Gaming Talk: Hearthstone's New Expansion, Pokemon Distributions

I haven't talked about gaming in a while other than the Pokemon of the Week articles, and even then that's been hit with a bit of a hiatus until very recently. Well, it's just that I haven't actually been playing a lot of games recently, with most of my spare time spent on watching TV or writing about them. I still have yet to complete Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes, and any spare time has had me running around Alola in Pokemon Sun trying to complete my Pokedex. Well, at least to catch the new Pokemon, anyway -- I completed the Pokedex in Generation VI, and I'm in no hurry to catch those 700+ Pokemon all over again. I mean, catching them all over several games is still catching them all, no?

Weapon X.

Anyway, across 2016 there's been a couple of distributions of the Mythical Pokemon (I guess that's the proper term for event legendaries, eh?) and while I kicked myself for missing Manaphy (no big loss, TBH) and motherfucking Mew, I did get to obtain a fair amount of Pokemon that I've never owned before. Shaymin! Victini! Meloetta! Keldeo! Darkrai! Hoopa! Arceus! Honestly, this puts the amount of Mythical Pokemon that I don't have chilling in a box in my copies of Y and Alpha Sapphire as the minority... and, well, apparently they released Genesect again this month. Holy shit! I was absolutely bitching that one of my favourite event-exclusive Pokemon was actually distributed with a location code, and man, I am so happy they decided to finally just give me Genesect. After missing on that location code, and after getting a legit copy of Pokemon White 2 a couple of years ago only to find the code for the Generation V distribution has expired... man, it's cathartic to finally have Genesect just chilling in my party. Didn't I do a Pokemon of the Week article on Genesect a while back? I think I did, and I bitched about my not owning Genesect. Well, consider that particular bitching... un-bitched.

I also used the QR scanner to scan the code for Magearna, which honestly is a bit anticlimactic. It's just a QR code scan, and Magearna is just given to me from an antique salesman. I really hoped that there's a mini-mission or something, a shout-out to her backstory from the (admittedly rather m'eh) movie, but nah. It's just the antiques man from Hau'oli Mall of all places shoving Magearna to me before disappearing. Considering that Magearna's basically a Pokemon that everyone will get if they buy a legitimate copy of Sun and Moon, it's a bit of a downer that they didn't actually put any effort to giving her a story. Remember when event Pokemon in Generation IV and V all had small short missions when you get (or hack in) the exclusive items?

Oh well. Magearna is... eh. I'm not the biggest fan of her design and truth be told I think I like her distant cousin Diancie a lot better. Magearna at a brief glance looks to be the more useful one typing, stat and movepool wise, though honestly I don't particularly care all that much for competitiveness.

Oh, and I finally completed that long-ass Eeveelution Trainer questline. It's... extremely sobering how depressing some of the dialogue are, talking about the shittiness of old age and how some people embrace it and some people refuse to let go of their youth and whatnot. Very much not what I was expecting to see in Pokemon.

Rawr.

What else? There's Hearthstone, I suppose. A voice actor's website updated her data by listing her as voicing a couple of characters in 'Hearthstone: Lost Secrets of Un'Goro', which seems to be the title of the next expansion. We're going to the Jungles of Un'Goro, then, which is an area in World of Warcraft that is a homage to novels like Jurassic Park or Journey to the Center of the Earth, this location in Azeroth that's just inhabited by dinosaurs and notably the home of the Classic set's Hunter Legendary, King Krush. Dinosaurs are cool! Shame that they'll all just be rolled into the 'Beast' tag. Retconning King Krush and the other dinosaurs (there's few enough -- like, Bloodfen Raptor and Mounted Raptor are the only ones I can think of, assuming the dino-skeletons from League of Explorers don't count) into being Dinosaur or something along those lines would be absolutely amazing and I would totally love it. None of the Mechs had that tag before Goblins vs Gnomes came along, so it wouldn't be without precedent, and we're definitely way overdue for a new tribe. It's just rumours and hearsay, though, so we'll see.

What else can we expect in Un'Goro? I don't play a lot of World of Warcraft, but I watch people play WoW and I'm very interested in the lore of the setting, so I know that there are these Titan pillars that seem to keep the whole Savage Land thing going on for it, and it's implied that Un'Goro is a past Titan influenced site. It's also got a notable Silithid/Qiraji presence, where the mysterious pillars surrounding the crater repelled the Silithid invasion ages ago, causing them to go out of their way to go around it (the desert of Silithus, where the large Silithid-Qiraji settlement of Ahn'Qiraj and the resting place of one C'Thun, directly borders Un'Goro Crater). There is a Silithid nest where a pillar has fallen, so I think we can expect to see more Silithid and Qiraji in the set. I highly doubt that they'll actually interact with C'Thun, though, considering the game developers' stance on not adding any more C'Thun cards out of the Old Gods expansion, nor do I actually want them to. There's also a large amount of elementals near the volcano at the center of the Crater, so, yeah, Shamans might get a couple of new minions from there. There's also a fair amount of gorillas in the crater, so more beasts? Maaaaybe Beast Druid will finally be a thing?

Hopefully it won't be all dinosaurs, and some of the Titans, Silithid and random explorers will also make it into the game as well. The fact that Un'Goro is actually bordering on the region of Silithus, where the town of Gadgetzan is located... is actually very, very interesting. Are we going to get a continuation of the story? Maybe what the Jade Lotus or the Kabal are planning actually will tie in to the Un'Goro secrets? If so we'll have an unprecedented story/theme connection between two expansions, which would be absolutely awesome.

There's a lot of talk with the game makers being more open and answering lots of questions in Reddit, the official Blizzard forums and other media outlets, talking about balance and future balancing acts and stats and card design, and especially the pretty sorry state that Arena has been in for a while. I'm not going to go through all of it here because, well, the articles (collected helpfully in the news section in Hearthpwn.com if you wanna read all of what Brode and his buddies talk about) mostly speak for themselves. I mostly agree, other than the fact that, well, the obvious solution is to nerf Small-Time Buccaneer, isn't it? Either his health or attack bonus. Make him a 2/2 or 3/1 if you equip a weapon, not 3/2. Though honestly, I've actually seen a lot staler metas than the Gadgetzan-era meta.... it's certainly a vast improvement over the Shaman reign during the late Old-Gods and Karazhan era. I mean, it's boring because all the openings are mostly the same, but at least it's not just one class dominating everything. Granted, I'm also guilty of abusing the Patches/Small-Time Buccaneer opening in my Shaman, Warrior and Rogue decks, but man, it's effective. I still have the most fun playing things like Priest, Rogue and my poor attempts to make Krul Warlock work, though... the Patches package is hilariously efficient, but it's not particularly fun. So yeah, a nerf definitely seems to be in order.

What else? I probably need to craft a new legendary or two to try and explore some newer decks. Who knows, maybe I'll finally be able to complete a proper Control Warrior deck with all the expensive legendaries that I need to make it work. I recently cracked open enough cards to make Dragon Warrior viable, and I love it, finally having some fun with the class that I neglected the most over the course of the game.

Though we definitely need a nerf to kickstart the meta... Gadgetzan has so much fun elements in it that's just overshadowed by the overdominance of Pirates, and it's just sad.