Issues with Pokemon Design

I really enjoy the Pokemon games; however, there are certain design decisions that really annoy me. Hence, a list. These are in no particular order.

1. HMs. Now, the basic function of an HM (a reusable move teaching machine) is nice. The problem is their requirement. Navigation of the world requires their use. Yes, you can get away with probably having only a flyer in your party, but if you want full maneuverability, you'll want two Pokemon (2/6 of your party, 8/24 move slots) that know nothing but different HM moves. The biggest problem that I have with them, though, is how terrible most of them are. There are two really good ones, Surf and Waterfall; a couple decent ones, Strength, Rock Climb, and Fly; and a bunch of overall pretty mediocre to bad ones, which are the rest. I really wish there was another method of doing this, as I don't really like hauling HM slaves around with me.

2. The "Full party problem." What I'm referring to here is when you encounter an NPC that wishes to give you a Pokemon, and you have a full party. The Pokemon cannot be sent directly to your PC storage for some inexplicable reason, meaning you have to go and drop off something and then trek all of the way back to retrieve whatever Pokemon the NPC was trying to give to you. This is very irritating, but thankfully, it doesn't come up much.

3. TM availability. Simply put, I want every TM purchasable at some end game point. This goes for Masterballs as well.

4. Too many currencies. The most recent games as of this writing, SoulSilver and HeartGold, have at least six currencies: Pokedollars, coins, Battle Points (BP), Athlete Points (whatever the points you get from the Pokeathlon are called), Heart Scales (sure, you can only buy one thing, but it's still money), and Shards (for buying berries). I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some. Seriously, this is ridiculous. The worst ones are the ones that are annoying or challenging to get, but you need for very, very useful items. BP and coins, I'm looking at you.

5. End game content. Once you beat the Elite Four, there really isn't that much to do. There are a lot of things you CAN do, but the fun part (fighting against trainers with Pokemon that are probably a higher level than you) is pretty much gone. The best solution that I can think of is an area that has randomly generated (or a large pool with a selection process) trainers to battle. They should have Pokemon that are a level or two above the average level of your team. This would be pretty awesome, in my opinion. Heck, this could be tied into the story idea that you are the Champion. Why wouldn't other trainers challenge you? You should be able to take on balanced teams as the Champion. This makes sense, and would be awesome.

6. Bloody scheduling. Seriously, too much in the more recent games is time based. Sure, you can manipulate that fairly easily, but why should you have to? If you don't know what I'm talking about, then look at this page for a particularly good example of how ridiculous this can get. And that is just scratching the surface.

7. Event only Pokemon. I want every Pokemon to be CATCHABLE. I don't want to have to rely on some sort of event to be able to get a Pokemon. See: Mew, Celebi, Darkrai, Shaymin, and others.

8. Wild Pokemon levels. This kind of relates to the end game content thing I was talking about. Simply, I want an area where I can find level 80+ wild Pokemon.

9. Rechallenging trainers should be made easier, with better indications of who is wanting to refight you (such as an exclamation point over his or her head), and better directions as to where the trainer is.

There are a few more things that I would like (such as a console game with all of the areas, real-time 3D-fighting-game style battles, and the ability to play an adult instead of a 10 year old), but these nine things are areas that I would really like to see changed.

A rant about dating sites

Due to the nature of my overall social interactions (minimal), I've been trying some dating sites. There are a couple of recurring themes that I keep seeing, and they're starting to drive me insane. Firstly, though, before I get into my actual rant, I should preface this by saying that, as a Christian, I am looking for others that share in my faith. Unfortunately, this causes problems...

Basically, all of the problems stem from one thing. And it is simply this: The person talks about their relationship with Christ and NOT about themselves. This is a major problem. Congratuations on finding salvation! Really! I'm happy for you! Unfortunately, I don't know WHO you are, because you never bothered to mention that. Some of the ways that this manifests itself involve:

1. Top things the person is thankful for lists. A typical example goes something like this: God/Salvation/Christ, Family, Friends. Well, thanks. That's just about THE SINGLE MOST GENERIC THING YOU COULD HAVE POSSIBLY SAID. It tells me no more about who you are than the general info that you are a Christian.

2. Things the person is passionate about including nothing beyond something to the effect of "my faith." Thanks, that was assumed. I mean, it's good to know, but you ARE a PERSON, right? You do have INTERESTS? List some, then.

3. Other general categories that basically can be summarized up as, "Thanks for letting me know, but I'd generally assume that of Christians."

Seriously, this is a massive annoyance. I mostly assume these things. I don't know if these sorts of responses are a sign of a lack of thought into the actual questions that are being answered or not, but either way, it doesn't matter. The problem is simple. You are describing A Christian in general, and not you. That doesn't help me at all. Please, if you are reading this and you have a profile that reads horrendously generic, change it. Make it about you. Yes, Christ is vitally important, but He alone won't make someone interested in you.

Standard FNM Report

I know this isn't that big of a tournament or anything, but I went 4-0 with a sort of pet Naya deck that I find a lot of fun to play. Also, it doesn't hurt to get some practice at this sort of thing.

So, to start off with, my deck list:

4x Bloodbraid Elf

4x Wooly Thoctar

4x Lightning Bolt

4x Jund Hackblade

4x Tattermunge Maniac

4x Enlisted Wurm

3x Oblivion Ring

2x Cliffrunner Behemoth

2x Blitz Hellion

2x Pyroclasm

2x Volcanic Fallout

1x Hallowed Burial

1x Behemoth Sledge

4x Forest

4x Mountain

3x Plains

4x Jungle Shrine

4x Terramorphic Expanse

3x Rootbound Crag

1x Sunpetal Grove

Sideboard:

3x Hallowed Burial

3x Qasali Pridemage

2x Naya Charm

2x Pyrclasm

2x Ajani Vengeant

1x Behemoth Sledge

1x Oblivion Ring

1x Mage Slayer

This may not be the best deck, but I do find it to be a ton of fun to play. At any rate, matches!

Round 1: White/Blue...something?

This round was kind of a bye, as I was playing against someone who really seemed to mostly play casually with his brothers. He was around 13 years old, give or take a year or two, and had a really baaaaaaaaad white/blue deck. I had to read some of the cards just to know what they did. A Worldpurge was cast. This didn't help him at all.

Overall, it was two fairly quick games. I sort of felt sorry for him, as it was a rather rough introduction to tournament level Magic.

Round 2: Red/Black burn

As a note, when I say burn, I mean it. The only creatures he had maindeck were Hellspark Elemental and Ball Lightning.

Game 1 I pretty much did the "How do you deal with these guys" thing that the deck tends to do. Good times.

Game 2 was more interesting. We basically spent the entire game with me playing creatures and him killing them. This was imperative, as I had a Behemoth Sledge on turn 4 or so, making all of my subsequent creatures massive threats to his game plan. I eventually won the game, but it was somewhat grueling. I had to side out a bunch of my creature removal because he didn't have any (Pyroclasms, O-Rings, and the Burial) for Ajanis, Pridemages (because they're dudes), and the second Sledge. Overall, though, it was a pretty interesting game.

Round 3: Bant Aggro

This match was against probably one of the better decks there, as a lot of our strongest players were not there (a number of them had headed off to a PTQ). The deck has overall strong cards, like Rhox Warmonk, Rafiq of the Many, Birds of Paradise, Noble Heirarchs, and the like.

Game 1 saw him mulligan down to six cards, and get stuck on two lands for the entire game. I got horribly mana flooded, and really only drew Maniacs. Which he Path to Exiled. The game eventually ended, but it was a really boring one.

Game 2 was much more exciting, with him having a very powerful draw. I scooped this game, as there wasn't any point in continuing when all I could really do was chump his Warmonk being backed by Rafiq. I had sided out a couple of cards for more Pyroclasms, but this didn't really help.

Game 3 had me go aggro crazy, and quickly beat him down. He still had some scary stuff, but it wasn't nearly as good as the previous game. I also boarded out the Maniacs for Hallowed Burials, as I wanted a way to deal with his large creatures, as well as the Dauntless Escorts he ran. They never really showed up, but they also weren't relevant.

Match 4: Mono Green, mostly M10 stuff.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how this guy was also 3-0 at this point, but then again, as I said, many of our stronger players weren't there tonight.

Game 1 my deck decided I shouldn't be able to play anything but two Lightning Bolts, as I drew a grand total of three mountains and a plains. He crushed me with Howl of the Nightpack.

Game 2 and 3 were pretty much identical, with me going "Hey, look! Big creatures! Deal with this!" And he couldn't. So yea, that was pretty much that. Not terribly exciting.

Overall, good times. Winning was pretty awesome, though I realized that overall, I had pretty good matchups. This deck is just strong against random stuff, and is going to beat many slightly weaker aggro decks. Wooly Thoctar is just flat out a massive creature, and requires immediate attention. I also didn't play against any control decks, so things overall went well for me. I have no doubt that I would have probably done worse had some of our stronger players been there, but it was nice to win one.

How I started playing Magic: the Gathering

I want to go over how I started playing Magic: the Gathering, in part for reference, but also to give some background.

I started playing Magic shortly after the release of Lorwyn. (Funny fact: A friend decided he was going to build a faeries deck, even if it wasn't any good. Turns out it was...) I quickly became quite addicted to the game, and over the course of the following year I bought a decent number of boosters from a local game shop. I was fortunate in that they had a very expansive selection, ranging back to at least Mirrodin block. One of my favorite blocks to get boosters from was, interestingly enough, Time Spiral. It, along with Ravnica, are probably my two most favorite blocks as of this post.

However, first getting Magic cards wasn't my introduction to Magic. During my freshman year of college, I frequently would watch Magic games that were being played in my school's cafeteria. This was how I actually learned how to play the game; by watching others play it. It wasn't until the following year that I actually started playing myself.

I mostly played casual during the first year or so of playing. The first prerelease I went to was for Eventide, and I've been to each prerelease since. I started going to draft FNMs shortly after the release of Shards of Alara, and a while after that I started to play in Standard ones as well.

As things stand now, I'm very grateful to have discovered Magic. I find it to be very enjoyable, and I've had a lot of fun and discovered many friends thanks to it.

Why terrible cards should exist

So, I was at the Seattle M10 prerelease this past Saturday, and decided to ask Mr. Nagle why Jump was in M10 instead of Leap, seeing as Leap is strictly better and all. So, he directed me to Mr. Forsythe, who was nearby. And Mr. Forsythe gave me an answer that got me thinking. To summerize, he said that it was Jump because M10 was about the simplest execution, and he doesn't really like cantrips for new players.

And this got me thinking. More experienced players tend to gloss over cantrips as regards flavor. To them, the phrase "Draw a card" doesn't really "exist" in flavor terms. But think about it in regards to new players. The action of drawing a card more or less coorelates to remember or learning something. How then, is making my creature "jump" into the air allowing me to remember something? It doesn't really make sense, if you think about it. This innoculous little phrase actually has a great deal of flavor meaning that we just slide aside because we know it doesn't actually matter. But why would a new player know that?

Another thing that I realized is that R&D has to have a purpose for each card. One of those purposes, and one that was very important to them in M10, is showing off what the colors can do. So, imagine you are them, and you want to reprint a cheap blue card that gives a creature flying, the purpose being to demonstrate that blue can do this sort of thing. Off the top of my head, I can think of four choices that cost one blue to cast:

1. Jump

2. Leap

3. Flight

4. Shimmering Wings

Out of these, Jump is clearly the simplest. All of the others have more text, more rules about them. Leap draws you a card, both Flight and Shimmering Wings are enchantments, not to mention that Shimmering Wings has even more text on it with its bounce ability. Therefore, Jump is the simplest execution of this concept. And lets be honest, would any of the veteran players really be happy about any of these choices? Probably not. They'd rather it be something like Rune Snag, or Brainstorm, etc.

This leads me to my main point. We all know R&D creates cards for the archetypes (Johnny, Timmy, Spike, Vorthos, and Melvin), but my brief conversation with Mr. Forscythe allowed me to realize something else. They also create cards for different skill levels. And lets be honest, this is a good thing. Terrible cards should exist for these reasons:

1. They often show off something about the color, allowing newer players to get an understanding of what sorts of things each color does.

2. They can often be popular cards with new players, who like them for the simplicity, or for the flavor, or other reasons, but don't understand their downsides. Jump as the example here, they can grasp the idea easily, and don't understand the concept of card advantage. Also, new players tend to latch onto certain terrible cards because they helped them win in a losing situation, leading them to continuing to like the card.

3. Terrible cards allow old players to teach new players. Because new players have a tendency to gravitate towards these cards, it gives an excellent opportunity to teach them why those cards are bad, and in turn, make them better at the game.

To conclude this, here are some final thoughts:

1. R&D is not dumb. They know what cards are terrible. But, they continue to make them because they are a good learning tool, and because they make cards for different skill levels. Afterall, if your old players aren't going to like what card you print regardless of what it is because of what you want to do with that slot, then you might as well cater to the new players.

2. Terrible cards are terrible, yes, but they serve a great purpose. They help draw new players into the game. They are often simple, allowing the flavor of the colors to show. And they serve as an excellent teaching tool.

3. Just remember what Mark Rosewater has said. If you don't like a card, it isn't for you. I think this applies to skill level as much as archetypes.

Overall, that short conversation made me realize much more about how R&D works, and I thank Mr. Forsythe for opening my eyes in regards this topic.

Introduction

Well, here we go. I was thinking about making a blog for a while, so here it is. I decided to call this thing Feararants as a reference to something that a friend calls some of my complaints, that is, rants, about various things to him. The name comes from a nickname he and a former roommate decided to grace me with, the nickname being Fearoth. This comes from a Dreadlord hero name in Warcraft III. We were foolishly playing a normal game, and I got that hero, commented on the lameness of the name, and they decided to give it to me.

At any rate, I'm a programmer, gamer, and Magic: the Gathering fan, so those sorts of topics will probably be the main ones that I'll write about.

Maybe I'll come up with a closing catchphrase.