Gaming: Pokemon Sun & Moon Starter Evolutions & Hearthstone Nerf Hammer

New Pokemon trailer, and Hearthstone's got an unexpected big balance patch like yesterday. So I guess I'll take a break from talking about Luke Cage and Teen Titans.

Not Fire/Fighting

Anyway, Pokemon first. The newest trailer reveals the first stage evolutions of the starters! And I'm kind of glad that the 'leaked' sketches from the Chinese website or whatever don't seem to be accurate, not unless they turn Torracat from, well, a big fire cat to the weird, ugly-ass Fire-Fighting design that got 'leaked' all over the internet. I mean, we still have to wait until the final evolutions are revealed, but still. As far as the leaks go, I think Dartrix and Brionne can turn to their 'leaked' forms quite plausibly -- and I truly hope if the leaks are accurate, the actual official artwork and sprites are better. But If Torracat turns into some weird flat-looking bipedal cat he might just be my least favourite starter evolution.

Rowlet evolves into Dartrix, who looks dapper as all hell, with this funky green fringe, and is kind of the definition of being like a sir. It's kind of snobby looking, but in a weird, gentlemanly look which is slightly different than the Snivy line. I definitely like Dartrix! And I generally don't say that about middle evolutions. Last generation kind of had very awkward and weird-looking ones in Braixen and especially Quilladin.

Litten turns into Torracat, who's this pretty cool-looking cat that looks like it can claw your eyes out. It's got this fire gem thing on its neck. It's like a big, grown-up Litten, which is cool. Definitely not Fire/Fighting... I really hope he stays an actual cat and doesn't randomly turn into a bipedal thing. Cats aren't my favourite animals in the world, but Torracat is a cool cat. Popplio turns into Brionne, who's... the most disappointing one. His clown neck-piece turns into a dress, and his ears end up having double bubble earrings thing. I hope Brionne is an awkward middle stage and the final evolution ends up being something really, really cool and graceful.

There's also Ash-Greninja, who's the special Pokemon you get if you download and play through the Sun & Moon demo, coming out in two weeks. It's a special Greninja with a new ability, when it knocks out an enemy it goes through a very cool animation to turn into -sigh- Ash-Greninja. Couldn't they have at least given it a cooler, less referential name? Like Battle Mode Greninja, or Bond Greninja or something like that? I take more issue with the name than anything, really.

Some extra new areas like, oh, a place where you can play minigames (GROAN) to get EV points (that's cool, actually, so long as I don't have to shoot balloons at holographic Aerodactyls), some random quests from other players, this Pokepelago that allows your box Pokemon to hang out in an island to get new items and attract wild Pokemon. Cool shit, I'm sure, but I just hope Sun and Moon isn't oversaturated with minigames and extra-features.

Oh, and Mega Evolution is still around, thank god. Mega Pokemon, as much as I might rant about some of them, are easily something that's a major part of the sixth generation, and they are definitely as much new Pokemon as actual newly introduced Pokemon, and nerf them or whatever, I don't care, add in a Rayquazanite, but don't cut them out of the game entirely. We only get to see older Mega Evolutions and honestly I don't see them introducing a lot of new ones, not with so many new stuff introduced in Sun and Moon.

The Legendary distribution is reaching a fever pitch, and I'm so glad to be finally owning some of these ever-elusive event Pokemon. It's still some time until I complete my Pokedex, but so far I've gotten a Victini, a Shaymin, a Keldeo and a Darkrai, and this week you can get a Hoopa with a serial code. I kind of missed some, sadly, like Genesect (who I really want!) because I can't actually go to a Gamestop, not living in a country with Gamestop, but that's fine. I'm happy with what I got. I mean, Darkrai is one of my all-time favourites, and I've grown to kind of like Victini. (Fuck Keldeo, though. He'll warm my box forever, and when I get Meloetta she'll get stuck there too).

Hearthstone now! Bunch of minor stuff like new tavern brawls, plus a new hero skin, Tyrande Whisperwind, through a Twitch event thing which I also cannot get because of my non-American IP. Bit of a shame because I really don't care for Anduin while Tyrande is a character dear to my heart thanks to Warcraft III. But no big loss, it's not like Priest is any good right now.

But there has been a big talk about how Hearthstone has some huge needs for nerfing certain cards, one of which is one of my favourite cards, Yogg-Saron, because of it being so unpredictable, so able to cause one-turn-victories without being too interactive, and while I just don't understand why they couldn't just ban Yogg-Saron in official tournaments, or have him just cast your own Class spells, or have Overload effects take place, or something like that, but I guess it's a needed change. So now Yogg-Saron stops casting spells when it dies, gets transformed, or gets returned to your hand. It also adds Overload when it casts Shaman spells with them... but still doesn't trigger Combo or Flamewakers? Jeez, make up your mind, Blizzard! I'm of the minority here in which I feel sad for this very fun card, but I understand why they did this considering the sheer amount of vitriol that the competitive scene and Youtube people are doing.

They're also balancing a bunch of Classic/Basic cards, too, plus a couple of newer cards... which is surprising considering their huge stance of 'No, Basic and Classic stay the same forever' after the old Standard-Intro nerf, which is a cool, brave move because, well, to be honest, if the Classic and Basic set will stay forever, they cannot be too good and you can't really restrict card design space. And some of them honestly should've been nerfed way back during the Standard-Intro nerf. I still thin a couple of other cards could've been given extra nerfs, too... Doomhammer, Power Overwhelming and Brawl both could've gotten an extra mana cost and still be playable, I think. But unlike the older nerfs that absolutely kill a card's viability, these nerfs still make the card playable, just less consistently good. And that's fine.

• Rockbiter Weapon: Cost increase from 1 to 2. See, Shamans are one of the best classes right now, and a good part of it is its insanely strong opening. Forget Flamewreathed Faceless, the insanely-costed 4-mana 7/7. Forget Doomhammer, or Bloodlust, or Thing from Below. No, the true horror of Shaman is its array of cheap one-mana and two-mana spells that just seal the game from such an early point in the game -- Tunnel Trogg, Spirit Claws, Totem Golem, Stormcrack, Lightning Bolt, Maelstrom Portal -- and most oppressive among them is Rockbiter Weapon. It's a 3-damage removal that you can use to kill basically anything in the early game, but it allows comboes with Doomhammer and Al'Akir and anything with Windfury in the late game, often acting as the finisher. And it's kind of stupid that you can do 20 damage with a mere 7 mana if you double Rockbiter a Doomhammer. And whereas normally a three-damage thing requires two mana (Frostbolt, Darkbomb, Lightning Bolt's here too thanks to Overload, Bash adds an extra armor effect for extra mana) Rockbiter Weapon is just so versatile, too much so that I'm glad it's a bit harder for Shamans to use Rockbiter Weapon as a cheap combo piece or as a cheap early-game removal.
• Tuskarr Totemic: Instead of being able to summon any of the random totem pool, Tuskarr Totemic only summons basic totems. Which is a fine nerf, I guess... would've been a better decision to nerf his stats (a 2/1 or a 2/2 would've been fine I think?) because I still think it's cool to drop Tuskarr Totemic and summon one of the cooler totems (Totem Golem, in particular) but I guess it is too big of a RNG-dependent tempo swing. Not one that I particularly begrudge, because, again, holy shit Shaman already has such a good opening that even nerfing Tuskarr Totemic won't really hurt it that much, I don't think. It also allows for some Wild balance, because now they don't really have to consider Tuskarr Totemic when designing totems anymore. Plus it makes him a bit more consistent.
• Execute: It's changed to two mana. YES. Execute is one of the most stupidly cheap and efficient removals. Just damage any of your enemy minion and boom one mana. Compare that to Big Game Hunter (even the old one), or Polymorph, or Assassinate, or Hex, or honestly any other type of single-target removal. Execute is just so darn cheap, and considering the sheer amount of Whirlwind-esque effects that Warrior has, Execute is way too cheap. But changing it to a mere 2 instead of, say, 3, ends up still making it very viable and honestly not that much different to Control Warriors, but it forces more aggressive lists like Pirate or Dragon to search for other types of removal. Which is great, because I've grown to hate Execute.
• Charge: FUCK YOU, WORGEN WARRIOR! I mean, the deck is fun, but it is very annoying to play a control deck and be unable to do anything when faced with Worgen Warrior decks and hope you have enough Taunts to stall the game. There's no real counter to the deck now that Loatheb's out of the meta, and I hate the archetype. Charge gets changed, but unlike Warsong Commander it's not absolutely destroyed. It's not going to be oppressive and threaten damage to the face immediately, but uses the same logic as Fool's Bane and only allow the minion to charge another minion... for the first turn, thus giving the enemy time to react. Very cool. Time to bust out Enrage minions and Magnataur Alphas and shit. I mean, in a perfect world they would nerf Freeze Mage too... raise the cost of Frost Nova or Doomsayer, maybe? Decrease the damage from Ice Lance? Oh well, there'll be future patches, I guess.
• Abusive Sergeant: Mr. Maggot himself joins Leper Gnome in being nerfed! It's about time, and I'm surprised Abusive Sergeant didn't suffer a nerf when Leper Gnome got one. Yeah, Abusive Sergeant's burst damage is still around, but now he's not the best body to drop for one mana either... which isn't why you play Abusive Sergeant but used to be a very, very welcome bonus because he trades up to all those 3/2's. Now Abusive Sergeant is decent and I'm sure Zoo lists will still use him, but maybe not so much as before now.
• Call of the Wild: Changed from 8 mana to 9 mana... which is how the card really should have been. Three Animal Companions (which cost 3) in a single card, which makes it more convenient... but it's cheaper? Honestly people thought this was going to be 9 or 10 mana when the artwork was released, but at 8 mana it's just way too good, and all Hunter decks are all variants of 'wait until Call of the Wild, then win', you just vary the opening gimmick on whether you like Secrets or Beasts or Aggro. It's a welcome change that still makes Call of the Wild still as deadly as ever, it just comes in a bit later in the game to allow you to deal with Savannah Highmanes and for Call of the Wild to be less bursty. 

That's all for gaming stuff now, see you guys around.