So it's been a week since Hearthstone's newest expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods, was released. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things have turned out. Not so much the cards themselves, but rather in the way Blizzard is making the game more accessible to newer players. From handing out new packs to giving everyone C'thun to rotating out old sets, Blizzard has given just about everyone another reason to play this game, if only for a week. So kudos on Blizzard on giving Hearthstone the longevity it needs to be a really successful game in the years to come.

Overall, I've been fairly happy with the nerfs. I've never been a fan of nerfing cards, simply because I think it's a really lazy way of altering player behavior. For example, the nerf on Leper Gnome (from a 2/1 to a 1/1) was clearly intended to hurt aggro. Now that we're a week into the new meta, however, the ladder is still full of aggro, early-game board control decks like Zoo and Shaman. Obviously cards like Leper Gnome facilitate aggro, but the real root cause in my view is the ladder system, and the fact that Hearthstone disproportionately rewards fast games.

With that said, I think that the nerfs have overall been pretty reasonable. The nerf on Knife Juggler is warranted and has effectively turned it into a combo card rather than an automatic 2 drop. And the change on Force of Nature, again, is a great decision to counter Druid while still keeping the card relatively playable (at least in Arena). The biggest 'nerf' to classes like Druid and Paladin is the decision to rotate out cards like Dr. Boom and Piloted Shredder. Those cards have honestly caused a lot of unnecessary havoc and I think we're all better seeing less of them in the future.

Now, let's talk deck lists, starting with Hunter. Barring the occasional Face Hunter (designed to kill Secret Paladins), Hunter has been pretty underrepresented on ladder. As a Hunter main, I've been crafting a Hunter list that would be good in a meta that will probably be dominated by Zoo and Shaman. Although Hunter lost Mad Scientist, Fiery Bat is a great one-drop and Infested Wolf is a decent curve-filler. Princess Huhuran can find value in a slower meta where cards like Sylvanas might see play in a Midrange Hunter list, and Call of the Wild is again a great card, definitely at least a one-of in just about any Hunter deck that isn't pure aggro.

The real problem with Hunter, I think, is that the deck has no inherent card draw. Just about every tier-one deck has ways of cycling/drawing cards - Arcane Intellect in Mage, Ancestral Knowledge in Shaman, and many decks run Azure Drake as well. Hunter doesn't have that type of draw power, however. I think Cult Master and Loot Hoarder are the only decent draw options Hunter has, and both cards have their problems - Cult Master requires a solid board, while Loot Hoarder is on its own a weak 2-drop. I think 1 copy of Tracking, as a deck thinner, is correct in Hunter. In all, Midrange Hunter just feels like a weaker version of Shaman.

The Shaman list is fairly standard. If I wasn't missing a few cards, I would probably prefer playing Midrange Shaman instead, which is a lot more versatile than the Face variety and packs just as big of a punch with a tech copy of Bloodlust. I think that Shaman is definitely the best class right now, kind of like how Druid was about a month ago. The class is just so incredibly versatile - hard removal, burst, strong curve, 4-mana 7/7, the deck has everything.. I think we'll be seeing a lot more Shaman in the future and whether a deck can beat Shaman will be the litmus test for any new decks.

Finally, the Mage list. I don't own Arcane Blasts, which are probably better than Mirror Image especially since Cult Sorcerer is now the go-to 2-drop for Tempo Mage. I have a lot of hope for Tempo Mage. For one, I think it should have a good match-up versus Zoo, which runs a lot of 1-health minions and are far more prone to board clears. Now that Mage can safely run Flamestrike without so many Deathrattles around, Mage can also be pretty decent versus Shaman. I am pretty iffy on the Spellslingers however, and that's probably the first card I'll take out in practice.

2016 is well under way. It's amazing to see how quickly the year has passed, really, considering that my last post was on New Year's Eve and we're already in the middle of March. Not a lot of things happened in between. I will be graduating in September, so right now I'm basically looking to secure myself a full-time offer before graduation. Honestly, it is a tough job market out there, but I'm pretty confident about my chances. I managed to land a relevant internship last semester, I have extracurricular experiences, and I studied abroad as well. I've also done a fair share of networking throughout last semester, although I didn't meet as many people as I wanted to. 

So overall things are okay. My grades for last semester had been pretty decent. The dissertation (which I literally wrote two weeks before it was due) managed to receive an A+, which (according to my lecturer) is a really rare grade. I was told that no-one had gotten that grade in two years and I must have been the first person to get it in a while. To be fair I really didn't think the dissertation was that good. In retrospect it looked a bit rushed, I hadn't fully thought through my arguments, and I hadn't done enough primary research. But I managed to somehow pull it out and they seemed happy. I guess I can't really complain, can't I? Can't hide the fact that I still feel a tad incompetent, though.

My lecturer and I met up about two weeks ago over coffee on where my career is supposed to go. To be honest I already knew where I wanted to work, but I wanted her opinion on how a career in academia might look like. She said that academia is really tough to break into, and that getting a PhD is basically the same as flushing 80k down the toilet at this point (well, she didn't literally say that, but you know what I mean). Then she briefly congratulated me on my grades before she subtly hinted me to take on the Masters program at my university. I really don't have any intentions of staying at university, though. I like doing research and all, but I want to start working full-time.

So I guess that's it for my share of real-life stories. I've met some pretty amazing people over last semester, and overall school had actually been really enjoyable. The transition into work life is going to be tough, though. I'll have to get used to walking around in a suit, setting up a decent-looking LinkedIn, and be ready to have conversations with people I may or may not like. I think the reality of working in a corporate environment is that you get used to doing things like that, and you learn to do everything in a professional (i.e. slightly polite yet generally emotionless) manner. And the scary thing is that I'm sort of getting used to that. I'm getting used to getting along like that.

Besides that, nothing really happened. My private life has also been fairly mundane. I came pretty close to having a girlfriend last semester. She's an accounting student, and basically PM'd me on how much she liked me and so on. I didn't really feel anything and while we're still friends, nothing overly emotional happened thereafter. I don't really know why I don't feel that romantically attracted to anyone. I don't think there's a void in my heart that needs to be filled by someone else, anytime soon. I have friends who basically can't get along without their arms around a girl, and I can't really comprehend that. I just don't understand why women or companionship is all that important.

I did end up going out with another, Japanese girl, though. Her story is actually really, really screwed up. I was introduced to her via a friend of mine, who works at the same company as her. My friend really likes her - she's timid, she's a really shy, which I guess makes her kind of cute in a weird way. So one day, I asked this Japanese girl if she wanted to go to a convention (i.e. date) with me. She instantly agreed. It was really fun. I gave her some pocket money and she spent it like the irresponsible kitten she is (and did I mention she wore cat ears to the convention as well?). Then we went into the city and ate ramen and told lots of jokes and laughed. Things started getting cuddly between me and her really, really quickly. It was a really, really weird feeling.

That night, I saw her walking in the city. She told me earlier that she was going home, but she was actually in the city for the whole time. She cuddled me. I asked her if things were going fine and she said yes. After that, she went drinking with my friend. She got wasted. She made out with my friend in the back of the car. She got home, and encountered her boyfriend. I don't know what happened after that. My friend told me, about a month later, that her boyfriend is Japanese and is really, really abusive. He hits her quite often and I'm sure that she must have been beaten up that night because she went out with two guys. After that encounter, I met her one more time. Then we broke off all contacts.

Sorry. There's just so much I wanted to take off my chest. The story is just so unbelievably screwed up. You can probably make a soap drama out of the whole fiasco. And the reality was, I actually felt awful for taking her out. If I had known she had an abusive boyfriend who wouldn't let her get close to another guy (even if he has the romantic attraction of a rock), I wouldn't have taken her out. It was just an awful experience overall and it nearly destroyed my semester. I actually have no idea how I managed to survive through last year when there was so much random stuff going on.

I finally got a new hobby, and I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't gotten this hobby I wouldn't have made it through last semester. I was hoping to take up a new, 'better' hobby like running or exercising, but K-pop ended up being a very therapeutic thing that helped me a lot. It's funny because K-pop is actually just as awful as anything I've liked previously, but I just really like some of the girl groups. A-pink is great, Lovelyz is great, and some of the newer groups are also good as well. I think Lovelyz is fantastic - For You has got to be the most beautiful video that's come out all year. Definitely worth a watch - it's filmed in Okinawa and makes me want to go there.

For the past four years, there's been this annual secret santa event on /a/. I'm not actually sure how the whole thing started off in 2012, but I was among the first to join back then, and it was a pretty fun experience. The organizers have come and gone, but the secret santa thing seems to be a tradition now (as traditional as it gets on an imageboard, really) and after two years of absence, I decided to give it a go this year. I wasn't really expecting much, but I actually managed to receive my cards and, well, I felt pretty happy. The only ominous thing about the cards is that both had Chinatsu on them. I had no idea this many people liked Chinatsu. Then again I hardly post in the Yuri Yuri threads (thankfully) so I don't know that much.

I'll probably be sending out my cards within the first week of January, since the printers are taking a very, very long time to print out my cards. There should still be two cards heading my way, which should be pretty exciting. Sometimes I get really amazed by just how trustworthy a group of anonymous people on the Internet truly are. It's a community that I've spent my past five years with and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever actually quit that place. There's hardly any other place on Earth where I get to rank girls and say all sorts of random things to them. Sometimes I just get the impulse of saying 'I want to cuddle and have lots of children with Honoka' or 'I want to do X to Y' or something stupid like that.

Speaking of Honoka, I just bought a figure of her about two weeks ago. She looks great! I'm starting to assemble my Honoka shrine now, and if there's a new CD out from her I'll most likely buy it too. I'm not sure why exactly I like Honoka so much. In terms of personality, I really like Kotori, while in terms of looks, you can't beat Eli. But for some reason I just really, really like Honoka. Maybe it's because she's just a very genuine person, someone you can imagine having a conversation with, having fun with, laugh with and cry with. Honoka has her moments but for the most part, she's pretty, outgoing, and authentic. Truly the best girl. She might not be real, but that doesn't really matter. As Illya puts it: 'Don't Think, Imagine!"

It's been a while. It's New Year's Day in New Zealand (the clock went past midnight about two hours ago), and this will be my first post in 2016, it seems. I have been really lazy for the past two months or so, since school had been extraordinarily busy for me. I'm in the middle of a break right now, so I guess I can get some writing going on and talk about card games and video games and cute girls.

2014 was an incredibly important year for Hearthstone. Both Naxxramas and Goblin vs. Gnomes were released in that year, and cards like Loatheb, Sludge Belcher, Dr. Boom and Piloted Shredder permanently changed the meta. In contrast, I feel that 2015 was a lot quieter. Blackrock Mountain only had a rather small impact on the meta (beyond Emperor Thaurissan and Grim Patron), and the true potential for League of Explorers is yet to be seen. With that said, cards like Sir Finley and Reno Jackson have added a lot of deck-building potential to the game, and the new Discovery mechanic is a very appropriate and 'fair' use of RNG. 

Of course, the actual meta game changed a lot. Hunter is now, for the most part, a tier 2 or even a tier 3 class. And just earlier this year, the meta game had been a toss-up between Patron Warrior, Secrets Paladin and Midrange Druid, with Patron Warrior usually coming up on top. Now that Warsong Commander has been nerfed to the status of Undertaker and Starving Buzzard, Secrets Paladin is now officially the most popular, if not the strongest deck in Hearthstone. It has no bad match-ups, it's hard to make mistakes with it which makes it perfect for laddering, and it is very mana efficient. 

The reality is, I think, that Blizzard has consciously played an active role in pushing Paladin to tier one status. With every expansion, Paladin has received relevant cards, from Shielded Minibot and Muster for Battle, to Mysterious Challenger and Keeper of Uldaman. In contrast, Hunter has received almost none, beyond Quickshot. It seems to me that Blizzard is experimenting with an alternative way of nerfing or buffing certain classes - give the weaker classes stronger cards and give the stronger classes irrelevant/gimmicky cards. If this theory is correct, then it's pretty apparent that Blizzard has done a pretty good job.

I have been working on my free-to-play account on Europe for a significant chunk of the year. My goal was to produce at least two meta decks (aka decks that would carry a competent player to Legend) without spending any gold, within six months. I achieved the goal two weeks ago. I completed a full Hybrid Hunter and Zoo deck (with Dr. Boom), while my Midrange Druid and Secret Paladin decks were about 80% finished. That's almost four decks in total! So it is, in fact, possible to play this game competitively, and for free. In retrospect, it really boiled down to three things: you need to be good at arena (I average about 6-7 wins per run, and last week I managed to hit two 12 wins), you need to play a lot, and you need to be careful about managing your gold.

The reason why a lot of new players have trouble getting into this game, I think, isn't really because Blizzard isn't giving out enough gold or packs. For one, I already think that Tavern Brawl is more than adequate for providing a steady stream of gold and packs. The real gap is the knowledge gap. Most new players just don't have the basic card game knowledge (knowing how to trade, etc) to play this game, not to mention that arena drafting is inherently very complex. The reason why I was able to successfully create a free-to-play account had a lot more to do with my experience in this game, and not because I managed to get lucky and unpacked a Legendary, etc. Perhaps a new tutorial might help?

Anyway, I'll definitely be playing more Hearthstone in January. To round off this post, I'd like to share two decklists that I'll be using on my free-to-play account, starting with my favourite class, Hunter. I really think that Hybrid Hunter is the go-to Hunter archetype right now. Face Hunter is pretty bad right now (except against Secrets Paladin) and Midrange Hunter is far too slow. Hybrid Hunter seems to be the most appropriate archetype right now, because in Hunter, you need both board control and the burst and Hybrid Hunter provides that. 

The tech cards in this list are Argent Squire and the two copies of Glaivezooka. To fight off cards like Darnassus Aspirant and Shielded Minibot, turn one Webspinner just isn't cutting it anymore. In contrast, cards like Argent Squire allows me to trade efficiently (particularly with the Glaivezooka buff) into cards like Knife Juggler. No Eaglehorn Bow in this list - you almost never get Secret value off it, and Glaivezooka usually ends up doing the same amount of damage for one less mana. 

The next list is Midrange Druid. I'm not much of a Druid player, but I've played against that class so many times that I know the deck very well. As long as the Force of Nature/Savage Roar combo exists, Midrange Druid will never go out of fashion. Midrange Druid is basically a deck capable of taking up just about any matchups, has heal, card draw, burst and tempo in the form of Innervate and Wild Growth. A really good all around deck designed for laddering. 

The hard part about building Midrange Druid is choosing what goes in the 5-mana slot. I personally prefer Sludge Belcher. I certainly can see myself playing two Azure Drakes, however, since cycling is very important in any midrange decks, and the spell power helps with removing threats (the one weakness of Midrange Druid is its lack of efficient removals). Beyond that, I really think that other tech cards (Sylvanas etc) are all worthy of inclusion, but with a deck as versatile as Midrange Druid, it's probably best to leave the core as it is.

I don't really watch much anime anymore. The only show that I'm watching right now is Yuru Yuri S3. The first three episodes have been pretty decent - nothing spectacular or particularly memorable, but pretty good overall. Last night, however, I watched episode four, and what an amazing episode it was. I'd easily rank it as one of the best Yuru Yuri episodes from the three seasons combined, and perhaps one of the best in the entire yuri genre. Everything from the episode came together almost seamlessly. They managed to crank up the yuri to eleven and nothing felt risqué at all. Very pure, very tender. It's times like this when you drift into an fantasy wonderland where being a lesbian seems to be the solution to every problem in the world. 

Well, in Yuru Yuri, pure love trumps everything else, right?