Shadow Era Spoilers #16 - Thoughtful Investment

We're not done yet! An extra spoiler as a Christmas present today. Let's open it up and look inside.

Shadow Era Spoilers #15 - Temporal Disturbance

This spoiler is yet another official one, heralding the end of class week. It may not be from the rumor mill, but it's still a mill card. Let's take a look.

Shadow Era Spoilers #14 - Blood Moon

During a blood moon, NPCs grouped together no longer push back monster spawn areas and zombies can break down doors, so you might want to protect your merchants. Oh wait, wrong game. Shadow Era time!

Shadow Era Spoilers #13 - Smoke Screen

Today's card is a new trick for rogues to pack up their sleeves, but is it a good one? We'll see.

Shadow Era Spoilers #12 - Divine Connection

Today's card is one that looks unimpressive at first without knowing the rest of Dark Prophecies, but there's already a clever way of using it. Let's dig in, shall we?

Shadow Era Spoilers #11 - Shatter Ice

Today's spoiler is difficult to appraise, but speaks volumes about Dark Prophecies itself. Let's take a peek.

Shadow Era Spoilers #10 - Rolling Boulders

This one might be a bit controversial, so sit tight. I'm not pulling any punches today.

Shadow Era Spoilers #9 - Lythite Coating

Today's spoil is pretty cool for a couple reasons. Playable? Not for the moment, but it's a very trollish card in meltdown at the least.

2012 Americas Regionals Tournament Report

---FAIR WARNING---

The following article is a complete report of each round of the event, written out as they happen over the last couple months. Because of this, it is extremely lengthy. Continue at your own peril.

What a long, hard road it's been. This is truly the last large event of the year, and it's been a privilege taking part. The 2012 Regionals each offer coveted invites to the 2013 World Championships. 64 players a piece are duking it out to prove their worth in a slugfest that could give way to the next world champion.

I'll start out with my list for the event, then move on to the games themselves. Shall we?

Shadow Era Spoilers: Dark Prophecies #7-8

Technically, this set is three cards, but Kyle has grouped the actual #7 and #8 as one spoil, so I'm doing so as well.

Let me remind/clarify that these card evaluations are done purely on the stance of competitive viability, not how cool or fun you may think they are, as these things are entirely opinionated. If you have this one deck that plays Selfishness and Selfishness is the key that holds your deck together, that's awesome for you. That doesn't mean your deck is good compared to everything else out there and that doesn't mean the individual card is good either.

Eladerp

Previous lists I've posted on this site have been fairly advanced, and also fairly original.

It's time to start filling out the decklist lineup, and simply put, some heroes have had all avenues explored. There's not a whole lot of room for innovation.

After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Eladwen burn has been around as long as the game itself in one form or another. It's a staple of the game, and today, I'm going to share my own version of the classic archetype.

Shadow Era: Bluff the Stuff

Psychology is a tricky subject, but it affects every aspect of daily life in some form. After all, the world is what we make of it.

Competition is no exception, and hobby gaming especially. Take chess, for example. Your optimal move might not necessarily be based on game mechanics themselves, but how your opponent will react to your decision. The 'best' move isn't necessarily the right one, whereas an unorthodox play might catch them off their guard.

All tcgs are the same way.

Shadow Era: Boarding School

Shadow Era's regional qualifiers are going on now, one each for the American, European  and Asian circuits. 64 players in each battle it out for three invites to the World Championships 2013. Now, I may be competing in the US circuit, but that hasn't stopped me before from helping out my opponents.

At least I'm the nice kind of crazy.

Boweh Needs a Banner

I'm sponsoring a new art contest over on the Shadow Era forums to redesign the current header for The Boweh. For more details, check out http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?19912-New-Art-Contest-Boweh-Needs-a-Banner&p=296270#post296270.

The winner will be announced in a few weeks time and The Boweh will (hopefully) look a whole lot nicer.

Shadow Era Spoilers: Twisted Familiar

Blah blah blah, yada yada, spoiler.

Spoiler #6: Twisted Familiar
Spoiled by Kyle on 11/7/2012
Source

Shadow Era Spoilers: Artful Squire

No need for introductions. New card. Let's get to it.

Spoiler #5: Artful Squire
Spoiled by Kyle on 11/2/2011
Source

Shadow Era Spoilers: Prophecies 1-4

Wulven Studios, in my absence, has released a couple spoilers for the upcoming expansion. Since they failed to courteously await my return, I must now go back in time to evaluate these four pieces of virtual cardboard.

Thanks a lot, guys. :P

Shadow Era: Meltdown Breakdown

Hello, Shadow Erans. It's been a long time since I've posted here (roughly four months) and I have a long list of excuses, everything from hardware malfunctions to hard-ons. I'm sure nobody wants to hear about either.

If you do, call me.

In any case, I feel inspired to chip in on the most recent addition to the Shadow Era game client: Meltdown.

I've touched on limited formats like Meltdown in the past, but here's a quick recap for anyone who doesn't know.

In Meltdown, players are given four packs with which they build a 30 card deck (29+hero). This deck is not subject to any faction or class restrictions like normal play. In other words, you can include human allies in a deck with a shadow hero, or play War Banner in Majiya.

eeebony

and iiivory

In the Shadow Era digital game, playing a single round of Meltdown costs 200g. Each week, there's a pot created from those admissions which is then split up among all Meltdown players (based on performance) at the end of that week. Here's a quote from Kyle himself that explains in more detail:

How does the weekly Meltdown competition work? Each Meltdown match costs 200g, and 100g from that is put into the jackpot. Wins get you 30 points, draws 15 points, and losses 10 points. At the end of the weekly countdown, the jackpot is divided up according to your percentage of Meltdown score vs the global Meltdown score total. For example, if you have a Meltdown score of 10 and the total of all Meltdown scores is 100, well then you get 10% of the jackpot. Win more games to get a much higher payout! Check your Status screen for more info.

The format itself is fun. However, Meltdown alone is not the subject of this article. It's been around for a while already.

I want to talk about the digital implementation of Meltdown. And it needs some serious work.

Shadow Era: Worlds 2012 Overview

As many reading this will know, worlds was a thing. This past weekend, the 32 best in the world competed for their claim to the title of World Champion. We saw a lot of decks, a lot of upsets, and a hero that nobody thought would take the whole thing.

I had the honor of hosting live coverage of the event on Shadow Era TV alongside tournament organizer and design team member GondorianDotCom, another designer Mojumbo, lead tester Soothslyr and the occasional voice of Kyle Poole himself, lead designer and CEO of Wulven Studios.

In today's post, I'll recap some of the games, decks, and players that showed up over the weekend, the expected and the unexpected, and some insight on how the results may affect the quickmatch meta.

Shadow Era: Advanced Drafting

Last week, I went over some simple drafting techniques and etiquette for those new to the format. Today, I'll go over the official formats as described by Wulven and then expand on some draft strategies from the week before.

Wulven has announced three different formats for sanctioned limited events, two draft and one sealed. The two draft formats are as follows:

1. SIX packs (minus the hero and code) drafted, 30 card decks with normal restrictions
2. EIGHT packs (minus the hero and code) drafted, 40 card decks with normal restrictions

The sealed, called Meltdown, is where you open four packs and build a 30 card deck without any class or faction restrictions. So you can have a Feedback, Tidal Wave, Earthen Protector and Shadow Knight all in the same deck if that's what you pull. As fun as this may be for some, this article is about the two draft formats.

Zaladar Makes Boris Ragequit While I Play Fitting Music

Shadow Era: Drafting Basics

As physical cards are being shipped out, more and more players will be looking to grab a group of buddies and open up a box, and the best value you're going to get from a stack of packs is using them for a draft.

What is drafting? I see this question a surprisingly large amount in the official forums, especially from those not used to physical card games. Don't plan on playing the physical version? That's fine, drafting will eventually hit the digital client as well, so you'll want to listen up. Or maybe you don't because you're a cheap whore who refuses to support wulven and pay for the packs. I don't discriminate.

Shadow Era: Building Baduuru

Ladies and gents, it's that time again. I haven't posted much in a while, so I decided to do something a little special.

A while back on the Shadow Era forums, I posted an article accompanied by an mp3 recording of myself going through it, with a few additional side notes here and there. It was well received and the community asked for more, but outside of livestreams I haven't made any true multimedia content since.

The times, they are a changin'.

Crowdsourcing is a Thing

A friend of mine with a sadly limited amount of funding is trying to spend a year studying abroad, but to do so needs to raise plenty of cash that sadly, she doesn't have. She's elected to try using a digital method to raise large amounts of money, and I want to help her out as much as I can by circulating the link around. I know I'm abusing some gift horses here, but if you want to pitch in any amount will help her out a ton.

http://halleegoestogermany.blogspot.com/

Boweh out.

Shadow Era: Zhannax 3.0

As many reading this know, I happen to be the originator of a Ghostmaker control deck, ZhannaX, dubbed after the pill of the same phonetic. The deck had a fairly large following, praise varying from both from a unique play experience to a powerful, versatile list, but the game has changed in such a way since then that the original ZhannaX is rather obsolete. I've changed the list to change with the times not once but twice, and today I give you ZhannaX 3.0

Shadow Era: Worlds Round One

My opponent in the first round, xColdSteelx, was a pretty solid Banebow player, which is an obnoxious opponent for most any matchup. I got in a game just prior to the event with a fellow BP guildmate, learning the hard way the power the deck provides. He advised I play Lance, and given Achilles is my main list right now, I gave it a shot. As I feared/guessed, my opponent elected to use Banebow first and foremost.

Magic: Angel's Tomb

It's been ages since i've covered a Magic spoiler season, and I'm not starting again now. However, I feel like I have to take the time to showcase a card that hasn't been getting a whole lot of love.

Enter Angel's Tomb

Shadow Era: Power of the 187

187 is a little-known slang term for murder, originating from California's penal code. it's also a game term in Magic: the Gathering that only the oldest gaming veterans will pick up.

What does that have to do with Shadow Era? Is it when an Ogloth eats seven opposing allies? No, stupid hypothetical person that asks obvious questions. I'm getting to it.

Shadow Era: Quantity in the Sac

Rarely in Shadow Era is there ever a clear right and wrong on what to sacrifice. The factors to consider can be put into a simple list, tempo, likelihood of drawing duplicates, relative worth to other cards of the same cost, relative worth of the rest of your hand, etc. etc.

However, there's another factor that I'll be covering today.

Pure quantity.

Shadow Era: Livestream is coming

45 minutes after this post, Shadow Era will have its first ever livestream, courtesy of moi. To get in on the action, check out http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?14250-ATTENTION-SHADOW-ERANS-Livestream-time!&p=200096#post200096

Shadow Era: Achilles' Lance

Lance Shadowstalker, the Human Rogue. Lately, he's been a popular choice in quick matches, and I'll admit readily to hopping on that bandwagon from day one. Of course, that's not without reason.

Suck it, Altair. Black is back.

The power of this deck lies entirely within Lance's tempo plays. Between Jasmine, Raven, and Anklebreaker, the deck has ten cards, a full quarter of the deck, that come down, disable an ally, and then stay in play after establishing board control.

Now, why is T5 so significant?

Ignore that all the best cards in the game, Plasma Behemoth, Soul Seeker, Dagger of Unmaking, Mind Control, Earthen Protector, Tidal Wave, all of them are T5 plays.

Ill-Gotten Gains costs 4.

Achilles' Lance is optimized to take advantage of the only unilateral draw engine in the game that doesn't have ANY penalty, tempo, life, or otherwise. The game revolves around pivotal T5 plays, not T4. Lance is one of the few decks with a strong play for the fourth turn, AND has a wide variety of five-drop solutions to take back that board after your opponent gets a turn or two of free reign, making it quite possibly the most consistently powerful deck in the game.

Mind you, other than IGG the deck doesn't have much in the way of draw... but you don't really need it. Your cards are just so much more valuable than your opponent's. Anklebreaker, Raven, Jasmine, Aeon, all of these cards are designed to keep multiple enemy allies in check at once. Very few decks can trade cards with you on a one for one basis.

Without further ado, I give you Achilles' Lance.

Super Secret Shriekhorn Tech

It's been a while since I've written for Magic, and in that time I've certainly gone off the radar with my decks. So much so that I've actually played Shriekhorn.

The sound it makes is a bit like "NOOOOOB"

Crash's Gay Experience

Tonight, fellow Mass Insanity Clan admin, General Crash, elected to tell us about a homosexual experience in his youth. Since I could tell he'd be too drunk to remember the conversation, I opted to preserve it for all time. No other explanation necessary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_3iXmDryc

The Boweh: An Introduction

Hello and welcome to The Boweh. For those who've found this from something else I've done over the last few years, welcome back. Instead of having all these different things in all these different places, I've decided to have one place for everything that is me. Every little bit of writing and reviewing, audio and video, all my exploits in one convenient location.

Rest assured, they all have the same general theme, (well, for the most part), so however you may have followed me before, you'll still have me now. I'll be tagging every post religiously to make it easy for you to find what you're looking for, if anything specific.

Now, for those of you who've just recently stumbled upon this site, you probably have no idea who I am. And even if you did come from somewhere else, you probably don't know everything there is to know, all my past places and projects. It's for these people that this post exists; a culmination of internet history surrounding the not-so-illusive MistahBoweh.

First and foremost is the last time I held a (relatively) successful page here on Blogger: YoMamaTheGathering.blogspot.com. Yo Mama: The Gathering. A parody of Magic: The Gathering, YMTG was a strategy column I ran for about a year, from December 2010 to October 2011. I did everything from tournament reports to deck tips to general play strategy, even ran with my own set design for a little bit.

That fell to the wayside for a while, however, when I became active in the community for another TCG, Shadow Era. I began writing strategy for the official forum until eventually I joined the higher echelons of playtest groups, eventually even getting invited to work as part of the game's Design Team as a flavor consultant. As of this writing, I'm still one of the most recognized players, currently a member of the elite Warriors of the Blue Phoenix alongside world champion Raphael Majere and  Alliance One's founder Padiwan Pete.

A little-known project, I once started work on a Let's Play channel on youtube with a friend of mine, under the username JimboNKaiz. I've lost the IP but kept the name, and currently the channel holds plenty of Shadow Era and other miscellaneous videos. Our first game together, Magicka, fell victim to plenty of audio and video quality issues due to a lack of experience on my part, and only about 30~ minutes in the end were released from over 20 hours worth of footage. I still have it all as of this writing, and may get around to editing the rest eventually still yet.

Next comes the Mass Insanity Clan. Not really a project like the others but something I'm known for nonetheless, I serve as an administrator on the MI Team Fortress 2 servers. It's not going to affect the site all that much, but if you manage to spot the vaguest of references to Valve Corporation, it's intentional and that's why.

Lastly, there's BowieBooks, another blogspot site meant as a general suppository for my more creative writing pieces. Also short-lived and more personal than the rest, there's not much there but it's still up and still a good way to kill a few hours.

Of course, this is nowhere near the limit to what I've done. From forum communities to MMOs to DeviantArt, there's plenty of places I've been and plenty of things I've done. If you know me from nowhere, it's nice to meet you. Otherwise, it's good to see you again.

Unless you're a dick.

Screw you.