Crafting Kazakus

I slept for a very long time last night, this morning, this afternoon. I don’t believe I stayed up far past midnight. I was looking forward to not setting an alarm today. When I don’t set an alarm usually my body addresses the situation around ten or eleven. Today that happened around three in the afternoon.

I wonder what part of my body is supposed to be waking me up. Which guy isn’t doing his job? Which guy is late to punch his card and then sits staring at the clock? Is it my lungs? My heart? My brain? Which part says it’s time to wake up? My eyes? My eyelids? My eyelashes (or rather what’s left of them?)

Life doesn’t stop happening just because you sleep. When I woke up there were already things to address and people to speak with.

What if I left? Just left? Just didn’t tell anyone, packed some bags, took all my money to Mexico? Is that what Freedom is? Mexico? Viva la Mexico!

So, I sent some texts and a few emails. Then I addressed nature’s worry and made some coffee. After sending enough correspondence convincingly warranted to be labeled under “work,” I felt I had earned some “reward.” (It was Saturday after all.) I hit play on Spotify (Liked Songs Playlist) and logged onto Hearthstone.

I can’t help but think about what the women must be like in Mexico. How they walk, the rhythm of their chiding. What do Mexican women swear on? The church? How do they smell when they sweat?

Hearthstone is an online strategy card game. Basically, you have a main pool of cards and then choose a specific hero class that has access to a smaller pool of specialized cards. Each deck is comprised of thirty cards. Any one card can only have two copies in any one deck. And legendary cards can only have one. Legendary cards are the cards you build your deck around. Popular decks change the game’s strategy. Certain legendary cards can change the way the game is played. Certain cards become necessary to survival.

When I was younger, I couldn’t see the appeal in sweat. Sweat was synonymous with dirty, smelly. It takes some years to appreciate dirt. It takes some living to revere grit.

One such card is Kazakus, Golem Shaper. Kazakus is a legendary card with a rare quality that when you play it actually gives you the option to craft a new, custom card. You can choose from a laundry list of attributes and then choose a cost relatively becoming small and cheap, larger and costly, or deathly and expensive. Kazakus can be played on turn four, but only works properly if it is the only four Mana cost card in your deck. This card has become necessary to own. I do not have it. So how do I get it? I will have to craft one.

How does the air feel in Tennessee right now? The hills are nice in the east, the skies in the west vaster than God’s Mercy. But home isn’t what I think of at night. Home isn’t forward. Home is back then. Home is memory. Viva la Mexico!

How do I craft one? With something called Arcane Dust. We collect Arcane Dust from disenchanting other cards. We collect other cards by either paying for them with United States Dollars (or USD or Under Severe Distress (I admit, I have dropped coin on this game, but I try my absolute best not to)) or Gold (We’ll be using this method of payment.)

It costs one hundred Gold for one pack of five cards. Gold is earned by completing quests which reward you XP that, once you collect enough, of course rewards you with Gold, sometimes. You get three Weekly (more XP rewarding) quests a week and one Daily (less XP rewarding) quest a day. We can disenchant most of the cards we get from the packs we buy with the Gold we earn from the XP we collect from the Weekly and Daily quests we complete for about fifteen to twenty Arcane Dust per card. Kazakus, Golem Shaper costs 1600 Arcane Dust to craft. This will take some time.

Outside my window is a tree. Over the past few days, spring has sprung, and pollen is the currency of the wind. Needless to say, I wake up in a sneezing fit since I intend to save money by cooling my room with the outside breeze over my Con Edison powered electric Air Conditioning wall unit. My window stays open, I enjoy its sounds.

It’s Saturday, May 1st. The first of the month being on a Saturday is always nice since you get some extra days to pay rent. All in all, it’s set up to be a good day. Sonic Youth playing as I “incinerate” my opponent. (No, really a Fireball, but then the joke is dead. (And now it’s dead, but also a horse.)) I don’t have many good decks, so I only really compete when and how my quests dictate. Today is a simple day of “Play three games as …” Quest. The Tavern Brawl should be an effective tool, plus it’s random and more fun than losing. The RNG (or Random Number Generation (or the thing that people who play Legends of Runeterra complain about in regards to Hearthstone, but that Hearthstone players love (sometimes))) of Tavern Brawl puts us on a level playing field. I play some Tavern Brawl and listen to a video on YouTube, pausing Spotify.

Lately I’ve been getting into two types of YouTube video to listen to. One is Comedian Podcasts and the other is conversations and interviews with people like David Foster Wallace and Spalding Gray and Charles Bukowski. (Once in a blue moon I’ll throw on Joe Rogan, but only because of his guests and never because of old Joe himself) In one video, Wallace tells an allegory of the Fish and Water wherein one fish greets another remarking at how great the water was that day. The second fish swims away wondering what water is. It is meant, I believe, to remind us that sometimes things can be so accepted and so ingrained that we forget to remember and acknowledge they exist.

He was an extraordinary person, David Foster Wallace. I hope he found his peace hanging from that rafter. I hope Gray found it in the harbor and I know Bukowski did at the bottom of every glass.

I’ll find it in Mexico! Not peace, maybe, but Freedom. Yes, Freedom is to be searched for. Freedom is to be wanted. Freedom lives in the land past comfort and settlement. Freedom lives in Mexico. So, must I.

There are some cards that break the game like Baku the Mooneater (You couldn’t touch a Paladin in Baku’s days. Rolling Paladin and including Baku meant Automatic W) or the Witchwood-introduced, Hearthstone-shattering Shaman card Shudderwock (there are many YouTube videos committed to discussing this card and its imprint on the history of the game. Peruse at your interest.) Shudderwock was such an enormous card in its heyday. Hell, it’s still dangerous in Wild sets. The character was named after the Jabberwocky, the titular monster from a poem by Lewis Carroll, and beside the card, bore the inscription,

“Beware the Shudderwock, my son. We’re fresh out of vorpal daggers.”

Despite being such an intense card, Shudderwock was never moved to the Hall of Fame (like Baku) where cards go to be remembered and never touched again. Though with the newest season (The one that brought us Kazakus) the Hall of Fame, like Nietzche’s God, is dead. The developers introduced a Classic game setting where old cards can be played. Baku is back.

Watching a game respond to the way its players interact with it and adapt accordingly is an example that everything in our world is malleable. A game is a world wherein all of its inhabitants agree to a certain set of rules, but everyone is graded on a curve. The better your combatants do, the worse off you are. It’s the Equity Theory of Distributive Justice. The developers create cards and keywords that interact with the current system in either a complementary or contrasting way. The players then abuse and take advantage of these cards in an effort to defeat the other players, constantly climbing to the top in this nonstop race for the Legend rank. Every player is a hacker and the developers create the tools we use to break their system. They fill in the holes every expansion. Then hand out new tools to help locate new holes. Kazakus is an exposer of holes and thus a card we must craft to get ahead.

I read somewhere the other day that men have trouble accepting love until they make enough money to feel worthy of that love. Sort of reminds me of the Chbosky quote, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” I don’t think it’s too far from the truth either. There have definitely been moments in my life when I have sat around too long, and it made me doubtful of certain things.

I had wanted to read Chbosky’s book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower years before I actually did. All because of pride preventing me. It was my high school girlfriend’s favorite book and I had wanted to read it, but was sure every time I heard her talk about it she called it The Importance of Being a Wallflower. She mumbled. It wasn’t too far of a reach. I had gone into a bookstore in high school and asked for the book of the title I was sure I knew. The nice lady at the bookstore looked it up on the computer and said they didn’t, but that they did have the title in the Perks fashion. I told her that wasn’t it and left the store. Defending the idea of a misheard title of a book I hadn’t read. Need more of an example of pride? Good thing it’s currently spring and autumn is far from now.

I am right now at exactly 955 Arcane Dust, which leaves 645 still to gain before I can craft Kazakus. Now, remember Kazakus can only work properly if it is my only card that costs four Mana to play. This means I’ll have to say goodbye to some other cards I might currently be depending on. Including the new usually always means letting go to past certainties. It’s the choosing of what to leave out that should give us pause.

‘Like a tree with a dead branch’ is always the example, isn’t it? Consider this, we’re not trees. We’re not rooted in place. But if you let your weeds grow tall enough, you’ll start to mistake them for trees. Let ideas form in your head, but remember to prune. Remember to always be constantly changing your mind. Mow the grass. Kill your pride. Watch it bleed.

There is a Priest card that costs four Mana that I would have to go without, but maybe I just don’t include him in that deck. Come to think of it, what is the deck I am looking to make with Kazakus? He would be great in the Secret Paladin deck. (He would fit in nicely taking over for Holy Nova and Rally!) I’m over halfway done collecting and saving Arcane Dust. Closer to the end than the beginning.

When I get close to finishing things is when I start to question why I started them in the first place. I start things with fervor, fueled by an addict’s curiosity. But once the finishing line is in view, I start to look back at all the time I spent getting myself that far. It’s when pride’s ashes become regret. It’s when momentum cools off. I catch my breath and look backwards. But the past isn’t tangible. It’s not malleable. Not like the future. Not like Hearthstone. So, I turn towards the future and South towards Mexico! The future is real! The future is Mexico! Viva la Mexico!

Sometimes I’ll play Hearthstone until I fall asleep. Listening to Wallace and Gray and Bukowski as my minions and I aim to overtake Internet opponents. Hearthstone is often the last event on the itinerary of my Covid days. So as of late, when I fall asleep, I can’t help, but think about if I would win more games if I crafted Kazakus, Golem Shaper. I think I would.

But back behind the grooves and electric Jell-O dedicated to crafting my existence, and in it my own desire to craft Kazakus, lives the question of which part of my body is not doing its job? And behind that is the thought of the women in Mexico and what fruit they might like for breakfast. How do Mexican women drink their coffee?

Kazakus is necessary. He is defense from falling behind the curve.

Viva la Mexico …