League of Legends - Reaching a Plateau

Since the start of Season 4 I've had a pretty decent time in my ranked games.  My placement matches went 8-2 but for some reason I was still placed in Silver 4 (my ranking at the end of Season 4).  However I did really well in my next few games and managed to climb into Silver 3 relatively easily playing support or jungle.

It was here that I ran into the same problem I did in Season 3.  I could not get any higher.  I would get to around 90 LP and then suffer a string of defeats that knocked me back down to 0 LP.  This process repeated itself for several weeks and was quite infuriating.

I eventually realized I had hit a plateau with regards to my skill in the game.  What clued me in was my massive losing streak with Leona.  At one point I had a whopping 80% win record (over 20+ games) with Leona but then lost a bunch of games in a row.  When I started to play Thresh I started winning again and I attribute that to learning new skills that helped me move on from my plateau.

While some skills are universal, like map awareness, where to place wards and wave control, there are some skills that are specific to champions.  For example with Thresh I had to learn to better predict champion movement because of the short delay with his hook.

Learning to play Thresh also improved some of those universal skills.  A good example is map awareness.  With Thresh's lantern, having good map awareness is even more important for setting up ganks or saving team mates.  With Leona, map awareness was mostly useful for avoiding ganks, so I did not really pay attention to the position of my team mates.  After playing with Thresh for a while I've become much more aware of my team mates (especially my jungler) and I've pulled off a few lantern ganks and lantern saves that have swung fights in my team's favour.

With that said, I made it into Silver 2 earlier this week and I'm hoping my skills have progressed enough to get me further.  Going for Gold by the end of this season!

MTG - Born of the Gods Cube Update 2

Since the release of Born of the Gods I picked up a few more packs and made some more minor changes.

Green

• Peregrination replacing Nessian Asp

With the addition of Graverobber Spider in the last update I felt I didn't need more reach creatures.  More land-fixing never hurts especially with the abundance of gold cards and especially if I want people to try and play some of the shard cards or even Chromanticore.

Red

• Everflame Eidolon replacing Goblin Wardriver
• Archetype of Aggression replacing Spearpoint Oread

Taking out Goblin Wardriver will make R/x aggro decks easier to work with.  Everflame Eidolon also has a better late game than the goblin does.  Archetype of Aggression is very aggressively costed and makes your whole team better.  When combined with some of the firebreathing creatures it will give R/x decks more reach.

Blue

• Nullify replacing Thassa's Rebuff

Finally got one and I think the hard counter will be better than the situational counter.

I did manage to get my hands on a Temple of Plenty as well but still not sure where to fit the temples in without taking out the keyrunes/cluestones.  Now I just need to find a Brimaz, King of Oreskosz and Scourge of Skola Vale and I think the Born of the Gods update will be complete.

D&D - Dungeons and Princesses

So this past weekend was BCs Family Day long weekend.  As such I got to spend some time with my daughter when I normally would be at work.

My wife had gotten her some Capsule Books a few months back and she decided to introduce one of them to Penny.  Penny chose the Disney Princess one and her mother read her the story.  Each book had a bunch of thick cardboard cutouts of the princesses as well as cutouts of the princesses dancing with their princes.  Penny had a lot of fun moving them around on the included playmat and was having a good time.

But I noticed something about the cutouts as she played with them.

MTG - Born of the Gods cube update

I got to play at the Born of the Gods prerelease and managed to get 2nd place.  Not bad as I got a few packs of the new set.  To be honest though, not much in the new set excites me.  Regardless, I picked up some stuff from the prerelease that I felt would be good additions to the cube.

Red

• Forgestoker Dragon replacing Charmbreaker Devils
• Impetuous Sunchaser replacing Foundry Street Denizen

I took the dragon as my pre-release promo because the art looks cool and the ability is quite relevant.  Charmbreaker Devils was kind of a niche card and although it helped the Izzet blitz decks, it cost too much.  Izzet blitz wants to win quick and a 6 mana creature just doesn't do that.  The dragon also makes Utvara Hellkite and Scourge of Valkas more useful.

I decided to remove Foundry Street Denizen because I removed a lot of the cards that made the goblin more effective (Goblin Rally and Krenko's Command).  Impetuous Sunchaser is still aggressive and with the right auras can be quite scary.

White

• Akroan Skyguard replacing Phalanx Leader
• Loyal Pegasus replacing Daring Skyjek
• Ornitharch replacing Knight Watch

Phalanx Leader was hard to use outside of a dedicated mono-white weenie deck and I felt that Akroan Skyguard would make for a more consistent GW heroic deck.
Loyal Pegasus added more consistent aggressive evasion as it only requires 1 other creature instead of 2 other creatures.  It does kind of become useless though if it's the only creature you have but in an aggressive weenie deck, that probably won't be likely.
I liked Ornitharch at the pre-release.  Either it's a 5/5 flyer or a 3/3 flyer and 2 1/1 flyers.  Both forms are good in my opinion.

Green

• Courser of Kruphix replacing Battering Krasis
• Fated Intervention replacing Nemesis of Mortals
• Raised by Wolves replacing Moldgraf Monstrosity
• Karametra's Favor replacing Gatecreeper Vine

Courser of Kruphix is an interesting card and I don't have anything like it in my cube.  I still don't fully understand its uses but from what I've read it makes green decks better.  At the end of the day it's a fairly efficient creature and will help with mid-range decks.
I like tokens and Fated Intervention is one heck of a token generator.  Instant speed for surprise blockers or if played on your turn can help smooth out your draws.
Raised by Wolves provides more tokens and another useful aura.  Should make heroic decks easier to build with more auras.  Also it goes well with Howl of the Night Pack.
Karametra's Favor pretty much does everything Gatecreeper Vine does and then some.  The aura ramps and is a decent heroic trigger.  Does dilute the defender theme a bit so makes Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian slightly worse but I think the trade-off is fine.

Black

• Herald of Torment replacing Arrogant Bloodlord

Herald of Torment makes early black aggression even better.  Plus it has awesome late-game potential compared to Arrogant Bloodlord.

Blue

• Thassa's Rebuff replacing Simic Fluxmage
• Sudden Storm replacing Frost Breath

Despite me not liking to play against counter spells, I felt my cube needed a little more.  I originally wanted Nullify but I did not get one in any of my packs.  Thassa's Rebuff does encourage playing permanents though which is what I want.
Although Sudden Storm isn't strictly better than Frost Breath, I felt the scry addition is powerful enough to make the swap.

Other

• Chromanticore replacing Ulamog's Crusher
• Graverobber Spider replacing Korozda Gorgon

Chromanticore is such a fun looking card I couldn't resist.  No idea if anyone will ever try to make a 5 colour deck but this could fit in so perfectly.  Gonna miss Ulamog's Crusher as it is a good creature and fits any deck but it will be fun to see if anyone will make Chromanticore work.
I was never fully happy with Korozda Gorgon as it's ability depended a lot on whether you could get enough scavenge or green evolve creatures.  With Graverobber Spider you can at least use its ability without depending on anything else other than creatures dying (and creatures will die).

I managed to pick up 2 of the 3 temples for this set at the pre-release but I haven't included them in just yet.  I'm probably going to wait until I have all 10 temples (currently I have 7 of 8) before trying to figure out how to include them.  I currently have all the Keyrunes and Cluestones slated to be replaced by the temples but I'm not sure about that.  I really want a way to fit the Keyrunes/cluestones and the temples so I can have lots of colour fixing and some acceleration.

There are a few other cards from Born of the Gods that I would like to add to my cube but I will have to wait until the set is fully released before I can pick them up.

MTG - UB Mill in my Cube

The dreaded mill deck.  Frustrating to play against for the most part and sometimes you just feel dirty for winning with it.  Mostly because it's such a passive deck for the most part.  You don't need to attack your opponent's life total in any way to win with this style of deck.

UB can sometimes also be built as a control deck where you eliminate your opponent's threats until you can drop your own and win, but I'll focus on the milling aspect of the two colours for this deck.

The following are the cards you want to look for and draft

• Millstone
• Thought Scour
• Mind Sculpt
• Dream Twist
• Psychic Spiral
• Nephalia Drownyard
• Selhoff Occultist
• Vedalken Entrancer
• Belltower Sphinx
• Undercity Informer
• Oona, Queen of the Fae
• Psychic Strike
• Coerced Confession
• Pilfered Plans
• Codex Shredder

These are the main milling cards in the cube and if you can grab a few of them (especially the recurring ones) you can easily mill your opponent out as the decks are usually only 40 cards (And of those 40 cards you only need to mill away around 30 or so).

In addition to the actual milling cards it helps to pick up some defensive creatures like Wall of Frost, Fog Bank and Mnemonic Wall so you can stall your opponent.  Some kill cards like Doom Blade or Murder are also useful for taking care of things your walls can't stop.

There are a few cards that may not seem like they would fit but are actually really good for the deck.  Jace's Archivist and Prosperity can help you achieve your goal of milling your opponent.  Jace's Archivist may not seem useful but if you are milling your opponent they most likely will not have as many lands as you so their hand will be fairly large.  The added cards will usually be more beneficial to you than it will be to your opponent.  Similarly Prosperity can force your opponent to draw more cards than he intended and bring him closer to being milled while at the same time filling your hand with more useful spells.

Of course if you can't mill your opponent to death, you do have the option to go on the beatdown, especially if you can land a few large creatures like Oona, Queen of the Fae, Frost Titan or Lazav, Dimir Mastermind.  If you've milled your opponent early enough it will be easier to drop one of these bombs and just take over the game.  This alternate strategy is also advisable after game 1 where your opponent might side in more cards to make his deck bigger and harder to mill so for your own sideboard you might want to add some unblockable creatures like Keymaster Rogue and Deathcult Rogue to your sideboard and switch strategies between games.  These creatures also work well if Trepanation Blade is already in your card pool.

Like the other decks I looked at it is a fun deck to play, especially if you like frustrating your opponents.

Holiday Gaming

Christmas break is always great for gaming.  Even more so this year as I did not bring any marking or other work with me (normally I bring a boat load of marking or planning home over the holidays).  The majority of my gaming this year was online games with friends, mostly League of Legends but we did also delve into Team Fortress 2 a bit and I played a little bit of Star Wars: The Old Republic (finally got my Bounty Hunter past the first chapter)

Anyways, while playing League with my friends I quickly realized that it would be quite a while before most of my friends get to my level (and I'm only Silver at the moment!).  Sometimes it's frustrating I suppose but I've decided that I just need to get better so I can carry them harder whenever we play normal games.  I've become quite a good Leona player and can set up a good deal of plays to help feed the carries on my team.  I also can't wait for the Season 4 LCS to start.  Will give me something to watch again.

On the MTG front I did enlarge my cube (see earlier post) but due to various issues I never did get a chance to try it out.  I'm thinking of starting some kind of MTG cube league at one of the local gaming stores so I can play more cube with more people.  I just have to be careful no one steals anything (I'm thinking of buying some unique sleeves to help prevent this).  Thankfully there are no big money cards in my cube.

Family gaming has become quite a thing in my household too as my in-laws have been coming over to play games on a weekly basis.  Generally it's board games like Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan.  This holiday season we got the Seafarers of Catan and the 5-6 player expansions to Settlers so I am thinking of inviting my sister-in-law and her husband to join in.  It helps that their son is around Penny's age so the two can play together while we play our own game.

Steam had massive sales this holiday season as they usually do and I got a Steam gift card from my sister (she always gets me gaming related gifts which is great as no one else does).  I picked up a few games I had been wanting to play (Hitman: Absolution and Assassin's Creed 3).  I missed out on the 75% off Skyrim sale on the last day because of the alleged DDOS attacks but oh well.  I'm sure that sale will happen again in the future.

Work also gave me a reimbursement for my internet which I turned into a new desktop that plays games better than the laptop I was using.  It's hardly a super gaming computer but it does play all the games I want to play at medium-high settings and some games at high-ultra settings.  The biggest bonus is that I can upgrade it fairly easily with a relatively cheap graphics card (it's got an AMD APU processor so I can pair it up with a graphics cards to get better mutual performance).

I'm looking forward to this year as Penny is getting older and learning her numbers and is getting quite an imagination.  All this translates into a great opportunity to teach her how to play RPGs and other games.  She already likes playing with my dungeon tiles and rolling dice so it should be an easy transition.

MTG - Enlarging the cube!

I listened to Episode 14 of Joy of Cubing while marking at work and decided to enlarge my cube.  Also the Commander 2013 decks provided some cool cards you can't normally find easily.

In the beginning I made my cube 450 cards so that it could draft 8 people with a few extra left overs so each draft would be different.  It was a good size for my group but I had a hard time fitting everything that I wanted.  So things like cool creatures, or cool spells or answers to said cool creatures/spells were sometimes hard to balance.  If I included too many cool creatures they needed answers or games came down to who could play their bomb first as no one had an answer to it.  Similarly if I had too many answers, no one could run the bomby creatures as they would come in and then leave before anything would happen.

Playing sealed was also kind of strange as the pools were kind of all over the place.  No one really got enough of any one theme and we would end up with weird decks that had little or no synergy.  Mind you that is kind of what Sealed is like at times but at least in regular sealed formats the card pool is limited and you can get multiples of cards in regular sealed.  My Cube is highlander (I think most cubes are) so the kind of redundancy in normal sealed is non-existent.

Of course enlarging the cube can dilute some themes but at the same time allows me to add more cards for each theme and in different colours.  Some deck types might even emerge that I didn't think about.  Regardless it should be lots of fun.

On to the additions!  (The full cube list can be found here)