Weekend Re-cap

Let's start the weekend recap off with Friday's events. On Friday we went to our usual FNM (Friday Night Magic) and played Booster Draft (DKA, DKA, DKA). Unfortunately for me this time, I went into heavy red, and didn't end up splashing another color (Big mistake, I really should have splashed green, I could have made it worked) but still won my first match up (2-0!). Sadly that didn't allow me to place in the top 4 as there were 10 people in my pod and I would have had to won my second match up to have succeeded. On the positive side of things, my fiance was able to win his pod and we walked away with a FNM Promo Dismember (Like the picture but a foil and with a different set icon) and 5 booster packs (Of which we chose Innistrad) I also ended up pulling an Elbrus, the Binding Blade (A mythic rare, only worth about 1$ though, but great flavor!) and a few other interesting cards. Of note, in the boosters we won, we got a Snapcaster Mage (A rare, but worth 15-20$) and a Reaper from the Abyss (A mythic rare, but only worth about .50$)

Now over the course of the weekend the Diablo 3 Open Beta (Stress Test) was running, so of course we had to delve into that! I started off with the Demon Hunter class and enjoyed it thoroughly. Most of the information about Diablo 3 is readily available on their website but it's definitely worth a look if you were a fan of Diablo 2 or a fan of the dungeon crawler loot type games (Such as Torchlight, which I'm sad to see that Torchlight 2 isn't going to be released before Diablo 3) Now since it was a stress test and a beta the graphics were running a bit choppy for me for part of the time but cleared up near the mid to end, but I think that was purely an issue with the beta, as my computer has more power than necessary to handle the game. I ended up playing through all the classes but Witch Doctor (It was the least interesting class to me) and have to say Demon Hunter and Barbarian would have to be my favorite so far, followed by Wizard then Monk respectively. They are all enjoyable in their own ways though and each have their own unique playstyle.

Finally to end the weekend with some League of Legends action! LoL Replay updated so replay uploads were allowed again so I have done that and will now be able to show off [HRDLCK] Team Randoms true skill at Ranked 5s. I will only upload the victories as the loses are pretty sad and pathetic, although I wasn't present for one, which is clearly why they lost! So far our team is 3 Wins and 2 Loses, which isn't bad for ranked, especially for a ranked team that plays all random. This most recent game I was playing as Poppy. I haven't played Poppy since I started playing LoL. I think I was running my AP rune page but ended up going more AD in the end, building a Triforce first (which is more hybrid) Then went into a Wriggles for some lifesteal, and finished with parts of the components to an Infinity Edge. As you can see in the video it was a tough early-mid game as the enemy Talon got fed very early and could easily Full-Nothing our Jax amongst other characters. Also our Kassadin had never played Kassadin before. Thankfully we persevered to late game where Talon begins to fall off as most of our champions gain more health and armor to negate his damage.

[HRDLCK] Team Randoms

Yesterday in League of Legends (LoL) I was invited onto a friend's ranked 5s team named [HRDLCK] Team Randoms. As you can imagine, the point of the team is to random and then lock, while still attempting to maintain the current meta game of solo top, solo mid, jungler, support, carry as best as possible and to just have fun.

The first game I randomed Anivia who I had only ever played once or twice around the time I had originally began playing LoL. Needless to say, I went mid with the bird vs the enemy Galio. We had a Katarina top vs enemy Wukong. Bottom was AD Twisted Fate and Leona vs enemy Janna and Caitlyn. Our jungler was Gragas and the enemy's was Maokai.

I ended up going 5/0/12 with only being egged 2 or 3 times during team fights, but never finished off. Somehow we ended up winning against this team, which was a surprise to all of us (I suppose we did have a lot of AoE damage, not to mention some pro walls on my part). I ended up building a Will of the Ancients, Rod of Ages, Sorcerer's Shoes, Abyssal Scepter, and was working on my Rabadon's Deathcap by the end of the game.

The second game I randomed Jax and had to mid against a Lulu. We had a Taric and Pantheon bot lane vs a Soraka and Graves. Malphite was solo top vs a Riven and it was our jungle Olaf vs their jungle Mundo. We had a rough time throughout the match until our Olaf threw a blind axe to get vision of Baron, stealing it in the process and netting us the gamechanging buff. From that point forward we began to dominate team fights and simply grew too strong in the late game that they couldn't handle us. At one point on Jax I jumped into the entire enemy team with just my Taric supporting me, as they were trying to take down our vulnerable inhibitor with my team respawning and running forward. I instantly activate my stun and jump into the middle of them all, focusing Soraka first as the rest of my team rushes in and we begin to clean them up one by one, not letting a single escape. This forced the surrender of the enemy team as we would have simply pushed to their base at this point and won otherwise. That match I went 12/7/11 and built a Wriggle's Lantern, Mercury Treads, Frozen Mallet, Atma's Impaler, Warmog's, and was in the process of building a Madred's.

When LoL Replay allows uploads I will upload the matches.

And a reminder, if you ever want to play League of Legends with me, feel free to add Zyrinn to your friend's list!

Guild Wars 2 Beta Date Announced!

It's official, the upcoming Guild Wars 2 beta will be the weekend of the 27th. I'm slightly disappointed in that it wasn't this weekend, like so many were hoping, but am super pumped about being able to play it regardless! The only downside to it being not this weekend is that the Avacyn Restored Pre-Release Event will be that Friday (Magic: The Gathering, for those who don't know) And I know I'm not going to be skipping that!

On the topic of Magic, the Avacyn Restored looks to be amazing from the spoilers that have been released. I'm already crossing my fingers for at least one Temporal Mastery card. I can't wait to see what type of decks we'll be able to put together once we know the full set. My fiance is buying a box so there will be some pictures of what goodies we end up getting! (May 4th is the official release of Avacyn Restored)

Onyx-The Tuxedo Kitty

Last night on my fiance's way home from an Open Mic he stumbled across a little black kitty on the side of the road in our neighborhood around 11 PM. He calls me and tells me to walk over and I head out to go see this supposedly cute cat. Well, needless to say, it was one of the sweetest cats I have ever been around. It was purring and wasn't afraid at all when we approached. Upon inspection of the cat, which will now be referred to as Oynx, he was very thin and a little dirty. It looked like he might of at one point in his life have been a pet, but has either been lost for awhile or abandoned. I hate to think that people would abandon their cats like that, leaving them out to fend for themselves. I know cats naturally were feral at one point, but I have my doubts that this cat has always lived a life in the wild.

We ended up bringing him home, making sure to keep him separate from our two cats and preparing a litter box and food for him in our bathroom. He went to town on the food, and it lead to me assuming my assumptions were correct in that he was malnourished. I took him to the vet for a checkup today and they say he appears to be about 1 year old (which is what I thought from looking at him) and that he is in generally good condition but had a case of fleas at one point.

Currently our plans are to get him neutered and then likely foster him until we can find him a good home. I really don't want to give him up, but we already have two cats that we love dearly and a third might just be too much (Not to mention our place has a restriction on having more than 2 pets, although I'd like to argue 2 cats is = to 1 bigger dog, and not even so, since it doesn't poop outside and leave a mess ((Due to lazy owners))) But regardless someone will have a very loving cat, whether it be us or someone else, Onyx will go to a good home.

Slow Day

Pretty slow day overall. Spent the day job searching and my evening playing LoL. Mostly did solo queue in Dominion today and found a new favorite champion to play as: Ryze. Ryze is simply amazing either down bottom lane or top. I've mostly played him bottom. I had a little trouble against Ahri today but I didn't have ignite and she did, so I was playing a little more aggressively than I should have. Also Zilean posed a bigger threat than I initially anticipated, but I was never in threat of losing my lane. With Zilean it's pretty much pick off the minions from as far as possible, as it's near impossible to harass Zilean without him putting his time bombs on you. Kind of a boring bottom lane, but I got to go up top late game to help up there as Singed took over bottom. I'm not going to complain about a boring game if we win :)

I'm still so very hyped for Guild Wars 2 that I really feel like drawing something. Any suggestions? I do have an old group shot that I was working on a long time ago, I should revive it and finish it up. Going to have to boot up my brick of a laptop to get the file though, probably the biggest reason I haven't resurrected it as of yet.

League of Legends

Since Guild Wars 2 isn't out yet, most of my free gaming time is spent playing League of Legends. I'm personally more a fan of dominion, but a lot of my friends are big rift players so I'll play Summoner's Rift with them often. If you want to add me my summoner name is Zyrinn.

In Dominion I tend towards playing the tanky dps/initiator, usually Warwick, in particular. Although I have gone bottom on occasion I haven't practiced it with 'top tier' champions, it's usually if no one else on my team wants to go bot and I end up being stuck doing it. I like Warwick a lot in Dominion as he's a great initiator and he has great sustain. The biggest downside to him I feel is that if you haven't found a chance to recall he gets severely hampered by his mana pool (You run out of mana really fast if you use his Q to heal up and his W to help clear minions faster.)

My first match of Dominion today was a Victory! I played as Warwick and went 8/3/10, which is pretty respectable. I was a little nervous at first about our team comp. We had: Jax, Alistair (AP), Cassiopeia, and Galio (Bot Lane). We didn't have a ton of good harass, but we had a good amount of front line bruisers to help protect Cassiopeia. The opposing team was made up of Sona (On-hit/AD?), Lulu (AS+CD), Kennen (AP), Riven, and Malzahar (Bot Lane), so they had a good chunk of CC's in the form of stuns (Kennen, Riven, Sona), and snares/polymorph (Lulu). But we ended up being victorious as our team had better map awareness and knew how to play together properly to protect our carries. Not to mention that the opposing team had very weird builds and were extremely squishy.

Favorite Champions
   Dominion: Warwick, Lulu, Jax
   Summoner's Rift: Lulu, Janna, Sona (Can you tell I mostly play support? Most of my friends like playing the other roles)

Guild Wars 2 Pre-Purchase

Finally, Guild Wars 2 Digital Deluxe purchased! Access to all weekend beta events, the next one being the 20th of April (Only 9 days, NINE.) I can hardly contain my excitement! My fiance purchased the Collector's Edition, hence me not needing to purchase it as well. Go Rytlock figurine!

There's going to be so much to do on that first beta weekend, it will be difficult to make time for it all. I want to speed rush a character (likely my guardian) to 30 in PVE for the dungeon. Then I want to experiment with many of the other classes both in PVE and PVP. I also want to begin to get an extensive feel of guardian in PVP since it's the class I'll be maining come live.

The background of this blog was done by me, it's of my female Charr Guardian, Vynarius Ironfur.