“The Stack” Stack (Uncut) – Episodes 22-24
June 16, 2016
This week’s Stack of Stacks are a whole lot of fun.
EPISODE 22 – TAY SWIZZLE TWIZZLER
Twenty-two is an important number in Taylor Swift Circles, so we named this episode after that, then said a bunch of stuff, and talked about the top 5 female characters on Magic cards.
EPISODE 23 – WHO LIKES TO ROCK THE PARTY (PARTY)
Andrew W.K.’s foray into politics, Starcraft duel decks, and the 30th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda are Aaron and Eric’s topics of discussion. Angry rants about MtGO, as well as the Banned and Restricted update, are also included as part of the regularly scheduled program.
http://www.thepartyparty.us/
http://nerdist.com/magic-the-gathering-meets-starcraft-in-amazing-custom-deck-set/
EPISODE 24 – BAIT, SWITCH, RE-BAIT, REPEAT…
Aaron and Eric talk about a lot of Magic stuff this week, including the Netflix documentary “Enter the Battlefield,” the Community Super League, PT Shadows, and all the rigmarole poor Helene Bergeot has had the unfortunate job of communicating.
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Walugi also operates an overcomplicated kart racing stadium in his off time. I like to think he won the lottery and has more money than he knows what to do with, so when his buddy from the old neighborhood who Took A Different Path calls him up cuz he needs a doubles partner he’s reight there for his old bud, even though he wants to maintain plausible deniability as to where his old friend recieves his funding.
Also, Playmat picture?
My bad. I totally forgot!
Glorious!
Amazing.
As for the Zelda discussion, I must confess I have never beaten one. I am currently stuck in the 8th dungeon of the original, twenty years, three battery replacements, and innumerable restarts after I originally began my quest. Does anyone know how to kill the bee thing that has tons of other smaller bees? All my weapons seem to just bouce off. My own “retro rule” prevents me from using any resource that wouldn’t have been available at release time, so I can’t wiki it. I can, however, has people like Grandpa Growth and the fun uncle if they know how to kill it. Do you remember?
It’s been a very long time since I played this one.
Are you talking about Gleeok, the Dragon with seven heads that start flying around when you chop them off? If so, it’s all about detaching the heads with the sword.
If you’re talking about Digdogger, the circular thing- you have to whistle to get it to separate. then you beat up the little guys with the sword. There’s a trick with the bombs too. if you put a bomb on it before you whistle, and then whistle, it guarantees that you’ll kill one of the smaller pieces when it separates.
I hope this helps.
It’s like one big bee with a bunch of little bees circling it. Everything just bounces off. From flipping through a cousin’s old manual I think it’s called Patras and is actually flying eyeballs?
Don’t feel guilty wikiing it. We had guide books and Nintendo Power back then. I don’t recall anything special about the bees. Thought it was mostly kill the smaller ones, then take out the big one. Anything further and I’d have to Wiki it, as I have the original game included overworld map, but no longer those Nintendo Powers.
So, it turns out you have to use Sword on the bee things. They go down fairly easy once you start stabbing them. Not sure how I hadn’t tried that before. I’ve found Ganon, but I still lack the Red Ring and the Magic Arrows and The Map for Dungeon 9. BOMB ALL THE WALLS!
When in doubt- always the sword!
Also as far as the Zelda discussion goes, shame on both of you for not mentioning A Link Between Worlds. That’s the best Zelda game to come out in years. I’m wagging my finger at both of you right now.
+5 bonus points for avoiding the new hipster narrative that likes to claim that The Adventure of Link is somehow a misinterpreted work of genius.
-1 point for Eric’s choice of Majora’s Mask as the best Zelda game. Aaron said it best: it’s a weird (if still delightful) sidestory that’s definitely in the top five, but almost by definition can’t claim the top spot.
And Commander ’95 is the best thing ever. FACT.
My wife is currently playing The Adventure of Link, and I’m sure there’s a neat Classic Castlevania-esque game in there, but holy balls is it a grind! I think that Zelda 2 is a poorly executed set of reasonable ideas. The overworld is neat, the combat is a pretty good idea, and the experience points system isn’t inherantly bad. That said, that game is insane filler crap. Everything in that game is built around sucking all the player’s resources away without giving anything back. Enemy attacks require incredible timing to avoid taking damage, you can’t grind enough exp in any reasonable amount of time to level up to have enough health to survive to find a fairy after the fight. If you die, you lose your exp. If you get hit by one of the infinitely spawning running guys, you lose your exp. Holy crap is this game hard. And not like Dark Souls hard, like “spend a weekend killing Slimes in order to get to level 3 in hopes of getting a health boost that will let you walk to the next dungeon,” hard. Oh, and random encounters that contain no enemies, only fireballs. Such a resource drain. There’s such a steep learning curve, and the respawn point being the literal beginning of the game is a nightmare. This is almost Castlevania 2 bad.
We have a friend named Zach that is an absolute guru at Adventure of Link. He has the entire game memorized and can beat it in a single sitting. One time in college I sat on the couch watching him play the game and he had it solved in a couple of hours and died exactly once. I can’t get five minutes into that game without dying.
My wife just tested Time To Death 9 minutes. She’s on 30 deaths, and is partway through the second dungeon. And she’s waaaaaay better at this game than me.
Haven’t played Link Between Worlds yet. Looking forward to it.
On the matter of faster play. I had the perfect deck for Steam Augery, and then decided that this would never be a fun spell to multicast. For each one, I have to agonize over sorting the cards, then an opponent picks a pile. For each one… in a multicast deck…
On the other hand. Pyromancer’s Goggles are scary efficient once you land them and can use them. The hardest part being the red spells to use them. But once you do start echoing Vengeful Rebirth, trying to dome someone with Cerebral Vortex, or even multicast an Epic Experiment. The danger and power is real.
Regarding Commander Achievements:
It’s not clever or original, but I must achieve the full Station combo before I die. I will then proceed to replace every word in my vocabulary with the word “station,” ala Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.
This must happen.
If I can find space I want the stations, the Empire set, and the Shrines in my ongoing 5-color alt-win deck project. I should really pick up those pieces, I’m pretty sure I have all the stations, I’m short the Throne of Empires, and the Not-GW shrines.
I can only assume your mana base contains all ten Guild Gates, so you can go for the Maze’s End win, too? (I kinda wanna try that, actually.)
Of course!
Before I left for Seattle, it became a thing for me to try and win in HH under Form of the Dragon. Of the three or four times I’ve cast it, I think I got there once.