Favorite Past Features

I've spent some time of late looking at a variety of my previous posts. I do a lot of self-critiquing and re-reading; I find myself constantly changing old posts that nobody will probably ever read again, but they've got an apostrophe in the wrong spot, or poor word usage in another spot, and I can't let that just hang there.

I also re-read for content, and I've found a few spots that I really enjoyed re-reading, and I enjoyed writing in the first place. As I'm trying to find more topics to write about, and formats within which to write, these old posts are a good first stop. Here are a couple I really enjoyed from the past, and maybe I'll resurrect them in some form.

Is He A Keeper?

Back in the early days of the fantasy baseball keeper league, we had a lot of questions about which players were legitimate keepers, which guys were borderline, and which guys were too unreliable, too unproven, or just too unexceptional. It was a fun little mental experiment for myself to judge a player's potential upside, downside, and general value in relation to other players. It was also a way that I sort of gave my (often unsolicited) advice to my fellow owners about their players, and hashed out some of my own players as well.

The odds of this one coming back are pretty slim, as I think most of my league has caught up to (or surpassed) me as far as baseball knowledge. As a result, I'd be out of order trying to declare what other teams should do. It was a fun exercise, though, and it's a good reminder that little discussion points were a good way to churn out several medium-sized posts.

Twi-Night Doubleheader

For most of one season, I did a little weekly recap on the fantasy comings and goings of the week. Best player of the week, biggest disappointment, etc. I was so tuned in to fantasy baseball at the time, and I had a ton of downtime sitting at a computer at my job, so it was natural for me to kill time by writing about what I was paying attention to.

The Game of Thrones posts I've been doing this season are a reasonable comparison to Twi-Night Doubleheader (though much less readable for cousin Michael), in that they're weekly recaps with quick-hitter topics. I don't foresee getting back into the weekly fantasy baseball recap post game, unless it were with a partner to bounce things off of, work together, and generate fast content. If anybody's got an itch, drop me a message and we'll see what might work.

Magic Decks for Review

It's hard to say this was really a feature on the blog, since I only really got one post up for it. But the idea was that I have all these decks I've thrown together over the years that could use some tightening, some review, and some revision. And, like most intellectual exercises, crowd-sourcing can create inputs from a lot of different angles, which is important considering the sheer volume of Magic cards that exist.

That single post and its follow-up (both regarding my Landfall deck) were actually pretty useful as far as trying to put together possible ideas for how to refine the deck. So in looking back, that's something I could definitely see myself getting back to posting. I still have the decks, and I think I put most or all of them on TappedOut, so they should still be visible to make comments and offer advice. Definitely something I could see revisiting.

Mega Man Magic Set

The Mega Man Magic Set wasn't exactly a "feature," as it had a specific endpoint. Once the set was fully released, that was that, the series was concluded. That said, it generated dozens of posts, numerous comments, and a good deal of discussion, not to mention the enjoyment I had in creating the cards and writing the posts. Overall, I would rate it as one of my most successful blogging adventures.

Additionally, while I can't generate many(/any?) more posts using that particular content, there are plenty of similar types of posts I can make. Most of them will be pretty hard geeky, but that's how it goes sometimes. I like sports and I like games, and sometimes the games take the lead. Lord knows I don't feel like talking about football anytime soon.

So here are some similar ideas that I've come up with, and I'm thinking I'll try my hand at in the near future:

• Create a D&D monster from other material
• Create a Magic card from other material
• Create another Magic set, this time using a different gaming "world"
• Create, create, create...

In thinking about these ideas, I think that the most fun exercises for me are when I'm trying to be creative using other people's bases. Kind of like a fan-fiction writer, except somehow even nerdier.

Anyways, that's it for this post. Just wanted to reminisce a little about some of our brighter moments, and give you guys a little insight into what goes into developing a post or feature. Until next time!

Full Mega Man Magic Set Gallery (Finally!)

Alright gentlemen, after a long delay, I've finally gotten the full Mega Man Magic set posted for you to view in all its glory. I'm also going to make the source file available here, in case you want to sort the cards by color, cost, rarities, etc. The album is below. Thanks for all the help along the way bros!

Mega Man Magic Update

I promise I'm not ignoring the Mega Man Magic set upload. It turns out, Imgur only allows like 220 pictures to be uploaded to a free account. They obviously allow you to pay for more, but I'm debating on whether or not I want to do that, or post them myself somewhere else. In the end, I think I'll probably just get the upgrade, but I don't want Imgur to think I did it because they tricked me into it. Let 'em sweat it out.

Mega Man Magic - Spoiler 36

So here we are, the final spoiler for the Mega Man Magic set. And as is wisest, we'll go out with a bang.

 

The scene from the beginning of the game, with Mega Man atop a large skyscraper, overlooking the city he's about to protect. Perseverance is maybe the best word to describe Mega Man, so I'm pleased to have it represented in my set.

This set ended up with like three different clone-type cards, but each has its own little twist. This actually is probably just straight up worse than Clone, but at least it's flavorful. At least that.

This is another card that got some rare playtesting, and it turned out the card was way more powerful than I had anticipated. So I bumped the mana cost and the rarity. I may have overcompensated, but in a set with a looter and various other discard cards, this guy can do some work.

Ahh, the password. Kind of missing from today's gaming world, but in the old days, the password was your only chance to preserve your progress in difficult games. I'm happy with the flavor of this guy, though I have a hard time judging its power level in a vacuum. Hopefully it's not too far off.

Which leads us to our last card...

The final image from the game, or close to it. The last screen actually just has "Presented by Capcom U.S.A., but I needed Thank You for Playing on the screen for it to make sense. Anyways, big black swamp-based life drain. I'm on board with the card, even if I'd probably never play it.

So that's the end of the list. In a couple days, I'll link to an Imgur album with all of the cards posted, so you can browse through them at your convenience. And then it'll be on to the next project...as yet undetermined. I'll keep you in the loop, of course.