Charcter analysis: Kevin Mallone ( The office US )

In the office over its run every character underwent a significant degree of flanderisation Dwight turned from being someone who was a little quirky but really just wanted to get on with his work despite Jim turned into some sort of Amish maniac. Toby became the guy Michael hated who was in love with with Pam, but this all served a greater purpose since with such a large ensemble cast you needed to be able to identify how characters would react to given stimuli reliably, that meant turning a few background members into a few characteristics allowed for significant payoff and sub diversion in 20 minute episodes because we knew how these characters would most likely act given the situation they found themselves in. 

Since if 12 very intricate and deep characters were constantly interacting in the space of twenty minutes a lot of the intricacies would be lost on us, for example in game of thrones Oberyns' hatred of the mountain would make sense as he was accusing him of raping his sister. Yet the anecdotes he tells Tyron about her and what the mountains men do at Harenhall have already explained to us how dramatic this confrontation is and why its so heated .However to keep a scene  funny we would only need to know why certain things would be perceived to someone gay and Mexican like Oscar but would not need any further character development as there is no time in the show for all characters to be fleshed out entirely. Which is why we got some very touching moments with well developed characters like Pam and Michael but Kelly and Ryan ran away from her child in the last episode. Since what we know of Kelly that is totally consistent of what we have seen ,and was funny unlike her forced uninteresting relationship with Daryl, so there is room for a few very developed characters to have heartfelt scenes but it's ok for the writers to simplify "background" characters to be reduced to a few key characteristics in service of brevity and comedy

However it isn't ok to strip away all key characteristics bar one basically transforming a character into someone else entirely, which is where we get to Kevin.

Kevin started the show being a relativity competent accountant who was a little dim witted, and took pride in being good at things like poker yet getting beaten accidentally. Which was the heart of his character a well meaning employee who failed despite trying.

Eventually her just descended into being mentally retarded so much so that holly believed he was upon meeting him which, despite being quite funny, implied the writers were fully aware of what they had done with his character.

Early on the series Kevin would be used for comedic effect by being the member of a band where despite being a proficient singer and drummer he's played no events beyond Phyllis' wedding and the wedding of two other band members. This is funny because we know Kevin to be to be slowed witted but this is sub-diverted by him being proficient at  tempo intensive instrument that sets the pace of the band, yet the band is awful through no particular reason other than he's a member .

This played on multiple established character tropes :

•  Kevin's immaturity ( we see this as he treats conflicts like Jim and Roy as if it were a playground fight ), in not giving up on his childhood dream of the band despite them being clearly unsuccessful
• Kevin is slow witted but not incompetent, ( shown when he recognizes that Angela hasn't sent the tax forms yet he's not sharp witted enough to piece together that she is lying) 
• Kevin fails despite claimed proficiency ( as can we seen through his betting and poker playing).

Then later on in the series we get possibly the least  satisfying kevin joke of all time where he drops chili , by dropping the container which shows how they just turned him into an idiot reliant on slapstick and dropped all other pretenses.

Here we see the epitome of  lazily written Kevin

In conclusion kevin went from being a little slow to mentally retarded due to lazy writing and the entire tail end of his charcter arc is just so divorced from the front end because they sacrificed the minimum complexity necesary for a charcter in an ensemble show and focused on the most seemingly humorous trait but they didnt consider that these moments were funny when they weren't all character did 

Analysis of Oil rogue as of 15/02/15

Analysis of Oil rogue as of 15/02/15 

The introduction of the new card tinker's sharpsword oil in the goblin vs gnomes expansion has breathed new life into the rogue class after many thought it would be rendered unplayable since nerfs to gadgetzan auctioneer .Bringing it from 5 mana to 6 mana preventing rogues from digging through their decks on turn 6 by coining a gadgetzan conceal on turn 5 which usually spelled death for the opponent as the rogue would cycle trough their entire deck with little counter play. In order to compensate for the loss in draw engine many rogues turned to prep + sprint in order to draw 4 cards for 4 mana, this deck runs a single sprint and gadgetzan but it is not really meant to win the game but to refill your hand later in the game letting you run many tempo cards like sap to maintain control of the pace of the game. 

 The key theme of this deck is using oils and poisons to pump up your dagger for an attack into blade flurry dealing upwards of 14 damage a turn from your weapon alone meanwhile using other cards to keep up tempo and draw into your game finishing combo.

Cards choices

2x Backstab- You'd be hard pressed to find a rogue deck that doesn't run two of these, they are extremely powerful, grabbing tempo through free removal allowing you to clear board and develop it at the same time.It also scales into the late game with spell power, overall a very powerful card.

2x Preparation- Comparable to innervate ,which is seen as one of the more broken cards in the game, and it allows combos that shouldn't be possible while constrained by 10 mana allowing for 1 mana oils and 4 mana sprints either way it's extremely powerful.

2x Deadly poison- Very powerful, allows you to trade with piloted shredders etc... and it allows for turn 2 dagger up turn three poison flurry against aggro which should outright win you the game through the pure tempo it affords you in terms of efficiency of card economy.

2x Blade Flurry- very important card for use as aoe with tinkers and deadly poison .When closing out the game it can be used to "attack" twice with a weapon for devastating amounts of damage in one turn.

2x Eviscerate- overall solid removal and burn, 4 damage for 2 mana and scales with the spell power you already have in deck what else could you ask for.

2x sap- really grabs tempo there's nothing like having your opponent spend their entire turn dropping something slow like a sneed's or highmane with no immediate impact then forcing them to have to replay it next turn.

1x Shiv- nice for cycling a draw and scales well with spell power.

1x Bloodmage Thalnos- excellent in most rogue decks because they love spell power and card draw and thalnos offers both even at the crowded 2 drop spot it will always find its way into most rogue iterations.

2x Fan of Knives- very nice against hunters with their leper gnomes, webspinners, wolfriders, and in control match ups a lot of the time its a 3 mana cycle and chip damage which inst terrible, it also scales very well with spell power.

1x Earthen ring Farseer- a heal is nice when you need to use weapons to trade often and it helps to establish board which rogue often struggles with.



1x Edwin van Cleef- Controversial choice since we have only one gadgetzan to pump it up but with preps  even with just a few cards played prior a 3 mana 6/6 is already extremely good and anything upwards is just great although its your only BGH target and with that cropping up everywhere perhaps 6/6 is the best stat distribution.

2x Si:7 Agent- a 3 mana 3/3 isn't the worst to begin with but dealing two damage from the combo grants it extreme value and that isn't even that hard with low cost or free spells like deadly poison, back stab etc... since it grab's tempo while establishing board which is a key advantage of rogue as a class

2x Tinkers sharpsword Oil- The MVP of  this deck it allows you to pump up your weapon to allow for massive blade flurries to either push for lethal or to clear board and the attack buff on minions is very nice as it allows them to put in serious damage or to trade up.

1x Piloted Shredder- This is a very sticky  minion very nice for claiming the board and means that there will always be a minion to get the sharp sword buff 

2x Violet teacher- a remnant of the old style miracle and its still generally good because of all the low cost spells and prep allowing you to flood the board with 1/1's which shouldn't be underestimated.

2x Azure drake- Like thalnos this has two things rogues love card draw and spell power and it doesn't lose card economy as its played unlike thalnos and its nice for developing board as 4/4's are reasonably sticky .

1x Loatheb- In  a deck that usually burst's the opponent in one turn cards that allow you to survive a another turn are severely important in order for you to close out the game and a 5 mana 5/5 is reasonable anyway.  

1x gadgetzan- This goblin now costs another mana so he can't come out early enough to seal the game himself but he assists in match ups where you run out of cards and he can refill your hand particularly fast using the myriad of low cost spells available.

1x Sprint- paired with prep it allows you to spend 4 mana on turn 4 to draw 4 cards which just accelerates you card advantage to a point many other classes simply cant keep up with.

Possible tech cards:

Assassin Blade: allows you to make your buffs go father and gives you a chance to take down Armour stacking warriors with many attacks from a buffed weapon, generally assists in control match-ups where you don't care as much about your life total.

Big Game Hunter: Lets you deal with all these DR.Boom's flooding the ladder and it helps to beat the hand lock match ups although i never had trouble beating hand-locks without it as well.

Antique Heal bot: lets you heal out of the range of freeze mage's burn spells post alexstraza and the body and heal lets you fight off the mech mages and face hunters who try and race you down. Overall useful in a aggro meta or if freeze mage sees a resurgence on the ladder.

Dr. Boom: we all know how powerful this card is and its good to put in, in a control meta where we need another threat to keep playing into the late game.

Mulligan and match-up guide coming later