[MLP/CCG] Card Games are Magic

Recently I've taken in interest in the MLP card game. For the longest time, card games were my "thing", I was heavily invested in Yu-Gi-Oh and dabbled in Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, and Card Fight Vanguard. Needles to say, I was intrigued at the thought of a pony card game since all of the above, and basically every card trading game in existence, is about beating your opponent to a pulp in one way or another. This goes against everything MLP stands for, so I wondered how they could design a competitive card game without it boiling down to crushing your opponent in battle. Well, here's how.

First off, there is no direct combat. rather it's more of a friendly competition, though for all practical purposes, face offs can be considered the combat of this game. there are also trouble maker cards which must be defeated on your way to victory, so that adds more of a combat element to the game as well. it's all kept very clean though and you never feel like you're in a war.

the majority of your time is spent playing cards to strategic locations to prepare for the all important face offs. what's more is this game uses a mana system that, while simple, is quite intuitive. basically, you get action tokens that you spend to do different things. the closer the lead player is to winning, the more tokens you get each turn. they also do not expire, so smart players will not over invest and will make sure they always have a few spare tokens for an emergency or for a big play to push for game.

there are also problem cards. these cards represent the conflict at hand and show what is needed to solve them. you ear points by solving conflicts, and once both players have solved them, a face off happens, the winner getting a nice bonus.

finally there are mane friend cards. these are just like friends (friends being ordinary units) except you start with them for free, and they're double sided. when you meet the requirements, you can flip it over to its "boosted" side and it become that much more powerful.

so the question then is, do these elements make for a good game? I think they do. it's a unique game for sure, and that's a plus in of itself. it still retains a competitive feel without straying from the spirit of MLP. unfortunately it might be hard to find someone to play with, unless you rope a few of your friends into it. I will say this though: for such a simple game, the rule book makes very little sense. I highly recommend keeping it handy for your first few games since you'll need to go over it a few times and get some real experience before it really makes any sense.

[MLP/DISCUSSION/EQG-RR] What!? Equestria Girls 2!?

For the longest time, I kinda expected something like this, but I was still surprised when it actually happened... Equestria Girls is getting a sequel. In true reviewer fashion I would like to refrain from any personal opinions I have on this movie until I actually watch it... In the mean time, enjoy the above trailer which basically reveals absolutely nothing about the movie beyond a few fun costumes.

Now I know a lot of people were really divided on EQG1, and I have to say that as much as I loved that movie, it was not without more than its fair share of flaws... It was pretty decent for a kids movie, but I've come to expect far better from the writing staff. Maybe hasbro hasn't learned its lesson and wants to cash in on more dolls, or maybe they have and want to show us they can do much better than the first movie. I'm desperately hopping it's the latter, though I'm pretty sure it's the former....

[MLP/DISCUSSION/18+] Clop: what it is and why it is.

Image by dylandylan72 [source]

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. YOU SHOULD NOT CONTINUE READING UNLESS YOU 18 OR OLDER!

Are you still here? In that case I must be talking to responsible adults. (or curious kids, last chance to turn back fillies!)

I'll start by a simple definition of the word and some history. "Clop" is onomatopoeia for the sound a horse's hooves make on the ground. It was picked up on by the brony community as used as slang for masturbation to MLP images. As of current, this slang only extends as far as the brony community and is more or less unheard of outside it (thank Celestia for that much...).

Clop seems to be the biggest, and most important dividing issue in the brony community, and for good reason: it's a big deal. Take the fact that it's about ponies out of the equation for a minute and what is it? porn. Clop is MLP porn. That's why it's such a big deal.

You might be wondering, why ponies? what's so sexy about ponies? well, nothing, and everything. In order for me to explain this, we have to back up for a moment and have a little adult conversation here: why do people look at porn? There's the obvious part of course: eye candy, but there's another, more deep reason for it. most people who look at porn, whether they realize it or not, are longing for an intimate relationship. They may deny it, but that's almost always the main underlying cause to porn. It's a powerful desire, and though not wrong in anyway, can manifest itself in unsavory ways.

It's no different with ponies, and unless you're a furry (I don't mean any offense to furies!) or else are viewing humanized clop, there's very little in the way of eye-candy... thus with clop, it's all about desire for intimacy. not just on a sexual level, but an emotional level as well. Call them what you will, but most cloppers just want to be able to love their favorite ponies in the most intimate way they know how: sex, and thanks to the writers portraying these little ponies in such accurately human ways, they become very attractive on an emotional level.

This desire for intimacy which resides in all of us, coupled with the large amount of teen guys in the fandom means that clop spread like wildfire, and became the huge issue it is today. I'm not defending cloppers here, nor am I attacking them. Let's be frank, we all know porn is wrong, ponies or no. But, can we really say it's wrong to desire intimacy, and to simply dream for it to one day become a reality, even though you know in your heart than it can never be? I'll leave you to answer that one for yourself.

[GAMING/MINECRAFT] An introduction to Mega Walls

Play Mega Walls on Hypixel's server

mc.hypixel.net

If you play Minecraft haven't heard of Mega Walls, you might live under a rock. Ok, maybe it's not THAT big of a deal, but Mega Walls is one of the latest new games Hypixel server.

If you don't know what The Walls (Mega Walls precursor) is, look it up now, because I'm going to assume you already know about The Walls from here on out.

Essentially, Mega Walls is The Walls 2.0. Notable changes include:

• the field is now a plus instead of a square, leaving a lot more battleground in the middle of the team's areas.
• the teams are made of 25 players each, for 100 players total.
• there are only 10 minutes to prepare instead of 15
• there are starter kits for different classes
• each team has a wither that they must defend

Obviously, if you've never played Mega Walls before, you're probably wondering about that wither... each teams wither will remain immobile and, for the first 15 minutes after the walls fall, will defend himself against other teams, but he will not attack his team members. Rather, you will gain regen while near your wither. Withers have 1000 HP instead of 300, will not launch their normal wither skull attacks, and will not regenerate their HP. They will still become immune to arrows at 50% HP. Finally withers will slowly take damage even when not being attacked until they have 1 HP left, at which point a player will have to attack it in order to finish if off.

If a player dies while their wither is alive, they will respawn with their starter kit, but all other items obtained will be dropped on death. Once a wither dies, things get serious. If you die, that's it. you're out of the game.

So already this probably sounds like a pretty exciting game, and indeed it is. Mega Walls is so amazing because there's just so much to do at any given time. Attack other teams, defend your wither, build/fortify physical defenses, gather iron to make armor and weapons, scout for enemy players going stealth, break down enemy defenses, or even attack a wither head on.

the problem with this is that most players will simply choose to attack other teams, and not many players will try to help out with defense or support jobs... this is due to what i like to call the jerk to team player ratio, which in my experience is usually 80% jerk, 20% team player. often times, other teams will quickly go after your wither and then, with all your team members scattered doing whatever the heck they feel like, they quickly die off and boom, your team has lost.

You might not think the team that you join matters, but it does. i HIGHLY recommend you avoid green like the plague. A while ago it was publicized that green was the best team having a nearly 50% win ratio, but since then it has become polluted with noobs and jerks, and is basically the worst team you could have now. I've also never seen yellow win a single game... red is pretty popular, and I expect subject to the same disease that has taken green, so this minecrafter recommends the blue team.

Classes are indeed important, however non-donors will have only 5 to choose from, and 2 of them are VERY expensive. You'll usually be using either Skeleton, Creeper, or Zombie, until you donate for Enderman and Herobrine or else save for months to buy Dreadlord or Shaman.

Skeletons are my personal favorite, getting a bow and arrows. If you hit a player with an arrow, it will be returned to your inventory (basically infinity if you have good aim). their skill is to launch an explosive arrow that does block and player damage. Skeletons are useful all around, and their ranged attacks make them good in distanced combat.

Zombies are a defensive / tanking / healing class. their special ability heals themselves and nearby teammates and they spawn in with a chest plate. Zombies are really good as a last line of defense near the wither.

Creepers are just what you think. their special skill is the cause in explosion. (luckily it's not a suicide mission like real creepers!) creepers have a wooden sword and leggings in their kit. Creepers are good at infiltrating enemy areas are causing massive damage to their defenses to clear the path for other players.

I do not have VIP nor have i bought either of the HERO classes, so i'll do my best to describe the rest of the classes, but there's a lot i don't know about them...

Enderman are stealth masters. Their special skill is to teleport (duh...). I don't know what enderman get in their starter kit.

Herobrine is a unique class. I know nothing about it, and very few people pick it...

Dreadlord is as powerful as it sounds. It's a melee master. it spawns in with an iron sword (upgrade-able to diamond!) and it's special skill launches wither skulls that cause massive damage! Dreadlords are a powerhouse, so watch out.

Shaman was just released a while back, and i've never seen anyone play it. I know nothing about it.


so there you have it: An introduction to Mega Walls. I hesitate to call this a minigame, as it's really more of an all out war! remember, if you wanna join in on the fun go to mc.hypixel.net

if you wanna join me on my own survival/creative/pvp server, check out our website at: friendship-is-magic.enjin.com
and join the server with IP: 198.24.181.2:25658

[MLP/REVIEW/S4E14] Filli Vanilli

So I think Big Mac just succeeded in doubling the amount of words he's said in total on screen... (And singing no less) not to mention a song before the opening theme which is, I believe, a first for fim.

I did like that this episode references other past episodes, flutterguy being the obvious, and a few other small things like cheerilee fainting at Mac's "performance." However this episode dig drag its feet (hooves?) for a few minutes towards the middle and I do think pinkie pie was quite a  it overdone and (even if unintentionally so) inconsiderate of fluttershy's feelings.

That being said, it's a fluttershy episode, which, in the past, usually aren't of as much interest to me as most other episodes. All of them except for a bird in the hoof and keep calm and flutter on are basically about fluttershy being shy and having to overcome that, but then the change doesn't really last after the show is done.

In contrast, take into account Rainbow Dash and the wonderbolts. At first she basically idolizes them to an almost demigod state in her minds, but as she gets closer to her goals, and becomes more confident in herself as well as learning that her heroes are not as perfect as she thought, she's begun to move away from that, outright turning them down not once, but twice in order not to compromise her ideals. She's changed and grown as a character throughout the series. Maybe only a little bit at a time, but it's still there.

Fluttershy on the other hand has no lasting change at the end of her episodes and is still just as shy next time around. I DO sincerely hope this time is different, but I really doubt it...

But really that's about fluttershy's character in general and not this episode in specific. Now I liked that we got the issue of Fluttershy having stage fright on the table and more or less resolved very quickly. None of the mane cast were even the tiniest bit surprised at that "revelation" and I'm sure none of the viewing audience were either. I half expected Fluttershy not to let the others know she was afraid and have to wait another fifteen minutes to find out something you already knew from the beginning, but thankfully that crises was averted.

I also quite liked all the facial expressions on pinkie and flutters, they were possibly the best part of the episode. Season 4 really seems so much more polished and dynamic animation wise and not a single episode this far has faltered from the superior visual quality that has now become a standard.

Overall, I say 8/10. There were some moments that could have been better for sure, but overall this was a fun episode to watch despite it probably meaning nothing at all come next Saturday...

[GENERAL] Introduction to this blog

Hello and welcome to The Equestria Games!

In this post I'm going to explain a little bit about this blog and myself. I expect very few meta-discourse posts after this one, so just hold with me for a bit ok? This blog will be mainly about the following topics:

• My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic
• Episode Reviews
• Head Cannons and Opinions
• Fanart
• General Discussion
• Video Games
• Mostly Minecraft
• whatever other games i feel like talking about or get asked about
• whatever i feel like
• i expect these posts to to be too frequent, but i'm really just covering my butt here...

Every Saturday night, or Sunday afternoon expect a post about that day's my little pony episode (obviously only new episodes). Also, I'll occasionally go back to talk about some older episodes, but don't expect in depth reviews of all 65 of season 1-3's episodes.

furthermore, I'll be posting semi-often about minecraft and other games. for you minecrafters out there, I'd LOVE for you to join my server.

website: friendship-is-magic.enjin.com

IP: 198.24.181.2:25658

I am a eighteen year old highschool student. I have a part-time job and enjoy all kinds of media. I love MLP and anime and working with computers and playing most any kind of game. I very much enjoy fanart and music. I don't care in the slightest for celebrities or gossip or anything in that area. I keep to myself for the most part. I don't make friends easily, but those I do make become VERY close.