Super Long Hiatus...

Hello fellow mortals, this is the Dark Lord speaking again from his chambers.

Firstly, I have to bid my apologies for not posting for so long. This is due to my overwhelming pressure of thesis and other personal problems, preventing me from continuing my blog for almost 11 months. Truthfully speaking, being a final year student that has to go around non-stop doing research is quite stressful and tiring, not to mention that I have to go to multiple locations looking for respondents for my surveys, which serves as my biggest factor of me being unable to blog...

Yes, surveys, lots of them.

But the problem is, I am really that busy, and I have to be that busy...

Not only this, it is also because of the above mentioned factors that my gaming life is kinda ' vanished' for so long. During this period, I can say that I have literally minimal to none gaming time, as my thesis will decide my life or death of my degree... It's basically a race against time, just like the picture below, it's either I become the hunter, or I become the hunted...

So yeah, I'm really sorry for not being able to post for so long. But no worries, I promise you all that I'll blog more often now, since I'm having more time for gaming nowadays. And not forget to mention, I've picked up some new games (still card games though...), namely Weiss Schwarz, and Cardfight! Vanguard. Somehow these few games has become my main gaming source and most likely you'll be seeing more posts about them compared to L5R. But no worries, I still play L5R, and will still be providing my 2 cents for the game.

These are my current favorites, very interesting, and you all should give them a shot.

So, please do stay tuned for future posts regarding my gaming life and tips of the games that'll be featured in my blog. And not forget to mention, I'm trying to improve the looks of my blog (though I'm not that good in it, but I'll still try...), so any ideas please do tell me so I can implement them in my blog.

Quite a long post by now, so to make things short, apologies again for my super long hiatus, and stay tuned for future updates! And now, the Dark Lord shall retreat to his chambers once more.

New Year, New Post, New Life, New Wishes

Hello there everybody, this is the Dark Lord speaking again. Today is a very special day, where the Dark Lord will be heading out to the mainlands to experience something different from his usual scheming. (In other words, I’m now starting my internship in a magazine and event company.)

Starting from today, the Dark Lord will not have much time to game, or maybe even blog, due to most of the time being occupied by work. Nevertheless, I’ll try to work it out, maintaining a balance between gaming and working. Also, after I start work, expenditures will be a big problem as well, as I now have spend more in addition to my usual expenses, namely petrol, parking, and the increasing costs of food.

What I can only say is I seriously need to learn how to manage my finances, because 2011 is also the ‘payback’ year for me, where I need to buy back all my shares of my soul, slowly but surely. Apologies to those concerned, and I promise that I’ll settle all this with you all whenever I’m able to.

Alright, back to the usual stuff, my gaming time has now been reduced to only Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday, and that is also given that I don’t need to work extra time. Frankly speaking, I’m totally not used to this, since I have been spending the majority of my time doing things that I like to do instead of sitting in the office doing work.

A new year means a new start. This year, the Dark Lord will try his best to finish his degree, and also improve more in his gaming skills, namely for L5R and stuff. The ‘Amazing Race’ is still going on, and the top 4 in the second leg 2 weeks ago really serves as a morale boost for me. I shall try my best to do better in the upcoming leg, hopefully improve my standings if not maintain it. And I’ll be also anticipating the release of the new set ‘The Dead of Winter’, which will be available later this month.

Okay, quite a long post for the first post of 2011, and I think this should be enough for the moment. Well, time to bid farewell, and wish everybody have a pleasant 2011.

Forgoing the Lesser Good...

Greetings mortals, it has been a while since the Dark Lord stepped out from his chambers...

People always said, in a Chinese saying: "Do not give up the entire forest just because of a single tree". Frankly speaking I'm always a believer of that saying, but not until 10 years ago. Because of that one tree, I actually made my life quite miserable.

Rumors is a very deadly weapon. Due to the rumors my stubbornness towards the lesser good brought me a lot of bad stuff... From that moment, the gap between me and the lesser good widens to an extent that silence is the only outcome.

Time flies, and the former little kid has transformed into an adult. And yet I'm still a firm believer of the lesser good. However the situation doesn't change much, well looks more like the situation still maintains the same, the silence still roams.

Until now, I still don't want to give up hope for the lesser good. But due to the powerful tool known as Media, I finally gave up on that believe. Not to say that I really wanted to give up on that one tree, but the reality forces me to do so.

Up to this point the Dark Lord doesn't want to say further anymore. Hence, he shall return to his chambers now. Apologies for not posting my normal stuff, because I just want to express my inner feelings once in a time...

Farewell mortals...

A Surprising Comment...

The Dark Lord has emerged from his chambers yet again, but this time, it's only for short...

I got a surprise comment from one of my favorite artist of L5R, Troy Graham, regarding my blog post about the few games that I played with the experienced players in my area. though the comment was not that long, still, it made me very happy.

Well, I agreed with what he said about Spider Paragons, where he mentioned that the deck still lacks something to make it more competitive. I think so too. I think that we are lacking personalities that have good printed battle actions. So far, only Daigotsu Hotako exp 2, Daigotsu Chaozhu exp 2, and Moto Yuudai have sorta 'good' battle actions.

One of the best Tainted that we have. Always do my stuff first? Yeah...

Making your enemies paralyze in fear? Oh Yeah....

I know that Dark Paragon are supposed to interact with Dark Virtues, but without good action to supplement the theme, I feel that is kinda pointless. If there are more good Paragons out there, we wouldn't need to 'import' in non-Paragon Samurais.

He also said that Breeder variations are quite strong for the current meta. Hmm... I might give it a try then.

Well, like I said, this post will be short, and the Dark Lord will be heading back to his chambers now... Farewell mortals...

Walking the Path of Shourido...

It's been almost 10 months since I played L5R. Started with Spider clan (the so called bad guys of the game), then proceeded to branch out to another clan, and now I'm ended up with Spider, Phoenix, and Mantis. At first, I thought that I'll only expand to Phoenix, but I've finally found out that the playstyle of Phoenix is not that suitable for me, as the majority of the clan's decks was quite taxing for my brain (especially enlightenment). Hence, I kinda gave up on playing Phoenix already.

After quite some time trolling around between clans, well I have to say that I'm still a Spider at heart (hence the Dark Lord), and nothing can change the fact that I can play Spider better than other clans. Kinda irony for a player that joins the bad guys while he actually played his first game using Crane Honor Bomb (yes, I'm talking to you Raymond a.k.a. Domotai). Well, whatever...

I have to say that Spider is kinda the most versatile clan, as it provides players with quite a lot of archetypes to try out. Breeder is my first choice when I just started and throughout the times I manage to evolve it, starting from pure Breeder to one of my most favorite build, the Goblin Breeder. But same as other typical card gamers, one deck is not satisfying at all. Actually the deck that I really look forward to build was Dark Paragons, the deck that I considered that embodies Spider's way of brutality and cruelty the best.

The effort of building the deck costed me a lot of time. It took me a total of half a year to fully finish my deck (without proxies). Though it was time consuming, but the deck gave me the most satisfaction, not to mention I won the title of the Spider Clan Champion on the previous league tournament that I attended with Dark Paragons.

Now, the deck was pimped even more with the additions of some powerful personalities/peeps and some new tech I discovered using older cards that I previously don't use. Hopefully the deck continues to give me motivation to improve even more... (fingers crossed)

Well, anyone that wanna have a walk through the path of Shourido are always welcomed to join me XD. This was just some random babbling on how I started L5R, and my recent progresses. In the future, this blog will feature more of my insights in deck building (Spider mostly), deck reviews, and some tournament reports.

That's all for now, and Daigotsu shall return to his chambers. (We shall annihilate those that oppose us!)