Blaugust Day 27 – A Game With Less Lag

I think I'm gonna have to give League of Legends a mulligan since I'm not going to be playing much with all the lag they've introduced with the server move – I decided to play Hearthstone instead.

Ping Worries Realized

Well I can't say I wasn't worried about the move and its impact on my gameplay, but the League of Legends server move to Chicago has not been good for me in the first few days since it occurred. I haven't completed a game without experiencing horrible lag. Of course it is only anecdotal since I wasn't hovering over the ping icon the entire game, but I regularly saw 200-600ms pings during the few games I played and things certainly felt sluggish. Along with the ping increase, I found it difficult to hit with my bind as Morgana – it seemed like everyone I tried to hit had their hit boxes reduced by half – I would see the bind go right by them (actually I need to take a look at things in slow-mo so I'll have to record a few games). I hope this is just a temporary thing since the servers are new, but I really would hate to have to change which champs I play so I can deal with the increased lag. I suppose I may do that or as I mentioned in a previous post, I may just cut back on the number of games I play in League – I never seemed to get much lag in Heroes of the Storm.

First game of Hearthstone as a Druid

With the lag I was having in League, I decided it was time to give Hearthstone a whirl. I'm pretty sure it has been at least 6 months since the last time I played, and I never played many games to begin with. While I like the idea of the game, I've never been really interested in collectable card games (I bought a few real world decks of Magic the Gathering years ago and played a couple of games, but nothing serious). Hearthstone makes things much easier that real world card games – you can play anytime, you don't have tons of cards lying around the house, and the game seems more understandable for a casual gamer like myself. With that said and not having played in over 6 months, I have a lot of learning to do.

Last time I played Hearthstone with any regularity, I was just opening up the various champions. I used the Mage deck, that you get when you start the game, to open up all the standard champions and then I got her leveled up to 12. I even found a reference online and built a basic beginner deck for her and I'm pretty sure I played a few games with it, but that's where things ended. Last night I found out that you need to level each class up to 10 or so before you really want to try to create a custom deck. Or at least, you don't have some of the class cards unless you are level 10 or so – I think. In any case, I tried to make a Druid deck and found I only had 10 of the 20 basic class cards, and I found it hard to make a deck with such limitations. So I went with the standard non-custom deck, hit play and was on my way.

I took 2 mulligans of cards that were 5 and 6 mana and got an Innervate and a Wild Growth. Too bad I wasn't sure how to use them in the first round, but I learned that Wild Growth adds a mana crystal spot permanently so if I play it on round 2 (it costs 2 mana) it will add a crystal and next round I will have 4 mana to use. Innervate is cool too as I provides 2 extra mana crystals for the current turn at 0 mana cost. Both of these together give a Druid some early game potential to pump out some big cards.

I figured out how to use those two cards after the 2nd turn when I went ahead and played Wild Growth. I was pretty please to see the extra mana on turn 3 and it let me put down a 4 point card so I felt I was gaining an advantage. I was up against a priest so I expected them to heal a bunch, but instead they kept attacking my hero. After a few turns and another Wild Growth I had minions that could do 18 damage on the board and she had taken my hero down to 22 health. My next round, I cleared the board of her minions and knocked her down to 14 health – almost there, but I had no cards in my hand. On her round, she managed to take out 6 of my damage so was safe, or so she thought. With 14 damage on the board, I drew what I thought was a bad card – Elvish something-or-other – only 1 point of damage, but it could attack right away. I played it and dropped her to 13 hp, hit her with the 12 damage I had on the board, and then remembered I had a one point hero spell that I cast and vanquished her.

My first game in over 6 months and I pulled off a win.

I gained 2 levels and a few new cards and feel pretty good at giving this game a shot again.

It's still not too late to join Blaugust – just go to the initiative page at Tales of the Aggronaut or take a look at the Blaugust Nook on Anook.

Morning Ramble #51 | Blaugust Day 27

#LeagueOfLegends #Hearthstone #Blaugust #MorningRamble