MTG - Khans of Tarkir Cube Update 1

Another big update with the release of Khans of Tarkir.  My previous cube post had my thoughts on what I was planning on adding and I pretty much stuck to it with a few minor deviations.  I also took the opportunity to add a few things from Conspiracy and a few other sets.

Of the mechanics in Khans I added three (really only two because I only added one card)

• Outlast - Mostly added this because a few of the outlast creatures gave creatures with +1/+1 counters extra abilities.  I have a lot of ways to give creatures +1/+1 counters so these creatures would benefit those decks a lot.  The actual Outlast ability was secondary.  
• Ferocious - Works well as there are a lot of 4 power creatures in the cube or ways to get 4 power creatures.
• Prowess - Only added one card with this ability, Monastery Swiftspear, as it plays well with the Izzet Blitz archetype I have present.  Blue has no cheap Prowess creatures and I don't really think going Jeskai Blitz would work well in limited (white has a few cheap Prowess creatures).  Admittedly there is a lot more fixing in my cube so it could work.  Something to think about in the future.

On to the actual update!

MTG - Khans of Tarkir First Impressions for my Cube

Fetch lands!  This alone makes the set exciting.  Then more mana fixing in the form of the wedge lands, and then more mana fixing in the form of the paired coloured lands.  I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking as to what I'm going to take out and add in terms of land.  And the whole set isn't even released or fully spoiled yet!

Anyways on to a more organized breakdown of how this set will impact my cube.

D&D - 5th Edition Reboot part 1

As part of my vacation I visited my sister in Ottawa to see what our nation's capital had to offer.  A strange coincidence was that Wizard's Tower also happened to be in Ottawa (which I totally did not know despite having subscribed to their email mailing list for a few months).  I found a way to get myself there and to my surprise they had the D&D Next Player's Handbook available (it wasn't supposed to be until a week or so later) so I picked it up.  I spent a few evenings reading over the rules and the new character options and was quite impressed.  It was the first D&D book I had purchased since I think 2nd edition AD&D.

With the Player's Handbook in hand I proceeded to round up the group and decided to roll up new characters for a new adventure.  So far the party has a Tiefling Warlock and a Dragonborn Paladin and both players sort of half-rolled half-picked their background which I'll describe a little later.  One of my favourite features of the new handbook are the pre-built backgrounds which really helped my players generate a background for their characters.  That's one aspect of RPG games that we often overlook as a group and with a bunch of them already presented it's not hard to find one that you like and roll or pick the details from the tables provided.  Absolutely great in my opinion.

Now on to the two characters so far! (no names yet though)

Video Games - XCOM Ironman mode

The 2K Games Humble Bundle came and went and I made the decision to purchase it for the $20 price so I could get X-COM: Enemy Unknown.  I got a bunch of there top notch games as well (the entire Bioshock Series, more X-COM games and Spec Ops: The Line) and most of the money I donated to charity so in my opinion a very well spent $20.

Anyways, I've never played any X-COM games before but I read about the Ironman mode and it intrigued me.  Basically you can't reload your saves and the game saves basically after every decision you make, whether it is buying a new gun or moving a soldier on the battlefield.  Also since soldier death is permanent, you can't reload your save to try a new strategy.  Very reminiscent of old games where you had a limited number of lives and continues to go over a level.  The game has a warning that you should not attempt Ironman mode if you are new but I did anyways as I fancy myself as a decent strategy game player and I wanted a more difficult challenge considering most newer games give you an infinite number of retries to do something right (see Assassin's Creed 3 or the Arkham games that I've been playing recently).

The first few maps were quite interesting as I did not get the tactical strategy quite right and I ended up positioning very poorly so lost quite a few rookies and later some of my higher ranking officers (though I swear it was just unlucky crits that got those officers).  As my troops died I found myself getting more attached to the ones that did survive because I did not want to train a whole new one (it takes a lot of missions and kills to get a high ranking officer especially if they get injured).  When I started giving them my own nicknames (soldiers get nicknames once they hit Sergeant rank) it really made me want to ensure they survived each mission.  Not that I cry over every death, but it does hurt a little when one of my soldiers dies because I ran him/her out a little too far or forgot a muton was on overwatch or something equally silly.

I managed to keep one of my soldiers from the first tutorial mission alive (of the 4 that are deployed only one of them survives) over the past 11 hours of game play and if I lose him that would be quite sad.  Not only because he is the highest ranking officer I have but also because he's been with me since the beginning.  Still slogging through the campaign and I've no idea how far I am in but I'm hoping this soldier makes it until the end (I think I get an achievement for it).

League of Legends - Get fit with League (inspired by #GetFitWithSnoopeh)

Let's start by showing this video.



Snoopeh has been a big reason as to why I have started to be a little more active this past year or so.  Shows that not all gamers are fat slobs who live in their mothers basement (see here).  Fun to incorporate a little exercise after a game or two of League and has had a lot of positive impact on my overall health as well as how my day starts.  Unfortunately I have not been consistent with physical activity since the teacher strike as I've had other things to worry about.  But now that it's summer I can choose not to worry about job related stuff until at least late August.

This coming school year I am going to be a Physical Education (PE) teacher for at least 2 blocks out of the 7 that I teach in the school year.  This came about mostly because that's what was available if I wanted a classroom.  I had spent this past year as a distance education teacher (really I just marked assignments for the whole year and did not interact much at all with students) and I really wanted back in a classroom.  None of the science teachers at the high school were going anywhere but the senior math teacher retired and for some bizarre reason a bunch of junior PE classes were left over so they mashed the classes into a bizarre senior math/junior PE position which I ended up getting.  Strange, I know, considering there were a few junior math classes that ended up being rolled into a social studies position.

Regardless I've got 2 PE classes to teach and I would be a bad example for the kids if I wasn't in good shape myself.  Unfortunately I'm not the most active of people and have relied on my naturally high metabolism to keep me relatively thin.  At first glance you wouldn't think I'm unfit but any amount of strenuous physical activity tuckers me out quickly.  With this in mind and the fact that I want to be able to at least keep with my future PE students, I will do my best to get fit over the summer.

As a result I've devised a series of exercises to do before and after each game of League of Legends.  Why before and after each game of League?  Mostly because I have been playing League consistently every day in the morning for the past year or so (became my morning routine on my quest to get Gold last year as I couldn't play any other time because of family and I don't play ranked with my friends on our gaming nights).  This habit just carried over into the summer.

Before game
Queue Wait time and Champion select - Wall sit until game queued, then wall sit for duration of your champion select (not the whole champion select unless you really want to work your quads)
Game load - Jumping Jacks until game loads or a set time passes like 45 seconds or 1 minute (if a player has a toaster you could be doing jumping jacks for a long time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing)

After game - Take a rest of about 10-15 seconds after each set.
Kills = # of Pushups, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Assists = # of Russian Twists, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Deaths = # of Squats, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Kills + Assists = # of Triceps dip, x3 if below 10, x2 if below 15.
Kills + Deaths + Assists = Plank for equal number of seconds, x2 if below 30
Kills + Deaths = # of Burpees (currently without a jump or push-up)

The order is designed to work different muscle groups and the amount of each can be adjusted to your level of fitness.  The multipliers are there to ensure I actually do enough of each exercise to have some appreciable effect.  None of the exercises require any special equipment, though the triceps dip does require a non-spinning chair or something similar and the Russian twist should be done with a weight of some sort like a text book.

Let's hope I can keep up with this routine as from what I've read, consistency is key when trying to get into shape (an adjustment in diet helps as well).  6 weeks before school starts, let's get fit!

EDIT: I failed to mention that if you attempt this, you probably should not do the After Game routine every day.  The muscles you work need a day to recover in order to rebuild themselves properly.  If you find your legs hurt are getting sore from the wall sit, you can do that every other day as well.  The jumping jacks are fine to do every day though.

General Gaming - Summer to do List 2014

School year is over and although it ended on a really sour note (see BC Teacher Strike) at least I'll have the summer to do some gaming.  Not as much as last year though as I am going on a 3 week vacation with my family mid-summer (see here)

Alright so in no particular order here's my to do list for this summer.

• Finish painting my Deathwing squad.  Carry over from last year, they are primed and ready for painting at least.
• Get to Gold division in League of Legends.  Currently at Silver II so just need to get into Silver I then from there it's on to Gold!  Better than last year where I ended the season in Silver IV.
• Finish Assassin's Creed 3.  - Completed July 9th
• Finish one of the Imperial Story lines SWTOR.  Still working on my Bounty Hunter but at least she's now past chapter 1!
• Show Penny how to play D&D with rules!  Currently she plays a rule-less version where we just throw down random minis and she knocks them over with her hero mini.  Time to introduce some structure and dice!

Smaller than last year but again I'm on vacation for 3 weeks this summer so less time.  Hopefully I can cross more off this list than last year's list.

D&D - Learning from Critjuice

I had the pleasure of driving myself to work on Monday so rather than listen to the radio stations I decided to do what I usually do when I drive by myself: catch up on the episodes of Critjuice that I missed!  Note: my work commute is about an hour both ways and I carpool on most days.

For those that don't know what Critjuice is, it's a podcast of a bunch of professional actors and comedians playing Dungeons and Dragons while drinking.  I don't remember why I started listening but in the two years I've been listening to them play (I think I'm one of their first listeners now that I think about it), I've always had a good laugh and they always make my drive home very entertaining.

The DM, David,  is great and from listening to him (and Chris Perkins' PAX games) I've become a much better DM myself I think.  While my games always had a lot of free flow in terms of rules (I regularly throw out rules or adapt them if it makes the current scene cooler) it lacked a lot of NPC involvement.  Since listening to Critjuice my NPCs have a lot more character now as I've attempted (with varying degrees of success) to give them voices and mannerisms different from my own.  It's really changed the feel of the games I play in my opinion.

Anyways, what I really wanted to write about today was the new Team Up mechanic that David introduced in the last few episodes.  To me it reminded me a lot of the Chrono-Trigger dual-tech abilities.  The visuals described by two heroes combining their techniques into a super powerful technique is just really cool.  This would  give players a reason to understand the other characters abilities and allow a lot more role playing during a combat encounter which is always great.  Too often my players just say "I'm going to swing my sword at him." or "I cast magic missile at the goblin.".  While there is nothing wrong with that, it can make for a boring game if that's all you do or say for every combat encounter.

While the net effect in Critjuice is just a damage modifier I can see it leading to all sorts of other in-game effects.  Imagine a ranger letting loose a flurry of arrows while his mage buddy imbues them with some sort of magical power like ice.  Upon impact, in addition to the damage of both attacks, the impact of the ice arrows might make an area of difficult terrain or encase the targets in ice for a round.  The possibilities are quite endless and I am excited to bring this mechanic into my own games of D&D in the future.

I wonder if any of the players in Critjuice will try a triple or quadruple team up move at some point in the future...