Genshin
The 4.2 Patch is upon us, and that means another Archon quest. This was a pretty enjoyable followup to the previous one, and formally introduces Arlecchino in-game. She really makes a strong impression. So strong, that I am now hoarding all my primos for the patch she becomes playable(no way they don’t make her payable, right???).
I lost the Zhongli 50/50 to Diluc, which isn’t that bad since Diluc is a pretty solid character and he’s pairs well with Yelan, who is my previous 5-star pull. The only thing about pulling Diluc is that because I lost the 50/50 to him, my next 5-star character on a limited banner is guaranteed. This is great, because it means I can just hoard primos for Arlecchino, but it also sucks since it means I can’t pull on any limited banners in the in-between time or I might get hard punished. It’s possible to get a lot of primos in-between now and then, but I don’t think I can get enough to get a guarantee, so I will treasure my current guaranteed 5-star and just hoard the primos.
I haven’t gotten any other new characters, but I have been leveling up the rest of my characters. I’m trying to at least get a lot of them to 80. It’s already opened up some new teams for me, like Reverse Melt.
Snap
Snap got turned on its head this month by the new season pass card, Loki . A generously statted 3-drop, loki replaces your hand with cards from your opponent’s starting deck and gives them all a -1 cost discount. He quickly became the leading man of the best deck in the game thanks to his synergy with Quinjet and the now-nerfed-on-his-behalf Collector and the fact that he kicked most tech cards out of the meta. If you wanted to play cards that would beat Loki decks, you had to make sure your deck didn’t lose to those same cards. The other option was to play something that relied very hard on synergy so that Loki would just get what amounts to garbage when he copied your cards.
I was not a very big fan of this, mostly because I just don’t like effects like Loki’s. I’m a fan of midrange decks, so him just kicking them all in the nuts and making them sort of unplayable for the month really sucked ass.
Destroy, Build, Destroy
I got Knull , so I could slot him in and play the more accepted build of this deck, but I honestly just value Americ Chavez too much at this point. I value my deck working over the Knull highroll. This deck is about making a bigass Deadpool, and Knull is a 6-drop. I’d need to destroy x-23 to be able to play both. Blowing her up isn’t out of the question, it’s one of the things this deck sets out to do, but Knull only meshing with the deck’s main gameplan when I have her means he’s basically the brickiest of the top end cards. We’re a Destroy deck, so Death is always gonna be cheap. Taskmaster at worst is copying Death or bigass Venom. Knull is only card here that needs a highroll to explain why he’s here.
Deck is fun and strong, but now that MMM is in the game and looking to be the new staple 2-drop, it might be correct to just cut Death for something like Nova or another Destroy card.
Ramp
Speaking of MMM, this is a deck that just doesn’t care about him. This deck uses Electro to gain extra energy to play strong cards early rather than reducing cost. Deck is very straightforward and pretty fun. Arnim Zola on a Black Panther or Devil Dino is strong, as is Odin on a Doctor Doom .
Mission Flex
Sometimes, I just wanna do my dailies and log off. Sometimes, the decks I have ready don’t like up well with my dailies. This deck is the result of me just building a deck to do dailies. We’re basically a Ghost Rider + lady Sif combo deck with an Iron Fist + Spider-Man 2099 combo and some generic good cards thrown in. It’s fun and has pulled through far more than it should have at this point, so I’m posting it here.
Fighting Games
I played a lot more fighting games this month. Lotta Xrd, Melty, and Skullgirls. My homie finally got a laptop, so I’ve been sparring with him and some of his boys more regularly now.
I’m formally maining Mash in Type Lumina now. I do have some love for the Fate franchise, and she’s honestly my type of character. She does good damage, has an uppercut, and has some nice pressure. All that in a cute package. I’m in there. I am also trying Saber at the time of writing. She’s really funny.
Unfortunately, I forgot to save most of the replays, but I do have a funny clip. Enjoy.
Manga, Comics & Anime
Dandadan
People have told me to check out Dandadan in the past, and I have always put it down on a mental note. This month, I finally started reading it, and goddamn, have I been missing out. This series is absolutely absurd in the best way possible. It’s just ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation. I’m so deadass. This manga opens with the main heroine getting abducted by Aliens who want to breed her and the male MC getting his balls stolen by a ghost. Yes, you read that correctly. I’m so on board with this whole series, man. The art is great, the humor has been on point, and the story arcs they go through are wild. Legit the strangest thing I’ve read since Steel Ball Run . I’m only 50 chapters in, but this series has already become one of my favorites.
Radiant Black
As I said a couple months ago, I am a big fan of the BOOM Power rangers comics. SOmething I learned this month is that the writer responsible for its Shattered Grid storyline has his own independent comic series titled Radiant Black. A down-on-his-luck writer stumbles upon a black orb one night while he’s out with his homie and gets the ability to use a black suit with a bunch of powers.
I can’t say Radiant Black surprised me. I knew it was gonan be good because of the writer’s previous work. Even without knowing his other comic creditentials, I was confident this was gonna be fire just off how good Shattered Grid was in the Power Rangers comics. It’s a modern superhero story with some real ass chaarcters and good amount of inspiration from tokusatsu. I mean it when I say real ass characters; These guys go be going through it in this comic, man. There’s a spoiler that’s not really a spoiler anymore, kinda. It happens really early, but it’s still good enough of a twist that i will not spoil it here and also say do not look at a lot of the covers before you start reading the series.
Ayakashi Triangle
Ayakashi Triangle came to a rather sudden end this month. I say sudden because while this current arc is a good final arc, I didn’t feel like I was reading what was going to be the final arc while I was reading it. bare minimum, I thought at least 2 more arcs. That being said, this series was a wonderful time. No complaints from me. Nice characters, little -to-no low-hanging fruit humor in regards to matsuri’s changed gender. and good fanservice. I like these fanservice series not just because of the cake, but because they give a nice break from all the action shonen I read.
The best thing I can say about this is that it didn’t overstay its welcome. A lot of beloved series can kinda take too long or just stick around longer than they need to and the stories suffer a bit for that. Ayakashi Triangle came through and did what it wanted to do and got out. Everything wrapped up pretty smoothly and with a bow. Again, this was a good final arc with a reasonable final villain. I just felt like it could’ve gone for a little longer if it wanted. It just didn’t, and that’s fine with me. This was a good series and I’m glad I got to read it. I should check the anime sometime. Really excited to see what Yabuki does next.
Frieren
Frieren: Beyond the Journey’s End started airing at the very end of this month, dropping 4 whole episodes at once. This series is adapting of my recent favorites that I picked up over the course of the Pandemic by the same name. This series has a lot to love about it. It’s not a very action-packed series, but it’s filled to the brim with character moments and character development.
The premise is really gripping for me. After she outlives damn near all of her party members, an elf starts traveling the land with her apprentice to better understand the world and her comrades. That’s the exact type of story I love and it gives me what I want almost every time I read it. Lots of small moments with chaarcters in different places experiencing adventures that bring them closer, be they big adventures or small ones.
I highly recommend checking out this series, anime or manga. It don’t matter, just give this series a chance. If you value characters, you won’t be disappointed.
Bandcamp PSA
Epic sold Bandcamp to a kinda shady company, so if you have music on there, I recommend downloading all of it to a hard drive and backing it up somewhere else.