Recently, a spark went off inside. This resulted in some sort of secular revival where my blogging is concerned. And by blogging, I mean including A Requiem From Winter Past albeit the only way for people to know my work would very likely be Neil Gaiman proclaiming, "I've seen a genius from Singapore and his name isn't Kevin Kwan". I swear it's far more possible for J.K Rowling to get herself into trouble by breaking character.
I don't know how long this fire can be sustained, though. But for now, I'm going to allow myself to bask in the warmth of its sparks. Not the one defined by Taeyeon but the other one defined by Miura Kentaro.
That include the likes of Mr Lee, Dori Dori, and Miss Tang.
Sadly, it means I'm unable to be like them.
g.o.d isn't just for the Koreans
When people talk about g.o.d, they're not talking about whether it's right for CNN to spell God as god (Note: The link is effectively a lengthy read). Rather, they're most likely referring to 지오디. When I say g.o.d isn't just for the Koreans, I'm not referring to accusations of Korean appropriation but rather Gaunter O'Dimm.
This post is all about my opinion after days of playing the Master Mirror expansion. But before I start smashing the mirrors like a Gwynbleidd, allow me to play a couple of videos.
The reason behind the first video is that no longer will we be hearing an epic main menu theme. The reason for the second video? This is the new main menu theme. So what are my thoughts for the new score?
I have to point out that I used to believe both halves of the music were actually two different themes. The reason why was twofold: The fact that the previous expansion(s) didn't have a piece of starting music at the starting screen and the main menu music for Master Mirror expansion actually took a different turn halfway through.
The first half was hauntingly Gaunter O'Dimm. When I first heard it by logging onto the game, it was...
The tune haunted him unto no end, its rhythm ten icy fingers closing around his neck. 'Twas a frigid caress, a cold hard grip it could easily be. The devil has played his hand, the debtor facing his due.
Come the second half, it took a melancholic turn as if the story was now about Olgierd von Everec and his beloved Iris.
A song of tragic love, a tale of noble love warped into a dirge. How cruel fate could be, its whims in the form of a devil's pact. Gone was his soul of flesh and blood, a heart of stone the usurper. And what of his most beloved lady love? Only anguish conceived by choices made and a merciless world.
Opinions so far...
I'm going to be straightforwardly blunt here: Gwent has never been this good before. If you think the game was good enough, you should know what I'm talking about here. Here's hoping no one's ego would be stoked considering Mr Lee's positive view on my analytical ability.
The most notable change in Master Mirror wasn't about the new card mechanics (seriously, no one can blame you if you can't make Jennifer Lawrence's Symbiosis mechanic work). Rather, it's the revamped seasonal ranking system. Previously, seasonal rankings did include certain rules. These rules do have the ability to make or break a match depending on your hand. This was especially painfully obvious in Season of Magic where a double cast Water of Brokilon together with Deadeye Ambush ability can produce some kind of unit deployment horror show. If hitting a point score of 14 in your first turn didn't mean something to you, it means there's something severely wrong with you or the way you play the match.
As we all have seen, seasonal rules were a decisive factor in telling you why there's no way you can progress beyond rank 29. In the current seasonal ranking system, ranking up has gotten... well, easier. The reason behind this was that instead of seasonal rules, the seasonal ranking format now doesn't have rules. This resulted in an easier time going from unranked to rank 25 or 24. Beyond that? I'm going to talk about this later.
Then you have the second format. Namely, non-seasonal ranking with seasonal ranking rules. Right now, it's called Power Shift, but I won't be surprised if this used to be Season of the Griffin which is now currently ongoing.
As if two changes were not enough, I noticed something weird going on within the first 24 hours of Master Mirror going live.
Will the real Hua Chong Insitute student please stand up?
If someone having what it takes to be a foreign talent in Singapore could bang his head against the keyboard while playing Gwent, I won't be surprised if it'd say a lot on our JC and university students. Not that they're stupid but rather there has to be something terribly right about my brain which the education system had ignored. After all, I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually told me dogged determination alone won't do the trick if one decides to play the game without first going through Witcher 3. I suspect Mr Lee didn't realise the full extent of his statement when he praised my analytical DNA. Recently, there was some sort of hullabaloo over Hua Chong Insitute's stance on discussing politics on social media. While this didn't mean someone is insulting the intelligence of potential local talents like the typical jerk from Owari (seriously, no one seemed to be able to reign in Oda Nobunaga except for a woman), this made me wonder whether more Singaporeans should be playing Gwent. Or maybe it's the education system's fault that I'm now able to start winning games.
So what's the deal about whether highly educated Singaporeans can champion meritocracy through a game of Gwent or two? Within 24 hours of Master Mirror's release, Gaunter O'Dimm decided to have a laugh. When I decided to get my feet wet in Season of the Griffin, I never expected the auto-matchmake to pair me up with players with inferior deck. Not occasionally but consistently. This was the reason why reaching from unranked territory to at least rank 25 has gotten easier.
Something clearly didn't make sense. It's like someone telling me and everyone else in the same room his fiancée's name was a girl named Shufen only for me to realise later that the other half was another girl, that Shufen was clearly a non-existent dummy. Under such a situation, I'd definitely question the person's intention because he's clearly lying to me since infidelity is clearly NOT a possibility. Because there's no way for one entire room's worth of people being had.
Less than 10 million but still a lot: How CD Projekt Red managed to outdo the PAP
I don't want to know whether Singapore can get 10 million people to populate the nation, never mind whether there's a need to import the Ainu from Hokkaido. It's clear from the start that there's an explosion in new player population in a way more insane than the current infection-fatality ratio in Japan (Miyagi and Okinawa being two classic examples of illogical mathematics).
The only way to explain this would be some kind of stealth sales tactic. What this means is that spreading the word of Gwent being more new player friendly was already underway before the current expansion went up. I know this is as farfetched as me saying an Ainu woman conceived a time bomb in Mount Alvernia Hospital and I happened to be that time bomb due to my eyes resembling an Ainu. But was that really impossible?
If it's impossible, then it'd be impossible to explain why any player could easily get an opponent who was clearly new to the game from rank 29 to 26. If it's for real, it means certain factors were at work. Believe it or not, I can sense whether the opponent was cursed with an inferior deck or just new to the game. I'm not behaving like an elitist because I'm still in the process of getting slapped by players with a clearly superior deck (pretty sure I'll continue mentioning this like a broken Guinness record). Rather, I've been through that stage where the deployment aspect was clearly greenhorn level. So if something felt familiar, there should be a reason why.
Devotion, Symbiosis, and Jennifer Lawrence
Not only did Master Mirror give players a revamped format, but there are also new aspects of strategy and tactics. Right now, the most annoying part was trying to get Symbiosis work. By tomorrow, the Gaunter's Ultimate Challenge event will have ended. Out of three factions available to play in the event, I chose Scoia'tael. The reason why was that I only got two decently developed decks, one of which was Scoia'tael and the other Nilfgaard. Since the other two options were Skellige and Monsters, it should be a no-brainer. To complete the challenge, however, required spawning 20 young dryads for the second last quest and using Eithné to spawn 20 more for the final one. I'm pro-life, but this was clearly insane. Thanks to Mother Necessity. I had to burn 1600 cloth scraps. 800 for Water of Brokilon and 800 more for Eithné with the former intended to make life easier for me.
I have to say learning how to use Symbiosis was an interesting process. Although I doubt I'd go back to Mother Necessity (unless there's a part 2 to Gaunter's Ultimate Challenge), I actually enjoyed the process. Yes, I know the dryads are either stark naked or nine-tenths naked. But having a brain functioning like Tokugawa Ieyasu, Oai or no Oai, is not always a bad thing. The only catch? The reason behind this. It's a bit like Pep Guardiola tinkering with a system only to realise certain things were not meant to be.
The difficult part of learning to use Symbiosis lies in how many Symbiosis units I could afford to play per round. This comes to mind the hand draw probability and whether you can save Eithné for either the second or third round (third if you can utilise her Devotion property). More than many other decks, a Symbiosis deck may be more subjected to what cards you have in hand. A straightforward approach would be having no Symbiosis unit apart from her with a Plan B reserved for the first round (Note: If you lose the first round, chances are that you're done for). If you want to go full Symbiosis, then you really need to include every Symbiosis unit card possible and hope for at least two such units in your hand for each round (not including Eithné, by the way). As for the choice of ability, it has to be Mystic Echo.
At the end of the day, we're not talking about Deadeye Ambush where you can play 3 units totalling a power value of 9. And that's not considering other major factors like Waylay, Ele'yas, and Vernossiel. And yes, Feign Death. 3 Deadeye units spawned within 2 turns.
And one last thing before I move on: The reason why I namedropped Jennifer Lawrence was because of the title I got for completing Gaunter's Ultimate Challenge like the insane fellow I've been constantly ridiculed in school for. Namely, Mother. No, it's not a joke. It's really Mother.
Note 1: It's not cool to have a brain like Ieyasu considering the nature of his ruthlessness with Oai being the only one capable of humanising him.
Note 2: Scoia'tael faction doesn't have a good big numbers buff game, but that didn't prevent someone from demonstrating how to build a Symbiosis deck. Unfortunately, I'm not going to build that one due to the extensive resources and actual money involved. 11 Symbiosis units in total is definitely an ouch assuming a good hand in the first round and a better hand for the third.
Note 3: Using Eithné as my only Symbiosis unit did work decently well in ranked matches against opponents with a weaker deck. Against, opponents with a better deck, defeat remained a no-brainer. Evenly matched 50-50? That has yet to happen.
Note 4: Okay, Mother isn't the only title available for Scoia'tael for Gaunter's challenge event. Commando Leader sounds better to me.
Welcome to Area 24
On first glance, ranking up is now easier. At least it would be until you reach rank 24. This is the territory of players capable of playing 3-4 gold cards per round. Remember how players with a superior deck managed to defeat you no matter how hard you try? Yep, rank 24 territory is full of them. If you're a casual gamer, my advice would stop playing seasonal ranking once you hit rank 24. Otherwise, you're going to torture yourself with a fast levelling speed at Prestige level 1 being your only consolation. And besides, it's not as if anyone happened to be Date Masamune or Tokugawa Ieyasu when it comes to being bullied. Needless to say, I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't get a full fiver bummer on a consistent basis.
P.S: Trying to get my Nilfgaard deck to work in the current seasonal ranking has been problematic so far come rank 24. It should be very obvious why. The only thing I know is that maybe I'll need to change a few things although I still can't wrap my brain around the deck synergy part. And it didn't help that I was effectively playing a deck quality handicap 24/7.
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