We're approaching the middle of the month which means that we're nearing the official launch of Out of Games, our site's fourth birthday, and it's also about that time where some of us are probably starting to wonder when that mini-set will be announced.

Conversation this week doesn't really have an ongoing theme, but things will get blue. Not because of sadness, but because of something more electrifying.

Lizards at Blizzard

Before anything else though, we're got to congratulate our previous WCDC winner. In this case, it's Wailor with their Chameleonic Saurolisk.

They will be in charge of the theme of the next competition, which happens to be the penultimate one of the season, so stick around for that.

Off The Beaten Path

Since I brought this up, I would like to talk about mini-set themes for a bit. They tend to be quite varied in execution across various sets with some type of sub-theme that links back to the main set while giving it its own flavor. The first mini-set, Galakrond's Awakening, was about Galakrond finally with the League of Explorers taking the fight to the big dragon himself and the League of EVIL attempting to use him for world domination.

Mini-sets would become a standard part of the expansion cycle with Darkmoon Races, which is mostly about a race event happening at the Darkmoon Faire, although there are a few cards that don't really seem to fit the theme of a race. I can forgive them for that though.

All the mini-sets in Year of the Gryphon are basically just modeled after a dungeon within the area that the main set takes place, and Throne of the Tides is sort of the same thing with a "giant versus giant" thematic attached to it.

Maw and Disorder is about calling Sylvanas up to court after she's been accused of killing Denathrius at his dinner party (despite the fact that she didn't even seem to be a guest there? I don't see her anywhere) and plays into an entirely different part of the murder case.

Return to Naxxramas is another set that takes place in a dungeon attached to the main set's location, as well as also being an excuse to return to an iconic location that was used as the very first new card set added to the game after launch.

What do you believe the mini-set for Festival of Legends will be based on? Since the set seems to be focused more on a flavor that permeates around the whole set rather than paying any explicit attention to its location (Thousand Needles), I'm going to rule out a submap of the region like the Year of the Gryphon mini-sets and instead assume that it's going to be more focused on a sub-theme that can expand on the main set, similar to Maw and Disorder.

What could that be though? A battle of the bands would be a classic trope that has a lot of fun possibilities, but I think it would end up being too similar to Throne of the Tides. Just replace Neptulon and Ozumat with two musical groups and it'd basically be the same. So instead, maybe all of the musicians come together to fight one enemy with the power of righteous sound. Since ETC himself is in the set, the mini-set could also be about his band. It'd be a way to implement the remaining members of the band into the game as cards, and incidentally, there are four Legendary slots per mini-set, which is exactly the amount of remaining band members.

You Can't Touch This

On the subject of music though, we've got some beats to drop. And by that, I mean beating your opponent to death by "dropping" the hammer on them. You've got time to partake in our current competition which gives Weapon Shaman some support.