(Editor’s Note: I cast Black Lotus. I cast Elesh Norn.)

When’s the last time that you heard any of those previous statements in your game of Magic? If you are Mr. Joe Average Casual like me, then answer is “Never.” Until last night when I saw several Black Lotus plays and all three cards in at least one game. Intrigued? Let me explain.

The night started like any other. I watched Guardsmannbob, one of my favorite streamers until about 9:00 when he signed off for the night. There were no other enjoyable Hearthstone players, so I clicked on the only Magic stream that I currently follow. He, too, was in the process of signing off. As he did, though he mentioned the official Magic stream and something called the Vintage Super League.

With nothing else to watch because I was too lazy to move to the living room to watch Netflix, I followed his recommendation. Sure, I could have watched Netflix on my laptop, but I’m spoiled and only want to watch on the television. I know very little about Magic’s pro scene or the various formats, so I had no idea what to expect. Surprisingly, I recognized a couple of names of the players. That was the last recognizable thing on the stream. I saw decks that I never considered possible. They played cards and combos that existed only in my dreams until that point. Kai Budde, one of the names I knew got beat two in a row in very convincing fashion. The first match that I watched ended one game on turn 2 and the other on turn 3.

After that match, I got so excited that I went to Facebook to tell Chris about my discovery. He knew more about vintage than me. He asked about legality of cards and that sent me on a search. I learned that while there is a ban and restricted list, basically the whole of the history of Magic is available to the players to build a deck. That got me even more excited about the prospects of the stream. Suddenly, I started paying attention to the games instead of just having it on as background noise. Holy cow, did he just play a Black Lotus. What is that card in his hand? Emrakul? This is awesome.

Two players played a deck called Omnitell and the announcers kept talking about something called “Shops”. Shops did not interest me much, but I went on a search to find the Omnitell list and some strategy. I will most likely never be able to play the deck, but the blue control aspect spoke to me on a deep level. Then, I saw the full deck and it is right in my wheelhouse. The core deck has only one creature (the aforementioned Emrakul) and plenty of spells to make life miserable for the opponent.

I actually had a brainstorm while in the shower earlier (why is it always in the shower) that there might be a way that I’d get to play all of these cool vintage decks without having to drop tens of thousands of dollars on cardboard. I’m not entirely sure that it is exactly legal, but when has that ever stopped me? Because of the questionable legality, I’m not exactly going to advertise this method. However, I will verify that it worked and I put together an initial list that I found for the Omnitell deck. So far, I have only been able to test it against itself, but I hope to find some other decks to put together those lists and play around with them, too.

The stream had the added effect of renewing my interest in the game. I had been a bit lukewarm about magic since the release of Fate Reforged. I just wasn’t too impressed with a Fat Pack purchase that I made and put the cards away for a while. Watching this stream made me excited again about the prospects of Magic and I can’t wait to try some of the deck ideas that I’ve been considering. So, I say thanks to the Vintage Super League for my renewed interest and dedication to Magic and look forward to the next episode on Tuesday.

(Editor’s Note: Do I really want to pay 15 bucks a month to play Pokemon?)

I have played World of Warcraft since just after the release of the Burning Crusade expansion. My journey began, as I suspect many did, with a free trial account. I started a Night elf druid for potential role playing possibilities. As I read the introduction paragraphs to each class and race, the druid’s connection to nature spoke to me. Having no previous connection to Warcraft, I chose Night Elf because I saw the races of the Horde as evil and I wanted to fight on the side of good. I’m not opposed to evil characters and I even admire many of them from books, TV shows, and movies. I just enjoy games more when I am the hero. I suspect that many others are like me because there are so few games that feature a villain or even an anti-hero as the main playable character. Fewer still become major successes.

I enjoyed WoW greatly and became immersed in the expansive story that felt so much larger than my character, a helpful community that mostly treated noobs like me with respect and a world that was just as massive as the storyline and really pretty in spite of the cartoonish graphics. I remember walking up to the gates of Ironforge for the first time and being awed by them. It was like the AD&D stories of my youth were coming to life on my computer screen. Keep in mind that I had not even experienced dungeons or raids yet. I just wandered the countryside with my PvP flag on (I know this because I unwittingly became bait to catch a stealthed rogue causing havoc in Astranaar) happily completing quests and reading lore to fill in the huge gaps from never having played any of the games.

The community was not a small consideration. There are several reasons that I have not played League of Legends. Gameplay, which I wasn’t sure about, certainly wasn’t one of them. I have since started to play Heroes of the Storm and I rather like the concept of those games. Primary among the reasons is that the only legendary part of the game is the toxicity of the community. I experienced this first hand. In three games (my entire LoL career), I played with exactly one helpful person out of twelve teammates. More than half of them (7 or 8) insulted, bickered, flexed internet muscle, and lamented that none of them were LoL pros because of all the noobs holding them back.

World of Warcraft never felt like that. Sure, there were unhelpful (and downright rude) people in the game, but those willing to answer even the most basic question outnumbered them at least two to one. I vividly remember stumbling upon a hunter during my early days of adventuring. The poor soul was being ravaged by a wild beast and completely unable to defend himself. I did what any honorable hero would. I killed that dirty animal and saved his life…or so I thought. He whispered to me “What the hell?” before explaining that he was trying to tame it as a pet. I apologized and we both had a good laugh about it.

I have run the gamut of noob to semi-obsessed raider before settling on my usual role of filthy casual. My original character, the druid, is still active. He has gone through a name change, several server moves, and a brief consideration of a faction change to be able to play with a friend. Instead, I created a new character (a shaman) who has become a second main. That character is now in the guild that was started by Scott Johnson, the host of The Instance. My account was compromised once and all of my gear got sold or disenchanted. I know that it is often a joke, even among gamers, that WoW is for no-lifers, but I really have experienced so much in game that it sometimes feels like a second life.

After taking another break for a couple of months, the Warlords of Draenor hype got me. I heard about the game getting a graphics update on character models, getting to go back to Outland (sort of) to meet many of the legends of the game, and an overhaul on the game that some were calling WoW 2.0. Once classes let out for winter break, I came back to the game. I enjoyed it for about a month as I leveled to 100 and chased after a core hound mount that I honestly had no chance of obtaining. Ever since, though, I have been in one of my WoW funks and I generally only log into the game to immediately log back out This is the earliest into an expansion that I have felt this way.

I even said to my wife, “I might finally be done with World of Warcraft.” That is a loaded statement because you aren’t ever truly done. Another expansion will get me interested again and I might repeat the process, but what if it is just another month or so and then I’m putting it back on the shelf. I can’t keep justifying the cost for so little entertainment value. There’s nothing wrong with moving on. People and circumstances change and it might just be time. I’d be lying if it didn’t make me sad. I have a history with this game that goes back almost a decade. Even if it is “only a game”, that’s not an ending that you take lightly.

So, you could say that quite a bit is depending on Patch 6.1 of the game. The main problem is that I don’t actually know what I want from the game. In the past, I have fallen back on other pursuits. Most recently, I really started to enjoy pet battling. For some reason, not that has me excited and I haven’t collected a single pet from Draenor other than two crafted Engineering pets. I have also traditionally leveled alts to keep busy, but the story this time wasn’t interesting enough to do again and there aren’t enough dungeons to keep me entertained through another 10 levels.

So, let’s see if 6.1 has anything to entice someone like me to keep playing. Some “no news” is that flying isn’t still prohibited in Draenor. I, personally, don’t mind that flying has been disallowed and flying isn’t something that would make the game any more enjoyable for me. A new raid is being released to some fanfare, but I’m not even geared enough for the current tier of raid content. No, not even LFR. Maybe if I stick around, I will get around to it at the end of the expansion like I did in Pandaria. Raiding just isn’t my thing anymore.

Initially in the expansion, I kept busy with garrisons, but I’ve maxed all that I wanted there. Is there anything new for garrisons on the horizon? Actually, yes. First, and maybe not overwhelming, is customizable music in your garrison. I may not be an obsessive raider anymore, but I do like collecting things in the game and this gives me one more thing to collect. It probably won’t be my first priority, but I will get around to doing it eventually. Actually, now that I read that, I realize that I haven’t even opened my pet building in the garrison.

I once dreamed of being Azeroth’s greatest Pokemon (er, battle pet) trainer. Maybe it is time to put on the old Safari Hat and tackle the tiny beasts of Draenor, especially those bastards that have infiltrated my garrison. After that, I think that I will level my skinning toon to make some gear that might get my shaman closer to LFR ready. So, there are some things that I can do in game. None of them are directly related to the new patch.

This is the first patch of Warlords, so you can’t expect the best content. Still, it is quite underwhelming. The only “new” stuff is for raiders with a few added features for the filthy casual collectors like me. If you left the game before Warlords released, come back to experience some cool new stuff. If Warlords wasn’t quite what you hoped, patch 6.1 doesn’t add enough new to make it worth returning. Maybe the next patch will have more. Otherwise, I might drop out for a break the earliest into an expansion since Cataclysm.

(Editor’s Note: In keeping with 2 Guys Gaming’s attempt at catching up from our insane holiday schedule, I am going to offer a cursory review of the new Hearthstone expansion Goblins vs. Gnomes.)

TLDR: No.

I have talked on the podcast and written here on the website about Blizzard’s digital CCG Hearthstone. Most of the discussion has been mixed and bordered on negative. When the game first came out, I endorsed it to Chris and a few other friends because it was an online card game and initially, it is a fun game. However, like many Blizzard games, sometimes it became more about the treadmill of trying to do daily quests. These games came against increasingly stronger decks built by people who most likely spent a lot of money building their collection. The game just wasn’t fun anymore and I uninstalled the game for about a couple of weeks before the announcement of the first “adventure”.

The concept of an adventure is an interesting concept that is completely unique to the digital card game genre. There’s no way that a table top card game could do what Hearthstone did with Naxxramas. As an added bonus, Blizzard implemented it well and the new cards changed the way that the game was being played with only a handful of new cards. Because of the limited card pool, that change felt brief and temporary and honestly not that much of a change. Hunters and warlocks ran wild and now they has seemingly more tools to dominate. The game returned to the simplistic feel of being a card game version of rock paper scissors and I stopped playing it again after only a month. Honestly, I just didn’t find the game all that fun.

For me, the lifeblood of any card game is the expansions. They bring new cards, new decks, new mechanics, and the promise that the game will provide fun and enjoyment for that much longer. It isn’t surprising then that I started to pay attention again after the announcement of the first full expansion set for the game, Goblins v. Gnomes. The first cards out from the set focused mainly around random effects, making it seem like Blizzard was sticking to their guns on the subject of “RNG as skill”. However, they quickly assured people that was not the case and they only used those cards as the teaser because of the fun effects that would get people talking about the game.

The expansion is focused heavily around random effects that used to bother me. Chris tried to jury rig a physical version of the game because he was less into the digital content of the game, but the effects of the cards is too wonky to play physically. Blizzard actually mentioned this in one of their interviews. They prefer the way Hearthstone is designed because it makes it different from its non-digital contemporaries and therefore it can stand out in a genre that has seen competitor after competitor fall to the might of Magic: the Gathering. However, as I play the game more and start to figure out some of the strategy, I realize that RNG can be annoying when you are counting on RNG to win you a game. It becomes less annoying (and not even RNG) when you use it to your advantage by eliminating the RNG as much as you can. An example is Flame Cannon. If you hold on to that card until there are 5 minions on the board, some of them with 5 health, and you don’t have any choice, you’re going to have a bad day. If, however, you use it on a single minion board and have a follow up in case of more health, then the card is very strong as removal.

So, an expansion that likes to tout the fact that “most of the things fail…or explode” and should have annoyed me to no end has actually had the opposite effect. The relatively few cards released during Naxxramas were enough to shake up the game in a way that some decks that were very strong are no longer being played while some new strategies have emerged. GvG has brought even more new strategies to Hearthstone, chief among them one that I have enjoyed since putting together my zombie deck a couple of years ago. That’s right, mill decks are now a thing (and somewhat viable) in Hearthstone. The game is fun again and I’m actually venturing back into the Arena thanks to the free run that Blizzard gave away at the release. “The first one’s free, Kid.”

That’s not to say that everything is roses. Warlocks and Hunters still rule in constructed and Mages, and now Paladins, still seem very overpowered in Arena. You will get sick of seeing the same decks over and over again. I know that I do. But use it to your advantage. Once you know a deck, you know it and can plan accordingly.

I still would not recommend the game to new “free to players” necessarily because it is very difficult to catch up without paying real money. If you can stand grinding a bit, though, you can get all of the basic cards and there are some good strategy guides for all basic decks. You may not win more than 20-25% of your games, but that will still be enough to finish your daily quests in a somewhat timely fashion. Use the gold to play the Arena (and most likely get destroyed, but again there are good guides to get started), get your pack (and hopefully some gold return), and start building your collection to take on your foes. If you have no qualms about putting aside some of your gaming budget to buy cards or Arena runs in the game, then I would definitely recommend getting in now. The game can be a ton of fun and it seems like Blizzard is really starting to figure out what they want to do and how to do it.

Pros: Makes the game fun with the effects and new cards. Adds some variety to the number of decks that are viable (even if they aren’t being played).

Cons: Warlock and Hunter just synergize so well with their hero power and class cards that they continue to dominate the games that you will play.

The Last Words: I can say that Hearthstone is definitely finally worth recommending that people check out. It can be a grind for players not looking to spend any money, but if you’re willing to put in that grind, it will pay off in the end.