First Impressions of Ravnica

Today, my package of Ravnica stuff came. It consisted over a few preconstructed decks, and of course, the Ravnica Fat Pack. There are many false impressions in Ravnica and Selesnya Conclave is one of them. Since I had never played around with Convoke rules before this, I was shocked to find that some of these costs might actually have been undercosted, despite the fact that they are all obscenely high. Most casual players are likely to single out Boros as true beatdown and aggro, with efficient weenies, the now legendary Lightning Helix and radiating spells. This is actually a very false impression. Few decks can stand up to Boros-themed decks, but I believe even fewer can stand up to something like Selesnya-themed decks. Among the preconstructed decks, I believe the Selesnya deck is the weakest and needs the most work to get it up to par with the others. There is so much needed to make the deck work better, fast are more efficiently.

I myself have tried building a Boros-themed deck with nothing but what was in two boxes of the preconstructed Boros decks. The deck was constantly capable of dropping one or two creatures every turn without fail, and beating down on opponents quickly is usually a matter of time with cards like Rally the Righteous and Lightning Helix. Of course, this deck falls short as I haven't put in sensible equipment. Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion is amazing since you can literally pound your way through if needed with a measly looking Guildmage or Flame-kin Zealot.

The biggest surprise was actually Selesnya. By putting in a few cards from boosters, and Doubling Season, the Selesnya-themed deck is a powerhouse, churning out obscenely large creature at an unimaginable rate. This massive burst also renders Scion of the Wild, the rare included with the deck, absolutely indispensable as the unstoppable large attacker when blessed with the Conclave's Blessing aura which makes it nearly impervious to damage. It'll be no surprise when I get Phytohydras that finding solutions to it will become a big problem.

The guild lands, despite their huge tempo drawbacks, are actually pretty good in their own way. They provide a long-term mana advantage, since only one card can produce two mana, you can reach higher mana levels faster. This means the game can be seriously accelerated towards the huge drops. Ravnica seems to be all about speed, and I believe Boros and Selesnya embodies those elements. In my next article, maybe I'll talk about the 'slower' guilds: Golgari and Dimir.

Short Review: Dawn of War: Winter Assault

Just when I was so bored to death, I was pleasantly surprised with a new way to spend my time: a new expansion pack to one of my favourite real-time strategy games: Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War. The expansion pack, as the title of this post states, is Winter Assault. This is actually the theme of the planet where the single player campaign plays out, where it's snowing everywhere. So what's new in this expansion pack? Well, I think the promise of an entirely new 'race' which an entirely new tech tree and special abilities should suffice. How many expansion packs actually add an entirely new race to the roster? Of course, Winter Assault's best addition is not really the new race, but the single player campaign. The original Dawn of War's single player left much to be desired, as it was relatively short and relatively simple.

I'm not going to bore you with what you should already know about Dawn of War with the squads and what not, that's why this is only a short review of Winter Assault. If you loved Dawn of War, there should be nothing short of lack of funds or stock stopping you from getting this expansion pack. The new race is fun to play, but I believe it is pretty difficult to play it in the campaign. In the single player campaign, the first few missions restrict you to mostly infantry, which is the WEAKEST point of the new Imperial Guard. This actually makes the Order side of the campaign a big pain in the ass to play since your men lose morale quickly and start dying like flies. Despite this, the new race is still pretty fun to play, but you'll find (or at least I found) that they just take longer to do certain killing activities.

However, their vehicles make up for their weaknesses, and unfortunately, these vehicles are few in the first few missions. This means long long campaign games compared to the first few Disorder missions, where charging through or expanding your forces will generally win you the game. :P One thing to note about the Imperial Guard is that they will allow for possible 'rush' tactics in multiplayer (which are conveniently useless in the campaigns). You can build their basic military squad straight off the bat from your Field Command. The other races generally need you to build a Barracks equivalent to get access to the basic military squad.

One thing I did have to complain about was Winter Assault patching up Dawn of War. Sure, it was convenient to have one megaupdater with all the separate update files, but I find is a tad annoying that the developers didn't put together a large cumulative patch that could patch anything and everything between 1.00 and 1.30 to 1.40 instead of the incremental updating. It's not a pretty sight seeing the same files being patched over and over again. I think they are eventually going to have to do it, why not at this most important expansion pack stage?

The good news is that it got the job done, and it's otherwise pretty good. No score because there is no need for one. If you like Dawn of War, buy this expansion pack. Adds loads of maps to your multiplayer life. LOL