Hearthstone’s last expansion, Journey to Un’Goro, has been praised by casual players, streamers, and pros alike for the diverse metagame it created. Of course, some of that diversity results from the sets that rotated out of Standard along with the introduction of the dino-themed expansion. This will be the first year that Blizzard releases three full expansions, and it will be interesting to see if the next two expansions manage to shake up the meta even without any other sets rotating out. Last summer, the 45-card adventure set One Night in Karazhan received criticism for only solidifying the top decks in the meta for several additional months. Blizzard developers and fans alike hope that a full expansion will boost current mid-tier decks and allow new archetypes to emerge.

At this point, dozens of cards for the next expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, have been revealed. Without knowledge of the full set, it’s hard to say which decks will rise and which will fall. And more often than not the new metagame surprises all pundits and prognosticators anyway. Nonetheless, here are four revealed cards that might push some mid-tier decks into the spotlight.

Blood Razor – It’s hard not to see a bit of Death’s Bite in this card, and warrior players keenly felt the loss of that weapon when Naxxramus rotated out. Blood Razor has less versatility because of its lower attack value. However, the weapon instead focuses on Warrior combo potential with not one but two whirlwind effects. Blood Razor seems too efficient to not see play, and the card might team up with Ravaging Ghoul to provide plenty of activators for powerhouse Warrior cards like Sleep with the Fishes and Frothing Berserker. Along with the intriguing revealed card Dead Man’s Hand, Blood Razor might allow Control Warrior to compete with some of the higher-tier control decks.

Ghastly Conjurer – At first glance, this Mage minion’s stats and effect might not seem like much, but I think this card is an excellent representation of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Quest Mage (also called Exodia Mage) works well enough as a mid-tier deck, but one key issue holds it back: the deck wants to stall for time and draw cards like standard Control Mage, but the quest relies on random card generators like Primordial Glyph and Cabalist’s Tome to complete the quest. Ghastly Conjurer seems to slot into Quest Mage perfectly because it not only generates a card to fulfill the quest—a copy of Mirror Image also provides a cheap, consistent stalling effect. With the other revealed Knights of the Frozen Throne card Simulacrum, Quest Mage might receive just enough help to compete with more consistent Control Mage decks.

Nerubian Unraveler – While not as easy to fit into a deck as the popular Naxxramus card Loatheb, this neutral minion also provides an anti-spell effect. Nerubian Unraveler seems less effective as a tempo play that protects against board removal like Flamestrike, but the card does slow down decks that rely on the card-drawing maniac Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Control decks that struggle mightily against Jade Druid or Miracle Rogue decks might include the Unraveler. However, the card would require precise timing and a good read on when your opponent will try to go all in on the Auctioneer.

You find yourself in a new place, with people you do not know. For many of us, especially myself, this situation happens far too often. Throughout my twenty-three years on this planet, i’ve had my fair share and more of new situations; the past three years, i’ve lived in five different states and met many eclectic groups of people.

However, there’s always been something that has linked us together: video games. Whether you play competitively, professionally, or even if it’s just a hobby of yours in your free time, there’s almost always some aspect of gaming that can unite us as people. Over the past few years, i’ve found myself time and time again making new friends out of complete strangers because we are able to bond over electronic fun.

Video games, at any level, have become commonplace in the United States. In fact, as of 2015,155 million people actively play video games in the United States and 42 percent of them play more than three hours a week (source). It’s slowly becoming as commonplace as traditional sports in our society.

Writing about this topic was something that kind of struck me in the moment. Just yesterday, I took a flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to visit me family for a few days before embarking to Los Angeles, California for work.

Something to know about me is that I am not a small guy and of course, I found myself in a middle seat on a packed plane in between two fully-grown men. On an eighty-five degree day, it seemed like I struck out comfort wise on the four and a half hour flight. I put in my headphones, blasted the ac above me, and prepared to stick out the flight.

The first hour or so of the flight, I was knocked out cold; staying up all night being anxious as to what the near future holds will do that to you the next morning. When I woke up and saw that we were only an hour into our flight, I was pretty bummed out. I took out my laptop from my carry on and turned on my N64 emulator to play some Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of

Time. Any of my 90’s homies understand that this game is one of the cornerstones of the gaming scene. As I opened up my save state and started to play, I looked to my right and was not expecting what I saw. The man next to me, most likely around forty years old in age, was playing the new Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Switch. To make matters even more weird, the man to my left, about fifty-five to sixty years in age, was playing Legend of Zelda: Wind

Waker on his laptop. Here we were, three men from three completely different walks of life, time periods, and environments, enjoying one common thing: video games. Trying to not freak out and ask a million questions, I casually struck up conversation with the two guys about them playing. We spent the rest of the flight running through the games and talking to each other about the stories of each. The man on my right helped me with the caves in Ocarina of Time, and the man on my left explained to me how he enjoys playing games on flights because it’s more fun than reading to him.

This experience made me reflect on the other instances in my life where I made friends in places I did not expect to. I immediately thought back to 2014, where I moved to a ranch ten thousand feet up in the mountains, in order to take a breather from our hectic, high pressure society.

I met the people I would be living/working with on the ranch: about a dozen other guys roughly around my age. Being in a place of solitude and nature, the last thing I expected was for us to bond over something electronically, but low and behold, within days, we were chatting during lunch and dinner about all of our favorite video games from our childhood. We developed a close bond over things that I would have not expected to bond over. The past few years of my traveling life is littered with experiences like this, bonding with people of all age groups, regions, lifestyles, etc.

The moral of the story is that you never know where you are going to find a friend, and many times, gaming, in one way or another, can be a catalyst for you to develop these relationships. We understand that even though video games are becoming commonplace in today’s society, there is still a slight mores in our world regarding them.

I suggest throwing society’s perception of them to the side, because more times than none, you will find a friend where you least expect it because of a video game.

Salt Lake Gaming Con was an explosive event. Video games, gamers, tournaments, cosplayers and gaming lifestyle were some of the highlights. It's only in it's second year, but the energy and attendance was twice as much as last year. SLC GamingCon is a force to be reckoned with. Especially in the coming years via it's partnership with Salt Lake Comic Con. 

Gaming - 

Gamers from all over the state of Utah and surrounding states took to the floor to compete in a wide variety of tournaments. Overwatch, LoL, Rocket League and Smash were big hits at the event. What was really exciting for us here at Mainframe is how the community embraced our Gaming Sleeve.

We teamed up with SLC Gaming Con to do a colab of our gaming sleeve as well as introduce our latest style - the all black Contender sleeve. You could not walk through the sea of people in attendance without spotting our sleeves. The crew over at Microsoft and all of their volunteers were kitted out and loved them. The Microsoft store has been so involved with promoting and supporting the gaming community. They host loads of tournaments in stores and at events. They have embraced the Mainframe brand and we have plans to team up for later events and tournaments.

Lines of people formed at our booth looking for the "Gaming sleeve". Hoards of gamers playing in tournaments across the floor were outfitted in Mainframe sleeves. It was a proud moment for the Mainframe Crew to see the gaming sleeve so fully embraced by the gaming community. 

Cosplay - 

Gaming and Cosplay go hand in hand. We had some pretty awesome cosplayers come by the booth and say hello. A local homie Dez hung out and talked about games, cosplays and nerdcore favorites. Our friends Ash & Roadhog stopped by. This RD main was one of the best Roadhog's we've seen. He had a custom homemade plaster mask with matching tattoo to round out the look, it was perfect and photo worthy. Widow Maker and a gender-bender Genji also stopped by the booth, showing the Mainframe Crew some Overwatch love. 

We are excited to be a part of the Salt Lake Gaming Con going forward. Both brands planted their roots here in Salt Lake in the same year. That makes for a special heritage that we look forward to sharing for many years to come!


GG!
Mainframe Crew

Project Name - We're All Modders Now

1. When did you get into building custom PC's?

Funny enough it actually started with console repair in middle school, I did it as almost like a side hustle to make money repairing them, I didn’t get around to building my first PC until I was 15 or 16. And it wasn’t until I was dead broke and wanted a white case so I busted out some spray paint and made some vinyl stickers in class and made me first “modded” pc with some tacky star wars stickers and a Stormtrooper mask on the front.

2. What was your first build like?

Definitely more functionality over form, the thing was a mess, cheap fans everywhere, non modular psu, no cable management holes, but i didn’t care about that at the time, I was just happy it turned on!

3. What was the first PC game you ever played?

Skyrim and Dark Souls 1, I poured an easy thousand hours into each of these on console so being able to play these with mods and entirely new graphics options allowed me to enjoy the games in a whole new way.

4. Rad Soldier 76 build! What made you choose that toon?

Ironically the thing that made me do this build was the thing people weren’t a big fan of, the power supply cover, I thought about it one day in class and just thought, I have to do a Soldier 76 build now that can incorporate this!

5. Where has your build been featured?

On the Cooler Master Case Mod World Series of 2017, there’s so much talent there it is amazing, to even get half the attention I have gotten for this build would have had made me happy considering how many people have made things that involve so many things that I one day aspire to be able to understand.

6. What was the biggest challenge with this build?

The paint… When the project initially started everything was going to be made with car paint to make it look metallic. However after some plans fell through the floor I was stuck using standard Krylon Spray paint, which turned out okay but there are some areas I’m less than thrilled about.

7. What are the specs on this build?

CPU - i7 6800k @4.6 GHZ

MOBO - EVGA Micro 2

RAM - 32 GB PNY Anarchy RAM

SSD - 240 GB PNY / 1TB Sandisk

HDD - 1TB Western Digital 7200 RPM

GPU - MSI GTX 1080

Case - Cooler Master Mastercase pro 3

PSU - Rosewill 1000w 80 + gold

Cooler - 2x EK 240 mm Rads, 1x 120mm XSPC Rad, all xspc fittings, all EK blocks, all thermaltake Riing fans

8. What is your next build going to be?

I have 3 planned already, the main one being a Lucio build (because that is who I actually play now in Overwatch), and then a Rocket League one and a Scratch build where I manufacture my own case!

9. Which YouTuber do you like better - BitWit or JayzTwoCents?

Going to have to give this one to Jay, he was the one who got me super excited about computers and was the one who motivated me to take the dive into custom watercooling.

10. What Mainframe product would you rock?

Arm sleeves for sure, outside of gaming I can see so many uses for them, I am especially a fan of the Prizm colored sleeves.

Drew Cook 

age - 20

Follow Drew and his builds:

Worklog Link - http://community.coolermaster.com/topic/21841-were-all-modders-now-soldier-76-case-mod/