Quite often, I’m rather surprised when I’m reading over the feedback for my weekly columns (at the moment, there’s only one of them, but I’m hopeful that at least one of the WoW TCG columns will also make a comeback once some things are sorted out in the near future). Some of the comments to last week’s article, How the Synchro Monsters revolutionized the game, left me a little confused to be honest.

For starters, I don’t quite get why people make a big deal of the headline. Granted, “How the Synchro Monsters revolutionized the game” might not be the most fitting title, however,

• “How 10 hyped revolutionary game concepts that came before the Synchro Monsters all failed” or
• “Hyped Yu-Gi-Oh! game mechanics and how they did not change the game” or
• “The Synchro Monsters were the first revolutionary game concept that actually lead to a revolution”

… or some other possible choices for the title were all

a) too long and
b) boring.

I understand that a reader might not be all that interested in the fact that no one’s reading a cool article because it’s title sucks, but I do. If this means I need to make use of some tabloid tactics and use titles that will make you want to click, I feel too bad about it. I hope you can live with it as well; please understand that this is one of the reasons why the weekly columns are as successful as they are!

Some of you said that I did not try to go into too much detail. That’s also true as I don’t see the point in explaining in another 1000 words how the Fusion Monsters were – if you took advantage of effects like Metamorphosis or Magical Scientist (“DJ”) – more or less playable for some time. The article was about “revolutionary game concepts” that worked out the way they were supposed to be. Fusion Monsters were never introduced so some Level 1 monster could Special Summon them from your Extra Deck by paying Life Points. They would have been called “DJ’s little friends” if that were the case…

Every single article is a compromise. I need to balance it’s length, depth, detail and find a fitting bottom line. I don’t want to write a novel every other week and throw 4000 words at you (besides, I don’t get paid for that). I don’t want to tackle subjects that will only make sense to 3% of the community (at least not all the time) and I don’t want to go into too much details when I’m mentioning something “along the way” (like the playability of the Fusion Monsters) when the article’s actually about something entirely different – readers would only lose track of what the article’s really about. I don’t want to give you the impression that everything’s been said and done after you’re through with one of my articles – I want you to think about the topic, make up your mind and come up with some cool ideas. If you learned something, enjoyed reading the article and actually want to contribute to the topic by posting something in the feedback thread, I did a good job. Which is one of the reasons why I’m not always posting in the feedback thread…

Alright, you got me there. If I don’t post in the feedback thread, chances are good I was simply too busy / lazy or did not feel like it. Last but not least, please keep in mind to support the respective websites and me when you’re browsing our sites. There’s a reason why we got some banners from our sponsors on the page.

Part 2 of my tournament report from Riederich, the tournament that was held instead of the Realm Championship Season 5, has been put online now as well.

Read about the Draft as well as my top 8 match that marked the end of my success story this time: Suppe für den soul – Realm Champs tournament report part 2.

Last weekend, the Realm Championship Season 5 took place. Or at least it was supposed to; due to the licensing situation between Upper Deck and Blizzard, no official tournament could be held. Instead, the tournament organizer from Reutlingen, Matthias Jedele, took it into his own hands to run a tournament.

The “inofficial Realm Champs” attracted 53 players and pretty much all of the better German, Swiss and Austrian players showed up (well, OK, only 1 Austrian showed up). I was lucky enough to make it to the tops, but lost in the quarter finals.

You can read a lot more about the tournament in my tournament report that will be published as part of my weekly column (that’s taking a break from its break): Suppe für den soul – Realm Champs tournament report.

Unfortunately, my weekly column Suppe für den soul has to take a break – and I can’t even say for sure how long that break’s gonna be.

I’ve summed up all the reasons in the last article for now: Suppe für den soul – commercial break.

Upper Deck and Blizzard didn’t renew their license agreement. This means that from April on, Upper Deck is no longer allowed to publish the WoW TCG.

What happens next isn’t entirely clear at this point. In my weekly column, I tried to give as much background information of what happened and what might happen next: Suppe für den soul – What now?

This week, I’m talking about how to deal with defeat. The last few qualifier tournaments didn’t really go the way I intended, so it’s about time to look for ways to improve my performance again. And even if you’re not interested in the topic at all, you should like the picture I added!

Suppe für den soul – How to overcome defeat.

The Core format is shaking up the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Although it took most players some time to get used to the idea of a Best of One format, the acceptance is now ever growing. Part of the reasons are the potential decks that can be built in the new environment.

This issue of my weekly column presents some of the fancier ideas I could come up with, so check it out: Suppe für den soul – Core Crazyness.

Last week’s announcement took most European WoW TCG players by surprise as they didn’t expect this year’s OP schedule to not contain any European DMF’s. However, not everything’s as bad as it seemed at first as European OP reps have now confirmed that there actually will be some DMF’s on this side of the ocean.

That’s still not all. With the introduction of the Core format, Upper Deck pretty much divided the player base with most experienced players thinking that a Best of One format can’t be any good at all. I tried to look a little deeper into the topic and came up with some interesting facts that support Upper Deck’s claim that the format will be good for the game.

Read more in my weekly column: Suppe für den soul – The WoW TCG OP 2010.

Most players that follow up with the current happenings regarding the WoW TCG have about the outcry started by Matt Markoff on the official forums. I felt like reacting to it; while I agree that something needs to be done and that voicing criticism is always a good way of showing the publisher you care, it’s important to do so in the right way. So this is pretty much part 1 of a longer article series that reads pretty much something like:

Suppe für den soul – The Pro Book of Etiquette.

This week’s column takes a closer look at the best cards from Scourgewar – the new World of Warcraft TCG set. Some of them are powerful enough to lead to a change in the metagame, so you better get your playsets of them soon!

Suppe für den soul – Scourgewar Top 10.