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[Update #2]: MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024!
[Update]: All of Magic: The Gathering's future cross-over sets will be legal in every format.
If you've been playing Standard for the past couple of weeks you're probably well aware of just how omnipresent the Leyline of Resonance 'combo' decks are. They're fragile and fold to early removal, sure, but if you stumble for even a single turn it's very easy to find yourself getting hit for over 20 damage.
Much like Tibalt's Trickery from a few years back, Leyline of Resonance creates some very boring games where the player using it either wins or loses within a couple of turns - almost like deciding the match with a coinflip. Unsurprisingly, this very quickly put it on Wizards of the Coast's ban radar, though since the set had only just released at the time of the last announcement, they figured they'd give it a little bit more time to see if the meta can self-correct.
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As you might guess from the name alone, the Steam Next Fest is week-long event celebrating upcoming games, with the focus generally being on unique and interesting indie games. Most importantly of all, many of the participating games have free demos available for the duration of the event, so if you're looking to get into a new genre or just try out a game you've been keeping an eye on for a while, this is the perfect time to do so.
On the other hand, if you're not sure where to even begin, allow me to share with you a couple of stand-outs from various genres that I found rather fascinating, even if some are a little bit unpolished at the moment. Here they are, in no particular order:
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In an era where games are often either singleplayer or some sort of live service ordeal with thousands of players everywhere, Hazelight Studios stands as one of the last few bastions of true co-op focused gaming. And considering how both of the team's 'recent' games, A Way Out and It Takes Two, have ended up being nothing short of amazing, it's hard not to cheer for Hazelight.
Now that you know where I'm coming from, I hope you realize just how excited I am to announce that Hazelight will soon be revealing a brand new game! It's also not going to be a sequel to either of their previous games, but rather a brand new IP!
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[Update #2]: All of Magic: The Gathering's future cross-over sets will be legal in every format.
[Update]: MTG Arena has banned the contentious Leyline of Resonance in best-of-one Standard!
As with all of the Alchemy mini-expansions, the freshly released Alchemy: Duskmourn has now arrived with 30 new cards to muck around with. The new cards not only slot in well with the horror, enchantment and manifest themes of the main set, but many of them also share creature types with Bloomburrow's critters which gives them a lot of flexibility.
Furthermore, I feel like this Alchemy set has been the most spot-on in terms of power level. Nothing really stands out as being particularly obnoxious to play against, and there's only one card I would consider somewhat mediocre, and that's a mythic! Everything else, from the creatures to the enchantments, I can easily see being played in some sort of deck. So whoever designed both these cards and Duskmourn itself, hats off as you did a great job!
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[Update]: Helldivers 2's next Warbond is coming October 31st with a heavy SMG, plasma pistol and unflinching armor.
While the recent and rather chunky update fixed many of the problems that plagued Helldivers 2, there were simply far too many issues to knock out in one single patch. And so, Arrowhead have now released another big update aimed at not only improving weapons across the board, but also giving fan-favorite toys a couple of new functionalities!
As such, both the Autocannon and the Recoilless Rifle have now received programmable ammo! The Autocannon can switch to flak which gives it the ability to carpet bomb a large area and clear out any low-tier enemies, while the Recoilless Rifle can swap out its bombastic rockets for a variant with lower damage, but a far bigger area of effect. Unsurprisingly, this tweak has made the already versatile Autocannon an even safer and more consistent choice regardless of what sort of enemies you might face.
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[Update #2]: In a truly outlandish move, World of Warcraft has just launched a $90 auction-house carrying dinosaur mount!
[Update]: The 20th anniversary update has now arrived, and sadly the new events are a lot grindier than I would've liked.
It's only been a short while since The War Within expansion launched, and already Blizzard is getting ready to unleash a whole bunch of new content to play around with. Best of all, this new content will tie in with the game's 20th anniversary and thus bring with it a wide assortment of cool cosmetics to collect.
First and foremost, the iconic Tier 2 sets from WoW Classic will be getting updated versions that you can acquire through the new Bronze Celebration Tokens. And if you're like me and you're playing one of the classes that didn't exist back in the day, worry not as Blizzard has also created entirely new Tier 2 inspired sets so no class misses out on the fun.
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[Update]: The update has now arrived with more weapon tweaks than I could've ever expected for a 'follow-up' patch!
A couple of weeks ago Helldivers 2 released an update that tweaked or reworked the vast majority of underperforming weapons and annoying enemies. As you might expect from such a massive update, some weapons and stratagems ended up falling through the cracks or were simply overlooked as the team had other priorities.
Now, with the upcoming October 15th update, the Helldivers 2 team is looking to tackle the weapons left behind, as well as even further polish the stuff that's already good! Sadly the exact details are still shrouded in mystery, but the most exciting addition is definitely programmable ammo for the Autocannon and Recoilless Rifle!
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If you're in the mood for giving your mouse a thorough workout, you'll be happy to hear that Diablo 4's first expansion, Vessel of Hatered, has now been unleashed. As you would expect, Vessel of Hatred brings with it a sizable new area to explore, a plethora of new enemies and chests to smash in search of loot, a brand new storyline centered around Neyrelle, as well as a completely new class known as the Spiritborn.
As the name might imply, the Spiritborn is capable of channeling various spirits in order to empower themselves and change the very nature of their attacks. What this means in gameplay terms is that the Spiritborn is a reactive, incredibly fast paced class that can dash all across the battlefield debuffing and slicing enemies, while staying safe thanks to seemingly endless dodges. Needless to say, it's a ton of fun!
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[Update]: Duskmourn: Alchemy has now arrived, and I'm happy to say it's one of the best mini-sets they've ever done!
I hope you're in the mood for a bit of spookiness as MTG Arena is getting a brand new batch of horror-themed cards on October 15th. Much like the previous supplemental sets, Alchemy: Duskmourn will bring with it 30 new cards of varying rarities to mess around with.
The goal with the new mini-expansion is to beef up some of the mechanics and deck archetypes from the main set, add a couple of fun Commanders for the Brawl crowd, and more likely than not introduce a few build-arounds for players to experiment with. The full list of cards has sadly not been revealed just yet, but I can share with you the rather interesting new room that accompanied the announcement:
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As is often the case, The International tournament is quite good at showcasing all of the major balance problems and absurd items that may have slipped under the radar until that point. So with the tournament now over, the Dota 2 team has sprung into action to hopefully fix all of the pain points and really shake up the meta.
With that in mind, it should come as little surprise to hear that the recently released Patch 7.37d has nerfed most of the aura and buff based items like Crimson Guard, Arcane Boots, Pipe of Insight or Solar Crest. The changes are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things so all of them should still see play, but hopefully we won't again end up in a situation where you either have to buy all of the defensive items or get overrun by those that do.
