I believe by success of The Elder Scrolls the Devs mean as recognizable, which isn't on the whole a bad thing.
A little more of a tutorial couldn't hurt over all. Many of the stats and mechanics in both Souls games were very obtuse and misleading. I think that turned more gamers a way, then the over-hyped difficulty.
oh, btw all 3 cards were sideboard 2-4 in tier1 decks that ran these colors.
this one is UNCOUNTERABLE.
resto angel, GG geist, wolfir silverheart, huntmaster, planeswalkers, bonfire, entreat.... ad infinitum. there are many legal threatening targets.
ohey look it's black which gives access to discard spells that let you peak if you want to strip anything from hand, and grixis control most def would sb this
None of those 3 cards were widely used. Most were regarded as rare sideboard options for "just incase" situations.
Even seeing the opponent's hand doesn't change the fact that there needs to be something worth naming in their hand.
For 4 mana your deck needs to interact with the game state, whether it's affecting permanents in play, the opponent's hand, their life total or your own, whatever the case may be, and an Extraction variant simply does not do that.
Cranial Extraction and Memoricide before it, neither made a huge splash, and the biggest reason is because they don't interact with the board state, and aren't even guaranteed to strip a hand from their hand.
Rakdos had some very good cards the first time around. Thanks to Bob and their Guildmage it was a very good deck as well.
Anyway the set is barely spoiled, you can't complain until you've seen the whole set, and you can't truly complain until you see all of the components. Many times cards are not reveiled to be good until you see the whole block.
The only slight issue is Dreadbore as a Rare and Sorcery speed, however like it or not that is the way of the game now. R&D is pushing a slow down of other colors to crank instants in Blue, so they can have a gimmick with combat off the stack and permission spells on a whole falling to the wayside.
If you could stack damage in combat, Altar might have more merit, since you can't I'd say Sign in Blood over it every time.
Sign in Blood fits better as you can take out Highborn Ghoul or whatever 2cc creature your running easier for them and it can be cast on turn 2 without losing tempo, Altar's Reap can't be in most situations. All in all the card is far too situational to be useful.
Getting back into Magic and checking up on interactions. I couldn't find an answer to this question.
If a Geralf's Messenger with a +1/+1 gets a -1/-1 counter from say a Fume Spitter, do the counters cancel each other out, thus removing each other and causing Undying to be able to trigger?
It wasn't bad, however the game raised many more questions then it ultimately answered. Even though the areas were relatively well designed knowing a bit more about them would have helped to enrich the atmosphere.
Also, I honestly have to say that I love love LOVE the multiplayer in this game. It's everything I wished Firefight from Halo and Horde from Gears of War was and more. The only qualm I have with it is that some characters are better than other by a landslide (looking at you Engineer and Asari Adept) and it takes two games of Silver to earn enough for a Spectre pack, and the servers are full of casual players who just go down nonstop and are generally horrible in general.
Also **** Banshee's and Phantoms.
I haven't touched the campaign because I'm mopping up loose ends with ME2, however I have to agree that MP for ME3 is great, simplistic though it may be.
On a side not I've found that even though it takes 4 rounds to Bronze out a Spectre in the long run it's cheaper because you are less likely to burn through consumables to complete those.
That IS a good argument against DLC, though - if it really dramatically improves the experience of the game without being a perk, then it should be there in the release version.
For instance, "Lair of the Shadow Broker" in ME2 was everything that DLC should have been. The weapon packs - particularly for the Mattock Heavy Rifle and Phalanx Pistol - should have been patched in.
Shadow Broker was a side mission - if this DLC is a side mission, interesting or no, then it's fine as DLC IMO. If it ties together main plot points or makes the combat much cleaner, that's deserving of main game inclusion.
I definitely see what you're saying, but my statement was meant in sarcasm. It's all speculative at this point as to whether the dlc is going to have a major impact on the story or not, and it's really going to be a matter of personal opinion and preference in the end anyhow.
Have you ever actually written software? Go to a store and get some blank DVD's for burning. There's a 25 pack on Amazon.com from Sony that costs $10. The packaging for a game costs not much more than a dollar to make.
You're not buying some plastic crap when you're buying a computer program, you're purchasing thousands of man hours of work crystallized onto a disc. You're buying the work, and company wants some incentive for folks to purchase its higher margin collectors editions as well as extra content like the weapon packs in ME2 or the map packs in the Modern Warfare series.
The modern business model for computer games is to make a game, then release other stuff to milk that game for extra profit while building other games. Valve cashed in with Steam + Hats, Activision with Modern Warfare, Blizzard built World of Warcraft, and Bioware is focusing on DLC for its games to improve their revenue stream. Big budget studios are doing this so they can support their titles + pour more resources into new ventures.
I'm not a huge fan of Day 1 DLC either, but it makes sense as a reward for buying new and Bioware isn't exactly sticking it to its customers with its DLC packs. In the end, you'll need to judge the DLC by what's in it, not by second hand internet rumors.
QFT
Furthermore I have a lot of trouble getting behind an argument which really breaks done to a butthurt fanboy notion simplified as: "OMG this dlc will make the story SOOOO much better!!! How dare they charge extra for it!!!"
The latest thing is to dump Arsonist for Goblin Fireslinger. He allows for more bloodthristed Berserkers and generally nets you around 3-4 damage for a small investment, and doesn't need to attack to deal damage. He can also be used to lower you life total against Timely as well.
This what the standard burn suite looks like lately.
Both Lavamancer and Elder are still very useful and normally found as a split of 3/1 or 2/2 in Lavamancer's favor depending on what decks your plan on facing.
While Anicent Grudge is becoming more common, Manic Vandal is still useful and I've found works well as a 3/1 or 2/1 split. Anicent Grudge does kill more artifacts however sometimes having a creature is better for the board state than killing two artifacts and with only 3-4 lands which produce G it's far from guaranteed that you'll always have green.
Dismember is a very important sideboard card which handles so many situtaions, such as Spellkite for example. I'd drop the Myrs for it. It's also another way to deal damage to yourself to circumvent Timely.
Both Hero and Koth have all but be removed from the deck and if they do appear it's often only in SB. Having a lower curve with the deck allows it to be more stable and consistent, an important factor to the deck's success.
Right now the meta leans towards aggressive decks. Waif only shines in control match ups and it's generally out classed by Stromkirk which is the only other 1 drop it's comparable to because Fireslinger, Lavamancer and Spikeshot all have a different function within the deck.
A little more of a tutorial couldn't hurt over all. Many of the stats and mechanics in both Souls games were very obtuse and misleading. I think that turned more gamers a way, then the over-hyped difficulty.
None of those 3 cards were widely used. Most were regarded as rare sideboard options for "just incase" situations.
Even seeing the opponent's hand doesn't change the fact that there needs to be something worth naming in their hand.
For 4 mana your deck needs to interact with the game state, whether it's affecting permanents in play, the opponent's hand, their life total or your own, whatever the case may be, and an Extraction variant simply does not do that.
I never said it was, but it was a big part of Rakdos Aggro, and such contribuation needed to be mentioned.
Anyway the set is barely spoiled, you can't complain until you've seen the whole set, and you can't truly complain until you see all of the components. Many times cards are not reveiled to be good until you see the whole block.
The only slight issue is Dreadbore as a Rare and Sorcery speed, however like it or not that is the way of the game now. R&D is pushing a slow down of other colors to crank instants in Blue, so they can have a gimmick with combat off the stack and permission spells on a whole falling to the wayside.
Sign in Blood fits better as you can take out Highborn Ghoul or whatever 2cc creature your running easier for them and it can be cast on turn 2 without losing tempo, Altar's Reap can't be in most situations. All in all the card is far too situational to be useful.
That wiki and it's forums were really help when I was still into DS pvp. There is also a DkS version too. http://darksouls.wikidot.com/
If a Geralf's Messenger with a +1/+1 gets a -1/-1 counter from say a Fume Spitter, do the counters cancel each other out, thus removing each other and causing Undying to be able to trigger?
I haven't touched the campaign because I'm mopping up loose ends with ME2, however I have to agree that MP for ME3 is great, simplistic though it may be.
On a side not I've found that even though it takes 4 rounds to Bronze out a Spectre in the long run it's cheaper because you are less likely to burn through consumables to complete those.
I definitely see what you're saying, but my statement was meant in sarcasm. It's all speculative at this point as to whether the dlc is going to have a major impact on the story or not, and it's really going to be a matter of personal opinion and preference in the end anyhow.
QFT
Furthermore I have a lot of trouble getting behind an argument which really breaks done to a butthurt fanboy notion simplified as: "OMG this dlc will make the story SOOOO much better!!! How dare they charge extra for it!!!"
If you want a 6cc finisher, then you should be looking into another deck.
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Gut Shot
2 Incinerate
4 Volt Charge
This what the standard burn suite looks like lately.
Both Lavamancer and Elder are still very useful and normally found as a split of 3/1 or 2/2 in Lavamancer's favor depending on what decks your plan on facing.
While Anicent Grudge is becoming more common, Manic Vandal is still useful and I've found works well as a 3/1 or 2/1 split. Anicent Grudge does kill more artifacts however sometimes having a creature is better for the board state than killing two artifacts and with only 3-4 lands which produce G it's far from guaranteed that you'll always have green.
Dismember is a very important sideboard card which handles so many situtaions, such as Spellkite for example. I'd drop the Myrs for it. It's also another way to deal damage to yourself to circumvent Timely.
Both Hero and Koth have all but be removed from the deck and if they do appear it's often only in SB. Having a lower curve with the deck allows it to be more stable and consistent, an important factor to the deck's success.