Life moves on. My motivation, however, is not moving with it. I've learned that working and schooling simultaneously is a very viable reason to allow whining/bitching/sadfacing. When the weekend finally rises on the horizons, I am so facking tired that I don't even feel like going out, let alone sitting on my ass to write in a blog about nothing. And you will probably hear these complaints coming out of my sorry ass for an entire year to come.
I was about to write something nasty about my classmates, but I'll save that for another time. But for a chuckle, I guess I could let you know that for my speech class a guy decided to talk about how his online dating experience wasn't working so well. This is a lesson: don't homeschool your kids.
Burnt Toast: Guilty Gear Accent Core!
So two Saturdays ago, Black Chris (aka RaZyRbYrN or however the fuck you spell it) hosted our first ever SoCal Burnt Toast tourney in Walnut. For those who are unenlightened, the name Burnt Toast pays homage to the original West Toast, which was hosted years ago at the Family Fun Arcade. I don't really practice Guilty Gear like I used to, but I still try to watch some videos to see some of the new techniques and matchup nuances that happen over in Japan. The same can be said about most of SoCal though - none of us really play the game consistently anymore and we are all sloppy as hell now. It doesn't help that Blazblue really ruined a lot of players' strict habits that they had honed through Guilty Gear, where holding UP is not an option. Regardless, it was time to see how much I had improved over the past two years.
Round 1: Brett (The Sadder) playing Johnny
Brett is severely out of practice, so I sorta just do my thing and he doesn't really find a way in. In all honesty, I think Brett could be a pretty good GG player if he kept at it. His knowledge of the cast is pretty well-informed, so he has at least that in his side. During casuals later he sorta figured out how to play against Venom.
Round 2: Black Chris (RazyrByrn) playing Zappa
I think Chris and I have played this matchup a lot more than I've played ANY match in SoCal. We both know what we want to go for, but I usually come up on top because Chris isn't as aggressive as he should be in this matchup (IMO). He manages to take the first game thanks to tight play on his part, but I end up taking the next two after playing a bit more patiently. Reckless ball summoning is what'll get you killed here (or in any matchup really), but two mistakes and you're going to have Raou on your ass. What's weird is that Chris has a real hard time against me, yet in Japan they rate Zappa as being greatly favored against Venom. Weird.
Round 3: Mike Z playing Potemkin
Mike Z is out of practice, but that doesn't mean he's a pushover. As a person who is so technically immersed in all of the games that he plays, you can expect a lot of that knowledge and experience to re-seize his control systems. The matches were close, and in all honesty, I should have been able to beat him. Mike Z likes to do things on wakeup. It isn't a very good strategy, but it works for him, and this is America. To punish this, I like to set up very meaty ball formations to try and hit him out of his backdashes. Where I fail is in three places vs Mike: not remembering the Pot matchup, the inability to read his mixup, and missing my air-to-ground links. These three things combined give Potemkin enough leverage to kill me. It came down to the very last round where I threw it away by iad j.H into Pot's fat hitbox and landed short of my blockstring. Being close to Potemkin is a bad thing.
Round 4: Andrew (Dr. Stormlocke) playing Robo-Ky
Strom has always been good at this game. There isn't much to say. My win ratio vs Storm is probably 30% because he understands Guilty Gear habits well and punishes me accordingly. Some furious matches, and I will say that a few rounds we played I locked him out pretty hard. It all came down to me not blocking Robo-Ky's 5D though. Americaaa.
I ended up getting 5th place. Meh. Better than before, but I know I can do better.
Magic the Gathering: Elder Dragon Highlander!
I'm all for fun and retarded formats. This time around, I'm playing in a format that has been growing at a rapid pace.
Just a little blurb about EDH - it is a 100-card format much like Highlander. You pick a legendary creature to be your general and you may only play cards of your general's colors in your deck. You may also only have one of each card, barring basic lands. The interesting part of the format is that your general begins in the command zone; you may play your general from there at any time in the game, and return it to the command zone when it dies. That said, you want to build a strategy around your general or use a general that compliments a strategy, which creates a lot of fun interactions and cool combos.
Due to the nature of Highlander formats, games can be ended unpredictably and swiftly. A timely Armageddon or Warp World can really shake things up. But hey, that's what makes the format wild and fun. Politics are more important than how good your deck is to win, but honestly, winning isn't even that important. It's more about having a good time!
My current three generals are:
Xiahou Dun is my favorite (and subsequently a fully pimped-out deck). The deck is decent in 1v1 and pretty strong in multiplayer. By abusing recursion effects, you can constantly "witness" back cards to wrath the board, tutor for mana acceleration, and ultimately drain everyone's life totals.
Ghost Council is my multiplayer general of choice because he is built around sweeping and token generation. Xiahou Dun's main weakness is dealing with problematic artifacts and enchantments - both of which Ghost Council is adept at. By using enchantment-based token generators, I can wrath the board, save Ghost Council, and still continue my beatdown. Orzhov is definitely my favorite combination of colors.
Captain Sisay is a powerhouse for 1v1. At first I built her cause I thought she'd be a great toolbox deck, but I end up just tutoring for the same things, in the same order, every game. In the end she is a very linear deck with clear answers and an even clearer gameplan. Get Gaddock Teeg, get Hokori, get Gaea's Cradle, get Kamahl, get Crovax, blow up their lands, profit. I usually don't bring her out unless there's someone I really want to destroy. I would consider her on the A-tier of generals, right behind decks like Arcum Daggson, Rofellos, and Vendilion Clique.
I plan on building one more, but I'm not sure what yet. The problem is that all of my favorite colors splash into each other, meaning I'll have a lot of redundant decklists. I love board control, so that automatically means I'm in white or black. I might try a mono-red list like Akroma or Ashling. We'll see :)
Anime 2010: What am I watching?
Nothing spectacular really:
-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
-Kimi no Todoke
-So Ra No Wo To
-Ladies versus Butlers!
-Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn
Of these, I like So Ra No Wo To and FMA the best. Looking forward to Gundam Unicorn. Also, the Gurren Lagann movies are extremly hype.
Closing Out: Some Pics for You!
Apparently this combo is worth a $40 buyout.
My new awesome Eva 02 Swiss Army Knife!!!
Thanks to pulsr, my life is now complete.
Sorry for the writing delay everyone! And my bad, the formatting on this post is all jacked up - I updated the editor halfway through the post and am too lazy to go into the HTML to fix the problems.
