Saturday, July 27, 2013

NERDCULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKÉMON OF THE WEEK! JULY 27- AUGUST 2/13!

#347 ANORITH & #348 ARMALDO

This was a challenge to make because, much to my dismay, art containing these plated shrimp Rock/Bug Pokémon were as rare as their fossils are in the games. I chose Anorith and Armaldo during my first play-through of Ruby, due to their nifty design and typing, but was dismayed to find the internet lacking in fanart. What's wrong with you, internet? You getting weak?

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/27/13!

stupid sexy [stoop-id-sehx-ee]
adjective
1. Originally a Simpsons reference upon Homer thinking of Flanders (WATCH HERE), wearing nothing but a ski-suit and showing off his sixty year old but somehow impressive physique, when he was trying to think of a way to stop himself from crashing on his skis, it refers to something that is distracting you with it's sensuality.
2. A reference to something that is attractive but incredibly dumb.

Friday, July 26, 2013

TABLETOP TALES: MY M14 PRE-RELEASE "RAMPED UP BANT FLYERS!"

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS
MY M14 PRE-RELEASE

To check out my other decks, hit the link below:


This article serves two purposes: To share the nerd entertainment around with anyone who might find it interesting and, in this case, to share my experiences with the M14 pre-release.

You can find Magic Cards in super stores (Ex. Walmart, Target) but the best place you can buy your cards, meet other players, and play in events is at your local comic book store or hobby shop. I buy most of my cards at The Comic Cellar. Here is a link to its Google Maps location at 3620 Austin Peay Highway #2 Memphis, TN 38128.

And here is a link to Comic Cellar's Website

I took part in the M14 pre-release on July 13th at The Comic Cellar. For the entry fee, each player received 6 booster packs, from the M14 Core Set, and all the lands they need to make a 40 card deck. Then the player took part in 5 one-on-one matches, each a best of three rounds. The highest ranking players got to split the packs of a M14 booster box.

The thematic monster of M14 are Slivers, a multi-colored tribe of monsters with overlapping and stacking effects, that are one of the most iconic creatures in the game. To celebrate the theme, everyone who participated received a special Megantic Sliver, shown above, as a promo card for participation.

M14 is the newest Core Set in Magic the Gathering. Core Sets serve several purproses; they arguably the best way to introduce new players to the game, serve as a way to add deck-building tools that thematically wouldn't fit in the featured sets in standard, and introduce upcoming themes for players to grow excited for-- in this case, it is clear that certain tribes will be relevant in the next set, Theros, coming out in the Fall, and enchantments will be important to the standard scene soon. M14 will be in standard until Fall of 2014.



Besides enchantments and slivers, the other cool things to spring up in M14 are new version of the planeswalkers Chandra & Garruk, reprints of some classic cards, and themes like monoblack, symbiotic creatures, blue-white flyers, and more...

I participated in two pre-releases; the deck we're looking at today is from the midnight prerelease in which I went 3-2 (a fairly successful pre-release that shows my progress). Now, let's take a look at...

MY M14 PRE-RELEASE DECK #1
"RAMP UP THE TEMPO" OR "BANT FLYERS"!

I had three themes with this deck; the first theme relied on my green ramp like Lay of the Land and big bombs with trample like Garruk's Horde. The second theme relied on tempo-- basically, the ability to stall out a match with control, suppression, and removal until you can drop bombs with non-creatures spells like Pacifisms & Claustrophobias with a lot of help from Deadly Recluses. Finally, in order to survive long enough to put out bombs come the strongest theme of the set, in my opinion, blue-white flyers like Griffin Sentinel and Nephalia Seakite that take potshots at the enemy until you can alpha strike with a big bomb or turn them into a truly devastating air force with Archangel of Thune.

The biggest threat to this deck that I ran into in 4/5 of my matches that night were better constructed blue-white control/flyer decks. After my third match, I changed up a few of the cards to build more agression, better tempo, and card advantage (Opportunity) by removing the walls I had in the deck. The Achille's Heel of these stall decks is that, if you're not careful, you can stall a match long enough to run out of time or mill out. To help compensate, I added five more cards to my deck and brought the total to forty-five (and only 16 lands out of that due to the incredible land-get ramp I could pull off in this slow format).

Now, let's take a look at one of my very best Pre-Release decks...

WEEKLY ROUND-UP! 7/15-7/21/13!

WEEKLY ROUND-UP PRESENTS

7. WORD OF THE DAY! 7/20/13! Clicker.

Any of my readers play The Last of Us? Thoughts? Is it a must-have/must-play?

6. WORD OF THE DAY! 7/19/13! Walking on the Razor's Edge.

While League of Legends is probably my main multi-player addiction, I've also been getting into Civilization 5, Guns of Icarus, and Payday: The Heist.

5. WORD OF THE DAY! 7/18/13! Tumor.

On a completely unrelated note, I've just finished up Star Trek: Voyager. Next, I'm gonna watch The Original Series and finish up with Enterprise. My journey will be done and I'll have to find a new Netflix-ation.

4. WORD OF THE DAY! 7/16/13! Fairy Floss

This last week I decided to finally recall all of the Pokémon news I'd failed to hit up during my hiatus, staring with a look at the newest divider of feelings, Swirlex.


3. NERDCULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKÉMON OF THE WEEK! #493 ARCEUS

Sometimes to get back on the wagon you gotta take shortcuts-- in this case, I decided to take a short cut by only having one Pokémon featured.

2. TABLETOP TALES: MODERN MASTERS DRAFT #1 "GET KIKI-JIKI WITH IT!"

Modern Masters was simultaneously fun and challenging, perhaps more of the latter than the prior, but with the introduction of more and more MtG content, I keep getting pulled back into the game. In fact, I've got a Pre-Release article coming up and I just built my first Commander Deck. Look forward to more MtG content in the future.
1. NERDCULTURE SMACKDOWN! POKÉMON X & Y UPDATE! #1

And boy am I glad I live in a world where we entertain ourselves with Pokémon and Game of Thrones simultaneously. In this life, we can only enjoy so many things, and we certainly can't complain about not having enough options, can we?

What nerdy topic or hobby do you think I should cover more often or I should look into?

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/26/13!

discrepancy [dis-krep-en-see]
noun
1. An instant or state of being inconsistent or unreliable.

EX. This needs to be addressed; the discrepancies of the Pokédex are both confusing and unfortunate for all involved. There is a lot of hyperbole, unnecessarily mean-spirited back stories, and information that is contradictory. I think that the franchise needs some sort of quality control manager like other franchises have created for themselves so we don't end up with hyperbole, like Tyranitar crushing mountains, or insanely creepy stuff, like Yamask being a reincarnated human soul.

Seriously, if you wanna good laugh at incompetence, read some Pokédex entries...

Thursday, July 25, 2013

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/25/13!

bulb [buhlb]
noun
1. Botany. A typically and often rounded bud, usually found under ground, with fleshy leaves emergent at the top and a flat stem, and roots on the underside.

EX. I got admit there is something cute about the shape of a bulb. Like dim sum.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

WTF WED! SAILORMAN & SAILORMAN THE SQUEAKQUEL!

WTF WEDNESDAY PRESENTS

This week we're taking a look at something that I may have already shared but, unable to find any solid evidence that I have done so, will share again (or for the first time). These insanely kooky animations from the mind machine of Spazkidin3D-- a specialist of the violent violation of childhood-- and totally not egoraptor, despite all of the comparisons as shown in his classic EGORAPTURE.

And, logically, the sequel below is even better than the first video.

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/24/13!

sailor fuku [sehy-lohr-foo-koo]/ seifuku [sehy-foo-koo]
noun
1. A traditional Japanese school uniform worn by girls, primarily in middle school and high school, but sometimes elementary school, that borrows scaled down design elements from the sailor suits worn by children of European royal familie during the 19th and 20th centuries.
2. Japanese. Seifuku or "競服" literally translates to "school clothes" and applies to girl's and boy's uniforms (thanks Nate).

EX. Arguably, the most famous wearers of sailor fuku (at least in America) are Sailor Moon and the Sailor scouts of the popular 90's sentai anime/manga that found popularity in the West. Many anime have cliched uniforms but others can be identified by the distinct uniform worn by the teenage characters that can be quite distinct; for example, the black and white uniforms from Bleach versus the colorful uniforms worn by the characters of Yu Yu Hakusho versus the more intricate or generic designs below.

Surely, there is nothing better to wear when trying to fight crime, slay demons, or save the world...

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/23/13!

play date [plehy-dehyt]
noun
1. An appointment made between parents or guardians for two or more children to play.
2. An appointment made between two friends to hang out.

EX. I think we're all agreed that the random play dates in GTA IV were pretty obnoxious. I still felt a little guilty for letting down my digital friends.

Monday, July 22, 2013

MUSIC MONDAY! ANIMEME RAP BATTLE BOLOGNA SANDWICH WITH DUNKEY DRESSING!

MUSIC MONDAY PRESENTS

Well, Animeme, decided to try and grab a chunk of the Epic Rap Battles of History crowd, and I think they've had a mixed success. At best, you get some amusing rhymes that fit these meme characters, like with Grumpy Cat being my favorite of the pack, but at worst, well, you get random youtube celebrities that ruin it with their voices or, even worse, the raps don't resemble a rap battle or the character rapping them (for example, having Slender Man rap kind of immediately ruins what makes Slender Man creepy).


"What's the matter, baloney boy? What? Your baloney mom not pack the wrong bologna on your bologna sandwich? Haha! Stupid- why do you get to go invisible?! That's fucking dumb! HA!" -videogamedunkey

ANIMEME RAP BATTLE: INSANITY WOLF VS. COURAGE WOLF

This was the rap battle I was looking most forward to because a) Insanity Wolf & Courage Wolf are two of my favorite memes, b) the other Insanity Wolf/Courage Wolf bits from Animeme are great, and c) Insanity Wolf's Christmas Song was awesome. Unfortunately, while potentially the best animeme rap battle, they sorta screw the pooch by having Tobuscus voice Courage Wolf. Don't get me wrong, I like Tobuscus, from time to time, but he doesn't have the macho voice that Courage Wolf deserves and it really puts him at a distinct disadvantage in this rap battle. What do you think?

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/22/13!


paper plane [pehy-per-plehyn]
noun
1. A toy aircraft made out of paper or cardboard.

EX. Like a paper plane in a hurricane, I expect this film to weather a bit of controversy as the bio pic of a figure who represents a controversial subject-- specifically, the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the inventor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter flown by the Japanese in World War II.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

WORD OF THE DAY! 7/21/13!

repel [mehys]
noun
1. Video game. The Pokémon equivalent of mace.

((And yes, I'm very aware that it is a Super Potion))