I absolutely love green chiles. I don’t know what it is, I don’t remember when it started, but anytime I can have green chiles added to a dish, I jump at the chance. I’m particularly fond of them as a cheeseburger topping, and I’ll never understand why more establishments don’t offer them as a standard burger topping. Green chiles are a fantastic delivery for heat and spice, as well as a variety of textures depending on how they are prepared and served.
Yet, green chiles are one of those ingredients that we often use pre-prepared, when making them at home is actually unbelievably simple. Scratch cooking in general often can seem like a daunting task. The thought of creating an ingredient just to be used in a dish can often feel like you’re over-complicating things, but when the opportunity presents itself it should be embraced, not avoided. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Green Chiles, recipe, The Cook's Method
Tags: Portals of the Week
Where we found it: There’s an entry for it on Invisible Castle, the indispensable dice rolling website. While the site gives credit to a user on a forum, the links to the original forum no longer work.
What is it: A way of generating ability scores for a new character. Rather than using a standard array, simply rolling dice, or a point buy system. The grid method has players generating a 3×3 grid of numbers (by rolling 4d6 nine times) then labeling the rows and columns with the six ability scores. Players choose one number from the corresponding row/column for each ability score, and each number can only be used once.
Why is it important: This method is a lot of fun, and lets players make interesting choices about their character right from the ability score phase. Rather than simply applying a min/max formula to assigning ability scores, the grid method leads to trade-offs and often times surprising results, which can create characters different than just the perfect mathematical representation of a class or archetype. There are strong puzzle and discovery elements to crafting a character this way.
We love the method, so much so, that some within our play group might never use another means of character generation. Yet, in practice we noticed a few glaring flaws. First is that by rolling to generate the grid, there can be wild swings in the number set, making the choices either academic or potentially impossible. If you generate nine numbers, none of which end up being less than 12, you’ll probably create a vastly overpowered character (and that’s before you consider racial/class bonuses). Of course, the reverse is also true and you could end up with a vastly underpowered character.
Another issue is that because of how the ability scores are grouped (STR, DEX, CON on one side, WIS, INT, CHA on the other), the grid essentially splits characters into physical and mental types and is biased toward classes that embrace one of those types. So, fighters and wizards are easy to make, but classes that relies on strong scores in both categories – like a cleric or monk – are harder to create.
So, after more calculations than were probably necessary, and lots of tweaking, we present the Random Grid Method. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: D&D Next, Dungeons & Dragons, Home Brew, Random Grid Method
I decided I was finally an adult the day I realized that I could eat cupcakes for dinner. And not just any cupcakes, but the best red velvet cupcakes in New York City, or anywhere else as far as I’m concerned, from Two Little Red Hens.
Working long hours and late nights in financial services meant that meals were pushed off entirely, or relegated to a quick snack to be shoveled in mercilessly between spreadsheet updates. On one especially arduous evening, I forewent dinner, in hopes of getting home earlier. Weary, but back uptown I passed Two Little Red Hens and decided that tonight, I would sup on cupcakes.
After all, I had a job, two degrees, and I paid my rent on time. One bite into a sumptuous red velvet cupcake, and the day’s events washed away. For a brief moment, all was right with the world. I knew, in that moment, that a cupcake can indeed be therapy. A cupcake can indeed make the world a better place. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bakery, cupcake, red velvet cupcake, Two little Red Hens Bakery
The final piece of the Dragon’s Maze casual and commander review takes a look at the green offers (not much), explores the undead Golgari (so much fun) and unleashes the Gruul clans on some unsuspecting individuals. As an added bonus, I also talk about a land!
Dragon’s Maze Casual & Commander Reviews
White, Orzhov & Selesnya | Blue, Simic & Azorius
Black, Dimir & Rakdos | Red, Izzet & Boros
Green, Golgari & Gruul
Gatecrash Casual & Commander Review
Orzhov Syndicate | House of Dimir | Simic Combine | Gruul Clans | Boros Legion
White | Black | Blue | Green | Red | Other
Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands
Battering Krasis
LAND SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK! A decent little beater, I wouldn’t mind trying out the fish beast in some version of 10-land stompy, but he’s more limited than I’d like.
Kraul Warrior
The newest Invoker, Kraul Warrior doesn’t do a whole lot and is hampered by his creature types. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: arena, dragons maze, Gaming, golgari, green, gruul, magic: the gathering, review
Personally, when it comes to Commander, this entire block has had a lot of disappoints for me. But that’s because I run a monored Jaya deck in the format, so multicolored options limit me a lot. But when I’m not playing Commander, I love basking in all the colors – and Boros is one of my favorite color pairings.
Dragon’s Maze Casual & Commander Reviews
White, Orzhov & Selesnya | Blue, Simic & Azorius
Black, Dimir & Rakdos | Red, Izzet & Boros
Gatecrash Casual & Commander Review
Orzhov Syndicate | House of Dimir | Simic Combine | Gruul Clans | Boros Legion
White | Black | Blue | Green | Red | Other
Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands
Awe of the Guilds
Mostly limited fodder, Awe of the Guilds can make for some interesting plays due to its limitations. But being sorcery speed means you can’t use it to screw combats you aren’t directly involved with.
Clear a Path
Well, you now have a way to stop Wall of Deni- nope, you still don’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: arena, boros, dragons maze, Gaming, izzet, magic: the gathering, red, review
Tags: Portals of the Week
This review takes the darkest color and pairs it up with its two natural allies in a delicious Grixis blend. Black is always fun in multiplayer, but when combined with red or blue, it is a combination of colors that can do pretty much anything. So whether you like the secrecy of Dimir, the recklessness of Rakdos or the selfishness of black, this Dragon’s Maze review is for you.
Dragon’s Maze Casual & Commander Reviews
White, Orzhov & Selesnya | Blue, Simic & Azorius
Black, Dimir & Rakdos |
Gatecrash Casual & Commander Review
Orzhov Syndicate | House of Dimir | Simic Combine | Gruul Clans | Boros Legion
White | Black | Blue | Green | Red | Other
Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands
Bane Alley Blackguard
This is an odd vanilla creature. But Wizards is shifting black into the higher toughness than power bracket with this set. But for me to care about a vanilla creature, it has to do something special.
Blood Scrivener
The power of this card is absurd. Being a 2/1 zombie for 1B is already solid, but that ability is exceptional. As someone who’s playstyle regularly goes all-in, having a quick way to refill your hand is nice. It pairs wonderfully with Hellbent in a twisted way, but what I really love is that it triggers whenever you would draw a card – not just during your draw step. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: arena, black, dimir, dragons maze, Gaming, magic: the gathering, rakdos, review
Where we found it: This is a mechanic that exists in a few other RPGs, but most notably 13th Age which is an RPG developed by a few of the lead designers on D&D 3rd and 4th editions.
What is it: A mechanic aimed at speeding up combat by giving ever increasing bonuses to attack rolls as combat rounds progress. Enemies become easier to attack, meaning characters get “stronger” the longer a fight goes on. It starts at +1 and increases each round toward a max of +6.
Why is it important: Combat takes a long time in D&D. This was especially true in 4th edition, and while D&D Next has some specific changes that address that issue, combat can still be a real grind sometimes. After enough rounds it just degenerates into players aimlessly hacking away at monsters till they die, and that’s if the players are rolling well. The Escalation die reduces and improves combat by increasing the chance that players will hit, and effectively encouraging risky or fun actions because of the attack bonus. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: D&D Next, dungeons and dragons, Gaming, Home Brew
The second part of our Dragon’s Maze review looks at the color Blue and two guilds: Simic and Azorious! These blue aligned guilds show off just how versatile the color of manipulation can get when paired up. But even mono-color players will want to take a look at some of the offerings.
Dragon’s Maze Casual & Commander Reviews
White, Orzhov & Selesnya | Blue, Simic & Azorius
Gatecrash Casual & Commander Review
Orzhov Syndicate | House of Dimir | Simic Combine | Gruul Clans | Boros Legion
White | Black | Blue | Green | Red | Other
Return to Ravnica Casual & Commander Reviews
Azorious Senate | Izzet League | Cult of Rakdos | Golgari Swarm | Selesnya Conclave
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green | Gold, Artifact & Lands
Ætherling
The new Morphling feels a touch out of place to me for one reason: where are my white and black lings? We’ve gotten Torching and Thornling! But Ætherling is an interesting take on the Morphling design. The bigger body is nice, and the self-flickering is very powerful. While not a ground breaking card, it certainly is worth considering if you run the original depending on the speed of your playgroup. The only real concern about him is the casting cost. While he costs 6 on paper, he really costs 7 or more since you’ll want to protect him too.
Hidden Strings
Dimir’s new Cipher spell is close to what people wanted. While I had been hoping the Dragon’s Maze would combine abilities across guilds – like Cipher Detain, this is still close. A different take on Hands of Binding, the ability to untap another permanent makes it so the attacking creature has vigilance or can be used to barter deals with unlikely allies at the table in times of need. A solid little cipher spell, it’s what I had been hoping the ability would do. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: arena, azorius, blue, dragons maze, Gaming, magic: the gathering, review, simic