that open up new archetypes, improving on existing ones.

I currently own 68 out of 99 pool 3 cards, 68% complete a collection level of 2784. Looks unlikely I will complete the pool by 3500 levels.

Discard – Apocalypse discard shell is missing Dracula, Colleen Wing is rather nice. All about emptying your hand, buffing dracula based on biggest card in hand. Hela Discard can be a casino. Discard big cards and bring them back later on. Here I’m mising a blackcat, gambit and ghost rider. Gambit can sometimes find a place in other deck. Outside that i’m mising a couple common big cards that see play in that deck. I have hela but can’t do that style of deck. Apocalypse I can do weaker version of that deck with some success.

Destory – Getting Deadpool big in a destory package just fits into that shell. Annoyingly I have other part which is X23 both together work so well. Similar to discard just weaker version without it.

Good cards – Doctor Octopus good distruption card can upset plays your opponent may be wanting to do. Magneto good distruption that moves cards around. Mystique copies any ongoing cards in last played that creates some crazy turn 6 plays. Rogue tech card that steals ongoing effect from your opponent. Goose on paper should be good. Invisible Woman maybe a good card but not sure.

Move – Not sure if dagger is core part of move but she fits into so many lists. Miles Morales is just nice to have when you can move cards around.

Mister negative – Missing couple cards that reduces the slot machine nature of this shell. Jane Foster Mighty Thor lets me draw some rather good cards. Leader can swing this deck towards winning. Bast can find a home here and other decks.

Silver surfer – Crystal another 3 cost card can fit into this deck not sure if it any good here.

Shuri sauron -Zero gives this deck a mana curve, opens up some new playlines. Tiny boost that gives this deck another tool to use. I had success without it but would better with it.

Niche – Agatha Harkness is double edged sword, good at farming boosters and maybe discard deck. Quake is good distruption card with skill ceiling that is high. You move locations that are unplayable breaking what your opponent wants to do. Rockslide needs darkhawk to create a new type of shell.

Following cards one from pool 4 and 5 that I have my eye on. Some of these cards just improve existing decks looking out for spotlight caches with them in.

Pool 4

Khull – Destroy

Legion – Control

Man thing – Debuff

Mobius M mobuis – Tech card

Nimrod – Destory

Ravonna renslayer – Mister negative

Zabu – Discount 4

Pool 5

Alioth – Tech card

Echo – Tech card

Elsa bloodstone – Zoo?

Iron lad – Just good

Jeff the baby land shark – Just good

Hit monkey – Serra

Kitty pryde – Bounce

Nebula – Control

Thanos – Destory, control, lockdown

Thoughts

Storm ciaran

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Storm Ciaran

This was a powerful storm, bringing fast winds and heavy rain. Inland areas have natural barriers against the weather. Talking about hills, trees and other natural barriers that exist in huge numbers. Coastal zones don’t have that luxury. Humans love to live near coastal areas making the problem even worse.

Windy weather creates falling trees and damage to property due to stuff not being secured down. Heavy rain creates a deadly flooding problem, all that water works its way into the river system. Grounds already saturated can’t hold any more water, and new rainwater starts to fill up rivers downstream. At some stage that means rivers bursting their banks as the water tries to go somewhere. High amounts of rain can overwhelm human-built water networks or structures.

Climate change is making the world warmer, and wetter and weather patterns more extreme. All this causes huge headaches as people demand to be protected. For some people that means it makes no sense to build protections or prevention schemes. Living in high-risk areas makes insurance impossible, becomes unviable to live there anymore. On a global scale that means huge amounts of people moving somewhere else.

Flood protection schemes only work if you have a strong set of prevention schemes to work alongside them. Nature has the answer already, wetlands, flood plains and more. Water is rather difficult to control at the best of times. Yet we keep trying to engineer complicated solutions when the answers already exist. I’m very lucky that I live in a low-risk area but I still face disruption from storms like this. The odd road may end up being flooded or a railway line gets flooded. 

Dying days of this government means we are unlikely to get a rethink about this problem.  Very quickly going to become a problem. If storms like this become even more common the calls to do something will be deafening. It will mean having to deal with vested interests and honest discussions about the hard choices ahead. I don’t have much faith in the quality maybe things will be different.

Feedback, Video Games

Halloween patch mainly Mobuis thoughts

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Halloween patch mainly Mobuis thoughts

The second dinner Halloween patch will be a treat or trick. Patch notes can be found here.

Mobuis M Mobuis

  • [Old] 2/3 – Ongoing: Your Costs can’t be increased. Your opponent’s Costs can’t be reduced.
  • [New] 2/3 – On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, your Costs can’t be increased and your opponent’s Costs can’t be reduced.

Developer Note: Mobius M. Mobius has had a massive impact on the metagame, forcing a changing of the guard among top decks that saw perennial powerhouses like Zabu, Sera, and Death fall from grace in favor of decks that could push Power by just playing cards for their normal Energy Costs. While we were eager to see the world Mobius would create, we expected to make an adjustment down the road in order to welcome Cost reduction strategies back into the sunlight. Today is that day, as we’re shifting Mobius to provide a temporary counter that requires good timing to maximize the effect. This makes him trickier to set aside Energy for, kind of like Shadow King, and also opens up counters like Magik for decks that are hyper-vulnerable to Mobius being played on turn 5. We’re also interested to hear your feedback on our approach here, using a new card as a tool to create a new play environment temporarily.

There are loads to unpick here let’s start with what is changing. Mobuis is redesigned and being changed from ongoing to on reveal.

He was designed as a counter against cost reduction and cost increases. As a card, trying to do two jobs at the same time. Tech cards are cards designed to counter a specific archetype.

Here is a list of all the cards that interacted with him.

  1. Baron Mordo
  2. Beast
  3. Death
  4. Evolved abomination – High evo
  5. falcon
  6. Iceman
  7. Loki
  8. Mile morales
  9. Mister negative
  10. Quin jet
  11. Ravonna renslayer
  12. Sabretooth
  13. Serra
  14. She hulk
  15. Spider ham
  16. Stature
  17. Swarm
  18. Wave
  19. Zabu

The result wide range of archetypes was impacted. Therefore seen in 1/3 of decks on release before reaching settling at 1/4 of decks. A powerful effect that the game needed but overpowering. Which is why something needed to change. Now we can talk about the notes provided with this change.

Developer Note: Mobius M. Mobius has had a massive impact on the metagame, forcing a changing of the guard among top decks that saw perennial powerhouses like Zabu, Sera, and Death fall from grace in favor of decks that could push Power by just playing cards for their normal Energy Costs. While we were eager to see the world Mobius would create, we expected to make an adjustment down the road in order to welcome Cost reduction strategies back into the sunlight. Today is that day, as we’re shifting Mobius to provide a temporary counter that requires good timing to maximize the effect. This makes him trickier to set aside Energy for, kind of like Shadow King, and also opens up counters like Magik for decks that are hyper-vulnerable to Mobius being played on turn 5. We’re also interested to hear your feedback on our approach here, using a new card as a tool to create a new play environment temporarily.

The most interesting line here is we expected to make an adjustment to bring cost reduction back. Maybe I’m misreading this but strikes me as naive developers expected a shake-up but were surprised by rapid change. They knew this card design would most likely mean more balance changes are needed later down the line. I don’t think they fully understood or considered the far-ranging impact would be so quick. 

When I saw this card I knew it would be impactful, I was shocked because even limited cards I owned it hit some hard. I’m still surprised that he was never a temporary effect with a body but an ongoing 2-cost card. Of course, if you have a deck based around cost reduction you would include him. If the meta is full of cost reduction that counter just makes sense.

I don’t know what the hell second dinner was thinking here. Maybe we get a better statement but the damage has been done. Mobuis should be split into two cards and something should be given to players who picked him up.