Overwatch: Competitive Mode is here!

I have been waiting for this since the game launched. Thusfar, the game's mainstay has been Quickplay Mode, which features fun gameplay but lacks a sense of progression. Once I learned all of the characters and map layouts and mechanics, I found myself with a frustrating sense of being unable to compare myself to others. Sometimes I would dominate matches and other times my opponents would wipe the floor with me and I'd be left wondering if it was due to skill, teammates, bad luck, one poor play leading to snowballing, pre-made teams and a host of other variables. With the advent of an MMR-rated competitive system, I can finally put a few of these concerns into perspective.

The new mode requires you to be level 25 to access and severely penalizes leaving matches as this game mode is meant to be more serious (you can be banned for an entire season for repeated offenses).

Pre-made teams will be matched more frequently against other pre-made teams rather than purely by MMR, which I think is a good thing given my experience under both types of systems through the evolution of sPvP in Guildwars 2.

Anyway, ten skill placement matches will determine your initial MMR and then you are set to rank up. The top 500 players will be listed on leaderboards for all to see. Maybe I can get myself up there. If I can tear myself away from Hearthstone laddering. I guess. Ahem.

You can read all the rest of the details over at playoverwatch.com

For Patch Notes go here.

Overwatch - Thank you for nerfing McCree

Blizzard's latest Overwatch patch has nerfed two often complained-about characters - Widowmaker and McCree. While I personally think Widowmaker was in a good place and nerfing her was unnecessary, McCree is a whole other story. His combo of stun and fan-hammer (complete unload of his weapon in half a second) was completely overpowered and uninteractive. There are always people who will argue that you just need to "git gud" to deal with him, but assuming he hits you with a stun, your controls are disabled and you just get to sit there while he unloads lethal damage with impunity in the flash of an eye. While landing the stun is not automatic, it is fairly easy to do given that it has a generous area-of-effect.

It will be interesting to see if he still sees competitive play but, in the meantime, thank you, Blizzard!

For the complete patch notes, see: June 14, 2016 update

My new favourite Hearthstone Deck - Pirate Warrior

YARRR

Hearthstone Decklists

So here are the non-meta decks I am currently running (I also have meta decks as well, but I prefer creativity or innovation to direct copying). Any constructive comments are welcome.

Overwatch

I did not see this one coming. I did not play in the beta, so I am a little late to the party, but this game has scratched an fps itch I didn't know I still had. What a wild ride!

At the moment, I am still digging into the feel of each character. So far, some early favourites are D. Va, Mercy and McCree.

I am also really enjoying the lore of the game. I've read all the Atlas News items, listened to Lucio's music, read Mei's journal, read all the comics and watched all the trailers and origin shorts. The story has me really intrigued.

Ok, so let's talk Whispers of the Old Gods

I have been very busy lately (as usual!). Unusually, however, this has been largely due to Hearthstone overload, no pun intended.

With their latest expansion to the Hearthstone universe, Whispers of the Old Gods, Blizzard has completely turned the game upside down. Not only have new formats been introduced to separate current card sets in the Standard format from being able to play any card in existence in the Wild format, but all the new cards brought in with the expansion along with nerfed cards from previous sets that were deemed too powerful have completely upended the meta game.

The Old Gods themselves C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, Y'Shaarj and N'Zoth are all powerful cards, and even meta-deck-defining in the case of C'Thun and N'Zoth. However, the entire set has introduced many other cards which have also had a strong impact. For example, the ever-controversial Flamewreathed Faceless has allowed the Shaman class to take a respectable position in top-level play despite the salty cries of downed opponents who claim it is overpowered to have a 7/7 for 4 mana.

Hearthstone - Byebye Mech Rogue (An Ode to Flying Machine)

Mech Rogue was my last favourite deck to play before the advent of the Blade Flurry nerf and the Whispers of the Old Gods Expansion. The soul of the Deck is an underused and under-appreciated card: Flying Machine.