I watched a couple of videos regarding Metallica the past few days. One was the "Some Kind of Monster" documentary and the other was behind the scenes footage from recording Death Magnetic.

I have been working on D&D stuff periodically. Nothing too crazy at the moment, but more than what I've done the past two months. The way I work on D&D stuff involves a lot of prep. Mostly thinking of possible paths each session could go.

Me waiting for my new cards to come in so I can finish some of my PDH decks.

- Call into work today because reasons. - Have an opportunity to play a game of PDH with fellow Pauper People. - "This will be a casual game!" - Cool, bust out a casual deck. - We all get destroyed by the host. That's it, I'm not being gaslit about casual games online ever again. 😄

In a weird turn of events, I actually had to chance to play some paper MTG this morning. As usual, time to talk about the games. No image dumps for this one. I also don't think these posts are going to be as detailed as other overviews. Oh well.

New cards should be coming in tomorrow, allowing me to put together my Jalira, Master Polymorphist PDH deck. It'll be good to have a chill deck that just wants to turn tokens into big creatures.

I have been talking a lot about MTG recently. While that has been my current hobby of choice, I haven't spoken much about my other hobbies. Let me break up the monotony of my posts for some different subjects.

After reviewing the cards currently in the deck, I got the new cards picked out. I'm ditching the "cantrip" artifacts and adding more cards at 3-5MV, most of them creatures, balancing out the deck more. Now there is a 50/50 split of creatures and artifacts. Can't wait to see the changes in action!

PDH Deck Analysis (so far): 1) Ruin Crab has been dismantled. I like milling but the deck only functions to annoy without doing much else. I thought about pivoting to "big creatures" but that would make it too redundant with my Jalira deck. Best to dismantle and use the cards in other decks.

Reviewing my notes from the MTG games last night. Some additional thoughts: The player running Mm'menon expressed dislike for the deck. They don't mind playing UR Artifacts, but they aren't seeing the results they want. Their commander is too vulnerable to removal, and they can't rebuild.

Another evening of MTG, so you know what that means: sharing the results with whoever decides to read them! We had a four person pod and played a total for 4 games. 3 EDH and 1 PDH. A thread!

I had the opportunity to play some PDH last night with some fellow Pauper people in the Jalapeno Paupers community. I am usually nervous about playing with people I haven't gotten to know first since I'm not looking to make anyone have a bad time. But, the game was really good!

I've been posting a lot about PDH, especially recently. But you know, I haven't really built my own EDH deck in quite a while. I have 3 dedicated EDH decks. - Mono-Red Burn/Group Slug - Naya Equipment (FF7 themed deck) - Mono-Black artifacts (40k Necron pre-con).

The decklist! This is a deck that doesn't rely on the commander too much. She helps, but it can make enough tokens on it's own to survive if it needs to hard-cast big creatures. Have opponents waste removal on a 4 mana 2/2. Only thing I'm iffy about is 34 lands. Should be 36; need to cut 2 spells.

Looking more at Jalira: Yeah, this deck is doing stuff. - Big creatures - Token shenanigans - Big mana - Drawing cards - Top deck manipulation Nice to see one of the cards I remember pulling from M15, a couple months after getting into the game, resurfacing for a fun build.

After some thinking, I narrowed down my options for my next PDH decks. One of my issues with deckbuilding is that I generally try putting too many ideas into one deck. While I wanted a "drawing cards matters" deck, I also wanted "spellslinger" and "big mana." I needed to narrow things down.

Oh hey, this is a card that exists:

I have the urge to build another PDH deck. Crazy, I know. After seeing Professor Hulk spoiled, I am in the mood for a deck that draws cards. Here is who I'm considering to lead the deck:

Played some MTG tonight. As usual, time to talk about the games. GAME 1 (EDH) - Mr. House, President and CEO - Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER (me) - Ulalek, Fused Atrocity - Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain Too lazy to look for images while posting from my phone.

I know this card isn't breaking new ground, but playing mono Blue aggro sounds super appealing.

Beat Sea of Stars. I was surprised by how sudden the ending felt. Like, I didn't feel like I beat the final boss. Then the ending credits threw me off somewhat. And yeah, I am aware there is another ending. I honestly don't want to do everything in the game.

Summer Game Fest is wrapping up. Time to talk about stuff from it. Overall, I am generally less excited about games being released. Likely a side effect of getting older mixed with longer development cycles. It is hard to be excited for things when things take so long to relesse.

MSH PDH cards I'm interested in building around. Speedball isn't on Scryfall yet, but the effect is interesting. Thor says "prowess, prowess" which is always awesome. Rulk and Ka-Zar are kind of basic but I dig 'em.

Gotta say, Sony's State of Play yesterday just didn't do it for me. Ending two back-to-back SOPs with God of War news is odd to me. Admittedly, I've never been the biggest God of War fan. The new game looks OK, but nothing I'm hyped for.

I am sad that there aren't more effects in MTG that cause opponents to shuffle their libraries against their will. I want to make a dumb, but functional EDH deck and I think my options are limited.

Started playing Sea of Stars. This game has been on my radar for quite some time, but I never felt committed to playing it until now. As someone who enjoyed older JRPGs, I was curious about how this game would do. Would it scratch an old itch? Or would it be another dull retro clone?

Just wrapped up an afternoon of MTG games. As usual, it is time for me to discuss what happened. We only had time for three games, but all three of them were intense.

Finished my revisit of Destiny 1 after 30 hours. It was a good time. Not phenomenal, but a nice trip down memory lane. I wasn't able to do much during solo play and without an active playerbase I would often just sit in queue and forced to play solo. Destiny 1 was not made for a solo experience.

Destiny 2 is receiving its final update. Crazy to think about. To be fair, D2 should've ended at The Final Shape. To think the last expansion released was a Star Wars thing is kind of weird. But hey, after nearly a decade, SRL is returning.

It has been a while since I hosted a MTG night, so I am looking forward to having people over next weekend to play some EDH. Well, they are playing EDH. I will be playing PDH.

I interrupted my AC6 playthrough to play...Destiny 1. Rearranged some items and deleted an old character to start completely fresh. PSN has the audacity to charge $20 for a digital copy including all DLC. I already bought all the DLC on the PS4, so I had to hunt down a physical copy of the game.

So, having recently beat Saros and playing through Armored Core 6... Saros plays well and has a story focus, but is strange among roguelites for not having any "builds" or customization. AC6 has all kinds of customization but doesn't play very smoothly nor a strong story.

I picked up a physical copy of Saros, so I had the opportunity to trade it in at GameStop. My thought: I could get a decent amount for it since it was new, and use the credit to buy another game. Yeah, I know what GameStop is all about.

Finished Saros. Verdict: Starts strong but doesn't quite stick the landing for me. The game plays well, looks and sounds great, and I was interested in the story. Where it falls flat is the roguelite elements. The skill tree, while big, doesn't allow for any real customization. Additionally...

Played some PDH last night. Time for me to assess and review what happened. GAME 1 1) Jeskai Shrinekeeper 2) Abigale, Poet Laureate 3) Third Path Iconoclast (me) 4) Halsin, Emerald Archdruid + Guild Artisan

Saw Mortal Kombat 2 yesterday. The movie is actively trying to pander to fans of the series, and is trying to apologize for the grievances people had with the 2021 movie. While it is a more enjoyable movie, it still can't really escape the issues caused by the first movie.

My opinion on Saros is softening a bit. I still like it, but it is starting to feel tedious. I have one more biomes to unlock before the end of the game (from the looks of it). There are a few annoyances that are making the game a little less fun for me.

Saros is still a good game. I had an excellent cycle yesterday where I pushed through a couple of biomes. Lasted around 2 hours. Looks like I have most of the major abilities unlocked at this point. I also discovered another weapon I like using: Crossbows with the Javelin alt-fire.

I was going to continue my ME1 Soldier No Guns Insanity playthrough last night, but passed out very early due to a headache. I have been getting headaches more frequently the past month or so, and it is concerning. Even now, I have a headache. No idea why.

Picked up Saros. I remember zoning out during the initial reveal, but seeing more footage of it recently, I was intrigued. The frantic gameplay mixed with the setting was enough to make me want the game now, and I rarely buy new games when they're new.

While playing Resident Evil 4 Remake, I have been considering a new videogame challenge run. I could do something for RE4R, but I want to do something different, and for a game I know fairly well. After jotting down ideas, I settled on a bow-only run of Dynasty Warriors 4.

Paying more attention to the Secrets of Strixhaven spoilers, I see there are plenty of strong cards. Maybe too strong. Admittedly, I am quite disappointed that Lessons didn't return, and we didn't get any common colorless instant or sorcery cards.

Finished RE5 last weekend. There are things to enjoy about it, but the controls were fun for me. It basically was a diet version of RE4, injected with more co-op. I didn't play co-op, and that experience was not particularly great.

Started my first ever playthrough of Resident Evil 5. Initial impressions: - The yellow and bloom visuals take me back to 2009. - Who the fuck thought this was a good control scheme? - I have to manage two people's inventories?

I made some tweaks to my PDH decks last night. Walker of the Wastes is one of my favorite decks, but it needed some more sauce to it. I had already planned to buy some cards but I decided to pivot and only use cards I already owned. So much for adding Wedding Invitation and Candy Trail.

I haven't worked on D&D stuff in a couple of months. The next session has been postponed, hence the gap. But I opened up my doc today and now I have a flood of ideas. I know it is usually frowned upon for prepping ahead for things, but it helps provide a framework for me.

I have completed Resident Evil 4 (2023), meaning I have finished the remakes in the RE Engine (so far). Numerical ratings for each remake are as follows: - RE2: 9/10 - RE3: 7/10 - RE4: 9/10 Details below.

Played some EDH games tonight. We actually had a 4 person pod so games were reasonably paced until the last one. I don't really remember all the details so my game reviews won't be as thorough.

I'm on Chapter 6 of Resident Evil 4 (2023). My early impressions: it is a solid game but not what I want from a Resident Evil game.

Something about REmake 4 that had me questioning things was the cost of buying and upgrading items. Like, at the time I got to the merchant and sold him stuff I had 51k pesetas. Then I noticed repairing my combat knife cost 4k pesetas. Now I was curious. How much did this stuff cost in USD?