Storypost | 2018.02.11

Horizon Zero Dawn DLC screenshot Aloy sparks
Monster Hunter World

After a couple of months, Monster Hunter World is finally out of beta and flying off of store shelves.


A dozen hours in, I still have very little understanding how to properly play the game. It has a bunch of everything - equipment, crafting, collectibles, stat boosters, etc. Most importantly: online co-op.

thumbnail Monster Hunter World dragon thumbnail Monster Hunter World palico fashion thumbnail Monster Hunter World seaside town thumbnail Monster Hunter World cannon Zorah
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The garage annex

Renovation murder room concrete pour shelving cinder blocks

Or, as it will hence be known, the murder room. Well, maybe if I stucco or paint the cinderblocks it'll look considerably less intimidating. More likely, I'll be exhausted enough from all of the cinder block hauling and cement pouring that I'll put everything away in my new shelving area and it'll just look semi-murdery.

Building materials delivery concrete cinder block

Rather than make a billion hardware store runs for cinder blocks, concrete, and gravel, I paid the $70 delivery fee and had it forklifted to me. Best idea ever. Having done half the area, I'm most of the way through the masonry supplies. But I have terracing going back to the crawlspace, so it should be a considerable amount of storage.

Murder room basement concrete cinder blocks Murder room basement concrete cinder blocks Murder room basement concrete cinder blocks
The Frozen Wilds

Horizon Zero Dawn DLC screenshot Aloy ice village

On to the Horizon DLC. Well, sort of. Horizon sessions tend to be more involved, so with all the manual labor I haven't made much progress.

Horizon Zero Dawn DLC screenshot Aloy smoke mountain

As the name implies, this one takes place in a mountainous, snowy environment. The story is fairly straightforward at this point: Aloy must investigate a pillar of smoke that may have to do with a machine/AI gone wrong.

Horizon Zero Dawn DLC screenshot Aloy sliding snow

Of course, the people up here use a completely different currency from the main game. Likewise most of the machines cannot be overridden (yet). I didn't want easy street, but it'd be nice to have some advantage to completing so much of the main game.

Horizon Zero Dawn DLC screenshot Aloy puzzle

There are some puzzles that are a little more geometric and interesting than crank-the-knobs.

thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds Aloy snow effects thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds mountains pool thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds underground installation thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds Aloy Tallneck snow
thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds dam thumbnail Horizon Frozen Wilds Aloy snow angel

Warframe

Warframe Harrow screenshot temple

For those short sessions, there's still running the Warframe sorties. I've had a lot of fun with Banshee Prime. The Harrow quest was frightening but kind of meh.

Warframe Palladino he suffers while you dream Warframe nervous card Warframe Palladino
Work draft

Zetalpa Primal Dawn Storm the Vault

Source.

We did a draft at work last week, 2x Rivals of Ixalan and 1x Ixalan. It was a good combo, though having seen no Rivals, I didn't know what to go for. I ended up wanting to build my deck around an awesome white dino and a blue/red enchantment that would help mana fix. But it's hard to go dinos without green.

So yeah, four color draft deck. I told myself it'd be okay since I nabbed a bunch of dual lands and had some treasure generation and such.

Remarkably, after seven matches I hadn't once had an issue with not getting the right color mana. The deck was sort of bleh, in general, but I managed to go 4-3 overall.
New decks

I have a few cards on the way for some new EDH decks. In the meantime, Ixalan left me with some tribes that I wanted to make decks for, but keeping it chill 40-card style.

Dinos
Samut the Tested Thundering Spineback Goring Ceratops See all...

Source.

Merfolk
Wind Strider Wind Strider Jade Guardian See all...

Source.

Zombies
Sheoldred Whispering One Lord of the Pit Indulgent Tormentor See all...

Source.

Oh, and I've started generating my card library here.