Hearthpwn

Here it is:

Damn there are some reeeaaally fun and interesting designs here. I'm glad someone decided to do a design competition with no restrictions and to let everyone's imagination run wild. The first phase of this competition seemed to be really rough so it's a privilege to have made it to the final poll. Thanks for voting and good luck to all the other finalists!

Quote from Kaladin >>

Character being different in later seasons than in earlier seasons = character progression, as long as we like the outcome

Character being different in later seasons than in earlier seasons = inconsistent writing, as long as we hate the outcome

 

come on guys

 Let me correct you:

Character being different in later seasons than in earlier seasons as a logical result of his experiences and actions = character progression

Character being different in later seasons than in earlier seasons just for the sake of subverting expectations or plot requirements = inconsistent writing

Quote from DarkArchon21 >>

Quote from GerritDeMan >>

To all the people saying Daenerys' actions made sense and were set up properly I'd like to point out the following:

In the first 4 seasons Daenerys was constantly trying to help the helpless. She wanted the dothraki to stop mindlessly killing and raping people, even though that is basically their entire culture. She killed all the slavers in Astapor and told the slaves she freed (including the unsullied) that they were free to go. She went to Yunkai, where they offered her ships so that she could go to Westeros and do what her initial purpose was, but instead she chose to free the people of Yunkai from their masters. Then she went on to Meereen to do the exact same and stayed there to make sure slavery was going to be ended permanently.

Sure, after that things definitely didn't all go too well for her until halfway through season 6 where suddenly everyone flocked to her side. Then when she went to Westeros things still didn't go very smoothly, but in the end she got what she wanted. Jon told her he doesn't want the throne so there's really not much reason for her to worry about him being the true heir, and she beat Cersei. Even if everyone knew about Jon's true heritage he could just say 'I don't want to be king and I declare Daenerys the queen of the seven kingdoms' and most people would have been okay with it. 

It has already been stated enough that her going mad was setup poorly so I won't go into that too much, but all of you who think her actions made sense are forgetting this: She won, every one of her enemies surrendered to her, and even if she still decided her enemies (or just Cersei since no one besides her and Euron have actively wronged her) had to pay for their actions, she could have just gone straight for the red keep where all of her remaining enemies were. The main problem isn't Daenerys 'going mad', it's that she has apparently become so mad that she is slaughtering countless innocents for no damn reason at all, while she used to be someone who would do everything to make sure that the oppressed masses are treated appropriately.

Daenerys has had the tendency to go too far in punishing those she believed to be in the wrong so I can see why you would think Daenerys losing it made some sense, but I just can't possibly begin to understand how you can think that it makes sense for her to mindlessly slaughter innocent civilians.

Edit: also this: https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bo7qug/remember_when_dany_was_devastated_because_her/

 

 

It blows my mind how many people are saying something along the lines of you, that this was out of no where and we didn't see it coming...Like really????

Almost every time she has tried to do something right or listened to her advisors it has bite her in the ass. I mean like where should we start? Her descend into finally snapping has been in the works for a long time.

- Her brother treated her like trash like she was a object her whole life.
- When she tried to be merciful to the witch that was about to be raped she ended up betraying her by killing her husband and unborn child.
- When she was in Qarth she was betrayed by the person that let her into the city and also one of her close friends.
- Barristan Selmy gets iced when the city turns on her.
- When helping Jon it ended up costing her a Dragon when she went North of the wall to save him.
- At Winterfell loses half her army and Jorah trying to do the right thing.
- Missandei gets her head chopped off.
- Gets betrayed once again by her close advisor Vary's.
- Loses another Dragon
- Finds out she's not actually the true heir and destined for the throne
- Has another relationship go to shambles with Jon
- Most of Westoros is taking a dump on her face
- Most people aren't giving her the respect she deserves after everything she has sacrificed.

Am sure am missing a few more things here and people are sitting here wondering why she's so emotionally unstable and finally snaps and says fuck it when Cersei is in her sights. Honestly it's very realistic. Sometimes people just snap under the pressure and in the moment especially after a series of traumatizing events.

 Did you even read my post? I said that I can understand that she would go crazy AT CERSEI, not at thousands of innocent people who have not wronged her in any way.

To all the people saying Daenerys' actions made sense and were set up properly I'd like to point out the following:

In the first 4 seasons Daenerys was constantly trying to help the helpless. She wanted the dothraki to stop mindlessly killing and raping people, even though that is basically their entire culture. She killed all the slavers in Astapor and told the slaves she freed (including the unsullied) that they were free to go. She went to Yunkai, where they offered her ships so that she could go to Westeros and do what her initial purpose was, but instead she chose to free the people of Yunkai from their masters. Then she went on to Meereen to do the exact same and stayed there to make sure slavery was going to be ended permanently.

Sure, after that things definitely didn't all go too well for her until halfway through season 6 where suddenly everyone flocked to her side. Then when she went to Westeros things still didn't go very smoothly, but in the end she got what she wanted. Jon told her he doesn't want the throne so there's really not much reason for her to worry about him being the true heir, and she beat Cersei. Even if everyone knew about Jon's true heritage he could just say 'I don't want to be king and I declare Daenerys the queen of the seven kingdoms' and most people would have been okay with it. 

It has already been stated enough that her going mad was setup poorly so I won't go into that too much, but all of you who think her actions made sense are forgetting this: She won, every one of her enemies surrendered to her, and even if she still decided her enemies (or just Cersei since no one besides her and Euron have actively wronged her) had to pay for their actions, she could have just gone straight for the red keep where all of her remaining enemies were. The main problem isn't Daenerys 'going mad', it's that she has apparently become so mad that she is slaughtering countless innocents for no damn reason at all, while she used to be someone who would do everything to make sure that the oppressed masses are treated appropriately.

Daenerys has had the tendency to go too far in punishing those she believed to be in the wrong so I can see why you would think Daenerys losing it made some sense, but I just can't possibly begin to understand how you can think that it makes sense for her to mindlessly slaughter innocent civilians.

Edit: also this: https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bo7qug/remember_when_dany_was_devastated_because_her/

Quote from linkblade91 >>

Or maybe this is the ending GRRM had always envisioned, leaving D&D to scramble for some kind of connecting line that got them from the earlier seasons to this result. Dany becomes the Mad Queen because Martin told them she would, but we don't have the time or the pages to get there on a slower clip. This could be seen as a failure of D&D in their attempts to wrap up the show sooner than HBO would prefer, but much of this comes down to what they were given to work with.

 I agree that D&D were probably not given enough to work with by GRRM, but that still doesn't excuse their incredibly lazy and inconsistent writing.

'Dany kinda forgot about the Iron fleet' -> dumb shit like this is proof that they don't care anymore and just want to be done with the show as soon as possible.

But hey, at least we got a zombie polar bear am I right?

Quote from YourPrivateNightmare >>

Quote from GerritDeMan >>

Quote from YourPrivateNightmare >>

Holy fucking shit what an absolute shitshow. I mean, I didn't expect much anymore and they still managed  to disappoint.

How do you follow up episode 3 and manage to get even worse?

So we start off by firing Varys because he is the last smart character left in the show and we can't have that. Everyone is surprisingly okay with this.

Then we start the battle with some quick maths:

1 Scorpion vs Drogon = taken out of combat with one hit, taking two shots

about 5 scorpions vs Drogon & rhaegal = instant kill with triple bullseye

ALL THE SCORPIONS vs Drogon = incapable of doing anything

all the previous set up of "the odds are frighteningly even" are thrown out of the window. The entire Night King plot therefore had ABSOLUTELY NO POINT and if you ignored that it happened ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would change.

Drogon has also upgraded his fire breath to a disintegration beam that explodes on impact. There is no explanation. MEanwhile the Dothraki have learned the power of mitosis and multiplied of screen. They still fail to factor into the battle except for one scene.

Arya is determined to killl Cersei despite it being pretty clear that Cersei will not survive anyways. She immediately gets talked out of it by the HOund, who for some reason is really determined to kill his brother. This has nothing to do with his arc. He goes on basically a suicide mission to get revenge, despite him barely even mentioning it before. His entire story was about changing him from a lonely nihilist to someone who actually cares about certain people...but no, Cleganebowl has to happen. It wouldn't make sense if he just followed Arya and 1v1d the mountain to let her follow Cersei or something...nnah he's just gonna do his Mortal Kombat shit, because fuck it, his character has been dead in the books for a long time so it really doesn't matter whether he has an actual consistent characterization or not.

Also, for some reason the Mountain conveniently decides to have some desire to fight his brother despite being a braindead zombie. There is no reason for this other than Cleganebowl. Did they forgot that the Mountain doesn't actually hate his brother? He pushed him into the fire as a kid and is just a dick. He doesn't give a fuck about him otherwise. There's literally no reason why he would abandon his post just for a 1v1.

Dany goes from 0 to insane for no reason at all. There's literally nothing to provoke her. She destroyed all the scorpions and all she has to do is burn down the Red Keep. Instead she decides to do a little Holocaust just because. After all, we only have one episode left and we need a reason for her to die. Also we conveniently never actually cut to her while genociding so we just have to assume she's laughing maniacally, her hair has turned green, she has the words "damaged" tatooted on her forehead and talks about how "all it takes is one bad day"....presumably

we also get to follow some random orphans on their way to their extremely predictable death, because we have to manufacture drama somehow.

Arya has upgraded her Faceless Man game and instead of stealing faces she stole Euron's plot armor. He still had enough to casually swim up to shore and run into Jaime only to attack him for no reason. What is Euron's motivation? Previously it was that he wants power...then it was that he just wants to bang the queen. HIs character is non-existent, but apparently he's still important enough to not just get axed by the dragon.

Jon Snow continues to be useless as usual.For some reason all the Lannister soldiers still want to kill him though. His character at this point can be summed up by "I don't want to"

We no longer like Grey Worm. the Northerners are apparently psychopaths who commit war crimes the instant they have the opportunity too. Nobody tell the writers that the main reason why raping and pillaging happens is because the soldiers basically went through hell and have lost their humanity. these soldiers barely even fought anyone, they steamrolled a few confused soldiers and that's it. There is literally no reason for them to do anything of the sort, but hey, the dickless man with a hatred for helmets threw a sword so I guess it's time to go berserk.

Oh yeah and Tyrion again wanders around battlefields looking concerned

Arya continues to be punished for Killstealing and is rendered useless the entire episode. Instead, the coldblooded, downright inhuman assassin gremlin now becomes the audience stand-in to showcase the horrors of war. As a parting gift from the lord of light for doing such a good job she gets a horse to ride into the sunset. There is no symbolism. It's just ********.

Did I miss anything?

 

 

 You missed Cersei and Jaime dying in the most anti-climactic way possible, because D&D once again subverted our expectations by having them killed by none other than, wait for it... falling rocks! On top of that Jaime's entire character arc is now completely ruined because he has ended exactly where he started back in season 1 when he was a completely different person. I guess he was scared of having to fuck Brienne for the rest of his life instead of Cersei who was actually good at it?

Other than that, great job, I agree with everything.

 

 I have to admit, I actually liked her ending, partly because no matter how it was set up there wouldn't have been a satisfying death for her. Arya killilng her? Cool, but ultimately boring, Dany roasting her? Same.

I like that in the end it showed Cersei to still be human. I mean, she was basically sure she was going to win (and she would have if not for plot convenience) so having her witness her own downfall and realizing it was kind of poetic.

On the other hand Jaime was completely ruined as a character, but hey, at least we know whoever wrote the prophecy was a dyslexic moron who can't tell the difference between "dies by her brother's hands" and "dies in her brother's arms"

 Yeah I agree about Cersei's death, I still don't think it was great, but it was definitely one of the better handled parts of the episode (although that doesn't mean much lol).

I was mostly disappointed with Jaime's actions and death in this episode, and because he and Cersei died together I guess I extended my hate to Cersei's death as well while that wasn't my intention.

Quote from YourPrivateNightmare >>

Holy fucking shit what an absolute shitshow. I mean, I didn't expect much anymore and they still managed  to disappoint.

How do you follow up episode 3 and manage to get even worse?

So we start off by firing Varys because he is the last smart character left in the show and we can't have that. Everyone is surprisingly okay with this.

Then we start the battle with some quick maths:

1 Scorpion vs Drogon = taken out of combat with one hit, taking two shots

about 5 scorpions vs Drogon & rhaegal = instant kill with triple bullseye

ALL THE SCORPIONS vs Drogon = incapable of doing anything

all the previous set up of "the odds are frighteningly even" are thrown out of the window. The entire Night King plot therefore had ABSOLUTELY NO POINT and if you ignored that it happened ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would change.

Drogon has also upgraded his fire breath to a disintegration beam that explodes on impact. There is no explanation. MEanwhile the Dothraki have learned the power of mitosis and multiplied of screen. They still fail to factor into the battle except for one scene.

Arya is determined to killl Cersei despite it being pretty clear that Cersei will not survive anyways. She immediately gets talked out of it by the HOund, who for some reason is really determined to kill his brother. This has nothing to do with his arc. He goes on basically a suicide mission to get revenge, despite him barely even mentioning it before. His entire story was about changing him from a lonely nihilist to someone who actually cares about certain people...but no, Cleganebowl has to happen. It wouldn't make sense if he just followed Arya and 1v1d the mountain to let her follow Cersei or something...nnah he's just gonna do his Mortal Kombat shit, because fuck it, his character has been dead in the books for a long time so it really doesn't matter whether he has an actual consistent characterization or not.

Also, for some reason the Mountain conveniently decides to have some desire to fight his brother despite being a braindead zombie. There is no reason for this other than Cleganebowl. Did they forgot that the Mountain doesn't actually hate his brother? He pushed him into the fire as a kid and is just a dick. He doesn't give a fuck about him otherwise. There's literally no reason why he would abandon his post just for a 1v1.

Dany goes from 0 to insane for no reason at all. There's literally nothing to provoke her. She destroyed all the scorpions and all she has to do is burn down the Red Keep. Instead she decides to do a little Holocaust just because. After all, we only have one episode left and we need a reason for her to die. Also we conveniently never actually cut to her while genociding so we just have to assume she's laughing maniacally, her hair has turned green, she has the words "damaged" tatooted on her forehead and talks about how "all it takes is one bad day"....presumably

we also get to follow some random orphans on their way to their extremely predictable death, because we have to manufacture drama somehow.

Arya has upgraded her Faceless Man game and instead of stealing faces she stole Euron's plot armor. He still had enough to casually swim up to shore and run into Jaime only to attack him for no reason. What is Euron's motivation? Previously it was that he wants power...then it was that he just wants to bang the queen. HIs character is non-existent, but apparently he's still important enough to not just get axed by the dragon.

Jon Snow continues to be useless as usual.For some reason all the Lannister soldiers still want to kill him though. His character at this point can be summed up by "I don't want to"

We no longer like Grey Worm. the Northerners are apparently psychopaths who commit war crimes the instant they have the opportunity too. Nobody tell the writers that the main reason why raping and pillaging happens is because the soldiers basically went through hell and have lost their humanity. these soldiers barely even fought anyone, they steamrolled a few confused soldiers and that's it. There is literally no reason for them to do anything of the sort, but hey, the dickless man with a hatred for helmets threw a sword so I guess it's time to go berserk.

Oh yeah and Tyrion again wanders around battlefields looking concerned

Arya continues to be punished for Killstealing and is rendered useless the entire episode. Instead, the coldblooded, downright inhuman assassin gremlin now becomes the audience stand-in to showcase the horrors of war. As a parting gift from the lord of light for doing such a good job she gets a horse to ride into the sunset. There is no symbolism. It's just ********.

Did I miss anything?

 

 

 You missed Cersei and Jaime dying in the most anti-climactic way possible, because D&D once again subverted our expectations by having them killed by none other than, wait for it... falling rocks! On top of that Jaime's entire character arc is now completely ruined because he has ended exactly where he started back in season 1 when he was a completely different person. I guess he was scared of having to fuck Brienne for the rest of his life instead of Cersei who was actually good at it?

Other than that, great job, I agree with everything.

Quote from Vesper >>

 

 This is beautiful, thank you.

Well after the shitstains we got in the previous two weeks I didnt expect much better than what we got this week. That won’t stop me from complaining about it though.

The spoiler contains three examples of mechs you could make!

Notes: Just like with Deathstalker Rexxar 's Build-A-Beast , you can only combine mechs that cost 5 or less mana. From the past means from sets that have rotated out of the standard format (just like Toki, Time-Tinker 's effect).

Quote from hillandder >>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7zy1PTMp0

 

 Haha I've already seen that, such a great video.

Yeah I quit arena for this expansion after I got a 12 win run with warlock (preceded by some mediocre to bad runs). It felt like every game was decided mostly by rng with me having very little unfluence on the game's outcome. In my opinion arena peaked during boomsday (I only started actively playing arena since the taverns of time event) and kept being pretty good until now.

Quote from Whodatninja >>

From around the time of Frozen Throne, Blizzard seemed to really want to push control as an archetype. I hadn't been playing all that long back then, but it was my perception that aggro/tempo decks had mostly ruled the meta up to that point, and a slower meta was welcomed by a lot of players.

Unfortunately, the control decks that came to the fore at that time weren't very much fun to play against. Jade Druid basically crushed other slow decks with infinite value, while Frost Lich Jaina just put the game out of reach for most faster decks if you couldn't kill her within a turn or two of being played. I think these infinite value decks are part of the reason for the anti-control feeling - if you queued into them with the wrong deck, it felt like there was nothing you could do to win the game. I think a lot of people were hoping the meta would look different after the rotation, but instead we got another very dominant control deck (Control Warrior), that is a very tough matchup for a lot of other decks. On top of that, aggressive decks (other than rogue), are in a pretty weak spot compared to decks of the past, with few powerful 1-drops, fewer chargers, and less ways of doing burst damage (with a couple of exceptions like rogue and some hunter decks).

In short, control has been a dominant archetype for a long time now - it took a brief hit when Rastakhan came out, but the combo decks that took its place often played a pretty controlly game in practice, with tons of heal and removal. And decks like these - OTK decks that go all in on a single win condition - aren't much fun to play against either. So basically, I think a lot of people are sick of playing against slow, grindy decks at this point.

I don't hate control decks in general, but I find that playing against fatigue-style decks, with no actual win condition other than running their opponents out of gas, gets old really fast. I also dislike playing against stall-and-cycle OTK decks that are all in on a single, game-winning combo. For me, a good control deck is one that tries to survive to the later turns and then starts dropping big threats, closing out the game quickly if you can't kill them first. I've played a lot of matches both with and against these sorts of decks, and I find them a lot of fun.  These sorts of control decks are much healthier for the game in my opinion.

 

 Exactly this^