All of Magic: The Gathering's future cross-over sets will be legal in every format
- By Ash
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[Update]: MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024!
In what is quite possibly going to be remembered as one of Magic: The Gathering's biggest and boldest steps, whether that be for good or bad, Wizards of the Coast have announced that all future cross-over sets will be legal in every single format. And yes, this does mean that 'Universes Beyond' sets like Final Fantasy or the various Marvel ones will be fully legal in Standard in both paper and on MTG Arena.
The reason for the change, besides the fact that this is going to print an obscene amount of money, is to help onboard new players into 60-card formats, which is a genuine issue. As it stands right now new players are all funneled into MTG Arena or into the four-player Commander format, thus leaving paper formats like Standard or Pioneer without the new blood they need to function.
MTG Arena's Pioneer Masters set has arrived with an avalanche of competitive staples
- By Ash
- in News
After many years of on-and-off development, MTG Arena's much-anticipated Pioneer Masters set has now arrived. As you might imagine by the name, the Pioneer Masters set bring with it an avalanche of competitive Pioneer staples, as well as some fun bits of jank for every Arena format besides Standard and Alchemy.
The goal behind the set is to make Explorer as close to competitive Pioneer as possible, so that it could eventually ditch its temporary name and become 'true' Pioneer. When exactly this will happen, nobody outside of Wizards of the Coast currently knows, but I can't imagine it'll take long considering that the vast, vast majority of relevant Pioneer cards are now available on Arena.
Overwatch 2 will be testing whether 6v6 is worth coming back to in Season 14
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If you've been paying any attention to Overwatch 2 throughout the past year, you're probably well aware of how prevalent 6v6 has been as a topic of conversation. And it's really no surprise since it was one of the more controversial parts of Overwatch 2's launch, and one that required the most drastic changes in order to facilitate - changes that, depending on who you ask, made the gameplay worse.
So in order to check if this is just people looking at Overwatch 1 through rose-tinted glasses, or if 6v6 is actually something that would benefit the game, Blizzard will be running two different experimental 'formats' throughout Season 14. Here's a brief rundown of what to expect:
Nightdive Studios are working on remastering the ambitious 2002 survival-horror The Thing
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The 2002 video game based on The Thing was a squad based survival-horror that tried to emulate the movie's constant sense of paranoia by letting your teammates, some of which could've been by your side for a very long time, get infected and transform into monsters at the least opportune time. However, while it was quite an exciting and unique concept, the actual execution left a lot to be desired, at this is without even mentioning all of the various bugs that plagued the game.
As such, I'm delighted to say that Nightdive Studios are now working on a remastered version! The appropriately titled The Thing: Remastered will come with a visual overhaul including improved models and textures, new dynamic lighting, support for 4k resolution and 144 FPS, and the part that excites me the most, an assortment of gameplay improvements.
Project Zomboid's Update 42 will rework crafting and greatly expand Engineering/Electrical skills
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Despite its numerous advances over the years, some of Project Zomboid's systems and features are currently still in a placeholder state - they work, but only just. The best example of this is the entire Electrical skill as not only is there very little to do with it, but actually increasing your skill level is such a monumentally grindy task that most people probably haven't even explored what little content there is.
Thankfully, it looks like the upcoming Update 42 will be changing all of this for the better. First and foremost, the entire crafting system will be getting overhauled in an effort to make a unified and expansive system that will be able to work with anything from simple crafting stations to complex machines and appliances. This will also bring with it a rework of every single crafting skill as the new system will allow for more customizable recipes and a greater degree of complexity, both of which will be needed if you're planning to make a functioning post-apocalyptic society.
MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer this December 10th, 2024
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: MTG Arena's Pioneer Masters set has arrived with an avalanche of competitive staples.
Quite a few years have gone by since Pioneer Masters was first announced, but it looks like the long wait will soon be over. According to a recent announcement, MTG Arena will be getting the entirety of competitive Pioneer on December 10th, 2024 thanks to the Pioneer Masters set.
What this means is that MTG Arena will not have every single card that's currently legal in Pioneer, but rather any card that has seen even fringe competitive play. And if any random card ever becomes popular and successful enough to reach top 8 in a major tournament, Wizards of the Coast have said they'll make sure to add that as well.
Dota 2's Patch 7.37e has arrived to mop up some of the recent balance problems
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Dota 2's truly excellent Crownfall event has been extended for a few more weeks.
A fair bit of time has gone by since the last major, gameplay-focused update, so unsurprisingly Dota 2 is currently in a bit of a stale place given that everyone knows which heroes are the best at which role and why. In order to get everyone out of this routine the game will need a little shakeup, which is exactly what the freshly released Patch 7.37e is hoping to achieve.
With that in mind, it's worth noting that Patch 7.37e doesn't bring with it any sort of massive changes, but rather a variety of minor buffs and nerfs that will nudge a hero's winrate only by a percentage or two. This way the meta will hopefully get its much-needed shake up while Valve will get a bit more time to work on the traditionally chunky update that tends to launch a few months after The International tournament.