weekend spoils!

Well, I failed in getting anything Magic the Gathering related, instead I ended up purchasing a new phone namely a Samsung Galaxy S5 and it's an hell of a upgrade over my old Samsung Galaxy S2 that's for sure! More on that later.

I also ended up joint purchasing a new television for my girlfriend as her old CRT tv was about to die and well... I couldn't hook up my gaming consoles to it either... so it's a win win situation.  Tomorrow I will head to the gaming store and see what Magic the Gathering spoils I can dig up in lieu of Journey into the Nyx  being that it hasn't released yet.

Stay tuned!

Long Weekend? Spend on Magic the Gathering

Tis another long weekend here in Australia and I'll be off to my neighbouring city to visit my long suffering girlfriend and visit the local gaming shop to stock up on Magic The Gathering items.  Unfortunately Journey into the Nyx won't be out by the time I get there, so I'll more than likely just pick up a few booster packs from Theros/Born of the Gods and try and finish off this Mono Blue deck I am trying to build...

A small update on my Aggro Mono Black Deck - I have acquired Erebos, God of the Dead to throw in there somewhere... interesting times, any opinions on Erebos?

Once Journey into the Nyx comes out however, I'll more than likely just pick up a Fat Pack, or if some of my Magic the Gathering friends would split a booster box with me that'd be great!, haha.

What kind of Mono Blue?  I haven't decided yet, but was quite impressed with the Fire Surge Magic 2014 Intro Deck (that I mentioned in brief here) so that I may add a bit of Red spice in there for good measure.
Yes, I do realise it was only an Intro deck, but I rarely play Blue or Red for that matter, but how it measured up to a Devotion Black Blue decks astounded me.

I also hopefully want to get back to the 2nd hand/pawn stores as well and try and find me some retro gear, there has to be some somewhere!  If not, I've hatched a plan to strip out a PS2, Nintendo Wii and possibly a PS1 and combine them in one enclosure, I have a frame made up out of angle iron ready to go but just need to find the time to actually figure out how it's all going to go together.

Check back often for updates, with photos, of course...

Fire Surge Magic 2014 Intro Deck

Ok, Tuesday nights are now becoming a staple night of playing Magic the Gathering with my friends, so I should be updating this blog with Magic info more often now (yay!)

Tonight I played and played my Mono Black Aggro deck (correct me if I am wrong please) which can be found here.  I found I am thinking of adding Read The Bones to it to add a scry 2 feature to add some more control to my draw, especially if I am getting a shitty draw, and possibly add 2 more Pharikas Cure to counteract the 2 life lost using Read The Bones.  Anyways!

I recently bought another Intro Deck, this in particular as the title suggests Fire Surge Magic 2014 Core Set Intro Deck.  Red/Blue being its colours and it really surprised me as it come into its own against a Blue/Black devotion deck.  I won't go into too much detail but if I had played a Chandra's Outrage appropriately I would not lost by one life as that's what it came down too.  I elected to do deal three damage to a two toughness creature, rather than dole out that extra one damage to the player thus losing me the game.

That's all I wanted to say, if you're new to Magic the Gathering, (like me) pickup the Magic 2014 Fire Surge Intro Deck, I picked it up discounted as the new Magic the Gathering stuff is gearing up to be released and I really like it as an intro deck.

Hearthstone Basick Build - Mage

 Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Magic Basic Build.

This build is great for new players, who haven't acquired or bought many cards or just for the casual player who'd like to start out with a solid deck early on.  This basic mage build is a good all rounder and can handle most situations. E.g. Removal with Polymorph, Flamestrike.  Ranged damage with Fireball, card draw with Novice Engineer, Gnomish Inventor + Arcane Intellect. And a little bit of aggro with the Elven Archer and Gurubashi Berserker (The Gurubashi Berserker can also be set off by your hero power too)

An alternative could be to trade out the Chillwind Yeti for an Ogre Magi.
You get +1 spell damage for 1 health.

Five Tips for Battlefield 4

Hello everyone,

I am here today to give you a few simple tips in surviving Battlefield 4. If you play in Hard Core mode this especially applies to you (and Hard Core mode is the only mode I play these days)

Tip #1 - Communicate with your team!

I don't mean to your whole team, but at least your Teamspeak friends and no I don't mean just general banter talking about how much alcohol you drank on Friday night either. Work together in spotting enemies and giving good descriptions of there whereabouts, what their kit is, any scope glints in the distance etc. You hear a chopper or vehicle nearby, report it to your squad! this will ensure your survival percentage goes up by at least %20... well... maybe...

Tip #2 - Have a plan!

In Battlefield 4 Conquest mode, decide before hand what squad is controlling which capture points. There is no point in running back and fourth to points that are spread from arse hole to breakfast, you become easy cannon fodder for the enemy by making these long distance hikes. Just control two or three points nearby and cap them as they become uncapped or defend them if they are all capped and remain vigilante , your enemy will become discouraged and move on to the next point in which you follow them and mow them down as they move on.

Tip #3 - Don't be a hemorrhoid!

You're moving on to the next objective, don't bunch together like dingle berries! fan out but not so far you find yourself on your own and in the sights of an enemy sniper. e.g. one person take the high road, the other the low road. One to go around a building whilst the other goes inside and refer to Tip #1 and communicate! This way you have more eyes spread over the objective and have a better chance of catching your enemy off guard even if your team mate catches some bullets in the process and dies. You'll then have the chance to cap your mates killers whilst they reload or tea bag your dead friend. Vengeance is sweet!


Tip #4 - Play your role!

Playing Assualt? Throw your medic kits out often!
Playing Support? Throw your ammo bags out often!
Playing Engineer? Work in with the Support player in your squad and be a human death conjurer!
Playing Recon? Scout out, report, actually do recon work! not just camp and annoy the shit out of everyone!

Tip#5 - KDR is not everything!

This one is simple... PLAY THE OBJECTIVE! Your kill death ratio means nothing to no one except your self, in other words no one else gives a shit how many times you've lived and not died.
Max it out too far on the Kill count side and you could end being wrongfully associated with using hacks.
Play the objective and reap the rewards of top scoring, top squad and actually winning the round on occasion.

Run Through - Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master Part Three has been uploaded!

Magic the Gathering Aggro Mono Black Deck

Hello All, I've now pulled apart my deck and had it inspected and now has morphed into an aggressive deck, below you'll find what I had originally and what I changed it out with.  I've battled with this deck three times, winning the first two rounds and losing the last.  Not a bad result but more and testing has to be conducted!

Creatures - x18

REMOVED - 4x Forsaken Drifters - Zombie - 4 drop

4x Servant of Tymaret - Zombie - 3 drop 1/3
Inspired - Whenever Servant of Tymaret becomes untapped each opponent loses 1 life, you gain life equal to the life lost this way.  3 drop: Regenerate.

4x - Insatiable Harpy - 4drop - 2/2
Flying and Lifelink

1x - Mogis's Maruader - 3 drop - 2/2
When Mogis Marauder enters the battlefield, up to X target creatures each gain intimidate and haste until end of turn, where X is your devotion to black.

2x - Felhide Brawler - Minotaur - 2 drop - 2/2
Felhide Brawler can't block unless you control another minotaur.

2x - Warchanter of Mogis - Minotaur - 5 drop
Inspired - Whenever Warchanter of the Mogis becomes untapped, target creature you control gains intimidate until end of turn.

2x - Marshmist Titan - Giant - 7 drop - 4/5
Marshmist Titan cost X less to cast, where X is your devotion to black)

REMOVED - 1x - Felhide Minotaur - Minotaur - 3 drop

1x - Sengir Vampire - Vampire - 5 drop - 4/4
Flying - Whenever a creature is dealt damage by Sengir Vampire this dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Sengir Vampire

REMOVED - 1x Eater of Hope - Demon - 7 drop

2x - Tormented Hero - Human Warrior - 1 drop - 2/1
Tormented Hero enters the battlefield tapped
Heroic - Whenever you cast a spell that targets Tormented Hero, each opponent loses 1 life. You gain life equal to the life lost this way.

REMOVED - 1x Disciple of Phenax - Human Cleric - 4 drop

Enchantment Creature - x7

REMOVED - 2x - Nyxborn Eidolon - Spirit - 2 drop

1x - Night Howler - Horror 0/0
Bestow 4 - Nighthowler and enchanted creature each +X/+X, where X is the number of creature cards in all graveyards.

2x - Cavern Lampad - Nymph - 4 drop - 2/2
Bestow 6 - Intimidate, Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and has intimidate.

2x - Baleful Eidolon - Spirit - 2 drop - 1/1
Bestow 5 - Deathtouch - Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has deathtouch.

1x - Spiteful Returned - Zombie - 2 drop - 1/1
Bestow 4 - Whenever spiteful returned or enchanted creature attacks, defending player loses 2 life.
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1

1x - Archetype of Finality - Gorgon - 6 drop - 2/3
Creatures you control have Deathtouch.  Creatures your opponent control lose deathtouch and can't have or gain deathtouch.

Sorcery - x5

4x - Asphyxiate - 4 drop
Destroy target untapped creature.

REMOVED - 1x Sip of Hemlock - 6 drop

1x - Gild - 4 drop
Exile target creature. Put a colourless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield.  It has "sacrifice this artifcate: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool"

REMOVED - 1x March of the Returned - 4 drop

Enchantment - Aura - x1

REMOVED - 2x Weight of the Underworld - 4 drop

1x - Claim of Erebos - 2 drop
Enchant creature - Enchanted creature has "drop 2 and tap: target player loses 2 life"

Instant - x5

REMOVED - 2x - Eye Gouge - 1 drop
REMOVED - 1x - Wring Flesh - 1 drop

3x - Cutthroat Maneuver
Up to two target creatures each get  +1/+1 and gain lifelink til the end of turn.

2x - Pharikas Curse - 2 drop (added one)
Pharika's Curse deals 2 damage to target creature and you gain 2 life.

Lands - x24
24x Swamp Lands

Noob MTG Mono Black Deck Build

Here we go at building a limited mono black deck from fifty six black cards from the Theros and Born of the Gods sets.  I am yet to test this out against anyone as I only threw this together not long ago. I will test it out shortly and submit a battle report here to let you all know how it went.

The deck in its current state -

60 Cards Total -

I have one Night Howler (not used currently), used in conjunction with the Forsaken Drifters penchant for expanding your graveyard, it could be potentially be a last ditch game changer, if you're lucky to not throw out Night Howler in the process. To somehow control this, the March of the Returned sorcery card can return up to 2 cards from your graveyard back to your hand. So maybe get some more Night Howlers and March of the Returned sorcery cards to maximise your potential for a game ending Night Howler or two.


Creatures - x19

4x Forsaken Drifters - Zombie - 4 drop(tricky one, when they die they take four cards from the top of your library with them)

4x Servant of Tymaret - Zombie - 3 drop

2x Felhide Brawler - Minotaur - 2 drop

2x Warchanter of Mogis - Minotaur - 5 drop

2x Marshmist Titan - Giant - 7 drop

1x Felhide Minotaur - Minotaur - 3 drop

1x Sengir Vampire - Vampire - 5 drop

1x Eater of Hope - Demon - 7 drop

1x Tormented Hero - Human Warrior - 1 drop

1x Disciple of Phenax - Human Cleric - 4 drop


Enchantment Creature - x4

2x Nyxborn Eidolon - Spirit - 2 drop

1x Spiteful Returned - Zombie - 2 drop

1x Archetype of Finality - Gorgon - 6 drop


Sorcery - x7

4x Asphyxiate - 4 drop

1x Sip of Hemlock - 6 drop

1x Gild - 4 drop

1x March of the Returned - 4 drop


Enchantment - Aura - x3

2x Weight of the Underworld - 4 drop

1x Claim of Erebos - 2 drop


Instant - x4

2x Eye Gouge - 1 drop

1x Wring Flesh - 1 drop

1x Pharikas Curse - 2 drop


Lands - x23

23x Swamp Lands


--Unused Cards--


1x Night Howler

1x Blood Bairn

1x Loathsome Catoblepas

1x Champion of Stray Souls

1x Minotaur Abomination

1x Rescue of the Underworld

1x Keepsake Gorgon

2x Sanguinmancy

3x Returned Centaur

1x Grisly Transformation

1x Necrobite

1x Shrivel

1x Asphyxiate

2x Forsaken Drifters

Link to the original Squidoo lense

This weekend haul!

Hello everyone,

I have returned from a massive weekend of hunting around 2nd hand shops and came up empty handed in finding an Nintendo Entertainment System to convert into a PC.  After finally giving in I went to the local games store and picked up this lot to dry my tears with.

Magic the Gathering Born of the Gods Fat Pack, Battle the Horde solitaire deck, matte black protective sleeves. some spare D20's and my awesome girlfriend got me for our Anniversary a Magic The Gathering hand made blue / black deck box!

Truly Epic!

So I didn't come up empty handed after all!, thanks for reading and will get another post on what I got in the Born of the Gods Fat Pack!

Retro Hunting Long Weekend!

Greetings all,

I am on a four day weekend this weekend and will be travelling to my neighbouring city and have convinced my other half that we should do some 2nd hand shop snooping as well as charity shop snooping as well.  'For what?' you ask? For some retro gaming gear; that's right!  I am on the look out for any old NES consoles working or not working as the not working one I will donate to making something like this...

That there is a PC tucked inside an NES and I really want to build one.  Check my previous post for more details about the pictured Stealthbot NES here.  In my journey I'll keep a look out for anything else that is retro or just damn cool and try not to bore the missus out of her brain too much.

Killing Floor Office Romp Video

Latest gameplay footage of yours truly in Killing Floor, some epic gory moments were had whilst online with a team of strangers, certainly excellent fun.  If you don't own Killing Floor I'd suggest you buy it and get your friends to as well.  Because the Killing Floor six player co-op is undeniably awesome.  Playing it with randoms on your team is cool as well and more often than not they aren't dickheads... in my experience and compared to other games of the same nature.

View the Killing Floor Office Romp here

Definitely not an ordinary day in the office

Dual Titans in one card

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has announced the GTX Titan Z and is set to be a monster of a card, built up of two Gpus based on the Kepler technology and 12GB of dedicated frame buffer memory.  This card will attempting to grab the market share in the next generation 5k and multi-monitor gaming market and most probably a hefty market share of your bank account too.

With two GK110 chips, TITAN Z is powered by a total of 5,760 processing cores, or 2,880 cores per GPU. 

- See more at: Nvidia's blog page

I am surprised he can lift it up with one arm

It will be interesting to see the real world statistics on such a card as Nvidia are claiming it to run 'cool and quiet' also the power draw is another factor to take into consideration.  Will it be worth Bit coin mining with the GTX Z Titan?, or has AMD captured and run off with that market already hence the focus on 5k and multi-monitor gaming.

As they say, only time will tell.

Stealthbot - A Nintendo Home Entertainment PC

More than meets the eye

I came across this little gem in the Reddit gaming sub forum and my eyes nearly popped out of my skull on how cool this really is.  Inside is an actual functioning PC and to be honest I really want one!

Here are its current specs.

• Intel i3 2120
• 6GB Laptop Ram
• 16GB MASATA SSD
• 500GB 2.5" Laptop Drive
• Dell 90W Laptop Power Brick

With those specs it's perfect for a home entertainment PC that's for sure. Read here for more details

Battlefield 4 you never cease to amaze

So, Battlefield 4 Naval Strike dlc was supposed to drop in our Origin accounts today for the Premium players, I said 'was'... meaning that it's gone to shit... again.

Far out brussel sprout!, you shell out over $100.00 AUD for a bloody game and you virtually get a virtual cluster fuck of non sense. Below is the excerpt from the article posted on the battlelog forum.

However, we are delaying the launch of Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on PC. We’ve detected an issue and it needs to be solved. Quality is our number one priority and we will not release Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on PC until we feel it meets the highest quality level possible. We are also working on a larger update to release alongside Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on PC that will address the issue of Tablet Commander not working correctly. Once we have a confirmed date for PC, we’ll be sure to update those players on our official channels. We appreciate your patience and look forward to seeing everyone on the Battlefield.

Here is the original post on Battleog forum.


Lets dissect this shall we?

• we are delaying the launch of Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on PC. We’ve detected an issue and it needs to be solved.
  Are you serious? you've detected an issue right before its about to be released, what does this actually mean? You were putting the final touches on Naval Strike and thought 'you know what, I might actually play test this to see if it's actually fit for purpose'.  Explain this to me.

• Quality is our number one priority and we will not release Battlefield Naval Strike on PC until we feel it meets the highest quality level possible.
  This is getting very hard to believe, as maybe this should have been the announcement right before Battlefield 4 was about to release last year.  It's like you're putting a band aid over a severed artery, you make it look like you're doing something, but the blood will just keep pumping til you drown, the body dies or you actually get serious and fix it properly.
  So far the 'body dying' scenario is winning out on this one.

• We are also working on a larger update to release alongside Battlefield 4 Naval Strike on PC that will address the issue of Tablet Commander not working correctly.
  Fuck the Tablet Commander!, scrap the Commander Mode altogether, it's woeful and does nothing but detract from the experience.  Yeah!, yeeha!, lets play Battlfield 4 on my fucking tablet!... maybe I will since the actual First Person Shooter element on Battlefield is a jarring experience to begin with.  Seriously, get rid of the Commander Mode, problem solved and more time can be spent fixing the actual game.

• Once we have a confirmed date for PC, we’ll be sure to update those players on our official channels. We appreciate your patience and look forward to seeing everyone on the Battlefield.
  You're losing me Dice, EA, whoever is calling the shots... you're losing me.  Battlefield 3 was my go to game the last couple of years just because it's scale was epic and captured something very special from when I was young lad growing up thinking how awesome games would be in the future.  Now, we've got a game with a broken back and hasn't recovered you are effectively putting your fingers in the holes of a sinking ship and it's filling fast...
  
  I was at least a little excited about this dropping tonight, but utter lunacy of the reasons given to why Naval Strike is delayed is beyond ludicrous and has annoyed me enough to blog about it rather than roll my eyes and play something else.
  
  DICE, EA, PULL YOUR HEAD IN!
  
  

Run Through Shinobi III part Two has now been uploaded!

Thanks for waiting patiently you lot, the video has arrived! View it here!

If you are so inclined you can view part one of the Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master here

Here is the previous blog post for Run Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master

Shinobi III: Return Of The Ninja Master

Run Through Shinobi III Part Two video upload

Hello everyone,

Part two of the Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master will be uploaded later on today (tonight, where ever you are!). This series is all about how far I can get in Shinobi III til I run out of lives and continues, I am playing it on PC rather than a Sega Genesis, this version of Shinobi is from the Sega Genesis/Megadrive classics I obtained through a Humble Bundle a week or so ago. You'll be pleased to know that no save states were used in the making of the Run Through of Shinobi III. It'll be full of derp moments and on the fly commentary, fueled by coffee as I tend to retro game extremely late at night (who doesn't?)

Anways, Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master classic game that I rate highly, fun and addictive and can't stress enough that if you don't own it... you're really missing out on some cool retro arcade action!

UPDATE - View the video here!

You like Magic The Gathering? Watch Top Decking.

I've discovered a nice web series called Top Decking from the Webisodes network.  The show revolves around a handful of characters working in a Magic The Gathering store.  It has a nice smattering of cliches, rivalries, stereotypes and Magic The Gathering game play throughout to keep it fresh and interesting.

Excellent writing and superb acting makes Top Decking, to me exceptionally addictive show.  Ten minute episodes make the show really accessible and bit size to consume just about any time of day whilst at work on your phone or at home when in between doing laundry loads (or what ever it is you do at home).  The added bonus is it has the element of Magic The Gathering throughout making Top Decking a must watch show for Magic The Gathering players.  Hell it even touches upon League of Legends and you'll may also notice some other Youtube Celebrities amongst the cast.

Magic The Gathering is awesome, Top Decking is superb I suggest you check it out!

Youtube - Top Decking playlist
Host Site - Webisodes Network

This Thursday to purchase more MTG cards?

Greetings All,

I quick update, I am off to my nearest city Wednesday night to visit my lovely girlfriend and also to put my car into the mechanics. It seems to be cheaper to travel 250 kilometers to get my differential rebuilt in the neighbouring city than it is to get it rebuilt locally. A saving of near $600.00 AUD will be made including fuel costs, absolute and utter madness... but enough of that.

This is the real update. I intend on visiting the local game store and getting some more Magic The Gathering cards... or perhaps a box set? will I get skinned alive by significant other, or will I get her to come round and play a round of Magic with me and get her hooked? I've already given her my Nintendo DS to play, downward spiral? or angelic ascension? which reminds me, I haven't played a round of Ascension in ages!

oh, and my youtube channel is up! with heaps of gaming, Magic and other content coming soon!

<--- Click here to subscribe!


Regards,
Ausmetal.

Weekend roundup

Weekend just gone was a good one, I finished editing my Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master 'run through' series which will be uploaded on Youtube in a 5 part series over the coming weeks.

I did another run through playing Killing Floor, which I haven't picked up in ages and had a blast doing so. I have footage of the event edited up and nearly ready for upload by mid week. There are some tidy plays in the vid that's for sure.

I didn't purchase any games this weekend, my latest purchases from last week were Dragon Age Ultimate Edition (PC) and a spare deck slot in Magic 2014(PC). Dragon Age had 75% off or something ridiculous like that, so I'll be offloading my Xbox360 version, anyone interested, let me know.

Which brings me toooooooo

That I may do up a list of games and what not that I'll be selling soon, PS3, Xbox360, boardgames etc. But will have to decide whether I'll list on ebay or do a private listing.

Will keep you posted!
Thanks for reading!

Ausmetal.

Run Through - Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master for Sega Genesis

Hey all,

First video up of a five part series on how far I can get in Shinobi III Return of the Ninja Master.  Please check it out and give me some feed back, or just like and subscribe, that would be much appreciated.